Tourney Report: Warpcon Game 2

Ya, Baby seal clubbing.

Having overcome the Orks in Round 1 I was pitched up against Hugh and his Black Templars in a Kill Point/Dawn of War mission. After their FAQ update I was expecting something along the lines of a Terminator & Blessed Hull Land Raider-heavy list or something that had lots of Machine Spirits: Vindicators that can move 12" and still shoot as well as ignoring Shaken & Stunned is a big funny F-U to Blood Angels players.

Anyway, the list I faced was nothing like that at all. The army had the Accept Any Challenge No Matter The Odds vow but apart from that would be something I'd consider unconventional myself.


From memory it was:

Emperor's Champ
Marshal in TDA with Storm Bolter, Power Weapon

Terminator Squad with 2 Claws, 3 Hammers and Furious Charge
Dread with Twin-Las, Missile Launcher and Tank Hunter
Dread with Asscan, Extra Armour in Drop Pod

10 man Crusader Squad with Meltagun, Power Fist in Rhino
9 man Crusader Squad with Meltagun, Power Fist in Drop Pod
10 man Crusader Squad with Plasma Cannon
10 man Crusader Squad with Plasma Cannon

Predator with Twin-Las, Heavy Bolter Sponsons

I may be a bit off with the exact set-up but the list is there or thereabouts.

Deployment
Hugh won the roll-off and elected to go first and with threw down his 2 Plasma Cannon squads, one of which (those on my left) was joined by the Marshal while his Termies would Deep Strike, as would his Pods with their cargoes with everything else rolling on Turn 1. In response I placed the Lord down near the centre of the board out of LOS of one squad and a Rhino on my right out of LOS altogether. I was going to move everything except one Speeder on in Turn 1 so I could weigh down one flank and use my firepower to force him to footslog.

You may not be able to make them out but those big brown pieces are total LOS-blockers so I figured I'd try to use them to my advantage while ensuring I had decent fire-lanes to allow me to open up on his tanks as they crossed the board and hopefully take his army on piecemeal.

Turn 1

The Long Fangs at the bottom took *ages* to set-up.

Hugh moved his Rhinos in toward the centre, his Dread on my right and his Predator on my centre-left and had his stuff well-blocked by the big terrain pieces. His shooting managed to tag a Pet Wolf but that was it as my stuff was out of range due to his atrocious Night-fight rolling.

In my turn I took my time hiding my Long Fangs behind the Portcullis on my left and making sure the other squads on the right would be out of Plasma Cannon range by having them hug the board edge. The Lord moved a bit, hugging terrain as he went but being kept close to my lines in case any Pods arrived (I was surprised to find out they don't have to land Turn 1) while I weighed down my right flank and decided to focus my attention on the units over there for the game. I don't think I killed or damaged anything due to not having enough stuff to shoot at range or popping smoke when I arrived.

Turn 2

There may be trouble ahead...

This can't be too good. Oh wait, it can. Hugh's Pod Crusaders arrive to threaten my Fangs but what you can't tell from the photo is that all of the tanks are full of Grey Hunters.


Hugh's Dread moved behind some cover in his backlines to shoot rather than race toward shooting my Rhino on the right while his Predator moved to my left taking a pot-shot at my Lord which did nothing. Both Rhinos moved up further while a Plasma Cannon took out the Lord's other pet wolf with the other one scratching a Rhino.

...Not really. Lol.

My turn 2 saw the arrival of the 2nd Speeder which raced down my left to face down the Pred/distract the Plasma squad. I was wondering what to do with my Grey Hunters but in the end figured that one squad and the Lord would be enough to take out the Crusaders and the Pod in one turn in combat with all of my shooting weakening or even destroying them first. That's pretty much what happened - first the Pod, then the squad.

The Long Fangs on my right also managed to take out a Rhino on my right despite it popping smoke leaving its former occupants stranded in midfield near one of my Rhinos. 

Turn 3
Hugh's Termies and Dread fail to appear so he rolls on with what he has. One of my Speeders (in the centre) is bait for his Emperor's Champion unit, which he takes gladly, and the unit rushes it after firing its weapons at it Immobilising it. His Rhino-less Crusader squad only manages to stun my Rhino and then fail to destroy it in combat leaving them open to a pounding in my turn.

See any Templars in this pic? Neither do I.

My turn 3 saw the Grey Hunters on my left (who's Rhino had been shot by the Melta) hop out and show the little Templars how the job was supposed to be done and they spread out afterward to ensure they wouldn't be Plasma Cannon bait. Those 10 point Wolf Standards were really showing their worth.

As for the rest of my army I just shuffled around a bit with my tanks and managed to shake/stun the Dread and bring down 5 of the right-hand Plasma Crusader squad.

I was still wondering what Hugh would with his Termies assuming they arrived and whether he'd wait for them to attack at the same time as the Emperor's Champion or whether he'd rush the Champion in and try to tie up targets so the Termies would be free to tear through stuff.

Turn 4

This won't end well

So the dreaded Preferred Enemy/Furious Charge/3++ Terminators arrived and Hugh opted to Deep Strike them deep into my lines. I figured that he was going to place them more toward the centre and use the EC's Rhino to block LOS to them and force me to back off but he went balls to the walls instead. Just a pity for Hugh they had no guns...

His EC's Rhino pushed forward and smoked. He was now well placed to assault the tanks in my line. It was just a matter of which one he went for. Again his shooting was largely ineffective - he managed to tear a gun off the Rhino on my right while he killed a pair of Grey Hunters on my left and did some further damage to the Speeder over there.

My turn 4 saw me empty all of my tanks apart from one of my Rhinos on the right while the Hunters on my left hopped back into theirs which drove off at high speed. Long story short: the Terminators were all gunned down as my whole army opened up on them while the EC's Rhino was destroyed too by Long Fang fire.

Turn 5

Do you see what I see?

The Dread in the Pod finally bothered to show up and Hugh decided to risk placing him with his Rear Armour showing to my Razorback so he could tag one of my Rhinos. I was more than happy to accommodate him. With little left his shooting continued its run of lazy fail all around although he finally bagged my Speeder so it was down to his Emperor's Champion and Crusader squad to take out the Rhino with my Rune Priest in it and get himself back in the game. He would have netted 3 KP if he bagged the tank and forced the squad to fall back.

They wrecked the tank but the squad was neither pinned nor fleeing and if you look at the photo you might see what I was gifted with. No, not Jailbait (12 to 15 years with good behaviour): Jawsbait.

You reckon they'd do it with the Wolf Banner to help but no...

The Rune Priest moved to Jaw the unit while the ThunderLord moved up to support them should they need it. My shooting reduced the Crusaders to 4 models (3+ cover saves: what can you do?) although the fecking Rune Priest rolled an 11 to cast Jaws. The Spa.

I managed to damage the Pod but only shook the Dread (fecking smoke) so it was onto combat where the Lord mauled the unit but not before the Champion killed the Priest and my Grey Hunters ran away, leaving the Wolf Lord and Emperor's Champion to fight it out if the game continued. Which it did.

Turn 6

Smashy-smashy.

The Dread wasn't able to move because it didn't have extra armour. LOL. Hugh's shooting took again did very little so it was onto the combat between the army's main characters. The Emperor's Champion swung first and managed a wound before he was beaten to a pulp by the Wolf Lord.

In my turn I finally managed to bag the Lascannon-Dread at the back which had done almost nothing all game while the rest of my army opened up on the Dread and Pod in my lines but it only managed to shake the Dread and tear off his arms while my firepower couldn't get through the Pod's AV 12.

The Wolf Lord was floating around so I decided to throw him into the Pod to make sure it got destroyed. It did. I didn't bother going for the Dread as I didn't want him to get 2 wounds and have me roll snake eyes and give away a ton of points. Better safe than sorry.

We didn't play a turn 7 as the judges called time so it was a clear victory to me and I ended up with another 17-3. That was 2 out of 2 so far but I reckoned that things would be much harder after that.