1850pts Tournament, 3 games (Game 2 up)

Greetings fellow true kin,

as promised I shall relay how my Raiding Party fared at the 1850 tourney I attended last Saturday. The army list restrictions were pretty, uh, restrictive: no formations, no special detachments, no super heavies and no allies.

Attending armies were 2x Dark Eldar, Tau, Skitarii, Orks, 2x Space Marines, 2x Astra Militarum, 2x Necrons and Grey Knights


Here is what I brought:

Archon, Shadowfield, Blaster, WWP => Warlord (goes with Reaverstar)
Archon, Blaster, WWP (goes with Court, Trueborn or Scourges)

Court (3 Medusae), Venom
Court (3 Medusae), Venom

5 Kabalites, Blaster, Venom
10 Kabalites, Splinter Cannon, Raider with Night Shields and Splinter Racks

5 Blasterborn, Raider
5 Mandrakes

5 Scourges, Haywire
Razorwing, Lances
Reaverstar (12 Jetbikes, Cluster Caltrops, Heat Lances)

Dissie Ravager
Dissie Ravager


The general plan is to spread out across my entire deployment zone, with on flank already in mind to refuse, which is where I’ll deploy units that I won’t mind turbo boosting. Concentrated fire on one half of my opponents army should then secure my victory and many slaves for the arena.

This is subject to change depending on my opponents army, his deployment if going second, as well as yeah, going first or second.

Once again thanks to acolyte for his list ideas and input!


Game 1 vs Orks

Orks! I love Orks! They’re always fun! I think. Because I’ve never played them and know very little about them. I know they’ll want to charge me, and I know they don’t shoot very well.

The mission was Tactical Escalation primary (as many cards on your hand as turn number) and The Scouring secondary (markers 1-4 count as VPs at the end of the game), with Tertiary being Warlord, Linebreaker and King of the Hill (having a scoring unit closest to the center of the board).


His list was something like:

1 Warboss (2+, Lucky Stikk) riding with a boss mob in a battle wagon
1 Mek riding with boys in a Trukk

1 unit of Grots
a ton of units of boys in Trukks

4 Deffkoptas
Some buggies

More boyz in Trukks

Lots of Powa Klawz


Deployment was fairly straight forward. I got to go first so I deployed spread out with only the Razorwing and the Reaverstar + my Warlord in reserve. The Mandrakes infiltrated onto an opjective in the central building.









Turn one I move most of my left flank towards my right, whilst still giving off a few shots to down a Deffkopta and a Trukk. My right flank opened up and hosed down the advancing Ork tide, blowing up a buggy, 2 trukks and various occupants.

In response the Orks moved forward as fast as possible - no surprise here. His shooting is mostly ineffective.


Turn two my reserves come in. I deploy the Reaverstar behind his Battlewagon, the Razorwing drops it’s payload killing an Ork here and there. The Reavers blast the massive Ork tank sky high, spilling out a lot of very unfriendly looking Orks lead by a beast of a Warboss. The massive explosion also wrecks the Trukk nearby in which the Mek sat.

I then proceed to hammer his right flank with Poison and Darklight, concentrating a lot of it on the boss mob. In the end there’s still his boss and 3 bosses, next to the Mek with another Ork. I then forget my jetbike move - duh.

His turn again everything rushes forward, with his Warlord and Mek assaulting my Reaverstar. (Question - I read something in the rulebook about not being able to charge the turn after performing an emergency disembark move - was this correct here?)

Shooting again doesn’t do that much other than a combi flamer in the boss mob, but in his assault phase he manages to completely destroy my Reaverstar! Only my warlord survives but he gets run down. Oh boy those ork bosses sure pack a punch! I’m just glad that I blew up their ride so far away from my lines!




Turn 3 more of the same, but this time I get charged here and there. My Mandrakes also get pressured by the advancing Orks, so I move up second Archon with his Medusae retinue and their Venom ride.





Turn 4 I can start to feel the noose tightening - even though I killed so many orks they still keep coming!  They start to contest my objectives, and with them being obsec this isn’t good. The amount of shots also keep adding up and here and there I lose a hull point or even a whole skimmer.




Turn 5 I eventually get pushed back, I still have a few units left but am still outnumbered and have lost board control, as well as objective control (4 vs 2 objectives).




Time is up and the win goes to the Orks, 14 : 6 overall!


Game 1 is really the hardest for me to analyze, as I felt that I did most things right and made no crucial mistakes. I also had turn 1 which gave me another round of shooting, but still in the end it wasn’t enough. Losing the Reaverstar was tough, but at the same time I managed to strand his most important unit far away from me. Next time I’d probably reserve the Scourges and the Trueborn (to take care of the Battlewagon) and keep the Reaverstar on the field, but other than that I can’t think of anything.  

So yeah, this was a pretty demoralizing start to the tournament for me. I had high hopes in this matchup, and I wanted to win at least 2 out of my 3 games so from now on I absolutely had to bring my A-game. The ork player ended up second overall by the way.

Good report, can´t wait for the rest

The key error was that you actually wasted the reavers. You weren't able to charge and use their potential and just threw them into the meat grinder.

You could've run down several large Ork squads using the rending hammer if wrath attacks.

Thanks for the comments!

I think you're right Cptn. I should have wrecked the battlewagon with my Scourges instead, and maybe even blocked the exits first with my Reavers. At least that's what I'd try and o next time. Shame about the Reaverstar

Game 2 - Grey Knights

Grey Knights! I was actually secretly hoping to come up against them - partly because I like the look of the army, partly because I wanted to find out how I stack up against them. I knew that they can bring a lot of flamers, and can null deploy, but they’re also few in number, something I feel plays into out hands. Oh, and this was another army I had never played against before.

Also, thinking strategically - this must be a player who has lost his first game, too, so this was a must win for me.

My opponent Edi was the youngest at the tourney, and from the gaming club that hosted the event. We frequently had spectators from the club come over and watch for a bit, which was nice.

His list was:

Commander in TDA, mastery level 3 plus a relic that gives him another power. Not bad.

2 units of Interceptors with a flamer each.

5 Terminators in a Land Raider

7 Terminators as retinue for his warlord

3 Dread Knights, 2 with torrent flamers



The mission was Cleanse and Control primary and The Relic secondary Warlord, Linebreaker and King of the Hill tertiary.

The deployment was Hammer and Anvil.

He deployed first, with most of his army at the edge of his deployment zone and only one Dreadknight (flamer) split off from his main force to occupy an objective. His warlord with the terminators started in reserve.

I then set up only my Mandrakes, both Ravagers and a Venom with Medusae - don’t ask me why. I wanted to have a lot come from reserves to get some good shots off before he could retaliate, and I wasn’t sure of the Grey Knights capabilities. I asked my opponent how the teleporting stuff works and then set up out of flamer range (unless he’d shunt), so that was good. But in hindsight I should have deployed my gun boat and the other 2 Venoms, too, keeping only the Reaverstar, Archon & Medusae (sans their ride), Trueborn, Razorwing and Scourges in reserves. Ah well, hindsight is always 20/20.


Anyway, Turn 1:

The Grey Knights move up toward the relic, with the Interceptors picking it up with their 12” movement. One of his maelstrom cards was that x units 12” from your table edge, so his Land Raider turns around and moves that way, promptly catching and ripping a track trying to drive over a pebble. Ouch. Makes me wonder why our vehicles have to roll for terrain at all, what with being skimmers and - you know - not actually driving over the terrain. The spectators at that point informed me that Edi was a particularly unlucky member of their club, especially when someone says out loud “one” when he rolls for stuff like terrain checks etc. One of them actually said “one” when he rolled for it. I already started feeling bad for him but this being a tourney I couldn’t pull any punches.

His psychic phase didn’t do much apart from +1 invul saves all around apart from the one dreadknight that I wanted to kill first.

He also scores 3 maelstrom points.


My turn - I shuffle about a bit and then shoot everything at the 5++ dread, leaving him at 1 wound. Dang.



Turn 2
The wounded dreadknight shunts and flames my Medusae Venom killing one and wrecking the Venom. Shoothing from the other centrally deployed dreadknight puts 2 hull points on one of my ravagers (jinked).

His Interceptors move back with the relic (they modified the mission so that you get more points the further back you hold the relic. It also cannot be contested). The other Interceptor squad moves up as well. The disembarked Terminators far back foot slog up the board as fast as they can (which isn’t very much).

He seems to be an unlucky dice roller but a lucky card drawer - he scores another 5 maelstrom points, now leading me 8 - 0.

My turn 2 comes up and I’m ready to go to work. In come my Trueborn and my Reaverstar, as well as my gun boat. No Scourges, Medusae or Venom. Sheesh!

Still, deep striking goes well enough, and the rest of my boats move up. The Mandrakes, Medusae and the snap shooting Ravager take down the Dread Knight in my deployment zone. The Trueborn and the gun boat easily take care of the relic carrying Interceptors, having some shots over to put a wound on the dread knight without the flamer and killing 2 Interceptors in the 2nd squad.

Did I mention where I deployed the Reaverstar? Before telling you I must add that I’ve always thought the dreadknights are walkers because, well, they LOOK LIKE WALKERS! Still, after turn 1 I should’ve already known that they’re monstrous creatures, but for a split second I forgot, so I put the Reaverstar right in front of the split off dreadknight. You know, the one with the 2nd flamer. Ugh. I shoot everything at it, and naturally, 3 of my heat lance shots miss, the 4th doesn’t do damage, and neither does my warlords blaster. At least I don’t forget my jetbike move this time.








Turn 3
...and his Warlord comes in with the 7 Terminators in tow. They drop on top of the relic and pick it up. The Interceptors move up my right flank, hugging a huge piece of cover. The dread knight without the flamer shoots at my gun boat but thanks to its Night Shields it barely escapes with 1 hull point left. The terminators also shoot, but I can’t remember at what, they don’t do a lot of damage.

The flamer dread flames and then assaults my jetbikes - stupid me. After the assault phase I have 5 reavers less and consider myself lucky.

My turn comes up and my reserves come in apart from the Scourges. I detach the Jetbikes from my Warlord and move them towards the Terminators with the relic. The Razorwing is first to drop its payload and 1 Terminator perishes. Then the rest of my army opens up, and by the end of my shooting phase I’ve mowed down his entire Terminator unit including warlord, the other Dreadknight and the Interceptor squad that was hugging cover - WWP deep striking medusa will do that to 3+ armor.

Thinking to myself that my lone warlord won’t be able to escape the flamer Dreadknight anyway, I decide to shoot and charge it - what with the Shadowfield I should at least be able to hold it up, right? Unfortunately my Archon wasn’t quite up to the task and get squashed in one assault phase (rolling a one with no Eternal Warrior vs a Monstrous Creature). Not my best decision right there.



Turn 4
His land raider shoots (you can turn the lascannons backward) and drops the venom with the medusae that just grilled his Interceptors. His dread knight moves forward and flames my reavers, dropping another 3 or 4 (FnP is up by now). His 5 terminators still try to join the fight, even though it doesn’t look good. They try to cast Sanctuary on themselves but peril, losing one of them.

In my turn I pick up the relic and move towards my deployment zone. I take down the last dreadknight, the remaining terminators and the Scourges that finally arrived wreck the Land Raider with some help from the Razorwing.

The official informs me that even when a tabling occurs the game will continue, so from now on I try to secure as many maelstrom points as I can, knowing that early on he had some luck there. I also secure the secondary objectives.

The game continues until turn 6.

We count our points and he wins maelstrom 11-10, I win the relic 6-0 (you get 6 points when you hold the relic in the neutral zone, which I did), and I also won tertiary 5-0 (Linebreaker 2, Warlord 2, King of the Hill 1).


Victory for the true kin - 12-8 after point conversion.


So I kinda felt bad for Edi because my AP2 saturation was a rather bad matchup for him, and also because I soundly tabled him. But on the other hand I wasn’t too happy about the win because I knew that I had made some stupid mistakes and could’ve had a wider margin of victory. When looking at the point conversion I also find that I don’t agree with the apparently common ruling over here that a tabling isn’t converted to a 20-0. When you have no models left you shouldn’t get any points in my opinion -your army is destroyed to the last man. But yeah, that’s just the newly emerged competitor in me speaking, it still was a good game and good for my ego also

What with our game being finished about an hour early I had a bit of time to look around. After his first loss to Skitarii my Necron friend was playing a mirror match and doing OK apparently. The other Dark Eldar Kabal meanwhile was currently locked in a viscous struggle against said Skitarii, and it didn’t look so good. There were some heated discussions going on at that table. The Skitarii army was very nicely painted imo, and the Dark Eldar later on won best painted, so here’s 2 pics:

A win is a win and you learned a lot from your game, that great.

Congratulations! Next game will be better.