2500 team tournament

went to a 2500 team tournament this weekend.
I took my son as my teammate, though he has never played a tournament before. I was using this tournament as a tool to teach him how to play tactically, and as a test for the upcoming ATC tournament next month.

Our lists were:
(Mine)
Prophets of flesh Battalion

Urien
haemi / vexator mask
2x 5 wracks
1x 6 wracks/ venom blade
10 grotesques
3x 2 talos w/ flails/ haywire

His list:
Arcon/ Cunning/ Blaster/ PGL/ Writ of living muse
Arcon/ Blaster/ PGL

6 x 5 warriors w/ blaster each
3 ravagers/ dissies/ pgl
3 raiders/ lances/ pgl
2 venoms


This is pretty much is a list i am using at ATC minus the venoms and some warriors
So I felt it would be a good test against what was out there.

Game 1:
Versus Dark Angels and Knights (old codex)
We were facing:
Knight with gatling cannon
2 knight gallants
DA assault squad
DA squad with plasma
2 DA characters
Whirlwind
Predator (all lascannon)
dreadnaught
Super dreadnaught (hit on 2+ etc...)

Mission:
Kill points.
After clarification, it turned out that each knight was worth 1 kill point. Ouch. This was going to be a VERY difficult battle, and we outnumbered them 3-1 in KP's!

They won first turn, We failed to sieze.

They moved everything up that could, and started shooting. A well placed "lightning fast reflexes" kept a raider alive from the predator, but they were too spread out to cause a lot of damage in one spot. they knocked 2 raiders down to 5 wounds, and one down to a single wound remaining.

But they did not get first blood.

Our turn saw us move up and position ourselves to bring a world of pain down on their heads. We started with the super dreadnaught, but between its invul save and the fact that we seemed to be shooting water guns at it, it survived a full 2/3rds of our armies shots! Our other vehicles were too far out to target it, so we took on the whirlwing and removed it for First Blood.

De 1-0

Turn 2 saw a gallant move up to the the grotesques, and another position to multi charge a raider (the one with 1 wound remaining) and an untouched venom. Both were full of models.

Shooting saw the 1 wound raider fall to the gallants heavy stubber, which was a mistake as it let me move my 2 squads out to screen the venom! Other shooting was ineffective against our 5++ saves on the vehicles.

Hand to hand saw the knight charge a different venom 10" away, and HE MADE IT! Ugh! and the other knight charge the grotesques.
His knight killed the venom, but the other knight discovered that a Vexator Mask is a nasty piece of wargear and went last. I spent 2 cp's to make me reroll failed wounds and dropped the knight to 3 wounds!

Our turn 2 saw a swing in the game. all 3 knights died (2 to shooting, 1 to grots) and 2 DA squads were wiped.
We were in great position to table them next round.

Score- us = 6, them = 1

Turn 3- they shot helplessly as we barreled down on the few remaining squads

Our turn saw all but 2 models on foot removed from the board.

DE win!

Well, in a kill point mission, going second we did an amazing job staying alive! The talos were amazing this game, as they ate through units, dreadnaughts and the haywire were rolling well dropping mortal wounds left and right.

Next up:
Game 2- against Guard/ Nids

Game 2- their list:
Command tank
3 leeman russ battle cannon tanks
2 wyverns
2 basalisks
30 guys on foot
company commander
Hand to Hand fex
4 shooty fexes
some hive guard
a couple of the floating psycher things
flyrant

They won the roll to go first. We failed to sieze.

Since this was an objectives mission, they concentrated on the venoms and raiders, dropping one of each and using the wyverns and basalisks to erase the troops that fell out.
the tanks were double shooting, the fexes were laying waste and when all the smoke cleared, we were hit pretty hard.

Our turn saw enough return fire to remove a shooty fex, and we flew up as fast as possible to try and engage the leeman russes.
grots moved up and charged a shooty fex, removing it.

Their turn two saw the guard player pull a nasty trick. He would "heal" a hurt tank for 1 CP, then roll to get it back, then heal the same tank again and again. Since the stratagem said "before the turn" he was able to cast it multiple times. Pretty nasty!

Their turn 2 saw shooting continue to decimate the troop carriers, and his flyrant and some ripper swarms drop in behind us. The wyverns and basalisks continued to pound on anything on the ground.
He charged his HTH fex, and lived through the vexator mask and grot attacks! he killed 2! Ouch!

Our turn 2 saw charges on all 3 russes, tying them up. 2 talos charged a basalisk, and then consolidated into the hive guard. Shooting saw the flyrant die, along with the ripper swarms.
The grots killed the big fex, and we started whittling down his 30 man blob (he combined them via stratagems).

Their turn 3 saw the shooting MUCH less due to a lot of the tanks being tied up and some shooty fexes dead. They surrounded objectives and waited.

Our turn 3 saw us take the opponents off the objectives, and our opponents conceded just before the grots and 4 talos were going to charge his depleted blob squad on the last objective.

Win for the good (or bad I guess) guys!

Stars of the match: Again, the talos did well with the haywire. the Grots held their own, as always and the ravagers did well.

Game 3- Against custodes and Nids!

Game 3- Custodes and Nids
They had (from bad memory)
4x 3 custodes bikes
custodes character on bike
HTH Fex on foot
2x tyrants
2x 30 genestealers
ripper swarms


This was another objective based game.

this team we were facing had maxed every game they played. It wasn't even close.

They won the first turn, and we failed to seize. (That is two tournaments in a row, 8 games total where I have gone second!)

And then the fun started.
Every unit in their army flew up, ran up and advanced, and pretty much were well past mid field. two of they tyrants were well within comfortable charge range already.
Then they did a stratagem allowing the genestealers to move a 12" advance rather than a 6", which would put them in front of my two talos units. That stratagem we vected! the other genestealers made a whole other move and advance due to some tyrant rule, and that could not be stopped.

Shooting removed two grots and put two wounds on another, and dropped a raider down to 1 wound.

Charges saw the stealers that moved twice charge a venom (but declared charges on a whole lot of my units in the area), and made certain he was 3" from any other of my units. I found it strange as he could have dual or triple charged, but I found out later why he did that.
His flyrant charged my grots.

Hand to hand saw the stealers destroy the venom, and then try to do a whole other charge and assault phase. NOW I see why he declared all those charges! he would be able to clear the entire side of the board!
Vect says nope!

His flyrant found out that he was swinging last due to the vexator mask, and the grots dropped him to 2 wounds. (He made a ton of 4++ saves!) The weakened tyrant was ineffective in retaliation.

Our opponents were kind of stunned. They informed us that they never had a situation yet where they did not wipe everything they hit in the first turn! They never had a second round of combat until us.

Our turn saw some movement, and three units of wracks went up to challenge the stealers that failed the second assault. Two talos units flew over to the other 30 man stealer blob, and the gunboats all flew around for better shooting at the custodes.

When the smoke cleared, 1 full bike squad was wiped, and another lost 1 bike. the stealers near the wracks were whittled down to half.

Charging saw the talos untis charge the stealers, the wracks charge the other stealer unit, and the middle talos unit charge a flyrant.

The talos wiped the stealers, they interrrupted and had the stealers wipe the wracks, and then the other talos dropped the flyrant to a few wounds. the grots easily finished off the wounded flyrant they were in base with.

Their turn 2 saw two bike squads charge the grots and the stealers charge another venom. their walking tyrant (or fex, or whatever it was) went for the two talos units that had just wiped 30 stealers from the board.

The custodes decimated the grots down to a couple models remaining. (I had stupidly moved the haemi out of 6"!) the depleted stealers could not kill the venom! It remained with 1 wound (-1 to hit helped with a stratagem)

Our turn saw the grots leave combat, and the entire custodes army surrounded by gunboats, ravagers and arcons. The talos got in position to charge the walking monster, but shooting killed it first, as it killed almost every single bike from the table. When it was all over, the custodes captain, a ripper swarm and 5 genestealers remained on the board, and we were about to charge them all.
They conceded.

Victory for the Dark Eldar!

Best of the game:
Gunboats
The talos did well in hth but the guns were useless this game. the grots did great at first, but then I brain-farted and forgot to move my haemi with them. Still no idea how that happened! But they still survived.


My team took first place, won quite a bit of store credit, and had a great time.

two tournaments so far with the new dex..
Placed 5th at a multi day GT (80 players)
and 1st! out of 12

gotta love the new dex!