SO... Had two matches yesterday with my group of friends, and had a lot of fun! If getting mulched is fun... anyways our group consists of a powergaming Tau player, a tau player who understands that Tau is stupid and tones it down, but also plays CSM and Necrons, A Grey Knights player whose list never changes, and a Blood Angels player who also runs ork mobs. Sweet! I know a lot of these guy's tactics, and really love playing with them because they are all good sports. mostly. The power gamer likes to bring 3 riptides (one the now forgeworld flying one), two skyrays, tetras, and did i mention that he has 5 riptides on the side? yeah...
SO the 40k community here has a mini tournament on the 8th, 2 rounds of 1850, fortifications, LoW, chapter tactics approved, the whole shebang. yikes. knowing that we as a group decided to get together and run a few games between us to see what we could learn. I know from a great deal of experience that I stand NO chance against overpowered Tau, and faceplant against space marines of all shapes and sizes. So I decided that if I'm going to lose against marines no matter what I try to do, fine, I'll lose and tailor my list to mulch xenos.
We played a 2000 point match and an 1850 point match to get in the mood of the tounament, adapting to each other and bringing whatever we thought would be best. I don't exactly have the number of transports that I'd like to bring, but I have enough to be competitive, and I like to try out interesting new combos that may or may not work.
Here's my 2000 list:
(warlord) Archon with blaster, PGL, SF, Power sword, Armor of Misery
Archon with blaster, PGL, SF, Archangel, WWP
Trueborn with 4 blasters in venom, extra cannon
2X 10 warriors with splinter cannon, sybarite with PGL in Raider with Dissy, SR, TGL
8 warriors with blaster, sybarite with PGL in Raider with Dissy, TGL
3x3 reavers with blaster, CC
Voidraven stock
2x Scalpel Squadrons (2x5 wracks w/ossifactor in venoms w/ extra cannon
I designed this list to start with nothing on the table and to go second, hoping for the beta strike. Hopefully if everything comes in T2, I'll be able to stand my ground even against Space Marines, as I tried to balance it out a LITTLE bit from the grenade launchers.
First random opponent: Grey knights..... 2000 points crusade.
He runs dual Nemesis Strike forces with Librarians in termanators, a grandmaster in Paladins, combat squads out his interceptors (for more psyker dice), a gunboat stormraven that never dies, and 2 Dreadknights with swords, flamers, and shunt packs.
T1, he moves what he can forward onto the midfield objectives (field is set up around a long river in the center, 4 objectives along the river), saving his shunts for later. He passes all of his sanctuary powers but one, and one of his librarians perils himself out of a wound.
not much to do, my turn. Scalpel squadrons all come in, not scattering behind his dreadknight in the center and wipe it out with 48 poison shots. yay first blood, scored 2 points. 1 ossefactor put a wound on one interceptor, but saved all of the extra wounds from it, and the three other ossefactors pointed at the other dreadknight failed to hit or wound. yay ones. scalpel squads pretty much paid for themselves with killing that dreadknight and distracting his forces. once the rest of my army comes in, I should be good.
HIS TURN. between massive amounts of brain bullets flying at the venoms, storm bolters, and assaults, I lost all of my venoms, and all wracks but one are in CC, locking down interceptors with their fearless and FNP. good for them.
MY TURN! IN COMES THE ARMY!!! or so I planned... I got 2 squads of reavers to come in and... thats it.... FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.... anyways the reavers move up to snag the left and right objectives while the wracks stay locked in combat with the interceptors.
lots of nothing.
His turn, misses bringing in his stormraven, finishes off 2 of the wrack units and shunts his dreadknight to flame a squad of reavers, jumping some interceptors to flame the other reavers leaving the blaster reaver left, and waddles his terminators towards objectives.
my turn, everything comes in! except the trueborn and the archon squad... the only source of blasters. void raven flies on, dropping the void bomb on a group of paladins and kills 3, puts a wound on his grandmaster (or whatever its called), making its points back. gotta love that, the S9 AP2 Large blast I've used more to clear out Tau suits and terminators more often than I use it for vehicles. gunboats drop near opposite sides of the river, with open firing lanes down both sides, and lay into interceptors and terminators, dropping a ton of poison shots their way. last reavor squad tries to sneak around the map to snag a last turn objective and win the game later.
his turn, Stormraven comes in and flies an inch from my expensive flyer, who jinks away all of its shots. wracks are all wiped out, he drops the psychic D-vortex of F*** YOU on one of the raiders, rolling a 6, guys inside disembark and get shot up down to 5 models. cannon and sybarite are still there, so they dont run. sneaking reaver squad gets shot at, jink all of the wounds off and FNP the one that made it through. assaults and destroys the other raider, guys disembark and try to run for the river to take an objective.
My turn Archon and trueborn squad finally come in! and their blasters do nothing to the dreadknight... reavers shoot into interceptors and kill one with their blaster, both warriors run to objectives and hide, voidraven flies off the field. reavers assault into interceptors hoping to clear them off of an objective, but fail to rend a single marine. then get torn down to one model, who hit & runs away to the middle objective.
His turn, flies the gunboat off the field so it doesnt get void lanced, terminators wipe the lone reaver, interceptors flame both warrior squads apart, brain bullet the raider to death, dreadknight flame the archon squad apart, and assaults into the archons, failing BOTH of their invuln saves. wipes the board T5.
Not fun.
NEXT GAME! 1850 Maelstrom, maybe I have a chance if the opponent is focused on jumping around the field!
OPPONENT: .... Blood Angels... The only two power armor armies i could face out of like 8, and i got them both... great...
My list (which is what I am bringing on the 8th):
(warlord) archon with blaster, Haywire grenades, PGL, SF, Armor of Misery
Archon with blaster, HWG, PGL, SF, Archangel, WWP
Trueborn with 4 blasters in venom with extra cannon (same as before)
2X10 gunboat warriors with cannon, sybarite with PGL in raider with Dissy, Nightshield SR, TGL (trying to stay in cover with this after the initial drop so I dont have to jink and then lose my TGL's uses)
8 warriors with SC, Sybarite with PGL and HWG in raider with Dissy and TGL
Voidraven stock
2X Scalpel Squadrons (same as before)
HIS LIST (also what he is bringing to the fight on the 8th)
2 giant blobs of assault marines, a librarian and a chaplain, 2 predators, a Furioso dreadnought in a drop pod and an Imperial Knight Errant. yikes.
hidden cards style of maelstrom.
T1 he jumps everything forwards, drops his Dread on an objective, and scores 2 objective cards
T1 I deepstrike my venoms behind one large group of assault marines, knowing theu will not score first blood, but at least score some damage. first 1 scatters onto the blob, and WILL NOT budge on his ruling that only drop pods can move off of their scatter from an enemy unit (me and my friend had a HUGE discussion later and dug deep into the rulebook for an answer, I was right, but we kept going anyways, will post findings later), and mishapped. he got to place it across the field backwards into a river, fails its terrain check, and is immobilized and useless... wracks disembark to try and do SOMETHING... other venom deepstrikes in the woods near an objective and a predator and tries not to slip on his shoelaces like his brothers. he is fine. other wracks and venoms put 3 wounds total onto ONE blob of assault marines. not looking good.
T2 he shoots and assaults apart a venom and wracks run to objectives. knight runs to objective on his side and scores it, predator shoots intothe open venom and it jinks the shots off, same with the one in the woods. wracks get flamed by the dread, blob runs towards the backfield wracks running to an objective in a ruined courtyard.
T2 EVERYTHING COMES IN!!! literally. voidraven flies on, penning and staggering the dread, one raider mishapped onto another blob... and he places it again, near the drop pod out of line of sight (not too worried about it, i can flat out back into view) other raider sits on top of a mountain ready to blow its load into marines. trueborn and archon squad drop in his deployment, ready to offer multiple threats to predators and knight alike. raider flats out near the courtyard to prepare to clean up after the assault from the wracks and marines. second raider on the mountain opens up into the second squad of marines and kills a few. he chooses to shield his knight towards the archon squad, and bothe them and the true born put 4 hull points on it.
T3 he assaults the wracks and takes the objective, assaults more wracks and takes the midfield objective, shoots down all of the venoms left, immobilizes the raider on the mountain, shoots and destroys the raider by the knight, who charges in. HWG put some glances on it, and he stomps the rest of the unit away, only the two archons with their shadow fields are left. (thankfully hes not rolled a single 6 yet) and we are stuck in combat with one hull point left.
T3 the Voidraven flies over the blob of marines in the courtyard and decimates them with the bomb, then blowing up the dread with its lances. love that thing. it's not a vehicle killer, guys, its a marine slayer. trueborn pop a predator, warriors in the immobilized raider on the mountain pile out onto an objective. final raider in waiting by the courtyard blows its load onto the remaining assault marines and wipes them out, knight still stuck with the archons.
T4, CASTS INVISIBILITY ON THE KNIGHT..... ugh... then he clears out the open warriors and wracks, voidraven and gunboat warriors are all that's left besides the archons, who get mulched by the knight. consolidates the knight onto his objective
T4 I move the voidraven to say hello to the back of the knight, disembark my gunboat ontp the objective to score it, and flat out my raider to the other side of the river to nab that objective too. he brings the shield aroundto the trueborn, they dont hit it due to being invisible, but the voidraven hits and pens! knight goes down, and I score points for dropping it.
T5 Neither of us have objectives we can score, a lot of models moving towards each other angrily, not causing any damage.
T5 my guys castle on objectives, hoping the game keeps going for another chance to score.
Roll the die: game over. score 7-9, blood angels win.
Fun time, hopefully I can face a non power-armored army in the tournament so I know how this list will go. I had a lot of fun using it even though I lost both times! the amount of dice i was throwing in poisoned shots always made my opponent ask "can I see how they are shooting that many please?" from gunboats and venoms. Is this how a Tau player feels? you know, without the getting mulched part?
Subject: 2000 and 1850 matches of unimpeded doom. 
Sun Oct 26 2014, 16:39
