My last time playing DE in a tournament?

On Saturday I played in the Vanhammer 40K Tournament held at Gamestars in Langley, BC, and whilst I had a great time, since the people were all skilled players and fun opponents I left feeling a bit down. I managed to draw two matches (both exceedingly close games) and lose two (4 games in a day with an 11am start is tough) but what really bugged me was the amount of killpoints I gave away.

Over all the matches I took 27 kp (giving me the 5th highest score out of 20), but I gave away 43() the worst in the tournament, leaving me 18 overall. Given that some of the armies there only gave away 9 if you tabled them, I feel DE just can't compete on KP. On top of this variable game length is killing me so often it's not funny - turn 5 I can swoop in for a win, 6 it's a draw if I'm lucky but then we play turn 7 and I've run out of troops - DE just die too easily.

As much as I love my DE army, and will be rolling them out for fun games, I just don't feel they can cut it in the local tournament scene here (as a note the other DE player in gave away 37KP to take 15), so I'm going to have to start playing something else if I want to win, which I do want to do, I'm competative, although I love the 40K fluff, and I hate doing the cheesy option armies.

Anyway I'm still going to be painting my DE as I have a lot of them so I'm not going anywhere - still want to field my DE in Apoc if I get a chance!

PS as a note this tournament was a bit unusual in that we had 3 Ork players, 2 Sisters, 2 Nids, 2 Daemons but no Blood Angels and only one Space Wolf!

Thor? Come in Thor.

I get summoned to threads now?

@SirTainly - If I understand the rules on their site...Killpoints were used as a tiebreaker? I'll concede DE have problems in KP missions - but we do great in objective missions. The thing that confuses me as they appeared to *always* count KPs for/against you regardless of how the missions went - which is actually a flaw built into how this tournament runs things that punishes armies that use suicide nits or has easy to kill units and rewards hard to kill armies with smaller numbers of units (in short - it favors MEQ and punishes everyone else...par for the course )

I don't think you should judge DE effectiveness off one tournament based off an unusual KP scoring method.

It also sounds like you were struggling to actually enforce your will on your opponents. If you were winning at 5th and suffering at 6th-7th your attacks weren't crippling the enemy as much as one might hope.

I will say, I believe DE are competitive - I will admit if that particular tournament scored like how it kind of looks like they scored that it would be hard to win with DE there (tabling should never count against you if you table 9KPs and lost 12 doing it - that was you owning face)

If you'd like me to look over your list feel free to post it or PM me and I can offer some thoughts on maybe how to make it more peppy (or I'll say it's awesome already and just share a good cry with you )

Too bad about this tournie SirTainly, sorry to hear it wasn't a more enjoyable weekend.

I agree with Thor about the seeming over-reliance on KP's. That's not the case in other local events like Salute, but it is making me wonder about November's Foodhammer.

I have noticed this more and more about DE myself, taking 3 Trueborn in a Venom or 5 Warriors in a Raider, etc., is just not god KP-wise, so I'm looking at fewer, bigger, tougher units. It will mean some loss of variety, which is what I really enjoy, but I'll see how it goes.

I'll stick with DE for quite a while yet. At least until Tyranids 6.5 comes out

Looks like you do!

I think KPs were used as tiebreakers, as I know I tied with Les on W/D/L but ended up two places lower, so I think it's just how the results are listed. Oddly the lowest KP army was an Ork one!

I'm not really throwing in the towel because of Vanhammer but I suffered the same at Astro too, which had a mix of objective and KP missions, and I'd like to be able to win more than a handful of matches in both friendly and competitive games in the last 11 months. I'm happy to accept it could be my playstyle isn't working with DE, or that I'm just a terrible player!

Re the losing after 5th, I've tended to find that I suffer such crippling casualties during the 4 turns that I have little left by turn 5, hence I tend to pull out and swoop on the objectives to chance a win if the game ends..it rarely does. This tends to leave me hanging in the wind for the next 2 turns and punished accordingly if we play on. I'll post up my list here for a critique in a bit and you can see what tools were in the tool box.

Just to reiterate, I'm not unhappy with the tournament it was a good day, but I feel I'm playing with one hand tied behind my back as assuming I'd gone 4-0, and so had the ork player, he would have won out by virtue of having a list that only had 9KP to lose so his ratio would always have been better. I'm thinking for the next tournament I'll play something else and see how I do, and then maybe I'll feel better about rolling out the evil pointy space elves!

Gobsmakked wrote:

Too bad about this tournie SirTainly, sorry to hear it wasn't a more enjoyable weekend.

I agree with Thor about the seeming over-reliance on KP's. That's not the case in other local events like Salute, but it is making me wonder about November's Foodhammer.

I have noticed this more and more about DE myself, taking 3 Trueborn in a Venom or 5 Warriors in a Raider, etc., is just not god KP-wise, so I'm looking at fewer, bigger, tougher units. It will mean some loss of variety, which is what I really enjoy, but I'll see how it goes.

I'll stick with DE for quite a while yet. At least until Tyranids 6.5 comes out

Actually it was a very enjoyable event despite me not doing so well, I had fun which is the hallmark in my book of a good day. That said, I like to win a bit too and while I didn't expect to be challenging people like Nick D at the top tables I want to be working towards that.

I think I had a KP mission at Astro too, but then I got dinged there on points. One mission where you scored double pv for getting a troops choice off the table massively helped the Plague marine player whilst screwing me. (5 guys in a venom or 10 wyches in a raider is way less than 10 pm in a rhino)

edit
List was:

Duke S
7 Trueborn + Carbines
2 Trueborn + Cannons
Raider + FF

4 Trueborn + Blaster
Venom + Cannon

10 Wyches + Hekatrix w. Agoniser, Hydra Gauntlets, Haywires
Raider + FF

10 Wyches + Hekatrix w. Agoniser, Hydra Gauntlets, Haywires
Raider + FF

5 x Warrior + Blaster
Venom + Cannon

5 x Warrior + Blaster
Venom + Cannon

2 x Ravager (DL) with FF

Comp rules, 400 points of troops (inc transport), max 2 items the same outside of troops
i.e. 2 Land Raiders ok, 3 is not.

Modded for double-posting. Gob.

hmmm... sorry to say youve had a hard time at tournies with DE. Ive actually had good luck with them (the few local tournaments Ive been too. Was planning to go to NOVA but my army got stolen...) but anyway yes, KPs is a hard victory for us to win, but you have to use that to your advantage. Your opponent will sometimes overstretch themselves to reach that last KP... which can be very benificial

but I digress. Playing smart is key to victory in a KP required senerio. Sitting back farther and making sure only your opponents long range count hit you (most armies rely on Melta's to do their AT killing, and only have stuff like ML or Autocannons to hit afar) and use cover wisely (or create your own with some expendable transports ) pretty much you just have to play smart. Take what you are doing after every game, and see how you could of not given up as many KPs. I can tell you my biggest problem before was I push up too far trying to get all my blasters in range. That gave my opponent the time to dictate when to come into range, which they would just roll up and melta me. you just have to figure out how to minimalize your losses. (or how to cripple them more )

as for the list... I hate comp rules, but I would of definately tried to fill my HS slots (so a razorwing or void raven) maybe even gone as far as drop duke and his unit, and just used a normal haemie.

Sorry to hear your army was stolen, that's some really low behaviour by someone!

Oddly I only faced one melta all day! The problem is pretty much anything on the table can destroy DE vehicles, and once you're shot out of them you get cut to ribbons even in cover as every man and his dog shoots at you. Of course in true fashion the Duke ran off the table with most of his squad in 2 of the games (I always fail his morale roll), and took a big chunk of my firepower with him. I only stopped him in the third game by making him take a wound to kill him instead! The only way to take less KPs is to have fewer units or larger footslogging ones which isn't really the army I want to play.

As for cover, forget it the stupid flight stands on the DE vehicles make the too high to ever hide. The craftworld tanks sit much lower on theirs, which is a big help with the 1" high hills that everyone seems to construct.

For the record I played against:

Nids, Orks in BW with KFF, Orks on bikes and Marines.

Missions were:

5 Objectives, 2 Objectives, Nominate 5 enemy units as primary KP, 5 Objectives

(First 3 were set, last was a repeat of one of the first 3 by dice roll).

Poor terrain often cannot be helped...im sorry to hear that.

As it goes I have rarely had much of a problem in tourney games with my DE. Problem is (regardless of scenario) my army either wins big or looses criplingly. Its really quite fun. I use big 10 man squads of anything in raiders. I have had it work really well.

At 2000 pts im throwing around 40 warriors, 20 wyches, 5 incubi, an archon, 3 ravagers, and 7 raiders.

I've only ever played 1 2000 point game I think, and you're right it really changes the game as you don't have to make compromises with unit selection you do at 1500 (which is what almost all my games are). For the record I lost the 2000 point game despite reducing the Dark Angels player to practically nothing on the table on KP!

At 1500 pts, I loose the wyches

SirTainly wrote:

I've only ever played 1 2000 point game I think, and you're right it really changes the game as you don't have to make compromises with unit selection you do at 1500 (which is what almost all my games are). For the record I lost the 2000 point game despite reducing the Dark Angels player to practically nothing on the table on KP!

At 2000pts the army TOTALLY changes.

Sorry to hear about the rough outing. Tournaments can really be like that: you can have tournaments where you get the perfect armies to play against , terrain that let's do whatever you want, and other tournaments you get nightmare opponents, crappy missions, and crap terrain. Just figure out what you would have done differently, re-tool, and hop back on the horse. I think we're the only army that can grow a warrior back from a scrap of a finger, right? You've got a bit of a finger left after 47kp?

Shadows Revenge wrote:

Was planning to go to NOVA but my army got stolen...

Dude!
I don't even know how I'd react to that, but there would be a lot of sadness in me, that is horrible.

@Sir Tainly - looking at your list I see a few things that I personally would probably run different. (though I'll admit I'm shying ever further and further from assault being a truly optimal situation for us)

Mostly when I look at your list I see it as geared a bit heavily on the side of infantry killing and a bit light on effective mech alpha strike. I would probably advocate some changes to make your initial hit more impactful, and to trim down on Wyches who I think are not optimal in max squads until 1750 (maybe) or 1850 (definite). Also, and though he's my boy, I don't think the Duke is giving that list what it needs - yeah, you're controlling those Wych drugs but 1. You really don't need those Dakkaborn and 2. you only have 20 Wyches you're boosting - I'd rather pay less points and give both squads of Wyches FNP and take my chances with the drug roll because that will make them, overall, basically twice as hard to kill - which is a good thing.

If you have to take a break from DE, do so, but if you ever wish to pull them out in an aggressive and competitive way hit me up and I think we can find some ways to make a list that will do what you want it to do, and do it better for you. I don't want any DE commander to have to win on 5 and lose in the 6th turn because he didn't maul enough stuff quick enough, we just gotta up your tempo aggression methinks.

Thanks Thor, I do appreciate the feedback, and would welcome your thoughts on what to change. I'll most likely be playing the DE at our next club night as I suspect I won't have my second army ready by then so I'll have a chance to try out whatever improvements you think would help me.

I'll be sad to see the carbine guys go after spending time and money actually giving them all GW carbines, but at the end of the day I'd like to win more often!

Cool, I'll draft some thoughts up sometime this week and drop you a PM, I love helping DE players eat faces at tournaments and stomp on the various filthy MEQ codices.

@everyone: yah... It did suck. Luckly it was only my tanks and reavers. Sad part it was all 3rd Ed stuff (which I still like the look of) so yah it hurt alot. Atleast my LGW is doing an escalation league, so I'm using that as a stepping stone to get my army back into tournament shape. Already got 1k done (which is good since the next leg is this saturday )

@SirTainly: cover is very important. What I've had to resort to in the past is using my own tanks for cover. The best way to do so is using the large sticks of the flying stands on your less important stuff, and put your important transports on the lower stands. This way your ravagers and whatnot can gain their cover save easily. It works like a charm and is helpful when you play against an opponent who likes to bunker up.

I don't really see the point in counting everybody's killpoints earned/lost and using them to grade people. Some armies, like DE, give out a lot of killpoints since they have many small units (nearly everything we have comes with an av10 open topped transport), while other armies like GK have very few but strong units, so even if they lose they don't lose many killpoints.

Sounds like Thor has you headed in the right direction. The dakkaborn aren't necessarily shelved, just not as effective in a 1500 pt game.

I think if I was going to make one change, I'd try and fill that last heavy slot with a Talos(maybe a cronos). Slow yes, but also a big target. If people shoot the talos instead of your transports, that's another round the transports and transported units can do their job.

Alot of the game is percieved threat, and if you can make your opponent believe something isn't as strong as it is, or is better than it is you can make them change their plan. I often describe the Talos as 'like a wraithlord', or like a carnifex with meltas. I leave out the point that it's pretty cheap at 120ish pts, and I could do without it easier than the wyches transport.

Sadly most of my games are at 1500. I'd quite like to play some higher PV games as I feel they work very differently.

Tonight is the first battle for my not evil space elf army, and it's at 1750 in prep for the next tournament - looking forward to the change tbh. I do plan to paint some more of my DE over tha long w/e though.

Since I posted this I've played 2 games as Blood Angels, my new army, and been completely and utterly anhilated both times. (Tau then shooty Nids). I suspect this is just me being unfamilar with the army, plus still getting up to speed or wargear etc, but given that I need to paint all these marines, and time is ever decreasing, I'm considering running my DE at Foodhammer, the next tournament which is run at 1750, and doesn't have restrictions, other than no Forgeworld units. Not saying I will just considering alternatives to painting like crazy as I just don't feel up to that right now.

Given the list I posted for 1500 above, I'm toying with the following changes/additions to make it up to the new limit.

Dropping 2-3 Wyches from each squad
Adding a Ravager with Dissies or my Razorwing
Replacing the Duke with an Archon and losing his shooty born friends
Taking Incubi maybe?

Thoughts, suggestions?

I never remembered to get back with you, apologies!

As for your quick adjustment thoughts;

Dropping Wyches - fine with this, though I'll note Gauntlets should be dropped to save points prior to Wych drop.

Ravager/Razorwing - both are excellent troop killers.

Duke -> Archon - what are you doing with the Trueborn points opened up? I think the Archon is an okay choice if you want to field Incubi because he'll get them a PGL - if you don't want to field the Incubi then his value diminishes fairly quickly as compared to a Succubus, or even just Haems to give FNP to the Wyches.

Incubi? - I'd be cautious about this if you're adding a Dissie Rav or a Razorwing. Incubi directly compete with Dissie Ravs (and Razorwings after they fire missiles) with targets they want to attack. Considering the Venoms, the Wyches, and the addition of the Rav/Razor I would tend to want you to steer towards some more anti-mech at this stage (more Trueblasters in Venom for both?) than just towards a specialist unit like the Incubi.

No worries, I figured you were busy.

-Interesting re the gauntlets, they've worked well for me so far but I can see on average they only equal one wych on the charge and don't add the extra wound.

-Not sure on the extra points at the moment, if I went with Incubi then they'd eat up some the slack. Yep Archon would either be for the PGL, or just to have a cut price HQ to free up points for something else. The Duke flees the table in almost every game I play and takes his squad with him as I can't roll under 10 for morale rolls, so a cheap HQ to make run away would be good!

-The only problem I have with more Blasterborn in Venoms is that I'd have to buy more models, or put my Warriors into Raiders (I have a few more of those) to steal theirs.

Put the Trueborn/Warriors in a Raider then, it's not like Raiders and an extra lance are bad

OK so how's about for 1750:

HQ:Archon (barebones)
HQ 2X Haemonculi (barebones)

Troops
7x Wych, inc Hekatrix with Agonizer and Haywires in Raider + FF
7x Wych, inc Hekatrix with Agonizer and Haywires in Raider + FF
5x Warrior + Blaster in Venom + SC
5x Warrior + Blaster in Raider + FF
5x Warrior + Blaster in Raider + FF

Elites
4x Trueborn + Blasters in Venom + SC
4x Trueborn + Blasters in Venom + SC

Heavy Support
Ravager (DL) + FF
Ravager (DL) + FF
Razorwing + SC + FF

Haemi's join the Wyches Archon rides somewhere, he's there to meet the 1 HQ rule.
Think we have about 100 points still to spend though.

1 HQ rule?

Easy options with him are give him an Aggie+protective item (or maybe just make him a Succubus) and stick him with the Wyches - or give him a blaster and stick him with Trueborn.