Wargames con, Austin Texas 7 Game Battle Report

Howdy fellow archons.

Recently I went to a 7 game convention in Austin Texas called Wargames con. it is put on by the Bell of Lost Souls guys and is a very well run event.

Here I intend to journal my tidbits of knowledge from 7 games in a highly competitive environment.

Game 1.
I ran
Succubus with haywire and Agonzier
(2) Haemonculi with liquifier guns

4 trueborn with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
4 trueborn with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
7 Bloodbrides with Syren, agonzier & haywire grenades in Raider with DL, FF & SP

5 Warriors with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
5 Warriors with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
5 Warriors with shredders in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
5 Warriors with shredders in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
8 Wyches with Hekatrix, agonzier & haywire grenades in Raider with DL, FF & SP
3 Wracks

5 Scourges with Haywire Blasters

Ravager with DL and FF

Game 1 Opponent: Deathwing
from memory
Belial with Retinue: 5 Deathwing Terminator Squad with 4 TH/SS & Cyclone ML & Aopthocary
Chaplin
5 Deathwing Terminator Squad with 4 TH/SS & Cyclone ML
5 Deathwing Terminator Squad with 4 TH/SS & Cyclone ML
5 Deathwing Terminator Squad with 4 TH/SS & Cyclone ML
5 Deathwing Terminator Squad with 4 TH/SS & Cyclone ML
5 Deathwing Terminator Squad with 4 TH/SS & Cyclone ML
landraider crusader and landraider

Mission
Primary: Capture and control
Secondary; Seize ground
Pithched battle

Table set up
6 pieces of terrain, 2 large hills in opposite table quaters centerts , 2 large woods in opposite table quarters centers , one large LOS blocking building in center of table. Several other smaller pieces between woods and hills.


My opponent deployed along his deployment zone spread evenly from one end to the other. landraiders were deployed off center to one side.

I deployed my ravagers behind the building with the scourges and deployed everything else on my far right hand side.

My opponent tried to seize but failed.

Turn one. I move up all the venoms and begin to unload on 2 of the 3 exposed terminators squads. Initial shooting was very successful as he allocated saves and lost 2 of his cylones ML. Both squads were reduced to 2 terminators each and I still had 2 venoms remaining. I switch target to 3rd terminator unti on my side of the table and managed to bring down the 3rd cyclone ML on my side of the table. Off to a good start!

Scourges and ravagers and riaders move to get shots on Landraiders, I manage to get crew shaken results only. Hmm, not so good.

My opponent moves forward with his Landraiders, deploys his first unit of terminators out and squishes my scourges. he also wrecks my Wych Raider with machine spirit shooting.

Turn two

My venoms continue to advance slowly and wipe out one of the 3 units of terminators, Warriors and trueborn jump out and fire as well, dropping a second unit down to 2 terminators.

Ravagers immobilize the landraider and it is positioned such that it is effectively removed from the game ( facing the wrong direction from my assault avenues)

Deathwing advance onto one objective and move into the building to threaen wracks holding my primary objective.

Turn 3, wyches assault terminators, more shooting, manage wipe out a terminator unit and drop a unit of warriors on nearby objective. Currently, I control my primary objective, one secondary objective and contest a secondary objective.

My opponents LRC shoots and wrecks a trueborn venom and continues to swing futilely against my wyches.

Turn 3.
I keep on shooting at terminators, wiping out the last cyclone ML on the table.
Wyches get a great round and manage to kill 3 terminators, win and kill a 4th terminator by failed armor save. I start moving uinits back toward the primary object to deal with the terminators threathing that one.

The deathwing deploys his big deathstar unit, Belial, the chaplin, an Apothocary and retinue and they begin to whoop up on my wyches.

Turn 4
2 terminators that won't die parked on one objective, I keep pouring shots into them, but they won't budge. I have a unit of trueborn shooting them and 2 units of warriors threatening if he moves, I will pounce on his objective.

My wyches don't survive and the terminators move to smash my wracks

Turn 5
I move everythnig I can to remove the terminator command squad from the primary objective, deploy blood brides and trueborn. I have one more unit of warriors that need to claim and objective so I turbo boost towards it, its going to be close.

4 venoms, 1 unit of warriors, a unit of bloodbrides, 2 ravagers, net shooting result, 2 terminators left.

Bloodbrides assault, take down the chaplin and last terminator and I control the primary objective again.

My opponent turtles up on his onjectives.

My opponent controls his primary and 1 secondary objective. I control my primary and 1 secondary. One is close so we dice for it and I get it.

net result minor victory for me.

My mistakes from this game:
1) I had a couple of my units out of position and it made contesting or claiming objectives a bit of a challenge in the later turns. Even with the venoms moving 24" I need to be a little more aware of positioning in the later turns.

2) Poor use of scourges. I normally would deep strike them, but with 2 landraiders and a lot of foot terminators, I did'nt really know where to put them. I placed them to far forward and they made for an easy turn one assault and got smashed. Had I been thinking differently, I would have held them back further out of the way and bidded my time for better less risky shots.

3) splitting my forces, I split to early worried about the landraiders. A better tactic would have been to focus on one and immobilize it and then only have to deal with one. As it was, this lead to the entirety of the mounted termies plus characters rolling up and threatening my center which I had to adjust and deal with.

4) I split my fire a bit to much in the later turns, I should have let my opponent have one of the secondary objectives ( which he had in the end anyway) and gone after the unit sitting on his primary. I could have feed him units of waariors and kited him away and clamied or contested his.

Overall a good game against a great guy from Florida. We had some good laughs over the game and it was fun. I feel kind of foolish though because now a few days later I can look back and see the opportunities and mistakes that could have given me a massacre result instead of a minor victory.

I saw a picture of your army in some blog just the other day.
Really liked the parts of them that looked like they where finished.

Game 1.
I ran
Succubus with haywire and Agonzier
(2) Haemonculi with liquifier guns

4 trueborn with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
4 trueborn with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
7 Bloodbrides with Syren, agonzier & haywire grenades in Raider with DL, FF & SP

5 Warriors with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
5 Warriors with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
5 Warriors with shredders in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
5 Warriors with shredders in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
8 Wyches with Hekatrix, agonzier & haywire grenades in Raider with DL, FF & SP
3 Wracks

5 Scourges with Haywire Blasters

Ravager with DL and FF

Game 1 Opponent: Blood Angels
from memory
2 Librarians with some kind of cover save power and blood lance
deep striking Techmarine

5 Assault marines with melta gun and sgt in heavy flamer razorback
5 Assault marines with melta gun and sgt in heavy flamer razorback
5 Assault marines with melta gun and sgt in Las Plas Razorback
5 Assault marines with melta gun and sgt in Las Plas Razorback

Baal Preadator
Baal Preadator
Landspeeder with Multimelta & Heavy Flamer

Predator with Autocannon & Heavy Bolter sponsons
Predator with Autocannon & Heavy Bolter sponsons


Mission
Primary: Seize Ground
Secondary;Annihilation
Spearhead

Table set up
8 pieces of terrain, 2 large hills in opposite table quaters centerts , 2 large woods in opposite table quarters centers , one large LOS blocking building in center of table.There was a large hill on the table side opposite me between the quarter hill, building and woods.

I deployed first setting up as much blocking LOS as possible.

My opponent deployed in a parking lot type of deployment with all of his vehicles bumper to bumper between the central hill woods and building.

His scout move sent a baal Predator behind one hill and between the other hill on the table quarter next to and opposite my force. The other Baal Predator raced behind the hills in the opposite side of the board.

I move my ravagers and raider around to open up avenues of fire.

Venoms move around my side of the building and unit with blaster deploys in the building.
Shooting.

I look at my oppenents deployment and I see that if I can wreck or immobilze 3 vehicles, I can effectively block off most of his attack. it looks like he is set up to rhino/razorback rush up, drop out marines and commence to melta blasting my precious vehicles.

As such, I target and blow up the closest las plas razorback, then I immobilze the heavy flamer razorback next to it. lastly, the Baal predator is stunned, having a 3+ cover save I only made one shot get through. The venoms and warriors wipe out the assault marines getting out of the blown up razorback.

My opponent moves a few of his vehicles around his immobilized razorback and the Ball predator moves more forward lining up shots. A predator follows behind it using it as cover, but moving fast it does not get to shoot.

Turn 2.
I maneuver my wyches in there raider around the building, jump out and move towards the razorbacks that moved around the immobilized HVY Flamer razorback.

Shooting, I wreck the Baal predator and stun the Predator behind it. Wyches get a great run and are 1 inch away from a razorback with a librarian in it. In the assault, the wyches surround and wreck the razorback, 1 assault squad and librarian boldly march off to the discard pile.

My opponent tries to regroup and moves all of his remaining vehicles fast. no shooting from him.

Turn 3. My scourges drop in and blow the turret off of the 2nd predator. the second Baal predator is too far away to have any impact on the game, so I ignore it. My remaining fire is poured into the stunned predator and wreck it.

My opponent deepstrikes in his techmarine and Landspeeder. He fires his melta gun and mulitmelta at my ravagers but misses. The Baal Predator moves fast toward my deployment zone but is out of range to shot anything.

marines strat dropping out of vehicles moving toward my venom with trusborn, declare shots and then realize they are out of range LUV THOSE NIGH SHIELDS!!

One razroback with a heavy flamer moves back toward my scourges but is out of range.

Turn 4.
one of my venoms carrying warriros with a shredder moves up toward my opponents objective and get out contesting it.
My scourges move close enough to contest his objectives, but behind the warriors to prevent a mulitcharge.

The remainder of my shooting wrecks the rest of his vehicles, wyches assault deployed marines. The blood brides move to assault the techmarine. Trueborn explode his landspeeder with some precision shooting.

In the assault, the wyches beat a squad of assault marines forcing 2 armor saves. The techmarine goes down under the Succubus agaonizer.

My opponent moves his last squad of assault mainres to assault the scourges, killing them all, but leaving my warriors to contest his object.

Turn 5, we called it game at this point, since my opponent has 2 men in a assault marines squad left, a librairian, and an immobilized heavy flamer razorback.

Result, Massacre for me.

What I did right:
1) I recognized the advantage of wrecking or immobilizing specific vehicles to block off my opponents vehicles from having any easy paths to get close with my skimmers.
2) surrounding razorbacks to prevent any disembarkation of mounted troops. Cheezy, but it saved me the trouble of fighting it out
3) ignoring the baot predator that was so far removed from the battle to have any impact. I saw it as a baot tactic to split my forces, but I chose to ignore it and destroy it once it got close enough to be a threat, by which time most of my opponents closer threats had been removed.

My Mistakes
1) I should have sent the blood brides to go after the last razorback instead of leaving them behind to wipe out a tech marine. I had more than enough firepower to drop one techmarine, even with a 2+.


Turn 4

Game 3.
I ran
Succubus with haywire and Agonzier
(2) Haemonculi with liquifier guns

4 trueborn with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
4 trueborn with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
7 Bloodbrides with Syren, agonzier & haywire grenades in Raider with DL, FF & SP

5 Warriors with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
5 Warriors with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
5 Warriors with shredders in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
5 Warriors with shredders in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
8 Wyches with Hekatrix, agonzier & haywire grenades in Raider with DL, FF & SP
3 Wracks

5 Scourges with Haywire Blasters

Ravager with DL and FF

Game 3 Opponent: Blood Angels
from memory
Mephiston

5 man assault termi unit with priest in LRC

5 Assault marines with melta gun and sgt in heavy flamer razorback
5 Assault marines with melta gun and sgt in heavy flamer razorback
5 Assault marines with melta gun and sgt in Las Plas Razorback
5 Assault marines with melta gun and sgt in Las Plas Razorback
5 Assault marines with melta gun and sgt in Las Plas Razorback
5 Assault marines with melta gun and sgt in Las Plas Razorback

3 riflemen dreads


Mission
Primary: Annihilation
Secondary;Capture and control
Pitched Battle

The table terrain was pretty bad on this one, 1 piece of LOS blocking terrain in the corner, some small low hilss and lots of craters and a big patch of woods.

I won't go into the deails of this one other than my opponent was someone I would not care to play against again, One of the most argumentative guys I have come across. I was happy one of my fellow Houstonites massacred him in the later rounds. I know its childish and all, but I thought he was not the best of sport.

Then end result was I got massacred, but not tabled so that is something and I did wipe out a fair number of his key units, but it was too little too late.

What I did wrong.
1) I got intimidated by the riflemen dreads and razorbacks. As such I deployed badly and spread my forces out so he was able to get all of his vehicles to shoot at all of mine. had I been smart, I would have taken my lumps and lost a couple of vehicles in order to get in assault range and start taking out his vehicles and dreads.

2) I left my blood bride unit sitting in cover. had I sent them out and hoofed it on foot, I could have surrounded the LRC that I assaulted and then killed all the termies and librarian inside by blocking exits then been able to follow up and take out the dreads.

3) when you get the chance to shoot Mephiston, you need to do it. 2 turns, 4 venoms and I did not fire a shot. Shame on me.

4) Always keep your cool. I let my opponents jack-wad-ness get to me, I got frustrated and made several mistakes. had I kept my cool, I would have eliminated several threats I missed and pulled a draw or maybe a win.

5) Poor target priority, I needed to dedicate more shooting to the rifle dreads, instead I wasted shots on the stupid las-plas razorbacks.

Still it was not a total fail on my part, there was very little terrain and very little cover makes for a very hard game. Playing against a skilled ( even if annoying) BA player with lots of shooting makes for an uphill game the whole way. I do feel I need to comment on all 7 of my games, this one happened to be the most sparse and was not typical of the tables.

Game 4.
I ran
Succubus with haywire and Agonzier
(2) Haemonculi with liquifier guns

4 trueborn with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
4 trueborn with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
7 Bloodbrides with Syren, agonzier & haywire grenades in Raider with DL, FF & SP

5 Warriors with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
5 Warriors with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
5 Warriors with shredders in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
5 Warriors with shredders in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
8 Wyches with Hekatrix, agonzier & haywire grenades in Raider with DL, FF & SP
3 Wracks

5 Scourges with Haywire Blasters

Ravager with DL and FF

Game 3 Opponent: Orks
from memory
Ork Warboss in mega armor

Big unit of nobz with feel no pain pain boy, cyborks bodies, mega-armor, heavy armor, all kinds of stuff, banner pole I can't remeber it all

20 man unit of shoota boys with nob
20 man unit of slugga boyz with nob
8 man unit of lootas

2 death kioptas
3 battle wagons


Mission
Primary: Annihilation
Secondary; Seize Ground
Dawn of war

I went first and nothing, electing to have everything come on turn 1.

My opponent deployed his uber nob mob in a battle wagon and went flat out toward my objective.

My entire army pours on turn 1, shoots the battle wagon, blows it up and manages to kill about 5 of the 15 or so nobs he had in it. Shooting reduces them down to less than 8 models. Somehow they were fearless, I don't know how, but I had them almost surrounded .

my opponent moves all the rest of his force on and badly deployed, lootas behind a hill that block LOS??

Turn 2. Ravagers move forward and blow up both other battle wagons, venoms move up and vaporize the lootas and remaining orks in the battle wagons. The wyches and blood brides butt the remaining nobs and wipe them out.

All that is left is a nob and a few shoota boys. My opponent concedes.

No real mistakes on my here, my opponent feed his army in piece meal and it was fairly easy to take it apart.

Good reports! It's great for a newbie like myself to be able to see what works when.

ps. I thought Nobz had a unit size of 10 max? Might be wrong but 15 sounds like a lot?

Yeah thanks for reporting, goo going at 3 and 1.

That blood angels list is nasty but can be worse, I've played one very similiar but without the dreads. Instead there was 3 dev units with 4 ML's in each, backed up by 3 priests dishing out FnP to everything in sight. Hard going. BA are a tough list for us to beat.

Thanks guys.

One of the things I did when I was learning this army was ask everyone who knew anything and then went from there. I tweaked my list several times to get it to where it more or less did what I want. I was quite a change in mindset having come from playing marines.

I feel it is good to point out as I recognize what I did right and more importantly what I did wrong instead of telling everyone how awesome I am. I'm still learning too so don't take all of this as gospel, just as my perspective from my games.

Game 5.
I ran
Succubus with haywire and Agonzier
(2) Haemonculi with liquifier guns

4 trueborn with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
4 trueborn with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
7 Bloodbrides with Syren, agonzier & haywire grenades in Raider with DL, FF & SP

5 Warriors with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
5 Warriors with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
5 Warriors with shredders in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
5 Warriors with shredders in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
8 Wyches with Hekatrix, agonzier & haywire grenades in Raider with DL, FF & SP
3 Wracks

5 Scourges with Haywire Blasters

Ravager with DL and FF

Game 3 Opponent: Grey Knights Draigo Wing
from memory
Draigo
Terminator Librarian

5 paladins with psycannons
5 paladin with pyscannons mounted in LR Crusader
10 termintors with pyscannons and pointy sharp sticks and swords and hammers etc...


Mission
Primary: Capture and control
Secondary;Seize Ground
Spearhead


Alrighty, I played Grey Knights a couple times, but not a Draigo Wing. From what I knew this was a very tough nasty list that could take all my shooting and shrug it off.

I won the roll and deployed first as using LOS blocking cover to keep the shooting down in case he seized and spread out such it would be near impossible to deepstrike anywhere in my deployment zone.

Then my opponent declares he will come in via reserves from his table edge.

I must admit I could not understand why a foot list would reserve. maybe it was a gamble to throw me off my game or make me second guess what I was going to do.

Turn 1.
I move all my forces up and into his side of the table and drop couple warrior units on objectives.

Turn 2.
Spread my forces for a balanced spread to deal with wherever the Gks come in.

My opponent rolls and gets 1 five man unit of paladins that try to shoot my venoms and are short due to Nightshields.

Turn 3. Skimmers move, open fire on paladins who go to ground. When its all said and done there is 1 paladin left alive.

My opponent gets nothing

Turn 4
Move the wyches and bloodbrides up to the opponents capture and control objective. last paladin is shot dead and my turn ends.

My opponent get his 10 man unit of terminators on the table, and I did not know but I know now that if you reseve in speadhead, you can come in anywhere on your long table edge. So he comes on and assaults a venom, but only gets 2 models in contact. Rolls to hit and penetrate and manages to immoblize it.

Turn 5, the trueborn in that immoblzed venom have enough room to jump out and escape. The terminators were so strung out with push in moves I still had half of my venom unegaged.

Wyches and bloodbrides move onto capture and control objective . Trueborn move further away from terminators and shoot them, dropping 2.

My opponents LRC plows onto the field and tank shocks the wyches and blood brides. I elect to death or glory and wreck the LRC. The neat thing is as I moved my wyches and bloodbrides away from the LRC, I wasspread out enough that only Draigo could get out. Everything else died in the wreck.

Draigo assaults and is locked in combat with my succubus.

I roll the dice and the game ends.

Massacre result for me.

What I learned from this game is the foot GK list is an absolute joke against our speed. My opponents list was meant to support each other with mid range fire, but going reserve made no sense and allowed me to tear his units apart one by one. My only casualties for the entire game was an immoblized venom.

Not know exactly what this list could do was a bit of poor planning on my part, but I only had so much time to prepare and a Draigo list was just not something I had an opportunity to face.

My opponent was a great guy, but I think he poorly planned his actions against me and going reserve pretty much meant he was going to be fighting for his own objectives instead of contesting mine.

My nightsheilds really paid for themselves here since there was'nt anything that got a shot off all game.

My mistakes was not knowing the special rules regarding deployment. Other than that it was a pretty straight forward game. I did'nt get too close and waited for him to move and then pour overwhelming firepower into his lone units.

I pretty much ignore the 10 man terminator unit, it was deployed way to far away to contest an objective or threaten anything unless I moved towards it.

Sadly, I missed playing in the championship bracket by 2 points. Sigh, I was hopeful to do well this year, but next year I hope to be more competitive and advance in the rankings.

GAR wrote:

My opponent deployed along his deployment zone spread evenly from one end to the other. landraiders were deployed off center to one side.

I deployed my ravagers behind the building with the scourges and deployed everything else on my far right hand side.

Nice!

GAR wrote:

2) Poor use of scourges. I normally would deep strike them, but with 2 landraiders and a lot of foot terminators, I did'nt really know where to put them. I placed them to far forward and they made for an easy turn one assault and got smashed. Had I been thinking differently, I would have held them back further out of the way and bidded my time for better less risky shots.

Not sure I agree with this - the point of the Scourges was to go to work on the Landraiders - and you want to be working on them ASAP.

GAR wrote:

Overall a good game against a great guy from Florida.

Do you recall where from? Probably panhandle I'd guess, but I know a few DW players from mid state.

GAR wrote:

I look at my oppenents deployment and I see that if I can wreck or immobilze 3 vehicles, I can effectively block off most of his attack. it looks like he is set up to rhino/razorback rush up, drop out marines and commence to melta blasting my precious vehicles.

Happy to see this - not enough players use the strategy of trying to block up their opponent's movement. It's monstrously powerful if you can pull it off.

GAR wrote:

What I learned from this game is the foot GK list is an absolute joke against our speed. My opponents list was meant to support each other with mid range fire, but going reserve made no sense and allowed me to tear his units apart one by one. My only casualties for the entire game was an immoblized venom.

A dozen times this - foot GK is not viable vs. Venom heavy DE lists - it's a shame because I think it otherwise one of the better looking foot lists in existence.

I think he went into reserves due to a mistaken concept I see thrown around a lot about shooting army vs shooting army and the first one to shoot winning. It's a silly idea, but it holds on in people's heads and makes them think going reserve vs. an army as fast and shooty as DE is a viable idea.

Agree to that going all reserve was a really strange tactic.

Just a thought on the last game there. With the amount of units and models you had I believe you could actually have won the game in the 2nd turn without even firing a shot. I'm sure someone will point out if this is legal or not but I'm 99% sure it is.

A line of models spread out along his board edge within 3" of it would have prevented any of his units being able to get onto the table without being within 1" of yours. First turn 24" move, 2nd turn move 12" if required and diembark then fleet into position. You can use Ravagers etc to get to the extreme corners if required witha 2nd flat out move. Once your there let him roll for reserves and auto destroy each unit as it turns up as it's unable to deploy.

Dirty, nasty and quick, just the way dark eldar should be. Gets you more time at the bar and you can always buy him a drink to make up for it.

Quote :

GAR wrote:
2) Poor use of scourges. I normally would deep strike them, but with 2 landraiders and a lot of foot terminators, I did'nt really know where to put them. I placed them to far forward and they made for an easy turn one assault and got smashed. Had I been thinking differently, I would have held them back further out of the way and bidded my time for better less risky shots.

Not sure I agree with this - the point of the Scourges was to go to work on the Landraiders - and you want to be working on them ASAP.

Your point is correct. I should have been shooting from 24 inches instead of 16. I deployed to far up and moved to close. It made an easy assault for the terminators. If I had held back and shot from range, they would have been able to easily avoid them and make a nuisance of themselves.

Quote :

GAR wrote:
Overall a good game against a great guy from Florida.

Do you recall where from? Probably panhandle I'd guess, but I know a few DW players from mid state.

its the guy from Teminus Est blog. Green Blow fly. heck of a nice guy. I was taken back because he says he plays DE as well, so it really made me wonder...

Quote :

GAR wrote:
I look at my oppenents deployment and I see that if I can wreck or immobilze 3 vehicles, I can effectively block off most of his attack. it looks like he is set up to rhino/razorback rush up, drop out marines and commence to melta blasting my precious vehicles.

Happy to see this - not enough players use the strategy of trying to block up their opponent's movement. It's monstrously powerful if you can pull it off.

It was glorious!

@kenny3760

I have seen and heard of that tactic. Dash seems to think it is the way to go all the time every time. It is viable for a full raider list, not so much for a mixed list with a lot of venoms. They just aren't long enough.

Besides, when he went all reserves, I knew I had the game won. I just had to contest his objectives ensuring he was not able to contest mine. and I had enough firepower to make it very hard for him to park on his objectives and just get shot to pieces.

GAR wrote:

its the guy from Teminus Est blog. Green Blow fly. heck of a nice guy. I was taken back because he says he plays DE as well, so it really made me wonder...

Green/Black Blow is *not* a nice guy.

He's always "Hey Thor, you should come to this tournament, yeah, paint up those figures in the next two weeks, now let's hang out in a super hot room while having fun playing with little plastic men."

Yeah, he's a cool dude, we get him down here too. He travels like a fiend for 40k though. He and I keep trying to do a game but life and circumstances (and him thinking Friday not Saturday, and me never having my cell phone on) keep conspiring against us.

Howdy fellow archons.

Recently I went to a 7 game convention in Austin Texas called Wargames con. it is put on by the Bell of Lost Souls guys and is a very well run event.

Here I intend to journal my tidbits of knowledge from 7 games in a highly competitive environment.

Game 6.
I ran
Succubus with haywire and Agonzier
(2) Haemonculi with liquifier guns

4 trueborn with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
4 trueborn with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
7 Bloodbrides with Syren, agonzier & haywire grenades in Raider with DL, FF & SP

5 Warriors with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
5 Warriors with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
5 Warriors with shredders in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
5 Warriors with shredders in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
8 Wyches with Hekatrix, agonzier & haywire grenades in Raider with DL, FF & SP
3 Wracks

5 Scourges with Haywire Blasters

Ravager with DL and FF

My Opponent ran a "LeafBlower" IG

From memory
HQ and Pysker battle squad
each in Chimera
6 squads, each in chimeras, each with 3 assault weapons, a mix of plasma, flamers and meltas

manticore
3 vendettas
4 Hydras

Mission Primary: Annihilation
Secondary: Capture and control
Dawn of War

I won the roll and went first.
Deployed wyches with Succubus as far up as possible
all my forces deployed turn 1.

My opponent rolled on turn 1, using searchlights, he managed to immoblized a venom with trueborn on board.

turn 2
My wyches and bloodbrides went up the middle of the field, jumped out and got 6 inches for fleet. The chimera parking lot was going to have a problem.

All trueborn units and ravagers move to the left side of the table to deal with the hydras and 2 of the 3 vendettas.

Shooting 3 ravagers, 3 units of trueborn, and 2 raiders at 4 hydras and 2 vendetta yields not a single glance or penetration. Its going to be a long day when 4 trueborn roll 4 "1s" with their blasters.

The wyches however in assault manage to wreck 3 chimeras, killing the units inside and the manticore got a weapon destroyed result. The other 2 chimeras I was able to assault were stunned, so no shooting.

My opponents turn has his right flank intact and his middle and left flank in shambles. he elects to target the AT units in front of him. No more rabagers or trueborn.

His stunned chimeras move up and deploy troops. 3 flamers kill all of my bloodbrides except for the syren, who makes her leadership. The meltas and plasma guns drop 3 wyches.

The vendetta shooting drops both raiders.

Turn 3.

The lone syren and the wyches move to assault the IG on foot and the warriors in a venom with the blaster move up to target the vendettas. The Warriors jump out and surround the vendetta base.
Vendetta on my opponents left flank, with his chimeras, explodes and he loses half of his veterans in the blast. My warriors all survive. The Venom wipes out another 3 and they fail their test and they flee off the table.

The wyches and bloodbride assault the foot IG and the transports, wiping out the IG and wrecking the chimeras.

The scourges deestrike in and stun 1 of the vendettas.

My opponents turn he redeploys his vendettas to threaten my wyches and wracks who are hiding.

His shooting to my wyches is blocked by his wrecked chimeras, which now have become a wall of rubble splitting hsi side f the field in 2.

His hydras inflict enough wounds to force a test on my scourges and the pysker battle squad reduced thier leadership to 2. Off they ran never to return.

Turn 4, the wracks go to ground as does most everything else I have. Some limited shooting and an explosion reduce the pysker battle squad to 3 models, but they hold.

My opponent tries to shoot my wracks but one remains alive. he gets a couple of shots at the wyches and bloodbride syren, who make their cover saves and are parked on my opponents objective.

Turn 5,
I do nothing

my opponent manages to assault and kill my last wrack on top my objective.

Game ends

We have the exact same number of kill points and both claim an objective. Draw.

I have to admit, if not for the epic fail of my shooting on turn 2, I would have had this game. I suppose the balance is the assaults on the armor where way over the top in the destructive results. I pretty much owned half of his deployment zone, but didn't have the tools to go after the hydras or vendettas. if my wyches could have made it, that would be another story, but there was 36 inches between my wyches and the hydras and it was mostly open, so no good place to move from cover to cover.

As it was I think I played it well, and the resulting draw against a full blown 2K leafblower list is nothing to scoff at. That and bad shooting can't be helped. I was so frustrated with nothing getting through for even a glance with virtually all my AT on 4 different units.

But them's why we play the game. I'm feeling pretty good about it all things considered in that this was a list I was unable to playtest against before the tournament and outside of battle reports had not seen at all.

Good going, the leafblower list is usually brutal against us

Howdy fellow archons.

Recently I went to a 7 game convention in Austin Texas called Wargames con. it is put on by the Bell of Lost Souls guys and is a very well run event.

Here I intend to journal my tidbits of knowledge from 7 games in a highly competitive environment.

Game 7.
I ran
Succubus with haywire and Agonzier
(2) Haemonculi with liquifier guns

4 trueborn with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
4 trueborn with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
7 Bloodbrides with Syren, agonzier & haywire grenades in Raider with DL, FF & SP

5 Warriors with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
5 Warriors with blasters in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
5 Warriors with shredders in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
5 Warriors with shredders in venom with Dual Splinter cannons and Nightshields
8 Wyches with Hekatrix, agonzier & haywire grenades in Raider with DL, FF & SP
3 Wracks

5 Scourges with Haywire Blasters

3 Ravagers with DL and FF

My Opponent ran a Thunder wolf list.

From Memory
Wolf Lord on thunder wolf
Rune Priest
(2) units of 6 thunder wolf cav with the mish mash of equipment choices for wound allocation.
(2) Grey Hunter units in Rhinos
(2) Long Fangs x 5 Missile Launchers
10 Wolf Scouts

MMission Primary: Capture and Control
Secondary: Seize Ground
Pitched Battle

I won the roll and deployed first.

The terrain was pretty good, with a large 3 story building in the middle of table providing good cover. In fact, the table was the same as I had against my first BA opponent.

I looked at all of those Thunderwolf cav and the long fangs and thought it was going to be a tough game, but a game I could win.
I spread my DE with the 3 ravagers in the center of the table flanked by the Raiders, furhter flanked bu the warriors in venoms with the trueborn venoms behind the ravagers. The wracks were deployed on foot with the venom behind the ravagers.

My opponent deployed as far forward as possible in the center of the table with both units of thunderwolf cav, both long fangs were deployed on the far left side of the table in terrain.

My opponent tried to sieze but failed.

I split my forces in two sending them both to the flanks abandoning the center. the wracks moved up and got to the second level of the building. One thing I was prepared for was cavalry. I knew they could not climb up levels in buildings and they would be relatively safe the higher up they were.

My shooting was pretty exclusive on the long fangs, reducing them to 1 and 2 models left on each one and both failed their tests and fell back. The ravagers immoblized one of the rhinos and put a wound on the Wolf lord.

Thunder wolf cav moved up, but was out of charge range.

Turn 2.
My forces continued to move out, but I knew I was not going to be able to keep the cav away for another turn, so I sacrificed a 5 man unit of warriors by deploying them 6 inches from the thunder wolves. The rest of my force moved away and shot at the oncoming wolf cav. 3 of the 13 or so died, but there were still a lot of hungry dogs looking for a bone to chew on.

My opponent takes the bait and mass assaults the warriors. They are wiped out and my opponent is now standing on one of the objectives.

One of my opponents Rhinos moves on from reserves and the other Grey hunters dismount and move towards the central building with the wracks.

Turn 3
The wyches in raider move up and out along the side of the table, dismount and assault the new rhino in from reserves. The blood brides move up and dismount to assault the grey hunters on foot.
All other shooting is at the thunderwolf cav, now with some of the storm shields gone, the trueborn and ravagers start dropping the cav at a much faster rate. At the end of shooting, there are only 5 cav left alive, including the wolf lord.

the bloodbrides assault and kill half of the grey hunters, who hold in combat but do no wounds in return.

The wyches assault the rhino, surround it and wreck it, killing the 2nd grey hunter unit and the rune priest.

My opponent moves and assaults a trueborn venom, wrecking the vehicle and the crew dismount.
His scouts show up and shoot another warrior venom, immobilizing it.

His grey hunters locked in combat with the bloodbrides are reduced to 2 models, but hod for another turn.

Turn 4.
Sensing my opponent was against the ropes, I split off a pair of venoms and wipe out half of the scouts, who break and fall back toward the far table edge.
The rest of my force shoot at the remiaing thunder wolf cav, and wipe out all of them except the lord, who had 1 wound remaining.

The wyches finish off the grey hunters and move towards the long fangs who had done nothing but hide since turn1.

My opponent regrouped his scouts, and moved his wolf lord toward the blood brides and has enough to assault them.
he swings and bites and fails to wound. I remember he went first but I can't remember why. My Bloodbrides roll like champs and I score 4 wounds with the agonizer. The wolf lord fails his saves and dies.

At this point my opponent calls it and concedes. Overall he was a decent guy, but I got the impression he did not do as well as he would have liked, and having his Thunderwolf cav list get virtually tabled was not the way he wanted to go out.

All in all I don't think I made many mistakes. I knew the wolf cav was tough, but I really did'nt know how tough until they ate my sacrificial units.
I knew I had to stay away from them as long as I could and reduce their numbers, which I did well.

The long fangs really were a non factor in this game, and the Grey hunters were pretty easily taken care of.

That is it for this batt Rep. I hope to have more in the near future.

Wooosh, poor guy, never waste Thundercalv on 5 Warriors. Never.
Good gambit, paid off well for you.

Thanks!

I think part of the thinking he had was he was committed to hand to hand to win his games and that was the only way he could go.

Unfortunately my skimmers move almost as fast as his cav so it was not as easy for him to engage them as it would be against slower vehicles. That being said, he was committed and could not or would not change his plan to adjust and jumped at bait like a hungry dog to raw meat.