Thursday Necrons

Last night Lovell and I got in an 1850 point round of 40k, Kingbreakers versus Necrons, straight up basic Annihilation.  I think this was the first game I’ve won against Necrons since the new book came out, and it was looking iffy until somewhere around turn five of a six turn game. Notably to that end, he was not using the Decurion formation (and its global 4+ Feel No Pain); I believe it does not permit him his beloved Destroyers.

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Berks Spring Assault

berks-paThis weekend I went out for the Berks 40k Spring Assault in the Classic track, a 1000 point casual-oriented tournament. Unfortunately several other PAGE and Redcap’s people bailed at the last minute, but Tom M, Colin K, and Steve S were also there. The Classic track had 40 players, and the 2500 point Unleashed track another 16, so together with a bunch of organizers, judges, and spectators, there was a sizable crowd. This was actually my first time going to the Spring Assault, and I was not disappointed. Despite a couple rough games personally and winning absolutely zero of the many many raffle drawings, it was as expected a really fun day.

A few more photos from my games and just a couple of armies on display are in the photo gallery. Unfortunately there was enough going on all day, and my games busy enough, that I didn’t manage to get nearly as many photos as I usually do, particularly from the surrounding games and armies.

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kingbreakers-iconArmy

I went with something atypical for me—no Drop Pods, no Sternguard, no Knight (not permitted in this format!), no fortification, just dudes in trucks and some skimmer supports:

  • Captain Angholan (Vulkan)
  • Squad Scolirus: Tactical x10 w/ Veteran Sgt, Powerfist, Flamer, Missile Launcher, Rhino
  • Squad Harbinger: Tactical x6 w/ Veteran Sgt, Combi-Melta, Meltabombs, Meltagun, Rhino
  • Squad Titus: Tactical x10 w/ Veteran Sgt, Chainsword, Meltabombs, Meltagun, Missile Launcher, Rhino
  • Scouts x5 w/ Camo Cloaks, Sniper Rifles
  • Landspeeder w/ Multi-Melta, Heavy Flamer
  • Landspeeder w/ Multi-Melta, Heavy Flamer

That is a pretty traditional and fluffy Space Marine list, but has some units of dubious performance in the modern day. Landspeeders, particularly of this kit-out, are not super strong at the moment, to a large extent simply due to not getting the Salamanders’ flame re-rolls. But their high mobility can be useful in these kind of small games to grab objectives and such and I love them, so I went with it. Vulkan on the other hand is generally a very good unit for a combat-oriented Space Marine, he’s just a lot of points to sink into a single T4 infantry model at 1000pts.

The Rhinos I took over Drop Pods because I expected terrain to be slightly lighter than what we generally run, so I wanted something for my dudes to bunker up in. With such few units I was also worried about my ability to cover any Maelstrom type mission with dudes on foot after Podding in.

All in all, to foreshadow a bit, I wasn’t too shocked to struggle in two games against newer toys, and was pleased to do well in the other half of my games.

Round 1

Dawn of War, Crusade with 4 objectives, against Mark V H’s Eldar. His list had a good mix of units, I actually think it was originally designed for Highlander format as nothing repeated. I think it really hurt me this game to not have my usual Drop Pods and Sternguard. With the Pods I could have taken the fight directly to the xenos, potentially slagging his exposed D-Cannon artillery, and the Sternguard could have put poison and melta on the Wraithknight. As it was though, those barrage S10 AP2 shots tagged anything I did manage to hide from the walker and a Wave Serpent, with a Nightwing Interceptor coming in later to clean up. The Kingbreakers did take down the Wraithknight Aevethon’s Lament, but it was a pyrrhic victory just before they were swept away.

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Round 2

Vanguard Strike, Purge the Alien with old school Victory Points (1 point for each 100 pts totaled among completely destroyed units), against Louis J and his Iron Hands. This kind of mission is always tough for me, and this seemed like just a particularly bad matchup for it. His army was a bit light on units, so playing for objectives I think I would have been fine. But for kill points all my light vehicles and troops rushing across a fairly open field at him seemed like they’d be tasty targets for his large quantity of S6+ long range shooting before I could get any melta into play: Dudes with lascannons, two Razorbacks w/ twin-linked Lascannon sponsons, grav Bikers, a Contemptor, a Sicaran, and a Master of the Forge. My usual Sternguard and Drop Pods again would have been useful here, to melta-drop some opposing vehicles. So, I kinda went to left field and played for a draw by reserving almost everything and hoping to simply keep it from being killed. Scouts I buried completely out of LOS within a hut to keep me in the game. Landspeeders I put on the table but very carefully out of LOS and range to anything, as juicy targets to try and draw the Iron Hands forward.

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In the end I brought the ‘Speeders out of hiding too early and they got slagged before doing anything meaningful. Partly that was do to poor targeting priority, sending them against the bikers to protect the Scouts rather than trying to trade fire with the Razorbacks. The other Kingbreakers that came on and went right into hiding did some damage after the enemy finally came forward enough to strike at meaningfully. It wasn’t enough though and I went down to a minor loss. Potentially this goofball strategy could have worked if I’d changed the order up a bit, deploying a Rhino and flying on the Landspeeders, and overall stuck to my guns and done nothing but waited for him to come to me piecemeal. It was really difficult for me to do all that sitting around though, even as Louis was a great sport and found it hilarious that basically nothing happened for three turns. Overall I wouldn’t do this strategy again, and was probably kitted out to fight toe-to-toe with this army anyway, but it just seemed like something different to try and maybe put him off kilter and engender a major mistake tipping the balance. That almost worked, when he finally broke and started bringing units forward, but then Louis realized what was about to happen and stepped them all back just a few meaningful inches before I could bring on a solid thrust at them.

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Round 3

Dawn of War, a variant on the Relic with additional immovable objective markers, against Chris S and his Dark Eldar. The Kingbreakers swept this one fairly systematically. Scouts got sacrificed as a ploy to bring some troops forward, which then got burninated as the meltas and missile launchers took down the opposing Raiders one by one. Even the Razorwing flyer eventually took a fair amount of damage. The Rhinos in turn just churned up field until they were controlling all three objectives and the xenos tabled except for the jetfighter. Here I think the Dark Eldar mostly just couldn’t bring on enough of a concentrated force to really score some major damage before the relatively fragile units could be rolled up one by one.

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Round 4

Old-school Spearhead setup, fighting to kill and control monstrous creature Peeps, against Steve S and his Space Wolves Chaos Marines. This deployment setup is funny, and one that I actually think about a lot in coming up with new arrangements for our events. Each army gets a table quadrant to deploy in, but must be at least 12″ from table center. The thing is that it doesn’t really preserve the 24″ boundary. The corners closest to center are a fair bit closer, so you’re open to Turn 1 charges if you deploy there, first player Turn 1 charges no longer being barred by the rules AFAIK. I totally forgot about this, deployed in the forward corners, and got immediately charged by Steve’s horde of Chaos dogs, cyber dogs, and Thunderhammer-wielding lord and henchman on Juggernauts.

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That was basically ok, because a Landspeeder and Rhino went *poof* and then the whole horde was ideally placed for the entire Kingbreakers army to drop flame, meltas, bolters, missiles, and the kitchen sink on it. Being kitted out with a fair bit of flame, including Salamanders’ re-rolling flame on the infantry, was decisive in tackling the dogs. Re-rolling meltas due to Vulkan, combined with several missile launchers, plucked wounds off the Juggernauts fairly rapidly. I also got very lucky on Steve’s Stormwolf flyer not coming in until Turn 4. Earlier on it would have shifted the game back in his favor quite a bit.

As things went though, very quickly only the lords and a couple straggler dogs were left standing. Then the sugary bio-morphs arrived…

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The Peeps came in via deep strike and wielded a WS4 BS2 S6 T6 W6 I2 A3 LD10 3+ Monstrous Creature, Eternal Warrior, Feel No Pain (5+) profile with Laser Eyes R18 S6 AP4 Assault 2. I brought mine in near my encampment so that it could fight the Juggernauts and then be easily claimed by my guys. Steve also dropped his Peep by my guys as he didn’t have much on the backfield except a Rhino charging at me, and hopefully it’d be able to do some damage on its own. Really though, the Peeps wound up being largely pushovers. Each of us wound up destroying the other’s Peep in close combat, Steve with his Juggernauts and me with powerfist wielding Sgt Scolirus. I was stoked because this kind of thing totally justifies my inefficient nostalgic dedication to powerfist sergeants.

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After that there were a bunch of small combats. The lords got mopped up. Steve’s flyer arrived and together with the Rhino each delivered a handful of Chaos Marines into the battle, but by that point there were far too many Kingbreakers outnumbering them and they went down pretty easily. The Rhino managed to dash onto one of the dead Peep objectives to contest it, as we ran out of time before I could finish it off, move for Linebreaker, and so on to sweep up more points. But still the Kingbreakers had killed one Peep, held the other dead Peep, and had slain the Chaos warlord, for a doubled-points victory.

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Outcome

Final tally was that I got crushed by Eldar, took a minor loss to the Iron Hands, won a perfect game against Dark Eldar, and massacred Chaosy Space Wolves. So I lost two games I thought would be extremely difficult just based on armies (let alone players, Mark from Round 1 finished 7th overall), crushed a game I in some sense should indeed have won (newer player to this edition, with a difficult to play army), and wrapped up the day winning the game I wanted to win but could have gone either way (against Steve, a friend and good player who’s crushed me many times).

The scoring system is a little opaque, but my painting and sportsmanship must have boosted what on average seemed a middling amount of points per game, to put me 11th of 39 registered players in the final standings. Tom finished an impressive 8th, and Colin and Steve 17th and 18th for all of us to finish in the top half.

Conclusion

All in all, yet another excellent Berks tournament. Bonus points to Berks and Mike B for the best catered lunch I’ve seen at a 40k event, notably including tons of vegetarian options. I was super glad I went despite it being a crazy weekend—Friday I moved, just barely managing to keep my 40k stuff from being lost among all the unopened boxes, and Sunday I ran a small but intricate tournament. I’m definitely looking forward to next year’s Spring Assault already, and hopefully we’ll get more people to come out from Philly and enjoy such a great event.

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40k 1750pts Kingbreakers vs Grey Knights

Redcap’s was bumpin’ last night, with 15 people there for Thursday night 40k.

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Byron and I got in a 1750 point game, him practicing a bit for a tournament he’s playing on Saturday.

Armies

kingbreakers-iconI just dropped the Thunderfire Cannon from my latest 1850 point Kingbreakers list, giving me:

  • Captain Angholan (Vulkan, warlord)
  • Master Apothecary Sauvon (Harath Shen)
  • Squad Harmon: Sternguard x5 w/ power axe, 3x combi-meltas & Drop Pod
  • Terminators x5 w/ thunderhammers & storm shields
  • Squad Scolirus: Tacticals x5 w/ powerfist, flamer, Drop Pod
  • Squad Harbinger: Tacticals x5 w/ combi-melta, meltagun, Drop Pod
  • Squad Titus: Tacticals x10 w/ meltagun, missile launcher, Rhino
  • Landspeeder w/ multi-melta, heavy flamer
  • Landspeeder w/ multi-melta, heavy flamer
  • Greenheart: Imperial Knight Errant (melta blast)

Byron rolled his Grey Knights + Inquisition, focusing on the Vortex of Doom, which looks something like:

  • Inquisitor (warlord)
  • Coteaz w/ 3 plasmacannons, psyker, & ~10 acolytes
  • Terminator Librarian
  • Terminator Librarian
  • Terminators x5 w/ halberds & hammers
  • Terminators x5 w/ halberds & hammers
  • Terminators x5 w/ halberds & hammers
  • Dreadknight
  • Stormraven
  • Servo skulls x3

The gimmick is that he’s got a good number of psykers and he’s trying really hard to get Vortex of Doom on a Terminator psyker or two so it can be thrown on the deep strike—it’s a heavy blast, so it’s less useful on a psyker without Relentless. He’s using the servo skulls to help kill the scatter on both his deep striking and those vortex blasts, as well as a formation that lets him deep strike reserves on Turn 1. The formation also lets his guys run & shoot in the same phase, to increase his mobility on the ground. Finally, he’s boosting his odds of getting Turn 1 and dropping those blasts right away by bringing Coteaz to force or take a Seize reroll.

That setup can be pretty devastating if everything goes right. Colin got blown away in the November tournament as Byron got the Vortex, got first turn, dropped near perfectly, threw the blasts ideally, and wiped out a huge chunk of the Iron Warriors’ army in the first turn. The downside is that if the Grey Knights don’t go first and the opponent has a good alpha strike or high mobility, Byron’s basically ceding board control. He also doesn’t have a ton of units to spread around the board if there are a bunch of objectives, or the mobility to shift positions and adapt.

Sauvon and Angholan scout the ruins.

Sauvon and Angholan scout the ruins.

Setup

Vanguard strike deployment, I chose the corner with slightly lower density in the opposite corner so my Knight would have good sight lines but the board was basically symmetrical, with a fair amount of ruins spread around. We played a generic Maelstrom mission, with the standard 6 objective markers on the board:

  • At the start of your turn draw objective cards until you have three cards in hand;
  • Any objective cards that are impossible (e.g., targeting unit roles your opponent doesn’t have) are immediately replaced;
  • Any number of objective cards can be scored in a turn;
  • One objective card may be discarded at the end of the turn;
  • Scoring starts on Turn 1;
  • Objective cards are not secret.

Both of us wound up placing our three objectives evenly spaced about a foot from our respective table edges.

Kingbreakers deployed with at least one unit essentially already on each of my three home objectives. Grey Knights deployed just Coteaz and the Acolyte+Servitor blob on an objective tucked into a corner.

In the land of Terminators, the storm-hammered are king.

In the land of Terminators, the storm-hammered are king.

Battle

I survived the forced reroll to keep first turn. Squad Harbinger dropped on one of the opposing objectives and moved to remove a servo skull and create a bubble wrap pocket for the Knight. The Knight advanced right onto the table center line, backed up against a large line of sight blocker. Terminators, a Landspeeder, and a Rhino filled in the circle around that terrain to create a buffer around the Knight. Angholan + Scolirus tried to drop on Coteaz but played it too safe and scattered well back toward centerfield. Other Tacticals ran around to remove servo skulls and hunker down on objective markers, taking 2 victory points off the bat.

Following that, all the GK but the Stormraven came in. One Librarian threw a Vortex of Doom to blow away a Terminator, and another group with heavy shooting caught Harbinger off guard and wiped out his squad for First Blood. The Marines fought back though, with Terminators krumping one squad of Terminators and the Imperial Knight another. Squads Scolirus and Harmon both tackled the Dreadknight in their midst and brought it down to one wound, but not before it had knocked Captain Angholan out of the fight for Slay the Warlord and then shunted away. Kingbreakers though claimed a substantial 5 victory points while only yielding 1 for the turn.

Although only mid-battle, at that point the momentum was overwhelmingly for the Emperor’s finest—the Kingbreakers. Knight Greenheart demolished the last unit of Terminators and the opposing Inquisitor Warlord, the Coteaz blob was being whittled away and having little impact, the Dreadknight was on its last legs, and the Stormraven was forced to prioritize helping it out. Kingbreakers claimed another 4 victory points to just 1 for the GK, who promptly fled the field of battle for the day.

Multiple squads go at the Dreadknight at the power station.

Multiple squads go at the Dreadknight at the power station.

Outcome

After four turns the Kingbreakers were up 11 to 5, poised to take several more points, and we called it for time.

Analysis

Byron’s army had relatively few options to deal with the Knight. Very few of his models had any weapons that could hurt it, in both shooting and assault. He was really counting on the Vortex of Doom to take it out, but the first turn bubble wrap forced all his units come down far enough away to negate that. I was able to make good use of a large piece of terrain which had no windows, so he couldn’t risk deep striking on it, scattering behind, and getting no shots at all. In the one sector I couldn’t really get much bubble wrap into he fortunately scattered out of. Multiple units of mine were then also well placed and had the tools to decisively counter-attack before his units could do more damage. Assault Terminators are basically designed to fight against this kind of opposing force, and the Knight’s super well equipped to shoot and assault Terminators.

Bubble wrapping the Knight as best I could, actually kind of difficult to do while preserving its rapid movement.

Bubble wrapping the Knight as best I could, actually kind of difficult to do while preserving its rapid movement.

On straight kill points this would have been actually a very close game given how many more units I field. With the Stormraven forced to hover in order to keep shooting at priority targets, it was actually possible in another turn or two the GK would have been tabled. At the end only the Stormraven, Coteaz + handful of Acolyte chumps, and the Dreadknight with 1 wound left remained, for something like 6 KP scored by me. Kingbreakers meanwhile had lost 7 KP.

Objectives were the order of the day though, and the Kingbreakers are all about that game. A super elite, small unit count army like this kind of Grey Knights outfit is always going to have a hard time with 5 or 6 objective markers on the table. Add in that most of it is infantry on foot and it’s going to have limited ability to run around and adapt to the objective cards drawn. That’s particularly true if they’re forced to centralize on one particular target like the Imperial Knight, and hit a couple walls like the Thunderhammer Terminators.

Meanwhile, I’ve got combat squads all over, Drop Pods on objectives, and Landspeeders as well as a Rhino to scoot around. I particularly enjoyed deploying an empty Rhino, which confused Byron but did excellent double duty holding down an objective and blocking for the Knight while its Tacticals combat squadded and deployed to hold two other objectives.

Greenheart goes krumpin'.

Greenheart goes krumpin’.

Maelstrom

I haven’t actually played many Malestrom games, and in part a bunch of us went to play last night specifically to play that and think about using it in upcoming tournaments. The basic ruleset Byron and I used seemed pretty reasonable. In particular, I like it much more than setups were you only have one card at a time, and/or only have a single turn to claim objectives. Holding three cards potentially over multiple turns gives you a lot more ability to actually plan and work toward a strategic goal. That said, it retains one of the problems I see with Maelstrom in that it still emphasises immediate reactions rather than game-long strategy. There’s definitely still overaching strategy, e.g., my efforts to control the entire board raked in victory points here as I kept drawing cards I already met or could easily achieve. However, as a counter-example, I couldn’t decide how hard to press against the Coteaz objective because who knew if I would even draw cards scoring that objective. In a more traditional game I’d be able to evaluate that more precisely and make a more concrete strategic decision.

One change I would also consider to these basic rules is not scoring cards until Turn 2. I’m all about it because it gives Drop Pod and similar alpha strike armies a big opportunity to score quickly. But it really penalizes armies with limited mobility, already arguably an issue with Maelstrom.

Conclusion

In any event, it was a good game and I was pleased to win decisively as I had been concerned about this army after watching it wipe out several good players in our tournaments. Although I’m not convinced how strong it actually is, I am pleased to see Byron build an army around the Vortex of Doom as I am a huge fan of throwing vortexes around the table. Throughout 5th edition that was a big part of my army, but I let it go when psyker powers became randomized. Especially with the Grey Knights though he’s easily able to go the other way, and field enough psykers to both get the power and throw a bunch of dice at it.

Over the next couple days I should have more thoughts up on Maelstrom as I sketch ideas to include it in the February tournament.