A plan a fortnight in the making

 

A plan generations a fortnight in the making



Hi everyone 

 

Well it has been a fairly eventful (pun intended) fortnight. I finished off all the models required for my army for Lakes of Blood, the event I participated in down in Rotorua, New Zealand.

Lakes of Blood break down

 Dave ran a wonderful event and I managed to do better than I expected. Given that this would be the first time I used this style of list my stretch goal was to win 3 of the 5 games. I managed to win those three games on day one (and then fail miserably day 2).

 



My list was:

++Battalion Detachment 0CP (Astra Militarum) [1320pts]++

Regimental Doctrine: 133rd Lambdan Lions

 

+HQ+

Tempestor Prime [40pts, -2CP]: Power Fist, Tempestus Command Rod

Warlord

Stratagem: Progeny of conflict (Keys to the Armoury)

Relic (The Laurels (Yanny) of command)

 

Tempestor Prime [40pts]: Power Fist, Tempestus Command Rod

 

+TROOPS+

Militarum Tempestus Scions [110pts]

4x Scion: 4x Frag & Krak Grenades, 4x Hot-shot Lasgun

4x Scion: 4x Frag & Krak Grenades, 4x Hot-shot Volley Gun

1x Scion: Frag & Krak Grenades, Hot-shot Lasgun, Vox-caster

1x Tempestor: Frag & Krak Grenades, Plasma Pistol, Power Sword

 

Militarum Tempestus Scions [90pts]

8x Scion: 4x Frag & Krak Grenades, 4x Hot-shot Lasgun

1x Scion: Frag & Krak Grenades, Hot-shot Lasgun, Vox-caster

1x Tempestor: Frag & Krak Grenades, Plasma Pistol, Power Sword

 

Militarum Tempestus Scions [90pts]

8x Scion: 4x Frag & Krak Grenades, 4x Hot-shot Lasgun

1x Scion: Frag & Krak Grenades, Hot-shot Lasgun, Vox-caster

1x Tempestor: Frag & Krak Grenades, Plasma Pistol, Power Sword

 

Militarum Tempestus Scions [90pts]

8x Scion: 4x Frag & Krak Grenades, 4x Hot-shot Lasgun

1x Scion: Frag & Krak Grenades, Hot-shot Lasgun, Vox-caster

1x Tempestor: Frag & Krak Grenades, Plasma Pistol, Power Sword

 

Militarum Tempestus Scions [90pts]

8x Scion: 4x Frag & Krak Grenades, 4x Hot-shot Lasgun

1x Scion: Frag & Krak Grenades, Hot-shot Lasgun, Vox-caster

1x Tempestor: Frag & Krak Grenades, Plasma Pistol, Power Sword

 

Militarum Tempestus Scions [90pts]

8x Scion: 4x Frag & Krak Grenades, 4x Hot-shot Lasgun

1x Scion: Frag & Krak Grenades, Hot-shot Lasgun, Vox-caster

1x Tempestor: Frag & Krak Grenades, Plasma Pistol, Power Sword

 

+ELITES+

Militarum Tempestus Command Squad [40pts]

Tempestus Scion: Hot-shot Lasgun

Tempestus Scion: Hot-shot Lasgun, Medi-pack

Tempestus Scion: Hot-shot Lasgun, Vox-caster

Tempestus Scion: Hot-shot Lasgun, Platoon Standard

Militarum Tempestus Command Squad [40pts]

Tempestus Scion: Hot-shot Lasgun

Tempestus Scion: Hot-shot Lasgun, Medi-pack

Tempestus Scion: Hot-shot Lasgun, Vox-caster

Tempestus Scion: Hot-shot Lasgun, Platoon Standard

 

+DEDICATED TRANSPORT+

Taurox Prime [120pts]

Taurox Prime: Two Hot-shot Volley Guns, Taurox Gatling Cannon

 

Taurox Prime [120pts]

Taurox Prime: Two Hot-shot Volley Guns, Taurox Gatling Cannon

 

Taurox Prime [120pts]

Taurox Prime: Two Hot-shot Volley Guns, Taurox Gatling Cannon

 

Taurox Prime [120pts]

Taurox Prime: Two Hot-shot Volley Guns, Taurox Gatling Cannon

 

Taurox Prime [120pts]

Taurox Prime: Two Hot-shot Volley Guns, Taurox Gatling Cannon

 

 

++Spearhead Detachment 3CP (Astra Militarum) [680pts]++

Regimental Doctrine: Catachan

Stratagem: Tank Ace

 

+HQ+

Company Commander [35pts]

Company Commander: Boltgun, Power Sword

 

+ELITES+

Sergeant Harker [55pts]

Sergeant Harker: Frag & Krak Grenades, Payback

 

+HEAVY SUPPORT+

Basilisk [125pts]

Basilisk: Earthshaker Cannon, Heavy Flamer

 

Manticore [155pts]

Manticore: 4x Storm Eagle Rockets, Heavy Flamer

 

Manticore [155pts]

Manticore: 4x Storm Eagle Rockets, Heavy Flamer

 

Manticore [155pts]

Manticore: 4x Storm Eagle Rockets, Heavy Flamer

Tank Ace: Full Payload  

Command Points: 0

 

The idea was fairly simple, blow my opponent off the board and worry about scoring points later. As you’ll see in the rundown this sort of worked.

Game 1:

Vs Drukhari

Primary                                - 39

Bring it down                     - 14

Inflexible Command       - 15

Special Orders                   - 15

Final Score                          - 93/45

 

A great intro to this army for me as this was the first game I played with the list and things could not have gone better. I got first turn and managed to pop 2 ravagers, 2 raiders and a squad that popped out. I think my opponent Rex passed one save (and that was just the start of his horrible luck). Rex managed to pop just one taurox in his first turn and kill the unit that I ran forward to special order. I have never seen someone roll so badly. It was all downhill for him from there, the guard managed to swarm the board, picking up units left and right.

 

Game 2:

Vs Knights

Primary                                - 45

Bring it down                     - 15

Inflexible Command       - 13

Special Orders                   - 10

Final Score                          - 93/83

 

The good times continued with a lot of help from Joshua who forgot he had feel no pain on his knights for half the game (I like to think I helped him learn his army as he went on to come 3rd you’re welcome Josh). I got first turn again and had played, and lost to a friend knight list with a very different guard list a few months prior and learned that I had to target the armigers. I managed to take two down and severely cripple another 2 first turn. Josh moved to centre with the big knights and ran forward with the armigers to try and stop my shooting. This meant I could jump out of transports and bring the full weight of fire to bear against the armigers which I wanted to target. It meant I lost a few taurox along the way but picked up the armigers.

It did mean he controlled the board for the first few turns though and scored quite well on his secondaries.

 

Game 3:

Vs Death Guard

Primary                                - 45

No Prisoners                      - 13

Inflexible Command       - 15

Special Orders                   - 15

Final Score                          - 98/64

 

Let the good times roll!

A tough match up for my good mate Hen as his death guard are very slow, the deployment was length ways, and I have a lot, a LOT of shooting. He got first turn and raced up the board with 3 rhino’s, one on either flank and one down the centre. I managed to pop two and the innards of them in my first turn. The flank with the surviving rhino (with abaddon and a bunch of terminators running behind) started to fail as he took out a taurox and two units of guardsmen. He tried to capitalise on a big mistake of mine and deep striked 3 terminators to charge my basilisk to stop my shooting but failed the charge even with a re-roll. This meant I could pick up those three terminators and pick off his backfield units and plaguemarines that had jumped out of the rhino. At this point Abaddon was close enough to start killing tanks and picked up one a turn but with the rest of the army decimated by weight of fire I managed a big win.

 

End of Day 1

3 wins and sitting 2nd, 2 VP behind 1st

 

Game 4:

Vs Knights

 

Primary                                 - 20

Bring it down                     - 14

Inflexible Command       - 12

Special Orders                   - 2

Final Score                          - 58/99

The fall from grace.

I made a major mistake during set up in this game, player placed terrain and I stupidly placed my first three pieces in my deployment zone to hide my vehicles. This left my opponent free to place terrain by objectives so he could sit armigers behind terrain on objectives and not be shot. He capitalised on my mistake perfectly, played very cagey, sat back and pot shotted and sat on objectives. This highlighted two big things for me;

-          My list relied too heavily on scions. When my opponent came close (within 9”) I dealt damage. At long range however, the scions were far less effective. They also relied too heavily on laurels of command. When I got FRFSRF & Elimination protocols I dropped vehicles easily with my scions. With only one order, not so much.

-          Player placed terrain you should be placing your first pieces close to the half way mark and work backwards from there.

 

Game 5:

Vs Necrons


Primary                                 - 29

No Prisoners                      - 15

Inflexible Command *    - 9

Special Orders                   - 10

Final Score                          - 73/89

Oh boy are necron secondaries easy to achieve! I don’t think there was much I could have done differently in this game. My target priority was fine but my issue really came from list creation. When you can only do damage in one phase the units that are phase capped really hurt. It was fine with Abaddon because he was one model so I could ignore him (or only lose 3-4 units to him). Two C’tan however…. I dealt with one (overwatch with a taurox helped) but that took too long and the other survived the entire game. This meant I couldn’t push forward, and as soon as my scions got out of tanks they dropped to mortal wounds from the C’tan.

Lessons learnt;

-          I NEED to be able to do damage in multiple phases

-          The scions jump out, do damage, then die. If they aren’t doing max damage within 9” for FRFSRF and 36 shots they aren’t worth it.

 

 

*I realise now that inflexible and no prisoners are in the same slot. I apologise profusely for my error!

 

I’ve made a few changes to the list for the next event I play (provided that comes before the new codex).

 More planning

I’ve got the full plan for the Kasrkin side all planned out and the Cadian side will look similar:





For now, I’m concentrating on painting up Cadians in preparation for when the codex drops. I’ll be doing a very scattergun approach to this in the hopes that I get enough painted with enough variety that no matter what is good in the codex I have a decent chunk already painted so I can field something strong.

 

Stay tuned for progress, and spoiler alert, Mark and I are getting a game in on the weekend so there might be a bat rep as the two posting in the blog go head to head!


See you again soon

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