Tourney Recap - 4 Round RTT, Grey Knight/Space Wolves Hybrid

Attended a book mission RTT yesterday, which was set up to go four rounds.

I did some pretty frantic work getting my Grey Knights army up and running, and in the end had a list that was a bit sub-optimal but still decent. Here's my list:

Inquisitor, Terminator Armor, Psycannon
Warrior Henchmen x 6, Bolters

Inquisitor, Terminator Armor, Psycannon
Warrior Henchmen x 6, Bolters

Strike Squad, Psycannon, Razorback, TL Assault Cannon, Psybolt, Searchlight
Strike Squad, Psycannon, Razorback, TL Assault Cannon, Psybolt, Searchlight
Strike Squad, Psycannon, Razorback, TL Assault Cannon, Psybolt
Strike Squad, Psycannon, Razorback, TL Assault Cannon, Psybolt

Dreadnought, TL Autocannon x 2, Psybolt
Dreadnought, TL Autocannon x 2, Psybolt

Wolf Lord, Thunderwolf, Runic Armor, Storm Shield, Power Fist, Wolf Tail Talisman

Grey Hunters x 10, Plasmagun x 2, Rhino
Grey Hunters x 10, Plasmagun x 2, Rhino

Fenrisien Wolves x 10

So, it turns out I was actually only running a 1967 army. Who knew. That's what you get for finalizing a list at two in the morning the night before a tournament, eh?

First round was against Dark Angels.

Belial
3 x Deathwing Squads (one with Banner and Apoth)

3 Land Raiders

3 Dreadnoughts, 2 with MM/CCW and Drop Pods, one with Plasma Cannon and Missile Launcher

So this was an extreme low model count army. I was a bit worried about the AV 14 with my list.

Vanguard Deployment, Relic Mission.

My Rhinos were deployed in the center forward, and the Razorbacks were either hiding behind ruins or Rhinos. My Dreadnoughts were deployed pretty much in the open on my far right table edge, ready to take advantage of spotlights.

His first turn saw no effective shooting, but he did move up a bit and into range of my guns next turn. My first turn I moved my Rhinos up, spotlighted one of his Land Raiders an popped smoke on the other Rhino. My Dreadnoughts opened up and knocked off some hull points. The Psycannons proceeded to finish wrecking that Land Raider. My Grey Hunter Rhinos were now very much on top of the relic, but stayed embarked for now.

His second turn two Multimelta Dreads dropped in on my Psyflemen and immobilized one. I think this was a mistake, they should have gone into midfield where they could help with the Relic, but really there were few good options here for him. His Plasma Dread moved up and tossed a few blasts at my Strike squad to little effect.

My return fire destroyed both of his Dreadnoughts and finished off his disembarked Deathwing unit (with help from eight plasma shots from my Rhinos) and destroyed his other closest Land Raider.

One of his Deathwing units managed to get a charge against my left flank and wrecked a Rhino and a Razorback. My Grey Hunters disembarked and prepared to shoot the piss out of him.

My Wolf Lord, who had been working his way around the flank, charged and Wrecked his last Land Raider. 20 Grey Hunters and a bunch of other shots went into destroying his last Dreadnought and Deathwing squad. Belial had decided to run and hide so I did not table him or get Warlord, but Belial was his only active model.

Round 2 was against an Mechdarstar list. Eldrad, The Fire Dragon Phoenix Lord, 2 units of Storm Guardians in Serpents, 2 units of Fire Dragons in Serpents, 2 Fire Prisms, unit of Warlocks in a Serpent, hmmm... I must be missing something because I thought he had eight vehicles.

Dawn of War deployment, 4 Objectives (Crusade). This table had lots of line of sight blocking ice hills.

Anyways. I had no Rune Priest so there was literally nothing I could do to stop his Lock star. He had rerollable 2+ armor saves in the Lord, and rerollable 3++ and/or 4++ saves from Eldrad and the Warlocks.

I deployed my Psyflemen on each of my flanks, ensuring that he would not be able to keep all of his vehicles out of line of sight of them. My Rhinos again went up front, ready to push into the corridor between two hills which led to my two home objectives. He deployed centrally, with some of his tanks out of LOS but mostly just in cover and a few in the open.

We got night fighting on the first turn, and I pushed my Rhinos forward again creating a wall in the center corridor, spotlighting his first Fire Dragon Wave Serpent and downing it with Autocannons. Everything else moved up and I think I may have downed another serpent this turn too (I think the Storm Guardians).

He moved and disembarked Eldrad's unit directly in front of my Rhinos. I think he killed both Rhinos, and I disembarked behind them. On my turn I moved on unit of Grey Hunters up into his face, but shot past them with Plasmaguns at the vehicles. The other Grey Hunters moved up too but stayed back a bit, and controlled the center objective, which happened to be a Grav Wave generator. The rest of my stuff continued to shoot up his other vehicles, my Wolf Lord charged and exploded his left flank Wave Serpent and killed a few Storm Guardians in the explosion. I remounted three of my Strike Squads and started to book around the flanks towards his home field objectives, as I couldn't be certain of stopping the Eldrad star in time.

He charged my Grey Hunters, but managed not to slaughter them all in one turn. I think I even hit him with a few Overwatch shots but of course he saved them all. This turn he also flamed the Wolf Lord's attending Fenrisien Wolves but managed not to kill them all.

I moved a Razorback up into his path and moved my Grey Hunters back a bit but still in control of the central objective. Behind the Grey Hunters was my fourth Strike Squad as well as an Inquisitor Retinue which I could throw in their face next.

He detached his Fire Lord from the Deathstar, sending them to my right to attach to his Fire Dragons, and then Eldrad and Co. charged my Grey Hunters, but because of the Grav Wave and terrain, he was only able to engage a few models. My Grey Hunters counter-attacked and actually won combat, and Eldrad's unit broke and ran (no longer Fearless without the Phoenix Lord).

My Wolf Lord on my left flank charged and wiped out his Storm Guardians. He now had only one unit on my right flank left, as well as a unit of Fire Dragons over there with the Phoenix Lord. I tank shocked Eldrad's already-broken unit and it ran some more.

I shot the bejeezus out of the Fire Lord, and some failed Look Out Sirs combined with Rends saw him go down. I now had two strike squads and two razorbacks threatening his backfield objective on the right, and one Strike Squad flat-outing towards his objective on my left.

The next turn Eldrad rallied, and his fire dragons shot up something, maybe a Razorback.

I think I assaulted his fire dragons, the Storm Guarians getting wiped out by shooting. Eldrad's unit got shot to pieces by everything in my army, and the game ended after I wiped out his last model in close combat on the right side (again, I think a Fire Dragon).

I scored all four objectives.

Third Round was against Epidemius and Plague Marines. He had Epidemius and a unit of Plague-Bearers, 2 medium sized squads of Plague-marked Terminators, 4 Plague Marines squads, one in a Rhino, 2 Vindicators, one 3 man Obliterator, a Plague Prince with wings (from C:SM). This was long-table deployment.

I chose to go second IIRC. I deployed outside of his 30" Vindi move and shoot range, but so that if he moved forward, I could move and shoot back at him. We played the Scouring, and I ended up with 8 points of objectives on my side (3, 3, 2), and seven on his side (4, 2, 1).

This was mostly just a slug fest as I shot up his Vindicators at range to start. I was really stupid in this match, I set up my Strike Squads to extend Warp Quake bubbles across my lines but forgot to cast it on my first turn. He deep struck in right on top of me and did some damage but not as much as he could/should have. I shot up then charged and destroyed one unit of Terminators. I put some shots into the other as well. This was the turn where I completely forgot to shoot about 1/3 of my army which was on the far table side, since I forgot they were there after I moved them. I hate long table deployments. ><

His Terminators were able to charge and wipe out my Dreadnought with a Chainfist, and destroyed one of my Strike squads as well in a combi-charge. I kepty plinking away at his Obliterators with

Plasmaguns and Psycannons and wore them down over time. His Daemon Prince stayed out of LoS behind a hill, I think hoping for a good opportunity to come out and eat something. This wasn't a bad play, as the moment he came out I blasted him down. I also ended up killing the other unit of Terminators mostly with shooting.

So he ended up with 2 points to my 10 at the end.


I went into the fourth round against my buddy Kingpin who is basically my Kryptonite. He's just a plain better player than I am, and I really have a tough time against him. He was playing his Imperial Guard with allied Space Wolves.

Command Squad with 4 Plasmaguns, Chimera
Platoom Command with Meltaguns, Chimera
Veterans with Meltaguns, Chimera
4 Infantry Squads, Lascannon, Power Axe

Vendetta
Griffon Siege Mortar
Leman Russ Demolisher, Lascannon
Leman Russ Lascannon

Rune Priest (takes reroll power)

Grey Hunters, 2 Meltaguns, Rhino
Grey Hunters, 2 Meltaguns, Rhino

Might be missing something but I think that's most of it.

This was kill points with Dawn of War deployment. The TO decided it would be a good idea to use the War Zone trait that adds an extra 6" to all weapon ranges, indicating that he thought this was the least unbalanced trait and wanted to try it for fun.

...

Anyways, this actually encouraged me to deploy kind of silly with my army and to go first. Under normal circumstances I would have chosen to deploy second.

So that was dumb, and even with the funky weapons rules really worked against me. The funky weapons rules just meant it was not an auto-loss.

So of course Kingpin sets up in an extreme refused flank castle, with his Griffon, his Russes, his blob, his Rhinos and his company command (there was another Chimera back there too... not sure who they were).

So we just proceed to shoot the crap out of each other, with almost 100% of the shots both directions going through 4+ ruins to provide lots of cover saves. I managed to immobilize THREE of my Razorbacks out of range of his army, which was just phenominal.

Except for his Demolisher, which hucked shot after shot into my Psyfledread in the right corner, standing in the open, and just couldn't do a damned thing to it. That was kind of ridiculous.

Anyways, I think I was in the lead kill points wise through most of the game. Time was called in the fifth, and Kingpin had the lead, I believe 10-8. A sixth round might have changed things, but it's hard to say. We did play through the sixth round, and at the end of the sixth I had a 5 point swing that took me into the lead, HOWEVER he had been playing his 5th round as if it were his last so he had exposed his warlord unnecessarily. It's hard to say. In the end, Kingpin won (AGAIN!) lol. Jerk.

Lesson learned by me was, get my last two Razorbacks built and painted so I can run the list properly, and always go second against armies that will try to castle unless there is no terrain. Oh, and buy Dozer blades. They might not look efficient on paper, but I find out over and over and over again that with limited range guns you can't afford to go around terrain, and having an 85 point Razorback taken out of the fight because you rolled a "1" really sucks.

SO I came in second, got no prize support but ended up buying the new edition of Descent anyways because, well, I was in the mood to spend some of my accumulated store credit.

Feels good to be back in the hobby, and I'm excited to get this army "truly" finished, painted and ready to go. And I hope that ultimately Dark Angels will end up being better allies than Space Wolves, since my stuff is all painted up as a Dark Angels successor chapter anyways.

Fuck it Robin Cruddace... I Give Up

I can't do it. I tried and tried, but I cannot win consistently with Tyranids against any kind of decent armies or players. I'm giving up on them for a bit. I thought my love for the models could sustain me, but it just can't. No range, no survivability, no hitting power, no nothing. Just a waste of a slot in the release schedule of 2010, and a waste of dozens of hours of my time and energy.

GW, if you want me to ever spend another dollar on these broken pieces of shit you call Tyranids, you'd better give them a White Dwarf treatment or something. I'm done trying to bang my head against that fucking wall.

Loganwing with Grey Knights Test List

Logan Grimnar
Wolf Guard x 4 w/Bolters, 1 WG Terminator w/Power Axe, Cyclone
Wolf Guard x 4 w/Bolters, 1 WG Terminator w/Power Axe, Cyclone
Wolf Guard x 4 w/Bolters, 1 WG Terminator w/Power Axe, Cyclone
Wolf Guard x 4 w/Bolters, 1 WG Terminator w/Power Axe, Cyclone
Wolf Guard x 4 w/Bolters, 1 WG Terminator w/Power Axe, Cyclone
Wolf Guard x 4 w/Bolters, 1 WG Terminator w/Power Axe, Cyclone
Land Speeder, Multimelta x 2
Land Speeder, Multimelta x 2
Longfangs x 4, Multimelta x 4, Pack Leader, Drop Pod

Inquisitor
Strike Squad, Extra Strike Squad x 5, Psycannon x 2, Psybolt
Strike Squad, Extra Strike Squad x 5, Psycannon x 2, Psybolt
Interceptors, Extra Interceptors x 5, Psycannon x 2, Psybolt

67 Infantry, 3 disposable vehicles

Thoughts welcome. 

Why Are People Still Liking Fex Stars?

I've been wrong before. In my mind, it goes without saying that when I say something, anything really, it's prefaced by an imaginary "in my opinion."

It's hard to argue about maths, because you can be either absolutely right, or absolutely wrong. Sometimes I've made mistakes, and in those instances I'm absolutely wrong. More often than not, I get the maths right, and then I'm right.

But saying that something has X probability of Y occurring, is not the same as saying that X is best. There is no magical "mathematical formula" for creating lists. Math can inform decisionmaking, but it cannot make decisions. Never has, never will. You can try and incorporate as many different variables in as many different ways as you can, but you will never capture the subtleties of threat ranges, movement options, hell, base sizes, footprints, etc. It's almost impossible.

But sometimes you can find a truly "apples to apples" comparison.

The Fex Star versus the Tyrant Star.

So... this is a debate that went on and on between SinSynn and I back in the day. One of my favorite ever internet debates.

And at the end of the day, we left neither of us having convinced the other. But now it's a new edition, and a new debate.

So, let's clearly define our terms:

Contender A, the Tyrant Star:

Hive Tyrant, Devourers x 2, Tyrant Guard, 260 points.

Contender B, the Fex Star:

Carnifex, Devourers x 2, Tyranid Prime, LW/BS, 285 points.

As I understand it, Kirby has used the Fex Stars, and seems to think that the Fex Stars transfer well to 6th. I, too, have suggested that Fexes with Devourers make a great tool, once your HQ slot is used up.

But I would offer that if you are going to be using your HQ slots for Primes and attaching them to Fexes, that the Hive Tyrant with a Tyrant Guard is a superior option.

Firepower: Identical.
Combat Ability: Fex Star is the winner.
Durability: On its face, the Fex Star is the winner (one extra wound).
Heavy Armor Killing: When smashing, identical. If Smashing is not needed, the Fex wins. Usually. (See below).
Psyker support: Ohhhh wait. Guess the Tyrant wins this one.
Army support: I keep looking in the dex, I don't see any options for Preferred Enemy Bubbles on the Carnifex. Heh.
Vulnerability to Jaws: Tyrant wins hands down.

So for 25 points cheaper, I'm thinking I will be sticking with the Tyrants. The addition of the psyker abilities is huge. If I want to, I can splurge and grab a 2+ save, or get a Preferred Enemy bubble. *shrug* I like those options.

NOVA Open DRAFT FAQ's Released

Here is the link.

A few things that affect Tyranids directly.

A Flying Monstrous Creature which fails a Grounded test must still be hit only by snap fire, and can be Grounded again that same turn (thus suffering an additional hit). As is mentioned in the FAQ, I think GW will ultimately change this, but for now NOVA is going with the RAW which helps FMC quite a bit.

Multiple applications of Enfeeble from different sources are "different" and thus stack. This is a big one.

I would encourage you to give them a thorough read-through, and if after reading Mike's post on the topic you have further questions or challenges to the rulings, post them up in the appropriate place (detailed in the FAQ).

Thanks again to Mike and his crew for all their hard work under such short time constraints.

Here's to You, Nikephoros - Making Sense of the New Hull Points Maths

Ok, so Nike has made a rather interesting tool and posted it up on his website. He essentially is performing what is called a "Monte Carlo" or resampling approach to attempting to determine what the odds of killing a vehicle target are. It's a fine approach, and in fact Monte Carlo methods are the cutting edge in statistics right now, and allow you to do lots of things without having to make messy assumptions about the data you are working with.

But it's not my preferred method for Warhammer, for the simple reason that I feel like I 'own' the data more if I actually calculate these probabilities myself. To be clear, I'm not saying that you 'need' to know any of these things to be good at Warhammer. At all. But I enjoy working with numbers, and find that it actually makes me a smarter person to go through what are essentially uber cool word problems.

I mean imagine if you were sitting in 5th grade math class and your teacher reads you the following problem:

Quick And Dirty Batrep Nids vs Necrons

Got a game in today against a foot-heavy Necron army. Just a friendly game, he doesn't have many vehicles for his army yet. He did have one Command Barge which was a pain in the butt for exactly one turn.

Lessons learned: Stay out of close combat with Lords with Mindshackle Scarabs. Those things are stupid. Lol. It doesn't help that I can't seem to roll ten or lower on 3D6 to save my life. It does result in nice spawning rolls though!

The army list functioned exactly as intended. At the end of the game I had a Tervigon, a Dakkafex and a Hive Tyrant and would have tabled him the next turn but we called it. He had 20 Immortals, a Lord, three units of Scarabs, and the rest were Warriors. And the Overlord on Barge of Obnoxiousness.

I eliminated all three units of Scarabs on the first two turns, by debuffing them to Toughness two and shooting them with lots and lots of devourer shots. He grounded my Hive Tyrant and managed to assault it with a Mindshackle Lord and killed it in one round. I hit myself three times, wounded myself three times, and he finished me off with a Warscythe. Ridiculous!

But after that it was just a matter of shooting and assaulting down his hordes of foot sloggers.

This game proved nothing in terms of the effectiveness of the army as a whole, but it did show the validity of some of the individual tools in the toolbag, and gave me more experiencing with the Psyker powers, maneuvering the Flyers, debuffing things, etc.

So a nice little game, and now I'm home for more painting. I want the Nids to be FINISHED before Dark Angels come out, because they are one of my main armies (I play Guardians of the Covenant, a successor chapter) and I'm sure I'm going to go bananas when they drop).