Weekly Battle Report Intermezzo: Team Tournament at Valhallas

So, last Saturday (the 29th) myself and my friend Angry Richard took off for a tournament about an hour away in Denver.  The place we played at was Valhallas, at which I had never before played a tournament.  The tourney scene in Colorado is pretty big these days, and we ended up with 34 (or thereabouts) total teams.  For three games total in a battlepoints format, it essentially meant that to win you needed to get three pretty solid wins.

Now, for those of you not in the know, my friends and I are prepping for the Adepticon Team Tournament (Team DoG FTW!) and we've decided to take Orks.  I don't want to reveal too much about what we're doing (since that seems to be the custom), but me and Richard had originally decided to take our unpainted (as yet) Orks to the Tournament.  However, due to models not coming in the mail fast enough, we lacked the number of Battlewagons we wanted for the Team Tournament (we wanted 4 for 2500 points), and so we decided to bring a couple deathstars.

I brought my Wolfstar + a little support, he brought a Nobstar +ghaz and some boyz/lootas.  Our reasoning was thus:

• Kill points were at a minimum- we had a total of (I think) 13 in 2500 points
• My wolfstar is silly when combined with Nobz
• We couldn't make use of a KFF Mekk + Ghaz, since they couldn't use eachother's rules
• Team tournament games tend to take forever.  We wanted to reduce our own time we spent moving models so we could finish games faster

So, we took the following lists:

Wolfstar:

Wolf Lord w/ Thunderwolf Mount, Saga of the Bear, Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield, Wolftooth Necklace, Wolftail talisman, Runic Armor
Wolf Lord w/ Thunderwolf Mount, Saga of Majesty, Wolf Claw, Storm Shield, Runic Armor

8x Grey Hunters w/ Wolf Standard, Melta Gun, Rhino (+ Wolfguard w/ Fist/combi-melta)

4x Longfangs w/ 3x Missile Launchers (+Wolfguard w/ nothin')

4x Thunderwolf Cavalry w/ 2x Storm Shields, 1x Thunderhammer

5x Wolf Scouts w/ Meltagun (+Wolfguard w/ Fist/combi-melta)

Nobstar:

Ghaz

8x Nobz w/ 8x Cybork Bodies, 8x 'Eavy Armor, 4x Big Choppas, 3x Klaws, Painboy, Waaagh! Banner, Bosspole, Battlewagon w/ Deff Rolla, Boarding Planks, Red Paint (troops!)

18x Slugga Boyz w/ Nob w/ Power Klaw, Boss Pole

15x Lootas

Battle Wagon w/ Deff Rolla, Boarding Planks, Red Paint

heh, and that's it.  You'll notice we only had a total of 3 troop choices.  That was alright to our estimation, because in mission 1, non-troops could score, and the other mission with objectives was capture and control, which only requires a few troops to do well (or so we thought).

So, we got there, and it was pretty packed.  Lot of future nerdsweat coming our way

Game 1:  Us vs. Blood Angels + Pedro Marines

Here are their lists (from memory):

Blood Angels:

Mephiston

5x Assault Marines w/ Melta, Infernus Pistol, Power Weapon, Razorback w/ Assault Cannon
5x Assault Marines w/ Melta, Infernus Pistol, Power Weapon, Razorback w/ Assault Cannon
10x Tactical Marines w/ Melta, Las Cannon, Razorback w/ Heavy Bolter (combat squadded)

Baal Predator

5x Sanguinary Guard

I think that's it.

Pedro Marines:

Pedro (duh)

5x Scouts w/ Power Fist, combat weapons
5x Scouts w/ Power Fist, combat weapons
5x Marines w/ Razorback w/ Lascannon
5x Marines w/ Razorback w/ Lascannon

7x Assault Terminators w/ 7x Thunderhammer/Stormshields
6x Sternguard w/ various combi-weapons

Land Speeder Storm w/ Melta
Land Speeder Storm w/ Melta

So, they had lots and lots of scoring, with a few really strong close combat threats (as in, Mephiston and the Terminators).  They also had some reasonable shooting, though I think we had too many hard-to-kill targets for their shooting to be too effective.  The game was destined to be determined in Close Combat.

The mission was 6 objectives, and we took turns placing them, pretty equidistant from each other, really.  You'll see the pictures, eventually.  The deployment was weird.  We started on the short table edges, and each team member got a half of that.  Again, you'll see.

So, they won the roll to go first and took it.  I noticed that they had the two Landspeeder Storms early, and we deployed as such: (as always... if you want bigger pictures CLICK ON THEM!)

You'll notice the bubble wrap we put around the Battlewagons.  Scouts alpha-striking the wagons would make this game immediately one-sided.  You can't really tell here, but the Blood Angels player is across from me, and the Pedro player is across from Angry Richard.

It was Objectives, and lots of their stuff was going to be out of range anyways.  So, we decided not to try and seize.

Pedro Angels Turn 1:

Their storms did their scout moves, and then moved their regular moves.  One approached my Long Fang squad, and the other approached the center, since we had taken away the Battlewagons as a target.  Their army moved up in general.

Shooting didn't do much.  He shot at my longfangs, and maybe killed one (maybe not?), and then charged with his scouts.  His Sergeant with a fist whiffed thankfully, and I think it was a push, with each of us losing a guy.  This combat lasts for a while, with lots of terrible rolling happening on either side.  I won't mention it again until it's finally over.

See...just a general move-up.  His storm in the middle is perfect bait for my wolves to charge to get into the center of the board and bait his units into charging them.

Wolf/Orks Turn 1:

Orks got back in their wagon and advanced toward the middle.  Grey Hunters got out of their ride, and prepared to frag the storm closest to them.  Wolfstar approached the other storm.

In shooting, Lootas killed a random Razorback.  Not sure whose, honestly.  One of the Las Cannon ones I think.  The Grey Hunters failed big time to kill the storm, and so charged it.  The Wolfstar moved up and charged the middle storm.

Both groups failed to do much to the storms, immobilizing the center one, and weapon destroying the one next to my longfangs.  Yikes!

Wolfstar is there, awaiting a Mephiston that you can't really see to jump pack in there, so I can deal with him before I deal with anything else.

Pedro Angels Turn 2:

They moved up again, and decided to target my Wolfstar in shooting.  It didn't do a whole lot.  The Blood Angels player didn't take the bait with Mephiston, unfortunately.

In combat, I ended up killing off the Storm, since it was immobilized.

Notice the Storm on the far left, where he turbo-boosted it away so it could later contest something. 

Wolf'/Orks Turn 2:

Well, this was the turn to do something good, we thought.  The scouts came in, and I chose to have them try and frag his Baal Predator next to Mephiston.  The wolfstar split up a little bit, with the Majesty Lord going off to attack his Sanguinary Guard, and the rest going off to be potentially butchered by Mephiston.  The Nobz came out, and prepared to multi-assault a combat squad and the scouts from the middle storm.

Shooting was a bit of a fail for us, since only the lootas got to shoot, and they failed to do anything of note.  The scouts however, did bring down the Baal Predator.

In combat, Mephiston hit the squad 5 times, wounded 5 times, and killed 2 of them.  My Bear Lord swung 6 times, hit 5 (cuz he always hits on 3+) and wounded all 5.  The other hammer wasn't even necessary. The Majesty Lord mega-whiffed and only killed 2 Sanguinary Guard, but took no wounds in return.  The nobs charged in and also mega-whiffed, killing only a handful of guys from each squad.  They'd be in range of the Termie squad next turn it looked liked.  The Grey Hunters also megawhiffed and failed to kill even a single scout with their ridiculous amount of attacks.  /sigh

It looks like I have things tied down on the right flank- he has 3 SG left against my I5 wolf-claw character, and Meph is gone, as is the Baal pred you can see there.  Only a single Razorback w/ assault squad remains.  The nob fight is about to get interesting though...

Blood Pedros Turn 3:

 They don't have a lot to do, really.  The razorback that Angry Richard's loota's had whiffed on hit the side armor of the empty battlewagon and exploded it.  Other random shooting and shuffling didn't do a whole lot.

In combat, I finally killed the scouts.  My Majesty lord again mega-whiffed and only killed a single SG.  The nob combat got interesting quick, as 7 TH/SS termies charged into them.  We were lucky though, because only three got to swing, and failed to kill all the nobs.  In return, the nobs finished off both squads it was originally fighting, and killed 3 terminators.  They ended up actually winning the combat, though the termies were stubborn due to Pedro, and stayed in combat.

Can't really see the big fight in the middle that well, even if you click on it.  Sorry 'bout that.

Ork Wolves Turn 3:

It was time to throw what we could into the fray:  the 18 ork boyz.  The nobz wouldn't live without reinforcements.  Otherwise, my thunderwolves got ready to charge the Sanguinary Guard, and the Orks got ready to charge the terminators.  The grey hunters + scouts got ready to shoot his nearest razorback.

In shooting, my single remaining Longfang turned around and shot his land speeder that had been hiding on my side of the board.  Explosion :)  Lootas did what they do best and killed his razorback that had killed the battlewagon.  GH + scouts whiffed on his razorback, and got ready to charge it.

In combat, the ork boyz rolled bad to hit (21 out of 68 swings), but rolled this to wound (needing 4's):

So... instead of the statistical 17 wounds caused on the charge, we did... 2.  Which he promptly saved.

The nobz did a little better, killing a couple of Termies, and holding.  Ghaz had stayed in his ride, and took a swing at a random rhino (or razorback?) next to the Battlewagon with boarding planks, wrecking it.  My Majesty Lord finally rolled well against the final two guys, and caused 5 wounds total, lol.  He consolidated next to the remaining squad.  GH/scouts again failed to do much to his razorback- weapon destroyed maybe.

So, as you can maybe see, we're doing pretty well right now.  To get a massacre though, we need to control 4 more objectives than they do.

Pedro Blood Turn 4:

They did what they could- shoot a little bit, and assault with the Blood Angels inside the Razorback.  Not much happened.

In assault, the nobz all died, but killed the last terminator.  Boyz consolidated toward the Sternguard/Pedro.  His assault squad couldn't hang with the GH, who won combat, but stayed locked in.

We had a discussion about if I could hit his razorback in combat if he hadn't moved his vehicle and my squad was still in B2B.  He maintained that I couldn't, even after we showed him the rule.  I decided that I was alright with not doing anything, rather than get in a big debate.  Sometimes you gotta take the higher road, heh.

Rest of the Game:

We pretty much cleaned them up.  I'm not sure if we entirely tabled them, but we ended up damn close.  Here are some pictures.

Heh, they had no shortage of Razorbacks this game.  Here's the last one.

Non-troops can hold objectives, so we ended up holding 5/6.  As it turned out, we missed out on a bonus point because we didn't hold the 'same' number of objectives.  This is important later.  :(

So, we ended up getting a massacre (20 points) + 4 bonus points.  We discovered that some teams had 8 bonus points, so we wouldn't be at the 'top' table.

These guys were lots of fun to play, despite the slight rules altercation.  They were there to just have a good time, and wreck face as necessary.  They ended up getting two very convincing massacres in their other games.  I guess they just needed to warm up a little bit!

Game 2:  Works vs. Black Templars and Tau!

So, we had done well the game before, and we needed to keep it up.  Here are their lists (from memory):


Templars:

Emperor's Champ (duh)

5x Crusaders w/ Melta and Power Weapon (maybe these guys were actually veterans?)
5x Crusaders w/ Melta and Multi-Melta
5x Crusaders w/ Multi-Melta

5x Assault Terminators w/ 3x TH/SS, 2x LC
Dreadnought w/ Assault Cannon/Power Weapon

10x Assault Marine guys with Jump Packs
Heavy Bolter/Assault Cannon Speeder

Predator w/ 3 Las Cannons (forgot the 'official' name, heh- is it annihilator?)

Tau: (also from memory)

Commander Shas'o w/ 2x Shield Drones, 2x bodyguard guys, all w/ auto-cannons, and other shooty implements

8x Fire Warriors
8x Fire Warriors
8x Fire Warriors

3x Crisis Suits w/ auto-cannons, other shooty stuff

8x Pathfinders w/ Devilfish

2x Broadsides w/ Shield Drones
Hammerhead w/ Rail Gun

So, the classic 'you shoot, I'll assault' combo.  It can be effective for sure, and a huge number of teams were trying to employ this tactic.

The mission was a weird version of Dawn of War/Capture and Control.  Each team got to deploy an objective according to how the rules normally work, and then the Primary objective in the middle was placed.  You needed to control the Primary in order to control either of the secondary ones.  It was the mission we had dubbed as the 'auto-draw' mission.  Pretty hard to get a win at all, honestly.

We won the roll to go first, and gave it to them.  Having the final turn in objective missions is usually invaluable.  We also had a weird deployment- any three units from a team could deploy, so long as one player didn't get all three units.  I thought this was an advantage, but I now think that may have been an incorrect assumption.

So, we put down the lootas, and the Bear Lord w/ Thunderwolves.  Everything else would walk on the board.  Look at the weird terrain, lol.  They put their pathfinders next to their objective.  Hopefully you'll be able to see it a few pictures on.

Templars/Tau Turn 1:

There was also the weird rule that we would potentially be playing night fight either at the start of the game or the end of it.  We rolled for the end portion, which didn't affect anything.  But, it meant that turn one wasn't nightfight.

They rolled onto the board, and shot a bunch at my Wolfstar.  Lots and lots of failed saves for me, though I didn't lose anyone this turn.

Team Awesome Turn 1:

We rolled onto the board, and shot at some stuff, but failed to kill any of the crisis suits we targeted.  My Wolfstar rolled a "2" for their difficult terrain, followed by a "1" for their run.  So, they made almost zero forward progress.  I had been hoping to charge his speeder or something.  They were for sure within 18" or so. 

 

See my wolves on the left?  They're sad-faced :(

 Templars/Tau Turn Two (haha alliteration FTW):


They moved up, and shot at us.  I think they killed my entire wolfstar besides the Bear Lord (who had 1 remaining) after another series of poor rolling for them.  I think they might have killed a couple of lootas as well.

Team Awesome Turn 2:

We decided this was the turn to start doing something.  We ended up charging on the right flank (popping the Waaagh!!), with Nobs matched up against the assault marines, and the Boyz + Ghaz matched up against the Terminators.  On the left, my Bear Lord wanted a little revenge, and charged the Shas'o + Bodyguards.

The combats had mixed results.  The Assault Squad disappeared, as did the Shas'o + Squad.  The Terminators however, rolled well on their saves, and I think only lost a single LC to the Boyz' Attacks.  Maybe a storm sheild as well?  Anyways, that assault in specific was a big flop.  

There's the Emperor's Champ + his squad in the back, waiting for the countercharge.  This picture was taken before models were removed, to add to the epicness of it all :)

Tau/Templars Turn Three:

They positioned their army to shoot at the Nobs, and so they shot and shot, and Richard failed and failed on his save rolls.  I think they ended up killing all but 3 nobs with small arms fire.  meh.

On the left side, they shot at my Bear Lord with 1 wound remaining, but failed to kill him.  I was just about to get really happy when his Dread walked in, caused a single wound to my Bear Lord, and killed him before he could strike back (and kill the thing).  Dangit!  Somewhere along the way, they also slagged one of our battlewagons.  Good round for our opponents for sure!

One fun event happened where Ghaz squared off vs. the Emperor's Champ.  Ghaz ended up causing a single wound to the Champ, but the Champ failed his Invulnerable Save, and insta-died.  One ray of sunshine :)

Team Awesome Turn 3:

Well, we had to keep on truckkin'.  My Majesty Lord was still kicking around, and this turn he decided to make himself useful.  He approached one of the Templar combat squads on the left, and ended up charging them, killing 4, and breaking the last one (who somehow escaped).  The nobs approached another Templar combat squad and got ready to assault it, hoping they could hold on. 

As an aside, my wolfscouts happily jaunted out from behind their lines, and got ready to multi-charge a squad of fire warriors + pathfinders, who were sitting on the objective.  They ended up breaking the pathfinders off the board, but the fire warriors stayed.  That's a good result, if you ask me :)

The Ghaz + boyz combat vs. the termies wore on.  We killed a few of them, they killed a few of us, and I think we ended up winning.  The Champ's squad ran away, while the termies stayed.  The nobz ended up failing their terrain roll, and didn't get anything done this turn.  Terrible.  :-p

Well... I guess they get to charge again, if we don't break them first.

Rest of the Game:

Well, the pictures are sort of spotty from here on out.  Richard kind of forgot to take any pictures after a certain point, so I'll just narrate as the pictures are shown.

They killed my rhino, but my Grey Hunters were at least close to the main objective.  The dread got in combat with my Majesty Lord and they stayed locked in assault for the rest of the game, since his CC weapon got shot off by some enterprising Lootas.

This combat dragged on.  Ghaz killed lots of guys.  He's seriously a badass.

Ghaz + 2 boyz ended up winning the combat.  If they could survive....

But sadly, it was not to be.  They ended up dying.  Scouts ended up multi-assaulting another two Tau firewarrior squads and killing them off as well.  Scouts tearing it up this game :)

In the end, they had a single guy sitting on their base, and some random fire support elements left.  We had my Grey Hunters (3 of them) sitting on an uncontested objective, and some lootas.  Pretty bloody game- the best, if you ask me :)

We agreed to end it, and it turned out to be somewhat of a mixup!  They thought that the main objective was their own, not the one in the center of the table.  We thought it was the one in the center of the table.  It turned out that we were right, and we pulled a minor victory off, plus a few random bonus points.

These guys apparently had some issues with us after the game.  They seemed nice enough to us, and I thought we had gotten along with them fine, except for one altercation with Angry Richard living up to his namesake, but I thought it was overall alright.  I think they thought we were cheating with wound allocation or something- they were doing it in a way reminiscent of 4th edition (pick up a pile of dice and roll saves) and we kept asking them to do it differently.  Hopefully that's what it was.  Anyways, I hope they aren't still angry- I thought it was a very amicable game overall, and despite the how small our win was, it was very fun :)

Game 3:  Orves vs. Guard + Chaos Marines


Here are the lists (from memory):


Guard:

Company Command Squad w/ Plasma Guns, Chimera


Veteran Squad w/ Demolitions, 3x Melta (in Vendetta)
Veteran Squad w/ Demolitions, 3x Melta (in Vendetta)

Leman Russ Demolisher
Leman Russ Demolisher
Leman Russ Demolisher

Vendetta w/ HB
Vendetta w/ HB

Chaos: (from memory)
 
Chaos Lord w/ Slannesh Demon Weapon

Bunch of Chaos Marines.  Honestly, I don't remember the exact mix.

5x Rhinos

1x Chosen squad w/ 4x Plasma

It was a cool army, with lots of marines/Slannesh cult troops.  There was a ton of armor on the board.

The objective was Kill Points, with a weird deployment, and it let us put our models pretty close to eachother to start.  They won the roll off to go first, and took it.  You can see our deployments here:

See my thunderwolves... they're within charge range to start it all off.  Lootas are on our far left.  Battlewagons wanted cover, so they hid behind the crystal.

 Chaos Guard Turn 1:


Scout moving the vendetta on the left, the scouts got out and prepared to shoot the Lootas.  Other general shuffling around, lots of dangerous terrain checks taken, none failed.

Shooting was a little sad.  They killed one of our battlewagons, despite cover saves, with a single Vendetta, and killed lots of Loootas, who held.  The russes failed to hurt my Thunderwolves however.  Spread to maximum coherency, the Bear Lord weathered the brunt of his templates.

In assault... the veterans assaulted our 8 Lootas, and... killed them?  Yes, they killed every single one of them.  Sad turn indeed.

Works Turn 1:

This is where things start to get fuzzy.  My Majesty Lord split off to go deal with his Veterans who had just butcher our Lootas.  The rest of my Wolfstar failed to really get into position to do much, with a terrible terrain roll.  Everything else moved up, we got the Boyz out of their wagon, put the disembarked Nobz into it, and rolled up 13"

Shooting was awful (maybe I shook a vendetta with longfangs?) and combat nonexistant, except for the poor veterans, who were mauled beyoned recognition.

Kill Point Count:

Wolves/Orks: 1
Guard/Chaos:  2

Guard/Chaos Turn 2:

Lots of shuffling around again, lots of disembarking of men to shoot my Wolfstar.  Not a lot else to be done.  In shooting, my saves were above average for sure on my wolfstar, only losing two.  My Majesty Lord, who rolled somewhat terribly (which made up for my good rolling on the squad) and promptly died.  Nothing else died though, and it was our turn.

Wolves/Orks Turn 2:

This turn was somewhat epic for us.  Seriously... it's a little nuts.

My scouts came in from behind, ready to shoot his Chimera w/ CCS in the back.  The battlewagon deff-rolla'd one of the rhinos, and wrecked it, moving through it and shaking a Russ.  The nobz got out to assault the squad of Chaos Marines inside the wrecked rhino, while Ghaz stayed in the ride to swing at the Chosen rhino.  Grey Hunters moved up and disembarked next to a Russ, ready to melta.

In shooting, they melta'd the Russ, wrecking it.  The Scouts wrecked the Chimera.

In assault, my hammers assaulted a rhino and the unhurt Russ, and destroyed them both.  Ghaz wrecked the Chosen rhino.  Nobz murdered the Chaos Marines.

That makes it... 6 vehicles destroyed this turn, and a squad.  Awesomesauce :)

Think this is where this picture goes.  Those wolves on the left corner are casualties, not still alive :)

 Kill Point Count:
Wolves/Orks:  8
Guard/Chaos: 3


Guard/Chaos Turn 3:

They basically shot, and failed to do a whole lot.  My two remaining wolves were still alive, and ready to be assaulted.


In combat, my hammers killed a bunch of guys, including the Chaos Lord.  Both survived though.  Poor guy couldn't roll a 5 to save his life :(

Orks/Wolves Turn 3:

We continued our rampage.  I think the Lord/hammer guy stayed stuck in combat, but killed a bunch more guys, including a full squad.  Nobs made short work of the CCS.  Ghaz killed his last Russ.  Grey Hunters murdered the Chosen.

I'm pretty sure this is the last picture we have.  I'm not even sure if it's the right one, lol.

Kill Point Count:

Wolves/Orks: 12
Chaos/Imps: 3

Rest of the Game:

We just kept at it.  In the end, my wolfstar died to two remaining chaos marines.  Otherwise, we killed their entire army.  At the end it was fun, a vendetta wouldn't die, and ended up tank shocking enough things that it earned them a few kill points.  It was somewhat surreal.  We needed 7 more kill points to get a massacre, and a massacre we got, if barely.

These guys were fun to play against as well.  Nothing bad to say about it, they were lighthearted about it the whole time though, and I enjoyed myself for sure.  This game was on the 2nd table, and so we knew we needed the full points to pull off a win.

Tournament Results:

We ended up taking 3rd place.  Some guys on Table 3 ended up winning the whole thing (Wrecking Crew) and some kids at table 1 who won their game got second place by a single point over us.  Should have paid more attention to bonus points, I guess.

As it was, it was a fun tournament, and the prize support was really good.  For our efforts, me and Richard got (in total) 2 Wych squad boxes and 2 Warrior squad boxes.  First place got (in total) 2 ravagers, 2 raiders, and (I think) 6 other Dark Eldar boxed sets.  Pretty darn cool :)

It was a fun event overall.  I'm not really a big fan of winning all my games and still not 'winning' the tournament- I'd prefer some sort of W/L system I think, but since nobody wanted to play 5 games in a day (lol, besides me :-p) I guess we'll have to make due with battle points.

So, a good event.  I'll go again next year if they have it.

Thoughts?  Questions?

Hopefully soon I can get my Practicon tourney report up.  Stay tuned :)