Dauric Duatch visit ACT to harvest HOps for Stout, Wind up harvesting quite a few souls as well! Options

[ArchonCryx]

I always look forward to Stouthammer now, loving the concept of bringing a softer army and try to concentrate on *all* aspects of the hobby including great sportsmanship.

Mark and his team have done a commendable job of converting the desire for a well rounded event into such a well conceived reality.

I brought my usdual favorite army, DE, and in an attempt to help my comp score tried to avoid too many of the obvious choices and cut down on Dark Lances. I tried to avoid duplication, using only one of each unit type, breaking my restriction just once to have 2 raiders for the Wych Variants.

Baron Sathonyx + 13 Hellions, Helliarch Agr
Haemonculus w Shattershard and Hexrifle
9 Bloodbrides, 3 Razorflails, Syren w Agr Raider FF/NS
20 Warriors, 2 SC
5 Wracks, Liquifier Gun, Acothyst, Venom 2 SC
10 Wyches, 2 Shardnet, Hek w Agr, Raider FF/NS
6 Reavers, 2 Heat Lances, Cluster Caltrops
Ravager 3 DL, FF/NS
Talos w CHain Flails, Ichor Injector
Razorwing w 2 DL, SC FF/NS

That makes 7 Dark Lances plus 2 Heat Lances for ranged anti-tank. That's a pretty low number of anti tank for any army at 1850, let alone DE, so naturally I needed good secondary anti tank options and thus put Haywires on the wyches and have the Talos handy to get me out of trouble when required - a Talos is a better vehicle killer than a dark lance if it's close enough! Hellions can also make reasonable anti tank with Baron's S6 on the charge quite handy and witht he strength drugf and 2 pain tokens the entire squad can dish out 39 S6 attacks plus the Baron's now S7 attacks - yep, this can rip through an Imperial Guard tankline pretty quick smart, especially if they were stationary!

Given this is Stout and we are all aiming for good comp, I also figured vehicle heavy armies would be more of a rarity and thus building a heavily anti-infantry army is probably quite a sensible option. All that poison slows don anything with toughness... I don't care if you have 2+ armour with FNP, those shots will take their toll!

1st game was a grudge vs Jay Lajtar, who had brought along Jeff Dunster's Doomsday Guard.

Yarrick
Command Squad in Chimera?
Psyker Battle Squad in CHimera
6 x Penal Legion units
Devil Dog w Hvy Flamer
Hellhound
Vendetta
Manticore
Death Strike Missile
Death Strike Missile

I won the rolloff for 1st turn and it took a bit of time for us to both deploy our supernumerous armies. We didn't seem to be dragging the chain but the clock was ticking faster than we were! The early game saw me suppress rather than destroy several of his tanks/Vendetta but that was enough to allow my fast flankers to come into his tank lines on my left half. With the large numbers of infantry on the table, I found it fairly easy to accumulate pain tokens and so by the time I got close to the vehicle line I had Furious Charging Hellions who had luckily rolled up the +1 Strength drug. Since we basically mashed up in the middle, I had to clear Shakey off the objectives before I could start accumulating points for them.

His first Deathstrike woulde have been very nasty if it didn't scatter as it would have hit heaps of the 20 man unit - instead it scattered 9 inches and rolled up a 6" radius, managing to just hit 6 or 7 warriors. If the shot hadn't scattered he'd have hit all 20 plus probably grazing a few other models as well... Shakey's luck was also pretty poor with his Manticore stubbornly rolling 1 shot and tended to scatter more often than not. Hi9s Psyker Battle squad also managed to fail their psychic check when trying to weaken resolve of my Hellions, who would have fled if the spell had worked.

I seriously had no idea how badly we were going for time, completely missing the 30 minute warning and with my back to the timer. I was feeling a little guilty when Mark came over to annouince time was up and I'd only just finished the top of turn 3. Effectively, Shakey didn't get a turn 3 at all. Still, he recognised the timing issue was a joint effort - netiher of us had particularly played slowly, but nor did we inject enough urgency into proceedings...

Nevertheless, between Shakey's bad rolls and scatters and my good rolls and fairly successful flank push, it was pretty clear where the battle was headed. Despite not accumulating enough of a points gap to secure victory, I would likely have continued to collect 2pts per turn from that point and may well have made a big gap if we had 6 or 7 turns.

I was happy enough to settle for the draw particularly as I had secured the secondary objective (I'd killed Yarrick for a second time and Jay ruled that since the game had ended he counted as destroyed) and I think 12.5-7.5 reflected the battlefield situation pretty well - I was in the ascendant but due to poor time management failed to secure a complete victory.

So I sort of "won" my grudge and avoided the ignominy of wearing bunny ears for the rest of the tournament. I did wonder though if Shakey might well be the man to shame me by finishing higher in the overalls - a 5pt gap isn't much of a margin and Jay's a darn good general, he may well get some bragging rights at the end if he does well from here.

Instead, I get a pink bow tie, apparantly all my opponents are on notice that I am to be targetted to avenge my poor grudgee! I do like all these fun extras Mark throws in, keeps things interesting for everyone throughout.

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Round 2 Colin Keith's beautiful yellow Ultramarines (well, they're led by Tigurius, so.... )

Tigurius

9 Sternguard 5 combi Melta/4 combi Plasma/Sgt has Lightning CLaw
Dreadnought w Assault Cannon + Storm Bolter

10 Tac Marines, ML/Melta/Power Weapon
10 Tac Marines, ML/Flamer/PowerFist

5 Tac Marines, Twin Las Razorback
5 Tac Marines, Twin Las Razorback

Land Speeder

Thunderfire
Land Raider

This was a Table Quarters mission with % Kill Points- I reckon I stuff spearhead edeployment up more than any other type of deployment so am always wary about where and how I deploy. I deploy the 20 man squad in a forest in my centre, with the Talos alongside the left (with a gap left between the warriors large enough for the talos to move through). The raiders are split one per flank, similarly the razorwing/ravager, and the Venom behind the Hellions next to the warriors. Basdically I have the army poised as close to the centre as I can without leaving my flanks vulnerable> The entire army ready to move in either direction in response to opponent's deployment and threats.

I am still quite perplexed why Colin chose to split his 2 Tac squads into combat units but I wasn't going to complain as Colin's decision means we are on equal Kill Points - 14 each. I guess that will make the maths easier in the end as well!

Colin spreads his deployment with most of it sensibly deployed deep but I am practically licking my chops as he deploys a 5 man combat squad into a forest - well within 1st turn assault range of a host of my units *cue evil grin* I guess he figures it's a good bait unit so he can drive up his Land Raider full of Sternguard surprise into my ranks...

He uses infiltrate to get his scouts into a ruin in the lleft corner - looks almost like a stepping stone for a squad as they move towards his centre.

For the first time in ages, I feel confidant in using the old "envelop" tactic vs marines again and it goes extremely well. In turn 1 I have the Bloodbrides assaulting that 5 man squad in the forest - unfortuantly wiping them out right away, but happy enough to be in cover with a pain token! the Hellions have picked up their first token after killing another 5 man squad as the gun boats proceed up my left flank and attempt to suppress his firepower. The Razorwing turbo boosts this turn, with no obvious target in sight.
Colin does reasonably well in turn 2, bringing down 2 of my vehicles and shaking a 3rd. His Sternguard pile out of the land raider and try to scare me by using their "ignore cover" rounds, but the Bloodbrides are content to take FNP and only 2 of them die - insufficient to even force a morale check! Tigurius' Vortex of doom is an abject failure, wounding just 1 who passed her cover save. It doesn't matter that the land raider has stunned their Raider now, they have a target in mind close enough!

iirc the Reavers now come into play, destroying the Land Raider, while the Bloodbrides play with Sternguard and Tigurius (not before they'd been softened up by the Razorwing - which didn't leave a lot left for the Bloodbrides!)

The Hellions now start rolling through 5 man squads and picking up tokens. By turn 3 they multicharge a 5 man unit and Thunderfire and manage to pick up another 2 tokens by the start of turn 4. They are running low on live targets but manage to find one more combat squad to accumulate a 5th token. At the end of turn 5 when the game ended Colin only has 2 units left - a damaged razorback and a combat squad. I'd lost just 3 KPs and had killed 12 for a difference of 9KPs. Amusingly this wasn't quite enough for the victorious slaughter but I was quite happy with the win, a very successful victory in a game that had basically gone exactly to plan.

Wow. I imagine there's another Marine chapter that has D'Auric Duath firmly recorded in their book of grudges...
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Round 3 Andrew Hardaker's Legion of the Damned/BA Codex

Now here's a lovely looking army, and I feel privileged when facing such an army that is full of effort with lots of Old Skool models, with a lot of moulding and sculpting - including every flame on every shoulder or leg being carved from greenstiff! - and looks schmick as schmick! I can't remember the exact list, but it was based off Blood Angels and went something like this:

Captain Tycho (Death Co version)

6 Death COmpany with Power Weapons and Bolters

10 Tac Marines, ML/Melta/PowerFist, Rhino
10 Tac Marines, ML/Flamer/Power Weapon Rhino
10 Tac Marines, ML/Plasmagun Rhino?

Land Raider (Old Skool model )
Predator
Whirlwind

I spent most of this game just gushing over his fantastic models. They aren't overstated at all and I suppose he'd argue the process wasn't utterly difficult but it sounded amazing to me. He essentially took the old skool metal Legion figures and made bones and details based off those in greenstuff to apply to plastic marine figures. Painstaking work but it's paid off big time with a lovely looking army that isn't overstated.

This was the "Rescue your commander" mission, so I was missing my Baron who was deployed in the deep left flank, so I put his Tycho as deep as I can (within the rules) in my right hand corner. Despite losing the Baron's abilities, I still won the roll off for deployment and decided to devote the main part of my army to rescueing the Baron with the Hellions to be involved in the push forward, essentially making me into a flanking army on the left hand side but with a strong centre element to pivot around. The Talos was slightly more right and the Wracks were deployed close enough to guard Tycho.

Andrew deployed his army more spread out, with his Whirlwind hidden behind a handy building in the centre of his DZ. His Land Raider was more to the right and he combat-squadded 2 tac squads to roll down the right towards his Tycho. My ploy of leaving Tycho apparantly alone seemed to have worked in helpoing convince Andrew he only needed a medium force on that flank to get to Tycho. My plan was to surprise him using long range and speed!

And that's essentially how the game went. My great speed meant sending the Hellions, Wyches, reavers, and warriors up the left hand side towards the Baron well and truly got Andrew's attention as he devoted most of his efforts to stopping or at least slowing down my advance, including most critically diverting the Death Company/Land Raider away from Tycho's flank and into the teeth of my dark lances and Bloodbrides waiting to pounce. I pretty much one-shotted the Land Raider and the Brides were only too happy to mopp up the remaining Death Co after they'd been fed some poison fromvarious quarters. While I did lose all my Hellions (*sniff*), the Baron was rescued by the Wyches who all quickly became involved in a melee vs the last of Andrew's Tac squads on this flank.

On Tycho's flank Andrew has been copping occaisional snipes from the odfd spare Dark Lance and so forth. After resquing the Baron in turn 2 I can now divert most of my offensive firepower against this flank and by turn 4 I've destroyed his last rhino + 15 of the 20 marines in that area and he has one combat squad closing to within 12" of Tycho. I decide to gamble that the remaoining 4 Wracks can at least slow them down for another turn and prepare to try to charge which wasn't a foregone conclusion, the wracks would have to assault through about 9" of cover without fleet *and* use their flamer on the way (Since that is probably their very best chance for killing all the marines, or making them at least flee). I was definitely a bit nervous when the Wracks only made a 4" move to begin with (I certainly didn't *know* the exact distance) and then only rolled a 4 for the AP of the flamer. The flamer hit 4 marines and managed to kill one. I admit hjolding my breath a bit when I rolled for the assault move, figuring the wracks would die if facing the marines and whatever other firepower might be directed at them. The dice ghods smiled upon me as one of the dice came up a 5 which was sufficient to reach b2b. The marines managed to kill one of the wracdks but the wracks were apparently quite angry, hitting with 11 of their attacks, and wounding with 8 of them. The marines obliged us by failing 4 saves, failing morale, being caught and then failing another save to be wiped out!

At this point, Andrew conceded and I went back to learning more about how he'd made these fantastic models. I had no trouble making the secondary and so secured my only 20 pointer for the weekend


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Round 4 Geoff Susel Herohammer Grey Knights.

Draigo
Librarian w Warding Stave, several powers incl the I10 and Might of Titan

Vindicare Assassin
Dreadnought w 2 Autocannons/Psybolt

Paladin w MC Daemonhammer Storm Bolter/Psybolt
Paladin w MC Halberd Storm Bolter/Psybolt

Storm Raven w Multi Melta/Assault Cannons/Hurricanes
Storm Raven w Multi Melta/Assault Cannons/Hurricanes

Dread Knight w Hvy Psycannon + Hvy Incinerator
Dread Knight w Hvy Psylencer + Great-sword

Geoff's a great friend and we play a lot of games casually in Satmaka's garage. Geoff had been practising a lot with the army and Satmaka felt it was a bit harder than we initially thought. Still, even Geoff was a little surprised at just how well he was performing. While I hadn't faced it myself, I'd watched a game as Jason Miller took it apart using the Deathwing I was to use at the ATC< so I was being very attentive and learned a lot about Geoff's army at the same time.

I freely admit I was quietly confidant that if I played well I should have enough tools to do the job. But I would need to be careful and not lose my head.

Of course, this was Stouthammer. So was I really going to be Mr Srs BZns in a game at Stout in the Hangover round? Particularlaly against Geoff? No freakin' waaaay man!!!

This was the inebriation mission so we had to roll off for placing objectives. There was a huge crane about 10" tall in about the centre of the battlefield. Any chance of Srs Bzns gaming went right out the window as soon as Geoff won the roll off for objectives and place the first one perched atop the crane! It turned oput he actually had a plan in mind for capturing it had he had first turn (and, er whoops, if the game *wasn't Dawn of War which, unfortuantly, it was) however it became academic since I won the rolloff for deployment and was determined to be the first to secure that bl00dy beer barrel on top of the crane!

Geoff and I revert to complete Garagehammer gaming by this point, so he is arguing how am I going to keep the hellions in coherency and so I am being a smart aleck by hanging the hellions off their hooks in the crane bracings to keep the bases within 2" of each other. And then work out I can even secure a second objective with the same squad. I *might* have been able to get a third but that would have been crazy!!

Now in full Garage hammer mode I continue to deploy with the 20 man squad deployed quite forwards, although with a congaline backwards so as to be ready to welcome the paintoken giving Haemonculus who, along with the rest of my army, shall walk in on turn 1. iirc Geoff deployed nothing at this point. He fails to seize and so I proceed to have turn 1.

Inebriation checks at -1Ld, take one per objective held at the start of your turn.... uh-oh! My Hellions + Baron would need to take 2 inebriation checks at Ld8! Of course they fail, at least I can consoile myself that I am likely to win the secondary already, but those Hellions are looking a bit vulnerable with all those stormravens about to enbter the fray.

Not to be outdone by poor hellion deployument, I then get the idea into my head that it is essential to give the hellions cover so they have a chance vs. Hrricanes, so turbo boost my reavers to land in front of a long leg of the hellions. Now how was that going to help vs Stormraven Hurricanes is anyone's guess!

The fits of garagehammer induced madness continues as I also move my warriors forward to get close to another beer keg, I think I hope to get them drunk as well and give Geoff no hope of winning the secondary....

Geoff now gets a choice of errors to exploit but makes some counter blunders as well. To deal with my now 21 man warrior+ Haemmie blob he moves a stormraven on 12", hops out with draigo, Libby, and Paladin (this was his error, he should have at least kept the paladin in the ravenm, and probably one of the characters as well) who then are close enough to charge those warriors I'd foolishly ran forwards. The warriors die, losing 8, and fail morale, and start fleeing. In other shooting he destroys the Wyches' Raider, killing 6 wyches in the explosion to boot. the Bloodbrides' Raider is stunned. He completely ignores the Hellions, but manages to kill some reavers with some spare shots.

Turn 2 and the bar's open. Drinkies!

My warriors keep running as Draigo/etc are within 6". Maybe I can rally them next turn with some luck? I feel like Ive been a real numpty, particularly as I fail the second inebriation test for the Hellions again! OH well, what can I salvage? Hmm, that 3 man unit is a massive threat to my entire army, and is also half his scoring units that he needs to secure beer kegs... As much as I can, I point pretty much the entire army at these 3, and hop the bloodbrides out of their stunned raider to move up ready to strike if required, saving their fleet roll until after especially the razorwing has fired! The Razorwing opens proceedings with a very impressive round scoring aover a dozen wounds and managing to take at leasty 1 wound each off all 3 models! Everyone who can see/within range fires, even the warriors who are fleeing manage about a dozen shots. By the time the smoke clears there is one model left - the Paladin - who the Bloodbrides confidantly charge, although I worry they will have to face shooting immediatelty thereafter. *Wrong* they'll have to wait until Geoff's following turn to face his guns, as it takes them an annoying 3 rounds of melee to finally kill that darn Paladin! *then* they get to face the wrath of both his dreadknights.... oh great!

Geoff turbos both his stormravens forward, keeping the warriors running and I assume preparing for a clear shot at the hellions next turn. HIs Dreadnought again stuns my Bloodbride raider. I now see that if I can be a little lucky this turn then I should be in ascendancy, so go for it. Removing the warriors and haemmie was a bit dissappointing, and I was now so used to seeing the Hellions fail their inebriation check that it came as no surprise when they failed again. I was beginning to worry I was going to have them out of the game for far too long and be in trouble somehow. At least the secondary looked secure!

I position the Razorwing and Ravager to face one of the stormravens, while the other is the target of my Talos - yes, this time Geoff had come too far forward! Fortune smiles upon me as I get a couple of penetrating hits from dark lances and Geoff fails both his turbo saves, and I explode the thing! Then the Talos manages to get stuck in with 4 attacks and manages to roll a single 6 to hit but it's enough as I penetrate and explode the second raven!

Okay then, well, if I'm going to have turns like these two then maybe it doesn't matter if the Hellions are stuck?

Geoff is down to just his 2 dreadknights and dreadnought so we get through his turn 3 pretty quickly and I'm starting my turn 4 when I suddenly realise 2 things.... Firstly, it was beertime again, but secondly: "Hey Geoff, didn't you have a paladin in that stormraven I blew up?" In the spirit of fair-play, he decides to have a go at charging the Talos with it. Sadly for the Paladin, my dice are hot today so even though I only caused a single wound that got passed his invul save, he then needed a toughness test to survive. This is from the moderately expensive Ichor Injector I have never used but included in my cost because it looks so cool on the model.... Geoff obligingly rolls a 5 and so my Ichor Injector works and my Talos is free to go and help the last bloodbride who's furiously trying to fight off a dirty great Dreadknight. It came as a a real shock when the Hellions finally passed! OH wow, I can extricate them! I decide they can leave that barrel of beer on top of the crane after all as they slowly snake their way off it, taking dangerous terrain checks as they go. They are now able to shoot up the second dreadknight with poison, and then charge in, relying on the agoniser to do the job.

We get to turn 5 and now Geoff's down to his Dreadnought only. In the interests of finishing things quickly, and without actually looking at the mission rules, I decide to casually calim one objective with my Wracks. As we start the epilogue and I offer Geoff his dreadnought shooting, one of us picks up the mission paper, and we realise it's only a draw with one objective I say "Okay, roll for turn 6" which we get. Still being far too casual and quick, I move a single hellion into b2b with a second beer barrel to represent the squad taking it. I don't bother with any shooting although I still have 4 lances available (2 on a damaged ravager, 1 on a damged razorwing, and 1 raider)

Shenanigans continue as Geoff then cheekily moves then runs his dreadnought towards the beer barrel, planning to contest it by being within 3"! Now I start getting a bit desparate and want to claim my shooting, but it fails anyway. We roll for turn 7 but it fails to materialise. Finaslly I check the mission again and clarify with Mark that to contyest an objectoive opponent needed to assault me, not just be near the objective. As a last hurrah while filling in the SPorts, Geoff announces he won't gove me the 1st box but the next 2 would be okay (before ticking all of them)! Anyone watching would assume we were getting a bit too serious, but the peals of laughter may have clued observers in that this was all in fun. 15pt win to me.

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Round 5
Sean Wellsmore had a Tzeentch inspired Daemonic army which looked like fun to me. We had to lol that this was in the special escalation mission - well that wouldnt effect either of our deployment decisions, since I will always reserve all or nearly all my army vs daemons anyway! I decidced to deploy the 20 man squad with Haemmie with thoughts it might bait him into leaving a squad or 2 of horrors bunched up if he gets the wrong wave, ready for my razorwing to then wipe off the face of the earth!

Greater Daemon of T
Bluescriobes
5 Horro squads
3 flamer squads
2 Soul Grinders

Was a brutal slog and we had to play quickly toi finish but I was just able to hold him off one quarter while contesting 3 myself. Good sports on both sides and Sean was an astute general who was unlucky at times.

Short but sweet, I manages another small victory here which put me on top of battle points. I hoped that might see me to the popdium but in the end I was very happy to accept Best General

;Thanks to all.

[Zoyga]

I am still quite perplexed why Colin chose to split his 2 Tac squads into combat units but I wasn't going to complain as Colin's decision means we are on equal Kill Points - 14 each. I guess that will make the maths easier in the end as well!

That was basically the idea - keep it level on KPs.

Colin spreads his deployment with most of it sensibly deployed deep but I am practically licking my chops as he deploys a 5 man combat squad into a forest - well within 1st turn assault range of a host of my units *cue evil grin* I guess he figures it's a good bait unit so he can drive up his Land Raider full of Sternguard surprise into my ranks...

Actually, its the first time in all the comps I've played that I have been assaulted from an open-topped vehicle! I thought I would have a round of shooting before you hit. So that was a lack of experience, combined with a lack of thinking (perhaps encouraged by a couple of stouts!).

Colin does reasonably well in turn 2, bringing down 2 of my vehicles and shaking a 3rd. His Sternguard pile out of the land raider and try to scare me by using their "ignore cover" rounds, but the Bloodbrides are content to take FNP and only 2 of them die - insufficient to even force a morale check!

Didn't realise they had FNP - total waste of the Sternguard.

Tigurius' Vortex of doom is an abject failure, wounding just 1 who passed her cover save. It doesn't matter that the land raider has stunned their Raider now, they have a target in mind close enough!

Actually it was Smite - but still useless!

Amusingly this wasn't quite enough for the victorious slaughter but I was quite happy with the win, a very successful victory in a game that had basically gone exactly to plan.

I was very surprised that you didn't make the 70% threshold - you deserved full points. You were also unlucky there wasn't another turn - I would have been gone.

[Eldar_Storm]

cool battle report! well done on best general Alex!!

[Satmaka]

Great report Alex, good to see the Baron kicken ass and taking names

[alpha_and_omega]

bwahahahaha game vs you was EPIC!!!

"hey, look, a crane!! Great place for an objective!!"

Best game of the entire weekend buddy. Lots of fun, especially after turn 5 beer run...

those damn hellions failing their drunk test 3 times in a row ensured you the 2ndary mission.

"Yep, I'll deploy these 20 warriors at the 24" mark, then move a little forward..." Good idea Alex?

In the long run, it probably was, leaving my 3 man deathstar unit stranded in the open

Lesson learned, when playing with 10 models and 2 scoring models, do not hop out deathstar into a 20 man unit... Would have been way better off hopping Draigo out on his own.

Great game all the same!