MOAB Batrep, The triumphant return? Options

[ArchonCryx]

MOAB was an absolute blast, I had an excellent time.
As for army list, with new DE so tantalysingly close, I couldn't bring myself to field tyhe boat army again. Besides the Mechanicus get's better painting and composiyion scores, and Im having a lot of fun with it. So I figured I'd give the Mechanicus another roll!

My list is int the army list thread/ it's just SM parent with DH, an ][ Lord, shooty retinue, a MoF on bike w Conversion beamer, 2 plasma heavy tac squads, storm troops w Meltaguns, , a rifleman dread, and a thunderfire.

I started up vs Duncan and managed a tidy 36pt win. Sorry Duncan, I remember we had a pleasant game and naturally I enjoyed having a win, but after 10 games I am a bit hazy to remember exactly what army you took! At least I remembered your name! I do remember the game was fun and I thought Duncan had a fun time, even when having to take a big loss., I remember giving a commensurate sports score as I was well met. EDIT: It must have been Eldar... even more remarkable that I should forget playing against an army I run myself!

Julian Space Wolves beat me quite easily. I deployed poorly, as I should have split into combat squads but for whatever reason didn't. I then set them up in a position Julian could ignore them yet be able to contest their objectives in the end game, I should have played much better than that!

Andrew Carlyon was a warrior-heavy Nid army and I Killed nearly all of them (except half a dozen gaunts left lurking in the forest.) ANother big win to help me get over what Julian had done to me.

Peter Carlyon Space Wolves with Land Raider full of B-Css with Ragnar for +D3 attacks each on charge(and still getting +2 should he roll a 1 according to the SW fac… nice), + 2 GH squads in Rhinos backed up with a twin Melta Speeder and beat me quite convincingly as I failed to do anything to the LR and had probably deployed too close to it anyway. I remember feeling the army was pretty hard at the time but maybe that was circumstances more than anything real. Being harder than my mechanicus may merely make a list average, rather than neccessarily hard.... Go go alliteration!

Day 2:

Started off after player's choice vs. my pick for it: Yuri's beautiful looking Ultramarines and had Tigurius SIcarius*, 2 tac squads, a couple of Typhoons, Razorback, Rhino, a MM Dread, a Rifleman dread (duelling Riflemans!) a Predator with Lascannon sponsons, another with Hvy Bolters

* EDIT: I dunno where the heck Tiggy comes from, I full well knew it was Sicarius because he got to use his gorram reroll and seized the initiative, not to mention explaining how the tac squad arrived on my immediate flank. I fully am using a Drop Pod in my next Mechanicus list!

I managed a technical win by holding 2 beans to one. The score, however, better reflected the game, as Yuri had pretty much dominated me, even though I tried to kill his scoring units, Tiggy Sicarius + a couple survived and he managed to maul me back especially with a drop podEDIT: The Tac squad that out flanked right next to me (But far enough away to avoid the mystics - er - they outflanked, so they couldn't help (i sort of feel either Mystics or the ]['s Auspex really *should* have a chance to work, but I'm not the rules designer...)) and all I managed was to cut down his scoring units enough so I could win the primary, in doing so I lost an awful lot and so he deservedly picked up the secondary and tertiary missions so got more points than me. A good game vs a stunning army played by another real gent who I'd not met before. I really enjoy facing new (to me) opponents. I got lot of that at MOAB this year, around 50% of my games were vs. new faces which is excellent.

Round 6 was probably against Henry, who's shiny bugs with Hive Tyrant and scoring Tervigon were quite enough to get the win off me. My sneaky play with the chimera full of Skitari brought his big victory back to a minor one and also got me the secondary bonus and "enemy in deployment zone" bonus, also denying him the "no enemy in your own DZ" point… J


After losing 3 in a row in rounds 4 and 5 + 6, I figured I was well out of it and stopped keeping track. I remember Jeff asking me my battle popints on Monday morning and I had not a clue as to what it might be, I expected it to be relatively low.

It may have been round 7, that turned out to be the last game of Sunday (as we had to be out by 6, yet round 7 wouldn't finish before 4pm at earliest) when I faced Archer's lovely and tough sounding CSM army with Winged Slaneshi Daemon Prince with dreaded lash, 2 squads of 8 Khorne Bezerkers, and 2 squads of summoned Demons. He had 2 defilers with lascannons for his heavy support. I almost thought it was a daemonic army when I saw it, and the army looks great! I love seeing Dryads used as Daemons, and certainly in this army the new Horrors looked quite good imho, even if the beaks are a little odd looking.

Round 8 went pretty strongly, managing to win very convincingly over Archon Eugenic's DE:

He brought DE (sorry man, I should have leant you mine as you'd asked):
Archon Punisher, Torm Helm, Cds. SF, P Gs, Animus Vitae
Dracite Agr, PG, CD pistol
8 Wyches, W Ws, P Gs, Succubus w Agr
8 warriors, SC, Bl, Syb Pbs Xenospasm, Raider DL, Night Shields
8 warriors, SC, Bl, Syb Pbs, Nightmare Doll Raider DL, Night Shields
10 warriors, 2 DL, 2 Bl
11 warriors, 2 DL, 2 Bl
Ravager w Dis and 2x DL Night Shields
2 x Talos

I won the roll off and took 1st turn, knowing full well that despite being an objectives mission, I didn't want to give no stinking DE Xenos the pleasure of first turn like they will want! Never give DE first turn people!
I set up semi defensively, but mostly good lines of fire. There was plenty of LoS blocking scenery on the table so this could be interesting.
Eugene then rolls a 6 for "Seize the initiative" and I know he's got 12" drug on the Wyches (he even told me during deployment, I thought about it for a few seconds, then realised I'd have to limit myself to a slightly less than 3" wide strip from my table edge to be certain of avoiding a potential 33" charge from his 12" line.

So it wasn't a huge surprise when his Wyches rolled a 6 for fleet and his Archon rolled a 5, thus seeing them well within their 12" charge range and I knew they'd reach me despite being in terrain. The Wyches + Dracite were just horrible, and killed 6 marines in turn 1, they proceeded to munch through both my tactical squads, lucky for me this is kill points, I'd be in real trouble with objectives.

The Archon, however, was less brilliant, biting off more than he could chew by attacking my inquisitor retinue. I'm a firm believer in not sending Archon's alone vs big squads. While I only made two wounds, and before I could ask him to roll sequentially, Eugene roiled both together and came up a 1 and a 3! While I was faintly annoyed that it may have been 2 wounds, I was delighted to see the SF gone and figured it was likely I could eventually kill him just with the retinue. It took another 2 rounds, and I only had the ][ lord and 1 sage left alive, but I had killed his Archon for another Kill point and preserved my own. Clearly he should have charged the thunderfire, which in my turn 1 used the "ignore cover" rounds to kill off a stack of sniper warriors, who obligingly failed their morale check and fled off the table like the weak Xenos scum they are! One of the Plasma Cannons blew up his Raider and killed 4 of the warriors, who managed to pass both pinning and Morale checks, curse their Xenos hides! I also had some luck vs one of his Talos with the Rifleman Dread, I figured there was no other good targets (Dread couldn’t see a raider or ravager) so just thought "what the heck" and opened up against the nearest Talos. I made 3 wounds and poor old Eugene failed all 3!

Turn 2 he opens up with the Ravager again and this time I manage to bring the thing down with a Conversion Beamer shot (the Conversion beamer doesn't mind Night Shields much, so what if it goes down to S8 vs a Raider anyway? The Ravager, however, was about 49" away, and thus even -6 was at full strength.

So even as I remove the last model from my poor old tacticals vs Wyches, I realise that this is Kill Points and calculated I had managed to collect about 7 kill points and that my whole army only has 8 Kps in it's current form. I was going to send the dread in vs the remaining wyches after the stormies shoot them up (which the stormies did, killing all but the succubus, darn it) but after that success didn’t as I figured the Ravager was now a bigger threat. And so Eugene managed to take out my 2 servitors and my Master of Forge with that darned Succubus who passed yet another Ld 8 morale test, then finally she was left in the open vs. My Psycannon and angry Storm troopers, she died… I'd lost 4 Kps, Eugene had lost at least 11 (I thought I had killed 11, he said it was more, it didn't matter as a difference of 7 was already more than double the count required for the maximum win! J



Anyway, I guess it was round 9 when I had a great game vs Adam Jenkinson that I ended up losing due to a single model and someone turning off my guns from turn 5 on! He has
Dante
5 Sangunary Guard, PF, 2x Inferno Pistol
5 Sangunary Guard, PF 2x Inferno Pistol
5 Sangunary Guard, PF 2x Inferno Pistol
5 Scouts w Sniper Rifles, Missile Launcher
1 Sanguinary Priest, jump pack, BP + CCW.
Typhoon
Typhoon

It was Dawn Of War setup and Adam had given me first turn. I expected he would deep strike with everything so deployed in an anti deep strike formation but with the ][ retinue in the centre of the table spreading the mystics to maximum and ready to walk into a forest on his side vs an expected empty table unless the scouts risked my auspex.

Instead Adam sees the opportunity my ][ now represents, sets up a Sang guard squad front and centre in a forest with the Scouts tucked over on the right. He further surprises me by declaring a 2nd Sang Guard will walk on, just Dante+1 squad will DS. Speeders also move on in turn 1 (that wasn’t a surprise)

However I was encouraged as I managed to wipe out all but one of the Sang Guard facing me, along with devastating the scouts.
At this point I'd realised I'd forgotton my Auspex, and I had indeed managed to roll high enough to see the scouts, Adam graciously allowed me my free shot a bit late and even offered to increase the number of hits but I said no this is my actual shooting, the first was the auspex, sp just tale/allocate/wound shenaigan as normal. So he did so, and kept the ML Scout alive.

The next few turns I'm up to my arms in dealing with his Sang Guard, and thanks to the Plasma Cannons, manage to keep their numbers down, although I managed lots of ordinary wounds, Adam was making 2+ saves like Lady Luck's favourite. Thank Ghod for my Plasma!

I thought I was in trouble, with my tac squad in combat with Dante and just 2 x 3 man remnants besides them, I fear Dante + the 1 or 2 Sang Guard would rampage through all my guys. Then Adam finally failed a couple of his 2+ saves and my PF had to hit Dante, I manage to wound him once and Adam fails the Iron Halo save. I fully expect him to simply remove one wound when Adam informs me Dante isn't eternal… huzzah!

Adam is now down to the 2 speeders and the ML scout. It is turn 5, I have 3 scoring units and hope to hold 2 objectives. I have the chimera, which I piut a marine inside in case the 3 man SM squad can't hold it. Everyone's moving so I have little shooting, and all of it is concentrated on the scout. Meanwhile his pesky speeders wont die with the conversion beamer now scattering uselessly. If the game ended on turn 5 it would have been a win to me, or turn 6 it would have been a draw as I managed to not kill neither his scout nor the speeders and he gradually killed my scoring units.

On turn 7 it might have been a draw but first a Krak missile blows up my chimera, killing the marine inside who failed his save, then 2 frag missiles + Hvy Bolters from the last speeder killed my last 2 marines

At this point I'm hoping with a lot of luck and a big finish in the final round I might just scrape in to the top ten.

I now faced Adam, a gamer I haven't met previously, who brought a nice different green tau. It suited the tau and was neat, always helps make a nice table more enjoyable. It was a great little table filled with the best of Jason's terrain, including a huge center terrain piece which we re arranged to take pride of place at the centre of the table. I diligently refrained from trying to boost the darn thing (Ive made that mistake in Dawn of War before when Ive bolstered a central ruin only to transpire that it advantages the enemy rather than me…

The Tau was:
Comander + 2 Suits and shield drone Fusion + Mls
3 stealths 1 fusion B
Monat w ML + Plasmarifle
Monat w ML + Plasmarifle
6 Fws
6 Fws
15 Kroot, inc 4 hounds, Shaper
15 Kroot, inc 4 hounds, Shaper
Railhead
Railhead

Given I'm shooty marines without much mobility it shouldn’t have been a huge surprise to be outshot by Tau. What really caught me out though was all those Kroot getting the correct flank and while I could manage to deal with one of those squads, both arriving in the worst spot together overwhelmed me and tipped the balance irrevocably in his favour.
We got to turn 6 and time was close when we rolled a turn 7. I said I just wanted to see if my marines might survive to contest a bonus point or something so rolled 12 dice for saves and failed 7 of them, leaving one marine who promptly failed his morale and ran off the table. There was no solace for me in this game, the Tau had won convincingly!

No wonder I wasn't hopeful of a toip ten after losing more than half of my games! I only won 4 games, unless you count the game where I won the primary but Yuri got more bonus points to finish with a higher score.

Jason read the results from last to first, everyone got a prize (a $10 voucher on purchases over $30 in a new LGS, not bad at all just for showing up!) Then he reads out number 10 and I'm relieved I haven't heard my name yet, happy to make the top ten so as not to disgrace my return from last year's lucky win.

9th, 8th....

How high did I get?

7th...

6th, with best army composition, Alex Ozanne... I can tell you I was extremely happy, and army comp is one of the reasons I brought the Mechanicus, so I felt vindicated on that score, likewise painting. Given my W/L (Just 4 wins ffs, even if I did try for secondary bonuses a lot) I am very stoked and figure it's a pity I didn't manage a couple more wins as who knows where I might have gone had I done so. But a beautiful cap off to a great weekend as always.

A very fun weekend and good way to spend my birthday, thanks to all for the nice birthday greetings.

Full props to Jason for another fun weekend. I personally appreciated the 10 rounds over 11 and suspect we will be playing a different format next year. The numbers were good, so let's get them up over 50 for next year!

This post has been edited by ArchonCryx: Oct 7 2010, 10:04 PM

[infermofperpus]

Nice wrap there mate. But I had Sicarius... not tiggy It was also 2 x MM HF Speeders, and at no time did I drop a drop pod on you, my tac squad outflanked and said hello to your Forge Master.

But our match, I feel, was the best match I had at MOAB this year. You were an absolute joy to play against, and I really loved your army. Lots of work went into it.

Cheers
Yuri

[AJenko]

Really enjoyed the game, and nice report. A couple of Problems with the above.

Andrew Carlyon was using Daemons not Tyranids....

Sang Guard had:
2x Inferno, Power Fist
2x Inferno
1x Power Fist.

[Lief]

Andrew Carlyon was using Daemons not Tyranids...

Yeah... without a doubt my worst army match up, but a great game none the less! Thanks for the game Alex! I had a blast being blasted to pieces! haha

Lief