Three fun games for Ard Boyz this year and I met some very tough lists. I managed to pull out third (4 points from second) and plan to attend the next round in Tampa. Here is my list, matchups, and brief battle reports.
Altansar 2500 pts
[Ground Team]
HQ: Avatar (Eater of Worlds)
Heavy Support: Wraithlord (x2 Flamer; Bright Lance; Missile Launcher)
Heavy Support: War Walker Squadron (x6 Scatter Lasers)
Troops: 10 Wraithguard (Enhance; Spiritseer; Witchblade)
[Air Team #1]
HQ: Eldrad Ulthran
Elite: 10 Howling Banshees (Executioner, Acrobatic/War Shout)
Wave Serpent (Shuriken Cannon; Bright Lance, Spirit Stones)
Troops: 10 Dire Avengers (Bladestorm; Defend; Power Weapon; Shimmershield)
Wave Serpent (Shuriken Cannon; Bright Lance, Spirit Stones)
[Air Team #2]
Elite: 10 Fire Dragons (Dragon’s Breath Flamer)
Wave Serpent (Shuriken Catapults, Scatter Lasers, Spirit Stones, Star Engines)
Troops: 5 Dire Avengers
Wave Serpent (Shuriken Cannon; Scatter Lasers)
Troops: 5 Dire Avengers
Falcon (Holo-Field; Shuriken Cannon; Scatter Laster)
Game 1: Chaos Space Marines: Thousands Sons [Minor Victory+4]
Reserves played the biggest part here as every turn 1 – 2 of his units would come in facing the range and depth of my entire force. The Daemon Prince didn’t come in until turn 5 and right next to a squad of Fire Dragons in cover that where able to bring it down before things got too nasty. I was able to continually pop vehicles with a full turn of shooting and then mow down the survivors with the War Walker Guided Scatter Lasers. This was a solid victory, but neither one of us had many troop choices to begin with. The last turn I pulled my 5 man Dire Avenger/Wave Serpent squad off an objective by accident, and instead of shooting my last Wave Serpent at 3 models I had to Star Engine it onto the objective to fix my mistake. The 3 unscathed models went on to contest an objective costing me a Minor Win instead of a potential Major Victory.
MVP: War Walkers, even after losing all weapons the last Walker was able to assault a small squad of Chaos Marines and tie them up for the rest of the game.
Game 2: Chaos Space Marines: Deathguard [Tie+2]
Trying to squeeze victory points from the toughest, most resilient army (T5/FNP/Raider) force on the table was fun at best. I have a new respect for Summoned Lesser Daemons and how they can quickly add a ton of extra bodies/attacks to a combat making a huge mess of things. My Wraithguard where attacked by Khorne Berzerkers and they held. I counter attacked with Doom/Banshees which killed everything except Kharn, then he counter attacked with a unit of Plague Marines and a 10 stack of summoned Lesser Daemons. It was a huge mess, but the lesser daemons where the big surprise. War Walkers didn’t come in until the 5th turn and where out of range/place for the rest of the game, Dire Avengers with Bladestorm where stuck in an immobilized vehicle that was being blocked by a small Daemon Spawn group. At the end of the game I lost around 1600 points to his 1400, creating a net loss of 200+ for a close Tie. This game reinforces the need for me to work on my short game. Land Raiders always fool me with that 20″ Assault potential and I have a hard time recognizing the threat range at a glance.
MVP: none, this game was a train wreck. I played poorly and barely made it out alive. I should have deployed the Walkers on the table instead of Outflanking and I should have kept my teams together in tight formations instead of responding so easily to baiting. I tend to play very carefully, but it was one poor match up after the next forcing me to fight for a tie and claim table quarters.
Game3: Imperial Guard [Massacre+4]
This came down to a bad deployment. The table was heavily populated by thick terrain and he spread all of his heavy weapons on the right and all of his chimeras on the left. I deployed everything on the extreme far left (out of range) and managed to quickly engage everything and stay out of template threat. I created as many line of site problems as I could and even charged a unit of 30 Guardsmen with the Wraithlord to keep him out of AP3 gun threat. The Avatar managed to stay in combat with a stupid 10 man squad of nothing for 4 rounds by wiffing his hit rolls. My Outflanking War Walkers had some juicy targets on either board side but we ran out of time on turn 4 and they never made it into the game. Total was 17 – 5 Kill Points.
MVP: Wraithguard and Fire Dragons where the stars of the show blowing up everything they looked at. 6 Wraithguard went in one AP3 Template, and 3 more fell to a weird Assassin guy, but the last Wraithguard and the Warlock blew up 3 vehicles by themselves in shooting and assault. That Warlock needs a medal, every game against IG he single handedly destroys 2 – 3 vehicles once his squad falls to AP3 weapons. You think I would learn my lesson and give them Conceal!
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