Before
starting on the batreps a little context. The format of this tourney is very
different from what you are used to.
Let us call it the Berlin format.
The Berlin
format
First, you
do not have a roster. You bring 2 lists 125 pts and before the game starts you choose
from one of the list. The reason that the TO gave to me why he does that is
that he can control the lists but not the teams or the roster. With a roster
your opponent got to control you and he does not want to add this to the
pressure of the tournament especially since there are a lot of “casual” players
participating (I got to give that to him, 2 of my 4 opponents only had 1 list).
He wants it to be a fun and safe environment and to be able to take out the
“bad seeds” at the list control.
On that point it was a success, everyone I
played/interacted with was great and not one tried sneaky stuff!
Second, the
mission is the same for all the games, only the terrain change. You can find it
here (in German)
In short, for these of you that do not speak German:
There are 4 secondary objectives:
1- Control
more objectives than your opponent at the end of the game. On each map there
are 5 objectives markers, one in the middle, one in the middle of each quarters
of the table (for 1 CP you can harvest a marker that you control at the end of
a turn and it counts as an objective you control).
2- At the
end of the game you have more unshaken models in the deployment zone of your
opponent than he does.
3- Your
enemy has more points out of action than you have
4- Your
opponent has more specialists out of action than you have.
For each
you get 1 victory point. You get to choose one of them as a primary objective
and if you get it, you get 3 VP instead of 1. But you can only pick each
objective as primary one time for the whole tournament.
Arena is not to be used.
One
important point: The scouting phase is to be used normally (which turned out to
be a BIG deal in some games)
If you win
the game you get 5 pts, 3 for a draw, 1 for a loss. That determines your
ranking. VP differential in games is the main tie breaker. So with 4 close
wins, you could win the tourney.
The
planning
Looking at
the online registration, I saw that there was 3 Grey Knights players and 1 Thousand
Sons. I play Chaos Space Marines. These are some of my worst match ups. I
therefore decided early that my main list would be a classical cultists
semi-spam that works well against all-comers and for my second, it would be an anti-psyker list.
I did one test of
the mission with my main list against DG and I won 5-0. So I was feeling good
about that list:
-
Cultist
Leader with Pistol and brutal assault weapon
-
CSM
gunner with Plasma gun (Sniper)
-
Aspiring
Champion with Power fist and plasma pistol (Combat)
-
Berserker
Champion with Power fist and chain sword (Veteran)
-
2
Cultists gunner with Flamer
-
1
CSM gunner with Hv. Bolter
-
4
Cultists with Autoguns
-
4
Cultists with Pistols and Brutal assault weapons.
So 15
bodies.
The plan is to use the Serker as a bowling ball to try a T1 charge on
my opponent weak side (i.e. without a Melee specialist), send the AC after him,
use the Hv. Bolter to get some long range support and then split the rest into
2-3 groups of cultists with the flamer and Plasma supporting them. With these I
should be able to grab objectives and occupy my opponents deployment zone.
Alternatively they can turn into kill group to target models. Cultists hunting
in packs can get the job done with a little luck.
The second
list is my anti-GK list (could work against 1000 s or DW):
-
Cultist
leader with Shotgun
-
Plasma
sniper
-
Hv
Bolter, Heavy
-
Terminator
with combi-plasma and lightning claw, Comms
-
Berserker
Champion with combi-plasma and Power Sword
-
2
Cultist gunners with Hv Stubbers
-
5
Cultists with Autoguns.
12 Bodies
The idea is
to shield the CSMs from the Psybolts with the cultists, use the Sniper, Comms
team to take out a model a turn and harass them from afar with the Stubbers and
Hv Bolter. Not the best plan, but it is the only one that I could come up with.
The trip
I left at
6h30 am with a 3 hours drive in front of me. There was a moment of panic at the
start as my GPS did not recognize the address (it is technically a private
street owned by Siemens AG). Found the nearest cross road and off I was. Yes I
ended up on an Autobahn and yes there were no speed limits…
The
arrival
Smooth
registry, quick look at the various boards to see the amount of terrain on it, a
quick hello and chat with Marauder33 and I got my first match up against
Necrons on the Starship map i.e. an Arena map with no Arena rules.
Game 1
NECRONS!!!!
From the
get go my opponent got dealt a big blow by the TO that ruled that on this map
there was no way to move through the walls (he was Nephrekh dynasty) so with that,
he lost his faction advantage.
For the record, I disagree with that ruling, he
should have been allow to use his faction trait, it is only on advances anyway. But the TO is always right.
His list
was: Immortal Leader with Gauss, Deathmark Comms, Deathmark Sniper, Pretorian
Zealot, 4 Flayed one and 1 warrior.
I was expecting a DS from both Deathmarks,
but he put 3 flayed ones in reserve.
Seeing the
labyrinth before me I decided to place 2 models in reserve (plasma and AC) and
picked having more models than him in his deployment zone. My plan was to try
to rush cultists to the zone.
In the
shooting phase I picked Traps and he picked Shoot Sentries.
I Veteran
moved my Serker to set up a T1 charge and failed it (Same thing would happen on
T2). I moved to cover 2 objectives and left a hole in my screen and he DS his
flayed ones there, I then outflanked on his side of the board my 2 guys.
Yep I
played it wrong, in my head it was 1 CP for both and not just 1 model. I was
convinced of this and was shocked when I got corrected later on (more in game
3). However I realized that he also played it wrong since one of his Flayed one
was closer than 5’’ of my nearest model, there was a spot, but the whole base did not fit in. So we could say that we both set up 1
model too much.
I was not that much concerned with the Flayed Ones as I had a flamer near by that could hit all the Flayed
ones….then I rolled 1….I gave one a flesh wound
(the flamer would die the next turn killed by a Flayed one). So at the end of turn 1 we each had to deal with enemies in our deployment zones.
Deployment zones and troop movement Game 1
Red: CSM
Green: Necrons
My plasma
took out one Deathmark, the Pretorian moved to block my rushing cultists, my
Serker came to help them, failed miserably, even if I used decisive strike, and
was killed, my Hv. Bolter eliminated one Flayed one, cultists were dying and
then Pop, the cultist that will not die made his 6+ save (the only I
made in the tournament) pinning a Flayed one. Pop has a long story of doing
this, he killed an Ork leader and a DG Aspiring champion. In all the games I’ve
used him, he never died.
Pop, blessed by the Dark Gods!
My opponent learned a lot in this game as I controlled
objectives through walls and did fall back shenanigans to pin his Flayed Ones.
The later, he had never seen and I called the TO over so that a third party
explained the rule to him. He looked at me and said : “Well played…”
At the end
of turn 3, with 15 mins on the clock, my opponent was winning (more points
killed, more objectives). I offered him to stop since it would be a challenge
to do 1 turn in 15 minutes and it could only worsen his position. He said that
he wanted to play until the end of the allocated time and stopping now would be
unfair for me. So we wrapped this in 14 mins. I think my opponent lost track of
the objectives because he retreated all his models that my AC charged (moving
them out of his deployment zone) and moved his remaining 2 Flayed one off
objectives and one out of my deployment zone so that at the end of the game I had a
4-1 win (control more objective, occupy the enemy deployment zone (primary) vs
killed more points).
Necrons cowardly retreating from my AC
This was a
nerve wracking one and in retrospect it was the best game of the tournament. My opponent
and I were both sweating like hell at the end! After one game I was 3rd
and I was pretty happy to get the W.
Game 2, No,
not Grey Knights!
Yeah,
second game and boom! I get the team that I did not wanted to face. I selected
controlling the most objectives since he had 6 men to my 12.
His list
was:
Justicar
with Falchions, Combat and Zealot with Falchions, Psilancer Heavy, Psicannon,
GK with Falchions.
The plan
was to go and harvest some objectives early to get him to stretch his defense
early to make it easier to kill individual models. I would camp my deployment
zone to deny him VPs and rush his in T4. I selected Scouting enemy force since there were not a lot of terrain features under 8'' and to
force a roll off if my opponent choose it, he choose shoot sentries.
I started
by making a big deployment mistake, the central objective was on the top of a
platform. He set up one GK up there, I set up a cultist, a stubber guy and my
Serker champ. The plan was to pin the GK with one or two of the cultists and
shoot him down with the plasma. In retrospect, I should have kept the Serker
and the stubber on the ground and shoot the GK from there.
Because of the abundance of terrain, I had
difficulties setting up Cultists screen effectively.
I also had
poor luck with my Hv Bolter that could not hit anything, maybe I should have
put the Comms near him. When I hit, it was saved or I got a flesh wound. I
still managed to kill 2 GK but my cultists got slaughtered and I had to make a
break test T3. I passed it.
It came
down to the last turn when he took out my Hv Bolter that was camping an
objective and my terminator failing to take out of action his Justicar. (I
would have won 5-1 by scoring my principal and 2 secondaries).
In the end I lost
5-0 as he scored everything except having models in my deployment zone. It was
not a fun game, the psykic phase is not a fun phase without psykers.
I could
grumble about my bad luck and failed saves but the fact remains, I screwed up both
my deployment and screens so I deserved to loose. I was lucky to still have
a chance to win it on T4.
Game 3 –
Hey, I know you! Ad Mech
After the
lunch break it was time to face a faction that I know well since it is played
by one of my regular opponent (hallo Daniel!). I went with my semi-spam list
since Cultists are a legit threat for Ad Mech with their T3, taking out 2-3
Skitariis with cultists is not unusual. His list was:
Vanguard Leader, Fulgurite Electro-Priest Zealot, Ranger Coms with Omnispecs, Infiltrator
Combat, Infiltrator Princept, 3 Vanguards Plasmas, 2 Rangers Arc-Light.
Daniel does
not play with an Electro-Priest so this was new. When he put both his
Infiltrators in reserve, then my plan became clear: Vet move the Serker and
then charge anyone that he could get to. After the Necron game abject failure
of this strategy, I was hoping for better luck in this game.
In the
scouting phase I choose Traps and he choose to shoot Sentries. I got 3 traps,
one of them would have a big impact on the game (more on that later).
I vet moved
the Serker, lost the initiative and then used Decisive move to charge a Plasma
gunner. I covered something like 18 inches and this really shocked and
surprised my opponent. He was really throw off his game (He told me so after
the game). After seeing his reaction I knew that even if I ended up not killing
anyone, the 2 CPs had been well spend. I moved the up to contest
objective, set up firing line and
cultists screens.
My Berserker easily killed the gunner, piled in and BFBG the
Electro priest that was near by (note, the ruling in that Tournament was that
BFBG allow you to fight anyone within 3’’, no need for it to have been a valid
target at the beginning of the turn). Again the Serker let me down failing to
even wound the Priest, that proceeded then to kill him…I managed to screen off
the Infiltrators, but one still manage to DS in my half of the field the other
deep in his half. So at the end of turn
1, my opponent was off his game, but I was not out of the wood yet.
Turn 2 I
tried to bring my reserve and my opponent corrected me and showed that I could
only 1 model, not 3 like a DS. My heart sank. First because this would leave my
2 flamers out, second because I messed that up in the first game. It was solely
my fault since I was not familiar with the reserve rules and I should have read
it better….it sucked. So I placed my Hv Bolter with a unobstructed LoS to his
leader. My AC doubled back to deal with the Infiltrator and contest the
objective #3. I continued my standard tactic of rushing cultists to pin the
gunners and shooting the ones that are free. The highlight of this turn was my Gunner
gunning down his Leader and the Infiltrator charging my AC, missing 3 times and
my AC missing 3 times back. 6 dices that rolled 2 or less!
6 dices, no 3+...
We harvest both an
objective. In T3 brought back my 2 Flamers (one free in my deployment zone and
one to flame a Plasma caliver, that ended up being killing by a readied
cultist. My Hv Bolter killed again but then 3 things happened that turned the
tide:
Boom! (Yeah I know it is supposed to be on a 1 but we both played it on a 6)
1- One Infiltrator triggered a trap loosing
going to 1 wound.
2- My opponent broke, all but 2 models
shook.
3- Pop, the cultist that would not die,
charged the Infiltrator.
On a side
note, my AC failed again to hit the Infiltrator and got killed.
At the
start of turn 4, it was pretty clear that I had a great shot at winning it. I
just needed to kill one specialist and control one objective more. I managed to
kill the wounded Infiltrator with my plasma, lost a cultist to the
Electro-Priest, broke, but Pop was insanely brave and controlled the objective
to give me that 5-0 victory (I was not able to have an unshaken model in his
deployment).
Pop strikes again!
In the
standings I was 4th and feeling pretty good about myself.
Game 4 –
You got to be f*****g kidding me!!! Grey Knights
Yeah, the
second game against the list that I had the feeling is the harder to handle.
However looking at the board lifted my spirit. I could put a nice
gunline in a trench, wait for him to charge it and send the cultists harvest
objectives. But we all know how my plan turned out the last time I faced these
guys. After reviewing his list, there were a lot of sub-optimal choices so this
was the second uplifting points:
Justicar with Hammer, Zealot with Halberd, Hv with Psilancer, Terminator Gunner with Hammer and Hv Flamer Combat, 1 guy with Falchions
An
interesting note, the player was the son of my previous Ad mech opponent.
In the
scouting phase, I choose traps and he choose to shoot sentries.
We
deployed, he kept his terminator in reserve to DS. I set up my gunline making
sure that everyone is obscured and that my team Sniper/Coms had a clear shot at
the Psylancer. I set up a cultist screen
and planned the replacements.
The guys that moved where Cultists....
I took out
the Psilancer first turn, screened my half of the board, grab my objectives,
set up my psybolt screen and send out a Cultist that rolled a 6 in advance deep
in his half. There was nowhere to hide for the GK and nowhere for the
terminator to teleport. He harvested an objective, send a guy to deal with my
cultist in his half and I kept killing his guys. My dices where hot during
injury rolls, I think I inflicted only 1 flesh wound that I successfully
rerolled.
T3, he finally teleported his terminator on the central objective
in a desperation move, my Sniper took care of him with an overcharged plasma
shot. It was not a fun game. It was satisfying to have my plan and list working
perfectly, but I prefer close games. On top of that my dices where hot, I only
had to use 1 CP in the first 3 turns!
In the end,
to add insult to injury, he charged my Berserker champion with his Justicar,
failed to kill him, with a hammer! (I had the decency not to do play decisive
strike). Then my Serker attacked and cut him down with his Power Sword… 6-0
win, I had tabled him. I think he killed 4 Cultists, maybe five and flesh
wounded my Serker Champ.
Coming out
of this game, I saw that the third place player (my first GK opponent), was
loosing badly to Necrons (my first opponent). So I knew I was in a good place.
The second place CSM (hallo Marauder) told me that he badly lost to Death
Watch. First place was clear, it would come out to VPs between me and the other
CSM player.
Guess who had more VPs....
In the end
I had more VPs and took second place. I was pretty happy.
It was a
very fun experience, Beeranid (check his channel here) once said in a video
that tournaments are a lot of fun and addictive. This is true. I met a lot of great players,
learned a lot of new rules like reserves and as a bonus got a
trophy to take back home. So here are to close it, but tops and not so top
points (they are not really negative things but things that I personally did
not like and you know what they say about opinions....)
Tops
The organization,
the room and the food, especially the price had I know about this I would have
not bothered to pack a sandwich and energy bars.
The
players. I would invite any of them to my place for a game. They was no
one that I did not like.
The mission.
Although it was the same all games, it never felt as a repetition because of
the changing primary and the changing terrain. Compared with the standard
tournament missions of BAO, LVO, Adepticon, Nova, etc…it may give some
advantage to Elite KT, but I am not sure. I was playing a horde army in the
meta of that tournament and I did pretty well. But it somehow requires a change
of mindset. I usually play ultra aggressive and it is the way you need to play
in the standard missions since you can score starting at T1. With this mission,
since all the points are counted at the end, it is all about pacing, managing
you resources and knowing when to go for the kill. It makes you play in another
way. I liked it.
The quiz
part. When we were waiting for the results the TO Brummbär had a little quiz
running about our knowledge of 40k lore. Some guys present had vast reservoirs of useless knowledge! I
managed to get one answer in (What is the significance of the color blue for
orks? Answer in the comments if you know it) but there was a lot of laughter
during that part as everyone had a great time.
The quality
of the terrain. Everything very well painted (or pro painted if you use ebay
standards) with battle mats or KT boards, it made for a great immersion.
The people
that commented positively on my old skool models. Some players were not even
born when these kits came out! It was fun to see the look on their faces when
they picked up my metal terminator.
BTW here is the Gelerpox team that won best
painted. I voted for them.
The
location. Easy to access with public transport and car. Lots of parking spots.
I got 2nd
place!!!!
Not so top
Using lists
and not command rosters. Again, that is the TO’s choice and I accepted it when
I registered. I still disagree with it and think that the command roster and
the list tailoring is a very fun and important part of KT. However this will
not prevent me to go to the next edition, roster or not
The
spaceship board. An arena board without arena rules do not work. Some factions
basically lost just by playing on this board, they did not stand a chance.
Me screwing up the reserve and outflank rule
And that is it!
If you are
interested in seeing the results or want to check when the next edition of the
tournament is have a look at the T3 website
