A-con 2013 40k Champs Battle Reports

[DaGrippster]

Had a great time at Adepticon this past weekend, thought I would write up some battle reports and share my experiences. This will be my first time writing battle reports so any comments/criticism is welcome.

First of all, thanks again to everybody who makes this a success year in and year out. I take it for granted that I will have this unfailingly awesome event to attend every year, way to go guys! Even with the insane weather (the 10 minute drive from my house took an hour) the 40k championships was only started an hour late.

On to the battle reports, Day One of the championships.

My list was as follows,
IG/GK
Hq- Command squad, 4 plasma, astropath, chimera
Tr- Veterans, 3 melta, chimera
Tr- Platoon command, 4 flamers, chimera
Tr- Infantry, autocannon
Tr- Infantry, autocannon
FA- Vendetta
FA- Vendetta
FA- Vendetta
HS- Manticore

HQ-Coteaz
EL- Techmarine w/ rad, psychotroke, servoskulls
TR- 3 plasma cannon servitors, acolyte
Tr- 5 deathcult, 3 crusaders, banisher, acolyte
HS- Land Raider Redeemer

The thought process is that the guard component will bring in lots of shooting, with the vendettas providing anti flyer. Manticore is great for early strikes against a lot of armies, and the damage potential it has makes it a scary target. Coteaz and the plasma cannons can be devastating in a lot of situations (twin linked and ignores cover plasma cannons? Yikes…). The deathcult in the land raider are there as I have found this unit can single handedly win me games. That kind of counter assault potential really makes people hesitate (at least it should) and the banisher is a clutch tool to have against demons. Time for some games…

ROUND ONE
Mission: 5 objectives, kill points, 12” deployment
Opponent: Greg Sparks
List:
Hq: Eldrad
Hq: Maugan Ra
TR: 10 wraithguard
TR: 3 jetbikes
TR: 3 jetbikes
HS: 3 shadow weavers
Hs- 3 war walkers, scatter lasers

HQ: Baron
El- 4 trueborn w/ cannons, venom
Tr- 5 warriors, venom
FA- Dark eldar flyer( I forget the name)

Aegis w/ icarus lascannon

Pre game thoughts: Wow, tough draw for the first game. Greg is the captain of team America who travels to the ETC every year. Going in I feel pretty confident, as I feel that my list is better, but there are things in his list that worry me. The wraithguard unit is nearly impossible to kill once he has a rerollable 2+ invul save running around. Also, Maugan Ra manning the lascannon is bad news for my flyers. His war walkers will also come on and kill something and there’s not a lot I can do against it.

Turn 1: I win the roll to go first. I choose to go first, hoping to put down a significant portion of his wraithguard death star before they get fortuned. I deploy somewhat spread out, coteaz in middle, manticore on left. The brunt of the force is near a ruin in the middle of my deployment zone. I take a shot with the manticore to try and win the game right here- It hits on top of eldrad, causing him to take 8 look out sirs! Unfortunately, he passes all his LOS and then to add insult to injury, passes all his 3+ wraithguard saves. Oh well.

Greg has a large number of units in reserves. On his turn, he passes fortune, moves his wraithguard up a bit, and blows up a chimera creeping up his left flank. First blood to the eldar.

Turn 2: 2 vendettas come on, one is shaken by Maugan Ra. I continue moving my LRR slowly up the field, staying just far enough away from the wraithguard. Most of my shooting is ineffectual, with his other units going to ground and the wraithguard re rolling everything.

Greg brings on his DE flyer, some jetbikes, and the war walkers. War walkers waste the manticore, even with my 3+ cover. Flyer targets the LRR, and whiffs. More importantly, Maugan ra uses crack shot to kill my company command squads chimera! They bail out, and are then targeted by the shadow weavers, which score three hits and kill the entire unit! Warlord to the eldar.

Turn 3: Things look grim at this point. He has a big lead on kill points and I have no way to stop the Wraithguard. 3rd vendetta comes in but is promptly killed by the icarus lascannon. I decide to make a big play to win the game with the death cults. I deploy them ready to charge the wraithguard in such a way that the wraithguard will be the ones taking wounds first. Vendettas fly over, kill a unit of jetbikes and the flyer. Coteaz puts the hurt on the war walkers. Death cult charge, and I roll a one for psychotroke grenades. And fail hammerhand (with warding, not too surprising). I cannot catch a break right now. I think I kill maybe one wraithguard, and then his unit hit and runs leaving me exposed.

The venoms come on. Wraithguard start heading for my side. Death cult squad is annihilated.

Turn 4: my vendettas fly over and kill the remaining jetbikes. Veterans finish off the war walkers and settle down on an objective.

The wraithguard are getting worryingly close. They kill the land raider this turn.

Turn 5: The vendettas are doing some heavy lifting at this point, as they are supposed to do. This turn I kill a venom and a five man squad of warriors. Objectives look pretty good for me but I am down on kill points. I am not quite able to get what I need.

Greg moves his wraithguard into my deployment zone. He doesn’t have many units left but the wraithguard are the important one anyway. Eldrad Perils and kills himself! Too bad he wasn’t the warlord…

We roll for the game to continue, and it ends on turn 5. Final tally- I have objectives 2-0, he has kill points 11-9. He has First blood, warlord, and linebreaker giving him the win. I needed one or two more turns and I probably could have tabled him. With no eldrad around to fortune his unit, the rest of my army shooting that unit probably could have killed them. Oh well, I end the game with a minor loss.

Nothing went majorly wrong this game, but nothing quite went right. Tough game against a smart opponent, but it sucks to be out of the running so early on.

To be continued…

[Generalissimo_Fred]

How do the Wraithguard get a 2+ invulnerable save? The best they can get is a 2+ cover save but only if they get invisibility cast on them. However if Eldrad goes for Telepathy powers, then he can't get Fortune. Or did Adepticon allow psykers to pick some powers from their codex and roll for some powers in the BrB?

Any event you do have the Redeemer which can ignore cover saves and hit them with a str 6 ap 3 template. Getting the template into position is tricky.

[DaGrippster]

Guess I wasn't clear enough, he had the baron in the unit, out front to soak up wounds with a 2+ invul from shadowfield. With the warlock with conceal and the baron's stealth, they were rocking a 4+ cover in the open.

I had the same thought with the redeemer, but the way they were spaced it would have been tough to get more than two or three, and I would have lost the land raider the next turn. I made a big gamble charging them and it didn't work out. In hindsight, playing patiently and saving my killpoints would have been a better option but I wanted to go for the win rather than playing not to lose.

[Generalissimo_Fred]

Ahhhh yes. I see now. Good report so far.

[DaGrippster]

ROUND TWO
Mission: 6 different valued objectives, capture and control, hammer and anvil
Opponent: Chris ( forget his last name, apparently a local AWC guy)
List: BA/ SW
Hq- Librarian
El- rifleman dread
El- rifleman dread
Tr- 10 marines, multi melta, rhino x3
FA- stormraven

HQ- Rune priest
TR- grey hunters, plasma, rhino
TR- grey hunters, plasma, rhino
HS- longfangs, missile launchers

Pregame thoughts: At this point in the day, I was equal parts frustrated and sad. Instead of handling my loss with alcohol ( cough Alan cough) I decided to play my ass off because you never know. Chris’s list doesn’t really have anything that scares me, but the land raider will have to watch out for those multimeltas floating around.

I get ignores cover on coteaz, which is awesome against marines. I win the roll to go first, and after revealing the value of the objectives, I have the 4 and both threes towards my side. He has the 2 and 1 in his deployment zone; he is going to have to come to me to win.

I deploy most of my stuff aggressively in the middle, with the infantry squads and manticore hanging out in the back near some objectives. Chris puts all his rhinos in a line up front, with the dreads behind and the longfangs in a forest in back.

Turn 1: I move the land raider up to prepare a turn 2-3 charge depending on what happens. The manticore goes crazy! I get three shots, all of which hit, and wreck 2 rhinos and a dreadnaught! Coteaz’s squad then evaporates one of the squads which just bailed out.

Chris is reeling after a devastating first turn. He moves his stuff forward, and the longfangs kill a chimera.

Turn 2: The vendettas come in. I kill all of the rhinos except for one greyhunter squad who are far away from the action. Coteaz continues to be a beast and erases another marine squad.

Chris’s storm raven comes in. unfortunately, it fails to do anything to the vendettas. He is running out of units fast and it is only turn 2.

Turn 3: The deathcults disembark, multi charge, and wipe out two more depleted marine squads. Vendettas fly around, I fail to do any damage to the storm raven.

At this point, all chris has left is the storm raven w/ squad inside, a long fang squad, and a grey hunter squad on his far left flank. The storm raven goes into hover mode and targets the land raider, but does nothing.

Turn 4: Land raider moves up to flame some grey hunters on my right side of the board. Melta vets move behind to support and kill some more next turn. Death cult assassins make it to the long fang/runepriest squad and butcher them. Vendettas all go into hover mode and shoot down the storm raven. Coteaz targets squad that was in the storm raven and kills them.

At this point Chris decides to call it. I have to say, I have given out a lot of beatdowns over the years and Chris handled it extremely well. I almost felt bad that everything was going right for me, but Chris didn’t get frustrated once and we ended up joking around the whole time, which is hard to do as your army is getting picked apart. Kudos to Chris! Result: Crushing win for me.

Games 3 and 4 to come later.

[DaGrippster]

ROUND THREE
Mission: The Relic, 4 objectives (center of each quarter), vanguard strike
Opponent: Frankie, one of the guys at Frontinegaming.org
List: Chaos Space Marines/ demons
Hq- Lord on juggernaut, fist
Hq- Lord on juggernaut, fist
El- 2 obliterators
El- 2 obliterators
Tr- 10 cultists
Tr- 10 cultists
Tr- 10 cultists
Tr- 10 cultists
FA- Heldrake
Fa- Heldrake
Fa- Heldrake

Hq- herald of tzentch
Tr- a whole mess of horrors

Aegis, comms relay

Pre game thoughts: The first of many heldrakes I will see over the weekend. I’ve watched a lot of Frankie’s battle reports at frontline gaming, so I know that he is a pretty good player. Knowledge is power! However, he tends to rely on his list to do the work for him. The relic is going to be tough for him to hold, but it will also be hard for me. I really have to be careful with those heldrakes. The ability to fly over, rip open a chimera, then burn the guys inside is a huge threat. As long as I can bring down 1 or 2 early with my vendettas, I should be in good shape. That didn’t work out…

Frankie gets the scoring unit trait on his warlord, this makes things interesting.

Frankie wins the roll and goes first. He deploys 1 cultist squad with the 2 lords attached behind a HUGE line of sight blocking wall in the middle of the board. He puts an oblit squad to either side, and the horrors are chilling on his left. 3 cultists, 3 heldrakes in reserves.

I have a nice ruin in my deployment zone where most of my stuff goes. The land raider deploys right in the middle, where it is getting cover from oblits but can deal with the juggernauts if they pop their heads out from behind this gigantic ruin. Seriously, the terrain pieces on this table were at least 3 times the size of any other board.

Turn 1: Frankie moves up the juggernauts with the cultist unit. His warlord picks up the relic. Obliterators take pot shots at stuff, nothing happens.

I shuffle the land raider. I make a minor blunder here as I think that juggernauts are Strength 5 and a threat to the land raider with the fists. I should have played more aggressively this turn. Flamer squad moves to the right, I shoot some stuff but don’t really kill anything.

Turn 2: 2 Heldrakes and 2 cultist units come on. One cultist unit goes to each flank, gunning for the table quarter objectives. The non warlord juggernaut detaches and charges a chimera with my command squad inside, but whiffs. Obliterators continue to suck at their jobs and kill nothing. The heldrakes, however, both vector strike and kill my melta vets chimera and the flamer squads chimera. I get lucky as with his shooting he only shakes the manticore with their flamers.

All 3 vendettas come on. I move 2 in to position to shoot his Heldrakes, the other one goes for an oblit squad. Death cult move up to charge the warlord next turn. It takes most of my ground shooting but I take out the lone lord. Vendettas take out a baleflamer, but that is it; that’s bad news. The other vendetta kills an obliterator.

Turn 3: Disaster strikes! The heldrakes fly over two vendettas and kill both of them! The heldrakes now basically have free reign of the skies. Cultist squad walks on the board away from me. The obliterators do nothing, and I deny the witch when his horrors shoot.

I position my units so that he has no choice but to fly off the board or hover with 2 of his heldrakes. Death cults disembark and make a play for the relic. The lone vendetta turns to shoot a heldrake, but misses. I shoot some more horrors. My 2 flamer guys kill some cultists on the left, and make them run off the board! I have that objective until I get heldraked. Death cults kill the unit on the relic.

Turn 4: His heldrakes fly off the board. Obliterators move to support his right side objective where the flamers are. Horrors shoot the death cult, but I deny the witch again!

My plan was to snag the relic and hop in the land raider, but Frankie points out that you have to pick it up at the end of the movement phase. I decide to jump inside without it and pick it up next turn.

Turn 5: Frankie moves his heldrakes on near the relic. They flame some guardsmen near one of my objectives, and one of the flamer guys.

Since I am winning on objectives (2-1) there is no need for me to grab the relic if the game ends. However, if I don’t get it now Frankie has another unit of cultists coming to get it. So, I jump the death cults out and grab the relic. The land raider heads towards his backfield and kills all but one cultist with the help of the manticore. He doesn’t run, and stays on the objective. My deathcults charge his unit of cultists. I only have 4 models in the unit at this point, so I am hoping we can stick in combat so I don’t lose the squad to shooting. My psychotroke grenades give him leadership 2, awesome. At the end of the phase, he rolls to break- Snake eyes! This is huge as it keeps my death cults with the relic alive.

We roll to see if the game ends, my fingers crossed for a 1 or 2—he rolls a 3.

Turn 6: Frankie moves his obliterators and kills the last flamer guy on the left objective. His horrors contest an objective. Heldrakes continue to be a nuisance. I stopped keeping track of how much they were killing. The deathcults butcher the remaining cultists.

At this point I have the relic, but Frankie has 2 objectives to my 1. I will win on tiebreakers but I want to find a way to get a major win.
I move the deathcults to charge his obliterators, hoping to kill them and then slingshot onto the objective. Not much shooting left at that point, the heldrakes have done their job well. The death cults charge, kill the oblits and I get the 3 inch massacre that I need.

The game ends, I have the relic and we tie 2-2 on objectives. Result: Crusing win for me.

This was a tight game the whole time, and Frankie was a great opponent. A few clutch rolls went my way at the end of the game, but that makes up for his heldrakes absolutely destroying my vendettas. On to the last Round!

[Generalissimo_Fred]

Good job going for the win.

[DaGrippster]

ROUND FOUR
Mission: Big guns never tire, kill points, 12” deployment
Opponent: Andy Kopach
List: CSM/ demons
Hq- Level 3 sorcerer on bike
Tr- 10 cultists
Tr- 10 cultists
Tr- 10 cultists
Tr- 10 cultists
Fa- 5 spawn
Fa- 5 spawn

Hq- Great unclean one
Tr- plaguebearers
Tr- plaguebearers
Fa-7 plague drones

Aegis with quad gun.

There was a demon prince in there somewhere too, not sure which part. It was nurgle and had wings.

Pregame thoughts: Andy is Tony Kopach’s younger brother. Tony won adepticon two years ago, and has been the first loser the past two years now. I don’t know if Andy is any good, but I know he plays with good players! This list must be really good against weaker players. Having so many threatening units in your face early can be stressful.

I win the roll to go first, and Andy is surprised that I give him the first turn.

He deploys one unit of cultists manning the quad gun in the middle, the others are in reserves. Great unclean one and plaguebearers also begin in reserves. He puts the spawn units in the middle, with the plague drones on his left and the demon prince on his right.

I deploy most of my stuff in or around a ruin in my right half. The land raider is front and center, and I put the manticore on the opposite end of the board. I think I made a minor mistake here, instead of putting it in a ruin I should have just deployed all the way in the corner.

Turn 1: Andy moves forward a full 12 inches forward into my trap. The demon prince swoops. Quad gun does nothing.

I decide to make a statement early on. The land raider moves up into position, the death cults get out and prepare to multicharge the plague drones and a unit of spawn with chaos sorcerer attached. Note that the majority of the unit will be attacking the spawn. Shooting is ineffectual, I think I kill one spawn from the other unit and put some wounds on the sorcerer’s unit. The death cults make the charge into both units, and I roll rerolls to hit for my psychotroke grenades. With all my combined attacks, I kill all of the spawn including the sorceror and kill one plague drone. In return, I lose a model or two. Andy has to make a demonic instability test on a leadership of 2! Unfortunately, he rolls a 5 and only one more model dies. We pile in.

Turn 2: Andy brings on the GUO, a squad of cultists, and a squad of plague bearers. He drops the GUO right in front of my lines. Demon prince continues swooping, spawn are able to charge and kill the manticore, but now they are out of position. In combat, I kill a couple more demons. The banisher is finally doing what he was brought along to do! He kills one or two more but I know I will finish him off sooner or later.

All the vendettas come on. I fly all of them right in front of the GUO, ignorant of the fact that he gains +1 cover against models within 8”. Now I know… Nearly my entire army shoots at the great unclean one, and take him down to one wound left. Not too bad. In combat, I kill a couple more plague drones. In other news, I have a chimera full of flamer guys hauling down my left flank to his 3 unprotected units of cultists.

Turn 3: The great unclean one moves to charge the land raider. Demon prince moves to charge coteaz and his unit. The other squad of spawn start coming around my backfield. GUO pens the land raider twice, but rolls 2 ones! Coteaz force weapons and kills the demon prince, but is simultaneously destroyed. Oh well, he did his job… Death cults finish off the plague drones.

I move the land raider back to avoid getting hit during my turn. The death cults pull back to try and reach the other squad of spawn but it is a 9” charge and they fail. My chimera in his backfield burns a squad of cultists as they watch helplessly. 2 vendettas hover to kill the GUO, one flies over to help clean out his backfield.

Turn 4: His spawn charge and kill all of my command squad besides the commander himself. All andy has left besides the spawn are some depleted troop units.

My deathcults charge in to bail out my commander and succeed in killing the remaining spawn. At this point it is just cleanup as I have a huge kill point lead and all but one of the objectives.

Andy decides to call it and it is another Crushing Win!

This game was tough for Andy, I think he underestimated me/ my army and was a little to gung ho with his fast units. The turn killed the manticore with the spawn, I would have sent those spawn into the death cults because with enough attacks I will lose the majority of the squad. He could have sent the demon prince into the manticore as I had nothing to shoot on that side anyway. Also, having such a weak backfield let my one unit of flamer guys in a chimera run rampant with literally no defense against it. Fun game and I think we will be seeing more of Andy in the future!

So at the end of the day, I am 3-1 with 34 points. I am pretty sure there is no way I will qualify for the finals. Somehow, I end up winning best sportsman! It was nice to walk away with something and I appreciate that my opponents enjoyed playing against me.

Sure enough, I needed 35 to qualify for the finals. It is only one point, but it is one big point. Can’t wait to come back next year with a vengeance, thanks for reading!