So made it all the way to the top table for the final round showdown between myself and the only other undefeated foe left. Ian and his dark eldar! Which is an ironic turn of events since I had only just stopped playing dark eldar. Ian had also gone through a ringer of a round 5 beating out the super strong Adamantine Lance formation list that had been romping around the tables.
Ians List:
Urien and his Gratesquerie
Urien
4 Grotesques - aberation(sergeant) - raider
4 Grotesques - aberation - raider
Dark Eldar CAD
Succubus - haywire, glaive thingy, some other stuff
5 Trueborn - 4 blasters - venom
5 Trueborn - 4 blasters - venom
5 Warriors - blaster, haywire sergeant - venom
5 Warriors - blaster, haywire sergeant - venom
5 Warriors - blaster, haywire sergeant - venom
5 Warriors - blaster, haywire sergeant - venom
Ravager - dark lances
Ravager - dark lances
In the final mission we were playing modified Relic again with 4 additional objectives centered in the table quarters. You could choose to score them at the end of the game where the relic would be worth 5, and each objective on your opponents half of the table would be worth 2, and those on your own side could be worth 1. Or choose to score at start of your turn from 2-7, scoring 1 point if you were controlling the relic(playing this style you can not pick it up), 1 point if you control both your home objectives, and 1 point if you have more of your home objectives then your opponent has of his own. Hammer and Anvil deployment.
Ian chooses alternative scoring, I once again choose end game scoring. Ians secondaries (each worth 2 points) are first blood, line breaker, and slay the warlord. My secondaries are kill three units in one turn, line breaker, and first blood.
Ian wins the roll and chooses to go first. he deploys everything, with raiders with grots and characters center front of his zone, flanked by venoms on each side and ravagers behind.
I deploy bastion far back, with flyrants behind and out of range of venoms turn 1. 2 units of spore mines to hide and man comms, and some rippers over in the top left ruin.
Turn 1 Ian moves up and puts both raiders on the relic, spreads out and flanks forward making sure he has venoms on each of his objectives as well.
Start of turn Ian score 3 points. Ian's turn 2 he lines up lots of shooting lanes, and gets the grotesques out of their rides. Pounds into both flyrants and manages to wound my warlord once, and he grounds. SO grots and urien make the charge. Overwatch actually kills one the the grubs and smash kills the sergeant, they do one wound back... pass save on the instant death wound phewww.
My turn 2 and party time arrives. Mawloc one lands on both ravagers, rolls a 6 to pen one, and 6 to blow it up, second blast stuns the other ravagers. The other 2 mawlocs scatter missing the tanks, one scatters on top of the warriors that had fallen out of the venom last turn and kills them instead.
I drop 5 Lictors I think in that ruin on the bottom right of the screen, and out flank some stealers there as well. The lictors shoot at the two venoms in front of them and manage to wreck them both. In the hill at the top I put 3 more lictors and some stealers, with death leaper a the top right corner of that middle ruin. They shoot at the venom holding his home objective there and after the other lictors success it jinks and only takes one glance. The mobile Flyrant moves up and shoots back to the left killing a venom near that top brown terrain. Some spore mines land in the central ruin. Most of his guys that fell out of tanks were either pinned or forced to snap shot due to failing stunned checks. In combat the Flyrant smashes Urien and takes no damage after casting paroxysm on the grots.
My turn 3 my mawloc re-emerges and he kills the trueborn near the central ruin and then runs into terrain. I burrow the other two back down. Flyrant flies to top middle of board and wrecks another venom. Lictors in the hills up top move and assault a venom killing it. Lictors on the bottom right split up, 3 charge and kill Ravager, 2 assault and kill the 5 warriors pinned near their venom. Warlord smashes the last grotesque and consolidates into the rubble. Spore mines have been creeping steadily towards targets in the bottom of the screen, and the unit in the central ruin assaults and does a hull point to the raider in the middle.
Turn 4 for the Nids. Mawloc appears top right and kills 5 warriors. The other one trys to land on the relic and lands near it. The one on the board burrows. Lictors move towards middle of the board to get near the relic. Stealers are already on the objective bottom right, mawloc in top right runs onto objective. Stealers in bottom left move towards that objective. Tyrant uses psychic shriek to kill a few different squads of warriors, then wrecks the raider. Two squads of spore mines assault his grotesques and center their blasts on the succubus who fails a look out sir and then dies. Grots take a few wounds.
Turn 5 Ian scores no points. He realizes that things have gone terribly wrong and his only play for a close game is to move the grotesques onto the relic and hopefully survive to contest it. His surviving raider is getting line breaker at the moment. Everything else is dead aside from 4 grotesques one of whom has only 1 wound left.
My turn 5 I drop the last mawloc onto his grotesques and do a few wounds and then it mishap dies. 4 lictors and my other mawloc move up to within a few inches of the grotesques. The flyrant also moves up and shrieks, since they are only ld 4 they take a bunch of wounds. Then he shoots and does some more. Lictors shoot and assault, Mawloc assaults, Lictors finish the grots before the Mawloc swings.
Looking at your list, and looking at his list, this is not how I thought the game would have gone. You played extremely well Sean. This entire tournament is as much a testament to your out of the box thinking, as your strategy and placement.
ReplyDeleteThis is definitely not a sledgehammer list. More like you are slowly knitting a noose for your opponent. :)
Thank you. And that is an apt description. I knew many of the games were over long before my opponent thought they were.
ReplyDeleteNice reports, and well done on the overall win.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of your list, it's very odd, but that's what makes it good. Obviously you played it well and there's great synergy in the list. The idea of placing very little on the board and then loads of MSU appearing everywhere at once with no risk of deep strike mishap. Also with the mawlocs causing damage and then burrowing to come back in again, obviously there's the risk of deep strike mishap here, but also the chance of great killing ability.
I think the way the list works, is that you start with little/minimum on the board, then MSU comes on and can be placed exactly where you need it killing the odd thing. But it makes your opponent think well lots of small units that are easy to kill this should be easy. But with so much going on around them and things everywhere. That's the point when your opponent gets confused and you've won the game, as you now have pretty much full control. I like the list because it works on that extra level, forcing your opponent in bad choices and playing into your hand. Lists like serpent spam don't do that, because people already know exactly what they do. People don't really know what this list does, so they confused and panic. I think if the list develops more and keeps being used, it'll become more known and they'll be a way to counter as it's weaknesses are found. But for now, I guess it's up there.
Jordan