It came two weeks ago, and yes, I was ready. Good news. Most of the army was, of course, painted the night before, this dreadful and sleepless Friday night. On the other hand, I made it and the army was ready on Saturday morning. I made my way to the venue, and there started socializing with other freeks, for the most part as sleep-deprived as I was. Slightly under the weather, I composed myself for the first game...
And followed a great tournament. A few pictures here, along with the website of the organizing club, Ordo Aboensis (in Finnish).
So. The list. I kept the list I exposed before, only with the Master of the Forge on a bike, and without Telion. I was told it is a "Marine Mech" list. Yeah for Marine Mech, then.Let's get one thing out of the way: I am not a good player, especially not a good tournament player. I play rarely, with a few friends in narrative campaign-style, low pressure, laid-back games. I "have been" into Wh40k for a number of years, mind you, and a win never hurts. But even if, let's be honest, I might be in a bad mood after losing a game, playing is actually more important than winning. My best game in the last months was with a marine list against Sisters of Battle. It ended in a close combat between the two force commanders, on the very last turn. My SM boss died, game over for me. Yet, fantastic game, good laughs, good times.
So I was not too optimistic with a list I didn't know, an edition I had played maybe twice, and a tournament environment with good local players. As it came up, "local" meant from all Finland: players from as far as Oulu, Tampere, and a sizeable delegation from Espoo, a suburb of Helsinki. A nice selection of people, with nice armies, and some really good players. I was already preparing myself for defeat after defeat.
I quickly came to realize, though, that the list Stelek wrote is extremely solid. I played it with a few things in mind and a bit conservatively (too conservatively at times) and it is very forgiving for sloppy tacticians like me. Vehicles are difficult to bring down, something I realized only while playing. Speeders are gold on a silver plate with diamonds. Melta gunnery is wonderful anti-tank, and the Heavy flamer is just wonderful as a complement. Scouts in ruins with cloaks and the Master are not going anywhere. And Space Marines are solid enough that you can make a few mistakes and get away with it. I felt a bit like a 4-year old manipulating a laser sword: a sharp, solid, sophisticated instrument, which I certainly did not use to its full potential.
The games tought me a lot about 5th edition. Those things in 9 quick talking points.
First scrap was against Necrons, and against an opponent who, to my amazement, understood French. So we did the game half in French, half in Finnish. Last thing I expected, and a great start.
I won the game quite largely, against an army that certainly suffers from its codex being so out of date. Confession time: I doubted the efficiency of the Predators in the list. Was I wrong! 6 Heavy Bolter and 2 Auto cannon shots per turn if you do not move. Put in three of these things, and it is a lot of shots. That kills people, no matter how much 3+ saves you have. The preds formed a firing line position and concentrated fire on one aisle of the Necron army, killing his destroyers very quickly. Preds are also difficult to bring down. That was point 1: preds are killy and resilient.
Then point 2: dreadnoughts are great fun in hand to hand combat against necrons. 2 dreads made it to his lines, killed a Destroyer-Lord and a squad of Necrons. More importantly, tied a part ofhis army for several turns far away from objectives. Then point 3: tac squads stay in Rhinos, and go out only if necessity dictates. Mostly when you have to put firepower on an enemy squad at short range: 16 bolters, 1 bolt pistol, and a Melta gun. Then they get in again.
One thing with Necrons: they won't die, no matter what. This We'll be back roll is a pain, let's be clear. After a while you should find tricks (shoot things that strayed from the main battle line, isolated warriors or destroyers, kill those pesky tomb spiders, etc). Yet, they are still very resilient to shooting. CC is another matter...
Second game was against a black templars/drop pods/Vindicator army, and a very friendly opponent. Came point 4: against drop pods, form a castle. I bunched up in a corner while the Speeders ran in front to kill his Vindicators. But I made a mistake and openned up between 2 Rhinos, just a few inches in turn 2. My opponent, a good player, was in my lines the next second. Then it was damage-control on my side: putting everything I had to bear on his three tactical squads, a b*** Brother-captain who seemed to never be willing to die, and a Venerable dreadnought. All that while his commander and assault squad spent 4 turns trying to kill a Predator: sheer luck on my side, because they focused on the Predator while I could deal with the dropped troops without having to worry about them. My Pred would have died one or two turns earlier, I was all good and dead.
On a sidenote, killing drop pods in a Killpoint mission is cool: they die easily to Speeders and get you one killpoint per pod... I ended up winning a super, tight game. His was the eternal problem of drop pod armies: how to kill enough on the drop so that the rest of the army is not going to slaughter you with return fire? As the owner of a drop pod army myself, I learned also on that.
Third game was even more interesting. I had a very good player in front, who ended up winning the tournament. Sharp guy, who played... with the exact same list as I had! He got it from the same source, Stelek's blog! Funny. He had a few different things (ML on the scouts, 4 speeders, no bike on the Master), but mostly he played differently. More aggressive, with a better understanding of the movement tricks and the philosophy of the game: covering your dreadnoughts with rhinos, GW dreads have their weapons higher than Rhinos so can fire above, etc. I was not used to that 5th edition "Always see, always cover save" stuff. We played a seize ground-spearhead. I never managed to contest his objective, but he was quickly near mine and I was on the defensive. There was a big vehicle bash in the middle, and he tried to go around with his speeders. I shot them all down with the Predators, but one. That one ended up contesting my objective. Win to him. So, point 6: concentrate fire on fast moving things that can contest, like Speeders. And point 7, cover your dreads with your rhinos.
Fourth game was against sisters. Exorcists a go go, three rhinos full of girls, canoness, seraphims. Here came point 8: the Master on bike should be used to protect the scouts on the objective, but also to zoom up and contest. By some miracle, he and two dreadnoughts made it through the board and contested my opponent's objective, killing stormtroopers and two Exorcists in the process. I won, but that was tight. Also, Preds, again, are good at killing: about 10 sisters, Seraphims, rhinos, whatever... He did not even try to take them down, and the damage was massive.
Last game was a bit strange. Two SM shooty army in a Annihilation game, with spearhead. He had longer-ranged weapons than I did (Las cannons, MLs), and in a way I did not manage to hide or get within melta range of his own guys. That was a sort of ping-pong match with him ending up with more KPs. Strange game, I didn't really know what to do. A better grasp of the covering tactics (Preds cover Rhinos, Rhinos cover Dreads, Dreads cover each other, etc) would have helped, but I did not manage to unlock the situation.
Point 9, though: Speeders in reserve should avoid coming through deep-strike. That was just silly from me, because I had the possibility to bring them from the board's edge and zoom towards him. Instead, the randomness of deep-strike deprived my guys of good firing positions and they got picked up one by one. Deep-strike should be reserved to drop pods. Loss for me, yet a good game against one of the club's regular.
In the end, a cool tournament, 3 wins 2 loss, nice tables, perfect organization, good opponents, a few nice chats, pizza, etc. Great week-end.
Ok, so that's it. Next time pictures of the army and a few more nudgets. Then it will be time for something completely different...
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