Monday, October 28, 2013

40K: Titan Tournament Qualifier Round 1 Recap


This past Saturday was the first of  the four rounds for the Ogre's Titan Tournament coming up in February.
It was a 1500 pt tournament and around 20 people showed up which was good, because they only had 10 tables. There was a large amount of Daemon and Tau players of course, with a surprising lack of Eldar.

My List:
Fateweaver
Keeper of Secrets - Mastery Level 3, Greater Reward, Greater Reward, Lesser Reward
13 Pink Horrors - Iridescent Horror Upgrade
13 Pink Horrors - Iridescent Horror Upgrade
Slaanesh Daemon Prince - Mastery Level 3, Wings, Armor, Lash of Despair, Exalted Reward
Slaanesh Daemon Prince - Mastery Level 3, Wings, Armor, Lash of Despair, Exalted Reward



Game 1: 

First match was an interesting setup. Dawn of War deployment, Primary objective was your opponent's unit that cost the most points. His was a Land Raider Crusader, and mine was a Daemon Prince. 
Secondary objective was 3 objectives in the middle of the table.

His list comprised of a Land Raider with a 5 man Tactical Squad and a Chapter Master with a Storm Shield and Artificer Armor. He had an Annihilator Predator, 2 Attack Bikes, 10 Man Tactical Squad with a Missile Launcher in a Rhino, Medusa, Vendetta, Chimera with some vets, and a few more vets with a Commissar behind an Aegis with an Icarus Lascannon.

I had first turn and deployed accordingly, moving up both units of Horrors on 2 of the objectives, behind cover. the Keeper of Secrets moved up, Dominated the IG and Hallucinated them. Horrors finished them off quickly.

Fateweaver Puppet Mastered the Landraider, and blew up the Predator.

He tried some shooting at me in his turn, but the Medusa scattered off the horrors, and with lack of Skyfire, there wasn't a lot he could do.

My next turn all my stuff was in on him, and between vector strikes and lashes he was left with only the Land Raider. I popped it with the Keeper of Secrets and a Prince and after that it was just mop up duty.

I dropped the Portaglyph behind his lines and started spawning out blobs of Daemonettes.

Tabled him at the top of turn 4.
Full points for me 19-0, and I didn't lose a single model.

Game 2:

This game was a completely different story. My opponent was someone I've played against multiple times before and he knows what he's doing, so going in I knew it would be a good game.

Until I saw his list.

3 Dreadknights with Personal Teleporters and Heavy Incinerators, 2 units of 5 Strike Squad, Coteaz, 6 Firewarriors, Buff Commander with a Riptide, Aegis and a Quad Cannon.

Deployment was Vanguard Strike, Primary was Relic, and Secondary was to hold table quarters. To make matters worse, I only had two small pieces of area terrain in my deployment so that's where both units of horrors were. I deployed my Princes and Fateweaver back against my board edge as far as possible out of range. He had first turn.

He shunt moved up all 3 Dreadknights and took out all but 3 horrors in the front piece of terrain. He fired off some other shots and that was about it. I used the Grimore on the Keeper and ran him straight at the Dreadknights, hoping to at least try to tie up a few of them in close combat. Princes and Fateweaver flew up the left flank trying to come around him and basically run away from the Dreadknights.

He took the bait, and assaulted in 2 Dreadknights into the Keeper. A few more horrors died, but one lived on like a champ making saves left and right, which forced him to assault into it with the 3rd Dreadknight to take him out.

He ended up taking out Fateweaver with a 5 man Strike squad which was ridiculous. The Quad Cannon put 2 wounds on him, the strike squad caused 2 more, and then he failed a grounding test. After that I thought it was all over.

I managed to take out the strike squad with both Princes and flew them off the board. He took out the rest of my Horrors with the Dreadknights, but he grouped them up to do it.

My Princes came back on next turn and took out 1 of them with Vector Strikes and managed to Lash down the other one to only 1 wound.

He shot everything he had into them but he couldn't take them down in the next turn, so one of them Vector striked and lashed down his unit of Firewarriors, while the other one assaulted in and took out Coteaz and  the other Strike Squad with Rage and Rampage.

Next turn he killed both Princes. Since neither of us had any troops left, we couldn't claim the Primary or the Secondary. We both had Warlord, but he had the others like First Blood, Line Breaker and Last Laugh (Killing the last unit in a game) Loss 11-8. Not bad for getting tabled...

Game 3: 

Deployment was old Spearhead, Primary Objective was table quarters with Kill Points as Secondary. My opponent was Tau with IG allies. He had 3 Riptides, 3 Missile Broadsides, 2 small units of firewarriors, a Buff Commander, a unit of 3 Thudd Guns, a Veteran Squad and a Vulture. I don't remember what his IG HQ was, but I knew going in that the Thudd Guns were going to be a serious problem.

He won the roll and chose to deploy and go first. I had literally zero terrain in my deployment zone except for 1 large crater, that's it.

The Keeper's rewards were Dark Blessing and Daemonic Resilience, which combined with the Grimore, made him virtually invincible. I moved him straight into his lines, and every turned used Dominate to lock down a unit, and then Puppet Master to shoot one of the Riptides into his Broadsides taking them down slowly.

He shot the Thudd Guns at my Horrors in the crater, so they went to ground for the 3+ cover save. 
Their ability to re-roll 1's came in huge here as he ended up having to cause 100+ wounds to take out the unit, which even more infuriated him that I had a portaglyph just outside his range and kept spawning more and more horrors and running them into the crater...

I managed to get Fateweaver into an area where he had no range and no line of sight, so I just used him as buff machine. I assaulted the Keeper into him first to soak up all the overwatch shots, and the Princes followed in behind. After that it was pretty much over and he surrendered on turn 4. Victory 12-6.

Results: 
I finished 4th, and only 2 points out of qualifying. 
First place was a tie between the guy I played in game two, and his brother who was running all Necrons. 
The Grey Knight player ended up playing 2 of his 3 games against Daemons.
3rd place was another Daemon player. He was running a unit of 20 hounds with 2 Heralds on Juggernauts, 2 Daemon Princes, a Soul Grinder, and Fateweaver.

Next qualifier is a month away so looking forward to getting back too it.

Post Game thoughts:
1. The lack of Line of Sight blocking terrain at the tournament was absolutely ridiculous. It was basically a shooting gallery, so its No surprise that Necrons won. I'm pretty sure he was only 3 points short of a perfect score.
2. Dark Blessing on a Keeper with a Grimore is amazing.
3. Getting paired up against Grey Knights can be devastating with Daemons, avoid Dread Knights at all cost. Excommunication is horrible.
4. Surprisingly I only saw 1 person playing Eldar, and even then they were being used as an ally. I saw zero Wraithknights. No Tyranid players either.
5. The only Space Marine Army I saw that was even close to competitive was a White Scars Player with 30+ bikes.

1 comment:

  1. wow rough tournament. grats on 4th place. good luck next time.

    ReplyDelete