Introduction
I’m back! This past weekend was a regularly scheduled Two Rivers RTT held at Parallax Games in Bismark, ND. The field wound up being the largest yet for our RTTs at 18 people. Thankfully their gaming space is pretty large and even with us taking up 9 tables they had room for regular gaming.
The List
Army List - Click to Expand Mars Battalion Cawl, Warlord Enginseer, Reroll Repairs Relic 5 Rangers 5 Rangers 5 Rangers 10x Fulgurite Priests 10x Fulgurite Priests Skorpius Disintegrator Skorpius Disintegrator Skorpius Disintegrator Skorpious Dunerider Skorpious Dunerider Skorpious Dunerider Skorpious Dunerider Terrax Drill Mars Battalion Enginseer Enginseer 5 Rangers 5 Vanguard 5 Vanguard Dunecrawler, Icarus Array, Stubber Dunecrawler, Icarus Array, Stubber Dunecrawler, Icarus Array, Stubber Operative Requisition Sanctioned
How It Works
It’s a Cawl castle, but with some excellent mobility and counter-charge capability. All the infantry start in rides (with Vanguard and the two normal tech priests in the drill) to get me down to 14 drops. Generally the plan is to line up the priest boats so they can support each other and bail into ruins or behind LOS blockers when the rides blow up and the infantry are lined up to rush objectives in the midfield. The drill tends to deep strike turn two to threaten another target and deliver characters or more infantry to objectives. It doesn’t really have a good Wrath of Mars target, but it also doesn’t have the liability of planted robots or fragile short ranged Infiltrators. As I talked about in the last report, this certainly isn’t all in on the extreme pressure plan, but can handle actually going second and negative hit modifiers gracefully.
Game 1: Filthy Elves
The Opposition
Billy was running two detachments of filthy elves. An Alaitoc Spearhead with 9 D-Cannon artillery, a couple Wave Serpents with all the upgrades, a Warlock and a Farseer, then an Ulthwe detachment with Fire Dragons (with Fuegan!), Striking Scorpions (with Karandras), and a squad of Wraithguard with flamers. He also had some Guardians and a squad of Dire Avengers.
Mission
ITC Mission 6 – Dawn of War
2 L blockers in the middle of the table, two sets of small ruins including a baby L blocker in the NW/SE corners, some area terrain in the opposite corners. Hills on cardinal points.
Assassin Pick
Callidus. He only has something like 5 CP, so costing him more will be vital. That, and elves tend to not have great board presence, so a deep strike assault should tag a character.
The Game
I “lose” the roll off and get the side without the mini L. I choose to setup first and do so in a pretty broad deployment almost exactly according to the plan laid out above: Priests line up to grab the center and operate around the L blockers troops lined up on objectives, Cawl and the crawlers on the S hill, Disintegrators ready to shift to one side or the other of the L blockers, assassin and drill in reserve. I put my extra Tech Priest ready to hoof it to the center objective to grab the bonus on two.
He sets up all the artillery and casters in the NW baby L, the Wave Serpents next to them, and Guardians on the N objective. The Scorpions and their lord are kept in reserve. He fails to seize.
I execute my movement plan as described above save one change: my W and E Duneriders jump onto the objectives, with my W transport leaving 5 Rangers behind to screen out the Scorpions. The priest rides advance up to grab the center objective with the ability to bail into the L blockers if the rides die. In the shooting phase I to take out a couple of his artillery pieces (while staying out of range of return fire) and then hammer the Wave Serpent with the Fire Dragons inside to get them demeched. I fail to kill the Serpent but I do manage to kill the Guardians holding his objective with indirect fire and a some stubber fire and pick off a couple of artillery pieces. The bottom of 1 he gets the Wraith flamers out, the Avengers go run to hold his now empty objective, and he realizes the artillery are now out of range of everything except the W Dunerider I fed him. The Dunerider dies, as does one of the priest rides, but since I bailed into the building the Wave Serpents lined up to kill them instead have to shoot at the other priest Dunerider and do nothing.
Top of two my drill comes down to threaten a Serpent while the Tech Priests and Vanguard spread out all over the NE corner to block out deep striking. The second set of priests also get out to go after the Wraithguard. My shooting kills both Serpents, a Warlock that was no longer screened, a few platforms, the Dire Avengers, and my priests wrap but do not kill the Wraithguard.
In his turn, the Scorpions have to go into his deployment zone and fail their charges while the Fire Dragons try to peek out and pick up a Disintegrator. After this it was mainly a mop up, the priests killed with Wraithguard in his turn and consolidated towards the artillery while my shooting removes the Fire Dragons. Eventually he is boarded on the top of 4 with me taking pretty minimal losses.
Honestly a kind of a tic-tac-toe game. The guy is pretty new to competitive play and had a real mishmash of Eldar while this is like game 60 for my Ad Mech and the list I’m prepping for NOVA. Even if I went second his reliance on those artillery meant I could out range them and kill them at my leisure.
Final Score 39-10
Game 2: Imperial Guard
The Opposition
Warhog Mark! Always a fun game with the old man. He’s finally put away his GK and is bringing something closer to a real army. He had the Cadian IG super heavy triple threat: A Shadowsword, a Banehammer, and a Baneblade, with a Cadian loyal 32 plus a squad of mortars and a Tempestus Drop Force Battalion with 15 Scions, 2 Command Squads of plasma, and a Valkyrie to do the first turn plasma drop.
Mission
ITC Mission 2 – Vanguard deployment on the same table I played game 1!
Assassin Pick
Callidus. He wants to Overlap them Fields of Fire, reroll number of shots, and have guys not die when they jump out of planes.
The Game
I “won” the roll off! I took my SW corner of the map with the only terrain being a crater and a dream. He setup his three tanks and airplane in his faaaar NE corner with a little space for a squad of Guardsmen, another squad of Guardsmen on the line to run into a center L blocker, and everything else off the table or in a ride.
I setup very broadly with everything outside of 3″ of everything else with all the Skorpiuses on the line. Troops on the far outsides, then Disintegrators, then priests rides in the middle to run at the objective and L blockers. Crawlers and Cawl on the S hill. I also leave out a squad of 5 Rangers from my NW Dunerider to fill up the rest of my backfield with my extra Tech Priest to make sure the Valkyrie and Scion drop don’t punk out Cawl.
I try to seize, fail and he gets to go first. The plane drops off his plasma on the NW part of my line and blow up a Skorpius and a Dunerider, while the tanks get firing lines on a Dunecrawler that dies and explodes, putting damage on another crawler and a Disintegrator. The bottom of the turn drive my priest boats up but do not get out. I unload on the baneblade that drove almost straight south and put close to 20 wounds on it. I kill all the plasma scions, and one guard squad. His turn two I use the Callidus Strat again and all the scions come in, all the guard get out and he blows up both preist duneriders, kills them down to 4 and 6, and his tanks wiff or I make saves to keep things alive. The guard charge to kill the squad of 4, kill 2, and only lose 4 or so in response. I choose to auto pass morale on those guys so they can grab me hold more after I have to reroll morale on the squad of 6 to keep them from losing more. My turn two the drill comes in the very NE corner behind his tanks with all the vanguard and engineseers. My priests string out to charge his wounded baneblade or grab the bonus objective in his DZ and the callidus comes in 7″ away to kill try and kill a scion commander in the far SE corner. My shooting tears down the baneblade to it’s bottom tier and I kill most of the scions that dropped and put 11 wounds on the valk. I knew I had to start being careful as I was running out of targets to kill.
This turn also had My callidus fail to make the morale check on her gun, makes the charge, (eating a 3D krak grenade in overwatch, and after rerolling one of 3 misses into a hit, only get one hit so the scion commander lives but not before putting a wound on her with his chainsword. Not getting this kill denies me kill more.
The shadowsword blows up the drill while his banehammer rolled 5 shots for the third turn in a row. He does kill the callidus and some troops in both the SE and NE corners while loading up everything that fits into the valk and running as far into the NE corner as possible. I go and finish off the baneblade, his brave assassin killing commander friend in the same SE corner, and the valk. He goes, flubs his shooting with his shadow sword and continues to not roll more than a couple wounds with his banehammer while my trash in his DZ gets charged, runs away, and charged again. Eventually I kill the shadow sword on 6 and anything that isn’t the banehammer throughout the turns, pulling ahead with always holding more, a few bonus points, and a couple kill mores.
A real fun couple early turns. I think his Shadowsword should have finished off my disntergrators instead of picking at the crawlers with their 5++ rerolling 1s, which saved my bacon several times. However they were his Marked for Death targets so I understand the desire for the secondary points. If his Banehammer rolled over 5 shots the entire game this could have also been a lot different, but with that he was functionally shooting at me with ~1800 points of shooting. He was real smart on handling the priests, they had to get removed or they could have done real damage, however they also forced out his sqishy things so I could kill them with my stubber and indirect fire. I’m also thankful I went second in a way. I don’t know if I would have had much luck killing anything if I went first.
Final Score 32-22
Game 3: Ad Mech!
The Opposition
Nick is in the military and was just stationed in the area. He has a beautiful white Ad Mech army, including some converted 30k Ad Mech models. He was playing a Ryza Cybernetica Battalion with a Dominus, Enginseer, 15 Rangers, 10 Destroyers, a unit of Servitors, and 3 neutron laser Dunecrawlers, plus a Graia detachment of two Enginseers, 6×5 Vanguard, 2×10 Hoplites, 3 Disentegrators, and 2 Duneriders.
Mission
ITC Mission 4 – Dawn of War
New table! Two NOVA ruin L blockers, hills on the cardinal directions, small squareish ruins in the SW/NE corners.
Assassin Pick
Callidus. He wants to use like three strats when the Destroyers pop off. I want to make sure he can only do that once.
The Game
I lose the roll off, and choose to setup first. I deploy broadly on my center hill with my priests centered to drive through the L blocker gap, and my troop transports on my W flank to push towards my bonus objective while holding his. My Disintegrators were slightly E to hide from the neutron lasers if he setup across from me. The drill and assassin were in reserve.
His Dunecrawlers setup on his hill, he split his Hoplite transports, and his Disentegrators all start on the line with all his troops hiding behind vehicle hulls or hills to prevent easy stubber fire from getting them. His Destroyers were slightly W of his hill, near an objective. He fails to seize and uses Prepared Positions.
My opening volley was anemic. My priest transports shot up the gap to hold the middle, while my W troop transport swung far W to the edge of the board to get some LOS on his Vanguard. My other transports lurked near my objective, while all my shooting lined up to try to kill some Destroyers. I manage to kill 5 or so and blow up a Disintegrator, but fail to kill any troops, only nickle and diming down a few guys out of many squads. He fails morale on a 6 for the Destroyers to lose 2, rerolls, pays 2 CP for the privilege, and rolls another 6. In his turn he eats a Servitor to bring a Destroyer back, throws one squad of Hoplites onto the middle objective, and pushes his second squad S towards his bonus objective. His shooting was very solid. He blew up both priest rides, a squad of priests, a Disintegrator, and put the hurt on a Dunecrawler. However he pays through the nose on all his CP usage and is down to 1 CP.
On my turn two, the drill comes in in my W side, the priests move up through the ruins and hide waiting for a 4″ charge into a Disintegrator, every thing else stays basically put so I can put down the Hoplites. I fail to blow up the other Hoplite ride, and clean up as many troops as I can. I charge out and blow up a Disintegrator after fighting twice and needing a reroll of mortal wounds to finish it off. That was a lot, but I do manage to wrap a squad of Vanguard and have another Disintegrator tagged. On his turn his other Hoplites get out to threaten a charge onto his bonus objective. His shooting kills a Dunecrawler and some troops, but fails to answer the priests other than throwing more Vanguard and a Tech Priest at it to keep me tied up. I wind up fighting twice so I can kill all of them but still stay in combat with one of the Disintegrators.
My Callidus comes down on turn 3 to threaten some Tech Priests and charge into a Dunecrawler while the rest of my shooting lines up to kill the Hoplites. I blow up a Dunerider, a Dunecrawler, all the Hoplites, the Disintegrator in combat, and all the bitty unit model killing starts paying off and I kill three more units of Vanguard and Rangers. I also make the charge with the Callidus and tag a Dunecrawler. He hangs on until turn six but his shooting kept getting tied up. He kills the priests but the drill runs rampant melta-ing and charging vehicles while all the anti infantry shooting I have left cleans up all the Vanguard.
A real tight game early that got away from Nick. If he went first and had 5 more Destroyers I think his opening volley would have been pretty crippling. His splitting the Hoplites was probably his biggest mistake. He went for the bonus and a recon point but that let my priests run around his backfield for far too long. The Graia super-FNP is neat and allowed him to stay around a lot longer than expected. I’m also not a fan of neutron lasers but the Icarus array is only really good if Cawl is baby sitting them, so maybe they were the right choice in this list. I’d love to play Nick again, he was a very good opponent.
Final Score 32-23
And that’s it! 3-0, a solid RTT win for the faction leader board and a good test of the list that I’m planning on bringing to NOVA. I never really noticed the lack of a Wrath of Mars target, and while I may not have quite have enough shooting to take down a Knight in one turn, NoVA doesn’t have progressive killing so this grindier game can work out. After NoVA we have a couple week break before our next RTT, but unless it’s another 18 person event I’m kind of capped out on RTT points so I can play around with the new Marine book. That’s right folks, this is actually a Marine blog. Until next time!
