The Road to LVO: The Triple Tusk

The end of the ITC season is nigh, the lights and warm temperatures of the desert beckon, and it’s time for me to bring the Yacht Club to an RTT in its final, post Chapter Approved, Inquisitors clarified, form.

The most expensive yacht in the world is named Eclipse and is valued at 1.2 Billion USD - Click to Expand

If this looks familiar it is. 5 transports and 6 tanks has been the core of my army since way back at Slaughterhouse. I’ve had some ups and downs over the year with the list but I feel the GSC/Ork hordes are currently oppressed and I think I have play with Marines with the changes. Having an ignore overwatch spell/melee threat/double tap mortal wounds caster is real nice and makes Coteaz an easy replacement for the now 95 point Assassin Sideboard. And with all the points drop, cutting a couple priests, and downgrading the good-but-somewhat dubious-value-because-of-range-bands-Daedalosus opens up enough room for 9 Infiltrators giving me a Wrath of Mars delivery mechanism which may have bailed me out of the Iron Hands AND Chaos Knight matches I had at Renegade. Anyway it’s cold out, let’s get to the games.

Round 1 – Iron Hands

It's not the lamest IH list, but it's up there

Well this is a start. Nick is the only Warhog in the area ranked higher than me (Ryan is in Mordor) and he’s playing the exact list I lost to a few months ago when it was piloted by his dad and I was also playing Iron Hands.

Pregame Decisions:

I feel in a similar position as I was in at Renegade but I “lost” the roll off on this I Go You Go Deployment and chose to setup first. I knew my secondaries were gonna be BGH (5 targets, realistically can kill 3), Recon, with this map/objectives I chose Engineers since I had a great place to hide an engineering transport full of more engineers.  He picked BGH, Old School, And Marked for Death my Drill and Dunecrawlers. Deployment pics below: Green Objectives are my placed (and bonus objectives) Black are his, the upside down one in the center is the center objective, sheesh.

The overall game plan however, is the same plan I’ve had against Nick the last two times we played on this same mission: Grab the bonus objective ASAP.

The Game

Nick doesn’t seize and pops Prepared Positions. I push out aggressively, using the Ls to provide places for my priests and the hill to get LOS for my crawlers. I advanced the Dunerider with the troops to get over into his quadrant for recon and start blasting. I pick up the closest plane and do three (so zero) damage to the Redemptor and kill some troops. He shoots back doing not a ton, killing a crawler and the top ride with the priests (and half moves them with his Thunderfire) but things felt ok.

My turn two the drill comes in at the top of the board to threaten his infantry around my bonus objective. I get out some troops to grab that objective. I also realize that I will lose a lot of materiel soon and will need to start setting up charges and Cawl’s super gun so most of my gunline and Coteaz heads into the middle. Then I proceed to pick up his Infiltrators, a plane, and start chipping at the Cents. Bonus Point. His return fire kills my crawlers and his dread peeks out to threaten the center objective.

On my turn three, the priests in my right ride get out and set up a charge into the Redemptor, my Infiltrators come down where his Infiltrators were to Wrath of Mars his Cents and my drill pushes forward with the remainder of my top priests into his Intercessors. Most of his Cents die, most of his troops die, and his Redemptor got his overwatch turned off so it could take some chip damage but doesn’t go down to combined shooting/double fighting priests, but they do get it wrapped. Bonus Point. His counter finishes off a Disintegrator and the antenna of his Executioner can see over the ruin and picks up my Infiltrators. He charges my priests with his chapter master and Feirros. I lose all but one priest in the combats.

My turn four Coteaz double taps mortals at his Redemptor, which explodes, finishing off his Intercessors, and putting a pile of mortals on his now too close Chapter Master and Feirros and Cawl. The remaining of my shooting kills his Chapter Master and the remaining Cent while the sneaky priests that hopped into and out of the drill charged and killed his Lieutenant then wrapped up his Thunderfire Techmarine he heroic’d in. Bonus Point. His bottom of the turn he continues to shoot anything that’s not wrapped up into pieces, including the drill.

Turns 5 Bonus Point and 6 go quick, he shoots anything that is loose and he gets the priests, Cawl, and Coteaz but I get Feirros. It did create a fun moment since we were pretty visible and one of the last games to finish we had people floating by asking “why is Cawl checks board  in close combat in Nick’s deployment zone?”. “I needed him to act in more than one phase.”

Final Score: 31-29

Postgame Thoughts:

A real barn burner. I did make a mistake and got shot off my center bottom objective on a turn when I realized I could have disembarked my engineering Rangers to double cover. That would have given me one more point as we pushed Hold More on one turn. However he also made a mistake heroic-ing into the priests letting me wrap him, staying safe for a turn, and protecting my characters that were in the line of fire for his Exectioner. He consistently got Kill More, obviously, but my hold more and bonus grabbing got me through.

Round 2 – Grey Knights

Yup GK. And a Landraider. I KNOW

From the kid to the old man. It was Mark’s turn to defend his family honor with his goofy as hell, functionally mono drop GK. Oh and it’s the same table as before.

Pregame Decisions:

I’ve been traveling with Mark enough to know what his gameplan is: hide in the corner, Astral Aiming his Raider, get the Paladins to charge from behind cover, wrap and trap until I’m out of things. My gameplan is to hold all the objectives and counter drop the Paladins with my Infiltrators. He picks BGH, Old School, and Marked for Death (Priest, Priests, Infiltrators, Drill). I pick Gangbusters, Recon, and Mark for Death 4/6 of his Strike Squad bois.

The Game

We “alternate deploy” (Mark puts down the Raider and individually puts characters into it one at a time, and dumps the rest into deep strike) while I puzzle out my deployment. I setup very similarly to my last game and win the roll but put him on first turn.

Mark’s turn one: Astral Aim, shoot, miss, pass. Kill/Hold nothing, drop an old school point.

My turn one: shoot the exposed Dread with my whole army, do 4 wounds, grab Recon, Hold More. Pass.

Turn two all his deep strike guys come in, everyone gets out of the Land Raider, and he opens up with his 13 smites and after Benevolence of the Omnissiah mitigation I take ~8 wounds over a couple Duneriders. His 120 stormbolter shots sand off another 8ish wounds off of one and lascannons wipe out the priest’s ride. His Paladins Astral Aim through the wall and kill them off as well. He does some charges, making it in with a a Strike Squad into my right Dunerider while his Paladins make it into my far left Dunerider and after fighting twice leave it at one wound.

He was mad he didn’t kill it but I think it was for the best he had his Paladins wrapped up. My response was pretty brutal though. My remaining priests get out for an 8″ charge into the Paladins, my drill comes down to threaten the bro cap that was supporting everyone. and I level all my shooting at his Strike Squads. After a brief “Coteaz super smites the squad that charged” moment, I shoot the remaining Strike Squad guys off the table, leaving one squad of 3 or so. The brocap gets 6’d on my melta from the drill, and the priests make it in. After double fighting, but also getting killed in his double fight back, they killed 4 or so Paladins as they go down.

His turn three his Land Raider does 4ish more wounds to a Skorpius and his strikes try to finish off a wounded Dunerider and lose all but one in overwatch. Meanwhile, the Paladins make it into a Disintegrator and fail to kill it.

Now, we have a bit of a discussion. Look at the square-ish things in the center of the table:

What would you call them? For reference the lower level is ~2″ high. The next level is ~4″ high.

I assumed they were hills.

Mark assumed the 4″ faces were impassable.

Because he assumed they were impassable he assume he had me boxed in. I moved away (the Skorpius with a die went up to where the Dunecrawler is). I asked if he wanted to fix it and properly wrap me. He said no, we should have clarified long before and “ties go to runner” soooo….

I shot his Paladins into pieces with my Infiltrators and started to kill characters after.

And that’s basically the game. The rest of the game was his Land Raider hilariously wiffing or doing like 5 damage to this and that which would quickly get repaired or Draigo hammering on a Tech -priest and me making 2 out of 3 6++ saves to keep him alive.

Final Score: 34-16

Postgame Thoughts:

One weakness of a list like this is that when there are more central placed objectives it’s hard to hold anything when the gameplan is hide in the corner. Mark said his one misplay was not Gating the Land Raider over to my right L blocker on turn two when everything came in to force more pressure. If the characters were in a useful spot it would have been a lot different.  However, 13 mortals a turn, hidden lascannons or heavy bolter shooting, a ton of scary close combat, an improbable to kill target turn one and reroll charges. GK really is like almost there and with the preview stuff they look significantly better.

Round 3 – Necrons

Skeleton Hog would be a great band name

The third Warhog of the day, I’m going for the Triple Tusk! Cody has a plan. It’s post-Chapter Approved Destroyers.

Pregame Decisions:

I didn’t take a picture but the board was pretty typical Nova style board but with smaller GW ruin Ls.

Necrons are practically immune to large damage weapons. Thankfully all but 3 of my shots are d3 or flat 2. I also have like 70 stubber shots a turn, a lot of targets I wound on 5s, and 4+ doesn’t go all that far. I pick Gangbusters, Engineers and Recon. He picks BGH, Recon, and Mark for Death (Priests, Priests, Drill, Infiltrators).

The Game

We do the alternating deployment thing and setup. Wraiths are on the line, the heavy Destroyers up on a hill, and the Arks on the corners. I set up with my transports on the line but the shooting back as far as I can to hide from the Destroyers and Arks. I win the roll off and choose to go first. My turn one I do the typical advance for Recon and nose out all my shooting to catch the heavy Destroyers and kill all of them and a Doomsday Ark. His counter shooting is anemic: shooting doesn’t kill anything and the Wraiths have to fight to kill a Dunerider.

My turn two the remaining Arks and Wraiths die and the whole board is zoned out so none of my heavy shooting can be touched by his deep striking Destroyers. He looked at me and said “I don’t even want to play it out.”

We did, and he didn’t get boarded until 5. But it was rough.

Final Score: 30-15

Postgame Thoughts:

He didn’t hide his Heavy Destroyers and they died for free. He probably needed to go first as well since a lot of his anti tank is in a deep strike unit and on Hammer and Anvil I was able to zone zone zone. It’s not a bad list, but I think it’s a rough matchup.

3-0! Coteaz is a sick add. Turning off the Redemptor overwatch is huge and having a character melee threat running around the Cawl-pile has been great for counter charge opportunities. The priests at squads of 8 seem good enough compared to 9 or 10.  And even with the top 100 table terrain changes (that were announced two days before lists were due), that we talked about on the ride home, I’m comfortable with this list in Vegas. Maybe next time I’ll have some hardware, or washout hard and just see some shows with Narawife. Either way, there will be content for the content god.