Wednesday, January 26, 2011

1250 pt Tournament Results

Well, I ended up bringing my Lamenters for a second tournament. They're the most fun to play out of all of my armies so I can't really resist using them. There's a 1500 pt regional tournament with a qualifier tournament happening soon in the area (yeah it'll be pretty intense, the top 4 players from 4 different stores advance to a regional throw down to see who's champion in the area) and I'll probably end up using Lamenters again.

So, down to what I used in the 1250:
Captain w/ Jump Pack, 2x Assault Squads w/ Jump Packs, 10 man terminator squad, and a Land Raider. Simple and tiny. I either castle up or deep strike everything depending on my opponent.

Round 1: Vs. Imperial Guard - Seize Ground - 3 objectives. This game was close up until about turn 4 when an earthshaker cannon hit my assault marine squad (with captain) which was to hold 2 objectives, caused an Ld test, and I rolled an 11 and ran off the board. Totally sucked, but that's 40k for you. My mistake for hanging out so close to the edge. I ended up losing this game, IG held 1 objective, I held 0.

Round 2 Vs. Blood Angels - Capture and Control. This poser totally copied my style and decided to use 10 shooty terminators in his force, albeit with assault cannons instead of CML. Vindicator, baal predator, scouts, Librarian.... All comers list pretty much. Lamenters made it known who the superior successor chapter was. Objectives held 2 - 0.

Round 3 Vs. Space Marines - Kill Points. I knew all along this game was going to be a breeze as the army I had selected is well optimized for this mission. I had 5 killpoints in my force, over half of my army invested into a Land Raider and Terminators. I castled up and killed a drop pod, predator, and attack bike squad. I lost an assault squad but my Terminators and Land Raider took a lot of punishment and lasted throughout the game. 3-1 KPs.

Round 4 Vs. Tyranids - Assassination. Enemy general was a Hive Tyrant. I hid my captain with 5 terminators behind the Land Raider.. While everything else surrounded the Hive Tyrant, who died on turn 3 before even being assaulted. Lascannons on the Raider + infernus pistols... Yeeeeah, no invo sucked for that dude.

So I ended the tournament with a 3-1 record and nabbed 3rd place. I'm happy with that. Army thoughts? The internet is wrong about Land Raiders! My LR amassed about 5 or 6 vehicle kills the duration of the tournament and never died on me while soaking boatloads of long range str 8-9 fire. The winner was of course Hurricane James, the fleebsy space wolf player I crushed from Round 4 in the first tournament! I'm out for blood now...



More to come

Monday, January 10, 2011

Incoming 1250 pt Tournament

Lamenters brought the pain last time, but my Blood Dragons could use some love too.

Then there's these guys... lurking in the shadows... waiting to make their grand entrance.

Standard Land Raider

Godhammer, vanilla, whatever you want to call it - this article is about the straight up regular land raider and why I think it's easily one of the best vehicles in the game.

Players don't give too much credit to land raiders in these dark days of 5th ed 40k. Overcosted some say, since it's near impossible to make its points back in a game and you'll likely get punked via a meltagun by turn 2. That's if you're using average joe tactics by trying to cram your land raider up in your opponents grill with terminators+lib/chap inside. It can work in a pure deathwing list, but I am inclined to believe it is better suited for chilling at safe ranges and soaking fire.






Versus melta, AV 14 doesn't mean too much. But it's really only vs. melta & other close range nasties where AV14 becomes vulnerable. Railguns and Vanquishers are perhaps an occasional hindrance, but relatively speaking there are few mid to long range weapons capable of laying the hurt down on a LR (if such threats exist, wipe them off the table first). If you get stunned by a lucky missile or lascannon, big deal. Machine spirit keeps you firing every turn.Weapon destroyed? No biggie. Immobilized? Probably wasn't going to move it anyway.

An LR will make its points back by soaking up str 8-9 long range fire from a clueless opponent wasting his effort on your "centerpiece" target. The vast majority of competitive armies take meltas / pod combi meltas or chainfist as their answer to the all-too-common and poorly played LR. I screen my LR with terminators to keep it secure every game. You want to get close? Get through over 400 points of my tough as-nails elites first. Most players opt to take the aformentioned route of spamming all their ML and Las into AV14 rather than getting close to tons of termies.

You can take a multi melta on your regular land raider. It's 10 points, there is no reason not to take one. First and foremost, it is a deterrent as it has potential to scare off vehicles from getting close to your castle. If you get a weapon destroyed you'll still have enough firepower return the favor.

My Land Raider is critical to the entire deployment and tactics of my army when I choose to field it. Protect it from 2D6 pen rolls, force your opponent waste shots better used on the rest of your army, lay down the hurt. Leverage in units, set traps, there are tons of ways to make a LR more than pay for itself by changing the flow of the game to your advantage.