A Weekend in the Grim Dark: Follow Up

 Greetings!  Salutations!  And other forms of hellos.  I had hoped to get to this article up a little sooner, but the new week came in heavy and fast and side arched me into work.  I'm actually writing this while at the B.S.U. Indy Center... talk about hard work :D.  I managed to have a whole weekend of glorious times in the newly grimmed derpness of the firty firp millenuhnum that is 6th edition's tournament scene.  I was excited to get a chance to experience a few different crowds and see how the game has changed in regards to what people will run.

First stop was the Comic Cave in Columbus Indiana.  The local store there is a great, and is always a pleasant environment.  Players there are easy going, and rules debates usually end up in just playing it by ear.  With the new rules, there were a few new rules conundrums but nothing that a quick consultation with the rule book or a "meh, go for it!" didn't fix right up.  We didn't get around to starting until around 5:30, but as I said, it's a pretty laid back environment.


I played my Kriegling Imperial Guard army.  It was a 1500 point event.  My list was as follows.  Bare in mind I don't have enough to run Infantry Platoons like I'd hope, but hopefully that will change after a trip to Games Day.

HQ
Command Squid!  A lotta surplus wargear, and Creed!  That's right... Krieg Creed!

Elites
Markus the Invincible!

Troops
Suicidal Plasma Gun-toting Veterans (Forward Sentries) x2
Melta Vets (Demolitions Experts)

Fast Attack
Bane Wolf (CHEM CANNON! RAWR!)
Vendetta

Heavy Support
Basilisk
Basilisk
Demolisher


DAY 1!


Round 1:  Guard on Guard Action
I play my army around 2 things.  Highly covered infantry, and artillery. I faced the opposite of my list... Stracken Melee Guard with a wall of Leman Russes.  His army was aggressive, and moved to close the gap on me fast. Lucky for me, the set up was Hammer & Anvil (short table edges).  While that didn't stop him from getting his troops on the move... My artillery was merciless. Lots of targets for blasts to scatter to.  Though I spent a very... very.... veeeerrrry long time shooting his Russes.  I finally managed to down his last one at the end of turn 6.

Overall, I managed a healthy win against him as he was tabled.  He played a great game, but he was a little inexperienced, and unfortunatly his guardsmen had to come for my very heavily defended positions which meant they were litterally cannon fodder for my Earthshakers.

Round 2:  Guard on Guard... the Sequel
While round one was a melee vs artillery guard... my opponent this time ran a very solid list.  This game was unlike the first for many reasons.  First and foremost... my dice must have been tiered from round 1... because they just fell to part this round.  I was landing demolisher and Earthshaker rounds that couldn't pen the side of a chimera... that takes snake eyes... and boy did I get em.  He downright slaughtered me.  Worse yet was it was The Relic mission.  Not a good mission for my static guard list.  His meched up vets were much more prepared for such a mission.  I surrendered at the bottom of turn 3 with very little left on the field.  I guess my spirit was broken when a blast scattered and blew my demolisher to kingdom come leaving me 5 vets, a bane wolf, and half a command squad left on the table against the majority of his army.

He played a solid game, and my only real regret was not having the fortune to give him a more challenging game.  I bow my head to his vastly superior skills on I.G. list construction.

Round Three actually was cancelled for time.  Several of our competitors had to leave early, so the store owner decided it would make sense to just call off the third round.  The I.G. player I faced Round 2 took first, and then the discussion turned to what to do with second, as I was technically still there, and Warmaster Havok close on my heels.  Round 3 was going to be Havok vs my Round 2 opponent, and I was going to face a foot marine list.  Havok decided he wouldn't fair too well with his chaos list, and decided to say with my having a better match up for round 3, it was more probable I'd have it.  I was content to split the prize money, but it was just not in the cards I guess.  For his generosity, Havok was gifted one of the new servo skull measuring tapes.  Afterwards, Havok and I chilled at his place.

I managed to order my first heavy weapon teams box.  I can now finally get some better shots in my list, when they arrive.


DAY 2!
Woke up early and hit the road from Columbus to Bloomington.  Brown county is just a gorgeous place to drive through.  Listened to some CCR and cruised in early. We had another small turnout for this event, with only 5 competitors.  Britton had some newly started Grey Knights to play against whomever got the buy.  I had one of those sadly, but it was nice to get in a third game.

Since this event was 1850, I dropped my Bane Wolf and added in some allied Grey Knights.  Just an Ordo Malleus Inquisitor in terminator armor, five troop Terminators, and a Vindicare Assassin.  They gave me some mobile (derp strike) and resilient troops to throw down range, and I'm a sucker for the Vindicare.

Round 1:  Guard on Tau!  Pew Pew ka chew!
I was actually kind of laughing when I saw his list... not because it was bad (quite the opposite really) but rather because it was so familiar.  Tau with allied Deathwing. Having first turn I was able to get some nice shots off to cripple one of his flanks pretty hard.  His terminators soaked up a massive amount of fire, and by round 3 or 4, he had very little left on the board to really fight with.  Sadly though, one of his biggest problems was his dice.  They were no where near that table.  On top of that... I think I missed a grand total of 3... maybe 4 scatters.  including 2 direct hits from my Master of Ordinance... which should maybe happen once in a blue moon.

Overall he played a good game.  If it had ended on turn 5... he would have actually pulled out a win, but I was lucky that Bloomington goes to a fixed turn 6, giving me just enough time to secure a solid win of 2 objectives to 0.  I will say he has some of the most beautifully crafted suits I have seen in any tau army... bar none!

Round 2:  Buy
While it was technically a buy... I played against Britton's Grey Knights, and managed a pretty healthy win against them.  Plasma vets + artillery makes standard list grey knights weep.  The only real amusingly "should never happen" moments came from Markus the Invincible whose namesake actually derived from this game.  For those of you who don't know, I run Marbo, but call him Markus... a reference to Markus Phoenix.  Markus in this particular game wiffed with his det. pack, but proceeded to kill a psifleman dread via melta bombs, weather fire from a land raider crusader, a unit of grey knight terminators, and a Vindicare assassin, and then destroyed the land raider. 

While it was all just for fun, I had a blast... I felt comfortable getting a major victory in my name after facing down and actually winning instead of just receiving a win.

Round 3:  Guard on Dark Eldar
This was a first for me in a long time.  I was lucky to have this match up, as it was a foot based Dark Eldar army, utilizing a lot of true born, warriors, and a combination of Lady Mallus and Duke Siliscus.  My real saving grace was his placement.  He tended to bunch up his guys tightly, which made my basilisks very happy.  and with so many squads, scatters had a pretty good chance of hitting something out there.  Believe it or not it was a hard push to get to his side of the board to claim objectives.  I managed a solid win against him... but I lost 2 squads, and all but one of my terminators... leaving me with barely enough to claim some objectives. 

Solid game, and very fun.

It was a great weekend.  I managed first in Bloomington and snagged 2 more heavy weapon teams boxes as well as a new Lord Commisar.  I've already converted him to have a gas mask.  It turned out very well in my opinion.  I have 1 team of auto cannons built, and plan to build 3 lascannons next.  Of course I'm using some extra Krieg infantry men to build up the teams... Cadian men just wouldn't look quite right :P.  I'm not sure what the third team will be when I get it.. I'll draw up a new list for the future and see what I need more.  But with AP2 meaning something... I might really want to consider a few ore lascannons.  Overall it was a fantastic weekend.  I'm very happy I got to experience the new edition with such a great group of folks.  Hopefully I'll get to have another of these fun outing soon.  I've actually got an idea to discuss some of the vet team designs for I.G. ... and I think the Forward Sentries has a great place in 6th.  But that's for another time.  Until then.

Cheers!