A lack of posting due to crazy amount of work on the kitchen, but I finished up painting my pod and headed off to the LGS for our 1850 Spring Tournament.
I ran the planned Drop Pod Templar list:
Emp Champ, AACNMTO 140
Marshal, Terminator Armor, TH/SS, Adamanitite 180
Reclusiarch, Combi Melta, Melta Bombs 115
Dread, MM/HF, Armor in Pod w/ Deathwind 180
Dread, MM/HF, Armor in Pod w/ Deathwind 180
6 Initiates w/ PF/Melta, 2 Neos in Pod w/ Deathwind 191
7Initiates w/ PF/Melta, 2 Neos in Pod w/ Deathwind 207
7 Initiates w/ PF/Melta, 2 Neos in Pod w/ Deathwind 207
8 Initiates w/ PF/Melta, 2 Neos in Pod w/ Deathwind 223
Land Speeder MM/HF 75
Land Speeder MM/HF 75
Land Speeder MM/HF 75
1848
We were using the missions from the upcoming Adepticon. We filled our 20 spaces with the following break down of amies: 4 Space marine, 4 Bugs, 2 Wolves, 2 Gaurd, 2 Templar, 1 Daemons, 1 Dark Eldar, 1 Eldar, 1 Tau, and 1 Ork. Not a bad break down, still a little heavy on bugs but that not too shocking given they are the latest book.
Round 1
Pitched Battle
Primary Objective: Kill points!
Secondary Objective: Eliminate all Troop choices.
Tertiary: 250 more VPs than Opponent
Thomas's Dark Eldar- I've seen Thomas around but we've never had a game. This would also be my first game against DE after several years of playing. I thought I had his army list but I don't so here is a rough guess that I might try to flush out later in Army Builder.
Lilith Hesperex, Wych Ret, Sucubus in Raider
Dracon
6 Wyches in Raider
6 Wyches in Raider
6 Wyches in Raider
6 Wyches in Raider
6 Wyches in Raider
6 Wyches
Ravenger
Ravenger
Ravenger
The upside for me this game is that Thomas had one of the armies that had a lot of kill points also as we both had 18. He won the roll of and wisely made me go first. However he decided to start two of his raiders on the table with 1 Ravenger semi all bunkered in around buildings.
For Combat Drugs if I recall he got 1 12" Assault, 2 +1 WS, 1 Always Strike first, and 2 Reroll Misses.
Turn 2 I get a pretty solid reserve roll with 1 Speeder, Both Dreads, and 3 troops that didn't include the ECs squad. Unfortuantely everything scattered and a few things ended a bit off target.
Unfortuntaely this turn 1 deployment shot is the only shot I have of us playing.
I think I downed both Raiders but only managed to immobilize the Ravenger.
The game then got fierce and fast. Thomas rolled on a bunch of wyches and before you know it there was lots of CC all over the place. Sadly his lances never really got rolling, and I was able to hold my own in CC thanks again to Preffered Enemy.
Somehow the game went pretty slowly and we called it at the bottom of 4 with time winding down. My EC squad never made it to the table at all. In the end I was up on killpoints by a double digit number (granted he would have picked up some easy kills on his next turn but not enough to close the gap), but neither of us could manage the secondary or tertiary points. We both pick up 2+ bonus points, but it's a decent start for Templar 23-2.
As always I played agressive and tackled as much as I could. The lances didn't get to do much and having nothing but AV 12 makes them almost overkill. The only thing Thomas and I talked about afterward was his choices to move up to CC (thus putting Raiders up for kills also) as opposed to making me chase him around and him using his superior range. With the night shields and my lack of range I would have had some issues in there, and he could have popped pods at range all day long. Regardless it was a fun game for the both of us.
I knew my score was not going to be all that great after talking to other folks as many people had either really hot Game 1 or really craptabulous scores. Looking at the score print out now I was 9th out of 20, with the next highest player having ... 2 points!
Round 2
Modified Dawn of War (12" center strip undeployable area)
Primary Objective: Terrain Elimantes are Objectives
Secibdart Objective: Eliminate all HQs
Tertiary: 500 more VPs than Opponent
Pete's Eldar- Pete is apparantly over for 6 months from Finland for work and brought along his army for some gaming. He had a great looking Eldar army that won best painting. It was cool to see both our armies on the table as it was probably the only game all day that had both armies fully painted.
His list looked something like:
Farseer w/ Doom
Avatar
7 Scorps w/ Exarch
6 Fire Dragons w/ Exarch
8 Dire Avengers w/ Exarch in Wave Serp
10 Gaurdians w/ Bright Lance
10 Gaurdians w/ Bright Lance
3 Garudians on Jetbikes w/ Warlock (assorted Weapons)
4 Gaurdians on Jetbikes (Assorted Weapons)
7 Warp Spiders w/ Exarch
Falcon
Wraithlord
It is less of mech army for Eldar than I have seen in quite some time. 5 Troops was no joke considering there were probably 14 bits of terrain we agreed would count as objectives. I decided I would go for the aggressive aproach again as if I tried to go defensive he still could have out ranged me to death.
I won the roll of and decided to go second. He milled a bunch of guys around mostly in the center. For my drop on turn 2 I pulled 1 speeder, 1 Dread, the Marshal Squad and the troop squad.
This game was incredibly close. There were two fairly awesome moments. After the initial deployment and stike to kill off a good clip of scorps Pete focus fired on my Doomed marshal squad. Here's him about to move in on the squad.
After all that focus fire only the Marshal was left. Pete really wanted the Marshal dead so he charged with his Scorps, DAs, and Gaurdians with the Farseer!
Totally awesome shot! Of course just the scorps killed him so it was all a little overkill. And unfortuanately for him everyone ONLY got 1-2" consolidation moves. This would turn out disastorous.
Meanwhile on the other side of the board the Fire Dragons and Avatar cleaned up the Dread and the drop pod.
The now ugly part came as I was able to roll up my 2nd dread near on top of his masses of guys. The heavy flamer alone must have killed 11 garudians and DAs and they all broke and ran off the table. My chap squad dropped on one of his bike squads and nuked them, and the EC squad started pounding his other Gaurdian squad.
I pretty much avoided tangling with the Avatar and the Wraithlord. The game literally came down to the wire, but some last minute CC let me claim 1 objective. Once again neither of us could take the secondary or tertiary points, but I picked up +1 bonus point, making it another victory for Templar 22-0.
At this point we lined up for painting. There were a few more armies that looked close to done, but really there was only other army beside from Pete's and mine that I thought was in the running and that was Kevin's bugs.
Round 3
Table Quarters
Primary Objective: 3 Objectives (2 minor 1 major)
Secibdart Objective: Units in all quarters
Tertiary: 750 more VPs than Opponent
Grant's Drop Pod/Biker Marines- Grant and I have played before but this was going to be a first with some 10 drop pods on the table.
Captain on Bike with Relic Blade
5 bikes w/ Fist, 2 Meltas, Attack Bike
5 bikes w/ Fist, 2 Meltas, Attack Bike
10 Marines Melta/ MM in Drop Pod
10 Marines Melta/ MM in Drop Pod
10 Marines Melta/ MM in Drop Pod
10 Marines Melta/ MM in Drop Pod
2 Typhoon Speeders
Whirlwind
Whirlwind
I won the roll for the turn and chose second. Grant put guys in reserve but still had to put two pods down. He combat squaded them and ran them around a bit.
On his turn 2 he had his non captain bike squad come turbo boostin on, his speeders come flying on, and his 3rd drop pod combat squad down into cover.
For my turn 2 I had pretty much everyting but 1 Speeder come down! This game was ugly from the get go. I was able to whittle the bike squad to just two guys, but more or less only a few other failed shooting attempts. The only upside was his turn 3 was also pretty dreadful, though he did get his captn bike squad on the table. He popped one pod, but he shot my chaplain squad and with Righteous Zeal they were able to pull themselves back from getting assaulted. In the end I don't know if that worked out for the best as that squad was then able to come sit on the 'main' objective for much of the rest of the game.
Turn 3 was great for me for the most part. I was able to charge lots of squad and totally put the hurt on them. I did have one massive failiure with a '1' to assault into cover where I needed a 2 and that probably cost me the main objective at the end of the day.
In the end I think all he had left was a drop pod, his captain, a whirlwind (that came on real late) and tact combat squad. I had also taken signficant casualties as well having lost my marshal, chaplain, 2 Crusader squads, 2 Drop pods, and 2 Speeders. With the VPs given up for immobilized units (my remaing drop pods and one dread) I wasn't able to clear the 750 VPs for tertiary, but we did contest the main objective and I held the other 2 minor objectives (11 pts). I was also clever in my pod deployment and had units in every quarter, so with the secondary acheived I pulled down a win 25-1.
In the end I had 3 wins where I was able to shut my opponent down very well, but I could never get the 'big' points to really put my on the top of the boards.
The winners of the day:
Casey's Wolves 1st at 128 points
Allen's Orks 2nd at 90 points
Scott's Wolves at 76
I came in 4th at 70. I can't complain because again I had 3 fun and solid games with great opponents.
What I do think is interesting is how our top 3 winners days went as they all got there a little differently:
Casey demolished all 3 opponents.
Alan had a good win, was crushed by Casey, and a big win in the end.
Scott had two blow out games and goose egged in the SW vs SW with Casey (with some shit LD checks). But still his first two big wins kept him in the running.
I once again had fun and am really liking the way this year's tournaments are flowing. Sadly there will be no tournaments for me until May as work trips will be pulling me away during the key weekends.
However I can say this officially concludes my big Templar Pod experimentation. They've gone 8-0-1 in the 3 tournaments I've played so I think I've got the hang of them and can say they are a real bear for most opponents. I definately will play them more but I'm looking forward to getting in some games with some of my other neglected armies!
