Tourney Report: 7/15 @ Everything Games
Jul 18, 2017 8:28:49 GMT -6
daniel, why, jefferestinpeace, and 2 more like this
Post by mcsardo on Jul 18, 2017 8:28:49 GMT -6
Hey guys,
This past Sunday I went up to play in a 12 person RTT at everything games. I ended up going 1-2, and figured I'd do a quick write up (since I was doing some post-game stuff in my head anyway) in case people were interested in the broader Chicagoland meta. There were strong lists, but nothing like the ATC lists that were going around. The winning list was Sammael, bike librarian, 9 black knights, a fire raptor, a dark talon, 2 nephilim, and 3 units of scouts. 2nd place was a mechanized sisters list.
They were playing mix of eternal war and maelstrom missions. Winning the eternal war gave you 4 points, winning maelstrom gave you 4 (2 for ties), and first blood, warlord, and linebreaker were all 1 point each for a maximum of 7 points.
This was the list I brought:
I figured I had a strong chance of going first with 7 standard drops (6 if I through Azzy in the Pod), and could muster a pretty strong alpha strike. I was building a list around knocking down knights and other big models, which meant I sacrificed small arms fire which came back to bite me (as we will see). Basically my strategy was to have an azzy gunline in cover somewhere shielded by my darkshroud and black knights to survive a seize or an alpha strike, while my Knight takes another side and slowly advances. The Grav pod could surgically take an objective or put pressure on an opponent's gunline Then the bikes can run and grab objectives as needed.
Round 1
Mission:
EW-No Mercy (modified with power level versus kill points, following ITC. You score points based on the power level of the unit you kill to balance out against an Imperial Knight being 1 kill point
MW-Spoils of War
Played a Craftworld Wraithhost (Wraithknight, 3 wraithlords, 2 spirit seers, 2 units of wraithguard, 1 unit of wraithblades, and a wave serpent. I think that's it, from memory).
Really fun game against Luis. Lots of swings back and forth. I deployed my Azrael gunline in the corner, and he counter-deployed out of line of sight and seized on me. He poured everything into the knight and didn't do too much damage. My beta strike was able to cripple the wraithknight and take down a wraithlord for first blood. The malestrom swung back and forth quite a bit. Ultimately I made the mistake of spending too much fire on the wraithknight and it was the wraithguard that ended up making getting into my back lines via the wave serpent and messing me up.
At the bottom of round 2 I looked in good shape, but got some bad malestrom objectives in turns 3 and 4, so I fell behind. He won both Maelstrom and Eternal War, as he ended up with about 15 more kill points than me because he was able to get to Azrael, and I whiffed against his warlord. Final score: 10-2 him.
Round 2
Mission:
EW- Scouring
MW- Cleanse and Control
Played Gavin who brought a Death Guard List (Typhus, 2 other characters, 60 pox walkers, a unit of death guard, 2 forgeworld drones, the Dark Imperium drone, and two las predators).
My alpha strike hit pretty hard, getting me first blood on one of the predators, and putting some damage on all of the drones. The rest of the game was me slowly shooting down his advancing blob of poxwalkers around Typhus and friends. I got awful malestrom roles this whole game, consistently getting the objectives that he was sitting on with a million pox walkers and never once rolling the objectives in my deployment zone. By the end of the game (turn 5), I held 4 objectives, but the primary objective worth 4 points was tucked away under the plague marines in cover. If it went on, I probably could have forced them off it. I won eternal war, he won malestrom, and I got line breaker and first blood. Final Score: 6-4 me.
Round 3
Mission:
EW- Secure and Control
MW- Tactical Escalation
Played Bryce with a pretty nasty GSC/Tyrannids list (magus, primus, 45 purestrains, 2 chimeras full of neophytes {or acolytes? the guard ones}, a biovore, unit of warriors, and 3 Flyrants)
I knew this game would come down to how much damage I could put on the genestealers. Unfortunately, none of my weapons pumped out high volume of shots. I shot High Damage weapons to take down his chimeras, biovore, warriors, and 2 of 3 flyrants in a couple turns, while trying to use frag missiles and gatling shots to thin down the stealers. I kind of kept thrown things at them to slow them down, hoping that they couldn't get to my EW objective that Azrael and my devastators were camping the objective. I took a early lead in the maelstrom, getting first blood, and taking advantage of poor deployment, got warlord on turn 2. It was looking good going into turn 4 since I had a 4-2 lead in malestrom and looked to be able to clear a unit of acolytes/neophytes from his EW objective with my grav devs, but then he was able to smite out my knight, freeing his genestealers to continue their advance. He drew hot malestrom in 4 and 5 and mine went cold, so he was able to take maelstrom 6-4. My devs whiffed on the last few guys on his EW objectives, and I failed the charge to get in there and contest the objective. Then he charged in bottom of turn 5 to kill Azzrael and swarm my objective. Final score: 10-3. If I had been able make the charge and knock him off his objective to force an EW tie, and kept Azzy alive, I would have forced a tie game 5-5.
He was proxying these guys all as purestrain stealers.
Analysis
The Good:
Azzy- his buffs are just too good not to take.
Devastators- The las/missile combo gives good balance and a lot of firepower. The grav devs actually were pretty effective so long as I deployed them well. 4 S5 AP-3 shots per gun is nothing to laugh about, and can generate extra damage against armor.
The Meh:
Darkshroud: It did its job a few times, but most of the time, my knight took most of the fire and couldn't be buffed by it. The ability to fly to an objective is nice, and against other lists it would have been a really good buff. Still should probably be in every Dark Angels lists.
Black Knights: They really need to have a buffing character with them to get some re-rolls. They don't put out enough damage without the ability to overcharge, and their shots are wasted against hordes. They need Sammael moving up with them to make them a mobile shooting threat.
The Apothecary: Brought back a few guys here and there, but not sure if he ever brought back his worth in points.
The Bad:
The Knight Crusader: So the Crusader puts out a ton of firepower. The battle cannon can tear through high wound models, and the gatling guns constant 2 damage is quite solid. It's just not quite points efficient, since it took up over a quarter of my army. It can only take one objective, and has to kill a ton to earn its points back. When it starts to degrade, it really gets into trouble, especially if it needs to shoot flyers or something with some sort of -1 to hit buff. Titanic feet are good, but it can't tie up things as well as you'd think. Ultimately the inabiltiy of buff it with the anything from the rest of my army makes it kind of stick out like a sore thumb. Outside of an all knight list, or a list with Bobby G or something that can just buff imperials, I'm not sure that a Knight is worth it.
Mission and Army Comp
RAW Deploy First Go First: With 7 drops, I went first every round, except when I got seized on. My list wasn't nearly strong enough to table someone on turn 1, and there was enough LOS blocking terrain to mitigate my alpha strike (especially since my Azrael gunline is pretty static). I still think that this mechanic should be comped at the highest levels of competitive play to prevent list homogenization.
Blended Missions: I like blended missions because it forces you to interact more during the game and gives you two ways to win. If you know you can't get to the Relic, you could still try and win the maelstrom, etc. I prefer the ITC style missions with a constrained maelstrom table for each mission that decreases the chances of getting the super weird cards. There's nothing more frustrating than repeatedly pulling maelstrom cards you can't achieve.
Anyways, hope my debrief for myself was interesting to some of you all!
This past Sunday I went up to play in a 12 person RTT at everything games. I ended up going 1-2, and figured I'd do a quick write up (since I was doing some post-game stuff in my head anyway) in case people were interested in the broader Chicagoland meta. There were strong lists, but nothing like the ATC lists that were going around. The winning list was Sammael, bike librarian, 9 black knights, a fire raptor, a dark talon, 2 nephilim, and 3 units of scouts. 2nd place was a mechanized sisters list.
They were playing mix of eternal war and maelstrom missions. Winning the eternal war gave you 4 points, winning maelstrom gave you 4 (2 for ties), and first blood, warlord, and linebreaker were all 1 point each for a maximum of 7 points.
This was the list I brought:
I figured I had a strong chance of going first with 7 standard drops (6 if I through Azzy in the Pod), and could muster a pretty strong alpha strike. I was building a list around knocking down knights and other big models, which meant I sacrificed small arms fire which came back to bite me (as we will see). Basically my strategy was to have an azzy gunline in cover somewhere shielded by my darkshroud and black knights to survive a seize or an alpha strike, while my Knight takes another side and slowly advances. The Grav pod could surgically take an objective or put pressure on an opponent's gunline Then the bikes can run and grab objectives as needed.
Round 1
Mission:
EW-No Mercy (modified with power level versus kill points, following ITC. You score points based on the power level of the unit you kill to balance out against an Imperial Knight being 1 kill point
MW-Spoils of War
Played a Craftworld Wraithhost (Wraithknight, 3 wraithlords, 2 spirit seers, 2 units of wraithguard, 1 unit of wraithblades, and a wave serpent. I think that's it, from memory).
Really fun game against Luis. Lots of swings back and forth. I deployed my Azrael gunline in the corner, and he counter-deployed out of line of sight and seized on me. He poured everything into the knight and didn't do too much damage. My beta strike was able to cripple the wraithknight and take down a wraithlord for first blood. The malestrom swung back and forth quite a bit. Ultimately I made the mistake of spending too much fire on the wraithknight and it was the wraithguard that ended up making getting into my back lines via the wave serpent and messing me up.
At the bottom of round 2 I looked in good shape, but got some bad malestrom objectives in turns 3 and 4, so I fell behind. He won both Maelstrom and Eternal War, as he ended up with about 15 more kill points than me because he was able to get to Azrael, and I whiffed against his warlord. Final score: 10-2 him.
Round 2
Mission:
EW- Scouring
MW- Cleanse and Control
Played Gavin who brought a Death Guard List (Typhus, 2 other characters, 60 pox walkers, a unit of death guard, 2 forgeworld drones, the Dark Imperium drone, and two las predators).
My alpha strike hit pretty hard, getting me first blood on one of the predators, and putting some damage on all of the drones. The rest of the game was me slowly shooting down his advancing blob of poxwalkers around Typhus and friends. I got awful malestrom roles this whole game, consistently getting the objectives that he was sitting on with a million pox walkers and never once rolling the objectives in my deployment zone. By the end of the game (turn 5), I held 4 objectives, but the primary objective worth 4 points was tucked away under the plague marines in cover. If it went on, I probably could have forced them off it. I won eternal war, he won malestrom, and I got line breaker and first blood. Final Score: 6-4 me.
Round 3
Mission:
EW- Secure and Control
MW- Tactical Escalation
Played Bryce with a pretty nasty GSC/Tyrannids list (magus, primus, 45 purestrains, 2 chimeras full of neophytes {or acolytes? the guard ones}, a biovore, unit of warriors, and 3 Flyrants)
I knew this game would come down to how much damage I could put on the genestealers. Unfortunately, none of my weapons pumped out high volume of shots. I shot High Damage weapons to take down his chimeras, biovore, warriors, and 2 of 3 flyrants in a couple turns, while trying to use frag missiles and gatling shots to thin down the stealers. I kind of kept thrown things at them to slow them down, hoping that they couldn't get to my EW objective that Azrael and my devastators were camping the objective. I took a early lead in the maelstrom, getting first blood, and taking advantage of poor deployment, got warlord on turn 2. It was looking good going into turn 4 since I had a 4-2 lead in malestrom and looked to be able to clear a unit of acolytes/neophytes from his EW objective with my grav devs, but then he was able to smite out my knight, freeing his genestealers to continue their advance. He drew hot malestrom in 4 and 5 and mine went cold, so he was able to take maelstrom 6-4. My devs whiffed on the last few guys on his EW objectives, and I failed the charge to get in there and contest the objective. Then he charged in bottom of turn 5 to kill Azzrael and swarm my objective. Final score: 10-3. If I had been able make the charge and knock him off his objective to force an EW tie, and kept Azzy alive, I would have forced a tie game 5-5.
He was proxying these guys all as purestrain stealers.
Analysis
The Good:
Azzy- his buffs are just too good not to take.
Devastators- The las/missile combo gives good balance and a lot of firepower. The grav devs actually were pretty effective so long as I deployed them well. 4 S5 AP-3 shots per gun is nothing to laugh about, and can generate extra damage against armor.
The Meh:
Darkshroud: It did its job a few times, but most of the time, my knight took most of the fire and couldn't be buffed by it. The ability to fly to an objective is nice, and against other lists it would have been a really good buff. Still should probably be in every Dark Angels lists.
Black Knights: They really need to have a buffing character with them to get some re-rolls. They don't put out enough damage without the ability to overcharge, and their shots are wasted against hordes. They need Sammael moving up with them to make them a mobile shooting threat.
The Apothecary: Brought back a few guys here and there, but not sure if he ever brought back his worth in points.
The Bad:
The Knight Crusader: So the Crusader puts out a ton of firepower. The battle cannon can tear through high wound models, and the gatling guns constant 2 damage is quite solid. It's just not quite points efficient, since it took up over a quarter of my army. It can only take one objective, and has to kill a ton to earn its points back. When it starts to degrade, it really gets into trouble, especially if it needs to shoot flyers or something with some sort of -1 to hit buff. Titanic feet are good, but it can't tie up things as well as you'd think. Ultimately the inabiltiy of buff it with the anything from the rest of my army makes it kind of stick out like a sore thumb. Outside of an all knight list, or a list with Bobby G or something that can just buff imperials, I'm not sure that a Knight is worth it.
Mission and Army Comp
RAW Deploy First Go First: With 7 drops, I went first every round, except when I got seized on. My list wasn't nearly strong enough to table someone on turn 1, and there was enough LOS blocking terrain to mitigate my alpha strike (especially since my Azrael gunline is pretty static). I still think that this mechanic should be comped at the highest levels of competitive play to prevent list homogenization.
Blended Missions: I like blended missions because it forces you to interact more during the game and gives you two ways to win. If you know you can't get to the Relic, you could still try and win the maelstrom, etc. I prefer the ITC style missions with a constrained maelstrom table for each mission that decreases the chances of getting the super weird cards. There's nothing more frustrating than repeatedly pulling maelstrom cards you can't achieve.
Anyways, hope my debrief for myself was interesting to some of you all!
