Tournament Round-Up: Kingston Championship 2016

Hey Everyone! So as promised, I'll be doing a post that goes a little more in depth about each round of the tournament. These are in no way proper battle reports, but I will try to paint a picture of what each game was like. So let's get to it!

Round 1: The X Factor (Vs Dark Angels Raven-wing)

So, for this round, the scenario has both armies pitted against each other in a sand storm. The sand storm hurts visibility, so all shooting attack against targets more than 12" away use BS1. In the center of the table, there is an assassin temple with a Vindicare assassin on the roof. The Vindicare is under the control of which ever player who's turn it is and can only make one shooting attack, and has a nice repertoire of fancy ammunition. Deployment was Vanguard Strike, reserves as normal. The Raven wing forces were all biker and speeders, so no slow foot infantry. I took a defensive deployment, hunkering my non transported squads in a building, one squad per level, and then surrounding it with everything else. The Retaliation Cadre was in reserve. I stole the initiate on a 6+ and went first. My Pathfinders had trouble marking targets in the sandstorm, and as a result, so did the rest of my forces. I watched each turn as the raven wing drove closer and closer, shrugging off all my hits with the formation's rerollable 2+ cover save special rule. The only kills I had were from failed dangerous terrain tests that his bikers failed. When my Retaliation cadre came in on turn 2, there were very few spots to drop in as he'd spread his forces over the table to make this difficult. My Riptide scattered on top of his bikes and died, while the Broadside misshaped and was placed in a corner by himself, away from the fighting. With all my forces scattered by turn 3, he had them isolated and then charged for the assaults and destroyed each in turn. All I had left by turn 5 was the Stormsurge, who died in combat against his Warlord and retinue.

Final Score: 13-1

Round 2: Zombie Outbreak (Vs. Grey Knights + Imperial Knight Allies)

In this round, it was a dawn of war deployment. In the center of the map, a hospital which was the only objective. Each player turn, you earned 1 point if you held it. Winner had to have greater than a 4 point difference to win, which pretty much meant you had to hold it from turn one. There were also 2 ten man zombie quads that went at the beginning of each game turn, coming one from a random table edge or piece of terrain, and attacking the nearest non-zombie unit. I was lucky here that both units would come on my opponents edge, and attack him. Unfortunately, his Grey Knights always cut them down and then were able to consolidate closer towards the hospital each time. I thought I had a good chance in this match, since I had 5 Objective secured units and he had non. But, his two Dread Knights would teleport onto the hotel, and then proceed to assault my transports and flamer my squads to death. By turn 3, he had totally wiped out my objective secured units, and was holding the hotel, always contesting the objective on my turn, and then taking it on his after wiping out the contesting unit. In this match, I only won a moral victory, because I obliterated his Imperial knight the first turn my Retaliation Cadre arrived, and then killed both Dread Knights by the end of the game. However, the match was his.

Final Score: 12-4

Round 3: Unstable Reactor (Vs. Necrons)

This match used the Vanguard Strike deployment. At the center of each table quarter was an objective, each worth 4 points at the end of the game, and the reactor at the center of the table, worth 7 points at the end of the game. The reactor would explode at the end of each player turn, causing hits equal to the number of models per unit within 6" of the reactor. You had to be with in 3" to capture it. At first, I was concerned in this match as I was against an Obelisk and a Monolith, both inside a Necron Deccurion formation. However, I out shot the Necron forces each turn. In fact, when the Monolith deepstriked in, my intercepting fire blew it up, killing several of the Immortals in front of it. By the turn after that, I had wiped out the Obelisk and then cut out the flyers and any other vehicles, leaving the remaining forces to move by foot drastically cutting their mobility. By the last game turn, I owned 3 out of the 4 crates. The Necron player had sent in his Lord to take the center objective. My response was where I went form a win to a tie. Instead of sending the objective secured Devilfish to take the objective, I thought I could take it by sending in my Riptide to assault the Lord and take the reactor. I ended up failing the charge and the lord held the reactor, bringing our score to a tie.

Final Score: 9-9

Round 4: Supply Crate drop (Vs Khorne Demonkin)

This one was a dawn of war deployment. Only Infantry could be deployed, with everything else in reserve, with advanced reserves available (4+ on first  turn). There were 3 crates placed just outside of each of our deployment zones. Demons went first. Most of the Demon came in on the first turn, deepstriking in around the crates. His strategy was to collect the crates and move them away from me, forcing me to chase him. My strategy was to shoot him off the crates and then collect them. The game was fairly evenly matched and we did a lot of damage to each other. However, he was able to hold more crates then me. I was one charge away from forcing a tie game, where all I had to do was charge the Ghostkeel in to his warlord to force him to drop his crate, making us even for holding crates (As models in assault couldn't claim any crates.) My Ghostkeel unfortunately failed the charge and the game went to him.

Final Score: 13-5

Round 5: Warp Portal (Vs. Dark Angels Raven Wing)

In this scenario, deployment was unique. There was a small area in each table corner to deploy in. Players had both corners that were opposite of each other to deploy in. There was a statue in the middle of each table quarter as an objective and a demon portal in the center of the field which was treated as a building, but was immune to any rules that would allow extra damage  (like melta and shred, and armorbane). Primary objective was the statues, but there was bonus points for breaking into the portal and sending your HQ units into it. My strategy was flawed from the beginning as I went for the portal points instead of the statues. My opponent went for the statues, and since I had dedicated the majority of my forces to taking on the portal, he was able to wipe out the small groups I had left on the statues and so took the primary. I wasn't able to get into the portal, as all my battlesuits combined might was unable to break the wall.

Final Score: 12-5

Round 6: Lost Patrol (Vs Astra Militarum)

This round was dawn of war deployment zones, but only the one unit that we chose to be the "lost patrol" was deployed in the opponents deployment zone. If it was an infantry squad, it could deploy 12" for the board edge, or if it was a skimmer/bike or something fast it had to be 1" from the board edge. I chose my Breacher team in the Devilfish as my lost patrol, and my opponent chose a squadron of Hellhound tanks as his. The goal was to get the lost patrol back to your board edge. First turn was just us moving our patrols, and then reserves started to show up on turn 2 like a normal game. I was going first, so my Retaliation cadre showed up automatically, as well as 90% of the rest of my army. They blew up all three Hellhounds while my Breachers raced along in their transport. Then his two veteran squads and the command squadron with Pask came on, trying to kill the Devilfish. I made most of my jink saves, but was stunned by a penetrating hit preventing me from moving on trun 3. My forces then tried to engage the guard and dealt some damage, but not before going into his half of turn three and popping my transport. The squad jumped out and continued moving through a ruined city. At this point, there was too much line of sight blocking terrain for him to get a shot at my squad and my army had moved in for the kill. His army was swept away except for one 3 man strong squadron of Leman Russ tanks hunkered down on his left flank that were hemmed in by my Riptide and a squad of Strikers with EMP grenades. I missed one bonues point by not getting my Commander within 2" of the squad by the last turn.

Final Score: 0-12