[Tournament Report] Rebel Revenge: Dual Strike | You've Been Hit By (Struck By) The Smooth (Brained War) Criminals
The stars didn't quite align for Molten Crown's second Brotherhood of Ash event, but history's greatest monsters are reunited for their first doubles event of eleventh edition. The Young Master and I didn't have a great run at our first joint endeavour, but we've come a long way since then, and so has the game itself. From the very bottom of the pile, the only way is up...
Necrons
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CHARACTERS
Hexmark Destroyer (75 points)
It's a list with a simple job to do. Whatever objectives need to be stood on get stood on, by units that make themselves as big of a pain in the arse as possible to remove. The lone Hexmark is a utility tool for scoring things like Behind Enemy Lines, Outflank, Engage On All Fronts, even Beacon: anything where being all the way over there is necessary to not leave points on the table.
I opted for Awakened Dynasty for its shenanigan potential with reanimating Skorpekh Lords and so on, and then discovered the blindingly obvious fact that +1 to hit is really good in eleventh edition. I can also reanimate the entire Lychguard unit in one phase if I'm lucky and the Overlord survives.
Initial testing has shown that, even with some pilotage errors, it can do that quite well:
This was a Take & Hold mirror match which didn't end up terribly photogenic (for one thing, ten of the Death Guard's points were for paint, a luxury I denied myself), but went solidly. I lost control of my home objective and so didn't pick up full primary points, but with the Wraiths holding both expansions I could afford to fall apart a bit in the middle. 39 of a possible 45 ain't nothin' to sneeze at. I felt able to handle the "hold two, not home" part of Purge the Foe competently, which is good, because the Young Master was on Purge and doing this.
Leagues of Votann
I know slightly less than squat-all about the Leagues of Votann, so I asked the Boy to explain some or all of his choices here:
There are 2 main antitank units, the close range Cthonian Berserks to deep strike in turn 1 and the Brôkhyr Thunderkyn to stand back and blast, both with Anti-Vehicle and Anti-Monster 3+. The Hearthkyn are there to stay back in the midfield, to control objectives and fend off Deep Strike/fast Scouts, and they are durable enough to survive with a 5++ and a 6+++. The Einhyr Hearthguard are going after key units that need to be taken down, with the high damage mass hammer on the Champion perfectly suited to finishing off a character. Buri Aegnirssen will be stalking the front lines with Lone Operative and Stealth, either hiding in a building to control a key objective or moving forward with his surge move and resurrection ability.
A clear plan, and having been on the wrong end of it myself I know how much the early Deep Strike and free Heroic Intervention can discombobulate an opponent.
All we needed was a team name, and I shouldn't be left unsupervised around BCP, because we are now, formally, the Smooth Brained War Criminals. (He's the war criminal, I'm the smooth brain.)
Round One - Mekboyz & Mukboyz
Mike from 'da club,' who I'd played in my testing game, and his brother-in-law Dave, who'd both been somewhat shafted by the balance dataslate at the end of September. Mike's reconfiguration had left his Deathshroud Terminators forcibly separated, and Typhus running around on his own; Dave's army had shot up by 200 points and he'd simply given up and gone silly, fielding this beautiful, beautiful Stompa.
The Young Master and I were pretty confident about this one - kill the Stompa and we'd break the back of the Ork threat, and I know I can hold this Death Guard list to a comfortable win. The Boyz opposite were Defenders and, as such, we could wait out their deployment until the Stompa was dropped and get a good idea of where the Votann firepower needed to be, focusing the Wraith bricks on the same side to slow it down.
I have learned to respect this "two Plaguecasters in a Rhino" package - it throws out two big nasty Torrents that can melt 1W infantry, the Crushing Impact goes right through my Lychguard, and it's three units for objectives like Engage On All Fronts or Display Of Might, anything that wants more presence in places. As such, my request to "please kill the Rhino, I know it's only a Rhino but it's really annoying" was heartfelt, and understood.
It's a strange alliance of convenience, and I don't pretend to have an excuse for it. Perhaps the dioxazine trade is really taking off, and the Kin have managed not to offend Supreme Overlord Nephrak?
The Stompa did manage to get stuck in during the first round: adequately screened by Poxwalkers, it lurched forward and contacted one of my Wraith units, grinding them down to the point where the Plaguecasters could finish the job. Sadly, by that point it had been tagged by the Berserks and was in the gunsights of the Thunderkyn, and it was only a matter of time before big boy went boom.
As predicted, that was basically the game in the bag - picking up Dave's Grots and Tankbustas was well within my Wraiths' capacity and the Young Master ably stalled Mike's Plague Marines on the far right flank.
Not totally one-sided, but a comfortable 83-45 win for us. The Mek and Muk alliance put up much stronger showings in later rounds (a 92 point win and 82 point close loss), and Dave took home the Best Painted democracy prize by a very clear margin. Lovely army, nice chap, must remember to lend him my third edition rulebook the next time he's down.
Opening hatches, inserting hot dogs, and savouring the unexpected glow of our powers combined taking us somewhere we wanted to go, then on to pairings!
Round Two - Big Mean Green Machines
Dan on Adeptus Mechanicus (with big-booty named Magos Thulia Ghuld, a trio of Ironstriders, Skitarii Rangers and a whole blob of Kastellan Robots) and Huw on Orks (Grots, Grots, a big mob of Flash Gitz, a Dakkarig, and some Tankbustas roaring around in a Trukk, plus a Tax Warboss who stood at the back generating Command Points and holding the home objective, waving to my Skorpekh Lord who was doing one of those jobs himself).
I hadn't faced Ad-Mech before, our local Magos keeps dodging me, but the Young Master had and he warned me to respect the hell out of those Robots. We stuffed our deployment a bit on this one, with my super-tough Wraiths fully concealed and his fragile Votann infantry screening for them, which is obviously not really the best way to go about things.
His Berserks didn't quite kill on anything - the Dakkarig survived on a single wound, and they killed An Robot but the Enginseer nearby saved another and they cleaned up the Votann airdrop in return. As such, we came into our second round without many dorfs on the table, and the Young Master admitting to nerves.
This was a technical game - just look at those precisely spaced Grots! - between two teams with similar dynamics. Huw had a master plan, holding Dan's Orkish instincts in check until he'd worked out the order of operations for points-per-round, while my second-game brain fog descended and I deferred tactical decisions to my junior colleague, along with anything else that required thinking.
Dorfs continued to die, and more responsibility was piled onto me, the cybernetic idiot, to turn this thing around. Luckily, my "oops all 4++" core was up to the job, my new Technomancer saving both the Precision shots that came his way and my Overlord repeatedly surviving his bodyguard being wiped (and then promptly bringing a couple of them back with Protocol of the Undying Legions each time).
Thulia had to charge in and take a shot herself, biffed it, and exposed herself to Devastating Wounds over two rounds, while the Wraiths and Hexmark Destroyer cleaned up the Ork infantry and my Skorpekh Lord abandoned backfield squatting to help Young Master's Hearthguard see off the Kastellan Robots.
By the end of this one my brain had fully evaporated, and I was reduced to asking "what do you want dead?" every turn before going outside to press my scalp against the cold concrete for a few minutes. Worth it, though, as we managed to pull out a 75-62 win. Close, tight and could honestly have gone the other way if I hadn't been jammy with saving throws and had my thinking-brain teammate to sort out my target priority.
The Big Green War Machine took its only loss of the day from us: their other rounds were solid 87 and 81 point wins.
Round Three - Billy No-Mates
At every 40K doubles event there's someone who, thanks to schedule clashes, missed trains or sheer incompetence, has ended up facing the gazebo alone. Poor Jordan was doing so at his first ever tournament, and running a horde of Tyranids that took a lot of admin to get set up and started. He'd had a cohort build one of his 1000 point lists for him, to avoid just bringing the meta special, and I suspect that's where the wall-o-Gaunts had come from. That said, he'd put up 48 and 61 point wins so far, so he clearly had a grasp on his fundamentals.
In pre-game conference, we felt like we could take this and pull off the hat-trick, so the decision was made - full send and damn the consequences.
Once again, there was a Big Feisty Lad that I identified as the single thing stopping me from running the middle of the board. That Norn Emissary had to die before it could get to its target objective and become a Problem.
But Jordan had committed to the front line, not plopping any of his redeployable Lictors behind himself to screen, and that mean the Berserks could present themselves to Mme. Ambassador there and her Neurotyrant mate, taking the Norn out in one charge and punching the Zoanthropes attending the Neurotyrant right in the bonch as well.
Discombobulation achieved. As he said, we did warn him, and he just let it slip his mind.
On the right, my speedy Lychguard and Young Master's sticky Hearthkyn secured our expansion objective and kept rolling, the Kyn turning inwards to put more bodies on the central objectives while the Necrons pressed on to tank the Tyranid Warriors and Termagants amassing against them. (They did superbly, by the way. Five Lychguard arrived, five Lychguard left.)
In the centre, my Wraiths swarmed up to seize the front lines, taking Jordan's expansion objective and holding the centre against the various Tyrants gathering around it. The Skorponator scampered sideways, now that there were multiple Lictors and ten Gargoyles on the way in by Deep Strike, but his presence wasn't really necessary. One Lictor charged into the Wraiths and ate their Technomancer, but left a gap into which the Hearthguard could Rapid Ingress and the Thunderkyn advance, and superior Votann firepower absolutely cleaned up the Tyranid reserve.
We weren't having it all our own way, though. We'd swept two thirds of the way up the board, and landed my Hexmark behind enemy lines, but Jordan dug in on his last two objectives and refused to yield, throwing masses of Gaunts at us while his Tyrants screamed, howled and unleashed the Shadow in the Warp twice (being Doubles, the Tyranid force was treated as two armies with two discrete army rules). That Battleshocked most of our army, thanks to the maluses exerted by various Neuro-beasties, and ground our scores to a halt.
A 71-28 win: our lowest score of the day, and a Most Sporting nomination to Jordan for that heroic display in the face of... what we'd just done to him.
We'd done it. Pulled off the hat trick and guaranteed a podium finish: second place overall, held back only by the 10 point Battle Ready score that would have put us into first. I haven't picked up event hardware since 2012, back when I was still playing Warmachine and nabbing the occasional league win or Best In Faction on the peripheries.
A dramatic improvement on our first outing. An absolute pleasure to recreate with the Young Master, whose sheer confidence and aplomb drew some quiet compliments from our later round opponents, and whose detail-focused painting style is really coming along. It suits the Votann range down to the ground. I mean, imagine what we could have done if he'd remembered to pack the actual Buri?
Our victory is 85% due to him, no doubt about it. I fully disassociated for a bit during the second and third rounds, and outsourced all decision-making. Very kindly, he commended my thoughts in the pre-game, consistency in painting and scoring. It is a pleasure to be carried by a prodigy of a player, and I am proud to be the rock on which he built his church.
It remains to share a few photos of the other armies around the hall, which we didn't have the pleasure of facing. Many of their owners expressed sentiments regarding twelve Wraiths, which baffles me. I see Mortarion and a Defiler, I see Magnus, I see two C'tan and a Baneblade and Knights of both flavours, and somehow I'm the bad guy?
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| Look at the mini-me! the old Magnus from Epic on the base! |
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| Eleven barrels of hell... |
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| Riley's pink Knights. One day I'll get my revenge for what he did. |
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| Got enough Battlesuits there? |
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| Stunning Chaos Knights: the closest second in Best Painted. |
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| The other Von and his own brand of filth. |
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| Delightful old-school vibes from the Goff Rockgrinda proxy tank. |
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| I want one. |
A heartfelt "gg, wp" to all our opponents, a hearty "huzzah" to Rhys for organising and Noa for fundraising, and by the way, I went and won the raffle! I have a chunky 3D printed bolt pistol now, for my arms cabinet, which is going to come in very very handy for the next Narrative I do...
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