Long time no post - sorry about that.
Anyways - I had the opportunity to bring my constantly growing Guard army to a local Rogue Trader tournament on Saturday. The event was put together by a friendly local discount game store called Games by Gamers.
The list I brought looked like this:
HQ:
-Company Command Squad
(Astropath, Master of the Fleet, Chimera, Vox)
-Inquisitor Lord
(Psychic Hood, 3 Mystics, Sanctuary, Bolt Pistol + CCW)
Troops:
-Veteran Squad
(3 Grenade Launchers, Missile Launcher, Vox, Forward Sentries)
-Veteran Squad
(Shotguns,3x Melta)
-(3X)Veteran Squad
(3x Melta, Chimera w/hull heavy flamer and multi-laser)
Fast Attack:
-Vendetta
Heavy Support:
-2 Griffons
-2 Leman Russ Battle Tanks
(Hull heavy flamers)
-2 Leman Russ Battle Tanks
(Hull heavy flamers)
The first scenario was pretty straight forward. There was one primary objective, which was placed in the center of the table. Extra battle points could be earned by killing the opponent's most expensive HQ choice, controlling the most table quarters, and scoring the most kill points.
I should mention that the name of the scenario was "More meat for the grinder," and keeping with that theme there was one rather odd special rule. Destroyed troops choices automatically respawned on the controlling player's table edge at the start of their next turn. Perhaps not the most balanced special rule - but it definitely made things interesting.
My opponent was a newer Tyranid player. He was running a Hive Tyrant, two melee fexes, three zoanthroapes, a few broods of warriors, some ripper swarms, a couple units of genestealers, and a ton of gaunts.
The tyranids won the first turn - and ran forward at full speed. The only shooting was one less than spectacular barbed strangler shot and a few attempts to warp blast my armor, handily negated by my Inquisitor Lord's psychic hood.
The guard got comfortable, heavy flamers at the ready, and opened up with the artillery.
Fun fact: Bugs don't like pie. Two griffons and four russes bring a lot of pie...
It took a couple turns for him to get into assault range with anything, and the master of the fleet hurt the genestealers which he chose to outflank with.
When the nids did get close enough to assault the hull heavy flamers on the chimeras and russes opened up - claiming a good number of them. I was also able to take advantage of the scenario special rule by throwing my vet squads in front of his MCs doing a melta wound or two - enough to provoke him into assaulting them - then after they were wiped out in his turn they walked back on from my table edge (conveniently in melta range) and finished 'em off.
Other noteworthy events include:
-A vet squad surviving two rounds of combat with genestealers.
-The Vendetta showed up late despite the astropath, but made up for it by killing the hive tyrant in one shooting phase.
-The same Vendetta won me the primary objective by zooming over on to the objective on the last turn - vet squad in tow.
In the end I won the game 16-4.
Game two was spearhead deployment with two objectives - one in each players deployment zone. The catch was that the objective scattered 1d6" in a random direction every turn. Secondary objectives were the same as round one.
This time around I was matched with a veteran demon player. ...It was rough.
The game started out auspiciously enough when he ruled a two when determining which wave he got in his first turn.
I won the roll off for first turn, and unfortunately the scenario didn't allow me to choose to go second. So I deployed as defensively as possible. I deployed one Chimera empty in the front near the center of the table.The Inquisitor and mystics were placed right behind so they could hop in on the first turn and draw out a "do not deep-strike" zone in an attempt to funnel him through the other flank. On the other flank of my DZ I spread out my footsloggers in neatly spaced lines to try and create a deep strike danger zone. All of my tanks and artillery castled up in the backfield - heavy flamer chimeras in the front, then leman russes, then the Griffons hiding behind terrain.
On his turn he brought in a unit of bloodletters, demonettes, pink horrors, and a Keeper of Secrets on my flank with the footslogging vets - but he kept a safe distance. A soul grinder showed up on the other flank with the Inquisitor - but he kept his distance as well.
Unfortunately I wasn't able to throw up Sanctuary since I had to move the Inquisitor to get in the Chimera (it did pop smoke though) so he took some shots at it which were thankfully ineffective. He ran most everything else other than the horrors which put a dent in the first vet squad who promptly went to ground.
In my turn the Russes and griffons put a pretty big dent in the bloodletters (the only unit on the table at that point with an icon) and took out most of the horrors. The inquisitor threw up sanctuary - and kept it up for most of the game - effectively blocking that flank completely (it also happened to be where my objective was).
From here it was essentially a game of "How many can I kill before it's too late?"
The answer: Not enough.
Before too long there was a bloodthirster running rampant in the back of my lines - and at that point there's just no coming back.
I made a tactical error in throwing my vendetta and its melta-cargo at the soul grinder who was really too far away to threaten much of anything. The Vendetta's lascannons failed to damage it - it turned around and punched it out of the sky. The vets popped out of the wreckage a little worse for wear and tried to melt it, missed two out of three melta shots, and then I rolled a one on the damage table for the one shot that penned it which the grinder ignored. Then it ate my vets.
Sad story.
In the end - he kicked the crap out of me. He won on every part of the mission except for my objective which, even with the wonky scatter rule managed to stay in the sanctuary zone of my inquisitor lord's chimera.
By the end of turn six my end of the board was filled with a bunch of burning wrecks, and two greater demons running amok.....and the remnants of my last veteran squad sitting on my objective. They were giving my inquisitor's chimera a big hug - staying just within the sanctuary zone.
So I'll take a small moral victory for that at least.
The demon player also went on to win 1st overall in the tourney – so I don't feel too bad about getting stomped on.
The last round was pitched battle deployment, and each player placed three objectives in their deployment zone.
This time around my opponent was playing a First Company Salamanders army using the Dark Angels codex for the ability to take terminators as troops. He took Belial, five squads of termies – all with storm bolters, one assault cannon each, and some chain fists mixed in here and there – and three Vindicators. He noted my Mystics and the master of the fleet and opted not to Deathwing assault in. The three Vindicators castled up in the corner across from most of my armor surrounded by three of the five termie squads. The other two squads including Belial and the apothecary hung back in a ruin, mostly out of line of sight -camping on an objective and making it obscenely difficult for me to get the secondary objective of destroying the unit with the highest point cost.
I got first turn and over reacted a bit to the triple vindicators. I moved up two chimeras and the vendetta, all filled with melta vets, and by next turn they had blown up two of the Vindicators and scored weapon destroyed and immobilized results on the third one.
Things went down hill pretty quick after that. The Griffons missed their intended target, and after using the accurate bombardment rule for a re-roll it scattered onto the melta vets which had just popped out of the a Vendetta, killing about half of them. Nearby terminators took care of the rest of them in the next turn, and an assault cannon to the rear knocked the Vendetta out of the sky.
Assault cannons and multi-charges did an admirable job of taking out most of my chimeras and the vets inside. With the loss of my melta guns and the vendetta I was completely out of AP 1 and 2 weapons, and I just didn't have the volume of fire to get past his 2+ armor saves. (Plus the apothecary negated two or three of the failed saves throughout the game which is handy.
He ended up winning all the battle points that round, and second place overall in the tournament.
Personally, while my battle points for generalship were less than spectacular I did pretty well in sportsmanship and painting. I placed fifth out of twelve overall – not too shabby I suppose.
The event was a lot of fun, all of my opponents were great, and I learned a lot about my army's strengths and weaknesses.
Overall I think the list that I brought performs pretty well against heavy mech and MEQs. All of the pie plates and heavy flamers work wonders on hordes (although I have yet to play against Orks with it.)
Against demons and small elite armies like Deathwing.....it needs some tweaks.
Mostly I just don't have the volume of fire to take out things like greater demons and terminators. This epiphany has me considering a hybrid Platoon/Vets list.
My colleague and frequent opponent Rob played in the tournament as well. Oddly enough he played the nid army and the demon army as well, and he had the foresight to take pictures - so if you want to see his take on them check it out here.
