X Legion Tactica 2 - tournament report

[Avatar111x]

Part 1

After the first X-Legion Tactica tournament, as soon as I heard there was going to be a second I was there. My Eldar had done pretty well last time and after a few trips to e-bay, a dramatic painting effort and my wife complaining that my stuff was all over the table again – I was ready.

The army lined up like this …

Farseer - Jetbike, Doom, Spear
Autarch – Fusion gun, Chainsword, Jump pack
6 Harlequins inc. Shadowseer
6 Banshees inc. Exarch
5 Fire Dragons inc. Exarch
3 Jetbikes in Shuriken Cannon
3 Jetbikes in Shuriken Cannon
6 Warp Spiders inc. Exarch
3 Falcons – Holo-fields, Vectored engines, Spirit Stones

With a couple of practice games under my belt, I was pretty confident and ready to go. I had a record of four consecutive second place finishes at a tournament to improve (or continue) …

First game was Cleanse Omega against Pete’s Imperial Guard. It mainly infantry (and blasted mortars – it’s a long story) with two Leman Russes and a Chimera packing Stormtroopers. As Omega only my infantry started on the table – and they were very happy to stay hidden out of sight. Things startedto pick up with the arrival of the Falcons. By turn four, they had deposited my Fire Dragons and Banshees close to the guard lines. No Falcons were damaged and things were looking rosy. The Dragons dropped a Russ and the Banshees hacked apart a squad in combat. The Chimera ended up in pieces thanks to the Spiders. However, an incredible Guard shooting phase immobilised one Falcon and blew up another (damn double 6). My Banshees were cut down to the Exarch (who passed 6 saves to stay alive). My attack had been somewhat blunted.

I had not reckoned on a brilliant fleet move by my Harlequins, who hurled themselves into a nearby infantry squad. The Banshee Exarch, in a display of such bravery, chopped her way through the Stormtroopers causing them to flee. Incredibly, these two units marched almost unhindered trough the middle of the Guard army, maiming everything as they went. Although I was left with one Harlequin at the end and one Exarch, man alone meant nothing to them. By the time the last Russ was dropped by my Falcon, I had complete control of the table. I only gave away about 500VPs and having taken 3000, I was three points to the good and a pretty massive total to set me on my way.

[Avatar111x]

Part 2

Next up was Mike with his Blood Angels. I know Mike very well and have played him a few times. This was one of his first attempts with the new codex. He’d put together a vehicle heavy army. Joining Lemartes was an assault squad, two tactical squads in Razorbacks, three attack bikes, a small Death Company, a Vindicator, A Baal Predator, a Predator Destructor and two Furioso Dreads in Drop pods. We were playing Seek and Destroy Gamma. Mike elected to keep his jump pack troops off the board for deep strike.

Mike had first turn and thanks to my positioning, couldn’t see anything. I moved all of my army forwards – taking a couple of shots here and there managing to drop an attack bike. Then disaster struck. A Dread and an assault squad landed behind two Falcons, both of which were immobilised in the incoming fire. I took out the Dread with Fire Dragons and the Assault squad with Harlequins, but it left my attack force in ruins. He sped in both Predators to make sure that the Harlequins and Spiders were dead.

He tried the trick with remaining Falcon on the next turn, but was unsuccessful and left with Death Company, Chaplain and Dread out on a limb. I was able to swing the Banshees into the centre, where they took out both Tactical squads. A mixture of Dragons, Autarch and Farseer too out both Predators, whilst the attack bikes went to the Falcon. At this point I was in amongst his vehicles and removing them with rear and side shots. His Death Company was reduced to a man with the Chaplain and couldn’t make it back without being shot to pieces. His Dread was also immobilised and both Razorbacks dead. For revenge he blew up one of the down Falcons with the Vindicator, but the damage was done. After a dreadful turn 2, I’d won by near;y 900 VPs.

For the last game of the day, I was facing Marcus and his Necrons – an army which give me a headache just thinking about their rules. He had a Lord, 3 units of warriors, 7 Immortals, 5 Destroyers, 2 Heavy Destroyers, Tomb Spyder and a bunch of Scarabs. We were also playing my favourite mission – Recon Omega. Again, I started with my troops hiding behind a very big hill.

The first couple of turns were very cagey – no real casualties. Then with turn three I was able to hit hard. A Doomed warrior unit was felled by Spiders, who’s IBB caused the survivors to reform in another unit. The Destroyer got too close to the Harlequins, who proceeded to chop four of them down straight away. The survivor refused to break however. I also took down a Heavy Destroyer. His response was to use his Lord to take a unit of warriors to hunt the Spiders, who died in a hail of gauss, and throw the Scarabs at the Harlequins. They proved less successful – losing nine wounds before striking and causing no casualities. The Destroyer had had enough after this and ran, whilst the Harlequins moved out of combat and to the Immortal who were out of Res Orb range now.

My Banshees smashed into the Lord’s Warriors – cutting several down and taking them below half strength. The Harlequins made hard work of the Immortals – taking a couple of turns to cut them down and another Scarab charge. At the end of their combat the Immortals were all dead and the Scarabs finished off the by Falcons after a withdraw move. Unfortunately I lost both CC units to mass firepower. But by this point three falcons and both jetbikes squad were in the deployment zone. And whilst one was immobilised by a Spyder, The VPs put me over 600 points clear.

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Part 3

Day two saw me leading the tournament with a full 9 points. This meant I would be facing Dan and his Orks, who had come out of day 1 with two wins and a draw. We would be playing a Take and Hold Gamma mission. And as soon as I saw the number of models coming out I knew that this could be difficult.

He had a Battlewagon, Basilisk, a big unit of Grots, Kommandos and a lot of Boyz – five units in total. There were about 20 Rokkit Launchas pointing in my direction that could really mess up my day. I got first turn and started sniping - dropping a few Grotz at range, panicking the Kommandos and thanks to a surging Falcon just seeing past terrain, blowing up the Basilisk. Once that had been done, I was in control. I was hovering out of Rokkit range and pounding away. My Farseer took out the Battlewagon and I was able to most of the units to below half strength pretty successfully. At this point Mike from game 2 wandered over to see how I was doing – a little strange for turn two. I later found out he had played Marcus and phased him out in three turns.

I wasn’t all successful – I did lose the Autarch, Warp Spiders, Banshees and Harlequins (obviously knackered from yesterdays exertions). But my jetbikes were still intact (I did not fail one 3+ save all game!) and my Falcons were not in the mood to be shot down. Thanks to my five scoring units in the centre of the board and only one scoring Ork unit left, I was up by about 1000VPs.

This brought me to David and his Dark Angels. His list was Sammiel in Land Speeder, two veteran squads in Rhinos, a tactical squad in Rhino, Ravenwing squad, Attack bike, Predator and Land Raider. We would be playing Secure and Control Gamma. The game was a slow affair, building through Escalation. Early exchanges were light. I took out the Predator, whilst he blew a jetbike squad out of the sky with his Land Speeder. I was hampered by the location of his Land Raider, which happily sat in the far corner of the battlefield and I could get nowhere near it.

The game came down to the middle objective – both of us claiming on and unable to take the other. More exchanges lost me the Harlequins to his Attack bike and I was unable to get through the Rhinos armour, despite repeated hits to the side and rear. The Warp Spiders and Falcon all embarrassed themselves in these cases. My Autarch made up for it, leaving his squad to fusion gun Sammiel to the ground. I had a Falcon immobilised, but on turn six it seemed like a draw – with a minor advantage to me. Then we rolled the extra turn.

My Farseer failed Perils of the Warp and died straight away – great start. Then the Warp Spiders and Banshees failed to achieve anything with shooting and combat, leaving then locked and in trouble. David promptly wiped them out and to add insult to injury blew my immobile Falcon up. Whilst it was still one loot counter each, that last turn cost me almost 500 VPs. I had been handed my first loss by 350 VPs and the rest of the field had caught up with me. Going into the last game, I knew that a win would put me on top. But I would be playing David’s Dark Angels once again …

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Part 4

Coming into the game I was very nervous. I’d come this far before only to fall at the last hurdle. And on a Cleanse Gamma, things started badly when I lost the dice roll for table quarters. David placed me in the corner with little terrain meaning that I would lose the advantage of glancing hits on my Falcon. Realising this, I went with an aggressive stance for the tanks and pushed them a fair way forwards. Working out where his Land Raider was, I ensured that the Fire Dragons were positioned as near as possible and hoped for a good first turn dice roll.

And I got it. All Jetbikes and Falcons surged forwards a full 24” relying on speed to get them into place – immediately threatening the Land Raider. David had to make a choice between repositioning his army or opening up with Lascannons and trying to drop the Falcons. He chose the later – and succeeded in shaking one and knocking the pulse laser from another. It wasn’t enough. The Fire Dragons gleefully tore through the Land Raider and the attack bike and Ravenwing died in a hail of gunfire from by Jetbikes and Warp Spiders. David did attempt to respond – immobilising one Falcon and destroying another with the Banshees inside – leaving two left. However, my armour penetration dice sudden changed for the better. Over the next few turns, Shuriken, Pulse and Scatter laser fire and a Harlequin charge took out every Rhino.

One unit of Veterans took out my last Banshees, but in return were badly shot up by the Warp Spiders and a subsequent charge broken them. The tactical marines were also caught in the open by gunfire and reduced to four men. They went after one of my jetbike squads and after downing two to shooting charged the last member. He promptly killed a marine with his only attack and survived all the returns. The squad broke and were force to run past my downed Falcon – keeping them running (although the heroic jetbike failed his man alone test next turn). The final Veteran squad being entangled after their Rhino was destroyed, recovered and went after the Harlequins. Rather than rapid fire, they elected to charge (which caught me by surprise). Even more surprising was the four sixes that came up for my attacks, dropping the squad to a single marine. He wisely fled, but was caught and failed the armour saves he was forced to make.

This left the Sammiel and the Predator, which continued the game until the last turn – still attempting to bring down a Falcon. Sammiel turned his attention to my depleted Warp Spiders (I failed rolled three doubles for retreat moves in that game) and after removing the last man, forced my Autarch to make six saves (three of which were instant death). He coolly passed every single one, before shaking the Land Speeder with his fusion gun. With my Farseer ripping off the Predator’s las-cannons and and Harlequins stunning Sammiel in combat again – it was left to count up the VPs. I held one neutral quarter and my own – as well as contesting the other two. I had lost one Falcon, a jetbike squad, Spiders, Banshees and had another Falcon immobilised. However, David had lost almost 1200 points of troops. By about 1000 VPs I had taken the game.

I knew I had taken the title at this point and despite some sticky moments against Mike and David, the army really proved a winner. I was also pleased to see that two of my previous opponents, Dan and Mike, finished second and third appropriately. I had to say bad luck to David, who only lost one game all weekend, but due to a couple of draws was pipped to a top three place by Mike.

My certificate now sits proudly in my living room, whilst I think of somewhere for it to go. At some point I will stop reminding people of it being there and what I did to win it. My wife has probably heard enough stories by now. A big thanks to everyone who made the weekend the success it was. If you have an opportunity to attend next time please do. And well done to everyone who played, no matter how they did. It says something about the people who were there that no-one went away without having had a great time.

Until the next one …

[dcikgyurt]

Congratulation dude. I'll see you next time (unless you make it to the store before then).

[Enderel]

Very well done Adam, a more than worthy successor to the X legion title.

Congrats mate.

[McMullet]

Good stuff Adam, congratulations and thanks for the report - what was your VP total this time by the way?

[Malchek]

Yes well done Adam you deserved the victory and I'm glad the certificate is taking pride of place!

I'll look forward to you defending your title in Febuary!

Rob - Malchek

[mrsurgeon]

Great job, Adam! That certificate is something to make your son proud when he's old enough to understand.

Those three Falcons really caused me a headache, and don't get me started on the Harlequins! Still, thanks for a well-fought battle, and I hope to see you at the next tournie.

[Avatar111x]

Thanks forthe congratualtions. I'm definately wanting to defend the title in February - I've never had a title to defend before :-)

I think I ended up with a positive VP difference of 5000 odd. Nothing near the 7500 of last time. Mike Lock was also very close to me with VPs.

[Malchek]

Yes - the victory point totals are on the X Legion Tactica Tournament Overview 02 if anyone wants to check them!