Whew, that was an endurance race, but a lot of fun!
Anime Expo is over and behind us! It was a lot of fun and a good start for an annual event.
We had some no-shows and didn’t quite sell out, so there weren’t as many people there as we had hoped for, but it was a lot of fun. We also had a bunch of first time tournament players who all said they had a blast! That is great because it means that is one more person who no longer thinks tournaments are only for the ultra-competitive player but a fun way to get some good games of 40K in! So far, everyone has told us they had a blast which is what we want to hear. In the end, players having fun is what matters.
Chaos was out in force as usual proving to be a popular army as we continue into 6th. Space Wolves were super popular, too with 4 of them present. We had two strong Tau lists and both got knocked out of the contention by Daemons. So far, on the West Coast we’ve been seeing Daemons get the better of Tau consistently. We’ve been hearing though, that back east the Tau have been beating the Daemons. I wonder what is going on differently there. The single Nid player, Cooper, was doing very well just barely losing to the overall event winner on the last roll of the dice in a barn burner of a game. That was Cooper’s only loss, he also defeated Lyzz Foster (the BAO 2012 winner) in another close game.
Daemons were out in force either as allies or main armies. Garner with his really nice looking mono Slaneesh Daemons, Jathkin with his Daemon/Chaose force (and overall winner) and OverwatchCNC with his Flying Circus, who also lost to Jathkin in a really great game. He killed Fateweaver on the first turn and it looked like Janthkin was in deep water but managed to claw his way back to victory by game’s end. Interestingly, The Flying Circus also lost to Mike Milea’s balanced Eldar. My Eldar have had no issues with Daemons either apart from a game when I was seized on. Once they hit the ground, they get mulched by all the small arms fire and that is what we saw happen again, here.
Janthkin was the overall winner, congratz! He was playing a balanced Daemon/Chaos list:
Fateweaver
Herald of Slaanesh w/Greater & Lesser Gifts, Locus of Grace, and Steed
Herald of Tzeentch w/Exalted Gift, Locus of Conj, and Lvl 3 upgrade
6 Fiends
12 Daemonettes w/Alluress
12 Daemonettes w/Alluress
18 Pink Horrors
18 Seekers w/Heartseeker & Rapturous Standard
Allies:
CSM Sorcerer, Lvl 3 w/Spell Familiar
10 Cultists w/6 Autoguns
Heldrake w/Baleflamer
– See more at: https://frontlinegaming.org/2013/07/07/anime-expo-update/#comments
He had some really tough games and just barely won them through excellent generalship and a solid list. Well done! Janthkin’s been on a roll lately and that is two tournament wins in two weeks for him! He won $250 in prizes!
Mike Milea with balanced Eldar got second. His list was really solid, with 20 Warp Spiders, 2 Wave Serpents, War Walkers, an Autarch and Striking Scorpions. He played very well and managed to beat Grant Theft’s Jetseer Eldar by playing to objectives. Mike’s only loss was to Adam Merlic’s Tau as he won the roll to go first but gave it to Adam…he won’t make that mistake again I am sure!
Cooper Waddell got Renaissance Man with his well painted Nids and a strong 4-1 record finishing just under mike in overall points. Cooper managed to fight through Daemons (which we find Nids are actually really good against due to Shadows and tons of Poison attacks) and Tau, which I thought was very interesting. Well done, Coop!
Mike Fox took best hobbyist with his beautiful Space Wolf/Ork army. Haha, never seen that combo before! There were a lot of really good looking armies but many of them were not finished and so couldn’t win. It made what is usually a really difficult part of running a tournament easier this go around. That’s not to take anything away from Mike, he got second at the BAO in appearance and is a top notch hobbyist!
OverwatchCNC got second best appearance with his Flying Circus Daemons, just barely beating out another Chaos player who had a great looking army but had a few models that were not based, it was that close.
And the Wooden Spoon! That went to ReaperOfTheLost and his Crons! This was his first tournament and he had fun and took his losses in stride! He won a shinny box of Lord of the Rings models, yay! Haha, the Wooden Spoon is always fun, and it is tongue in cheek, not meant to make anyone feel bad.
Thanks to everyone for coming and having fun! We look forward to next year. I will post actual results tomorrow, the spreadsheet is on Frankie’s computer and he needed a day to catch up on rest.
Looks like it was a blast! I’m wondering on the daemon/tau coast differences.
Yeah me too, it’s funny how things are so much different in different metas. We are all working with relatively small sample sets so it must be variables like player skill, mission types, terrain, etc.
That’s because East Coast runs primarily daemon FMC-spam. They don’t work as well against Tau because once grounded, that FMC is dead.
Here in the west coast, I’m seeing people running more balanced daemons lists (heh, if you can call daemons balanced) with hounds, seekers, soulgrinders and other units. Not as likely to put the smack down as FMC-spam but I think they do better against Tau.
There’s some folks on the east coast running non FMC lists.
http://bloodskullsfire.blogspot.com/2013/06/daemon-prep-almost-complete.html
http://bloodskullsfire.blogspot.com/2013/06/killadelphia-gt.html
http://bloodskullsfire.blogspot.com/2013/07/omg-what-awesome-weekend.html
Maybe its more to do with how Tau are being run in Cali then how the demons are being ran? I have yet to see the ethereal pulse spam lists in any batreps (only yakface and his was tame in comparison).
Yeah, perhaps. Also, as Janthkin pointed out, it is probably a lot to do with missions, too. There are so many variables and relatively small sample sets. Hard to say.
I played my Daemons against Tau I had three flying big guys that died to shooting and me failing all three of my grounding checks one right after another. What saved my but was my Great Unclean One with Iron Arm and 4+ FNP (Almost impossible to kill if you don’t have poison) heldrake and Soulgrinders, while my troops were hiding on objectives.
I also used my sisters with gray knight allies against tau and found them to be a good counter. The exorcists with their str8 ap1 missiles kill riptides with mass shots and insta-kills crisis suits and broadsides. flamers and heavy flamers for the infantry of course :).
Good point on the Exorcists!
Sounds like it was an awesome time for everyone involved. I wish I could has made it over. Cooper is one heck of a good 40k player. I saw his army in action at WGC this past June… He was definitely bringing the smackdown !!! Congrats to Jantkin… Very impressive.
In regards to east versus west prolly the Tau over here prolly get to go first more often. I reserve a lot of my army versus Tau and so far that has been working well for me. The amount of fire power they can lay down is just brutal.
Having been on the receiving end of a Jantkin beat down I can attest to not only his ability as a general but the overwhelming task of taking out 42 EXTREMELY fast CC rending Initiative 6 models. All this while the Horrors are shooting 4D6 ‘lightning bolts, lightning bolts!’ and Fateweaver is flapping around raping your mouth. Liz Foster also runs the Slaneesh mob army and man, the amount of firepower it takes to whittle them down before they are slicing your ANYTHING YOU HAVE models is unbelievable. Demons are going to be really strong in the 6th edition and have basically ensured that any CC Marine army or Terminator army has an almost unachievable challenge when facing them.
The key to Janthkin’s daemons….and most of the new competitive xenos builds like daemons and tyranids….is to go psychic-heavy. Psychic powers are huge force-multipliers. Just running a pure hammer list isn’t good enough. Now you’ve got to run hammer lists buffed up by psychic powers. I’m not sure how psychic is Liz’s army but both Janthkin and my daemons are both very psychic-heavy.
My list was very psychic less. It focused on bodies. Reflecting, the list could have done better with buffs.
My Balanced Eldar had no psychers in it at all and did good versus the daemons and the seer council. Also wish I got to play Cooper’s Nids…no one around my shop really messes with nids much. Mainly its all IG all the time, that or SW or GK. Some people play some mellower daemon lists.
Heh, yeah they did well versus my daemons. If only the keeper had made some more saves, and the seekers, that first turn… Oh well. I can’t wait too see the batrep from our game, show everybody how pathetically I got crushed haha.
Yeah, crazy that you didn’t use any psykers! Post your list if you don’t mind.
Sorry for the spam, but i just finished game one of my battle reports for the tourney…feel free to check them out…I’ll be doing all of them this week.
http://theadventuresofeldar.wordpress.com/2013/07/09/anime-expo-battle-report-1/
Not spam at all, thanks for sharing.
Great report! Where did you procure those long storage containers on some of the tables (and your batreps)? They look familiar but can’t place them.
T.
A friend of our makes them, hit up Tyson Koch at tyson@figurepainters.com
Thanks!
T.
For the east vs west coast, Neil from 11th company plays against Demons constantly (Pat on real tables and Ordo Bob on vassal) so he may just have their number.
To me though it seems like the Tau lists between the two coasts are quite different as well. By all accounts the Tau in Cali are running minimum troops and no ethereals. Demons should ran those type of top heavy lists down. Its the dual ethereal, pulse spam lists that will cause assault armies trouble, its just so many shots+moral boosts.
Are the east coast events using the BAO format? It’s actually very different from a straight book mission, and puts a premium on mobility. Some of the pure-shooting lists I’m seeing would have issues, as leaving the firebase is not optional.
Ah yes, good point. Our format forces you to maneuver which some of the book missions do not require.
They are using some variation of NoVa format as far as I can tell (either 2013 or 2012). So not BAO but not the imbalance of the straight book either.
Sorry for the spam, as far as mobility of the fire base Tau, I agree it seems like an issue to me. Based purely on pod cast chit chat and the like it looks like the kroot based lists are using positional relay (on the riptide) and hounds to get scorers elsewhere on the board. Riptides are also exceptional at getting linebreaker and contesting and with three of them ones bound to survive.
Yeah, very good points. Kroot are solid, but I am not sold on the all Kroot troop lists I have been seeing. I think Fire Warriors are just so dang good.
NOVA missions are solid and that makes sense as it is the biggest event on the East Coast.
Familiarity with the army makes all the difference in the world. That could explain a lot of it.
Trogon, double Daka flyrant, and a mess of gargoyles? What else did he run? Still trying to decide what to bring to Glden Throne and my vs Tau experience has been trying at best
Cooper’s list, as I recall it, looked like this:
Flyrant w/dual-devourers
Flyrant w/dual-devourers
Doom in Pod
7 Ymgarl
3 Hive Guard
10 ‘gants
10 ‘gants
10 ‘gants
Tervigon w/Toxin, Onslaught, Catalyst
Tervigon w/Toxin, Onslaught, Catalyst
17’ish nekkid gargoyles
3 Biovores
That is the list exactly. Very good memory.
Most memorable part of the tournament was definitely playing Lyz and watching her consistently roll 4’s on daemon saves turn 1 and 2… to the point where we just stopped and watched peeps in costumes.
Best 2nd round game ever.
retyping this for the umpteenth time cause my comp is a jerk who hates your blog and loves to fail loading 9/10 times ><….anyway with all the good daemon players posting here I figured I'd hijack this post with a question of my own. I've been considering expanding to daemons as allies for my CSM. I really enjoy in your face style armies (used to play triple witch squads with dark elder in 5th) and I figured daemons could really help out. Right now I can't decide if either a mounted slanaash herald with seekers or a mounted khorne herald with dogs would be a better choice, and whether or not I should go with plague bearers as solid objective grabbers or pink horrors for containment against anything that sneaks away from my advancing pressure. Typically my csm lists include black mace flying prince, a jerk hiding in a cultist blob or a jerk on a bike with spawn/more bikers, a mauler fiend for more speedy pressure (maybe not optimal, but hey its a cool model and after all the failed conversions from it starting its life as a forgefiend it now looks like a legit dinobot), and chaos marines (cult or noncult) in rhinos advancing for midfield objectives. Typically my FLGS meta is 1750 or 1850 point games (though some times 1500). Thanks in advance for any comments or considerations as this was quite block of txt.