Hello everyone, Frankie here to talk about the Know no Mercy GT which I participated in this past weekend. Check the Tactics Corner for more great tournament reports!
So the Know no Mercy GT took place in Sacramento CA at Great Escape Games which is an amazing store. It was an ITC event and used two Nova Missions, two ITC missions, and two book missions. 1850 points and you could bring anything that was 40k approved such as a Warhound Titan, 5 Wraithknights, and come the apocalypse allies. Some other changes from our format were: no change to Invisibility, 2+ re-roll able saves allowed, no ranged D change, and lastly, any number/combination of formations or detachments as long as the army is Battle Forged.
My List:
HQ | ||
Khan | Moondraken | 1 |
Chaplain | Bike, Auspex, Melta Bomb | 1 |
Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor | Power Armor, Servo Skull x3 | 1 |
Troops | ||
Tactical Squad | melta, Grav Cannon | 10 |
Rhino | Dozer Blade | 1 |
Tactical Squad | melta, Grav Cannon | 10 |
Rhino | Dozer Blade | 1 |
Tactical Squad | melta, Grav Cannon | 10 |
Rhino | Dozer Blade | 1 |
Tactical Squad | melta, Grav Cannon | 10 |
Rhino | Dozer Blade | 1 |
Tactical Squad | melta | 5 |
Rhino | Dozer Blade | 1 |
Tactical Squad | melta | 5 |
Droppod | _ | 1 |
10th Company Task Force | ||
Scouts | _ | 5 |
Scouts | _ | 5 |
Scouts | _ | 5 |
Fast Attack | ||
Space Marine Bikes | Grav x2, Combi-Grav, Melta Bomb | 3 |
Attack Bike | Multi Melta | 1 |
Heavy Support | ||
Devastators | Grav Cannon x2 | 5 |
Rhino | Dozer Blade | 1 |
Devastators | Grav Cannon x2 | 5 |
Rhino | Dozer Blade | 1 |
Round 1 the Mission is straight up rule book Kill Points with First Blood, Slay the Warlord, and Linebreaker. Well this should be the toughest game for me this weekend let’s hope I get someone with a lot of kill points as my army has a ton.
I walk up to the table and look down at a Centurion star with a Imperial Knight… Well there is no way I am going to win this one, haha. We roll off and he gives me first turn…interesting choice. I decide to deploy everything on the line and try for an alpha strike or at least get better board position than reserving. He deploys on his line as well and mentions my scout move, I agree and tell him everything is White Scars. He leaves everything on the line which I am confused about. I scout forward my 12″ due to the Rhinos/Bikes and the Scouts get within 12″. His eyes get a little larger when he sees how close my army is to his and realizes he has made a big mistake. He tries to seize but unfortunately doesn’t get the 6. I bring the thunder and am able to kill all of the Centurions and one of the Librarians with my Grav and Scouts, thank you Auspex! He is so thrown back by the alpha strike and how bad his deployment was he forfeits the game, it was pretty brutal. We talk to the judge and end up playing 2 more turns where he is able to kill quite a few rhinos with his Crusader knight and I am able to kill the Knight and the rest of his star. We call it at this point and end up laughing about all of it and having a great time discussing possible other outcomes. Battle Company Victory, 1000 points. No other points as typical with the ITC, just the straight 1K. Boy did I get lucky in this game!
Round 2 the Mission is Nova style Scouring with all sorts of options on secondaries.
I pull a Thunderwolf star with the Librarian Conclave, Dante, and a Sanguinary Priest. Looks very similar to the list I played against at Nova. Luckily I’ve played these missions before and am able to choose well on secondaries. He rolls up his powers with his three Librarians and unfortunately doesn’t get anything good. All of them rolled on Telepathy and he didn’t roll Invisibility or Shrouding. I won the roll to go first and gave it to my opponent in hope of grabbing objectives on the last turn. He only has one troop and it isn’t obsec so I decide to outflank my scouts, and Attack Bike (which he marked for death as one of his secondary mission choices) and deploy everything else. I split my army evenly on two sides of the terrain blocking the center of the table, so that he will have to make choices.
His turn one he drops his single Drop Pod in his back field (which is my marked for death target) and makes a move towards my 4 Rhinos at the top of the board. My turn I use a Devastator Doctrine since both Devastator units are in range of the star. My Droppod drops right next to his in an attempt to blow up his with the Tactical Squad inside. Unfortunately they only do one hull point to it. All my Grav shooting into his star is able to kill one Wolf Guard Battle leader and bring two more down to one wound. Not half bad.
His turn two he moves forward and continues the poor rolling taking, two wounds on dangerous terrain. He charges into my rhinos and ends up killing three of them quite easily. On my turn my dice go hot and I end up killing 1 librarian, and 2 Wolf Guard Battle Leaders, bringing his star down to a Wolf Lord with 2 wounds, 2 Iron Priests, and one Thunderwolf Calvary. WOW!! His turn he breaks apart the star and the poor rolls continue for him, unfortunately. Dante dies to overwatch, 1 Librarian also goes down due to perils. He kills a few units but then I hit and run out of combat. The game is basically over at this point but we keep playing. He was a great opponent and never got down on his dice. I would happily play him again and had a great time. Battle Company win 1019. This mission did generate extra mission points, unlike the first round.
Round 3 this is the final game for day one and is an ITC mission: Emperor’s will. I should know how to play this one, haha. I pull a local guy that comes to all of our events and always has a blast. He is playing double Dark Angel Battle Company. Well this is going to be tough but I think with all my shooting I should be able to hang. He has 20 free transports, haha min-max to the MAX! Not very many special weapons, just two Multi-Meltas.
We roll off and he makes me go first. Darn, I really wanted the last chance to jump on the objectives in this mission. Oh well, I deploy split again but mostly next to the Emperor’s Will objective. He deploys split as well with 6 of his Razorbacks. I scout forward and get ready to kill all those Razorbacks! My first turn I don’t pop any doctrines and land the Drop Pod right next to one of the Razorbacks. I am able to kill 3 Razorbacks and Immobilize 2 more. I also kill two units that hop out of the Rhinos.
His turn he brings in 6 Drop Pods. Haha, wow the table is now covered in pods. He drops them all around. He puts a lot of Bolter shots into my Bike unit dealing two wounds to Khan and one to my Chaplain. He also rolls a 6 to hit with his Multi Melta on my Drop Pod and kills it in one shot. Haha, well darn.
My Turn two I get ready to assault a bunch of his units. I also pop a Tactical Doctrine so that I have better chances of dealing the damage I need to. I shoot a bunch of Grav into his Chaplain unit that just dropped in thinking it was his Warlord. Unfortunately I was mistaken and those were wasted shots. I ended up killing another Razorback and dealing two hull points to two Drop Pods. I get ready to charge into his three units of Marines with Khan and he then informs me his army fires over watch at full BS. HAHA! I wish I could have seen my face at this point. I still charge the three units and luckily only lose one Biker. Khan does some damage as does the Chaplain. I win combat and one of his units runs away and I cannot catch it because I’m locked in combat. Oh well, that kind of worked.
This games goes on like this for five turns, he covers the board in Marines and Pods and I try to clear all the marines out around my Rhinos. Unfortunately he pulled ahead on Maelstrom on one turn and I need the game to go on to have a chance. Anther funny thing is all of his units only cost 70 points so he got Big Game Hunter after killing one Grav unit. Anyway, we rush through turn five and time is called. Darn, I might have been able to get him if I had one more turn. He was able to kill my Rhino that was on his Home objective and I was able to hit and run for Line Breaker. Great game and very close. Battle Company lose…to Battle Companies! 1-1006.
I’m going to break this into a two part article. The second day they broke the people off that had loses and had us all play in an RTT. We shall see how I do on day two! In the actual GT Geoff Incontrol played against Steve Sisk in the finals and had a very close and well played game. Steve ended up winning and Geoff took best overall due to paint score. Great job Steve and Geoff you guys are lucky you dodged me haha. Super fun event and would recommend making the trip next year if you get the chance.
Nice report and tough luck vs the double battle company… hahaha
I’m confused about the double battle company. How did he get 2 battle companies in under 1850, as the minimum pts for 1 is about 1045. And how did he make them Dark angels, as the gladius strike force says it needs to be Space Marine faction, and DA are Dark Angels faction… or am I wrong on that?
Dark Angels have their own Battle Company formation, and it has fewer requirements to make it.
Yeah, since they only need 1 Scout Squad as an Auxiliary, you can put a DA Battle Company together for 935 Points. It can be absolutely overwhelming in smaller Games.
Interestingly the core in a Lion Strike Force is 1+, where as in the gladius it is 1-2. So I guess the double battle company only needed a single scout squad rather than 2 (cause other wise it would have been 1870)? Hmm, what is the wording of the battle company rule in DA codex?
The DA Dex says it becomes a Battle Company if you have 2 Demi-Companies in a Lion’s Blade. It looks to me like it’s restricted to one Battle Company per Lion’s Blade (because it says 2, and not “any 2” or some variation), but it’s not 100% clear.
That’s pretty gnarly!
982 points is the minimum for dual demi-company GSF.
6x tac squads 420 points
2x attack bikes 80 points
2x devastator squads 140 points
Chaplain + Captain 180 points
3x Scout Bike squads 162 points
I always forget you can go cheaper by taking Attack Bikes in place of the Assault Squads and Scout Bikes in place of the regular Scout Squads.
In the DA book you must take assault squads, cant opt for attack bikes.
935 is the cheapest with 1 scout squad as aux.
Yeah, but the Gladius can get cheaper than I thought. I always think of it as 1045 minimum.
you’re just lucky you dodged me, I don’t always like to destroy space marine armies, but when I do I prefer them to be White Scars. HOOOOOOOOOoooooooooWWWWWWLLLLLLL!!
Haha
Thanks Frankie for the forgiving report on our round one match up lol
Turns out I totally scrubbed out and thought scout was 6″ movement for everything which is a huge over site! Ive only ever used actual scouts personally and haven’t faced a white scars list before.
I had a great time chatting it up even after my teeth got kicked in lol
It really goes to show that not playing often and especially leading up to an event is crazy bad and it takes too long to knock the rust off.
Needless to say, I’m now very informed on how the scout moving works lol
Worse than the ass kicking by gladius in round one for my best matchup of the day was being paired against five wrath Knights round two… Talk about the snowball effect!!! Lol
Was a pleasure to play against you Frankie and look forward to some rematches in the future!
Haha great batreps so far, sounds like a blast!
The mixed up missions are equal part hilarious and equal parts horrifying (as a player looking to win).
Also on that last comment, that would meant the 5 wraithknight list got its teeth kicked in as well in round 1, in a kill points mission! bahaha!
Only because it ran into a warhound Titan that rolled more 6s on ranged D weapons lol
John’s double-Battle Company list was crazy.