Hey there, Reecius here to bring you the second part of my NOVA 40k Championships tournament report. You can read part 1, here.

So the Raptors had gone 3-0 against some extremely good players day one of the event who all finished very well, two of them winning their brackets. As the games would only get tougher from here, what would day 2 bring?

Game 4

• Opponent: Joe’s Imperial Soup
• Deployment: Frontline Assault
• Objectives: 6 Objectives

Joe had a savage Imperial Soup army with some nails character support, this was going to be the toughest match, yet!

• Vanguard Detachment
  • Celestine
  • 49 Conscripts
  • Astropath
  • Commissar
  • Platoon Commander: Bolt Pistol
  • Vindicare Assassin
  • Vindicare Assassin
• Air Wing Detachment: Ultramarines
  • Stormraven: Hurricane Bolters, Stormstrike Missiles, Twin Assault Cannon, Twin Heavy Bolter
  • Stormraven: Hurricane Bolters, Stormstrike Missiles, Twin Assault Cannon, Twin Heavy Bolter
  • Stormraven: Hurricane Bolters, Stormstrike Missiles, Twin Assault Cannon, Twin Heavy Bolter
  • Stormraven: Hurricane Bolters, Stormstrike Missiles, Twin Assault Cannon, Twin Heavy Bolter
• Super Heavy Aux Detachment
  • Roboute Guilliman

Oof, this army was going to bring the pain! I deployed my best units in reserves and then spread out all of my units that were deployed on the table, all either out of LoS or in cover. This way, if he wanted to keep the Bobby G bubble, he’d have to clump up and wouldn’t be able to hit many of my units at max effect very easily. We rolled for first turn and he got it. This was really going to put my army’s ability to weather the storm to the test. I clenched ye old backside and prepared to take some firepower!

The Ravens came in hot with Bobby G somehow cheering them on to greater firepower output from the ground, while the Conscripts used Move, Move, Move! to run around and create a screen. The Vindicares popped up and took shots at my Captain but only put a wound on him thanks to the Shield Eternal and a cover. Celestine came in hot, also taking on the Captain after the poor Vanguard escort had gotten mowed down by Ravens. However, the Captain weathered it all with the judicious use of a CP reroll and he then smacked Celestine in the face with his Hammer, and my opponent used a reroll to keep her alive. I then burned 3 CP to attack again and smashed her and he rolled a 1 to get her back up. Boom! Down goes Celestine!

In my turn, my army came in with the thunder. My Devs dropped a Raven and the Captain, AKA Billy Badass, jumped up behind a wall to avoid overwatch and then charged another Raven and using the 3 CP Stratagem to attack twice, knocked it out of the sky with his Hammer! What a boss! He was then behind the enemy army and so he would have to be dealt with or he would begin smashing support characters. My massed small arms fire knocked the 49 Conscripts down to 9, and the Scout Bikers moved into position to take the objectives on the next turn.

My opponent was in serious trouble now but made a good game of it. He came after me with the Ravens and scooped some more small units, but not enough to get me off of objectives. Again, the -1 to hit and cover made my objective scoring units extremely hard to kill. He was also unable to draw a bead on my critical support characters with his Snipers as I dropped them out of LoS of the Vindicares. Bobby G went back and smoked the Captain, but he lives on in my heart as a true bad-ass! What units of his that were able to remain mobile moved on to objectives. In my turn, my mobile elements smoked the small units on his objectives and took them, and I dropped another Raven with the Devs and in his turn dropped the 4th with return fire as some of my Devs died thanks to the banner. The game was essentially a wrap at this point as I was covering almost every objective and my opponent really only had Bobby G left to fight back which wasn’t going to cut it.

I ended up with a 19-6 victory over Joe. He also went on to go 7-1, winning his bracket! Nicely done, I was his only loss. Great game with a fun opponent. This also put me into the top bracket for the final games. Cool! I was one of only 2 players to make it with a “pure” army, meaning every unit had every faction keyword in common. The other was Ben Mohlie with his Orks.

Raptors victory!

Game 5

• Opponent: Steve’s Chaos Soup
• Deployment: Search and Destroy
• Objectives: 4 Objective markers and destroy the enemy army.

Steve had a beautiful army and some very dangerous units, 1 in particular that is murder to me: Magnus the Red! This would be a tough game. And while he did have two Malefic Lords, they were the actual Forgeworld models and gorgeously painted so I gave him a pass =P

• Battalion
  • Malefic Lord
  • Malefic Lord
  • Brimstones x 10
  • Brimstones x 10
  • Brimstones x 10
• Battalion: Alpha Legion
  • Chaos Lord with Jump Pack: Chainsword, Blade of the Hydra, Combi Bolter, Mark of Slaanesh
  • Daemon Prince with Wings: Malefic Talons, Mark of Slaanesh, Prescience, Intoxicating Elixir
  • Cultists x 10: Mark of Slaanesh
  • Cultists x 10: Mark of Slaanesh
  • Cultists x 10: Mark of Slaanesh
  •  Obliterators x 3
  • Havocs x 5: Plasma Gun x 4, Combi-Bolter
  • Fire Raptor: Quad Heavy Bolter x 2, Avenger Bolt Cannon, Hellstrike Missiles
  • Fire Raptor: Quad Heavy Bolter x 2, Avenger Bolt Cannon, Hellstrike Missiles
• Super Heavy Aux Detachment
  • Magnus the Red

Well, keeping in theme with the rest of the event: a hard as nails list! This one presented one very difficult hurdle for me to overcome: Magnus. He is so difficult to kill once he powers up to 3++ rerolling 1’s (a bit much, IMO) and I knew it was going to be tough to deal with him and the Fire Raptors, but we were going to give it the old college try!

My opponent won the roll to go first and opted for second turn, which was smart as he had deployed very intelligently and I was unable to hit him with Multi-meltas out of the drop. Had he gone first, I almost certainly could have destroyed one of the Fire Raptors on the turn I came in. However, my alpha strike was solid apart from one thing: Magnus would prove to be damn near invincible all game, lol. I made the choice to try and hammer Magnus before he got his 3++ over trying to drop a Fire Raptor on turn 1 as if it had worked, I would have almost certainly won the game. I came in and set up my Devs, Sternguard and characters in a ruin but goofed one part of my deployment which cost me dearly: I left room for Magnus to land on top of the ruin where he could avoid the scouts and Sternguard I put in front to eat smite. He rolled the super smite every single turn too, yikes. So brutal! He never did less than 7 mortal wounds. I just had no way to stop it as he had bypassed my sacrificial screen units. Had I not deployed in the ruin, but on flat ground sacrificing cover I would have gotten hit harder by the Fire Raptors but I would have gotten more shooting phases out of my Devs as Magnus chewed his way through them, which I dearly needed.

However, back to the first turn which went quite well aside from Magnus tanking so much firepower. I smoked two screen units and a Malefic Lord, but had some bad luck when I hit the Daemon prince with Multi-meltas and two got through but rolled snake eyes on damage, lol. Doh! My Vanguard and Captain ate the Havocs and I moved Scouts and Tacticals on to objectives. In all, not a bad turn but only doing 1 wound to Magnus with a Flakk missile as he made every single save vs all of my other shooting was just brutal.

My opponent countered well, and Warp-timed Magnus into the top of the ruin as stated, which I didn’t see coming but should have. He then nuked my Las Cannon unit with the Missile Launcher into dust, taking away one of my only ways to deal Mortal Wounds and then charged the Heavy Bolter Devs, killing them as well in melee. This meant this flank was done for, all I could hope for was to make Magnus take as long as possible to do it. I kept hitting him with shot after shot but my opponent just would not fail a save! His dice were red hot.

Mid-field the Daemon Prince charged the Captain, but once again the Shield Eternal meant he survived the fight and then smashed the Daemon Prince into paste with his hammer! Dude was a champion every single game. He then went in to the Chaos backfield and engaged the Malefic Lord and the Chaos Lord and by all rights should have gutted them both but my opponent made–literally–every single invulnerable save! Not much you can do when you can’t hurt your opponent. I almost charged a Fire Raptor instead where the Captain should have pretty easily destroy it baring crazy overwatch rolls, but I ran the numbers in my head and figured I should be able to take out the Characters on the ground reliably with 8 Thunder Hammer attacks (again, using the attack twice Stratagem) and basing the Oblits to stop them from shooting in the process, but my attacks just bounced off of them and then the Captain got Smited and stabbed to death =(

At this point things were looking grim. I was on the objectives but had some serious heat incoming and I was proving unable to take out my opponent’s heavy hitters. I made a dash for his back objective to force him to choose where to go but Magnus kept rolling an 11+ on Smite and nuking a unit a turn, leaving me with not many options. My entire Sternguard unit got scooped by one spell! Ouch.

I gave one last attempt to deal with Magnus, firing every thing I had into him but my opponent made almost every save again, lol. I managed another wound with a Helfire Round from a Heavy Bolter and 1 from a Bolter that he actually rolled a 2 on his save, but that was it. It was pretty brutal.

In the end, I conceded after my last units going after his objectives got wrecked. My opponent played very intelligently and had luck on his side, too. Not much you can do to that! I had a blast even though I lost, this was probably my second favorite game, we were having a good laugh the whole time.

In retrospect, my weakness to a super model like Magnus and my critical deployment error cost me the game. Had I castled up a bit better, not giving Magnus a way to choose who he got to smite, I could have fed him throw away units for a few turns and hammered his main units, but alas, that was not how it went. Steve also did very well, going 6-2 at the event. Well done!

Raptors lose.

Game 6

• Opponent: Tyler’s Grey Knights
• Deployment: Hammer & Anvil
• Objectives: 4 objectives and the Relic

Tyler had a very cool and creative Elysian/Grey Knights army.

• Patrol Detachment: Grey Knights
  • Grand Master: Terminator Pslencer, Soul Glaive, First to the Fray
  • Grey Knights Strike Squad x 10: Falchions x 8, Psilencer x 2
  • Grey Knights Strike Squad x 10: Falchions x 8, Psilencer x 2
  • Purgation Squad x 5: Falchion x 1, Psilencer x 4
• Brigade Detachment
  • Elyisan Commander: Plasma Pistol
  • Elyisan Commander: Plasma Pistol
  • Elyisan Commander: Plasma Pistol
  • Elysian Command Squad: Plasma Gun x 4
  • Elysian Command Squad: Plasma Gun x 4
  • Elysian Command Squad: Plasma Gun x 4
  • Elysian Sniper Team: Sniper Rifle x 3
  • Elysian Sniper Team: Sniper Rifle x 3
  • Elysian Sniper Team: Sniper Rifle x 3
  • Elysian Sniper Team: Sniper Rifle x 3
  • Elysian Sniper Team: Sniper Rifle x 3
  • Elysians x 10
  • Elysians x 10
  • Elysians x 10
  • Grey Knights Strike Squad: Flachions x 4, Psilencer
  • Grey Knights Strike Squad: Flachions x 4, Psilencer
  • Grey Knights Strike Squad: Flachions x 4, Psilencer
  • Heavy Weapons Team: Mortars x 3
  • Heavy Weapons Team: Mortars x 3
  • Heavy Weapons Team: Mortars x 3
  • Cyber Wolf
  • Cyber Wolf
  • Cyber Wolf
• Spearhead Detachment
  • Celestine
  • Heavy Weapons Team: Mortars x 3
  • Heavy Weapons Team: Mortars x 3
  • Heavy Weapons Team: Mortars x 3
  • Astropath
  • Astropath

So wow, MSU to the max. Interesting list though as it has 34 drops, meaning that much of the good stuff starts off the board with only throw away chaff units on the table which don’t matter too much if they die but deal out decent damage.

However, all of that aside, I played one of the worst games of 40k of my life in this match, lol. I don’t know what was up with me, I came in pretty light hearted as I had lost the previous game and was out of the running to win, I was pretty tired too but for some reason I missed the most obvious play which ultimately cost me the game.

My opponent had Celestine. It was the Relic. I have Scouts, but didn’t put any on the Relic….lol! I already deserved to lose with that boneheaded play but with the +1 to go first, lucked into getting first turn and hatched a scheme to win the game but executed it very poorly. I set up a “trap”…but a very stupid one, lol. I dropped my army down to nuke Celestine and then put my Scouts right behind the relic, but not touching it, ringed around my Captain. The idea was to kill her the first time with my drop units, then when she resurrected and came after the relic, my Captain would heroically intervene and kill her the second time while the Scouts scored points on the Relic.

I had also chosen progressive objectives which was a major doofus play. I had chosen the exact same missions every game to make it easy on myself to focus on tactics and not relearning missions but in this instance should have absolutely picked end of game objectives.

Well, I missed the most obvious play in the world: Celesting grabbing the Relic turn 1 and running away with it. By not standing on the Relic, she simply flew up and touched the back edge of it and flew away with it, essentially ending the game. Doh! To my credit, my plan could have worked but I just needed to move my Scouts forward literally one more inch. Haha. The other part of this plan that failed, was that I didn’t kill Celestine the first turn when I totally should have but between some crazy good saves on Tyler’s part and my stupid Multi-Meltas again landing two hits and I again rolled snake eyes for damage (with a CP re-roll, haha!) when she only had 5 wounds left.

The Grey Knights then came in, Celestine scooped the relic and jumped behind a wall, and the Grey Knights used Astral Aim to shoot me through the LoS blocking terrain taking out quite a few of my units, which was a slick play on Tyler’s part. My Captain did manage to jump over and kill Celestine but it was too little too late as more units came in form reserves on to the Relic and closed me off from getting to it.

A game that should have been an easy win for me by running away with the Relic turn 1 and dropping my castle around it turned into an easy win for my opponent, lol! Oh well, we all make dumb mistakes form time to time.

Tyler went on to go 6-2 in the event, again, kicking butt! All of my opponents did very well at the event, so congratz!

Also, we really shouldn’t even be playing the relic in competitive play. It is too easy to pick it up and run away with it on turn 1 and essentially auto-win the game with some units like Celestine, Soul-bursting Ynnari, or Scouts, etc.

Raptors lose.

After Event Thoughts and Potential List Changes

What a great event! I seriously had a blast. NOVA gives you the option to drop after round 6 and I opted to take it so I could enjoy the rest of the Con on Sunday and to go out in DC that night to check out the city night life (which was a blast!). All 6 games were fun, challenging, and against top notch opponents both for their skill and conduct. I really couldn’t ask for more from a tournament.

I never felt like I had a game I literally couldn’t win apart from my match-up with an absurd list in the invitational featuring 13 Malefic Lords and Super Chicken, lol. That is a story for another day but suffice it to say, there is a very good reason we imposed the Power Level ban right away and units like Super Chicken are why. That thing has absolutely no place in matched play and really takes the fun out of the game. I saw so many top notch players knocked out of the event by that silly, silly model. Just no fun. Also, as we all know, Malefic Lords are so under-costed it is criminal, lol. But, I digress.

My army was very counter-meta and performed well! I had a blast playing it and multiple people came up asking for a copy of my list as they were considering playing it or something similar to it which was very flattering. I also hope it shows that you don’t have to play a “Soup” army to compete. Stratagems are simply amazing and when used correctly give you a lot more control over what happens in a game.

Going forward, I really want to add a Thunderfire Cannon to my army as the ability to use its stratagem to halve movement on an enemy unit is incredible. Units like Berzerkers are mega powerful vs. my army but if I can slow them up, I can gun them down pretty easily. I just need time to do it. Also being able to hit units I cannot see would have been very good for me.

I am considering throwing in a Culexus Assassin as he can stop an entire turn of Smite, which even if only for one turn is all my army needs to do enough damage to win the game. However, I am also considering bumping the Vanguard unit up to 10 as even with just Bolt Pistols and Chainswords, they are awesome. A full unit has 31 attacks on the charge and will run through Conscripts, Brims, etc. and can even attack twice if needs be, plus are very quick and can deep strike which is always useful.

My favorite unit was the Captain with Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield, who was simply a savage every game. I had so much fun with him. However, he would not have worked even half as well without his Vanguard escort. They kept him alive as he moved up the field to smack faces. You could easily accomplish this with regular Assault Marines but for only 2pts more per model, I will take the extra attack on the Vanguard in a meta filled with chaff units. And, I needed 3 Elites choices to open up the Brigade and in the Fast slot I wanted more of my second favorite units: Scout Bikers!

The Scout Bikers were absolute bad asses. With the amount of shots and attacks they have, their crazy speed and decent toughness, these are an incredible unit. Just so much fun and I love the models, too!

Where I can improve: I should have made better use of the Ravenguard infiltrate stratagem. I kept wanting to save CPs, but I could have used that to tremendous effect in some of my games with my assault units or the Sternguard. I will definitely be experimenting more with that in the future as I think if I can master that, my army will be much better.

Thanks for reading and again, thanks to all of my awesome opponents!

And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!