Slaughterfest GT Report Game 3

Hey everyone, Reecius here with my game 3 report from the Slaughterfest GT.

You can read the game 2 report, here.

Here’s my list and you can see the event results, here.

Khorne Daemon Battalion

• Daemon Prince of Khorne, Skull Reaver Axe
• Kharank
• Bloodletters x 20: Icon, Instrument, Banner of Blood
• Bloodletters x 20: Icon, Instrument, Banner of Blood
• Bloodletters x 17: Icon, Instrument, Banner of Blood

Black Legion Battalion

• Abaddon
• Exalted Champ: Relic Chainsword
• Cultists x 10
• Cultists x 10
• Cultists x 10

Iconoclast Chaos Knights Detachment

• Knight Despoiler: Double Battle Cannons, Ironstorm Missiles
• War Dog: melee
• War Dog: shooty

After the pounding I took in Round 2, I was hoping to bounce back in game 3. Pairings went up and I drew #8 in the ITC and fellow Team Zero Comp teammate, Junior Afleje. Well, I wasn’t getting a break yet it seems, lol.

Junior’s List form Memory:

Cadian Battalion (Artillery Company):

• Company Commander
• Primaris Psyker
• Infantry: Mortar
• Infantry: Mortar
• Infantry: Mortar
• Wyvern
• Wyvern

Cadian Battalion:

• Company Commander
• Company Commander
• Infantry: Mortar
• Infantry: Mortar
• Infantry: Mortar
• HWS: Mortars

Hawkshroud Detachment:

• Crusader
• Gallant
• Valiant

This is a really strong list with a lot of tricks up the sleeve, more than most folks would realize. Luckily for me, Junior and I play a lot and I’ve gotten the better of him in most of our recent games so I felt confident I knew how to counter his list. The key was going to be keeping EL MASTADONTE alive as long as possible as I needed him to counter the other Knights. I’d had him essentially take out 2.5 of Junior’s Knights on his own the last time we played so I was going to stay focused on achieving that goal and with Khorne’s blessing, victory would be mine!

We rolled up Hammer and Anvil and once again, I lost the roll to determine initiative and Junior opted to go first to avoid taking a battle cannon fusillade to the face and cover as much ground as possible. He also used Sally Forth on his Gallant to have him come in on an edge of the table would prove to be instrumental.

The game opened up with him using Move, Move, Move! to get Infantry onto objectives and me forming a cordon around my Knights with my own infantry waiting for the Gallant to come on so I could light him up and then start to recover the board control I had given up. Bloodletters excel at killing guard and if I could keep EL MASTADONTE alive and kicking (pun intended!) then I’d be good to go.

Well, lol, none of that hapenned.

While forming my screen formation to keep the Gallant off of me, I was operating under a false presumption. All this time, I thought Sally Forth functioned like any other outflank strat which requires the model to be wholly within X” of the board edge. But, apparently, Sally Forth just says the model must be within X” of the table edge which means it can come on dramatically further than anticipated with just the tip of its base fulfilling the requirement. That fatal lack of knowledge was my undoing as it meant my screens were not in the proper position to actually do their job. That sucked.

So, the Gallant comes in, Dragon Upper Cuts EL MASTADONTE and then Death Grips a character to death in one fell swoop. That really took the wind out of my sails and gutted any chance I had to win the game. I thought I was properly protected but in fact was utterly exposed. Ouch. It always sucks to lose a game because of something like that where you just get your pants pulled down, but, it happens and is not a mistake I’ll make twice.

So, like a French General standing atop the Maginot Line in 1940 watching the advancing Wehrmecht, I said F&#% it and surrendered, lol. Time for a glass of red wine, cheap cigarette and start planning le resistance!

Le ouch. That was brutal. Ending day 1 on a 1-2 record was not amazing but Khorne disdains weaklings, so I went to our hotel room, ate some raw beef and slammed a Natural Ice, looked in the mirror, gave myself a bad-ass pump up speech and was prepared to come back day 2 and have Khorne witness my mighty deeds!

On to game 4, which you can read here.

 

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