Sunday morning is here and my corsairs are somehow ready! If you have read the last 2 posts HERE and HERE, you will know that the lead up had not gone to plan! The corsairs fleet had arrived later than expected then made me work until the final moments to get them ready.
That was all behind me now though – let the games begin!
Sadly, I had no time for pictures of games across the day – between keeping on top of the new army and mission and some top notch opponents, I had more on my mind!
Game 1
Dawn of War, Cleanse and Control – Khorne Daemonkin
Travis and I have only played once prior to this game – my Sisters of Battle at Skulls earlier in the yeah suffered a drubbing at the hands of the KDK and I was hoping for some payback. Travis was using a Renegade Knight Warden, a D-Thirster, 1 unit of cultists, Chaos lord on Jugger, 1 unit of blood letters and then a Gore pack with 2 units of 3 bikes (double melta) and 4 units of 8 hounds.
I won the dice rolls, deployed first and readied myself to return some of the harm done in the last game… until he seized on me.
After scout moves and his turn 1 – I literally had most of the hounds in my deployment zone and had yet to move. While the warp hunters killed the D-Thirster, the knight annoyingly saved all 5 D hits from them (I caught both in the barrage) and then they were quickly killed by a pack of hounds. The Solitaire was on a roll this game and killed the Khorne Lord in short order with a flurry of 6’s and then stripped 5 hull points off the knight before dying to the hounds.
I had forgotten the hounds are 2 wounds each and was paying a dear price. We finished turn 5 and the game ended with me having just a single hornet left on 1 hull point – albeit safe for turn 6 but doomed for turn 7 had they rolled around. I lose the game 15-5 on the event points. Thankfully, this is not a total disaster as I could still play the final if I won the next 2 games.
I learned a critical lesson here – the hounds should have bene target number 1. The warp hunters could have easily jumped over 1 unit and flamed them with the D-Flails while the Felarchs and baron charged one unit and the Prince another – blocking the last unit from assaulting. This would have given me more than 1 shooting phase with the Warp Hunters. Crucially though, this loss highlighted a flaw in the corsairs list and one I would have to keep an eye on.
Game 2
Hammer and Anvil, Big Guns Never Tire – Tau
I had never played Dion prior to this event but his list scared me. Buffmander in a unit of 3 missilesides, stormsurge, 2×5 fire warriors, trio of riptides in a wing and 4 units of 4 marker drones in a network formation.
Again, seize the initiative would play a part as I was going second but had rolled the +1 to seize warlord trait.
I deployed hyper defensively in the corner closest to the riptides, essentially ensuring the Stormsurge and broadsides could not fire for turn 1 as it was all out of range. Even the burst cannon rip tide would be out of range. I figured 2 ion cannons were ok and the lesser of 2 evils. Then I seized the initiative!
The corsairs leapt to the attack with the warp hunters killing not 1 but 2 riptides in the opening barrage. The 3rd riptide was left on a single wound after the hornets had fired and the drone units both died to scatter laser fire and the Death Jester (with them running off the table thanks to his rule).
From here it almost be came a mop up of the tau. I had one warp hunter immobilised and a few of the hornets picked off but the stormsurge died in short order as did the broadsides. Going into Dions turn 3 he had a single unit of marker drones to roll for (from reserves) and that’s it. The corsairs had simply outgunned the tau. I am not sure what would have happened had I not gone first (and its a game I have asked for with Dion) but for the tournament – you don’t question the 20-0 win!
Game 3
Dawn of War, Contact Lost – Eldar
Another new face across the table – Jarred had ended the league number 1 (from memory) and after a quick discussion, it quickly became apparent who ever went first would have a big advantage.
Jarred was running a Craftworld Warhost with a farseer on bike, 3 biker warlocks, 3×3 shuriken cannon bikes, a bare vyper, a dual D cannon wraith knight and a maxed out dire avenger shrine in 3 wave serpents.
I won the dice roll and decided to go first while Jarred failed to seize.
Turn 1 was all but the game over with the warp hunters destroying not only the wraith knight but putting 2 hull points on a wave serpent and killing all the warlocks and farseer. The rest of my corsairs killed 2 of the 3 bike units and reduced the 3rd to a single model while also forcing jink onto the other serpents.
This left the eldar with critically few guns to fire at full effect and in range. The solitaire did fall to the dire avengers but this would be the only KP Jarred would score for the game. When we ran out of time at the bottom of turn 4, he had 1 dire avengers (in 2 separate units) and a wave serpent on 1 hull point left.
I maintain that had Jarred won the roll for first turn, I would have taken damage, as I outranged him nearly army wide, I should have been able to weather turn 1 and force the game out to a decent conclusion – not so nearly decisive but not a total catastrophe. With my second 20-0 win I now got to play the final for first place!
Game 4
Vanguard Strike, The Scouring – Space Wolves, Ultra Marines
Tristan and I had played almost this very game a month or so earlier (with me using proxy models while waiting for what would be a very late box!). He had smashed my army to dust in short order… thankfully I had a plan.
Tristan was running an Ultramarines Librarius with Tigerius and 2 lvl2 librarians, an Ultramarines Sky Hammer with 4 units of 5 marines – a power axe in each assault squad while the devestators had 4 multi meltas and 4 grav cannons respectively. Finally, he had a Space Wolf Death pack containing 5 grey hunters, 5 Thunderwolf Cav (all with storm shields, 2 hammers and 3 claws) and a wolf lord on thunder wolf with a stormshield and assorted wargear.
The plan was made easier when Tristan failed to get Veil of Time on his librarius (though he did get invisibility and null zone). I won the dice off and went first.
My first port of call was the librarian who had picked up Invisibility. The event was using the full unmodified rules for it so he needed to die ASAP. I essentially lined my entire army up as far back as possible in preparation to kill as many thunder cav as I could to get him. As it turns out – warp hunters are an answer to this again – forcing no less than 12 look out sir! rolls for the librarian in question from direct hits along with 6 more hits on the unit from the other blasts. He died quickly and took the other librarian and all but 1 thunderwolf with him leaving just Tigerius, the Wolf lord and a lonely thundercav warrior alive and now out of line of sight of the rest of my army!
Tristan clawed it back really well over the next few turns with the sky hammer killing the warp hunters (they had to die or the game was all but over) and the assault marines slowly killing both units of bikes and the wasp before being laid low by the hornets. The remains of the Thundercav deathstar left Tiggy behind and charged my Prince and Felarchs, killing all the felarchs, blowing both shadowfields and leaving the corsairs characters on 1 wound each. It didn’t matter though as I failed the LD test and was run down!
It was then that the Wolflord finally died (having tanked 20+ Hornet shots) and the Death Jester killed the last Thundercav rider. We rolled into turn 5 – Tristan had a drop pod and Tigerius left. Tigerius had just failed to wound the DJ with his bolt pistol and then failed a 5 inch charge. I agreed that I would not simply pump tiggy with pulse laser fire and would only shoot and charge him with the DJ – by this we both knew the game was mine. The DJ lined up his shuriken cannon and got 3 hits! With a grin (thinking I would be forcing at least a wound through before the charge) I rolled the wound dice and 6-6-6 came up – the number of slaanesh! The shuriken cannon blew tiggy out of his boots! Literally!
We should have played turn 6 but with a single drop pod remaining and me holding 4 of the objectives I had the game in the bag and Tristan graciously agreed to call it for my 3rd straight 20-0 win!
With 65 of a possible 80 generalship points I managed to tie for best general (which went to Jadyen in the Deadpool event as you can only win 1 award at the event) and picked up this…
Not a bad way to start the Corsairs life of tournament play at all! I had 4 great games against skilled players with solid lists and learned a bunch about the corsairs in the process. Its certainly been a great way to formulate ideas for LVO in a couple of months.
Special thanks to Gavin and the team at KRAGS for a great day out and my nifty trophy!
Congrats on the win, your army performed very well, especially after the bad defeat game one .
Do you think your games highlighted a bit of an issue with 40k though? It seemed that whoever won turn one had won the game effectively, doing so much damage that the opponent struggled to recover. Does this happen often in tournament play?
It definitely is an issue with 40k.
Armies like Mike’s Corsairs or Dion’s Tau (and to a lesser extent Jarred’s Eldar) have such incredibly efficient shooting that they can easily wipe out whatever the major threats are to their army. The warp hunters in particular, being barrage D, are essentially impossible to hide from.
On the other side, death star’s like Tristan’s wolves, if they can get their buff powers up, become essentially invincible to all damage. In an event like this which played Kill Points AND 2-card maelstrom, I think Death stars have a big advantage assuming they can survive the first turn. And to be fair to Tristan… I don’t think any other unit in the game could have put as much hurt on them as the Warp Hunters did.
And then you have armies like my Daemonkin that won against Mike in the first game…. if I go first, I have 1000pts of models in your deployment zone before you move (I literally scored the ‘have 3 units in the enemy deployment zone card turn 1!!) and you need to kill nearly all of that in one round of shooting before your entire shooty army gets. If I go second, I have to weather 2 rounds of shooting… which against armies like Mike’s isn’t going to go well.
I don’t know if its a flaw with the army lists we’re writing, with the generals using them, or with the game itself. I’m leaning towards the latter… offensive power from efficient lists is just so much more than defensive power from fairly well anything but death stars that the first turn advantage is huge. Its one of the reasons that I like the community comp system – for all its flaws, it does tend to tone down the ‘I win if I go first’ mentality that I heard all over the tournament.
Congrats Mike on winning the event! You had a brutal list and used it very well. Definitely deserved the win. I hope I play your corsairs many times in the future and never have to go second.
Travis covers most of it here – 40k in a hyper competitive environment certainly favours going first – alpha strike or super friends buff force – either wants first turn. In more casual events I have never felt like first turn is such a big deal and certainly a more balanced force will feel the sting of going second far less. Deathstars especially are vulnerable to things like multiple blasts and shots from high impact weapon systems turn 1 – so much so that without going first you can often see these lists fold before they start.
Great write up mike…the only thing i should have done was to keep the deathstar in reserve turn 1, leaving nothing on the board for you to shoot at…the skyhammer took xare of the biggest threat and even if they didnt i would have been able to cast invis…im annoyed i didnt think of that on the day but i was so down that i didnt get veil even though i rolled tiggy on it with his rerolls, then you got first turn i was really on the back foot from the get go…but it was an awesome game thanks again