Sunday 29 April 2012

NAG Ard Boyz 2012 Tournament Army

Last month I took part in the NAG 2012 Ard Boyz tournament using an all Terminator Space Wolf list.
I was putting together an army of chaos terminator minis specially for this and luckily there was no painted requirement so I was able to get by with a largely WIP army!

The army did really well and I finished in 2nd place overall!

The 1750pt list I took was:



Logan Grimnar

10 Wolf Guard Terminators
2 w/ Combi-Meltas & Power Weapons
2 w/ Cyclone Missile Launchers, Storm Bolters & Power Weapons
6 w/ Storm Bolters & Power Weapons
(Logan joins this squad negating the need for a Powerfist here)

10 Wolf Guard Terminators
2 w/ Combi-Meltas & Power Weapons
2 w/ Cyclone Missle Launchers, Storm Bolters & Power Weapons
5 w/ Storm Bolters & Power Weapons
1 w/ Storm Bolter & Powerfist

10 Wolf Guard Terminators
2 w/ Combi-Meltas & Power Weapons
2 w/ Cyclone Missle Launchers, Storm Bolters & Power Weapons
5 w/ Storm Bolters & Power Weapons
1 w/ Storm Bolter & Powerfist

Lone Wolf Terminator
w/ Chainfist & Storm Shield

Lone Wolf Terminator
w/ Chainfist & Storm Shield

Lone Wolf Terminator
w/ Chainfist & Storm Shield

The general theme for the list in games was to use the Lone Wolves as a fire-magnet to cover the advance of the large terminator squads. Pointing them at valuable vehicles and forcing the enemy to engage them somehow sparing the squads unwanted attention as they moved into position to carry out the mission objectives. With the Cyclone Missile Launchers there was plenty of range to be able to sit back as required and with so many power weapons & counter-attack getting dragged into assaults was never a real concern.
Something to not be underestimated is the psychological impact of quite so many Terminators being deployed across the table and then the Lone Wolves did an exceptionally good job of passing their saves and Feel No Pain rolls to really add make it feel like an uphill struggle to make a dent on the army.

The tournament used special non-rulebook scenarios throughout which provided a fun and different challenge to the norm.

The scoring system was as follows:

Scoring
Base battle points should be determined by the chart below.
Result                   Winner    Loser
Massacre              20            0
Major Victory         17            3
Minor Victory         13            7
Draw                     10           10

Parameters to determine the base battle will be explicit in each scenario.
In addition, each scenario will have additional battle points possible. 


The battles...

40K Ard Boyz Scenario 1:
Kaptur da Flag!


Mission:The Warboss has planted a flag in the center of the table. It is your job to make sure it stays his.

Objective: Place an objective marker in the exact center of the board. At the end of the game the player with the most
scoring units with at least one member within six inches of the objective marker wins.

Deployment: Use Pitched Battle as per page 92 of the main rulebook.

Length of Game:Use random game length as per page 90 of the main rulebook, or until time is called. Do not begin another
game turn unless both players can finish their player turn.

Special Rules:
Infiltrate (page 92)
Deep Strike (page 95)
Outflank (Page 94)
Reserves (page 94)
Seize the Initiative (Page 92)

Massacre:
Have 5 more scoring units within six inches of the objective than your opponent.

Major Victory:
Have 3 more scoring units within six inches of the objective than your opponent.

Minor Victory:
Have 1 more scoring unit within six inches of the objective than your opponent.

Draw:
Both players have the same amount of scoring units within six inches of the center.

Battle Point Modifiers:
+1 If your most expensive HQ choice is within six inches of the objective.
+1 if you have none of your units completely or partially in your deployment zone at the end of the game.
+1 If you kill an enemy HQ
+1 If you control more terrain than your opponent. (To control you need a scoring unit fully within 3” of a piece
of terrain)


This one was played against an Eldar army. This scenario suited my Terminator army quite well and so the aim for the game was to pile as many Terminators into the crater in the centre of the table that ended up housing the objective and making as quick work as possible of anything that got too close. The Eldar Avatar caused some concerns when it survived a total of 24 Krak missiles and then two rounds of assault before it was finally toppled by my counts as Logan Grimnar! Otherwise the Cyclones made short work of the Eldar Falcons and Wave Serpents slowing the army right down and allowing me to deal with them piece-meal. Otherwise the Terminators had to survive the shooting of the Eldar Rangers whilst they waited for the Lone Wolves to catch up to them. I ended up with 20 tournament points from this first game to get me off to a great start!

40K Ard Boyz Scenario 2:
Head of Da Snake!


Mission:Destroy the Enemy HQ while keeping yours alive.

Objective:This scenario uses victory points.  See page 300 of the rulebook for victory points rules. Each player must nominate a single HQ choice to be your army general.  This choice is worth double victory points for this mission.

Deployment:
Dawn of War [table halves]

Length of Game: Use random game length as per page 90 of the main rulebook. Or until time is called, so that each player completes the same number of turns.

Special Rules:
Deep Strike (page 95)
Outflank (Page 94)
Reserves (Page 94)
Seize the Initiative (page 92)

Massacre:
1126 to 1750 victory points more than your opponent.

Major Victory:
751 to 1125 victory points more than your opponent.

Minor Victory:
376 to 750 victory points more than your opponent.

Draw:
Your total is within 375 victory points of your opponent.

Battle point modifiers:
+1 if you killed all of your opponents troop
+1 if your General is alive at the end of the game


This one was a tough game! My opponent was an experienced tournament and Dark Eldar player who went on to win the whole event. For this one I was really relying on the fact that it was going to take a lot of kills to collect the points on my expensive Terminator units. Things didn't quite go to plan when within the first few turns the ludicrous amount of Dark Lances and Splinter Cannons being fired at my Terminators managed to remove the best part of two squads leaving me with my Lone Wolves and Logan's squad as the only real combat elements. In this game the Lone Wolves really earned their keep. After one flank of the army collapsed it fell to the Lone Wolves to keep approximately 5 Venoms and their passengers busy for long enough that Logan and his squad could survive. It took the rest of the game for the Dark Eldar to shift the Lone Wolves having to eventually resort to throwing a squad of Wracks at the last Lone Wolf to remove him from play. Meanwhile Logan's squad got to work on trying to restore the balance. They didn't do a bad job, wiping out a couple of Ravagers and two Raiders. The Dark Eldar Archon and his squad of Wyches had made an attempt to close the gap with Logan's squad but quickly ducked down into cover after a barrage of shooting saw a chunk of the squad blown apart by some unerringly accurate Frag missile fire. 3 hits rolled and one a scatter of 3 inches ignored for their BS! The game finished as a Minor Victory to the Dark Eldar player. So I walked away from this one with an additional 8 tournament points and a valuable lesson learned about the danger of poisoned weapons!

40K Ard Boyz Scenario 3:
Total Domination!


Mission:Control table quarters while annihilating your opponent.

Objective:You must control more table quarters than your opponent. To control a table quarter you must have more scoring units inside the table quarter than your enemy in the same table quarter. No unit can control more than 1 table quarter at a time. If a unit is in more than 1 table quarter the unit cannot score any quarters.

Deployment:Use Spearhead as per page 92 of the main rulebook.

Length of game:Use random game length as per page 90 of the main rulebook, or until time is called so that each player completes the same number of turns.

Special Rules:
Infiltrate (page 92)
Deep Strike (page 95)
Outflank (Page 94)
Reserves (page 94
Seize the Initiative (Page 92)

Massacre:
If a player controls 3 more table quarters than his opponent.

Major Victory:
If a player controls 2 more table quarters than his opponent.

Minor Victory:
If a player controls 1 more table quarters than his opponent.

Draw:
If both players have the same number of table quarters then the game is a draw.

Battle point Modifiers:
+1 if you have at least 1 scoring unit completely in your enemy’s deployment zone.
+1 If you have destroyed all of your enemies scoring units.


 This was one I was quite concerned about going into the tournament. With only 3 troops squads I knew this was going to always be a difficult one to pull off. I ended up against a Vanilla Marines player. Seeing that he had a Vindicator, a Land Raider, two Razorbacks, a Predator and a squad of bikers I realised that it was going to be a tough job to chase them all down so I ended up deploying my army out of sight with the exception of Logan's squad who I deployed in a purposely aggressive position within my quarter to try and draw attention of the bigger tanks to take advantage of his ability to pass on the Tank Hunter rule to his squad. With second turn I was able to force the Vindicator to have to focus on relocating to be able to shoot in the next turn. Thankfully this was all the time I needed and the Vindicator was silenced with a few Krak missiles from the Cyclone Missile Launchers in Logan's squad. In the following turn the Land Raider raced aggressively towards Logan's squad and deployed a unit of Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield armed Terminators. Meanwhile a Drop Pod landed to dispatch a Dreadnought with a Multi-Melta into my midst. I was just grateful it wasn't armed with a Plasma Cannon!
The next turn Logan's squad fell back from the enemy terminators subjecting them to a barrage of botler shells and frag missiles to reduce the squad down to a manageable size. The Dreadnought was brought down by a Lone Wolf and another Lone Wolf finished off the Predator. In the next turn the Terminators assaulted Logan's squad but Logan took advantage of his higher initiative, the counter attack rule and his own The High King rule to throw a massive 7 attacks at the Terminators wiping them out before they had a chance to strike! The rest of the game was spent trying to mop up the small squads of Space Marines that had scattered across the board and then trying to take control of the table quarters. The battle ended up being a Major Victory to myself.

40K Ard Boyz Scenario 4:
 Red Rum!


Mission:Kill em all, Kill em good! Destroy your enemy while keeping your force alive.

Objective: Use the Annihilation scenario found on page 91 of the rulebook.

Deployment:Use Pitched Battle found on page 92 of the rulebook.

Length of Game:Use random game length as per page 90 of the main rulebook, or until time is called so that each player
completes the same number of turns.

Special Rules:
Infiltrate (page 92)
Deep Strike (page 95)
Outflank (Page 94)
Reserves (page 94)
Night Fight (Turn 1 only)
Seize the Initiative (Page 92)

Massacre:
If a player has 5 more kill points than his opponent.

Major Victory:
If a player has 3 more kill points than his opponent.

Minor Victory:
If a player has more kill points than his opponent.

Draw:
If both players have the same kill points.

Battle Point Modifiers:
+1 If you kill an enemy HQ
+1 If you control at least one piece of terrain. (To control you need a scoring unit completely within a piece of
terrain)
+1 If no enemy units are completely in your deployment zone.


Going into the tournament this had been the game I was looking forward to the most. Killpoints really favoured my army with only 4 up for grabs in my army although that was tempered slightly by the special Killpoints rules around the Lone Wolves. I ended up drawing a Draigo led Grey Knight Terminator army though and saw my main advantage countered before deployment! Still it promised to be a brutal match-up and in that respect it certainly didn't disappoint! There's less to report on this one as essentially the game consisted of the Lone Wolves charging forwards to sell their lives as dearly as possible whilst the Terminators kept as large a distance as they could between themselves and the Grey Knights whilst they popped the 'easy' kill points like the Dreadnought and Storm Raven on the table. Once the two armies got into assault range it turned into a bloodbath. So many Power Weapons made the Terminators largely insignificant. Logan put up a valiant last stand taking a squad of Grey Knights down with him as his own bodyguards were cut down. The assaults continued on in this theme and eventually the game ground out to hard fought draw of 3 killpoints a piece. The Paladins and the Grey Knight characters proved especially difficult to shift and in the end I was grateful the game ended when it did or it would have swung from a draw to a massacre against with an extra turn! The draw though proved enough to bag me second place!

The tournament was great fun and there were a lot of very tough armies on display and the top of the table was very, very close after first place who was comfortably ahead!

The final top 10 ended up being:

1: Dark Eldar, 69 points. (my opponent for game 2)
2: My Army! 56 points.
3: Dark Eldar, 53 points.
4: Grey Knights, 52 points. (my opponent for game 4)
5: Chaos Marines, 50 points.
6: Space Wolves, 48 points.
7: Space Marines, 45 points. (my opponent for game 3)
8: Chaos Marines, 44 points.
9: Imperial Guard, 40 points.
10: Space Marines, 38 Points.