'Ard Boys Semifinals Report: Mech BT
I played my Mech Black Templar army at the ‘Ard Boyz semifinals in Orlando, FL at Sci-Fi City. They had 17 tables, 34 players. I was the 6th alternate, and luckily enough I got in as apparently 6 people chickened out or whatever.
I played a similar list to what I brought in the preliminaries, except I dropped from 4 initiate squads to 3, and went from 2 terminator assault squads to 3. I brought what I would consider to be one of the hardest army that loyalist marines of any codex could bring.
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HQ
Marshal - Terminator armor, twin lightning claws
Emperor’s Champion - Accept Any Challenge
Elites
5x Assault Terminators – 3 LC / 2 TH
5x Assault Terminators – 3 LC/ 2 TH
6x Assault Terminators – 4 LC/ 2 TH
Troops
10x Initiates – CCW, Powerfist, Meltagun, Rhino, Extra Armor, Smoke Launchers
10x Initiates – CCW, Powerfist, Meltagun, Rhino, Extra Armor, Smoke Launchers
10x Initiates – CCW, Powerfist, Meltagun, Rhino, Extra Armor, Smoke Launchers
Dedicated Transports
Land Raider Crusader – Smoke Launchers, Extra Armor
Land Raider Crusader – Smoke Launchers, Extra Armor
Land Raider Crusader – Smoke Launchers, Extra Armor
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Scenario 1: Pitched Battle with kill points. Troops worth 3 kill points.
Vs. Collin from Rockledge, FL with Orks
I don’t have a copy of Adam’s list, but it had the following according to my notes…
Ghazgull
3 max footslogging boyz squads
Lootas
Commandos with Snikrot
Battlewagon
Meganobs
One or two squads of truck boyz
I got the first turn, moved my tanks up 6 and took a few inconsequential shots at his footsloggers. His turn he moved everything 6 inches and took shots. His Battlewagon did, however, blow up the Crusader containing my Marshal.
On my turn two I moved my LRC up twelve, disembarked my 6 man termie squads 2 inches and charged 6 into one of his shoota boys squads. The other LRC zoomed towards his lootas, and my Marshal HQ termies moved into woods. The Terminators I got into assault mauled his boys, killing handfuls of them. They broke and fled.
Next turn one of his boys squads charged those terminators, and the ensuing combat I killed a bunch of them, and I think he killed a couple of terminators. I won combat and he took a few fearless casualties and we were locked in. On my turn I got the charge off on his Lootas with my EC termie squad. My initiate squad backed up the locked in terminators. My Marshal squad charged his 3rd footslogging boys along with some initiates. The Lootas got wiped, the locked in boys got wiped and the Marshall team and initiates took some casualties due to charging into cover but when they hit back they wiped them. My third initiate squad killed his commandos with pistol shots(wtf?).
Next turn, his mega nobs and Ghazgul charged my Marshal squad and initiates in the woods. Since I struck first, I put a wound on each nob, and killed two. His attacks back killed everyone except my Marshal.
Next turn was cleanup, he killed my Marshal but not before the Marshall killed the rest of the nobz leaving Ghaz all by himself on the far side of the board.
When the game ended all he had left was Ghaz and an immobilized battlewagon. I win by 11 kill points with a massacre and a bonus for killing all his troops.
Points – 21
Scenario 2: Seize and control with 3 random objectives, Dawn of War Deployment, Nightfight the entire game and kill points.
Vs. Darryl from Port St. Lucie, FL with Mech Eldar
I don’t have Darryl’s list either, but it was entirely mech except for infiltrating Eldar snipers. I believe he had two Wave Serpents, 3 Falcons, 2 Fire Prisms, Eldrad, and another Farseer. He had Dire Avengers for troops and two squads of Fire Dragons.
I didn’t take good notes this game, but the key to the game was Turn 2 when he left Eldrad and co sitting alone in the open, and I got the charge off on him with two terminator squads to ensure he got squished. On his turn three his Farseer fried his brain failing a psychic test. Losing both his Farseers early dramatically reduced the efficiency of his army. I managed to kill all his troops by turn 4 or 5 so the most he could do was tie on objectives. He tried to tank shock me off of objectives but it wasn’t terrifically effective. The game ended with me controlling 3 objectives to 0 and winning 7 kill points to 6. I got all 4 bonus points.
Points – 45
I was in 3rd place going into the final round, pretty stoked about how well my list has played thus far.
Scenario 3: Table quarters with one objective in the middle.
Vs. Adam from Orlando, FL with Dual Lash Chaos
Adam was running 2 Lash princes, 4 squads of Plague Marines in rhinos with 2x Meltaguns, 3 Dreadnaughts with dual CCW, 9 obliterators.
I knew as soon as I saw his list I was in trouble. It’s hard to beat Lash on objective missions as they can move you off the objective or out of the table quarter, and plague marines are tough to kill in close combat even for Templars.
Turn 1 set the tone for the match. I went first, moving my three raiders up to the center objective. My shooting killed two of his three dreadnaughts as they were forward placed. In retrospect, I should have shot at his oblits, but Lightning claws have nothing for dreadnaughts and I didn’t want to use my cannonball units of terminators to kill dreadnaughts and then get shot to pieces.
Unfortunately, one of my Raiders blew its tracks going over difficult terrain. On his turn he blew up the other two LRC with his oblits. Losing all my Raiders turn 1 basically encapsulates how bad the game went for me. The termies who disembarked from the wreckage were lashed and plasma’d to death and then the survivors charged by a dreadnaught and killed.
So by the end of turn 1 I had no more land raiders, and only one terminator squad left inside an immobilized Raider.
On my turn two I moved my rhinos onto the flanks and charged my termies out of the immobilized raider into his last Dread. I killed or immobilized his dread losing a few termies. I charged an initiate squad into his Oblits, wiping a squad of three of them out.
His turn two he lashed my termies and killed them with plasma. He lashed the initiates who killed the oblits and then double tapped plasma gunned them, and finished them off by charging his Princes into them.
Turn 3 I charged initiates into a squad of plague marines, inflicted 9 or so wounds and he saved all of them. I believe my power fist failed to wound. Over the next turn he whittled that initiate squad down in CC. He popped my last rhino and lashed/oblitted the initiates inside.
The game ended with a total loss, him getting massacre and maximum bonus points.
In retrospect, I should have focused everything on his oblits, and had my Raiders made it to turn two intact I probably would have wiped out all his obliterators and it would have been a significantly closer game. In any event he was a good sport and a good player. He said that I had the worst luck that game that he had seen all day, but honestly I think even with average luck I doubt I would have been able to win, let alone get the massacre I needed to win the tournament.
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All in all, it was a fun event and well run. I had fun and all my opponents were good sports, though I think my Ork opponent invented some rules to help himself on one occasion but I didn’t call him on it at the time so that’s on me.
I still think Black Templars are the most competitive loyalist list, and based on how poorly Vulkan lists did I think that’s probably correct.
