Old School's 'Ard Boyz Experience - Taking Death Wing to Third

Old School here with a quick round up of my performance at our local 'Ard Boyz qualifier here at Evolution Games in Lansing Michigan. I played three great matches against opponents that I have rarely or never faced. While I may have placed third and qualified, the real nice part was having three great games, so here is the round up.

A rough rundown of my list:

Belial

Eziekiel

Dreadnought TLLC, heavy flamer

Six 5-man terminator squads, all hammers, each squad armed with a cyclone missile launcher. Belial's squad has the apothecary and the banner.

three single landspeeder typhoons with multi meltas

two predators with lascannon sponsons

one pred with heavy bolter sponsons and storm bolter

All in all, scoring termies mixed with a pretty solid firebase. Sorry about the pics, I was busy playing and had to keep my head in the game.

Scenario 1, I ran against the Eldar. Given that I had a lot of firepower on the board and the mission was kill points, my opponent started in reserves. I quickly lost a speeder and harliquins picked off the traitor before they lost their lives. At that point, I started hammering away the opponent's wraithlords, but it was too late.

I lost the first scenario by a kill point over a seven-turn game. I took a minor loss heading into the second round and all I can really say is that I made some mistakes and that my opponent was one of the friendliest opponent's I have played in a tournament and that he is a very good player. He went on to place second and deserved it.

Scenario 2 placed me against the Guard. The list was a little funky compared to the list I am used to fighting (Cvinton's Undertaker list). There were two manitcores with a demolisher squadron, a vendetta and then some vet squads in chimeras backed by some foot squads and a huge gang of conscripts (Chekov was lurking nearby).

We stared in spearhead and I decided to deathwing assault. I actually wish I would have started on the board so I could have just waded into the fight and had the extra missiles on turn one. I think there are some finer points that I need to get used to to wield the Death Wing the right way and the first two games proved it here.

The pic above displays how I took two of the objective using my fearlessness to hold on with two terminators in the corner. Another squad was driving into the heart of the guard while two squads held the middle and another two (as seen below) got contested by the "without number" conscripts.

I ended up with a minor victory and some bonus points for round two. I looked at the stats for the day and I knew if I could pull off a Massacre on round three, then I might qualify. After having some mistakes cost me points in the last two missions, I had my head on straight and got ready to fight the Orks!

I deployed in this mess next to the little cottage. Everything walked on, except for two termie squads that started (Dawn of War). I then castled up. He would have to bottleneck his three battle wagons. At worst, I figured I would only have to fight two units at a time.

My opponent brought in some Koptas here and there, but they died every time they outflanked. I stayed balled up at hammered his vehicles and waited for the horde to arrive. When it did, he made a crucial mistake!

My opponent brought his Nob squad and Warboss into a ring of three terminator squads ... and then forgot to charge them. I think I would have still come out on top, but it would have taken a while and would have cost me some missile shots later. So I got a charge on him and wiped his Warboss's unit the next turn. After that, his army lost momentum and started dying quickly. In the end, he had four lootas remaining and I achieved a massacre over 1700 points ahead. It's not how I would have liked to win, but it happened.

So, in the end, our own CVinton won first (I think this is his first tourney victory), My first round opponent took second and I took third. I will put my proceeds toward finding a good model to convert to Belial.

What do you guys think of a converted Draigo? Oh, and look out for some upcoming Death Wing articles based on my experiences with them.