MiGT Battle Report; Ken Brunner Part 1

Here is a battle report that is currently running on Dakkadakka.  This is from 4th place finisher and Best Xenos General, Ken Brunner. We'll update this as he does (with his permission of course; no plagiarism on this blog!)



Last weekend, I attended the first annual Michigan GT in Lansing, MI. It was run mostly by the good folks from the Michigan Gaming Group, and they did an excellent job for a first time event.

I'll update this post over the course of the next few days with more information on the event, as well as some mini battle reports. I apologize in advance for the lack of pictures as I hadn't planned on writing anything up. I do have pictures of my army, but that's about it. Oh, well. :p

For now, I'll leave you with my army list. It's a version of the same list I've been playing since the Feast of Blades Invitational last October, so I've got a bit of practice with it.

1850 Necrons/CSM - ZombieCrons!
Overlord, Warscythe, Sempternal Weave, MSS (Warlord)
Destroyer Lord, Warscythe, Sempternal Weave, MSS
Royal Court: 2 Crypteks, Voltaic Staff
3x 5 Warriors, Night Scythe
6 Wraiths, 2 Whip Coil
3 Annihilation Barge, Tesla
Typhus
26 Zombies
Heldrake, Baleflamer

Sorry for the crappy pictures of my army. Apparently, my camera skills leave a little (lot) to be desired. Here they are!

I should probably note that the format for this event was slightly different than what many of you might be used to. First off, the winner for the weekend would be determined based entirely on Battle Points accrued over the course of 6 rounds. Win, loss, draw.. didn't matter. Secondly, terrain for this event was not pre-placed. Instead, we were given 8 pieces of terrain per table and placed them at the beginning of each match, more or less per the rulebook. 

At least two of the pieces on each table were fairly large line of sight blocking pieces. Usually accompanied by a pair of ruins, a pair of forests, and a couple hills. While I'm not too fond of battle point tournaments, I thoroughly enjoy player placed terrain. It rarely takes more than a minute and adds another tactical dimension to the game which good players can take advantage of. 

The Necron part of the list is pretty standard. It is what it is. I will say that it didn't start out that way and has evolved over time. The only real difference against the "netlist," version of the Necron detachment was the Overlord/Crypteks. Slay The Warlord was worth 2 points in every mission, so I didn't want my tanking D. Lord losing me games taking bullets for the team. Those Haywire Crypteks are my key for winning the Eldar matchup. 

If I could go back, I'd change one of the Warrior/Scythe squads for some Tesla Immortals with a Telepathy Cryptek. I ran that unit in my Adepticon list and I really missed having them here. I could've used them in my Round 5 match against Tim Gorham. You need them in matches where you know your Scythes won't last. 

I do prefer Typhus/Zombies over a lone Daemon Prince. I've been running Typhus since the Chaos Codex came out last year and have never looked back. The Brand version is basically an expensive Heldrake. The Mace version isn't efficient vector striking, so it usually drops down, kills a unit, then dies if you didn't roll Iron Arm. You need multiple FMC's for them to work right. Plus, grounding tests can ruin your day. 

Typhus, on the other hand, offers such crazy board control, which is paramount to the way I play the army. He also LOVES munching on Dreadknights/Wraithknights and Marines of any kind (Drop Pods, Bikers, etc.). He's a Boss. I've never had problems with his speed. If he isn't wrecking enemy units, that usually means I'm dominating the match to the point where my opponent will never make it out of their own deployment zone. He's also great at soaking up a TON of firepower against the new shooty armies. 

As for Terrify, yeah... It sucks. If that's your only weakness though, you're doing OK these days. It helps that Telepathy is so underrated by a lot of Eldar/Daemon players. 

When facing MC Characters is to use your mass of Zombies to block Typhus out from combat, preventing him from being engaged and thus unable to challenge. Pile-in, Force Weapon, and Profit. I use a similar tactic when I want to stay locked in combat, congo-lining him back with Zombies before I assault. That way he doesn't engage until the opponents turn when I wipe out the enemy unit.

Frontline painted the Scythes. Goatboy painted the D. Lord and Dragon. Both did amazing jobs

Mike Loniewski - Chaos Daemons/CSM 

Fateweaver, Precognition, ??? (Warlord) 

Great Unclean One, Greater Reward - Re-Roll Saves, Lesser Reward - ???, ML3 - Endurance, Life Leech, ??? 

Daemon Prince, Nurgle, Wings, Armour, Greater Reward - Balesword, Exalted Reward - Portalglyph, ML3 - Endurance, Smite, Enfeeble 

2x 10 Plaguebearers 

Chaos Lord, Terminator Armour, Powerfist, MoN, Gift of Mutation - ???, Blight Grenades, Burning Brand 

3 Terminators, MoN, 3 Combi-Melta, 2 Axe, 1 Maul 

5 Chaos Space Marines, MoN, Plasma, Combi-Plasma 

Heldrake, Baleflamer 

2 Obliterators, MoN 

Mission: 

Deployment - Hammer and Anvil 

Primary Objective Alpha (W/D/L - 10/5/0 BP) - Emperor's Will 

Primary Objective Beta (W/D/L - 10/5/0 BP) - Marked For Death: Mark three of your opponents units for death. At the end of each game you get 2 VP for each of your own marked units left alive, and 1 VP for each marked unit of your opponents that you destroyed. The player with the most VP wins this objective. 

Secondary Objectives (2 BP each) - Slay The Warlord, Linebreaker, Attrition (Winner of old school style points destroyed). 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

So, my first match of the day pits me up against Fly Molo from Dark Future Gaming. By all accounts a great person, he also took the time to paint up a raffle army for the tournament supporting a local charity that helps out the underprivileged.. Really cool. 

We each had to mark three units for death before the game began. I chose his Chaos Marines, Terminators, and Daemon Prince. He chose 2 of my Annihilation Barges and.. something else. My game plan going in was simple: Hold my objective, contest his with my Wraiths, and take out his marked units as they came to me. Both of our objectives were 6" from our board edge in a piece of area terrain. Typhus rolled up Gift of Contagion and Nurgle's Rot, I believe.. 

I won the roll for deployment and gave the initiative to my opponent. He deployed his Great Unclean One on the edge of his deployment behind a large piece of LOSB terrain. Fateweaver and his Daemon Prince hung out in back out of range, while his Obliterators started up the field in a forest. I deployed my Destroyer Lord with my Wraiths hidden from LOS on my left flank up as far as they could go. Typhus and his Zombies deployed centrally right on the line. I put my Annihilation Barges, 2 on my right flank, 1 on my lef flank, hidden as best I could behind some Ruins. I did not try to seize as I wanted the last say on objectives. My army is extremely resilient and my opponent had very little shooting to threaten me with. I had 3 Scythes (5 Warriors in each, 2 had a Cryptek, the 3rd had my Overlord), and a Dragon in reserve. My opponent had his Plaguebearers, Terminators, and Chaos Lord all deepstriking in separately. His Dragon would fly on. 

Mike started by casting his powers and flying both of his MC's slightly up the board on his right flank. He dropped his Portalglyph right next to his objective and landed a direct hit. Grimoire was put on Fateweaver. His Obliterators took some Lascannon shots at an Annihilation Barge, but it was ineffectual. 

I proceeded to move up all of my Annihilation Barges 12" careful to keep my rear armour against the board edge to protect from his Terminators. This put me far enough up to draw a line on his GUO. Both Fateweaver and his Prince would be out of range. Typhus and Zombies moved straight up the middle and my Destroyer Lord/Wraiths moved up on the left and ran, careful to stay far enough away to tempt my opponent to go for a charge with his GUO he wouldn't make. Between my 3 Barges I was able to put around 3 wounds on his GUO, I believe, despite re-rolling saves and Feel No Pain from Endurance. 

On my opponents next turn, he rolled his reserves and nothing came on. Powers went up, his portalglyph failed, and Grimoire went on Fateweaver. Both Fateweaver and his Prince continued up on my left . His GUO moved towards my Wraiths. Shooting phase came up, and Mike rolled on the Warpstorm Table. 3, and 1.. Minus 1 to his invulnerable saves. Yay for me! His Obliterators, who had continued to advance, shot Assault Cannons into a Barge on my right and blew it up. Fateweaver tried shooting a Barge on my left, but nothing happened. Lastly, his GUO failed his charge on my Wraiths. 

My turn came up and I got a pair of Scythes on the board. Again, everything advanced. My Wraiths moved towards his GUO with eyes on assaulting him. My opponent had conveniently left Fateweaver fairly close by, so I strung out to setup a multi-assault in the unlikely event that he failed a grounding check. Typhus moved up the middle. Everything else lined up shots on his Daemon Prince while also trying to put any extra shots into Fatey. Sure enough, his DP fell to Tesla and Fatey failed a grounding check even after re-rolling it with his special ability. This setup a mean multi-assault on both the GUO and Fatey, whip coiling both of them. GUO failed MSS prior to challenges and killed himself. Daemonic Instability meant Fateweaver died as well. This was a huge turn and really put my opponent on the ropes. My opponent had lost all 3 of his MC's in one turn, one of which was his Warlord. 

From here on out, it was really just cleanup, though Mike did what he could to make me nervous. The rest of his reserves stayed off the board until turn 4, making it extremely difficult for me to both kill his marked units and contest his objective before the game ended. He had his Plaguebearers, CSM, and like 3 units spawned from his Portalglyph all sitting on his objective. Furthermore, Typhus got stuck in combat with his Chaos Lord for 6 player turns (with 4 re-rolls from Zombies even!), and was thus unable to backtrack to hold my objective. This left nothing but some Warriors to hold my objective which were promptly wiped out by a Heldrake attack. In hindsight, maybe I should have kept Typhus back from the beginning, but I really didn't expect those MC's to crumble so easily. Or that Chaos Lord to live so long. 

In the end, I still had enough shooting to wipe his Terminators and clear off his objective with my Destroyer Lord/Overlord/Wraiths/Warriors, though only just barely in time, leaving a Warrior squad of mine to hold his objective. When the game ended on turn.. 6(?), I held one objective to his none, had killed all of his marked units, and achieved all 3 secondaries as well. 

Victory, 26-0! 

Thanks for the write up, Ken!  I'm following you on Dakka for the forum shadows where I usually lurk.  I'll keep an eye out for further up dates on this awesome thread and get them up here as I see them!  -Chris