Alan's Tournament Diary

[Agent0range]

Hey guys,

I thought I’d steal Rob’s idea for making a tournament diary because I’d like to go to more events over the next few months. As I go, being new to tournaments, would really appreciate any feedback or comments you guys have like “oh why didn’t you do that instead in turn 2?” sort of thing. I’m fully aware that I’m still prone to some blunders and I really want to improve, have some fun and have a decent win record. I’m going to try and sum up my thoughts each time about what I’ve learnt, but welcome to feedback from you guys too.

So yesterday I went to Skorched Summer Skies at Sanctuary Games. They were running an 1850 tournament with essentially Eternal War missions. The venue is super cool, it’s an old Church and has an awesome GrimDark feel to it.
I took:

CSM CAD
ML3 Sorcerer with Force Axe, Spell Familiar, Aura of Dark Glory, Bike
ML3 Sorcerer with Force Stave, Spell Familiar, Aura of Dark Glory, Bike
Cultist x2
Heldrake

Renegade Knight with Gatling Cannon

Daemon Allies
Be’lakor
11x Horrors

KDK Allies
Herald on Juggernaut with Exhalted Locus of Wrath, Brazen Rune
8x Bloodletters
11x Flesh Hounds

The basic idea was to do something a little different to the regular Cabal star, and have a smaller star and two other threats (Be’lakor and the Knight). This didn’t work as well as I had hoped (see lessons learnt later on)

Game 1 vs. Rob A’s FW Tau (Emperors Will and Relic with Vanguard strike deployment)

So this was an intimidating game for my first one of the day, standing opposite a Tau supremacy suit, which is monstrously large. I roll for psychic powers and don’t get anything good to protect the star, so no Sanctuary, Hammerhand or Endurance. The only thing protecting them was Invis from Be’lakor. I also got Gate of Infinity.



The table wasn’t bad for terrain but a bit bare in the middle. So I deployed behind some terrain, as won the roll to go first but didn’t want my ass in the wind if he seized. He sets up most of his stuff in cover or behind his tidewall. Turn 1 I moved up and was a bit too confident with the star, assuming he would just sit back and blast me. He moved his tetras quite far forward, so I made them my main target, going towards them but failing the charge. I got invis on my star, Be’lakor started flying and the Knight tried to fire at some Fire Warriors on the tidewall, but he went to ground so no wounds.



My hubris came to bite me in his turn 1, where he just moved the supremacy suit forwards, and after firing everything (even with markerlights) he killed maybe 2 hounds and put a HP on the knight. Then he assaults the star and starts stomping away. Without Hammerhand, I had nothing in therethat could really deal with him (meltabombs next time!). So I get stomped, but fortunately it’s the weak one, and another stomp does no damage. So I lost the herald and some dogs but not too much.

My turn 2, I really need the star to be doing something else, like pasting fire warriors and tetras but without Hit and Run my options were limited. I gated backwards to save my Warlord, and just running away. This was the clutch moment where I could have potentially done something. The Supremacy suit consolidates after I gate away a full 6”, making the charge to my Knight too long. So I invis the knight with Be’lakor, hoping to get a turn 3 charge on the supremacy suit and maybe get lucky with my D hits in CC. I summon some hounds with the horrors and they start running across the board.



Heldrake comes in and does what it does, burns a load of fire warriors behind their wall. Bloodletters deepstrike in behind the ruin near his tidewall and behind the supremacy suit. On his Turn 3, he keeps the Supremacy fairly still, and moving it more towards my Knight, as if he’s afraid of getting stuck in combat with the Bloodletters. More fire removes a few more hounds and a sorcerer from my star, leaving only my Warlord and a few hounds. Other than that, Be’lakor and the Knight tank fair amount of shots with Invis/jink etc. Cultists are just moving forward hoping to sneak the relic back to my line as they’ve largely been ignored so far.

My turn 3, I see my chance. I get invis on the Knight again, move him towards the Supremacy suit. The summoned dogs keep running forward to the tidewall. The Warlord continues to try and retreat away from the supremacy (and now some remora drones that have come in). Heldrake vector strikes his barracuda stripping a weapon off. Horrors summon another unit of dogs. The Knight has 4” to get into combat with the supremacy…..rolls the dice….two 1’s. GG. I charge with a unit of summoned hounds that have now made it across the board to the tidewall. They wipe out a fire warrior unit and consolidate behind the shield wall.
On his turn, he continues the supremacy’s march towards my warlord. The supremacy suit and remora drones fire on the horrors and kill a few. The supremacy gets into CC with them, stomping him out. He also deep strikes some tau sentry guns right on the relic in the middle. They don’t scatter and apparently are objective secured troops too!

With the supremacy suit now having moved, assaulted, and consolidated another 6” again it was miles away from my Knight, so I abandoned that and went for his tidewall where the space pope (his warlord) was chilling. My plan now as to try and get some points by just taking his Emperors Will obj, as it was clear he’d definitely get mine with an unscathed supremacy suit.

Be’lakor had dropped down in the previous turn, and puts invis on himself, hoping to kill the sentry guns, get the cultists on the objective and see if we could move it towards my knight and other units now taking over his tidewall.
I drop my Heldrake into hover mode to turnaround and burn more FW’s. The knight now has decent cover behind a big building and I’m planning a charge on his Warlord. The supremacy continues stomping out my horrors and killing some of the summoned hounds and a unit of cultists.



Be’lakor assaults the sentry drones, which are three AV11 2HP vehicles. One was dead already from the Knight’s gatling cannon so Be’lakor only had to deal with 4 hull points. Charges in, 7 attacks, hit 5. No problem, he’s got Armourbane right? WRONG. I manage to kill one of them, rolling 9’s and 10’s on armourbane from a Str7 weapon on 3 of my attacks. Next turn Be’lakor gets killed with weight of fire, the Knight goes down to the barracudas rail guns and Str7 stuff (side armour). He’d suffered one or two HP’s earlier on, so was only on 4 or so. The Heldrake (now in hover mode), got 6’d out by the supremacy’s main weapon. So by the end of turn 5 all I had was 3 hounds that were summoned earlier and were near the objective.



Game ends in a loss 0 – 15. He still had his Emperors Will, mine, linebreaker, slay the warlord, first strike and the relic. I didn’t get any points.

Lessons Learnt
- Meltabombs might be a good way to spend those last 10-15 points I obsessed over too much.
- I probably should have just focused on taking his Emperors Will with my knight, Be’lakor, the Heldrake and some hounds, and abandoned mine much earlier so I at least got some points. I could have got Warlord that way too.
- If I took the Cyclopian Cabal, I could have used Shroud of Deceit to make his supremacy suit fire on his own army. That’ll teach me for not “going with the flow”. Cabal it is next time.
- I was too arrogant with my star at the start of the game, assuming he’d just sit back and shoot and not thinking he’d come forward to stomp me out. I had assumed that Be’lakor and the Knight being close by would have been a deterrent.
- I also forgot that KDK hounds get Furious Charge so they could have helped finish that last sentry gun when Be’lakor flubbed it like a punk

Game 2 and 3 on the way!