First hand report from the Dark Star GT!

Bonus coverage today of the Dark Star GT that happened this last weekend! Sledge MgGee went and was nice enought to write it all up for us. Heck, he even took some pictures too! Many thanks to him for the info and hopefully we can get him to do this again some time.

Inquisitor Dunn

The Dark Star GT

Hello!

Sledge MgGee here of the Frozen North gaming club in Saint Paul, MN with some coverage of the Dark Star GT in place of Inquisitor Dunn.  The event was awesome and met all my expectations.  If you guys are interested for next year get signed up early as I’m sure it will sell out quick in 2013!  The terrain was beautiful and they had a fair amount of LOS blocking stuff as well as area terrain.  The tables may have been a little short of 25%, but not by much.   Each mission had 3 objectives.  In order to win, a player had to win 2 of the 3 objectives.  Ties were settled using the usual victory point rules from the 5^th edition rule book.

The List:

Belial - TH/SS

Interrogator Chaplain – Terminator armor w/ combi melta

Deathwing Terminator Squad X 5 - 4 TH/SS and one CML with a chain fist.  (1 Apothecary)

Ravenwing Bike Squad – 2 melta guns and an Attack Bike w/ a multi melta

Land Speeder Typhoon – Multi melta

Land Speeder Typhoon – Multi melta

The Plan:

The idea of my list was to use the bikes to get a first turn rush with 3 solid terminator squads, one with the apothecary, one with the chaplain, and one with Belial.  Unfortunately, between going second, getting seized, and dawn of war, the opportunities to utilize this plan just doesn’t happen often enough for it to be an effective or reliable battle plan and it showed in this tournament.  Most games the bikes just ended up starting in reserve.

The Games:

Game 1:  Loss

Mission:  Dawn of War – 6 tactical markers placed by players.

·         Annihilation - KP

·         Seize Ground – Control more tactical markers in your opponents half of the table than your opponent.

·         Defend your base – Control more tactical markers in your half of the table than your opponent.

His list: 

·         Grand Master

·         Librarian

·         7 Terminators

·         5 man Strike Squad in a razorback with psyammo X 3

·         4 Paladins

·         Storm Raven

·         Dreadnought with auto cannons X 2

Played my first battle against a local grey knights player that I know.  Good player.  Close battle.  It was dawn of war and I chose to go second and walk on the table edge.  He set up his terminators and GM on the center line.  I ended up making some tactical errors in which I wasted my missiles shooting the shrouded storm raven in turn 2 while I had much better targets in the razor backs.  He struck a little early with his terminators and paladins.  I killed all the paladins and they lost combat by 7 so I escorted the terminators and GM off the board.  Afterwards  I made a pretty nice come back, and the game ended up being pretty close, but in the end I just didn’t have enough juice to pull out a win.  I didn’t hit tactical targets, and he killed too many of my terminators for me to make an impact on objectives or his scoring units later in the game.  I was really wishing I had a 6^th terminator squad in this one.

Game 2:  Loss

Mission:  Pitched Battle - 1 tactical marker in each deployment zone placed by opponent at least 18” from the center of the table.  One objective marker was placed in the center of the table.

·         Take and Hold - Control the most tactical markers

·         Recon -  Have more units in your opponents deployment zone than he has in yours

·         The Sum of his Parts - Achieved by destroying half or more of the opponents eligible kill points.

His list:

Emperors Champion

Terminator Squad with 2 cyclones X 2

Crusader squad in Lasback X 3

Land Speeder Typhoon X3

Vindicator X2

I ended up playing against the blogger of the web page Implausable Nature.  Check out his blog if you want some solid BT advice.  I chose to go first and set up with proper spacing to try to negate his vindicator blasts a little bit.  Turn 1 and 2 I held fast with very few casualties.  Unfortunately I didn’t really destroy much of his either.  I penetrated a few of his vehicles, including the vindicator twice but kept coming up with ones on my damage rolls.  Eventually he just killed enough terminators where it ended up becoming a runaway train that I couldn’t catch.  My target priority wasn’t great, as I allowed him to sit 5 troops in a razorback and camp on his objective the whole game.  I didn’t even realize it until it was too late.  He did an excellent job distracting me with other stuff.  In particular, strength 10 blasts!  It ended up being a frustrating battle due to some of my bad rolls, but kept my cool and we had a good time.  I ended up conceding at the top of 6 because I just didn’t have enough left to even have a chance at winning.  My opponent was an excellent player and cool guy, hats off to him. 

Game 3:  Win

Mission: Spearhead

·         The Little Guys - Destroy all your opponents’ troop choices.

·         The Big Guys - Destroy the opponents highest point cost unit.

·         Rank them up - The player with the most modified kill points at the end of the game.  (Troops = 1, Elites/Fast Attack/heavy Support = 2, HQ = 3)

 His list:

·         Librarian in terminator armor

·         10 man Assault Squad with power weapon/infernus  and 2 melta guns X 2

·         5 man Assault Squad with power weapon/infernus pistol and melta gun

·         Terminator Assault Squad in a Land Raider Crusader

·         Furioso Dreadnought with blood fists

·         Sanguinary priest X4

·         Storm Raven Gunship

His list was a horrible match up against mine.  Every time I see assault marines, even with furious charge, they just bounce off my terminators like marshmallows.  And for good reason!   I can’t say I’m a huge fan of assault squads anyway, but if I had to take them, it would definitely be from the blood angels codex.  Regardless, end it ended up being a close battle, and by all rights I probably should have lost if he would have made a few better decisions.  He had a chance to do some serious damage to my chaplain, and finish off a squad with his furioso.  Much to my delight he chose to throw the furioso into a full squad of terminators instead, after which he promptly died.  He also almost brought the battle into his favor with his libby and deathstar terminator squad in the crusader.  I’ll tell you, unleash rage (preferred enemy) with that unit was pretty awesome.  I’ll maybe have to take notes and try it sometime.  As the game wore on, he just didn’t have enough to keep up and I ended up with a close victory.

Game 4:  Win

Mission:  Pitched Battle - 5 tactical markers placed not within 12” of a table edge or another marker, Mark one enemy unit for termination.

Annihilation – KP

Take and Hold – Control the most tactical markers

Marked for Termination – Destroy the opponents that was marked for termination

His list:

·         Command Squad with Straken, a ministorum priest w/ eviserator, 3 plasma guns, and a chimera

·         Guardsman Marbo

·         Veteran squad with demolitions and 3 melta guns X 2

·         Veteran squad with autocannon, forward sentries, grenadiers and 3 snipers X2

·         Armored sentinel squadron (3) with plasma cannons

·         Vendetta X2

·         Leman Russ Vanquisher with Pask, a lascannon, and plasma cannon sponsons

Cool guy who was just picking up the game again in the last year after a long break.  He hadn’t played since 3^rd edition and this was his first tournament.  This game my battle plan (deathwing assault) actually worked out and it worked well!  The unit I marked was Marbo.  I ended up with full battle points and tabling his army.  Basically I just chased him down.  He was having some horrible luck with his demo packs, one even scattered onto his own veterans.  Even his plasma command squad and melta vets weren’t hitting very often.   In addition to that, I was making almost all my invulnerable saves.  I could tell he was a bit frustrated, but he remained civil, which I really appreciated.  Overall this was a great game for me.

Game 5:  Win

Mission:  Spearhead

·         Lead by Example - Have a model from an HQ unit within 6” of the center of the table.

·         Battlefield Control – Table quarters

·         Elimination – Destroy all your opponent’s HQ choices while having at least one of your own alive at the end of the game

His list:

·         Warboss on a bike

·         Old Zogwort

·         9 Burnas

·         9 ork boyz with a rokkit launcha and nob in a trukk X 5

·         2 War Buggies X 3

·         Killa Kan w/ Skorcha X2

·         Looted Wagon

This was an awesome ork walker army that caught almost every eye that was at the tournament.  I am surprised his didn’t win any paint/conversion awards.  This game was pretty relaxed.  We spent almost the first 15 min of the match just talking about his models and conversions.   I think we both realized that we weren’t going to win any general awards at this point.  He really wanted to see some cc action, as his trucks got shot up a lot throughout the tournament so rather than shooting them all up I just popped one and allowed the rest  to come to me.  For a second, I thought I may have bit off more than I could chew, but the game ended up with me tabling him in the 6^th and earning full battle points.  It was a fun game and I enjoyed talking about his conversions with him.  Interestingly enough, I had ended up playing him in the adepticon team tournament last year as well.

Review:

In the end I ended up finishing 3-2 which was due in part to good match ups.  I didn’t get much time to play test my list very much before the tournament and I simply don’t feel that it is resilient enough.  I believe I am going to drop the bikes, and possibly the speeders.  They just allow too many easy kill points.  Even though, along with the speeders, they provide good fire power, they are like marshmallows in comparison to the terminator squads.  There were too many times that I found myself wishing for an extra scoring unit, so I am probably going to end up throwing another one in my list at some point.

Hulksmash ended up winning best overall with a 5-0 record.  He was running a foot slogging GK list.  Congrats to him.  If you head over to his blog “They shall know fear” you can see the list that he used, some GT coverage, and other really good ideas/tactics. 

Hope you guys enjoyed the write up and the pictures.  Now I have to start prepping for Con of the North!

Now that will have to be written up and must have pictures if we face each other up there! Inq D

Sledge

Below are more pictures of tables and armies Sledge sent me. Thanks for the hard work writting this up. The GT looked like lots of fun, I'm just sad it was so close to my annual trip to Con of the North and could not do both trips.