SUTTON IMMORTALS 40K WARZONE TOURNAMENT 2013

Hello gamers, Ciaran here with a report on the 2013 Immortals Warzone 40k tournament that took place last weekend. First of all a massive thank you to Brian, Gary, James and all the guys at Immortals for putting on a very well organised tournament.  Well I can say that at my first ‘proper’ tournament that I got a round of applause and was awarded. Awarded with the wooden spoon! Someone has to be last and on this occasion it was I, but it didn’t stop me from enjoying a whole day of playing 40k.  In this article I would like to do a review of the three games I played, show off some pics of my Grey Knight army and discuss what I learnt from the tournament.

MY WOODEN SPOON COURTESY OF SUTTON IMMORTALS.

 
As I have mentioned a few times in previous posts I have been slaving away with my new army for 40k – Grey Knights. I was very much hoping to get the 1800 points army fully painted for this tournament to stand a chance of having them nominated best painted army. Sadly due my secular job taking up a lot of my free time I was unable to complete painting them all. Also I only managed to get 1 practise game in with my Grey Knights before the tournament so all in all I have to say my prep was pretty poor. I should have had a few more practise games going into the tournament but as it was I went in with a largely untested army. That is not an excuse; it is an error and error on my part.  Below is the army list I submitted for the tournament.

HQ Slot 1 – Inquisitor Coteaz = 100 points

HQ Slot 2 – Librarian. Has a Nemesis Warding Stave, a master-crafted weapon and has been upgraded to Psychic Mastery level 3. His Psychic powers are Hammerhand, Smite and The Summoning. = 250 points *This character will be my nominated Warlord*

Troop Slot 1 – Inquisitorial Henchmen Warband *Made a troop choice courtesy of Coteaz ‘Lord of Formosa’ special rule*

2 x Crusaders, 2 x Death Cult Assassins, 1 x Daemonhost, 1 x Banisher, 1 x Mystic. = 95 points

Troop Slot 2 – Grey Knight Strike Squad / 5 man squad.

Justicar has a master-crafted weapon. 1 x Grey Knight has a pair of Nemesis Falchions. 1 x Grey Knight has a Nemesis Warding Stave. 1 x Grey Knight has a Nemesis Force Halberd. 1 x Grey Knight has a Psilencer. = 145 points

Troop Slot 3 – Grey Knight Terminator Squad / 10 man squad.

1 x Terminator has a Psycannon. 3 x Terminators have Nemesis Force Halberds. 1 x Terminator has a Nemesis Warding Stave. 1 x Terminator has a Brotherhood Banner. = 470 points

Elite Slot 1 – Vindicare Assassin = 145 points

Elite Slot 2 – Venerable Dreadnought. Has twin linked lascannon and a warp stabilisation field. = 210 points

Fast Attack Slot 1 – Grey Knight Interceptor Squad / 5 man squad.

Justicar has a master-crafted weapon. 1 x Grey Knight has an Incinerator. 1 x Grey Knight has a Nemesis Daemon Hammer. 2 x Grey Knights have Nemesis Force Halberds. = 175 points

Fast Attack Slot 2 – Stormraven Gunship. Has a warp stabilisation field. = 210 points.

Total = 1800 points. 

I wanted to have a force that offered pace and devastation. My Stormraven and my Interceptor squad offered the pace whilst my ten man Terminator squad offered the devastation. The psychological effect a ten man Terminator squad has on an opponent is rather amusing.

A GREY KNIGHT TERMINATOR JUSTICAR.

I placed my inquisitorial warband in the Stormraven with the mind set to drop this unit onto an enemy objective deep in their own table half. Having Coteaz makes my Warband a scoring unit courtesy of his ‘Lord of Formosa’ special rule. I also use the option of attaching my Venerable Dreadnought to the Stormraven, taking advantage of the opportunity to drop an Elite choice with a twin linked lascannon behind enemy lines.

DEATH CULT ASSASSIN'S FROM THE ZAMESI DESERT.

CRUSADERS FROM THE SCHOLA PROGENIUM.

My Vindicare assassin will hug cover as best as possible and pick off special enemy characters and try to inflict as much damage on enemy Tanks ect. With his Turbo-Penetrator ammo which has an AP of 4D6. Again the psychological effect this character has on an opponent is worthwhile and will see your opponent pour his fire power onto this one character alone, taking the heat off your scoring units.

FROM THE UPPER LEVELS OF A RUINED CHURCH, A VINDICARE ASSASSIN TRACKS HIS NEXT TARGET.

BROTHER LIBRARIAN GRAMMITICUS OF THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE BLUE FLAME.

The Librarian would be attached to my Strike Squad who I would use to defend objectives.   The Summoning psychic power would also give this squad the ability to summon reinforcements if need be. I also paid the points to kit my Dreadnought and my Stormraven with Warp Stabilisation Field’s making them eligible for The Summoning psychic power.

GREY KNIGHTS FROM THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE BLUE FLAME.

Game 1

My first game saw me drawn against the Birmingham Battlefield 2013 winner Adam Ryland and his Chaos army. I got tabled by a master class from Adam and the sheer fire power of two Heldrakes with baleflamers. My Stormraven got shot down the turn after arriving after Adams entire army unloaded on it and glanced it to death. This then caused me to take casualties to my Warband and my Dreadnought. My army was severely compromised after that death stroke and Adam mopped up the rest of my army in good time. I had terrible luck with my dice rolls this game and that theme continued all day sadly, but when playing a game with a dice that can always happen. Adam was a true gentleman though and offered me some sage council after the game. Adam ended up finishing up 3^rd overall in the tournament so many congratulations to him. I do hope our paths cross again however; the Inquisition after all is the eye that sleepeth not.

Game 2

My 2^nd game saw me take on another tournament veteran in the form of Mr Gareth Donnelly (by this point I realised it wasn’t going to be my day) Gareth was fielding a Space Wolves and Blood Angels allied army that utilised Drop pods and Dreadnoughts in unashamed fashion. Using his drop pods to deep strike his army into battle, Gareth soon boxed me in and gutted me early on in the fray. I fought on regardless and tried to make Gareth earn every inch of table he claimed as best I could and mounted a challenge on his objective by dropping my Coteaz and his warband onto his held objective form my Stormraven. It was not enough however and Gareth was the deserved winner and again was very sporting about it. He offered me some very good tips afterwards and was a joy to play against.

Game 3

The third and final game of the day saw me pitted against a familiar face. Titan gamer Mark and his Ork Waaaaaaaaaaaagh! Me and Mark both go to Titan games in Lichfield and have crossed paths in Warhammer World on an occasion. Marks Ork list featured some Forge World units but was mainly a fluff based army like mine. I competed a lot better in this game than the other 2 and enjoyed it the most out of my 3 games that day. Both armies really went toe to toe with each other and I was very proud of how my Dreadnought performed before it was felled. My only disappointment was the continued bad luck I had with the dice which stopped my Vindicare assassin from taking down some Ork walkers which would have stemmed Marks final push in turns 4 & 5 which finished me off. Again though Mark was the deserved winner and I was privileged to have played against his Orks in thier swansong game as he delves into a new Chaos army. I and Mark have agreed to have some more games of 40k in the future and at some point I would like to have him here on Games Knight with a battle report.

So overall three crushing defeats but I have learnt a hell of a lot through them and I am already making adjustments to my Grey Knights list. At 1800 points I need 2 Stormravens as flyers in 6^th edition 40k are public enemy number 1. As soon as a flyer comes on the board it is being shot at relentlessly and it will succumb after 2 turns of this. A Stormraven has an armour profile of F12 S12 R12 and not even that was enough to be durable! I also will have a 2^nd Warband which will be more of a ‘shooty’ Warband as opposed to the ‘combat’ focused one I have now and put Coteaz with the ‘shooty’ one to take advantage of the ‘Ive been expecting you’ special rule.  That tactic in game 2 against Gareth might have caused him a few problems. The main thing is I need to play a lot more games with my Grey Knights and learn how to use them in the most effective way which I intend to do straight away.

Anyone else who was at the Immortals 40k Warzone tournament reading this please get in touch and share your results from the day. Also there was a Warmachine tournament held on the same day named Steamroller. I don’t know enough about Warmachine to comment so anyone who can share some light on that tournament again please get in touch, it would be great to hear about it. That’s going to do it for this week on Games Knight, take care and happy gaming.

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