Two models that were last to be finished also completed (though very late) ToEMP #10: officer of the fleet and the company command’s chimera.

The officer of the fleet is a real help against reserved based armies such as drop pod marines. During the tournament he wasn’t a game changer as none of my opponents relied on reserves, but then again maybe they just changed their tactics in response to him?

The Chimera was used to protect my command squad with the invaluable Commander Creed. This tank was destroyed in nearly every game in the tournament but Creed was lost in only 2 of them, so I think all in all it was well worth its cost.

As for my results? I achieved my goal for my first ever GT: win 2 games. In fact I even tied a third while grabbing the secondary objective. The two I lost were both hard losses. The first was against Nidzilla and only a sole sentinel remained at turn 6. The second was the last game against a fully mechanized guard army which would have been a great deal closer if luck had been better with me.  In the end I placed 47th out of 80 some great 40k players (and cheating one who won but was later disqualified!). After spending the last few weeks getting over the hard losses and the less than I hoped painting score, I’ve started to reorganize my army composition and think hard about how I want to play this army. I may move to a more mechanized army with squads of veterans rather than the platoons, but I still want to stick to the theme I’ve started so may look at replacing the tanks altogether and build a completely foot based army. We shall see what the future holds…

Related posts:

1. 2k Traitor Guard for NW GT
2. Scout Sentinels Finished – ToEMP Challenge 3 Meet
3. Traitor Guard Army Shots

I have until mid December to decide if I want to go or not so in the mean time I am going to prepare for it by making a 2k list and playing as many games as I can with it. So here it goes:

HQ: Company Command Squad @ 290 pts (Medi-pack; Regimental Standard; Vox Caster; Plasmagun x1)

• Lord Castellan Creed
• Officer of the Fleet
• Chimera (Heavy Bolter;  Multi-Laser)

Troops:  Infantry Platoon @ 207 pts

• Platoon Command Squad ( Krak Grenades; Vox Caster; Grenade Launcher x2)
  • Platoon Commander (Melta Bombs; Bolt Pistol; Power Weapon)
• Infantry Squad ( Power Weapon; Vox Caster; Flamer)
• Infantry Squad (Power Weapon; Vox Caster; Flamer)

Troops: Infantry Platoon @ 567 pts

• Platoon Command Squad ( Krak Grenades; Vox Caster; Grenade Launcher x2)
  • Platoon Commander (Melta Bombs; Bolt Pistol; Power Weapon)
• Infantry Squad (Power Weapon;  Vox Caster; Flamer)
• Infantry Squad (Power Weapon; Vox Caster; Flamer)
• Heavy Weapons Squad (Lascannon x3)
• Heavy Weapons Squad (Lascannon x3)
• Heavy Weapons Squad (Missile Launcher x3)
• Heavy Weapons Squad (Mortar x3)

Fast Attack: 2 Armoured Sentinel @ 150 pts (Plasma Cannon)

Fast Attack: 2 Bane Wolves @ 290 pts (Chem Cannon; Multi-Melta)

Fast Attack: 2 Scout Sentinels @ 90 pts (Missile Launcher)

Heavy Support: Leman Russ Battle Tank @ 185 pts ( Lascannon; Heavy Bolter Sponsons x2)

Heavy Support: Leman Russ Demolisher @ 220 pts (Lascannon; Plasma Cannon Sponsons x2)

This may not be the most competitive list, in fact I’m sure it is not, but it should be fun and uses everything I’ve built so far. The only things I need to add are: the Demolisher, Chimera and officer of the fleet. I also have to paint the mortar squad.

Let me know your thoughts (good or bad). I have 2 months to tweak the list and build any other units I need.

Related posts:

1. Traitor Guard 1000 Point Initial Army List and 2000 Point Working List
2. Traitor Guard Army Shots
3. Traitor Guard – The 82nd Platoon Painted

Round One

First round had me placed on the city fight table against one of the DA armies.  The primary mission was to capture table quarters, secondary was to kill the most expensive unit, and the third was destroy the enemy’s fast attack. Set up was spear head. Luckily my opponent was also a compact, elite army, so trying to claim full table quarters was easier than it might have been against the orks or IG. My two troop squads claimed both of the non-deployment zone quarters, my berserkers and lord took out Azerel (his most expensive unit), and my defiler (after loosing as his guns) charged the enemy jump troops hiding in a near-by building. I claimed two quarters, denied my opponent the other two, and killed his most expensive unit and his only fast attack. This was a good start to the tournament for me.

Round Two

Second round I was matched up against one of the guys I often play against but instead of his normal Death Guard, the green was in the form of Orks. Set up was table halves with the main objective to claim the 5 pieces of junk on the board. Any squad (except tanks) could claim an objective my rolling a 3+ in their movement phase. The squad then counted as moving in difficult terrain, but could move the objective with them. The secondary objective was to move at least two pieces of junk into your deployment zone. The third objective was to make an enemy unit run off the board. After stealing the initiative from my opponent I made a big mistake of jumping my berserkers out of the land raider to claim one of the objectives. This mistake became apparent on his turn, when a truck full of nobz rolled up and wiped them out. I got some payback when my vindicator came onto the board and took out 8 nobz, sending the remainder back into the truck and towards his table edge. The tank then went on to kill another 7 nobz in another squad and make them flee off the board! One of my troops did manage to grab another objective, jump back in the rhino and make it back to my deployment zone. The other attempted to steal an objective from a squad of decimated boyz (thanks to the defiler) but was run of by nobz. My opponent got both the first and second objectives, but I earned the third and the moral victory of making nobz run!

Round Three

The third game was against the Space Wolves. This was by far my favorite game. The main objective was to kill the opponent’s HQ, secondary was to kill all his vehicles, and third was to have more of your units in the enemy’s deployment zone than your own. The game started with taking 7 rolls to determine who went first! I figured I could easily attain the third goal (my army is very aggressive as is), the first would be a bit more difficult since he took a venerable dreadnought as his HQ and the second objective would be a challenge indeed: he also had a land raider.

Leaving my vindicator and defiler in reserves, my first turn saw my three tanks full speed ahead then popping smoke. Keeping the dread behind his land raider, he open fired and destroyed one of my rhinos.

Turn 2 had my now foot slogging squad march towards the land raider while the other disembarked near his Vanquisher, my vindicator and defiler moved on and I opened fire. The Vanquisher disappeared, taking one my troops with it. The land raider survived two lascannons, a meltagun and a battle cannon, power fist and 9 krak grenades with only a stunned result. On his turn he brought on his jump-pack blood claws near my disembarked squad, brought scouts in near the read of my vindicator, took his grey hunters out of the land raider and moved the dread around the land raider. The grey hunters and dread assaulted my troop squad near his land raider while the blood claws assaulted the squad near the smoking ruin of the Vanquisher. Neither of my squads survived, but at least the scouts failed to do anything to my vindicator.

Turn three had me disembark my berserkers and lord near his grey hunter squad, hungry for revenge. The rest of my army opened fire on the now visible dreadnought HQ and blew it apart. The defiler opened fire on the scouts with the heavy flamer and cooked them all alive. The berserkers charged the hunters and my lord and skull champion alone did 7 power weapon wounds, killing off the squad instantly. On his turn his land raider killed three berserkers standing in front of it while the remaining blood claws assaulted my land raider with three power fists, but failed to even scratch the paint.

Turn 4 and my berserkers were still hungry for blood so they charged the blood claws. Meanwhile by vindicator, defiler and land raider all piled shots into his land raider, but again failed to do much of anything. The blood claws were wiped out and more skulls were offered up. His turn he shot my defiler (because he was angry at it!) with his land raider and blew off the battle cannon. He also was desperately running his other squad of grey hunters (who had been ill-placed on the other side of the board) toward my board edge so he could attain the third objective.

Turn 5 and all I could do was run my berserkers into his deployment zone and open fire against his land raider yet again. This time I managed to immobilize it, took off one of the lascannons and stun it yet again. He only had his wandering grey hunters to move into my deployment zone and rolled to determine there was no 6th turn.

Summary

I had a great time and it was wonderful to get in so many games in one day. The missions were different, which made them fun, and the gamers all had a great time. I am really happy with my list and how well it played (other than my mistakes the second game) and will need to think long and hard on what to add to bring it up to the typical 1850 point game.

I was voted as best painted army, which made me excited, I was a bit worried my painting score would be dinked because of my berserkers. I haven’t even posted pictures of these yet because they are really poorly painted (some of my finer work from 10 years ago!).

Related posts:

1. Battle Report – IW vs Death Guard
2. Nothing Like a Big Game to Get Excited Again
3. 1500 CSM army list take two

Since I don’t have my traitor guard finished, let alone even play tested (or even played any IG at all), I’m going to bring my trusty Iron Warriors to the battle. The guy running the event hasn’t worked out the missions yet but he did say there would be judging on painting, best army, best general and composition.

With all this in mind I took my normal 1850 list and removed some of the extras to bring it down to the 1500 point limit for the tournament. After writing the list I realized my entire initial setup will be vehicles!

Any comments or suggestions would be helpful as this is my first 40k tournament, and although it is just a small local event, I’m sure there will be some nasty surprises for me.

• Chaos Lord with terminator armor, twin lightning claws and mark of khorne (140 pnts)
• CSM x10 AC w/ power fist and plasma pistol; 2 plasma guns; icon of chaos undivided (245 pnts)
  • Rhino (35 pnts)
• CSM x10 AC w/ power fist and plasma pistol; 2 meltaguns; icon of chaos undivided (235 pnts)
  • Rhino (35 pnts)
• Khorne Berserkers x8 AC w/ power weapon, plasma pistol and melta bomb; 2 plasma pistols (248 pnts)
• Land Raider (220 pnts)
• Vindicator (125 pnts)
• Dreadnought with plasma cannon, heavy flamer (110 pnts)
• Dreadnought with multimelta, heavy flamer (105 pnts)

Total: 1498 pnts

Alternative:

• - Dreadnought w/ multimelta, rhino and the icon for plasmagun squad
• + 2x oblitorators

The thought on the alternative is that I don’t have a great deal of long range shooting and the versatility of the oblitorators make them an almost must have (plus its fitting for an Iron Warriors army). I like having the dreadnought and rhino in there for two reasons: they are both painted much better than my old (3rd edition old!) oblitorators, and it is two more vehicles to choose from for the opponent’s shooting, leaving my other tanks less vulnerable.

Related posts:

1. 1500 CSM army list take two
2. 1750 Pt Army List
3. Traitor Guard 1000 Point Initial Army List and 2000 Point Working List