NI24 - Tau games

This time we'll have a look at my son's games and while he had the same win to loss ratio as me (1W-2L) he actually did better than me in then overall standings, placing towards the middle of the table (9th of 16 I believe). However, he didn't have as much fun as he had hoped, mostly due to his opponents, not the actual opponents but rather their chosen army. Before we even left, his hopes for the tournament included not loosing every game and not playing knights. Well, he won one game, the only game that he wasn't playing knights! Yep, out of three games and 16 players he played both (and only two) the imperial knights players and even though he lost both, they were both close games.

Hi first game was against one of the better players and it was the only game that went to 5 turns for all three of us. He played the game well but struggled to hold on, taking the early game and building up a lead before the knights came back in the late game and clinched the win. He opponent was very impressed and also said that this was probably the game he had to work hardest for the win. 

Game two, and he was up against his only non-knight army, in the form of the Death Guard. This game.only went to turn three and he was starting to gain momentum that would probably have built a bigger lead by the end of the game. His opponent in this game was a relatively new player and it was interesting to see the young man taking the lead for once. 

After the victory in game two, it was back to playing knights. This game was against my opponent in my game two but he was definitely doing better than me. It would have been interesting to see this game go the full turns, as I think he would have had a good chance of winning but unfortunately the cards weren't going in his favour. 

So after three games he was sitting pretty nicely mid-table and despite playing knights twice he was in good spirits. None of the games he lost were significant losses, being only 9 and 5 points losses. Again, as with my games, most games only go to turn 3. This is probably something that we will need to work on for next year. 

I think he enjoyed the day and was talking about returning next year before we had even made it back to the hotel. Although, I think he's planning on bringing his Orks next year, if he gets them ready in time.

NI24 game 3

 My hope for a better match up in game three turned out to be true, mostly due to the fact I had lost two from two. As it turned out, I was up against Necrons piloted by my friends son, who we had brought down with us. I won't bother going through the army list, as there is a whole post to it. 

Needless to say I was positive about this game, it wasn't going to be easy but having played it before, I knew what I was up against and how to deal with it.

Deployment did not favour my opponent here, deploying along the short edge. He did push up his flayed ones and this helped straight off with secondaries. Unfortunately despite a good start with secondaries, they were all low scoring cards. I faired better, scoring some higher points cards. 

The wraiths showed themselves to be very fast, getting right in my lines very quickly, and then getting in to a slapfest with the Kreig, with both sides regenerating any lost wounds, keeping things in a state of equilibrium until a knight turned up to help. Not that it helped much!

The deathwatch really did well this game, being as it was the first game against xenos and them finally being able to benefit from their full rerolls!

By the end of turn three when the game ended (again!) I was in a good position. Granted my right flank was going to come.under significant pressure the next two turns, as the Nightbringer and skorpekhs would finally make combat but I held the centre and the left was just a slapfest still. 

My opponent played well, scored his cards and had a good plan going but I definitely had the edge and the numbers here. Some mistakes were made.on both sides but nothing game changing at all. 

I didn't learn much in this game that I didn't already know from our last game or from the previous two matches, and I'll do a round up of the list in another post, but what I will say is that I did have three good games and was fairly happy with how things went.

NI25 game 2

 On to game two, possibly one of the worst draws I could have, Knights. With a limited amount of anti-armour firepower, my plan was to take and hold what I could and weather the storm, which is easier said than done. 

My opponents list consisted of a Knight Castellan, a Knight Errant, a Knight Paladin, a Armiger Helverin and three Armiger Warglaives. So a pretty standard list. 

There were some shenanigans that I wasn't sure about but I was happy to go along with as it was fun. My opponent placed one of his knights in deep strike reserve using a relic\enhancement. Now I have no idea if this is legal or not but I couldn't see a reason for it not to be. 

This mission is a bit of an odd one to me, as it involves placing down objectives in no man's land but I was confident I could get a couple of objectives down and hold them. The biggest issue for me was my opponents sticky objective ability (via another relic). This meant he could sticky a number of objectives and I would not be able to take them all back,.meaning he would be able to easily score maximum on the primary mission.

The first turn went as expected, I pushed up and placed objectives and so did he. Some casualties were taken on my side and I was unable to make much of a dent in his.

By turn 3 I think we had 8 or 9 objectives down in the midfield, with my opponent owning most of them, with several sticky. With very little ability to damage the knights, I really had to play for points, and the cards were not being overly kind to me, luckily, they weren't being kind to my opponent either.

At the end of the day, if the game had gone to the full length, I think I could have hung in for the win but it would have been very difficult. It is during situations like this were the old rules for reinforcements would have been very welcome, just being able to sacrifice units almost at will to recycle them back in for more points scoring opportunities. 

At the end of the day however, I didn't do enough to win, even if I had played Sabotage a bit better, the points would not have been enough. 

Again, we only got to turn 3, which was mostly down to my opponent on this occasion. He wasn't playing slow by any means, he was just a very chatty and social fellow who was down to have some fun and laughs, maybe a little too chatty at times. I would rank this game above the first game in terms of enjoyment and probably the most enjoyable game of the three. 

What did I learn for this game? Warglaives are not as good as Helverins. Even with their melta guns the auto cannons are just better all round weapons, and the chain swords are not very good at taking down other knights. I almost killed an Armiger with the Vanquisher but a rerolled save put a stop to that. If I could get more reliable hits with the Vanquisher it would do a lot better. The mission rule also favoured the knights, being able to do an action and shoot, meaning they could drop the objective markers at will for more chances to score points. 

Overall, I don't really think I could have done things much better. He had greater firepower, resilience and manoeuvrability than me. What I did have was greater numbers, which I did try to use. At this point I was hoping for a better match up for game 3.

NI24 game 1

 After a fairly gentle ferry ride, we arrived at the tournament rested and ready. After the usual admin we moved in to our first matches. Now, I didn’t get many pictures during the event, as I was pretty busy concentration on the games, as you can imagine. 

My opponents list for this game was an armour heavy sisters list, with a squad of battle sisters, a dominion squad and two seraphim squads backed up by the Triumph of Saint Katherine, Morvenn Vahl with Paragon warsuits, two casitgators (one battle cannon and one autocannon) two Exorcists and two Immolators.

All the armour was going to be a challenge for me, as I had some anti-armour but not enough for all the vehicles facing me. The Exorcists were also a worry with their powerful indirect firepower, these were going to cause me a lot of problems. 

Deployment was pretty standard, I split my forces across my lines and my opponent did the same. 

The paragon war suits are a beast of a unit, especially with Morvenn Vahl. 

While.i managed to make down a few of the vehicles, I was unable to really do enough damage to stop the sisters from pushing forward on all fronts. The exorcist proved themselves to be very damaging, doing significant damage to my vehicles over the course of the battle. My scions did prove themselves again though, proving they were the right choice for the tournament, dropping in behind the enemy and wiping out a squad of sisters holding the home objective. In the following turns they could have been very useful in pulling the enemy back or generally causing problems. 

By the time that the game finished on turn 3, I had some troops left but most of my vehicles had been destroyed. I still had enough to keep the pressure up but I think it would have been an uphill battle to keep my infantry alive and scoring points. 

This game only got to turn three for a number of reasons, partly due to a lack of rules knowledge from my opponent, partly down to both of us being to slow with our play, along side the usual distractions of running in to people.eypu haven't seen for a year. The low score of the game was down to some poor cards, with my opponent only scoring two of the six cards and me only 3 of my six. However, my biggest scoring mistake here was on the painted points. My opponent had an army that was 95% painted, only one vehicle was not fully painted with just the base colour and one other on. I gave him the ten points, as it was close enough, however, subsequent opponents were a little more harsh, with both of them scoring him 0. As I was mostly there for the fun of it, I wasn't bothered but it would have changed the result, giving me the win and while at the time I didn't feel like it was an issue for his army not to be 100% painted, given that tue others did, I feel like this could have changed the whole tournament for me. Before the tournament, when discussing the painted scores I advocated for a central decision and I now I am even more certain it should be centrally scored and not down to each individual table to decide.

Anyway, enough moaning, what did I learn from this game? The game confirmed a lot of what I had hoped for. The DKoK did their thing and were resilient, although one squad was wiped out, it took quite a lot to shift them. The Armigers weren't great and I think it was a mistake to bring them, they are just too swingy in terms of hitting and damage. Something with more reliable damage output would have been better. The vanquisher also couldn't hit a barn door. The scions did thier job though, so the was good. Overall a good game, I think I could have played it better, bulking up my anti-armour units in one group and hitting each enemy vehicle in turn rather than spreading out and trying to take as many as I could at once. 

All in all, I was happy with the first game and was looking forward to the rest of the tournament.

NI24 warm up game - Tau Vs Necrons

This game was played between my son and his friend as a warm up game, mostly to let them just play on their own, with as little oversight as possible, apart from the odd bit of tactical advise or suggestion. The main aim of this game was to let the boys work though the game without any prompts from me, just as they might have to in the tournament. As it happens they did very well at it, although it did take a very long time to play and was split over about 4 sessions and two days. 

There is not much I can really comment on the actual game, as I did not witness very much of it, just popping in every so often to see how they were doing but from what I could tell both lists were actually working as intended.

The Tau ended up pushing up on their right flank while the Necrons ended up pushing up on their right, circling around the canter of the board. 

As you can see, the Tau suits dropped in and tried to take on one of the necron blobs, but the reanimation tactics cause the suits a lot of problems, bringing back a number of warriors, causing the suits to take several turns to chew through all the warriors.

At the end of the day, the Tau did just enough to take the win, some unlucky draws on the cards for the necrons hurt at the end. Overall the game proved that both armies could work and that the tactics were pretty solid. Granted both armies were fairly constrained by model availability but the tournament was a good chance to stress test the armies and work towards building them in the future.

So, with all the test games done and dusted, it was on to the tournament!

 

NI24 Necrons list

The rumour mills are well and truly buzzing, humming a way with unbridled passion or rage depending upon where you sit! Personally I'm sitting in the middle at the moment, there is some good and some bad, and some very very bad (poor old scions) but, I am going to wait to give my thoughts until I have the book in hand, whenever that might be, so that I can give a full run through of everything and all my thoughts on our new codex. In the meantime, there's still plenty to share on Northern Invasion 2024!

The last army to look at is the necrons. This force was very much dictated by available models, although I have been helping to guild the boy who plays them as best I can as to which units to buy in order to form a cohesive and coherent force. The force is also very heavily character oriented, mostly to get maximum use out of the detachment ability and also because the necron seem to work best with characters buffing units, far more so than the Tau or Guard.

The list itself is fairly short but is quite complex to understand how it all goes together!

DETACHMENT: Awakened Dynasty

C'tan Shard of the Nightbringer

Chronomancer

Hexmark Destroyer: Warlord, Enhancement: Enaegic Dermal Bond

Overlord: Resurrection orb, Voidscythe

Plasmancer

Skorpekh Lord

Technomancer: Enhancement: Nether-realm Casket

Necron Warriors: 20x Gauss reaper

Necron Warriors: 20x Gauss flayer

Deathmarks

Flayed Ones

Skorpekh Destroyers: 2x Plasmacyte

Canoptek Scarab Swarms

Canoptek Scarab Swarms

Lokhust Heavy Destroyers: Gauss destructor

Lokhust Heavy Destroyers: Gauss destructor

Canoptek Wraiths

Canoptek Reanimator

Canoptek Spyders

So the basic idea of the list is a slow methodical push up the board. Centre to this are the two warrior blobs move forward, one accompanied by a Lord and plasmancer with the flayers and the chronomancer with the short range reapers. These will advance up the board on to the centre objectives to take and hold them. One of the squads will also be accompanied by the  Canoptek Reanimator to boost the Reanimation protocols and boost their resilience and staying power on the objectives. Ahead of this, mainly to cause some distraction are the flayed ones, infiltrating up on to an objective early or just acting as deep strike denial. The Wraiths, along with the Technomancer, also push up early, mostly as a distraction unit. Their firepower and combat abilities have been somewhat lacking in the test games, however, their resilience has been superb. The hexmark, deathmarks, scarabs and Spyder are pretty free floating, with the hexmark and deathmarks dropping in where needed and the scarabs and Spyder being used for deep strike denial or to be generally annoying. The Lokhust heavy destroyers will stay back and hold the line, while taking pot shots at any armour or heavy infantry that decided to show themselves. While not very powerful, with only a flat 6 damage, their reliability is very good. 

That just leaves the C'Tan and the Skorpekhs. Both of these are hard hitting units that will push up with the warriors, taking out anything that decides to get two close. The C'Tan is an absolute bullet sponge, with a 4+, 4++ and 5+FNP, in addition to halving damage and Reanimation protocols. The amount of firepower needed to take him down really is something. And while your shooting him, the Skorpekhs and trundling up the board to turn you in to swiss cheese. 

Overall, I think this will be a strong list, with Reanimation protocols and stratagems\abilities meaning this army is very resilient although it is very slow, with only a couple of units moving at any speed. This means that it's not really going to come through until the late game, which may be a problem in the tournament.

NI24 Tau list

So after going through the Guard list and games, I’m going to do a quick run through of the other list the boys took, starting with the Tau list. I’ll do this list, then the Necrons and then the game they played. 

Here is the Tau list; 

DETACHMENT: Mont'ka

Commander Farsight: Warlord

Darkstrider

Cadre Fireblade: 2x Shield Drone, Enhancement: Strategic Conqueror

Commander in Coldstar Battlesuit: 2x Shield Drone, Cyclic ion blaster, 2x Fusion blaster, Enhancement: Exemplar of the Mont'ka

Breacher Team: Shas'ui - Guardian Drone, Shield Drone, Support turret

Breacher Team: Shas'ui - Guardian Drone, Shield Drone, Support turret

Strike Team: Shas'ui: Guardian Drone, Shield Drone, Support turret

Pathfinder Team: 3x Rail rifle, Semi-automatic grenade launcher, Shas'ui - 2x Shield Drone, Recon drone, 

Stealth Battlesuits: Shas'vre - Battlesuit support system, Homing beacon, 2x Shield Drone, Fusion blaster

Stealth Battlesuits: Shas'vre - Battlesuit support system, Homing beacon, 2x Shield Drone, Fusion blaster

Stealth Battlesuits: Shas'vre - Battlesuit support system, Homing beacon, 2x Shield Drone, Fusion blaster

Krootox Rampagers

Broadside Battlesuits: 2x Shield Drone, Weapon support system, Heavy rail rifle, Twin plasma rifle

Broadside Battlesuits: 2x Shield Drone, Weapon support system, Heavy rail rifle, Twin plasma rifle

Crisis Sunforge Battlesuits: 3xShield Drone, 3x Gun Drone

Crisis Sunforge Battlesuits: 3xShield Drone, 3x Gun Drone

Ghostkeel Battlesuit: Battlesuit support system,  Cyclic ion raker, Twin T'au flamer

Piranha: Piranha fusion blaster, 2x Seeker missile

Piranha: Piranha fusion blaster, 2x Seeker missile

Devilfish: 2x Seeker missile, 2x Twin pulse carbine

Devilfish: 2x Seeker missile, 2x Twin pulse carbine

Devilfish: 2x Seeker missile, 2x Smart missile system

So quite a suit and vehicle heavy list. The Breachers and Strike team will go in the Devilfish, one with the Fireblade. The commander and Farsighted go with the Battle suits ready to drop in on priority targets. The Stealth suits, the Ghoatkeel and the Pathfinders will deploy up the field, ready to just on the objectives early game. The Piranhas will also push up early game, to put some pressure on the enemy and try and do some damage to key units and vehicles before being blown to kingdom come. That just leaves the Broadsides and Krootox. The broadsides, as you’d imagine, will sit at the back and hammer anything that is silly enough to poke its head out and the rampagers are the counter charge unit, ready to smash anything that tries to get to close. They can also be used to challenge weaker units on the board. 

The general idea is to push up with the stealth suits and ghostkeel, alongside the pathfinders to pressure the centre objectives early game and force the opponents to counter and push up. The Piranhas back this up by using scout moves and their good movement to push up and hit prime targets with 4 missiles and the two fusion, hopefully taking out something big before dying to a stiff breeze.

This first wave is followed up by the second wave of the three infantry squads in the devilfish and the crisis suits. Ideally the first wave will not have been wiped out completely, so the second wave will put more pressure on the enemy. The broadsides will remain back, hold objectives and alongside the rampagers help deter any enemy from deep striking behind the Tau. 

It’s fairly simple and should work well, as long as the enemy don’t play a similar game of their own, scouting up the board or dropping in on mass. If it works to plan, the enemy should find itself penned back in its deployment zone. Now, granted this didn’t happen in my game, mostly because I knew exactly what I needed to do, as I helped come up with the plan in the first place, plus I wanted to try out an aggressive stance for my list against a strong shooting opponent, but I think the theory is sound. Till and the tournament will tell us if I’m right to not.

NI24 Guard list

 So after three practice games I came to a final list, I think that this is a good overall list with enough Anti-infantry and anti-armour to deal with most things that I will come up against. 

So here is the final list;

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

+ FACTION KEYWORD: Imperium - Astra Militarum

+ DETACHMENT: Combined Regiment

+ TOTAL ARMY POINTS: 1995pts

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Death Korps Marshal: Power Weapon, Plasma Pistol

Death Korps Marshal: Power Weapon, Plasma Pistol

Militarum Tempestus Command Squad: Regimental Standard,  Weapon, Plasma Gun, Hot-shot Volley Gun, Grenade LauncherT, empestor Prime: Command Rod, Tempestus Dagger, Warlord, Enhancement: Grand Strategist

Primaris Psyker: Force Weapon, Laspistol, Psychic Maelstrom

Primaris Psyker: Force Weapon, Laspistol, Psychic Maelstrom

Regimental Enginseer: Archeotech Pistol, Enginseer Axe, Servo-arm

20x Death Korps of Krieg: Medi-pack, 2x Grenade Launcher, 2x Sniper Rifle, 2x Plasma Gun,2x Watchmaster: Chainsword, Plasma Pistol

20x Death Korps of Krieg: Medi-pack, 2x Flamer, 2x Meltagun, 2x Vox-caster, 2x Watchmaster: Chainsword, Plasma Pistol

Tempestus Scions: Hot-shot Volley Gun, Plasma Gun, Tempestor: Power Weapon, Plasma Pistol

Tempestus Scions: Hot-shot Volley Gun, Plasma Gun, Tempestor: Power Weapon, Plasma Pistol

Tempestus Scions: Hot-shot Volley Gun, Plasma Gun, Tempestor: Power Fist, Plasma Pistol

Tempestus Scions: Hot-shot Volley Gun, Plasma Gun, Tempestor: Power Fist, Plasma Pistol

Heavy Weapons Squad: 3x Mortar

Leman Russ Vanquisher: Vanquisher Battle Cannon, Armoured Tracks, Hunter-killer Missile, Lascannon, Heavy Stubber, 2x Heavy Flamer

Armiger Warglaive: Reaper chain-cleaver, Thermal spear, Questoris heavy stubber

Armiger Warglaive: Reaper chain-cleaver, Thermal spear, Questoris heavy stubber

Deathwatch Kill Team: 2x Astartes shield, Power weapon, Black Shield blades, 2x Deathwatch thunder hammer, 2x Infernus heavy bolter, Sgt: Xenophase blade

Deathwatch Kill Team: Frag cannon, Infernus heavy bolter, Stalker-pattern boltgun, Sgt: Combi-weapon, Xenophase blade

Imperial Rhino: Armoured tracks, Hunter-killer missile, Storm bolter

Imperial Rhino: Armoured tracks, Hunter-killer missile, Storm bolter

Inquisitor: Blessed wardings, Inquisitorial melee weapon, Combi-weapon

Watch Captain Artemis: Hellfire Extremis, Master-crafted power weapon

So the final list is pretty similar to the first list with the scions forming the final 200 odd points of the list.

The general plan remains fairly unchanged, the guard will move up to secure a couple of centre objectives while the deathwatch strike out to take on any priority targets. The Russ and Armigers will be looking to take on any vehicles or monsters. 

The guard and deathwatch elements are pretty solid I think, they have performed exactly as I wanted through the warm up games, the scions, even as a late edition have also played their part as hoped. The Russ and the Armigers however have not performed quite as well as I had hoped, mostly due to the lack of overall shots. This has partly been due to some terrible rolling, which may cause me problems during the tournament.

Overall though, I think this is a solid list, just worried about the lack of reliable anti-armour. 

2025 Resolutions

So 2024 has gone and 2025 is here. It hard to imagine that we're a quarter of the way in to the 21st century already! I can still remember all the commotion from the Y2K bug that was going to kill us all! Ok, maybe not kill us all but it was certainly going to cause us no end of bother. Anyway, here we are, and it's time to set some new goals for the coming year. 

Firstly, the unfinished tasks from last year;

1) Finish painting Drop Pod

2) Paint Land Raider

3) Varnish Field Ordnance Battery 

4) Quickshade Rough Riders

There was a fifth item unfinished last year, but that was varnish then first born Eagle Knights and I'm not to fussed about that one right now, so I'm not going to add it to the list for 2025. There are however a number of tasks that do need need to be added;

5) Varnish additional sisters of battle

This is just three sisters, who will join the rest of the squad to make it a legal composition.

6) Paint Subduction squads

All built and ready to prime, as soon as the weather improves. 

7) Paint Sanguinary Guard 

Again built and ready to prime, I have a colour scheme in mind for these guys to make them stand out from the rest of the army.

8) Paint Armiger Helverins

Yet another unit that was built over the winter period.

9) Paint Emperor's Disciples Blade Guard

The last unit that was built over the winter that still needs priming and painting.

10) Paint Sisters Canoness 

Thee are two models here, both have been started but need quite a bit of work to finish them off.

11-15) as above but varnish models

Ok, so I have bunched a few together here, mostly as it's all the models above that once painted need varnishing to protect them.

16) Varnish Inquisitorial Agents models

This one involves a number of models that are already painted but just need a dip in the quickshade to finish and protect them.

The next few items have been bunched together as most of the involve repeating the same process over and over again just with different models. 

17-19) Build, paint and varnish Grey Knights Terminators

Not yet purchased (although I suspect this might turn up as a late Christmas present). Either way they will need building, priming, painting and varnishing.

20-22) Build, paint and varnish Sisters Rhino

Another model that hasn’t been purchased yet, but will be in the new year, or it may wait until my birthday. Either way, I will get one of these this year for my sisters to trundle round in.

23-25) Build, paint and varnish Death Korps Engineers

These haven’t been released yet but when they are I will be looking at getting some of these. I have already spoken to the local supplier for Wargames Atlantic products to see about getting a box of the Grognards to enable me to build extra models from the bits on the box, so hopefully, I should be able to build at least two squads, maybe more with some creative thinking.

26-28) Build, paint and varnish Death Korps Artillery 

Another yet to be released. I’m hoping to be able to pick up at least two of these kits, one for the big gun and one for one of the other, rules dependent of course.

29-31) Build, paint and varnish Field Ordnance Battery 

I am looking at grabbing a couple more FOB’s from the Combat Patrol magazines, to give me all three options for them. I will get at least one to enable me to build the indirect guns but hopefully I will be able to get two and have a set of each.

32-34) Build, paint and varnish Death Korps heavy weapons squads

Out of all the new DKoK kits, this is the one I am most excited about. Again, I have spoken to the Wargames Atlantic supplier for a box of Grognards Command and Heavy Support to enable me to make extras. I should be able to build three of each weapon, although I might not bother with the lascannons. I am really looking forward to the insane flamers most of all!

35-37) Build, paint and varnish Death Korps Command Squad

Last of the death Korps, the command squad will be necessary to fill out the DKoK force. I am hoping to be able to build at least two squads, with some Grognards kit bashes, one for each of my 20 man DKoK squads. 

I think that should be all of my tasks for the next year. I am not as hopeful that will get all of these done this year, as there are some events that may make it very difficult to complete some of them in the time frame, if I manage at all but there will be more on that front in the next month or so.