NI24 event review

 A short post to finish this/last years Northern Invasion posts. As always the tournament was good fun and everyone attending seemed to have had a good time. The chat was flowing and the food was as good as ever. 

The Saturday tournament was well run, there were a few little issues but then I don't know of any tournament that doesn't have a few little issues. It feels bad to focus on the negatives when the over all experience was so good but I feel that they need to be acknowledged in order to correct them. So what were these issues? Well, there were three that I feel are in need of attention. 

Firstly, painted armies points. Some people were very strict on awarding the points, while others, including myself, were quite not. This meant that some people got points one match and not the next. Simply having all the armies judged by one of the TO's game 1 and handing out a token or similar means that everyone knows what does and does not score the points and there is not arguments or bad feelings about who gets the points and who doesn't. 

Secondly, missions. There were 8 tables, each one had a different mission set up on them and this means that your overall points score can be very dependent on which missions you ended up with. With some of the missions, it is easier to score primaries, some deployments are better than others.......I can go on and on but I feel that if everyone is playing different games that will affect the overall score. Some one may get three games where scoring primaries is easy, and someone else may get three games that are very hard. As such, I think that all the games in a single round should all be the same, so everyone is playing the same mission and deployment. Yes, secondaries will change between tables and players but at least everyone starts with a level playing field. Now I realise this is harder to sort out, with a lot of shuffling between rounds to reset tables and it's not an ITC tournament or anything but its something that bugs me. 

Finally there was scoring the games. What do I mean by this? Well a lot of games didn't go to 5 rounds, several did but not all of them. So how do you score them? Well there seems to be half a dozen different ways! Say for example a game only goes to turn 3, as all mine did, do you;

A) score turn 3 as a normal turn 3 and take the score as you would for turn 3 in a normal 5 turn game.

B) score turn 3 as if it was turn 5, i.e. score primaries at the end of the 2nd players turn. 

C) finish turn 3 but mathammer out the remaining two turns to give you a full 5 turn score.

In most games it doesn't make much difference which you do, but for a tournament where overall scores combine to give a total score which effects your final position, which method you choose does make a difference. There was no clear indication as to which method to use and so people did different things. I for one believe that the score should be taken as is at the end of turn three, with no modification to the scoring system. This means that those who did play 5 turns are not penalised for playing faster. 

Despite these minor issues the tournament was well run and there was no real issues that required the TO's to step in. 

There was only downside to the whole thing that I can say, and that is that the Sunday was a bit slow. This was not the fault of the organisers but a bit of a miscommunication between parties and the main Sunday activity, a Shadespire tournament, was cancelled fairly last minute, due to unavoidable factors. This was really the only negative point to the weekend that I can see, so not bad I think. The Sunday was not a total loss though, as idle minds create chaos, or in this case, a Knight off.

8 Knights and a Lord of Skulls alongside Angron, took to the field in a fun game of 40k. The rules were fairly flud and changed quite a few times over the course of the game but everyone seemed to be having great fun and there were several fun moments, including Angron killing a Knight, who then exploded, killing Angorn in return, who then went ballistic as he was dragged in to the warp, killing another knight as he did, which also exploded but this time it only managed to wound the Lord of Skulls, although another 6 would have been enough for some more fireworks! The game lasted quite a while, as units came back to life but the winner ended up with a tally of 4 killed to only 3 deaths, with several knights on 3 and 3.

 Overall, this was another well run and hosted tournament, one I would recommend to anyone not after a competitive ITC tournament. I will certainly be trying to get back in 2025.

NI24 Army review - Guard

 The guard did well at the tournament, they mostly performed as intended and I felt that there was not a lot 8 could have done differently on the day. However, there were some units that just didn't pull their weight and some that really did better than expected. 

Many units, mainly the DKoK and the scions did exactly what I expected them to do, with the DKoK moving up to hold objectives and weathering the inevitable storm that followed, and the scions dropped in behind, picking up secondaries and causing problems. The Mortar heavy weapons squad also did their thing, holding the home objective and dropping random annoying shots on things. These units formed the core of the army and worked well, something else that worked well was the Deathwatch.

These units worked well in the test games and I had a good feeling for them going in to the tournament, however, one unit proved really good, the other not quite as good. The combat unit proved to be really effective, doing what was asked of them in all three games. I would have liked for them to be more resilient than they were, but a extra storm shield could solve that a little. The shooting unit were good, but another combat unit would have been more useful I think. I don't have the models to form another combat unit though and I don't think that I will look at getting another as I have a different use for the points, Grey Knights. A full unit of 10 marines plus the Rhino come in at over 250 points, which could easily pay for the 5 man unit of Grey Knight Terminators. 

On the other end of the spectrum was the Leman Russ Vanquisher (LRV) and the Armiger Warglaives. The LRV had trouble hitting anything, especially with the HK missile and even when it did it either failed to would or it was saved. I think in all the games it did only a handful of wound and generally proved pretty useless. With a tank commander or multiple Vanquishers, the effect could have been reduced, but with only one, it was not a great unit. The Warglaives were also pretty underwhelming as well, with the melta failing to hit multiple times and even when wounding failed to really do much damage. The chain swords were equally useless. Having played against a knights army running multiple Helverins, and seeing the damage done by their autocannons, I think that switching the two Warglaives for Helverins would be a better option, as well as saving points! 

A lot of the ideas for what to do with this list are however a bit of a mute point, as the guard codex is due out anything, and hopefully, I should even have my limited edition codex by the time this post goes live! (didn't get the box, just eBay'd the codex and cards). I have some ideas of what I might do, but I really need to study the new codex and units to see what I have and what I'm going to get and then I can see how the new version of this list will look.

So to finish off, here are some (not very good) photos of the army in all its glory.

The armies there somewhere, I promise!

NI24 Army review - Necrons and Tau

With the tournament over it's time to look back over the lists and see what worked and what didn't. 

We'll start with the Tau forces. Overall the force worked as intended, and there isn't much that needs to be changed or altered. There were a few options that needed tweaking, partly because the wrong option was taken on the submitted list but also because a few didn't work as well as intended. The rampagers were very hit and miss but taking a full size unit would make a big difference, to room for 3 extra models needs to be found somewhere, possibly by dropping the strike team and devilfish. However, I think that next year my son will be taking Orks, provided he gets it all built and painted.

As for the Necrons, there will be some significant changes. The young man has some tomb blades that were not built at the time of the tournament, and while at the tournament he acquired a Doomsday arc. Combine this with the Silent King he received for Christmas and you have a very different list.

The trouble is, what do you get rid of? First up would be the wraiths and technomancer. While these are good units for holding up the enemy, they lack much punch. Replacing these with the tomb blades keeps a fast unit, faster intact, but also gives greater firepower. Additionally dropping the scarabs and the spider frees up some points. Now scarabs are useful for rear screening but in terms of output and versatility they are now lacking due to 0OC. Using the pints towards the silent king or Doomsday arc would be better I think. Additionally, removing the flayed ones and deathmarks frees up some points. The flayed ones were useful for grabbing some points turn 1 in a few games but in general I think the points could be spending elsewhere, the same applies to the deathmarks, as their shooting output is not great although they were useful deep striking for secondaries. 

There is still quite a while between this tournament and the next and there will be at least 2 if not 3 balance data slates plus we can expect a whole new mission deck around June this year, all of which will have an impact on the lists. 

Here are some parade photos of the necrons

NI24 - Necrons games

 This post will be quite a quick one, as I don't have any pictures or even score cards for these games. I did speak to the young man about his games so have a little I can say about them all.

The first game was against Tyranids and a player well known for being quite cut throat during games, and this was true during this game. However, he was an absolute gentleman, and was giving lots of advice and encouragement during the games. There were some interesting moments in the game as well, including a saving throw needing 5+'s off 8 dice and making everyone of them including about 6 sixes. Overall it sounded like a good game, even if he was soundly beaten, he had fun, learnt a lot and it was still a good introduction to tournament play. 

He next game was probably not such a great introduction. This was not down to either player but the fact that it was a game between two very new players, both having only played a handful of games between them. This means lots of rules questions and double checking, combined with both sides having infantry heavy armies, resulted in the game only getting to turn 2. Unfortunately this lead to the young man loosing, as his Necrons are slow to start and by the end of turn 2 they are only just getting on to objectives and scoring secondaries. If this game had gone further I think he had a good chance of winning, even another turn could well have turned the score sheet in his favour but we’ll never know for sure. 

Two losses put him up against another player who had lost two from two, me! There is an another post already up on this game, so there is nothing else to add here. 

Overall I think the young man in question had two good games and one average game (only due to lack of experience on both parts). I also think that’s the whole weekend was a positive experience and there was lots of talk about next year, but I’ll cover that in a separate post.  

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.

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. 

NI24 guard list options

 I had decided to take guard to the tournament again, I was thinking about taking my blood angels but there are a couple of units that I want before I do that, mostly the brutalis dreads. So guard it was but with the release of the Imperial Agents codex, there was going to be a definite Inquisitorial element to the army. 

There were several units that were locked in, namely the DKoK, Knights and Deathwatch, the rest was still unknown. So the base list, which came to just over 1800 points in the end consisted of;

Characters

- Death Korps Marshal: Power Weapon, Plasma Pistol

- Death Korps Marshal: Power Weapon, Plasma Pistol

- Primaris Psyker: Force Weapon, Laspistol, Psychic Maelstrom

- Primaris Psyker: Force Weapon, Laspistol, Psychic Maelstrom

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

The Marshalls and Psykers go with the DKoK squads and the Enginseer goes with the LRBT, simple.

- 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 Vox-caster, 2x Flamer, 2x Meltagun, 2x Watchmaster: Chainsword, Plasma Pistol

- 5x Tempestus Scions: Hot-shot Volley Gun, Plasma Gun, Tempestor: Power Weapon, Plasma Pistol

- 5x Tempestus Scions: Hot-shot Volley Gun, Plasma Gun, Tempestor: Power Weapon, Plasma Pistol

The guard battle line units are simple. The DKoK units will form the main units, pushing up on to the objectives in no man's land to score the primary points. While one squad is more focused on long range shooting and the other short range shooting, both will be used in similar fashion. The Scions will stay in reserve, dropping in to score objectives or secondary points as they are drawn. They are armed for some offensive work, but this is secondary to Thier primary points scoring purpose.

- 3x Heavy Weapons Squad: Mortar

- 1x Leman Russ Vanquisher: HK Missile, Lascannon, Heavy Stubber, 2x Heavy Flamer

The obligatory mortar squad for sitting at the back, holding the home objective and dropping random shots on people. The LRBT is there for the anti-armour and anti-monster firepower. It's only 1 shot so it's a bit hit or miss but when it hits, it really does hit.

Next up are the allied units;

- 1x Armiger Warglaive: Reaper chain-cleaver, Thermal spear, Questoris heavy stubber

- 1x Armiger Warglaive: Reaper chain-cleaver, Thermal spear, Questoris heavy stubber

These are here for their anti-armour capacity, the thermal spears should be able to deal with vehicles, especially with the LRBT and following up with the chain-cleaver.

- 10x Deathwatch Kill Team: 2x Astartes shield + Power weapon, Black Shield blades, 2x Boltgun + Power weapon, 2x Thunder hammer 2x Infernus heavy bolter, Sgt: Combi-weapon, Xenophase blade

- 10x Deathwatch Kill Team: 6x Boltgun + Power weapon, 1x Frag cannon, 1x Infernus heavy bolter, 1x Stalker-pattern boltgun, Sgt: Combi-weapon + Xenophase blade

- 1x Imperial Rhino: HK missile, Storm bolter

- 1x Imperial Rhino: HK missile, Storm bolter

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

- Watch Captain Artemis

The Deathwatch form the real punch of this army, being power armoured warriors and also battle line. There is a combat squad, tooled up for smashing things in combat and a shooting squad for backing them up or taking down other threats at range. They will be driven around in their rhinos for the extra mobility and the squads will be joined by the characters, the combat squad by Artemis and the shooting one by the inquisitor.

This gives, in my opinion, a solid core to the army, that should be able to take on a range of opponents apart from maybe very vehicle heavy lists such as knights. It comes to 1810 points, giving me 190 points to play with and this is where I have some options. These options fall in to three categories, more guard, more Inquisitorial or more power armour.

The more guard option consists of;

- Militarum Tempestus Command Squad: Regimental Standard, Plasma Gun, Hot-shot Volley Gun, Grenade Launcher, Tempestor Prime: Command Rod, Tempestus Dagger, Warlord, Enhancement: Grand Strategist (+15 pts)

- 5x Tempestus Scions: Hot-shot Volley Gun, Plasma Gun, Tempestor: Power Fist, Plasma Pistol

- 5x Tempestus Scions: Hot-shot Volley Gun, Plasma Gun, Tempestor: Power Fist, Plasma Pistol

The prime has to be the warlord, to turn the scions in to battle line, enabling me to take the 4 squads. The command rod and enhancement enables me to buff the unit nicely each turn.

The next option is adding more Inquisitorial units;

- 12x Inquisitorial Agents: 2x Tome-skull, 2x Eviscerator, 2x Mystic stave, 2x Plasma pistol, 2x Servitor: 1x Multimelta, 1x Plasma cannon

- 1x Inquisitorial Chimera: HK missile, Heavy flamer, Heavy flamer

This adds a very multirole unit to the army with some decent combat punch. The addition of the double flamer chimera could also be very useful for taking some wounds pre-charge.

Lastly we have the extra power armour;

- 10x Sisters of Battle Squad: Ministorum heavy flamer Artificer-crafted storm bolter, 1x Sister Superior: Power weapon, Boltgun

- 1x Imperial Rhino: HK missile, Storm bolter

This option adds some extra 3+ saves to the army and also another rhino. This option possibly adds the least to the force, as it adds nothing different, nor gives me options I didn't have before.

So that's the list options, as it was I managed to play a few games before we had to submit lists and got a good idea of what would work and what wouldn't, as we'll see over the next couple of posts.

Northern Invasion 2024

 So, this will be the first in a number of post about this year's Northern Invasion, a little late as the tournament took place at the begining of November! 

This is the second year in a row of attending and alongside my son we also travelled down with one of his friends. This resulted in a number of weeks of rapid preparation for all.of us, from tidying up paintwork, finishing models and magnetising bases for storage. 

There were seven of us that travelled down for the weekend, joining eight from the local clubs and another travelled up from the mainland to join in.

There are a whole range of armies, with 3 guard, all very different, two Tau, Blood Angels, Thousand Sons, Necrons, Genestealer Cults, Imperial Knights, Chaos Knights, Sisters, Tyranids, Drukhari, World Eaters and finally Death Guard. A good full range of armies, with lists that ranged from meta netlists through to fun and interesting lists.

In general this is a fun and enjoyable tournament, but this year there was a bit more of a competitive edge to it, with a number of players using it as a warm up even for one of the bigger Scottish GT's down south.

Even so, it was a good experience for us all, even for the Necrons player, who lost all his games, yet was already planning next year's list before we had got home!

First up, I'll go through the lists, and even though the games are long gone, I'll talk trough the plans and ideas and later, in another post I'll give the thoughts and ideas for next year's list. 

2024 League

 So, I have signed up to another League at the local club. It’s another 2000 point tournament to be played over the next couple of months, using the rules, points and missions from May, including the brand new Tau codex. This is important as this year I have been joined in the League by my eldest boy and his Tau. 

I’ll go in to my lists in a little more detail in the next post, as well as going to my boys list as well. Both of us haven’t gone for a meta list, me even less so, as most of my choices were made based on the fact I’d finished painting my knight and rough riders and so wanted to play them. 

Anyway, more on that later. The tournament has a total of 12 players, split in to two half, so we’ll each play 5 games over the next couple of months. By the time this posts, my son will have played his first game. Unfortunately, or fortunately, we were drawn in different groups, so no quick games under our belts to start with. 

My sons group has Custodies, Grey Knights, Thousand Sons, Leagues of Votann and Ultramarines.

There are a number of hard matchups here. Custodies and Grey knights will be hard, 1k Sons will be hard as well, with Magnus in there. Leagues of Votann and Ultras should be easier but still hard.`

In my group I have White Scars, Space Wolves, Necrons, Orks and World Eaters.

I don’t know if I have an easier group or not. Necrons and Orks shouldn’t be to hard (he says!), Space wolves and White Scars will be harder and World eaters will be very hard to deal with. I’m honestly not sure if I will actually be able to win any of those games with any degree of confidence. I’ve taken a different list than one I would normally take so we shall see. 

I’m excited to play again, as I haven’t played since the Tournament before Christmas and I do actually like playing, despite the fact that I tend to loose a lot!

I’ll go through both my sons Tau list and my Guard list in the next couple of posts and by that point I’ll be able to write up my sons first match. 

Tournament list review

So with the tournaments all done and dusted, its time to have a look at my list and see what sort of changes I might make to it. It’s not just about making it more competitive, it’s also about removing units that proved to be useless or over costed for what they managed to achieve, and unfortunately there were quite a few of these units. 

There is little I can do with certain elements of the list, such as the detachment or enhancements, as I’m still restricted by what’s available for me to use. 

So, what would will remain unchanged and what would be dropped?

Detachment: Combined Regiment

+ Character +

Cadian Castellan: Bolt Pistol, Grand Strategist, Power Weapon

Cadian Castellan: Plasma Pistol, Power Weapon

Commissar: Plasma Pistol, Power Weapon

Platoon Command Squad: Platoon Commander: Death Mask of Ollanius, Plasma Pistol, Power Weapon, Plasma Gun, Master Vox, Medi-pack, Regimental Standard

Primaris Psyker 

Primaris Psyker

The HQ section of the list worked pretty much as expected. The Castellans spread out across the board and the Platoon command squad anchored the centre, as planned. I think that some extra orders might have been worthwhile, as there were a few occasions that I would have liked to have one or two more orders to dish out but on the whole it wasn’t a problem. The psykers also proved their worth with their psychic powers, however, they would be something to drop if I needed a few extra points for the list change.

+ Battleline +

Cadian Shock Troops (10): Grenade Launcher, Plasma Gun

Cadian Shock Troops (10): Grenade Launcher, Plasma Gun

Cadian Shock Troops (20): 2x Grenade Launcher, 2x Plasma Gun

Cadian Shock Troops (10): Drum-fed Autogun, Grenade Launcher, Plasma Gun

Cadian Shock Troop (10): Bolt Pistol, Grenade Launcher, Plasma Gun

Cadian Shock Troop (10): Bolt Pistol, Grenade Launcher, Plasma Gun

Death Korps of Krieg (10): Medi-pack, Grenade Launcher, Meltagun, Plasma Gun, Plasma Pistol, Power Weapon

Infantry Squad (10): 2x Grenade Launcher, 2x Grenade Launcher. 2x HWT Autocannon

The battle line units also worked as planned, although I would make a few changes. The main one is removing the 20 man Cadian squad, as this was a mistake in the first place. I would probably go for another unit of DKoK, as their medic ability was useful, when i actually got to use it! I would have liked more Cadian but I am at my max number of units. As for special weapons, i would keep the Plasma gun but I am tempted to drop the grenade launcher for possibly a melta gun, but it does reduce the utility of the units.

+ Infantry +

Heavy Weapons Squad: 3x Mortar

Heavy Weapons Squad: 3x Mortar

Heavy Weapons Squad: 3x Missile Launchers

Tempestus Scions (5): Plasma Pistol, Power Fist, Hot-shot Volley Gun, Plasma Gun, Vox-caster

Tempestus Scions (5): Plasma Pistol, Power Fist, Hot-shot Volley Gun, Plasma Gun, Vox-caster

Tempestus Scions (5): Plasma Pistol, Power Fist, Hot-shot Volley Gun, Plasma Gun, Vox-caster

The other infantry units also proved themselves during my games. The mortars were not the greatest at taking out power armour but against lower save units they absolutely proved their worth. The missile launchers were equally as useful, although both suffered from the unpredictability of the dice. The scions also proved themselves and were useful both for scoring points, forcing my opponent to split their force and gave me a lot of movement options.

+ Vehicles+

Valkyrie: Hellstrike Missiles, Lascannon, Heavy Bolters

Valkyrie: Militarum Multi-laser, Heavy Bolters, Multiple Rocket Pods

This is where there is going to be a lot of changes. The planes, while useful and fun to play with, really didn’t do anything for me. The MRP equipped Valkyrie was more useful and did do some chip damage, but the other Valkyrie was pretty much useless. The single shot lascannon and hellstrike missile was basically useless, missing far more than they hit and wounding even less. I was not even able to remove a rhino in one turn of shooting even when both actually hit. The heavy bolters were the best weapons on both platforms. Even though I took these because just because I wanted to, both of these will be dropped from the next iteration of the list as they just don’t do anywhere near the damage or provide anything that justifies their points.   

+ Allied Units +

Imperial Navy Breachers: chainfist, demo charge, heavy shotgun, power weapon, Navis las-volleys, Bolt pistol and power weapon

Imperial Navy Breachers: Meltagun

Inquisitor: Bolt pistol, Inquisitorial melee weapon, Psychic gifts, Warlord

Vindicare Assassin 

The dropping of the Valkyries also means the dropping of the Navy Breachers, which isn’t a bad thing as they didn’t really do much in the game, the bleacher with demo charge was fun and did do some damage, it still didn’t justify the 105 point cost of the unit. Even if the Valkyries weren’t being dropped I would drop the navy breachers anyway. The Vindicare also failed to live up to expectations. I think this is mostly because it’s taken a real hit in this edition and is no longer the character slayer it once was. I would probably look at switching this out for the Eversor assassin for its combat abilities. The Inquisitor was the best choice out of this lot, even though it didn’t do masses, it did enough to justify itself in the list, plus its all part of my fluff to have an inquisitor in my lists. 

So, if i remove the Valkyries, the Breachers, Vindicare and 10 cadians, I would currently have 730 points to play with. With these points I would look to add a Tank commander and additional Leman Russ, with an Enginseerer in support. I would add in an Eversor Assassin as well. I would then use some points to up the number of Scions in the units to 10, doubling the number of troops and special weapons. This means that I would be using 690 points of the 730, leaving me 40 points spare for the moment, to either adjust for points adjustments or to add extra units nearer the time. 

I’ll have to try this list out at some point to see just how it might fare but I suspect that there will be a number of changes points wise before next years tournament.  

Tournament review

 The Northern Invasion Tournament has been and gone and despite the enforced hiatus due to Covid and some other logistical and technical hurdles that needed to be overcome, I would have to say that it was a huge success. There were 16 players there on the Saturday and a number returned for a more casual day of gaming on the Sunday. There was more than 40k going on as well, with magic featuring prominently on both the Saturday and Sunday, with a whole host of board games going on on the Sunday, including Hero Quest, which myself and my son played several games of. 

The 40k tournament itself was not an overly competitive tournament. There were a number of people there who were playing to a competitive level but there were also a number of people there to just play some games and have fun, after all, how many competitive players bring a 3 model army consisting of two Knight Desecrators and a Warhound Titan. 

Chaos Knight and Warhound

Overall there was a pretty even split between Imperial, with 2x Grey Knights, Space Marines, Space wolves, Imperial Guard, Custodies, Imperial Knights and Dark Angels, and Chaos, with 2x World Eaters, 2x Chaos Knights, Death Guard and Daemons, with just two Xenos players, both using Tau. The tournament was won by the World Eaters player i played in game 2, with Grey Knights taking second and third with Space Marines in 4th. At the other end of the table the wooden spoon was hotly contested between World Eaters and Chaos Knights (the 3 model list from above), with the Chaos Knights walking away with the “trophy”. These final games were played on the Sunday morning, so not all placing were finalised.  

Tau vs Dark Angels

I am hoping to return next year if possible, my son already has plans for what he want to do plus there is talk about some of the other youngsters coming down, so there might be some competition for best U18 player trophy that my son walked (uncontested) away with. 

The other thing to really mention about the weekend, is that my son has now set his sights on getting Hero Quest for Christmas, along with some of the character expansions, after we played a couple of games with some of the other guys down there. Also, I bought Space Hulk, the 2014 version, minus the models thought, which is not a problem as i have most of the models i need to play already, or at least ones that I can substitute in, as I have lots of Hormagaunts I can use as Genestealers. I plan on playing the game at some point but also using the tiles for dungeon crawls with the kids at some point or another. 

Next up will be a look through my list from the tournament, which in truth means there will be quite a few changes for future tournaments. 

Northern Invasion game 3

So, on to game three and another hard game but one I though I might do better in. The game was against Space Wolves and I reasonably well rounded list at that. The list consisted of Logan Grimnar on his sleigh, Murderfang, Ragnar, an Iron Priest, lieutenant, a blood claws, 2x grey hunters, 2x intercessors, incursors, skyclaws, thunderwolf cavalry, fenrisian wolves, a redemptor, a vindicator and 2x wulfen dreadnoughts.

This game was going to be tough, but in a very different way to the last  the mission here was going to be problematic, as with purge the foe, victory points are gained for holding one and holding more plus kill one and kill more. Hold one and hold more were not going to be much of a problem, kill one was not going to be to much of a problem but kill more was going to be very difficult to do or deny.

Again with this game, I pushed right up to the line with the aim of moving forward to take some of the central ground. I also had to hang back a bit with the threat of the skyclaws.

My opponent mirrored my deployment, pushing up to the line, ready to charge forward and take the fight to me.

I got turn one, pushed up and only killing one unit, the fenrisian wolves for some easy points. 

We clashed in the in the centre and there were some obvious results, with a couple.of units wiped in the first turn,only to be recycled on the Reinforcements train! 

The wolves kept pushing forward and I took the opportunity to drop in behind, claiming my opponents home objective, forcing his skyclaws to drop in behind, only to fail a charge and then be annihilate by the scions that dropped in behind. A dreadnought tried to come back to reclaim the objective but with terrain and positioning he couldn't quite make it. 

By the end of the game, on turn 4, the wolves were in my deployment zone and could be a real threat and had good board control across the middle of the board. However, I still had a chance to clear out some of the centre and had option to recycle some more units that would inevitably get destroyed.
 

Overall the game was very close and I think turn 5 could have gone either way, however, there was no way that I could have actually won. As you can see in the score sheet the secondary scores were very close. I think a minor mistake was holding on to bring it down, I failed to score it in one round and took a gamble I could do it in the second round but failed. I think maybe I should have just binned it after not achieving in one round and drawn another. I don't know if that would have helped or not but either way 25 to 27 was a close score. The primaries however is a different story, I was 12 point down on the primary, all of which are due to the kill more. In total I was 16 points down due to kill more and if you took the kill more points out then the score.would have dropped to 67 to 65, a guard victory! Although if you take the hold more points out as well, then it's a 63 to 65 loss! Either way it was the kill more points that really hurt me.

Despite this, it was a very good game and I really enjoyed myself. So after 3 games on the Saturday, I found myself ready for game four to decided who came 7th and who came 8th. Oh, and I was to play my son. So all the way south, to play my own son!

Northern Invasion game 2

 Game 2 and as soon as i heard the draw I was resigned to loosing this one. The game was against a World Eater list that I had faced part of during my warm up games (which I will write up at some point) and that game was a resounding defeat. This is probably one of the main hard counters to my list, a pure close combat army with the ability for turn 1 charges across the board. Unlike this my warm up game, where I went very conservative with the deployment, i went aggressive and pushed up as far as I could, hoping for first turn to be able to push further up and try and claim some board control from the off. This didn’t happen and turn 1 went to the World Eaters and it was down hill from there on.

The list itself was quite compact, thanks in part to Angron, alongside two Masters of Execution, Jakhals, two Berserkers, two Exalted Eightbound, two Rhinos, Two Hellbrutes and a Maulerfiend. 

I wasn't bothered by the Jakhals or the Rhinos, everything else however, I was. Not this was possibly the worse matchup I could have. I want to push forward for board control and he wants to just charge stuff. What made things worse was the fact that my opponent got first turn and with his blessings of Khorne got the advance and charge. It was at this point I knew that my game was definitely over and it was now a case of trying to minimise the loss. 

End of movement turn 1 just before Angron charged.

The view from the trenches.

Turn 1 was not as bad as I thought it might be, with only Angron charging and the majority of the army staying back on objectives. Now it's at this point hat I should point out we played the mission wrong, as we did not remove the central objective, as the mission says to. I'll come back to this later when I reviewed the final score but needless to say, it put me at a disadvantage for the game. 

Turn 2 onwards it was mostly a case of trying to keep Angron at bay and keep him away from my home on active, which I managed to do but I failed with the berserkers who disembarked from the central rhino. 

The berserkers who cased me the most problems

I was sensible in some respects, not shooting the hellbrutes unless they didn't have anything to shoot back at or I managed to destroy them, I forgot about the berserkers blood surge though and shot at them, only to have them surge forward and into combat with one of my units, a unit that was supposed to be move blocking them, that they then minced in combat, ready to charge forward their turn, which they did, in to my command squad.

The game carried on that way. The only thing I had going for me was I was recycling units at a rate of knots, at least a unit a turn, as had pulled his exalted eightbound back toward his deployment zone by deep striking and brining reserves in that end. However, I was still having a hard time removing them, thank mostly to some command re-rolls. In the end the result was pretty much a forgone conclusion from the get go but I think I did alrigh, as this was the only game on the first day my opponent didn't score 100 points and technically he shouldn't have scored 90.

 As you can see the game ended 32 to 90 but if we had played the game correctly, it would have ended up just 32 to 75, still a crushing defeat but  not quite as crushing! 

The main issue, apart from playing the mission wrong, was that I just couldn't get out of my deployment zone and even with deep striking units and the reinforcements stratagem I just couldn't claim any real board control, which is what I need to do. The other point to note about this game is that my opponent went on to win the tournament, so can't complain to much about getting beaten here!

Northern Invasion game 1

 So my first game of the tournament and I had quiet a while to prepare myself for it. We all had to submit our lists a couple of weeks before and being a small tournament, the draws for round one were made a week or so before the tournament and all the list were published. This meant that I could see and for a plan for game 1, although all the other games were going to have to be done somewhat off the cuff, with a maximum of an hour in between games to plan! 

 Anyway, for game 1 I didn’t actually do much in the way of planning. Event though i had the list in advance the plan still remained the same. The army consisted of Shalaxi Helbane, the Masque of Slaanesh, a Contorted Epitome, an Infernal Enrapturess, a Keeper of Secrets, 4 units of Deamonettes, a Hellflayer, Seekers and Fiends. All in all, not actually that scary. Yes, there was a lot of close combat potential, if those deamonettes got in to combat, they would mince through any of my units with ease. However, they had to get there first, and that’s where I had an advantage.                                                                                                                                               

Deployment, the flyer is off the field, as are the deamonettes.

Seekers move up

Playing hide and seek, against mortars?

Turn one was the real danger turn with the seekers scouting up and then going for, and getting, a turn 1 charge. This could have been a issue, but he lost a seeker on the way in and fluffed his roles, leaving two guardsmen alive and there for not being able to consolidate in to my big squad on home objective. With that threat removed, I then dropped the mortars on some deamonettes and removed one squad completely and whittled down another to just over half. I also removed a couple of Fiends 

Turn 2 start.

After the movement phase.

This was the real turning point of the game, having managed to screen out the two big monsters dropping in close to my home objective and a superb round of overwatch by the large squad at the bottom to remove 8 wounds off the Fiends at the bottom to leave just one of 2 wounds, meant I was in quite a strong position for the rest of the game. 

Moving up for board control

End of turn 3

I didn’t get any more pictures after turn three, it proved very hard to think about the cards and tactics, take pictures and keep to the 3 hour time limit of games, so much so, that I didn’t actually finish a single game, all of them got to turn 4, including this one and we scored turn 5, after talking it through but didn’t actually get to play the turn out. 

In turn 3 I was able to drop in my scions and take down the last of the smaller daemons, leaving only some of his characters alive, all of which were geared up for taking down big monsters and vehicles rather than guardsman squads, a S6 D3 weapons is great for taking down guardsmen but when you only have 6 attacks, your not taking down a whole squad. 

This meant that I could dominate the primary missions and also restrict his ability to play the secondary missions, enabling me to build up the points. With just 3 models on the table turn 4, there was very little he could do at all. 

The final score was a comfortable win for the guard, and as it turned out this was probably a mistake! 

The way the tournament worked, all the winners from game one went in to one pool, and all the losers went a second pool, so I was now stuck with all the hardcore players gunning for top spot, and I just don't have the ability or will to compete at that level!

I really enjoyed this game and not just because I won but because my opponent was very friendly and nice, and pointed out a couple of mistakes, that wouldn’t have changed the game, did swing things more in my favour, including when I scored the primary’s at the start of my command phase, giving it to him, then used the DKoK medic to bring back two models, which was the wrong way around, as the medic should have acted first, thus giving me the objective and 5 points. 

Overall this game went exactly as i hoped and was really the only one that did!