Dragoon 6: Tournament Report

A low angle shot, Army in ranks behind.

So I went to a tournament this past weekend. It was just a local community affair, nothing terribly big or fancy. But I always feel that when you are breaking back in, you need to start somewhere, and Adepticon is probably not a wise choice. Thus, there I was at castle games in Colorado Springs, to pit my Imperial Guard against nine others, and compete for smallish prizes for 1st overall, best competitor, and Best Presentation. Here is what I brought:

HQ:190 Company Command Squad
   - Creed (Major Howard)
   - Grenade Launchers x4
   - Astropath

Troops:1810

 1st Infantry Platoon
  Platoon Command Squad
   - 4 Melta Guns

   1st Squad
    - Grenade Launcher
    - Autocannon
    - Commissar
      - Bolt pistol
      - Power weapon

   2nd Squad
    - Grenade Launcher
    - Auto-cannon

  3rd Squad
    - Grenade Launcher

    - Autocannon

  
4th Squad
   -Grenade Launcher
   -Auto-cannon
   - Commissar
    +Bolt Pistol
    +Power weapon

 2nd Infantry Platoon
   Platoon Command Squad
    -4 melta guns
   
   1st Squad
    -Autocannon
     -Commissar
      +bolt pistol
      +power weapon

   

   2nd Squad

     - Autocannon


   Heavy Weapon Squad
     +3 Lascannons


    Heavy Weapons Squad
     +3 Lascannons


    Heavy Weapoins Squad
     +3 Lascannons

  3rd Infantry Platoon
   Platoon Caommand Squad
    - Al-rahem
    - 3 Plasma Guns
     -1 Melta Gun
   
   1st Squad
     -Flamer
     -Sergeant
      +power weapon
     -Commissar
      +bolt pistol
      +power weapon

    2nd Squad
     -Flamer
     -Sergeant
      +power weapon
    
    3rd Squad
     -Flamer
     -Sergeant
      +power weapon
     -Commissar
      +bolt pistol
      +power weapon
   
   4th Squad
     -Flamer
     -Sergeant
      +power weapon
  
    Special Weapons Squad
     +3 Plasma Guns
 
    Special weapon Squad
     +3Plasma Guns

The rest of the field was....interesting
1 Imperial Guard Renegades (using FAQs and Codecies not seen in some time)
1 Grey Knights
1 Horde Orks
1 Necrons
1 Chaos Space Marines
3 Space Wolves
1 Blood Angels

    While I DID bring a camera (and a nice one at that) I forgot the SD card. So regrettably, I must call upon you all to use your imaginations while I go into the brief battle reports. However,  I DO have some pictures of a few figurines of mine that were taken a couple of weeks before the tournament.

   Game 1: Vs Blood Angels

Deployment: Spearhead

Mission: Three objectives, fixed placement. 1 in table center, 1 in center of each unclaimed table quarter. At end of each game turn, score one point for objective you control

Major Win: Score 5 more points than your opponant

Minor Win: Score 2 more points than your opponant

Special Rules: Standard USR, plus at least half of your units must begin the game in reserve. units may walk onto you board edge in your deployment zone on turn one.

Enemy Forces:

 - Librarian Dread

 - Death Company dreads x3

 - dread with CCW and Plasma Cannon

 - Furioso Dread

 - 2 tactical squads with flamer and missle launcher

 - Librarian

 - 10 death comapany with chaplain 

   This was an odd game in almost every respect. The mission was a bit peculiar, and even more so was the enemy army. No jump packs or drop pods anywhere. As you can imagine, after being forced to reserve half his army, the March of the Dreadnoughts across the table did not go well for him. Only one of his dreads had a gun, and that one died first. I had set up such that my opponent could not hide from the guns if he wanted to accomplish anything. With only two troop choices to hold objectives, I won a Major Victory here, with ease. One of only three major victories that would happen within the tournament.

   Game 2: Vs Chaos Space Marines
Deployment: Modified Table Quarters. Lots of rules  that said we had diagonal deployment with a fairly narrow no-mans land in between. Deployment was done by alternating choices, as per 4th edition rules. roll for 1st turn after deployment is done.

Mission: Killpoints. Seek out and destroy as many enemy units as possible

Major Win: Score 5 points more than your opponent.

Minor Win: Score more points than your opponent

Special Rules: Standard USRs (Random Game Length, Infiltrate, scout, outlfank, and deep strike)

Enemy Forces:

 - Greater Demon
 - Demon Prince (wings)
 - Large Berzerker squad in rhino
 - Kharn and 5 possessed in Land Raider
 - 2 small lesser demon squads
 - 1 small chosen squad
 - 2 small Plague Marines squads in rhinos
 - Vindicator

 

     This game was set up and my opponent went first. He just revved up the engines on his vehicles and zoomed as far forward as he could with smoke everywhere. I decided to gamble here and staked all my good weaponry to front to try and get some quick vehicle kills. It, um......didn't go quite as planned. He made every single cover save he was called on to make. 

every.last.one. 

  So, the epic failure of my command squads and heavy weapons to make any impression on the incoming horde resulted in a very nasty turn two for me. I lost Creed and his squad, and both of the command squads to platoons one and two. However, my investment in commissars was about to pay off. Big time. Because my squads were both large and stubborn, I did not flee from any of the myriad combats that occurred for the rest of the game. Nearly all of the killpoints either player scored this game were from attrition based Close Combats (though I should thank Khaarn for helping with one of them) The final tally in this game was his 8 KP to my 6.
     It was a minor loss for me, but one that was filled with many glorious moments for the unlikely heroes of the Imperial Guard. We defeated both the Demon Prince and the greater demon in close combat. We slew the lesser demons with bayonet and pistol. A Rhino was death or gloried by a lascannon, causing an unussual number of caualties to the Plague marines within it.. The cost of all the commissars I took in this list is right around 280 with equipment. That 280ish points REALLY saved the day, and helped squeak out a respectable showing after a hugely disastrous opening gambit.

                          Hero of the Game - Commissar #4

 

Game 3: Vs Ghazgull's ork horde
This was probably the most difficult to win scenario I've seen in a LONG time. the mission was drawn up as follows:

Deployment: Pitch Battle
Mission: Modified Take and Hold: To win you must get friendly units into your opponents deployment zone, while preventing him from entering yours.
Minor Win condition: If you have more units in your enemies deployment zone than he has in yours, you score a minor win
Major Win: If you have ANY units in your opponents DZ, and he has NONE in yours, you score a Major Victory.
Special Rules: Night Fight (roll for dawn as you would reserves)

Enemy Forces:

 - 10 Nobs and Warboss in Battle Wagon,

 - 10 Nobs and Ghazghull in Battle Wagon

  - 3 Mobs of 25 boyz with Nob

    This game was played on a table that didn't have much to block line of sight, but the Night Fight ended up lasting through turn 4. Both of us had set up a killing field overlooking the open ground on the left side of the table, so very little happened on that side, as no one was too keen to get shot to pieces for no gain. So we shift our attention to the right flank. On that flank he had the dominating force:  the two nob squads in battle wagons, and one the boyz mobs. 

     As I watched him set up, I noted from his list that the nobs all had Docs, cybork bodies, different kits...the works. In order to get a major victory, I would have to kill all of these things, plus the supporting mob of 25 boyz, with a small portion of my army. The Battle Wagons set up on the extreme right side and rolled up together. My good fortune took care of those vehicles in short order, but the damage had already been done, and his next turn saw the calling of the Waagh and the destruction of most of the forces I had deployed to that side. My Al-Rahem platoon turned out to be right on the money here, and every unit I had outflank arrived on the right side. Cleansing flame and lasgun, followed by brutal assault, caused much havoc to the nobs with warboss, but Ghazgulls mob seemed all but invincible. After using third platoon to clear out the Warboss squad, and Creeds grenade launcher team to simply murder the big boyz squad (they killed 19 orks in two rounds. the remaining 6 fled.), with time running out, I decided to run for the minor win. Because he made his squad Slow and Purposeful, getting away from Ghazghulls mob was pretty easy. I got 3 units in his zone to 2 units in mine. A minor Win for me.

At 'em, boys!

  Final Result:    As I mentioned before, the missions were pretty hard to get a decisive win in. I got 1 of the three major victories that day, and scored well on my soft scores to finish second overall, with the chaos marines that beat me in the second round winning the overall category. While I did not succeed in accomlishing all of the missions provided, I always felt as though I had manpower to spare for secondary efforts. So when I get to tournaments with more complicated missions and scoring structures, I feel confident that the tuned version of this army will handle it just fine. I was awarded "Best Presentation" for my efforts to make the army I had brought as fleshed out as I could. (the army represents a WWII British Airlanding company. For more information, google "Pegasus Bridge" and "The Merville Artillery Battery) When I built the army, I had built it to take advantage of mental pressure. At this tournament, I found that no one was uptight enough about the game or the admittedly small prizes being awarded, for that aspect of my game to have much of an effect. In fact, it generally had the opposite effect, and I got a LOT of compliments on the army as a whole.

     So in conclusion: The army has some very strong points to it. I proved that even when grossly outclassed, the army can take an enormous beating, and still pull together something that looks like a cohesive plan. I proved that certain characters are instrumental to the success of this army, while others are less so (Al-rahem is a staple. Creed...is less so) I know now what I can do to tune the army a little, and what mistakes I made that can be corrected for a better result next time. Because I have proven to myself that this is an army I feel I can control well, I intend to take this list to the next level. Later this year will be participating in the Second Annual Feast of Blades, and I will travel back to my home store to compete for the right to represent them this year. Be on notice Colorado,  "Die Rote Teufeln" are landing soon!

Id love some feedback on these battle reports, did the foot guard surprise you?


Dragoon 6