Battle for Salvation: MVBrandt’s Journey
“So, I didn’t take pictures at the Battle for Salvation … nonetheless I will endeavour to give a full recounting of my battles and such.”
A quick overview on the BFS itself, and how it ties into things as a NOVA “style” event …
1) It’s two tournaments in one. If you like the more traditional battle points + painting + sports scoring all inclusive approach, it has that; at the end of the first day, your competitive rating is factored in with your sports and painting ratings and a Renaissance Man award is handed out that equates to the tournament Best Overall.
If you like purely competitive track gaming, there’s a competitive track built into / streamlined with the event that is largely a knock-out system; in the BFS you could actually win this with a loss, and that’s up to the event organizer; basically, the top 8 ratings competitively only at the end of Day 1 played in a “Gold Bracket” 3 round single elim with proper tourney reverse pairings (1 v 8, 2 v 7, 3 v 6, 4 v 5) while the 2nd 8 played in a “Silver Bracket” for a prize, and the 3rd 8 played in a “Bronze Bracket” for a prize. The winner of the Gold Bracket is the “Tournament Champion,” which is the equivalent of Best General.
At the NOVA next year, everyone will be split into brackets on the 2nd day and their records reset, for a full 8 round major GT.
I ended up placing 1st for Tournament Champion, and 2nd by a nosehair for Renaissance Man. A note – my last opponent on Day 1 won Renaissance Man, assisted in trumping me by my choice of him as my favorite opponent in terms of sportsmanship. Well deserved by him – I *could* have chipmunked him and won, but it’s a cautionary tale that doing so would hardly have earned me rights to such an award. I’d have to had to lie and say he WASN’T my fave (when he was) to “earn” it.
Onto the battle reports and my list …
I went into Vassal and was using it to recap … but was just getting it “fuzzy” on the key battles, and it was superfluous on the more one-sided ones.
So, right smack into it …
The Army List
First, my list … and the concept behind it.
Company Command Squad – Straken, Regimental Standard, Medic, Astropath, 2 x Veterans w/ Meltaguns, 2 x Bodyguards, Carapace Armor
+ Chimera Dedicated Transport w/ Hull Heavy Flamer
Grey Knight Brother Captain – Psychic Hood
Platoon Command Squad – Al’Rahem, 2 x Guardsmen w/ Laspistol+CCW, 2 x Guardsmen w/ Meltaguns
+ Chimera Dedicated Transport w/ Hull Heavy Flamer
2 x Infantry Squad – 1 x Guardsman w/ Meltagun, 8 x Guardsmen w/ Lasguns, 1 x Sarge w/ Bolt Pistol/CCW
+ Chimera Dedicated Transport w/ Hull Heavy Flamer
5 x Veteran Squad – 3 x Veterans w/ Meltaguns, 6 x Veterans w/ Shotguns, 1 x Sarge w/ Laspistol/CCW
+ Chimera Dedicated Transport w/ Hull Heavy Flamer
3 x Vendetta Gunship (solo, not Squadroned)
Army Usage
So, the purpose of the list was simple – utilize exceptional skill where possible to keep the 5 Vet Chimeras and Straken deployed, advancing to where they need to be, and as a going concern for my opponent; as a whole, the group of 6 chimeras is leadership durable w/ the standard, unit-for-point durable with cover and fnp on Straken (+ lots of models in the squad to soak “bad” wounds). It also hits like a truck, and if you’re skilled with movement can actually be much tougher than a glass hammer. Unfortunately, it lacks range really, but the multilasers can “ding” enough things up in most army builds to be material if forced by enemy fire or situation to stay more at range.
Please note – this is not a GREAT list by any means; it possesses the tools to functionally beat any opponent, but eschews key components of a typical guard army to better avoid playing the “rock paper scissors” game that some people choose with this game. It requires a lot of effort to play well, and understanding of the movement phase … please don’t just run helter skelter copying it b/c it beat Stelek and a couple other great players in a tough GT.
The Vendettas are dedicated “mess with someone’s day” units whose only real goal is to demobilize/mech or at least screw w/ an opponent’s movement some before they die … hence, if not going first, they were in reserve with support from the Astropath to get them on quickly.
Al’Rahem must reserve and outflank … his mission is unsubtle. The reason for putting meltaguns on the BS3 infantry squads and platoon command squad is that the 3 Chimeras take care of anti-infantry capacity quite nicely, but the meltaguns are REQUIRED to make Al’Rahem’s arrival a going concern for several army styles; it would also prove quite useful over the course of every game, as BS3 meltaguns certainly hit, you just can’t ever EXPECT them to with how you moved your models prior to firing.
Al’Rahem himself also helps out on occasion, b/c he has the Bring It Down order.
Straken and Co. always deployed covered, even if it meant being a little further back or having to take a few difficult terrain rolls early on … firepower on boards these days is intense, and I hate not having a 4+ hope save to protect me if an opponent hits and pens a chimera on turn 1.
There were always 3 of 4 Goals in play, where if you tied the primary goal, the win was determined by the 2nd goal … if you tied that, it was determined by the 3rd … if you tied that, it was determined by simple VP using the optionals at the back of the 40k rulebook. This is NOVA Style as well, where there are no true ties (to ensure the Tournament Champion track functions properly), but where scoring all goals in all rounds benefits you for purposes of your seeding and effectively operate as battle points (for the Renaissance Man track). Thus, the tactical thing to do is often to force a tie if the primary goal is not one well suited to your army, and to tactically plan in advance to win on 2ndary or tertiary.
The Goals were …
Victory Points (win by 250)
Kill Points (Nominate 5 of your opponent’s that you can score)
Objectives (5 fixed location, one centered in each quarter and one in center of board)
Quarters (captured by victory points preponderance, scoring units always count for full VP even if below half)
So onto the games …
Game 1 vs Chaos Space Marines
First round, the opponent’s army was as follows:
Demon Prince of Tzeentch w/ Gift of Chaos, Wings
Demon Prince of Nurgle w/ Warptime, Wings
Summoned Greater Demon
7 Chosen Chaos Space Marines w/ Champ(Meltabomb), Power Fist, Icon of Chaos Glory, 4 x Meltaguns
7 Plague Marines w/ Champ(PF), 2 x Meltaguns, Personal Icon, Rhino
7 Plague Marines w/ Champ(PF), 2 x Meltaguns, Personal Icon, Rhino
6 Noise Marines w/ Blastmaster, Personal Icon
6 Noise Marines w/ Blastmaster, Personal Icon
7 Lesser Demons
7 Lesser Demons
Defiler w/ Autocannon, Battlecannon, 2 x DCCW
2 Obliterators
I rolled to go first, the deployment was 12″ in, the mission tiering was (Victory Points, Quarters, Kill Points)
He nominated 3 of my Chimeras, and 2 of my Veteran Squads as the 5 Kill Points
I nominated his 2 Demon Princes, his Obliterators, and his 2 Plague Marine Rhinos
Here’s what deployment looked like (click to enlarge) …
Quick and Dirty:
He deployed his Obliterators, which was a mistake – Vendettas zapped them on Turn 1. His Defiler lost its weapons on Turn 2, and his Noise Marines were largely ignored … basically this reduced his long range fire to two S8 blasts, and that wasn’t enough to ever silence my Vendettas or de-mech my Chimeras effectively at range. His Demon and Demon Princes survived a key round of fire by rolling well, but otherwise things died about when they should, and I never lost a lot of my army’s insulation and protection. Also, Straken and the BC enjoyed eating Plague Marines … it’s one of the things they’re pretty good at. Knowledge of this let me largely ignore them after de-meching them from their Rhinos w/ the Vendettas, and eat them later in the game w/ a few melta shots and charges (always avoiding putting the BC in base contact w/ a pfist).
Final score …
~1700 VP to 500
5 KP to 2
4 Quarters to 0
Game 2 vs Orks
Round 2 … Opponent’s Army was as follows:
He had his list hand-written, so this is an approximate recollection …
Orks …
2 x Big Mek w/ Power Klaw, Kustom Force Field
5 x 12-Ork Slugga/Choppa/Bosspole/KlawNob Squads in Trukks w/ Rams
3 x 10 Lootas
3 x 3 Kannonz w/ 3 Ammo Runtz
3 x 3 Rokkit Buggies
The mission was Quarters / Kill Points / Objectives
He actually went first; for KP, he nominated my Vendettas and 2 of my Chimeras. I nominated 2 of his Loota squads, and 3 of his Trukks.
Here’s what deployment looked like:
Basically, Al’Rahem’s arrival smoked all of his lootas and kanz in the top left … Chimeras over time blew away his buggies, heavy flamers and the occasional furious charge dusted off his boyz once de-meched, and the Vendettas came in on the far back corner, and sniped away trukks while avoiding loota range until the lootas were dusted off by Al’Rahem’s 3 chimeras and dudes. Tank shocks got rid of all the kannonz.
This was a SLOW game, and we only finished 4 turns … as such, I scored:
5KP to I think 0, 3 Quarters, 3 Objectives … my lowest scoring game on the first day
Game 3 vs Imperial Guard
Round 3 was vs. a longer ranged guard army with a lot of templates and PBS …
His army was (again handwritten so don’t quote me)
Command Squad w/ Meltaguns, Chimera
2 x Psyker Battle Squads at full size w/ Chimeras
3 x Vendettas w/ Heavy Bolter Sponsons (I don’t know why people take these, they never do anything of value against good opponents that know they have to kill the Vendettas b4 they’ve finished de-meching an opponent)
4 Vet Squads w/ Meltaguns and Chimeras, 1 w/ Meltabombs as well
Vet Squad w/ Plasmaguns and Chimera
3 Medusas
I may be missing something … it felt like he had another thing or two, so … *shrug*
This was Kill Points / Objectives / Victory Points; he nominated my Vendettas and Straken’s Chimera + Straken (best nomination of the tournament, Straken’s the only guy who HAS to be involved)
The deployment was weird – board cut in half diagonally, with 9″ on either side; he went first, and deployed kinda spread along it, so when I deployed with a closer range hammer style army (compared to his) it was easy to just pick one of his flanks and start rolling. Deployment looked like this …
Basically he had one turn to shoot at me, and I was deployed behind a hillside (remember earlier what I said about being willing to take difficult tests w/ vehicles in exchange for cover? yeah, saved my ass). He stunned or immobiilized a chimera or two with turn 1 fire, while a couple things were out of range … and that was that. I moved up, started rolling and blowing his line up, forced him to mobilize to react to Straken … and then my Vendettas arrived on my bottom long edge to bang up all his stuff on side armor / exposed sides, and then Al’Rahem arrived from the LEFT side via outflank, and shot all his mobilizing elements in the rear w/ multilasers, before moving up on them with heavy flamers and meltas. It was a rout … player probably should have deployed with his army more “core,” taken what shots he could, and reserved his own vendettas … with me having an Astro and him not, his would have statistically arrived later, and been able to bang mine out of the sky, and secure advantages gained early by his out-power at range (pbs, medusas, roughly same # of chimeras).
By having his Vendettas on the board, and his army kinda “lined up,” I was able to crunch his flank, force him to start reacting to me, and then the flexible arrival locations of my reserves … on two of his other sides … basically took the game out of reach.
Final score was 2000 VP to 550 or so, 5 Objectives, 5 KP and I think he scored 2 KP
Game 4 vs Witchhunters
Round 4 was vs. an Immo Spam list …
Looked like this …
Palatine w/ Book + 5 Celestians w/ 2 Meltas in Immolator
3 x 5 Celestians w/ 2 Meltas in Immolators
3 x 5 Storm Troopers w/ 2 Melta (hiijacked Heavy Support Immolators)
Allied Guard PCS w/ 4 Flamers, Chimera
3 x Guard Squads w/ Autocannon, Chimera w/ HK Missile
3 x 5 Dominions w/ Superior, 3 Flamers, Immolators
3 x Heavy Support Immolators
All his Immos had smoke natch
Mission was Objectives … Victory Points … Quarters
He went 2nd, here’s what deployment looked like …
Basically, I outmaneuvered him in this game, and positioned him up so that he’d hit me in the wrong order / too piecemeal, but it should have still been really close and messy, b/c immo spam is a good counter to my list. Regardless, things didn’t work that way .. around Turn 2 or 3 when I had him “set up,” instead of just melta killing the lead immos and having to duke it out messy style, it seemed like every one of my Mulitlasers and Vendetta shots caused an EXPLOSION, and every one of his units got pinned off it. The game turned into a rout quickly, his dice just wouldn’t work and mine were on fire. I would argue that a win was going to happen either way off deployment and maneuver during the game, but it was sort of irrelevant in the end – his shit just literally exploded. I would kill all of his vehicles by end game, and only 2 were “wrecks” … everything else was an explosion, and most of it not from Melta … from like, Multilasers. Plenty good enough gun for anyone, I suppose, as Mark Twain famously once said about the Catfish.
Final score was 1950 to 300 VP, 5 Objectives to 0, 4 Quarters to 0
So I finished the day the #1 Seed, set to play Bill McFadden’s tri-wagon Orks (#8 Seed) in the Quarter-finals of the Gold Bracket on Day 2.
Here’s where my Vassal set-up pics fail too … I’ll try to update them in.
Game 5 vs Orks
Bill had …
Warboss w/ Power Klaw
Big Mek w/ KFF
10 Nobz differentiated w/ Painboy, but just regular armor (6+) and no Cybork
He had 2 large shoota squads in heavy support Battlewagons w/ Deffrollas
His Nobz had a battlewagon w/ a Reinforced Ram
He had 3 squads of 5 Lootas
He had a squadron of 2 rokkit buggies
He had a pair of slugga/choppa/bp/pk nob Trukk boyz
He had a pair of solo Deffkoptas w/ Rokkit Launchas
He had some Gretchin
It was Dawn of War, w/ … heck if I recall; Objectives, Kill Points, Victory Points were all in play if I recall correctly. I went first.
Basically I spread my Vendettas out, and used Al’Rahem’s chimeras to get tons of by-turn-2 side and rear shots on his battlewagons, adn they were all dead at midfield by the end of Turn 2. From there I used multilasers and al’rahem to kill his lootas, trukks and buggies. I spammed Vendetta fire into his Nobz so they would arrive banged up. I melta-spammed and charged down his surviving Nobz and his 20-shootas+warboss w/ my 50 veterans all furiously beating them down (which is always fun to watch). I think I did 29 wounds to the surviving 15 shootas (so they died), and Straken personally handed the Warboss unhappy-times.
Bill’s list was going to struggle against mine either way, I think … but it didn’t help that I put a ton of cover saves on his Bwags early, and they weren’t really able to make enough of them (his luck early on cover saves was balls bad).
Semi Final vs Blood Angels
Semi-Final was against Alex Fennel, whose list looked like this …
Mephiston
5 ASM w/ Meltagun, Meltabombs, Godhammer Land Raider w/ EA, MM
5 ASM w/ Meltagun, Meltabombs, Razorback w/ TLLC
5 ASM w/ Meltagun, Meltabombs, Razorback w/ TLLC
4 TH/SS Terms + 1 LC Term w/ Redeemer w/ MM, EA
3 TH/SS Terms + 2 LC Terms w/ Redeemer w/ MM, EA
2 x SHP
Simple and brutal army played by one of the better and better-known GT vets. Super nice guy, and we bounced off each other well – powerful gamers who didn’t pull punches but had great attitudes; I think we fed off that from each other, and really upped our games.
This was basically going to be one of those “can the Vendettas survive and do enough damage to his Raiders before they get here with Mephiston?” fights … it’s easy to point to all the answers for redeemers, FNP SS terminators, Mephiston … but dealing with all of them applied at once to the heart of your army by a great players? SO PAINFUL.
I blew up one of the Redeemers early, and de-weaponized/stunned/immobilized the TLLC Razorbacks early. Fennel reserved his whole army, to burn time off for me to do things, and to enable himself to arrive on semi-protected, and with shots at me. This game got really brutal … he hit me eventually with redeemer + 10 terminators + mephiston all at once, while running his ASM around holding objectives …it was objectives/quarters/victory points by the by.
This required every ounce of skill from both of us, and involved extensive movement and positioning shenanigans in close as I bought time to whittle down his key units and contest what I had to … I wish I had pictures to tell more about it, but it came down to crazy moves on both our parts during Turns 6 and 7 for me to pull off an “eventual” 3:0 objective win late … we both probably had well over half our armies dead, with wounded Strakens and Mephistons limping about.
The hero for me in this game was the Brother Captain … his hood stopped EVERY SINGLE MEPHISTON WINGS, which is statistically improbable at best. My 3rd turn fire on his raiders almost screwed me, as I landed 9 hits with my Vendettas and literally about 9 4’s on the “to-damage” rolls. D’oh!
Fennel is an awesome player, and we both did all we could to win in the most amicable fashion possible with solidly painted armies and big smiles. We had lunch beforehand, we chatted afterward … it felt like a championship match. That all said – more conversation about and examples from this game will come in later articles about how important MOVEMENT is to the game of 40k; I reck’n we both demonstrated it well in this one. It was MOVEMENT, and not dice or target prioritization or list, that would determine the win here … but more to come on that in later days.
Finals vs Space Wolves
Round 7 vs. Stelek (Final Round for Tournament Champion).
Stelek’s list …
Thunderwolf Battle Leader w/ Combi-Melta, Wolf Claw, 2 Fenpups
Wolf Guard Squad spread out to things + empty Plasmaback
5 Wolf Scouts w/ Meltagun, Attached Wolf Guard w/ Wolf Claw, Combi-Melta, Meltabombs
5 Wolf Scouts w/ Meltagun, Attached Wolf Guard w/ Wolf Claw, Combi-Melta, Meltabombs
5 GH w/ Meltagun, Rhino, attached Wolf Guard w/ Combi-Melta, Bolt Pistol
5 GH w/ Meltagun, Rhino, attached Wolf Guard w/ Combi-Melta, Bolt Pistol
5 GH w/ Meltagun, Rhino, attached Wolf Guard w/ Combi-Melta, Bolt Pistol
5 GH w/ Meltagun, Rhino, attached Wolf Guard w/ Combi-Melta, Bolt Pistol
5 Inquisitorial Storm Troopers w/ 2 Plasma Guns
5 Inquisitorial Storm Troopers w/ 2 Plasma Guns
Thunderwolf w/ Wolf Claw
Land Speeder w/ MM/HF
Land Speeder w/ MM/HF
5 Long Fangs w/ 4 Missiles, Plasmaback
5 Long Fangs w/ 4 Missiles, Plasmaback
5 Long Fangs w/ 4 Missiles, Plasmaback
So, this list is “better” than mine on paper; he outranges me, and I have to play expertly to actually apply Straken and vets w/out just losing them to lots of MSU 6-man grey hunter squads / long fang template spam / thunderwolves / etc. His BEL scouts are going to probably kill my Vendettas at some point, so I have to have a plan for that …
The mission is quarters deployment, quarters the mission, kill points, objectives
He nominated Al’Rahem’s guard squad Chimeras, and the 3 Vendettas
I nominated his Scouts, his Speeders, and his basic Thunderwolf.
IMO I played my movement and execution on this one well, but made 1 key mistake and had 1 key whiff
Stelek rolled “odds” for his missiles most of the game, but for some reason deployed all of the long fangs in cover that gave ME cover for a lot of their shots out of it … we chatted briefly post-game about it, and it boiled down to him worrying I’d stick my stuff in the far corner of the board and lol his missiles out of play if he put them too far back himself, so they were closer to center with good fields of fire, but with their own cover piece putting “shrubbery” in the way of all their shots. This helped some, but I failed all but about 2 of my vehicle cover saves, so I’m not sure how effective it was.
What got to him (understandably) was rolling odds on the missile DAMAGE results … i.e. 24 missile shots in the first 2 turns hit about 16 times, penned 3 instead of the statistical 5.33 times, and did a bunch of glances. The pens wrecked one chimera, immobilized another, stunned a third … one could see this as “bad” luck, in taht he only killed 1 Chimera in 2 turns of missile fire … or as “odds” in that 3 pens actually only results in 1 kill, and that’s what occurred. Still, there were a few lascannons from plasmabacks thrown in there, so odds were a little on the shallow side for him … but the first 2 turns were key; by only losing a Chimera or two and another one or two immobilized/stunned back, Straken’s Chimera was able to punch out and smoke in front of all his fangs and recently arrived Thunderwolves. His Chimera survived – which it was more likely to than not – but actually survived almost unscathed, short a multilaser and shaken but mobile with the Twolf battle leader + twolf all exposed right in front of it … Straken’s only real “fear” from CC. So, Straken got out and set to charge the twolf squad (he’d combined), and the Chimera tank shocked into the long fangs and actually broke one squad off the board (lolzy). Things to messy everywhere else on the board – and Straken charged, with the GKBC going first over the Wolf Claw Twolf … hit 4 times … and rolled … 3 x 1’s. Crap. After another round of combat, Straken had killed the twolf bl, fenpups, and twolf, but the whiff by the GKBC meant instead of killing the thunderwolf outright, straken and the BC suffered 9 wolf claw attacks … which sufficiently whittled Straken’s squad out that he wasn’t able to go run rampant through all the long fangs and spare gh … so hid in a Chimera offering up his aura for the rest of the game.
I basically bumrushed half Stel’s army and gave half the board; I made a mistake in advancing a vet squad a little too far, affording him a charge out of a rhino on them and a loss of an area of the board that almost bit me in the ass, but I was able to preserve one of my KP, tie quarters, and kill his 5 KP … winning the game late. Great game … another one I’ll go into some details on.
IMO Stelek and I both made mistakes in this one; we were both visibly fatigued from 7 games prior (1 exhibition game Fri night, 4 on Sat, 2 till that point on Sun), and I was rushing a little to try and get out of there for the drive home w/ my patiently waiting friends. Nonetheless, it was a tight and touch-and-go game … and amicably fought and resolved.
Closing Thoughts
All in all, the BFS was a good tournament; the terrain and tables were a little rough on occasion, but for the most part it was all of a very high quality. More importantly, the guys in the Battle for Salvation gaming club are AWESOME people; they include Danny Internets, Ultrabob, Pissclams, Fritz (Way of Saim Hann) who I played in an exhibition match the Friday before the tournament, Jawaballs nominally, and others … really awesome group. Great weekend, I lucked out through a couple of my games to take home the Tournament Champion and sword prize, and all was fun and well!
For any that have heard misinformation about NOVA style events – do feel free to ask about or chat me up about them; their goal is to give “pure” competitive gamers a win/loss traditional/true style tournament format to play through, while still preserving the more standardized battlepoints/sportsmanship/painting component within the same event. Instead of just having it be “all or nothing” where it’s either Ard Boyz all-battle-points or “all soft influence” and simply having Best General/Best Overall be de facto #’s 1 and 2, it splits the prizes and awards them through separate mechanisms while all play within the same event. The #3 Overall went 1-3 on the first day while being a stellar sport with a gorgeous army … the #1 Overall went 3-1 with both of those factors, and the #2 Overall went 4-0 with strong sports and decent painting … about what you’d expect. Meanwhile, the Best General equivalent went to the one guy who over 2 hard fought days was the SOLE undefeated still standing. What could be simpler or more sensible?
