Weekend Tournament Report - 1500 Point RTT

For the past couple of years I've been running local events at my FLGS, Fanatix Enterprise, here in Enterprise, AL.  We've seen the tournament scene fluctuate over the years here and recently we decided to jump on the ITC bandwagon.  This past Sunday we held our first official ITC RTT.

This was the first time we decided to enforce the 3 color requirement for painting for our local events and because of that, and because we have a growing competitive scene here, we decided to keep the points to 1500.  I used this as motivation for myself to get my Cabal Star army painted. I find the pressure of a deadline as usually the best motivation for me to hobby and paint.  After working for a few months I finally got my 1500 point list ready.

We only had 8 players for this event, but man did we see some brutal lists. From Imperial Knights, to Tallyband Daemonic Incursion, to Space Marines and of course everyone's favorite, Eldar.  I didn't come into it with much hope of actually winning, because I felt the army I was building was just too light on units for proper objective control.  Instead it's all about the Cabal Star ripping up the table, and that they did for the most part.

My list was as follows:

+++1500 Cabal Star+++
++CAD Khorne Daemonkin++
Juggerlord w/ Goredrinker and Sigil
Cultists x8
Bloodletters x8
Flesh Hounds x10
Chaos Knight of Khorne
Void Shield Generator
++Cyclopia Cabal++
Sorcerer ML3 bike, Black Mace, Spell Familiar
Sorcerer ML3, bike, Force Axe, Spell Familiar
Sorcerer ML3 bike, Force Sword, Spell Familiar

Round 1 saw me matched up against the aforementioned Tallyband.  Lot's of plague bearers, nurglings, and soul grinders along with a great unclean one. This army was going to be tough because of all the bodies and his ability to summon more.

Round 1 Tallyband

We played ITC Mission 6 which was Crusade primary.  Turn 1 saw him roll an 11 on the warp storm resulting in popping one of my sorcerers for First Blood right away.  He kept slogging his units forward for objective control meanwhile I pushed forward with my Chaos Knight and hounds. I broke the Lord off to deal with the Herald he made from the warp storm result. I broke my remaining two sorcerers off to go and try to handle his great unclean one warlord who was pushing up the middle of the board. I didn't want to do this, but because he got First Blood I really needed to earn warlord to offset that point.

Setting up against the Tallyband for Round 1

In the end, he was able to win the primary by pile-in from combat to get within 3" to deny me a center objective and thus prevent me from tying Crusade. We tied on the Maelstrom and he earned First Blood and Linebreaker. Tallyband wins 8-2. I didn't really get any useful powers for my Cabal in this round. Despite 9 rolls on Biomancy with re-rolls for repeats I could not pull Endurance. Cabal was hardly a factor at all in this game.

Round 2 had me up against Space Marines and a Medusa Strike Force.  The primary was Purge the Alien.  This guy's army centered around the Iron Hands Chapter Master on a bike with a 2+ FNP with gorgon's chain. He was rolling around with a bike command squad. In addition he brought Skyhammer.  This was going to be a fight, but one I felt I could win. My main goal was to deny his Chapter Master the Feel No Pain by Enfeeble. I again rolled mostly on Biomancy and ended up getting Endurance and Enfeeble.

Round 2 Iron Hands Medusa Strike Force

Turn 1 I deployed my VSG with bloodletters sitting on an objective.  The Knight bubble wrapped by the Hounds and Cabal to prevent the multi-melta drop from Skyhammer.  He came down with his Skyhammer and ended up killing a single hound.  On my Turn 1 I used Shroud of Deceit to take one of the grav dev squads over and wipe out one of the assault squads. My Knight killed 2 drop pods that were right beside each other with his melta cannon along with the squad of devs with the grav cannons. Then the Cabal charged another squad of devs and wiped them.

This was the board shortly after I had destroyed most of the Skyhammer

He pushed his chapter master and command squad down towards my objective. On my next turn I cast Enfeeble on the command squad dropping their Strength and Toughness down by 1.  I charged my knight in where he would remain for the game locking the squad down. My cabal pushed up towards the center of the table wiping out unit after unit. I broke off one of the Sorcs and hid it behind LOS blocking terrain to keep casting Enfeeble on the command squad. In the end I was well ahead on the primary, earned King of the Hill by having more scoring units within 6" of the center and got First Strike and Linebreaker. My opponent won the Maelstrom and got Linebreaker.  Final score 7-5 in my favor.

After a dinner break we returned for Round 3. The mission was Emperor's Will and the opponent would be Eldar. CAD with double aspect hosts and a sword and board Wraithknight.  This was going to be a tough matchup for me because he had 2 squads of Fire Dragons in Serpents. Fortunately for a change I managed to get all of my key powers: Endurance, Enfeeble, Hammerhand, Sanctuary and Invisibility.  I won the roll to go first and powered my star up. By turn 2 I had killed most of his army by multi charges. His speed would be the difference as he won the Primary. I managed to pull off the Maelstrom and all 3 Tertiaries though so ended up winning 7-5.

Round 3: Eldar CAD and double Aspect Host

Setting up against the Eldar

Overall I finished 2-1.  It was about what I expected. I probably shouldn't have run the Knight and the Cabal together as it really limited the amount of board control I had, but I really wanted to field my knight. I wasn't all that concerned with winning as I really only played to prevent an odd number of players anyway. The tournament gave me the motivation I needed to finish painting this force and it did pretty well on the table so I was quite pleased.

In the end Imperial Knights beat out the Tallyband in the final round to win the event. I felt pretty happy about that as I had helped the Knight player build his list earlier in the week. It performed quite well throughout the event for him as he got nearly max points in all 3 rounds.

Tourney Winner: Imperial Knights with Dark Angels CAD

It was a great event with a lot of tough lists.  Our competitive community has gotten better and better over the past couple of years with some really brutal lists being dropped in our tourneys.  I had a great time and can't wait til the next one.