So I played mech BT at my 'Ard Boys. About half the field was out of towners who had never been to our LGS so it was definitely a cool experience playing them.
Here is my list...
HQ:
Marshal
-Dual Lightning Claws
-Terminator Armor
-Tank Hunter
-4 Man Terminator Command Squads
-2 x Asscans
-Tank Hunters
-Deep Strike
Emperor's Champ
-Accept Any Challenge
Elites:
Terminator Assault Squad
-4x LC, 2x TH/SS
-Land Raider Crusader Smoke
Troops:
15 man squad
-Power Fist
-Flamer
-LRC w/ Smoke
15 man Squad
-Power Fist
-Flamer
-LRC w/ Smoke
10 man Squad
-PF
-Meltagun
-Rhino w/ extra armor and smoke
10 man Squad
-PF
-Meltagun
-Rhino w/ extra armor and smoke
A pretty simple list, but a lot of AAC bodies, a deathstar CC Termie unit, and an HQ squad that can tear through any armor that isn't a monolith with ease in shooting or CC.
The general idea is to rush them with the land raiders with rhinos hanging back on objectives in my zone, or following behind the raiders playing clean up. Simple.
Scenario One. Jeff playing Mech Tau
Jeff is a regular at my LGS and we have played several times. It's hard to be a competitive Tau player now but his list is improving as he changed from gunline to mech. The game went according to plan, rush the raiders up, popped smoke first turn. Second turn the raiders spit out their cargo and PotM Asscan took down two devilfish to spill out the baddies inside who got charged by the 15 man squads.
He made a deployment/movement mistake by keeping his crisis team 6 inches from his broadsides, because it allowed my assault terminators to charge both of them, and wiped each. That was where the tide definitely turned as he lost a lot of his firepower before either got to take a meaningful shot.
Next turn the nearby Hammerhead shot at the terminators, killing one, they zealed 6 inches towards it and on my turned charged it bringing it down with thunderhammers. My Terminator marshal deep struck in with his tank hunters and blasted the rear of his other hammer head with Str 7 Asscans blowing off all of it's weapons. From there on with his heavy stuff gone it was clean up. I won in a massacre with 3 objectives and at least a dozen more kill points.
Second Scenario - Matt Witch Hunters
Matt was not a local and played a pretty interesting gunline SoB army. I have not actually ever played against Sisters due to the rarity of people willing to buy 10 metal sisters at $35 a box. His army consisted of a cannoness, 120 sisters with bolters, meltagun and heavy flamer in 20 man squads, three exorcists, and an allied DH inquisitor with mystics (to kill daemons or drop pods) with heavy weapon servitors.
This mission was straight kill points so I was worried about how my 50 or so bodies were going to kill 130 or so bodies.
To be continued...
...
Matt deployed first putting two squads right on the middle of the board so I'd be stuck on the back six for my deployment. The rest of his army would walk on turn one. I deployed my two 15 man squads in their LR 18 away from his girls. I stole the initiative and got a first turn charge on the squad with his cannoness in it. I killed 8 or so of them taking one neophyte casualty. They had wargear which allowed them to use the cannoness leadership unmodified, but they still rolled an 11 on the test and I ran them down. Six kill points on the first turn is not so bad.
On his turn his stuff walked on and his Exorcists took some ineffectual shots at my LRC. Second turn my Assault termies in their LRC assaulted the other forward deployed 20 man sister squad and killed them to a lady. Everything else moved forward. On his turn his exorcists popped my Land raiders with 15 men insides. Quite good rolling, 6 to pen for a glance and then 6 on the chart to wreck with AP1. My guys inside deployed and got rapid fired on by 20 strong sisters units, who used faith to get AP1 on sixes to wound. Those squads were each reduced to about 5 men left.
My third turn my assault termies reembarked into their LRC and it rumbled forward 12 and popped smoke. My tank hunters teleported in, took some mystic enabled sister shots which killed two of them thanks to AP1 on sixes. They then blasted apart an exorcist with assault cannons. My 5 remaining initiates from the original 15 men charged the mystic and retinue, slaughtering them to a man. The other 5 men charged headlong into a 20 man sister squad, killed a few and then got killed back by strength 5 faith powered sisters.
The rest of the game was clean up, I managed to destroy one of his other exorcists with a multimelta shot from a land raider, and my 5 remaining guys hid behind the wreckage of a Land Raider to not give up their precious kill point.
At the end of turn 6 I had 16 kill points and he had 9 giving me a major victory.
Scenario three - JD with Daemons.
JD is another regular at the LGS who had beating his first two opponents pretty badly and I wasn't looking foward to this battle. He had Fateweaver, Bloodcrushers, and 2 nurgle daemon princes that formed a nigh unkillable ball of CC death. He also had two squads of 6 Screamers of Tzeetch, which arent normally a great choice, but they happen to scare me since I have three land raiders.
I did not rush him at all, my land raiders stayed back at 22" away and took shots at things outside of the fateweaver bubble. I killed a squad of Fiends of Slaanesh early and a squad of screamers and one of the daemon princes as he rushed ahead of Fateweaver to try to get to one of my LRC.
I shot to death two of his Slaanesh heralds. This was a puzzling choice, I asked him why he took them rather than a GD and he said he wanted the ability to Pavanne twice per turn on objective missions and to pull units towards his Fateweaver bubble.
By this point we were on turn 5 due to quick turns and defensive play by me. His bloodcrushers left the bubble to assault a rhino. They failed to pop it. My assault termies and a 10 man squad assaulted into fateweaver and a daemon prince. I took heavy losses and put all my attacks onto Fateweaver. I wounded him about 25 times and he saved all but 1 leaving him with one wound. I passed my fearless saves and we were locked in.
In retrospect I should have put all my attacks onto the Daemon prince as he was more killy and would only have a 5++ save rather than 3++. On turn six I shot his bloodcrushers with a LRC and 23 bolt pistol shots and a flamer and a melta gun. Managed to killed two of them and put a wound each on two of the remaining 3. I charged them with 25 Templars and slew them.
My termies couldnt kill fateweaver again despite getting several wounds, his re-rollable 3++ was just too good and his rolls werent poor. The prince slaughtered the rest of my crusader squad.
On his turn 6 he turboboosted his Screamers to contest my objective, a huge mistake on my part. I had it surrounded by a 15 man squad but they were packed too tightly. I should have spread them out so he couldnt get 3" near it. Huge mistake on my part.
He beat me 1 objective to 0, and I beat him 6 kill points to 5 for a draw. He got a bonus point for killing all my HQ and another bonus for having scoring units in three table quarters.
So I ended with 50 points, which was the most at my store. The Daemon guy I drew with ended with 49 for second place. Luckily, the tournament was pretty anemic, and no one ran away with 3 massacres. Everyone took at least one draw and most others a loss somewhere.
See you in Orlando for the semis.
