I went to Scandus 2017 - Day 1

Greetings!

so it took some time but here is the (i assume) long as all hell scandus wrap-up for day one.

Now, since i haven't really written anything since the start of my Knight questoris project, maybe a quick follow up is suitable. The aim was to finish two knights for Scandus, since scandus is a pretty big tourney, points wise (3500 pts) it is encouraged that you bring the toys you usually cannot fit into your standard lists, so you will see stuff like Knight questoris lists, titans, thunderhawks, and so fort. Now, for my alpha legion army i would have needed to bring dual detachments with an Armored breakthrough base to actually fit anything worthwhile in, however, as can be gleamed from my hagvarian Chronicles My alpha legion army (the 108'th, the stalwart, the breakers of the wheel) faced some horrifying losses in elite troops and fighting vehicles, Ie, my predators and rhinos, as well as my veterans got wiped out around five times over, and my Praetor, Votan was slain in some truly spectacular ways (instantly killed twice over, gassed and struck with heavy artillery straight over levelled guns), keeping with the narrative of what struck them makes it feel like i can't really play the same army again, i cannot see my alpha legion strikeforce replenishing that amount of vehicles and elite soldiers within such a short time.

So, after talking to some veterans of the previous Scandus event, and going through yee ole pile of resin that needed building. I decided on doing a 3500 pts Besieging force, with a Questoris knight detachment. The idea is that my 108'th are attempting to capture scandus (which the loyalists won last year and have consolidated their hold on) and in line with this, my alpha legion are learning from their battles with the Iron warriors over the Cadox system and have instituted a siege detachment called the black stripes, or the stone burners. With that in mind i complied a list whose purpose was to breach fortifications and take heavily entrenched positions. I also made sure that all my artillery had the telltale "black stripe" whether it was on their vehicles top, or on the helmets of my troops.

The thought was also to ensure that i had a list that was not too soft (and boring to play against) and not too hard (making me boring)

The army was as follows

The entire 3500 pts 

Praetor and command squad in a landraider phobos, a bunch of chainfists and two combi melta

A siege breaker with hammer in a landraider achilles with tactical support squad of 5* meltas and phoshpex and shatter shells for the achilles

two laser rapier destroyers

two quad mortars with phosphex and shatter

one contemptor mortis with havoc launcher and two kheres

one whirlwind scorpius

ten recon marines with a nuncio vox, and ten shotguns as well as combi melta for sergeant

ten assault marines, two extra swords, and a powerfist and hand flamer on the sergeant

two times ten tacticals in rhinos with MM

Knight questoris HQ choice in an atropos with a +1bs +1 WS and a 3++ shield

Knight questoris troop choice in knight errant with magnamelta, d-chainsword and an aicarus autocannon (autocannon with skyfire interceptor and two twin linked shots)


Now the way a knight questoris armylist works in 30k is that you need the following

1-3 Hq
1-5 troops

and you can take between 0-3 of HS and FA.

For your Hq choice you can either take a seneschal (veteran leader of the knight house) that gives you +1 BS +1WS and you get a 3++ instead of the standard 4++. Or an ordinary knight pilot

the troop is either a standard knight profile, or a newly honoured knight (-1 WS&BS and 5++)

all your knight pilots gets the "knight honour" rank, which means that you can take pilots who specialize in CC, who specialize in shooting and so forth. As you can see from my strange formulation, yes, you chose the knight pilots, and then you clad them in whatever armor you want. Differing pilots complement different armors, but there are very few "bad" choices to be had here. It gives you a lot of different ways of putting up an army, and let's you create a nice influence and flavor for your own army, for a more indepth look on how to design your knight army look no further than the age of darkness podcast the did an episode recently on the subject 


Now, beyond having a standard army list, it was also a requirement to bring a 1250 Pts zone mortalis list. Having personally never played ZM before i had no idea on what to bring, or how to build an army list, so, on a whim, i created a mechanicum army list, it fitted my theme of the Alpha legion pushing their subordinated Mechanicum forces into doing the dirty work and cleansing spaceships, abandoned bases and dangerous areas, and forcing their knight allies into subservience.

So the ZM list had few models (easier to remember everything) where each unit could do a bit of everything

unfortunately i have no good army images, so i have an inaction pic here 

HQ: one magos with an axe, melta bomb, a rad cleanser (fleshbane flamer) machinator array (pumping him up to S5 and T5)
Troops:
six thallax, melta bombs, two phased plasma phusils
six thallax, melta bombs, two photon thrusters
two castellax with mauler bolters, and two flamers each and frag grenades

FA: three vorax with two rotor cannons each, a lightning gun each, and poisoned rotor gun ammo.


Since my castellax and Vorax fall back into programmed behaviour (shoot and charge closest that they can hurt) the idea was to keep the magos (that lets them act as nomal) with whoever would be better suited to clear out the enemy. But preferaby i would just let loose the vorax to roam freely throughout the zones.



The tournament itself was set up as such, you played two games of ZM for every big engagement, winning a ZM and fullfilling that particular table's terms meant that you could "earn" another player an advantage. An example is this, i played ZM on table 3, i manage to rout my enemy and hold the bridge while defending the cortex, this means that i have won that tables resource, which was a warhound titan, playing on ZM table #3 i find Big table #3 and give the traitor (since i was playing traitor) the titan, which comes in from ongoing reserve.

Each ZM match was two hours, and the big ones clocked out at four hours, so in theory, if you win twice, and fullfill the terms of that table, you can earn your side TWO resources, but to be fair, it balanced better than i write, as an example, on ZM table #5 you could win a xiphon, and his next match (#6) you could get a fire raptor, and everything was lain out clearly in the players pack. Traitors always went UP a table number, and loyalists down. Each table was Beautifully laid out, with it's own ZM design (lain out, in the PP, so if someone fugged up the table, you can put it back) and all missions and turned games had it's own hazards and rewards. each player got two "assets" which was like the 2'nd edition resource cards (something varying from free combi-weapon, or turn a penetrating hit to a glance) and you also got five dice at the start of they day, that you could use ONCE during the tourney, and reroll any dice roll (yours or the enemies) and you ALSO had secret objectives per game (similar to maelstrom) and you could score these, and if you got them you got a "world" point. What is that you say? lemme' explain

Master board 

When you win a big game, you have six points, a draw is three for both, and loss is no point, a secret objective is one point, win or loose. And a Zm game is worth three points.

When you scored, you went to the podium at the entrance of the room, and wrote your points up, so you could always see the progress of the match.

world of scandus 

If you won a "big game" you got to take a sector, the sectors would give X points at the end of the game, but if you covered a previously taken sector, you denied your opponents point. Also, some asset cards could take these as stated there.

Complicated? Not really, reading it like this it sure as hell looks complicated, but while playing it was pretty self explanatory.



So, day one!


My first game was on a big table, against the same UM player i met at Hagvarian, i remember a LOT of AT, a vindicator laser squadron, a sicaran venator,two quad mortars, three terminator squads, two of his assault groups two suzerain squads, a spartan an anvilus dreadclaw, and a fellblade. NOTHING in his army had a +2, except for his quad mortars.

So, basically several +2 squads, and apothecaries everywhere.

So we rolled, and he positioned first, his deployment went as follows

his left flank

his right flank nicely anchrored by the strenghth D superheavy 

Deploying second i tried to split my Landraiders and knights while still keeping clear lines of fire, my Tacticals and recon squad had nuncio vozes so i deployed my scorpius passively and my quads behind cover 

my right flank 

my left flank, not featured is the atropos furtgher left and my recon squad taking a high position in some bombed out ruins 

I had hoped to folkd the left flank in as my rhinos were outflanking, while saturating his zone with phospex to create dangerous terrain, the knight on my right flank needed to take out at least one on the Laser vindicators as they threatened my entire armored front. So i rolled to seize

Natural 6


The mission is that each quarter is worth two uncontested VP's at the end of the game, while the middle is worth four. so a scramble for the supplies in the middle starts.

my land raiders move up the middle, the knight errant to the right and the atropos to the left.

A full round of shooting sees a hull point here and there, and phosphex kills a quad mortar, but his troops out in the open are unshifted, while his tanks have a 3+ cover save from the knights large blasts.


His turn one sees the quad mortar on the achilles get shot to all hell, the knight errant eats a full turn of shooting and dies without making more than one (of six ) 4++ saves, and my atropos takes two full hits. Meanwhile he shaves hull points of the phobos as well. His praetor and buddies run out of his spartan but and charges the phobos killing it, while an anvilus comes screaming in and start hovering ominously ,filled with suszerains .

The ultrmarines advance towards the Alpha legion while trying to take the objective 

And so begins my turn two, i manage to succeed with my tacticals , coming in on his now empty left flank.

the Terminators have bailed backwards from the phobos, my atropos advances into his zone, intent on firing his vortex gun and the D.gun. My achilles backs up with my siege breaker, wanting to deny the kill points and seeing the clusterfuck developing in the middle, instead i shoot two TL multimeltas at his anvilus. And blow it up.

the Suzerains bail from the hovering anvilus

My troops seizing ground, making a valiant attempt to seize a quarter and silence his quad mortars 

my tacticals tries to clear his guns and actually make a decent go of it, the MM on my rhinos kills a sicaran venator, and my recon squad guides down fire on his terminators, and then shoot 20 shotguns shots, killing two of them.

My knight atropos "dream eater" advances on a surviving terminator 

The knight atropos imperiously moves up the left hand side with his four remaining wounds. I mange to make some middling wounds on the tank destroyers, and destroy one of his two UM special assault troops.

my praetor shoots everything he has, and then charges ( to deny the suzerain at least extra attack per person) but i feel the pain of I4 AP2 axes, and gets cut down like a dog, my praetor challenges his sergeant, and manages to kill another two suzerain and win the combat by one. but he holds, at least i get my secret objective for challenges.

the duel in question

And on to his turn two.

He does not manage to kill the atropos, but he shifts his fellblade more to the middle. His terminators consolidate towards the middle proper. While destroying my scorpius.

His assasult marines fans out to cover the remainder of his terminators and Praetor in the middle now furiously reaching for handholds and going to take the objective in the middle.

The duel contines and my terminators are all cut down.

My turn three, the assault marines arrive, and do a flower in front of the achilles with behind them and the troops in front of them, the sergeant takes the front, as i cannot see them surviving this turn, I shoot their bolts pistols and flame into his assault marines, meanwhile my shake contemptor staggers towards the middle and snap fires his kheres assault cannons cutting down two assault marines with rending. My tacticals support squad jumps out the achilles and moves towards the terminators.


Now, realizing that i needed to swing wild to turn this, i use my quad mortars to fire phosphex into his middle unit of terminators, suzerains and assault marines, dangerously close to my assault marines, but i'd have to scatter pretty awfully to die.....which, you,faithfull reader, realizes is EXACTLY what happens. The assault marines clears out his marines, and goes down into phosphex covered oblivion. My atropos tries to charge the spartan, but fails, i reroll, and fail again.

His turn three, the knight dies, the achilles dies, the remaining support squad dies.

we call it there, with about 45 min left, we tally the game up, and he wins with about 16-9, but since he can only get 6 points max, and i took at least one secret objective, it could be worse.

turn three ends

The fellblade imperiously takes a seat of honour and takes potshots

So, what did i learn? Well ,for one, i need to spread my land raiders, and the knights should go together, the raiders could not physically fit on the board. And the knights succumbed to bad rolls, and i should not "gamble" with phosphex



So, on to my first game of ZM ever. Unbeknownst to me we had to split our forces into two equal parts, and then have one half on the board, and the other one in reserve.

Also, every turn after the first, we rolled on a "boarding action" result, it had varied results, i seem to remember the following

2- one dead unit of the roller is brought back
3-5 nothing
6-7 everything is difficult and dangerous terrain
12 was a lance strike you took turns to place.

Now, i will make no bones about there being a lot of rules to remember. But i did my best, i faced off against a guy from a club in southern Sweden, and they seemed a bit more competitive than what i had faced before. They definetly followed the rules, and my opponent was reaaalllyy good at the rules. So he played to win.

He deployed, a white scars force.  as below, one veteran squad with 10* combiplasma, a tactical barebones, a contemptor, and a praetor on jetbike with a fiveman command squad. and a librarian with the veterans

my initial reaction was just laughing, not to be cruel, but what the hell are they doing in ZM? 

Now, trust it to scars to bring their frigging bikes everywhere, i would understand if he was defending, but he was the attacker? I dunno, maybe his spaceship was so close they just flew over in the heat of the moment and got lost in the bowels of my ship?

The mission was that the attacker was racing to the bridge, and tried to take control of the ship, basically, any troop or unit that ended in base to base with the command console got to make a Ld test (with a modifier depending on turn) and if the attacker took it they got 3 VP at the end of the game, if it was unclaimed the defender got +3 VP, otherwise all units were 1 killpoint, and being in the opponents endzone of deployment was 2 vp at the end of the game.


I deployed my castellax with my magos, and kept one squad of photon thrusters on the board (hoping that my blind would save me) the Thallaxii also gives -2 cover saves, which affects his jink (whichs is +3 due to WS legiones astartes traits) So i took two sides and made a mad dash to the control console in the middle. 

in this game the defender started,so i just ran, and thrust moved into the room,i needed to take ground and quickly

on his turn he shot up the doors in his path, and ZOOMED into the command throne, ending in base to base....shit. By doing a conga line around the wall. Something that jetbikes are also famous for doing.  i guess?

well, turns out that even LD 10 has a difficult managing a +5 modifier. So the console was unclaimed.

My turn two, we roll for boarding action, and all doors open on a 5+ my opponent opens ALL doors. Fugg.....

well, let's go!

My magos bursts through the door. And my thallaxi moves so that i can shoot the photon thrusters, he jinks but the -2 means that i can  kill at least two marines so his conga line into the hub is broken

 my second squad of thallaxi arrive and claim my secret objective

goes in and hugs the wall to deter further sojourns into my bloody bridge

My vorax arrive and wipe out his tactical squad 

meanwhile, on his turn two he rolls that all terrain is difficult and dangerous, which his white scars ignore.

 the ten man vet team melts my vorax, and his contemptor goes up to a wall and hugs it. I profess some confusion, but the guy next to me informs me that yes, you can take objectives even though you cannot see them, even if there is a wall there. It seems that they have discussed this in the last match...rather vigorously. So he takes a secret objective

he then gives his praetor forewarning and they charge me, the magos and the castellax together shoot out 4D3 of flamer hits, so one guy goes down on the way in, i then manage tank hits, and i kill all but one jetbike and the praetor has one wound.

Shaky cam in full effect

My opponent makes a clever Hit&run into the objective again, and rolls JUST above his LD.

My turn, we roll for effect, and everybody has radphage and radgrenades this turn to show the detrimentar effects of radionation leaking into the ship.

The Magos and his castellax takes positoons to cover the objective and let's rip, five flamers, and with cybertheurgy i shoot nine S6 AP3 pinning hits. His praetor is then blinded by photon thrusters and the alchecmical secrets of their lightning guns takes down his praetor.

My loyal thallaxii cohort obediently follows their magos unto death if needed

Meanwhile he rolls for his turn and all the remaining doors flap effortlessly to close to isolate the hars vacuum of space. His contemptor rushes up to the door. only to fail his charge

his remaining veterans and librarian move forward.

on my turn i melt the contemptor with plasma guns and photon thrusters, and the final veteran squad is destroyed by AP3 fire.

victory grasped by the final dying breaths of the loyalists

Now, if it seem like i'm a bit salty, i was a bit, the guy i played was pretty nice and he offered to show me all the rules. But it sort of buzzkilled my immerssion with the conga lining, invisible objective grabbing and jetbikes in space. 

But hey, that's on me, i usually play fluffy narrative games, and not everone does, and this was an event. So i had fun. and scored five points for the traitors cause, and i got to carry a warhound titan down to the belueagured night lords player. 

so that was my first two games at scandus. I'll follow up with the remaining ones.