Manchester super major tournament review!

We continue on the Tzeentch train, this time making the long trek to the grimdark north.

We made a slight change to the list from Southampton, dropping a Fateskimmer in favour of 10 Pink Horrors and adding an extra Flamer to one of the squads.

List

.Be'lakor 

-warlord trait: Shadow Lord, Pall of Despair, Shrouded Step 

.Fateskimmer

-staff of change, Bolt of Change, Infernal Gateway 

.Fluxmaster

-staff of change, Gaze of Fate, Endless Grimoire 

.10 Pink Horrors

.Exalted Flamer 

.Exalted Flamer

.6 Flamers 

.5 Flamers

.5 Flamers 

.5 Screamers 

.5 Screamers

.Burning Chariot

.Burning Chariot 

.Burning Chariot 

Game 1 vs Custodes

Secondaries:

Rebels-15

Warp Ritual-12

Banners-10

So this game had me worried going in, never having beat Custodes in a game at an event. My opponent had 3 units of bikes, the bike captain, Trajan, Banner dude, 3 individual terminators, 3 units of custode guard and 1 unit of Venetari.

I went first, deploying on the line I threw screamers out onto the central objective with Belly, lining up screamers and flamers with chariots forcing him to have to expose his important pieces to deal with me while I also managed to kill 3 bikes and 2 guard with the 3 chariots and 6 flamers. I lost the screamers and one chariot but was able to hit the custodes hard my Fateskimmer and a burning chariot removing 3 guard while flamers managed to down 3 bikes, with Belly smashing the final 3 bikes. One of my chariots held up and knocked the bike captain down to 2 wounds.

round 3 Belly got bullied by the last 3 guardians, trajann and the banner guy eventually falling down after he killed the 2 characters into turn 4.

I was incredibly chuffed to finally beat the custodes at an event, the chariots and flamers showing just why they are two of the best units in the book. The Fluxmaster lived up to being the Warp Ritual guy for the first 3 turns, 115pts for 12vp is 100% worth it!

92-66 win

Game 2 vs Dark Angels

Secondaries:

Rebels-14

No Prisoners-9

Banners-9

So I finally got to play into the big bad boogeyman of Arks! 30 Termies (splitting 2 into 4x5) , 3x3 2 man Deathwing command, Azreal, Ezekial, Ancient, Apothecary and Speeder character.

This was always going to be a slog, my opponent went first advancing 2 units of termies onto the far objectives, while advancing the other 2 5 mans onto one of the objectives in my territory and the 10 man marched to the middle while Ezekial took obsec off of my Horrors with a power.

I advanced my screamers to block and screen the 10 termies while my Fateskimmer, flamers and chariots removed the 2x5 termies on my objective.

the termie brick then walked through the screamers and consolidated onto the objective I had cleared the other termies off. It then took me to turn 4 to finally clear that unit of 10 and the characters. The Horrors though managed to bog up his named characters splitting almost everytime they got hit allowing me to hold the objective.

so going into round 5, I was 25 points down, I knew I had to kill 5 more termies to get another point, with the 6 command termies hiding in the back building all game.

I teleported my fateskimmer over to the corner to try and kill as many of the 5 man squad that was holding the 2 objectives in my opponents territory. He preceded to kill 3 of the 5 knocking them off oone of the objectives. I thought I had the game here getting 4 points on Rebels and setting up another banner while holding 3 objectives. So I didn't bother teleporting a unit onto a 4th objective with Bellys shrouded step.... completely forgetting about sticky objectives for the mission which saw me lose by a single point... all because of a single mistake!

I focused to much on trying the kill the unit of 10 termies and left the the 2 units of termies on the far side which in the end cost me a very winnable game.

77-76 loss

Game 3 vs World Eaters

Secondaries:

Rebels-15

Banners-7

No Prisoners 10

When I saw I had World Eaters I was worried, until I saw that my opponent had 2 wardog executioners and 3 rapier batteries which made the list alot better for me. My opponent still had 15 Eightbound with the road of bloody steps Lord, 3 Spawn, 2x5 Zerkers, 2 units of Jackals and a Rhino with a master of executions.

I set up my screamers in a conga line at the front of my deployment to stop any pre game moving eightbound or bezerkers running into into my flamers. Only 5 bezerkers came foward, killing 2 screamers while 2 killed bezerkers back. my first turn I fell the screamers back to hold the middle while the other unit flew up and killed 5 bezerkers on a wide objective while a unit of flamers finished the remaining zerkers in my deployment.

A Spawn and Wardog moved to the centre to deal with the screamers but the daemon sting rays stuck around! turn 2 I had Belly, 6 flamers and 2 chariots move to the middle with the other chariot running up to the wide objective to charge the rhino. I managed to wipe 5 eightbound, a Spawn, and a Wardog. the next couple turns saw me lose a chariot and 6 flamers while I managed to kill 5 more eightbound, the remaining wardog, all the Jackals and the lord invocatus.

going into round 4 I realised I'd been scoring poorly and needed to step up my game. Turn 4 Belly jumped back and killed the remaining Eightbound before jumping onto my home objective round 5. I set up banners on the middle and objective in my territory and teleported the horrors the far objective to start banners round 5 but they got charged by a rogue rapier battery meaning they couldn't action. 

overall I managed to pull it out but nearly lost it due to just not scoring my secondaries well.

80-73 win

Game 4 vs Guard

Secondaries:

Rebels-15

Warp Ritual-12

Nourished by Terror-15

So going into round 4 I ran into the guard, Solar, 5 Scions, 5 tanks, 20 Kasrkins (10 in a Chimera), 60 gurdsmen, scout sentinel and a couple command squads. I went second again and my opponent just moved the Chimera up behind a ruin in front of my deployment while the Sentinel advanced but fell short to sit on my objective. I moved the Horrors out and wrapped the sentinel doing the same to the chimera with a unit of screamers. the other unit of screamers jumped out and munched on most of an infantry squad. 

turn 2 the sentinel broke out desperately while a guard squad ran up to charge the horrors but couldn't take the objective, losing half their squad while killing 4 horrors just see them split into 8 blues.

My Fateskimmer teleported and mortalled the last few wounds off the chimera and then the screamers charged and killed the kasrkins the fell out. the next few turns went the same, my opponent not being able to move out their half while I managed to flame the remaining guardsmen and command squads with Belly coming out turn 3, taking all 5 tanks to the face and taking 6 wounds before slicing 3 of the tanks up over the last 2 turns.

I played super sneaky here, using flamers, horrors and screamers to wrap and tag while also blocking the tanks paths with my exalteds. The other karskin squad did come out and remove 5 screamers and a chariot doing 6 mortals to each before being burnt to a crisp by flamers turn 4 who would then be in a stalemate on the objective with Solar.

97-33 win

Game 5 vs Guard

Secondaries:

Rebels-11

Warp Ritual-12

Nourished by Terror-6

So my award for stomping the guard was more guard. This list had 6 mortals, a deathstrike, Manticore, 50 Infantry, 10 Karskins, 2 Leman russes and a rogal dorn alongside a command squad and 10 scions.

I continued my annoying habit of getting to game 5 at 3-1 and totally misplaying the game, going first and throwing half my flamers, all my screamers and chariots into the centre and welcoming my opponent into removing me. playing like this I should have brought out Belly but I should have just played more passive before making my move. Sadly I had poor saves this game and lost all 3 chariots, all 10 screamers and 10 flamers. At this point I knew I lost because I made the wrong play and I just sped through the next few turns scoring what I could before I was tabled. I did well to even score what I did but there wasn't much to report on this game since it was over turn 2 and I wanted to save you the boring details and moving and moaning poor saves.... During the long journey home though, I thought out the game playing more passive early on and while not for definite, I believe I had a real good chance of winning it.

95-63 loss

I finished 3-2 and 66th out of 258 for the weekend. Not a bad showing but this bad habit i've started doing doing lately of playing poor on a 3-1 is becoming worrying. Overall i'm super enjoying the Tzeentch list but the allure of Slaanesh does call to me and we could see me bust out a horde of Daemonettes in the not to distant future.