Epic Fall In Tournament 2018

Epic Tournament - Fall In 2018:

Its been a while since I have posted on my blog.  Not due to busy work or anything, just pure laziness.  I have been painting and playing since the last post splitting time between Epic and Warmaster, with more Warmaster games so I could understand the rules and get some practice in with them before the Fall In Warmaster Tournament (which preceeded the Epic Tournament).

I took my Sisters of Battle out for this event.  The list has gone through various changes over the last year and there is a new Army Champion who took over the list and promptly made the list the same as the UK list but added war engines.  Their will more changes I am sure in the future with the list, so I took the latest list 2.02 for Fall In.

I wanted to try some units I don’t normally field and added additional formations.  For this list I took two Coven units and three Penitent Units of 4 each, I also added a pair of Chapels and a unit of Redemptionists.  The Coven and Redemptionists I have never taken and the Penitent engines are usually field as two units of six.  The list follows

8 Battle Sisters with Canoness, rhinos

5 Exorcists, 1 Hunter

4 Coven with rhinos

4 Coven with rhinos

6 Repentia sisters with rhino

10 Crusaders (Redemptionists)

6 Purge (immolotars)

4 Penitent Engines

4 Penitent Engines

4 Penitent Engines

2 lightning strike

2 lightning strike

2 Chapels

Game 1 vs. Ghazkull Thraka Ork War Horde.

I normally don’t play against Orks as no one in my immediate group plays them.  Newcomer to the tournament Bert plays them a lot in the NJ group, so he is experienced with them.  I know with Orks there are many of them and they come in large waves with lots of attacks but many needing 5/6 to hit, however once the blast markers start piling on its very hard to rally them.  He took a heavy blitz brigade army with stompas as his BTS.  He had some infantry scouts on overwatch and bunch of smaller units he kept in his back line to protect his Blitz.

My goal was to attack strong on one left flank and try to hold the right flank then pinch around and take out the right flank. I kept Chapels, Immolators, Missions and Penitent on the left flank, center was penitent, Exorcists, Coven, right was Coven, Redemptionists, Repentia, Penitent.

The left flank was my main target and I purposedly sent the Penitent Engines forward to bait him into firing overwatch on them (which he did). The unit broke but that was okay because the rest of the flank was left  for me to march forward. Aircraft destroyed some tanks in a blitz mainly failed that turn to do any damage.  The Orks moved forward with Blitz Brigade in the center, right and left flanks with stompas coming up in rear support.  The center got ugly pretty bad, I was able to advance some penitent engines into cover in the center, The Coven in the center took damage but were hanging on.  At the end of turn 1 I marched my repentia on the right flank ready to assault a blitz brigade with support from the Coven formation.  On the left flank the Chapel, Mission sisters moved forward ready to assault the blitz brigade.  I also was able to take out the Ork scouts on over watch on the left with the Chapels barrage.  Turn 2 would be important for the Sisters to win the initiative and do a double activation of assaults with the sister and missions.

Turn 2 well the Orks won the roll and without hesitation the blitz brigade on the right took out the Repentia sisters with sustained fire and then unloaded with the Stompas to wipe them out and damage the supporting Coven (with Barrage).  At that point I was worried they could overrun the flank and get my blitz and capture the two other objectives.  For some reason the Ork momentum stopped at that point.  The center was boxed in with redemptionists and exorcists along with another Coven unit all ready to assault/support if needed.  On the left flank the Mission sisters took care of the blitz brigade and advanced closer to the Blitz objective were more works were waiting.  With that flank pretty secure I moved my Chapels to the right at snails pace (please change movement to 20cm, at this point in order to fire anything they would not be in range till third turn if lucky, please change movement to 20cm).  In the center the Penitent Engines flamed the Orks who were on overwatch and destroyed them.  The Exorcists took out a few tanks from the center blitz brigade.  At this point the objectives were in sight but needed to do more clean up to gain any. 

Turn 3. I advanced with my Missions on the left and assaulted some orks won and they were destroyed the Blitz was in sight. In the center the Exorcists took out some tanks from the center Blitz brigade units destroying them.  I launched aircraft at the stompas and broke them.  I then assaulted his blitz brigade on the right and beat them.  Most of the orks were running and not much was left of them.  We ended after turn 3 with the Sister winning 1-0 on TSNP.  If we played another turn I would have gotten blitz, and defend the flag.  Great game, thanks Bert.

Game 2 vs. Titan Legions

How do you beat a bunch of titans who can shred a unit in one turn?  This game would be an interesting one.  I out activated the titans 13 to 8.  My plan was to make sure to activate non-essential units forcing my opponent to activate essential ones (with only 8 they are all essential).  That’s where the penitent engines come in handy.  I also planned to take out the single warhounds first then focus on the two Reavers and Warhound pack.  I was going to use cover as much as possible so it was harder to hit my and activate the Exorcists and immolators later in the turn after he was out of activations.  On the left flank I had coven, penitent engines, repentia sisters, center was Mission, Chapels, Penitent Engines, right had Exorcists, Coven, penitent Engines, Immolators.

The left flank did not hold up well, my Coven and penitent engines got shot up pretty bad and my attempt to get the Repentia sisters into Combat for round two did not succeed.  The right flank were all the action was going on.  I moved coven and penitent engines from cover to cover to get close and distract the Reaver (BTS) and single warhound pack.  I was able to take out some shields on the Reaver (BTS) with my aircraft and also the single warhound on the right.  I doubled my Exorcists and they shredded the Reaver down to two wounds left and piled on the blast markers.  I was close enough for turn two assaults on the right and left flank.

Turn 2 the Titans won and he destroyed my left flank repentia sister with firepower and cleaned them up with the Skittari unit he had.  On the left I did a double retain.  First the immolatars macro-ed the warhound on the right and he melted on the spot.  The Exorcists then fired on the Reaver (BTS) and got him down to one wound (he got his shields up at the end of turn one) and broke.  With all that going, the Reaver on the left flank unloaded on bunch of Penitent Engines in the center 9 hits ouch.  With a prayer, repenting their sins and 8 saves later the Penitent Engines were standing after the smoke cleared. 

Turn 3 was time to take out the Titans I assaulted a Reaver near the river with the Mission sisters  and with support from a Coven unit, the Sisters hit but the Reaver made their saves.  The Warhound pack in the center fired at the Chapels and destroyed one of them after picking on them the whole game and they broke.  The Reaver (BTS) was not quite broken but I fired more shots from the exorcists and the immolotars and finally destroyed him.  The right was cleared and their were some objectives to gain which I did.  BTS and Take and Hold and the Sister won 2-0.  How do you beat a bunch of titans who can shred a unit in one turn?  With lots of Saves.  I must say I feel bad for Brad, his titans were hitting like crazy and I was making my saves like crazy and something had to give.  Very enjoyable game and very tough, if we went to points he may have pulled it out. 

Game 3 vs.  Saim Hann

This was a battle amongst the top two.  I have played against Dave over the years and one fond memory was a unit of noise marines assaulting a Warlord titan in Base Contact.  A single wound was caused.  A single critical was rolled. A single dice was rolled in the end phase and the Warlord was destroyed.  Yep those were the days.  This time though I had the in your face assaulting sisters vs the panzy point eared eldar who are afraid to battle a bunch of woman with metallic bras saying hail marys all day.  This match up would be bad just for that reason.  The Saim hann are fast, they can fight all day in firefights (as skimmers), and can move, fire, move without hesitation making sure your always chasing, its never good to be chasing your enemy in Epic.  The other issue was the Sisters have no long-range fire and not enough to destroy enough Eldar, also this list had three falcon formations with 6 Firestorms and 3 Fireprisms and some Night spinners.  Lets just say, its come to papa if you want to win.

I could go into some sort of detail on how this battle went but suffice it to say it was a 3-0 shellacking for the Sisters with BTS, DTF, T&H.  I think I destroyed some jet bikes. 

Overall it was an enjoyable tournament and lots of Good armies, all of them painted, some better than others.  The players knew the rules had no conflicts as far as I could hear.  I think next year at Cold Wars I will introduce a scenario or two to make things interesting.

After Battle Report on Sisters of Battle:

Since a new list is in the works more playtesting will be needed.  This tournament I took units I normally don’t take and some formations with different unit counts.

Lets start with the Covens.  I never found scout units effective when I play.  I know several players who cant play without them and they do have their uses, specifically for Zone of Control to limit opponents movement.  All the games they were placed as garrisons in cover.  They did prevent the enemy from moving fast into my deployment plus they allowed me to get the backline units into position for the next turn.  Also with a high activation count army they took the brunt of firing against the orks and survived allowing me to use the activation advantage to great effect.  I think they are worth 200 for the formation. Overall they survived most of the battles but not sure I would take two of them in the future.

The Redemptionists were re-added to the army list.  I like them as cheap large formations.  The main drawback is they have no armour saves.  They need to use cover to their advantage before assaulting.  They have no long range capacity.  I placed them near the blitz objective in all games except the last and moved them when necessary to support an assault.  It’s a large, cheap unit that helps the sisters with activation counts.

Penitent Engines I usually run two units of six, since I have 36 of the models (18 painted, 18 not painted) I wanted to try out the basic formation of 4 units and took 3 formations.  They are great units because they can clear out infantry in cover and once close can assault with extra attack macroweapon in base contact plus 4+, invulnerable save is awesome.  For the three games I put one unit on each flank and in the center.  I marched them on the first turn to get across the board and to draw any fire moving to any cover available.  In only one game did a lose a full unit.  Otherwise they either survived or broke and just hung around the battlefield.

In game one they cleared out a ork unit in cover with flamers then assaulted another in base contact. In second game they made 8 out of 9 4+ saves vs a reaver titan shooting attack.  They are definitely worth taking.  Also I have been using them for the last year and completely forgot about the double charge range for infiltrators, I knew they could sneak through ZOC.  Now that I know this I will beef them upto 6 main units and possibly add them to other units(say repentia sisters and redemptionists).

The last unit is the Chapel.  Just increase the move to 20cm and keep the ranges the same. Maybe add invulnerable save to them.  Also I don’t mind if they are included as a transport option for the infantry.  The Chapels performed okay but their limited movement and weapon range really didn’t come into effect until units were close and only the orks suffered their fire.  The titans were not harmed and the Eldar they just stayed out of range and picked them off with Falcons and Fireprisms.

Official Results

ID	Name	Army	Total	Battle	Objctve
3	Dave S	Saim Hann	100	60	40
2	Andrew	Tau	80	50	30
5	Brad	Titan Legion	70	50	20
7	Kal	Sisters of Battle	65	50	15
1	Shawn	Squats	50	40	10
6	Karl	Titan Legion	50	40	10
4	Michael	Steel Legion	40	35	5
8	Bert	Ghazgull Ork	35	35	0