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
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 |
