Written by Geifer

To anyone reading my blog (need to be a member of the forum to view) this won't come as a surprise. To anyone else, here's a report about the tournament I played today. Nothing spectacular, a small, local tournament with a nice atmosphere. Just the way I like it. Pictures of the Nimbosa Crusade Black Templars at the bottom of this article.

My Black Templars Nimbosa Crusade army consisted of the following:

Storm bolter, crozius arcanum, terminator armor, rosarius

125pts 

Storm bolters, power fists, 1 power weapon, 2 assault cannons 

200pts 

Uphold the Honor of the Emperor 

100pts 

Storm bolters, power fists, 2 assault cannons 

240pts 

Dreadnought 

Assault cannon, power fist, storm bolter, extra armor 

110pts 

Assault cannon, power fist, storm bolter, extra armor 

110pts 

Bolt pistols, close combat weapons, 1 power fist, 1 melta gun 

193pts 

Bolters, 1 plasma gun, 1 lascannon 

101pts 

Assault cannon, heavy bolter 

160pts 

Assault cannon, heavy bolter 

80pts 

Assault cannon, heavy bolter 

80pts

I played three games in total.

The first game was against Tau on an urban table. The mission was to hold the center of the table, giving me the natural advantage, one would think. Terrain was more or less equally scattered across the table, the center being devoid of terrain. I deployed the large Crusader squad, along with the Champion, in the center, supported by the Dreadnoughts. The fire support Crusaders were set up on the right flank to dictate the following Tau set up. The Land Speeders were scattered to support the army along the entire front line.

The Tau set up with Crisis suits to either side of a large building in the center of their deployment zone, and two squads of Fire Warriors and two Broadsides within the building. The enemy Commander deployed a few inches back between the building and the Crisis suits on my right flank, and a Hammerhead and sniper team on the other flank. Kroot infiltrated to a building on the left flank close to the center of the table.

I got first turn and advanced with my close combat Crusaders on the Kroot. The Dreadnoughts occupied a building on their left side, a few inches from them. In my shooting phase I got rid of the Fire Warriors and sniper team.

The Tau retaliated by taking down a Land Speeder from the squadron of two, and shook another. The Hammerhead withdrew to the left flank and hugged the board edge to make use of its superior range. One Dreadnought was destroyed by the Broadsides. The Crisis team on the right flank took down another Land Speeder.

In my second turn, the Chaplain arrived close to the enemy Commander and Broadsides. The shaken Land Speeder retreated behind terrain and my Crusaders headed for the Kroot house. I shot, killed three and got the only one removed that I could have assaulted. The Dreadnought tried to fire at the Hammerhead but found itself out of range. Due to some lucky coincidence, the lascannon of my other Crusader squad found the enemy Commander to be the closest unit, but only for so long. With the Commander gone, the Terminators fired at the Broadsides and removed their shield drones. The intact Land Speeder fired at the Hammerhead but achieved nothing.

The Broadsides decided that it was far safer on the other side of their building, what with the Terminators being close. The Crisis tried to get away as well, but at the same time get into firing position, with the result that neither turned out right. The Hammerhead still hugged the board edge and immobilized the Dreadnought. Somewhere in this shooting phase, my third Land Speeder died. Some fire hit my close combat Crusaders and killed a few, resulting in a glorious charge of one inch in the direction of the Kroot.

To avenge their brothers, they advanced further and ended up within one inch of the Kroot, but the following shooting phase resulted in five enemy dead and the remaing two Kroot fled, leaving my Marines still out of close combat. Some fire hit the Broadsides, but they remained unharmed. The Terminators advanced on the Crisis team, shot at and afterwards assaulted it, resulting in a total massacre.

As if triggered by the sudden lack of a Commander, a second one fell from the sky. Strange are the ways of the alien, and evidently heretical. Combined with the Broadsides and the Hammerhead, which moved closer still towards my deployment zone, the Commander managed to destroy my last Dreadnought's assault cannon. The final Crisis team fired at my Crusaders. One died. They advanced. At the Commander. One entire inch.

And assaulted on my fourth turn. Prior to that, nothing spectacular happened. My Terminators rounded the big building to get a shot at the Crisis suits that resulted in one entire wound. My other Terminators appeared on the table and scattered off it again, true precision work of mine with the scatter die showing exactly the nearest way to the edge and with a double '6' for the distance. The lascannon destroyed a Broadside and the final Land Speeder took a wound off the remaining one. The Crusaders destroyed the Commander's first drone and assaulted the xenos afterwards. My Champion wounded the Commander once but it killed a Crusader in response and so the close combat went on undecided.

The Crisis retaliated and the formerly stalwart Broadside failed its last man standing test, but remained within the building. Both fired at my Terminators and due to some range issues, my Chaplain got wounded once. Apart from that, my Dreadnought got destroyed by the Hammerhead that finally arrived in my deployment zone. The Commander died when my Champion killed him (stunning logic, no?), and with it its drone.

Along with the massacre move, I managed to get the squad into melta range of the Hammerhead. And missed. Of course. Still, the Terminators did better this time got rid of a Crisis suit. Another went down to the Land Speeder, which, by the way, didn't do this with the assault cannon but exclusively the heavy bolter. My fire support squad finally went for the objective with no one left to shoot at.

The fifth Tau turn went as bad as it could get, with the Hammerhead not wounding a single Crusader, the remaining Crisis suit not harming my Land Speeder and the Broadside missing both its railgun's to-hit and re-roll.

My final turn. Shooting the Hammerhead with the melta did once more not succeed. Assaulting did work, but only up to the point where penetrating the armor was required. My Land Speeder successfully shot the Crisis suit. On the other side of the field, my Terminators mowed down the fleeing Broadside and my fire support Marines went for the objective, barely making it into the twelve inch radius.

With the stunning total of one unit left on the field, the Hammerhead, the Tau player tried to remove my Land Speeder from the objective. The railgun fired, penetrated, got reduced to glancing and score a '1'.

The game ended and I had two scoring units next to the center of the table, adding greatly to my total victory points, as in cheap unit plus cheap unit equals woah. Win for me with about 1500pts to 750pts.

Second game. Long story short, opponent was Eldar, dismal terrain placement, not a single win of pre-game dicing, loss of two vehicles before I could do anything, the rest shot and I got a series of '1's and '2's the world has never witnessed before. Total casualties I managed were one and a half Guardian Squads and half a Harlequin Squad. The mission was to get into the opponent's deployment zone, which I managed to do with the sole surviving squad of my army, the Elite slot Terminators. While my tactics weren't sound, no tactical genius in the world would have salvaged the game. Total result was about 1800 to 650pts in favor of the opponent.

The third game was against Emperor's Children. The mission was a standard skirmish with a few buildings and woods arranged in a circle around the center, a wrecked Aquila lander.

I got first turn and it showed, with the game turning out pretty one-sided. I mowed down a Havoc Squad, leaving one man alive, and cut a Chaos Marine Squad in half. My Crusaders moved into the center of the table in preparation for the big brawl in the middle (the idea which dictated both my and my opponent's deployment - whoever shows more brutality shall prevail!), which the enemy Daemon Princess and Lieutenant were not hesitant to provide. The enemy lascannon Predator did nothing and the Defiler blasted a hole into my Crusaders, killing two of the fire support squad (initially three, but the Emperor provided me with a '6', and not the last one for this game) and two of the close combat squad. The latter advanced as expected, but the fire support squad actually withdrew. That's what I call calm in the face of destruction. Even under fire did the Marines do as was expected of them.

The close combat stretched for a couple of close combat phases. While I was unable to provide extra bodies and was slowly decimated, a squad of Daemonettes and the Defiler that got its battle cannon shot off joined into the fun. The battle was madness and hopeless from the start, and yet did I managed to hold out and eventually kill the Lieutenant with a power fist after the Marine had survived the one wound dealt by the Defiler, by the Emperor's will and six little dots on a white cube, and also managed to take a wound off the princess with a chainsword.

In the meantime, my Terminators arrived and another pack of Daemonettes joined the first one in killing the consolidated fire support squad. The enemy Predator died as all of my Terminators arrived in the same turn and the same location to concentrate their fire on it, and then I lost a Land Speeder at some point, but the rest of my army merrily whittled down the Chaos Marine squad. The Daemonettes killed my last Crusaders and the Defiler engaged in close combat with a Dreadnought of mine. It did not hit, but my Dreadnought did, and gone was the Defiler.

Unfortunately for the Chaos scum, it was my turn after the big Crusader squad was destroyed and the Daemon Princess was wiped out by one Land Speeder. The remaining two and the Dreadnoughts disposed of the Daemonettes.

In the end, the final Havoc fell to my Terminators and the remaining two Chaos Marines assaulted my Dreadnought. The champion fired his plasma pistol and overheated, but survived. Yet it must have left him stunned as his power fist did not harm my Dreadnought and as a consequence, both Marines were crushed by the furious Dreadnought.

After the fourth turn, there was no more Chaos taint present and I had all four table quarters under my control. The total was 2999pts vs 404pts in my favor.

Well, that was it. Two games won, one lost, I had loads of fun in all three games and I've achieved my goal of proving to a friend that Templars can win games even with the new codex (see my blog). In total, I placed third after a parachute Guard force and the Eldar force of my second opponent.

[i]Edit:[/i] Great news. I talked to the tournament organizer (isn't it great to know folks instead of going to these big, anonymous events?) yesterday and someone screwed up the final result. I'm actually second and the Guard player third. Woohoo! Proving my point is getting increasingly easy. :D