Servitor Appreciation GT and Ironhammer

On to the second day of the Servitor Appreciation GT run by Renegade! Today is the last day, and also the day of the final round. After winning 2 games and drawing 1, I knew my luck was going to run out, and it did!

Well...I shouldn't spoil you guys from the get go, ha ha. Not that anyone is reading this, so I doubt it'll make any difference anyway. But yeah, I managed to get a final game in, and this time my opponent was Adepta Sororitas! If I'm not mistaken, he had Argent Shroud and Bloody Rose, and a ton of Characters. Two squads of Retributors, a Rhino, and I think a couple of Sister Repentia squads (9 each). Oh, and a bunch of Penitent Engines. I think he also had 2 Battle Sister squads, a squad of Dominions...and what was that other thing? Celestian Sacresants? The ones with shields. He also had a bunch of Zerriphym (or Seraphim?) in Deep Strike, along with 1 Sister Repentia squad. They were accompaned by a Canoness, a Dogmata, Morvenn Vahl, Celestine and her Geminae twins, and...huh, I think that's about it. Maybe there was another Character in there somewhere, but I didn't see any Hospitaller. Weird. Anyway, that's about it.

It was a pretty brutal game. The Mission was Surround and Destroy. I was very lucky to start first, and I proceeded by having my Stratoraptors fly across the table to get me Engage on All Fronts, and then I wiped out the first squad of Retributors. Unfortunately, my other Stratoraptors and the Ironstrider Ballistarii failed to destroy the Rhino, and the second squad of Retributors remained safe. The Onager Dunecrawlers killed a squad of Battle Sisters and several Sacresants, and...I think that's about it. The shooting was fierce, and I think he destroyed both Stratoraptors with the Retributors and Celestine, had the Dominions do a couple of mortal wounds to my Armiger Warglaive, and destroyed my single Ironstrider Ballistarii. I think the Penitent Engines also advanced forward and destroyed my Skorpius Dunerider. Um...was that it?

I then killed the Retributors with my Knight Castellan, along with the Penitent Engines. The Sisters Repentia then killed my Armiger Warglaive, while the Sisters Repentia rushed forward and charged my Onager Dunecrawler, only for him to make a bunch of invulnerable saves and Feel No Pain. Man, I love Data-hoard Forge World. That was clutch. I then killed the Sisters Repentia in shooting, heh. Also wiped out the Sisters Repentia in combat with my Knight before they swung back on death...ouch. Killed the Dominions and...I think that's about it. The Seraphim then showed up to destroy my Ironstrider Ballistarii, only to fall to my Knight Castellan. Celestine also charged my Onager Dunecrawlers, who survived most of the combat, only to kill the Geminae sisters in shooting to get me points for Assassinate. The Canoness charged and killed the Skitarii Rangers. Ouch.

In the end, I was left with only the Knight Castellan and Skitarii Marshal, while my opponent had all his Characters, a bunch of Battle Sisters and Sacresants all on the other side of the map. He won on points and objectives, and the game ended 90-73. Hey, I can't complain. I did my best, had ton of fun, and had amazing rolls as well as good luck yesterday. I was expecting to lose this game, and I didn't think I would score that many points. That was insane. I did a lot better than I thought. That game with James Kelling really taught me a lot, and I learned what I could do and what I couldn't do with my Knights plus Adeptus Mechanicus list. Thanks to that, I managed to score more on Objectives and do relatively better. Also, the Onager Dunecrawlers work much better than the Skorpius Disintegrators. No surprise there. Also, the Cognis re-rolls were...amazing. They helped me so much, a lot of the missed shots I had, I could re-roll them when within half range...and also in close combat! The Skorpius Dunerider could re-roll all Cognis heavy stubbers in engagemnt range and being assault weapons he hits on full ballistic skill. That was crazy. Maybe I should take more of them, ha ha. 16 Strength 4 shots is nothing to scoff at.

Also, for some reason, nobody attacked my Knight Castellan other than the Dreadknight yesterday. Either they ignore him or hide from him. The Knight Castellan is probably my MVP. He just deletes a unit or two every turn, with the sheer amount of firepower he puts out. Just...wow. Everyone targets everything else I have, like the Ironstrider Ballistarii, the Stratoraptors, etc., but they just leave the Castellan alone. It was...hilarious. The Data-hoard Forge World dogma was also another thing that really saved me. There were at least three times when I made a clutch 6+++ save for my Stratoraptors. Against Grey Knights, White Scars, I think Death Guard, and even against Adeptus Mechanicus (for Ironhammer). The chaff launchers renders overcharged plasma useless, and they make a lot of their 6+++ saves, to the point where it's hilarious. I think the White Scars player was pretty frustrated over how my Stratoraptors refused to die, and I think the Adeptus Mechanicus player was amused by it too, so much so he probably intends to try out a Skitarii mech list in future. Now that will be fun! The Stratoraptors are also the main reason why I can rack up so many points for Engage on All Fronts. Just zoom them across the table and voila! Free Engage on All Fronts points! Yay! That's a Secondary that's easy for me to score!

Speaking of Ironhammer, as my opponent was also participating in the Servitor Appreciation GT, and the turnout wasn't great - only 17 people showed up instead of 60, which meant we only had 4 rounds instead of 5, we had time to play a second game after the Renegade tournament today. The Ironhammer's second mission was Vital Intelligence, and we both went for Data Intercept, which was funny.

I think you guys might be familiar with my opponent's Adeptus Mechanicus list that I lost a couple of times to. It's a Lucius list that looks somewhat like this:

Adeptus Mechanicus Battalion (Lucius):

Skitarii Marshal

2 Tech-priests Manipulus

2x20 Skitarii Rangers

5 Skitarii Rangers

20 Skitarii Vanguard

2x5 Skitarii Vanguard

Skorpius Dunerider

5 Sicarian Infiltrators

10 Sicarian Ruststalkers

10 Pteraxii Sterylizors

2x3 Ironstrider Ballistarii (twin cognis lascannons, of course)

Oh, wow...I think that's about it, surprisingly enough. Anyway, I went first, which was a huge advantage, and I proceeded to...uh, kill 3 Ironstrider Ballitarii, about 8 Ruststalkers, 3 Infiltrators, a few Rangers here and there, reduced the Skorpius Dunerider to 1 wound, and...I think that's about it.

My opponent then destroyed one Stratoraptor (aw...), who promptly blew up, killed the Skorpius Dunerider with 1 wound left with mortal wounds, and did quite a lot of damage to the Sterylizors, the Vanguard squads, the Rangers and I think maybe a Character (Tech-priest Manipulus?). The Skorpius Dunerider also blew up and did even more mortal wounds, though they were mostly just 1 mortal wounds, so it wasn't too bad. Still pretty hilarious, though. The other Stratoraptor just refused to die, no matter how many shots went into him, but I lost one Ironstrider Ballistarii from my opponents' surviving ones, and my Armiger Warglaive fell to the Ruststalkers. Ouch.

The Sterylizors had charged my Skorpius Dunerider and one of my Onager Dunecrawlers, and they got shot to death in close combat (the new vehicle rules are just amazing). Well, a few of them survived, actually. Really...I don't know what to say other than they are awesome. I wiped out the Ironstrider Ballistarii and then I think I reduced one of the Ranger squads to like 5 or so, while killing the Ruststalkers. The second Onager Dunecrawler also killed the Infiltrators by shooting them in engagement range, while the Armiger Warglaive killed a bunch of Vanguard with melta before he charged in to finish off the Sterylizors in close combat. From there on, the game just went downhill for my opponent. Once again, he failed to kill my Stratoraptor. But he did succeed in destroying both of my Ironstrider Ballistarii. With nothing that could threaten my Toughness 7 or 8 vehicles, he wasn't able to do much while my Onager Dunecrawlers and Skorpius Dunerider tore through the surviving Vanguard, leaving like 3 or so, my Armiger Warglaive killed the Rangers and then charged the Skitarii Marshal, taking 3 wounds off him. The Knight Castellan killed a bunch of Skitarii Rangers - the last 20-men blob, and though they had the Lucius Transhuman buff on them, he reduced them to such numbers there were like 5 or less left. They had to teleport out of there with Solar Flare and grab an objective, but my Knight simply walked over and killed them. Meanwhile, the Armiger Warglaive killed the last Ranger squad (5 dudes) and the Skitarii Marshal, while my Onager Dunecrawler killed the Tech-priest Manipulus, while the rest killed the surviving Vanguard. They aren't going to do much, that's for sure. The Knight Castellan proceeded to kill a few more Rangers, leaving like 3, and then he stomped on the Tech-priest Manipulus, killing him. All this while, my Stratoraptor flew around, refusing to die, and contiued to kill a few models here and there. Cognis re-rolls and Machine Spirit Resurgent Stratagem for the win.

At that point, my opponent was all but tabled. Ouch. He might have gotten one objective on the last turn, but it wasn't enough because he needed to hold 2 to score 5 for primary. That was brutal. They would die to my Knight Castellan during turn 5, so we pretty much called it, and yeah. Final score was 89 to 25. I think I got very, very lucky, and while I didn't do much in the first turn, the subsequent turns were brutal for my poor opponent. Also, going first helped. And I mean, really, really helped. The Ironstider Ballistarii failing to damage any of my vehicles before I started taking them off the table probably factored into this. Also...my Stratoraptor was still flying around, being a nuisance, and 6+++ Feel No Pain Data-hoard Forge World dogma is just amazing. Not gonna lie. I'm just shocked at how I made so many clutch rolls and frustrate my opponents to no end with vehicles that refused to die. Well, they all got destroyed eventually, with my Knight Castellan surviving every single game over the last two days, but it makes a difference. It really does.

Seems like I found a working list! Yay! I'll continue to see how I can improve it, but I doubt it needs any changes. I'm wondering if I should swap out the Skitarii Marshal, Skitarii Rangers and Skorpius Dunerider for a Skorpius Disintegrator, but I'm not sure. The Cognis heavy stubbers benefiting from re-rolls are just incredible. Or perhaps I should switch my Armiger Warglaives out for more Skitarii and Skorpius Duneriders, but I don't know. I prefer having the Mechanicus bonus and the Cold Eradication Warlord Trait for my Knight Castellan. They make him so much deadlier.

We'll see. In any case, I'll continue playing around with this list and hope I improve further!