The Battle for Salvation Grand Tournament, Round 5, Best Armies

So going into Sunday I knew my 3-1 record would put me somewhere near the top and I was excited to see exactly where. Upon entering the venue I quickly made my way over to the pairings sheets to see what bracket I would be in.

Lo and behold I was in the Silver Bracket, which meant I was not in contention for Tournament Champ but at least I could possible win my bracket and take that award. In my bracket was the 1 Ork player; Ned Merrick w/ Blood Angels, my first round opponent, and who I would face in the finals if we both won rounds 5 +6; a Space Wolves player; a fellow DE guy though he was running an entire Footdar army; a Grey Knights player, who I would face in Round 5; and 2 others I didnt catch. No matter how it broke down I knew this was going to be a long hard fight, but first I had to get past one of the 2 worst match-ups for Dark Eldar, Grey Knights (the other being mech guard.)

Now onto to the report
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Round 5 vs Michael Stanten with Grey Knights
Mission was Annihilation, Table Quarters, Seize Ground - Dawn of War

His list
HQ
Grand Master w/ Halberd, Psychotroke Grenades, 2 x Servo Skulls
Librarian w/ Sword, Summoning, Sanctuary

Elite
Paladins (5) w/ Halberds x 5, Psycannons x 2
Purifiers (5) w/ Halberds x 4, Incinerator

Heavy
Dreadnaught w/ Multi-melta, Autocannon, Psybolt Ammo
Dreadknight w/ Heavy Psycannon, Daemon Hammer

Fast
Interceptors (10) w/ Halberd, Psycannon

Troops
Terminators (5) w/ Hammer, Banner, Halberd x 4
Strike Squad (10) w/ Psycannon x 2
Strike Squad (5) w/ Psycannon

When first looking at his list I was surprised by how "soft" it was compared to the 3-6 Dread, Purifier/Henchmen spam I am used to. I was feeling pretty good going into this.

He won the roll and elected to go first. He got 5 on his roll for Grand Master Ability which allowed him to give his Purifiers, Paladins, and Dreadknight the scout USR. He would choose to outflank all 3. He also combat squaded the Strike Squad and the Interceptors and chose to have the Termies Deep Strike.

Deployed his Grand master and combat half of the strike squad as close to the center objective as he could. I then deployed my Hellions and Baron as close as I could to my left quarter's objective and still remain 18 away from his unit. I chose not to try and steal as I knew I would need that all important "clean-up turn."

He walked on one half on the Interceptors with Librarian attached, the Dreadnaught and the shooty half of his Strike Squad on my left side, the other half of the Interceptors would shunt to mid field on this same side. His other remaining Strike Squad walked in on the right side. He took a few pop shoots at the Hellions who took one loss and were then removed from LOS from the rest of his army.

Knowing that he had outflankers, deep strikers and half a unit of Interceptors left to shunt I chose to gun line my army so that where ever he came in I would have targets to shoot at. I tried to use a raider and 10 man unit to shut down his ability to come in on the left flank, this would prove to be disastrous as he got all his reserves on T2 before I could spread out enough. I also tried to get a first turn charge with Vect and this would also fail due to difficult terrain leaving him and the Brides out on the open. I shot and killed a few models here and there but with them being fearless it didnt do much.

On turn 2 and all his reserves on the table I was toast. His Purifiers and Paladins came in on the left flank, the Dreadknight on the right. He would proceed to flame away the Raider and Warriors on that side, as well as blow the Venoms down with the Dreadknight's Cannon. The GW dice finally fully turned on me (after rolling 7 ones in a row over 2 games when it came to saving my Hellions) and I failed every Flickerfield and Cover Save my flyers had. He would go on a hot steak and every penetration roll would result in a wreck or explode result. He would also kill off every Bride, leaving Vect to fend for himself.

Basically this game ended for me on his turn 2. I did get some good shots in. Examples, killing his Grandmaster, 10 Grey Knights and Librarian with Vect before he died to a shot from a Psycannon. Taking 5 wounds off the Dreadknight with a 10 man Warrior unit before he would charge it directly into my Agoniser toting Wych who would kill it off. My Wychs holding up 5 Termies and 10 Grey Knights for 3 turns before fleeing combat.

I would end up tabled. Not the way I wanted to leave the event. But going 3-2 overall was not bad seeing that I went 2-2-1 at last year's Conflict. Hopefully its a start to some better showings in the coming year.
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PS - If you read this Mike, I apologize for being so moody at the end. Losing in the manner that I did (because of cursed dice, I swear I am never using GW dice again and in fact I lined up the cube and summery executed 2 of them just for giggles, my wife thinks I'm a bit crazy now) just didn't sit well and I did not lose gracefully as I usually do. That was unfair to you and if we meet again I hope it will be under better circumstances.
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Now for some pics of the better looking armies I saw over the weekend.

First up we have Dan from Ten Inch Template's Kabal of the Fursaken

Required pic of Joe Johnson's Salmonanders

Some pretty Daemons

And her boyfriend's RatGuard (they ended up playing each other round 5 lol), looks like Dan wasnt the only one who wanted Skaven in 40k

Some an American GI Guard

Fritz40k's Grey Knights

JawaBalls' Blood Angels

Ned Merrick's Dread which was in contention for Best Painted Single Figure (btw Ned is red-green color blind, which just amazes me that he can paint such a beautiful red army at all)

Some very nicely done free hand Salamanders that were in contention for Best Painted Army

And The Blood Templars

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Well thats all the coverage I got from BFS. Now onto Conflict prep.