Demonhunters go to the Sprue Posse open

I signed up for the latest Sprue Posse open a couple of months ago because I was not going to play at the Broadside Bash this year and I needed the practice for Adepticon. I am planning on taking Demonhunters and there is nothing like playing tournament games to get to know your army, and its strengths and weaknesses. Well, I ended up coming to California after all only two weeks ago during President’s Day weekend and played at the Realm’s RTT (see batreps below), so I was going to cancel the tournament  this weekend because I need to finish painting my army, and two trips to LA in a couple of weeks is way too much. Well, my mother (who lives in LA) ended up getting sick and spending Wednesday night in the hospital. On Thursday morning I grabbed my army and printed out my lists in a hurry before work because I did not know if I was going to be able to take the day off and go to LA or not. Well I ended up working for a few hours before they let me leave and I headed out to LA. 

I have not played in a 1500 point RTT in a long time and I so I did not know what to expect. I ended up taking almost the same list that I look to the Realm, but I shaved off points by dropping the storm troopers, 2 terminators and the grandmaster and their psycannons and just took a brother-captain, 2 terminators and an incinerator.  In hindsight that really hurt my counter assault and I could have been in trouble if I faced one of the wolf-stars that were there, but I ended up missing getting paired against them.

I might write up the full batreps for them but they are making us do mandatory overtime at my work, and I need to finish painting my army for Adepticon.

Game #1

 I played an annihilation mission against a Blood Angels army with a huge Terminator Deathstar.  I killed everything except the terminators and ended up getting a couple more KPs then he did.  I find that my GKs can stand up pretty well to assault marines, but I just need to shoot them to kill a few and then charge. The secret is getting my Justicar in B-T-B with the Priest, and then they lose their FNP and it is more of an even fight. The Justicar hitting on 3s and wounding on 2s does a lot better than a Sergeant that hits on 4 and wounds on 4s.  

Game #2

I played a capture and control mission against another Blood Angels army.  He had a couple of Land Raider Redeemers falling from the sky (this is the first time I had land raiders Deep Strike on me).  I ended up running a Land Raider across the table and contest his objective, and barely held him off from taking my objective.   This game I realized just how much not having meltas hurt. I got lucky because he immobilized one of his Land Raiders in terrain, and the other one was immobilized by a lascannon.  I am glad that Redeemers are no longer a threat when they can’t move, because I could not kill them.

Game #3

I played Seize Ground (5 objectives) against Pat’s (Somnicide) Dark Eldar. This is both a good match-up for me, and also a bad one. It is good because I have a lot of mid-strength shooting to take his raiders down, and it is bad because it is Seize Ground against a very fast and mobile army. Going into it I knew that he would try to go second, and put his army into reserve. He would then come on the board and give me only a few turns of shooting at him and he would then make a dash for the objectives. I won the dice roll to go first and I thought I would preempt his shenanigans and give him a taste of his own medicine, so I chose to go second. He placed his army in reserve, and I placed my whole army in reserve as well. So turn #2 he came on, and then I came on after him and we went at it for 7 turns. It was a close and hard fought game but in the end I needed to have several things to go just right for me to get a tie, and I ended up getting very lucky and got some good breaks to pull a tie out of my rear.

Game #4

Was another annihilation mission against John’s (Manimal) Dark Angels. He had a ton of terminators and a few squishy units mixed in there. I tried to hide my Chimeras as best I could from all of his cyclone missile launchers, but with a 48” range there is no place to hide. He shot the crap out of them, but he rolled badly (he missed a ton), and I roll well for my obscured rolls and he had trouble killing them.  At the end of the game he ended up killing my terminators and a chimera, and I ended up killing a predator, a drop pod, a razorback and a dreadnaught. 

So I ended up going 3-0-1 and I won the tournament. I ended up getting what I really wanted though and got a lot of practice with the army.  I learned a lot so I am tweaking my army once again for Adepticon.

Learning Points:

• John taught me that chimeras turrets are off-center. I thought they were mounted in the middle of the hull and that I could shoot out the top hatch to either the left or the right. Well, I only had LOS from the right of the hatch, but the turret blocked LOS due to the way it was mounted.
• I need Melta. Land Raiders and other vehicles are hard to kill if you do not have melta. Not only that, but one melta from an IG squad at BS3 sucks. It has to be at least some semi-reliable shooting.
• Justicars might need Melta Bombs. 
• On that note, one BS 3 Lascannon is not worth it either. Not only is it really dicey if it can hit, but it is a lot of points for something that I rarely used. I like being in reserve these days and you can't move and fire it. Also I was moving around, and the Chimeras were stunned etc.so they were a big disappointment.  
• I think that autocannons are the way to go because they cost less, and they are 2 shots and they are better against moderate armored targets.
• I love starting from reserve. I can move and shoot in all of my vehicles, and I can react to my opponents deployment.