Blackmoor's Draigowing goes to the BAO

Grey Knight on Grey Knight action!

After 2 weeks I have the internet!

I ended up taking my Draigowing to the Bay Area Open. This is what I took:

HQ

Draigo

Troops

10 Paladins w/4 Psycannons, 2 Hammers, 4 Halberds, 3 Swords, Brotherhood Banner

10 Grey Knight Strike Squad w/2 Psycannons, Psybolt Ammo

Fast Attack

9 Grey Knight Interceptors w/2 Psycannons, Psybolt Ammunition

Justicar w/Demonhammer

Heavy Support

Dreadnought w/2 Twin-Linked Autocannons, Psybolt Ammunition

Dreadnought w/2 Twin-Linked Autocannons, Psybolt Ammunition

I was going to write up an article about what HQs to take with Draigowing. The reason why is that each HQ adds something different like Coteaz has his abilities and cheap troops, Inquisitors add stubborn and Grenades, etc. I have been taking a librarian because he seems to add a lot to the army like shrouding to add to their cover save, sanctuary to help in assault. But I struggled in low point games (below 2000 points). 

Since I am the foremost Draigowing expert I had to find an answer to why the army struggles at around 1750 points. What I came up with is that the Librarian is really only a support character. He is not killing anything with shooting or assault, but only supports what you already have. So I was paying around 200 points just for a little boost, and at 1750 points that was a lot of change for a model that was not kicking butt and taking names.

So for 200 points (plus 40) I could take a 10-man GK Strike Squad with 2 psycannons and psybolt ammo. 10 Strikes can do a lot of damage with 16 shots at strength 5, and 4-8 shots at strength 7. They can not only dish it out, but they are troops, and can hold 2 objectives etc. They are have a lot more use and utility than a librarian that may or may not help you.

So I think that choice helped me at the BAO.

And my camera jacked up my pictures so I only got a few to download. The picture on top was the beginning of round #1. And this is how the game ended:

 

Blackmoor goes to the BAO

Sorry for the lack of updates, but I am without internet access until next weekend.

So last weekend I took advantage of the player base in LA I went to the Game Empire RTT in Pasadena last Sat. and I went 1-1-1. I played my BAO list with some minor modifications since I could not get my printer to work. I was upset at it because the RTT was at 1850 points just like the Adepticon Championships and I want to try out my list for that. Oh well. But 1-1-1 bodes well that there will be some good competition here to keep my game play sharp. I was tempted to go to Thou Shalt Game in Temecula CA, but I was wiped out, and dead tired so I did not want to take the time for the long drive and 4 rounds. Also I just played 7 games with the BAO format (and 10 games overall last weekend) so I wanted to take it easy and check out the local talent.

So at the BAO I went 6-1. I lost to the winner Christian’s Euro Mech IG. I was winning on turns 5 and 6, but I could not shoot his stupid Vendetta down that I had been shooting at all game, and he contested my Capture and Control objective so he had his, he had the Objectives, and I had Kill Points. Oh well.

I ended up tying for 2^nd place but the tie breaker was strength of schedule and I guess he had a stronger schedule than I did (although he did not play the winner and highest score Christian), so that dropped me to 2^nd and I did not even win best grey knight!

Oh well. I might put up some batreps when I get the internet set up, but I am really busy right now with my move and everything. I joined a league here and I am playing my Eldar, but before I get to fancy I need to finish my Grey Knights for Adepticon.  

My tournament cup runneth over!

So many choices of where to play!

So I am use to not having any choices of where to play a tournament. There is a game store (Empire Games in Mesa AZ) that hold an RTT about every other month, and then there are the other game stores in AZ that do not tell you when they are having them because they do not want their regulars to attend anywhere else, and they do not want outsiders to come in. I will say that Empire Games started to recently get a good crowd at their tournaments. It use to be that they only had about 10 players who were all new players and now they are getting around 25 players and some of them are pretty good (where were they for the last 3 years?). 

So I am moving to LA on Feb 29^th (should be easy to remember that date) and I have all kinds of choices and opportunities to play in tournaments. I am not a stranger to LA since I was born and raised there, and played in my share of tournaments. The reason why is because where I was living did not have a local game store (this is pre-Game Empire Pasadena) so to play any games of Warhammer I had to drive a long ways to RTTs (that got me into the habit of driving/traveling far for tournaments). The reason why I started to drive to tournaments is that it guaranteed me a day of gaming, and the side effect was that I started to get really good at tournaments.

So now in LA I am driving up to the Bay Area this weekend to play in the BAO, then next weekend I have to choose between a tournament at Thou Shalt Game in Temecula, or an RTT at Game Empire Pasadena. I do know that I have to be at GE Pasadena the next day on March 11^th to sign up for a league. Then the Ironman in Las Vegas on March 24th and from there are a bunch of other RTTs and tournaments so I certainly will have my dance card full (I hope) whenever I want to game. This is going to be a nice change for me.
  

Something I thought was funny...

Blackmoor goes to the Broadside Bash

Well it is that time of the year again for the Broadside Bash. I did not attend it last year because I hate the comp system. Two years ago another player and I played foot eldar and we got hammered on player judged comp scoring. So I was not going this year, but because of my reporting for 40k UK I try to take in as many events as I can so I signed up for it.

So now I am in the middle of a move back to LA and I am really busy, but I bought my tickets a while ago before I accepted this new job. I did not have any time to work on my army so I just took Chaos that I had no interest in playing. So what happened was that I just had too much stuff going on and I had to drop out after the second game.

Now here is a slightly funny story

I was driving home from LA to Phoenix and my car broke down in Fontana CA. I was about 100 miles away from where I stay in LA, and 250 miles from my home in Phoenix. I have a hybrid and what happens is that my engine shuts off in the middle of the freeway and has a warning on the dashboard that says “please pull over immediately”, as if the engine shutting off did not achieve that result.  It did this a couple of times and I took it to the Ford dealer and I was waiting for 3 hours for them to see what was wrong with it. Well, they told me that it was a water pump that cools the electric engine. I knew that is what it was because the same thing happened to me on the way back from wargames con in July, and it is a known problem with Hybrid Escapes. Well he left me in the waiting room to long because I hatched a plan B if I did not like what he was going to tell me about the repairs. So when he told me that it would be $700 to fix it, and that they would need a day to get the part so I would have to spend the night in a hotel and miss a day of work, it was time to execute plan B! So I went to the closest Toyota dealer and bought a new car. I traded in my Escape and I got a good price for it. The $700 defect cannot be found until you are driving for a while on the freeway (like I always am) so I just saved the money that I would have spent on a car repair, and just got a new car. When I woke up in the morning I had no idea that I was going to end the night driving home in something other than the car I had driven for the last 5 years. The funny thing is that I bought the car late last night and I had no idea was color it even was until I saw it this morning. I thought it was a dark metallic blue and it was a dark metallic grey that is almost black.   

I have a couple of e-mails about Draigowing

I have a couple of e-mails about Draigowing so I will take a moment to answer them.

Dan writes:

Hi there! I thoroughly enjoy your blog, first off. Very well written and with interesting topics. Also it's nice to see someone else who appreciates insanely elite armies. The old chaos chosen Terminators were my favorite unit and now Paladins are the closest I can get to them. How ironic...

Thanks Dan, although I must say that if this blog is one thing it is not well written! Chaos Chosen were crazy in the last chaos codex. They were the most customizable unit in the game. I saw some 5-man units running around that cost over 500 points!

Anyway I had two questions for you that I hoped you could answer.

First, I run my Draigowing similarly to yours except that I put in a Vindicare in place of one of the Dreads. Why do you favor more Psyfle Dread saturation over some of the tricky benefits of the Vindicare (not to mention his AT capabilities)?

A Vindicare can be interchangeable with a dreadnaught; it is just a matter of what you are looking for. A Vindicare can be shot down by multiple strength 8 shots (like a dread), but the assassin can also be killed by small arms fire though, so you can make the argument that he is less durable. The Dread is more mobile, can start in reserve come on the board and shoot. Also dreads are better when shooting at squadrons and low armored vehicles compared to the Vindicare which is better at taking out high AV (13+). They can also assault and tie up units that struggle to kill dreads in hand-to-hand. The Dread also can do more damage with 4 shots at strength 8 to infantry. While the Vindicate cannot do that kind of damage to infantry, it can mess up one enemy model pretty good.

I think it is just a matter of play style and preference. I ran my old Demonhunters with 3 dreads, and I just like them.  

Second question, how do you deal with Darklight spam DE? I haven't faced my friend's DE with my Draigowing yet, but his list wastes my JetSeer Council list. I've only beaten his Darklight spam with my hybrid shooty Eldar. Anyway, with the amount of S8/Ap2 he has, it seems like a really uphill battle for me. Any thoughts?

Cheers man!
Dan

Well DE can be a problem. It takes a little bit of practice and know-how. All I can do is give you some pointers.

Hold the center of the board: You have a 24” range (plus a 6” move) so they can’t hide from you.

Combat Squad: You need to shot at as many targets as possible. They will be gunning you down, but you need to be knocking as many targets out of the air at the same time. You need to outlast them.

Hug cover: With Sanctuary this will slow down their damage from darklight weapons.

Take Psybolt ammo with stormbolters: This is devastating to DE. You have a ton of shooting, and strength 5 knocks their sailboats out of the air.

Target priority: You want to get the Ravagers with your Dreadnaughts because they will be in the rear, and they should be able to take out AV11 even with flicker fields and cover saves.

Target Priority #2: Depending on the situation you will either want to shoot at the Venoms with Trueborn or Warriors. If they just have a few Troop units in an objective game, take them out. Otherwise if they have a lot of Trueborn with blasters you will want to kill them.  

Know your ranges: If you stun a venom the guys inside can’t shoot either, also if they move over 6” they can’t shoot. Blasters only have a range of 18” so if they want to move 12” and shoot at you they have to disembark. So you might want to use this to maneuver were they can’t shoot everything at you.  

Know when to hold them and know when to fold them: Depending on their set up, how they deploy, who goes first, the mission, and their army make-up you might want to reserve/deep strike yourself (notice all of the caveats). This gives you first shot, and it lets you react to them. A big factor though is that it also limits the time that they get to shoot you. If you start on the board they are shooting at you for 5-7 turns, if you come in on the bottom of turn 2 they only get around 3-5 turns of shooting. This can be very dangerous with a DE army because they are fast and large. If you deep strike they can blanket the table making it hard to land without a deep strike mishap, or they can block a table edge so your reserves can’t come on. This tactic is very situational and again, be very careful.   

Karios writes:

I have a quick question on your Draigo Wing build. Why do you take a 5man Strike squad and a 10man Interceptor squad instead of Purifiers?

With Draigo, you can make the Purifiers scoring, and that would be my inclination. It also seems like you could be very vulnerable to hordes (especially Orks in vehicles) without
Purifiers, even with 10 Paladins.

I appreciate your thoughts.  

The reason for the strike squad is that I have to have a second troop choice to fill out the force organization slot before I can use Grand Strategy to make other units scoring. I have seen people take solodins (a single paladin model) but I like the strikes better. It adds a warp quake, it has 5 wounds for durability, and it adds some ranged shooting. 

The Interceptors are a fast moving unit in a slow army. They make up for a lot of weaknesses that being a slow army presents. They can get to where I need them to be to do things like getting side shots, claim/contest objectives etc.

As far as Orks goes I have never lost to them, and in fact one of the easiest armies for me to beat. Orks have one move and that is to get into assault. A block of paladins can do so many wounds to them that every unit they have in assault with explode to "No Retreat" wounds (30+ attacks hitting on 3s and wounding on 2s will kill a shed load of orks). In return they will do a couple of wounds, and kill a model or 2 with a Klaw, and then it is over. 

Return of the Foot Eldar for a 1750 RTT

So as you can tell by the post below, I was thinking about taking my foot Eldar for a spin again, and that is what I did at an RTT last Saturday. A lot of people don’t know this because they only know me as a Draigowing player, but back in the day, I did well at GTs using foot Eldar. I have not played them in over a year since Da Boyz in Nov. 2010.

So I drove the 40 minutes to the game store called Crusaders Retreat in Phoenix. It was a new store with just a few tables so there were like 9 players.

My 1750 point list was: