Thank you sir, appreciate it!
Yes now that I think about it, he was using the Raven Guard formation, and wanted to infiltrate his scouts closer then use scout moves to get in extra close, which is why i dropped the ghostwalkers to create some denial space.. so that paid off pretty well for the Corsairs!
Destroyer weapons do ignore Reanimation which is really massive, then the only other thing you can do is Instant Death, which... reduces them to a 5+. So basically not that helpful when you have to get through 6-10 wounds for a squad. Last great solution is 6 on Stomp, which is why ive never struggled with Necrons until not having a Wraithknight to rely on! A good lesson to learn...
Coming in for Day 2 with a loss under the belt, get matched up against an absolutely astounding Grey Knights/Ravenwing army, really gorgeous stuff:
GK Librarian
GK Librarian
10x Terminators
2x Dreadknight
Ravenwing Librarian
4x Bikes
Attack Bike
Storm Talon
Storm Talon
Landspeeder
> people really like this formation!
Great army!
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Mission is Scourge on Hammer & Anvil, tons of objectives and tons of room to play around... Corsairs win second turn, hooray! GK deploy everything except the Storm Talon wing.
Corsairs deploy... not very much:
Actually this photo is from the bottom of turn 1 -- the Void Dreamer rolled up Webway Breach, which when cast successfully pops your unit back into Ongoing Reserves. Normally a pretty useless power, since it can't be used when locked in combat, yet in this particular matchup it looked like it could be fun for using the Malevolents with Void Dreamer to draw in the Dreadknights for some easy killing, then *pop* -- back into Reserves and no Corsairs for you!
I thought this was hilarious, but my opponent was not exactly happy about these shenanigans, so that was a bummer. On his turn he does successfully destroy the VSG, but doing so has pulled his attack bike and Dreadknights so far out of position they are effectively out of the game (at least for 2 more turns).
Corsairs come thundering in on turn 2, the GK player says "For your shenanigans, now your dice will be cursed for Reserve Rolls!" Which proves to be correct, as the Phoenix and one warp hunter fail to come in, despite re-rolling 3+! Ah well, could have been worse... In shooting we then have a major disagreement around barrage weapons interacting with Shrouded and being in cover. His models are standing on an elevated metal walkway which affords 4+ cover, yet the barrage blast lands dead-on, so there is no intervening cover between the blast and the cover, meaning that according to Barrage rules you would not benefit from that save... dropping a juicy 2+ down to a less-than-impressive 5+ thanks to some accurate shooting. TO is called over and makes that exact ruling, resulting in 4 dead terminators.. after a failed 2+ Look Out Sir, one of them turns out to be the Warlord, so that was a pretty eventful phase. Not particularly enjoying the game though, hopefully we can pick things up... the GK player really needs to go for a turn 6-7 play on the objectives, relying on resilience to grind down the Corsairs, let's see if he can manage it.
GK start top of turn 3 and at this point deployment, turn 1 and turn 2 have taken so long that the clock is running down really fast.. he moves some stuff, casts some powers, shoots some things, then assaults the Rage Prince with the Ravenwing and takes horrendous casualties, immediately regretting it.
Corsairs keep up the shenanigans, bouncing around the map to keep out of range of the GK, their shooting doing absolutely nothing to the Emperor's Finest except immobilize a Storm Talon, which is then vector-locked and survives. Very uneventful. Ravenwing Librarian hit & runs away from the Prince after an equally uneventful combat phase.
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Turn 4 and at this point there's about 30 minutes left so we split it 15-15 and plan to call the game there...
GK move up to get near some objectives, but are looking at a draw on Primary, winning Maelstrom (the Corsairs were barely on the board, let alone scoring Maelstrom this game), while Tertiaries are Linebreaker (tie), Warlord (Corsairs), and Big Game Hunter (GK), so basically a draw if they can hold the position. This turn they do manage to drop Rage Prince, send some firepower and a failed charge into Warlord Prince, and down a Warp Hunter for Big Game Hunter.
Next turn the Corsairs drop a Dreadknight and jump on all the objectives to win Primary and take the game thanks to Warlord+Linebreaker versus just Big Game Hunter in the end.
Corsairs win 6-5!
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Takeaways from this game are that losing Maelstrom to Grey Knights shows that my Corsair list has major issues in the scoring department, you have to really be careful about the Tertiaries or risk losing all the games based on Maelstrom... Next time will definitely be increasing the scoring unit and hopefully resilience potential of the Corsairs! Saying that, it was a great experience to do a full-on denial play, just killing a handful of models in the enemy army (less than 10!) and cruising in to win on objectives.
Also just generally speaking this was a lot of fun to play, as it just FELT like Corsairs on the tabletop... huge glaring holes in the army, but tons of firepower, weird janky movement and shenanigans, and winning by the skin of the teeth at the last second right under the noses of the enemy, hah! Unfortunately my opponent did not feel that way, Corsairs really do not get other people excited, so that's too bad.
MVP - Void Dreamer! Yeah this guy gets it for once, thanks to creating the ultimate diversion, although he did ultimately get crushed in combat by a Dreadknight along with all of the Malevolents.
Wooden Spoon - Phoenix, for not showing up despite 3+ re-rollable, then really just doing absolutely nothing versus Terminator armour. That is a big weakness for this gunship. Shooting the Ravenwing bikes would have been useless too, with their re-rollable 3+ jinking.. Just wasn't a great matchup for the Phoenix really.
Onwards and upwards to Game 5, crawling back up to the Top Tables once more! Turns out the nasty DE/E and Necrons did in fact play each other into a dead Tie, so that was some good news for the submarine crew... but also disheartening that the Necrons had walked through no less than 3 Eldar armies in a row and not taken a loss!! What is the world coming to?!?!
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Post Merge: September 22, 2016, 03:55:32 AM
In the future, please use the modify button. Double posting is against the forum rules, and for that reason, the system merged your posts.
Game 5 is a super interesting Inquisition list, something I have never seen before, but which earns immediate respect as both clearly well-crafted for what it is meant to do (earn Inquisition ITC points, and act as a giant Ecclesiastical deathstar), and in the hands of an able player, currently ranked ITC #1 for Inquisition (unsurprisingly!)... should be fun!
Coteaz
Inquisitor - pskyer, LIber Heresius, power armour
Cypher** WHAT?
12x Warband - psyker, daemon hosts, crusaders, priests, etc. Fun stuff!
4x Warband - plasma gun
Chimera
4x Warband - plasma gun
Chimera
Grimnar's War Council:
Njal Stormcaller
Ulrik the Slayer
Iron Priest - thunderwolf, TH/SS + 5 dogs
Rune Priest
LIbrarius Conclave:
Tigerius
3x Librarian - ML2, bike
Also, looking at his display board there are a LOT of Daemons. I see tons of Horrors, Screamers, and Daemonettes... I think I know what's coming!
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Mission is Big Guns Never Tire on Vanguard Strike, which is OK for me, although he gets bonus points for killing the Warp Hunters which the Corsairs won't be able to earn back. With only 4 objectives which are easy to tie on, that could be a key tiebreaker to watch for.
Maelstrom is the usual, should be quite even as he is a deathstar, and clearly Corsairs really really struggle with Maelstrom... will need to watch closely.
Tertiaries are Big Game Hunter, drat -- Warp Hunters again, and no way to earn this back. Then Warlord and Linebreaker, which should both be a wash unless something crazy happens.
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Inquisition win the roll for First Turn and give it to the Corsairs... double drat! But there is one way to get around this -- his War Council gives him a 4+ to Seize, and Coteaz allows him a very reliable chance at getting that Seize, so obviously he's just testing the waters to see how the Corsairs deploy. If there's enough threat on the board to gut his star on turn 1, he can't let me go first... Corsairs deploy 1 unit of 3 scatbikes and then a single Warp Hunter all under the VSG, backed up by some ghostwalkers which can screen assault if necessary.
As expected, the Inquisition deploy the giant blob and nothing else, then Seize back the initiative to avoid being hit by destroyer barrage and scatter lasers before they can power up Invisibility, Veil of Time, Endurance, Forewarning, etc. So many powers!
Also this was a very exciting and enjoyably tense game, so I completely neglected to take any pictures, I am so sorry! Really wish I could have, this was a very fun one.
++ Turn 1 ++
Turn 1, the blob moves forward pretty far -- with so many bikers and wolves, it can string out and cover a lot more distance than I was anticipating. Then with Telekinesis he uses Levitation on the whole thing and jumps forward another 12", yikes! To top it all off he summons a unit of Horrors in the backfield to start scoring and juicing up the warp charges...
Corsairs opt not to send off a volley of destroyer barrage and instead retreat out of range.
Both armies score 1 maelstrom.
++ Turn 2 ++
One chimera with warband comes in, driving toward mid-table, while Horrors move backwards and summon in a second unit of their friends, so now there are 20 horrors in the backfield. Deathstar continues the move and jump forwards, putting a stack of dice into defensive powers again, then summoning a third unit of Horrors into the backfield as well... oh very nice, 30 horrors now.
Corsairs come streaming on, both Princes attached to scatbikes in the top left corner as far away from the VSG and approaching action in the bottom left corner as possible, and they try and hammer out the Chimera but only glance it twice, sadly. Malevolents, the Phoenix and Nightwing all drop in the Inquisition backfield, targeting a unit of Horrors and succeeding in wiping it out through combined firepower. The second Warp Hunter also drops down in the INQ backfield, with its nifty reduced D6" scatter... roll a 5 and just clip the Malevolents, causing a mishap... roll a 1 and *bam!* there goes the Hunter, Big Game Hunter, and a Primary bonus point. Ouch! Fortunately the Horrors did die for a Maelstrom at least..
++ Turn 3 ++
The deathstar is right on the Eldar doorstep now, just inside the void shields... the Warlord must have balls of absolute steel as he decides to cast Vortex of Doom on the last Warp Hunter before him, successfully manifesting his own Destroyer barrage, which Hits, then rolls a 6 to destroy the fell engine of destruction! Oh dear, two for two! But the Winds of Fate are oh so fickle, and while casting Veil of Time the almighty Tigerius rolls a double-6, causing a Perils of the Warp! He then rolls that fateful 1, attacked by daemons, and we joke that all he needs now is an 11 and big things will happen... he rolls his leadership test and its... AN ELEVEN! Tigerius explodes from the inside out, warp energies coruscating around him and claiming another two members of the warband. HUGE blow for the deathstar, and this will be the last turn they have Veil of Time too!
In the backfield the Horrors decide to just run away from the invading Corsairs as best they can, while the Chimera moves further into mid-table to take advantage of ruins and to cap the objective there.
Corsairs smell Tigerius' blood mixed with daemon ichor on the wind and go into Overdrive -- they hit their drug dispensers and dial up the shuriken slingers to full auto! Phoenix lays into a unit of Horrors, easily slaying half, the scatbikes finally destroy the Chimera while the Nightwing sends dinner plates shrieking through the dismounted Warband (they Go to Ground and 2 survive, gah), not quite the result we were hoping for. Some more scatbikes shoot into the deathstar but it is fairly inconsequential. OK so the Rage has started and the combat drugs are coursing through the veins of the Space Pirates, they are poised to strike, but it is yet to come... Sensing the tide of battle changing, a third Scatdancer squad sacrifices their lives to the deathstar to prevent them scoring a Maelstrom point on a whim, reducing the Imperial lead in points this turn to 3-2.
++ Turn 4 ++
The Inquisition are in a good spot now, ready to split up and assault the ghostwalkers & VSG, while holding both home Eldar objectives. Hopefully with the Warp Hunter bonus points that should be enough to take Primary, even with losing Tigerius and some of the deathstar's resilience. Maelstrom is still in the lead by one point, so that is looking good, and Tertiaries are a win for Inquisition thanks to Big Game Hunter! Now, this is the only moment I was unhappy with -- on ending the Corsair turn I carefully looked at how the Ghostwalkers were positioned behind the VSG to deny LOS and therefore deny the Space Wolves getting a charge off and denying my Maelstrom point. I also pre-measured how far the wolves could move, to make sure. Then I went for a quick bathroom break only to come back and find that the ranges and LOS actually all worked out, and the dogs would have a 9" charge into my scouts. Maybe I didn't accurately estimate, maybe my measurements were wrong, or maybe the dogs got about 3" of extra movement... we will never know!
Deathstar starts to split off characters, the Iron Priest and wolves going for the Eldar home base, the others circling back and juicing up defensive powers to weather the inevitable storm of Eldar firepower! Out of fear of the smackdown, the deathstar has not had any warp charges left over for summoning more daemons, so that is perfect.
In the top right the last Chimera with Warband comes in, and they opt to shoot into the rear armour of the Hornet rather than into the scatbikes who would easily jink. I think this was a mistake, but he did manage to glance out the Hornet after the Chimera added its shooting.
Corsairs Turn 4, we are 2 maelstrom points behind, looking in a bad spot on the Primary, and there is no way we can get Warlord so forget Tertiaries. Hm.... roll up Maelstrom points and we get Kill a Unit, Kill a Unit... I'll take three or nothing! (For those unfamiliar with ITC format, each turn you roll 3D6 and pick two as objectives based off a table of 6 -- if you roll 2x objectives or 2x KPs as options then you can choose to go for 3 points as a bonus option, i.e. kill 3 units for 3 points, but if you don't get all three you lose your points that round!) Risky business! Can the Corsairs take out 3 units this round?!
First off, the Malevolents move up on the 2 remaining Horror units, finally getting within assault range... they unleash their shuriken pistols and grenades into the low-strength unit and obliterate it with some help from the scatbikes, then they charge in, frothing at the mouth, into the second 10-horror unit -- 40x drugged-up bonus strength, high initiative, high weapon skill attacks later, and the unit just evapourates. Go Malevolents!
On the left side, the Rage Prince, scatbikes, and a newly-arrived unit of Ghostwalkers face down the Chimera and disembarked 4x warband... they shoot and shoot but just can't do any damage to the vehicle hiding its warband. In comes the Phoenix, pivoting from the Horrors and moving 36" to get in range.. it easily vapourizes the Warband with stacks of wounds to spare, while its little brother the NIghtwing pulls a tight turn to finish up the other 2-man warband in midfield for good measure, bam! For good measure the Rage Prince charges into the Chimera with his drug-amped Strength and nasty rending void sabre, not to mention Rage.... he hits a lot, gets those nasty 6's and kills the Chimera in one round of brutal combat -- wow, 5 KPs! That's Maelstrom to the Corsairs right there!
The last scatbike unit comes around and hammers the deathstar, causing a number of casualties but nothing too serious.
Overall a glorious turn for the Corsairs, now it's time for the endgame!
++ Turn 5 ++
At this point it is tight on time but fortunately there isn't too much to do... the deathstar spreads out as much as humanly possible to cover Eldar home objective 2, the Iron Priest+wolves and 2x Librarians on bikes zoom over and bubble out Eldar objective 1 to prevent any turbo-boosting jetbikes from getting there -- looks like those two are locked down. The last librarian moves and turbo-boosts onto the Inquisition central objective, hoping to contest it on the long odds he doesn't get killed.
Psychic powers go off and the deathstar buffs itself up with Invisibility and all that goodness, then pulls a really nice trick and summons a unit of Daemonettes for their +3" run ability... he tries to drop them right near the Eldar objectives to run them out and make that area completely impassable to jetbikes, but alas they scatter 7" backwards and are of no use. That's what you get for fooling around with daemon girls!
Corsairs see the end in sight, with one last trick up their sleeve... the Phoenix bomber again pivots hard left, zooms 36" to crest a high cliff in the Eldar DZ, just spying the biker Librarians. The gunner unleashes the full remaining Phoenix missile payload and empties the entire shuriken magazines into those unlucky imperial witches, easily killing them and creating a nifty little space for Rage Prince to turbo-boost his single-model base into..
Meanwhile in the Inquisition backfield Warlord Prince, who has been gliding around mostly trying to just not die to lose Tertiary points, makes an attack run on the lone Librarian, slaying him with his shuriken catapult before he can even swing his void sabre. What a disappointing day for the Warlord. Maybe he shouldn't have been such a sissy again... Anyway, he does secure that objective to net Primary 3-1 so that's a plus.
We tally up the Maelstrom, and thanks to that sacrifice of the jetbikes on a whim, followed by the epic and fortuitous killing spree in turn 4, the Maelstrom FINALLY goes to the Corsairs! Hooray!!!! Was incredibly lucky for this to work out haha.
Victory Corsairs 10-1!!
Really the inquisition were in it to win it though, don't be fooled. A swing by 2 Maelstrom points and it was theirs, or else a single model surviving a turn of shooting and it was theirs... and that's after exploding Tigerius' head all by himself... sad way to go, poor guys. Great opponent and a lot of fun. The scare tactic turn 1 by putting down the warp hunter was key to force him to juice up the star and not summon more daemons too -- if he had been able to bring in some more daemon units earlier, this would have been really tricky. As it was, good game and good tournament!!
MVP - Phoenix bomber, hellz yeah!! This guy literally tore it up, claiming bodies left and right from as soon as he hit low orbit. Clutch game-winning kill by jetting across the entire board and sniping out an independent character, loved it! Special shoutout to the Malevolents for seriously tearing up the Inquisition backfield -- clearly their ideal prey is anything with lower toughness than a Space Marine, as they can rock out HARD on the charge against low toughness units. Between the Phoenix and Malevolents they killed pretty much all of the 30 horrors so that was great.
Wooden Spoon -- ughh, the Warp Hunters. The first one did OK as a distraction, whiffed his only shot, then got exploded by a vortex. Had he survived he was going to drop the destroyer template on the deathstar to get some maxed out hits and ignore their cover saves, that would have been super nasty, but it was not to be. Then the other warp hunter just aced itself on the drop, very very sad. Next time I think just one Warp Hunter will be more than enough, two seems to be a bit too much investment when one can get the majority of jobs done anyway.
Takeaways -- don't go to the bathroom during movement phases! Also even though Corsairs suck at maelstrom, it's still important to try, as you never know what might happen by turn 5 apparently!
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Overall the Corsairs did really well going 4-1, even if the wins were mostly just scraping by with 4ish points most of the time hah. Very frustrating loss where fatigue, lack of focus, and making a few mistakes lost the game, but you really need those in order to keep you sharp in the future, like a slap in the face! Colin also took Corsairs, allied with CWE cousins with a nasty double-Hunter list, but then he took two Byes to end up in 2nd place which was kind of funny, then the pure Corsairs ended up in 5th of 28 so not too bad. 6th place actually ended up taking Best Overall with huge bonuses from Best Painted and Best Sports, so huge kudos to that player and his gorgeous Nurgle army. Finally, despite taking a Tie, the dastardly decurion took Best General, beating out Colin (literally) and earning the respect due to the Ancient Nemesis in many ways..
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Few thoughts for next time....
1. Corsairs are super fun, but have to be more engaging with the opponent so that they dont feel like the game is just being broken sideways by the crazy wargear and rules Corsairs bring.
2. At the same time, need a way to deal with slow players, wow this was so tough to bear -- when you army doesnt show up until turn 2 and often doesnt get properly stuck in until turn 4, those games ideally go to turn 5 at a minimum. As you can see a lot of the time we barely squeezed past turn 3, so that was very very stressful as a player.. that many hours of that kind of stressful waiting and urging takes its toll!
3. MORE SCORING -- Corsairs need to pull some tricks to get more scoring, primarily in the list-building part of the game. Some key ideas:
3.1. Less non-scoring models, i.e. drop the Nightwing, trim the Malevolents, drop the Void Dreamer probably, and pick up more dancers.
3.2. Hate Bringers -- turn the Ghostwalkers into Hate Bringer Cotories for a few more points, nominate a weak unit on the table turn 1, destroy for bonus Maelstrom points! in a mission that swings by single points, this would have made a difference in half the games, particularly if (knowing that) the Corsairs had tried a bit harder.
This gets particularly juicy if you can squeeze in double or triple Hate Bringers through multiple detachments, so that killing a single unit on the table can net you 2-3 maelstrom points right there. Thanks Colinsherlow for this sneaky-ass Corsair style idea!
4. RESILIENCE -- realized that the only models that can weather the storm for a turn really are the Malevolents, who are not scoring, and the Princes, who are risky.
4.1. Option 1 - pick up a Farseer and some warp spiders purely to bring in Shrouding, Invisibility, and then objective presence and interference factor
4.2. Option 2 - pick up more barons and slap shadowfields on them, save them for specifically when you need to score objectives and use them to tank! This may not be very successful, but worth trying I think. Probably 1 extra baron will work, max 2
Last but not least, some reviews of the units:
Prince - one word, BALLER, and you really can play him to taste with any of the Path of the Prince powers, they are all pretty cool. You do have to select opponents carefully though, 2+ armour is a tough one, whereas tactical squads are the bread and butter. Basically he's a bully not a bruiser, like all the Eldar stuff.
Dreamer - very interesting, definitely throws off the opponent due to his funky powers, but mostly not that useful. Only a couple more points than a Baron, but also comes with a nifty witchstaff which is really good.
Malevolents -- really liked these guys, they are surprisingly tough, but also usually pretty wet blankets (except against Horrors on the charge!). You have to know exactly what you expect of these suckers, and dont expect an iota more. Good at helping the Corsairs not get tabled in turn 1, thats for sure
Scatdancers - extra points are so worth it, leadership is a minor risk really as usually they just die anyway, and Outflank is SICK, oh so sick, but Reckless Abandon is absolutely RIDICULOUS, cannot stress enough. Arguably its too much, FW went too far.
Ghostwalkers - one unit is really solid for the infiltrate+scout/outflank; dual-wield pistols is cool but marginally useful, but the biggest thing is having Stealth instead of Shrouded like Rangers... that really sucked, and also no Move Through Cover... what!? Reckless Abandon does not make up for these shortcomings whatsoever.
Phoenix -- is THE BOMB, Strafing Run is so amazing, and Stealth just for extra cream on top, wow what a gunboat
Nightwing - just kind of falls flat, not enough shooting to get a job done in one turn sadly. A pair would be great, but too expensive. Yes they are the ultimate flyer killers, there just arent many flyers i worry about, and yes 2+ jink is phenomenal, but meh, clever players dont shoot him
Hornet -- solid, but I think 2 is the magic number for being able to just bang out targets. One was not that reliable, and pretty easy to kill
Warp Hunter -- really boss, but two of them was unnecessary, and hard to place on the table. One, well placed, can gut the key targets in the opponent's army just fine while avoiding return fire, and costs half as much!
The biggest takeaway of all though, based on this event and then a whole range of friendly games afterwards, is that people in my area really really do not enjoy playing the Corsairs... they are just too extreme, it feels like they are completely powerless to stop them. Turn 1 nothing is on the table, you are forced to either go for the bait or just sit on your hands... turn 2 not much to do, bottom of the turn BAM suddenly all your important stuff is just horribly dead, and the Corsairs bounce so far out of range and LOS the only way you know they are there is because your stuff is dead.
On that note, I am going to keep practicing the pure Corsairs in the background for upcoming competitive events potentially, but for now I'm going to go ahead and transition back to the Croneworld Warhost like good old times, but with all the additional extreme tricks and tactics from playing the Corsairs -- I'm really looking forward to it!
Thanks for reading folks, let me know if you have any questions, suggestions, army list ideas or nightmare match-ups... and if I find any more pictures from these events I'll post them, I promise!
Cheers
