Having finished painting her Skathach Wraithknight – whose pictures will be uploaded once his basing is finished – Red decided to build an army list around him to take to the store’s next tournament.
This tournament, we used the tactical objective cards and randomized missions and objective placements, which led to very strange games overall. I can see why most of the other official tournaments use standardized missions, although I will admit that I did somewhat miss tactical objectives since my armies have always been pretty decent at bouncing around the board to grab whatever I needed.
The List
I took a Super Heavy Auxilliary for my Skathach Wraithknight and combined it with a Battalion of other models to push my Command Points higher:
- Skathach Wraithknight with Deathshroud Cannons
- The Visarch
- Farseer with Singing Spear
- 10 Guardian Defenders with Bright Lance Platform
- 10 Guardian Defenders with Bright Lance Platform
- 5 Rangers
- 4 Swooping Hawks with Sunrifle Exarch
- 5 Shadow Spectres with Prism Blaster Exarch
- 5 Wraithblades with Axes and Shields
- Wave Serpent with Twin Bright Lances
Round 1
Ynnari – Yncarne, Visarch, 3 sets of 5 Dire Avengers, 5 Wraithguard with Scythes, 3 War Walkers, Wave Serpent, 5 Warp Spiders
My opponent deployed in a large blob as far forward in his deployment zone as he could, while most of my army hid behind the various bits of terrain scattered about, although the Skathach, Hawks, and Rangers went into Reserves to come in later. Getting to go first thanks to my tiny number of drops, my army – beyond the rangers and guardians, who camped objectives – moved forward, the Hawks and Skathach coming in at optimal range to dish out as much damage as they could. Unfortunately, the only thing that died was one War Walker, although that was enough for the Yncarne to come in and absolutely destroy the Skathach and Spectres – that is a trick I am going to have etched into my brain for a while now.
The rest of my opponent’s army tried, but failed, to bring down the Wave Serpent in which the Visarch, Farseer, and Wraithblades were hiding. This allowed me to disembark all of them the next turn without chancing the explosion, the blades killing the Visarch before Soulburst charging into the Wraithguard, who only killed one of my axe wraiths.
Since my opponent was relatively new, the game went by relatively slowly, leading to both of us scoring rather low.
Biel-Tan Ynnari 9 | Custom Ynnari 7
Round 2
Space Wolves – 2 Assault Cannon Rhinos, Las Cannon Rhino, 3 sets of 5 Wulfen, 2 sets of 5 Long Claws (basically tactical marines), 5 Blood Claws (basically assault marines), Leviathan Dreadnought, Wolf Priest, Wolf Lord (I think)
This game really began to underline the problems with the list I wrote. In the first turn, my Ynnari only managed to kill 3 Wulfen – those storm shields are pretty awful to get around – and 4 Long Claws. My opponent’s answer, on the other hand, killed the Skathach, Shadow Spectres, and Rangers. There was almost no way for my army to put out enough damage to reliably kill much more than a single squad a turn, and the amount of melee going on was not in my favor.
The only way I won was by scoring a large number of tactical objectives on my first turn and having early control of the board. Although the tides quickly turned on me, my opponent was not able to keep up with the tactical objectives because of my lucky draw.
Biel-Tan Ynnari 9 | Space Wolves 7
Round 3
Imperial Guard – Company Commander, 3 sets of 10 IG Infantry, Salamander Command Vehicle, 3 Earthshaker Batteries, 3 Mortar Squads, 3 Heavy Quad Launchers, 3 Primaris Psykers, Knight Errant, Dominus Armored Bombard
This game was where my army entirely fell apart. My opponent covered pretty much his entire deployment zone with vehicles and bodies, and although I got to go first thanks to my small number of drops, he out-deployed me. Knowing I would have a number of models coming in from reserves, he made sure to block out every last place I would land behind him and then proceeded to shoot my army to peices, tabling me in three turns.
Biel-Tan Ynnari 6 | Imperial Guard 13
Results
I was somewhere around the middle of the group points-wise, and I will chalk that up to the abysmal performance of the Skathach. I am not entirely certain if it was because the rest of my army could not keep up with him or if it was because he was simply too many points. Still, it decreased my army’s damage output by a lot, even running the Skathach with his 4d6 shot Deathshroud Cannons.
Still, it was nice to feel less of the army-hate being thrown my way than I usually get, but it was somewhat destined. The list that took first place was 140 Poxwalkers with 11 or so Characters, all of whom either dished out mortal wounds via psychic powers or buffed the poxwalkers or did both. It was brutal, and I was sort of happy that I did not have to face it.