Morning.
As previously mentioned, Ireland's first Battlefleet Gothic tournament will be held in Bray this October. I'm very happy to see an actual Specialist Game tournament in Ireland. The organisers had space for twelve players and they have gotten their twelve with a minimum of effort. Amusingly, that makes it bigger than the famous BFG tournament held every year at Adepticon.
As part of our new "other wargames" campaign, we're sending three Warheads to this event. Or to be more accurate, two fully fledged Warheads and a body servant called John. Or Mary. Honestly, who can keep track of the help? But with no prior experience to draw on, our lust for victory is sending us haywire.
It's generally acknowledged that winning requires good list design and we're operating in the void of zero match-day experience here. Yes, yes, we know that the battles themselves are only a portion of the overall score and the tournament boasts a strong "soft" scoring element. But still... good list design demands information. How can we find tournament lists to base our theories on? The best
place to start is Adepticon. The Irish tournament seems to be following their lead with a
very, very similar rules set. Let's look at the strongest finishers from the 2012 tournament.
Space Marines
Venerable Battle Barge,
3 Strike Cruisers w/ extra shield
3 Strike Cruisers w/ extra shield and extra bombardment swap
When we strip away all soft scores and examine the actual battle results, this list finishes well ahead of the rest. What do we see? A list playing to its strengths. They're all large ships with good armour and upgraded shields. He has bet heavily on light to moderate enemy lances and trusted in his armour. He'll need it because he has to close to make best use of his bombardment cannons.
Really, it's Wargaming 101, build in redundancy and focus on enhancing your strengths. His ships simply go for a stand-up fight. You will notice the lack of escorts. That's because most escorts are terrible.
Craftworld Eldar
Flame of Asuryan
Dragonship with Weapon
Battery and Launch Bay
3 Wraithships with Lances and Launch Bays
3
Shadowhunters w/ Weapon Batteries
3 Shadowhunters w/ Phantom Lances
This list falls behind the Space Marines in raw battle scores but is still well clear of the chasing pack. Some will not be familiar with this new fleet list, which is distinct from the traditional Eldar pirate lists. The Craftworld Eldar have slightly stronger armour on their ships but the main strength is the ability to customise their ships as they wish. This player has gone for an even mix of weapon batteries and lances to threaten all ship classes.
You might think he's skimped on defensive air power but this is deceptive. The Shadowhunters have special rules which boost his anti-ordnance ability. Like the pirates, it's all about using asteroid fields and gas clouds to choose his battles, launching strikes against isolated elements of the enemy fleet.
Chaos
Despoiler,
2 Devastation
Acheron
2 Murder,
3 Iconoclasts
This falls well behind the two previous lists in battle scores. The Chaos player has focused on one thing, long-range (60cm) lances. There are some launch bays and weapons batteries mixed in but this is clearly a stand-off list. It could run into serious difficulty against a holofield-equipped opponent but will murder slow, heavily armoured fleets. In theory.
I'm guessing he didn't draw the Space Marine list above as it would have been an interesting match-up. The flaw here is that all the long range firepower comes at a cost. The list can't output enough shots to win a short range duel. If a canny opponent can use celestial phenomena to close without crippling losses, he's goosed.
Imperial Navy
Emperor
2 Vengeance
2 Lunar w/Nova Cannon
2 Endurance light cruisers
This list finished similarly to the Chaos list above. A quick glance shows it to be an all-round force, based on some of the best classes in the Imperial fleet registry. The Emperor is a solid, all-round battleship that finds it way into most fleets. The Vengeance grand cruisers support it by adding some long range firepower. The dual nova cannons give the fleet even more reach.
The list designer has attempted to patch the weakness of the Imperial Navy at long range firefights with some success. The price is less actual hulls on the table and less potency at close range.
Tyranids
Hive Ship w/ 2 Prow Pyroacids and
3 Side Launch Bays
Hive Ship w/ 2 Prow Bioplasma + 2 Side Bioplasma
+ 1 Side Launch Bays
8 Bio-drones
6 Pyro-drones
8
Feeder-Vanguards
6 Claw-Kraken
4 Pyro-Kraken w/ 1 Feeder-Kraken
After all those stand-off fighters, someone has gone with the blunt club approach. This list came close to the Chaos and Imperials in battle scores. A single brawling Hiveship and one stand-off Hiveship form the heart of a true swarm fleet. The Feeder Vanguard are designed to swarm into the enemy fleet and provide targeting buffs. The rest of the escorts are balanced between close, medium and stand-off combatants.
This player is going to have a lot of fun. His list is solid and has every threat vector imaginable, from boarding actions out to 45cm pyro-acid batteries. His main vulnerability is the amount of VPs given up by those swarms of escorts as they inevitably explode into goo.
Back to the local scene, the fleet composition of the Irish tournament is as follows. It's a mixed bag although the various forms of Eldar are probably happy to see no Necron players. We're also lacking Tyranid and Ork players this time out. The classic fleets make a strong showing with six Imperial and Traitor fleets.
(3) Chaos
(3) Imperial Navy
(1) Craftworld Eldar
(1) Eldar Pirates
(1) Dark Eldar
(1) Tau
(1) Space Marines
(1) Space Wolves
The key issue, as I see it, is to strike the correct balance between lance and battery type weapons. The former are strong against heavily armoured ships and the latter are best against average and lightly armoured ships. With five heavily armoured lists and seven lighter lists, it appears that weapon batteries might be the slightly better option. The players will have to weigh the benefits of an all-rounder force against focusing on one element and hoping Lady Luck is kind.
Personally, I'm going with an all-rounder force while maintaining my "no escorts, ever" policy.
Labels: Army Lists, Battlefleet Gothic, Irish Tournaments, Newbreed
