March Madness Challenger Edition: Part 3, Round 1 over!

Some gruesome combat occurred! Lucky rolls by some contestants helped them move on and even luckier rolls helped others survive a certain death. Also, Crowe makes the most boring combats ever. Read up on the winners and losers after the jump:

March Madness Challenger Edition: Part 2, Brackets and Rules

So it came to my attention that a few of the Challengers can resurrect themselves and that some others may not die within average game length 1v1 so to counteract this we have the following rules:

• 5 Rounds
• No charges, we are assuming that both Challengers stepped up to fight simultaneously
• Most wounds after 5 rounds wins
• If there is a tie, there is a sudden death round, whomever does the most wounds in that round wins, in the even there is still a tie it's a roll-off.
• If both contenders die, the one who did more wounds moves on (Instant death only counts as 1 wounds for this purpose)
• Resurrection Bracket: After the winners are determined there is a loser's bracket where the loser's have a second chance at final victory.
• During the second round there will be 2 mini-brackets. 4 random Challengers will fight in each of the brackets with 1 winner coming out and rejoining each bracket. This is due to the odd number of contenders.

And that's that. Now the Bracket. I apologize for not having proper bracket format but I'm a Blogger newbie so bear with me. To make the bracket I put every name into a computer program that then randomly paired the names off. Here we go:

March Madness Challenger Edition: Part 1, The Contenders

This is an article all about how Aba-Aba-Abaddon wins. Not really. I wanna know: Who is the wins a unique HQ fight Bracket style. For this I'm going to be using real rolls and not math calculations so place your bets! Anyone could win! 

Now obviously this is a vast undertaking so I've decided to limit the contenders (alphabetically):

Khorne Hounds + Karanak: A love story

I don't like Karanak or Hounds. So, I lied about the love story part. I just want to do a bunch of comparisons to make you not like them or at least take something else. Here we go:

MEQ Blob

What's more dangerous than an IG blob? The same blob consisting of Space Marines obviously. Mission: fit as many MEQ as you can into one list. Second Mission: cut some of the fat.

Mission 1
Dark Angels Primary, Space Marines Ally (this is because DA MEQs are all cheaper)

HQ
Librarian, (Divination, Standard of Devastation, Force Sword), 130

Troops
10 Spess Marines, (Flamer), 145
10 Spess Marines, (Flamer), 145
10 Spess Marines, (Flamer), 145
10 Spess Marines, (Flamer), 145
10 Spess Marines, (Flamer), 145
10 Spess Marines, (Flamer), 145

Ally

HQ
Librarian, (Biomancy, Telepathy, Force Axe), 100

Troops
10 Space Marines, (Flamer, Multi-Melta), 170
10 Space Marines, (Flamer), 170

Total: 1440

You can add some upgrades for the squads but really at 1500 points this is what you can get. 60 Marines and 2 Librarians helping buff them. The Standard of Devastation/Divination Librarian gives everyone Salvo 2/4 Bolters and takes Prescience for re-roll to hit on a squad. Since you're only at 1440 I'd take another Divination Librarian and remove 1 flamer.

Now for a full 1999+1 list I'd change it to this:


HQ
Librarian, (Divination, Standard of Devastation, Force Sword), 130
Librarian, (Divination, Storm Bolter, Force Axe), 70

Troops
10 Spess Marines, (Plasma Gun, Multi-Melta), 165
10 Spess Marines, (Plasma Gun, Multi-Melta), 165
10 Spess Marines, (Plasma Gun, Multi-Melta), 165
10 Spess Marines, (Plasma Gun, Multi-Melta), 165
10 Spess Marines, (Plasma Gun, Multi-Melta), 165
10 Spess Marines, (Plasma Gun, Multi-Melta), 165

Fast Attack
10 Assault Marines, (Melta Bomb, Flamer x2), 185
10 Assault Marines, (Melta Bomb, Flamer x2), 185

2000 on the nose. The second divination Librarian got a Storm Bolter because I had 5 extra points. The full list is now:

HQ
Librarian, (Divination, Standard of Devastation, Force Sword), 130
Librarian, (Divination, Storm Bolter, Force Axe), 70

Troops
10 Spess Marines, (Plasma Gun, Multi-Melta), 165
10 Spess Marines, (Plasma Gun, Multi-Melta), 165
10 Spess Marines, (Plasma Gun, Multi-Melta), 165
10 Spess Marines, (Plasma Gun, Multi-Melta), 165
10 Spess Marines, (Plasma Gun, Multi-Melta), 165
10 Spess Marines, (Plasma Gun, Multi-Melta), 165

Fast Attack
10 Assault Marines, (Melta Bomb, Flamer x2), 185
10 Assault Marines, (Melta Bomb, Flamer x2), 185

Ally
HQ
Librarian, (Biomancy, Telepathy, Force Axe), 100

Troops
10 Space Marines, (Flamer, Multi-Melta), 170
10 Space Marines, (Flamer, Multi-Melta), 170

Now you have a total of 103 MEQ which makes me laugh. The Multi-meltas can be switched for Flakk missile launchers if you drop the Plasma Gun. I'm not too worried about Flyers in my local meta (not many people can/want to afford them) so I just take MMs for blowing up lots of vehicles. You have two Divination Librarians giving you 2 10 man units with 32 re-roll to hit bolter shots each. This will get about 10 MEQ per turn or 19 FX per turn. And then everyone else gets to shoot. So with this list you can take out blobs and vechicle parks but you'll have some trouble with flyers. It's not that bad except for transporting this monstrosity.

Chaos Land Raider List

Just a fun list to try out. You have almost no troops and very little of anything else. You might not win with the list but it'll be fun to put down on the board:

HQ
Warpsmith
Warpsmith
(to repair vehicles)

Troops
Cultists (minimum)
Cultists

Elites
Terminators w/Land Raider
Terminators w/Land Raider
Terminators w/Land Raider

Heavy Support
Land Raider w/Dozer Blade
Land Raider w/Dozer Blade
Land Raider w/Dozer Blade


This list is fun to me because not a lot of local people bring Melta anymore and only Dark Eldar can spam lances. I mean a power fist needs a 6 just to glance. The idea is you break down the enemy tanks and such until nothing is left. Almost everything in your army is twin-linked which is nice. You won't be able to take down a blob with this but you might not lose any units the whole game (as long as every stays buttoned up)

Again not a winning list but 6 Land Raiders is a little hilarious to put down.

Quickie: Is that Psyker gonna work?

Just wanted to throw out some quick maths on the failure rate of Psykers.

1/6 deny the witch and 3/36 fail to cast with Ld 10. With Ld 9 it's an additional 1/6.

So in total those powers cast on enemies have a 25% failure rate with Ld 10 and a 33% rate with Ld 9.

Now how about that gun you've got? Storm bolter? BS 4 means you have 33% chance of hitting. Against MEQ with your 2 shots you cause .11 wound per shot or .22 wounds total. Meaning you have a very low (less than 60%) chance of killing someone.

I include the storm bolter comparison to validate Psychic powers. It was much easier to get one off last edition but in this edition they're the best shooting attacks outside of BS 5 and still pretty good besides. In a 5 turn game you have a 65% chance of passing every power. That's good odds. If it's against other units you have a 23% chance in a 5 turn game of hurting someone every time. Still pretty good odds for a unit wide shooting attack.

Honestly, enemy specific psychic powers get a bad rap with Deny the Witch but the odds are as in your favor as they can get in this game.