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| Jawaballs' Mephiston Conversion |
So, if you didn't check out the link above, I was taking my beatstick list which contained:
Mephiston
5 Assault Terminators- 3x lightning claws, 2x thunder hammers, LRC
3 Sanguinary Priests- 2x naked, 1x jump pack
10 Assault Marines- 2x meltaguns, 1x powerfist
10 Assault Marines- 2x meltaguns, 1x powerfist
10 Assault Marines- 2x meltaguns, 1x powerfist
Landspeeder- multi-melta, heavy flamer
Landspeeder- multi-melta, heavy flamer
5 Devestators- 4x missile launchers
5 Devestators- 4x missile launchers
My buddy took a somewhat interesting list which I am dubbing the psybolt candy list:
Grandmaster- warding stave, psycannons, blind and rad grenades
Librarian- teleport homer, shrouding, sanctuary
8 Purifiers- 2x psycannons, 3x daemonhammers, psybolt ammo
10 man Strike squad- 2x psycannons, psybolt ammo
10 man Strike squad- 2x psycannons, psybolt ammo
10 man Strike squad- 2x daemonhammers, 2x falchions, 2x halberds, justicar with warding stave, psybolt ammo, rhino
6 terminators- 4x halberds, 1x sword, justicar with daemonhammer, psybolt ammo
Stormraven- assault cannon, heavy bolter, psybolt ammo
So, quite an eclectic list with a lot of interesting choices. My buddy has always made interesting lists that work well for him. This one can really punish an army from the midfield and then counter assault with terminators and purifiers.
My own strategy involved moving my LRC up as mobile cover for my terminators, Mephiston, and an assault squad. If they can close the distance, they will jump out of hiding and assault everything within sight, hopefully using a sanguinary priest to give out FNP and FC.
Our tabletop had two buildings in each quarter of my side about equidistance from the edges. There was also a building in my opponent's side about a third of the way from my left side. There was a two tier hill in the middle of the board and a scattering of over debris and forests. One forest, directly in front of the left building on my side would hold one of my opponent's strike squads. As a resource, I have added a simple Vassal picture for reference.
We rolled annihilation and spearhead for our game. My opponent took the upper left hand corner while I had the lower right hand corner. It is good to note that all ruined buildings were at least 2 stories tall if not three.
My buddy put a strike squad in the building, the rhino squad behind the building, and the final strike squad in the forest. His GM and libby went with the purifiers in the stormraven behind the strike squad forest. He put his terminators into reserve for deepstriking.
My devestators deployed with a sanguinary priest in the ruined building for good fields of fire across the table. My terminators went in the LRC with another priest next to the building behind the hill and I put Mephiston and an assault squad behind the LRC. My other two assault squads, sanguinary priest, and landspeeders went into reserve.
My opponent won the roll for first turn and I failed to sieze.
This game really centered around the middle of the table with his purifiers w/GM and libby and his terminators and my terminators and Mephiston. Things happened elsewhere but the main action happened to the immediate left of the hill.
My opponent sought to come in aggressively with the stormraven moving forward at full speed to just southwest of the hill and shooting to no avail with it's assault cannon. In response, I shot the LRC's mult-melta and 4 missiles at it which caused an immobilized result. Since he moved forward flat-out, it counted as wrecked. However, I wasn't aggressive enough and when the squad got out at the back of the raven, I couldn't close the distance to assault it. This turned into a 1-2 turn stand off until my opponent allowed me to assault. In the meantime his terminators came in to the direct left of the hill. Shooting would take my assault squad that shadowed the LRC down to two men who would fail morale, flee, rally, and then use the LRC for cover for the rest of the game. The LRC was also immobilized by a lucky psycannon shot.
The big moment came when Mephiston made a big move around the south side of the wrecked raven to assault the terminators while my terminators and priest moved around the north side to crisscross Mephi's path and assault the purifiers who I had shot down to about 4-5 purifiers and the two characters. This combat saw my opponent fail to remember to use his blind grenades (forgot that he had them) until too late. This cost him 2 purifiers, a dead librarian, and a wound to his GM for only a single lost lightning claw terminator on my part. The fearless wounds killed another purifier or two leaving only the GM and a daemonhammer left. In Mephiston's assault, psych-out grenades cost me the initiative and my opponent rolled well enough to get hammerhand off. Luckily, Mephiston suffered no wounds from the 10 halberd and sword attacks coming at him. However, the daemonhammer knocked off two wounds. I killed a single terminator due to some great invul saves, but passed my morale test.
In the next round of combat, Mephiston took out all but the daemonhammer who failed to add any wounds, but passed all of his fearless saves after failing morale and being swept. In the other combat, I was able to take out the final purifier and when the GM failed to wound, I was able to break him and let him run.
The final straw came when my immobilized LRC was able to use its multi-melta to insta-kill the GM as he fled. The terminators then assaulted into the lone daemonhammer terminator and killed him easily.
While this epic scrum happened, I was able to immobilize his rhino strike squad as it advance on the right. I then was able to drop an assault squad and a landspeeder in front of it to take care of that flank. The strike squad got out and shot at my assault marines, only killing 1 or 2. In reply, the landspeeder flamed and melta-ed the squad down significantly leaving only 3-4 models of which the assault squad was able to easily mop up in combat.
On the left, my final assault squad with priest came in and helped shoot up the strike squad in the forest. it would flee and rally only to be shot again the next turn and flee again with two remaining models that would again rally at the board edge.
At the end of turn 4, my opponent had a rhino that was immobilized with no weapon, 2 fleeing strike squad members, and a lone strike squad holding a building as my Blood Angels surrounded the building preparation for assault. We called it there. In the end, the score came out to a landslide 6-0 kp advantage to the Blood Angels!
This game was fun and helped me to start being a bit more aggressive with my armies. I tend to be a cautious player, but the Beatstick was meant to be played aggressively, so I pushed forward into my opponent's face and he could handle my units when I got there.
Psychic powers were really hit or miss with Mephiston and the librarian canceling out quite a few of the powers played. Funnily enough the rhino strike squad failed its very first psychic test and lost the warding stave justicar to a perils of the warp. Otherwise, there weren't many adverse effects. We mostly just experienced the headache of having our powers canceled when we needed them most in combat.
The real kicker for my opponent was forgetting that he had the blind grenades until after the turn that they counted. Had he remembered my terminators would have had many fewer attacks and wouldn't have had S5, I5 for that first round of combat when I took out a good few of his purifiers before they could attack. That really cost him big time. Otherwise, I think my Blood Angels were just better at getting to grips with his army and using their combat ability to shred things. Mephiston is a beast and can easily handle whole units on his own. I threw him into the terminators knowing that he would be able to weather their attacks easily and begin to knock them out a few at a time. That second round of combat was insane with me scoring 5 successful wounds and then his daemonhammer hitting twice, but rolling two 1s to-wound. Once the purifiers and terminators were taken care, the game was set for me and it was a matter of mopping up. I think my opponent should have played a bit more aggressively as he was relying on high initiative attacks and grenades to save the day and then he didn't remember to use those things.
The Beatstick is super fun to play and I love furious charge/feel no pain terminators and Mephiston. They are just a nasty, nasty combo.
Other Battle Reports:
Space Wolf Razorspam vs. Horde Orks- a Vassal Report
Sanguinary v. Grey Knights
Vulkan Ain't No Joke
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