Game Night: One Win, One Loss

I got over to my FLGS tonight to play some Warmahordes and got in two great games.  The first was against the local pressganger, a Skorne Player.  We played a 25pt. Killbox game.  Again, since I am learning quite a bit, we played pretty loose and my opponent was super cool about the game while still not pulling any punches.  He had:

eHexeris

-Titan Bronzeback
-Titan Cannoneer
10 Nihilators
4 Paingivers
Agonizer

I took:
pSeverius
-Reckoner
-Vanquisher
min Temple Flameguard +UA
min Choir
Covenant
Vassal
pEiryss

This game was a fun one despite facing a vastly more skilled opponent.  The game hinged around a critical setup in the middle of the field where I moved up my Reckoner to receive the Bronzeback.  I gave the Reckoner enliven and cast vision on him along with using the covenant to prevent knockdowns.  Unfortunately, my opponent had his Nihilators close enough to get a few into combat with him.  They were able to do damage to him triggering enliven and then the Bronzeback came in and tore him apart.  This signalled a huge shift from things looking to go in my favor to significantly in my opponent's favor.  I didn't have anything to jam up lanes to pSevvy at that point and so went in for a desperate assassination attempt on Hexeris and simple couldn't convert.  The Bronzeback summarily beat down my Vanquisher and then threw him into pSevvy for the kill. 

I learned a few things in this game though.

1) pSevvy really has some nasty spells.  Defender's Ward and Eye of Menoth are huge. 
2) Consequently, a unit of Flameguard with Defender's Ward and shield wall is annoying.  Adding iron zeal makes them horrendous to get rid of.
3) Ashes to Ashes is deceptively good, but suffers from low POW.
4) pSevvy really likes an arc node.  I kept wishing I had my Revenger out to play.

Game 2 was another killbox scenario.  My second opponent was open to a 35pt. game. 

He took the following Cygnar army:

Kara Sloan
- Defender
- Hunter
- Hunter
Gun Mages with officer
-Cyclone
Reinholdt
Harlan Versh

I took another pSevvy list:

pSevvy
-Reckoner
-Vanquisher
Avatar
min Choir
max Flameguard + UA
Covenant
Vassal

This game was interesting to say the least.  Turn 1 saw my opponent move up and wait.  Chiefly, he swung his two hunters around on my right flank which diverted me a bit.  In my turn 1, I moved up and tried to potshot his hunters.  My Vanquisher missed, but deviated onto a gun mage.  My Reckoner shot a nasty shot into one of the Hunter severely damaging it.  Otherwise, I put up Eye and Defender's Ward on the Flameguard where they held my left flank facing off against the Defender, many of the gun mages and Harlan.

In my opponent's Turn 2, he popped Sloan's feat and went to town on my Avatar.  Unfortunately, I lost him.  However, it took the whole turn.  My only other casualties were a couple Flameguard. In my turn, through some snazzy movement, I was able to charge the damaged Hunter with Reckoner and destroy it.   My Vanquisher dropped a template on the other Hunter and did a few boxes of damage and set it on fire.  My Flameguard were able to get into combat with Harlan, but couldn't charge his gun mages due to some cover fire from the Cyclone.  They ended up doing 2 damage to him.

In turn 3, he began to go to work on my Reckoner and while really damaged, it survived and still posed a threat.  It was at this point though that my support began to get whittled down.  I lost 2 of 4 choir and my Vassal.  It was looking harsh, so I knew I needed to work something out quick.  In my turn, I moved my Reckoner out to tie up his Hunter, but didn't accomplish much with my club arm damaged.  My Flameguard, charged a few gun mages and killed one I think.  pSevvy stepped though and did some real damage by casting Ashes to Ashes on his Cyclone and using it to blast 4 gun mages including the officer.  I also popped feat which would make my opponent's next turn really hard.  Finally, my Vanquisher got lucky and missed a shot on the last gun mage which deviated onto Reinholdt and Sloan.  Reinholdt died and Sloan took something like 2 damage and caught on fire. 

At turn 4, my opponent started to feel the pressure.  He knew he had to do some damage to pSevvy.  Everything moved up to try and kill him.  Sloan plinked off about 7 boxes, his Cyclone stepped up and rolled all 6 of its shots and left me on a single box!  At that point, with the failed assassination Sloan was hung out for my Vanquisher to charge in and smash her face with his blazing star.  Victory to Menoth.

This game was sweet.  I could not believe that last turn.  The Cyclone needed 8's to hit and couldn't do much since Sloan had no focus.  It was a nail-biter.  I think he hit 3 or 4 out of 6 shots, but not being able to boost meant that he had a hard time getting past ARM 14 + 2 camped focus.  It was tough seeing the Avatar go down in turn 2, but seeing him withstand so much damage including out of activation shots due to Sloan's feat was awesome.  By soaking damage, he really saved my bacon.  Again, my Flameguard were aces.  At one point, I had Defender's Ward, Shield Wall and Iron Zeal up.  I think they had DEF 15 ARM 23 and that simply made them heinous to do anything to. 

Warmahordes is really growing on me. I love the fluidity of the gameplay.  Having so many options available in an army, different combinations of activations, and synergies from multiple effects really adds to its depth. I got a real sense of how out-of-my-league I was in playing despite making some decent decisions along the way.  This game is really going to be a sweet learning experience. 

Here are some other Warmachine articles:
Warmachine the Way I See It: Warcaster Study, pKreoss
That.Was.Awesome.
How Important is the Front Arc, Really?
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That. Was. Awesome.

So, it happened.

I finally got in my first game with a full painted Menoth Army.  Not only that, but I got to experience a really interesting scenario. 

I came into my LGS to try for a pickup game tonight and found out that they were wrapping up an escalation league.  There were perhaps 12-15 Warmahordes players present.  So, I watched for a bit until the store owner noticed I was there.  I do a lot of commission work for him and he knew I wanted to get in a game tonight, so he asked a player if he could spare some time.  We were about to start a game when I was instead invited to be a part of a special scenario game meant to cap off the league and man was it a scenario.

The league organizer developed a scenario where a giant monolith dominated the center of the board.  It was on a very large base, perhaps a an inch of radius or so bigger than a battle engine base.  It had quote a few super nasty stats include 120 damage boxes. Three players deployed in corners of the table and had the task of destroying the monolith and acted as friendly faction models for the task.  The monolith had some punishing special attacks that used energy, not focus or fury, so it couldn't be stopped in any way.  The only issue is that it didn't have enough energy to do enough damage to all of the forces arrayed against it and it's seemingly large quantity of damage boxes went pretty quickly when a fully charged Mulg got swinging on it.  The other interesting aspect of the game revolved around the list.  Each player had two warcasters or warlocks and they shared a 15 point list + their jack/warbeast points. 

I took: pSeverius and pKreoss with the Avatar, a Crusader, a Revenger, a min Choir, and 3 Wracks. 

So, the three allied players, a Trollbloods player, a Skorne player, and my Menoth managed to easily take down the monolith in two turns.  However, the twist came when the league organizer revealed that once the monolith was destroyed, the three allies cut all ties and sought to destroy each other's casters with only one army left standing.

This is when the series of events swung severely into my favor. 

1) The monolith had a power where if it made its attack rolls, it could take over the movement and action of the model hit in its next activation, even if destroyed.  It managed to take over both a bronzeback and Molik Karn from the Skorne player.  In his second turn, the Skorne player suicided his Naaresh and then his other caster, both out of spite and to prevent the monolith player from using his own warbeasts on him.  This effectively took him out of the game immediately. 

2) We took turns in a clockwise fashion and the monolith was destroyed on the Skorne player's turn, which meant that he eliminated that threat and himself right before handing the game over to me. 

3) The Trollblood player moved forward aggressively to help with the monolith exposing his two warcasters to my army.

4) My army was delayed due to an attack from the monolith that created impassable terrain features.  This caused me to have a fairly good line of sight and distance to the Trollblood player's army.

So, in my turn, I had a full army, unmolested, ready to beat face.  The Avatar and Crusader both had defender's ward up, one from Kreoss and one from Severius.  I also had Eye of Menoth up on my battlegroup. 

My first move included bestowing hymn of battle on my battlegroup and the Avatar.  Then, Kreoss moved forward and feated, knocking down everything in the Trollblood army, but his warlocks.  His army included: eDoomy and Borka, Mulg, a Mauler, and an Impaler.  Kreoss' feat knocked down the keg bearer, Mulg, the Mauler, and the Impaler.

I was then able to charge the impaler with the Avatar, knocking off quite a few boxes and using his reach to smack Borka pretty hard.  I then moved my Revenger in to poke at Borka and after passing a tough roll, ended him.  I then arc noded off the Revenger to do some damage to eDoomy and set him fire.  The Crusader then charged in to Impaler and wiped him out. 

In his turn, my opponent had some hard decisions.  First, the fire on eDoomy went out, much to my Chagrin.  Both Mulg and the Mauler were knocked down.  They both had also maxed out on fury to help destroy the monolith.  Due to this and because eDoomy was camping fury, they both had to take frenzy checks.  Mulg passed, but the Mauler didn't which ultimately meant he could get up from being knocked down.  Mulg then got up and moved to get into range for primal shock against my warcasters.  He took a free strike from the avatar and was knocked down to three boxes. It was then that my opponent remembered that Severius can't be affected by spells.  He instead went after Kreoss and killed him with some impressive rolling and two primal shocks.  With that done, my opponent had to hand it back to me. 

This was it.  I had both the Avatar and the Revenger in range to smack eDoomy while the Crusader could handle Mulg for his last three boxes and the Mauler was still knocked down.  I walked the Avatar forward and took a mighty swing with his sword and boxed him.  He was unable to make his tough roll and I walked away victorious. 

Wow!  What a fun game.  Not to mention, I got to play against some really cool guys with amazingly painted armies.  Events transpired perfectly for me to win this game.  Had the Skorne player not lost control of his two warbeasts, things would have been different.  The Trollblood player would have been easily crushed from both sides and then I would have had an uphill climb against a very canny opponent in the Skorne player who would be relatively unscathed as well.  Luckily though, that didn't happen.  Likewise, the turn sequence and positioning of armies allowed me to be in position to feat with Kreoss and cut out his warcasters with ease.

I definitely learned a thing or two from the players and found that I had a fairly decent handle on things despite being relatively new to the gaming system.  Having wargaming experience really helped me out here.  I was glad for that. 

Warmahordes is fast and brutal and loads of fun.  I can't wait to add a few more units to my army and get into some more battles!

If you are an experienced Warmahorde-er, leave a comment a share your first experience with the game.  I would love to hear how things have gone to others. 






Here are some other Warmachine articles:
Warmachine the Way I See It: Warcaster Study, pKreoss
The Harbinger of Menoth: Model Review
How Important is the Front Arc, Really?
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Black Friday Beatdown- BA v. GK

Jawaballs' Mephiston Conversion

In my last post, I talked about the fact that I have few new commission jobs slated for the holiday season of which one is a continuation of a Grey Knight army I am working on for a friend.  He had to drop off a final piece to me today, so we used the exchange as an excuse to play a game of 40k.  I have been really excited to try out my Blood Angel Beatstick list, so I decided that the Angels would roll out today.  I had no idea what my buddy would be taking, but I should have guessed it would be Grey Knights since he was dropping off GK models to me. 

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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Descent of Angels v. Eldar- A Real Life Battle Report!

This week, I have gotten two games in!  That is amazing.  One was the Vassal game I reported on earlier this week. The other was an actual, real life game.  I haven't had one of those in ages!  I had to take some commission jobs up to my LGS to drop them off and get paid, so I brought up my Blood Angels opting for a list similar to Blood Hammer from 3++.  I played a 1,500 point battle against an Eldar player. I took:

Libby-jump pack, sword, lance

3 Sanguinary Priests- 2x jump packs
5 Sanguinary Guard- chapter banner, 2x infernus pistols

10 Assault marines- 2x meltas, power fist
10 Assault marines- 2x meltas, power fist

5 Vanguard Vets- glaive, power weapon, power fist, 2x ccw

5 Devestators- 4x missiles
5 Devestators- 4x missiles

My opponent took, what I think was (didn't see an army list):
Eldrad
Maugan ra

9 Harlequins- troupemaster w/ power weapon, shadowseer, 2x fusion pistols, harlequins kisses on 7

3 eldar bikes- 2x shuriken cannons
3 eldar bikes- 2x shuriken cannons

5 swooping hawks- exarch w/sunrifle
5 swooping hawks- exarch w/sunrifle
5 swooping hawks- exarch w/sunrifle

Nightspinner- holo-fields
Fire Prism- holo-fields
Fire Prism-holo-fields

Which it turns out looks like it is about 1,650 or so.  If I drop all upgrades, it is still quite a bit higher than 1,500.  I also discovered that my opponent was giving Eldrad 2 base attacks +1 for pistol instead of 1 base +1 for pistol.  That made a difference. 

Overall it was a fun game which came down to the wire at turn 6.  We played capture and control with spearhead deployment.  I set up my devs with a priest in a building in my corner and waited to shoot some stuff.  They didn't do much all game aside from contest my home objective.  I deepstruck everything else: libby and priest with sanguinary guard, priest with an assault squad, and assault squad, and my vanguard vets.  One devestator squad and the sanguinary guard got red thirst. 

My opponent deployed his harlequins forward-ish in his quarter behind some impassable with Eldrad and Maugan Ra inside.  His nightspinner and fire prisms went behind in the very corner of the board. 

I stole the iniative, which I probably shouldn't have done.  Not much happened in turn 1, with me only losing squad leaders in my devs. 

In turn 2, my sanguinary guard, and two assault squads came down in his quarter and wrecked the fire prisms.  He then counter assaulted into my sanguinary guard.  His shooting took out all but the chapter banner, the libby, and the priest.  When assaulted, everything died except the libby who took a single wound.  He dealt two back allowing him to lose by 1 and he passed his test. 

In turn 3, both of my assault squads went in to the harlequin combat to seal the deal there.  In the assault, I lost about 12 models, but luckily was able to take out the entire harlequin squad and Maugan Ra (died to 2 power fist models).  I actually lost the combat, but stayed put and piled in to Eldrad. 

Turns 3-6  The whole game his hawks dropped templates and jumped back up into the air until turn 5.  The templates did very little, taking out maybe 2 devestators.  My Vanguard vets came on turn 4 and plastered a unit of jetbikes and then b-lined it for his objective.  They got very close and then were hosed down by the nightspinner, a unit of jetbikes and a unit of swooping hawks. 

The big deal was that in the combat with Eldrad, I had about 8 models, including a priest and two fists.  I couldn't put a wound on him due to his fortuned 3++ save.  However, the extra attack my opponent gave erroneously paid off in dividends, taking care of all but one power fist model over the course of turns 3-5.  On turn 5, my last remaining power fist lost combat when the sanguinary priest was finally killed and actually broke from combat.  He wasn't caught and Eldrad moved away from him.  He then rallied and found some cover in jump range of my opponent's objective in turn 6, but the game ended there. 

In the end, it was a victory for the Eldar, but I take some solace in the fact that I was out-pointed and fought in some unjust combats.  Excuses aside, I really enjoyed playing a majority DoA list.  I actually didn't get much play out of my devs in this game as he kept the harlequins and tanks away from them.  I might actually investigate going full DoA because when everything came down and started mopping up, it was a thing of beauty.  I really enjoyed having that much concentrated pressure on my opponent, turn 2.  One of things that really messed me over was losing my Librarian so early.  If he has survived (perhaps in an assault squad), he could have helped to prevent some of Eldrad's powers as when he was alive he blocked all but a single psychic attempt. 

Again, this was a fun game and I really enjoyed getting to play a real-life game with real models with a person, face-to-face.  Hopefully, I will get a chance to do so again soon.

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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Shrikenator Dreads Lose by a Nose...er Tentacle Thing

If you have been following my writing this week, you know I have been taking a look at a Dread Heavy Codex Marine list again.  After some thought, I found what I thought to be a fairly interesting and possibly competitive list.  I have come to think of it as my Shrikenator Dread list.  You can see the list I decided on below.

MotF-100pt.
Kayvaan Shrike- 195pt.

Rifleman-125pt.
Rifleman-125pt.
10 Terminators-thunder hammer/storm shield- 400pt

5 marines- las/plas razorback-165pt.
5 marines- las/plas razorback-165pt.
5 marines- las/plas razorback-165pt.
5 scouts- sniper rifles, missile launcher, camo cloaks- 100pt.

Dreadnought-MM/DCCW with heavy flamer, pod-150pt.
Dreadnought-MM/DCCW with heavy flamer, pod-150pt.
Dreadnought-MM/DCCW with heavy flamer, pod-150pt.

I got a chance to play most of a game on Vassal last night to try the list out.  In all, I think it worked pretty close to what I thought it would.  I got to play a Tyranid army that was pretty competitive from what I know about Nids.  It had:

Hive Tyrant-HVC, Hive Commander, Lash whip/Bonesword, Paraxysm, Leech Essence- 220

3 Zoanthropes 180
3 Hive Guard 150
3 Hive Guard 150

Tervigon- Toxin Sacs, Adrenal Glands, Catalyst, Onslaught, Cluster Spines- 210
10 Termagaunts 50
7 Genestealers-Toxin Sacs- 119
7 Genestealers-Toxin Sacs- 119

7 Genestealers-Adrenal Glands- 119

20 gargoyles 120
4 Raveners- rending 140

Trygon- adrenal glands 210
Trygon- adrenal glands 210

We played sieze ground with pitched battle deployment.  We rolled up 4 objectives for our game.  I won the roll off and gave first turn to my opponent. Unfortunately, because I am getting old and have to take care of a baby that doesn't care if I'm tired, I had to cut the game off after turn 4.  That said, it felt like a full game and I had a good time. 

For this game, I knew I had to keep the nids contained and try to get my terminators into them while my fire support went for their MCs and Elite choices.  This worked out to some degree, but ultimately, I just couldn't cause the wounds on the MCs that I needed to and the Zoanthropes failed perhaps 3 saves the entire game.

Below you will see how the game went.

As you can see, it was going to be a fight for the midfield as the objectives were placed in order to pull us to the center of the board. My opponent seemed to know what he was doing as he deployed centrally, layering units to gain cover saves where possible. I deployed trying to shield my razorbacks from as much incoming fire as possible, not knowing the hive guard don't need line of sight and that I get no cover from them.  Ugh.  Otherwise, you can see my primary fire base in the upper lefthand ruin that my MotF bolstered to give everything a good cover save.  Shrike and his terminator combat squad infiltrated forward to line up for assault against the trygons while the other combat squad was going to slow pull left to support.  It was my hope to use pods to close off the right side of the table, forcing my opponent to move left into my fire support.

After turn 1, you can see that this was basically working.  My pods came in to cordon off the right "alley" and use their flamers and meltaguns to deplete his zoanthropes and hive guard.  Unfortunately, my opponent's 3++ saves were golden and I did no damage to the zoans while I took out a handful of termagants and a single hive guard.  His Hive Tyrant was able to stun my left razorback and that was about it. 

Turn 2, is where I realized that I should have deployed my dreads in my battle line to serve as support and simply drop the pods empty for cordoning. The zoans and hive guard made short work of my two dreads popping them super easy.  As a matter of fact, with the exception of the one razorback that kept getting stunned or shaken, my opponent had ridiculously good damge table rolls the whole game.  By the end of turn 2, my terminators and Shrike had accounted for the unit of gargoyles and a spawned termagant squad. In both cases, my opponent showed that he knew what he was doing by using those units to block access to his trygons, hive tyrant, and tervigon, all of which would have been fairly easy to kill with my terminators, I believe.  In this turn, he also got a single squad of stealers in and popped a rifleman dread.  I then shot them to pieces with the MotF, scouts, and remaining rifleman. 

Massive assault ensues, with two stealer units and two trygons assaulting Shrike's squad and about 20 termagants assaulting my other squad.  Through 2-3 turns of combat, Shrike's squad is slowly whittled down, but they do well to mess up those units' advance.  The other terminators likewise die to torrents of wounds, but also slowly whittle down the termagants. 

In the final turn, my opponent moves forward to claim/contest objectives.  I respond, but can't do enough damage to the zoanthropes, trygon, or stealers on the left side and end up losing 1 objective to 0. 

This game was a real learning experience.  I don't have much experience against Nids.  There aren't many Nids players in my area, so I came in with a distinct lack of knowledge.  To compound the issue, my army has a distinct weakness at taking out hordes.  My three pod dreads have flamers and I have a bit of dakka, but not enough to seriously do the damage needed.  I think I may have been too defensive with my tac squads and razors as well.  Had I moved them up earlier, I might have walled off a couple of the objectives near me. Alas, you live and learn. 

So, game 1 with the Shrikenator Dreads is chalked up to a learning experience.  I would love to hear any comments you might have about what you think about the game. 

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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Space Wolf Razorspam vs. Horde Orks- a Vassal Report

The wife had to run out for awhile today and the boy went down for a long nap, so I decided to have a bit of fun as I have probably played 2-3 games of 40k all summer.  I decided to have a diversion from my Blood Angel Sanguinary Guard army by taking my Templar Wolves out for a spin on Vassal.  I scored a game against a nice guy who played a horde Ork army.  For those of you who don't know, horde Orks work on the premise of giving up transports and upgrades for large masses of bodies.  In this case, my opponent has 188 nasty Ork bodies on hand to go up against my Wolves.  He took:

Warboss-power klaw, attack squig, warbike

8 Nob Bikers-power klaws, cybork bodies, painboy with grot orderly, warbikes

30 boyz- 3x rokkits, Nob with big choppa
30 boyz- 3x rokkits, Nob with big choppa
30 boyz- 3x rokkits, Nob with big choppa
30 boyz- 3x rokkits, Nob with big choppa
30 boyz- 3x rokkits, Nob with big choppa
30 boyz- Nob with big choppa

So there you go, 188 Ork bodies ready to run helter skelter across the table in order to smash as much as possible.  Now, this is nowhere near an optimal army, but I will talk about that at the end.  Unfortunately, being able to lob 14 frag missile templates per turn really messes this army up.  I took:

Rune Priest- living lightning, jaws of the world wolf, chooser of the slain

Rune Priest- living lightning, murderous hurricane

5 Wolf Scouts-meltagun, WG with/power sword and combi-melta
5 Wolf Scouts-meltagun, WG with/power sword and combi-melta
6 Wolf Guard-2x combi-melta/power sword, 3x power sword/bolt pistol, 1x terminator armor with cyclone missile launcher- All in separate squads

5 Grey Hunters- meltagun, WG with bolt pistol/power sword, las/plas razorback
5 Grey Hunters- meltagun, WG with bolt pistol/power sword, las/plas razorback
5 Grey Hunters- meltagun, WG with bolt pistol/power sword, TL las razorback
5 Grey Hunters- meltagun, TL las razorback

Thunderwolf Cav- powerfist/storm shield
Thunderwolf Cav- thunder hammer/storm shield

5 Long fangs- 4x missiles, WG in terminator armor with cyclone missiles, TL las razorback
5 Long fangs- 4x missiles, TL las razorback
5 Long fangs- 4x missiles, TL las razorback

As you can see, I have enough high strength, low AP weapons to handle his nob bikers and enough frag missile templates left over to handle quite a few boyz.  Then when they get close, I have the counter assault to handle the remainders.  The one thing that I probably didn't use well as there weren't many good uses for them were the scouts.  I basically sacrificed them to hang up a flank unit and keep it from supporting the midfield units.  Anyway, here are the pictures of the match.

As you may be able to determine from the picture above, we played capture and control with dawn of war deployment.  My objective disappear somewhere, but it was in the middle of the ruin in my deployment zone.  My opponent gave me first turn.  I decided to deploy 2 razorbacks up 7 inches in case he deployed something, so that I could use them to pick up walking squads, move up, searchlight and allow my army to light it up.  However, my opponent walked everything on turn 1.

As is always the case with DoW, not much happened turn 1.  I smoked and covered things in case he tried to use his rokkits and/or move his nobs up aggressively.  He did neither.  So we set.  I did run long fangs into advantageous positions, Otherwise, nothing.

Turn 2 saw some good shooting on my part.  My frag missiles started accounting for ork boyz.  I also got a unit of scouts on the left board edge.  They shot the left boyz and then assaulted in only to wiff epicly and die.  I was able to shoot down 4 nobs with lascannons, but they passed morale.  My opponent moved up only managing to shaken a central razor and stunning the one on the forward right side.  Otherwise, the scouts were my only casualty. I didn't know what to do with them as they had to come in on my left (rolled a 1) and there were no tanks.  I suppose I could have deployed them on my side to help contain the left flank, but they did manage to help hold up the grey squad of boyz. 

Turn 3 saw more of the same.  My other unit of scouts came in and again had to come in on the left (another 1).  They shot and assaulted the grey boyz again.  This time, 1 scout survived and passed morale to hold them up much to my opponent's chagrin.  This time, I killed two more nobs and they failed morale.  I didn't know and my opponent forgot that you can't rally when below 50%, so they rallied in his turn.  Other shooting saw almost every boyz squad take casualties as they approached. My opponent eventually killed off the second scouts and managed to immobilize and weapon destroy my central razor and stun the forward right one again.  Otherwise, casualties were light on my side of the board.  My opponent gets full credit for continually taking 14 templates and various other shooting while he crossed the board.  He kept good spirits and was patient the whole time.

Turn 4 is where I finally started making headway.  In shooting, I managed to make the purple boyz squad fall back never to return.  I shot up the black squad and then assaulted in with my 2 thunderwolf cav eventually taking care of it in my opponent's turn for the loss of my thunder hammer TWC.  I sucked his green boyz squad into a combat against my orange long fangs with terminator and a grey hunter squad.  They had to move through terrain to get to me, so I killed 8 before they could swing and then they only killed 3 marines back.  They had exactly 11 models left, so took a handful of fearless saves.  In his shooting, my opponent finally exploded a central razorback and then assault and only wrecked my forward right razorback (with 13 glances and 4 pens, no explodes!).  That brought us to turn 5.  Notice my opponent had moved away from his objective to get to grips with me.  His teal squad would be my main target next turn to insure that he couldn't get them back to his objective. 

That's when he conceded.  He realized that my shooting capacity was only minorly diminished and he didn't have a good chance to take my objective with too many blocking units available to me to keep him away from my objective while killing off anything that was close to his.  This turn would have seen me finish off the green squad and level all shooting into the teal squad and then assault the remnants with my last thunderwolf cav to insure that I could clear out his objective for the win.  That would leave a diminished grey squad, the orange squad, a single nob and the warboss to take on the majority of my army. 

So, another game with Orks and another fairly easy win. Again, my opponent took a very sub-optimal list and my list happened to have an easy answer to his.

This game really interested me because I have always thought that a player could game the metagame and have an advantage in a game.  This game proved to some extent that you can't always do that.  My Templar Wolves are a good all-rounder army.  That helped me to pull out the win.  However, I have always thought that if an army deliberately went against the meta, that it could stand a chance of surprising an opponent.  5th edition 40k is the edition of mech armies.  Against a typical light mech spam army, I think this Ork army might have stood a chance.  My answer was the 14 frag templates.  They helped to quickly thin out his ranks.  Had I taken a similiar mech Marine list with predators, I don't think I would have stood a chance.  The torrents of shooting wounds made the difference.

So, I ask.  If an army can break the meta, does it stand a chance?  If I hadn't had 14 missile launcher shots, could I have won as easily, if at all?  I am thinking no.  However, this game just happened to go my way.  Thanks to my opponent, Bo I think his name was.  He was an awesome sport even when the game just didn't go his way. 

Check out my next article as I am thinking how light mech Space Wolves could possibly do really well at 'Arboyz. 

Other Space Wolves battle reports:
The Templar Wolves Ride Again: The Severe Beating of A Blood Angel Army
Wolves vs. IG
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Sanguinary v. Grey Knights

I got a game in yesterday while the wife and kid were napping.  I got to play a Grey Knight player via Vassal.  My opponent was trying to get in a 2,500pt. 'ardboyz prep game but was kind enough to reduce his army down to play me at 2,000pt. 

I took my latest iteration of the Sanguinary Guard.

Dante
Libby-jump pack, lance, sword

3x Priests- 2x jump packs, 1 naked

5 Sanguinary Guard- chapter banner, 2x infernus pistols
5 Sanguinary Guard- powerfist, 2x infernus pistols
5 Sanguinary Guard- powerfist, 2x infernus pistols
10 Assault Marines- 2x meltas, powerfist
5 Scouts- missile launcher, 4x sniper rifles, camo cloaks

Landspeeder-multi-melta, heavy flamer
Landspeeder-multi-melta, heavy flamer

5 Devestators- 4x missiles
5 Devestators- 4x missiles

My opponent took:
Coteaz
Ordo Malleus Inquisitor- terminator armor, psycannon, 3x skulls

Venerable Dread- 2 TL Autocannons, psybolt ammo
Venerable Dread- 2 TL Autocannons, psybolt ammo
Venerable Dread- 2 TL Autocannons, psybolt ammo

3 acolytes- 3x meltas, rhino
3 acolytes- 3x meltas, rhino
3 acolytes- 3x meltas, rhino
3 acolytes- 3x meltas, rhino
3 servitors- 3x heavy bolters, chimera w/ multi-laser/heavy bolter
3 servitors- 3x heavy bolters, chimera w/ multi-laser/heavy bolter

5 Interceptors- psycannon, daemonhammer
5 Interceptors- psycannon, daemonhammer

Dread- 2 TL Autocannons, psybolt ammo
Dread- 2 TL Autocannons, psybolt ammo
Dread- 2 TL Autocannons, psybolt ammo


We played capture and control with spearhead deployment. I won the roll to go first and my opponent failed to sieze. Below are pictures from the game.

You can see that I deployed rather aggressively to get to grips with my opponent. The middle piece of terrain blocked line of sight and helped to provide me with some defense against initial shooting. I think my opponent made a big mistake by creating a parking lot of fairly weak units for me to pick on as it advanced. You can see my scouts occupying the upper left building to shoot at the opponent's flanks. Dante and a priest joined my assault squad for deepstrike.  My landspeeders reserved for deepstrike as well.

In turn 1 I moved up to the central terrain with the libby peaking out to try for a blood lance shot. Everything else prepared to shoot. My libby rolled snake eyes to wound himself before lancing and immobilizing the second rhino from the left.  All my other combined shooting shook the chimera and blew up the left rhino with the resulting explosion killing all three of it's occupants. 

In response my opponent threw every shot he could at my devestator squads killing all but 1 missile launcher from both.  The sanguinary priest also survived.  His upper interceptor squad was also able to cast warpquake. His other interceptor squad lost its psycannon due to a dangerous terrain test.

Turn 2 saw me make a boneheaded mistake.  One speeder came on, but scatter off the board and mishapped back into reserve.  I then got Dante and crew in and forgot that warpquake was up.  They mishapped as well but luckily also went back into reserve.  My SG squads move forward aggressively again.  My libby conjured another lance but it did nothing.  The rest of the squad's shooting wrecked the chimera. Other shooting saw the immobilized rhino stunned. 

My opponent's turn saw him get out his acolyte squads from rhinos and everything leveled at the libby's squad, killing them all. He then plinked off a model from my orange squad and charged in his interceptors.  He got off hammerhand, but only killed 2.  I killed 3 back, but his hammer passed his 1 fearless save (failed morale, but I caught him). 

Turn 3 saw the real carnage start.  My opponent forgot to warpquake last turn, so Dante and crew came in behind the front line of dreads as did a landspeeder.  My remaining full squad of SG move towards the acolytes that had left their rhinos last turn.  That was it for my movement.  In shooting dev missile launcher took out the black dread (the only nonvenerable in the front line).  Dante's squad took out the venerable to the left of the black dread and the other dev took an arm off of the far left venerable in the front line.  The scouts were able to plink away a meltagunner from the brown acolyte squad in the tree, but they passed all relevant tests.  My green squad of SG assaulted the front two acolyte squads amd wiped them out.  The orange squad wiped out the hammer with no losses of it's own and consolidated back towards my objective.  At this point it is also important to note that only one of the front rhinos was mobile as the other had immobilized itself on terrain.  That would change soon.

When he immobilized the final rhino trying to get the brown squad away.  With his front line in tatters my opponent knew he had to convert big in order to win.  The interceptors moved up to the hill by Dante's squad.  A dread knocked my speeder out of the air and the brown acolytes melta-ed a Sanguinary Guard while everything else focused on Dante's but did surprisingly little damage.  My armor saves were on fire. 3+/FNP is rock hard.  In desperation, the interceptors assaulted into Dante's squad, but the Lord of the Host wiped out all 5 Grey Knights before they could even strike.  His crew consolidated forwards toward Coteaz and his two dreads. 

Turn 4 was where I would wrap it up.  Dante and crew moved forward to try and pop Coteaz's ride and a dread.  My last speeder came in to shoot at the other dread.  My larger SG squad moved towards the ordo malleus inquisitor and his retinue while the orange squad moved back toward my objective.  My foot priest moved to cast his FNP bubble on them to make sure that they survived the game.  In shooting, I was able to shake one ven dread and immobilize another where it couldn't really see anything.  Dante's squad failed to pop the right dread and would have to do it the old fashioned way, with a powerfist.  My green SG squad knocked out 2 servitors and prepared to assault in and butcher the inquisitor and his remaining servitor when my opponent called it. 

In the end, I held my own objective and contested his objective with the possibility of claiming both by the end of the game.  My opponent scaled his army down from 2,500pt. and admitted that it did not scale down well.  He was running a henchman heavy build and having to scale it down really hurt the army.  The best thing he did was to keep the 6 dreads, but otherwise, having troop choices in light tanks with only 3 models in them really hurt my opponent.  Again, I played a list that is far from optimal.  I have found this to be a trend and find it funny at how people think netlists are taking over.  I haven't seen a netlist on Vassal yet. 

I believe I am beginning to get the Sanguinary Guard.  Adding the chapter banner to a SG squad really helps with controlling infantry units.  The extra attack per model means this unit is a real chainsaw when it comes to fighting infantry, even large squads, like Ork boyz mobs.  Though they don't have a fist, the libby tries to accommodate by using his S10 sword when necessary.  Otherwise, I think the army has a lot of good strengths and is starting to really click with me.

Sanguinary Guard v. Orks- Short Battle + Why Orks Suck

Well, the new one gave us a bit of a break early last night, so I popped over to Vassal to get in a pickup game.  I found a nice ork player who was willing to throw down with my Sanguinary Guard. I apologize in advance for any proliferation of grammatical and spelling errors as I am trying to type this up in a timely manner while trying to take care of the boy. 

I made a small change to my list by adding more infantry killy in a chapter banner SG unit.  To do this I dropped its powerfist to give 5 glaives and then added the chapter banner.  To compensate for no high strength combat attacks, I let the libby jump around with this unit as he can whip out his S10 sword (keep your minds out of the gutter) and beat stuff down.  So without further ado, the list:

Dante
Libby- jump pack, sword, blood lance (Haven't been using shield that much, so wanted a more aggressive setup)

3 Priests-2x jump packs

SG- 2x infernus pistols, 3x angelus bolters, 1x chapter banner (libby here)
SG- 2x ifnernus pistols, 1 fist
SG- 2x ifnernus pistols, 1 fist

Assault squad- 2x melta, fist
Scouts- 4x sniper rifles, 1 missile, camo cloaks

Landspeeder-multi-melta, heavy flamer
Landspeeder-multi-melta, heavy flamer
Devestators- 4x missiles
Devestators- 4x missiles



My opponent took:
 
Warboss-klaw, kombi-skorcha, 'eavy armor, squig, bosspole
Big Mek-shock attack gun (actually paid for itself...almost)
 
10 Meganobz- power klaws/standard kit
15 Lootas
15 Kommandos- Snikrot 
 
10 Nobz-Waagh! Banner, painboy, 9x 'eavy armor
Deff Dredd- 2x skorchas
30 boyz- shootas, 3x big shootas, nob w/klaw
 
20 Stormboyz- Zagstruk
 
So, this is nowhere near an optimized list.  It has large easily killed squads, non-optimal equipment loadouts, little to no significant ranged attack, and no mech (except the dredd).  Suffice it to say that I went into this game confident. 

After getting started, my opponent let me know that he was short on time and that we might have to pre-empt the game, but we moved on. 

We rolled up an annihilation with spearhead deployment.  My opponent won the roll to go first and deployed.  I followed up with my deployment.

 You can see his deployment is fairly aggressive.  He put the lootas and mek in the ruin with meganobz and nobs north of them.  The dread is next to the mek outside of the ruins and the boyz are near the south central forest.  I countered by put my libby, priest, and chapter banner SG squad behind some wrecked tanks that blocked LoS read to counter his warboss + nobz and meganobz. My other two SG squads were blocked by a wrecked tank and portions of two forests that would protect their advance and hopefully garner a turn 2 charge against the boyz mob.  My devs went into the forest directly opposite his army ready to whittle down his nobz.  I infiltrated my scouts into the north central ruin to try to shoot up and pin various units.  My speeders and Dante + assault squad went into reserves.  He reserved the kommandos and the stormboyz. Dante cursed his warboss.  So pretty standard stuff.....then I siezed on him.  Time to make him hurt.

My SG squads moved up ready to counter his squishy units.  My devs pumped all of their krak missiles into the nob squad with the warboss and ended up killing 7.  Gotta love S8 on those nobz.  I don't think my opponent expected that.  He told me that he more often gets fragged instead.  Go figure.  My scouts plinked away at his lootas taking out 3.  Everything passes morale and pinning. 

My opponent opened up by moving his nobz + boss towards my scouts. He moved his megnobz moved back towards his backfield.  I think he was trying to anticipate my reserves coming in.  His dredd moved up to the wrecked tank for some cover and his boyz mob moved towards my two SG squads in the south.  Shooting ensued with the boyz, lootas, and mek shooting at my southern SG to only remove a single model.  The boss skorcha-ed my scouts killing two who then failed morale and fell back. He failed to assault my SG squads in the south with his Boyz. 

Turn 2 bought all of my reserves in.  All of them came in south of the ruin with the lootas ready to shoot them up if possible.  My SQ squads in the south moved up in hopes of combo assaulting the boyz and the dredd.  My libby's squad moved up to handle the warboss's squad while the scouts ran back into the northern ruin.  In shooting, I killed the rest of his nobz and wounded his boss.  The two speeders flamed the lootas fairly well, but they passed morale.  My green SG squad in the south shot infernus pistols at the dredd but they missed or were covered.  The devs also took some shots at him, but also failed to damage him.  Both of my southern SG squads assaulted, the green into the dredd and boyz while the black went into the boyz.  They lost two models going through the forest.  The ensuing combat saw the dredd immobilized, 9 boyz killed and 3 SG models killed. In the north, my libby lit up his S10 sword and assaulted in with his squad.  The warboss didn't stand a chance.

In my opponent's turn, he moved his remaining units/ focused them into the south sector of his deployment.  the kommandos failed to come in, but the stormboyz came in and scattered into a mishap.  I was able to place them and put them into terrain in the northwest.  This caused 6 to die.  Then 4 more died when they moved forward towards my libby's squad.  In shooting, the combined might of the lootas and a direct hit from the shock gun took out everything but my assault squad's powerfist and Dante.  In assault his meganobz assaulted into my left speeder managing to only stun it.  In the boyz combat, I was able to wreck the dredd and take out enough boyz that even though I lost all but one model from each squad, I was able to sweep the rest.  The two remaining SG consolidated back into cover. 

This is where we had to call it unfortunately, but with my turn coming around next I was planning on Dante and the fist taking out his lootas with support from my functioning landspeeder.  The libby's squad was going to assault in to terrain to handle Zagstruk's stormboyz and with S10, Zagstruk wouldn't get a chance to hit.  I was going to depend on my other speeder to occupy his mega nobz for another turn until I could bring the full might of my army to bear on him, but I think I had this sewn up pretty well.  When we ended it was 4-0 KP in my favor. 

So, yes, it is my opinion that Orks really do suck.  Though this wasn't an optimized list by any means they really are found lacking in many cases.  Though they can bring large numbers to bear, BS2 and S3 when charged means that they won't wound much.  I think orks should be able to get more access to power klaws, for instance, if you have a unit of 30 boyz, you should be able to upgrade up to 3 boyz to nobs with power klaws.  This would make them significantly scarier.  Nobz really suffer as well from poor armor saves.  My devs were heroes in this battle taking out the whole nob squad without them ever getting into combat.  It didn't help that he didn't optimize equipment and he never took any wounds on his boss to protect nobs.  This could have been due to the fact that I had cursed him.  Initiative is also a big problem for Orks, but it is an expected part of their fluff and army make up.  I can really see how the random element really hurst orks too.  Low BS, low leadership.  These things put more emphasis on dice and that ultimately makes them less consistent. 

So, what do you think of my opponent's list?  I think it was too small and with two large units reserved, I could easily take out his army before they got into any position to cause trouble.  It had no speed, no mech, and no real survivability. 

Any other comments or thoughts would be appreciated.  Thanks. 

Dante vs. Khan- An Ugly Mess

I got in a good fight tonight.  I played against a Khan biker force and got smacked around pretty good.  Through a fairly big mistake or two and some terrible dice, I came out 6kp to 7kp garnering myself a loss. 

This is the second time I have played this variant of the Sanguinary Guard Army.  I took:

Dante
Libby- jump pack, shield, sword

3 Priests- 2 with jump packs and hand flamers, 1 naked

5 Sanguinary Guard- 2x infernus pistol, power fist
5 Sanguinary Guard- 2x infernus pistol, power fist
5 Sanguinary Guard- 2x infernus pistol, power fist
10 Assault Marines- 2x meltaguns, powerfist
5 Scouts- 4x sniper rifles, missile launcher, camo cloaks

Landspeeder- multi-melta, heavy flamer
Landspeeder- multi-melta, heavy flamer

5 Devestators- 4x missile launchers
5 Devestators- 4x missile launchers

My opponent took:

Khan on Moondrakken
Chappy on bike
Command Squad- 2x LC/SS, 2x plasmagun/SS, apothecary

Biker Squad- 8 bikes, meltagun, flamer, powerfist, mm attack bike
Biker Squad- 8 bikes, meltagun, flamer, powerfist, mm attack bike
Biker Squad- 8 bikes, meltagun, flamer, powerfist, mm attack bike

2 Landspeeders- assault cannons, heavy bolters
2 Landspeeders- multi-melta
2 Landspeeders- multi-melta

We played annihilation with dawn of war deployment.  I rolled red thirst for four units this game!  That is how many ones I rolled.  Dante's SG, my black SG, the scouts, and the blue devestators all had red thirst.  Below are the turns of the game.

As you can see, deployment wasn't much.  I placed my scouts hoping to have some sort of good placement.  In hindsight I probably should have put them in the bunker or the forest next to it in the northeast corner.  As you will see, most of the game happened on the left side of the board and my opponent was able to focus more on that side.  Had the scouts been on the right, I might have been able to split up his force.

After turn 1, nothing had happened.  We had both taken the field in majority.  You can see that Dante and a squad of SG are off the board as are Khan/Chappy/Command Squad and a biker squad. Since he was unable to do much to my army on turn 1, I decided to get aggressive with his speeders.... 

...resulting in 5 destroyed speeders (3 are his/2 are mine) by the bottom of turn two.  Dante didn't come on.  He wouldn't until turn 4.  Here I made a huge mistake.  I decided to pull my assault squad back and around the ruin on the left to prevent the bike squads from attacking them.  Unfortunately, Khan, Chappy, and Co. came in on the left and butchered the squad (as you can see by the bloody smear behind the ruin).  His biker squad also came on and combat squadded before it came onto the left board edge. 

Khan and Co. continued to rampage as he took out a devestator squad while my scouts tied up the teal bike squad.  I took out the rest of his speeders and started to move back towards the center.  Still no Dante.

Here, Dante finally came in but barely.  I rolled a 1 followed by a 2.  My dice screwed me over so many times in this game, but what can you do.  In this turn, Dante and company came in 1 inch from a 5 man biker combat squad only to shoot down a single biker, out of 3 infernus pistols and 6 bolter shots.  Ugh.... In other news, my sanguinary guard plus priest made an assault on the teal bikers fighting my scouts, only to cause 2 wounds.  My dice rolls were epic fail.  As you can see in the picture above, Khan and co. took no chances as they, the biker squad and the entrenched biker squad shot up Dante's squad.  Then Khan, the command squad, and the combat squad assaulted in to wipe out the sanguinary guard leaving only Dante on 1 wound.  I did take out his chaplain (who had been wounded by a dangerous terrain test earlier). 

Dante's final triumph was to take out Khan before being lightning clawed to death.  I was able to take out his teal biker squad finally when my second SG squad assaulted in and munched on it. My opponent then bugged out every biker squad so that I couldn't get to him.  Then I rolled a 1 to end the game.

In the end, I lost Dante, the priests, the assault squad, a sanguinary guard squad, a devestator squad, and both speeders.  My opponent lost Khan, the chappy, a biker squad, and all three units of speeders. 

So lessons learned in this game:

1) Stay away from the flanks unless you can block them, if your opponent is outflanking Khan and a command squad.  The placement of that assault squad really hampered me.  I probably would have done better just moving them forward and trying to soak the fire from the vanilla biker squads or even redeploying them towards the center or right of the board forcing my opponent to come to me. 

2) I totally forgot to hit and run with Dante.  That would have possibly gotten me out of trouble with him in the combat where he was completely surrounded and summarily died.   

3) I still need to work on my scout placement.  They are a fragile group, but can be a real hassle if I can get some good shots off.  Luckily they survived this game with the help of the sanguinary guard and being fearless from red thirst. 

That said, I feel that this game was close and had any of a good number of dice rolls been average, I might have pulled it out.  So, the Sanguinary Guard army can win, but it takes a finesse that I am still developing.  We are getting there, though.  Thanks for reading.

Jump-ish BA take on Necrons

Well, I got in another game with my ever evolving Blood Angel Jump-ish list.  I took the following list:

Dante
Libby-jump pack, shield of sanguinius, sanguine sword

3 Sanguinary Priests- 2x jump packs/hand flamer, 1x naked

5 Sanguinary guard- 2x infernus pistol/glaive, 2x angelus bolter/glaive, 1x angelus bolter/fist
5 Sanguinary guard- 2x infernus pistol/glaive, 2x angelus bolter/glaive, 1x angelus bolter/fist
5 Sanguinary guard- 2x infernus pistol/glaive, 2x angelus bolter/glaive, 1x angelus bolter/fist
10 Assault Marines- 2x meltaguns, sarge with powerfist
5 Scouts-4x sniper rifles, 1x missile launcher

Landspeeder- multi-melta/heavy flamer
Landspeeder- multi-melta/heavy flamer

5 Devestators- 4x missile launchers
5 Devestators- 4x missile launchers

My opponent, a really knowledgeable and friendly Necron player, took:

Necron lord Resurrection Orb, Disruption Field
Necron Lord Destroyer Body, warscythe

10 warriors
10 warriors
10 warriors

5 Pariahs

3 Destroyers
3 Destroyers
3 Wraiths

2 Monoliths
Tomb Spyder

Before I get into this, I have to admit, I have never seen someone play Necrons much less looked over their rules much, so I was definitely lacking in Necron knowledge.  Luckily my opponent was obliging and didn't have a problem giving me answers to questions.

We played capture and control (though this was largely ignored for just smashing each other in the face) with spearhead deployment. Let me begin by stating that Necrons really are lacking.  There was very little in his army that could bypass the 2+ armor saves of my sanguinary guard.  My opponent really struggled to cause any real ranged damage to my units.  His best weapons were his high strength shots from his monoliths which I couldn't touch, and his pariahs and lords. 

Dante cursed his destroyer lord, though perhaps I should have cursed the resurrection lord instead.  Either way, this helped me out quite a bit with the D lord anyway. 

Here you can see our deployments. Mine was not great.  I just didn't have a good focus and looking at his massed army made me think coming around the sides would do better.  I totally misplaced my scouts.  I thought about putting them up between the two buildings to prevent an advance there which is what I should have done.  You can see that my opponent was attempting to stay massed for greater res. orb effect as well as the possibility of using the monoliths to teleport units. 

My opponent won the roll to go first and I didn't sieze hoping to use the final turn to snag an objective.

Turn 1 saw my take some wounds to my two deployed sanguinary guard from the lower monolith.  Also, my upper devs took casualties though they stood firm. Notice his destroyer lord turbo-boosted inbetween the buildings, where I should have put my scouts, who as you can see were locked into combat with his wraiths turn 1.  ugh... As per my usual with this army, this turn was about positioning, though my opponent did get too aggressive with his southern destroyers who I was able to assault and kill with my priestless SG squad.   

In turn two, things heated up.  After killing my scouts, the wraiths moved aggressively forward and assaulted my recently victorious SG squad alongside his spyder and scarab swarm (created by the spyder).  The D lord assaults my bottom dev squad along with priest while the other dev squad is shot down to just the sargeant.  He later assaulted into the D lord to add extra attacks.  This combat lasts the whole game with me causing a single wound to the T6 lord while he in return only deals a single wound which, of course, kills my priest.  This takes about 3 player turns of combat though.

In my turn, Dante's crew and the assault squad with priest come in.  Dante's crew infernus pistol two of the northern destroyers while the speeder by that squad tries to block the movement of the monolith there by turbo-boosting to block.  We get in a rules dispute here, but basically my opponent "flies" over my speeder and isn't inhibited by it's movment.  My remaining SG squad combo asssault the wraiths and monolith and despite several S10 and S9 hits can't harm the monolith, though we toast the wraiths.  I lose my priest to wraith attacks when he fails all saves versus only a single wound.   

In turn 3 things really start moving along.  This is where the majority of the action happens.  My opponent assaults my assault squad with his lord and pariahs.  This helps me though as it strings out his army pretty badly.  The assault squad gets chopped up with little in returned attacks, but hold the combat which helps a ton.  I think this is the turn where my devs' priest is finally killed. Otherwise, it is handbags there. My opponent decides to assault my southern SG squad with libby.  I wipe out the spyder and scarabs there with no wounds dealt back. This is key.  My opponent moves his last destroyer to try to shoot and assault my turbo-boosted landspeeder. Nothing happens.

In my turn, everything begins to mass towards the center of the board.  My southern SG squad moves up and combo assaults his two units of warriors there.  My landspeeder move up for flamer support.  The upper speeder flames the destroyer and some warriors helping whittle them down, but has to melta the destroyer to get it off the board.  The SG assault in and win combat big and destroy one the blue unit while the other unit legs it.  Dante and crew start making a run for his objective.  It looks like we will both try to claim each other's objective at this point if something doesn't happen.  It is in my turn that the lord and pariahs finish off the assault squad. 

My opponent pulls some teleporting/WBB shennanigans and heals up the fleeing green squad, but wrongly places them within assault range of Dante's crew.  The black squad is teleported to make a run for my objective.  It is here, that I finally start to lose agains the D lord, but a unit still holds on while my lone sarge flees.  My opponent assaults the libby's squad with pariahs and lord.  It is here where I beat face on the pariahs with massed power weapons and the sanguine sword.  After the first round, we are left with a single pariah and his lord, versus my libby and power fist. 

In my turn, my speeder move up to flame warriors, Dante and company move up to assault the green squad, and the libby prepares to slap some guys down with S10.  The results are predictable.  My lower speeder flames a warrior away which is keey.  Dante and company combined with speeder flames, wipe out the entire green squad through shooting and a decidedly one sided combat.  Then the libby lays down some S10 beatdown and kills the pariah and the lord.  This is where my opponent finally reaches his phaseout number. 

...and fails WBB. That's all she wrote.  His black squad's warrior didn't pass WBB and so he tried to monolith teleport the squad to get reroll which he failed.  This is good because his res. orb lord passed his WBB, so that one warrior flamed away won me the fame.  No need to go for objectives, Necrons wiped out.  Should my opponent have made the roll, I think I would have sent Dant'e squad after his black squad and the libby/fist after an objective. 

This was an interesting fight as I had never fought Necrons, but found them seriously lacking.  I was really worried about the monoliths as I didn't have a way of touching them aside from the libby's S10 and the one chance he had wasn't fruitful.  That's okay because when ignored, they didn't do much damage.  Scatters meant that they rarely were able to get an AP1 wound on anything and I passed the AP3 wounds more often than not.  The rest of the army wasn't that hard either.  The only scary threat he had were the pariahs+ lord which was fairly meaty, but not overly bothersome.  In the end, this was a fun game, but I think when my opponent decided to go towards the three different front that I presented, it spelled doom for the necrons as he just couldn't sustain the army when it was that spread out.