So just finished up my first game vs Necrons since they were Metal Models and had like 2 poses and were nothing more than a Chapter Approved army from White Dwarf. Yup, long time. Lazyness on my part to get my hands on the necron book means I had little more than hearsay and the odd bit of reading to know what their rules were, I had a vague idea. The chap I played was a good character, and gave me some insight. He'd left a lot of his stuff at home so I lent him terms etc.. to proxy, shame I didnt have a LR with me because I could have let him proxy a monolith.
Was quite please with the game, so many rules I was not aware of or had just forgotten due to not having faced them.
The game was "close". T1 to T4 - despite losing 1 baal, 1 autolas and 1 autoHB being imob'd/losing its auto I was pretty in control of the midfield - I even fear'd his destroyer lord from midfield off the table with some decent placement of tankage.
He did a T4 "in game deepstrike" which I was not prepared for and had moved off my objective a bit, and had the game ended T5 I'd have lost - which was the only real mistake I felt I made in the game - something I'd not have made if I knew that rule properly. Luckily - the game went T6 - despite losing x10 marines to his lord+7 necrons over 2 combats, I ended up shooting them down to 1 and the 1 wound lord and assaulted FC marines into him and just dusted him completely.
On his objective I had moved the baal right onto his with a tank shock, but his destroyers managed to get a side armor wreck shot on it in T5 - which was a bit unlucky on my part, and my libby+RAS were about 6" out of the objective. Though they stood up to rapid fire and in T6 just went in decked them down in combat to like 1 or 2 guys - but didnt matter since I was 1-0 up.
Was a good game, I was a bit annoyed that if the game had ended T5 I'd have lost 2-0.
Few things about the game:
Possitives:
The Sang Priest - which I was sceptical about putting back in - made his points back and then some. The FC made the win in one combat vs the Scarabs - there was a couple of rolls that I needed the S5 for - but the FNP saved about 7 or 8 guys - thats more than 50 points - 1 squad would have died to fire without that FNP.
Unlike the Lysander game - I felt I did get out of the tanks appropriately - I maybe should have hammered forward for his objective a bit more and just got stuck into his troops w/ 10 guys w/ FC/FNP and plenty of shooting - the Libby getting out and fearing his lord off the table was a nice touch.
Negatives:
Lack of codex knowledge - since I've come back to the game I've worked my way through "most" of the codex's. Necrons however have gotten little more than a passing glance on the shelf. It has made me realise that I need to learn most codex's inside out "as if I was playing them" which means I want to start thinking of my own lists etc for stuff I'd never play ('Nids, Orks, DEldar to name a few - I am buying the codex's each time I finish reading one).
This was what should have cost me the game - lets say it ends T5 for arguement's sake - I lose a 2 objective game 2-0.
This was the other thing, I played a bit like a 6 turn game, I made the move to "contest" in T5 and was hoping that over 2 combats I'd deck the necrons in combat - x10 marines vs basically a sarge and tacticals - but was shocked when he got me to run off the table then cut down the other squad.
I think I could have played my tactics a bit differently. I could have just kept x1 lasplas back and maybe had the autolas's on the flanks, and sent 3 razors forward with the 2 baals and dakka and just gone straight for his warriors and let the lascannons deal with his destroyers. He had 2 troop choices which were also his weakest part of his army.
Not a bad game, but not a great game either, though overall I am not as hard on myself as I am usually.
Thursday, 30 December 2010
Thursday, 16 December 2010
Battle Report #4 - BA vs Lysander Mech
Got my new list to playtest out tonight, and got a very good look at it.
My list:
Libby - Lance/Shield - Combi Melta
Techmarine w/ Combimelta Jump pack
Techmarine w/ Combimelta Jump pack
RAS w/ MG/Hand Flamer - AssCan Razorback
RAS w/ MG/Hand Flamer - AssCan Razorback
RAS w/ MG - LasPlas Razorback
RAS w/ MG - LasPlas Razorback
Baal Predator w/ AssCan HB
Baal Predator w/ AssCan HB
Predator w/ AutoCan/HB
Predator w/ AutoCan/HB
Predator w/ AutoCan/HB
His List
Lysander
x7 Terms - x5 TH/SS x2 LC
Land Raider Crusader w/ EA / MM
x10 Marines - Plasma Can/Melta - Rhino
x10 Marines - Misile Launcher/Melta - Rhino
Predator Autocannon HB
Vindicator Shield
Vidicator
SETUP:
The table setup with a mini-road/building area in the middle of the board w/ 3 ruins. There was a scattering of hills/craters around the rest of the board.
Mission was KP
Setup was Spear Head
He wins 1st turn and takes the corner w/ the clear road to the more cluttered corner - forcing me to setup my tanks in quite a condensed area. I fail to seize.
He setups basically in as spear head with his raider flanked by 2 vindies and then the rhino's taking the rear. The predator goes off to the side.
I deploy with razors at the rear, and a double wall of AV 13 with the baals popping smoke.
TURN 1:
He buddles forward, 6" on his tanks and 12" on his raider. Pops smoke on everything.
I rearrange my wall and put the baals out to 1 side, and then put 1 dakka pred forward and the rest behind, popping smoke on one of the rear dakka's to tempt him into firing at a single target/assault where he cant get mutli assault on the next turn. I fired a good bit into his vindies and raiders. I managed to glance his raider twice but EA mitigated it (well Machine Spirit + EA).
TURN2:
Lysander and his cronnies get out. He moves his vindies up, 1 into cover on my right into a building, the other in the open. His predator imobs itself quite far back on a ruin, which blocked its LOS that turn. His rhinos hid away. Lysander assaults the predator I gave him, and explodes it. He loses 1 LC term to the blast.
I basically fan out here and send my entire army into his firing wise, and kill all his terms and do 1 wound to Lysander.That took all my firing.
TURN 3:
His vindies now go to work, and blow up a baal predator, 1 rhino squad moves upto one of the fanned out Autocannon preds to my north and melta's it to death. Lysander hops back in his ride and that fires at a razor but to no effect.
I try to return fire, he makes all his cover saves on the vindy in the ruins but I manage to destroy the weapon on the other vindy (out in the open) with the remaining baal. Everything else had little effect (x2 lascannons and assault cannon razors failed to do anything to the vindy all game).
TURN 4:
He now moves Lysander and his raider right up into my lines. He breaks open a tank in shooting w/ the libby in it, and weapon destroys the other autocannon pred's autocannon. I think at this stage he also wrecks the the 2nd baal.
I get the libby and melta out - I walk through terrain and get a 5 - I am about 1" short of 6" range, which is a shame. The libby fails to do anything with Lance either. I shoot at a couple of his tacticals in the open. The biggest thing for me this turn was my techmarines which came down w/ DOA and blew up the empty rhino hiding at the back and his imob'd predator. I thought they'd be nicely out of range of any real threat.
TURN 5:
He turns his 10 man tactical squad in the center of the board and fires at my techmarines and insta kills with a melta. Their rhino shoots its SB at 24" range and manages to kill the other (2+ does nothingggg). Lysander charges my Libby squad and kills 2 guys, but I do 1 wound with the libby and I hold.
I need to claw back KP's here. Due to Lysanders I1 I felt I could kill him before he swung. Or if he won I could shoot him down next turn. I again turn back attention to the vindies which are really ruining my day, but again do nothing, a melta squad manages to shake it with a 1., I shot at his tacticals in the open again and whittled off a couple.Again a really ineffectual turn. In combat Lysander manages to drop my libby and rest of my squad and pushes towards my melta squad that got out to try and hurt the vindicator. He charges but sheer weight of hits (I rolled a lot of 5's and 4's) and he takes his single remaining wound and dies, I consolidate into cover infront of the vindy.
TURN 6:
He now starts to back off a bit. He tries to get a few more shots on the razors, but without vindies he relies on melta + assault cannon off the land raider to shoot and does nothing.
I REALLY need to claw back some KP's now. I get a lot of squads out - the melta guns get out of 2 razors to take care of the land raider - they blow it up and lose 1 guy in the process (the blast hit pretty much everyone). The melta squad that shook the vindy now shoots and charges, destroying its weapon and imobalising it (or shaking it and imobing it). I manage to get 1 of his tactical squads down via lascannon/rapid plasma gun fire.
TURN 7:
Game goes on and he tries to put it away, 1 more KP and he has a garanteed win. He wants to shoot/assault my RAS squad in the open, he fires at them down to 1 guy, and they run about 7 inches, he has no more fire to do anything and cant assault - best result for me.
My guy rallies and I move him back, he joins another squad to try and fire them down to nothing with the help of a razorback with assault cannon. The two lasplas's try to take out the rhino in the back field and fail. 1 melta squad gets the vindy to a box but cant assault due to it having gotten out of a tank that turn.
Game Ends:
10 KP to 8 - A loss.
REACTION:
I've listed some of the initial mistakes down below, but the re-occuring theme was that I was not aggresive enough early on. I have x4 squads of melta guys that are GREAT at taking out tanks. He had 4 tanks that could hurt me, I had gotten rid of his deathstar by T2 pretty much and at that stage I should have just jumped him. Moved my razors 12" forward, deployed melta at rear armor and blasted to buggery his tanks - at worst I'd have shaken them. He had x2 squads of tactical marines to try and take them out - at worst I'd have gotten locked in combat with 2 squads and then counter charged and probably done enough to take each combat. I put to much faith in my shooting "going well" late game. But thats the part of learning the list.
I actually really liked the techmarines, but still not 100% on them.
Incidently - ANY OTHER mission - I'd have won very easy. He was down to x1 troops choice, vs my 3 (ok 1 had 1 guy) and in the end he had 1 boxed vindy, a razor and 6 guys, vs my 3 razors and 15 guys.
But heres a list of early game mistaks:
Mistake 1 T1: Really I should have tried my best to guess how far he could assault Lysander first turn and pull right out of that range and then whizz around to a flank. I'd probably have lost a tank in T3 but I think it may have led to more side shots / access to his rhinos.
Mistake 2 T1: Should have gone all out for the vindies to shake them. Easier target, and they cant do anything else. I just felt range was wrong, but I am sure it wasnt.
Mistake 3 T2: I shouldnt have fanned out so much against Lysander and his squad in T2. That much fire I will drop him to at least 2 or 3 terms inc Lysander, really I want him to stay in the open, hes a KP and I can fire at him to death with my own squads if I get enough AP1 out as well and then walk up and blow his raider up.
Mistake 4 T3: At this stage I Missed a chance to just push up 3 razor backs and deploy x3 melta guns right on top of his vindy, + lance they'd have at very least shaken it. This was what cost me the game. Not getting my meltas into play T3 was bad, waiting till T5/T6 was terrible.
Mistake 5 T4: I should have held back and just got the techmarines on a automatic in T5 and tried to get them to blow stuff up, if the game did continue I'd probably have been so far out of range that they can just run away - they ended up costing me 2 KP's despite taking 2, but in T5 I reckon they'd have been so far away from any return fire.
My list:
Libby - Lance/Shield - Combi Melta
Techmarine w/ Combimelta Jump pack
Techmarine w/ Combimelta Jump pack
RAS w/ MG/Hand Flamer - AssCan Razorback
RAS w/ MG/Hand Flamer - AssCan Razorback
RAS w/ MG - LasPlas Razorback
RAS w/ MG - LasPlas Razorback
Baal Predator w/ AssCan HB
Baal Predator w/ AssCan HB
Predator w/ AutoCan/HB
Predator w/ AutoCan/HB
Predator w/ AutoCan/HB
His List
Lysander
x7 Terms - x5 TH/SS x2 LC
Land Raider Crusader w/ EA / MM
x10 Marines - Plasma Can/Melta - Rhino
x10 Marines - Misile Launcher/Melta - Rhino
Predator Autocannon HB
Vindicator Shield
Vidicator
SETUP:
The table setup with a mini-road/building area in the middle of the board w/ 3 ruins. There was a scattering of hills/craters around the rest of the board.
Mission was KP
Setup was Spear Head
He wins 1st turn and takes the corner w/ the clear road to the more cluttered corner - forcing me to setup my tanks in quite a condensed area. I fail to seize.
He setups basically in as spear head with his raider flanked by 2 vindies and then the rhino's taking the rear. The predator goes off to the side.
I deploy with razors at the rear, and a double wall of AV 13 with the baals popping smoke.
TURN 1:
He buddles forward, 6" on his tanks and 12" on his raider. Pops smoke on everything.
I rearrange my wall and put the baals out to 1 side, and then put 1 dakka pred forward and the rest behind, popping smoke on one of the rear dakka's to tempt him into firing at a single target/assault where he cant get mutli assault on the next turn. I fired a good bit into his vindies and raiders. I managed to glance his raider twice but EA mitigated it (well Machine Spirit + EA).
TURN2:
Lysander and his cronnies get out. He moves his vindies up, 1 into cover on my right into a building, the other in the open. His predator imobs itself quite far back on a ruin, which blocked its LOS that turn. His rhinos hid away. Lysander assaults the predator I gave him, and explodes it. He loses 1 LC term to the blast.
I basically fan out here and send my entire army into his firing wise, and kill all his terms and do 1 wound to Lysander.That took all my firing.
TURN 3:
His vindies now go to work, and blow up a baal predator, 1 rhino squad moves upto one of the fanned out Autocannon preds to my north and melta's it to death. Lysander hops back in his ride and that fires at a razor but to no effect.
I try to return fire, he makes all his cover saves on the vindy in the ruins but I manage to destroy the weapon on the other vindy (out in the open) with the remaining baal. Everything else had little effect (x2 lascannons and assault cannon razors failed to do anything to the vindy all game).
TURN 4:
He now moves Lysander and his raider right up into my lines. He breaks open a tank in shooting w/ the libby in it, and weapon destroys the other autocannon pred's autocannon. I think at this stage he also wrecks the the 2nd baal.
I get the libby and melta out - I walk through terrain and get a 5 - I am about 1" short of 6" range, which is a shame. The libby fails to do anything with Lance either. I shoot at a couple of his tacticals in the open. The biggest thing for me this turn was my techmarines which came down w/ DOA and blew up the empty rhino hiding at the back and his imob'd predator. I thought they'd be nicely out of range of any real threat.
TURN 5:
He turns his 10 man tactical squad in the center of the board and fires at my techmarines and insta kills with a melta. Their rhino shoots its SB at 24" range and manages to kill the other (2+ does nothingggg). Lysander charges my Libby squad and kills 2 guys, but I do 1 wound with the libby and I hold.
I need to claw back KP's here. Due to Lysanders I1 I felt I could kill him before he swung. Or if he won I could shoot him down next turn. I again turn back attention to the vindies which are really ruining my day, but again do nothing, a melta squad manages to shake it with a 1., I shot at his tacticals in the open again and whittled off a couple.Again a really ineffectual turn. In combat Lysander manages to drop my libby and rest of my squad and pushes towards my melta squad that got out to try and hurt the vindicator. He charges but sheer weight of hits (I rolled a lot of 5's and 4's) and he takes his single remaining wound and dies, I consolidate into cover infront of the vindy.
TURN 6:
He now starts to back off a bit. He tries to get a few more shots on the razors, but without vindies he relies on melta + assault cannon off the land raider to shoot and does nothing.
I REALLY need to claw back some KP's now. I get a lot of squads out - the melta guns get out of 2 razors to take care of the land raider - they blow it up and lose 1 guy in the process (the blast hit pretty much everyone). The melta squad that shook the vindy now shoots and charges, destroying its weapon and imobalising it (or shaking it and imobing it). I manage to get 1 of his tactical squads down via lascannon/rapid plasma gun fire.
TURN 7:
Game goes on and he tries to put it away, 1 more KP and he has a garanteed win. He wants to shoot/assault my RAS squad in the open, he fires at them down to 1 guy, and they run about 7 inches, he has no more fire to do anything and cant assault - best result for me.
My guy rallies and I move him back, he joins another squad to try and fire them down to nothing with the help of a razorback with assault cannon. The two lasplas's try to take out the rhino in the back field and fail. 1 melta squad gets the vindy to a box but cant assault due to it having gotten out of a tank that turn.
Game Ends:
10 KP to 8 - A loss.
REACTION:
I've listed some of the initial mistakes down below, but the re-occuring theme was that I was not aggresive enough early on. I have x4 squads of melta guys that are GREAT at taking out tanks. He had 4 tanks that could hurt me, I had gotten rid of his deathstar by T2 pretty much and at that stage I should have just jumped him. Moved my razors 12" forward, deployed melta at rear armor and blasted to buggery his tanks - at worst I'd have shaken them. He had x2 squads of tactical marines to try and take them out - at worst I'd have gotten locked in combat with 2 squads and then counter charged and probably done enough to take each combat. I put to much faith in my shooting "going well" late game. But thats the part of learning the list.
I actually really liked the techmarines, but still not 100% on them.
Incidently - ANY OTHER mission - I'd have won very easy. He was down to x1 troops choice, vs my 3 (ok 1 had 1 guy) and in the end he had 1 boxed vindy, a razor and 6 guys, vs my 3 razors and 15 guys.
But heres a list of early game mistaks:
Mistake 1 T1: Really I should have tried my best to guess how far he could assault Lysander first turn and pull right out of that range and then whizz around to a flank. I'd probably have lost a tank in T3 but I think it may have led to more side shots / access to his rhinos.
Mistake 2 T1: Should have gone all out for the vindies to shake them. Easier target, and they cant do anything else. I just felt range was wrong, but I am sure it wasnt.
Mistake 3 T2: I shouldnt have fanned out so much against Lysander and his squad in T2. That much fire I will drop him to at least 2 or 3 terms inc Lysander, really I want him to stay in the open, hes a KP and I can fire at him to death with my own squads if I get enough AP1 out as well and then walk up and blow his raider up.
Mistake 4 T3: At this stage I Missed a chance to just push up 3 razor backs and deploy x3 melta guns right on top of his vindy, + lance they'd have at very least shaken it. This was what cost me the game. Not getting my meltas into play T3 was bad, waiting till T5/T6 was terrible.
Mistake 5 T4: I should have held back and just got the techmarines on a automatic in T5 and tried to get them to blow stuff up, if the game did continue I'd probably have been so far out of range that they can just run away - they ended up costing me 2 KP's despite taking 2, but in T5 I reckon they'd have been so far away from any return fire.
Monday, 13 December 2010
Battle Report #3 - 1000 Points vs Logan Wing
I wasnt sure if I was going to get a game in today, but I brought my cases down just in case, I was there really to pick up my x2 Techmarines that had been mail ordered (and some more meltaguns) - and maybe the Chaos Demon books (ok and a unit of Plague Bearers ..)
After a few minutes one of the newer guys in the store turned up, I've played against him in a horrible doubles game, and gave him a lot of pointers - mainly on using tanks / fire arcs etc.. but also on assault moves and what not. So he's come down with his 1000 points today again, and thought I'd play him. I have to say 1000 points I had NO idea what to do, and tbh I think I had a pretty naff list in the end.
MY LIST
Libby - Lance / Shield
x3 RAS w/ MG + x2 AssCan Razors x1 LasPlas Razor
x2 Baal Predators
x1 Dakka Predator
I made this list in about 15 seconds, and didnt even like it when I made it. I knew I was facing terms so wanted a lot of AC's in there - I think I should have forgone the auto pred and had 4 troops with another las plas in there.
HIS LIST
x1 Logan
x5 Terms w/ combi flamer/melta/PF/WC/SS
Drop Pod
x5 Terms w/ same set up
Drop Pod
x5 terms w/ Cyclone Misile
x1 AutoLas Predator
First thing, that I knew but completely forgot, his logan drop pod is illegal, you can only fit x5 terms in it, which, as you will find out, would have changed the entire game. He is pretty new so he just loaded up a ton of WG to "deal with a bit of everything" and actually it turns out to be quite annoying.
THE SETUP
We played on a 4x4 table since it was only 1K, and basically set up with a piece of ruin's in each "quarter" - he got x1 huge ruin and x1 tiny ruin, I got x2 middle sized ruins. They were all set up dead center of a 2x2 tile.
MISSION: x2 Objectives
DEPLOY: Pitched Battle
x2 Objectives - His is placed in his larger ruin on my right hand side, about 2" from the front wall. I place mine in my left hand ruin, near the rear (my table edge) but right up against a wall.
I win to go first, and offered him first turn. Reasoning is that w/ my fast army I can roll in and contest his objective hopefully without return fire, also with him being in drop pods for 2/3 of his army, I'd doubt I'd get anything to get first turn shooting at, especially with so many AC's on my side. I felt I'd let him deploy, hope for a decent positioning w/ the drop pod then mow him down.
My objective placement was reasoned that I could leave tanks in cover behind and still hold it, or push out for shots on the center of the board and still "brush" the edge of the terrain and hold it. His was in such a position I could easily 18" move to the edge of the terrain and contest.
He deploys his cyclone squad "On his objective" hiding away, and his autolas sort of half in cover and half not (after I reminded him of how to get cover saves).
I was going to reserve, but didnt feel confident of getting enough stuff in a turn to take out squads of terms, I decided very early this would be a complete tester game for various things though. I setup terribly, I put the daaka and lasplas on the right flank, but quite far forward, and the AC razors by my objective in cover. The baals scouted and x1 popped smoke w/ the other giving it a cover save from the auto las. Really I should have hugged my board edge with the razors and put the preds right in the front so that he could not land and pop anything except AV11 or 13.
THE GAME:
TURN 1:
He drops in with his logan bomb beside my dakka pred and fires a combi melta tank huntered up and destroys it (grr) he tries to flame my baals but gets no where.His autolas wiffs as I make the cover save, and his cyclone, who moved through cover to get a shot, misses both.
In my T1 I basically fan out with my baals coming to the center of my edge, the las plas right on my board edge, and then the x2 razors moving up a bit as well. I fire everything into his squad and wipe out x5 terms and Logan down to 1 wound. If he had 4 terms in that pod like he should have, Logan would now be dead - as his last term to die was a PF/SS guard. I also managed to shake his las plas with a single hunter killer that I took.
TURN 2:
He forgot to roll for reserves, but I let him drop it anyway as I wanted to practice vs drop pods. He puts it sort of in the center of my deployment and gets out. He actually brings quite a lot of fire to bear here, between Logan assaulting, and then a few combi shots I am pretty sure he takes down the las plas razor and kills 3 in the explosion (1,1,2 for armor!) I think he manages to stun the baals w/ 1 melta and a cyclone into side armor. This was really bad placement by me.
Now with logan and x5 terms back in my deployment I really need to get rid of these guys. I get my libby out to try and blood lance his droppod and terms, and MG/pistol his terms, the MG and Sarge of the now depleted squad are going to shoot at Logan. I manage to lance the pod and kill it, and drop a single wolf guy, the squad w/ its MG manages to drop 1 more I believe. I assault w/ both squads, the MGx2 guys into Logan and x5+libby into the terms. Logan obviously wins (I was hoping for either major wiffage or at least him taking the PF, nope), and the libby and wolfguard tie w/ 1 kill a piece.
TURN 3:
Logan goes near 1 of my baals and he tries to fire at my outside baal with the autolas and cyclone, doing nothing. Logan assaults the other baal and blows it to kingdom come (x2 tanks and x1 squad killed by him now - all with 1 wound) in combat he wins by 1 over my libby and I boxcar, they go off the board the next turn.
So my libby goes off the board (grr) but I bring some assault cannons to bear on the x3 wolf guard and Logan that remains, I finally manage to kill off Logan and kill 2 of the wolf guard, only his SS PF guard remains in my board edge, he still has a full squad of guard near his and his lasauto pred.
TURN 4:
He fires his auto las at my razor and does nothing, and his cyclone takes off the baals assault cannon. He forgets to move his guard w/ the SS I begrudgingly let him move, and he goes into cover near my objective.
I move my empty AC razor around the corner to try and clean off that SS guard, but do nothing. This guy has made a save every turn against rending. The other AC hangs out on my objective as I dont want to risk leaving these guys out in the open if he gets a explosion etc.. The baal moves out of LOS of the lasplas, and tries to pot shot at the cyclone guys, manages to drop 2 guys thanks to 6 hits 5 wounds!
TURN 5:
He moves his cyclone back into cover on his objective thinking he's claiming mine. He charges my empty razor with the SS guard, not sure why, maybe he was hoping for a cosolidation move of 6" or something, but he wiffed and missed all attacks.
In my T5 I 18" my Baal up to contest his objective, and remembered right before I went to shoot my AC that it was actually the one that still had smoke, so popped that for good measure. The AC raz fires at the SS and fails to hurt it again, but I moved a bit further back so hopefully enticing him to a charge.
Game does not end due to the staff member slings shotting my dice half way across the store onto the table, rolled a 6 the bugger.
TURN 6:
Mixed bag this turn. He moves his Pred and Cyclone to try and take out my Baal after he realises it is actually contesting (no I moved it there for fun!) What he didnt realise is that for a very good reason I drove it "corner in" which saw me get AV13 from a shot from the doorway (where he still is holding his objective), he couldnt get AV 10 without coming miles away from his objective. He fires and manages to weapon destroys both the bolters. He charges and wiffs due to only being able to glance it and needing double 6's for that. His PF/SS Guard charges and destroys my AC raz finally, and consolidats about 6" from my objective.
Right, squeeky bum time now. I really cant do all that much, I move the baal fractionally so that AV13 is now the fronting vs his guard in the door, and one side is flush with the objective (which is about 2" from the wall" - my tank has its center point level with the objective, meaning he cant hold his objective unless he just risks shooting AV13 w/ x2 s8 shots and doesnt assault - ne needs to destroy it in CC and then consolidate about 3" to get to his objective. This is if it goes T7. My razor that is still alive just pumps his SS guard with 4 shots, and finally it drops.
He rolls for game end and it goes to T7.
TURN 7:
So ... he falls for my ploy and moves out further to destoy the baal. He puts his cyclone behind the tank and the others on its side. He HAS to destroy it in combat, but he doesnt realise that. I pray for those S8 to kill it, but it just imob's (auto hits now ...) he manages to glance it twice, destroys weapon and imob - bam its done. He consolidates 1" lol, but due to the wreck he cant get near enough. I win 1-0
CONCLUSION:
I made a ton of mistakes in this game, a couple were not clocking what he did till 2 late and then "just letting him have it", but it made a harder game for me. These were:
Drop Pod Size: Logan should have died in T1 - he took out a Baal, a Razor and a Squad alone. If they had all been there there is no way that squad of guard stayed in my lines as long as they did.
Reserve: I let him bring in his drop pod after I realised he hand't rolled for it, 50/50 he gets it if I made him go back and roll, but he had already delpoyed. If that didnt delpoy, Logan would have faced the brunt of my entire army rather than just half etc...
But by far I felt I made more mistakes.
Firstly my positiong vs Drop Pods is always shocking, but I think I've figured it out. I always offer a lot of rear armor to them dropping behind me. I need to castle up in a corner w/ zero rear armor exposed where a flamer template at best can do maybe 1 or 2 glancings, but more than likely nothing. I cant let drop pods get in between or behind me or block me off from another part of my army.
I shouldnt have charged the 2 man squad. They were dead but I gave Logan an easy option next turn, charge a tank or charge in and help the WG, he chose to do the tank rightfuly, but I should have forced him to decide - charge the 2 man squad and the baal lives and runs away, or charge the baal and he faces another round of MG shooting.
Also I shouldnt have got the libby out, but I was desperate to see what he was like with Lance hitting multiple stuff, but he made so many 5++ over 2 rounds tbh on average I'd probably have won that combat if we did it again.
Over all I think having to face terms in drop pods is something I need to keep adapting to and I've turned a corner now. In fairness I gave him so much leeway it was harder than it should have been.
After a few minutes one of the newer guys in the store turned up, I've played against him in a horrible doubles game, and gave him a lot of pointers - mainly on using tanks / fire arcs etc.. but also on assault moves and what not. So he's come down with his 1000 points today again, and thought I'd play him. I have to say 1000 points I had NO idea what to do, and tbh I think I had a pretty naff list in the end.
MY LIST
Libby - Lance / Shield
x3 RAS w/ MG + x2 AssCan Razors x1 LasPlas Razor
x2 Baal Predators
x1 Dakka Predator
I made this list in about 15 seconds, and didnt even like it when I made it. I knew I was facing terms so wanted a lot of AC's in there - I think I should have forgone the auto pred and had 4 troops with another las plas in there.
HIS LIST
x1 Logan
x5 Terms w/ combi flamer/melta/PF/WC/SS
Drop Pod
x5 Terms w/ same set up
Drop Pod
x5 terms w/ Cyclone Misile
x1 AutoLas Predator
First thing, that I knew but completely forgot, his logan drop pod is illegal, you can only fit x5 terms in it, which, as you will find out, would have changed the entire game. He is pretty new so he just loaded up a ton of WG to "deal with a bit of everything" and actually it turns out to be quite annoying.
THE SETUP
We played on a 4x4 table since it was only 1K, and basically set up with a piece of ruin's in each "quarter" - he got x1 huge ruin and x1 tiny ruin, I got x2 middle sized ruins. They were all set up dead center of a 2x2 tile.
MISSION: x2 Objectives
DEPLOY: Pitched Battle
x2 Objectives - His is placed in his larger ruin on my right hand side, about 2" from the front wall. I place mine in my left hand ruin, near the rear (my table edge) but right up against a wall.
I win to go first, and offered him first turn. Reasoning is that w/ my fast army I can roll in and contest his objective hopefully without return fire, also with him being in drop pods for 2/3 of his army, I'd doubt I'd get anything to get first turn shooting at, especially with so many AC's on my side. I felt I'd let him deploy, hope for a decent positioning w/ the drop pod then mow him down.
My objective placement was reasoned that I could leave tanks in cover behind and still hold it, or push out for shots on the center of the board and still "brush" the edge of the terrain and hold it. His was in such a position I could easily 18" move to the edge of the terrain and contest.
He deploys his cyclone squad "On his objective" hiding away, and his autolas sort of half in cover and half not (after I reminded him of how to get cover saves).
I was going to reserve, but didnt feel confident of getting enough stuff in a turn to take out squads of terms, I decided very early this would be a complete tester game for various things though. I setup terribly, I put the daaka and lasplas on the right flank, but quite far forward, and the AC razors by my objective in cover. The baals scouted and x1 popped smoke w/ the other giving it a cover save from the auto las. Really I should have hugged my board edge with the razors and put the preds right in the front so that he could not land and pop anything except AV11 or 13.
THE GAME:
TURN 1:
He drops in with his logan bomb beside my dakka pred and fires a combi melta tank huntered up and destroys it (grr) he tries to flame my baals but gets no where.His autolas wiffs as I make the cover save, and his cyclone, who moved through cover to get a shot, misses both.
In my T1 I basically fan out with my baals coming to the center of my edge, the las plas right on my board edge, and then the x2 razors moving up a bit as well. I fire everything into his squad and wipe out x5 terms and Logan down to 1 wound. If he had 4 terms in that pod like he should have, Logan would now be dead - as his last term to die was a PF/SS guard. I also managed to shake his las plas with a single hunter killer that I took.
TURN 2:
He forgot to roll for reserves, but I let him drop it anyway as I wanted to practice vs drop pods. He puts it sort of in the center of my deployment and gets out. He actually brings quite a lot of fire to bear here, between Logan assaulting, and then a few combi shots I am pretty sure he takes down the las plas razor and kills 3 in the explosion (1,1,2 for armor!) I think he manages to stun the baals w/ 1 melta and a cyclone into side armor. This was really bad placement by me.
Now with logan and x5 terms back in my deployment I really need to get rid of these guys. I get my libby out to try and blood lance his droppod and terms, and MG/pistol his terms, the MG and Sarge of the now depleted squad are going to shoot at Logan. I manage to lance the pod and kill it, and drop a single wolf guy, the squad w/ its MG manages to drop 1 more I believe. I assault w/ both squads, the MGx2 guys into Logan and x5+libby into the terms. Logan obviously wins (I was hoping for either major wiffage or at least him taking the PF, nope), and the libby and wolfguard tie w/ 1 kill a piece.
TURN 3:
Logan goes near 1 of my baals and he tries to fire at my outside baal with the autolas and cyclone, doing nothing. Logan assaults the other baal and blows it to kingdom come (x2 tanks and x1 squad killed by him now - all with 1 wound) in combat he wins by 1 over my libby and I boxcar, they go off the board the next turn.
So my libby goes off the board (grr) but I bring some assault cannons to bear on the x3 wolf guard and Logan that remains, I finally manage to kill off Logan and kill 2 of the wolf guard, only his SS PF guard remains in my board edge, he still has a full squad of guard near his and his lasauto pred.
TURN 4:
He fires his auto las at my razor and does nothing, and his cyclone takes off the baals assault cannon. He forgets to move his guard w/ the SS I begrudgingly let him move, and he goes into cover near my objective.
I move my empty AC razor around the corner to try and clean off that SS guard, but do nothing. This guy has made a save every turn against rending. The other AC hangs out on my objective as I dont want to risk leaving these guys out in the open if he gets a explosion etc.. The baal moves out of LOS of the lasplas, and tries to pot shot at the cyclone guys, manages to drop 2 guys thanks to 6 hits 5 wounds!
TURN 5:
He moves his cyclone back into cover on his objective thinking he's claiming mine. He charges my empty razor with the SS guard, not sure why, maybe he was hoping for a cosolidation move of 6" or something, but he wiffed and missed all attacks.
In my T5 I 18" my Baal up to contest his objective, and remembered right before I went to shoot my AC that it was actually the one that still had smoke, so popped that for good measure. The AC raz fires at the SS and fails to hurt it again, but I moved a bit further back so hopefully enticing him to a charge.
Game does not end due to the staff member slings shotting my dice half way across the store onto the table, rolled a 6 the bugger.
TURN 6:
Mixed bag this turn. He moves his Pred and Cyclone to try and take out my Baal after he realises it is actually contesting (no I moved it there for fun!) What he didnt realise is that for a very good reason I drove it "corner in" which saw me get AV13 from a shot from the doorway (where he still is holding his objective), he couldnt get AV 10 without coming miles away from his objective. He fires and manages to weapon destroys both the bolters. He charges and wiffs due to only being able to glance it and needing double 6's for that. His PF/SS Guard charges and destroys my AC raz finally, and consolidats about 6" from my objective.
Right, squeeky bum time now. I really cant do all that much, I move the baal fractionally so that AV13 is now the fronting vs his guard in the door, and one side is flush with the objective (which is about 2" from the wall" - my tank has its center point level with the objective, meaning he cant hold his objective unless he just risks shooting AV13 w/ x2 s8 shots and doesnt assault - ne needs to destroy it in CC and then consolidate about 3" to get to his objective. This is if it goes T7. My razor that is still alive just pumps his SS guard with 4 shots, and finally it drops.
He rolls for game end and it goes to T7.
TURN 7:
So ... he falls for my ploy and moves out further to destoy the baal. He puts his cyclone behind the tank and the others on its side. He HAS to destroy it in combat, but he doesnt realise that. I pray for those S8 to kill it, but it just imob's (auto hits now ...) he manages to glance it twice, destroys weapon and imob - bam its done. He consolidates 1" lol, but due to the wreck he cant get near enough. I win 1-0
CONCLUSION:
I made a ton of mistakes in this game, a couple were not clocking what he did till 2 late and then "just letting him have it", but it made a harder game for me. These were:
Drop Pod Size: Logan should have died in T1 - he took out a Baal, a Razor and a Squad alone. If they had all been there there is no way that squad of guard stayed in my lines as long as they did.
Reserve: I let him bring in his drop pod after I realised he hand't rolled for it, 50/50 he gets it if I made him go back and roll, but he had already delpoyed. If that didnt delpoy, Logan would have faced the brunt of my entire army rather than just half etc...
But by far I felt I made more mistakes.
Firstly my positiong vs Drop Pods is always shocking, but I think I've figured it out. I always offer a lot of rear armor to them dropping behind me. I need to castle up in a corner w/ zero rear armor exposed where a flamer template at best can do maybe 1 or 2 glancings, but more than likely nothing. I cant let drop pods get in between or behind me or block me off from another part of my army.
I shouldnt have charged the 2 man squad. They were dead but I gave Logan an easy option next turn, charge a tank or charge in and help the WG, he chose to do the tank rightfuly, but I should have forced him to decide - charge the 2 man squad and the baal lives and runs away, or charge the baal and he faces another round of MG shooting.
Also I shouldnt have got the libby out, but I was desperate to see what he was like with Lance hitting multiple stuff, but he made so many 5++ over 2 rounds tbh on average I'd probably have won that combat if we did it again.
Over all I think having to face terms in drop pods is something I need to keep adapting to and I've turned a corner now. In fairness I gave him so much leeway it was harder than it should have been.
Saturday, 11 December 2010
Battle Report #2 - 1500 vs Mech Guard
Managed to get in a game against a very competative player this week, using an actual tournament-esque list - however he caught me off guard, and I had a very much tester list which didnt get a chance to change up. However we face off again in a couple of weeks and plan to have my "full on" army by then.
For some reason I have a foggy memory of this game exactly, so I'll not keep it to specifics per turn, but rather the general flow of the game and some points/annotations. I need to start taking pictures really, but have to say a bit gun shy about that (though a couple others did last night).
THE LISTS
I am terrible at remember guard specific's - but this was roughly his list:
Command w/ Flamers
Chimera (flamer/HB)
Squad w/ Autocannon
Chimera
Squad w/ Autocannon
Chimera
Vets w/ MG's
Chimera
Vets w/ MG's
Chimera
Vets w/ Plasma Guns
Chimera
Hellhound
x2 Hydra's (squadron'd)
Russ (w/ Str10 48") Flamer hull
Russ (w/ Str10 48") Flamer hull
MY LIST
Libby w/ URage / Shield
HG w/ x3 LC x3 SS
Razor w/ Lasplas
x5 RAS w/ MG TH
AssCan Razor
x5 RAS w/ MG
AssCan Razor
x5 RAS w/ Flamer
LasPlas Razor
x5 RAS w/ Flamer
LasPlas Razor
x1 BAAL w/ Asscan/HB
x1 BAAL w/ Asscan/HB
x1 BAAL w/ Flamestorm
THE SETUP
Standard table 6x4 was made of the GW modular 2x2 which saw us have a big hill section on the right hand side, and a "valley" on the left flank (hill = 4x4, valley 2x4 so to speak). In the left flank valley there was a big big ruin, and a couple of craters either side of it (north and south, not flanks). On the hill there was some small walls / buildings. On the far side of the table a few tank tracks and the likes.
MISSION: x2 Objectives
SETUP: Pitched Battle
TURN1: Guard goes first.
He takes the far side (which had better terrain) and puts his objective by the tank tracks in the sort of center right flank. I counter this by putting mine right in the left corner.
He sets up in 2 positions. His autocannon chimeras on his objective, 1 russ hellhound and the plasma and melta chimeras infront. He setups then infront of my objective with his x2 hydras at the back on a hill over looking the valley, the russ, melta chimera, command chimera infront.
I setup a parking lot near my objective, but really didnt setup well and didnt give myself good enough cover saves. Baals scouted infront of his russ etc... and flamestorm (useless vs this list) goes right to the front to try and block and pops smoke on the scout move.
THE GAME
I fail to seize so he goes about moving forward with his front running tanks. He pops smoke on my right (on the hills) with the hellhound and chimera. He manages to imob his command chimera on difficult terrain (crater) T1, this was my only bit of luck early in the game. The rest of his army now proceeds to stun pretty much all of my tanks. I believe only the flamestorm, 1 lasplas and 1 assault cannon came out with out a stunned result on it. In my return I try to fan out a bit to position myself w/ cover saves but also hopefully get some T2 shooting in, the lasplas does shake his chimera w/ MG's coming from the hills and thus cant shoot.
However in T2 he has a bit more effect, he manages to blow off baal#1's AC, shakes another load of tanks (including the other baal) and imob's one of my AssCan razors out in the open infront of his russ. Basically he is keeping his hydras on the hill, chimera's w/ auto's on the objective, everything else moving forward. His hellhound starts to get annoying aswell getting multiple shots on tanks w/ creative template use. He wrecks my Libbys/HG razor and kills a single guy with a Str10 template.
In T2 I decide I really have to be bold and actually play a bit of the objective and force him to play the objective as well. Thus I drop off the TH squad to protect my objective w/ the command squad w/ some charges, then send the empty razor off 12" to join a Baal and x2 lasplas razors on the right going after his objective. I leave 1 lasplas razor hiding infront of the ruin. The flamestorm runs right behind his russ but fails to do anything. I manage stop his melta chimera moving on the right flank aswell. My HG and TH charge his chimera w/ the melta vets (who had demo aswell) and wreck the chimera, 1 or 2 die from the explosion, I don't lose anyone due to FNP.
His T3 see's a bit more shooting, think he drops 1 from my TH squad, wrecks my lasplas razor going after his objective, and shakes my baal out in the open. He shakes the empty asscan razor again, and takes the lascannon off both the remaining lasplas's.
I popped smoke on pretty much all the tanks, which I had forgotten to do last turn, the imob'd lasplas did fire off at his chimera and destroyed it, and the assault cannon from regular RAS fired into the squad and forced them to run - they were never to return - so that was 3 less melta to worry about. I moved the AssCan (empty one) into a completely LOS blocked area getting ready for a 18" moves (which would require me to have a 6th turn though). The libby/HG charged his flamers, and the TH charged into dangerous terrain (the wrecked chimera) to his melta's. The HG w/ 4 powerweapons killed his command squad twice over, and consolidated into cover, the TH however won combat by 1 and he passed LD - the TH missed on all 3 hits!.
In his T4 he throws a good bit of fire power (inc a russ) at my HG, but only lose a couple (x2 SS's) leaving them with the libby a SS and a FNP/FC battery - I make ALOT of cover saves on them. Smoke at this stage saves my bacon, I make 3 6's in a row on the baal - 1 from a AP1 pen shot. I actually go into my T4 w/ no stun's!
This is where I start to claw back. The libby squad has no option to go and help out the TH (which lost combat last turn btw), they are a scoring unit and about 12" from my objective, and the only scoring unit on that side of the board. The Baal and AC ras move up on the hill to try and blast away at his chimera's on the objective, w/ no troop support near I begin to think abotu contesting - which I can do - or maybe get lucky and blow away enough to force his squads to run off the board (if they fail, they are off). In my shooting I manage w/ the plasma razor imob and shake the hellhound near my objective, the two assault cannons between them manage to destroy 1 autocannon chimera, but he passes LD and I dont have a 2nd shot on the other chimera. I send the RAS from the destroyed LASPLAS to go and hit his plasma chimera (which had been imob'd in T3) to try and wreck it w/ FC (they had red thirts) but just blow off the HB. The Libby squad destroys his MG squad - and they consolidate back towards my objective and in cover.
T5 - right now we felt we wouldnt have enough time to go beyond T5 - as it stood he had 1 squad and 1 squad in a tank on his objective. I had 1 lasplas w/ a squad near mine, 1 TH (a single guy) 6" away and x2 tanks about 23" away from his objective. He CANNOT contest in T5 - his russ would not be able to move far enough, (x2 tanks in the way) thought he still had x2 up - and the range was not quite far enough so he had to hope for some scatters etc.. to try and take out the single TH and pinn my guys from the lasplas razor. For me to win I'd have to blow away his squads and force them to run or be pinned.
So he gives it a go - his russ lands a glance on my lasplas - and it downgrades to a 1. His hydra's, for the first time in the game, failed to hit on re-rolls (he was missing 2 or 3 each time and hitting on the re-rolls, he rolled all 2's, then 1's this time). So the baal and asscan are still up.
My T5, and I make a HUGE mistake in choice - I fire the razor into the chimera - front armor - fails to pen or glance (needed rends) and the baal failed to do it anyway. So I cant contest. I roll my lasplas onto the objective, I send my libby into the russ and blow up its main weap.
GAME ENDS
It was a great game that I really really enjoyed. I learnt a few new tricks, and was nice to play the best guy at our store and not get beat.
Mistake 1 was my list - I pander to my LGS a tiny bit - and really my list should have been stronger (HG w/ melta's rather than LC's/SS's or no HG at all - no flamestorm, but dakka pred/lasplas pred)
Mistake 2 was the smokes in T2 for his T3 shooting - I did get a lot of shakens that I really needed to shoot back - I had great positioning. BUT the smokes I layed on T4 did save the game I feel for me.
Mistake 3 was the way I charged my Libby squad at first. I worked out that I could have done a sling shot to ge the TH (the weaker more expendable squad) into his flamer vets (and also nearer his big tanks w/ that TH) and the HG go into the melta vets (bigger squad possed more threat to my army). Since the TH had no invuln and the HG could have run back towards them w/ the x3 3++'s. However live and learn.
THe guy I played was a great guy, and suprised how close it was since he is a competative guy, and had a full on list, and I am still re-learning the game to a competative level.
The changes for my 1500 list (though doing 1750 next week) will be;
Drop the flamestorm = 115
Drop the HG + razor = 280ish
Drop the TH = 30
Something like turn all the RAS's into 165 point "x5 RAS w/MG - AssCan x3 LasPlas x2 or vice versa"
x2 BAAL's x2 ACLAS Preds - which will give me 6/7 lascannons 4/5 asscan's x5 melta's.
Libby will run w/ fear/shield since he wont be getting out of the razor.
EDIT: I actually went with the list in the below post (battle report #1). THe list plays a lot more "mech like" I am not putting big expensive units out there to try and get results
Cheers - Bulley
For some reason I have a foggy memory of this game exactly, so I'll not keep it to specifics per turn, but rather the general flow of the game and some points/annotations. I need to start taking pictures really, but have to say a bit gun shy about that (though a couple others did last night).
THE LISTS
I am terrible at remember guard specific's - but this was roughly his list:
Command w/ Flamers
Chimera (flamer/HB)
Squad w/ Autocannon
Chimera
Squad w/ Autocannon
Chimera
Vets w/ MG's
Chimera
Vets w/ MG's
Chimera
Vets w/ Plasma Guns
Chimera
Hellhound
x2 Hydra's (squadron'd)
Russ (w/ Str10 48") Flamer hull
Russ (w/ Str10 48") Flamer hull
MY LIST
Libby w/ URage / Shield
HG w/ x3 LC x3 SS
Razor w/ Lasplas
x5 RAS w/ MG TH
AssCan Razor
x5 RAS w/ MG
AssCan Razor
x5 RAS w/ Flamer
LasPlas Razor
x5 RAS w/ Flamer
LasPlas Razor
x1 BAAL w/ Asscan/HB
x1 BAAL w/ Asscan/HB
x1 BAAL w/ Flamestorm
THE SETUP
Standard table 6x4 was made of the GW modular 2x2 which saw us have a big hill section on the right hand side, and a "valley" on the left flank (hill = 4x4, valley 2x4 so to speak). In the left flank valley there was a big big ruin, and a couple of craters either side of it (north and south, not flanks). On the hill there was some small walls / buildings. On the far side of the table a few tank tracks and the likes.
MISSION: x2 Objectives
SETUP: Pitched Battle
TURN1: Guard goes first.
He takes the far side (which had better terrain) and puts his objective by the tank tracks in the sort of center right flank. I counter this by putting mine right in the left corner.
He sets up in 2 positions. His autocannon chimeras on his objective, 1 russ hellhound and the plasma and melta chimeras infront. He setups then infront of my objective with his x2 hydras at the back on a hill over looking the valley, the russ, melta chimera, command chimera infront.
I setup a parking lot near my objective, but really didnt setup well and didnt give myself good enough cover saves. Baals scouted infront of his russ etc... and flamestorm (useless vs this list) goes right to the front to try and block and pops smoke on the scout move.
THE GAME
I fail to seize so he goes about moving forward with his front running tanks. He pops smoke on my right (on the hills) with the hellhound and chimera. He manages to imob his command chimera on difficult terrain (crater) T1, this was my only bit of luck early in the game. The rest of his army now proceeds to stun pretty much all of my tanks. I believe only the flamestorm, 1 lasplas and 1 assault cannon came out with out a stunned result on it. In my return I try to fan out a bit to position myself w/ cover saves but also hopefully get some T2 shooting in, the lasplas does shake his chimera w/ MG's coming from the hills and thus cant shoot.
However in T2 he has a bit more effect, he manages to blow off baal#1's AC, shakes another load of tanks (including the other baal) and imob's one of my AssCan razors out in the open infront of his russ. Basically he is keeping his hydras on the hill, chimera's w/ auto's on the objective, everything else moving forward. His hellhound starts to get annoying aswell getting multiple shots on tanks w/ creative template use. He wrecks my Libbys/HG razor and kills a single guy with a Str10 template.
In T2 I decide I really have to be bold and actually play a bit of the objective and force him to play the objective as well. Thus I drop off the TH squad to protect my objective w/ the command squad w/ some charges, then send the empty razor off 12" to join a Baal and x2 lasplas razors on the right going after his objective. I leave 1 lasplas razor hiding infront of the ruin. The flamestorm runs right behind his russ but fails to do anything. I manage stop his melta chimera moving on the right flank aswell. My HG and TH charge his chimera w/ the melta vets (who had demo aswell) and wreck the chimera, 1 or 2 die from the explosion, I don't lose anyone due to FNP.
His T3 see's a bit more shooting, think he drops 1 from my TH squad, wrecks my lasplas razor going after his objective, and shakes my baal out in the open. He shakes the empty asscan razor again, and takes the lascannon off both the remaining lasplas's.
I popped smoke on pretty much all the tanks, which I had forgotten to do last turn, the imob'd lasplas did fire off at his chimera and destroyed it, and the assault cannon from regular RAS fired into the squad and forced them to run - they were never to return - so that was 3 less melta to worry about. I moved the AssCan (empty one) into a completely LOS blocked area getting ready for a 18" moves (which would require me to have a 6th turn though). The libby/HG charged his flamers, and the TH charged into dangerous terrain (the wrecked chimera) to his melta's. The HG w/ 4 powerweapons killed his command squad twice over, and consolidated into cover, the TH however won combat by 1 and he passed LD - the TH missed on all 3 hits!.
In his T4 he throws a good bit of fire power (inc a russ) at my HG, but only lose a couple (x2 SS's) leaving them with the libby a SS and a FNP/FC battery - I make ALOT of cover saves on them. Smoke at this stage saves my bacon, I make 3 6's in a row on the baal - 1 from a AP1 pen shot. I actually go into my T4 w/ no stun's!
This is where I start to claw back. The libby squad has no option to go and help out the TH (which lost combat last turn btw), they are a scoring unit and about 12" from my objective, and the only scoring unit on that side of the board. The Baal and AC ras move up on the hill to try and blast away at his chimera's on the objective, w/ no troop support near I begin to think abotu contesting - which I can do - or maybe get lucky and blow away enough to force his squads to run off the board (if they fail, they are off). In my shooting I manage w/ the plasma razor imob and shake the hellhound near my objective, the two assault cannons between them manage to destroy 1 autocannon chimera, but he passes LD and I dont have a 2nd shot on the other chimera. I send the RAS from the destroyed LASPLAS to go and hit his plasma chimera (which had been imob'd in T3) to try and wreck it w/ FC (they had red thirts) but just blow off the HB. The Libby squad destroys his MG squad - and they consolidate back towards my objective and in cover.
T5 - right now we felt we wouldnt have enough time to go beyond T5 - as it stood he had 1 squad and 1 squad in a tank on his objective. I had 1 lasplas w/ a squad near mine, 1 TH (a single guy) 6" away and x2 tanks about 23" away from his objective. He CANNOT contest in T5 - his russ would not be able to move far enough, (x2 tanks in the way) thought he still had x2 up - and the range was not quite far enough so he had to hope for some scatters etc.. to try and take out the single TH and pinn my guys from the lasplas razor. For me to win I'd have to blow away his squads and force them to run or be pinned.
So he gives it a go - his russ lands a glance on my lasplas - and it downgrades to a 1. His hydra's, for the first time in the game, failed to hit on re-rolls (he was missing 2 or 3 each time and hitting on the re-rolls, he rolled all 2's, then 1's this time). So the baal and asscan are still up.
My T5, and I make a HUGE mistake in choice - I fire the razor into the chimera - front armor - fails to pen or glance (needed rends) and the baal failed to do it anyway. So I cant contest. I roll my lasplas onto the objective, I send my libby into the russ and blow up its main weap.
GAME ENDS
It was a great game that I really really enjoyed. I learnt a few new tricks, and was nice to play the best guy at our store and not get beat.
Mistake 1 was my list - I pander to my LGS a tiny bit - and really my list should have been stronger (HG w/ melta's rather than LC's/SS's or no HG at all - no flamestorm, but dakka pred/lasplas pred)
Mistake 2 was the smokes in T2 for his T3 shooting - I did get a lot of shakens that I really needed to shoot back - I had great positioning. BUT the smokes I layed on T4 did save the game I feel for me.
Mistake 3 was the way I charged my Libby squad at first. I worked out that I could have done a sling shot to ge the TH (the weaker more expendable squad) into his flamer vets (and also nearer his big tanks w/ that TH) and the HG go into the melta vets (bigger squad possed more threat to my army). Since the TH had no invuln and the HG could have run back towards them w/ the x3 3++'s. However live and learn.
THe guy I played was a great guy, and suprised how close it was since he is a competative guy, and had a full on list, and I am still re-learning the game to a competative level.
The changes for my 1500 list (though doing 1750 next week) will be;
Drop the flamestorm = 115
Drop the HG + razor = 280ish
Drop the TH = 30
Something like turn all the RAS's into 165 point "x5 RAS w/MG - AssCan x3 LasPlas x2 or vice versa"
x2 BAAL's x2 ACLAS Preds - which will give me 6/7 lascannons 4/5 asscan's x5 melta's.
Libby will run w/ fear/shield since he wont be getting out of the razor.
EDIT: I actually went with the list in the below post (battle report #1). THe list plays a lot more "mech like" I am not putting big expensive units out there to try and get results
Cheers - Bulley
Battle Report #1 - 1500 vs Dark Eldar
Right managed to get my first game in vs Dark Eldar, actually against the guy I was forced to play doubles w/ last week, despite him knowing my list (I dont change mine much, my core is always the same), but he really didnt prepare for me very well.
MY BLOOD ANGELS
My List was my typical mech but a bit more refined.
HQ:
Libby - Fear of the Darkness / Shield of Sang
TROOPS:
x5 RAS w/ MG AssCan Razorback
x5 RAS w/ MG AssCan Razorback
x5 RAS w/ MG LasPlas Razorback
x5 RAS w/ MG LasPlas Razorback
x1 Baal Predator - AssCan HB
x1 Baal Predator - AssCan HB
x2 Land Speeders - MM / HF
x1 Predator AutoCan HB
x1 Predator AutoCan HB
x1 Predator AutoCan HB
HIS DARK ELDAR
I dont have my DE codex with me right now so I'll edit once I get her name ...
HQ:
Hermonk w/ Web Way Portal
The woman SC that isnt Leleith
TROOPS:
x9 Wych's w/ Raider - agoniser (w/ the SC woman) haywire grenades
x10 Wychs (Reserved for portal) haywire grenades
x10 Wychs w/ Raider flicker field haywire grenades agoniser
Elites:
x10 Incubi (Reserved for portal)
x5 Grotesques w/ Raider Flicker field (Hermonk w/ them)
Now your probably wondering what I did as well ... thats not a lot of stuff for 1500, but he stocked up on a ton of extras every where - for e.g his wychs all had haywire grenades, all sarges upgraded etc...
The SETUP
Table standard 6x4 set up with quite an open table. Each 12 inch "deployment area" had x1 tree and x1 small building/wall in each corner-ish, the center line of the table had x2 ruins about 18" in. Also in the center of each deployment was a small area terrain based "barricade". The center was a small hill - thus a very open table.
Deployement: Dawn of War
Mission: Multiple Objectives - x4
He wins to go first. He takes the side w/ the "open" side of the ruins, leaving me with
Objectives were set up - he puts one in his deployment zone, near the big ruin (my right hand side of the board), I put one in my objective 12" from the table edge by a small wall - about 20" away in a straight line towards my table edge from his 1st objective. He now puts one right in the center of the board, and I now put one in my center deployement area on the area terrain - I try to create a triangle - out of his x1 objective and my x2 - but allowing me to be able to play the denial game if I need for "his" objectives.
The Game
He deploys quite aggressivily with his 2 raiders w/ the HQ's right up on his deployment line (center line) - I didnt like the LOS / corner where my objective was deployement as it would push his x3 raiders into my 3 objectives, if I rolled badly I could have him pinning me in and he could essentially win 1-0. So I opt'd to put my libby + x2 lasplas razors right on the left hand flank, should he fall for it, he would send his raiders slightly off center towards them, and allow me to roll on w/ lots of preds' and razors covering my 2 objectives.
T1
I dont seize so he pushes forward, he moves his first wychs about 12 or 18 towards my lasplas's and his hermonk and grotesques towards the center to deploy a webway - which now I think of it was illegal deployment as I am sure he had the special char + wychs - he may have actually turbo'd the SC on - but he definatly had the grotesques on because no way he could get out and deploy the portal w/ out already being deployed. So he deploys the webway just infront of the center hill on my side, and then takes a pot shot w/ x2 darklances @ the razors - he stuns the lead one, as I failed the 5++ cover save.
I roll on ... I bring x2 razors on towards my right hand side objective, w/ x2 autocannon/hb preds infront giving them a massive screen, the baals come in right at the center to get the 24" range on everything, x1 autopred comes in near my las plas's to help support, and my speeders move up 12" to get right on top of the wych w/ sc raider (which did turbo come to think of it). In shooting I had quite an effective turn. I managed to wreck the special char's raider w/ a autocannon after the lascannons wiffed, then I put the heavy flamers into the wychs, killing all but the special char, then the x2 MM's insta killed her. 1 scoring unit down. I managed to take the weapon off the far raider w/ the wychs on my left flank, and took out a single grotesque on my center.
T2
He got no reserves. In T2 his groteques charged my speeders - and shook them from shooting. His right hand wychs got out and charged my baals (multi charge) and the left hand raider moved up a bit more and shot and shook the autocannon pred on my left flank near my lasplas's. In assault the wychs managed to destroy both assault cannons on the baal and shook both His raider on the right (the groteque one) moved right up to my autopred on the right hand side and shot and shook my autopred there.
In my T2 I returned some fire. I tried to tank shock w/ both baals on the wychs but to no avail. I managed to imob his left hand raider, destroyed its weapon and stopped it from shooting - between my autocannon / lascannonx2 and plasma guns - bit of wiffing there I am affraid. I dont think I actually did anything to the right hand raider in this turn, I think I caused another wound on the groteques, and sent the speeders flying off near the far objectives to cower for a turn till they could line up a nice flamer again.
T3
In his T3 it saw a bit more assauling going on. his wychs and incbui turn up from the web way portal, the wychs go charging after my razor backs (lasplas on the left flank) and the incubi go to cover. His grot's go after x1 baal and x1 auto pred if I remember correctly. He manages to rip off a heavy bolter from the baal and stop it shooting in T3, and stop the autopred from shooting as well. The wychs rip the plasma guns off the razorback, the incubi sit and look pretty in cover.
In my T3 I wanted to whittle down those incubi, at this stage he has x2 troops - both are on foot and quite far from objectives. I just want to stop him hurting things on my defensive line so I set up the preds to basically box his grots and incubi in the center and let rip at him. Firstly I aimed to get rid of the annoying raider in my objective area - so the assasult cannons manage to wreck this via tons of imob' weapon destroyed results. I pour flamer / HB fire into the incubi and take out about 6, and manage to take a few of the wychs in the center that had ripped off the heavy bolter etc.. out - and force them to run quite far! I got my libby out of his box w/ his melta squad and laid into his wychs - I failed to make them run from fear (damn) so took out a couple w/ bolters / mg and then assaulted - libby was out of 6" so he didnt get into base to base with the x3 wychs left annoyingly so I actually lost combat - but stayed, he is now in b2b.
T4
He knows the game is over, his x2 troops left are x2 in 1 corner w/ 2 or 3 tanks right on top of them, and 1 that is running v.near x2 HF templates ... his grots fail to do anything vs my preds this turn, and his incub wiff as well - maybe 1 shaken out of it all. My libby cleans off his wych squad, he is now left with 3 reduced squads on the table.
He now concedes after seeing my movement. I had the flamers lined up to take out his wychs that were running (and now cant rally even if I didn't kill them all), and lined up a big load of firing onto the incubi - the nearest challenge to my objective (lots of HB / AC fire with no cover from the AC's). He rightly concedes.
Conclusion
Tbh his list was not designed to take me on at all, I am surprised he didnt take more stuff knowing he was facing mech, much like that foot SW army I faced the other week - its just a case of me picking the right targets and blocking routes.
DE descend on you FAST - DoW doesnt help that much either - esp if they have first turn. With so few #'s of troops I do have to be so wary of letting any DE player open up my razors - so I have to use those preds to maximum effect - take advantage of AV13 (or 12) frontage and screen best I can - the Speeders did well and in my "meta" are probably better than techmarines but I do intend on taking the tech marines in future.
Over all I was quite happy with my game, I made a couple of positioning errors, especially w/ the libby's charge as I did actually want to get him into B2B but he was out of 6" - I just didnt bother moving him as I thought he was in 5" at least. Also my deployment from the T1 roll on wasnt fantastic - I had the right idea but I bunched up a little 2 much, and fed him a couple of multi assaults that really I could have gotten away with (1 baal got unnecsasarily shaken and lost its turret - where as I should have just let him box the other baal). But I've not had DoW w/ this much mech vs such a fast opponent - which kinda made me deploy a bit paply.
Anyway - sorry for no pics - I really need to start doing it.
MY BLOOD ANGELS
My List was my typical mech but a bit more refined.
HQ:
Libby - Fear of the Darkness / Shield of Sang
TROOPS:
x5 RAS w/ MG AssCan Razorback
x5 RAS w/ MG AssCan Razorback
x5 RAS w/ MG LasPlas Razorback
x5 RAS w/ MG LasPlas Razorback
x1 Baal Predator - AssCan HB
x1 Baal Predator - AssCan HB
x2 Land Speeders - MM / HF
x1 Predator AutoCan HB
x1 Predator AutoCan HB
x1 Predator AutoCan HB
HIS DARK ELDAR
I dont have my DE codex with me right now so I'll edit once I get her name ...
HQ:
Hermonk w/ Web Way Portal
The woman SC that isnt Leleith
TROOPS:
x9 Wych's w/ Raider - agoniser (w/ the SC woman) haywire grenades
x10 Wychs (Reserved for portal) haywire grenades
x10 Wychs w/ Raider flicker field haywire grenades agoniser
Elites:
x10 Incubi (Reserved for portal)
x5 Grotesques w/ Raider Flicker field (Hermonk w/ them)
Now your probably wondering what I did as well ... thats not a lot of stuff for 1500, but he stocked up on a ton of extras every where - for e.g his wychs all had haywire grenades, all sarges upgraded etc...
The SETUP
Table standard 6x4 set up with quite an open table. Each 12 inch "deployment area" had x1 tree and x1 small building/wall in each corner-ish, the center line of the table had x2 ruins about 18" in. Also in the center of each deployment was a small area terrain based "barricade". The center was a small hill - thus a very open table.
Deployement: Dawn of War
Mission: Multiple Objectives - x4
He wins to go first. He takes the side w/ the "open" side of the ruins, leaving me with
Objectives were set up - he puts one in his deployment zone, near the big ruin (my right hand side of the board), I put one in my objective 12" from the table edge by a small wall - about 20" away in a straight line towards my table edge from his 1st objective. He now puts one right in the center of the board, and I now put one in my center deployement area on the area terrain - I try to create a triangle - out of his x1 objective and my x2 - but allowing me to be able to play the denial game if I need for "his" objectives.
The Game
He deploys quite aggressivily with his 2 raiders w/ the HQ's right up on his deployment line (center line) - I didnt like the LOS / corner where my objective was deployement as it would push his x3 raiders into my 3 objectives, if I rolled badly I could have him pinning me in and he could essentially win 1-0. So I opt'd to put my libby + x2 lasplas razors right on the left hand flank, should he fall for it, he would send his raiders slightly off center towards them, and allow me to roll on w/ lots of preds' and razors covering my 2 objectives.
T1
I dont seize so he pushes forward, he moves his first wychs about 12 or 18 towards my lasplas's and his hermonk and grotesques towards the center to deploy a webway - which now I think of it was illegal deployment as I am sure he had the special char + wychs - he may have actually turbo'd the SC on - but he definatly had the grotesques on because no way he could get out and deploy the portal w/ out already being deployed. So he deploys the webway just infront of the center hill on my side, and then takes a pot shot w/ x2 darklances @ the razors - he stuns the lead one, as I failed the 5++ cover save.
I roll on ... I bring x2 razors on towards my right hand side objective, w/ x2 autocannon/hb preds infront giving them a massive screen, the baals come in right at the center to get the 24" range on everything, x1 autopred comes in near my las plas's to help support, and my speeders move up 12" to get right on top of the wych w/ sc raider (which did turbo come to think of it). In shooting I had quite an effective turn. I managed to wreck the special char's raider w/ a autocannon after the lascannons wiffed, then I put the heavy flamers into the wychs, killing all but the special char, then the x2 MM's insta killed her. 1 scoring unit down. I managed to take the weapon off the far raider w/ the wychs on my left flank, and took out a single grotesque on my center.
T2
He got no reserves. In T2 his groteques charged my speeders - and shook them from shooting. His right hand wychs got out and charged my baals (multi charge) and the left hand raider moved up a bit more and shot and shook the autocannon pred on my left flank near my lasplas's. In assault the wychs managed to destroy both assault cannons on the baal and shook both His raider on the right (the groteque one) moved right up to my autopred on the right hand side and shot and shook my autopred there.
In my T2 I returned some fire. I tried to tank shock w/ both baals on the wychs but to no avail. I managed to imob his left hand raider, destroyed its weapon and stopped it from shooting - between my autocannon / lascannonx2 and plasma guns - bit of wiffing there I am affraid. I dont think I actually did anything to the right hand raider in this turn, I think I caused another wound on the groteques, and sent the speeders flying off near the far objectives to cower for a turn till they could line up a nice flamer again.
T3
In his T3 it saw a bit more assauling going on. his wychs and incbui turn up from the web way portal, the wychs go charging after my razor backs (lasplas on the left flank) and the incubi go to cover. His grot's go after x1 baal and x1 auto pred if I remember correctly. He manages to rip off a heavy bolter from the baal and stop it shooting in T3, and stop the autopred from shooting as well. The wychs rip the plasma guns off the razorback, the incubi sit and look pretty in cover.
In my T3 I wanted to whittle down those incubi, at this stage he has x2 troops - both are on foot and quite far from objectives. I just want to stop him hurting things on my defensive line so I set up the preds to basically box his grots and incubi in the center and let rip at him. Firstly I aimed to get rid of the annoying raider in my objective area - so the assasult cannons manage to wreck this via tons of imob' weapon destroyed results. I pour flamer / HB fire into the incubi and take out about 6, and manage to take a few of the wychs in the center that had ripped off the heavy bolter etc.. out - and force them to run quite far! I got my libby out of his box w/ his melta squad and laid into his wychs - I failed to make them run from fear (damn) so took out a couple w/ bolters / mg and then assaulted - libby was out of 6" so he didnt get into base to base with the x3 wychs left annoyingly so I actually lost combat - but stayed, he is now in b2b.
T4
He knows the game is over, his x2 troops left are x2 in 1 corner w/ 2 or 3 tanks right on top of them, and 1 that is running v.near x2 HF templates ... his grots fail to do anything vs my preds this turn, and his incub wiff as well - maybe 1 shaken out of it all. My libby cleans off his wych squad, he is now left with 3 reduced squads on the table.
He now concedes after seeing my movement. I had the flamers lined up to take out his wychs that were running (and now cant rally even if I didn't kill them all), and lined up a big load of firing onto the incubi - the nearest challenge to my objective (lots of HB / AC fire with no cover from the AC's). He rightly concedes.
Conclusion
Tbh his list was not designed to take me on at all, I am surprised he didnt take more stuff knowing he was facing mech, much like that foot SW army I faced the other week - its just a case of me picking the right targets and blocking routes.
DE descend on you FAST - DoW doesnt help that much either - esp if they have first turn. With so few #'s of troops I do have to be so wary of letting any DE player open up my razors - so I have to use those preds to maximum effect - take advantage of AV13 (or 12) frontage and screen best I can - the Speeders did well and in my "meta" are probably better than techmarines but I do intend on taking the tech marines in future.
Over all I was quite happy with my game, I made a couple of positioning errors, especially w/ the libby's charge as I did actually want to get him into B2B but he was out of 6" - I just didnt bother moving him as I thought he was in 5" at least. Also my deployment from the T1 roll on wasnt fantastic - I had the right idea but I bunched up a little 2 much, and fed him a couple of multi assaults that really I could have gotten away with (1 baal got unnecsasarily shaken and lost its turret - where as I should have just let him box the other baal). But I've not had DoW w/ this much mech vs such a fast opponent - which kinda made me deploy a bit paply.
Anyway - sorry for no pics - I really need to start doing it.
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