Battle Report #7 - 1750 vs DeathWing

Yup skipping all the guard games for the mo, I'll prob write those up over the weekend. I've just got back from what is probably the longest game of my life vs a mate of mine who was by himself running the store, and thus we had interuptions unlimited which really messed with me.

Since we had both played last night and had both pld different setup/mission we just did the one neither of us had played - Spearhead / multiple objectives (that was 4).

I'd give him some tips on setup for his DW post FAQ but he's been busy raging out some other stuff for the hobby store/busy IRL so he's not been able to really get it done, but his list looked like;


THE LISTS:

Belial - LC

x5 Terms - x1 TH/SS, x1 Cyclone/SB/CF, x2 LC's x1 SB/PF - Apoc / Banner
x5 Terms - x1 TH/SS, x1 Cyclone/SB/CF, x2 LC's x1 SB/PF
x5 Terms - x1 TH/SS, x1 Cyclone/SB/CF, x2 LC's x1 SB/PF

LandRaider - Godhammer
LandRaider - Godhammer
LandRaider - Crusader

I was actually quite confident, right up until we started the game. I'd played around with my list a bit and added in melta bikes instead of a baal / HKM's just as a final "am I ever going to use these". After this game - no is the answer lol.

His list is by no means "super fantastic" but 15 terms in 3 raiders is difficult to shift.

My list:

Lib - Fear of Useless vs Deathwing / Shield
x1 Furisoso - droppod/meltagun/frag cannon
x4 5 Assault Marines w/ MG - LasPla
x2 Baals w/ AC
x3 Attack Bikes w/ MM
x3 Predators - AutoLas

THE GAME

The game was interesting, he won to go first and put me in the corner I wanted. He shot and had no real effect, I think he stunned my Baal. I returned fire at what I could - his raiders - and managed to destroy his crusader if I remember correctly - which had Belial in it, and shook one of his ther raiders (irrelevant due to POTMS - but at least only 1 lascannon fires ...). Amusingly my drop pod came down and scattered off the table - rolling x2 6's in the only direction it could scatter off the table, and it literally was over the edge by about 1 or 2 mm's - I rolled a 6 for mishap.

For some reason he really started to get some good shots off in T2 and T3 between the cyclones (which he got out) and the lascannons, but I was unable to make any 4+ cover saves. Today I took 9 in total, and failed all 9, and then missed x2 5+ ones as well.  But in this middle of the game he managed to take a lot of fire, making a good few cover saves/armor saves on his terms, and the POTMS was just keeping them pumping out supression. In T2 I made a big mistake and flew my bikes out to try and melta his unmanned god hammer (the troops had just got out and wrecked my baal in combat) - I misjudged range and only 1 was w/in 12", annoyingly the double dice rolled a total of 5 for a total 13, the other rolled a 6 and glanced - and ofcourse a 4 followed - down to a 2 - with EA - irrelevant - half an inch I misjudged.

This turned out to be quite annoying (and a theme for the past couple of games for me) he then charged my bikes in T3 and hurt them bad, and consolidated into the cover provided by my exploded baal. In my T3 this had 1 squad where I wanted them, but unfortunatly at a cost and in cover. I dropped my furioso near them to double frag cannon them (I.E near the center of the board) but in reality I needed to bring it down somewhere in his deployment ready to contest on his objective and present a AV13 front which would force him some real movement issues. I promptly wiped out his term squad with a huge ammount of fire and even clipped a couple more from another squad. By the start of T4 he was down to 2 raiders, full command squad and 3 others.

However, he now just began to make his raiders block turn after turn - and his lascannons just couldnt stop wrecking things through cover. By T5 I'd lost both baals and 3 razors - though not a single marine - all my melta was forced to walk/run to objectives (I was holding 2) and I began to move for a T5 contest. Annoyingly in T5 his raider took out my final razorback which was going to make a push to contest in T6 if I needed to. The autolas was contesting for the win at the end of T5. I roll an emphatic 6 and the game goes on.

T6 he doesnt really do much except wreck my autolas on his objective and moves both his raiders into "blocking" position. I really needed to take both this turn, I couldnt contest but maybe I could shoot 1 of his squads off the board. I setup a turkey shoot hoping for a destroyed result on the far objective, but to no avail. The nearest raider to me goes boom from the imobile dread in the center board lol which made me smile. I couldnt contest in T6 so I moved my libby squad forward to try and contest his far objective in T7 through a building, knowing that both mine are fully safe.

T7 was quite uneventful for him, but due to him having to deal with a load of crap it actually took 1hr to play out 5 minutes.

The state of play in T7 is: he has 2 objectives, one in his deployment, one sort of directly "above" mine. Both are held by 3 and 2 guys respectivily, Belial has broken off from his 3 man squad and gone towards my center board. He has a raider blocking the "center" los to his objective above my deployment and there is a building blocking LOS to shooting to his other objective. He charges belial into my libby - after breaking him off from his "rear" squad. He charges my Libby thinking he'll hold him up in combat and deny me the "sling shot" in my turn. I actually win the combat, and my libby does his shizzle to insta kill Belial. I consolidate ... 1" - anything more and I'd have been confident of the contest in T7 ...

All he can do is try and shoot at one of my autolas's or the dread, he fires at AV13 and fails to pen. It eventually goes to my T7. I am about 10" away form his objective with my Libby - so only need 7" movement, but I'd have to make 1 difficult terrain and 1 run roll - an average would do it. I also had a redundancy which was to finally get my melta on that raider and blow his remaining 2 terms off the board. I move the librarian squad - a 3" move. DAMN. I now need a 4, 5 to be safe in the run.

In shooting - the melta takes out his raider ... looking good. I fire my x2 autolas's into him - but because I didnt have that much faith in the melta, I'd positioned one lascannon so it really couldnt see (I had it for redundancy on the raider)- the other was imobile so didnt have a shot except the autocannon. I fire into his squad and do a fair few wounds. He fails 1 wound. Damn. At this stage I think I have 1 more chance - a roll to run - I get a 3" move. DAMN. I am about 4.5" from his objective. I think draw - then realise - droppod now has LOS to the remaining term - it can't? Can it? I fire. Both hit. I roll to wound. Both wound. He rolls to save and ... a 1 and a 5. Its gone!.

Phew.

Conclusion:

Well what a crazy game. I really played terrible. The movement with the bikes was shocking, and tbh I gave him to many easy shots to the razors putting faith in cover saves vs a single lascannon (my though is he fires 1, maybe 2 shots at 1 tank, I got cover I prob will be ok - but repeatedly he was taking out 1 with POTMS and then hitting another tank ...). I was "lucky" to get the win, but if you look at what I destroyed vs what he did there was a big difference, he was left with 3 models worth something like 200 points.

I should have been a bit more aggressive but in a controlled manner - I should have tried to get my guys out to melta at least 1 raider to open a path for easy contest much earlier - and forced him to decide about shooting at troops - all I needed really was x2 alive on objectives which was easy - the other 2 were expendable if they were getting either melta into raiders or AP1/help torrent of fire into terms.

But the fearless ness of DW is crazy you do literally have to blow them down to a man, and he did pretty much put them on 2 objectives in cover and ask to be shot at, and it was hard - especially with how good his lascannons were firing (and how BAD my cover saves were).

He asked me after the game - because he knows I am semi-building a DW army (ok I caved ... again) and I told him TH/SS's - a lot more - if he doesnt want to be to cheesey just run 3 - and then have the CF's (which were damn good tbh, teh CML's either stunned or imob'd for auto hits w/ the CF which just wrecked face). But I said to him imagine if he could have sat in front of my lines with x2 squads (I told him to drop a raider at the very least for another squad) with 3++ saves constant - no need to worry about finding cover.

And yes, I am back doing mine - but with a GK theme on them - just because my test ravenwing biker in my scheme looks to damn cool not to do a couple of squads of!.