Battle Report #9 and #10 - Double Bill (vs BA's vs C:SM Bikes)

So figuring I'd make use of my day off today beyond "chores" I got down to the store early to play against my matey from the other day (who had the Deathwing Army), in the hope between him not having to open the store for an hour or two plus it being early we might not get as many distractions. As a bonus, a guy I played against a few months back (when I had my rock list w/ the terms) and his bikes/speeders/vindy turned up and I got to play him straight after, and much like that day where I had 1500 and he had 1750, today he wanted 2k - so like back then I just added Mephiston (who I've wanted to get out for a little while).

Bonza.

I didnt take any photo's beyond "deployment" in Game 1 - and T2 in Game 2 - but I can use both to hopefully map out what happened a little better. I want to get formatting / explanations a bit more structured as well; so hopefully I do this without prolonging the report to much.

GAME ONE 1750:
Blood Angels Mech vs Blood Angels "Drop Jumpers"

THE LISTS:


Blood Angels Mech (me)

Librarian - Fear / Shield

Furisoso - FragCannon/DCCW/Meltagun Drop Pod

x5 RAS - MG - LasPlas Razor - Dozerblade
x5 RAS - MG - LasPlas Razor - Dozerblade
x5 RAS - MG - LasPlas Razor - Dozerblade
x5 RAS - MG - LasPlas Razor - Dozerblade

Baal Predator - AssCan HB
Baal Predator - AssCan HB
Baal Predator - AssCan


Predator - Auto/Las
Predator - Auto/Las
Predator - Auto/Las


Blood Angels - Drop Jumpers (him)


Captain - PF / Jump Pack
Librarian - Lance/Sword
Honor Guard - TH/MGx2/JP's - with Captain

x2 Priests - LC/Infernus's - both in drop pods.
x1 Furisos - lightning claws o doom - drop pod


x10 Tacticals - MG/ML/PF+CombiMelta
x5 RAS - JP - MG - PF
x5 RAS - JP - MG - PF
x5 RAS - MG/PF - DropPod (with Priest)
x5 RAS - MG/PF - DropPod (with Librarian/priest)
x5 RAS - JP MG/PW



By no means an optimal list - but a lot of melta dropping into range of me. He was a few points short I am not sure if he had that final squad of RAS or something else, I cant quite remember off the top of my head. But one thing I did have to worry about - plenty of FNP marines w/ melta dropping into my lines. Infact the squad w/ the libby may well have been a JP'less HG as well. Makes little difference really in the end lol.


THE GAME:


Dawn of War
2 Objectives

He wins to go first and actually gives me 1st turn - not the worst idea in the world as he'd have to be quite defensive with his pods otherwise w/ DoW - if he dropped into my lines w/ nothing on the board I'd have blown him away 1st turn.

Deployment / Board Set UP:

This is actually taken at the start of his T1.

I deployed nothing but he deployed his combat squaded tacticals. One the objective in the grey building on the left hand side and one in the green building on the right hand side of the board (i.e either side of his blue belly!)


I roll on in the fashion you see. The objective I placed is in the small building on the middle of the left hand side of the picture. The other objective is the big "space marine statue" by his blue drop pod.




TURN 1: 


My deployment/roll on was to load x2 fronts. I still made a mistake here though. On my left flank I have x2 razors and the 3 baals - these are to go for his objective, but also present 2 fronts for his jumpers who either load up on 1, take losses while taking it out (i.e defending his objective or going for mine) then take big losses trudging back to my other force. However I deploy wrong on this left flank. He has blood lance - I shouldnt have castled so much - and really moved 12" on all of those. My right flank had the autolas's with x2 razors. These were deployed quite well. My drop pod was meant to come down right by his objective and fragcannon the hell out of that squad and force him to have real difficult choices on where to drop, but it scattered 12" back to mid table, so I got out w/ back to the tree's and popped smoke (back to the tree's was meant to be a aversion to drop and try and melta it, he'd have to risk going into those tree's or risk if he doesnt wreck it getting fragcannoned (if imob'd for e.g).

In my T1 shooting obviously DOW I roll on everything and I manage to take out 1 or 2 of the tacticals infront of the autolas's - 1 of which only just made it into range.

His T1 he obviously drops with x2 pods - 1 the libby comes right beside my castle on the left flank. He scatters amazingly - basically going right to my board edge and taking him about 6" from my tanks so he now has lance AND infernus pistol in range. His furiso drops infront of my tanks - not quite sure why he dropped this 1st turn. The only thing that could see was libby - who had enough range to get the 3 rear tanks on that left flank. He ofcourse rolls 6's to pen (and 1 1 lol, the infernus/melta missed) - but rolls double 1 for damage - so neither can move or shoot next turn (AP1) - lesson learned - vs Blood Lance DO NOT CASTLE AT ALL.

TURN 2:

I have a real good chance to get rid of quite a lot of stuff. I move my tanks on the left flank around to get some shots on both the tacticals and the libby and his squad. On the right flank I repositioned around to shoot at his tacticals in the green building and his furisoso. I deployed both of my RAS's out of their razorbacks pretty confident that Furiosos was going to get blown to pieces. I get the distinct feeling that I didnt move my furioso - if so thats very fustrating. But anyway - I shot quite a lot of lascannons into his furisoso and repeatedly shook it (1's and 2's) my meltas missed (grr). But still - I couldnt get assaulted at least. I managed to blow the tactical squad in the green building away to just the sarge w/ PF, and took out 2 of the tac's in the misile squad on his objective. The libby squad took a wound on the lib from a assault cannon, and plasma took care of all but the priest.

In his T2 (he passes required LD checks) he gets all but his PW squad (which is why I am unsure how they were kitted). He goes for the gambit of putting all his RAS's (x1 drop pod, x2 JP squads) in around my objective - so he now has x3 squads + his furiosos w/ plenty of melta and power fists. His captain comes down infront of my baals - but runs into cover to avoid the mass rending/AP2 I have on that side of the board. He pops smoke on his furisoso, and goes about shooting at my tanks. He first off runs his sang priest squad into the middle of his troops to extend FNP to all his x3 squads, which are basically lined up from the center line of the board on my table edge right up to the drop pod you see in the picture above - i.e a half cresent. He shoots 1 squad at my autolas (in the picture the nearest one to us) and manages to shake it. His other melta fires at my razor (the next nearest tank to us in the picture) and imob's it. He fires off some SB shots from the drop pods and annoyingly takes out x1 guy from one my melta squads.He assaults the libby and priest into the back of my baal and S10 wrecks it.


TURN 3:

My T3 - I have to blow ALOT of stuff off the table now as he can really hurt with multi assaults (FNP/FC and PF's). I move my furisoso into position to charge 1 melta squad. I move the libby out to get a charge into the furthest squad (with the priest w/ LC) and plan on blowing away the other squad in my lines. On my left flank I deploy a single squad to shoot at the libby (w/ 1 wound) and priest - the rest of the tanks reposition so that I can shoot and whittle down that captains honor guard (x2 razors, x1 baal) the other baal that was shaken from his captains HG melta moves off 12" and pops smoke - hiding from pretty much everything. In shooting I have a pretty devastating effect. I blow 1 squad clean off the table. I was hoping to fear his priest's squad, but failed so I shot at them and he FNP'd it away (melta ofc missed). The furisoso frag cannon/missed its melta and takes out 1 guy (no rends, again FNP'd the rest). I kill the libby near my baals w/ shooting - but not the priest (not quite sure what he was doing here, prob thinking that he can charge next turn with the FC LC'd priest into the squad, where as the libby may get killed just as easy). The captains squad is shot down to 2 guys + him on 1 wound from a ton of rapid fire plasma + lascannons and a dose of rending. I actually fired a SB off my drop pod onto his ML squad and made them run lol!

In assaults the Furisos absolutely bangs his way through the RAS, the my libby takes out his priest, and his priest takes out my libby, but he manges to do an extra wound - I do lose combat but nothing happens.

His T3 - He doesnt get anything in, he moves that furioso with claws over to help the combat, and runs his lone tactical sarge into cover near my objective. His captain and squad (TH and Melta at this stage) move out - the TH towards a baal - the capt towards the now disembarked RAS's squad's razor. Not much shooting goes on, he tries to imob the baal so his TH can auto hit - but nothing. In combats the furisoso EATS my squad alive, but I manage to take 1 RAS guy down swinging. His priest assaults my melta squad on the left flank and takes out 2, I fail to get through armor. The captain takes out the razor - and the explosion manages to take out 1 of my RAS in the combat lol. His TH fails to hit the baal.

TURN  4: 

My T4, and at this stage I can see the game is pretty much mine. He has x2 guys on his objective vs my 4 and tons of tanks, and I still have 1 squad in a razor + x2 baals left to take his - and time to spare. I move my furisoso into position to take on his knowing his S6 cant do jack vs me. I line up the rest of my weapons to take down his remaining squads, trying to setup redundancy so that I can fire at multiple options the best I can. Priority 1 is his captain and TH squad blunt my forces if I need to go for his objective. The remaining lasplas and x1 baal look to deal with him and the squad. The other baal moves towards his objective hoping to shoot the remaining 2 guys. On my objective I deploy 1 squad back out of their tank and look to shoot/charge his sarge in cover. In shooting I manage to take down everything except the sarge in cover, I even blow up the furioso before it can get charged. In combat the priest and my remaining guys take each other out at I4, and the sarge w/ PF in cover take out 1 guy, but I stick.

His turn 4 he has little he can do. He's lost pretty much everything, he still has a misile launcher which has done nothing and is now no longer protected by 50% of the unit being in cover. His lone sarge may take the squad down, but he does have a drop pod contesting my objective. We basically play out the turn pretty quick. I drop his sarge and his misile launcher weapon destroys a lascannon from the lasplas near his objective.


TURN 5:

Its game - With nothing slowing down my advance I can get plenty to contest his objective, and more than likely blow his remaining tactical off the table. He only has drop pods left in my DZ, which I promptyly turn the furisoso / melta RAS / x3 autolas's / x2 lasplas's into fire. I felt that was enough redundancy to take it out, and ofcourse the fragcannon with the first shot wrecks it. We call it there as he only has 2 models left - 1 being a SB which cant do anything now.


RESULT: 

2-0 Tabled. 

Well from T3 it wasnt really a competition. He had a good bit of melta, but I dont think enough for 1750. His tactical squad really wastes 200+ points as well - he'd be better off with cheap scouts to sit on that objective plinking away.

First my mistake: the castling up on 1 side - while he got x2 really lucky scatters, I still could have had a better spread vs those drop pods; and its something I've realised I think I need to be spreading out a bit vs jumpers etc.. forcing them to make hard decisions w/ their drops - and trying to force them in to tricky positions (e.g scattering into terrain).

Positives was other than that slight positioning mistake - my deployment and plan worked fairly soundly. I knew that from my own thoughts on what I'd do as a jumper I'd have issues vs a deployment like this - even though I pack more effecient suppression/melta.


GAME 2 2000:
BA vs C:SM Bikers

This is essentially a "rematch" from a few months ago when I first made up my BA list. We played in v.similar circumstances in which he wanted a game at 250 more points that I had on me (or could play properly) so I just simply did what I did last time - added Mephiston!

His list:

Captain - Bike / Relic Blade / AArmor
Command Squad - x3 PW's - Company Champion - Bikes

x5 Bikes - x2 MG - x1 MM Attack Bike
x5 Bikes - x2 MG - x1 MM Attack Bike
x5 Bikes - x2 PG - x1 MM Attack Bike
x5 Bikes - x2 PG - x1 HB Attack Bike
x5 Bikes - x2 Flamer - x1 HB Attack Bike

x2 Land Speeder Typhoons
x2 Land Speeder Typhoons
x2 Land Speeder Typhoons


x1 Vindicator - Siege Shield
x1 Vindicator - Siege Shield
x1 Vindicator


His list is a bit more refined than the BA Jumper list, but he is v.rusty and I have to say I dont see the point really in the vindicators all that much, but he did admit that the list is more for "our stores meta" which isnt all that mech related up until the last few months, so he had more reason to bring them in.


THE GAME:

Pitched Battle
Kill Points



We didnt have all that much time so we opt'd for the quickest route to take to get this game under way. We kept terrain the same. Having won to go first I opt'd to swap sides. This is a picture from T2 as I forgot to take a earlier picture, but it will hopefully give an idea of whats going on as I describe it.

So basically I deployed w/ the majority of my tanks in the center. I put 1 AutoLas on the left flank near where you see it, and then made an AV13 shield w/ 1 baal and 2 autolas's and the razors behind it. The other 2 baals set up a bit off to the side. I was going to try and scout them for side shots on the vindies or get mass AC/HB fire into his typhoons or a squad of melta bikes, if not I'd pull them back and gunline him to death.

He ended up delpoying x2 vindicators on my left flank w/ 2 typhoon squads beside them (out of the picture on the top left) and 1 vindicator where my drop pod is on the top right. He also put 1 typhoon squad there and 1 biker squad on each flank w/ meltas. He reserved his command / plasma's and flamer squads.

Thus in scouting I move to take out 1 flank as much as possible, I dont want to feed him KP's but I felt x2 baals could take out 1 squadron of typhoons and take out most of the bikes - with my drop pod coming down near there.

TURN 1:

I re-adjust my firing lanes. Priority is to stop the vindies and squadrons of typhoons as they are his only real long range, then deal with his bikes from T2 onwards, hopefully able to shoot them off 1 by 1 as he turbo's them up the table - obviously melta's first.

My drop pod comes down where you see it - perfect for a side fragcannon/melta shot. My x2 baals move up so to unload into his bikes and typhoons on that right flank. The rest of my gunline turn to deal with his other 2 squadrons of speeders and the 2 vindies. I move Mephiston up into the ruins near his lines and into area terrain w/ fleet + run.

In shooting from right to left. 1 baal takes out 1 bike and puts a wound on the mm attackbike. The other wrecks 1 speeder and doesn nothing to the other. The dread fails to do anything to the vindy - missing with its melta and rolling double 4's with the fragcannon. The gun line does considerably better. x3 lasplas razors make short work of the typhoons, destroying 1 squad, then taking out 1 and weapon destroying the other (typhoon ML's ofcourse). The autolas's then both manage to shake the other 2 vindies.

His T1 and he turbos' his melta bikes up the left flank, and moves 12" with the meltas on the right flank near to my baals. He turbo boosts 1 speeder (the HB only one) into the middle for the cover save thing, and the one that can still shoot on the right flank repositions for a side shot on a baal. In shooting his vindy wrecks my auto las (you can see is turret on the floor) on the right flank - when it actually aimed at the lasplas lol. His melta squad takes out the un-sponsond'd baal - the typhoon misses the other baal.

TURN 2:

I want to really cripple him now before his reserves come in piecemeal. Mephiston flies towards his melta bikes that just took out the baal. The AssCan/HB baal on the right flank moves to shoot @ his typhoon. My furioso - unharmed now moves right behind his vindicator. The rest of my tanks resposition to shoot out what they can of his vindicators and melta bikes if we can.
In shooting I dont get much done on the right flank. I take out the speeder and Meph plasma's down a single bike. I take out the last remaining speeder that turbo'd via x2 razorbacks, and the autolas's manage to wreck both vindies with the assistance of 1 both the razors. I didnt have enough fire left over to take on the melta bikes, but all in all I felt I was ok, they may take out 1 KP now but I'd have at least x4 razors x2 baals and x1 autolas + whatevers left of meph and the dread to take on basically 4 squads. In combat, Meph decided to not cast anything in the hope of staying in combat for a turn, but even with his average WS7 and S6 normal power weapon attacks he took the squad out lol. The furisos absolutely wrecked house, hitting on all attacks and auto-penning lol, the final vindicator goes down. Meph consolidates a massive 1 inch - he needed like 3 or 4 to get to cover again - so he may have to face some plasma now.

His T2 and he gets all but the flamer bikes on. He gets his command squad and plasma squad right on infront of meph, and the other plasma squad goes near the furioso. In his shooting his melta squad has moved up near my autolas but misses with 1 and only weapon destroys the autocannon. His plasma fails to do anything vs the Furioso, and even mass rapid firing plasma and boltes manages 2 wounds on meph (1 plasma, 1 bolter!).

TURN 3:

Its pretty much a turkey shoot now. Meph positions to charge 1 of the plasma squads, and the furisoso to charge his command squad since they cant even hurt him. I move some of the razors to shoot down his remaining plasma squad / melta bikes.

He goes to call the game to get some advice, but says may as well see what would happen. I wipe out his remaining melta's and inflict a few wounds to some of his plasma squad in the open. The furisos fragcannons a a biker or two. In combat the furisoso finishes off the rest of the command squad, and meph wipes out the plasma squad on the charge.

We obviously call it, he has 2 squads left, only 1 of which can actually do any real damage to my army, which is about 40" away from him.

CONCLUSSION:

After 3 - 11-2 in KP's.

Well this was basically a case of bad deployment vs me. He was wondering what he should have really done. In reality I dont think reserving worked well at all. It allowed me to pick him piece by piece - essentially all his main threats. What he should have done to give him the best chance is deploy the worst units vs my army infront of the best units to give them cover. Force me to shoot into cover / non-priority targets while his force plinks away on its way up the field. I'd have had the flamers + command squad giving cover to the melta's + plasma right on that 12" line, then turbo boosting them as close as possible into me 1st turn. The vindies set up behind cover then moving 6" or even 12" and popping smoke, having the typhoons behind them trying to get cover aswell.

He then asked for list advice, while I am not the best person to ask about bike lists, I felt I could certainly help him. I told him to drop the vindies, they dont really add anything to the list, and against armies that they are good against, a well constructed list will be just as good to deal with the threat anyway. Thus the 350 points he gains from the vindies go straight into a Libby w/ Null Zone / Gate, and 200/240 into x5 (or x6) terms w/ TH/SS.

I said really he should drop to x4 squads of bikes, but maxed out to 8+AB - then combat squad. I'd have gone all melta but in our meta (where he only plays) plasma does pretty well, which he has modelled for. But he doesnt really need the flamers. I said get some PF's but he kept on saying "they suck in combat" but really, redundancy is good sometimes, and its a threat, it really is. Then to drop to 1750 and 1500 - get rid of speeder squadrons and 1 bike squad at a time (or really going down the route of making a bigger squad and combat squading to keep troop numbers up if an objective mission etc...).

On my end, there wasnt much to say. He presented me some good targets. I think my target priority was spot on this game and I had setup pretty good redundancy, but also with very little threat of return fire I could do that. Though if the dice went bad, those vindies and speeders could have really put some hurt on me.

Its nice to get double game in though.