Imperial Guard:
CCS - Melta - Chimera
PCS - Flamers - Chimera
Vets - Melta - Chimera
Vets - Melta - Chimera - Demo Autocannon
Vets - Melta - Chimera - Demo Autocannon
Blob - 10 Man - Autocannon
Blob - 10 Man - Autocannon
ST's - Melta - Chimera
ST's - Melta - Chimera
Hydra
Hydra
Still a potent shooty list with ALOT of AP1 - he dropped the plasma, which I think he probably should have taken, and 1 hydra, and that was the only change.
Dark Angels:
Belial - LC's
Command Squad - TH/SS x5 - CML - APOC
Regular Squad - TH/SS x4 - CML - SB/CF
Regular Squad - TH/SS x4 - CML - SB/CF
Regular Squad - TH/SS x4 - CML - SB/CF
Bike Squad - Bikesx3 MGx2 - AB MMx1 MB
Bike Squad - Bikesx3 MGx2 - AB MMx1 MB
This list has been working well for me - I am still contemplating the squad set ups right now, tempted to try a PW or even LC on the CML for some I4 loving, but maybe next game.
THE GAME:
Actually have a few pictures, so you'll see terrain - only 1 real LOS blocking piece.
MISSION - 3 Objectives
DEPLOY - DOW
He was not happy about DOW vs me. I won to get the 2 objective placement, but we just strung them across the middle - in a tourney I'd have placed it in a triangle where ever he placed his.
We roll to go first and I win. I figure I'd take it as it would allow me to push right into his lines T2 - though I'd probably have to take a turn of shooting even with night fight - he'd not be able to bunch up everything as I'd more than likely get multicharges - so I put faith in that the majority of his army wouldnt get to shoot at me, even at the mid way point.
BEGINNING:
He rolls to seize, and doesn't - I am not sure seizing would be great, he'd have certainly taken off a couple of my guys, but I'd have then been able to shoot in T1 and T2 and maybe do a bit of damage before he potentially took out my bikes/CML's if he could. In any case. I've setup Belial + Squad and then another squad pretty much left and right of center, right on the 24" line. The bikes turbo on 24" - 1 goes center, 1 goes to the left flank - thinking I might be able to get in some side shots - and the other bikes (Center) will help open up the tins for the termys to charge. The other 2 squads walk on and run - the idea is they will be the ones that sit on the objectives and invite him to shift them. I run everything, and forgo shooting at his mini blobs - I get 1 squad to his 12" line - and belial is about 16" from his edge.
His T1 and he splits up his forces. Demo's in vendys - which go to my right flat out, hydras in right corner, then chimera's take place on the left, center and right. He still can put a lot of shooting into my lines. He puts empty chimera's infront of vet/ST/PCS chimera's mostly, and top hatches into my terms where he can. He actually rolls really well on DOW distance, but only kills 2 guys from my lead reg squad (RS1).He pops smoke on all the "lead" empty tanks .. clever - 4++ and 6's to hit - I cant get to the squishy stuff just yet ...
My T2 and I unleash hell .... the bikes now. I move the MM's so they can shoot at 1 of the ST squads which has no cover or smoke. Bikes at the empty chimera infront of the advancing terms. I had no good option for the second bikes - so I turbo'd back to center field to near his vendetta's to stop them just going crazy in my lines. Shooting was ... effective. I managed to imob the empty chimera, blew up the ST's chimera, killing 3 in the blast, they would fail LD and run off the board., and blew up the other empty chimera w/ CML from RS3 (far left flank squad). I assualt with my terms and MM bike - but not the x3 bikes as it would make way to juicy a demo charge, and kill the empty chimera.
Table Over View Going into his T2:
Center Board View into his T2:
Going into his T2 I've actually hurt a lot of his torrent of fire - he still has plenrt of shooting, but losing 3 tanks and having those ST's run off the board due to failed leader ship hurt. He still has a good chance to hurt both my front squads - and he does inflict some damage. He moves vendetta 1 around, disembars and looks to melta/demo belials squad. He shoots a lot at the "green" squad (RS1) - knocking them down to just the single TH/SS, and I think he takes out a single guy from belials squad with melta/demo. He also looks to shoot @ both attack bikes and the melta squad that didnt turbo - think he killed the entire melta bike squad I think between lascannons and multilasers, and put 1 wound on "their" attack bike
Back to my T3 - I am now in his lines and can put some hurt on. I again move forward, I now have RS2 and RS3 on their respective objectives, the blob on my left flank and flamers (in chimera) having moved forward towards that left objective, I want to deal with them if I can, so I turbo the bikes over to them, ready for a T4 blast/tie up a unit in combat or whatever I need. The attack bike moves towards the flamers chimera. In the center, the single TH moves through terrain 3" and is 5" away from the tank imo (it was), with the intent of charging that vet squad. The AB moves to shoot at the ST's chimera, and belial and co move towards squad + vendetta with the intention of mutlicharging. In shooting the CML from belial imob's the vendy, the MM blows up the ST's ride, kills 2, but they pass LD. The MM on the left flank kills the flamers ride, and kills 1, and the CML on the left flank kills 1 or 2 with a frag misile on them. I charge w/ belial into the vets and the apoc, and the 3 other TH's into the vendy, I kill like 2 vets, but only wreck the vendy, which I thought was good, but it ended up blocking me for a turn really. The vets end up running 4" so they would run again next turn b4 they could shoot. The TH/SS lone guy actually got a 5 to get into combat through terrain and imob'd it.
His T3 and the vets run like 11" and off the board - they were 9" from the table edge. He moves his remaining vendy around my rear, going fast (grr) so getting a 4++ and moves his flamers to hit my attack bike, his ST's like up on the other AB, and his CCS on the remaining lone term, he also lines up what he can on Belials squad. The blob on my left flank moves again to 1st rank 2nd rank - but there is not much he could do on this flank really. In shooting, he kills the lone term, and does 1 wound to the AB with a flamer. The ST's fail with their AP3 and Melta to wound! T5 baby (and a failure to hit with the melta) He kills 1 guy from belials squad after I rolled 4 1's in a row (1 wound on Belial I think). His ST's charge the bikes, and PCS with flamers charge the AB - both end up winning - neither can consildate into cover - but the AB's had finally killed something! They did good!
My T4 and I want to just dust off his troops now. Belial and Co move through cover to charge his remaining right hand blob + multi charge an imob'd chimera. The bikes opened up on the flamer unit, planning a rapid fire bolter + charge, but actually killed em all, evening going to ground. The TH/SS unit killed 2 with Krak/SB shots and planned a charge! In the center, the CML from RS3 tried to hit the vendy, but failed, planned a charge. In charges, I had a lot of dice, and failed to get a single 6 (15 attacks!) Belial hurts the blob and the TH/SS wreck the other chimera - force the blob to run - this time they go off the table straight away I think. I consolidate to near the CCS and remaining ST's. The TH/SS on my left kill the blob easy (to a man) and just consolidate back to my objective.
His T4 and he just tries to do what he can. Vendetta moves around to get rid of my bikes, and kills a couple, his hydra starts to move to contest, it goes to near the unmanned objective on my right and pops smoke. His ST's run forward to get in a contest range for T5, and he shoots his CCS at my belial squad - doing nothing I think.
My T5 and I split belial off to deal w/ the CCS - and the other boys start to run back towards my unmanned objective, they shoot @ the ST's on the way - killing a couple. My center squad kills 1 more, but they pass LD - I dont want to charge off the objective - incase he does contest the final one with the vendy. The other CML squad and the bikes try to drop the vendy, but have no luck. Belial charges CCS - he wins by 1 with bad rolling. They stay
His T5 and he doesnt get the moves he needs to contest - his hydra can in T6, his ST's maybe can in T6 but he runs them into cover for a T6 contest, and his vendy cant get in without risk of being blown up in T6 - so he runs the odds the game goes to T6 and he would try to contest then. Belial takes a wound, CCS leader makes like 2 invuls on 5+! We draw lol.
Game ends I win 2-0.
There was little he could do - he had 1 hydra, 2 ST's and 1 vendetta at the end of T5, he could have contested 1, I'd still have won 1-0. We had loads of time so we go to T6 to see what would happen anyway.
"T6" - I move the remaining bike to deal with the ST , the CML's plan to deal with the vendetta - I just hope for an imob'd result. Command Squad runs lol, Belial finally wins his combat, and the center squad tries to kill the hydra. I end up killing the vendetta, nothing to the hydra, and kill 1 ST and make them run. So at this stage he cant really do much. In his T6 he moves the Hydra in to contest - I fail to kill / imob it and lose a TH/SS - if I had played it right I'd have made sure that CF was ready for that. No matter in T6 it would die to rear CML shot + x3 TH x1 CF lol. He cant do anything at this stage and we decide we might as well pack up.
CONCLUSSION:
Well I finally get that win over Andy, taken a few games (I was robbed in 1 of the games! if we'd gotten the T6 we deserved I'd have easily won!). I had hot dice early in the game, but we both said it was about time as I'd had shocking dice in pretty much every game, especially our last. I rarely roll that good on the damage chart, so thanks dice/chart gods, you blessed me well today!
I loved the bikes today - I was quite reserved with 1 squad, turbo'ing them for the first 3 turns. This allowed me to pick and choose what I wanted to do with them, I need to think a turn ahead a bit better, as there was potential where I had them in the wrong area. It was nice to see the MM's do their job, and do it well they did!
DoW is a great mission for me, it almost garantee's a 2nd turn charge (mid table + 6" move + 6" run) if I go first, potentially a 1st turn charge if I go 2nd. I could have DWA'd 1 squad but I didnt like the terrain placement nor felt the need to - I could quite easily walk the distance I needed since I aimed to hold 2 objectives.
Andy didnt have a list he really wanted, it was by no means bad at all, but I know at 1500 he is going to bring x2 Demolisher Cannons (LRuss's) and no ST's. LR's will be hard for me to deal with I think, in this mission I'd have tried to get into combat with them.
I did realise though that I can position myself really well so that he really cant get many wounds on my squad, even with large plates - a big conga line - or big circle and he'll get 2 or 3 wounds TOPS - I'll lose 1 guy. Thats if he doesnt scatter miles!
Overall pretty pleased. I was a bit worried I was aggressive at the start, but getting 10 TH/SS terms into his lines was brutal - they took out like 4 or 5 tanks + 3 squads I think. I learnt my lesson - ignore the Hydra's - and only go for vendetta's if they look like he'll get his troops into objectives. I think this is what our 1750 game would have been like if I had rolled average on that first turn alpha strike - 2 wrecked chimera's + 2 charges instead of 2 stunned and 1 wrecked off a charge ...
Next game I am hoping for SH + 2 Objectives.
1 little trick I thought of during this game where you've seriously demech'd squads and are facing up against say 2 different AP1/2 threat vectors - like I was late in the game - vs your command squad.
ReplyDeleteYou separate Belial from the command forcing him to use 1 squad to shoot at Belial - who really is a throw away at that stage - and allowing you to reduce the number of 3++'s required on your squad. For E.G in that game the squad had to take shooting from 6 melta guns + a few more lasguns. If I had separated Belial - he'd have been forced to shoot 1 squad at him as I'd defiantly have charged 1 of the squads just with Belial and allowed me some more movement/momentum with the command squad. In the end I only lost 1 terminator I think, and Belial did end up separating and charging the command unit - but its an interesting use say in T4 or T5 when they have done their business and your looking to either contest or move back to the objectives - you can use Belial to bog down a unit.
Another thought - in games where you need to get into the opponents lines rather than just sit and shoot at them and invite them to come get the objective (thinking 2 objective games here) - especially DOW - you reserve 2 squads (if DoW your bikes walk on) - we'll take DoW for an example - one squad you DWA into the midfield if you can - hopefully gaining a few inches - the other you hopefully get a v.good teleport in off the homer in T2 or T3 - the risk is your bikes might be dead - but you potentially could have the bikes on his board edge! Its certainly a strategy.