Battle Report #18 and #19 - 1500 point Double Bill!

So managed to get on a table quite early tonight, which meant if I got a fast game in I might be able to sneak in a 2nd game, which would be great what with the Tourney in a month. I'd booked my usual 7:30 slot and on arrival told by the half decent Loganwing player I'd be facing him again, but not to fear - he had his Demons with him. To which I thought, I good at least I don't to table that army again!

Deathwing List:

Its unchanged - still! Just look back at previous reports if you've forgotten!

Demon's List:

I've actually only played Demons once before, and that was very early in my "mech career" back when I ran a deathstar, despite reading the codex with the intention of starting an army, I was still a bit "off" with this, so I have some homework before the tourney I have to say. I can't remember exact numbers, but here is his list roughly: 

Skull Taker - Chariot

x7 Plague Bearers w/ Icon
x8 Pink Horrors w/ Icon + Changinling
x8 Demonettes
x8 Demonettes
x8 Blood Letters

x3 Flamers
x3 Flamers

x1 Demon Prince w/ Flame / Bolt

Think thats it roughly - might be slightly off w/ numbers though.

THE GAME ONE

So we quickly set up and roll up the mission. The board was quite devoid of LOS terrain - had about 6 bits of large area terrain scattered evenly through out the board - sort of 3 per deployment w/ some tree's in the middle.

Spearhead
2 Objectives

He sets up "his" objective in the area terrain in one corner, its quite forward in that "quarter" so to speak. I do much the same - the less ground for me to cover / support the better I feel.

I win to go first, but defer to him, figure I can maybe take advantage of last second contests, also want to see where he drops so I can maybe get a 1st turn charge or two.

I deploy in the corner where I've set up my objective, put both bikers outflanking (my mate thinks I should have reserved, he was probably right!) and Belials squad deepstriking - the rest set up v.close to the middle - but quite spread in their respective squads - trying to avoid the flamers

TURN ONE

Demon T1 - He gets his prefered wave, x2 Flamers, x1 demonettes, plague bearers and prince. He drops the flamers either side of my formation, demonettes between them and the demon prince behind me - the plague bearers drop on his objective. He runs the demonettes, spreading them out, flamers take out 3! from 1 squad (utter fail on rolls by me) and 2 from the other! Though all CML's remain which is good. Demon prince takes out 1 with a flame. Atrocious rolling by me, I made very few saves. Though I might think about FNP squad on my objective vs this sort of list/mission.

DW T1 - So time for some vengence - I've lost 6 terms out of the 15 on the table already - Belial I DWA on, aiming for sort of just south of center table - he scatters a few inches to the east, behind a hill, which isnt terrible for me - probably a touch closer to his objective. The plan was to not isolate myself, but be able to push his objective w/ the bikes hopefully. My other 3 squads now have to deal with the treat. I choose to leave the demonettes because I get no charge bonus vs them, and tbh didnt fear their charge all that much - so the 2 and 3 man squads charge the flamers. The 4 man squad charges the demon prince (with CML/bolter fire first ofcourse - which takes out 1 and 2 flamers vs the 3 and 2 man squads respectivily and 1 or 2 wounds on the prince). The prince kills 1, but I kill him and consolidate 6" back towards my objective, the 2 man squad kills the remaining 1 flamer, the 3 man kills 1 and gets locked into combat.

Demon T2: He gets Skulltaker and the Pink Horrors off the Icon near his PB's. Skull taker runs, the PH's fire @ belials squad and I loose 1 even with FNP. The demonette's charge the 3 man squad locked in with the flamers, and kills 2 I think, I kill a couple in return.

DW T2: I get 1 RW squad in - on his objective side (lucky) - I thought he'd spread his forces out a bit more but I over estimated how much he'd have on the table. The bikers move to shoot/charge the PH's, the attack bike moves to fire @ ST and cause a distraction. The 2 man squad moves to help the 1 man squad, as does the 3 man near my objective. Belial just makes the charge vs skull taker, after causing a wound via CML/Melta fire. The PH's take a couple of deaths via shooting from the bikes and get charged. Belial wiff's, missing all his attacks, and I cause zero wounds with the TH's - he kills 1 I think. The bikers kill a couple more, leaving 2 PH's and locking them in combat. In the big combat near my objective, he kills 1 more term I think, and with 9 attacks I cause 1 wound which he saves on a 5++ - I rolled 4 1's.

*Note* At this stage one of the staff members asks me how its going, I tell him I've never had this bad rolling in my life, I cant hit or make saves, and the guy I am playing sort of has that look of "well I am playing that damn well". The staff member says relax its only a game, I just say calmly "I am just figuring out what I need to do from here - its over if my dice even roll average ...."

Demon T3: So we quickly roll on. He doesnt have much to do, I think he gets the letters which he places north of my objective and runs them. We go straight to combat, near my objective I finally get rid of his demonette, and consolidate all of them into the forrest / objective (x3 CML's @ his letters next turn) Belial and my TH's stop wiffing and actually hurt the skull taker actually killing him. . Belial did 4 unsaved wounds, the TH's about 4 themselves, vs my 1 - about average really ... the Bikes win their combat and consolidate onto his objective in cover.

DW T3: I get my other bike squad, by his objective, they move on to shoot his PB's, with the other bikers and belial ready to charge them. I pepper them to death and charge his squad - they are gone. Consolidations all round. CML's kiilled off a few letters.

Demon T4: He gets his demonette's and uses them to bubble wrap his letters. Doesnt do anything else.

DW T4: I move everything to just shoot his squads - I have both objectives - 3 troops on 1 and 1 + 2 full bike squads and 2 attack bikes on the other (pretty much) I whittle away w/ rapid fire + CML's pretty much everything. He is left with a single Letter.

He calls it a day needless to say.

Deathwing Win - 2 Objectives Held to 0.

CONCLUSSION:

Pretty pleased with the game, my first couple of turns were dire - I need to have a think about how I was deployed and if I was wrong, I am not sure I was, I just rolled very badly, but I did get to see how my squads do vs heavy hitting power weapon wielding IC's - which is good - and they fared well. But again the resilience of this army shows - the fearlessness this time, as I'd have had to take a lot of morale checks early in that game, instead I just kept moving forward, and in the end I didn't lose a single squad. I think in T3 and T4 I only lost 1 model, and didn't look like losing any more except to difficult terrain on the bikes.

His army is not optimised, but this guy was "king" with this army in our store before my mate the guard player came a long, and that's 2 trouncing I've given him in as many weeks now.

It gives me a bit of an idea of what I am doing vs Demons - Fatecrusher could be interesting, and same with the sort of balanced Herald of Tz / Fiend lists. I might have a glance at the codex tonight as some night time reading to figure out how much more of a threat they are to me.

THE GAME TWO

So this was a bonus game I got because that game was over by 8:15 - having started about 7:20. It was going to be a "run it back game" but I glanced over at the table to see how my mate was doing - he was facing the terrible "I am running a balanced Death Company List" which was a Rec, DC + Raider, scoutsx10, ASMx10 and a chaplin I think. Needless to say, my mate tabled him about 5 minutes later, considering he started a bout 15 mins after me ... that was a quicker game! (But he had less to kill and didnt have to wait around for it to come in lol!)

So I quickly say "how about we do an opponent swap?" My matey quickly turns to me and just says "yeah I'll play you!" - he's got his "new" Imperial Guard 1500 list this week - and I really want to try my luck vs Templates.

Since we didnt think we'd have much time, and I really didnt want to play another objective mission - I asked if we can do KP's - and he goes for pitched battle - we re-jig the table - which is basically a big open table with a "small hill" in the middle" - he gets the side with a big hill to put all his tanks on!

I was going to run my alternate list but we were going for speed, and we agreed that we couldn't spend ages working out moves, kind of a bit like chess, so for speed I just moved my army over to his table and started setting up

HIS LIST:

CCS - Melta / Chimera
PCS - Flamer / Chimera
Vets - Melta Autocannon Demo / Chimera
Vets - Melta Autocannon Demo / Chimera
Vets - Plasma / Chimera
Blob - 10 w/ Autocannon / Chimera
Blob - 10 w/ Autocannon / Chimera

Hell Hound

Demolisher
Demolisher
Leman Russ

Think thats it roughly - I cant remember if he had 2 blobs or another vet squad.

THE GAME

I set up w/ 3 squads on, outflank bikes, Belial setups on the left hand side, then a center and right side squad.


He setups with 3 LR's in center, Chimera blocking their sides, and literally is side to side in a massive line in the center - Hellhound is reserved.


DWT1: Command Squad DS's about 7" away from his left hand lines (after a decent scatter). I manage to wreck 1 chimera with a CML in T1, I run the command squad to space them out from fire - tbh I could have probably shot - but not worth the risk. Everything moves forward (I did ofc deploy on the 12" line). The squad is pinned in the wreck.

IG T1: He fires everything he can, I think he kills 1 of the command squad, I make a lot of invulnerable (felt like "finally" for me, but last game I did the same vs him as well, so a bit harsh) and FNP saves a couple of guys - but I did lose 1 to FNP.

DWT2 - I get 1 bike in - on the right hand side (the side he has loaded). Everything advances forward I try to fire through smoke on a couple of tanks and get no luck, but I wreck another chimera at the rear. The melta's manage to wreck another chimera, the AB does nothing. The command squad multicharges, wrecks 1 tank, and explodes the one that moved fast (lol pure luck). But dont pin anything. Kill a couple in the squads.

IG T2 - He now fires @ the bikes after moving around a bit, and takes out the AB and I think the entire bike squad w/ AP2/3 fire. He manages to kill the command squad as well - so he does claw back to 3 KP's - but all had done their job really and openned him up horrifically for my 2nd wave.

DW T3 - I get my bikes, again on the side I want, the AB goes after his LR, the bikes after his chimera. I now have another squad in charge range (he has whittled 1 squad down to like 2 guys by this stage I think) and manage to wreck another chimera or two w/ fire - the AB takes out the turret on the LR I think, and the bikes explode and charge the contents, chasing them down and consolidating nicely into that cover of the exploded tank

IG T3: He gets his hellhound which drives fast near my left hand squad and shoots, I think I lose 1 to combined fire. He whittles down 1 squad to 1 guy in his lines, and chances shooting his PG at the other squad - which just tells me I am w/in charge range, I do lose 1 to Plasma fire. The bikes cover save saved them lol.

DW T4: I look to finish off the job now, I move the lone termy into his Demolisher, and move to charge the plasma squad + other demolisher, the bikes move to shoot @ the LRuss and the far left squad goes for the hell hound. I think I mange to kill all the russ's, and I think the hell hound? Its pretty grim after this turn.

IG T4: He fires and kills the remaining lone terminator, getting himself another KP, other than that I think he killed 1 more termiantor from "belials" squad (the far left squad) and other than that nothing else.

DW T5: I can close in now, its well beyond him and he cant table me really - I have pretty much more KP's than I can lose now. I finish off the russ's, and the remaining squad's in the open near me - leaving little left for his T5 - which I think we call it at this stage.

CONCLUSSION:

This was a fast and furious game. I had incredible luck again with shooting, wrecking/exploding a lot - melta was on song again, and the CML's did more than suppress. I was about average on rolls to save, maybe a bit more than that, but my "fear" of Demolisher cannons need not be that high - He says he may get his Medussa / Manticore List out soon - I really want to face that as that is a big threat I feel.

Its nice to start getting wins vs this guy - as it took me ages, but I have to say both weeks I've had luck on my side - and tonight the mission was incredibly favourable to me - his MSU vs my 9 "hard to kill" KP's - I think the end score was something like 14 to 3.

But it was good to get two games in, and I feel I really am starting to get the feel for this army, when its time to strike and time to be conservative and so on. Feeling good, hopefully can keep improving towards this tournament.