Battle Report #8 - Game 1 Series vs Imperial Guard

So in preparation for the X-Legion Tourney my mate was wanting to test his 1750 (which is an unusual point total for the UK/Region - we do play 1500 so most of the time our lists are catered to this rather than higher). Games 1 and 2 were played on the same day where we both used different lists in each game, game 3 was played on another night where he went back to list 1 and I slightly changed my list. I have pictures for most of the 1st and most of the 2nd, but nothing for the 3rd.

I'll do them in different posts just because 1 post it will be HUGE. 

GAME #1 (Battle Report #8)

IMPERIAL GUARD LIST

StormTrooper 1750 Variant:

Company command squad - 4 meltaguns, chimera

5 storm troopers - 2 meltaguns, chimera
5 storm troopers - 2 meltaguns, chimera


Platoon command squad - 4 flamers, chimera
Infantry squad - autocannon
Infantry squad - autocannon

Veteran squad - 3 plasma guns, chimera
Veteran squad - 3 meltaguns, autocannon, chimera
Veteran squad - 3 meltaguns, autocannon, chimera

Vendetta - Triple TL-LasCan
Vendetta - Triple TL-LasCan


Hydra x2 - Squadron
Hydra
Hydra

BLOOD ANGELS (MY) LIST:

Librarian - Fear/Shield

Assault Marines - x5 w/ MG - AssCan Razor
Assault Marines - x5 w/ MG - AssCan Razor
Assault Marines - x5 w/ MG - AssCan Razor
Assault Marines - x5 w/ MG - LasPlas Razor
Assault Marines - x5 w/ MG - LasPlas Razor

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


Predator - AutoCan LasCan
Predator - AutoCan LasCan
Dreadnought - AutoCan/Autocan


1750 on the dot.


I actuallt left 1 chasis at home so quickly swapped my list around to add the rifleman dread in. I was actually pleasantly surprised with it - and quite tempted to give it another chance if I end up dropping the "dropcannon". (I actually have just thought of a SW list which can get a couple in - more on that later!).


His list is pretty scary - he has no "high powered" tanks - but just look at the ROF he can put out - target priority I find against his list is v.hard - often its just what poses and imediate threat - and then some thing just rolls up in his stead. One thing I have learnt though from all 3 games is that priority 1 is to stop those melta vets from getting anywhere near me - both via shooting and movement. But unfortunatly I never seem to get 1st turn vs him to target theme early enough. He plows them to midfield, pops smoke and do you now shoot at them when he has so many other tanks w/out cover etc...


THE GAME


Dawn of War / Kill Points

Andy wins to go first and rolls on and deploys like so. I keep everything off the board to roll on T1.  My plan is to "refuse flank" him and move along his lines "1 by 1" - however this was not a good idea. He has such a long reach out and touch vs my 24" front line that he can always hit me, and I stood the chance of eventually getting wedged in. The better plan would be to make a huge wall of AV13 that he cant get any side armor on, then have the AV11 rolling up behind it - and the AV12 protecting the 1 "squishy" side.

He obviously cant shoot anything T1.

So I roll on like so:

As you can see I basically "castle up" and block myself in. I'll point out a couple of mistakes - the only real benefit is that I am protecting some AV11 - but I am also wedging myself in - thats a 12" gap I can push through, and could block my entire line. Additionally it wedges the AssCan Razors right at the back as well. I'd have been better off coming in on the more open side on my left flank, rolling the AssCan's a full 12" forward (or even 18" and popping smoke) the AutoLas's "besides" them, and the x5 razors in a line behind them, the dread coming in "near center" and protecting the baal's AV11 side - sort of a sweeping flank, up high on the left flank of the board, but in the center still very near the table edge for a sort of "diagonal" line of AV13.

But it is what it is. I moved forward and a lot of shooting in DOW managed to drop that vendetta - good for me. However I am now to face the full brunt of his force.

Coming out of T2 I think it is the state of play looks like this:

He drops both the outside baals - very very nearly blocking my entire line in - which was the biggest mistake I made in this game. I now really struggle to get those rear AssCans into range which he capitises on and just blasts my front lines 1 at a time. I do however at this stage pull the KP's back a bit. Apolagies - apparently my phone didn't take nearly as many photo's of the game as I thought it did.

I basically manage to take out 2 of those chimera's right in front of my lines and I believe I shake another and do something to that Hydra on the hill. The rifleman and the autolas in that bottom left of the photo both manage to pen the other vendetta but I think he passes cover on 1 (from moving fast) and the other just shakes it I think (or maybe even he saved it).

So by around T3 the game is looking a bit like this;

I think we are both on 3 KP's a piece at this stage - he's drop 2 of my Baals and I believe a razorback. I've dropped a vendy and 2 chimera's

Now my forces are really spread out - he has 2 really "easy" KP's infront of a large ammount of fire power (alot of autocannons and multilasers). He manages to blast me out of another razor back and tries to shoot down the squad from the previous turn but leaves but a man. I go into my T3 4-3 down. The newly de-meched squad runs up and meltas another chimera to pull it back to 4-4, but the rest do little more than either shake 1 or 2 tanks or are shaken/stunned themselves.

In T4 its basically where it ends, in this turn he plasma's the melta squad off the table, he takes out the dread, 1 autolas (which again pen'd and failed to do anything vs the vendetta, think it destroyed 1 weapon, same with the rifleman). He takes out another razorback - I think I went into my T4 8-4 down. With only a single razorback that could shoot - an autolas with a missing weapon. His stormtroopers which had deepstruck were in my lines (or 1 squad were) (they had dropped the autolas w/ melta), and a couple of the squads that I had de-meched were out in the open. I knew I had lost but it was about saving some face before I got tabled lol.

So, I go about doing what I can do. I move where I can, and position a couple of squads for some extra shots. I put fear on his command squad and they run - anything but a double 1 and they are off the board. Ofcourse he rolls double 1. I shoot at them a bit with bolt pistols to hopefully whittle them down so they still need a check next turn - which I manage if I remember correctly. My RAS assaualt his ST's and win.

We decide to call it there. He wins 8-5 - but obviously its more than that. I'd have gotten another 2 KP's probably via the libby / more combat with his other ST's and maybe another tank.


CONCLUSSION:

Deployment. This was my mistake. I wedged myself right in and invited him to shoot at me, which he can do better. I need to exploit the AV13 vs his mass S7 - the way I deployed let his far edge get AV11 side shots, admitadly through cover which I promptly failed on the penetrations.

However in the next 2 games I think I certainly improved my deployment; and it definatly made for different games.

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!.

Not really WIP; Test Models?

With the FAQ and a few more bits on GK's I've gotten myself all excited and started to plan things in my head.

What I think I am going to do is run my GK's as two potential armies - both a DeathWing army and the their GK's standard. Through the power of magnets it should be fairly easy to have x20 terms w/ arms that can be SB/Psycannons or TH/SS.

These are just test models, all are just testing the colour pallet, and not really putting attention to detail, I may mock up a proper model and spend more time on it and get it properly done/blended.

The GK Terminator:

What I do want to do is work out how I am going to do the rest of the model. The body and left arm are going to be in this green/blue hue (with a little bit more cyrstal/glow effect) but I am tempted to do the entire right "CC arm" in a sort of blue glow from the power weapon, blending from bright blue right down to a black. Either that or do the sword as crystal and maybe leave the arm black as contrast to the green/blue.


The GK Trooper:

This was a very quick job done a couple of days later. Firstly it was to see if my colour combo was written down right (I had it fractionally wrong, I did the leg later and that is much more correct) and also I wanted to play with the highlighting on the armor - especially the leg/large surface area's.

Next UP: I am going to bosh out one of my 3 spare "old school" rhinos which I use for large surface area paint testing (I.E before I paint a tank the scheme I want, I test it on at least 1 side to see what it looks like). They are heavily coated by now (after all they are all at least 15 years old and see more army colour schemes than I've seen birthdays), but it does the job.

Blood Angel / Space Lions Honor Guard/Lion Guard Tester:

Yup on a Sang Guard, which seem to have become my test models of late. This scheme fits in with my army and looks kinda funky, it really works on the Sang Guard armour, with all its nooks and crannies to get the blend from dark red to yellow. This will represent 1st company vets/non-terms + "lion" (wolf) guard.




Back to the GK's: Reason behind the scheme.





While I've had a few compliments on the models (really the iPhone does actually make them look worse), I've also had a few "erm Grey Knights ... arent they Grey?". I did tell one guy "thats grey isnt it? sorry I am colour blind", but mostly I do just say "well I HATE painting Grey" and pop out my NMM GK's and just say that I could not do an army of that (i've got like 1 squad done - which took forever) as I despise painting large quanties of grey.

Partly in a way to justify my scheme (I've wanted to do an army with this scheme, I also want to do a army with Jade Green, thinking Daemons), partly because I thought of a cool concept behind it.

The GK's arent actually this colour ... my army is the beaten and down trodden memory of a Asartes being de-briefed (interogated?) by a Inquistor, after he "survived" a massive conflict with a Daemon infestation. He recalls during the battle that some of his Squad/Company pointed to these other Asartes land on the planet via Storm Ravens / Thunder Hawks, some just teleporting in. He could not get a good view of them, but all he saw was these gloriously illuminated Astartes fighting kilometers away, creating large explosions of light and flame, like nothing he had seen before, and the reflection he saw was something akin to crysal, but almost mystical.

The Astartes brother barely survived, beaten and exhausted, he collapsed and passed out. During this time the GK's wiped out any surviving Marines, for they could not know of who they are (according to Apocalypse or IA book?), in his near death state, with bodies piled upon him, he must have been over looked. When the clean up crew came, he was brought on the ship, before you know it and his story getting told, a Inquistor shows up to ask him about what he saw.

Once the Inquistor heard this, he calls for everyone to leave the room, at which time he turns the Brother's mind to mulsh. This vision is now trapped inside a his head, unable to be re-itterated to any living soul, it is his alone now, to keep him company in his remaining, lonely, days.

Logically in my mind, I am thinking that from across the battle field, a battle worn brother glancing at this army blasting away in their metalic armor w/ psycannons and these "foreign" weapons, the glow/illumination will look odd, given the circumstances.

I am quite pleased with it, as I think firstly the colour is quite unique (and once done better and on plastic which wont chip every 4 seconds) and the back story, it could be a lot of fun to play.

Battle Report #6 B - 1500 vs Black Templars - The Pictures

I've spent a bit of time analysing this game afterwards, and I've got a few reasons to why I drew, while I said it was an improvement over the last KP Spear head game I played against a v.similar list, I am still making similar mistakes in KP games.

Rather than go through the whole game I'll pick out the points by the pictures, which show a few of my mistakes, and generally how the game was going anway. Excuse blur on a couple - were just quick iPhone snaps.

This shows me after T1 I think. I've stuck to my section of the spear head in which I was quite aggresive. You can see his Raider in the center north of the photo, his dread and his double las pred. The two unpainted auto preds are autolas, that unpainted baal w/ the flamestorm is actually AC/B - rest you cant really make out, but those 2 razors behind the baal are both AC's and then lasplas's are a bit further back. The 3rd baal is in the building.

Here really what I did was being to engage him a bit on his terms. He wants to get his EC/Tactials w/ PF and the Terms/Marshal into close range. I should have been concentrating on getting long fire lanes at the dread/pred and the rhinos, pick up easy KPs and eliminate really the only long range that can do anything to me.

This was an error on my deployment and early movement. Not using my fast tanks was an error on my part this game, which is something I make (I normally whizz around a fair whack).

This is end of T2 I think. Hes managed to take the left lascannon of my autolas there, he's also wrecked that baal on the hill in CC - which had gotten shaken in T1, and he's take teh AC off my baal in the ruin. I've shaken and imob'd his dread. Despite the paint scheme that rhino by my wrecked baal is his - I lent it to him lol. At this stage, I should have basically come right back, spanked all fire into the pred and rhino (for a easy KP) and gotten out of dodge.

As you can see, I don't. I move back fractionally, his raider is now lining up and well within multi charge range. I'ev lost another baal and basically trying to create a new AV13 shield. The photo doesnt show it but I have tons of space behind me. Notice how he gets his rhinos out of dodge and gets his troops back in it.

And so it happened. He got his terms right up into my lines, however he didnt charge as he didnt have a good target (they are all LC'd - no TH's - so he didnt fancy trying to glance preds to death and then get hit with AP1 and AP2 rapid fire which would have made that unit go v.quick). I decided it was best to try and melta that raider, and try and fear the unit. However, after firing in x3 melta shots and x2 infernus pistols, I think so AC fire etc.. I got it wrecked on the last shot. He exits his terms on the left of his tank out of harms way. Also I stupidly pushed my guys quite far up to do this leaving them quite exposed.

This is the last meaningful turn, T4 - he's charged in his terms to my RAS squad that was in the open, and hit that razor and stunned it I think. At this stage I am 4-2 down in KP's. However I get a Fear off on thos terms which you see there - in T5 I escort them off w/ a fast move from one of my remaining empty razors.

The game ended here with a draw after T5 - nothing happened really except more running of those terms.

Its pretty clear I boxed myself in. He HAD to come at me, he only had 2 tanks that had more than a 24 inch range, rest had to come into my zone, at which I could just "run circles". I didnt put enough value in the easy KP's of rhinos and largely ignored them, a mistake I wont do again, getting his EC and x10 man squads out on foot - at which stage they become vulnerable to the torrent of AC/HB fire I can put into them if needed ... My priority should have been to shake/stun/kill those Pred/Dread/Rhinos until I had 4 KP's - while trying to keep his terms at arms length. Then had the option of just zooming off for a turn and repositioning to try and mow down some of his troops or go for the raider w/ lascannons etc..

I wasnt really in the best frame of mind for this game (work issues) but I've forced myself to "sit down" before a game and take a good think about priorties/missions.

At least it wasn't a loss, but I really could have won that game quite easily.

WIP Update:

No pictures just yet, but in line with trying to "hobby it up" this year, I'll put on where I stand:

- Magnets are re-ordered from a different company, and now in transit. I ordered a ton of every size.
- New Vallejo paints are here, hopefully give me a better cover + slight speed up due to quality (less coats?)
- "Lion Helms" from Sibor are here, can now make my TWC / WG (those these double up as squad sarges for BA).

- Predators finally glued fully - lazyness not to paint the underside of the top hull. Now ready to be primed and get the first base coat on (and typically do the front hull blending).

Next to do:

- Get models ready that need to be magnetised for current lists.
- Make (wolf) scouts + devs/fangs.
- Look to assemble the drop pod - though carefully as will be magnetising door shut.


Thoughts:

- I really am starting to buy into this "lion" theme that I've accidently stumbled upon, it works perfectly fluff wise with both my BA's and SW's - the Lion as an animal is perfect for a blood angel chapter, and also fits the "feral" of a SW. Thus from this I am going to order some more White Lion bits and add them in on models like my scouts or maybe wolf guard - Though I prefer clean looking models, I think done right it may look good placed about some squads.

- The drop pod - I am quite liking the drop/furisoso idea - but really I want to free hand the doors - with my goal of every new task I under take I want to try a new technique, free hand is something I want to work on. So the doors will represent "5 chapters in my chapters history".

Battle Report #6 A - 1500 vs Black Templars - Post Game Analysis

Righto just finished up a game vs black templar. I've played this guy before when he was using his guard and won pretty comfortably in a 4 objective mission. I wont do the full BR now as I have a couple of pictures (which highlight how bad I played this game).

I dont like excuses, but I came into this game rushing to get started as I was kept late at work due to a client being an absolute arse and doing what I think was intentionally postponing telling me vital information in a move to annoy me. /rant over.

The game was KP's w/ spear head, I lost first turn (6 to a 5!) and didnt steal. In retrospect I got a pretty good side of the table, but setup by me was horrible, and before I realised it (T2 or T3 I think) I'd wedged myself into a hole. The pictures will show the setup, but basically it was a big LOS ruin in the middle with tree's in the front corner of each "spear head".

His list was pretty decent actually.

Emp Champ
Marshal
x5 LC Terms
LRC
x10 Noviates w/ PF/MG
x9 Noviates w/ PF/MG
x2 Rhinos
x1 Dread
x1 TLLas Las pred

His list is actually pretty decent for a "deathstar" unit. He had the emp champ in the 9 man unit and the marshal in the raider. He is a pretty long time tourney vet, he does chop and change the armies he plays with, but he certainly doesnt pander to fluff or anything like that, he generally does take pretty good choices, even if they are not all "full optimised" he at least comes with "rock" lists.

I ran with a slightly alterred list, dropped the sang priest and upgraded the dakka to a baal predator. This left me 15 points, so I gave the libby a infernus pistol. I stuck with Fear of the Darkness as I do much prefer it.


THE GAME:

Right so a quick one on the game, it ended up a 4-4 draw on KP's after 5 turns.

I deployed extremely badly as I said, I kind of bunched up near the front "bottom long edge" of my spear head. What I should have done is looked at his list, looked at where he sat up and gone "right this is a gun fight for 2 turns, he has 4 lascannons that can fire at 2 targets, which are probably going to be baals AV13". I have 4 lascannons, while not TL'd, can fire at 4 different targets, plus the AutoCannons for a bit more suppresion. I should have setup x2 fire lanes in either corner of my spear head and forced him to choose which way to send that land raider. Tried to suppress his Dread/Pred but make sure to kill those rhinos first. Get him foot slogging that emp champ across the board.

I am not a fan of 3 baals (at 1500). I love 2 of them, but while I dont think the dakka is as good, the 45 points makes it a lot more expendable, I can just push it up and leave it as the "obvious" or easiest target. The limited 24" forces me to be a bit more agressive with them early, and it gets them stunned and charged, I can offer a bit more redundancy with the AutoHB - 36" min / 48" max range opposed to 24/36 - with 48 being the better weapon.

Fear is just plain awesome. 2 of my 4 KP's came from not killing a single term/marshal - but fearing them off the board (I did kill a few in the end just through sheer lack of targets).

One of my other thoughts - If I drop the Baal and the infernus on the libby have 160 points to spend. I really REALLY like dreads, and trying to find a reason to take one. Furioso w/ fragcannon/DCCW = 125, drop pod = 35 - 160 - if I can find a few points can give it a melta gun - this still keeps me with AV13 (also another AV12 that I can use to BLOS) and a few more options.

Overall though, this was a game of managing to get a draw from the jaws of defeat. I was pleased with some of my later moves, but I really shot myself in my foot by not taking a minute to think about what he was doing. Though I have to say I feel this was another version of the lysander game (spearhead and KP's) and this time I didnt give up 10 KP's and managed a draw, so improvement?

Oh and we played out a bit of combat afterwards to see what would have happened, my libby got absolutely munched lol, he is literally the worst guy in combat, but he makes up for it in his mind war fun.

Battle Report #6 - 1500 vs Space Wolves

Some what of an impromptu game vs a guy that I played a few weeks ago. I gave him some advice about his list then, and he seemed to take "some" of it on board. He has admitted he can get a little stroppy during bad games, but in both against me he didnt, fair play to the lad.

LISTS

I used the same list as Thursday night - though I dropped the combi melta on the sang priest for infernus pistols instead of hand flamers. Also went back to blood lance, though I still think I prefer fear.

His list was:

WGBL - Frost Axe, Hit on 3+

x1 Lone Wolf - TDA / x2 WC
x10 Scouts - Melta/Flamer
x1 Dread - Plasma/DCCW

x10 GH - x2MG Mark of Wulfen WC - Walking
x10 GH - x2 MG Mark of Wulfen WC- Walking
x10 GH x2 MG Mark of Wulfen- WC Rhino
x5 BC's Mark of Wulfen - Lucas - TLLC Razor (WGBL Here)

x4 LF's -x3 ML's

His list was not the best, he prefers foot lists, so I told him about the logan list which is really easy for him to make with his models (he needs 1 logan, a few cyclones and some misile guys, bout it, rest he can use his normal models for).

MISSION

Deploy: Pitched
Mission: 3 Objectives
Table/Terrain - 4x4 - we had x3 ruins in a "triangle" where one is on the center right flank, then I had one near the front of my center left side (in the center of a 1x1 tile) and he had the same mirrored on his side (so both ruins faced each other with the center being on the other flank, center).

The 3 objectives were in each of the buildings - we pre-determined this.

I win to go first, and I pick the slightly better side - he has a more open flank that he might be forced to be deployed in.


DEPLOYMENT

I choose to go first. I setup around my objective. I kind of setup as if its spear head. I put the lasplasrazors up into the board edge corners, then the AC razors just in front in cover behind the ruin. The daka pred covers the right side of the building, the autolas pred's cover the left hand board edge and the right hand center "flank of my force". I put my x2 baals about 14" away on the right side of my board - "eldar" style and they eventually scout up about 16" back towards my force, but near the center of the board, hiding 1 behind the other, popping smoke on the lead.


He deploys with his LF's and GH on foot in his ruin with the objective, then puts his razor/rhino on my right flank facing my baal's - clearly going for that "lone" objective. His dread is behind this with a GH squad.

THE PLAN

I felt quite confident about the game. He'd split his forces and clearly was looking to load up on that right hand objective, while it seemed a "good choice" for me to take, he'd have to split his slower forces to go for anything, where as I could "fake" going for that objective then use mass AV13 to block off his objective and mine. I knew his scouts would come on to try and contest, but I was not worried about that, they would be so isolated that x1 razor and 1 squad could handle them quite easy. I had a lose plan around this.

THE BEGINNING:

So he tries to seize and fails. From my setup I shift forward, everything moves 6" forward to get all the AC's into threat range, the dakka goes 12" to barrier up completely my mid field; he cannot enter the midfield without blowing up a few tanks, but I make it so he should be out of double pen range w/ melta. My early plan is to remove his mobility and ranged threats. I couldnt get clear shots on the razor and dread, so I dont risk it, imob his rhino instead. I put some shots into his GH's out in the open and drop a couple. I put most of long range into his longfangs, I manage to drop them.

In return he moves his GH up a bit, he gets his GH's out of the imob'd/shaken Rhino and runs forward, he moves his razor 12" w/ Lucas to the center objective, and runs his dread. He doesnt have any shooting except a pot shot at my dakka pred - which I think he shakes in this turn.

In my T2 I move back a little bit and reshuffle for some shots - still firmly in the midfield. I put a lasplas and autolas onto my left flank (12" and 6" move respectivily) and wreck his razorback. The left flank autolas explodes his dread. I still want to elimate his troops if I can, so I try to take advantage of him having x2 squads in the open while I can. I put the baals and x1 AC raz into them, managing to drop 1 squad to 4 guys and another squad to 4 or 5. The other AC raz and the left flank lasplas fire at his grey hunters but do nothing due to cover saves.

In his T2 he doesnt get his scouts. He moves his squads into cover on the objective - and takes fire. 1 squad wrecks the Baal - leaving it blocking LOS to the midfield / where my tanks are, also making quite a big piece of terrain to move over/around. Other than that his shooting was ineffectual.


THE MIDDLE:

At this stage I move back a tiny bit away from melta range to really blitz him out of positions. I fire 1 tank at his reduced GH squads, they do fail their leadship and run (I am not 100% but this may have happened in T2 not T3, I really need pictures, I did use a razor to set it up so he couldnt rally and he ran off the board). I fire a couple more at his other squad and leave him with 1 melta/mow guy. I anticipate his scouts coming on near my objective so I pull back the autolas/lasplas near my objective. I now go to work on the troops in his objective, I put ALOT of fire into them, nearly everything, but he makes a fortune of cover saves, and I drop 3 or 4 out of 10. However, he fails leadership and they run off the board (double 6, bad luck on his part really). At this stage in my mind I've won, his scouts could make life harder for me, but I've essentially blocked in him on 1 objective and have a pathway between two objectives with 8 tanks up and all my squads.

In T3 He gets his scouts on, and they go where they like, so he gets them coming on my left edge right by my objective. He choses to run them into the objective, interesting since he could go to ground for 3+'s etc... to be hard to shift. I made life very hard for him, and he goes for it with the lone melta, who has moved to cover, who fires and misses at my razorback w/ my libby in it.

My T4 I start to move now, the libby squad gets out near the far objective and ploughs Lance/Infernus/Melta into the melta, and an Assault Cannon, he goes to ground for 3+ and lives. I fire 1 baal at his GH in the ruins and they fail leadership and run. He didnt actually need go to ground as he made the 4+ cover save but who can blame him. The rest of my army fires at his scouts who "strategically" remove to the point I dont want a failed charge. I kill about 5 of the 10. I decide to run with the FNP squad and get a 4 - enough to charge, damit (I thought it was about 5", a long 4 at best).

In his T4 he moves the scouts up 1 level in the ruins, interesting, I do think this was a decent move, I could fail to kill them / charge them in T5 and they contest, and it could be a 1-1 - however it was unlikely. Other than that he really cant do much.

THE END

At this stage I can ice the game for sure here. I create the AV13 / 11 wall w/ the AC pred, empty AC raz, empty lasplas raz, Autolas and the wrecked baal so that his lonewolf / trickster cant get near either objective in T5 at all. I deploy 2 squads near his scouts (1 was already in cover w/ the priest). I move my libby out 2 or 3" so he can charge the melta guy, I run the squad he was with right into the back of the ruins rather than shoot as now they are x2 difficult terrain rolls away, the libby didnt fire either as I wanted him to charge into cover and consolidate into blocking of LOS (to avoid counter charge by lucas in T6 if he could get through a tank + consolidate far). The rest of my army just fires at his scouts, I drop them to the PW one, and manage to get a 5 on my charge roll (only needed 3 to get up a level) - with FC from the 5" bubble in the other squad I drop him with only a 4+ to save him. The libby in the other combat kills the melta who doesnt do anything in return.


His T5 and its pretty much over, he really cant do anything, if it ends on T5 its a win, nothing can get across in time. He "lines out" lucas and his Bc's so they hold his objective but Lucas can charge the AC razorback near my libby. His LW moves to my autolas near my objective - in theory he could consolidate and contest in T6 if I shoot terribly. The LW does nothing to the autolas, and I make the 5++ cover save from shield on the razorback, he charges, but does nothing.

Game Doesnt End - but my opponenet gives up.

Had it gone to T6 he now has his only scoring unit out of cover w/ alot of rending/AP2 things to hit him plus I could charge with a couple of squads and probably mop him up. Same with the LW which would have had only its 5++ to cover him.

CONCLUSSION

*EDIT* There are some miss timed events up there, I cant remember when I shot and made the smaller GH squad run off with my razor, I felt like it was late game but they ran twice, I think it was T2 I shot them, T3 I moved the razor.

I played this guy with my last game of my DeathStar Term squad - and he has made some improvements since then. He's dropped down to only 1 BC squad, and while he got lucas, it was an improvement over his last list. He brought a lot more melta to the party, and when one of the spectators told him "plasma is the way to go" he told him to shut up. Fair play. I've told him to give Loganwing a go - he wants a foot army and really thats the best SW foot army imo.

So I've told him to rock w/ Logan / x4 WG squads (min) with x1 cyclone in each, no other terms. x2 (min) LF squads with ML's OR 1 squad of melta's with Logan moving forward (and then maybe having x2 more LF squads with 2 or 3 ML's in them) and then a couple of lone wolves w/ SS/CF's - it wont take much for him to make that army at all - just the devs really.

Back to the game; over all it was a pretty easy game, I made mistakes though. I think I was correct in the way to eliminate his troops out of cover first then blow his covered troops next, and my deployment was pretty decent. I should have been a bit better with positioning in the midfield, and think sometimes I had chosen bad targets so that I ulimately ended up with say 1 lascannon firing at a squad w/ cover. I think my Lasplas's should have been further forward.

Over all it was baby seal clubbing time, but you have to find mistakes no matter how small or weak an opponent just so that you can magnify them before someone else does.


LIST:

I am still not sure if this is the list I want. I like the priest and I dont like him. FNP could be great for objective sitting and he has saved my bacon in that necron game, and I see a few situations I do want it in. However, dropping that 50 points + dropping the HB's off the AC's gains me another Baal w/ no sponsons (x3 ACs vs x2 + x4 HB's - interesting), and this would make for a more natural transition to 1750 where I'd add a libby, drop the 3rd baal, add another AC Razor squad and add back the sponsons. Certainly need to think about it.