So I was challenged to a game on the other side of the town. As a Champion of Chaos I am rule-bound to accept. At the time of writing this I think I'm playing Tyranids, but I've been informed it could be Black Templars or Imperial Guard also, so I need to be prepared for more stuff. Never having played against Tyranids is exciting though, so lets see what they can bring!
My first thought when it comes to low armour stuff is Noise Marines. But to try something different this time I'll go with two units of Noise Marines, one shooty and one assaulty. Ie Sonic Blasters and Blastmaster for one squad and CCWs and Doom Siren for the other. I gave both units a Rhino with a Dirge Caster. Basically the shooty unit might not even deploy inside of it's Rhino though... it depends on how the battlefield will look like - in that case their Rhino will just be a back up Dirge Caster. Because I want to try those out! All though, Tyranids aren't the ideal opponent to try them against I suppose... but anyway! I also gave the Slaanesh Lord a Burning Brand, he'll run with the Doom Siren squad. Two Templates to shoot from the rushing Rhino... just because I had the points I gave the Rhino a Combi-Flamer as well - because three templates are better than two, right?
Filling out the Troops I also took two minimal squads of Cultists. These will be kept in reserve for as long as possible as I expect them to die as soon as someone is looking at them the wrong way. But if all goes well my opponent will be too busy on his side of the table when these guys arrive from Reserve to grab my homefield objectives.
I also decided that I wanted to try out the Forgefiend, finally... now, if I knew for sure that I'd play Tyranids I'd take the Hades Autocannons for this guy. But since there's a possibility there's Marines on the other side of the board I decided to go for the three Plasma Cannons instead. What'll happen is probably that I'll kill myself in turn 1. But hey!
Now, my Obliterators have been sitting on the shelf for a long time now, so it's about time they get some action done. Could only squeeze two of them in though, but they're always useful against everyone. If they team up with the Forgefiend they should probably wipe out or at least decimate a squad per turn for sure.
Then there's these Autocannon Havocs everyone is so hyped about... as I finally have four of them, why not give them a try? They should be plenty helpful against MC's, flying or not. And if not, well, they should at least put a dent in anything they shoot at.
Another unit that hasn't seen the battlefield in a long time are my Terminators, so in went a squad with mostly Lightning Claws. This unit also got a combi-melta in case of IG. I don't really like combining these purposes like this, but with such diverse possibilities of opposition I feel obliged to do so anyway. They'll be joined by a Slaanesh Sorcerer as well. As when I take Noise Marines I just can't resist the urge to take one of those as well. Symphony of Pain, ah... yes...
I also managed to squeeze in a unit of melta-bikers. Mostly in case of IG, as I don't see them as too useful against Tyranids.
Now, one of the nastiest units in the Tyranid arsenal in my opinion is the Doom of Malantai. So to at least try and combat that a little bit I took Veterans of the Long War on pretty much everything. That'll mean one guy less that dies every time it tries it's soul sucking at least!
And then to finish it all up, I added some upgrades that will probably be useless if I'm playing against Tyranids but will help a lot if I end up playing mechanized IG or Black Templars. Ie, melta bombs, some combi-meltas, power fists and the like.
There wasn't really *that* much thought behind this list, I was asked to demonstrate the new CSM-book and thus tried to take some popular choices but without spamming and it turned out Slaaneshy. I also decided beforehand that the Heldrake would stay home, with it being hard to transport and combined with Tyranids in particular... a flyer would be no fun. I feel like this list is a bit stretched out, and not quite as focused as I'd like and I feel like I'm lacking scoring with the Cultists being a bit of a gamble - but it'll be interesting to see how it turns out anyway!
---
So after arriving to the battlefield I found out I was playing Imperial Guard, not too bad I thought as my Noise Marines have done really well against them in the past... And with the scattered anti-tank stuff I thought it'd be pretty nice in either case.
Also I forgot to take notes and pictures after a while so might've messed up some details.
LISTS
Black Legion Chaos Space Marines
HQ
Chaos Lord - Mark of Slaanesh, Sigil of Corruption, Burning Brand of Skalahhrax, Gift of Mutation, Power Sword, Melta bombs, Veterans of the Long War
Chaor Sorcerer - Mark of Slaanesh, Mastery Level 3, Terminator armour, Spell familiar, Combi-melta, melta bombs, Veterans of the Long War
Troops
10 Cultists
10 Cultists
10 Noise Marines - 8 Sonic Blasters, Blastmaster, Icon of Excess, Veterans of the Long War
+Rhino - Dirge caster
9 Noise Marines - Replace Bolter with CCW, Doom Siren, Melta bombs, Icon of Excess, Veterans of the Long War
+Rhino - Dirge caster, combi-flamer
Elites
5 Terminators - 3 Pairs of Lightning Claws, Heavy Flamer, Power Fist, Champ. w. Combi-melta & Power Axe, Mark of Slaanesh, Veterans of the Long War
Fast Attack
4 Chaos Bikes - Mark of Slaanesh, 2 Melta guns, melta bombs
Heavy Support
Forgefiend - 3 Ecto Plasma Cannons
2 Obliterators - Veterans of the Long War
5 Havobs - 4 Autocannons
Imperial Guard
HQ
Company Command Squad - 3 melta guns
+Chimera
Company Command Squad - 3 plasma guns
+Chimera
Troops
Platoon Command Squad - Missile Launcher
10 Guardsmen - Autocannon
10 Guardsmen - Autocannon
Heavy Weapon squad - 3 Lascannons
10 Veterans - 3 Plasma guns
+Chimera
10 Veterans - 3 Plasma guns
+Chimera
10 Veterans - 3 Melta guns
+Chimera
10 Veterans - 3 Plasma guns
Fast Attack
Vendetta
Heavy Support
Leman Russ - Heavy Bolters
Leman Russ - Heavy Bolters
Manticore
Fortification
Aegis Defence Line
Pre
So we set up some terrain and rolled for mission and deployment. We got The Scouring and Hammer & Anvil. Horrible set up for me. Many objectives and a far way to go to reach the IG line? Good thing I took those Rhinos at least after all! We also decided on a House Rule to NOT reveal the point values on the Objectives until after the game - to make it more interesting.
For Warlord traits he got re-rolling reserves, and I got Eternal Hatred. For Gift of Mutation I got +1BS. Not very useful on a guy with a flamer... For Psychic powers I rolled twice on Slaanesh and got Frenzy and Ecstatic Seizure (bah, both that I didn't want, but Frenzy would be nice for the Terminators at least), and once on Telepathy rolling Dominate (not too bad).
We rolled for first turn, which I won - but I decided to gamble and give him the first turn to counter-deploy instead. No Night Fighting. I didn't manage to steal initiative.
Turn 1 - Imperial Guard
Not too much movement, shuffling away from my flank a bit and then started the long range shooting. Despite Bring it Down!-orders on the Forgefiend and Lascannons nothing managed to hit or was saved by the invul-save. In the end a single penetrating hit got through, which resulted in Shaken which was dully ignored by Daemonic Possession. The Rhino containing the assaulty Noise Marines also suffered a glance and a Havoc managed to die. All in all not a very bloody first turn.
Turn 1 - Black Legion
Everything except for the Havocs moved forward as fast as possible. The Rhinos popped smoke. The Forgefiend who had miraculously survived turn 1 actually got to shoot! Of course I rolled a Get's Hot! And failed my save (meaning I had made almost as much damage to myself as he did!). The other two Plasma Cannons hit spot on though, clipping one Chimera as well as some Guardsmen. 6 dead Guardsmen made them run (but not off the board) and two Hull Points lost on the Chimera (and forcing Snapshots next round). The Havocs also manage to take a Hull Point off a Chimera while the Obliterators failed to penetrate their target.
Turn 2 - Imperial Guard
The Vendetta arrived, and some minor shuffling for the tanks and on to the shooting again. He started by rolling a double 6 for his first Order though making it so that no further Orders could be issued. One of the Russes managed to strip the last Hull Point off the Forgefiend causing a wreck. First Blood! The Vendetta and the Lascannon team both shot the Obliterators - I only failed one save but thanks to S9 one died. Other than that I kept rolling my saves pretty much, one Hull Point on the other Rhino was taken off though. Ah, and the Manticore and the other Leman Russ pretty much scattered way off targets.
Turn 2 - Black Legion
For Reserves both my squads of Cultists decided to show up, but the Terminators with the Sorcerer decided not to. I'd much rather had it the other way around...
The Cultists ran towards the two closest objectives anyhow, nothing useful for the Mysterious Objectives so far. The Bikers moved up to the damaged Chimera and blew it up, killing a couple of guys inside it from the explosion and the unit was also pinned. My shooty Noise Marines got out of their ride and sat inside of a ruin. The only guy with anything in range was the Blastmaster, so he decided to shoot at the Lascannons and actually caused a wound, and more importantly they failed their pinning test as well! The Obliterator shot his Assault Cannon at a Chimera, but since it was front armour nothing happened. Havocs caused another Hull Point.
Turn 3 - Imperial Guard
No major movement as expected, the Vendetta could still get into position to shoot something (=Obliterator) and the Chimera on the flank containing Plasma Guns tried to move closer but was blocked by the pinned unit from the exploded Chimera.
The Manticore shot at the shooty Noise Marines and got three missiles. Thanks to scatter only one of them hit though, but that was enough to kill some of them at least and pin them. One of the Leman Russes managed to blow up the Rhino with the assaulty Noise Marines, no one died from the explosion but then the second Leman Russ shot them as well and managed a direct hit with the hole centred above my Lord. I failed exactly 3 Look Out Sir! rolls, and thus had to take my 4++ save, but failed one and was Insta-killed. Another 3 or 4 Noise Marines died as well.
Then the Plasma squad from the Chimera shot at the Bikers... got one Gets Hot per guy(!) and two of them actually died! The other Chimera close by also containing Plasma shot at the Bikers as well, doing a lot better (only one Gets Hot which was saved) and managed to kill 2 of the Bikers. The melta-guys were alive though... but they failed their Leadership and fled.
The Vendetta tried it's Lascannons once again at the now lone Obliterator and failed to do anything. But one Havoc died to Autocannons if I recall correctly...
Turn 3 - Black Legion
Rough round for me and things started looking grim. But at least my Terminators showed up. They landed spot on, right next to his Command Chimera. Shot their Combi-meltas and caused two penetrating hits... immobilized and stunned. Bah.
Bikes continued fleeing. Cultists ran towards Objectives. Assaulty Noise Marines moved out of their crater to try an insane charge (10") - they killed one guy with their pistols but then failed the charge.
Turn 4 - Imperial Guard
The Platoon Command move forwards to start the objective hunting, as well as the squad that had lost its Chimera earlier.
Plasmas, lasers, Lascannons, Heavy Bolters, one Leman Russ all shot at both Noise Marine squads. After the smoke settled three or four assault Noise Marines were the only to survive. The Manticore shot at the Cultists not under a roof, and killed 7 but they somehow didn't flee! Another Havoc also died to plasma from the Chimera coming up on one flank, leaving two standing.
Then there was a lot of Rapid Fire, plasmas and flashlights as well as a Battlecannon shooting at the Terminators. I rolled way below average on my saves and Look Out Sirs, and in the end the Sorcerer and all of the Terminators but one went down.
Turn 4 - Black Legion
The Obliterator shot Assault Cannon at the closest Chimera, blew it up and 7 guys inside died from the explosion. The lone Terminator tried an insane charge against the large infantry squad, just because there wasn't much else to do... he died to overwatching Autocannons though.
The Havocs got a rear armour shot against the Vendetta, but missed. The Noise Marines moved into the ruins for cover and try to get closer to the middle objective.
My surviving Rhino that had moved closer tried to Tank Shock the Platoon Command Squad... but ran into a wall and was immobilized instead.
Turn 5 - Imperial Guard
With so little Chaos forces left on the table units started to get out of their Chimeras to claim objectives. Then he finished off the Obliterator who once again only failed one save but was insta-killed by S9. The Noise Marines also had to suffer some shots, leaving only the banner bearer in the end, I was making some good saves and Feel no Pain-rolls here. The three Cultists and the last Havocs were also killed.
Turn 5 - Black Legion
At this point I had 10 Cultists and one Noise Marine left on the board. The Noise Marine tried to charge the Veterans on top of the middle objective, thinking that at least he might drag them off the objective with the pile in moves and since I controlled one objective it might be enough for a draw at least with some luck. But no, he died to Overwatch anyway.
With only 10 Cultists on the board I didn't feel like any need to roll to continue... So instead we revealed the objectives, and to add salt to injuries the one objective I controlled was the one worth 1VP... which made the final result 14 (First Blood, Slay the Warlord, 1 Fast Attack killed and four objectives) against 1.
Lessons Learnt
So. That was brutal. In turn 3 everything fell to pieces pretty much. Unfortunately for me that was one turn too early - had I survived for one more turn I'd been in charge range - meaning the Hammer & Anvil deployment is probably what screwed me over most this time. With my list being pretty mid-range it's hard to stand a chance against those large pieplates - and this was still a relatively nice IG-list!
This game also clearly showed why you want Mark of Nurgle on Obliterators... I didn't take it for fluff-reasons. Bad move. With this deployment map you really need that T5 if you're going to foot-slog them. So since I didn't make them Nurgle I should've deployed them with Deep Strike instead. I felt like they spent most of the game too far away to get any good targets. In the end they paid for themselves by eating a lot of Lascannon fire and killing a Chimera at least though - but they're capable of a lot more!
And talking about Deep Strike. The Terminators really arrived one turn too late - that turned out to be a big blow for me. And then my positioning was really stupid. I have absolutely no idea why I put the Sorcerer in the front. Meaning he pretty much died without doing anything. I would've been better off with an extra Terminator with a combi-melta instead. As I wrote in the intro all ready I didn't like the look of this load out... and I guess this game shows why it's a bad idea to mix like this. They didn't have enough shooting to hurt, and they didn't have the numbers to reach close combat.
I see some potential in the Forgefiend though. He seems to scare people and rightly so, only one round of shooting and he took care of most of a squad and a transport by himself. I'll definitely bring him again sometime - but in a better environment. In this list he was too alone in terms of armour. Perhaps he'd fit in a list with two Predators?
All in all a hard mission for me to pull off with this mid-range to short-range list. Perhaps it was unwise to give away first turn with this deployment map as well - like I wrote one more turn to get closer might've been all I needed to make a big difference. But then again, had he got the chance to counter-deploy against me he'd put the juicy targets as far away from me as possible anyway. This way he had to spread out a bit, giving me a chance to drive a spearhead into one point at least.
Alas! Re-match at some point is called anyhow, hopefully we'll get a game that ends closer then!
My first thought when it comes to low armour stuff is Noise Marines. But to try something different this time I'll go with two units of Noise Marines, one shooty and one assaulty. Ie Sonic Blasters and Blastmaster for one squad and CCWs and Doom Siren for the other. I gave both units a Rhino with a Dirge Caster. Basically the shooty unit might not even deploy inside of it's Rhino though... it depends on how the battlefield will look like - in that case their Rhino will just be a back up Dirge Caster. Because I want to try those out! All though, Tyranids aren't the ideal opponent to try them against I suppose... but anyway! I also gave the Slaanesh Lord a Burning Brand, he'll run with the Doom Siren squad. Two Templates to shoot from the rushing Rhino... just because I had the points I gave the Rhino a Combi-Flamer as well - because three templates are better than two, right?
Filling out the Troops I also took two minimal squads of Cultists. These will be kept in reserve for as long as possible as I expect them to die as soon as someone is looking at them the wrong way. But if all goes well my opponent will be too busy on his side of the table when these guys arrive from Reserve to grab my homefield objectives.
I also decided that I wanted to try out the Forgefiend, finally... now, if I knew for sure that I'd play Tyranids I'd take the Hades Autocannons for this guy. But since there's a possibility there's Marines on the other side of the board I decided to go for the three Plasma Cannons instead. What'll happen is probably that I'll kill myself in turn 1. But hey!
Now, my Obliterators have been sitting on the shelf for a long time now, so it's about time they get some action done. Could only squeeze two of them in though, but they're always useful against everyone. If they team up with the Forgefiend they should probably wipe out or at least decimate a squad per turn for sure.
Then there's these Autocannon Havocs everyone is so hyped about... as I finally have four of them, why not give them a try? They should be plenty helpful against MC's, flying or not. And if not, well, they should at least put a dent in anything they shoot at.
Another unit that hasn't seen the battlefield in a long time are my Terminators, so in went a squad with mostly Lightning Claws. This unit also got a combi-melta in case of IG. I don't really like combining these purposes like this, but with such diverse possibilities of opposition I feel obliged to do so anyway. They'll be joined by a Slaanesh Sorcerer as well. As when I take Noise Marines I just can't resist the urge to take one of those as well. Symphony of Pain, ah... yes...
I also managed to squeeze in a unit of melta-bikers. Mostly in case of IG, as I don't see them as too useful against Tyranids.
Now, one of the nastiest units in the Tyranid arsenal in my opinion is the Doom of Malantai. So to at least try and combat that a little bit I took Veterans of the Long War on pretty much everything. That'll mean one guy less that dies every time it tries it's soul sucking at least!
And then to finish it all up, I added some upgrades that will probably be useless if I'm playing against Tyranids but will help a lot if I end up playing mechanized IG or Black Templars. Ie, melta bombs, some combi-meltas, power fists and the like.
There wasn't really *that* much thought behind this list, I was asked to demonstrate the new CSM-book and thus tried to take some popular choices but without spamming and it turned out Slaaneshy. I also decided beforehand that the Heldrake would stay home, with it being hard to transport and combined with Tyranids in particular... a flyer would be no fun. I feel like this list is a bit stretched out, and not quite as focused as I'd like and I feel like I'm lacking scoring with the Cultists being a bit of a gamble - but it'll be interesting to see how it turns out anyway!
---
So after arriving to the battlefield I found out I was playing Imperial Guard, not too bad I thought as my Noise Marines have done really well against them in the past... And with the scattered anti-tank stuff I thought it'd be pretty nice in either case.
Also I forgot to take notes and pictures after a while so might've messed up some details.
LISTS
Black Legion Chaos Space Marines
HQ
Chaos Lord - Mark of Slaanesh, Sigil of Corruption, Burning Brand of Skalahhrax, Gift of Mutation, Power Sword, Melta bombs, Veterans of the Long War
Chaor Sorcerer - Mark of Slaanesh, Mastery Level 3, Terminator armour, Spell familiar, Combi-melta, melta bombs, Veterans of the Long War
Troops
10 Cultists
10 Cultists
10 Noise Marines - 8 Sonic Blasters, Blastmaster, Icon of Excess, Veterans of the Long War
+Rhino - Dirge caster
9 Noise Marines - Replace Bolter with CCW, Doom Siren, Melta bombs, Icon of Excess, Veterans of the Long War
+Rhino - Dirge caster, combi-flamer
Elites
5 Terminators - 3 Pairs of Lightning Claws, Heavy Flamer, Power Fist, Champ. w. Combi-melta & Power Axe, Mark of Slaanesh, Veterans of the Long War
Fast Attack
4 Chaos Bikes - Mark of Slaanesh, 2 Melta guns, melta bombs
Heavy Support
Forgefiend - 3 Ecto Plasma Cannons
2 Obliterators - Veterans of the Long War
5 Havobs - 4 Autocannons
Imperial Guard
HQ
Company Command Squad - 3 melta guns
+Chimera
Company Command Squad - 3 plasma guns
+Chimera
Troops
Platoon Command Squad - Missile Launcher
10 Guardsmen - Autocannon
10 Guardsmen - Autocannon
Heavy Weapon squad - 3 Lascannons
10 Veterans - 3 Plasma guns
+Chimera
10 Veterans - 3 Plasma guns
+Chimera
10 Veterans - 3 Melta guns
+Chimera
10 Veterans - 3 Plasma guns
Fast Attack
Vendetta
Heavy Support
Leman Russ - Heavy Bolters
Leman Russ - Heavy Bolters
Manticore
Fortification
Aegis Defence Line
Pre
So we set up some terrain and rolled for mission and deployment. We got The Scouring and Hammer & Anvil. Horrible set up for me. Many objectives and a far way to go to reach the IG line? Good thing I took those Rhinos at least after all! We also decided on a House Rule to NOT reveal the point values on the Objectives until after the game - to make it more interesting.
For Warlord traits he got re-rolling reserves, and I got Eternal Hatred. For Gift of Mutation I got +1BS. Not very useful on a guy with a flamer... For Psychic powers I rolled twice on Slaanesh and got Frenzy and Ecstatic Seizure (bah, both that I didn't want, but Frenzy would be nice for the Terminators at least), and once on Telepathy rolling Dominate (not too bad).
We rolled for first turn, which I won - but I decided to gamble and give him the first turn to counter-deploy instead. No Night Fighting. I didn't manage to steal initiative.
 |
| I have Terminators+Sorcerer as well as Cultists in reserve, he has a Vendetta. Havocs in the building to the left - and also an objective on the ground there. Another objective in the ruins to the top-right, and the last objective in a building to the left (out of picture). |
Turn 1 - Imperial Guard
Not too much movement, shuffling away from my flank a bit and then started the long range shooting. Despite Bring it Down!-orders on the Forgefiend and Lascannons nothing managed to hit or was saved by the invul-save. In the end a single penetrating hit got through, which resulted in Shaken which was dully ignored by Daemonic Possession. The Rhino containing the assaulty Noise Marines also suffered a glance and a Havoc managed to die. All in all not a very bloody first turn.
Turn 1 - Black Legion
Everything except for the Havocs moved forward as fast as possible. The Rhinos popped smoke. The Forgefiend who had miraculously survived turn 1 actually got to shoot! Of course I rolled a Get's Hot! And failed my save (meaning I had made almost as much damage to myself as he did!). The other two Plasma Cannons hit spot on though, clipping one Chimera as well as some Guardsmen. 6 dead Guardsmen made them run (but not off the board) and two Hull Points lost on the Chimera (and forcing Snapshots next round). The Havocs also manage to take a Hull Point off a Chimera while the Obliterators failed to penetrate their target.
Turn 2 - Imperial Guard
The Vendetta arrived, and some minor shuffling for the tanks and on to the shooting again. He started by rolling a double 6 for his first Order though making it so that no further Orders could be issued. One of the Russes managed to strip the last Hull Point off the Forgefiend causing a wreck. First Blood! The Vendetta and the Lascannon team both shot the Obliterators - I only failed one save but thanks to S9 one died. Other than that I kept rolling my saves pretty much, one Hull Point on the other Rhino was taken off though. Ah, and the Manticore and the other Leman Russ pretty much scattered way off targets.
Turn 2 - Black Legion
For Reserves both my squads of Cultists decided to show up, but the Terminators with the Sorcerer decided not to. I'd much rather had it the other way around...
The Cultists ran towards the two closest objectives anyhow, nothing useful for the Mysterious Objectives so far. The Bikers moved up to the damaged Chimera and blew it up, killing a couple of guys inside it from the explosion and the unit was also pinned. My shooty Noise Marines got out of their ride and sat inside of a ruin. The only guy with anything in range was the Blastmaster, so he decided to shoot at the Lascannons and actually caused a wound, and more importantly they failed their pinning test as well! The Obliterator shot his Assault Cannon at a Chimera, but since it was front armour nothing happened. Havocs caused another Hull Point.
Turn 3 - Imperial Guard
No major movement as expected, the Vendetta could still get into position to shoot something (=Obliterator) and the Chimera on the flank containing Plasma Guns tried to move closer but was blocked by the pinned unit from the exploded Chimera.
The Manticore shot at the shooty Noise Marines and got three missiles. Thanks to scatter only one of them hit though, but that was enough to kill some of them at least and pin them. One of the Leman Russes managed to blow up the Rhino with the assaulty Noise Marines, no one died from the explosion but then the second Leman Russ shot them as well and managed a direct hit with the hole centred above my Lord. I failed exactly 3 Look Out Sir! rolls, and thus had to take my 4++ save, but failed one and was Insta-killed. Another 3 or 4 Noise Marines died as well.
Then the Plasma squad from the Chimera shot at the Bikers... got one Gets Hot per guy(!) and two of them actually died! The other Chimera close by also containing Plasma shot at the Bikers as well, doing a lot better (only one Gets Hot which was saved) and managed to kill 2 of the Bikers. The melta-guys were alive though... but they failed their Leadership and fled.
The Vendetta tried it's Lascannons once again at the now lone Obliterator and failed to do anything. But one Havoc died to Autocannons if I recall correctly...
Turn 3 - Black Legion
Rough round for me and things started looking grim. But at least my Terminators showed up. They landed spot on, right next to his Command Chimera. Shot their Combi-meltas and caused two penetrating hits... immobilized and stunned. Bah.
Bikes continued fleeing. Cultists ran towards Objectives. Assaulty Noise Marines moved out of their crater to try an insane charge (10") - they killed one guy with their pistols but then failed the charge.
Turn 4 - Imperial Guard
The Platoon Command move forwards to start the objective hunting, as well as the squad that had lost its Chimera earlier.
Plasmas, lasers, Lascannons, Heavy Bolters, one Leman Russ all shot at both Noise Marine squads. After the smoke settled three or four assault Noise Marines were the only to survive. The Manticore shot at the Cultists not under a roof, and killed 7 but they somehow didn't flee! Another Havoc also died to plasma from the Chimera coming up on one flank, leaving two standing.
Then there was a lot of Rapid Fire, plasmas and flashlights as well as a Battlecannon shooting at the Terminators. I rolled way below average on my saves and Look Out Sirs, and in the end the Sorcerer and all of the Terminators but one went down.
Turn 4 - Black Legion
The Obliterator shot Assault Cannon at the closest Chimera, blew it up and 7 guys inside died from the explosion. The lone Terminator tried an insane charge against the large infantry squad, just because there wasn't much else to do... he died to overwatching Autocannons though.
The Havocs got a rear armour shot against the Vendetta, but missed. The Noise Marines moved into the ruins for cover and try to get closer to the middle objective.
My surviving Rhino that had moved closer tried to Tank Shock the Platoon Command Squad... but ran into a wall and was immobilized instead.
Turn 5 - Imperial Guard
With so little Chaos forces left on the table units started to get out of their Chimeras to claim objectives. Then he finished off the Obliterator who once again only failed one save but was insta-killed by S9. The Noise Marines also had to suffer some shots, leaving only the banner bearer in the end, I was making some good saves and Feel no Pain-rolls here. The three Cultists and the last Havocs were also killed.
Turn 5 - Black Legion
At this point I had 10 Cultists and one Noise Marine left on the board. The Noise Marine tried to charge the Veterans on top of the middle objective, thinking that at least he might drag them off the objective with the pile in moves and since I controlled one objective it might be enough for a draw at least with some luck. But no, he died to Overwatch anyway.
With only 10 Cultists on the board I didn't feel like any need to roll to continue... So instead we revealed the objectives, and to add salt to injuries the one objective I controlled was the one worth 1VP... which made the final result 14 (First Blood, Slay the Warlord, 1 Fast Attack killed and four objectives) against 1.
Lessons Learnt
So. That was brutal. In turn 3 everything fell to pieces pretty much. Unfortunately for me that was one turn too early - had I survived for one more turn I'd been in charge range - meaning the Hammer & Anvil deployment is probably what screwed me over most this time. With my list being pretty mid-range it's hard to stand a chance against those large pieplates - and this was still a relatively nice IG-list!
This game also clearly showed why you want Mark of Nurgle on Obliterators... I didn't take it for fluff-reasons. Bad move. With this deployment map you really need that T5 if you're going to foot-slog them. So since I didn't make them Nurgle I should've deployed them with Deep Strike instead. I felt like they spent most of the game too far away to get any good targets. In the end they paid for themselves by eating a lot of Lascannon fire and killing a Chimera at least though - but they're capable of a lot more!
And talking about Deep Strike. The Terminators really arrived one turn too late - that turned out to be a big blow for me. And then my positioning was really stupid. I have absolutely no idea why I put the Sorcerer in the front. Meaning he pretty much died without doing anything. I would've been better off with an extra Terminator with a combi-melta instead. As I wrote in the intro all ready I didn't like the look of this load out... and I guess this game shows why it's a bad idea to mix like this. They didn't have enough shooting to hurt, and they didn't have the numbers to reach close combat.
I see some potential in the Forgefiend though. He seems to scare people and rightly so, only one round of shooting and he took care of most of a squad and a transport by himself. I'll definitely bring him again sometime - but in a better environment. In this list he was too alone in terms of armour. Perhaps he'd fit in a list with two Predators?
All in all a hard mission for me to pull off with this mid-range to short-range list. Perhaps it was unwise to give away first turn with this deployment map as well - like I wrote one more turn to get closer might've been all I needed to make a big difference. But then again, had he got the chance to counter-deploy against me he'd put the juicy targets as far away from me as possible anyway. This way he had to spread out a bit, giving me a chance to drive a spearhead into one point at least.
Alas! Re-match at some point is called anyhow, hopefully we'll get a game that ends closer then!
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