At 1500
Librarian – Terminator Armour, Storm Shield, Null Zone, Vortex of Doom, Melta bombs (145)
6 Terminators – 4 TH/SS, 2 LC (240)
Land Raider Crusader – Multi melta, Extra Armour (275)
5 Man Tactical Squad (90)
Razorback – Twin linked Heavy Bolter (40)
5 Man Tactical Squad (90)
Razorback – Twin linked Heavy Bolter (40)
5 Man Tactical Squad (90)
Razorback – Twin linked Heavy Bolter (40)
2 Land speeders – 2 x Multi melta, 2x Heavy Flamer (140)
2 Land speeders – 2 x Multi melta, 2x Heavy Flamer (140)
Predator – Auto cannon, Heavy Bolter Sponsons (85)
Predator – Auto cannon, Heavy Bolter Sponsons (85)
Total Cost: 1500
Kill points 13
At 1750
Librarian – Terminator Armour, Storm Shield, Null Zone, Vortex of Doom (140)
6 Terminators – 4 TH/SS, 2 LC (240)
Land Raider Crusader – Multi melta (260)
5 Man Tactical Squad (90)
Razorback – Twin linked Heavy Bolter (40)
5 Man Tactical Squad (90)
Razorback – Twin linked Heavy Bolter (40)
5 Man Tactical Squad (90)
Razorback – Twin linked Heavy Bolter (40)
5 Man Tactical Squad (90)
Razorback – Twin linked Heavy Bolter (40)
2 Land speeders – 2 x Multi melta, 2x Heavy Flamer (140)
2 Land speeders – 2 x Multi melta, 2x Heavy Flamer (140)
2 Land speeders – 2 x Multi melta, 2x Heavy Flamer (140)
Predator – Auto cannon, Heavy Bolter Sponsons (85)
Predator – Auto cannon, Heavy Bolter Sponsons (85)
Total Cost: 1750
Kill points 16
Game 1 - 1500 Points, Annihilation, Spearhead
Gary Marsh - Sister of Battle
2 Canoness
5 Seriphim – 2 Flamer Pistols
10 Sisters 2 Melta guns in a rhino
10 Sisters Melta gun, Heavy flamer in a rhino
Guard platoon of three squads with auto cannons and a bunch of power weapons
Set up
I positioned the speeders and the land raider to catch him no matter way he went around the terrain in the middles, using the preds to hopefully drive him around it and catch them between the speeders and raider
I left one razor back in reserve to stop my movement getting too jammed up and one squad of speeders to hopefully catch on of his tanks when it ventures too close to my table edge.
Sisters all in the missile with the guard blobbed in cover, 2 exorcists to start moving around the flanks
Turn 1
Playing aggressively Gary drove straight at me, popping smoke on both his rhinos.
The speeders took a bit of fire and one pred went boom
Speeder turboed into the middle while the land raider managed to immobilise one of the rhinos.
Turn 2
All the sisters piled out the rhinos and both the speeders in the middle got blown off the table.
At first I thought his deployment was a bit strange then I realised he was trying to bait my terminators into the sisters, he losses one unit then the bit platoon charges and overwhelms the terminators so I decide to go for the seraphim and canonesses
I then vortex of doom the seraphim only for Gary to tell me they where going to use the sister power that makes their save invulnerable for one phase...bugger that threw my calculations out a bit suddenly this wasn’t looking such a good idea. Thankfully the vortex still managed to take out a few sisters and one of the canoness.
At the start of the close combat phase he tried to make them invulnerable but failed, the termis proceeded to much threw them, I decided to him the canoness who only had one wound with the thunder hammers as I wanted to lock her in combat forgetting she had hit and run so bugged out and next turn used the vow to make her fearless so I couldn’t escort here off the table leaving me far to close to the guard blob squad
Turn 3
This is the start of the turn
And this is the end
The canoness felt the wraith of heavy bolters the terminators lost against the blob and got escorted off the table, the land raider ate melta.
I managed to take out one more of the sisters squads and a rhinos so when the game ended turn six in was a draw even VP wise it was 930 – 925 so a very good game that went right down to the wire.
If it had went on one more turn I would have been in trouble as there where no easy kill points for me to get my mitts on by that point. Gary did have quite a bit of bad luck, but most of the time I was never in position to take advantage of it.
Game 2 – 1500 Points, Capture and Control, Pitch Battle
Paul Croghan - Space Marines
Master of the forge – Conversion beamer
10 Man Tac squad – Melta gun, missile launcher
Rhino with a dozer blade
10 Man Tac squad – Flamer, Missile Launcher
Rhino with dozer blade
Scout squad – 3 sniper rifles, heavy bolter
Sergeant Telion
Two Dreadnoughts with multi melta
2 Landspeeders with 2 heavy bolters each
2 Land speeders with multi meltas and heavy bolters
2 Land speeder typhoons with heavy bolters
2 Preds with auto cannons and heavy bolters
Deployment
I won the deployment roll and let him go first.
Paul deployed his objective on the middle floor of the building in the left hand corner mine went in my right hand corner
As you can see he deployed the width of the board, master of the forge on the top of his building, 5 marines on the objective and a dreadnought tucked away below.
I had 2 major problems here, The large amount of shooting that would be coming my way and the complete lack of terrain to hide behind. Before the game we checked it all out and other than the big hill in the middle there was no where to get a rhino sized unit out of sight (and even that was a bit dubious there) add to that most of the smaller hills wouldn’t even give it a cover save this was going to be hard.
So a cunning plan was required, I decided to put both speeder squads and 2 razor backs in reserve while deploying the preds and land raider on the far right, the idea was simple, throw the termie forward into the troops and try and draw him to the right while trying to destroy as much as possible. Then the reserves make a dash straight for his objective.
Turn 1
As I hoped Paul started swinging his army to the right to go for my objective, his firing managed to stun one of the preds.
Straight forward turn from me the land raider went straight forward and the preds engaged in some ineffective shooting.
Turn 2
Most of his army keeps making a bee line for my objective, the land raider blows up pretty quickly and the preds take some more damage
A couple of speeders arrive from reserve I decide to bring them in on the right as I need to stem the tide that was coming my way.
The terminators went in against both rhinos and the speeder squadron taking out both the rhinos.
Turn 3
In my turn one of the razor backs and the other land speeder squadron game on I decided to use them to prop up my right flank, the remaining terminator charged one of the tac squads that came out the rhino he killed a couple then they ran away. His other tac squad that was heading for my objective got charged by one of mine they then proceeded to flail away at each other
Turn 4
At the stage it was a bit tit for tat, I lost a razor back and the preds took some more damage
In my turn my turn my last speeder squad came on and killed one of his MM speeders. My remaining Razor back drove on to the wreck of the other one (I decided just to make my own cover). The last terminator join my tac squad in then fight and showed them how it was done ending that fight.
Turn 5
The last land speeder went for a hail mary on his objective
That was really it for the game, it ended turn six the speeder died and I ended up cowering on my objective
So what did I learn, Master of the forge with conversion beamer is awesome I want one. The twin heavy bolter land speeders where also quite impressive.
The terrain really did gimp me this game, It’s the risk I take relying on short range AV10 vehicles for my main anti tank especially in the face of all those missile launchers.
In hind site there was a rather easy way for me to win this, Paul had only left 5 men on his objective, if I had shot them up about turn 3 he would have real problems getting any troops back to contest it since they where all on the other side of the table.
Game 3 – 1750, Seize ground, Dawn of war
Matt Cook – Daemons
Greater Demon in slannesh – Unholy might, Scorpified musk
2 units of 5 fiends one in eachnwith unholy might
3 flamers
2 untis of 6 pluagebearers
15 bloodletters
7 horrors – changling, bolt of change
Three deamon princes with MoN, Iron hide, demonic gaze, cloud of flies and noxious touch
Well I got off to a good start here I won first turn so let him go first and didn’t deploy anything on the table, he then failed to get his preferred wave down.
My plan was pretty simple null zone and lots of shooting them move to contest as I was reasonable sure I would have enough speeders alive at the end to do the job.
Turn 1
In deep strike the demons
The key threats where then seekers and the Monstrous creatures in the army so with that in mind the speeders moved on to engage the seekers in the woods, the land raider made a bee line to the demon prince. The rest of my army came on the right side of the table.
In the shooing phase most of the seekers where taken out.
Turn 2
The remaining demon princes, Greater Daemon and the horrors arrived.
The two plague bearer squads moved to consolidate on objectives, the seekers charged one of the speeder squads to minimum effect.
In my turn the terminators charged on of the Demon princes, managing to get 3 wounds on him, the rest of the army plugged away taking out the remaining seekers and heavy boltering the greater demon to death
Turn 3
The flamers game in and had a mishap so they where banished far away, a large unit of blood letters also arrived.
The terminators took out the demon prince but they themselves where also wiped out to man.
In my turn I started moving up to contest while managing to shoot another DP to death.
From this point my memory gets a bit sketchy (I forgot to take photos every turn)
They would eventually move to contest and objective on my side of the board
On the right the Libby got out the crusader to assault the horrors but it wasn’t needed as the crusader gunned them all down. The remaining demon prince took out a tac squad and Razor back
Matt had a bit of an uphill struggle here, I could out manoeuvre and out shoot him and without terrain to hide in it left him in a difficult situation, I didn’t play this one particularly well, I let the null zone wielding librarian end up out of position, I started moving too late to the objectives resulting in me only winning by one and if his run or difficult terrain roll had been a tad higher then it would have ended in a draw.
Game 4 – 1500, Take and hold (One objective in each deployment zone worth 1 point and one in the middle worth 2), Pitch battle
Nathan Roberts – Demons
Great unclean one
6 blood crushers
2 units of fiends (6 strong IIRC)
2 units of 10 flesh hounds
2 slanesh chariots
3 units of pluage bearers
Deployment
I chose to go second and he got the wave he wanted.
Turn 1
(forgot to take pictures at the start)
The blood crushers arrive smack bang in the centre with the 2 units of flesh hounds either side of my army with chariots, the seeks behind the blood crushers.
Staring all this down was highly intimidating, This battle was going to be over very quickly, I decided the blood crushers much die so most of my force moved up to engage them the terminators jumping out to charge.
One speeder squad moved to the left to flame some hounds to open and escape route.
Null zone went up, I flamed a few hounds then everything else shot at the blood crushers getting a grand total of one wound on them.
Well time for the terminators to rescue the day, in the charge and fluff every roll spectacularly causing a grand total of one wound and losing 5 to the return strikes.
Turn 2
The GUO and a unit of seeks deep struck into he middle of my army
On the left flank the flesh hounds went into the speeders, the chariot into the predator. The hounds didn’t do much but the chariot took out the predator.
And on the right the hounds went into a razor back, the chariot into the predator and the seekers into the speeders. The pred blew up the razor back was destroyed and one speeder died.
Baws this was not looking good.
My only hope was to scatter to the 4 winds and hope I could contest to a draw
What followed was lots of running
And lots of dying
I think at the end of the game I had the land raider, Libby and one tac squad left lost that one the full 20 -0
Game 5 – Seize Ground, Spear head 1750
Apologies to my opponent I forgot to write down his name and army but from memory its:
Command squad – 3 Melta’s
Chimera
4 Melta veteran squads some with heavy weapons
Chimera
3 Vendettas
Plasma cannon russ variant
2 Manticores
Since I had take first turn and there was nothing that would block line of site this was going to be relatively straight forward, I was going to rush forward and give him one turn to stop me. I left one squad of speeders and 3 razor backs in reserve (Right now I can’t remember bring on the 4th razorback, I hope I didn’t forget it!)
Guard 101 really, hide in a corner
Turn 1
Seeders and land raider went straight down his throat, the preds managed to shake a gun ship
So what are the odds of one or two speeders surviving, bugger all that’s what couldn’t make a cover save (This was a theme through the whole game) all 4 died and a pred lost it’s turret.
Turn 2
Terminators go in, blow up a couple of chimeras
The turret less pred moves up to get in the way a bit
So can the terminators survive to next turn….
Na not a hope, the land raider was blown up by the first guard with a melta gun, I had hoped it would take a few more shots. Initially the terminators looked like they might just make it but by the end of all the shooting only one was left who charged a guard squad next turn and got beat down before he could do anything to it.
After this it was just a case of me trying to hold on enough to contest.
On the left flank they tried to hide
But failed
In the middle 2 marines survived till turn six by hiding under the piles of dead, seriously that was it a whole 2 marines
Needless to say that was a big loss, I hate fighting guard, I really need some decent LOS block terrain and some good cover saves to be in with a fighting chance needless to say I got neither this game.
Game 6 – Annihilation, Dawn of war 1750
Matt Cook – Demons
Last game and I drew Matt again this time on a table with even less terrain. I won the roll and let him go first and again the wrong wave showed up.
I rolled on like this taking out most of a unit of steeds and all the blood letters on the first turn.
The greater demon died in a hail of heavy bolter fire and the terminators started munching demon princes
After that I just drove away from most of his army leaving just a couple of squads of plague bearers at the cost of the terminators and 1 razor back
It was a shame I had to meet Matt again for the last game, I understand why you have to play who your allocated up the top tables but down where we where it wouldn’t make a lot of difference. It was a really bad match up for him but he kept in good humour the whole game, a hard thing to do in that situation, much respect for that.
So on the whole not a sterling performance from me. The terrain really didn’t help and I made a few blinding mistakes as well (game 3 I kept forgetting to move stuff, and I wasn’t even drinking!).
Looking at the armies out there I think this lists days are numbered I can’t out manoeuvre the demon lists and I can’t survive in the face of the auto cannon fire with all there fragile speeders.
Here are some pictures of the armies up for best painted, some really nice stuff there:
I have put more of them up here
