Hey folks!
A semi-local store had been advertising a Warhammer weekend; there were a bunch of
40k events going on. A tank race, a character battle, a Soul Grinder challenge and during the whole thing, a 1500 point tournament. The last
RTT I attended here was a bit sketchy on missions (full-game nightfight, 5 mandatory objectives in 1500 points set by the
TO as far apart as possible, 12x12 building sized objectives, etc). These missions take the cake. And the icing. If there's a pie, they get the pie too.
You can read the other battle reports for this event here:
Mission One
Mission Three
So with that said:
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Mission Two: GET EM'!
Deployment: Attacker deploys 12" on both short ends of the board, and defender deploys in the center of the board, 12" from the long ends and 24" from the short ends.
Objective: The defender has set up a base in a very effective position. The attacker has to destroy every model that the enemy (defender) controls and take control of their base. If ANY of the defenders' models are left on the field, the defender wins. If ALL of the defenders' models are destroyed, the attacker wins. The defender can alter the field as they see fit. Broken units for the defender will run back off the board the shortest way possible.
Scenario Special Rules: Night Fight Rules for the whole mission.
Win Conditions:
Massacre if destroy all your opponent's units and hold their objective.
Major Victory if you destroy all your opponent's units, but don't hold their objective.
Minor Victory if if you control your opponent's objective.
Draw if both players have units remaining and neither player controls the opponent objective.
The game lasts a fixed six turns.
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My opponent is playing Space Marines with a
SoB attachment. Chapter Master+9 Assault Marines, Tactical squad with two melta guns, Tactical Squad with two Plasma Cannons, Dreadnought(missile launcher + multi-melta), Land Raider Crusader with 15 Sisters of Battle (and a couple flamers) and a Cannoness inside.
Tactical Assessment of the Mission:
This mission is more farted up than the last one for a couple reasons. First, the defender has a clear advantage. They get to do anything they want with terrain. This got amended by the
TO who didn't want terrain moved, but only half the people heard/cared, so half of people moved terrain and half did not. Second, the defender has another clear advantage. If they don't get tabled, they win. The win conditions are a bit contradictory, and everyone had some clarifications to ask - and that was the gist. Third.....I play Dark Eldar. In my codex, any scenario that has an attacker and defender, the Dark Eldar are always the attacker. I've NEVER run into this before. I have nothing against the idea, but I've never run into an attacker/defender scenario before, and on the face of it....I'm feeling kind of like Ender in Ender's Game during one of the last battle room fights.
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SM puts his objective in some forest in the middle of the table.
TO says that there are no rules for objective placement, so I place mine next to his. Since I have to table my opponent to win, who gives a crap about them; might as well fight over one spot.
My wyches deploy in raiders along both deployment zones on both table edges. My warriors deploy disembarked from their raider (a mistake because of nightfight). Our deployment zones are only 12" away from each other on either side as well. He deploys his 9 assault marines and chapter master on the two objectives in the middle....puts two rhinos as a wall on the left with tactical squads inside (both have a melta) - I think that was illegal though right? One of those is a dedicated transport for the squad with two plasma cannons. Plasma cannon squad combat squads and deploys in trees in his middle....the
TO also chimed in that because the
DE codex says that I'm the attacker, and that the attacker goes first, there is no seize the initiative. Opponent rolls anyway because we'd like to know if it matters and it doesn't.
*NOTE* This game was frustrating to me. Extremely frustrating. I'm typically a nice gamer, but I'm also something of a chameleon - I adopt the attitude of my opponent. I felt like he was playing extremely slow; I asked him multiple times every turn to hurry up; its doubly bad because if I don't table him, he wins - so even if he's just a slower player, doing so is an extremely unfair advantage. With 1500 point armies and 2.5 hours per round....At the top of turn3 we had 10 minutes left. We also had quite a few....disagreements. He'd flamer me over his own vehicles, move something, decide he was going to tank shock with it....shift things around....it was just enough that I felt he was being shady, but not enough for me to tell him to stop farting cheating before I take him outside and beat his head in.
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Dark Eldar Turn One:
I get to go first and our deployment zones are 12" away from each other....so I'm going to alpha-strike as hard as I can. His deployment with the assault marines and chapter master between the rhinos and Land Raider...they're two deep, close together, and creating a physical wall to the objectives. But they're not in cover (He doesn't want to make dangerous tests). My three ravagers move to get clear shots at them, and all my raiders move up right next to him and disgorge wyches.
Here I have a dilemma. My wyches have blasters and also haywire grenades. I want to be close enough that if I wreck or explode a rhino, I have a good chance of still assaulting the unit that gets out, but not so close that if it does explode, the explosion nukes my own unit. Its a delicate situation, and I haven't come up with an ideal answer yet. I end up deploying two wych squads against his rhino wall 4" away - on the other side of the table, Lelith goes after a Plasma Cannon team, one squad disembarks to shoot/assault the land raider, and the last wych squad stays in their transport (having moved 6" and now being inside 12" range to blaster the land raider.
My first ravager tries shooting the assault marines and fails nightfight. The second one kills all of them except for the chapter master; my opponent didn't know that they were AP2 apparently; he expressed disbelief when I told him as he was reaching for dice to make saves. His chapter master makes a 4+ invulnerable and escapes unscathed. The wyches and the rhino wall: My lances and blasters explode the first rhino - the combat squad inside piles out, and the explosion goes 5" - right into both of my wych squads. I lose two wyches from one unit and one from the other; the one that took two losses fails leadership and runs backward. The other squad (in the crater) gets assaulted - small discussion ensues because my opponent didn't want to put his troops into the crater (within assault reach of me) but rather on the other side as if they had disembarked. On the other side of the board, my wyches, lances and blasters stun the land raider and...that's it. I assault into it with a wych squad and STILL only stun it. Lelith goes after the tactical squad in the woods with the plasma cannon. All but two die; he chooses to fail morale (trying to get them killed so he can shoot me) but only one dies and we're locked. Same story with the other squad - I killed two, he killed none, he chose to fail morale, got caught...one more died. His other tactical plasma cannon squad in the woods took scattered fire from a ravager, took two casualties and failed morale and fall back. I had considered dark lancing his chapter master; he told me that he had 3 wounds and eternal warrior....I thought only special characters got eternal warrior so I asked him to look it up....and went on shooting with other stuff; by the time he found the entry, I only had two lances left and had been ineffective with wych blasters, so tried (and failed) to use those on his land raider as well. We also had an annoying argument about cover; he was arguing that his land raider gets cover if I shoot through a unit with a lance, while I was trying to school him on
TLOS - just because there is a unit between us, if it doesn't actually block any visibility, then it doesn't grant cover.
So turn one, I killed a rhino, a 9 man assault marine squad, stunned the other rhino, stunned the land raider, killed 4/5 of one combat squad, 3/5 of a second one, and 2/5 of a third, which is falling back. His dreadnought hasn't entered the fight yet, and the land raider is still full of nasties, and he has a chapter master on the ground itching for action.
Space Marine Turn One:
His dreadnought drop pods down next to the ravager that killed his assault marines. It gets out. The Cannoness gets out of the land raider by herself, and the chapter master jump packs over to a second ravager. The combat squad gets out of the remaining rhino and moves 6" towards my fleeing wyches. His fleeing plasma cannon combat squad auto-regroups without a 3" consolidate so that he can fire it. That's the end of his movement phase. Three units to move...and it took as much time as my entire first turn. I was frothing at the mouth for him to go faster.
His dreadnought shoots its multi-melta and missile launcher at my ravager and whiffs both. Ha. His land raider
PotMS mult-melta into the one raider that still has wyches in it. He explodes it and only three survive, but they pass pinning and leadership. He then pivots his dreadnought on the spot and we have another "
WTF moment" as I tell him that he doesn't get to do that. THe raider he exploded and the wyches inside have two blasters and his rear armor is to them, which he realized there. His chapter master combi-meltas the ravager he's close to and explodes it. His
tac squad that moved 6" towards my wyches (to get within 6" to make them run more) meltas an empty raider and explodes it. The Cannoness flames the wyches assaulting the land raider and another argument ensues as I explain that he can't flame his land raider in the process. I finally say, "Whatever dude; roll em." He kills three, leaving a succubus and a wych.
ANOTHER argument breaks out that lasts for a good 5 minutes about his drop pod's stormbolter. I should have just said, "IF you don't flipping know how to play your own army, then why did you bring it?" Drop pods count as moving cruising speed when they deep strike so can't fire their storm bolter that turn, and he was arguing that it was a defensive weapon so he could still fire it.....*sigh*
His plasma cannon team that stopped fleeing shoots at an empty raider, scatters 3"....and yet ANOTHER argument breaks out because despite rolling the scatter dice next to my raider, I can see from across the table that he's misangling his tape measure a good 60 degrees different from the scatter dice, such that he manages to still hit on target. I finally put my tape measure parallel to the scatter roll, and make him put his tape measure perpendicular to mine, over his blast marker. Then I go around the table corridor to the other side and put mine perpendicular to his so that the exact direction and scatter are accurately represented. It actually scattered off my raider, not still on target. Who knew.
While I had a nasty first turn against him, he had just as nasty of a first turn back at me. He forgot to roll nightfight for everything, and I didn't remember to catch him; I was busy trying to fend off his other shenanigans.
His Cannoness assaults into the two wyches left (who passed leadership) and spends a faith point to give himself an invulnerable save. I cause a wound despite the invul save, take no damage in return (4+ invul), and we stay locked in combat. We're probably at the hour and a half mark now. Lelith finishes off her squad, the other wyches finish off their squad and I consolidate Lelith towards the reduced plasma cannon squad; the wyches on the other side of his base consolidate towards the tactical squad chasing my wyches.
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Dark Eldar Turn Two:
My fleeing wyches flee again - he's within 6". My surviving wyches behind his dreadnought line up at the edge of cover to shoot at his back. I only have a couple raiders left - I move them closer to his land raider - I need to pop that thing open. Lelith heads alone towards the remaining plasma cannon team and the wyches she was with head towards the land raider - going to grenade it some more. I chose to take her without a retinue and just play her without drugs; it still worked decently.
My two surviving ravagers both line up for shots at his chapter master and my wyches that killed his tactical squad line up to charge the one chasing my wyches. Both ravagers make their nightfight rolls, and between the two of them with 6 disintegrators making 3 shots each; 18 shots in total (STR4 AP3) I only cause one wound with one and three with the other - he makes invul saves and takes one wound. Damn it, he's not done yet. I pour all lances and blasters remaining into the land raider; I shake, stun, 3x weapon destroyed results and immobilize it - I kill the multi-melta, the assault cannon, and a hurricane bolter. My two wyches in cover with blasters shoot his dreadnought and only manage to shake it. My shots at his rhino whiff.
For assaults, Lelith takes on the 3 man plasma cannon squad solo and kills them all. My 4x wyches on the left pile into his combat squad and kill a couple and lose one in return - we stay locked. I assault into his land raider, and still can't crack it open - some of those weapon destroyed results were part of this assault.
Space Marine Turn Two:
Have you ever seen someone take 20 minutes to deploy a single unit? I have. The sisters of battle deploy out of the land raider. I'm blocking one side, we have a combat on the other side, and he's trying to squeeze 15 models into a 2" coherency with a single hatch. And I have a wrecked raider right there so he's deploying onto it as well. After a few minutes of him stacking bases and falling over, I removed my raider and put a raider shaped felt mat there (I keep them for explosion crater markers). After more bases on top of each other....I removed the felt pad, moved terrain away and said "Alright, do what you need - just remember that there's dangerous terrain 1" away from you." He forgot of course. I did too. 20 minutes later (not even making this up) the sisters have disembarked. Wasn't worth the argument at this point. The dreadnought turns around to go threaten the 3 wyches that just shot at it.
Another argument springs up. His surviving rhino - he measures around, then says "I'm going to tank shock 6" into Lelith. He drives around some terrain to get to her and says "Take leadership." 10 minutes of arguing later and explaining how a tank shock works....I'm actually OK with him tank shocking Lelith - I just want him to follow the rules for doing it and go through terrain. Turns out that 6" wasn't far enough but I still let him do it (takes 7.5-8"), and he passes his dangerous terrain test for moving through a forest to get to her. As he's moving other stuff he bumps the forest and as he rearranges the rhino makes its way out of terrain. I'm like, "Dude, seriously?" I reach over and put his rhino back into terrain.
His sisters that disembarked move a couple inches, but its a tight squeeze - he's getting anything he can lined up to shoot at my wyches assaulting his land raider. He gets off two flamers and 5 bolters into my wyches; the flamers could only hit three each though because I was wrapped around the corner of his land raider. He would have been smart not to fire his bolters at all and just take the wounds from the flamer but...he doesn't. As I do wound allocation, the sybarite only ends up having to take one wound, which she passes a cover save for and lives. She also passes leadership. His dreadnought assaults into my three wyches, killing one; I fail leadership and they run for the board edge under half and unable to regroup. The cannoness and my two wyches continue to whiff at each other. He's spending a faith point per assault phase. ON the left of the board, his marines and my wyches whiff at each other. Arg. His Chapter Master had moved up to a second ravager, assaulted it, and come away with a weapon destroyed result from his STR6 (runic weapon I think).
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Dark Eldar Turn Three:
My surviving and untouched ravager sees 15 sisters out in the open next to a land raider. I line up for it. Lelith moves towards the sisters, as does my surviving succubus. My fleeing wyches regroup 3" and fleet 5" towards the combat going on so that I can join in. I split attention on my lances between his rhino and his dreadnought. I immobilize the rhino and the dreadnought, but can't wreck either. The ravager opens up on the sisters and 13/15 disappear. My succubus and Lelith assault the other two. My other ravager that his chapter master assaulted sustained bursts at him and he fails two invulnerable saves and finally dies. His tactical marines take another wych squad's charge and the combined weight of both wych squads crumble them. The cannoness finally fails invulnerable saves and dies.
Two and a half hour rounds and the
TO calls the 10 minute mark.
Space Marines Turn 3:
He has an immobilized dreadnought that can't
LOS anything.
He has an immobilized rhino with a stormbolter.
He has an immobilized land raider with a hurricane bolter left.
He has an immobilized drop pod with a storm bolter.
My opponent says, "Well, we aren't going to have time for another turn."
I say, "You have 4 models left on the table, play faster."
He fires and whiffs everything / I make saves I think - I wasn't really paying attention, I was just trying to get us to the next turn.
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Dark Eldar Turn Four:
I finish off the rhino and the dreadnought and weapon destroy the drop pod. Short on lances and blasters to finish the job.
Space Marine Turn Four:
The only weapon he has on the table is a hurricane bolter on his land raider. He ponders his move. I say, "DUDE!!!!"
I skip to my turn; I don't care. I finish off his land raider.
His turn: Nothing.
DE Turn 6: I wreck his drop pod and finish tabling him.
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Post Game Assessment:
This was an INCREDIBLY unfun fight. The scenario was heavily against the attacker for having to table the defender, and combined with the extraordinarily slow playing of my opponent and the constant issues we were having, it took 2 hours and 20 minutes to get 2.5 turns done. At 1500 points. There is no flipping way that a 1500 point game should take that long.
I've mentioned in other threads that pre-tournament I go through a mental steeling; its for things like this. Charlie, if you read this, have a laugh at my expense. You know why.
bro plays 
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are writer, not reader
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