Part 3 of our 5 part series
After my tie on table #8 I fall all the way down to table #12. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
Well, when I get to the table I am surprised to see Scott waiting for me. Ironicly I spent some time with him the night before when I was hanging out with some of the guys from the 40kWrecking Crew.
If you do not know who he is, Scott is one of the best players in the country. I have always wanted to play him, and now I finally get the chance.
His list (Note Scott’s list is the only one that I did not get after the game, so I this is what he had from memory):
HQ
Shas’o w/ Missile Pods, Plasma Rifle, Fusion Blaster
Shas’o w/ Missile Pods, Plasma Rifle, Fusion Blaster
Elites
2 Crisis Suits Missile Pods, Plasma Rifle, Fusion Blaster
2 Crisis Suits Missile Pods, Plasma Rifle, Fusion Blaster
Troops
6 Fire Warriors
Devilfish w/Smart Missiles, Disruption pods and other upgrades
6 Fire Warriors
Devilfish w/Smart Missiles, Disruption pods and other upgrades
6 Fire Warriors
Devilfish w/Smart Missiles, Disruption pods and other upgrades
Fast Attack
3 Stealth Suits
Heavy Support
Hammerhead w/Rail Gun, Disruption Pods, etc.
Hammerhead w/Rail Gun, Disruption Pods, etc.
Hammerhead w/Rail Gun, Disruption Pods, etc.
Mission: Capture and Control
Deployment: Pitched Battle
Points:
Player A Controls both Objectives- A scores 17, B scores 3
Player A Controls 1 Objective, and Player B controls none- A scores 13, B scores 7
Players achieve an equal number of objectives refer to victory points
If Player A scores 175+ more Victory Points than Player B- A scores 11 points, B scores 9
If the scores are less then 175 points difference then the result is a draw, then Player A scores 8 points and Player B scores 8 Points.
Bonus Points:
+1 If you destroy your enemies highest point unit.
+2 If you wipe out all enemy non-scoring units.
I think he won the dice roll and deferred to me.
The set up:
This is the left side.
I set up with my transports forming a wall to protect my Exorcists. I knew that they are going to be my most valuable asset, to deal with the Tau skimmers so I want to protect them. I know that the wall directly in front of me will be crisis suit central with him using it to
JSJ. He places his objective marker behind the wall on the table edge.
Right Side
My objective is behind my
Inq. in the building. I put my
Inq on each side to try to get anything hiding behind those walls in a cross fire.
In this picture you can barely see his setup. He puts one of he
HQ and a Crisis Suit team behind the wall, and his Stealth Team on the far right. Everything else he puts into reserve.
Witchhunter Turn #1
I get to go first and I never know what to do when facing nothing. I do know that he has an objective marker on the other side of the table with my name on it, and if I am going to get a massacre I need to get it. So I drive everything forward and try to maintain my formation. I drive one Exorcist so that it gets a little difficult terrain where I roll a ‘1’ which always happens to me. That is why I know never to drive in difficult terrain.
(No Picture)
Tau Turn #1
He shoots my rhinos with his suits and stuns them.
Witchhunter Turn #2
Well I did not know what to do, so I panicked! Those suits where bothering me, so I thought I would take them out. I ended up charging them with a sisters squad and took them out. But I had to break my defensive formation to do it.
Tau Turn #2
He gets a Devilfish and a Crisis Suit Team that moves on and they all shoot at my sisters killing them down to about 4, and then he assaults them down to about 2 and they stay locked in assault. He also gets 2 Hammerheads that come on in each corner and get my Exorcists in a cross fire to hit side armor, but he only manages to take off the
EML on one of them.
Witchhunter Turn #3
Well, not that there are things on the board to comes to grips with, let’s get busy!
I drive up with the chimera with the storm troopers with the melta guns to the Hammerhead on the left and spin it around, disembark and destroy it. I move my second rhino up and get ready for the next turn to get out and have some fun. My Chimeras kill some Firewarriors but they stay. My Exorcists take down the other Hammerhead. The combat with the sisters/crisis suits is a draw.
Left Side
Right Side
Tau Turn #3
On his turn he gets everything in except a Hammerhead. He castles his 2 Devilfish around the objective. His other Devilfish take out a gun and stuns a chimera. He throws his commander and what firewarriors he has left into the combat with the
SoB and beats them. He consolidates back, and everyone makes it into cover but he rolls a “1” for his commander and he gets left out in the open.
Witchhunter Turn #4
My Storm Troopers get into my Chimera on the left and drive closer. I shoot and kill the commander out in the open with an Exorcist. My
Inq takes a shot at those annoying Stealth Suits that have been shooting at him the whole game, but I failed my night fight roll. One of my plasma cannon Storm Trooper squads gets out and tries to rapid fire his Crisis Suits but because of my bad rolling and cover saves I just do a couple of wounds on the commander and a Suit. My other Storm Trooper squad rapid fires at his Devilfish immobilizing it.
Note: My SoBs did nothing. Although I drove the rhino up last turn, I forgot to get out and kill his Crisis Suits.
(No Picture)
Tau Turn #4
His last Hammerhead finally comes on the right and kills an Exorcist. He unloads on my rhino with the
SoB squad and kills it. He kills the plasma gun storm troopers that rapid fired his suits.
(No Picture)
Witchhunter Turn #5
I finally remember to move my SoBs up (it helps to remember them when they are on the board from a destroyed vehicle), but everything that I can assault has moved back and is hiding. My Melta Gun storm troopers move up and kill a devilfish. In the explosion I lose 3 sisters and because I took 25% casualties I failed my morale roll and they ran. This is the time that I remember that I need to have a troop unit to control my objective, so my other Storm Trooper squad jumps in it’s Chimera and heads for my objective, but they can’t get within 3”
Tau Turn #5
He shoots up my
SoB squad and gets within 6” of them so I can’t rally. His suits shoot up my Chimeras.
He rolled a 4 so we play another turn. Whew! I was off my objective!
Witchhunter Turn #6
As a last hope I try to burn a faith point to make my
SoB’s fearless, but I have to roll under the squad size to do it, and I fail. I run for my objective with my last storm trooper squad. My
Inq shooting and kills the Stealth Suits. My immobilized Exorcist shoots and kills his Devilfish because he was shooting my
Inq to get a bonus point. I move my gunless Exorcist to contest his objective, but it is too little to late.
Tau Turn #6
He moves his hammerhead up and misses the Exorcist.
We roll again and we get to play another turn…
Witchhunter Turn #7
My Exorcist unloads on his Hammerhead hitting it 4 times. I fail to roll above a 4 though for damage, and it is unharmed.
Tau Turn #7
He moved his Hammerhead on the my objective to contest it.
We ended the game with him contesting one objective and him owning another. Minor Loss with out any bonus points 7-13.
I made a lot of mistakes in this game. I have always said that when you play a very good player, the one who does not make any mistakes wins. Normally it is me that capitalizes on others mistakes, but this time it was me making them. The funny thing is that 2 ½ years ago I said that your mind will wander in tournaments, and you should drink an energy drink before the 3rd game over on the B&C about tournament tips. Full Thread here:
http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.php?showtopic=85162&st=0
After a 5 hour drive, late nights of painting and poker, and a day of playing in the team tournament and then another day of
GT and I was losing focus, and I could have used an energy drink.
The fact that this was my 3rd game with this army and the 5th game of 5th edition hurt me.
My mistakes:
The biggest one has to be not getting my
SoB squad out of their rhino for a turn when I could have tied up all kinds of Tau units.
The second one is my unfamiliarity with 5th edition and I had no troops holding my objective and had to head back to claim it.
The third is that I had an Exorcist with out a gun that should have made a run to his objective as soon as it could. Or at least rammed things.
The fourth is knowing how important it is to hold your objective, and I should have had both
Inq surrounding it. As it was, my second
Inq squad did not do anything.
The fifth is that I did not see the value of transports for contesting objectives in 5th edition so I pretty much ignored them, and did not even think about preserving them for contesting.
The sixth is that when rolling for Light of the Emperor to make your
SoB squad fearless you need to roll over the number of sisters, not under it like I thought.
Unlucky:
I had a tie on turn #6 if the game ended then.
I shot the crap out of his contesting Hammerhead and I could not kill it.
He never failed a morale roll (and he had to make plenty).
The fact that I lost enough SoBs to have to take a morale roll from a exploding vehicle that I killed.
My one morale roll I had to make with my SoBs with a LD9 they ended up running.
