Welcome to the Blood Conquers All series game 20. To see other reports in this series, click
here.
The 1850 league continued, this time against the chaos player which I've had occasion to play against a couple of times.
THE CHALLENGER: BLOOD! BLLLLLOOOOOOOODDDDD!!! BLAAARGH!!!!
1850 pts.
Ahriman
Abbadon
Greater Summoned Demon
3x termies
- 2 champs, one with heavy flamer
5x chosen in a rhino
- with
MoK, champ, a meltagun, and 4 flamers
10k sons
- sorcerer with winds of chaos
Berzerkers
- champ with power weapon
Raptors
- champ with claw
Obliterator
Obliterator
THE DEFENDER: Power blobs for the power blob god!
1850 pts.
I used
list 5-1850-c(ii). Basically, my last list, except I replaced 3 hydras with 2 missile launcher HWSs and Marbo. I also switched over my power fist+2x flamer squad into a 3x sniper rifle squad. Given how very little those flamers have done, I decided it was time to mix things up a bit.
The mission was seize ground with 4 objectives. The deployment type was spearhead. My opponent rolled to go first.
At deployment, the field looked like this:
The objectives were spread out roughly in the middle of the board. My opponent decided to put abbadon in with his termies and keep them in reserve for deepstriking, along with one of the oblits. The chosen would be outflanking.
Before the game, I ran over his list with a bunch of questions, especially because I didn't know much of anything about the special characters. When I learned that Abbadon has eternal warrior, but that Ahriman doesn't, and that Ahriman was carelessly deployed by himself, the first units down were my missile launcher squads with clear
LOS to his uber-sorcerer. After that, I put down the ogryn with the purpose of using them as a shield against the raptors, and, if things went well, to absorb a bunch of bolter shots from the thousand sons as my infantry advanced onto his objective. Everything else just filled in behind.
Of course, taking his already claimed objective was of secondary importance. With only 2 scoring units in 1850 points, all I needed was to kill a squad of khorne berzerkers and I could easily hold the two objectives in the center and the one on the left. Killing his army, then, would be the key thing to do for the first few turns, as, if I did this correctly, I could just saunter onto a majority of the objectives without serious resistance.
TURN 1
Raust Melios Carissander - Commissar, Theleos Group
Over the past few weeks, forces of the Imperium have been brutally crushing the resistance in our objective city. Slowly and murderously our foes have been crushing under the bloody weight of our forces like a squirrel being run over by a Leman Russ. In an attempt to quickly shore up their defenses against a violent and ultimately successful attack against the forces making their front-on assault into the city, our wicked and traitorous foes had been quietly draining resources from their flank defense.
Late last night, we received reports from Foleran spies that a particular section of the enemy's line opposing us was very sparsely defended, and that the enemy had begun to shuffle their forces around, leaving a foolishly exploitable hole in their defenses. At my personal and tempestuous insistence, the forces of marshal Clinton agreed to a plan of my making.
Early in the morning, after a brutal artillery barrage, our forces advanced straight into the hole. The first line tied down what resistance was still effectual while I personally lead a group in a charge straight through the line. Once broken through, my plan was to drive straight for the jugular, assaulting a fortified position behind enemy lines where the leaders of the cursed enemy forces was thought to be hiding. With me personally holding the severed head of the enemy's command system, resistance in the city would surely collapse.
I selected marshal Theleos to join me in the assault group. I would need a man of his nearly-equally commanding presence to keep the troops moving forward deep behind enemy lines. Some say that the marshal was once kicked by a hive tyrant and survived. All I knew was that we needed his kind of endlessly driving initiative. Take one step backwards, and our holy crusade would be doomed.
After a few hours of advancing into the heart of the city, we found the fortified position that was serving as our enemy's HQ. Unfortunately, having been made aware of our presence, our enemies were able to respond to our threat before we achieved total surprise.
I decided not to try and seize the initiative, because I see little to be gained. Plus, I want Rhamael to show up AFTER his chosen. As such, my opponent begins the game by moving his forces forward towards mine.
Shooting sees some ho-hum run rolls on the part of my opponent. Ahriman throws down a bolt of chaos on the ogryn (or whatever that assault gun psychic power is called), but rolling 5's to wound dampens the power, and the lone wound that makes it through is stopped by cover.
After this point, the field looked like this:
In my turn, I move my right up a bit to get into a better position. I also move my ogryn up with the prupose of snagging those raptors in close combat. Every thing else sits still. At this point, there's no rush.
In shooting FRF at 24" sees a berzerker put down, while both missile launcher squads shoot at Ahriman. Three wounds sees a failed invul save, and without eternal warrior, the sorcerer goes splat.
Fearing I'm out of range with the ogryn, I unload with ripper guns and kill a very expected 2. Even though he took the casualties from the back of the squad, I was still just BARELY out of assault range with the ogryn.
After this point, the field looked like this:
TURN 2
My opponent's turn 2 begins with everything coming in from reserves except the deepstriking obliterator. This was actually not exactly what my opponent wanted. He had wanted to outflank with his chosen and THEN pop his greater summoned demon. As it was, he chose his champion of khorne to accept the demon into its flesh:
Meanwhile, the chosen showed up with their rhino and unloaded, ready to spread the pain, 4x flamer style.
He then places Abbadon down with his terminators off near my ogryn in a not particularly aggressive position. He rolls the scatter and scoots 8"... straight onto my ogryn bone 'ead. He rolls for mishap. Really any of the results would have been just fine, but with my opponent flipping a 2, Abbadon and his friends are destroyed!
After this, everything else charged in, more or less.
As the battle was joined, a group of tortured, utterly heretical flying traitors literally flew into our lines. I boldly took charge of the situation, commanding my troops forward.
The priest began to shout his litanies of righteous hatred while Melchoir barked orders. In a flurry of rage, we charged forward in a phoibotic rage. Die, foul traitors!
Shooting saw my opponent OBLITERATING my left-side
PCS with his flamers while several bolt pistol shots from the raptors find their mark. The right side obliterator heavy flamered a couple of wounds on my ogryn. He then charged in:
Close combat starts with the raptors. They put down several, but then, instead of facing off against 9 power weapon attacks, Melchoir magically transforms that into 12 rerollable power weapon attacks. The raptors suffer greatly.
Meanwhile, the obliterator sucker-punches one of the ogryn, which do nothing in return. The ogryn take a morale check and fail. Thankfully, I was smarter with the standard this time and it was just barely within 12". I roll morale again and fail... again. The ogryn run away in a panic.
I guess that makes up for Abbadon...
After this point, the field looked like this:
Turn two for me starts with a dark and mysterious Zonhaim assassin lurking out of the shadows with a severed head full of explosives.
I then get Rhamael in from reserves. I roll and he comes in on the right-hand side. I like the idea of totally swarming him off the right, but my opponent has a lot of stuff on the left, and I'm actually kind of concerned about it. Plus, if I can beat his left, it doesn't matter if his 10k sons survive on the right. I reroll and bring them in on the proper side.
Meanwhile, my center blob just sort of stays stuck in place. I've got chosen that I might need to assault, a demon that I might need to take the last wound off of with lasfire, and an obliterator that I need to stay in position for, just in case.
Shooting begins with a flurry of Bring it Down's. Rhamael takes care of business on the rhino while a missile launcher team throws down 3 wounds of which a predictable 1 passes invul while Melchoir's squad throws down 3 twin-linked meltagun shots, finishing off the demon altogether.
The rest of my army engages in sporratic shooting, with 3 missile launchers seeing the oblit pass a couple armor saves, but one of my
PCS sniper rifles scores a rending shot. Lasfire from the stationary blob was unsurprisingly ineffective.
Then came time for my assassin to do his dirty work. He threw his demo charge on the berzerkers and scored a hit. 5 khornites were cought by the blast, and with only a single 1 to wound, a healthy chunk of the squad vaporizes.
In assault, my charging power blob (just out of reach of Melchoir) easily mangles the 5-man chosen squad, while the close combat with the raptors sees both of us horribly bungle our attacks.
After this point, the field looked like this:
TURN 3
In my opponent's turn, he gets his other obliterator in, which he decides to put down near my up-till-now stationary power blob, and only somewhat scatters. His Khorne berzerkers also advance on my assassin.
In shooting, heavy flamers from the oblits cause assorted casualties. The newly-arrived one manages to kill his way out of assault range while the other oblit doesn't roll high enough to get into close combat with my missile launcher squad.
The berzerkers charge in and down my assassin, but my 5 simultaneous attacks that wound on 2+ puts down 3 wounds, dragging a berzerker down with him.
After this point, the field looked like this:
Now that I've cleared away most of my opponent's units, I start enacting phase two of my plan. With the exception of a few support units staying behind, I launch a general advance.
Shooting sees a lot of missile launchers doing nothing to obliterators, but my
PCS throwing down a second rending hit on the right side oblit. Rhamael's melta guns just bounce off a couple of invul saves.
Unfortunately, my chosen-stomping blob failed to receive it's fleet order. Assuming that I'm JUST out of range for an assault, I open up with lasguns instead, removing the last two berzerkers from play. Unfortunately, because I shot with the front blob, the end result is my first infantry traffic jam as the squad behind it got hung up despite a decent run roll.
After this point, the field looked like this:
At this point, my opponent takes stock of the situation. All he has left on the board at the bottom of 3 is an easily-destroyable obliterator and a single scoring unit. At worst, he's facing a pretty decent chance of getting wiped. At best, he's looking at losing 3-1. Rather than continue the suffering, my opponent concedes.
FINAL RESULTS
I pulled a turn three turnover for an Imperial Guard victory.
- Poor list building, mistakes on the field, and me not having my usual terrible luck shut my opponent down pretty quickly this game. Even assuming that Abbadon didn't decide to stay in the warp rather than help out his fellow warriors, It would have been extremely difficult to pull a win out of this.
- While hydras would have done very little this game, everything that was newly included to this list preformed adamantly. In fact, I'm pretty sure that my
PCS with the sniper rifles took down more this game than the 2x flamer+meltabomb loadout did in the other 19 games combined. S8 made a HUGE difference over the hydra's S7, and that was without even considering any AP3. As for Marbo, well... heh.
- Yet again, my slide of dislike of Straken continues. This game saw only a single buff get off, with only 2 being put down in the last 5 games. Don't get me wrong, countercharge was nice, but still, he's not working as advertized. In the end, a combination of needing to play conservatively turn 1 to make sure my astropath survives, running around to put out fires with meltaguns, and it having serious difficulty ever reaching out and helping Al'Rahem have made this special character in the wrong place at the wrong time most of the time.
- My ogryn are turning into a bad luck vortex. So bad is it now, that it's starting to suck in everything else. Not only did it blow up my opponent who tried to get too close, but it also sucked the bad luck out of the rest of my army.
MVP: This is a tough one as pretty much everything did its job. I guess the MOST valuable player was the lower Rhamael blob, because it finished off both the chosen and the berzerkers, while also nearly ending the game on an objective.
Hero of the Game: The Zonhaim assassin. Charging Khorne berzerkers? Bring it!
With little effort, I cleared out the enemy's HQ. The sorcerer who was leading the war effort had been slain. I recovered and severed the head myself. It was not long before I was approached by a Zonhaim assassin - his vacant gaze making my blood run cold. He insisted that I give him the severed head as a gift to his order, and felt strangely compelled to oblige.
Unfortunately, while I had scooped out and eaten the proverbial brains of our enemy's resistance, the traitor's charismatic leader had somehow escaped my grasp. Until he is dead and his forces utterly scattered, there will be no rest for the stalwart of the Emperor!
-Raust Melios Carissander, Imperial Commissar
Death Guard 5100 pts.
Daemons 3000 pts.
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5K Points of Grey Knights and Red Hunters 