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Third test of my presumptive Adepticon army...

Game 3 was against Thing 1 who took a regular C:SM army using his Doom Eagles.

We rearranged the terrain again and added some new wrinkles... a crater field, another large building and mysterious terrain.

Mission: Big Guns Never Tire
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil
First Turn: Mantis Warriors

Mantis Warriors: 1000 pts
HQ: Redth (warlord power = scoring!)
EL: 5 sternguard (2 plasma cannons, 2 combi-plas, srg w/ combi-melta)
TP: 10 tacs (flamer, las cannon, combi-melta)
TP: 10 tacs (flamer, las cannon, combi-melta)
FA: 4 scout bikes (3 gren launchers)
HV: 5 devs (3 ML, 1 LC)

Doom Eagles: 1000 pts
HQ: Librarian (jump pack, force sword, vortex, force dome), warlord power = -1 to my reserve rolls
TP: 10 tacticals (flamer, ML, rhino w/ HK-missile)
TP: 10 tacticals (flamer, ML, rhino w/ HK-missile)
FA: 10 assault marines
FA: 3 attack bikes (3x MM)

For those of you paying attention, this is exactly the same objective, deployment and opponent's warlord power as the first game I played in this series. *yawn*


Deployment:
Since I go first, I decide to use Redth's tactics and infiltrate my army, making the Doom Eagles deploy first. Thing 1 puts a rhino full of marines on each objective in their deployment zone, the attack bikes on the left flank and the assault squad & libby in the middle. Initially, neither of the tactical squads are combat squadded, but I encourage him to do so as he has a tendency to leave a fully rhino full of expensive marines sitting in the back on an objective & never end up using them in the fight. This way, he could at least fight with half the squad while securing the objective. I salt my guys around with good lanes of fire. Dev's in the trees to take care of the onrushing bikes & cover the center objective. Put the Sternguard in a building just for the fun of it (and unlimited target possibilities). Blue arrows indicate objective markers (poker chips).



I do sneak a combat squad out of sight behind a building in the rear to either draw some heat off the front, stay for the linebreaker point or make a late play for one of his objectives.



Turn 1:
My Devs take out one of the attack bikes and plasma cannon fire kills 4 of the exposed troopers holding his objective on my right. A single las cannon shot from one of the combat squads immobilizes the rhino on his right. OH, my left forest has razorwings and my right forest is even deadlier, which is why I'm not in it. He brings everybody up... shooting from the bikes into my devs accomplishes nothing.



Turn 2:
For the second time in 3 games, both sternguard plasma cannons overheat in the same firing phase... though this time no one dies as a result. Shooting at the onrushing assault squad does nothing. The Devs knock out the last two bikes. On his turn, the Doom Eagles assault the rather rickety structure with krak grenades and knock the bajeesus out of it, causing my sternguard to make roughly 20 saving throws... which they fail enough of to be wiped out.



The advancing Doom Eagle rhino let's fly it's HK missile... which slams into a tree, leaving the Mantis Warriors unharmed.



Turn 3:
The scout bikes, 2 devs and a combat squad find the slot between the damaged building and the Fangorn Forest to take some pot-shots at the assault squad, killing 3 and forcing a morale check which they fail. Having gotten no response to my combat squad in his rear... I have them step up to the corner of the building and start plinking at one of his units holding an objective. Apparently, he didn't even notice them before this.





Turn 4:
I start moving my 3 combat squads aggressively towards the middle objective. I lose a man to the razorwing forest, but the Devs knock out the rhino and I kill 4/5 of it's occupants after they disembark with shooting from the combat squads. Shooting from my rearward squad also kills 2 of the 5 Doom Eagles guarding the objective in the upper left. Leaving marines to guard the upper right objective, he takes their rhino and blocks my line of sight to the guys on the objective (the guys who just too 2 casualties). The assault marines move to the center to shore up the middle and protect the single tac marine that's holding the center objective & is now cowering behind the wrecked Rhino.



Solar_lion's original beakies (Solar Lions chapter) hold the objective while the Doom Eagles take care of bidness in the center.



Turn 5a:
My marines in the back dive back behind the building for the linebreaker point. Three combat squads of Mantis Warriors charge forward to contest the center while the dev squad gingerly picks it's way through the razorwing infested forest in order to claim the lower left objective. Redth chills on the lower right objective. The bikes move forward and their shooting kills one marine holding the upper right objective but it's not enough to make a difference.



Turn 5b:
The Doom Eagles move everything they can into shooting and charging range. Bolter fire from the 3-man squad still holding the upper left objective kills 3, yes 3... marines and causes them to fall back. The assault marines intend to shoot and charge the middle unit, hitting the right unit in a combined assault. Unfortunately their shooting is a bit too effective and kills 4 marines causing an immediate morale roll which I fail. I fall back and they can't charge anymore because I'm out of range. We both assumed that you still had to charge the same unit you shoot at. If that's not the case any more, I'd appreciate the correction. The other tac squad kills one marine from the right-hand squad, but the Mantis Warrior squad was still close enough to contest the objective.



Thing 1 rolls and the game ends!

Score:
Doom Eagles: 2 objectives = 6 pts
Mantis Warriors: 2 objectives, linebreaker, first blood = 8 pts
A narrow victory for the Mantis Warriors!!

Analysis:
I'm beginning to think that mobility and lack of assault are less important issues than my inability to make a leadership test or have my plasma cannons overheat. Fun game... close, close, close. That last round of shooting really kicked my butt. I think I'll stay out of buildings from now on.

Really enjoying these bat reps Git's keep up the good work.

Had a few thoughts on your list.

I think the Sternguard load out is trying to do too much you wont be advancing them due to the Plasma Cannons, I'd be tempted to drop them for another dev squad with Plasma Cannons.

The other thing that might be worth a try is swapping out the flamers on the Tac squads and replacing them with Plasma Guns and then giving the Serg a combi flamer and melta bombs.

Due to the FOC limitations on the team tournament I'm not at liberty to take a second Dev squad (or any other heavy).

Your tac squad suggestion has merit. Means painting up more figures though... also means more of my guys will be killing themselves on turn 2!

I'm always up for you painting more figures I'm not so woried about Plasma Guns blowing up but then mine are handled by Plague Marines.....

Are there any restrictions on the Elite slot?, I'll have a think.

No, it's just that the double heavy slot is already taken by a teammate.

That must make it hard testing half an army then. Its more than I did for my last doubles tournament no practice and a new army I had never played before.

I think running the Sternguard in a drop pod with losts of plasma / combi plasma might work, it all depend on what your doubles partner will be playing.

Try and test vs the Necron army if the things are up for it, your bound to run into some of them. (I notice you have no defence line/quad gun).

At least confirming your feelings about the mobility issues is a good thing, even if it does mean restrategizing. Love the speech bubbles!

Your comments have given me some good things to think about & I've come up with an alternate list. It's not as fluffy as the first one but I think it's still reasonably characteristic of my MWs while addressing some of the issues. It doesn't take into account all of the suggestions... but does approach a couple of the biggest weaknesses of the list without affecting it's nature too much (i.e. it won't screw up my team mates who are building lists that should mesh with the old one).

Thanks for the battle report. I quite enjoyed it. I wish you the best of luck in your list prep!

Thanks Zuul. I've got one or two alternate configurations I'd like to try out. Granted my opponents have just been my kids... but they're decent players and really at this stage, it's more about learning how to play my army than it is matching wits with my opponent.