I just finished putting this new desert table together, so I decided that I should take pictures of the inaugural battles on it.
My group usually gets together on Friday nights for a few beers and dice rolling. We alternate between a few of our houses that have basements and tables. This week, Art and Pete took the first game, and then SparkeyG and I threw down.
Game One
Pete is playing a dreadnought-pod list:
Master of the Forge w. Conversion Beamer
5 Scouts (
CCW,
St w. Powerfist, teleport homer)
5 Scouts (
CCW,
St w. Powerfist, teleport homer)
2 Land Speeder Storms, w/ Hvy Flamers
5 Ironclad Dreads, each with Hvy Flamer, Melta, and Drop Pod (deathwind launcher)
He's still figuring out exactly what he's going to do with the army, so he's got a lot of proxies, the most notable being 5" templates standing in as drop pods.
Art has brought his Sisters out:
Canoness w/ Book, Blessed Weapon, Jump Pack, Cloak of 2+ save.
10 Celestians w/ Flamer, Hvy Flamer, Superior w/ Eviscerator & Book, in Rhino
10 Sisters w/ Hvy Flamer, Meltagun, Superior w/ Eviscerator & Book, in Rhino
10 Sisters w/ Hvy Flamer, Meltagun, Superior w/ Eviscerator & Book, in Rhino
10 Seraphim w/ 2 hand flamers, Superior w/ Book, Eviscerator
2 Exorcists
They roll off and get a Capture & Control w/ Dawn of War deployment. Pete gets the choice and elects to go first. He deploys the Master of the Forge way on one side of the table, and his scouts, in their Storm on the other side. Art deploys a unit of Sisters in their Rhino opposite the Storm;
Deployment:
Pete uses his scout move to advance his Storm. Art fails to steal the initiative, and the game is on.
Turn 1
Turn 1 starts with a bang, as three dreadnoughts drop in, using the homing beacon on the Scout Sgt to surround the Sister's rhino. The scouts hop out. The dreads shoot, and the scouts assault and when all is said and done, the rhino is immobilized and shaken.
The Sisters roll on, with an empty Rhino and two exorcists away from the fight, the other troop unit making a run for Pete's objective, and the Seraphim and Celestians preparing to assault the nearest dread. One exorcist kills the Master of the Forge, the other scratches a dread's armour.
With six eviscerator attacks, the Sisters land five hits, but not one of them (S6+
2d6) gets through the Ironclad's armour. It wins combat by one, and that sends the Celestians running!
My thoughts here: I'm not sure why Art didn't get his sisters out of immobilized Rhino, as they could almost certainly kill off five scouts, even if two dreads did assault them the next turn. I think he just forgot actually.
Turn 2
The Celestians running from the first dreadnought allows Pete to bring another dread in, and keep them out of it. The Storm hits them with its Flamer, but doesn't do much. Pete lands another dread near the exorcists, stunning it with his meltagun, and his scouts arrive to claim the objective in his deployment zone. The dreadnought that hurt the rhino earlier explodes it now, catching two scouts in the blast. The remaining scouts and dread assault the Sisters who were in it, and they get cut down. Another dread assaults the fleeing Celestians, who rally, and immobilize it in their holy rage.
Art's Retributors immobilize the storm, destroying it's heavy flamer for good measure. His exorcist that's able to fire misses with its one shot. The Celestians and Seraphim continue to fight their dreadnoughts, losing members, but not really hurting the ironclads.
Art rolled a lot of ones and twos on the damage result table
Meanwhile, Art's Canoness had arrived via deep strike, to fight the scouts off the objective by the hut. She gets a fortunate scatter, and is able to hide behind the hut.
Turn 3
A dreadnought kills the immobile exorcist. The retributors take some damage but don't run. Art's remaining troop unit continues its run for the objective.
Meanwhile, the Canoness beats the scouts that are holding Pete's objective, and chases them off the table. Celestians and Seraphim keep fighting their dreads, failing to roll well enough on the damage result table to end these fights.
(Art forgot that he could hit&run the Seraphim as well)
Turn 4
The last deadnought arrives, and promptly meltaguns the weapon off the remaining exorcist.
The celestians, down to just the Superior, decide to flee, denying Art the return of a faith point. The Seraphim keep on fighting though. Meanwhile, Art's gambit to win the game looks like it might work, as his rhino continues its rush to the objective. But, there's a dreadnought races to get there first.
Turn 5
The dreadnought fighting the seraphim finally kills the last of them, and consolidates towards the retribtuors, who are currently forcing Pete's remaining three scouts to keep their heads down and not go for the objective.
Pete actually had to leave at this point, and so I finished the game for him. The scouts are planning to go get the objective on Turn 6. If they move out on turn five, even though they might not get the objective, the retributors will be able to shoot 4 heavy bolters at them, and dead scouts can't hold anything. If the game goes to turn six, the dread will lock up the retributors and the scouts can hold the objective.
In other news, the dreadnought that's trying to stop the rhino from getting to the objective succeeds in destroying it. The sisters pass their pinning check, and run for the objective, but only score a '2'.
At the end of turn 5, the dice say that's the end of the game, no one holds either objective, and so it's a draw.
Game Two
Game Two pits my orks against SparkeyG's 3rd Company Ultramarines. This is clearly the matchup that this table is designed for, as if you look closely at any of the marine trophies scattered among the barricades and ruins, you'll see that they're all Ultramarines, and all 3rd Company.
I decided to try a couple of units that I haven't played with since the old ork codex. I literally had to clean cobwebs out of one of the battlewagons!
I've got:
Warboss on a bike, with powerklaw, attack squig (the cyboar counts for the squig).
Big mek w/
KFF, powerklaw (w/ burna boyz).
18 slugga boyz +
PK, Boss Pole Nob
11 slugga boyz +
PK, Boss Pole Nob, in trukk w/ rokkit, reinforced ram
12 Slugga boyz +
PK, Boss Pole Nob, in trukk w/ rokkit, reinforced ram
20 shoota boyz +
PK Nob, 2 big shootas
9 burna boyz
15 lootas
2 battlewagons w/ 3 big shootas, red paint, grot riggers, and reinforced rams
The Ultramarines, mustering on their battlebarge, 'Maytag' have assembled their forces:
Captain w/ thunderhammer & jump pack
10 Tactical marines (lascannon, plasmagun) w/ rhino
10 Tactical marines (plasmacannon, plasmagun) w/ rhino
10 Tactical marines (rocket launcher, flamer) w/ rhino
10 Assault marines (2 flamers,
PF Sgt)
5 Terminators w/ Heavy Flamer
Chaplain Dreadnought w/ drop pod. (And then SparkeyG realized that he left the actual Chaplain Dread at home, so my icon decided it would fill in at the last minute).
Deployment
We rolled up 5 objectives, placed on important pieces of terrain:
I picked the mining shack, and the pump.
SparkeyG picked the power generators and the ammo dump.
We then rolled up Dawn of War. He won the dice-off for first turn, and forced me to go first. I decided to push the middle as much as possible. This gave that unit three objectives that they could get to easily, as well as pushing the marines back.
SparkeyG deploys two units of tactical marines on either side of the ammo dump.
Turn 1
I bring everything onto the table, and plan to use nightfight to protect my guys initially. I plan to send the bulk of my forces to the right, as there are more objectives on the right, leaving one trukk as a deterent to the objective on my left. Of course, I managed to immobilize the burna boyz battlewagon, in spite of the reinforced ram. This prompted my wife, who had come downstairs with cookies, to announce that she was going to roll the dice for me, as I couldn't... And, I forgot that my mek could try and fix it in the shooting phase (thought he had to wait for movement).
Heavy on the right.
One trukk on the left.
The ultramarines responded by coming in heavy in the middle, except the Chaplain, who decides to flank my flank on the left.
He promptly shoots my trukk with his plasma cannon. My wife helpfully rolls a '1', indicating that it explodes, and then rolled 8 wounds on the unit inside.
The rest of the marines laughed. So did my wife.
Turn 2
The lootas do what they're paid to do, and shoot the dread. I guess they weren't paid well, as my wife rolled a '1' for number of shots, and in spite of landing four hits, failed to beat the armour at all. Meanwhile, the mek gets the battlewagon moving again, and the boyz put the landing pad between themselves and the bulk of the marines.
The marines all move forward, except the lascannon team, who miss the re-mobilized battlewagon. The Chaplain kills six boyz from the shoota boyz squad. The assault marines prepare to meet the slugga boyz' wagon head on.
Turn 3
As expected, the slugga boyz charge the assault marines. Wound allocation rules allow the flamer marines to survive, but the rest of the squad is killed. The boyz lose, though, as the nob whiffs, and the captain and sgt don't. A few more die to combat res, but they're in the fight now.
The lootas managed to stun the dread this turn. And the burna boyz roll into the midst of the marine's line.
This poor squad wanted to get on top of the container, but rolled snakeeyes for their movement. Their disappointment won't last though.
In the second round of the boyz vs assault marines duel, the flamers die, but the nob wiffs again, and the captain and sgt manage to win combat alone. The boyz roll a '5' to stay in the fight though.
Turn 4
The burna boyz roll up and unload on a tactical squad. Nine burnas yielded 81 hits, to which we agreed to save time, and call it 40 wounds. The marines burned.
My other trukk boy squad piles into the fight against the assault marines. They kill the sgt, but the captain survived. Fear, what fear?
The lootas immobilized the chaplain dread. Being venerable, that was asked to be re-rolled. The chaplain dread then exploded, leaving just the terminators and a tactical squad heading towards the power generator.
Turn 5
Turn five was about grabbing the objectives. The shoota boyz took the pump.
The four trukkers who lost their trukk grabbed this drill.
The other trukk boyz got the shack.
The tactical marines held the power generator.
The game ended with the orks controlling the desert, 3-1.
1500 (Work In Progress) 
Red Templars
Bolter Fire is my worst nightmare 