[DCM]
Tilter at Windmills
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I managed to play this year, unlike last. Game Castle had 30 people, though I think overall it was probably a slightly softer field than last year. There were still some hard armies and players in evidence, though. I brought the following:
Flying prince w/lash
Flying lash sorcerer w/icon & meltabombs
8 termies w/3 fists, chainfist, hvy flamer, combi-flamer, 2x combi-melta
10 CSM in rhino w/2xflamer, champ w/fist, icon of glory
10 CSM in rhino w/2xmelta, champ w/fist, icon of glory
12 CSM w/las, melta, icon of glory
18 lesser daemons
18 lesser daemons
Landraider w/dirge caster, possession
3 Oblits
3 oblits
First round was vs. Necrons in the five objective mission. He brought, roughly:
Destroyer lord w/Orb, 4+ Invul
Lord w/Orb
10 immortals
13 warriors
13 warriors
13 warriors
13 warriors
4 Destroyers
4 Destroyers
2 hvy destroyers
2 hvy destroyers
monolith
I deep-struck the termies, and stacked objectives left, so three were on the left side of the board, one to the right in his DZ, and the one in the center. I weighted my deployment left, with my 12 man squad central, planning to run towards the sole right-side objective, with the option of being a feint if he over-commited to its defense, or a real attack if he left it open enough and my terminators and lesser daemons happened to show up at the right time. My opponent deployed in a pretty even spread- from L to R: hvy destroyers, destroyers w/lord, warriors, warriors, immortals w/foot lord, destroyers, warriors holding objective. He deep-struck his monolith and had one squad in it.
My opponent made the mistake of going first, which briefly didn't look like a mistake when he immediately blew up one of my Rhinos, and immobilized the land raider on turn 2. Thankfully by then the LR had already delivered the other 10 man squad (I left one rhino empty), which was gradually grinding one of the warrior squads. The following turn one of my lesser daemon squads showed up, and I used them to make the warrior assault one big combat along with a squad of destroyers and the destroyer lord, which my prince simultaneously assaulted. They cleaned that up, while my sorcerer wound up taking on the left-side heavy destroyers, and gradually started working our way to the right, through his army.
In the center, my 12 man squad managed to fail a re-rolled morale test due to destroyer fire, so weren't able to make their icon useful for the terminators or lessers. Despite that, I sent the terminators deep right to threaten the back objective warriors and his immortals. They scattered 9" away from his stuff, but with a good run roll I was still only a turn away from charging. By that time the left side was going my way, so he really couldn't retreat far. He pounded the terminators with the warriors and immortals, but my 2+ held up and I only lost a couple of models. When they hit the immortals it was simultaneous with the surviving half of the 12 man CSM squad, who got the Sweep honors when my terminators killed 7 immortals on the charge. His monolith wound up striking deep center, sending warriors to threaten two objectives. My two squads of oblits were there, however, and cleaned them up. Then they focused all lascannons on the monolith and eventually brought it down.
At the end I think he phased on turn 5. I could not hold all the objectives, and my Prince had just died in hth with warriors, so I wound up with Massacre +2.
Second round was vs. loyalist marines in the modified kill points. Roughly:
Termie librarian w/null zone, (attached to assault termies)
Grey Knight termie brother captain w/4-5 man squad of GK termies
8 man tac termie squad (hvy flamer, chainfist) in landraider crusader
5 man assault termies w/TH, SS in landraider
MM/hvy flamer Dread in pod
10 marines w/flamer, hvy bolter, fist in pod
10 marines w/missile, melta, PW in rhino
10 marines w/missile, melta, fist in rhino
10 marines w/las, plas
This was Dawn of War, and he went first. I got a good table with a large ruin in the center to use for cover, deployed my 12 man CSM squad in woods to my right with a good clear field of fire, and my 10 man dual flamer squad hidden behind the ruin; I deployed the flamer squad, and clumped it up, hoping to tempt him to drop the dread next to them. Which he did. Then when my stuff came on the board, I melta'd the crap out of his dread and pod, immediately taking a 3 KP lead. I maintained the lead all game, despite a couple of close moments. My terminators and lesser daemons all showed up on turn two, so the lessers were too far away to do much other than screen. That said, a 1 KP 18 model fearless screen is not a bad thing.
I decided to drop the termies danger close to try and pop the crusader, figuring that even if I lost my termies, he was going to have to use his tactical termies and/or GK termies to kill them, disembarking from the crusader and letting my plasma cannons have a crack at HIS termies. This worked out pretty well, trading my 8 man squad for his crusader, 8 man squad and most of his GKs. I will not disrespect GK termies at any point, however. On the charge they killed 7 of my 8 termies (though in part thanks to Null Zone). Sadly, one GK + the brother captain survived my retaliatory plasma and lascannon barrage, and hid in the regular landraider after the assault termies and librarian on the left flank jumped on my lesser daemons.
The biggest trouble he gave me was the assault termies + librarian, who sadly rolled a bit too low to blow through my lesser daemons in a single turn, thus meaning that he finished them on my turn and was able to eat another unit (my 2x melta CSMs). All was not lost, however! In all of this my LDs were able to sneak a wound onto the Librarian through his terminator armor, and then the 2x melta squad managed to sneak the second one through. 5 KPs for the loss of two Troops units @ 1 KP each. Nice. After that, I was able to free up some Oblit attention to plasma the crap out of the assault termies, and finally they killed the last one in HtH. Good oblits. Have a biscuit.
There was also a bit of drama on the right flank, where my other LD squad had been joined by my sorcerer to keep him from being shot, and they finished off the last tactical terminator in HtH. Unfortunately they proceeded to eat a substantial amount of fire, and then an assault from a full ten man squad of marines. I came perilously close to losing the sorcerer in HtH, but he and the daemons held on tight, them finally being wiped out on the top of turn 6, and he holding on with a single wound on him through the end of it.
The final modified KP score was 15 to 7 in my favor. I killed his librarian, both squads of non-GK termies, the crusader, dread, its pod, and a rhino. He killed my termies, my lesser daemons, a 10 man CSM squad and both of my Rhinos. It was closer than it looked, though, as he came respectably close to getting my sorcerer, who would have been worth 5 KPs and could have gotten him within the Draw differential. As it was, I scored a Massacre +1.
A lot of players got Draws on that last mission. I believe there were only 4 of us with two wins going into round three, and the two Ork players had to face each other.
Round three, I got to face necrons. Despite them being pretty screwed in 5th, I still usually find Necrons a challenge, and his list was pretty solid, particularly as part of the misson was KPs.
Lord w/Orb
20 warriors
20 warriors
20 warriors
20 warriors
10 warriors
10 warriors
5 scarabs
2 monoliths
I won the roll and ceded first turn to him, as it was an objective mission. I deployed mostly central-left, with a small presense to the right. Thankfully he was using a gimmicky deployment/tactic which really wasn't very well-suited to the mission, and relied on the indestructibility of his monoliths. He deployed the two 10 warrior squads well out to one flank, to take one objective. He put all the 20 man warrior squads in reserve to come through the monoliths, and deep struck the monoliths. Figuring that this way his big warrior squads were forced to trickle in slowly, potentially making it impossible to phase him out, and keeping large numbers of tough guys alive for the late game objective-holding. This tactic earned him a massacre and a solid victory in the first two rounds, so perhaps there's something to it.
He started my marching towards one objective with two squads, and also zoomed his scarabs up the center, figuring to draw & bounce fire with them, then tie something up in HtH to slow me down. I responded by driving up and dual flaming the scarabs, killing all but one then assaulting the sole survivor with my 12 man squad (thanks to Lash) to give them some free movement after their scarab snack. Yum. In retrospect I a bit over-committed to the center and left flank (figuring to respond best to the monoliths that way, and to kill the small warrior squads ASAP), as he proceeded to put one monolith far to the right, taking the other objective, and then the other close to it (but a bit more central).
I had a squad of oblits on the far right who lascannoned the first monolith to a lucky death, then plasma'd about half of one big squad of warriors away, before themselves being rapidfired to oblivion. Some very short and poor Lash rolls meant I did not get to the small squads of warriors nearly as quickly as I had hoped. My reserve rolls were also poor, with my lessers coming in early and out of position, and my darn terminators waiting until turn 4 to show up. That said, it wound up not mattering. On turn 3 I killed one of the small squads of warriors. On turn 4 I managed to blow up the second monolith, finish off the wounded squad of 20 the dead oblits had thinned out, and kill the second small squad of warriors in HtH. At that point he had one completely unmolested squad of 20 warriors containing his Lord on the table (who had just brutally gunned down an entire squad of lesser daemons), and two squads of 20 in reserve, who now could never join the battle. Phase out at the top of turn 5, and I had two turns of movement left to secure the second objective.
Massacre with full points put me comfortably into first place.
I was really happy to see the list do well after I didn't get to try it out last year.
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