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Mission and Board
This was a custom mission that the local game store Admin created for us. The board, as shown below, had a road stretching down the middle, upon which there was a line of tank traps. Any glancing hit against an AV10 would destroy a tank trap. The side of the board was heavily covered in debris.

The attacker was the CSM Nurgle player. His objective was to get all his models to the other side of the board. For every unit he got to the other side of the board, he received one VP. For every defender unit completely wiped, he received one additional VP. This gives lots of VP opportunities for the attacker. The attacker's deployment zone was the east side, and his objective was to escape the west side.

The defender was the UltraMarine 8th Chapter, leading a counter-assault on mobile bikes. The defender gets 1 VP for every unit that the attacker does NOT get across the board. The defender's deployment zone's are the north and south sides of the board.

This mission has an advantage to the attacker IMHO. Every unit they get across the board grants them an VP and loweres the enemy VP by one. If the attacker bogs himself into fighting the defender, they will lose, as they already start with all their VPs given to the defender.

Army Lists 1750
I brought the following army. There were a few other trims added, but this is the core.
Captain w/Relic Blade and Bike
2 Squads with 2 MG, 1 MM and Seargent with PF
2 Squad with 2 MG, 1 MM
1 Squad with 2 PG, 1 MM
1 MM Attack Bike squad of 2 bikes

He brought the following army
3 Plague Marine squads with 2 MG, Rhinos. At least 1 had a PF
2 Daemon Princes with Wings, Mark of Nurgle, and ability to reroll hits and wounds
6 Oblits into 2 squads each.
1 Greater Daemon of Nurgle

We both had to do some pretty heavy proxying with this army, and some models were not painted yet. Please forgive the images below for not being perfect.


Turn One
CSM
Minions of Nurgle poured onto the battlefield from the eastern side. Three rhinos deployed in a defensive position, flanked by two daemon princes on the right. Three squads of obliterates secured the flanks swarming the chaos scum.

Marines
The hammer of the Emperor came in from the northern and southern sides. While racing across a crater, two of the soutern bikers got caught on debris and were thrown from their bikes. (Failed 2 difficult terrain tests)
Bolter, Melta and Plasma made short work of all 6 obliterates slaying every one of them. They proved to be less effective on the rhinos, and only managed to shake them.
The stalwart marines were not ready for the tricks Chaos had planned for them.
(I chose to split my squads into combat squads. I looked at what I had, and if I split everything, I would only give up 12 VPs, which is what he had. It was a risk, but if i could just delay him with my squads, and keep 1 alive, I would win)


Turn Two
CSM
The two daemon princes took flight, one headed to the southern flank, and the other heading to the northern flank. Unconcerned, they did not even attempt to enter cover.
Two rhinos deposited a load of nurgle marines. The Chaos scum moved south and viciously shot up one squad of Ultramarines. Melta and bolters made short work of the marines, and the 3 remaining marines in the squad soon joined their previous 2 allies in the crater. (That combat squad was wiped). The final rhino pushed forward at full speed, deploying smoke to protect it.
The other nurgle squad moved and destroyed 3 marines with bolter and melta fire. The marines, utilizing their combat tactics, knew that it was a good idea to flee, as the daemon prince was in assault range. The last attack biker fled back around the dangerous terrain and rallied next to his allies.
The northern daemon prince assaulted the two attack bikes and wiped them both out with a barrage of daemon attacks (rerolling hits and wounds is just OMG stupid powerful)

Marines
The marines knew they had a fight on their hands. The southern flank of marines utilized their bikes to turbo boost away from their enemies. Most of them boosted to the west, while the eastmost squad boosted to the north.
The northern flank of marines converged on the daemon prince. Every single bolter, meltagun, and plasma gun fired into the daemon, a full 24 bikes all hailing death into the prince. The blows were mighty, but the prince survived. (He took 3 wounds and had one left).
In order to prevent the prince from assaulting and trusting in the powerfist and marines, all of the marines assaulted the prince. The blessing of the emperor was not with them, and the daemon prince spotted the real threat. All of his attacks found their home, and every since marine in the squad was cut in two.
The daemon prince survived everything and was ready to assault again.
(Really, hitting on 2s, wounding on 3s, no save allowed, and rerolling everything is just stupid).

Turn Three
CSM
The southern Daemon Prince flew after the retreating marines. He overestimated his abilities and was out assault range.
One squad of plague marines ran back into the rhino.
Bursting from the other squad of plague marines, a Greater Daemon split from the aspiring champion. The Daemon moved forward and assaulted the bikers that turbo boosted north. The daemon destroyed two of the bikers and delivered a wound to the attack bike. The marines, knowing they were outmatched trusted into their combat tactics and fled from the daemon.
The rhino in the lead moved twords the roadblock and two chaos marines destroyed a portion of it with two melta guns.
The northern Daemon Prince casually chose which squad of marines he would slaughter and wiped another one from the emperors records. The remaining two squads of marines fell upon their combat tactics to flee from the battle. One of them was overzealous and fled right off the battlefield.
Of the six marine squads on the northern flank, the Daemon Prince alone killed four of them.

Marines
After suffering staggering losses on the northern flank, the marines again launched everything they had at the daemon prince. Both squads fired at him, and the squad that was engaged earlier by the Unclean One also fired into the Prince. Finally, after causing all that damage, the Daemon Prince went down.
One southern multi-melta had not been fired, and shot at the northernmost rhino, blowing off its treads and immobilizing it.

The southern most marines had a desperate gamble to try and wound the Daemon Prince. All closed in on the prince and shot at it, followed by vicious assaults. This time the captain and his relic blade, combined with the shooting, were able to deal 3 wounds to the prince. The Daemon Prince gourged himself by slaughtering 3 marines and wounding an attack bike.


Turn Four
CSM
The southern most squad of plague marines exited their rhino in the hopes they would be able to assist the prince in his assault. They advanced forward, but were to far from the fray. The plague marines in the immobilized rhino shot at the one lone multi-melta attack bike. Both melta guns in the squad missed, showing that the luck of the emperor was with him.
The remaining Daemon Prince directed his attacks at the captain, delivering four mightly blows to him. Luckily, the captains iron halo proved worthwhile and saved him from perishing. The rune blade proved to be more faithful than the prince's filth, and was driven clean through the prince. (The captain killed the final prince)
The forces of nurgle had been reduced to 3 plauge marine filled rhinos, and one greater daemon plodding along.

Marines
Two remaining northern marines began to race to the western horizon.
One northern squadron moved and engaged the rhinos from the rear. They fired their multi-melta at close range -- taunting the chaos marines inside to head eastward and engage them. The multi-melta missed it's intended target.
The southern forces raced westward to prepare for one final strike on the plague marines.

Turn Five
CSM
The greater daemon of Nurgle finally caught back up to the two marines who escaped it's clutches earlier, much to their surprise! The two marines were killed in minutes. (I would have swore I was 13 or so inches from that daemon, but I was only 12 on the nose. Damnit!)
Two of the chaos rhinos rushed forward at full speed to the western edge -- knowing this would seal a victory for the forces of Chaos. (They moved 18" on the open road)
The plague marines disembarked from the immobolized rhino, and were somehow able to catch up to one of the boosting marine squads. The power fist in the plague marines brought down all the remaining bikers in that squad. (Again, I did not anticipate his 2" disembark, 6" move, and 6" assault. He was barely reached me, by less than 1/16th of an inch)
With two rhinos closing on the west side of the board, the marines options began to look grim.

Marines
The final multi-melta bike shot behind the two remaining rhinos, and shot at the rear armor. After an earlier strike on the front armor of a rhino refused to penetrate the vehicle (Yes, I rolled a 3 on 2d6 penetration), the marines were not willing to take any chances. The emperor was with the marines, and the rhino was completely destroyed.

The southern marines fired a long range multi-melta at the last mobile rhino, not wanting to risk getting killed by a plague marine assault
The battle continued... (A 4 was rolled to see if the game ended)


Turn Six
CSM
The final mobile rhino rushed to the western flank, and its escape appeared within reach.
The Daemon Prince caught the attack bike that destroyed the chaos rhino and slaughtered him.
The plague marines on foot began to run to the western edge, not sure if they would make it in time.

Marines
A final shot into the remaining rhino proved worthless. The marines just could not bring their target into sight.
The battle came to a close, and dusk approached... (The game ended)

Game Summary
I had 2 combat squads and 1 captain alive at the end of the game, giving 9 VPs to the Chaos Player.
He did not get any of his models across to the other side of the board, giving me 12 VPs.
Victory was to the forces of the imperium -- barely

Game Thoughts
OMFG are winged Daemon Princes of Nurgle OP Sauce. Getting 5 attacks on the charge, rerolling hits and wounds guarantees kills vs. normal troops. With an effective charge of 18", this is a unit not to be underestimated. Now, he did get lucky on his saves, and I got unlucky on my shots, but at the end of the day, his northern Daemon Prince killed ~600 points of marines. How the hell was he hitting on a 2+ again? I need to check that to see if he made a mistake with his list.
The most effective things against those beasts were plasma guns. When trying to bring them down from fire, 4 rapid fire plamsa gun shots were much more useful than 2 meltagun shots.

I made two very bad mistakes in regards to the range of his assaults. When running a bike army, you should try and keep 13" away from his nasty assault creatures.

More powerfists are required. When I assaulted his prince with one powerfist, the fist was to easy to spot and kill. Even though he had to kill 3 bikers before he got to the fist, with the power of Daemon Princes, this was not a problem. If I assaulted him with 2 or 3 fists, there would have been enough to do the trick.

His oblits were useless, and he was complaining about that. I had no problem killing all 6 before he moved. Were it not for the princes, this would have been a very short game.

I was pleased to see how greater daemons work. When you are not expecting them, they can really add a nice punch of a chaos squad.

There is nothing that lets daemon princes hit on a 2+. The absolute best they can get is 3+.

I should have asked him to 'Show me the rule'.
I don't feel like it was such a game breaker though. He still hit 8/9 of the time (2/3 chance with rerolling misses).

Ok, I didn't like the mission.

That aside: I like having power fists too in a biker list, but I include them for defensive purposes not offensive.
You should not be banking on approaching early and unloading everything.
Because you had so much space between one short board edge to the other where the chaos player was going, you could have maintained the 24" standoff for 2-3 turns before you had to commit, more likely keeping yourstuff alive and hurting his.

Bikers are not there for combat, it is a last resort when moving back is not an option.

True DP's don't hit on 2's, but Warp Time DPs are good, hence the spamming of them, second to lash princes in a competitive rip your balls out environment.

Two out of three of my favorite armies on the board.......all of which love to USE but not be in the receiving end of melta/plamsa weaponry.

As for the oblits, did they claim cover saves? If not, bad positioning, if they did = bad dice, or enough str 8 to overload 4+ saves.

My 7 Cents.

Another great report! One thing I have noticed in my own biker games is that you really have to have the distances down - any miscalculation leads to horrible horrible things happening.

The mission was.. interesting. Had you been the attacker I think it would pretty much have been an autowin for you - just turbo boost on turn 1, voila, game over ;-)

Instant death is a great thing to do to those obliterators - another nice thing I have personally noticed about bikes is that it is pretty easy to deny cover saves thanks to their insane mobility unless the enemy is in area terrain.

Anyway, great report! Did you feel like you missed the command squad at all?

Sanctjud wrote:You should not be banking on approaching early and unloading everything..

My northern flank consisted of what I had below. There were 6 melta gun shots, 4 plasma gun shots, 1 multimelta shots, and 32 twin linked bolter shots. Concentrating that force on a T6 target with 4 wounds seemed a very logical choice, and I would do it again. Just because you split on 8's and aces does not mean you'll win the round.

Sanctjud wrote:Bikers are not there for combat, it is a last resort when moving back is not an option

And that is just a difference of style in playing. I will focus fire with my guns and then assault a weakened foe to finish him. Closing doubles the firepower of plasma/bolter, and can really have a huge impact on the enemy. In this case I estimated that the prince would fall due to the fire, as there was enough firepower delivered to kill 2 daemon princes.

I also don't mind losing marines, and is why I don't mind using plasma. A 1/18 chance of losing marines for each plasma shot seems like a good tradeoff to me.
Both styles of play work -- its just a different way of getting there.

Sanctjud wrote:As for the oblits, did they claim cover saves? If not, bad positioning, if they did = bad dice, or enough str 8 to overload 4+ saves..

See the barrage listed above. I think I got slightly lucky on the bolter wounds and he needed to make 25 saves. Thats an average of 4 unsaved wounds, and then you add the 7 melta shots and 4 plasma gun shots, and we got some toasty oblits.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Somnicide wrote:The mission was.. interesting. Had you been the attacker I think it would pretty much have been an autowin for you - just turbo boost on turn 1, voila, game over ;-)

Instant death is a great thing to do to those obliterators - another nice thing I have personally noticed about bikes is that it is pretty easy to deny cover saves thanks to their insane mobility unless the enemy is in area terrain.

Anyway, great report! Did you feel like you missed the command squad at all?

Yea, I rolled the position as the attacker, and gave him the role of attacker. With a 24" move, the bikes would be able to cross 6 feet in 3 turns.

Focusing tons of bolter fire on them also helped. As I learned when I played Orks. If you make terminators make enough 2+ saves, they will start to fail them.

Re: approaching early: sorry, I missed that entrance, but as I said, I don't particularly think to highly of this mission.
So the entrance is different than 'normal'.

My advice about patience is for the normal deployments one encounters in the regular missions.
Focus fire is nice, and that initial entrance is something I usually see later in the game.
___________________

Yes, 'a weakened foe' is subjective as well. If you kept back and shot at 24" bit, then went in, you would have suffered less casualties and more likely kill it the weight of fire route. Minimizing the possibility of crap dice.

I'm not saying that approaching double tap and charging is out of the picture, I'm just saying you can add onto it with some more mid ranged shots.

Plus, you had plenty of time/room, it takes a minimum of 5 turns to get there in rhino's, and that's without you shooting at him...
/shrug.

/shrug, I'm into the whole preservation of my dudes... which is what you are saying; different playstyles. You know.... if plasma dies on your shooting phase, and it's more than 25%, you know you had to take a morale right?
In addition, bikers really don't like casualties, they have lower model count, and ld of only 9, 8 if combat squadding on the 'other' squad.

As for the oblits, yes, I see the barrage now. My issue is, where were they really deployed? I can’t make it out, they were not behind rhino’s/blocking LoS with them?

Eh, it eventually comes back to the mission… it’s wonderful to start the game in 2D6 range, regardless if you miss/do nothing.
There is little hope for foot sloggers…even a little mechanized would have problems as your target priorities are all set.
Eh…very unequal footing IMO.

Granted, the CSM player made it very well across the board...one more turn he might have been able to touch the other side, but that would have taken 7 turns.........2 extra turns that might not have been played.

My 7 Cents.

From what I am looking at and from what I understand about the "Assault" *To Hit Chart*, their is nothing in the game that hits on a 2. You can wound on a 2 but no hits on a 2, its all 3's and higher.

He may have mistaken that for BS. BS 5 and higher hit on a 2.

Feel free to correct me if I am wrong or if some special rule applies to enabling someone to *Hit* in the *Assault Phase* on a 2.

Kharn hits on 2's.

I can't think of anything else so far though.

My 7 Cents.

Sanctjud wrote:Yes, 'a weakened foe' is subjective as well. If you kept back and shot at 24" bit, then went in, you would have suffered less casualties and more likely kill it the weight of fire route. Minimizing the possibility of crap dice.

I see your point, you would have rather set up near the exit and let him rush a few turns. The rhinos also were all on a road that spanned the middle of the board, giving them a move of 18". He would have been off the board by turn 4, which is why I tried to stop those rhinos first.

Sanctjud wrote: which is what you are saying; different playstyles. You know.... if plasma dies on your shooting phase, and it's more than 25%, you know you had to take a morale right?

I think its 25% or more, which means if there are 4 left in the squad and 1 dies, then a leadership check is required. I'm glad that we can both agree on that we have different playstyles. I have played horde orks for the past 5 years and really don't care about losing troops.

Sanctjud wrote:My issue is, where were they really deployed? I can’t make it out, they were not behind rhino’s/blocking LoS with them?

That's the problem with camera phones, the pictures can easily come out blury due to an unsteady hand. They were deployed on the flanks. In the picture posted in the reply, they are right next to by bikes. 3 were on the hill, and 1 was off. On the southern flank, they were in a identical position.

I agree with you that this mission is not evenly balanced. Attacking foot sloggers would be hard pressed to make it 60" in 5 turns. Running an average of 9.5" a turn still means they will not make it before the game is up. Ground vehicles getting the road advantage get a boon, as they can move 18". A bike army, or 'mech eldar is just silly, as they can be across by turn 3.

Sanctjud wrote:Kharn hits on 2's.

I can't think of anything else so far though.

My 7 Cents.

Could you please provide with the full name of this/these Units and the wargear, skill, rule or whatever that enables them to do so? Not because I don't believe you or anything..but because I did not know that and id like to read up on it.

ShawnSum wrote:

Sanctjud wrote:Kharn hits on 2's.

I can't think of anything else so far though.

My 7 Cents.

Could you please provide with the full name of this/these Units and the wargear, skill, rule or whatever that enables them to do so? Not because I don't believe you or anything..but because I did not know that and id like to read up on it.

Kharn is the only unit in the game that hits on 2+ because of his Gorechild. If he is with a squad in assault then all roles of 1 are done against the squad he is with. If Kharn has a squad with him all of his attacks hit a target.

Thx

It is a special rule in the Chaos Space Marines Codex, page 48. It pretty much functions exactly as hawkeye said. If he rolls 1s, those attacks are resolved on the unit he is in or allied units in the same combat. Everything else hits. He's risky, but a beast.

@labmouse42.
I didn't say 'out of range of all your guns'.
I meant you can engage him in shoot outs without subjecting your forces to his combattyness.

All you had to do was worry about the rhinos, and MM are happy to pepper them.
I didn't mean over 3-4 turns, but I had meant at least one, maybe 2.

As for losing troops........ and not caring. I think there is a little wierdness reading that line.
Shouldn't it be the other way around?
You went from lets say 120+ models to 35-45 models....I'd think it would be the other way around, but oh well.

As for winning faster, what about starengines on mech Eldar, not just the bog standard mech Eldar.

12” deploy, 36”,36” = 84” in 2 turns….speed k….wins. Heh.

My 7 Cents.