Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I'm enjoying these write-ups. Your army looks very sleek cruising across the battle field.

Looking forward to seeing how the last three games panned out for you.

The patrol was making good time. The enemy had failed to show itself and Captain Cruz-Martin was on the verge of ordering his troops back to base when a burst of pain and light exploded behind his eyes. Moments later the voice of Librarian Ando filled his head.

'They come! Scions of madness, the Emperor weeps! It is not mere traitors who despoil this world but daemons as well!'

Captain Cruz-Martin didn't hesitate though he felt blood trickling from his nose from the force of Ando's warning. His heart felt no fear at this ancient enemy, he was well versed in the tactics laid out in the Codex Astartes for facing denizens of the warp.

"Attack formation Viridian seven!" he broadcast across the voxnet. The bikes peeled off into defensive formation and even the Brother-Sergeant Valez led his terminators down the assault ramp of the Impending Violence to look for the breech in reality that would herald the gibbering madness of the warp-spawn as they burst into real space.

After a hard fought draw I was looking forward to game 3. Two great games against fun opponents - would my luck hold for number 3?

Indeed it would! I am not going to lie, when I saw I was facing daemons I let out a bit of a sigh of relief. Sure, it was a pretty nasty fatecrusher build generaled by Italiaplaya - and if you are following dakka at all you know he has had a pretty mean streak with daemons, but I know daemons pretty well. I played the hell out of them (see my sig for my tactica and a bunch of battle reports). Most importantly I know how to beat them and knew my list had the tools to do it.

We were playing a 5 objective spearhead mission which helped me even more but I know that daemons can be absolutely brutal if they get hot on dice no matter what you try and do against them, so I was taking no chances.

Unfortunately since it was game 3 and I was mostly brain dead I forgot to take many pictures. Sorry.

Italiaplaya's Daemonic Incursion (from memory again because I keep doing these at work)

Fateweaver
Bloodthirster (unholy might)
2x6 fully upgraded bloodcrusher units
6 fiends (unholy might)
15(?)seekers of slaanesh
3x7(6?) plaguebearers
daemon prince (mark of tzeentch, bolt, gaze)

My deployment I put everything but the librarian on the table and spread out as much as possible to deny deep strike locations. The termies were in easy range to load back up in the land raider but created a big footprint.



For my movement I pushed out pretty aggressively basically giving him his choice of 3 corners to drop into safely. He got a 5 for his preferred wave and dropped in fateweaver who drifted 7" back. He put a unit of bloodcrushers in front of him and they ran for a good spread but were still in range of fateweaver. The fiends and a unit of plaguebearers also were within range. Oh yeah and the bloodthirster. All of his drops were safe and pretty much on target and fateweaver hit the landraider but failed to pen it with a bolt of tzeentch then it was my turn again.

Continuing to follow the codex prescribed manner of dealing with daemons everything fell back into firing positions, the termies loaded back up in the land raider. I still maintained a pretty decent spacing in my backfield just to prevent any shenanigans. The land raider backed up and the librarian popped his null zone. Only the bloodcrushers were in range of nullzone so I concentrated most of my shooting there, killing one or two and leaving all the rest with only a single wound and the rest of my army safely out of range of everything.

All I can assume is that my librarian's null zone was so powerful that it actually reinforced reality as Italiaplaya went on to fail every one of his reserve rolls which all but sealed the game.

Everything advanced as far as they could, nothing was in assault range though. I think fateweaver might have killed a bike and failed to hurt the land raider again.

At this point I advanced everything into short range and the termies piled out. The librarian got off null zone again and the cleansing began. First priority, of course, was fateweaver. To his credit he never failed his leadership check but the full firepower of a land raider crusader in short range and rerolling successful saves proved to be more than he could handle. The plasma bikes accounted for the wounded bloodcrushers and I may have put a wound on the bloodthirster as well. The thunderhammer termies charged the bloodthirster and lost one of their number (he only hit twice) and banished the beast. Shooting also accounted for some of the fiends.




This is what it looked like after turn 2 (the model on the hill wasn't actually on the hill - he was about to be deployed on turn 3).

Unfortunately, his dice never really got much better and I had ripped the heart out of his army. Fateweaver, the bloodthirsters, and a unit of bloodcrushers were all dead. Full marks to Italiaplaya - he didn't give up here, his fiends charged a bike unit and only got a couple of rends and my guys held. The thunderhammer termies then moved in and finished them off and then moved on to a unit of plaguebearers by the end of the game.

Following turn 2 it was really just the clinical dismantling of his army, even when I failed null zone one time it was too little too late.

Against null zone and a fast army a daemon player really needs to get hot on the dice and instead italiaplaya's dice decided to call it a day early. It was way too much for him to overcome. I think I lost something like 6 or 8 bikes from a couple of units and a terminator by the end of the game.



I love daemons and it hurt me to treat them so badly on the field. Stupid null zone is the reason I stopped playing them.

So, 1-1-1 on day 1 vs, a really brutal field. I felt good with how my army performed and didn't make too many boneheaded mistakes after game 1 showed me I really needed to bring my A game. Hopefully day 2 would be just as awesome and fun.

Brothers Mendel and Vairoso were laid out next to their bikes. Vairoso's body was already blackened and in the later stages of decay. Most tragically, his gene-seed had been hopelessly tainted by the virulent diseases which overwhelmed his enhanced immune system. Captain Cruz-Martin looked over at where Brother-Sergeant Valez was removing the gene-seed of Dasz. The terminator had been cleaved in two. The other terminators were collecting their brother's war gear with solemn reverence.

The cost was high, especially in these dark days when a single loss could take more than a century to replace but Cruz-Martin knew that they had been fortunate. Without the librarian's warning the ambush could have been far costlier.

The captain gave thanks to his primarch, Rogal Dorn, for adopting the wisdom of the codex Astartes and blessed the divine inspiration which led Roboute Guilliman to pen such a tome. The wisdom of the primarchs lived on and through the Crimson Fists so did their dreams.

@nickthewise - thanks, they are really fun to play. I am working on game 4 now, hope to get it up before I leave for the day.

You can't retire the bikes yet, they still need to take their chances against Abaddon!

Reading all these reports made me realize I can barely remember what happened in half my games.

Get game 4 up stat.

Captain Cruz-Martin stood on a ridge overlooking a valley. The valley looked peaceful enough for the moment, but certainly that peace would soon be yet another casualty in the endless wars plaguing the galaxy.

He had spent so much time in the saddle of his bike lately that standing on his legs felt awkward - almost unnatural and he was getting impatient to return to it. And he didn't like waiting.

As if cued by that thought there was a bright flash and the sound of air being displaced. Cruz-Martin turned to this newcomer who towered a full meter above the Captain.

"Lord Belial, we are honored that you will be joining us personally."

"We have been traveling too long. I feel that the exercise will be good for my men."

"When I became aware that we would be fighting alongside you on Shadow Watch I had hoped that we could learn from you. It is no exaggeration to say that Dark Angels are the masters of war when it comes to combined action of terminators and the faster elements. My men are eager to share what they have learned as well. We may even surprise you." He added with a grin.

"I doubt it." Belial said, and with a word, vanished as abruptly as he had arrived.

Ah, nothing like a tourney starting bright and early at noon on a Sunday. As I said, I was feeling pretty good about how things had gone so far. I was 1-1-1 and all three games had been a blast. The table assignments are given and who am I facing? None other than Manimal. Now, I am not sure how it happens, but I think we have played each other in the last 3 tourneys we were both at and had actually carpooled together. I think I had the advantage on him coming into this game 2-1 so he was looking to settle the score.

With the shiny new FAQ in hand Manimal had decided to take the Dark Angels out of stasis and give them a shot. His list looked something like this:



Belial (thunderhammer/stormshield)
Sammael (speeder of doom)

4x5 terminators (thunderhammer/stormshield, 1 cyclone)
1 of the termie squads also had a banner and apothecary
2x3 bikes with 2 meltas
2 mm attack bikes
3 dakka predators

The mission was a straight up pitched battle kill points. I deployed my scouts in the cover of a ruin in my deployment zone with the librarian and thunderhammer termies in the landraider right next to them. I kept everything else in reserves. Manimal deployed everything but the bikes.

The Game
As the targets that manimal had were pretty limited he moved the speeder forward and fired the assault cannon at the land raider as well as many of the missiles as the terminators advanced. The scouts went to ground and lost only one guy. They are good at keeping their heads down. The landraider, however, took a single result which immobilized it. My shooting phase didn't do anything to Sammael and the scouts started to peek their heads up over the massive blocks around them...



...before ducking straight back down again. My inexperience with that unit was really showing all tourney. I lost another scout to the shooting. His bikes showed up and just came on behind the terminators (showing his inexperience with bikes, they didn't even turboboost to their locations).

My reserves were not great. I got two units of bikes both of which turboboosted to no LOS locations. My terminators bided their time in the safety of the land raider.



and



One of manimal's attack bikes moved out to take a shot at the land raider to no effect other than to get into range of my terminators. He continued to shoot my scouts killing all but one who failed his leadership test and fell back.

All three speeders showed up and quickly went to work picking up a kill point for one of the attack bikes and killing off 2 of one of the bike units and staying out of LOS of the dakka preds. Also more bikes arrived.




It was now time to act, I was up on kill points and it looked like I trade one for one pretty easily for the rest of the game. My terminators piled out and set up a multicharge on a unit of his terminators and the attack bike. The scout rallied and, for the second time in the tourney found himself in a mighty land raider (he also ended up in one in the daemons game when the second unit of bloodcrushers came looking for them).

Predictably, I smashed the attack bike and killed a terminator but in return I didn't lose any. Thus began a really hot stretch of armor and invulnerable saves - I think Maninal counted 27 before I failed my first one (the majority of them were normal armor saves from the three dakka predators and a fist full of missiles).

My own bikes sped forward to destroy a predator and "trade" kill points as Belials squad smashed them. Their sacrifice did keep the terminators back out of mine for another turn though.

The speeders ended up taking out both of the other bike units and eventually a predator as well while only one of them ended up immobilized. If you take typhoons, remember, 48" range is your very good friend as is terrain.

A unit of the deathwing termies charged my terminators and I lost only 1 and in return killed another couple as my captain rode in in support. Belial and his squad charged in as well a turn later and I held to them and matched my Captain up against Belial but the Captain was smashed to the ground along with one of the remaining terminators. I failed my leadership check and as terminators can never sweeping advance I fell back and would spend the rest of the game falling back.



At this point the Dark Angels had murder in their eyes but they were unable to get through the land raider's armor. My bikes meanwhile destroyed his supporting predators and one of the termie units. I didn't bother with Sammael - give me armor 11 over 14 any day. At the end it was a clear win for the Crimson Fists.

Captain Cruz-Martin watched as three more of the Deathwing termintors froze as their internal sensors registered the "damage" from the depowered thunder hammers.

Cruz-Martin was pleased with how the battle had gone thus far. The Dark Angels had obviously underestimated his forces skills - Brother-Sergeant Valez was recently returned from the Deathwatch and led his terminators with as much skill as the Deathwing - possibly even a bit more. His bikes had dealt with the smaller more agile units of the Dark Angels.

He was smashed from the saddle into the soft dewy ground of the valley with more force than he expected. He noticed that Belial was furious at the shame his Dark Angels were being dealt. Valez was knocked back as well - the Dark Angels were powering up their thunderhammers. Both veterans had been fortunate that the thunderhammers were only cycling up and so were at less than half power.

The situation was quickly getting out of hand. He had heard evil rumors of the Dark Angels pride causing them to leave battlefields in the middle of a war because of something said by one of a Warmaster's staff but to see the ugliness of their offended pride still took him aback.

He broke into the shared voxnet. "This is only an exercise! Remember, we are brothers in arms! This is only an exercise!"

The only response from the Dark Angels was a renewed assault on the "Impending Violence". He knew the ancient land raider would be proof against all save a lucky blow but that his bikes and speeders would not fare so well.

He spoke a word into the private Crimson Fists voxnet that would never have been spoken by so headstrong a chapter as the Dark Angels and did so without bitterness. A true student of the codex Astartes knows there is only shame in an avoidable death.

"Fall back."


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Was that fast enough for ya lambadomy? PM me, maybe we can set up a game after work over at Dragon's Den sometime.

Nice ones! Yeah, that Daemons game was brutal. Liked the Deathwing report quite a bit. Good fluff, too!

Yes, it was fast enough where I got to read it at work. I was going through battle report withdrawal. What would happen to Captain Cruz-Martin next?! You got lucky and got to play my favorite opponent, Manimal (Don't worry, you're my second favorite). Funny how winning or losing had almost no effect on the quality of the opponents and lists you would end up having to face at this tournament. Kind of stinks for the people who were say 1-2 and were still having to show up Sunday to face some more brutal lists.

I agree, that really was the most competitive tournament I have ever been to. There were no easy games to be had. I like that personally!

Those kind of events are awesome and humbling.

Last year so we could attend the Boston Brawl I scrounged around to find a local store willing to run an Ard Boyz prelim on Friday. Elite Hobbies in Dover, NH was obliging enough to make it happen (and ran a great event; totally recommended; especially with that good pub literally next door). The field wound up being three locals and seven pipe-hitting GT vets. 30% of the field was ETC players. I wound up in 4th because I was leading on points going into round 2 and close going into round 3, and had to play Alex Fennell and Matt Cassidy back to back, both running horde IG. *shudder* I don't anticipate another tournament that rough for quite a while.

Awesome Batreps. I love the fluff for each game. Good job.

Thanks for the kind words. There probably wont be an update today because I want to go home early. I might work on it over the weekend, but honestly, most of my batreps get written at work, so look for it on monday ;-)

Awesome reports. I've played against Dave a couple of times, but I've only played against that army once. We had a casual game a while back and I was testing a TWC build at 2,000 points.

I think the dice were more a factor than anything in that game. Every damage roll I made caused an explosion, and Dave's Chaos Lord fell off his bike moving through terrain, then got beat in combat by Long Fangs.

Even still he managed to hold his objective and I could not force his last unit of Plague Marines away from it so the game ended in a draw. Dave is a very strong player and even if he cannot win, he can usually avoid a loss.

Sounds like an interesting tournament.....where did it take place?

The Planetary Defense Forces of Sheperd's Rest were on edge. The citizens had begun their rioting against the unjust tithes being demanded by the bureaucrats of a world that most of them even doubted existing in the name of an Emperor who had, by all accounts, died 10,000 years ago. Anyone with a brain could see the injustice.

Still, the PDF had taken an oath and under the orders of the governor had turned their weapons toward the masses. The problem, to Lieutenant Markov's mind was that most of the people in his command had friends and family out there in the mob. Even worse, Markov himself felt the same. His world had been churning weapons and vehicles of war for the last thousand years at a prodigious rate. Surely if they simply stopped supplying the Imperium with those arms they would have to parlay.

It was what his Colonel had suggested would happen 6 months ago and it had undoubtedly saved both Markov's conscience and the lives of many innocents, though the governor himself as well as most of his cabinet members were killed due to a tragic miscommunication. There was some concern that it would complicate the talks when they happened, but Markov was just a soldier and such concerns were beyond him. He simply followed orders such as he was doing now, when he had mustered his forces near the landing fields where a certain Captain Cruz-Martin would be negotiating on behalf of the Imperium.

Game 5! Woohoo, I was ecstatic that no matter the outcome, my bikes wouldn't have a losing record which made the event a success in my eyes. Even better, I found that I would be matched up against Shep and his mech IG. We have met a few times in recent tourneys and I have had the better of him in the last 3. In fact, if I could beat him here, I would have a better record than he at the tourney.

I would be going for the throat and the win - as it was, I was already playing with house money if you will.

However, Shep had made one pretty big change to his list that I basically overlooked and would come back to haunt me...

Shep's list:

Company Command squad officer of the fleet 4x meltaguns, chimera with heavy flamer

Psyker battle squad (6 total psykers), chimera with heavy flamer
Psyker battle squad (6 total psykers), chimera with heavy flamer

veterans 3x meltaguns 1x autocannon, chimera with heavy flamer
veterans 3x meltaguns 1x autocannon, chimera with heavy flamer
veterans 3x meltaguns 1x autocannon, chimera with heavy flamer
veterans 3x plasmaguns 1x lascannon, chimera with heavy flamer

vendetta with heavy bolters
vendetta with heavy bolters
vendetta with heavy bolters

2x hydras 1x heavy flamer
2x hydras 1x heavy flamer
2x hydras 1x heavy flamer

When facing this kind of list you really have to prioritize your targets. I knew from experience that the Vendettas had to die first and foremost. They are just too deadly and too long range for my bikes to ignore. After that, I would concentrate on the troops and take away his ability to win by depriving him of troops. Then I would mop up the game and pack up early and await the adoration of the masses for my tactical genius.

The last mission of the tourney was a 5 objective dawn of war. I chose to walk everything on turn 1 except for my scouts - they are far too fragile and I had hoped they would hide out til turn 4 and come on when the shooting was greatly diminished and they could waltz over and claim an objective.

I turboboosted 3 of my bike units and took a shot at the vendetta with a bike squad and a speeder but failed my night fighting roll miserably.



In return that unit got blasted off the table and another squad fell back thanks to some psyker chicanery. That unit fell back 12" and with my newly faq granted 3" move actually ended up gaining ground in the following turn.

I discovered pretty early that my land raider would just flat out be impervious to anything Shep could throw at it. The terminators with the librarian disembarked and tried a multicharge on one of the PBS squads chimera. They destroyed it and immobilized another chimera. I think that is the chimera that actually ended up with a stack of 5 tokens on it at one point (immobilized, 2 weapons destroyed, shaken and finally wrecked but not exploded). The terminators went on a multi unit rampage for a turn or two until they got hit with an AP1 soulstorm and 5 million other lesser things (it may have only been 4 million, but I think Shep threw his arm out rolling dice shooting at them.)

My scouts showed up and for the third time over the weekend they ended up in the land raider. The rest of my bikes were just crushed with overwhelming firepower. I managed to hood pretty much everything except for that first turn when they were out of range and the critical terminators.

Still, I had a chance to draw if the game had ended on turn 5. My scouts in the land raider had one objective, he was claiming 1 and there was 1 still contested. Sadly for me, the game did not end. Shep was able to contest my objective and wipe out the last bike that was contesting his thus dashing my hopes for cheering adoration.



It was a super tight game, and a whole lot of fun unfortunately, I was too engaged to take many pics. That is usually a judge for me how tight the game is.

Overall, my two losses were to Dave_Fay(1st place) and Shep(second place) so apparently the road to victory went straight over my chest. I am very happy with how I played and how my army performed. Despite having a round 1 loss I still managed to claw my way back up to play 2nd place for the last game. I was also fortunate enough to play against the Best Painted winner.

A great weekend against extremely tough lists commanded by competent generals. I really could not ask for a more satisfying tourney (other than to have won the damn thing, obviously).

The surviving Crimson Fists gathered at the primary rally point. The initial plan of cutting off the head of the snake by assassinating the traitor general was stymied. They should have expected such, after all, Sheperd's Rest was a munitorum world whose wares were highly valued by Warmasters throughout the entire segmentum.

Captain Cruz-Martin contacted the Strike Cruiser in orbit above.

"Contact Warmaster Hague and tell him to prepare for heavy resistance with witch support."

The war for Sheperd's Rest was just beginning in earnest.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Aldarionn - it took place at Meltdown comics in Hollywood. They have an awesome back room area where they do art openings and stuff. I was skeptical when I heard about the location, but it really blew me away.

Mannahnin wrote:Those kind of events are awesome and humbling.

Last year so we could attend the Boston Brawl I scrounged around to find a local store willing to run an Ard Boyz prelim on Friday. Elite Hobbies in Dover, NH was obliging enough to make it happen (and ran a great event; totally recommended; especially with that good pub literally next door). The field wound up being three locals and seven pipe-hitting GT vets. 30% of the field was ETC players. I wound up in 4th because I was leading on points going into round 2 and close going into round 3, and had to play Alex Fennell and Matt Cassidy back to back, both running horde IG. *shudder* I don't anticipate another tournament that rough for quite a while.

That does sound like a tough field!

Great battle report, again. Looking forward to playing against you guys again.

Great reports, thanks for sharing, again!

Belial (thunderhammer/stormshield)
Sammael (speeder of doom)

4x5 terminators (thunderhammer/stormshield, 1 cyclone)
1 of the termie squads also had a banner and apothecary
2x3 bikes with 2 meltas
2 mm attack bikes
3 dakka predator


I think the MM attack bikes must have been part of the bike squads since you cant take individual attack bikes in the DA codex...

PS ... Awesome reports!!

thanks. Are you sure? I thought that with the DA codex they had to be solo or some wackiness. It certainly would have been better for him had they been a part of the squad like mine.

Holy~Heretic wrote:Belial (thunderhammer/stormshield)
Sammael (speeder of doom)

4x5 terminators (thunderhammer/stormshield, 1 cyclone)
1 of the termie squads also had a banner and apothecary
2x3 bikes with 2 meltas
2 mm attack bikes
3 dakka predator


I think the MM attack bikes must have been part of the bike squads since you cant take individual attack bikes in the DA codex...

PS ... Awesome reports!!

You buy the attack bike with the ravenwing bike squadron. however they become independent models on the field of play. Goes for the landspeeder as well.

Great report. Not sure if I missed it, but you mentioned int he last report you overlooked some major changes in Shep's list. What were they? I don't know his lists that well but i'm guessing it's either an extra psyker battle squad or the fact that his army couldn't really stop your LR (no manticores).

Sorry, you are right, I didn't mention it. The major changes were the addition of 2 psyker battle squads and the extra unit of hydras and units of veterans with 3 meltas and a heavy weapon in each squad rather than anemic troops with a BS3 heavy weapon and no specials.

PBSes have been out of favor with him for a while - I was playing daemons and was fearless and then there was also some large ork nobs units and fearless just frustrated him no end. Now that there are fewer fearless armies out there (space wolves) he has brought them back into the list.

In short, he was able to cause 2 wounds pretty easily despite my toughness and armor (or turboboosting) without relying on the vendettas as he previously did and then having 2 PBSes with a longer range than the hood was really a pain.

Yeah, that was the change....

-3 manticores
+6 hydras

-1 CCS
+1 PBS

Less melta, less strength 10 ordnance, more anti-infantry and more gimmicks that wreck infantry.

As a whole the gambit worked. I successfully predicted that infantry and lighter vehicles would be what I faced.

Had their been predator spam, dreadnought spam, or dual land raiders in my path, i'd have been playing at a big disadvantage.


Also, I'm jumping in here to add something. I'm looking at these pictures, and I have to just man up and say that the terrain on this board was not positioned for a fair game. Its hard to see, but that hill in the middle is just too low, and there wasn't anything on his side of the table to hide those speeders.

Its part of why he has been down on speeders lately, they've been hard to hide.

While playing the game I want to win, and so all terrain seems like its 100 feet tall when I'm running IG, but now with some detachment, I can see that had Som had a more fair spacing of terrain, its likely he would be 4-0 versus me in tourneys and not 3-1.

Yeah the terrain was a bit rough on me for that game but really, I still had a chance to win the game and just couldn't quite. I think if there had been adequate terrain OR only one PBS I could have pulled out a win. The combination of the two were a bit brutal.

I took some calculated risks that pay off 50% of the time, just not in this game ;-)