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I played a friendly game this weekend. I wanted to try something different and my friend wanted to try something different. Fun in favor of efficiency.

My list - BA - 1850
Sanguinor
Dante
Chaplain - terminator armor, combi melta
10 man terminator squad - TH and SS
10 man assault squad - 2 meltaguns, melta bombs
10 man assault squad - 2 meltaguns, melta bombs
10 man assault squad - 2 meltaguns
Baal predator

His list - IG - 1850
Command squad
Marbo
7 man Psycker squad
Vets squad - 3 meltaguns, chimera
Vets squad - 3 meltaguns, chimera
Vets squad - 3 plasmaguns, chimera
platoon comman squad - commissar, pw, sniper rifle, lascannon
infantry squad - pw, sniper rifle, lascannon
infantry squad - pw, sniper rifle, lascannon
infantry squad - pw, sniper rifle, lascannon
infantry squad - pw, sniper rifle, lascannon
special weapons squad - flamers, demo charge
vendetta
devil dog
basilisk
death strike missile launcher
leman russ demolisher

Game details:
Capture and control - pitched battle - BA win roll to choose to go first, pass to IG

Pregame assessment:
Whelp, mech guard are tough. In 20+ games against my friend, I've won once (variety of armies). Here is my last game against him. This is my first time going with an all deep strike list. With all that said, hope springs eternal and a bad day gaming is better than a good day at work.

Deployment:
His objective gets placed in the back right corner. He places his power blob on it. I place my objective in the opposite corner. Everything he has castles up in the back right corner. He puts the death strike missile launcher in the far left corner. I am 100% reserves.

IG T1
He spreads out a little.

BA T1
Marines inbound...
IG T2
He spreads out a little more.


BA T2
The plan: Deep strike behind his lines, be close enough to make his ordinance dangerous to him, blow up a bunch of his chimeras to take away his mobility, let the terminators absorb some shots, and survive for a second volley of melta versus his armor.
Actual: Dante, the Sanguinor, and 2 assault squads make it in (combat squads). No terminators. I'm very sad. Well, I start the deep strikey goodness. Dante and assault squad 1A lands (no scatter ) next to the devil dog. The Sanguinor lands (no scatter) about 8 inches from the power blob. Assault squad 1B lands (no scatter) near the plasma vets chimera. Assault squad 2A lands (2" scatter) near a melta vets chimera. Assault squad 2B lands (no scatter) near a melta vets chimera. Dante and the funky bunch explode the devil dog. The Sanguinor runs closer to the power blob. Maybe I should have run away... Squad 1B explodes the plasma vets chimera and four die in the the firey heep. Squad 2A imobilize the melta vets chimera. Squad 2B fails to hit the other melta vets chimera. All my marines feel an itch around their ankles. A few even bend over in an effort to scratch through their power armor.


IG T3
Every guardsman licks his chops. Its a target rich environment and everything is in range. A lot of shooting takes place and my notes are scetchy as to who shot what. The turn ended with the following: One meltagunner is left alive with Dante from squad 1A. The Sanguinor took out four guardsmen before falling to the powerblob (they needed 5s to hit and 5s to wound and didn't need to roll anything other than his 20 power weapon attacks ). 1B was untouched. 2A all died. 2B all died.

BA T3
The plan: Get the terminators down near his big armor, outflank with the Baal to wittle away at a target of oppertunity, get the last assault squad down to capture my objective and to threaten his armor. Finally, use what survived the first volley to clean up vets and try to wreck some more armor.
Actual: Baal makes it. Still no terminators. No to the third assault squad. What is up with those termies? I pretty worried at this point. I haven't even scratched his effectiveness and I am reeling from his counter punch. The Baal comes in. Four shots isn't enough to make a difference to that power blob, so I take out several of his psykers. Dante and the solo meltagunner split up. Dante assaults and kills the remaining plasma vets. The meltagunner explodes a melta vets chimera. Four die in the explosion. Squad 2B shoots and assaults the other melta vets chimera. They shaken and immobilize.

IG T4
Mop up operations continue. Dante survives a demolisher cannon and lascannon, but dies to three meltagun shots. Some melta shots and a lascannon kill two of the marines that assaulted the last melta vets chimera. I have four models on the board at the end of his turn.


BA T4
Plan: Get the dog gone termies on the board to contest his objective! Get my last assault squad down to capture my objective.
Actual: Terminators rarely make up their points. I have nearly 600 points invested in my terminator squad w/ chaplain. Its turn four, it is basically impossible for them to make their points back. I try one last desperate deep strike. Scatter lands me on the mishap table. The unit dies to the warp. I shake my head and move to deep strike the assault squad. They land as intended. Squad 3A lands near my objective and runs to cover. Squad 3B lands near the vendetta with special weapons team. They wreck the vendetta and prep for the counter punch. Three marines hide in a crater.


IG T5
Mop up operations continue. The demolisher and basilisk take out three of the five marines hiding near my objective. The special weapons team takes out the five marines used to wreck his vendetta. One marine survives the shots into the crater.


BA T5
The surviving marines near my objective move to capture. The one surviving meltagunner moves towards his objective, then runs, but is still too far away to contest.
<<No Pic>>

We roll for another turn. If the game ends, I manage a tie with three models on the board. If we continue, I will be wiped out to a man. He rolls a 5. Darn!

IG T6
The basilisk takes aim at the two marines on my objective. He rolls on target, scores two wounds, allowing no cover saves, resulting in two dead marines. The power blob assaults my meltagunner. I wiff with my one attack. He rolls power weapon attacks. 20 attacks, 10 hits, 6 wounds, wiped out to a man!



Post game:
Dirty rotten good for nothing terminators! Haha! I have played against daemons enough to know deep striking is a risky proposition. I felt a measure of confidence with the deep strike plan due to my decent of angels special rule. Too bad the termies could not make use of that. I took a chance and paid the price. I had too many points wrapped up in that one unit. This is not a tournament list and I am not a tournament player, so I am pleased I at least got to try something new / different. The deep strike locations were very aggressive. My opponent suggested I should have deep striked towards my side of the table, near his demolisher and basilisk. It was suggested this would have reduced the amount of incoming fire I would have taken. I am unsure of this. His army is highly mobile and might have been able to get into position to fire anyway. Maybe I'll give it a try next time... Maybe I need to go back to the old school rhino charge tactic! Thanks for reading and I welcome comments.

Against a mobile list your initial Deep Striking units should be doing everything they can to cripple this mobility, otherwise you end up being too spread out and get taken apart piecemeal as he isolates and destroys you. I would take a few Infernus Pistols to maximise your first turn of shooting and consider dropping the Chaplain and Predator.

Either way I wouldn't want to be dropping anywhere near that blob squad, way too much firepower to deal with unless you can first take out some of his other units and then get multiple units in position to assault it.

your opponent leaving his infantry in cover and spreading out with his vulnerable vehicles out into the field was loltastic. I think he was reading the anti-deepstrike manual upside down

His ability to get you spread out this game definitely hurt, though. Your alpha strike needed to hit him and hit him hard, and when it didn't you were just picked apart.

Congrats to the guard player though. BA is generally a pretty tough matchup.

I'm courius about deathstrike missle. I've never seen one in batle report. So, did it shoot? Did it kill anyone?

I run a similar list with my BA, but instead of termies and the like I like to take the Sanguinary Priests to give my squads the Fnp and furious charge so they can withstand the initial volleys and strike before other Meq, that and i take around 50 assault marines as my core. Nice battle rep for Sanguinius!

I'm courius about deathstrike missle. I've never seen one in batle report. So, did it shoot? Did it kill anyone?

The death strike missile fired on IG turn 5, but failed to hit or kill anyone. I find it difficult to judge the effectiveness of the unit based on this game. He only had one real target to shoot at that late in the game and it was a squad of a few marines. During a 2500 point match, it may be way more effective because of tight deployment, model counts, etc. Finally, I am far from an expert on anything, but for what its worth, the unit seems... inefficient. My opponent mentioned he would rarely field it. He just thought it looked cool and unfortunately, I'm such a weak opponent, he can afford to try new things and field models because they look cool. Casual game

I run a similar list with my BA, but instead of termies and the like I like to take the Sanguinary Priests to give my squads the Fnp and furious charge so they can withstand the initial volleys and strike before other Meq, that and i take around 50 assault marines as my core. Nice battle rep for Sanguinius!

I normally do something similar. I did built this list with the meta game in mind. Basically, he has so many meltas, plasmas, and lascannons, I thought the FNP would be inefficient. Also, My plan was to deep strike combat squads when I made the list. It seemed inefficient to bubble five regular marines. Of coarse, I can think of the counter argument right away, heavy bolters, multilasers, and flashlights for point one and deep strike into a more tactical position for point two... Thanks for the comment and I hope to represent Sanguinious better next time.

For me, 100% reserves without a reserve buffer like tigurious or an astropath ( I think) is insane. It lets the enemy take you piecemeal. Perhaps drop pods would have helped you? Although you didnt have any units that could have podded...

Taking a single drop pod means that it can come down safely first turn and do some damage, course its a suicide squad, so you better hope it makes its points back.

Jaon wrote:For me, 100% reserves without a reserve buffer like tigurious or an astropath ( I think) is insane.

Descent of angels is better than the astropath, and almost as good as Tigur. Only problem is it doesn't benefit his outflanking Baal pred, or his DS Terminators

opinion wise though, I really like dropping the packs and taking a -35 pt razorback or rhino for those marines

Sweet Batrep Guys and keep'em comin