Hi there! I love reading battle reports on here, so I thought I´d take the opportunity to post one myself since I got to play
40K again after quite a while last sunday. This turned out a bit longer then expected, but nonetheless, here we go:
I got together with a few friends to play a 2 vs. 2 match. We´re all very casual players, having played all of 2 games during the last year. We played 1000 points each, with teams consisting of Eldar and Necrons (the Necron player didn´t manage to finish his models in time, so he opted for Blood Angels instead) vs. Sisters of Battle and Chaos Space Marines (me).
Sisters had:
Saint Celestine
Uriah Jacobus + Battle Conclave (5
DCA, 3 Crusaders, Rhino)
Sisters of His Holy Tears (10 Sisters, Flamer, H Flamer, Rhino)
Sisters of His Glorious Suffering (10 Sisters, Flamer, H Flamer, Rhino)
2 Excorcists
Chaos had:
2 Demon Princes (Wings)
Brotherhood of Hatred (7 Berzerkers, P Fist, Rhino)
Brotherhood of Slaughter (7 Berzerkers, P Weapon, Meltabombs, Rhino)
2 Defilers (2 Close Combat Arms instead of H Flamer and Autocannon)
Eldar had:
Avatar (King Snurre is subbing in for him as the player forgot to bring the model/wasn´t told to bring it)
Farseer (Fortune, Runes of Warding, Singing Spear – I think that´s what it´s called anyway)
10 Wraithguard + Warlock (Conceal, Singing Spear) → Farseer goes here
10 (?) Dire Avengers (Exarch w/ dual-wielded Catapults)
2 Wraithlords (Shuriken Cannon + Scatter Laser)
Blood Angels had:
Dante
Sanguinary Priest (Jump Pack, P Weapon)
AM 1: 7 Assault Marines (1 Melta, 1 P Fist)
AM 2: 5 Assault Marines (2 Meltas, P Fist); combat squaded
AM 3: 5 Assault Marines combat squaded →
SP goes here
Sanguinary Guard (some sort of banner that gives them...an each attack or something?; also 1 P
Fist, I think)
We rolled for deployment/scenario and got Spearhead + Capture and Control;
EL/
BA win and choose to go first, taking a quarter with a reasonable amount of cover, placing their objective into a wood deep inside their deployment zone. We place our objective marker as far forward as we don´t have to split our forces to badly.
Eldar place the
DA to our far left, the Wraithguard into the woods with their objective, with the
WL´s and the Avatar in front of it.
BA go into reserves.
We deploy as far forward as we can using Exorcists (since the Eldar can´t touch their front armor at range) to cover our other vehicles as well as we can, trying to hug cover where possible. There´s a huge minefield (Dangerous Terrain) smack in the middle of our quarter, but we roll for it and it turns out to contain anti-personnel mines, so it´s safe for our tanks.
From left to right we deploy: Saint Celestine, Daemon Prince (
DP 1), Brotherhood of Hatred (Z 1) in Rhino behind Sisters of His Holy Tears (S 1) in Rhino, Uriah-bomb in Rhino behind 2 Excorcists, 2 Defilers and
DP 2 behind Sisters of His Glorious Suffering (S 2) in Rhino and Brotherhood of Slaughter (Z 2) in Rhino.
The scrap-built Defiler in my hand will go right behind the Rhino I´m placing, along with the Soulgrinder (= Defiler) already on the board.
We try to seize initiative, fail and start the game!
EL/BA turn 1:
The Eldar remain mainly static. In their shooting phase, a Wraithlord immobilizes the Rhino S1. Also, Dante chooses Celestine as the target of his curse.
SoB/CSM turn 1:
Left Flank: DP1 and Celestine approach to threaten the Dire Avengers. Rhino Z1 approaches through the ruins with our objective and pops smoke, since I expect the
BA to arrive on turn 2 (he gets a re-roll to see if they arrive, from Dante I think?)
Middle: Rhino S2 goes straight up the middle of the corridor formed by the two pieces of terrain, at the end of which awaits the Avatar. *Gulp* He pops smoke too.
The Excorcists follow behind, as do the Defilers, angling for shots at the Wraithguard. Uriah´s Rhino Covers their backs from possible
BA deepstrikers and pops smoke.
Right Flank: Rhino Z2 and DP2 race towards the Eldars left flank, Rhino Z2 pops smoke.
On to shooting:
First of all, let me tell you that the whole time, the
SoB´s players dice where on fire, while every one else rolled pretty badly at times.
This turn, his Excorcists fire at the Avatar, managing to knock him down to a single hitpoint. Yay! (The Avatar scares me; The Avatar with one
HP remaining, somehwat less so.)
The Defilers fire at the Wraithguard, one shot goes wide, the other hits seven, killing only one of them.
EL/BA turn 2:
Backfield: The
BA arrive, but the Sanguinary Priest and his squad apparently want to enjoy some alonetime back on the Thunderhawk (Dante gives them a re-roll, I think, but to no avail; Dante is pretty miffed at his Priest for ruining his strategy...but that´s the risks of deepstriking...)
Dante and the Sanguinary Guard arrive right behind the Defiler who´s further back (they don´t scatter...I´m going to say because of Dante, again? - man that guy has a lot of special rules...), with his other two units landing pretty much where he wants them to as well. They drop a Defiler, shoot the gun off Uriah´s Rhino, and destroy Rhino Z1, killing two ´Zerkers in the process.
Oh no, the Descent of Angels!
Right flank: The Eldar don´t want to be left out of the fun, and join in on the turkey-shoot: Rhino Z2 goes up in flames as well thanks to a Wraithlord after the other one shook it, though no ´Zerkers get harmed this time around.
Middle: The Avatar shoots the Stormbolter off Rhino S2.
Sadly, my Rhino´s seem to explode on the slightest touch today...
SoB/CSM turn 2:
Right flank: The Rhino-less Z2 run into the ruins in the middle of the field, with DP2 jumping in front of them recklessly as a big, scary meat-shield.
Middle: Rhino S2 continues it´s approach, bravely driving around the Avatar. The Exorcists follow, with the Defiler positioning towards the middle behind them.
Left Flank: Celestine goes to harass the Dire Avengers while DP1 meets up with the girls from S2.
Backfield: The rest of Z1 gets out of their Rhino´s Wreck, looking somehwat miffed. S1 steps out of their ride to grill themselves some Angel-wings (AM2). Their Rhino gets repaired in the meantime! Uriah and crew get out to meet and greet Dante and Friends while their Rhino tank-shocks AM1 right in front of Z1, impaling itself on hill while doing so, where it would remain for the rest of the game.
Here comes the pain!
Shooting: Ouch, is all I can say. All seven Marines of AM2 go down to Flamer, Heavy Flamer and Bolter-fire. Even their Rhino manages to shoot a Marine from AM1.
An Excorcist takes down the Avatar, while the other puts two wounds on a Wraithlord. The Defiler kills another two Wraithguards. Celestine is just in range to flame two Dire Avengers, and down they go.
Close Combat: Uriah and his girls had to charge through a tiny bit of terrain (bad positioning on our part), so strike last. Dante kills two Crusaders, Uriah does nothing, the Guard roll pretty badly though and only manage to take down a single assassin; the Death Cultists´ revenge is utterly devoid of mercy: all Guards go down, but it´s only in the middle of rolling all those dice that we remember to maybe direct some dice towards Dante. He gets wounded 4 times, but saves three, passes leadership, then Hit-and-Runs away from them.
Z1 whipes out the remains of AM1, who take one ´Zerker with them.
EL/BA turn 3:
BA: Things are looking grim for the
BA, who just lost most of their army on the last turn. The Priest and his squad decide to show up at this time, landing exactly in front of Z1, using their red power armor for target practice (he forgot that they couldn´t charge on the turn they arrive and didn´t want to take the
DS back).
Dante shoots a Sister from S1, then whipes them out in close combat and consolidates towards our objective marker.
Eldar: He takes the bait and throws 5 or 6 Wraithguard shots, two Singing Spears and one Wraithlord at DP2, only managing to knock him down to 1
HP. The other Wraithlord shoots at my other DP1, wounding him thrice, and the Dire Avengers finish him off. Ah, well, he´s done his job as a meat shield.
SoB/CSM turn 3:
Left flank: Celestine flames all Dire Avengers except for the Exarch to death, then beats him up in Close Combat and consolidates towards the Wraithguard.
Middle: S2 disembark and shoot at the Wraithguard, killing nothing. The Berzerkers move towards the Wraitguard, shoot at them, and kill nothing. Then they charge, just barely making it (movement rolls went really well for me this game, most other rolls...not so much) and kill...one Wraithguard, I think? The Daemon Prince joins in on the fun, and whiffs completely. The Wraithguard lose the combat, but are fearless.
The Excorcists come through for us again, dropping one Wraithlord and wounding the other.
Backfield:
Looking over Dante´s stats, I see that he´s not exactly equipped to handle walkers, so I charge him with my Defiler...so, of course Dante hits, rolls a six to glance, then a six for the immobilize...grrmbl. I lose an attack, will be attacked in the rear from now on, and the little hooligan can just Hit-and-Run away from me. In the end it doesn´t matter though, because I still manage to wound him twice, he doesn´t save and is down and out!
Uriah gets in the freshly repaired Rhino of S1 and repositions towards the middle of the field.
Z1, in the meantime, clash into
AM 3...both squads heroically manage to inflict exactly zero casualties.
EL/BA turn 5:
BA: The hated Priest comes crawling back towards our objective, making sure to stay out of sight of our Excorcists and Defiler.
Eldar: Again, the combat drags on. I think we again both manage to kill nothing this turn.
SoB/CSM turn 5:
Backfield: The Excorcists try to get into position to shoot at the hated Priest. Uriah gets ready to charge him. The ´Zerkers scavenge the field for some roasted meat to eat while waiting for the Priest´s return.
Middle: Thankfully, Celestine joins the fight against the wicked Xenos. She turns the tide, and all Eldar except for the Farseer are killed.
The Saint shows us how it´s done!
S2 takes the objective, casually rolling through the woods in their Rhino.
We roll, and the game goes on one more turn. We all agree that it´s rather unlikely for the Eldar/Blood Angels alliance to win by a very high margin at this point...
EL/BA turn 6:
BA: The Priest runs toward our objective.
Eldar: The farseer goes down, at last! And to the rank-and-file Berzerkers, too!
The last stand of the Farseer.
SoB/
CSM turn 6:
The Exorcists fire at the Priest. He goes to ground, and lives. The Berzerkers shoot at the Priest. He lives. Out of his Rhino steps ´ol „Uncle Shotgun“, aims his Redeemer at the hated Priests´ head, and fires. No skull for the skull throne remains.
Win for
SoB/
CSM!
Post-battle strategic assessment:
I think it was a mistake for the
BA to Deepstrike. I know the intention was to go for our objective while the Eldar held their own, but feeding us their army piece by piece (with the essential Priest arriving after the damage had already be done, too) just didn´t work, especially since our untouched troops where just waiting for the
BA to arrive and, somewhat predictably, whiped them out pretty fast.
I think the Eldar where deployed to randomly too, with not enough focus. They needed to form a solid block around their objective for their strategy to work, but again, we could just pick them apart at our leisure because they didn´t back each other up.
Of course the
SoB´s player´s awesome dice had a lot to do with our victory, but I honestly don´t think it was just that. We could have done quite a few things better tactically (like deploying the guy with the
PF opposite the Wraithlords; or attacking the fricking Farseer instead of his unit; or aiming the Battlecannons at the Wraithlords as well as the Wraithguard; or checking out if we have to charge through difficult terrain, which could be avoided by simple positioning; or, or, or...) but overall I think both our strategy and our armies where pretty solid.
Eldar MVP: The Wraithlords. They took out several Rhino´s, two Daemon Princes and Celestine. If he had continued shooting our Rhino´s instead of going for the Daemon Princes, we would have had more trouble capturing their objective.
Blood Angels MVP: Dante. Sooo annoying: better reserve rolls and precise landing when Deep Striking, nerfed Celestine, shot up the Defiler, hit-and-runned out of combat with Uriah, took out a Sisters squad single-handedly, and almost survived his encounter with the Defiler.
Sisters of Battle MVP: The Exorcists To be honest, they where all pretty wizard and there isn´t a single unit here that a convincing case couldn´t be made for, but the Excorcists took out the Avatar and two Wraithlords single-handedly, which could have pretty much destroyed the rest of our army in close combat.
Chaos Space Marines MVP: The Brotherhood of Hatred (Z2) showed the other wusses in my army what a true fanatic can do! Five men stepped out of that destroyed Rhino, and in the end two legends remained on the battlefield! They ended up smashing no less then two Blood Angel Assault Squads, and secured our objective in the end. The remaining Defiler is a close second, killing several of the annoying Wraithguard, killing a runaway Assault Marine who could have still taken hold of our objective and, most important of all, squishing the annoying Dante!
Crowning moment of Awesome: Uriah actually killing the Sanguinary Priest with his shotgun on the last turn, just for the heck of it.
