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Hey there everyone,
I am fairly new to the warhammer 40k scene and the mini war gaming scene in general and have just recently finished painting my space marine army and was finally able to go to my FLGS and play a game.
Now this battle report is just going to be pretty short and just to show how much of a noob I am. I played 2 games a 1 on 1 750 point game and a 2 on 1 game for 1500 points. I will only be talking about the first game.

First game 750 points my Space Marine Exorcists vs opponents Space Marine random chapters. My apologizes if I miss anything but this was Saturday but forgot to post right away but this is the just of it.

So first game was the first 40k game I had ever played so it was kind of exciting. There was an experienced player who was explaining the rules to me more (I already knew most from reading the rulebook) and the opponent was a semi casual player.
We rolled to see which game we were playing and we got "The Scouring" which I'm sure you know is to collect objectives randomly placed throughout the map.

Turn 1:
Once that was done we deployed and it was fairly standard I set a tac squad up near some objectives behind some forest terrain and I did the same with another tac squad across the field.

First bad choice was to randomly place my Librarian near an objective that was semi in the open.
I kept my terminator squad in reserve trying to be sneaky and collect an objective by using deep strike.

Once this was done I stole the initiative which I was proud of first time playing.
First movement phase was pretty lame I just moved my guys behind some cover more and left the librarian still only semi in cover.

The attack phase went and I didn't fire anything as I was out of range of my bolters and had moved with my tac squads so couldn't fire my plasma weapons.

Now for the opponents turn:
He moved a few guys but not many and got into position. His tac squads were 5 vs my 10 man squads (which I realize now was a bad move to have large squads at such small point value).

He then proceed to fire his lascannon at my librarian which I realized was in direct view of one of his tac squads. This was the first flop of the game when I got flattened by his lascannon and lost my librarian first turn.

Turn 2:
First I rolled for reserves and got my terminator squad in so I placed him near an objective that was place in between two pieces of forested terrain. I placed my one terminator behind the left terrain and rolled for scatter. Ended up I scattered about 5 inches to the right which was directly in between the two pieces of terrain near the objective. I knew I was in a bad spot then because I was in direct site of another tac squad, but I thought "Hey they are terminators aren't they supposed to be tough?".

Through the shooting phase I failed everything miserably with the plasma cannons in my tac squads and then nothing else made more than a ping on the enemy armour.

Again I had no moves to make in the assault phase.

Opponents movement phase he only rolled for reserves and got his terminators and librarian in term armour into the field.
He decided to place them behind enemy line (my lines) right near one of my tac squads, he made a successful land where you want.

During his shooting phase he shot a tac squad at my terminator squad and another one at my terminator squad. He had a lascannon in one and a missile launcher in another I believe.
He destroyed 2 of my 5 terminators sadly and I was devastated.
With his terminators he destroyed 4 of my tac units and another of his tac squads killed 2 of the other unit.

He wasn't in distant of any assault so we continued to turn 3.
My army was currently at:
Librarian DEAD
Terminator squad 2/5 DEAD
Tac squad #1 4/10 dead
Tac squad #2 2/10 dead

His army...untouched

Turn 3:
My movement phase was basically me not moving anything but the terminators attempting to make it into cover which they did but they were still in site of an enemy unit with some sort of heavy weapon.

Shooting phase I shot with my terminators and flopped AGAIN even with the assault cannon :(
Using tac squad #2 which was in semi cover I fired my plasma cannon into an enemy tac squad and failing miserably and it got hot and died
Tac squad #2 now down to 3/10 DEAD.

I shot Tac squad #1 at the advancing terminator squad with all my weapons I had which was bolters a plasma pistol a plasma gun and a plasma cannon.
Unluckily for me I blew myself up using the plasma cannon again. I was able to kill 1 of their terminators tho WOOHOO!!
Tac squad #1 5/10 dead

Assault phase my only option was to assault the enemy terminator squad with my 5 remaining tactical marines which was not an option...

Enemy turn 3
During movement he held his place with his tactical squads but then moved his terminator squad ever nearer to my sad looking 5 man tac squad.
He made a few pot shots at my Tac squad #2 and was able to kill 1 so that unit was now down to 4/10 marines DEAD.
He then proceeded to fire his assault cannon on one of his terminators into my unit making 1 marine minced meat. Tac squad #1 6/10 dead

During his assault phase he tried to assault my tac squad with his terminators and I was praying for a miracle and he rolled SNAKE EYES which meant I wasn't going into close combat.

Turn 4:
Movement for me was basically me trying to advance my terminators forward to try and maybe get into close combat with his marines.
I also moved Tac squad #1 away from his advancing terminator squad to try and put as much distance between us as I could.

Shooting I made a few shots with my Tac squad #1 and managed somehow to kill one of his terminators.
I also shot with my remaining terminators and made 0 kills with some unlucky dice rolls.

I didn't assault this phase

Enemy turn 4
Movement for him was to move his terminators close to tac squad #1.
He then proceeded to fire with a few of his tac squads at my terminators and somehow killed all of them. THE HORROR!
Next he fired with his terminators into tac squad #1 and somehow didn't kill any (lucky saves)

For his assault phase he managed to move into my tac squad #1
I fired some snap shots and a MIRACLE OCCURRED I killed one of his terminators that's 2 terminators of his down.

He then proceeded to plow my tac squad and Tac squad #1=GONE

Turn 5:
Since I only had 1 tac squad left I fire some shots at an enemy tac squad and made no kills.

He then proccedded to shot at me asnd nothing happened.
We rolled to continue and the match was done.

TOTAL
ME: 10 man tac squad = DONE
librarian = DONE
Terminator squad = DONE
10 man tac squad = 3/10 DONE

OPPONENT:
5 man tac squad = Not even scratched
5 man tac squad = Not even scratched
5 man tac squad = Not even scratched
5 man tac squad = Not even scratched

Terminators: 2/6 Killed

All in all I could care less that I lost. I had lots of fun and know some tactics for the next match I play. I just thought I would share my first 40k game experience with you and see what you guys thought.
Have you ever had a game where you barely killed any enemies? I think its just fun to play and see myself rolling 1's isn't a big deal for me.

Thanks for reading everyone

Time to buy some new dice. If you had fun and learned some things then you did well. Some days the dice gods just aren't on your side and there's not much you can do about it but grin and bear it. Welcome to the hobby.

You're a good sport. I'd certainly want to play against a guy like you who can find the fun despite awful dice.

Never deploy independent characters on their own! They're better in squads.

You were so unlucky with the dice by the sounds of it.

Yeah man seems like the dice were against you hear, and you had a case of new model syndrome across an entire army.


Little bit of advise you might want to consider, if your opponent doesn't have a scary alpha strike ( you'll learn what this is soon enough, if you don't already, I'd explain but in kind of a rush) then sometimes it's better going second, so that you get the last say in objective grabbing. Just some tactical food for thought for you.

But congratulations on joining our great hobby, and playing your first game, but most of all playing it in the fun spirit it is intended to be played in


And pictures next time please

chiefbigredman wrote:
Hey there everyone,
I am fairly new to the warhammer 40k scene and the mini war gaming scene in general and have just recently finished painting my space marine army and was finally able to go to my FLGS and play a game.

Am I reading this right? You actually painted your entire army before playing your first game? You sir, have more restraint then most of us.


This is for you.

*clap, clap*

P.S. Keep your head up, the most important thing is to learn and have a good time, so you are well on your way.

Agreed ^ I think me and my game group have yet to have a fully painted army, spanning a few years a
nd two systems, so kudos, but your fantastic attitude tempered with practice makes for the best kind of player/opponent

Yeah, the dice were had probably been bribed by your opponent. Sounds like an intersesting game, though next time, you might get pictures (quality doesn't really matter, basic phone camera apps should do.) to make it more interesting to see, as a lot of people aren't that intereted in reading the action, myself included.
I hope you get luckier in future!