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Cadian brigade:
-3 Commanders
-6 Infantry squads, plasma, boltguns, some mortars
-2 command squads, snipers
-1 Special weapon squad, snipers
-1 astropath
-2 rough rider squads
-1 scout sentinel
-3 heavy weapon squads with mortars
-1 basilisk
-1 leman russ with plasma sponsons
Salamander battalion:
-Captain, jump pack, teeth of terra
-Lieutenant, jump pack, power fist, armor indomitus
-3 scout squads
-3 Devastator squads, 2-3 heavy weapons each
Elysian Spearhead/Vanguard/whatever:
-Primaris psyker
-3 special weapon squads, plasma guns
tl;dr, I beat a relatively inexperienced player whose target priority was suboptimal. Clever movement of my flying captain and lieutenant sealed a high scoring victory.
Game one against a Cadian player with a single brigade:
2 commanders, 1 russ commander
6 infantry squads, some with lascannons/autocannons
2 ratling squads and 1 special weapon squad with 3 meltaguns (when I saw this I knew it should be an easy game)
2 armored sentinels with lascannons and 1 hellhound
3 basilisks, 1 russ, 1 mortar squad
and a BANEBLADE with all the trimmings, (Valhallan? The one where it degrades as if it had double the wounds.)
Deployment was hammer and anvil.
We had soo many command points (and both of us had Kurov's Aquila and Grand Strategist) that I think I ended the game with about 8 CPs left.
I placed my scouts near his lines in case I got first turn and could charge his infantry and consolidate into his tanks. It didn't work out. He got first turn. His basilisks annihilated mine, but that was a mistake - he should have targeted my russ, which was hiding out of sight of his baneblade. His baneblade split up its shots and other than finishing up a couple of scout units that his infantry had mauled, his main gun just took out 2-4 spare bodies in one of my devastator squads.
My turn 1, the devastators opened up on his baneblade, bringing it down to 50% health. After some sniper round or something took a wound off his russ commander, overlapping fields of fire let my russ annihilate his command tank. My infantry moved up and started shooting his infantry. My mortars helped ensure infantry dominance was mine. My captain and lieutenant jumped forward and failed to charge the enemy ratlings, but my 2 surviving scouts got in there and killed one ratling.
His turn 2, he knew he should shoot my russ, but it now had 1+ armor (behind cover and psychic barrier) and -1 to hit (nightshroud), so neither his baneblade nor his basilisks wanted to shoot it. Instead, he took out most of my remaining devastators. He miscalculated with his infantry targets, leaving one scout still alive and closer to his baneblade than my captain and lieutenant when only the baneblade was left to fire. After a charge by the baneblade against the lieutenant (who was screening the captain), I think my lieutenant survived by dint of his 3++ from the armor indomitus, but either way, the captain survived.
My turn 2, one squad with the dagger of tu sakh outflanked and tore up an enemy infantry squad holding an objective. My infantry pushed up the board on one flank, and were joined by a few rough riders. Meanwhile, the 3 Elysian squads dropped near the baneblade, and helped the Russ finish it off in the middle of the battlefield. The captain (and lieutenant?) jumped past. His surviving russ was badly hurt, but then my psychic powers failed me and his basilisks almost killed my russ.
By turn 3, my outflanking infantry were rolling up his right flank, but his hellhound had rumbled right past them and was rolling up my units opposite them. It was turn 4 before I finally dedicated the firepower necessary to stop it (barely having enough). On the other side, my infantry overran his, but I had one obstacle left:
His mortar squad and 3 basilisks were about 24" from my my captain and lieutenant, and about 20" from my rough riders, who were locked in combat with sentinels. About 10" in front of the basilisk was one company commander. Those basilisks could still knock me off an objective or two, and we had enough time to get into turn 5.
I disengaged the rough riders from the sentinels, and used my surviving plasma Elysians to wipe them out. I moved my captain and lieutenant 12" towards the company commander. After using tiny, finely measured bits of small arms to reduce his company commander to 1-2 wounds, I charged with both captain and lieutenant, and managed to swing the captain around to the side of the company commander near the basilisks.
In combat, I swung first with my lieutenant, who killed the company commander. Then, since the captain had charged, he also activated, and while he had no one to swing at, he moved a total of 6" towards the basilisks. Then I used "honor the chapter" to activate the captain again. Again he hit no one, but those last 6" got him in base contact with 2 of the 3 basilisks. At that point, with his firepower for the final turn reduced to one basilisk and most of a mortar squad, my opponent declined to try to squeeze in turn 5.
Game 2:
Spoiler:
tl;dr, I win a nailbiter, and learn a bit about the trees of nurgle.
Corner deployment.
Opponent brought Nurgle demons: some demon princes, 3 demon mortar tanks, 2 feculent gnarlmaws (trees), oodles of infantry and a huge blob of about 10 plague drones. He got turn 1 and rushed up the field. Not knowing what to expect, I had deployed many of my scouts in the midfield, where they died needlessly. But I also packed everyone else very tightly together to avoid flying entrapment of a few models. On my turn 1, I popped the relic of lost cadia and almost annihilated one of his two blobs of infantry, and killed one of his three tanks.
On turn 2, his ~6 remaining infantry models that had threatened me pulled back, and all that charged me was his unit of plague drones. They didn't quite annihilate any of my front-line infantry squads. On my turn 2, I fell back and threw all my firepower at the plague drones, and assaulted the survivors with my rough riders, captain, and lieutenant. Only 1-2 survived.
On turn 3, his demon princes who had been at midfield racking up points for a secondary objective (heart of the matter) hesitated to charge and be consumed themselves in turn. On turn 3, I finished off the last plague drones and took out my opponent's last 2 tanks. Victory seemed at hand, but time was short. My Elysians had rolled poorly and then been annihilated. I had a hard time scoring points, partially because he got his injured units out of range/sight of almost everything, partially because my opponent had very few (and very tough) units to destroy. But he likewise had a hard time scoring points off of me, since I repelled him and ended the game controlling just over half the board. I didn't know if I won or lost until we counted up the victory points at the end. I counted mine and said "18". about 20 seconds later he looks up, blinks, and says "17". Whoa. The max number of points possible was 38.
Game 3:
Spoiler:
tl;dr, I play a well respected player and lose narrowly.
Game 3 was against a similar list to game 2, but no tanks, just MOAR infantry and drones: 3 squads of about 8 drones, and 3 squads of 28ish plaguebearers(?) infantry. Deployment was dawn of war. (Zone type definitely worked against me in at least games 1 & 3)
I got to see almost his entire army before I had to deploy, so I castled up 80% of everything on one flank.
I got turn 1 and annihilated most of a plaguebearer unit and half a drone unit. His charge on the very week flank was successful, his charge on the strong one was annihilated. The map essentially swung 90 degrees and I was playing at a significant material advantage, having only lost about 30 (weak)models, and having killed a whole plaguebearer unit and a half, and 2 of the 3 drone swarms. But then...
On turn 4, the last turn, I charged the corner of one plaguebearer unit with my lieutenant and captain, thinking that this would keep his unit from having a chance of charging the units guarding one of my objectives. But I didn't know that one of the bonuses the Feculent Gnarlmaw trees give you is the ability to fall back and then charge. That gave my opponent my objective, turning a 24-24 tie into a 20-28 defeat. Had I known of that ability a turn sooner, I might have been able to hold that objective. Ah, well.
I love playing the guy who beat me in that last game. He's pretty well known as a guy who places in big tournaments, and we always have fun games (and I've even beaten him on 2 occasions!). I only wish our games got past turn 3-4. That's what happens when two huge, resilient armies face off in a timed setting.
Final tl;dr:
You've probably heard of the Nurgle trees of doom and the lists built around them. How do they work? Here's how:
Yes, they have a lot of tough units, and the trees make them a bit harder to kill, and by turn 2 (sometimes turn 1 if very lucky), they're all over your lines. But if you fight them off, there's still the real danger: the mobility the trees provide. Enemy units with one model anywhere near a tree will fall back and assault, or run and assault, and they get an extra inch of movement somehow, too. On the last turn, they'll be where they want to be, taking objectives you didn't expect them to reach. And there's a psychic power (-1 to hit) which can make one of their plaguebearer units (already -1 to hit when numerous, with T4, 5++, and a 5+ FNP) almost unhittable. Beware the list because they'll survive, and then win on objectives.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/05/03 02:24:50
Cheers for the write up, well-played throughout. Reading it, game one wasn't as much of a seal clubbing as I expected, though definitely some target priority issues.
Cool write up cheers. How did the Plague Drones perform against you? Curious from a Nurgle player perspective and wondering if I should paint up a few more...
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/05/01 14:26:57
The drones did NOT perform well.
First, they'd come charging across the board. If I felt like it, I'd use overlapping fields of fire, or the relic of lost cadia, and take out a couple of drones with firepower. The drone units generally numbered 5-7 when they'd hit my lines. They'd take out a few guardsmen which made up my front rank, but their 2 flat damage was irrelevant against guardsmen, and my densely packed ranks with another squad right behind the first prevented them from locking me in and making it impossible for me to fall back. So I would fall back, shoot another couple dead, and then I'd counter-charge in with a captain and lieutenant together. They routinely took out about 2 drones on their own, and I had so many command points that I could use "honor the chapter" without second thoughts, if I wanted to take out a couple more.
Game MVP: The leman russ. At no point did I regret it not being a command tank. It basically never had to move, it benefitted from the relic of lost cadia and/or overlapping fields of fire pretty much every turn, and very rarely missed. Neither chaos list touched it, partially courtesy of the captain and lieutenant.
This was my first time fielding the captain and lieutenant at a tournament and they were awesome. I look forward to seeing if they're just as good against other matchups.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/05/01 22:03:50
10,000+ points
3000+ points 
