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2012/11/15 13:16:53
Subject: hyv3mynd's Dark Eldar & Eldar @ DaBoyz GT 2012 (Game #3 up 11/29)
This was my 3rd year attending DaBoyz GT. Due to the recent release of 6th edition, it was also the first year this GT did not feature comp scoring. I had been working on a DE foot based WWP list prior to 6th ed which got nuked when they disallowed assaults out of the portal. I came up with a new army that I was mostly happy with that included Eldar allies and allowed me to use some of the models I had spent the most time converting and painting.
More progress and close-up pics can be found here.
My first opponent of DaBoyz GT 2012 was Marcus with his beautiful Blood Angels. The GT format had 3 mission objectives each worth 10 battle points with a 3 point bonus each game for first blood. Mission #1 was Hammer/Anvil deployment. Mission objectives were d3+2 objectives (elites score), kill points, and linebreaker.
We rolled up 4 objectives and spread them out. Marcus won the roll for first turn.
The libby and priest joined the terminators and stood behind the empty redeemer. The tac squad is in the middle rhino. The godhammer is up top and the laserback by his table edge. The redeemer's assault squad is in the stormraven with the furioso. The terminators also succumb to the red thirst.
Sorry for the blurry pic. At this point I realize I've place my ADL up too far and those terminators with furious charge, FnP, and rerolled misses will be in my face very fast. I deploy everything back a bit. That item in front of the grotesques is an objective. Maugan and the Baron join the grotesques for fearless and hit-and-run in case the terminators make it in. Malys is with the beasts. 10 warriors occupy the area/ruin by my table edge and the 5 with a blaster are behind the big smoke stacks. Walkers and rangers are outflanking. The venom and jetfighter will fly on. I opt not to seize as I have very little to stop those land raiders from tank shocking me off last turn. My warlord trait was "re-roll reserves".
Turn 1
Spoiler:
The redeemer and razorback advance a bit. I take a couple wounds on grotesques after cover and FnP.
I pull away from the advancing redeemer. I should have just stepped up with the grotesques and taken the assault on the chin hoping that defensive grenades, FnP, fearless, and hit-and-run would have saved me. I start sending the beasts up the far side. Maugan tries to tag the rhino for first blood but fails to cause any damage.
Turn 2
Spoiler:
The redeemer advances and razorback pulls back from the advancing beasts. The rhino heads for the objective on my table edge. I take a couple more wounds on grotesques and lose a khymerae or two.
Despite my warlord trait to reroll reserves, the walkers fail to arrive so I reroll for failures on the rangers and wyches also. The jetfighter arrives up top. My plan was to take out the transport with the razorwing and roll up that flank with the beasts, but the jetfighter only causes a single hull point. The beasts would need an 11" assault so they run. Maugan fails to damage the rhino again.
Turn 3
Spoiler:
Marcus advances the redeemer and unloads the terminators. His stormraven has failed to arrive.
His backfield tanks shift for firing lanes. The redeemer takes a wound off the icarus and I lose a couple beasts to shooting. My flyer doesn't take any hits.
Terminators assault the beasts. I lose combat by 4 or so and fall back, but only 6".
My walkers and rangers arrive on my table edge. I use the pipes to block LoS and try to keep them alive for linebreaker.
I expected him to come right for my objective and the grotesques, not the beasts so I'm out of position. I want to send the grotesques in to help, but a poor terrain roll keeps them in place. My venom arrives behind the beasts to torrent the terminators.
The beasts rally but may not assault. The flyer advances to fire on the razorback again, only to strip a single hull point yet again. The Baron jumps over and joins the beasts for defensive grenades and hit-and-run.
The war walkers wreck the rhino for first blood. All of the marines survive and they combat squad out. I believe my shooting takes down 1 terminator.
Turn 4
Spoiler:
The redeemer rushes my line but gets immobilized. It then burns down the icarus.
The missile squad stays near their objective. The flamer squad advances towards the walkers and rangers. After the dust settles, I've lost 2 walkers and 2 rangers.
The stormraven arrives and blows my flyer out of the sky. The terminators assault the beasts again. This time, I kill one and only lose by 2 thanks to the Baron's defensive grenades. I then hit-and-run with a big result going behind the redeemer and heading into the BA backfield.
I attach Malys to the grotesques, but they didn't roll high enough to get into a safe assault range of the terminators. I bring up the venom and some warriors to torrent the terminators. I think I was able to kill 1 more.
The beasts move for the flamer squad. My last walker, rangers, warriors, and Maugan combine fire on the missile team near the objective and kill 3. The beasts are able to kill 4 marines and lock with the last one.
Turn 5
Spoiler:
At the top of turn 5, we only have 15 minutes or so left so we decide this will be the last turn. The terminators move on the small warrior squad for an easy kill point. The stormraven pivots and zooms.
The last 2 marines from the missile team dive into cover next to the objective. On the far side, the razorback squad disembarks to score their objective. In the backfield, the godhammer's unit disembarks to score. combined shooting explodes the venom. The terminators multi-assault 5 warriors and 2 wyches and wipe out both units. My beasts finish the last marine from the flamer squad and consolidate towards the godhammer unit.
At this point, I'm down objectives 3-1 and down kill points 5-3. This is my last turn but it's not all lost. I must kill 1 of his characters in the terminator squad, shoot down the 2 tac marines on the central objective, and kill the godhammer's unit with the beasts.
The walker and snipers succeed in finishing the 2 tac marines giving me another kp and removing one of Marcus's objectives. Maugan shoots the terminators but fails to get any precision shots. The grotesques will also fail their assault move. The beasts shoot down 1 assault marine and then assault. The Baron gets stuck in a challenge with the power fist sarge. I was hoping his 5 attacks at init6/str6 would do the trick, but the sarge makes every save. His marines also make every save. The sarge hits and wounds the Baron once, I fail my shadowfield save, lose combat by 2, fail morale, and run away. That one shadowfield save cost me 2 kill points and 1 objective!
And with that, the game ends 25-8 in favor of Marcus.
Well, it was a bummer to start off the GT with a loss, but Marcus was a great opponent and ended up placing above me so he definitely worked for that win. I made a few mistakes of note by placing my ADL too far forward, getting the Baron into a challenge, and allowing my beasts to get assaulted by the terminators. FnP terminators are a real problem for this army, not to mention I don't have many tools to deal with 2 land raiders. Looking back, I should have kept the grotesques forward to take the terminator assault, hit-and-run afterwards, and hit the unit with everything in my backfield. I was trying to preserve them since elites were scoring this mission and it ended up putting me out of position. It costs my beasts a turn also since they can't assault the same turn they rally. My dice were shockingly bad this game also as I failed my key reserve rolls in the beginning even with the warlord rerolls. The trend continued when my jetfighter shot a razorback for 2 turns with lances and missiles and only claimed 2 hull points. The icing on the cake was the Baron failing to kill the sarge, then failing his shadow field save and the unit failing morale. My lack of practice with this army really showed this game also since I had been painting instead of playing. The good news is this was my biggest loss of the GT so stay tuned for better games!
Thanks for reading. 5 more games to follow.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2012/11/30 00:40:17
Beautiful army! Definitely looking forward to reading these! We brainstormed like crazy on using Grotes, I am looking forward to seeing how you did with them in application.
The armies are beautiful;
what I especially like about yours is that while the colors are overall quite bright, there is a "grimdark" feeling coming out of it, (mostly from the grotesques).
looking forward for the next games
2012/11/16 11:07:44
Subject: hyv3mynd's Dark Eldar & Eldar @ DaBoyz GT 2012 (Game #1)
Great report. I've been following the army progress on your blog. I was a little surprised to see how defensive you appeared to play as opposed to the battle reports you'd posted on your blog. Do you think if you would have tried to meet him head on with your beast unit (with Baron) it would have kept him from getting board control?
Looking forward to reading the other battle reports.
No earth shattering, thought provoking quote. I'm just someone who was introduced to 40K in the late 80's and it's become a lifelong hobby.
2012/11/16 14:10:01
Subject: hyv3mynd's Dark Eldar & Eldar @ DaBoyz GT 2012 (Game #1)
Yeah I definitely misplayed that one. A while back I helped a friend playtest a BA list and I found FnP terminators inside av14 to be a major challenge for my list. I should have sent up the beasts with baron and Maugan for fearless to take the assault with defensive grenades and then hit-and-run out and countered back in with them and grotesques.
The only problem with that is if he would have stayed inside the redeemer and tank shock-flamed me over and over.
Either way it came down to the beast assault on his objective. If I would have won that it would have been a 3 way tie, but I didn't. That's a close enough game to be a good one in my book.
The main problem that I've seen people have with DE is trying to play defensively, they are a glass hammer and are going to die, you have to accept that and to balls out, don't hold anything back as the worst thing you can do is let them shoot you without any return fire. Always attempt to steal the initiative, even if its just for your Icarus cannon getting a snapshot at the LR's go for it. Anyways that's my opinion, others may disagree with me. Great Report, love your army. I want more
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/11/17 14:35:22
2012/11/17 14:59:34
Subject: hyv3mynd's Dark Eldar & Eldar @ DaBoyz GT 2012 (Game #1)
That used to be true, but now in 6th nearly every mission has objectives. At this particular GT, all 6 games had d3+2 objectives and some also had Emperor's Will (2 objectives) on top of that.
My list only had 4 scoring units with 25 t3 bodies. It's a list I've been building for a year and could not alter it as the mission format was only finalized 30 days before the event.
Going second with an all foot list became necessary to prevent tank shocks and last turn objective grabs. I tried to mitigate the damage with the ADL, grotesques, and beasts with stealth. Pre-measuring helped a lot also as you'll see later.
I do agree that I didn't play this game with enough aggression, but like I said this was my biggest loss of the GT so you'll see the list shine in later games.
Honestly the other guy could have made the game a lot harder, nearly impossible in fact for you to win. I found it amusing that he had two land raiders and a storm-raven and most of his scoring units were in AV11 for example. Had he put a combat squad in the redeemer and god-hammer and an assault squad in the storm raven I really have no idea how you would win. He also didn't kill your Icarus LC for first blood which absolutely blew my mind. Bare in mind none of this has to do with your game, really well fought my DE brother
Also as a rules note, he can't combat squad from a rhino. The decision must be made at deployment and they count as separate units from then on. The only exception is drop pods :/
Really looking forward to the other games, and again, the army came out stunning!
One of the best looking battle reports I have seen. Fantastic armies and the tactics were solid on both sides, very educational while also beautiful to look at. Look forward to the rest of them!
7K Points of Black Legion and Daemons 5K Points of Grey Knights and Red Hunters
2012/11/17 18:10:48
Subject: hyv3mynd's Dark Eldar & Eldar @ DaBoyz GT 2012 (Game #1)
Red Corsair wrote: Honestly the other guy could have made the game a lot harder, nearly impossible in fact for you to win. I found it amusing that he had two land raiders and a storm-raven and most of his scoring units were in AV11 for example. Had he put a combat squad in the redeemer and god-hammer and an assault squad in the storm raven I really have no idea how you would win. He also didn't kill your Icarus LC for first blood which absolutely blew my mind. Bare in mind none of this has to do with your game, really well fought my DE brother
What he did was no different really. Elites counted as scoring units for this mission as the tournament rotated between non-troop scoring units throughout all 6 games. This made his terminators, sanguinary priest, and furioso all scoring units. So with combat squads and elites, he had 7 scoring units all tough to kill in transports. My army would have a better chance against a screamer/flamer build than this list IMO. Going second was key as you cannot score from inside transports anymore. I shot one of his scoring squads off an objective at the bottom of 5, and planned to assault another 5 man squad with the beasts. If that assault would have succeeded, we would have drawn on objectives and if Maugan would have landed a precision shot, I could have drawn on kill points. Not a terrible position to be in considering how bad this match is for me.
Other than the 2 land raiders and stormraven, I don't really see the BA list as anything that would be too tough for DE to handle. Then again, I don't really play DE. Is the Baron fearless? If so, then that would make the beast squad unbreakable for as long as they are together, giving them some protection from BA shooting (and flamestorm cannons).
Red Corsair wrote: Honestly the other guy could have made the game a lot harder, nearly impossible in fact for you to win. I found it amusing that he had two land raiders and a storm-raven and most of his scoring units were in AV11 for example. Had he put a combat squad in the redeemer and god-hammer and an assault squad in the storm raven I really have no idea how you would win. He also didn't kill your Icarus LC for first blood which absolutely blew my mind. Bare in mind none of this has to do with your game, really well fought my DE brother
Also as a rules note, he can't combat squad from a rhino. The decision must be made at deployment and they count as separate units from then on. The only exception is drop pods :/
Really looking forward to the other games, and again, the army came out stunning!
Would the Icarus LC count for FB? I've always thought that it was a neutral unit. Hence, it could be used by either armies.
Also, from the rhino-combat-squad issue, this is from BA Errata:
"You must decide which units are splitting into combat squads,
and which models go into each combat squad, immediately
before deployment. A unit split into combat squads therefore
is now two separate units for all game purposes including
calculating the total number of units in the army, and the
number of units you can place in reserve. Then proceed with
deployment as normal. Note that two combat squads split from
the same unit can embark in the same transport vehicle,
providing its transport capacity allows."
So as long as he declared he was combat-squadding them before deployment, then it was a legal move.
My second opponent of DaBoyz GT 2012 was Bill with with his pre-heresy emperor's children (counts-as space marines) with Blood Angel allies. The GT format had 3 mission objectives each worth 10 battle points with a 3 point bonus each game for first blood. Mission #2 was Vanguard Strike deployment. Mission objectives were d3+2 objectives (fast attack units score), victory points (straight 5th ed style), and slay the warlord.
Bill's list:
Marneus Calgar
The Sanguinor
Tac Squad x10 + missile, flamer
Tac Squad x10 + missile, flamer
Tac Squad x10 + flamer x2, drop pod
Assault Squad 10 + melta x2, infernus pistol, drop pod
Stormraven + multi-melta, assault cannon, hurricane sponsons
Whirlwind
Aegis Defense Line + quad gun
My list can be found in the first report.
Deployment
Spoiler:
We rolled up 3 objectives. Per the GT packet, the odd one always goes in the center of the table. I win the roll and opt to go first.
The only things that really scare me are the whirlwind and stormraven with hurricane sponsons. I've never faced Calgar before but I figure he's just a dude with power fists. The Sanguinor can be annoying but my assault units put out a ton of attacks so I'm not sweating him too much either. I deploy spread out with my walkers on the right flank to see around the giant hill in the middle of the table. Beasts are scoring this mission so I make them fearless with Maugan and put Malys with them also. The grotesques are a throwaway unit for me this game so I put the Baron with them for stealth and hit-and-run. The wyches, warriors, and flyer are reserved.
Bill deploys his ADL across from mine. Behind it are both tac squads on foot with Calgar attached to one, the whirlwind, and hi objective. I don't redeploy much, I scout the walkers a bit, and infiltrate the snipers up to my icarus. Bill doesn't seize.
Turn 1
Spoiler:
I advance the grotesques mostly behind the hill. The beasts advance a little, but hold back for now as I may want them as a scoring unit. Shooting kills about 3 marines from the right unit and I stip a hull point from the whirlwind.
Bill tries to thread the needle by landing in the center of my beast bubble wrap, but the pod scatters out and dumps out the assault squad with 3 melta shots.
The tac squads shuffle a little. The whirlwind and quad gun kill a few beasts. I take a wound on a grotesque. The podded squad explodes a single walker.
Turn 2
Spoiler:
My reserves arrive at the top of 2. I bring the warriors on to gun down the podded squad for first blood.
The razorwing flies on behind a tall hill for some cover. The venom comes on just behind Maugan. Grotesques advance with the Baron remaining on the icarus in case the stormraven arrives. The jetfighter targets the whirlwind but causes no damage to it. A marine or two die from missile blasts. The scouts on the fire the icarus and rifles on the whirlwind but can't defeat its cover. In my backfield, warriors and war walkers shoot down the podded squad.
My jetfighter loses a hull point but survives the interceptor shot. Grotesques run.
The second pod squad arrives with flamers blazing. The stormraven stays out. I lose several beasts to pistol and flamer fire. Grotesques take some small arms fire but cover and FnP mitigates most of it.
Turn 3
Spoiler:
Grotesques make the final push.
Beasts move up to take the hill and central objective. The razorwing pulls across the table to target the second podded squad.
Backfield warriors advance to fire. Between the jetfighter, walkers, and warriors, the second podded squad is wiped out. The blaster warrior explodes the purple pod with a lucky shot. The grotesques make their assault but the beasts fail theirs. The grotesques kill a couple marines and win combat.
Calgar breaks off from his squad and heads for the brawl. It's the bottom of turn 3 and the stormraven arrives with the Sanguinor on board. It shoots down my flyer with ease. Calgar assaults my grotesques. Luckily, I slay 5 more marines and win combat. The lone marine chooses to fail morale and Calgar chooses to pass. My unit hit-and-runs out.
Turn 4
Spoiler:
Now the top of turn 4, and we're nearly out of time. I just need to contest his objective and slay Calgar for max points. I bring up the venom with wyches in case the game goes longer. I decide to keep the beasts with my warlord and Maugan on the central objective.
Walkers pull up for more shots. Bill's saves are hot this round and I don't cause much damage.
The grotesques assault in and Calgar challenges. I accept with the aberration and cause 2 unsaved wounds with the venom blade. Calgar causes 2 unsaved wounds finishing the aberration and we lock.
In Bills 4th turn, he switches the stormraven to hover mode and dumps out the Sanguinor. The flyer torrents my beasts and actually kills every one, leaving just Maugan and Malys. The whirlwind splatters some rangers. The Sanguinor fails his assault move due to terrain. I tie Calgar up in a challenge with the Baron and pass all my shadow field saves.
At this point, we're out of time. The game ends on the bottom of turn 4 in my favor 28-5 with more objectives, more victory points, first blood, and a draw on both warlords surviving.
Well, that went pretty well. I had a feeling based on lists, terrain, and deployment that my army would fare well in this mission. For the second game in an row, the stormraven didn't arrive until late in the game. Those assault cannons and hurricane bolters could have helped out Bill against my fragile foot army. Not much I would have done differently here, this one came down to a plan built around the mission and terrain, and the dice making it all come together. I was hoping to get Calgar with shooting and re-assault after hit-and-run, but his saves were spot on and the challenge mechanic got me again.
Why are these games not going to conclusion? Not enough time to play at this points level or is the army slow to play?
I can't speak for DaBoz (hopefully next year!) but there is no doubt that 6th ediion takes longer to play than 5th did. I was rushing through my games at both Nova and Battle for Salvation - in most cases neither myself or my opponent were not trying to play slowly, but we would get to turn 4 only to realise we only had time for one more turn.
I think the solution is to either allow more times for games (2 1/2 hours for 1750 or 1,850pts) or to reduce the points value of 2 hour tournaments to 1,500pts.
Three time holder of Thermofax
Really the tallest guy in a Cold Steel Mercs T-Shirt
2012/11/18 15:49:33
Subject: hyv3mynd's Dark Eldar & Eldar @ DaBoyz GT 2012 (Game #2 up 11/17)
TBH I was 99% sure we played 5 turns and Bill rolled a 2 to end the game at the end of 5. For the purpose of speed, I've stopped taking game notes for batreps and just write them from sequential pictures and memory. I was also pretty sure his stormraven didn't arrive until turn 4 automatically, but the pictures didn't line up with 1 pod turn 1 and one turn 2. Maybe I just skipped pics for a full turn. Either way, the batreps may not be 100% accurate, just doing the best I can with my pics and fading memory. The final scores are correct tho.
I agree with Alex that 6th plays out slower at least for me. This list can be slow also if I deploy, scout, infiltrate, and redeploy with Malys. Rounds were 2.5 hours but from the time pairings are posted so it means finding the table, relocating the army, setting up objectives, etc. Plus, my list has 9 characters so LoS! slows things down along with cover and FnP rolls. Once I get into assault, I often have initiative steps from 7 down to 4 and everything in between which takes time for pile-ins and such.
Plus, I'm a slower player than most. Bill and I have played on several occasions as he only lives an hour from me and often attends our monthly tournaments. We were taking our time, talking smack, and enjoying this game as a break from the higher pressure GT games against strangers.
Until this GT I had finished games of 6th edition well before the time limit of tournaments (local tourneys generally). At the GT level though, I found myself pushed right to the edge in most the games I played - we reached Turn 5 and had to stop without rolling for additional turns in 3 games.
I think a lot of it is the caliber of opponents tends to be high plus finding the table, unloading the army, being cramped for space all take time away. If games moved to 1500 points I think that could be a good change. Units prices have decreased overall in the last few years, and interesting trade offs need to be made in list design at that point.
I really like your paint job! Thank you for sharing!
Check out this comp!http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/498307.page
My P&M Blog:http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/497661.page
2500 Brothers of Sanguinor
2500 Purifiers 750 : Bad Wolves
2 successful trades: TemplarCoyote, blood angel
P.M. for a reference! K.C.C.O.!
2012/11/19 16:35:53
Subject: Re:hyv3mynd's Dark Eldar & Eldar @ DaBoyz GT 2012 (Game #2 up 11/17)
hyv3mynd wrote: The grotesques are made with fantasy ogres and extra bits from the talos kit. I didn't make a tutorial but there's some closeup pics here.
Great page and models. You don't mind if I steal the idea, do you? I see a couple of Taloses (Talii?) and a box of ogres in my future.
2012/11/24 18:42:11
Subject: Re:hyv3mynd's Dark Eldar & Eldar @ DaBoyz GT 2012 (Game #2 up 11/17)
hyv3mynd wrote: The grotesques are made with fantasy ogres and extra bits from the talos kit. I didn't make a tutorial but there's some closeup pics here.
Great page and models. You don't mind if I steal the idea, do you? I see a couple of Taloses (Talii?) and a box of ogres in my future.
Go ahead man. I found the idea myself while surfing the net so keep passing it on.
Here's game #3:
My third opponent of DaBoyz GT 2012 was Frank with with his mech Dark Eldar. The GT format had 3 mission objectives each worth 10 battle points with a 3 point bonus each game for first blood. Mission #3 was Dawn of War deployment. Mission objectives were d3+2 objectives (heavy support units score), modified kill points, and emperor's will (1 objective in each half).
I had actually played Frank the day before at the team event so I know how brutal it is. I set up my objectives and aegis on the right flank. He sets up his objectives on the left flank. Frank gets to go first.
Across from my ADL and objectives, he deploys the Baron and beasts. 5 trueborn on foot are in the central crater. Two venoms go behind the beasts, one is empty one has wyches.
He deploys most of the rest on the left with his objectives. Red chips are the d3+2 (3) objectives, green ones are the emperor's will objectives. Flyers and jetbikes are in reserves.
Forgot some pics here. I deploy grotesques with Maugan and beasts with the Baron and Malys. I reserve the rest. Rangers and walkers are outflanking.
Turn 1
Spoiler:
Frank shifts his fleet and focuses on the icarus lascannon killing it. Grotesques take a wound from stray lances and I lose a khymera.
I advance both units cautiously. I guess I should have been more aggressive with the beasts since they have defensive grenades with the Baron. Maugan targets a venom near the center of the table and wrecks it with glances.
Turn 2
Spoiler:
Neither flyer arrive. The two venoms that were behind the beasts continue to shift away from Maugan.
Reavers arrive in his back corner. 5 warriors take up position on his green objective. The raider fleet moves up. Venoms drop several beasts. The wall of raiders go flat-out and the jetbikes turbo-boost to block the left flank.
My walkers arrive on the right flank. I have no choice but to put them in front of my beasts. I send out the grotesques but keep the beasts back, banking on my walkers surviving an assault from his beasts.
My flyer arrives and heads for the barricade on the left flank. Venom comes on heading for the central objective. I decide the venoms are the biggest threat so the walkers explode one. The jetfighter explodes one raider, killing 4 wyches and pinning the hekatrix. My venom kills 3 of the warriors on his green objective and the last 2 break and flee.
Turn 3
Spoiler:
Frank brings up his beasts.
Both of his flyers arrive and head for mine. His raiders and reavers spread out. My venom explodes from dark lance shots and I lose 2 wyches. My flyer goes down in a ball of fire. I lose a couple more beasts to shooting. His beasts assault my walkers and survive overwatch. His Baron actually explodes one walker with his hammer of wrath attack. Another is wrecked via hull points. He tries to hit-and-run, but fails his initiative test!
I bring up my remaining beasts. My warrior squads on foot have arrived behind them by my 2 objectives. My rangers arrive on the left flank and I bring them into the area terrain by Frank's objectives.
Wyches make a run for the central objective. It's a long shot, but I'm way ahead on kill points so I've nothing to lose. Grotesques continue to trudge for the center. They can't score but can deny it from a late game disembarking squad. Maugan takes out some trueborn. My beasts assault his and sweep them.
Turn 4
Spoiler:
Frank has the left flank and I have the right so he brings his forces towards mine. My wyches go to ground and pass all of their saves. My last walker survives razorwing fire but is immobilized without any targets in its firing arc. I lose a few more beasts to various shooting. Reavers turbo-sweep my big unit of warriors and kill 9 of them! The survivor passes morale with 1's. He sends a unit of wyches into my rangers and easily wipes them out.
I pull my beasts back to deal with the reavers. Malys has been unit jumping in my backfield and she joins the beasts to get them closer to the reavers.
Grotesques continue to trudge to the center. Maugan explodes a raider and takes out a few warriors.
Beasts assault the reavers and wipe them out.
Turn 5
Spoiler:
Frank sends the flyers after my backfield scoring units. After all the missiles and lances have been fired, I still have an unbroken scoring model on my one red objective. His midfield units wipe out my wyches. His warriors in the crater roll poorly on their move and run, and will not be in scoring range of the center.
Not much to do in my turn. Beasts and grotesques head for the center. Maugan finishes off a trueborn squad.
We roll and the game ends after 5 turns. We tally it up and it's 15-18 in Frank's favor. We drew on red objectives, he had green objectives, I had modified kill points, and he had first blood.
This was a close, fun, and brutal game. Frank's advantage was growing as the game progressed, but Maugan kills just about anything he targets in this match. Taking out 3-4 light infantry with ignoring cover, rerolling to wound shots is pretty big. I misplayed the beasts by being too passive. It cost me extra casualties from shooting and I should have just run them up and remembered defensive grenades against his beasts. If they had swept that flank a turn or two sooner, they may have made it into his back corner before the game ended. I also should have deployed the icarus back more this time, but the mobility of his venoms meant it was probably going down first turn anyways. All in all, I was OK with a 15-18 minor loss here. Frank's list had so much more mobility, firepower, and scoring presence than mine. I got the distinct feeling that Frank had been playing this codex and his army a lot longer than myself, so I was fairly pleased that I walked away with some points. Despite being 1-2 at this point, my battle points are 51/99 right now so I'm still mid-pack and my painting and sportsmanship scores could bring me up.
Awesome game mate! Have been waiting quietly for it I am impressed that it was so close a match his list really has the tools and mobility to garner a decent edge so, mad props for almost wining. Maugan is such a beast against light infantry and vehicles it is insane! Any who can't wait for the next installment!
PS you wouldn't happen to have some more closeups of his army as well would you?