White Scars turn 1 With few targets on the field, and all but one out of reach, there was little combat. I decided to move my bikes over to the left flank, the centre unit making it fully over the bridge, and right-most unit crossing the bridge at turn's end. Turbo boosting gave me extra movement and a better cover save against expected fire.
The only unit in firing range was the bike squad who had moved forward with Konchi - they managed to kill the Ravenwing sergeant Jericho but the squad held.
Dark Angels Turn 1 Cactus had decided to drop his Deathwing on turn 1, and had to choose where to put them.
He eventually chose to attack the tail of my column, hoping to trap me between his Ravenwing in front and the Deathwing behind. Belial and squad Gideon didn't have to roll for scatter, and so came in right on target.
Squad Matthias were less accurate, almost going off the board, and now being further from the centre of the field where they would have had the best chance of catching the fast White Scars.
For both squads though. their first target was right ahead and in range. Their combined fire took down four bikes, and caused the survivors to break, ending up in the pond!
Meanwhile the Ravenwing Typhoon has its eye on a target of its own, and took down
my Typhoon - first Blood to Cactus!
The Ravenwing bikes also moved up around the wood, but failed to cause any casualties.
White Scars turn 2 I was already two victory points down - I needed to claw this back as soon as possible. My first target was Belial's squad, ripe for two heavy flamers from the land speeder:
Unfortunately they only caused one casualty. I also moved the automatically-rallied bike squad remnant up onto the bridge again for a short-ranged shot against them, killing one more.
Meanwhile my captain had spotted a different target ahead, and moved forward to take out the remaining two Ravenwing bikes with ease.
Finally my last two bike squads moved up to the river and bridge. One took out the lone Ravenwing attack bike, while the other took long range shots against the mis-dropped Squad Matthias, killing two.
Dark Angels turn 2 Cactus thus faced the following situation:
At this point I realised I had made a significant mistake - Belial and Squad Gideon were in potential charge range of my two bikes on the bridge! Using their split fire the assault cannon also hit the landspeeder, destroying one heavy flamer but leaving it flying.
Further up the table the Typhoon also spotted a potential target: my commander. As he had split off to hit the bikes, he was now on his own, and would not rejoin the nearest bike squad until my movement phase. two krak missiles and three heave bolter rounds sped down-range. Two of the bolter rounds caused wounds - but the krak missiles failed! My warlord was still alive.
Now came the vital point - if Belial and his escort reached my bikers, they were certainly goners. Cactus rolled the dice - and failed!
White Scars turn 3 I had survived, but I was hardly out of danger.
I now had a better idea of how things were going. Firstly my commander and the squad nearest the typhoon moved up and killed it from across the river.
Next, my damaged bikes moved away from Belial, and concentrated on the other Deathwing squad, assisted by my last bike unit. Between them they took out another two - only two left!
I still made one mistake here - my speeder hung around and flamed Belial and squad Gideon to no effect - I should have kept it intact, especially given its firepower had been halved and it was down a hull point.
Dark Angels turn 3 Things were looking bad for Cactus.; He was down on victory points, and the terminators would almost certainly not get into close combat now, barring a catastrophe on my part.
This is where Cactus made his mistake - he moved Belial and Squad Gideon towards the nearest bikes, killing the plasma gunner and leaving a lone attack bike. Unfortunately he didn't remember to split fire, leaving my land speeder intact and un-chargable!
The remnants of squad Matthias also moved close to me, using their cyclone missile launcher and bolters to kill two bikes, leaving another lone attack bike behind.
White Scars turn 4 I now had a significant advantage - all the Dark Angels had were two slow squads on foot with limited firepower, while everything of mine was free to roam at will. In addition I was ahead on
VPs.
Firstly my land speeder made a turbo-boost move into the ruins on the left - this would protect it from shooting from Belial's squad, and luckily I passed my dangerous terrain test that would otherwise have wrecked me. I also managed to forget it could turbo-boost 18" in the movement phase, not 12" - another lesson learnt for next time!
Meanwhile I moved my two lone attack bikes away from the terminators - I needed to keep it alive to prevent Cactus form scoring a victory point.
Finally there was one obvious target for my other two bike squads - squad Matthias, with only two men left, as well as the only gun capable of firing over 24". Terminators are tough though, and I only killed one, leaving the typhoon missile launcher, with it's long range fire, as the last remaining squad member.
Dark Angels turn 4 Cactus had no chance of getting into combat now, but terminators still have a reasonable amount of firepower.
The far bridge blocked line-of sight to the two single attack bikes, so his best chance of killing another squad was the largest squad directly ahead. Unfortunately, the Deathwing, frustrated by the elusive White Scars, failed to cause a single casualty!
White Scars turn 5 At this point, I was pretty confident of victory. I moved my bikes just into range of the last terminator from squad Matthias, and took him (and his cyclone missile launcher) out.
Dark Angels turn 5 There was only one Dark Angel squad left:
They shot at the only target they had, my large bike squad on the right. While they casued a single casualty, this was not sufficient to destroy them, and they easily passed their break test.
At this point we called it - I would move out of range and there was no way the Deathwing could cause any more damage to me before game's end, as they had a maximum shooting range of 24".
The final score was:
White Scars - 3 Ravenwing units and 1 Deathwing unit destroyed, linebreaker.
Deathwing - 1 White Scars unit destroyed, first blood, linebreaker
White Scars 5 - 3 Deathwing -
VICTORY TO THE WHITE SCARS! Automatically Appended Next Post: Conclusion This was an interesting fight, and certainly a change from the Imperial Guard!
While in the end I was disciplined enough to stay on mission, I was also extremely lucky at points and still took too many risks. In particular, moving my bikes too far forward and letting Belial into charge range could have been fatal - the only thing that saved me was a below-average charge distance from Cactus. In addition, I should have moved my heavy-flamer speeder away earlier - again it was just luck that Cactus forgot to split his fire, as this would almost certainly have killed it!
What did go well was being able to put my mobility to good use. While Terminators can shoot, they are far more effective in close combat, and I was able to deny this to them, while overwhelming the fast Ravenwing elements with superior numbers.
One thing I will have to think more on is if and when to reserve my land speeders - they are fairly fragile and a great target for the enemy to get first blood...
One other thing I didn't do correctly was take photos. A couple of turns were missed, mostly because with small, elite units there's less time to remember to take a shot! In addition there were fewer 'action' shots, due to the lack of close combat, or vehicles to be destroyed - infantry casualties from shooting aren't nearly as photogenic.
Overall this was another great game, and makes me more confident against elite balanced or combat-heavy armies. However, I'm sure Cactus will now be planning ways to pin me down the next time we meet!
