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Anyone who read my last Batrep knows that I didn't do as well as I would have liked. I like to think I'm pretty good at playing 40k, but I have come to understand the saying "big fish in a small pond" a bit better now... I played a lot of games in the aftermath of that, and learned not to over-rely on Deep Striking! I struggled to work out what to add to my old 1500pt tourney list to bring it to 1750... In response to a call from g00gle5, the organiser, I took a list as similar to my old one as possible and settled on Lemartes replacing one of the Death Company (as it'd been clarified that for the event he could count as the 5th needed to purchase a Dread), beefing up one Assault Squad to 10 men, and adding an assload of wargear. So it looked like this;

The Baal Defence "A" Team;

1 Commander Dante (HQ)

1 Mephiston, Lord of Death (HQ)

9 Assault Squad (Troops)
Meltagun & CCW (x2); Combat Squads; Bolt Pistol & CCW (x9); Frag Grenades;
Krak Grenades; Jump Packs

1 Space Marine Sergeant
Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Fist; Storm Shield (x1); Jump
Pack

4 Assault Squad (Troops)
Meltagun & CCW; Bolt Pistol & CCW (x4); Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Jump
Packs

1 Space Marine Sergeant
Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Fist; Jump Packs

3 Death Company (Troops)
Bolt Pistol (x1); Close Combat Weapon (x1); Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades

1 Death Company #1
Bolt Pistol (x1); Power Fist (x1); Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades

1 Lemartes, Guardian of the Lost

1 Death Company Dreadnought (Troops)
#Smoke Launchers; Storm Bolter; Blood Talon; Blood Talon w/Meltagun

1 Sanguinary Priest (Elites)
Jump Pack; Bolt Pistol (x1); Close Combat Weapon (x1); Frag Grenades; Krak
Grenades; Blood Chalice

1 Stormraven Gunship (Heavy Support)
Extra Armour; TL Lascannon; Twin-linked
Multi-Melta; Bloodstrike Missiles (x4)

1 Stormraven Gunship (Heavy Support)
Extra Armour; TL Assault Cannon; Twin-linked
Multi-Melta; Bloodstrike Missiles (x4)

Models in Army: 26
Total Cost: 1750

So pretty small and hard-hitting. The Storm Shield was there to give me a second Invulnerable save for the 10-man RAS (and hell, I'd take two if I could) on top of Dante, who usually rode shotgun with them, and the Priest. Mephy and Brother "Lucky" (I'll explain the name later) the DC Dread usually rode one 'raven, and the Death Company in the other. I'm used to winning Objective-based games by tabling the other person, but I was hoping that the option of combat-squadding the big squad, as well as the other 5-man squad, would be enough in case of stiff resistance. Of course, at about 10 the night before, I realised that I hadn't got models to represent all the changed wargear! So I hacked the arms off of all my Inferno Pistol Marines, and my Sergeants, and quickly whipped up some magnetised arms... Primed, hairdryered, drybrushed, hairdryered, washed, hairdryered, highlighted, and bam, they were done. At about 1:30 AM.

I woke up stupidly early (well, about 6:30), only to find that the drive there was really, really fast. I think I got in around 8:20, just enough time to enjoy my free cup of tea and doughnut before we kicked off... Best of all, I'd remembered my camera, unlike last time! Click the thumbnails for full view, where I remembered to take pics. One notable thing I wasn't aware of before I got there; in addition to the usual objectives/victory points, there was also a set of 20 Xbox-style Achievements one could get. These went on to be pretty important, score-wise, as they were worth 50VPs each.

First Round: Me vs Mike S and his Tau, Seize Ground (3 objectives) and Spearhead Deployment

I was amused, besides myself there were another 2 Mikes, and a Marc with a similar surname to me. Lots of misheard name-calling! I ended up being drawn against one of the other Mikes for the first round, and interestingly enough, he was playing Tau. Interestingly because one of my regular opponents is an avid Tau player, and another one used to play them, so I enjoy seeing the different kinds of lists people put together for them. Notably, Mike's list was VERY heavy on the firepower, to memory;

Battlesuit Commander

2X 3 man Battlesuit squadrons with Flamers and Missile pods
Stealth Suit team, including a fusion gun or two
Piranha squadron, 2 Fusion guns one Burst Cannon
1 Pathfinder squad, and 2 squads of Fire Warriors, each with a markerlight drone. Might have all been Fire Warriors.
2X Hammerheads, one with a Railgun, one with an Ion Cannon
1 squad of 3 Broadsides, all with Railguns

I won the choice of first turn (as I did in my first 3 games, in fact) but chose to ignore the "Good Posture" Achievement for the sake of strategy, and chose to go second. Since it was Spearhead, he placed two objectives in cover in his table quarter, then I placed mine behind a small copse of trees in mine. He deployed the Fire Warriors on his objectives, his Hammerheads on the board in one corner, and his commander in some ruins near the Hammerheads. His Piranhas hovered menacingly behind the troops, with one squad of Crisis Suits to the rear. I decided to go for my usual tactic of starting nothing on the board! Dante and pals were to Deep Strike, while everyone else was to come in from the board edge.

Since he had first turn, Mike basically ended up with two turns of not much to do, and spread his troops around his board quarter. He also used some pesky Xenos wargear to bring in his Broadsides on a 2+ roll. My second turn, and I got lucky; Mephy and Lucky's Stormraven roared in 24" past the side of buildings which occupied much of the centre of the board, with a clear shot at the rear of the Ionhead. My 5-man Assault Squad jumped right onto my objective from the board edge, as Dante Surgically Struck his squad right into Mike's corner, next to the Railhead, which scared him more than a little as I explained that they dont scatter! 2 Meltas and an Inferno pistol immobilised the poor thing, and blew off its main weapon. Unfortunately, the Stormraven's twin-linked Lascannon was denied by a Disruptor field!



Turn 3, and the ENTIRE army fired on Dante and his squad, including another group of Crisis Suits which turned up! The exception was the set of Broadsides, which fired on the Stormraven, only to shake it... Which, between Power of the Machine Spirit and Extra Armour, didn't mean a lot. Between some good luck for me and some bad luck for Mike, I lost a single regular Marine. Thankyou, Storm Shield! In desparation, he assaulted me with the Crisis Suits, but did me no damage in return for all but one suit being slain, Dante doing his usual lacklustre performance (for a guy with I6 WS6 and a re-roll even before the stuff from the Priest giving him FC, he's a constant underachiever. If it wasn't for his special rules, I'd ditch his ass for a Reclusiarch, Astorath or the Sanguinor). His last suit broke, and was run down in short order. In my turn, the second 'Raven didn't turn up, but that was okay. The one with Mephiston and the Dread in advanced, but didn't drop its cargo this turn. Dante and chums multi-assaulted the second Crisis Suit team, and a squad of Fire Warriors, beating the crap out of both for IIRC no casualties in return. Once again, the Tau were run down by the frenzied Scions of Sanguinius. Problem was, they were stuck with another turn of shooting...


Turn 4, and Stealth Suits turned up too. I was less lucky than before, and the squad ended up looking like this;



And then lost even more men, resulting in the squad being I think just the two Melta troopers, Dante and the Priest! However, Reinforcements were on the way! Mephiston and the Dread saw fit to de-bus, assaulting the Ionhead and objective-camping Fire Warriors respectively, while Lemartes swooped in from above, Stormraven 2 speeding 24" onto the board and opening fire with the Asssault canon on the Piranhas. I got lucky, and destroyed one of the Fusion gunners, also stunning the Burst Cannon. Dante and the remnants of his squad shot and then bundled the Broadsides, who I deemed the largest threat left on the board, and slew all but one, who broke and ran off the board! Mephiston ripped the Ionhead apart as only a bite-sized Daemon Prince can, while the Death Company Dread and its hand-mounted Power Blenders (AKA Blood Talons) killed the Fire Warriors bar one lone survivor, who broke and ran for his life!

Turn 5, and Brother Lucky earned his name; he was a millimetre out of range of the Fusion Gun carried by the Stealth Suits, and the melta from the Piranha couldn't penetrate him on 2D6! We decided that he'd been interred as a good luck charm against Melta weapons before the Black Rage had overtaken him... Mephiston weathered a storm of Pulse fire, unwounded, and there wasn't a lot left for the rest of the Tau to do but go down fighting to defend the last objective they held. In my turn, the Death Company came onto the field from within their transport, but rather than charging the remaining Tau Troops, they went after different prey; the growing pile of Drones from all the wrecked vehicles... The Stormravens let rip with all the firepower at their possession, taking the Piranhas, the Tau Commander, and the damaged Railhead off the board. Dante's squad shot and assaulted the last Troops, Mephiston made short work of the Stealth team, and the Death Company failed to even approach making their points back, gloriously destroying a pair of Gun Drones.

(I'd actually written up until the middle of game 2, only for my computer to crash and leave me with only the above, so I ended up letting this sit another day. Hopefully my memory is intact still!)

Turns 6 and 7 were a Benny-hill-esque chase scene; Mephiston ran down the last Fire Warrior, while the DC and Dread had no choice but to chase the aforementioned Drones! The last shot of the game was the Stormravens gunning them down in a hail of heavy fire to assure a total victory!

So, I felt pretty good after game 1... I was told I was probably in the lead, on account of Mephiston scoring me a total of 4(!) Achievements! Unleash the Fury AND Universally Gifted in one go against the Stealth Suits, as well as History is Written by the Survivors, and that plus tabling poor Mike S also got me Off the Chart!

Part 2 later on, after work!

Match 2: Me vs Adam's Orks! Pitched Battle, Capture and Control

So, it turned out that my 2nd opponent was a friend of my first! Which was cool, but it meant that he'd heard all about my first game during the break. His list was roughly;

4 Battlewagons with Deffrollas
Big Mek, Kustom Force Field
Warboss
Nobs, all with individual equipment including kombi-skorchas and power klaws
3x 20ish Boys, with Nobs with Power Klaws
Warbikers

His tactic seemed to be using the KFF Battlewagon at the back of a shield wall made of the other three BWs, and using the Invulnerable save to advance all his boys to the other end of the table... Naturally, I decided the KFF one had to go first!

We both stuck our objectives roughly opposite one another, on my right hand side of the board. I once again won first turn but chose to let him have it, and he deployed his Warbikers on the opposite side from the objectives, while everything else was in Battlewagons holding his objective. I left Dante and chums to DS, the 'ravens in reserve, and my 5-man squad on my objective. For a laugh, though, after joking with my opponent, I left Mephiston on the board, staring down the Bikers.

Turn 1, and the Bikers advanced on Mephy, trying to gun him down but hitting with typical Ork accuracy, and not even managing to wound him. The Battlewagons made a beeline for my objective. In response, Mephiston killed one biker with a plasma shot before charging down the rest, and consolidating towards the Battlewagons...

Turn 2, all that Adam did was move the Battlewagons another 12" towards my objective... My Assault Marines moved up to meet the challenge, whilst Dante descended behind the KFF Battlewagon with his entourage! Mephiston flew another 12" closer, and one Stormraven moved 6" onto the field to provide fire support. Shooting, and Dante's barrage of melta fire managed to wreck the KFF BW despite the saves! On the downside, a whole horde of angry Nobs were about to get out and complain that he ruined their ride... My other Melta immobilised the rightmost Trukk, the Stormraven immobilised the leftmost, and gunned down some Nobs. This was about to get very messy;



Turn 3, and it was my turn to be on the receiving end of a devastating pummeling! A WAAAAAUUGH was called, and the Nobs skorched Dante's retinue before assaulting... the massed fire only took a single Marine, but my luck was about to take a serious dip... Dante wounded the Warboss maybe once, the Priest wounded the Warboss once, a few Nobs died and in return the Priest was killed, along with about half the Assault squad... The Warboss managed to score a single hit on Dante, which in turn wounded, which in turn killed him... until I remembered that Dante';s Mask had nerfed the warboss, and my opponent agreed that Dante would have survived. I amazingly made my leadership check, and then my Initiative check to Hit and Run! Next turn would be sweet revenge! Mephiston fared a little better, killing off several, who did him no damage in return, and ran for their Orky lives, as we both forgot that Mob Rule would have made them Fearless and killed some off instead... Lastly, my 5-man Assault Squad died without doing anything in return... Not impressed, guys! My turn 3, and the DC Dread's Stormraven came in, it was payback time in Spades! The DC Dread disembarked neatly behind the Boys who'd killed my 5-man squad... Brother Lucky was about to get his Power-Blend on. Mephiston sedately wandered past fleeing Orks towards the Nobs, and Dante's squad also strolled back over to the Orks who'd given them a major bloody nose... Even without Furious Charge, they had some axes to grind; 3 melta shots took down 2 Nobs, one making his KFF save. The Stormravens exploded the "live" Battlewagon, and one of the immobilised ones, the explosion doing enough damage to the Boys inside to get me the "Fire Truck" Achievement and pinning the survivors. The Death Company joined the party, multi-assaulting the Nobs AND the fleeing Boys, turning the entire thing into a messy bundle. Long story short, the Orks went down, a single Power Klaw to the Death Company was all they landed in the end, before the one surviving Nob was run down after unsurprisingly failing to get a pair of 1's on his break test... Dante's squad rolled back to the objective, while Mephiston and the DC toodled towards the last mobs of Orks left. Brother Lucky lived up to his name once more; after only hitting with 2 of his 5 attacks, he then managed to hit and wound repeatedly with those 2 dice enough times to take out the entire mob he'd assaulted!

With only an immobilised Battlewagon and half a pinned squad of Boys left, Adam didn't have much of a turn 4... Dante broke from his squad, and shot the last Battlewagon with his pistol while Brother Lucky rolled towards the pinned Boys, his wingman Mephiston close behind. Amusingly, Dante managed to take a wound from the exploding BW, failing his 2+ save, but that was the last damage I took before Stormraven shooting, Mephiston and Lucky sealed the fate of the remaining Greenskins. Total Victory to me, once again scoring over 1750 VPs! Sadly, my luck was about to run out... Part 3 soon!

Great reports so far mate! and thats some great tabling on your part, as i read through the fight with dante and the warboss i couldnt help but notice you were about to get dante insta killed, id just like to let you know for future reference that dante is an Eternal Warrior, meaning he cannot be instantly killed.

Continue with the great reports!

Thanks man, sadly I can't help but say now that it gets worse from now on. I'll probably post the last 2 parts at once, after I get some free time... But Dante's not an Eternal Warrior, according to the 5E Codex. :( The only BA Eternal Warrior is the Sanguinor, sadly, though Mephiston gets an honourable mention for being T6 and being able to Psychic Hood against Force Weapons...