But instead, I got paired up against Brother Captain James! I kid, I kid...James is a great guy, and despite some rules issues I have a good time playing him...on the other hand, he does not, it seems every time we get paired up I have the Rock to his Scissors and it's a really one-sided affair. This match was no different. :)
James was using Crimson Ultrafists with Dark Angel Deathwing allies:
Pedro Kantor
Biker Captain with Artificer, shield, relic blade
Belial
Command Squad on Bikes loaded up with Shields and Claws and Fists
10 Sternguard (2 lascannons)
10 Sternguard (2 lascannons)
10 Tactical (Missile, Melta)
10 Tactical (Missile, Melta)
5 "Special" Deathwing (Apothecary, Cyclone, I think 3 TH/SS and 2 LC...I don't think he had the Banner.)
And...that's all I can remember.
There's some things here that concern me a bit. The 2+ wounding bolter ammo on the Sternguard can shred everything with ease, so the DPs must be kept out of Rapid Fire range. The Bike squad could be a tough nut, laughing off my AP2 with their Shields...but there's only so many bodies in there, and every loss hurts.
The mission was Quarters, Objectives, KP (I think...fuzzy memory) and the deployment was Dawn of War. I won the roll and gave first turn to him. There was no turn 1 Night Fight.
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| The Crimson Ultrafists ready for battle! |
He spread out across the entire table, with Tacticals in the middle, Deathwing middle-left; Bikes middle-right. Sternguard were combat-squadded in the corners.
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| The bikers were turbo-boosting so fast I couldn't get a decent picture! |
He moved the bikers up full speed to cover a lot of the right side of the table, while the Deathwing waddled slowly towards the left.
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| Sternguard vainly maneuvering to try to do something constructive during the battle! |
The Sternguard shuffled around...I don't know why.
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| A blinding white light appeared over the battlefield as Tzeentch's forces went on the attack! You can see the scattered DP thru the top window of the ruin...sort of...sorry for shitty pics! |
I dropped in the Flying Circus and the Screamers, getting the wave I wanted this time. I decided to take advantage of his deployment and drop in where the large Bastion blocking table-center line of sight would take half his army out of the equation for awhile. Fateweaver scattered quite a bit farther back than I'd wanted, but still in shooting range. Crazy Ivan deep strike saw one Prince scatter off a bit, but the others landed on target right next to Fatey. The Screamers dropped away safe, and Turbo'd near Fateweaver, set up for turn 2 fun!
Shooting went well, blowing a Combat Squad of Sternguard off the table and killing one of another. This game really made me happy I had the Gaze instead of Breath on the DPs...being able to kill of MEQ at range is gold, IMO. Especially those pesky Grey Knights!
He took full advantage of one of my Princes being too far from Fateweaver. He moved up the Deathwing ready to assault it, grounded it with bolter fire (TL-Bolters from the bikes, actually), then killed it with mass shooting before he got to assault. Unfortunately for him this left his Bikes and Terminators ready to be hit by Screamers next turn!
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| I love the smell of barbequed space marines in the morning...it goes well with the sounds of whining and crying! :) |
My Turn 2, and I got all 3 flamers and 3 horror units in! What a nice change from last game! I dropped Horrors out of LOS near Objectives...their shooting isn't much use vs. MEQ, I'd rather keep them safe to get Objectives and help with Quarters! The Flamers I tried to drop in to roast the Terminators. None landed dead on, but all landed in decent enough spots...two could still hit Terminators, and one had shots at bikes.
Here we had a pretty ugly rule dispute. James insisted that after the second deep-striking model was placed, the third had to be in base-to-base with both the first model and the second, as this is the only way in which you can attempt to form a circle. I pointed out that this does not create a circle, but rather a triangle, that there was no way to form a circle with less than 6, and that as long as the requirement of being in base with the initial placed model is met, then the letter of the rule is met. I'd never heard anyone complain about deploying small deep-strike units in a straight line before (see pic above for what I mean). The TO (Bobby) was there, as we were quite loud (I must say I was pretty agitated by what I felt was petty rules lawyering) and after reviewing the book decided that I was meeting the intent.
One screamer unit moved up to assault Bikes, another to assault Terminators. All the FMC swooped, with FW and a DP hiding behind the Bastion (where Fatey's rerolls would help the Screamers on Terminators), while the LOC flew deep in to his back left to try to finish off the Sternguard holding the back left quarter.
Shooting killed 2 of the Sternguard (all the LoC could see) and a few of the Terminators. I decided to not shoot at the bikes as killing the closest model would take my charge distance from 5" to 8", and I'd rather get them tied up.
Screamers killed the Terminators with ease, but the Bikers were a tougher nut. Those Shields made things very difficult, and I'd forgotten the were S5, making wounding them a bit trickier (20 attacks, 10 hits, 5 wounds, 3++ and FNP = 1 dead!).
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| Screamers have a hard time with the Bikes...I had to send a Prince to rescue them! |
His turn he charged Belial in to the Screamers, and rapid-fired down a unit of Flamers...nothing else to be shot at.
I moved flamers up to roast the last of his Tactical, and sent a Prince in to help the Screamers with the Bikes while the Lord of Change ate the Sternguard in the back right. I got the rest of the Horrors in, with the Changeling's group making for the middle objective and the last holding the bottom right...I had 4 untouched horror units on 4 of 5 objectives, 3 FMC, 2 depleted Screamer units and a Flamer unit left. Screamers finished off Belial (after I tried to turn him in to a Spawn, another rules argument over my ability to do this to him while he was engaged....sigh).
I vector-striked Kantor dead, and shot down one of the Sternguard combat squads. At this point he had one combat squad lurking in ruins in the back right quarter, and he conceded the game.
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| End of the Game...no marines in sight! |
Other than the rules arguments, this was a fun game. I felt I played smart using the Bastion well to keep half his shooting off me, as well as good Flamer use keeping them alive a lot longer than normal. Screamers did what they needed, as did the FMC, and the Horrors looked pretty as they sat out of LOS holding Objectives!
We discussed his list a bit after. I told him I like the Tactical and Sternguard setup, but was not fond of the Deathwing in there (he agreed) nor the expensive bike unit (he disagreed).
I got max-points for this game, as I won all three missions, got Linebreaker, first blood, and warlord! Go Daemons! This is exactly the kind of list that I think I do best against, as the massive number of AP2/3/ignore damage output I have makes marines on foot nearly worthless!
Thanks for another fun game, James! I think that's 3 now...next game I'll be cocky and you'll kick my butt! :)
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