Tuesday, October 2, 2012

BFS Preps: nearly complete...and a battle report!

I've nearly completed preparations for the Battle for Salvation Grand Tournament this weekend. Everything is based and ready to go, the display board is made, and I just need to do some touch-up to fix chips and scratches from the poor Daemons having lived in a shoe box for so long!




The Skull Bases came out great (Thanks Sebastian!) and everything mounted up pretty easily. Some of the bigger guys aren't making a whole lot of contact, I hope they'll survive being put in the carry case without popping off the base. I'm hoping to get there early on Friday to get my Paint scoring done so I can not worry about it the rest of the weekend!

On the agenda the next few nights is fixing any chips of damage (especially on the Big Guys), and basing the Spawn...who are only marginally finished, but done enough to use if (when!) I spawn something!


The Whole Parade!

So that's that! I hope to be all packed up ready to go tomorrow night, so I can focus on family and sleep a bit before disappearing for the weekend!

I got a few games in this week, one real game even...with miniatures and a table and dice and everything! It was, however, what some would call Baby Seal Clubbing! A younger, newer player who's not got a lot of 6e under his belt...the game did not go well for him.

We played 1500 points. I had:

Fateweaver
Lord of Change
3 units of 3 Flamers
4 units of 5 Horrors
2 units of 5 Screamers
and 1 unit of 4 Screamers

I didn't grab a copy of his list, but from memory he had:

Shrike
7 Terminators
2x 10 Tactical
Land Raider Crusader
a Dreadnought in a Droppod
full Assault Marines

We played Capture & Control (whatever that one's called now...), he won the roll off and chose to go first. Shrug.

He deployed the Tacticals and the empty Land Raider, while the Terminators and Assault boys were deep striking, as was of course the Dred-Pod.


The Marines Deploy for battle!

Going first, his Drop Pod came in, mostly on target, dropping the Dread on my objective.

The Dreadnought drops in to capture the seemingly undefended objective..."Wow, that was easy!" he says...

I got the FMC and Screamers in first, along with one unit of Horrors

Fateweaver scattered the full 12", landing right in front of a Tactical Squad and the Land Raider. Everything else landed more or less safely. The Screamers turbo-boosted near Fateweaver. Shooting at the Dread did nothing.

First turn Daemonic Assault!

He got all his reserves in here, landing around my objective. He shot up some Screamers, and managed a wound on the Lord of Change.

The Dreadnought calls for reinforcements!

Then I dropped the hammer. I got all Flamers in and one more unit of Horrors. One Flamer unit and the Horrors went to pick on his Tacticals near his objective, the other Flamers went to roast Terminators.

The Tactical squad was wiped out.


"Squad Bravo, come in....Squad Bravo, do you copy?"..."Sorry sir, they're gone!"

One lone Terminator survived. The Screamers moved to beat up the Dreadnought, and it died nicely! The Lord of Change assaulted the Assault Marines (he was surprised by this...), challenged, Shrike accepted, and Shrike died to Instant Death from Smash attacks.

The Daemons close in for the kill!

Too bad Shrike didn't get turned in to a Spawn before the Lord of Change sucked up his soul!

The other Screamers went in to his last Tactical squad, leaving a handful of marines alive who stayed in combat.


The Screamers eat many Marine faces...

On his turn the Land Raider shot at Fateweaver, doing nothing. The Lord of Change beat the Assault Marines, only a few left. The Terminator charged flamers and died to overwatch. The Screamers finished off the Tactical squad.

He surrendered, having only a Land Raider and a Drop Pod left. Go Daemons!

This was really a no-win for him...the Daemons I run are so adept at killing off MEQ, he can't outshoot me and can't outfight me in melee. He was a good sport thru the drubbing, took it like a man. Good game, Ian!

But wait, there's more! I got a game in on Vassal too!!

I played against a 2000 point game against a very fine gentleman named Yalp, who had a very fine Grey Knight list:

Two Inquisitors with grenade tricks and Divination for Prescience;
5 units of 5 Strike Squad with Psycannons and a Hammer in Psybolt Razorbacks
2 small units of 5 Purifiers each with two Psycannons in Rhinos
3 Dreadnoughts with TL-AC and Psybolt
and a Venerable Dreadnought with TL-AC and Psybolt

This was Capture and Control again. Yalp won the roll and chose to go first...wisely wanting to spread around Warp Quake hate, I'm sure!

But, Tzeentch smiled upon me, and I seized the initiative! A rare thing indeed! I even got the primary drop I wanted...FMC and Screamers!

The Lord of Change scattered a bit, I was hoping to keep them all hidden behind the central building complex avoiding the bulk of the firepower, but he was fortunately still in Fateweaver range, so no worries!

My initial shooting popped one of the Purifier Rhinos and killed all but 1 Purifier and put a wound on the Inquisitor.

The Screamers of course turbo-boosted near Fateweaver.


Daemonic Drop after seizing...

On his turn he put up warp quake everywhere, and several Strike Squads dismounted to take shots at the Lord of Change.

His units with Line of Sight to the Screamers unloaded on them, leaving just one model alive. The other 2/3 of his army shot at the Lord of Change, and thanks to his T6 and rerolling 3++, he took no wounds, though he was grounded. Yeah!

After the Knights open fire on the Incursion...the Dread at bottom middle was used to note where the effects of Warp Quake were, very handy!

On my turn 2 I got in all the flamers and 2 units of Horrors. I'd love to be able to drop the Flamers in close to waste those Strike Squads in the open, but I remember how Warp Quake works now, and stayed away. After running I was able to keep one of the squads out of Line of Sight, but in range to jump over a building and barbeque next turn. The Horrors dropped back on my objective.

I decided to roll up one end of his line and work in from there, so everything went Swooping straight 'south', except the Lord of Change who went Gliding....I wanted him to assault a Dreadnought.

Shooting went well, as Fateweaver finished off the Inquisitor and his minion, while the Daemon Princes took out a Razorback. Sadly, the charges I'd hoped to get off failed, leaving the Grounded LOC amongst a pack of angry Grey Knights! The only charge that worked was a solo Screamer in to a Razorback, exploding the vehicle (I love that AP2!).

The Daemons close in on the beleaguered Knights!

The Bottom of Turn 2, and he sets his sights on Fateweaver!

The two dismounted Strike Squad near my herd of blue and purple meanies walked over ready to assault some Screamers. His shooting went after the Flamers on the roof of the building dead center, and they were quickly annihilated. Everything else shot at Fateweaver...who took it on the chin, passing all his saves!

The Strike Squad multi-assaulted screamers. I think we had two rules snafus here: first, they shouldn't have been able to assault because they fell out of their Razorback on my turn; second, they didn't suffer from the multi-assault penalty. Regardless, while I lost the lone survivor from the first-targeted squad, the rest of the Screamers annihilated the Strike Squad, leaving 1 lonely guy tied up in melee.


Here come the Flamers!

I got two more Horror squads in, and tried to drop them in where they could move in and start shooting at his troops, thinking that their firepower would be handy once the Screamers had fought themselves out killing vehicles.

Fateweaver kept on Swooping, turning hard and flying past hit Dreadnoughts. The other FMC glided, all lined up to attack Dreadnoughts. Flamers moved forward, one of them far out of range but the other was able to kill off an entire Strike Squad! Fateweaver fired Bolt at the last Rhino, Exploding it; while his Breath and Gaze completely destroyed another Strike Squad! Wow!

The Daemon Princes and Lord of Change all charged in to Dreadnoughts, and Screamers tried a long charge in to the Purifiers, and made it! They took some damage from Overwatch and Cleansing Flame, but being in Fateweaver range mitigated the losses, and they were able to completely wipe out that Purifier squad AND the Inquisitor...though he forgot to roll for or use his Grenades until after the fight was over....this would have changed the outcome of that battle a bit, but I don't think it would have affected the overall outcome too much.

The Monstrous Creatures did well, with the Venerable and a Regular Dreadnought being destroyed, while the Lord of Change left the Dreadnought he was fighting with only one Hull Point left.

Nothing left but going thru the motions...


Yalp looked over his battered forces, and decided to call it a night. We'd started the game late (after 10pm, I believe), and both of us were tired. I'd effectively lost only one unit of Screamers and one of Flamers, while all he had left was two Strike Squads, a Dreadnought, and 3 Razorbacks, putting him in a virtual no-win situation. This was by no means a rage-quit or anything negative, he was very cordial, just very realistic. For those of you not familiar with Vassal, games are 'conceded' earlier than they would be on the table-top, it's not a negative at all, just a slightly different culture. I would gladly and happily play Yalp again (in fact, we have plans for a re-match soon!), and I just want to emphasize that the 'quitting' was not a negative thing at all!

So, I had a bit of luck there, seizing being the key one. If he'd been able to get Warp Quake up and push all those Rhinos up 18" I would have been really screwed. Similarly, the Lord of Change tanking all that shooting was pretty critical too!

I feel if I can get the drop I want (which I won't 1 in 3 games...sigh), I can do well versus any matchup. It's those games when the Horrors come first that I'll struggle!

Thanks for the game, Yalp! Better luck next time!

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