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Hey guys, Sorry I don't have a lot of time right now and had a game against a friend's AdMech testing for potential lists in a Highlander format 1500 tournament. I'm not sure about the DW but St.Celestine was a boss. We played an ITC mission. He had everyone's favorite used robot salesman... Belasarius Cawl. He used two formations... tons of Grav, giant Robots with T7 and AP3 shots. Lots of infiltration, etc. I wanted Celestine to lead my Vanguard but they didn't make the list so I decided to play a CAD as usual. I had my Libby lead a CAD into battle, with a Grey Knight Daemonhunter force of a simple Interceptor squad and a Dreadknight. I did not get first turn, and had Celestine and a Rhino of Vets hang back for Maelstrom. He didn't have many shots..... I lost a bike which Celestine was guiding through the mid table. The game went back and forth a lot and I got a lucky roll for reserves. This is the only picture I have of the game: I basically deep striked everything. I got lucky, the Dreadknight came down with the Angelis Beacon guided in nicely. As well the Inteceptors came in beside the beacon. So I unload, turns out his lawnmower robots with Grav all have a 2+ cover save this turn from some Omnisiah made up rule-orium. (It always sounds like the rules can be whatever he needs, and just adds '-orium' to the end to legalize it. ;) ) The Dreadknight is gone next turn. My Libby gets off Invis somehow and lives for one more turn. It's such a smash fest in his zone. I'm denying him points with my ObSec pods and hanging on for dear life. Celestine is coming in hot, but the Dune Striders and Rangers are infiltrating deep in my zone so they turn back and destroy them... I mean celestine with armourbane was impressive in that case. He killed one of Celestine's guards, and I had to split the bikes off and grab/prevent points. In his zone the Grey Knights were all gone by T2. The Interceptors tried charging some goofy looking little rickety robots that -1 WS, etc... they got obliterated by these taser attacks. The game was tight but I just could only kill one of those stupid Castellan robots... the giant 50's looking goofy robots that look like they'd talk in binary. I unloaded unbelievable Frag Cannon Impact shots... only to have them saved or FnP saved, and one shot flew back at me and killed the poor bugger who shot it... incredible. Belasarius gave him BS5 so Grav/plasma was automatic. The only thing I had going for me was I had him occupied super deep in his lines. So eventually Celestine breaks off, charges an objective I pick to take because he needs it as well. She flames these ranger dudes, and kills the rest in CC, while resurrecting one of her fallen buddies... she's a tank and a half guys. The Bikers take an objective and hold on for dear life... it was something but we had to call it after T4. I don't think I could touch Belasarius.... he make look like a couple of necrons getting busy under a picnic blanket, but he's the real deal. Very resilient.... when his squad smoked HQ vets, and I only had the Libby left, he hit my libby with D3 S10 melta shots... wow. That's a set of terminator armour no one will be reclaiming! I ended up winning Maelstrom and if we counted end game points I had line breaker, and the Scouring by grabbing enough of he mid table markers and his 3 point one. Incredibly destructive game. I was sorely disappointed at how little my firepower did in this game though. It took amazing amounts of fire power to do anything. And one side note... for the shield doubters among you, as always I will continue to sprinkle shields in the army. I had one shield vet stand in front of the LIbby and make 7 shield saves on Grav in a row. Sure it's not always 7... heck not even one sometimes. BUT... this time it saved about 140 points worth!

My list: HQ - Librarian - Beacon Celestine Trooops - Vets - 2 frag, 2 SS, drop pod Vets - 2 frag, 2 ss, rhino Elite - Vanguard - 4x, PF/LC x4 Termies - 2x, cyclone x2 Contemptor Mortis - Kheres x2 Skyhammer Annihilation - Assault Squad x2 - 1 eviserator per Devs - 5x, 4x gravcannons, drop pod Devs - 5x, 4x multi-meltas, drop pod My opponent: 2 Demon Princes with wings 2 Demon Princes 2 Heldrakes 2 Noise marine squads with blast master 1 chaos squad with lord and a rhino We played Purge the Alien with Hammer and Anvil deployment. He went first. His noise marines set up in some ruins to my left and in the center. His DPs set up on the left and the rhino on the right. I set my rhino on my left, terms in the middle Celestine/vanguards on the right with the contemptor. Turn 1: His noise marines shot at me but only glanced the rhino. The DPS ran to close with me and his chaos boys hopped out of their rhino and took pot shots at Celestine. Turn 1: I dropped my Frag squad next to his boys, my melta next to the frag squad within range of one of his flying DPs, the grav squad between the two foot slogging dps and the left side Noise marines. One of the assault squads mishapped back into reserves and the other dropped between a flying DP and the terms. I psychic shrieked one of the flying DPs but rolled a 7 so no effect. The gravs popped one of the foot sloggers. The meltas only took one wound off of the flying DP/warlord they were close to. I messed up and put my SS guys in front of my frag guys so i couldn't template the boys, but I killed 3 of them with normal shooting. The contemptor had moved up and killed 3 more. The rhino took two wounds off of the remaining footslogger. The terms shot at one of the noise marine squads but didn't do anything. Celestine charged the boys and finished them off. The assault squad flubbed its charge against the DP. Turn 2: One winged DP charged and spanked my assault squad. The other charged the meltas and killed them off. The footslogger charged and killed the gravs. The heldrake came in and managed to torrent my frag squad and celestine's squad. Killed the body guards and most of the frag squad. The noise marines finished off the frag squad minus the librarian. The rhino shot at the librarian but didn't do anything. Turn 2: Sadly my librarian was out of range for anything and the assault squad scattered too far away to be useful. The terms popped the rhino. The contemptor rolled snap shots at the heldrake only doing one 1 HP. The rhino killed the remaining foot slogger. Celestine and the vanguard charged the winged DP/warlord and killed him with an awesome amount of PF attacks. Turn 3: His other heldrake came on and popped my rhino with its cannon. The torrent heldrake killed the SS guys from the rhino unit. The noise marines killed my assault marines. The winged dp charged my contemptor and got it locked in combat. Turn 3: I forgot I could beacon my contemptor out of the melee :'( so my librarian did nothing. The frag cannons and terms snap shot at the heldrakes but didn't do anything. Celestine charged the closest noise marine squad and managed to leave one alive to stay locked in melee. Turn 4: The heldrake with the flamer killed off the all but one frag cannon of the frag cannon squad. the other shot at my lib doing 1 wound. The DP killed my contemptor and the noise marines shot at celestine. Turn 4: My lib popped his DP with a psychic shriek. The terms and remaining cannon missed the heldrakes. Celetine and co charged and crushed the noise marines. Turn 5: his heldrakes killed my lib and the lone frag cannon. Due to time constraints we had to end the game there. It turned out to be a tie, 11 to 11. There are a couple things I wish I would have done differently. I should have charged the noise marines with the assault squads and I have to remember I can't template over my own units. Other than that, it went well. As much as I like deep striking my frag squads, having one in a rhino seems to work out very well for me. I am not sure how much I liked the cyclones, but I think it was just the list I was going against. My opponent made some comments about cheese due to Celestine...I made no comment about 4 DPs.

Hello Third video report. This time 2600 pts, just for fun game. So I included the Execution force. I am sorry to have not painted all the models, as I bought St. Celestine, and the assassins the day before the game. Anyhow, hope you enjoy. 2600 pts vs Grey Knights https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFqLSxHi6PY&feature=youtu.be 1000 pts vs Genestealer Cults. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dcnXlIeE7o&feature=youtu.be

So this one should be fairly brief, I just thought I could throw this up as a lesson learned with the new FAQ. I made a few big errors, but the list may have been the biggest one (Watchblade). This was an 1850 Ork game, and I had no delusions of taking my Watchblade list against something higher end in the compete level so I thought this would be a good fun game to try it out with as I was paired against what I consider a mid-level ork list. Orks: 2 Warbosses on Bikes (one was Warlord) 2 squads of 12 Lootas in Battle Wagons 3-4 trukk squads of Boyz (4+saves) 1 squad of boyz on foot Deathwtach Watchblade Task Force: Watchmaster (Warlord) 5 Custodes + Astropath from C:IA 2 x 5 Vets in Pods with various loadouts (one combimelta heavy, the other Frag heavy) 1 x 5 Stalker Vets 4 Bikes, Maul, Axe, PwrWeapon, Meltabomb 2 Terminators w/Assault cannon. Razorback w/Dual assault cannon. BSSF: Libby with Beacon Angelis Aquila with Frag and Hammer+SS. in Pod Dread with Twin Las. The Game was Maelstrom Escalation and the Orks got to go first, and spread out appropriately with dual Loota Wagons spread out. These things are easy to underestimate but I had a lot of juicy targets for him. That's a TON of S7 shots in AV14 wagons. So I set up quite conservatively trying to keep my Razorback very deep, and my Dread completely hidden, and my Custodes with Watchmaster hidden behind a factory. Turn 1: His card was not doable in T1, and he could not get first blood, he just basically hunkered down though and this made me realize I had made a mistake. With my Utlra's I had been used to forcing him up, but he had ObSec, I had none, and he had range, and I had... a Dreadnought with range. So with 2 pods coming in I was extremely aggressive. I knew the Lootas would wreck my list if left unchecked. I took an insane risk but had not chance and put both pods supporting each other, blocking easy movement, but allowing my 3 Combi Melta squad easy shots to his one red loota wagon truck. + The Librarian shouts orders, but has his own target in mind. The dilapidated Loota Wagon has weak side armour, an easy tareget for 3 Combi Meltas... right????!!!!??? + - I picked the Mission tactics for Heavies, re-rolling ones. (The Lootas and Wagons are heavies). The Librarian notes on of the dreaded Warbosses on a Bike has the Lucky stick (the one piece of Xenos wargear I wish the Imperium would steal already!). BUT the Warboss is not joined to a squad. The Librarian Targets the warboss with Psychic Shriek, perils (Loses Psychic Shriek power as a result!!!) but the Warbosses head explodes like a rotten head of cabbage. First Blood + Slay the Warlord for Deathwatch! That netted me 2 points (including Maelstrom), - The Astropath tried to get off Prescience on the Custodes squad so I could re-roll reserves next turn, and failed to pass a single dice, never mind two. - Now the shooting starts.... the 3 Combi melta's look to open up the Lootas in the wagon on side armour 12, re-rolling 1's to hit. I roll 2 x 2, and a 1. So all miss, I re-roll the 1 and get a hit, and score a glance! ugh. Now I'm in big trouble. - The Libby has Beacon Angelis. As per FAQ I can only use it as a Beacon this turn, but cannot pull the Custodes and Watchmaster this turn which I dearly want to do, especially now that the Combi Melta's have failed horrendously. (Ultra Doctrines would have allowed the re-rolls of 2's.. and that stuck with me.) - The Custodes moved to the far side of their shelter building to intercept an advancing Trukk as he wanted an objective point. - The Libby was still in trouble. He was down a wound (perils) and the Lootas were still fine. And they had 2 frag cannons and I had another trukk right beside the Libby squad. This was big trouble as I was heavily surrounded with 50+ dudes in assault range next turn. I decided to shoot the wagon and use the Frag Flamer mode... big mistake, I could not get through the darn truck AV of 10 with the squad's combined shooting! Ugh. + The Custodes on the edge of nowhere need the Beacon to stay alive. I had to take the obvious bait of intercepting this trukk. I needed to deny him the point beside my Custodes and couldn't afford to leave it in such a close game. + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Turn 2: - The Ork player was livid with his mistake of thinking I couldn't access his Warboss and gave me First blood/Warlord. It was also his best CC character but had no defense for Shriek. Well he wanted to make that Libby pay. I really did need the beacon in T1 as there was a clear path, and he took it with 30+ Boyz, and the Trukk I could not take out... it all got out and annihilated the Libby Squad and the Combi Melta squad beside it. I was severely outnumbered now. My Alpha Strike had essentially failed. I had nothing left to even use the Watchblade's "Hit and Run" rule (which is typically the case). + The Librarian and the Beacon are going to be bacon here. Overwhelmed by greenskin, the anti-xenos elite prey for a miracle. + The Custodes were now stuck walking, and I had only 2 empty pods left on his half of the table. While he was missing his warboss, literally the most damage I did was simply overwatch with Shotguns and Frag Cannons. This was looking really bad. Both Loota wagons being 100% was also a massive problem I did not foresee with my Alpha typically capable of taking at least one down a turn. - The Ork Retaliation netted him 3-4 points. We were tied after my first turn, and I had bottom of 2 to go: Deathwatch TURN 2: - As crazy as this sounds, with one Pod coming in reserves, I felt I had to make a very deep push for one of the Lootas. 75% of his army shifted to kill my two Pods of Deathwatch so this left a TINY bit of breathing room by his OTHER Loota squad in a wagon.... Not much but a bit of space. So the idea was I'd take down the other wagon, and try to get him to turn his army away from me, and go back to rescue his Lootas. In the meantime he turbo'd a Trukk to sit on an objective and my Custodes would have to take care of it there while the rest of my army juggled for a position. - The Dreadnought came out of cover, got off a Lascannon shot and flat out blew up a trukk in a single pen shot! Not bad...at least I hit something. That netted me a point. - The stalkers had no targets all game as his army was predominately far away, the odd shots I could get on his boyz were meaningless to him. So I advanced them, but lost 2 in return fire. - the Pod had come in, to take out the second loota wagon: + When at first you don't succeed... prey for a re-do! The third and final pod comes in with a vet squad targeting the second Loota Wagon. + - Deep in the heart of things that smell like cabbage and look like green carnie folk, I took a huge risk. I also slammed my bikes upward to force him to make a difficult decision.... the bike shot up the 20 man foot squad (I think I must have been outnumbered by about 60 models in this game.. no joke.) The Bikes presented a mild mid table threat, and cut off support from one trukk that just turboed and faced the Custodes. So now the dual Frag Cannon team would NOT use the flamer templates (I made this mistake last time) and take rear/ and side shots on his Loota with Impact S9/AP2 shots. I BARELY wrecked (did not explode unfortunately) the Loota wagon. So good thing I did not use the templates like usual. The Lootas were also pinned from the damage, and that bought me precious time. - The Razorback blew up the turbo'd trukk in my zone, the Custodes swept in and completely annihilated the 12 boyz in the trukk and swept into the mid table to try to threaten the 20 man blob. TURN 3: - The Orks had shifted the army of course... to take on the 5 man squad that podded in. I knew this was going to be ugly. - The score was decidedly in my favour because I could draw up lots of cards, and pick a soft target to complete it. He was sitting on an objective I needed in a loota wagon, and he knew it. The unharmed Loota Wagon unloaded on the Dreadnought with 20+ shots and wasted it. + Well the ol' Dread did wack a little trukk so living to T3 is pretty acceptable for him. He's having a nap now. + - The Orks press hard into the corner where they lost the loota wagon. They take the bait on the bikers (who are doing very little but did take down about 5 orks). The bikes were hit hard with orks, and they almost missed everything. I think I caused one wound. I performed hit and run with the last bike to deny him a victory point. - The Orks in the corner surrounded my last 5 vets. The Custodes... so slowly were coming to mid table but the game was being decided here. Stupid gold armour must weigh a ton. Without the Beacon these guys were just out of the picture too long... Anyway, he calls a Waaagh and sure enough, he rolls a 10 to run with 12 Orks, and makes the 9 inch assault by one inch... to smash into the 5 man squad. he MUST issue a challenge and MUST kill a character. Aside from my Custodes, and the squad I just deep striked in, I had NO other characters so he MUST kill my Sergeant in the challenge. .... of course I accept the challenge. What Deathwatch Sergeant surrounded by fist toting Orks wouldn't? I still go first but the vets can only kill 1 bloody Ork. Now the challenge, and he wiffs on two fist attacks with his fist Nob.... One hit, then one wound, the Ork winds up to deliver the killing blow but the Segeant would spin out of the way and the fist would glance off his Stormshield! Oh I laughed.... I had to. This was so ugly, but the Ork player blue screened on me at that point. In this moment I was denying him points he really should have. Now I wanted to use Watchblade's Hit and Run, but guess what? I lost combat badly and ran 11" away and he couldn't catch me. lol Turn 4: - Now I have to get the last of my forces up and running in... the headless Watchmaster and funky Custodes wade through the blizzard looking for anything Green. + Left to explore Hoth, the rebels see no sign of a probe droid.... + - The running Vets auto rally and hit the remaining (now unpinned) Lootas as they pass by. The orks want them dead badly... but the Orks would get flamed hard by dual Frag and then attempt to charge them and die in the process! How? I don't know...living on borrowed time they try to nudge by an objective marker I happen to need. - On the far right side of the table is the Loota wagon I targeted in T1. It was annoying all game... it destroyed the Razorback finally, and put a ton of shots into the Custodes as they crossed the plains of the frozen wasteland, but only took one wound. - The Two Terminators waddled up the side.... + The two termies had no valid targets left and after cleaning out greenskins they went for the Loota wagon + - The Termies would assault the truck, the Lootas inside unloaded overwatch, and killed a Terminator. STILL I rushed in with the last survivor and would fail to take down the truck, only scoring a glance!!!1 - The Orks counter with a few assaults of remnant squads, and kill the Terminator with a fist. The Terminator wipes them as well with his dying blows. It's a complete wipe out on both sides.... - The 'running' squad of Shield Sergeant has his Frag Gunners gunned down by stray Ork bullets. As the last surviving Veteran on the board, he seeks shelter beside the downed Loota wagon, to hold an objective, and deny "kill a character" from the Orks. - By turn 6, my Custodes had made it all the way across the tundra and hit the original Loota Wagon targeted way back in T1, and blew it up!!!!! At that point the Orks conceded with almost nothing left on the table for either side, I had a 4 point lead. Deathwatch win 11-8 points. Warlord intact + line breaker.

Greetings all, so I played my first game in 8th edition today. We played a 2k game using the No Mercy mission (the new purge the alien mission.) My opponent played daemons + csm and I played pure deathwatch. Here is a quick army breakdown: DW (Battalion detachment) Watchmaster x 2 5 vets with combi-meltas in a pod 5 vets with combi-plasma in a pod solo biker solo biker corvus w/twin assault cannon, 2xblackstar missile, halo launcher corvus w/twin assault cannon, 2xblackstar missile, halo launcher kill team in corvus w/2xfrag, blackshield w/th/ss, 1 th/ss term, 1 vanguard, 1 biker w/power axe kill team in corvus w/2xfrag, blackshield w/th/ss, 1 th/ss term, 1 vanguard, 1 biker w/power axe (all vets have chainsword as second weapon) Chaos (Battalion detachment) (not sure he had 2 hqs after the fact) GUO 15ish seekers w/champ, musician 15ish plaguebearers 6 bloodcrushers w/champ 4 fiends 8 plague marines w/2xplasma in a rhino 6 plague marines w/2xmelta in a rhino 10 zerkers w/chain axes in a rhino 6 havocs w/4xauto cannon He won the roll off to choose deployment type and side. He chose dawn of war and the side he was on already. This means I deploy the first unit, and looking at all the fast units I determined I needed to split him up. I split my deployment, 1 biker and corvus in each of my corners, as out of LOS as possible. He deployed as centrally as possible. Since I finished deploying first I got the first turn. (He failed to seize.) Turn 1 I chose to wait on my pods, so I moved both corvus' along the board edge and moved the bikers out enough to be at max range to shoot. I was able to cull 3 fiends and 3 seekers (they were on opposite sides.) His turn 1 he advanced with mostly everything, except the rhinos and havocs. His GUO put 3 mortal wounds on a corvus with smite, the havocs put a couple wounds on the same one. His seekers successfully charged the solo biker (advanced 17 inches {3+14} and made the 7 inch charge) and deleted it (first blood.) Turn 2 I chose to bring in the pods this turn (at the end of the movement phase), the damaged corvus with seekers all around it flew over to the other side of the table with the rest of my army. (He had maneuvered the seekers, zerkers, GUO, and plaguebearers all that direction.) I dumped out the other kill team and moved the corvus aggressively past the bloodcrushers. The kill team moved close to the plasma rhino and bloodcrushers. Dropped both pods around 12" away from his army, in support of the kill team. My shooting phase killed 4 of the bloodcrushers, the last fiend, and a bunch of wounds from the plasma rhino. Kill team and solo biker charged the rhino and bloodcrushers, took the rhino down to 1 wound and the bloodcrushers down to just the champ with 1 wound remaining. His champs attacks dealt 3 wounds at -3 and 3 at -1, I chose to take saves on the term, who died from it. Both of us passed morale, my killteam and his bloodcrusher. His turn 2, both squads of plague marines dumped out as close as possible to the kill team, and most of the rest of his army was forced to advance to try and get into the fight from the opposite table side. The GUO did another 3 mortal wounds to a corvus with smite. Most of his shooting was forced to shoot the corvus' as they were the only targets in range and LOS that wern't in combat. He charged with both squads of plague marines into the killteam. At this point, he swings with all the plague marines and managed to kill a few marines. Then he gets to choose one of his squads to fight since it is his turn, he chooses the bloodcrusher champ, who kills the rest of the unit (I literally made zero saves in this combat, and should have re-rolled one of the storm shield saves vs -3.) Turn 3 I dump out the 2nd kill team close to the seekers and out of LOS from the rest of his army. I move one corvus over to the lonely havocs, the other over the plague marines. My solo biker in combat with the rhino falls back (who can still charge!) Both sets of vets with combis moves within 12 of both squads of plague marines. (The watch masters behind them.) My shooting phase kills the rhino with 1 wound, all the plague marines, the kill team takes the seekers down to 2 remaining, and the havocs lose a couple. The kill team finishes off the seekers in assault, the solo biker kamikazes the bloodcrusher who somehow made 8 saves in the shooting phase and dies to the bloodcrusher. I make the mistake of deciding to charge the GUO with my corvus, and it gets destroyed. His turn 3, the plaguebearers and GUO get closer to the combis, the empty melta rhino moves closer as well, the zerkers continue to reposition, the bloodcrusher gets real close to combis. The GUO deals 6 mortal wounds with smite (rolled an 11 on the check, and a 6 for d6 wounds) to the melta combis. A plasma combi dies to bolter fire from the rhino. Both corvus are low on wounds. The solo bloodcrusher assaults the plasma combis and kills 3 more, my solo vet does nothing in combat, and passes morale. Turn 4 The semi out of position kill team moves to get some LOS to shoot, the 2 solo watchmasters position to assault the bloodcrusher, both corvus go to hover, one positions in front of the GUO, the solo vet falls back. The corvus by the havocs kills the rest, the bloodcrusher dies to shooting from the watchmasters, empty melta rhino takes a few wounds from corvus. One watchmaster assaults the rhino and deals another wound. His turn, the plague bearers and GUO move close to the watchmaster and rhino, the zerkers dump out and move close to the corvus that killed the havocs. GUO deals 3 mortal wounds with smite to the solo vet (poor guy.) GUO and plaguebearers assault watchmaster, zerkers assault corvus. The plaguebearers were ineffectual, the GUO destroys the watchmaster (takes like 9 wounds {3d6}.) The zerkers kill the corvus, and consolidate semi behind their rhino. Turn 5 Kill team moves to max range and semi LOS on the zerkers, solo watchmaster moves closer to the plague bearers. A couple pf plague bearers die to shooting, and then a couple more when the watchmaster assaults them (zero zerkers die to shooting.) His turn 5, zerkers advance towards the kill team, rhino moves with them. GUO moves close to the watchmaster. GUO deals 2 mortal wounds with smite to a drop pod. Rhino shoots the kill team to no effect. Rhino charges kill team, GUO charges watchmaster. The rhino takes some wounds, GUO destroys watchmaster (slay warlord.) He rolls a 5 to see if the game goes to 6. Turn 6 Kill team falls back from rhino, positions close to zerkers and rhino. Kill team kills all but 1 zerker in shooting (mostly from frag cannons.) Kill team charges zerker and rhino, kills the zerker, takes the rhino down to 2 wounds. His turn, rhino falls back, GUO and plaguebearers move to pods. The GUO deals 3 mortal wounds to a pod with smite. The plaguebearers charge the wounded pod and fail to hurt it, the GUO smashes the other pod. I roll a 3 to see if the game goes to 7, end of game. Results: Him: 11pts (9 units killed + slay + first blood) Me : 8pts (8 units killed) Lessons learned: Pods - As much as their new cost sucks, tactically they still bring a lot to the table. Being able to choose when they come in was super helpful, it allowed me to put all of my army in one place to hit his weakest side. Not being in range for the meltas to deal extra damage sucked, but it still was pretty effective. Combis - Holy hell combis are stupid good right now, 5 combi-plasmas with re-rolls to hit (10 2+ poision rounds and 10 plasma shots within 12" is crazy.) Not sure how much I like melta vs plasma right now, needs more testing. Frag Cannons - Still good, both kill teams did serious work with the frag cannons. Coming out of a corvus allows them an effective threat range of 17" with the frag shot, it worked crazy well. I don't think they will be as effective coming out of a drop pod at this point though. Kill teams - Being able to fall back and shoot/charge is strong, my opponent tried to lock me down with a rhino, only to watch it backfire. With the current costs of the add on units I am not sure what the best load out is at this point, but I think they will continue to be effective, as long as they have a transport. Transports - It feels like 5th ed all over again, every transport (including rhinos) made it to their destination before death. Granted I didn't focus the rhinos right away, but I dunno, again needs more data. SIA - 2+ poisoned rounds are strong, with most shooting attacks wounding on 3+-5+ it really adds some quantity of wounds dealt that we are lacking in bodies (if only they worked on vehicles.) Melee - I think this edition will have a lot more successful close combat armies, his one bloodcrusher champion killed so many marines (it was maddening.) If you all have any questions let me know.

Hello, Second battle report video done. Not a master by far, and tons to learn concerning making battle reports. I still need to slow down in various phases of the video. But I am also pressed on keeping the video within 15 minutes (unless I want to upgrade my youtube account or divide the battle report into two parts). Some notes about the game. I did help the opponent to counter deploy my Alpha strike (which doesn't work anymore apparently). While I rolled in general average and way below on my terminators, my opponent rolled way to good. But my experience over my opponent gave me a fighting chance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPDbLhRiZ6E&t=51s

I actually remembered to take a few pictures of a few of my games this week, and thought I'd put the short notes up for your perusal. To keep this simple, and legible, I will just put the really short notes in compared to my other batreps, hoping you find this a quicker read. My lists were the same in both of these games: Prot's Deathwatch: A little more 'serious' take on the Black Spear: Watchmaster (Angelis) 205 Aquila 1: 140 5 Vets (inc.Srg) 1 Biker (for jink, ignore dangerous, etc) Aquila 2: 190 5 Vets (inc.Srg) Storm Shield/Pwr Maul Vanguard vet: Hvy Hammer Watch Company: WC HQ: Artemis: 145 WC Aquila 1: 280 5 Vets (inc.Srgnt) 2 Frag Cannons Librarian Rhino (This squad gets 'Beaconed' across table T1) WC Aquila 2: 215 5 Vets (inc. Srg) 4 Stalkers, 1 Infernus Hvy Bolter Terminator w/Cyclone (friendly zone objective holder) WC Aquila 3: 330 5 Vets (inc Srg) 2 Frag Cannons , Storm Shield Terminator Librarian ML 2 Tome of Ectoclades Drop Pod (Watch master goes here usually for Beacon time) WC Aquila 4: 205 5 Vets (inc Srg) 1 Frag Cannnon Terminator Assault Cannon, Melta Fist Ancient: 145 Dreadnaught, Assault cannon Drop Pod GAME 1: Maelstrom Vs. The Heinous Tau. Early Game: + I win first turn, set up appropriately, but draw mediocre cards. I do manage to get first blood, as he failed to seize. + His deployment is smart, but his list is certainly not maximized. He has units spread very well along his back lines: Hammerhead tank thing with Longstrike on one edge with Marker light pathfinders. On the opposite edge he had his Warlord HQ with jump pack, and a few squads of jet pack dudes with Plasma, melta. In the middle he had a transport full of fish. A Riptide, some more pathfiinders, and the Commander with jet pack (monstrous Creature).. flying fish dude. Moving more towards the Hammer tank, he had a full Ghost Kheel Stealth Cadre with 2 stealth suit squads, and the Kheel with drones. Backing them up as more Pathfinders. So he had the full Battle Cadre (whatever they call it) so he can share marker lights with multiple squads, and the auxiliary was his Stealth Cadre. +The target priority was difficult and I've learned the alpha strike is essentially what we have. Deathwatch came in hard T1, and although I knew it was risky I put a pod on his back edge between his riptide + Pathfinders, and his HQ Jet pack with Stealth teams. http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/Protilious/Prots%20Deathwatch%2040K/063473CC-9E87-4735-A733-7675EE44C0A2.jpg + Here it all came down, heavy and hard, Deathwatch style. Fish were floppin' for cover. + + The tuna are flamed and skewered pretty good here, but I could not get all wounds off of the Riptide. I used the flamers on the one squad to hit his pathfinder squad, netting me First Blood. + Primary Squad w/Watchmaster from Pod stayed focused on the Warlord with suits (off picture) and they are multi flamered, and poisoned and literally the HQ tanked enough shots to make all wound necessary to remove the squad. + He retaliates by retreating the Riptide up higher (surprise), overcharging weapons and his deviation kind of saves a bit of me, as I play Super Friends to keep some remnants alive... oh well. You live hard, you die hard. + As is typical my squads quickly diminish after the alpha. He was not too confident but I warned him the army struggles after the Alpha and we would see that in play here. http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/Protilious/Prots%20Deathwatch%2040K/EE439118-2FFF-40F1-9733-F72FFEAAFE53.jpg + Here the Riptide tried to hide, but to my surprise my Stalker Bolter squad would get the kill from a distance.+ + The Riptide goes down after failing his last wound to stalkers. They would see VERY little action this game as mid table terrain and the Tau deployment took them out of most of the action, plus they sat on an objective most of the game. + I go up a few more points and then he has a great turn here and nets a few points. + I get another squad in via deep strike. Here's the funny thing... Really stupid actually. I put a BIKE in the squad JUST to take away the Dangerous Terrain tests and jink into CC if I had to.... so I deep strike the squad intentionally on debris right in front of a Stealth Squad. Then my opponent says, "that's a dangerous test isn't it?" I totally forgot, I fail one test, I randomize the model... and kill the bike. D'oh! Didn't realize what I had done until the game was over. lol + I am WAY out of the game now because he's shifting away with his Tau and I'm slow as heck. I get one remnant squad back into a Rhino, but leave one vanilla squad behind for objectives. http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/Protilious/Prots%20Deathwatch%2040K/6CCB53AA-CCE6-4719-A38E-D601E4DF08B6.jpg + After the switcharoo psychic power I am now ready to assault. The Dreadnaught couldn't get a good enough shot on the transport, and I felt the Marker lights would be worse, so I shot up these Pathfinders, got lucky and they all died. http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/Protilious/Prots%20Deathwatch%2040K/74D05C21-A006-4D24-9367-4EDB4BD24F1A.jpg + I pull the old 'switch-a-roo' to get an assault off on this Ghost Keel. + + My Drop Pod dread comes in, and I see the Stealth Cadre which means instant death for my Dreadnaught and know I have to tie him up. + My Libby had pulled the power to switch spots with a friendly squad. So a squad which just deep striked here, switched spots with my tiny Librarian squad with Artemis, thus allowing me to assault. + The assault ensues, but I can't kill anything, and he kills one guy. In his turn the assault continued and I tried Artemis' D-Bomb (again) and failed to hit, but my opponent rolled a 1 for the D result. LOL man does my Artemis suck... I think he's literally about 0-15 on that D bomb. + His Flying commander shot up some deep strikers pretty good. His Longstrike effectively wiped out some more of my stuff and i was feeling the very typicaly 'uh oh' here we go.... even with 6 squads the army felt small. + I cannot beat the Ghost Keel in close combat so I do the 'switcharoo' again and he fails to deny it. This time I swap out Art and Libby for a squad with the Fist Termie. It would take the fist termie to beat down the Ghost Keel and Drones... finally. http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/Protilious/Prots%20Deathwatch%2040K/7485C315-3C5D-44ED-997B-A2673E52E23B.jpg + Operation Chowder is completed... the Deathwatch run for cover as the Longstrike/Hammerhead is taking aim. Above the Dread managed to blow up the transport fish bowl. The contents are unfortunately not pinned though. + I get sick of the flying commander pelting stuff so I take a long shot of my own. Using my Mission tactics to re-roll 1's, I state the Stalker Bolter squad is going to shoot what they have left (about 3 guys and the Terminator) at his flying commander. The arrogant flying fish refuses to Jink because it's a long shot. The Cyclone hits on a re-rolled 1 !!! I get the wound, and it insta kills his arrogant fish!!! + My Vanguard Aquila comes in with heavy hammer. There isn't a good target for the hammer but I do have 2 shotguns lined up at a stealth team that take out the squad denying their 2+ cover save... very handy. However the Hammerhead wipes the squad in one shot. http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/Protilious/Prots%20Deathwatch%2040K/35B3DAEC-2EC2-47B6-BCAA-195688516D81.jpg + Everything I have left that has been walking through a shooty hell catches up to the contents of the fishbowl. The fish die quickly and without doing any damage. http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/Protilious/Prots%20Deathwatch%2040K/FEDB0D9A-0BAA-41A4-95EB-8210688852E7.jpg + I pull the switcharoo power one more time to face down his annoying Hammerhead to the right. I can't do anything more than a single hull point to it with my Fragcannons. + + The game ends in turn 6. I have a fairly significant victory on paper but I have very little left on the table. But he's literally down to 3-4 rallied Pathfinders and his one tank. A fairly convincing win, against a non-optimized Tau list. It shows that the Tau put out so much damage that even someone who isn't quite sure what he's doing can give me big problems though. BATREP 2: The Shortest Incursion with Daemons that will never be recorded: + I face off against Daemons. He's using the INFERNAL TETRAD: He gets a lot of good powers in his psychic roll offs, but so many are rolled for, I don't think it's ever an issue for this list. I get to go first, but my deploy as usual is very light. I park some Stalkers on busted Bridge, and hide my Rhino for the Angelis Alpha. + His deployment looks little like this: http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/Protilious/Prots%20Deathwatch%2040K/B9F58770-EACE-4699-8D28-94F8F4ABACED.jpg + What do you call 5 DP's with a plethora of powers that steals the initiative? A: A short game. + He steals the initiative. This means the game is over for me. He buffs the army with the longest segment of his turn, the psychic phase. Everything seemingly has Iron Arm, and he's re-rolling a ton of stuff, and summons a squad in. His attacks aren't great though as he can only target my stalker squad right now, and they manage to hold on to about 3 models. He largely advances his army. + In my turn I know I have to have on amazing alpha strike. The problem is his best close combat dude (the green Daemon Prince) is the only 'easy' target. + I come down hard, and Angelis in the Rhino squad: http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/Protilious/Prots%20Deathwatch%2040K/3B2E7FFA-CE08-499D-99E8-D0F90AD55B95.jpg + I do the Angelis Alpha, and starting with the Stalkers, I take down the Green Daemon prince. + The Green Daemon Prince was Nurgle based. Most of these are close combat dudes so only the one Tzeentch model with the book thingy is flying (off screen). + After the Nurgle Prince dies it all goes down hill.... I can't do anything to any squads. The Frag Cannons are best as flamers, but here they won't do anything, so I use single shots, but wounding is still hard with Frag because Iron Arm everywhere. + Of course Poison rounds help, but here's the thing.... he's got a 2+ invuln, and re-rolls 1's. and then I think there's Feel No Pain.... So yea, we've seen this before, it's nearly impossible once the powers are up. I think at one point I counted 17 wounds, but I don't think more than 1 stuck. + To my opponent's credit he played ITC rules so his 2+ failed to a re-roll of a 4+ AND then Feel no Pain. Something like that. Regardless my entire remaining army poured into that guy, and couldn't touch him. http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/Protilious/Prots%20Deathwatch%2040K/C9FBCDFB-F695-4345-9204-651F68B7D7B9.jpg + In his turn, he moves in for the kill.... + I can't deny any psychic powers with his 17+ dice. His warp storm gets him a free squad, he summons another, which miss haps and I place on the far side of the table. + he gets off Psychic Shriek on my Stalker Bolter squad, I take 6 un saveable wounds on the Squad. The termie fails the first save, squad dies. + He gets to summon a Tzeentch Chariot, I can't block it.... it flames most of a squad killing them without saves. + He comes in for close combat.... http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/Protilious/Prots%20Deathwatch%2040K/8ED9E15D-AB6B-4774-AABC-D3B1A15EF251.jpg + Hmmm... something's missing from this picture... + So I can't wound anything because of toughness. All of his attacks are instant death because of high Strength, and AP2. SO.... I am powerless to defend his psychic stuff, can't wound him, can't save most of this.... + The Watchmaster steps up to take the first of the 1,491 wounds I have to take. He goes to block the first attack: Misses the block. Goes to make his 4+ Iron Halo... misses, instant death. The Librarian fails his 5+ invuln, instant death. The rest of the squad is wiped. It's over kill but I have nothing left. + Second close combat only has one Daemon prince but it's more of the same... I can't wound, he's insta-killing, All die but 3. At the end of his second turn, I start my second turn with 3 small squads in reserves. On the table I have 4 models. He has his full army minus the Nurgle DP, and he has summoned 3 more in total. So there is not chance, I will come in peace meal now, and full deviate, and his army is growing faster than I can die. So I concede. http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/Protilious/Prots%20Deathwatch%2040K/Prot-%20DW%20Paint%20Chllg%20Kill%20Team1b.jpg + Back to the Choppa! Back to the Choppa! + Game ends and it's about as bad as a tau game I had earlier this week. Sorry I did not take pictures of any other games I had this week. But normally I batrep one a week so... bonus this week! Hope you enjoyed reading ths.

So I had my first game with my army. Been waiting this long to field a fully painted army. In all the excitement, I forgot my camera... Anyhow, my first draft army list includes: Watch Company Captain Artemis Aquila Kill Team 9 members (two assault marines 2 Frag cannon, various minor upgrades Artemis joins here Aquila Kill Team 1 Frag cannon, 2 terminators, 1 librarian, minor upgrades, beacon of angelis, drop pod Aquila Kill Team 2 Frag cannons, 2 plasmas, 1 librarian, tome, minor upgrades, drop pod Aquila Kill Team Stalker unit with a librarian Militarum Hellrain Brigade Commisar Command squad with hot shot volley guns Scions with 2 meltas Taurox with missile launcher ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAOS CAD Belacor 2 psykers on bikes 1 Nurgle character guy with nurglins, giving -1 ld army wide on enemy. Another psyker guy with a torrent AP3 flamer Rhino with basic guys, plasma Bike squad, joined by both biker psykers Chaos Drop pod thing from FW, with chosen marines 3 obliberators It was a really psyker heavy list. And he got "all" the powers he wanted he said. Invisibility two times, summoning power etc etc. There were so many powers I lost count. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Setup Terrain. We play on a table with a lot of ruins and some other 5+ cover save terrain pieces. Its pretty much a city fight environment. He went first with deployment. Deployed his obiberators, bikers and rhino on one flank, and Belacor among them. The Nurgle unit was in the centre of his deployment zone. On my side I had my Tempestus command in a ruin holding an objective and out of line of sight from his army. The Artemis unit stayed behind the ruin with the command, and so did the stalker unit and next to it was the Taurox. And bunkering up from the Chaos drop pod with the torrent Ap3 flamer/chosen, and out of sight and out of range of his Obliterators who would get a power casted on them. Allowing them to see through terrain and ignore cover... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Turn 1 Chaos He deep striked his drop pod next to an objective on my left flank. Putting priority on that one instead of a "death and glory" attack on my units who were all cluster up (there were very few good pots to land and get a decent attack out on them). The bikers went for the centre of the battle field. Rhino move along towards the centre. Obliterators saw nothing, and could reach anything. So the just moved up Belacor flew across the table to my clusters units. Psychic phase... invisibility casted on the bikes. Belacor tried to scare off my stalker unit from the battle field (they were standing next to the edge), and also succeeded on casting dominate on them. But nothing of interest happened really. The Nurgle character guy summoned 10 deamonettes in his deployment zone. Shooting nothing of note, the deamonettes ran towards the Nurgle unit to protect them from drop pods. Chaos completed one objective ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Turn 1 Deathwatch I came in hot. Putting my self as close as possible to the nurgle unit as possible. The deamon units were the only things pretty much I could take care of in the first turn. The bikers were protected by invisibility, and the rhino was protected by ruins and good placement (a risk for me to go there) I pulled in Artemis and he slingshotted behind the nurgle unit. And of course the second drop pod came in too. My psychic phase I casted prescience on the stalker unit. And that was it. My other power were pretty worthless for this fight... bad draws. Cant even remember now, because I didn't use anything except the primaris powers. The drop pod units and artemis took out all the deamon units. Actually... two units did. And only two frag cannons from each unit handled it by it self! All the rest were just standing there... 24 models looking at 4 frag cannons guys taking care of all the deamons. First blood secured and the -1 ld army wide spread was gone. A note here, he had a small theme going on here. Lots of terrify, and ld based stuff. So I felt happy about getting rid of the -1 ld character The stalker bolter unit opened fire on Belacor. Re-roll to hit really helped vs a the flying monster. Scored an unhealthy amount of hits, and with the watch company rules I had re-roll to wound too. I scored 5 wounds from 18 shots on the flying monster. Luckily for him, he made 4 saves on his 4++ (I used no cover save ammo, so he couldn't jink) Next up was the command squad with hot shot volley guns. Scored one hit, and one wound. Belacor jinked, and failed :D So he took another wound. My first misstake came next. With my Taurox I forgot I had twin-linked hotshot volley gun and a heavy 2 missile launcher. I should have tried to take those shots at Belacor. Because the only thing I could see was the rhino in cover... score one hull point on it though. So turn 1 saw two deamon units dead, and I completed 2 objectives, and really scared the pants off Belacor ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chaos Turn 2 Belacor flies towards my deployment edge next to my stalkers and command squad. Chaos drop pod floats towards the centre ruin where an objective is that he needs. Deploys his torrent flamer character. Rhino moves 6" and deploys its marines. Bikers move in closer towards the action Obliterators moves close towards centre too. Psychic phase... invisibility again on the bikes. Lots of failed powers and minor stuff happened. Belacor casted dominate again. And that was pretty much the only thing that effected me. Shooting, Belacor boosted off the edge. Didn't want to risk another round of shooting from the stalkers. Obliterators got the see through terrain power and made three plasma cannon shots at Artemis unit, who were cramped together for a perfect blast opportunity. Only one went through though :D And my storm shield couldn't even tank one hit... So I lost 5 guys to that one blast. Some random shots were made, and a few marines fell. This turn he claimed 2 objective points ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Turn 2 Deathwatch The empty pod came in, and the scions. Scion landed next to the Obliterators, and the pod next to an objective. Moved my deep striked (from turn 1) units into a bracing position for the next turns onslaught. Moved the stalkers into the Taurox and repositioned them more centrally. Psychic phase, I used the Fulgurim primaris power with two librarians, and pretty much took out the marins from the rhino. The remaining 2 where shot down by the other marines. The rhino was destroyed by the taurox. Scions scored only one wound on the obliterators, due to lucky saves :) Scored two more points, one hold objective, and destroyed one unit (rhino and marines... needed one more unit to get more points). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Turn 3 Chaos Sadly we decided this would be the last turn. The local game store was going to close up... Bikers moved in for the kill against my veterans in his deployment zone. Obliterators turn around and targeted the Scions. Drop pod moved towards my command squad and deployed the chosen. Belacor flew in, keeping his distance from the stalker unit. Invisibility was cast again. I cancelled it once on the bikes, but Belacor was there to back them up with a backup invisibility spell... *sigh* A lot of shooting for once. Killed 5 marines from one unit with 2 frag cannons. One frag cannon, 2 plasmas, sergeant with shield (not able to tank any plasma hits...) and the black shield died. Funny part was that the black shield died last of them all. Flamers and boltguns shot down 4 of the command squad. I had gone to ground to survive that attack. The Scions... well they were burnt to crisp by the obliterators Assault... even with re-roll he failed to assault with his bikes. He needed 8, but only scored 7... So I was lucky. In the end, he scored 3 points some how. Cant remember the things he did. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Turn 3 Deathwatch I re-entered my scions, thanks to the formation rules. They deep striked next to the centrally located objective. It was of big importance as it was worth two points for me (2 mission cards pointing it out for various reasons). My stalkers, riding the Taurox went after the chosen who had killed most of the command squad. Now, given is that I am using the rules as written at the moment, meaning I have boltguns and stalker boltguns on my marines in this unit. So I deploy, and within rapid fire range. Take out all but one chosen. One unit of veterans went for another objective, limping towards it with its 4 members remaining. The other units made some shot versus the bikes, as there was nothing else to shoot at. Killed two or three of them. In the end I took 3 points. Final score 9 - 7 to the Deathwatch After math Now, if it would continue, I would be in deep derp against the remaining bikers. They were not many, but the invisibility that they had going was going to tip in their favour. My stalkers pretty much could walk around my deployment zone undisturbed. He didn't want to go close to them, but I was closing in. We figured if the game went on, he would slowly win the close combats versus my units, but it would take time. And, if he did, he would forgo hunting for objectives. Final thoughts I really underestimated the importance of my Tempestus detachment. The Scions, though small, had their purpose. First they put the pressure on armoured vehicles with their meltas. And they can't be ignored due to this. And if they are, they will charge in and perhaps stall a unit or get them self killed in the process. Either way win win for me. As they come in for free once they are dead, they can re enter over and over again. I saw this really good opportunity in this game, and it was when I got two mission cards indicating I should hold the centre objective. Since they died to the Obliterators, I could now reenter and claim the objective. With this in mind, the deathwatch, with limited units on the board, this is one way of getting to objectives. The command squad, though it didn't perform super well, is fairly cheap and can dish out a lot of damage. The invisibility and tons of ruins made it hard for them today to do anything. The Taurox... the ability to relocate the Stalker unit was really good. Its weapons were decent and I am overall happy with the use of it. Frag cannons... two were enough in this game in each unit. My friend was overwhelmed over its power. He was happy he had invisibility on his bikers, otherwise they would have been toast. Librarian with divination powers in a Stalker unit. While I didn't get a good power, the primaris proved really useful. Against the flying Belacor it really helped a lot. This is really situational of course, but I felt that a terminator with cyclone missile (similar price) doesn't add the same utility as a librarian. Overall, the stalker unit didn't really bring back its points in full in this game, but scared the living hell out of Belacor and kept the enemy at bay. Drop pods, I hate and love them. Of course, facing them is not something I like, but using them my self... well then I love them. First pod I dropped was to get the Beacon of Angelis up. The other tow pods I used more "tactically". The second one to block the direct path to my veterans. This prevented the bikers to reach me in turn 2, and gave him difficulty in turn 3 (as it turned out he failed his charge). The third pod I used to claim an objective. As it was empty I didn't really care much for it at that point. But... in future games it will be used as a blockade for my small force. Either to shield me off, or to close the enemy escape paths.

So here we go again. In an attempt to share some insight and try new things, I'm still trying to do battle reports on some of my games particularly against varying foes of xenos origins! This was a Maelstrom against a friend who hasn't pulled out his Eldar in a while and it seemed like a good match up for this game because I felt my Deathwatch were definitely under performing, and ironically, they have the most trouble with Xenos. But my opponent wanted to just do a medium powered list involving some fun units himself, so that worked out great. He didn't take a Wraithknight (he usually does) and just played that Battle Focus formation from his codex. The heinous Eldar: Avatar of Khaine 3 WC Farseer 3 blobs of Guardians with Exarchs and Missile launchers 1 squadron of 3 Walkers 1 squadron of 3 Vypers 1 Serpent with 5 Fire Dragons inc. Exarch w/flamer 1 squadron of D-Artillery 1 squad of Warp Spiders 1 squad of Dark Reapers inc.Exarch The Emperor's Will: Deathwatch: Black Spear: Watchmaster - Beacon Angelis Watch Company: 3 Aquilas, 1 Malleus (1 Drop Pod) Artemis Bombus Minimus Ancient Dreadnaught: Assault Cannon/Hvy Flamer (Drop Pod) Corvus Blackstar with the sky fire swap out (Blackstar Rocket Launchre) and Infernum Halo Launcher. I did have 2 Libbies in this list too. One in Termie armour is my fave config: ML2/Force Axe/Tome of Ectoclades.(included in Aquilas) THE GAME: Set Up and first turn: - I win the roll to deploy/go first. I take it. I set up my single 3 Frag Cannon Squad in their Rhino. They are in my far Eastern fringe off a hill top for Angelis Antics. - I deploy my second squad; Aquila with 4 Stalker bolters, 1 Terminator (cyclone) and 1 Infernus Hvy Bolter. Xenos Deploy: - Typical. Cowardly. Like every game I play... the filthy Xenos hug the edge of their world, lined up on the back wall as tight as they can with only the D-battery squad on the second level of a factory building. + Xenos doing what they do best: Hugging the back of the world for dear life. + + Half of my deployment: Termie gets ready to tank the onslaught. + FIRST TURNS: - I get Objective 5 right in front of him. I verify he has no Obsec. I get another 2 objectives, but one is right where my Rhino + 3 Frags are. This is where having no models sucks... I can't 'alpha strike' AND hold this objective at the same time and only have one unit coming in. I feel I need to take a risk here, and forgo the sure point and use my Angelis tactics.... - So trying to be aggressive as you can tell I am MASSIVELY out numbered with no clue what to prioritize on. As you can see by the blob formations, anything I may have success against will result in me taking D batteries to the face. If feels like -nearly- all of his shooting can go through my armour so I go for the unit that is easily going to rip me apart: The Dark Reapers. - With the order given, the Watch Master and Termie Lib touch down and do the Angelis teleport of the Rhino squad, leaving their objective behind.... + The Alpha Strike hits hard... but is it enough? + - The Alpha Strike: - Libbies are both in, Pod squad1 has Watch Master. Mission Tactics: Kill the troops?!?! - Libbie 1 rolled on Librarius, attacks an Exarch with his power, and kills him. Take that xenos witch. - Libbie 2 with Artemis doesn't know what to do... fires the Primaris Blast into the Factory to try to take a chunk out of the D-batteries, scatters too far. - Pod Squad 1: Fires all weapons, 2 Frag Cannons tag the Warp Spiders as well due to my positioning. We realize he could have Flickered out, but then I would have targeted the Guardians primarily and hit almost as many spiders anyway. LOTS of cheap guardians die, and all but 1 Spider. - Rhino squad Artemis: 3 Frag Cannons go off on the Dark Reapers and they are most certainly fried. First Blood. The Alpha hit fairly hard but that was a 400+ pt squad and a 357 pt squad PLUS Art and Master. Ouch. - Stalker squad takes pot shots at Avatar, calling poison rounds and the Crack Missles at the Avatar. I forgot his army is fearless unless Avatar goes down.... I take all but one wound off with luck. (A few rends gave him invulns only) - I did okay, but did not kill nearly as many guardians as I hoped because.... he had a single Exarch tank about 5 wounds on a 4+ invuln from the Frag Cannons! - I miss-calculate my alpha slightly and not enough Guardians die for me to claim Objective 5. But I do get first blood. XENOS Retaliation: - He makes use of his mobility here he has to. His Psychic phases were bad... really bad, but he didn't need them really. He positions everything to basically hit the biggest threats on the board; 2 of my alpha strike squads. + The Eldar are hit hard but Fire Dragons and the rest of the army converge on two squads. Talk about a thin black line. + - To be safe, he doesn't get too terribly close with the Guardians to my Pod squad because he unloads the D-Cannons. They get a direct hit. We play modified ITC rules on ranged D, but it doesn't matter. The squad is gone in a blink of an eye. Not enough invulns are made and easily the squad is destroyed. - His Fire Dragons then roll out of the Wave Serpent. It all fires at Artemis' squad. Only Artemis, the Librarian with 1 wound, and the Rhino survive! + All that's left after one turn of shooting.... well at least he couldn't shoot everything at me! + - At his turn end he gets 2-3 points I think. - At this point I honestly lost about 1000 pts of stuff, with 3 units stuck in reserves. I was pretty ready to call it. But I thought this would not be fair to my opponent and decided to play it out. Mid Game: - By 'mid game' I mean.. turn 2. lol - What can I do? I have nothing potent left. I pull cards and have a lot of work to do.... On the plus side with the Flyer rules I do get +1 to reserve rolls and my Dread/pod, Corvus, and Aquila come in. - The Stalker Bolter squad is the only thing I have that's isn't half dead. The Termie was picked off of course. I think he made 3 saves, and died.... oh well. They move up, snapfire, and try to get a point. + The rather limited reserves come in to save the day??? + - I snap fire and shoot the Infernum Heavy Bolter and rip the Avatar apart. At least Fearless is gone! - Now here's where I really don't know what to do.... I have WAY too many targets and far too few models. I take shots where I can, but starting with the Psychic Phase, I try a hail mary shot. I use the Beam Psychic Power and rake through 3 of his Vypers, and the first one has a Pen + explodes, the next one takes the remaining 2 hullpoints and goes down! - The Dreadnaught tries his Heavy Flamer on the backside of the Walker squad, and Heavy Bolter. Two Walkers go down. Super lucky. - The newly arrived Aquila gets a bullseye and doesn't wander, and shoots poison at the D-Battery which has his Warlord/Farseer attached. He gets almost all look out sirs passed, and has his only wound from a previous Perils of the Warp fail. - The Corvus takes pot shots at the Guardian squad, maybe killing 1-2 models. The template deviates far off its mark. Typical corvus! - A big moment... Artemis runs up and with the Libby, they try to assault the Fire Dragon squad that just about wiped them out, they take 2 wounds on Overwatch the Libby dies, it's all up to Artemis! He fails to wound anything, and close combat is a tie!!! (At least I'm tied up) - I steal a few points and am down at the end of Turn2 about 5-3. -Eldar turn involves lots of shooting, the Corvus doesn't jink. And the Dreadnaught somehow loses all but 1 hullpoint! - I take my Rhino and ram the side of the Wave Serpent and strip a hull point. I park the Rhino in an important place, setting up an assault for later... + A long, lonely walk for Artemis as he has witnessed the destruction of his brothers that will haunt him for a good 15 minutes or so... + + But fear not... Artemis makes new friends who promptly run away.+ - Artemis goes for the assault, trying to draw the Guardians away from Objective 5. It works, but he takes a wound. Artemis wins the close combat and I tried to position this so that when/if he breaks the Rhino will cut off his retreat.. it works and the squad can't make it around without doubling back and all must die as a result.... talk about trying to do as much as you can with nothing left. ;) - Stalker squad partially walks to an objective, I snap off a few shots at the D-batter, before my Dreadnaught charges in.... The Corvus fires at the Guardians who are after my Heavy Hammer Aquila squad, but only kill 1 model. (Blackstar blast deviates too much again) - Dreadnaught actually makes it into close combat with 1 Hullpoint remaining, but fails to wound anything. At least I tied up the D-batteries! - I get Objective 5 and tie the game. ELDAR: The Eldar still seemingly have lots left. We go into turn 5 and Artemis was hoping to get into CC upstairs with the D-battery but he is shot to death without making it. (he had to make about 3 invulns on one wound left.) - The Eldar D-battery and Farseer throw a Singing Spear and it destroys the Dreadnaught and he never did a darn wound. My stalker team did kill off 1-2 of the D Batteries but they are now free, and with one shot they get a bullseye on the Heavy Hammer squad that just game in, and vape the squad. - The Corvus is forced to double jink, and with almost no targets on the table it takes a LOT of hits. Eventually a stupid Warp Spider with twin link shoots it down in his end. He got amazingly lucky there with double jink on I essentially lost all 3 hull points and he never had skyfire. - So here's where I lose the game, and I tell my opponent too.... I take my Rhino, which has one hull point left, and I ram the Wave Serpent again.. for no reason. I realize RIGHT after I make this move, that I left the 12" deploy zone of his, thus denying myself Line Breaker. I immediately tell my opponent what an incredibly stupid thing I did. He goes, 'oh yea, you can't score that now because the Corvus just went down'. "But I can score it" he says, and turbo's his wounded Wave Serpent to my 12" deploy and the game ends. He wins by one point... Line Breaker. Post Game: - The good news? I guess I went from wanting to concede at bottom of turn 1 to nearly winning the game (should have tied at the least, obviously with my stupidity.) I am actually quite proud of the fact I took something so incredibly lop sided after turn 1 and put up a fight. The problem was I was trying to do way too much with way too little. Oh well.. hard fought. - The Bad news? Corvus killed about 2 models and took one hull point of a final Walker. Watch Master died as usual doing nothing worth writing home about. Artemis did what any 110 point captain could do. Dreadnaughts.... it's too bad the Black Spear forces one. - My opponent made some bad tactical errors, and I played above my pay grade in that game so I can't take credit for the finish. Also his list was sub-optimal and intentionally so. I can at best... add 2 squads to my list and pull the Corvus and some HQ fat. - The Deathwatch continue to scrape by close games in every outing, but it's always an uphill battle. My biggest blow out was Tau, so this wasn't bad. It certainly isn't like my Ultra's though. This is much more akin to my Grey Knights. - Very fun army though. Tons of character and thematic too!

So I promised I would try to batrep more of my games. And even though I said I didn't like to play or batrep armies I haven't painted, most people said they didn't care and would be okay with it. Nonetheless I've skipped some pictures due to too many 'black figs' just melting into the background making for ugly pictures. That being said I did take some pictures of this blood bath against the horrid Ork Horde. Prot Batrep: 1850 points. Maelstrom (The Infernus Bolter Experiment Game) The Ork Biker List: Zardsnark (?) the guy with skilled rider that unlocks bikes as troops. Warboss with a bike/fist in the secondary biker squad. 2 very large biker squads with Nobs with Fists, and FnP guys. 2 trucks with 12 boyz (they have 4+ saves) 1 truck with Mega Armoured Nobs (always a threat in my games) 1 truck with Tankbustas (lots of AP3 here.) Prot's Deathwatch: Blackspear o' Green Death! Watch master (Beacon Angelis) Kill Team: Basic squad in a rhino with 2 Infernus Bolters Watch Company: Captain Artemis, 3 x Aquila Teams (1 Pod in squad with Librarian with Tome of Ectoclades), 1 x Malleus Team (Artemis here in POD) (2 hammer requirement, 1 Vanguard with Heavy Hammer) Corvus Blackstar, Infernum Halo. (Watch Master joins the Aquila team with the Libby in a pod) We played a basic Maelstrom. The long board edge deployment and 3 Maelstrom Cards per turn. Early Game: - I win the roll off for First turn/Deployment. Some stalker bolter dudes take cover with a Cyclone Termie out front in ruins. I plop down a Rhino with 2 Infernus Hvy Bolters in it. - He deploys a gob of bikes on his back line, and spreads it the length of the table edge. With the Trucks, etc, I am feeling ridiculously outnumbered. - He fails to seize the initiative. - My first turn involves a heavy alpha strike: Pod 1 comes down with Watch Master, Termie w/Assault cannon+melta Fist, 3 Frag Cannons, and the Termie Libby (rolled on Librarius... this is huge... I got re-roll all saves). The Alpha hits mega hard. 6 Flames (no 3+ jink) and a few rends make for 24 Wounds in total.) Even with FnP all bikes but 2 are dead after all is said and done. His Warlord, Zarsnark or whatever, is one of the two remaining bikes. They fail Moral, and run off the table. + The Emperor's Wrath knows no fear. The Alpha Strike hits very hard. + - I tell him to keep his Warlord on the table because he feels so defeated at this point I feel bad, and I know he can still come back as all my games have shown me; the Deathwatch fade very fast. - His return action is to sand bag my squad with a Truck Load of 4+ save boyz, but the Overwatch (re-roll ones) including all the FragCannons is strong... only 9 Boyz make it in. With all my Re-roll saves, I lose nothing and kill the squad. - His turn involves a TON of bikes turboing up, and we both score points. His mega Armoured Nobs are a big concern though. They always cause me trouble because of lack of AP2 and they're tough buggers to get rid off. Mid Game: - We are slogging it out. My HQ Watch Master Aquila is only missing 2 marines because of Librarius re-rolls. I perils 2 times. But save one of them... - Unfortunately my Rhino Squad lets the bike squad take two heavy flamers from the truck, but with FnP he saves most. The Rhino is inevitably destroyed, the Kill Team rolls out and prepares for the Xenos charge. The overwatch from the 2 heavy flamers kills a bike outright. He rolls too short to make the charge, however he gets to re roll one of those dice and makes the charge. + The Rhino is blown, and the contents (below picture frame) are about to be charged by a ton of bikes. + The Kill Team just won't die though. Two guys stay there, so I can't shoot him on my turn! - The Corvus comes in and blows a truck up. The contents spill out and my Stalker/Inefrnum Hvy Bolter/Cyclone Team kill the entire contents (got pretty lucky). - An empty truck blocks my Watchmaster/Libbie/Aquila squad and they take FOREVER to get anywhere. - Due to having my Corvus in reserve at start of turn, I get in all my reserves, including Artemis and Malleus squad. They come down with combi Melta's and look to stall the Mega Armoured Nobs. The Truck blows up, but the contents aren't pinned... Artemis prepares for the charge! - Three Mega Armoured Nobs charge Artemis. The Malleus team is ready though. A Termie with Hammer/Shield is deflecting Fist Blows left and right, but he dies as his shield does not hold long enough.... Artemis takes a challenge from a Nob with Fist (normally I would not do this but I wanted to test...) THE BOMB! I choose the bomb, re-rolling 1's to hit as per my Mission Tactics. Artemis Rolls a HIT! But the result is a 1D wound, which the Nob happily accepts with a bloody mouth, and fists Artemis to the ground in one blow. The Vanguard with Heavy Hammer watches this unfold, and with unleashed hatred smites the remaining 2 Nobs into dust with the Heavy Hammer. The Malleus squad is hurt, but still able to bite back. End Game: - Finally my Rhino squad dies, but in my turn, so the Ork Bikers now turn their attention to the Stalker/Termie squad in my backfield. They die a horrible death unable to handle the mutlitude of fists, and FnP. - The Corvus spins around in Hover mode and picks up an objective marker, anticpating the use of the Angelis Beacon. I wanted to use the Corvus to grab the Watch Master Aquila because they've been out of the game so long (held back by trucks, then another squad). BUT one bloody Stalker Marine would NOT die! So I had to burn the Angelis to get the Marine out of CC with his Warboss Bike unit so I could actually shoot at the buggers! So the marine is out of close combat. The 2 remaining Frag Cannons shoot at the Warboss biker squad, I only manage to kill one bike (I'm 2 feet away) and FnP saves the rest of the severely depleted biker squad. - So the Corvus is now angled to take shots. The remaining Missiles don't do anything (biker jinks 3+) and all I have is the Assault Cannon on it. I pump 4 shots into the bikers, with twin linking all hit, and then I roll to wound..... + This is the Corvus "to wound" rolls. This is me crying. This is me wishing the Corvus got to re-roll 1's on "to wound". + - The war goes on. His 4 bikes are free. My Malleus Kill Team is missing Artemis and the Termie but a Shotgunner, 2 combi weapon guys, and the Heavy Hammer Vanguard remain. I need a challenge this turn to get an Objective point. We are within 2 points of each other. For the first time all game, I get to charge him. Team Malleus challenges.... but all members die before the Vanguard swings. D'oh. - In the next turn the remainder of that ork squad is wiped by my Corvus shooting. But I lose another squad in the process. - All I have left is 2 pods, the Watch Master Aquila squad, and the Corvus. All he has left is 3 bikers, including his Warboss and FnP dude. He has drawn his cards and it comes down to this: + The Filthy Xenos MUST defeat the Watch Master (my Warlord) to win the game by points. However it's all they have left, and the planet around this battle is burning with the stench of dead Orks.... and Artemis, let's not forget Artemis. + - In my turn something critical does happen leading to this moment.... in the Psychic phase the Librarian fails his roll for "Force" which I wanted to deny FnP. So the Ork player, greedily hordes his psychic denial dice in anticipation of my next power..... Librarius re-rolls on all saves... I pass it with only 2 dice... a pair of 6's causing me to take another perils wound, and LOSE the power for the rest of the game! D'oh. The Ork player rolls 5 dice, and also gets 2 6's denying my power! WOW did that ever suck. - His cards and his losing by 2 points means he must kill my Warlord. I and win the Close Combat. He charges, and challenges. Now I know to get a guaranteed win all I have do is send a Sargeant in for the Challenge. It's guaranteed. But instead I send in the Watch Master to the challenge. Stupid? Perhaps, but this is Deathwatch. - The fight ensues and he loses the bikers giving him FnP. All that's left is our challenge. The Watch Master only does one wound to the T6 Biker! The Warboss in turn hits multiple times with his fist! WAIT I yell... let roll a Block from the Custodes Spear.... and the Watch Maser Fails to block, fails a few 4+ invulns and dies!!!! - The Warboss is celebrating... beating his chest in victory. My Warlord is dead and he's fist pumping in the air, just as my Librarian with Axe cuts his head off in the middle of his goading. The Orks are dead... completely wiped. So in the end, even though he needed two points, he got one, but lost combat, and of course even so he was wiped to a man giving the Deathwatch a narrow victory. In other news Artemis was found burried to his neckline in the earth still breathing. it turns out the fist blow deflected off his shoulder plate and drove him into the ground alive. Better yet, Artemis found his grenade. So he'll get another shot with it. Thanks for reading this batrep!

Hey guys, I hope this one can be done a little more briefly than some of my longer reads as I have little time to do this.... I wanted to do a Battle Report on this game because it features an army that smoked me in T1/2 the last time I used Deathwatch against it. (Actually most ITC style lists have). And I knew I was up for a crazy test again. Once again, please be aware I don't know who my opponents are going to be beforehand. (no list tailoring) The Game: Maelstrom 1850pts My List: Basic CAD: Termie Captain Libbie lvl1 10 Vets/Frag/meltaguns/Shotguns/Pod 10 Vets/Frag/gravguns/Shotguns/Pod 5 Vets/Frag/Shotgun/stormshield/Pod 1 Terminator Assault cannon 1 Terminator Cyclone. Allies: Ultramarines Skyhammer: 5 Devs, 4 Grav cannon Pod 5 Devs, 4 Multimeltas, Pod 5 Assault Marines flamer 5 Assault Marines flamer/Eviscerator Smelly Fish: Drone'mander (Warlord) w/lots of drones Pathfinders + Some dude that has 3 wounds and lets all units within 12" get extra shots. Breacher squad (I can't believe I don't see more of these) in a Fish tank (can't remember the transport name) Stormsurge , fully loaded Riptide Wing : 2 Riptides Kroot infiltrating Stealth Cadre: Ghostkeel + 2 Units of Stealth teams with Fusion/Plasma. Game Type: Precious Cargo: + You can't discard "secure Objective X". Your opponent can steal any "secure Objective X" card from you. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Deployment + Opening Turns: + Looking at my opponent I roll on Telepathy simply for Psychic Shriek and on the outside hope that I get Invisibility. (ITC variant) I do not get Invis, and it was the regroup power. :/ So I pitch it and just stick with Shriek on my ML1 Libby. + Unfortunately he wins the roll for first turn. I decide to play the deny game, and hold back my entire army except for two solo Terminators who are completely hidden. + He infiltrates Kroot (which are a cheap throwaway for Objectives) right in the center of the table to slow me down. + Tau Turn 1: He is doing the ol' castle maneuver. Kroot are forced to lay down their lives for a shiny objective in the center. Off to the Eastern back fringe he has his entire Stealth Cadre + Early Turns: + He takes the early lead, but without me having anything he can see he simply charges his junk up with Invulns, etc. And earns an easy objective point but no First Blood yet.... + I declare Skyhammer coming in T1. He drew an objective that would force him to zoom a Stealth Team out from their hiding spot on the Eastern Flank towards a grey building. + I decide I must Steal this objective from him, and this is my first mistake..... I drop in one 5 man assault squad and I scatter off the objective a ton. So I am forced to dump a second Assault squad into this bad idea and they stick on the objective facing off against one Stealth suit who just finished short of the objective even after his Jet Pack Move. I fail to kill them with pistols/flamers, and fail to get the charge range. Note the amount of fail used in that turn. But at least I'm on the board with a Stolen objective. + Here's where all the fail took place. Again, sorry for all the proxies. These are assault marines. They don't assault, and they're hardly marines, but there you go. + + Meanwhile, at the same time in the Tau deployment zone, my Deathwatch HQ and 2 Pods come in along with the rest of Skyhammer: + Oh I love the taste of Interceptor in the morning. + +++ I apologize for all the proxies I'm still re-assembling my army +++ + The grey marines are supposed to be Grav Cannons. The Blue Marines are MultiMelta. In the middle my Captain, and Libbie strategically place around the pod, (*We are playing official FAQ Pod Rules). + This is a pretty big moment. I roll 5 dice on Psychic Shriek of course targeting the Storm Surge. This guy rolls high and he takes 3-4 wounds from Shriek. Even after FnP rolls. Wow. + But now it's time for everyone's favorite game: Interceptor! + A picture form the Tau edge of the table: Note the Interceptor annihilates most of Skyhammer before it gets to fire. Back to the Black Fortress for more anti-xenos tech??? While your there, somebody hand me that Ork Warboss lucky stick. I could use it right about now. + + So Grav Cannon squad takes an amazing amount of firepower. The pods to obscure some Riptides/etc from getting some primary targets, but the Wipe out of the Grav Cannon squad (his number 1 target priority of course) nets him FIRST BLOOD! + Nothing like relinquishing First Blood to your opponent on your own turn! So he knew the Grav Cannons were going to probably finish off the Stormsurge and once they were gone he picked off a few Deathwatch, but then focused REALLY hard on the Deathwatch HQ squad. + The Deathwatch HQ squad gets a few cover saves but not many. The squad is wiped until we get to the Libby. He takes one failed save, then Look out Sir's 6 remaining wounds onto the Termie Captain. Thank you Librarian. Middle management really is useless sometimes. The Head honcho takes 5 saves, before losing a wound. Not bad. He's still breathing. + Finally I get to shoot in my own turn! + The 10 man Deathwatch split into combat squads and hammer away at top targets starting with the Stormsurge. I keep using 12" Impact Frag Shots and lucky poison hits (basically NONE), but after 8 or so Frag Cannon/Melta/Multimelta shots, the Stormsurge goes down! Wow. + With what little I have left I take poison rounds at a Riptide, but 2+ then FnP is immensely hard for me to get through. I maybe put one or two wounds on a Riptide with the rest of my army. + The termies roll up on objectives, and I score 2 points and we're tied. Tau T2: + He takes some pot shots at my HQ, and isn't too worried about them, and tries to dilute my Frag Cannon count. Which he does. + He is trying to reinforce his Stealth cadre at Eastern / Mid, but has trouble killing all of my one squad there so my Assault Squad rushes him and loses Close Combat to a SINGLE STEALTH SUIT. This shall not be recorded back at the Black Fortress!!! + I drew an objective on his side last turn, and he steals it. He kills a squad off getting another point. For some reason his Riptide assaults my remaining Multi Melta team. I believe he was afraid of me assaulting his Drone Comander, which I would have tried, but probably died to the gobs of Overwatch. + His Riptides shot me up pretty badly and his Pathfinder squad with HQ had an amazing amount of shots. I knew they'd have to be widdled down. + Riptide assaults? Deathwatch T2: + He drew a card on my side of the table which I stole... + The Kroot are fried by Frag Cannons. Chicken for supper. + Another bolter squad concentrates heavily on the Pathfindes and kills half. + My libby takes another shot at Shriek. He almost denies it, but fails. I get 2-3 wounds on a Riptide, but none of my shooting can do anything else to it. The Termies try to help but no go. + Our 2 Turns of Close combat against the Riptide slowly kill off my Ultra Multi Melta's. + I take two more objectives. Turn 3 : + He realizes my Obsec has hurt him here. He hasn't killed me fast enough. The Stormsurge dying T1 is huge. But I threw everything at it. + The Ghost Keel moves out and my two assault squads are now down to one squad, and they kill the 1 dude he has left there. But it's a final 10 man Deathwatch Drop Pod that fries them with Frag Cannons (no 2+ Stealth for the Stealth Suits!) . + His Breacher squad steps into the Deathwatch that just killed his Kroot and he annhilates them with that High Strength /AP3 shooting. + I complete a few big objectives at this point and he's Rick Rolling my army to nothing at this point, but yet I scramble odd squads and try to maintain my army. + With the combination of Marker Drones, and Riptides he annihilates my Libby, Hq Termie and the squad they had just joined. + I am now forced to pick my next moves very carefully as my army is pretty beat up.... I grab another couple of objectives, while trying to find cover. + A remnant squad of Deathwatch have to kill a vehicle to net a point.... I destroy the Fish Tank, but the ensuing explosion kills two of my guys. OUCH. One is a frag Cannon. + Pointswise I take the lead in bottom of T3 with a 3 Point turn, but it is costly as I had to sacrifice a lot. Now to see if I can keep the lead and not get tabled at the same time... Turn 4: + Tau realize they have to be a bit bolder to 1) catch up in points, or 2) table me. + The Tau shooting is still devastating. He starts advancing a Riptide from deep in his lines, I still can't seem to kill these stupid things. They both have wounds but 2+/3++/5+ FnP is sick. I poison the crap out of one of them with my fragile line, but he still has one wound left. + Tau wipe out the Deathwatch squad that just killed a fish tank. Aside from Pods I have only 2 solo deathwatch marines left at mid table. + Tau wipe the rest of the assault squads which were largely doing nothing. Breachers wipe one out, the Ghost Keel wipes the other out. + By the end of his Turn 4, the table starts to look really bleak for me.... + Tau fire power has nearly eliminated anything I had in his zone. The Pods still block his passage though, and the pods have been plinking away at Pathfinders and drones. + Turn 5: + I lead the game, the Termies are being rushed by the Riptide still. +I manage to wipe the Pathfinders and their HQ for a point with Drop Pods and the Cyclone frag missile rounds. + For the sake of movement and in case we go to Turn 6 he starts shooting at Pods. He gets one down, the rest miraculously survive. He doesn't want to waste high volumes of shots at my solo guys running around. But he still manages to kill one with drones. now leaving me with ONE marine at mid. + I am retreating my last 4 marines on my side of the table with 2 Grav guns as I know his riptide is breaking for an important point which is being held by my Terminator! + Here the Riptide has one wound left! I throw poison at it with my last mid table marine. The Riptide destroys the Assault Cannon Terminator seen here protecting the edge of an Objective with is life on the line. + The Riptide ends up stealing this objective, but on the other side of this grey tower is 2 Grav guns and they destroy the Riptide, netting me a point. Turn 6: + The Tau destroy a pod, and my last mid table marine. But can only get a point, and I have 4 marines, and a Terminator left on the table. The destruction is immense on both sides but I'm hanging by a thread. + He finishes his top half of the turn and can only score one point. We add up the points to be certain and I have the lead 13-9 so he cannot come close to a tie at this point and he concedes to the Deathwatch. + Many fishsticks and rejoicing is had by the 5 surviving members of this game. Thanks for checking the batrep out!

So here we go..... I wanted to do another Custodes test. I've used them a few times now and did batrep one of those games before the squad got sold. If you're curious and haven't seen it, the first Batrep with my GK army is here: LINK NOTE: Please excuse the large number of unpainted models. I sold the unit of Custodes and am working on my new squad. Sold a lot of DW so am now rebuilding them from scratch. Sorry for the unpainted stuff... I hate it too. The GAME: Maelstrom: Contact Lost (draw 1 Maelstrom card in T1, but you may only draw additional cards for every Objective you Control! ouch) The Armies (just the basics): Orks: This is a basic Wazdakka dual Bikstar list. Essentially we're talking two max sized Bike squads that become ObSec, both have Fists on multi characters, and both have Apothecary type save guys. The Wazdakka squad gets Skilled Rider as well. It's really a potent list and can do well at some tournaments. Especially if you haven't faced it before. He also had Mega Armoured Nobs in a trukk which is underrated, and annoying as heck. He had the 4+ save boyz in trucks, and 2 squads of Tank Bustas full of rocket launchers. Lots of junk to go with his bikers and armoured nobs, totaling something like 72 models I think.... Deathwatch: Here I take my basic BSSF + CAD. I am proxying an Imperial Bunker with Improved Comms to see if I can correct the horrible delays my army has had in recent games. I also have the Culexus, and a 5 man Squad of Custodes to go with my DW CAD Chaplain. (The idea being RAW that I can use the Terminator Captain's Beacon Angelis to teleport the Chaplain (attached to Custodes on the ground) to my location T1 if necessary.) The Custodes are Experiment number 1. Experiment number 2 comes from forcing myself to use a different load out for a Black Shield! Yes I have not been a fan of them, but I haven't tried one with an Axe and a CC weapon. So I plopped him with my Captain in a pod. NOTE: Until FAQ I'm still not using all Shotguns also have Bolter ruling. DEPLOYMENT + OPENING SALVO! + Orks win first turn deployment and opt for Night fight, and get it! (Not fun considering Jink + Night + Skilled Rider = 2+ cover saves on ObSec troops!) + I deploy my Bunker safely within my Zone and I put 5 Stalker Bolter guys in the bunker to secure it, and I plop that thing 3" away from a Marker to ensure (?) I get a card going forward.... My Culexus has no real target, so in this game he will play the wild card trouble maker. I deploy him near my bunker for now, beside an Assault Cannon Dreadnought. + I fail to steal the initiative. His first turn is fairly basic....he turbo's up everything. I kept the Custodes with the DW Chaplain and hold on for the firepower, but only 2 shots wound my Custodes and they laugh it off..... The good news is I don't give up First Blood. The bad news is he has total board control and outnumbers me more than 2-1 and he has blobs of ObSec all over the markers making it almost impossible for me to get cards in the future. +++ The Deathwatch wait patiently. The motive of the Beast is as obvious has his body odor. The Custodes lie in wait. Their time will come..... +++ + The massive wall of bikers and trukks all zoom full forward. (I can't fit it all in the picture. In some situations terrain forces some of his trukks to slow down.) + I draw a card that requires me to get an Objective in his backfield! A big challenge since it will definitely leave the Deathwatch on their own, unsupported but I need points. + I deployed my entire force on the table because of the army I ended up playing against... except for 2 pods. One was empty, one had my Termie Captain, and an Aquila including the Black Shield. I decide to go after the Objective in my T1 with this unit.... +++ It's a dire situation. I need to distract the horde and grab this objective. The Captain makes the call and the Pod is left unsupported, deep in the Ork back lines. +++ + The picture above paints a bleak picture. I did have the option of Beaconing over my Custodes and Chaplain but elected to do something else with the Custodes. The Captain's squad has no ObSec so I must blow away this Trukk full of Tank Bustas. Now they hurt Power Armour pretty badly so I elect to start with the Frag Cannons and Template them over and over, roasting the contents until the trukk is a burning pit of rotten green skin. Now the really bad part, because hey, it's Watch Master Prot, and things can never go off cleanly! The I still need to get one hullpoint off the trukk, he keeps making these stupid 6+ Nightfight saves. So I reluctantly fire off the Assault Cannon on the termie and I get my first 6! The explosion radius is also a 6! D'oh.... In the explosion I lose the front 3 guys.... the Frag Cannon included, and my Shotguns (I rolled 1,1,2 for saves.) .... and now I face an angry, smelly green horde... with no templates now. lol. + The Custodes decide to make things happen.... a massive cloud of bikes and trukks advance the ruins, and Storm Bolters fire them up and somehow kill 2 bikes! (Custodes mean business) +++ The Custodes use Hatred to full advantage. The Warlord Wazdakka bellows in disgust as he watches the Custodes hack down his entire Bike squad +++ + The Custodes perform way above my expectation. Even with FnP the bikes go down hard, and the Hatred re-rolls are quite punishing. The Shield Captain in particular is brutal, severing a Nob's bike in half, and lopping his head off with a backhand. He eyes Wazdakka up for the next round.... + I get one point for the objective, but I know a world of hurt is coming my way. Above the Bikes are dead, but now two full squads of Nobs rush my Custodes to get revenge.... The Custodes take wounds, but hold their ground. Things are slower now but the butchery is decidedly in the Custodes favour. Ork blood stains the ground, Wazdakka is destroyed. + Without breaking pace the Custodes continue to butcher the green horde to the degree I've never seen before.... Nob Fists do hit home this time, but at T5, and Eternal Warrior I make sure they only lose one model, and the rest hold on for dear life. Some are now wounded, but fight on with the Emperor's Will. + North of this butchery the scene is much more grim for Deathwatch.... +++ The Captain is alone. The vehicle explosion and 20 bike shots (snap firing) manage to take down another Deathwatch and a Terminator. The Ork Nobs run in, but the Black Shield exposes an ancient blade of hate, and attempts to protect the Captain.... +++ + I did try to thin the secondary biker unit, but I stood further away with my back line, and did not want to get overwhelmed so soon, I fired 12" shots, and he jinked, only losing a few bikes. The Dreadnought tried to help but the Jinks were really good, compounded with Feel No Pain. + The Bikers turn their attention to the Captain. The cowards see an easy kill... but after shooting down the Terminator the Mega Armoured Nobs figure this is an 'easy' job and bark at the bikes to turn around and face the Deathwatch front lines..... + The 3 Nobs rush into the captain, brandishing clunky fists that look like crude toasters mounted to forearms. The Captain steps up with his relic blade, and using his unique Warlord Trait (I have never rolled this one before) he ends up with Five Re-rolls. I use them all as this might be his swan song.... The Relic blade hits all, and wounds all with the assistance of Aquila rules.... BUT the crude looking Mega Armour passes all on a 2+. Going at the same time as the Nobs, the Black Shield thumbs the activator on his power Axe, and with 5 attacks he needs to use only one of the Warlord Trait dice, to get 5 hits! The Axe only wounds 3 times though, but this is enough to send two of the Nobs to their graves. (One Nob had a wound from over watch oddly enough.) But now all Nobs strike back, the first wound is taken by the Black Shield who instantly dies, the next 5 are taken by the Captain.... he fails his first Halo save and is killed outright. The Mega Armoured Nobs claim Warlord Kill, but as useless as the Captain was, the Black Shield took them down to one model.... + The Orks draw several cards, and are now clearly in the lead with on card coming up to kill a Bunker! We normally have a House rule: Any incompletable card from the start of the game, is a free discard, but since I actually has the bunker he had to keep it. Also the marker in front of the bunker was being contested by my ObSec Stalker Bolter crew.... speaking of which.... +++ Meanwhile on the Eastern Deathwatch front lines, all hell breaks lose. The Culexus breaks from the shadows as all other forces fail miserably. Can he hold the beast back long enough? +++ + The objective in front of the bunker is hotly contested and means points for both of us, but I haven't' been able to draw a single card for 2 turns! He is up 4 points to my 2 points and he is drawing up to his max of 6 cards a turn by just parking ObSec trukks on markers all over the table. + In this eastern line, I have an Aquila fail to do anything to the trukk in front of them. Now the desperate actions of the Stalker Bolter team in the bunker try and Fail as well to glance the AV10 trukk. + In pure desperation I force my Dreadnought to fire into the trukk with Assault Cannon and gets ONE glance that takes the Trukk down to a wreck. Wow. I couldn't believe how many 1's + 2's I rolled that entire turn. + Desperation reaches a new high as I must assault the Nob squad as they passed the pin check.... so my 2 Bikers (above) ignore terrain and we calculate I needed a 3 to assault the Nobs... Snake eyes! So I look at the Dread... he needs an 8, rolls a 7. Now I'm worried, I can't leave the bunker, so I throw the Culexus in... he makes it... + The Culexus goes first, and the Orks fail the fear test and are hitting on 5's anyway.... he hits about 8 times!!! The Culexus only hits 1 time, and fails to kill anything. The Culexus takes 5 wounds, fails all saves, dies outright. Wow. Thanks Assasinorium! Maybe send a guy with a smaller head next time so it doesn't get hit so easily!!! +++ The dire news of the state of the attack reaches the Custodes and the Chaplain. Instead of folding, they dig deeper and push even harder in the Ork lines. The Custodes' Guardian Spears effortlessly block 2 attacks adding insult to injury as they dice up another squad. +++ + The situation is very bleak. I draw my first card since Turn 1 (having even limited ObSec really blows) I am behind 5-2 but I can now grab an objective with my empty "ObSec" pod. I take the chance, and get a bullseye. + A remnant squad of Orks is running, along with a solo Nob Biker with FnP. He hopes to rally the Boyz with the Nob Biker and give them all Feel No Pain, but the Deathwatch Chaplain knows the beast all too well, and Pain will be Felt! He steers the Custodes into a multi assault, blowing up a Truk, while the Custodes dice up the rest of the Trukk Boyz and Nob Biker. + He still wants the objective #6 and my bunker. He gets his remaining squad of Tank Bustas up on a tower building and with S8 he needs to hit on 5's and then roll 6's on my bunker to glance.... he glances the bunker 3 times!!!! Wow. I have one hullpoint on it. I want to get the Stalker Bolters OUT of the Bunker but if I do (it's a back door) I lose the 3" I need to stop him from scoring a point he's been trying to get forever..... I stay inside, and fire all Stalkers at yet another ObSec Truck he has parked in front of the Bunker. I glance it to death. +I take an Aquila out of the ruins with a solo Cyclone Termie and mince this squad up which had wanted to assault me: +++ Split by indecision and typical faulty Xenos leadership, the thick headed Beast is ripped to shreds by the Deathwatch, but the Orks have another plan... +++ + The Orks are shot up badly above, even with Jink they are down to 3 Bikes, and all are Independent Characters. He drew a card needing 3 units in my zone, he splits these bikes up and rushes deep er in my zone to score 2 points.... Orks are now in a strong lead of 7-3. + Deathwatch forces are depleted, but I get to finally pull 3 cards. One for Objective 6 (in front of my bunker), one Primus DW card for killing characters, and one for shooting a unit to death. + The Orks are spread out. Their leadership is gone, but the Deathwatch are too slow. Both bikers are dead, and the Stalker Bolters have under performed immensely. The Custodes have 10 pounds of dried Ork entrails on their blades and seem to move slowly as a result, but in their travels the Chaplain points out an objective marker and orders the Custodes to chase down the loan Mega Armoured Nob who fatally wounded the Watch Captain. They destroy him without thought, and recover the Watch Captain's body. + The Independent Characters the Orks drove deep into the Deathwatch zone are mutilated by Dreadnought assault cannons, Terminator fire, and Frag Cannon shots. + Looking around the field all Orks are somehow dead... debris everywhere, smoking antiquated trukks litter the battlefield... in the distance only a squad of Ork Tank Bustas remain. They cling to their abandoned tower for refuge. The Deathwatch Captain runs as hard as his power armour will let him, and reaches the Ork zone, but well short of the last squad on the table..... + I score a few points. Orks are winning 7-6. We are in Turn 5, he rolls to end the game. I need one more turn... one more, but the game ends. We tally the score and realized my Chaplain had secured his zone for Line Breaker making the game 7-7. Incredible. Somehow a tie is eked out. Conclusion: - My opponent couldn't believe the Custodes. I couldn't either. They'd been good, but this was a very good match up for them. No AP2 shooting makes a massive difference. My Opponent estimates he threw 30 guys at the Custodes and Chaplain, and that includes his Warlord, and FnP saves in there, as well as about 4-5 power fists. They stalled the green flood, and bought the Deathwatch time to position and fire. They were definitely the best aspect of my army. - The captain held the beacon, but as usual did little else. The Beacon did not get used in this game, but rarely am I seeing such a fast army that wants to assault. The Black Shield did very good.... it's too bad I couldn't have kept him alive somehow but without a competent tank HQ it puts a lot of stress on the squad. - The Culexus... he was a total throw away, non-factor in this game. I wanted to keep using him in more games because not everyone has a broken pskyer formation to defend against and it turns out this was a good test for him. I kept him back with defense in mind, and he just whiffed and died. Even his special gun only killed an Ork. Thanks for reading this. Hope you found it entertaining.

Hey guys, I want to just do a very quick batrep... not really a full batrep because I've been experimenting a lot of different units lately and I also have some time restraints on me and as well I sold my Deathwatch (painted) army. So that being said I won't take many pics as I am re-painting the army from scratch and I hate unpainted batreps. That being said I wanted to do a quick reference for this game. We played an 1850 Maelstrom and for ONCE I got to play against Space Marines (very rare here). I mean at my local store there are a lot of marine players but they kind of hide out amongst themselves. But for tournie play not as much as you'd like to see. (Bloody xenos edition!) Back to the game... it will be a brief overview. In this experiment I took my normal CAD + BSSF, and I changed the list so many times I accidentally left out my Stalker Bolter squad, so I had to play 1850 without them. The true experiment was I wanted to play more games with the Culexus (I haven't used him in this army specifically and not played him in any army for quite a while, probably Ultra's last.) +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ So from memory the Blood Angels were using Traitor's hate formation. It actually looked okay on paper, as he had a "CAD" getting him some ObSec with Scouts parked in a bush, and a good sized squad of Grav Bikes, Multi Melta Attack Bikes, a bout 3 Pods of Troops with a Libby and .... the BEEF of the army was Dante and his magical ballet of pretty men in angel outfits which can Deep Strike and then Assault! Scary stuff. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I did get first turn, he failed to grab it. The game was VERY much back and forth. I had two big key moments, and one scary moment: 1. I had a key alpha strike. I unleashed solo Missile Termies, Dread, and (believe it or not) a Rhino with an Infernus Heavy Bolter in it at his Multi Melta bikes. The main alpha though was the Pod with Captain, and Frag Cannon unleashing on the Grav Bikers: - This opening salvo may have saved me. - all but one biker dies, all but one Multi Melta Attack Bike dies. (it did take all the forces I had on the board to do it.) Ironically the last surviving members of each squad would live up until the last turn! (those boys know how to Jink!) 2. I FAIL to get KEY reserves in on T2. Reminding me for the Millionth time you cannot take this army without some form of reserve manipulation ( a bad design element of the BSSF). This is scary because in his T2, his Dante, pods, and 2 large squads of Sanguinary Guard come in and can assault. They get good reserve rolls, re rolls and only 1D6 Deviation! The Sanguinary Guard can and do assault the turn they come in. I got one squad shot up pretty good, and the Sanquinary Guard came in and just annihilated me. 3. My failure for reserves set up a bizzarre situation..... When I failed both rolls for my Pod + Aquila, I knew it was game over since I just watched two of his Sanquinary guard wipe some of my stuff... .so in an act of pure desperation I took my Infernus Hvy Bolter Kill Team, and "Angelis Beacon'd" them across into the heart of the kill zone without deviation. The funny thing is I was wishing so badly at this point that I had not taken that Infernus because I desperately needed a Frag Cannon. The Infernus template hit 7 of his Tacticals, and I rolled four 6's !! These would have been rends, and with the Frag cannon I would have had 14 hits. He failed enough saves, that the rest of the Infernus squad weapons mopped up the Tacticals giving me some breathing space, but what about the Sanguinary Guard? This is where the second big desperate act comes in..... ^This guy made Assassinorium Great Again! 4. The Culexus did 'okay' here but ripping buffs away was one thing, he just did okay enough to assist in turn 1 with killing his libby and assisting in the kill of the squad ,but the big moment is next turn... In the next turn the Culexus would wander up (north of this picture) and get 6 shoots from my psychic pool at his Sanquinary guard which were about to gank my Deathwatch Captain after smoking one of my squads. The Culexus was pro. He leveled his pistol and wacked 5 guard!!! This left only Dante in the squad. The other Sanguinary squad was in CC I believe at this point. 5. The Captain had a brave Deathwatch with a Stormshield who took two blows from Sanquinary Axes before falling. I made a key decision to try to hold on for one more turn..... I decide the Captain is the only one who can handle his turn's worth of attacks, and I take them all on the captain, he tanks all the 3+ power weapons and of all the axe attacks the Halo saved all but 1!!! Close call. 6. The rest of my squads come in (finally). But the Infernus squad is basically one shotted by Dante... no joke, that guy came in, wound up his axe and murdered the whole kill team.... BUT that left him standing in the open. (when your Deathwatch, you gotta know when to die.) In retaliation my Captain's remnant squad, and everything around him including the Culexus let it rip at Dante. He saved so much stuff... ridiculous. It was a simple special ammo poison round that saw Dante fail his 2+ save and die for Warlord kill. This gave me the lead for the first time in the game.... 7. The game was winding down. I had a few scattered units, and a few solo Termies rolling around, but had managed to kill off the rest of his army except for the Pods, and the scouts in the corner (which had no shot/effect all game). With that he conceded and what started as a very back and forth game got very hairy for a while and then concluded with the death of his Warlord. Conclusions: - Infernus: Still not sold. I thought it was doing okay in a Rhino, but because Deathwatch like to inherently get close and use every shot possible, this felt like a bad play. - Culexus. One of the stars of the game. Not that the Blood Angels really relied on anything Psychic wise, the Culexus was key in crippling one of his 2+ save Sanguinary guard.

Hello, Got my act together and recorded my last battle. And of course... because of that the dice gods decided to show my grand loss for all to see. But, in my "defence" this is a new list I am trying out. Infernos heavy bolters have made them self into the list and some rearrangements with the weapon load outs. Some unlucky rolls on both sides, but my main loss was the mission cards I drew... I couldn't keep up with the cards Eldar drew. I also was a bit to eager with my drop pod and Beacon of Angelis. First army I am using a drop pod and I am still eager to drop in with "no risk". I should be more conservative and not drop right into the middle of everything. Rhinos also made their first appearance, and I must say... I am very impressed by them with Deathwatch. Veteran teams pull som much attention, that the rhinos can "room free" on the battle field. Given I met an Elite army, and he had few units within range to target them. And since they don't pose a threat, why bother? But, I could have used the Rhinos better, and reposition my self a lot more. I got greedy twice during the game, and it punished me hard. Now... this is my first battle report video. So bare with me! I know for a fact it is way to fast presented. But this video will act as a guide line for future battle reports for me and my friends. I need to keep the video at maximum 15 minutes to be able to upload to youtube, so that my goal. 15 mins battle reports. I do not intend to talk during my battle reports, as I don't think my voice is a voice many people would enjoy. And I also tend to talk way to much. So I will keep it strictly by text that explains the battle. But who know... perhaps in the future I'll scare the world with my presence on screen. Here is a link to the video for this interested. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cG92MSkrbo&feature=youtu.be I did learn a lot from the game. 1. Do not deep strike into middle of the enemy force (even if there is a very lucrative target) 2. Fall back if into rhino if you can't kill your target with 90% chance. Live to fight another day (turn). 3. Make better use of Rhinos 4. Remember Warlord trait :) 5. Ask about formation rules... (missed out on Battle focus on the Wraiths...) 6. Do not expect to get objective secure cards... * * This was my "grand plan". I spred out and controlled the battle field turn 1 and partially turn 2. But I didn't get andy of the 4 objective markers I controlled. I could have gone for objective marker 4 (as I did get), but I got eager to try out my bikes. Funny part is... once I was in the middle with them... I had no clue what to charge och shoot. There was a huge Wraithknight standing in the way.

Greetings all. I had my first 3k game using my Deathwatch marines in an old 3rd ed Battle Mission. It was a ton of fun. Here is a link to the game. The video is an hour and two minutes long, and is largely decided in the second turn, but it gives some incite towards how we operate in large point games. Personally, I found the game satisfying, and the banter amusing. I think you will as well.

I just played another Tau game, but it was against a 'fun list'. Tons of vehicles, lots of tanks so very few saves for me. I took so much damage from AP 3 or better it was insane. I lost my two biggest squads the turn after their arrival, but before I did I used the Beacon Angelis to flip a Chaplain and 5 Custodes across the table. My HQ being wiped and two fair sized pod squads was typically Tau, but I think the worst part was I could only cause 2 Tau vehicles to jink on arrival (they still lived even after being targeted with an Auspex each.) In his ensuing turn he moved tanks slightly (I couldn't get all his hammer heads in the picture below), but the Breacher squads are just so gross.... they are incredibly anti-drop pod , basically cleaning up anything that Interceptor couldn't. About halfway through my opponent's turn I realized I was hardly rolling any dice. It came to me that most of what was targeting me doesn't allow me a save.... moments like these the game feels so anti-marine right now. At the end of the day he had a heck of a time trying to get rid of my Custodes.... again. + Tau 'fun' deployment: squads of Breachers, and a long tank line with a Drone Commander in the middle and lots of marker lights. + So here's me dropping in.... shockingly in this game there was no Interceptor!!! I was shocked.... however with 90% of his army in boxes, I couldn't kill anything. + - I'm picking up a lot of models and just putting them away with no saves.... but the Custodes did pop his throwaway squad of ObSec Kroot. - He is ramping up the score bigtime.... I have a squad in the background (see top picture) to continue the IHB (Infernus Heavy Bolter) experiment. They are in that Grey Rhino.... T1, even with dozer blades, I move the rhino 2 inches, I roll snake eyes and the thing is immoblized. o_0 - I give up Warlord, and two of my best Aquila squads, my Libby (dead) failed to kill anyhting with Psychic Shriek. - I now have 4 Custodes, an Aquila of 5 Stalker Bolters (never killed a thing, it's all in tanks) with a Cyclone Terminator (maybe he got a hullpoint off a vehicle all game? Caused some jinks mostly. - The IHB squad got out of their dead rhino. All game they maybe killed 3-4 Kroot caught in the open. He saw that they were only Infernus Heavy Bolters, so he flew his vehicles right into them, shocking them off of objectives, knowing I could not even glance the front armour of his transports. + Tau coasting to a win.... I am playing magic wound time with these Custodes..... and they're angry. + - Custodes play magic friends, get into CC smoke a squad. He's having trouble getting past my 2+ saves and 3++ shields. Custodes kill a tank, marker drones, Drone Commander, a full breacher squad, a Pathfinder squad (top of buliding), and a Hammerhead Tank.... THEN leave the runes near end game with 3 models left!!!! - My BSSF Ancient comes firing in automatically on T4 (he failed all reserve rolls) and I have to kill a vehicle with him... that's all he has to do. He lines up the back of a transport with his Assault cannon, misses 3 shots, fails to pen/glance on fourth shot. He is annihilated by Breachers in the next turn. - He was running away with this. He drew good cards, and while I had solvable cards, they were hard... kill this, grab that... nothing I was sitting on. - My IHB squad is so innefective he is just dancing around it knowing I can't damage anything in range. He gets out of his transport to grab a big point turn and quickly ramps up 13 points on me. - My Custodes take some serious tank shots but the Tau are used to me just putting models in the case... but not the Custodes. Everyone, including the Chaplain has a wound on them, but 3 models still live. I get out to mid field with the Custodes, they wipe up some remnant Kroot, and the Custodes smash into the Transport my Dreadnought could not hurt. - Custodes destroy the Transport, the IHB squad fails to do anything again. - The Stalker team which has literally done nothing (lack of soft targets, out ranged) decides they mush break from the building to get to mid table... they die a horrrendous death trying to get there. The Cyclone Termie fails his first save of the game (needed invuln from Hammer head), and the squad melts with him. - The game goes to T6 and I concede. Ironically I have 2 Custodes with the single Chaplain, 4 members of the IHB squad, and the Rhino JUST repaired itself... and then gets destroyed. Amazingly enough I manage 12 points to his 13. End Game Thoughts: - I tried hard to make it a game. I was thoroughly demoralized at the mass loss of troops and how much my army struggled against armour. Also having so few saves against Eldar and Tau gets pretty old, pretty fast. Add in Admech/Grav and it's enough to make someone go to Daemons or something where you're better off running around the battlefield with a loin cloth for protection. - This is the continuation of some heavy experimentation. Obviously this is not my idea of an optimized list but after some consideration I've made some final decisions on some units: - BSSF as a stand alone Detachment is terrible. - Watch Company is 'good', but too tax heavy - Dreadnoughts are still terrible in mildly competitive meta's, but even more so when it's nearly the only armour your opponent has to focus all his melta/plas/las/Stealth Cadre at. - Infernus Heavy Bolter. I'm not going to bother debating this any further. In my mind ,this is the worst weapon in the codex at a melta cheaper than a Frag. I won't say I'll never, ever field them again, because there's always a chance my wife will drive over all my Frag Cannon models and I'll have to proxy IHB's as Frag. Custodes save the day!

Hello, So I got another game up after a weeks work away from home. Me and two friends are joining a small friendly tournament in January, and our games from now until then will be practice game in preparations for this event. I was going to record the game, as last time and try to make a new and better battle report, but due to lack of time and the lighting was not sufficient enough. Pictures had to fill in instead. I optimised my list from the last game vs Eldar. My friends list has proven it self in the past, to hit hard and fast. The tournament uses Eternal War missions, Maelstrom in the same game. Eternal war objectives are in the end worth the most and generate most tournament points. Maelstrom missions are secondary, and generate moderate points. And thirdly the First blood (first strike in our case), slay the warlord and line breaker as minor tournament points. Not going into detail about it, but the most important thing is that you only need to win each category and you will get a set amount of of points. In case of a draw the points are shared. So it doesn't matter if you have 18 vs 0 in maelstrom missions cards, or 13 vs 12. All you need is to win that category to get the points (or share in case of a tie). Anyhow, to the lists. We need to have one CAD (mandatory) and one optional formation from the same faction. 1750 Deathwatch: CAD Librarian with Beacon 5 Veterans with Frag cannon x2, meltagun x2, Rhino 5 Veterans with Frag cannon x2, grav gun x2, Rhino Drop pod WATCH COMPANY Captain with thunder hammer and lightning claw, tome of ectoclades Aquila 1 5 Veterans with Stalker pattern boltguns/boltguns 1 Terminator with cyclone missile launcher Aquila 2 5 Veterans with Stalker pattern boltguns/boltguns 1 Terminator with cyclone missile launcher Aquila 3 7 veterans, with frag cannon x2, heavy thunder hammer, storm shield 1 terminator with thunder hammer and storm shield 1 drop pod Aquila 4 7 Veterans, with frag cannon x2, meltagun 1 Terminator with heavy flamer, meltagun 1 Drop pod SPACE WOLVES (No clue really to be honest) Librarian equivalent with jump pack Librarian equivalent with re.roll relic These two belonged to a special formation giving some magic buffs. Ulric the slayer Iron priest on thunder wolf mount, cyber wolf 10 grey hunters, power weapon, plasmagun x2, rhino 7 grey hunters, close combat weapons, meltagun, wolf standard, terminator with frost sword and combi melta, drop pod with deathwind launcher. 5 Wulfen, two frost axes, 2 thunder hammers and storm shields, frost claws on the leader (name) 4 Thunder wolfs, power fist, storm shield x3, wolf claw and storm shield 5 Sky claws, frost sword, two flamers 5 Long fangs, plasma cannon, lascannon x3, terminator with storm shield. So I stared off by winning the deployment zone. As usual, we just take the side where our models are hanging out. We are to lazy to move around... I deployed my Two rhino units (forgot to load up one of the veterans form the CAD into the drop pod, but turned out to be a good choice to let them ride in the rhino...). Two units of Stalker patter units deployed too. Space wolves, who went first with deployment, gather up more or less on one flank. Keeping the pack together. SPACE WOLVES DEPLOYMENT http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v378/VashDime/40k/Battle%20reports/PC110835.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v378/VashDime/40k/Battle%20reports/PC110834.jpg DEATHWATCH DEPLOYMENT http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v378/VashDime/40k/Battle%20reports/PC110839.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v378/VashDime/40k/Battle%20reports/PC110837.jpg SPACE WOLVES TURN 1 Movement phase - Drops in the 7 grey hunters and terminator, + the librarian guy with no jump pack. - Moves around his units to prepare for a drop pod assault demo the deathwatch. Psychic phase - The drop pod librarian kills off every Veteran with stalker patten boltgun + the terminator... I didn't save a single 2+ save, and my 3+ saves where horrible. Shooting phase - Long fangs shots at the other Stalker pattern unit with the plasma cannon and the lascannons on the one rhino they can see. - The terminator fails his cover save and dies. Other members saves. Assault phase - there are no assaults Points gained - First strike (kill an enemy unit in your first turn (replaces first blood)) http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v378/VashDime/40k/Battle%20reports/PC110840.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v378/VashDime/40k/Battle%20reports/PC110841.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v378/VashDime/40k/Battle%20reports/PC110841.jpg DEATHWATCH TURN 1 Movement phase (start of phase) - Drop pods come - Beacon shenanigan, pulling in rhino and deploys. - Second rhino goes after the SW drop pod unit Psychic phase - I try to do a psychic shriek, but get denied Shooting phase (all hell breaks lose) - The 5 veterans in the rhino who goes after the drop pod unit... kills them all. Was thinking of baking them up with the stalker unit - The rest of the army shoots at the Thunder wolves and Wulfen. Mixed results here, but I do manage to take down the warlord (iron priest) and enough thunder wolves and wulfen to feel comfortable. The wulfen even fails moral. But don't run to far away. Assault phase - There is none Points gained - First strike - Slay the warlord http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v378/VashDime/40k/Battle%20reports/PC110844.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v378/VashDime/40k/Battle%20reports/PC110845.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v378/VashDime/40k/Battle%20reports/PC110846.jpg SPACE WOLVES TURN 2 Movements phase - Wulfen curses the sky claws and thunder wolves with +3" move. - All the remaining forces except for the long fangs moves in for the kill on the dropped Deathwatch units. Shooting phase - Thins down my lines, taking out 1 frag cannon from each unit and some random boltgun/shotgun guys. Assault phase - Grey hunters go in first, multi charge. They lose 5 members on the charge and fail leadership and runs away (not sure if thats right but to little time to check) - Thunder wolves, sky claws and wulfen heads in. No casualties on the charge there, but a wound inflicted on a thunder wolf. - Deathwatch kills the sky claws and the remaining librarian (6 models) and the deathwatch loses 9 models spread among the 3 units. - Deathwatch captain and his lone veteran survivor flees, and so does the veteran squad from the rhino. The Aquila team stays, as they have a terminator. - Thunder wolves and aquila team locked in combat - Wulfen in the open Points gained - Rhino moved forward to claim an objective http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v378/VashDime/40k/Battle%20reports/PC110849.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v378/VashDime/40k/Battle%20reports/PC110851.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v378/VashDime/40k/Battle%20reports/PC110852.jpg DEATHWATCH TURN 2 Movement phase - Regroups the chicken units - Position my self for shooting at the remaining SW units Psychic phase - casts terrify and Thunder wolves fail ld, and runs away. Flees of the table. Shooting phase - Stalkers and two last guys form the rhino pull, kills the wulfen The Remaining Space Wolves bows to the power of the Deathwatch. Promises to control the Wulfen and have them cleaned. And also they need to provide members to the Deathwatch. My friend just gave up all hope after his horrible leadership roles. The game was zero tactical, we were in each others faces from turn 1. I did tell him that my army wants to be within 12", and his army within charge range. Once this happens, its straight forward whats going to happen. Since I hit his flank hard, he had to turn his sky claws around and join the fight. And since he turned his sky claws, I focused more on that flank. Anyhow, he decided to change his list a bit. Exchanging his sky claws for a Scicarian. With this he can block me better (one rhino plus the scicarian). Also its a good answer to eldar jetbikes, transports and what not.

Sorry I have not been playing my Deathwatch consistently enough to be doing as many batreps, but I did have an opportunity to play against the new Genestealer Cult and according to GW... this is what we do best! This might be one of the most ridiculous twists of fate I've seen in a final turn of game. There were so many appropriate titles for this Batrep: "The Hills are Alive!", "Run for your Lives", "Mom's a Genestealer!", but I think we'll just stick with... 'I Have a Bad Feeling About this..." +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Strap yourself in, this is going to get hairy, but first let me do my old setup of showing a pivotal moment. In this case we visit our heroic Deathwatch team deep in the pits of an abandoned mining town. +++ A drone recorder snaps a pic feed: A rainy day on the grey bleak town of Intex. Thought to be abandoned but the Deathwatch knew better. The streets are alive with the stench of alien filth, and the Deathwatch have arrived to cleanse the streets of Intex. The Geneastealer Cult will have none of it, and see the Deathwatch as a means off the planet. The only thing for certain is outright carnage. +++ Maelstrom 1850: (3 cards a piece, per turn. One free Discard on impossible game cards (House Rule)) The Deathwatch: CAD: Watch Captain Varentoz (Imperial Fists Secondment) Beacon Angelis, Terminator Armour, Relic Blade, Auspex. 5 Vets, Razorback (twin Assault Cannon), Frag Cannons, Shield 5 Vets, Frag, Combi Melta, Drop Pod. Terminators x 2 - assault cannons, 1 meltafist Bikers x3, Maul, PWeapon, Beacon Vanguard Vets x 4 (go in Corvus) Heavy Hammer, Twin Claws, Shield, Peon. Skyshield Landing Pad BLACK SPEAR: Artemis Aquila: Vets, Frag Cannons, Storm Shield, Drop Pod: Librarian ML 2: Tome of Ectolcades Drop Ship: Corvus Ordo Inquisitor in Termie Armour, ML1, 3 Servo Skulls, Psycannon. Geneastealer Cult - Broodlord + approximately 4,000 genestealers - Abhorrents. - 3 large infiltrating squads - Astra Autocannon Walkers x 3 - Astra Russ Eradicator - Dude with an Icon that gave FnP (psychic dude too I think) -2 squads in a Chimeras Other stuff that looks like slimy meat. (sorry can't remember it all.... plus it was similar stuff.) The Game: I win the roll off to go first, and set up the zone accordingly: +++ The Corvus picks up the Vanguard and awaits orders. In the distance, some Nids have infiltrated the Ruins, but Servo Skulls keep them somewhat in the distance. +++ +++ Razorback squad is ready for the rocky ride provided by the Beacon Angelis +++ - I set up with speedier units in my zone, except I needed something back... with a bit of range that duty fell to the Terminators + Inquisitor and 3 Bikers. - To the right of the terminators (off camera) the Razorback squad has set up for a 'slingshot' move if I need it. The pesky Nids infiltrate a squad behind them, deep in my zone, out of LoS. Turn 1: - I draw 3 cards, nothing is easy in this post apocalyptic world and I need objectives in the other zone, and shoot something... anything dead. - I really don't know what to lay the Alpha down on... I KNOW that potentially the most damaging thing is the Leman Russ and Walkers, huddled up in the Nid Zone with a squad in Chimera backing them up. (Off camera). I know the Eradicator/Heavy Bolters isn't instant death, but I can't lose any models and I don't actually want to be in close combat with him. - I let the cards decide... I need an objective deep in his zone. Captain Ventius strikes deep in the heart of the infested town, and sling shots the Razorback squad for back up. +++ The Captain pods in a precarious position, but expert guidance sticks the landing. The Razorback materializes in front of what seems to be some sort of 'smart bug'. He's waiving a stick, uttering jibberish, and he smells like poo. +++ - The Librarian here rolled Librarius and really needed the re-roll saves but didn't get it, so instead tries to get the primaris shot off. It would be my only successful Psychic test for the game, as the Shadow in the Warp has this town in its grasp.... - The Deathwatch take an early lead; they grab the objective (Command Aquila is sitting right on it). The Command blows up the Chimera, and the Razorkback starts firing off on the cultist types surrounding the brain bug. But all is not well.... the Vanguard advance in the Corvus, get out, start to shoot another squad in the ruins but they are too resilient with FnP and ruin cover.... BUT the Vanguard decide to assault needing 10"... however the crafty bugs shoot a vanguard with a pistol or rock or something... and it kills a charging vanguard, making the distance 11" but they Vanguard fail, while losing one of their number. - The Nids retalilate, but only the bikes take a true beating. The Eradicator plays the part, and some bikes roll '2's, and quickly the squad is in trouble. TURN 2: - Remember when there was only a few bugs? How I miss that turn, it was a nice turn..... +++ The sudden screams of, "Start the Pod! Start the Pod!" could be heard from the wreckage surrounding the Chimera. "It doesn't work that way." The Captain reminded them.... there would be no escape here. The Deathwatch would hold their ground here, or die trying. +++ - The Genestealers push back hard. They advance to the centre, I have a decent lead points wise, but he has +1 to his reserves, and I had -1 which could have been ugly... I did not realize this until turn 2 which would have changed my deployment but wouldn't have made a difference.... +++ The Bikes are disapearing and by T2 are down to one. The humanoids don't waiver, and even though they are riddled with assault cannon fire, they advance to the ruins to claim an objective. The last remaining biker is reluctant to advance into the squad. He does not know fear, but he does know the smell of defecation, and he'd rather avoid it. +++ My second Drop Pod has a horrible deviation. The Deathwatch know they have to take down some of the armoured might . It's corrupt, and it's causing some expensive deaths in the Deathwatch back lines.... but the Pod with the Melta and Frag Cannon would deviate 11". They do stay on the table but are in such a horrible position, the melta will not be within 6". +++ This drop pod (out of picture) squad deviated too far to be in their effective range, and would only manage one glanced hull point off the Leman Russ.+++ - The Bugs continue to spam powers, and while my terminators would fire off into the ruins, the Inquisitor would fail to cast Prescience all game. - The Vanguard charge into the squad with the Icon bearer (the brain bug). It smelled disgusting, and the Vanguard managed to slay them before they fired a shot, finally removing FnP from the area. - The Genestealers weren't alone. Behind my HQ in the pod there was a squad of Abbhorrents that snuck in. The Captain had his weak orbital strike warlord trait. Although I could not see the Abhorrents, I re-read Orbital strike and it does not need LoS that I could see... that being said, the Captain could smell the Abhorrents.... they wreaked of month old cabbage and rotten potatoes. He rolled a 1 for his strike anyway... +++ The Terminators Finally kill everything in ruins, and the lone biker would rush into the Chimera with his power maul and completely miss. But the Terminator with Melta shot would take down the Chimera with his final shot... +++ - Above, the final biker dies to the Chimera's occupant's shot's unceremoniously. - Above the Corvus had turned around, hit the skies and zoomed over the Chimera squad and spanked them with a bomb killing about half the squad. (Perhaps the best bomb run I've ever had with it.) - Something interesting... the Corvus at the end of this run pumps its Assault cannon into a squad hiding in the ruins (above- far upper right). The squad would break, then run just outside of 6" allowing the squad to 'Hide Like Cowards in the Shadows"! They would come back the next turn at full strength, with their weapons upgrades. Sure wish I could get my hands on some 'free' for this Deathwatch... as things are looking ugly... - I get some more points and have a bit of a lead, the Genestealers are coming though! One squad assaults my 'melta' pod squad (futile earlier in the game). I win the combat by one somehow, and he runs off the table. - I still feel outnumbered by a ton... my last guy from that squad has a Frag cannon and he rushes and fires at the back of the Leman Russ and fails again to do more than stun it. - The Stunned Russ, kills some of my HQ squad with snap fires (I rolled a LOT of 2's this game which also severely hurt my Mission Tactics ). A lot of bikes, and marines went down on two's. - Finally I give everything I've got to that giant Stealer Squad with the Broodlord in it.... +++ And we're back to this key, pivotal moment. There would be MASSIVE destruction here, but you'd never in a million years guess how it happened. +++ - The Genestealers are coming in their turn. (I forgot to mention that they had some ability from Turn 1 I think.. it was their armour save turned to a 4+ and that combined with FnP and Ruins saves made this extremely difficult)...so I turn my Razorback around to reinforce the HQ squad: + The Razorback Snapfires, and gets nothing. + Artemis and squad unload 2 Frag Cannons for several hits and I even (with Artemis Flamer) manage to hit a few from an adjacent squad. Lots die, but more take their place. Seemingly the unending horde is fighting beyond their limits... + The Librarian fails his Primaris shot test. + The Command squad fires off 2 Frag Cannons as well eliminating more bugs. Burning debris is everywhere, but again, I'm not scoring Rends, and without an AP, the flamer isn't getting through the 4+ saves nearly enough. - The Genestealers are enraged. The Broodlord steps forward, and it's is their turn to retaliate: + The Broodlord unleashes a heinous power.... he passes a Psychic test to SHOOT my dual Frag Cannon squad at my HQ SQUAD! + The Deathwatch Librarian rolls all denial dice to block this, but he is weak in the force, and utterly fails to stop this atrocity. + The Deathwatch Razorback squad with Artemis and Frag Cannons kill the entire command squad, the Frag cannons, the sarge (only made one Storm Shield Save), the Librarian in Termia armour (instant death), and put the Captain down 2 wounds!!! Once again proving my point Deathwatch are far better at killing marines than Xenos! +++ The Deathwatch have learned a new trick today: Why shoot your opponent when it's easier to shoot yourself? The Assault continues to add shame to the horror. +++ - The Broodlord (not in picture) advances his squad and performs a multi assault. The captain down to one wound will not accept the Challenge. Instead Artemis will, and we screw this up because he wanted to use his ability to Look out Sir all attacks at the Broodlord made by Artemis. I said as far as I knew he couldn't and this would have to be some special rule. (Later on he confirmed it IS an actual Broodlord rule that he can auto look out sir in challenges!) - So ironically getting this rule wrong would be to Artemis' detriment. Because as a result of the challenge he would forgo all of his normal attacks to throw the D-bomb! (I'm 0-7 as of this fight, but luck's with me on this, I can feel it!) - Artemis gets to go first because the Genestealers don't have Frags and they charge out of ruins.... I am playing this as the Elite's Mission Tactic because the Broodlord is part of the squad of Genestealers (Elites battlefield role). SO Artemis gets to re-roll 1's, and hits on 4's.... Would you do this? I know Arty would!!! - Artemis rolls a 2. It appears he did not feel luck, but impending pain.... the Broodlord sees Artemis' slow attack coming, and crunches his fist around the D-bomb and smashes it into Artemis' skull. A 6 is rolled and Artemis is removed from play. (0-8) - The close combat is over... With my one squad decimating my command squad, and Artemis killing himself again, the fat lady is warming up in the background. - I can, at this point, play the points. I knew things were going badly in T2. I had too few units and they weren't killing enough as usual. The re-appearing squads and psychic powers were getting the best of the Deathwatch, and the Russ was eating away at the Deathwatch bit by bit. - I decided to call it as I turned into the Genestealer cult because I knew I was dead, and tried to make a game of it. It all went even worse than I imagined after I shot myself to death. Once again, a true lack of Deathwatch Psychic character or Psychic defense really hurts this army. So I could have skirted the edges and tried to ride my lead into T6-7 but it felt sheepish to do so and I thought my opponent deserved the win. I hope you enjoyed this read, and remember, when you see a pair of yellowed eyes staring at you in the dark, and you smell that rotten cabbage, and can hear the heavy breathing... run... run for a different codex as fast as you can!

So I played a decently quick game yesterday against a local. My list was: 1500 pts BSSF Watch Commander 130 Chaplain w/ Tome of Ectoclades, Melta Bombs Strategium Command Team 430 Artemis Aquila Kill Team Sergeant w/ Combat Shield, Shotgun/Boltgun Veteran w/ Shotgun/Boltgun x2 Veteran w/ Frag Cannon x2 Terminator w/ Hvy Flamer/ Power Fist/Meltagun Terminator w/ Assault Cannon/Power Fist Aquila Kill Team 335 Sergeant w/ Combat Shield, Shotgun/Boltgun Veteran w/ Shotgun/Boltgun x2 Veteran w/ Frag Cannon x2 Librarian ML2 w/ Beacon Angelis, Combat Shield Razorback w/ Dozer Blade Aquila Kill Team 345 Sergeant w/ Stalker boltgun Veteran w/ Stalker boltgun x3 Veteran w/ Missile Launcher Librarian ML2 w/ Dominus Aegis Razorback w/ TL Lascannon, Storm Bolter, Dozer Blade Armor 260 Land Raider Crusader w/ Multi-melta His list was a Grand Master with Paladins and an Apothecary, a unit of Terminators with a Librarian, a unit of Interceptors with the flamer thing and a Razorback, a venerable Dreadnought, and a basic Land Raider. We each deployed around the center of our side, Artemis and co. joined the chaplain in the Land Raider, the other Frag kill team deployed in their transport, and the Stalker team found a building to set up in, leaving their Razorback to be elsewhere for support. His paladins and Grand Master where in his Land Raider, and the rest was deployed next to it, with the Termies in reserve. I rolled on Telepathy, and got Shrouding on one libby, with all the rest being crap. Artemis was the warlord. I had first turn, and I started up the field, taking a bunch of shots but doing no damage. He pushed forward, also did no damage. I moved some more, took a couple points off the Land Raider and the Razorback, still doing crap for damage. He charged my Razorback kill team with the dreadnought, doing 2 damage, he got a crew shaken on my raider. I assaulted his Raider with Artemis and co. out of mine, and the termies powerfisted their way through it, revealing the paladins. I popped out of my razorback with the other frag team, and they one shot the dreadnought. My missile launcher finally got the enemy razorback to 1. His paladins charged into Artemis and co., taking them all out except for Artemis. I expected this, but I hoped to do more than 2 wounds. One of which was via Artemis and his stasis bomb, the chaplain's reroll of course was needed. His termies finally come in, and his other squad pops out to try and flame my other frag squad, killing one guy. My turn, I killed the Interceptor squad with my stalker squad, and my Land Raider and Frag squad kill his termies completely. Artemis manages to survive with one wound somehow, keeping him from charging anything else with his Paladins on his turn. He proceeds to kill Artemis and consolidate, but my Frags, stalker squad, las Razorback, and Land Raider kill them all but the grand master. He then conceeds, having a single wound Grand Master and a single wound Razorback.