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Hey guys, A quick batrep I want to do up for my last AdMech game. The Game: Maelstrom: One of the Chapter Approved missions where you have to draw 3 cards, and you must complete them before the beginning of your next turn or they are discarded. This makes movement a real key element of the mission I find. And it's not something my Admech are awesome at... too much sand in the joints. My List: - As you can see I opted for a Knight. I was tired of having pace dictated to me by my opponents. I feel it's one of my least favourite parts of Admech. In the past I had used a lot of Jazz Hands priests to counter that and fight for some of my own board control, along with Sicarian Infiltrators. Today I went with the beef option: Knight Crusader, pretty loaded. -Cawl -Dominus -Tech Priest 2 x Rangers with Arquebus 1 x 10 Vanguard with 2 x Plasma Cavaliers, taser dude.(had the points) Dunecrawler Dunecrawler 2 Kastelan Robots with Phospher Blasters Datasmith 2 x dragoons 5 Sicarian Infiltrators (not show above). Knight Crusader: Avenger/Ironstorm Missiles,/ Battle Cannon / Very large feet. Dark Angels: - Mostly a very, very shooty list: - Azrael Lt. - 5 Helblasters - Pred Annihilator - 3 x Ven Dread: dual las/missiles - 2 x 10 Tacticals with special weapons - 5 scouts w/Shotguns - Dev squad Plasma/Las - Squad of BlackKnights w/plasmatalons - Dark Talon (really good flyer for the points) The Dark Angel player just came off a great win against a soupy chaos/renegade list with a lot of shooty/forgeworld units so I didn't know what to expect. He has a LOT of high quality shooting, all with re-rolls thanks to Azrael, and the infantry is getting a 4++ invuln from him as well. Deployment: +++ We are playing corner to corner, and I get lucky with first turn. I always deploy to go second so I had my Knight outside of 48" of his Lascannons. In this picture I had finished my movement. - My cards were bad, but I had 'kill a character'. If you can see I set up my Arquebus' for a crossfire on Azrael. He couldn't hide from both, and I had first turn so both got to shoot at Azrael, and I managed to take a few wounds off. - I felt this would be a short, violent game because we both had the potential to rip a lot of armour apart. I got VERY lucky and my Dunecrawlers both had 3 shots, and ripped through his Flyer netting me first blood. - The advancement of the Vanguard left them sitting at mid, but my other card gave me an easy objective squatting in the middle. The Knight did very little. I decided to poke at some Dreads, and one is left with one wound, but other than that I decided to go after the Devastator squad because of the high damage potential of the Las/plasma there, and really the Knight is kitted for anti Infantry. Kastelans plink some infantry, but can't touch all that armour so are fairly ineffective. - Also I go up with my Dragoons, and infiltrate my Sicarians.... I lay down "Wrath of Mars" and get 3 Mortal wounds on the Black Knights, and 4 normal wounds which he saves.... not a great return, but I take it. I fail all charges. - I manage to take a 2-0 lead. Dark Angels: - He's down a Flyer, and 5 of his Devs, and I think I got one dread, and a good piece of the Black Knights. So he juggles the Pred, and starts firing back, but his army list is largely static... this is new to me as I typically am avoiding close contact with my opponents, but I'm happy to see he's content in his zone. However, it's built that way so the shooting starts.... - Even with all the remaining Las, he ignores the Knight (I don't think it was a huge threat to him) and he goes after the Dunecrawlers. Sure enough I make some darn good invulns, and he gets unlucky on wound rolls. Yet with weight of dice I do take a pile of wounds on one Dunecrawler.... down to 3 wounds! + Sicarians survive overwatch, and the Dunecrawler is charged. - Not shown: the bikes charged the Dragoons and kill one. It's okay.... I still have one and he laces into the remaining two bikes along with the Sicarians and I get really lucky here. - He manages a few points, but he's starting to feel the results of my very lucky first turn.... Admech Turn 2: - Admittedly this is a big turn for me. The canticles result in me being in cover, and having ONE Dark bike stuck in close combat with my Dunecrawler the other Canticle is the one where I roll and on a 6 cause a mortal wound... I tell my opponent Cawl will NOT adjust this number because I wish to troll him and kill his last wound on his last bike in this cheesy manner.... I roll a 6!!! The Bike is dead and my opponent can only roll his eyes at my cheesy luck. - The Knight positions for a ton of firepower and takes the Helblasters down to 2 models, but it took a lot of firepower through that 4++ save bubble. - The Vanguard clean up the Devs, and his flanks are now heavily severed. His movement is hampered by this giving me a lot of freedom of movement for Maelstrom cards which I take advantage of and score a couple of points. - The Kastelans change protocols from Aegis to Protector (but that won't take effect until T3). However they do kill some scouts... they were a bit disappointing this game. - The Dreadnoughts have to go and the Cawl combination with the Neutron Laser Dunecrawlers is devastating this turn taking a Dread and the Predator out. - At this point my Sicarians are closing in on his green wing bubble wrap, and the Dunecrawler is on fire.... I have a stellar roll with my special Bolter and Chainsword dice: + 6's mean +2 hits each! + = This roll puts down a lot of the bubble wrap so for turn 3 this leaves Azrael exposed..... + Cawl looks on longingly at his lovely creation... the Hellblaster plasma gun. He asks the Knight to retrieve one for his personal collection.... + - In Dark Angels turn 3 I lose a slightly repaired Dunecrawler but it takes everything he has left.... Azrael comes out of the back lines to clock my last Dragoon. - At this point the Dark Angels concede. It was hard fought but I think this game was decided turn 1. We both had very destructive lists, and my opening salvo put him at too big a disadvantage. With no real assault threat this gave me a lot of room and he didn't have the foot print to push me back. - The Knight was a good... 546 points I believe. He was quite mediocre. I don't think he earned his points back... I'm pretty sure of that. Cawl was good, not sure if he was so good to be 'auto include' in this type of list, but again I think the fact a Dark Angel list was trying to outshoot me helped me although those Helblasters with the Dark Angels' Strategem do 3 damage. I had to take them out early. Thanks for checking this out!

So I've been struggling to keep Cawl in the list without killing the rest of the list. Most recently I've been using a Crusader Knight but Cawl really doesn't maximize that sort of unit very well. I've been trying to keep the command points up and that means 6 squads of troops. The elite/heavy portion of the list feels pretty flexible. But as far as troops I'm wondering what others are doing for the core? I've tried variants of Vanguard and Rangers. Sniper style, plasma etc. The Kataphrons are interesting, but I can't seem to get them firing on all cylinders. Perhaps CC Kastelans would make it safer to do so? But then the double shoot / Cawl Wall loses a lot of effectiveness... however if I'm honest, I rarely play that way, and typically only use 2 Kastelans. I'm curious what others are doing for a Cawl based Brigade core? Any thoughts?