Planetary Empires Campaign

[Smurfalypse]

Well played a second game for the campaign the other night and wanted to post the results here. Again this Planetary Empires Campaign is amongst friends so the tourny lists are not going to be seen. My buddy was using Tyranid and i was using my Word Bearers.

 

The rules were planetstrike, chaos was the defender and tyranid were the attackers.

 

My list:

 

Chaos Lord

term armor, combi-plasma, lightning claw (single)

 

Terminators x10

x2 H.flamers, x8 combi-plasma, x4 powerfists

 

CSM x10

Meltagun, flamer, Champ w/powerfist

Rhino

 

CSM x10 same as the first unit.

 

CSM x5

plasmagun

 

CSM x5

plasmagun

 

Defiler x2 extra DCCW (this guy was MVP)

 

obliterator x2

 

Vindicator w/possession

 

that was about the skinny of it off hand.

 

Tyranids List:

 

Hive tyrant x2, one winged other with guns and the retinue.

 

tyranid warriors x6, setup with wings and melee. (in planetstrike things with deepstrike can assault after they come in)

 

ravagers x6

 

genestealers x about 30, split up into 4 squads.

 

carnifex tooled out for melee.

 

 

 

DEPLOYMENT AND OBJECTIVES:

 

The deployment was simple. I set myself up in cover and buildings hopeing he wouldnt have everything nasty in melee the first turn. There were three objective which i set up in some ruined buildings, i placed them about 24 inches apart from eachother to make sure this didnt turn into a big mass of melee. There is no way im going to win a fight like that. Remember in planetstrike the defender sets up all terrain on the board. I deployed everything except the obliterators. The terminators were in the center building as they were the meat of my defense and could easilly get to another area if i needed backup. Also in planetstrike any unit can hold objectives, however if there is a defenders and an attackers unit within three inches of it, the attacker holds it automatically. You really have to clean the attacker out.

 

TURN 1:

 

The game begins with a wonderful orbital bombardment from the tyranids. Its a d6+3 shots that scatter 2d6 on a miss. Str 9, ap 3....Woot. In the end of it i lost 6 chaos marines, immobilized a rhino, stunned my defiler (laugh). It wasnt so bad, annoying, but not so bad.

 

The attacker goes first and everything deepstrikes or walks on from his board edge on a roll of 3+. Everything of his deepstruck and came on the first turn, other than the hive tyrant with the retinue. The Genestealers all ended up back behind everthing because he knew he couldnt assault when they deepstrike in. The warriors and ravagers are a different story, they came in and assaulted two different units i had setup in my right most building. They obviously ate the 11 marines there and consolodated deeper into the building to protect themselves. The hive tyrant scattered into the middle of nowhere and ended up about 30 inches from the nearest fight (thank god), the genestealers were all on the right side of the map about 12 inches behind the ravagers and warriors (who were running around like a wrestleing tag team). The carnifex popped in next to my second non immobilized rhino and took a pop shot at it with something. He ended up blowing off the twin linker bolter

 

So before my turn began lets count the losses. 6 marines in bombardment, 11 on first turn charge, immobilized rhino, weapon destroyed rhino. Not awful, but not great to lose 17 marines before you get to even sniff a movement phase.

 

I also get to try and bring on reserves first turn. My oblits came on and i deepstruck them in front of my terms, to hopefully screen an assault from anything that got passed my right most flank.

 

Anyhow, i moved on from my losses and decided to be highly aggressive against the bugs. If i was going to get eaten i was going to go down kicking and screaming in their face, not hiding in a corner. First thing i did is move my vehicles to get them out of the way and setup in to a better position. My opponent was focusing on the right side of my line and half of my force was setup on the left. I took my deflier who was literally in the same building as the ravagers and warriors and moved him even closer, i got all of my guys out of the rhinos and moved toward the carnifex (within rapid fire range). The vindicator was on the far side of the board and wasnt going to be able to shoot this turn, so i moved it 12 inches in the direction of the enemy and a little out in the middle of the board. If he wanted to kill it, he was going to have to leave the objectives to do it. This pretty much concluded my movement phase as i was happy to keep a few guys in the buildings.

 

The shooting phase went well for me. A marine unit along with the obliterators rapid fired on the carnifex and issued it three wounds, mostly from plasma+melta action. The defiler opened up on the ravagers and a battlecannon shot inflicted two wounds killing a single model (immune to insta death near the warriors). I know the warriors seemed like a better choice to try and take out, but they were buried behind the ravagers so i took was was there. The terms attempted to open up with bolters on some genestealers that were barely within 24 inches, but it happened to be a nightfight first turn and i failed my roll to see them. Awesome. All in all it wasnt to great but not as bad as it could have been.

 

In the assault phase i unleashed my defiler, fully expecting and hopeing for an explosive result from my end. What happened the was polar opposite. The defiler ended up getting glanced twice and recieved recieved a stunned/shaken result on both. Ignored obviously from possession. My defiler then unlocked his giant claws and inflicted four wounds on the unit, killed two full models. The ravagers are fearless and had to make four saves at 5+ i believe and he lost another one.

 

TURN 2:

 

Well his turn began by moving everything along my line hopeing to get within assault range. He wanted to move a unit of genestealers in with my defiler in the hopes of finishing it off. The warriors moved passed and as i planned would take a run at my obliterators, which was fine by me to be honest. The carnifex moved in at my marines. The other hive tyrant popped in and landed about 12 inches on the ass side of my vindicator. His shooting was non existent, everything that had a gun missed.

 

The assault phase came and the carnifex went after the marines, the warriors went after my obliterators, the genestealers near my defiler rolled poorly on their difficult terrain roll and didnt make it in, leaving the single ravager to handle my defiler. Everything went as expected. The carnifex killed two marines and died to a powerfist, the warriors actually lost combat and failed another few armor saves. He rolled poorly on rending all game. The oblits returned attacks and inflicted three wounds, suffering only one. The ravager got eaten by the defiler, consolodated closer to the genestealers. This was now looking bad for my opponent as he had some unlucky breaks and i had my gods on my side.

 

My turn was exactly what you would have expected. The marines went right at the warriors to help relieve the oblits, the vindicator moved 6 inches toward the large grouping of genestealers, the defiler moved into better position facing the genestealers, a small marine unit and a large marine unit walked within 12 inches of the hive tyrant chasing my vindy.

 

Shooting again went ok. The battle cannon on the defiler knocked out 5 genestealers, the vindys cannon killed 6, the terms opened up on the winged tyrant with 8 plasma guns, killing it dead, the marines left in two of the units went after the tyrant and his guard, they did ok killing one guard then hunkered down for a pending assault. I was obviously more than thrilled with this shooting phase.

 

The assault phase came quickly and brutally for the nid. The defiler moved in vs the left over genestealer squad and finished them off in melee, again he had no rending hits. The oblits actually made a single invuln and two armor saves before they struck back. They hit with four and wounded with four, the warriors failed three of the armor saves and were wiped out. This assault phase marked the end of the nids as the aggressor, it was now time to play cleanup.

 

TURN 3:

 

My opponent was obviously upset with my defiler and moved every single genestealer he had left into melee with it. He didnt have a whole lot left but he moved the tyrant with the guard close to my marines, unloaded a shot and assaulted them. Nothing major happened, my defiler got a weapon destroyed and lost a combat arm, the marines lost three then retaliated by killing the other tyrant guard.

 

The turns were going fast now and things were zipping along for chaos. Everything was locked in melee so i had no shooting. I maneuvered units into scoring positions and was happy to have them hold there. The defiler took his assault phase and didnt do so well, he lost and got wrecked. The marines in combat with the tyrant did ok, they lost two and returned a single wound. I was in position for when combat broke to unload a huge amount of shots into units.

 

TURN 4:

 

The left over genestealers moved into cover as nothing was in range of assault, even with fleeting. The tyrant took his assault and again killed two marines. They retaliated and finished off the tyrant.

 

My turn was just as short. I unloaded the terms bolters into the genestealers, the oblits finished off the rest with added plasma guns, the marines did their part and fired a few bolters into the mess as well. Nothing came out of that building alive, neither chaos nor nid. This marked the end of the game as my opponent had nothing left.

 

 

I was very happy with how some units fared in melee. The oblits+defiler were incredibly sturdy and lucky. By the end of the game i think the defiler had himself 6 ravagers and 19 genestealers, it was an incredible game for him (he usually is very lazy in games). The oblits living through the warriors assault was odd too, he had a pile of attacks and very very few rends. All in all i would say me being able to play every single piece of terrain then choosing where i defend and choosing all objectives was a MASSIVE advantage. Going first and having any unit be able to hold objectives is nice for the attacker, but i will take placement over that anyday. Attackers have it rough in planet strike i think.

 

I will now attempt to snag one of this pieces of terrain next week when we all meet to roll for those types of things. This may give me three as i had another game against ravenguard i didnt post a battle report for. Word Bearer are 3-0. Captain Shrike is a monster by the way, he is just a mean mean man.

[minigun762]

Thats a damn nice game.

I'm glad to see the Defiler finally doing what it should be (blowing things up and tearing them apart). I get annoyed when it seems they just get knocked out on turn 1 by a few lucky LasCannon shots.

 

The Vindicator didn't seem like it did a whole helluva lot really, took out some guys here and there, but for what is supposed to be such a scary tank, I thought it underperformed a bit.

 

Oblits agains how useful they are. More then anything though, I think a shooting unit that can atleast fight back in HtH combat is very useful. Getting smacked in the rear armor really seems like a big disadvantage for normal tanks, especially ones that have to be static to fire to full effect.

 

The one take home message I saw was more CSMs is a good thing. Losing half of your bodies the first turn really hurt and yet over and over it seemed like it was the CSMs who held up the big boys and brought them down in the end.

[Smurfalypse]

Thats a damn nice game.

I'm glad to see the Defiler finally doing what it should be (blowing things up and tearing them apart). I get annoyed when it seems they just get knocked out on turn 1 by a few lucky LasCannon shots.

 

The Vindicator didn't seem like it did a whole helluva lot really, took out some guys here and there, but for what is supposed to be such a scary tank, I thought it underperformed a bit.

 

Oblits agains how useful they are. More then anything though, I think a shooting unit that can atleast fight back in HtH combat is very useful. Getting smacked in the rear armor really seems like a big disadvantage for normal tanks, especially ones that have to be static to fire to full effect.

 

The one take home message I saw was more CSMs is a good thing. Losing half of your bodies the first turn really hurt and yet over and over it seemed like it was the CSMs who held up the big boys and brought them down in the end.

 

Yeah im not a huge fan of the vindicator myself, i kinda got goaded into using it by some friends who were standing around watching :)

 

The defiler was the back breaker, ive never had a game where one had the type of game this one had. Really was a memorable game for him.

 

CSMs are just awesome. When im not sure what else to use, first thing i look at is them.

 

Planning on running a unit of 20 the next game i play and see how they work out. Probably no special weapons, just them, their bolters, the champ with a power fist.

 

My next game should be next week sometime. Right now in the campaign im 3-0 and hopefully it keeps going that way, but next week i have orks in my sites and they always give me fits :P

[minigun762]

Planning on running a unit of 20 the next game i play and see how they work out. Probably no special weapons, just them, their bolters, the champ with a power fist.

 

My next game should be next week sometime. Right now in the campaign im 3-0 and hopefully it keeps going that way, but next week i have orks in my sites and they always give me fits :)

 

I'm thinking that actually might work out very well for you against Orks.

Whats scarier then a 30 Boyz mob with a buried Power Klaw?

20 Chaos Boyz with a buried Power Fist. :D

[Smurfalypse]

Planning on running a unit of 20 the next game i play and see how they work out. Probably no special weapons, just them, their bolters, the champ with a power fist.

 

My next game should be next week sometime. Right now in the campaign im 3-0 and hopefully it keeps going that way, but next week i have orks in my sites and they always give me fits ;)

 

I'm thinking that actually might work out very well for you against Orks.

Whats scarier then a 30 Boyz mob with a buried Power Klaw?

20 Chaos Boyz with a buried Power Fist. :)

 

 

Touche! No doubt he will not be happy to see such a large squad. Might throw in two plasma guns in case they reach an objective and sit on it, or a heavy weapon and a plasma gun....Its only one shot im losing out of 20 guys, shouldnt be a huge deal. Its handy for when they pop a squat in a building or an objective. Will make it spur of the moment per usual.

 

Wish me luck!