Marshal Laeroth Posted September 29, 2010 Share Posted September 29, 2010 As the description says, I've been actively playtesting a tournament list for a tournament coming up within the next few weeks. There are other proven tournament lists that I could bring (i.e. full gunline, defensive drop pod), but I wanted to play a bit "nicer". I've had complaints before about the hardness of my lists, so I thought I'd keep some "fluffy" close combat-oriented units in the list. Anyway, I played another game last night, my last one in the playtest phase and I thought I'd share the battle with ya'll. My opponent would be a Space Wolf player, whom is actually very good around here. My opponent's name has been changed to protect his privacy. He didn't want me to take photos of the game for some reason, but I respected his request. I'm hoping to do another round of Battle Reports after my tournament and post them up. Should be good times. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here is the list I used: HQ: * Emperor's Champion w/ Black Sword, Bolt Pistol, Armor of Faith, Frag Grenades, and the Vow: "Accept Any Challenge, No Matter the Odds" [140] Elites: * 5 Assault Terminators w/ 3 pairs Lightning Claws, 2 Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields & Furious Charge. Mounted in Land Raider Crusader w/ Multi-Melta, Smoke Launchers, & Extra Armor. [483] Troops: * Crusader Squad: 7 Initiates w/ 5 Bolt Pistols and Close Combat Weapons, 1 Meltagun & 1 Bolt Pistol and Powerfist; 2 Neophytes w/ 2 Bolt Pistols and Close Combat Weapons (Frag Grenades for all). Mounted in a Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers & Extra Armor. [224] * Crusader Squad: 8 Initiates w/ 6 Bolt Pistols and Close Combat Weapons, 1 Meltagun & 1 Bolt Pistol and Power Fist; 2 Neophytes w/ 2 Bolt Pistols and Close Combat Weapons (Frag Grenades for all). Mounted in a Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers & Extra Armor. [241] * Crusader Squad: 5 Initiates w/ 3 Bolt Pistols and Close Combat Weapons, 1 Flamer & 1 Lascannon. Mounted in a Razorback w/ Twin-Linked Lascannons and Search Lights. [192] * Crusader Squad: 5 Initiates w/ 3 Bolt Pistols and Close Combat Weapons, 1 Flamer & 1 Lascannon. Mounted in a Razorback w/ Twin-Linked Lascannons and Search Lights. [192] Fast Attack: * Land Speeder: Multi-melta and Heavy Flamer. [75] * Land Speeder: Multi-melta and Heavy Flamer. [75] Heavy Support: * Predator Destructor w/ Autocannon, Lascannon Side Sponsons, and Search Lights. [126] * Predator Destructor w/ Autocannon, Lascannon Side Sponsons, and Search Lights. [126] * Predator Destructor w/ Autocannon, Lascannon Side Sponsons, and Search Lights. [126] Total Points: [2000] Mark is one of the better known Space Wolf players around here, but wanted to play-test a new list himself. I told him prior to the game that I didn't think it was optimized, but he wanted to try it anyway. The list my opponent used: HQ: * Wolf Priest w/ Crozius Arcanum, BP/Bolter, Fang of Morkai, Wolf Amulet, Melta Bombs, and Bike. [140] * Wolf Priest w/ Crozius Arcanum, BP/Bolter, Fang of Morkai, Wolf Amulet, Melta Bombs, Wolf Tail Talisman, and Jump Pack. [135] * Wolf Priest w/ Crozius Arcanum, BP/Bolter, Fang of Morkai, Wolf Amulet, Melta Bombs, and Jump Pack. [130] Elites: * Wolf Guard Pack: 3 Guard w/ Power Fists and BP. [114] Troops: * Grey Hunter Squad: 7 Marines w/ 6 BP & CCWs, 1 Meltaguns, and 1 Mark of the Wulfen. Mounted in a Rhino. [160] * Grey Hunter Squad: 7 Marines w/ 6 BP & CCWs, 1 Meltaguns, and 1 Mark of the Wulfen. Mounted in a Rhino. [160] * Grey Hunter Squad: 7 Marines w/ 6 BP & CCWs, 1 Meltaguns, and 1 Mark of the Wulfen. Mounted in a Rhino. [160] Fast Attack: * Swiftclaw Pack: 10 Bikes w/ 9 BP & CCWs and 1 Meltagun; 1 Attack Bike w/ Multi-Melta. [300] * Skyclaw Pack: 10 Skyclaws w/ 8 BP & CCWs, 1 Meltagun, 1 PF & BP, and 1 Mark of the Wulfen. [230] * Skyclaw Pack: 10 Skyclaws w/ 8 BP & CCWs, 1 Meltagun, 1 PF & BP, and 1 Mark of the Wulfen. [230] Heavy Support: * Predator w/ Autocannon and Lascannon Sponsons. [120] * Predator w/ Autocannon and Lascannon Sponsons. [120] The Battle: My opponent and I quickly decided that the Nova Open mission pack would be the best show of competitive gaming, so we rolled for our mission. We got mission #2 and then rolled to see who would go first. Mark won the roll and decided to go first. The terrain for the battle was very even, balanced, and mirrored; covered about 25% of the board with mostly ruins and some aquila lander pieces thrown in. Each of the 5 objectives where either in, behind, or very near (within 3") cover. He chose to keep his Grey Hunter units in reserve and deployed his FA units in the center of the board (bike unit extreme center), with Predators about 18" from the side of the boards on each side. I deployed using a corner deployment technique, splitting my forces pretty evenly down the middle. One predator, one gunline crusader squad (outside of transport), one Razorback), one Land Speeder, and one cc crusader squad parked near the objective on the right corner. The gunline crusader squad was placed behind cover. On the opposite side, I had the same (minus a LS). The shooty crusader squad was placed in the aquila ruins for cover as well. Just left of center, I placed another predator. Pressed as far forward as possible, in cover behind some ruins in the middle, I placed my LRC. Right behind that, I hid my last land speeder to block LOS. I rolled to seize the objective, but failed. Mark's first turn entailed him advancing both Skyclaw packs forward and away from my LRC, who were originally my primary target for the unit. Fortunately, he also moved the Swiftclaw Pack the full 24" forward behind some ruins, but was well within charge range for my terminators. His shooting was relatively ineffective: immobilizing one razorback and stunning it, and shaking the other razorback. On my first turn, I moved forward and around the ruins with my LRC to get into charge range with my terminators. I also moved my land speeders forward towards a Predator each. Both of my crusader squads started moving towards my right flank around a ruin. In the shooting phase, I didn't do a whole lot either, just pinging a couple of guys off each Skyclaw pack and stunning both Predators. On the assault, however, I killed the full bike squad except the Wolf Priest but lost 2 terminators in the process. The Wolf Priest took one wound via 'No Retreat'! The next turn, none of Mark's Grey Hunter squads arrived to the battle. There wasn't much shooting to be done by Mark, but he did manage to immobilize my "flat out" land speeder on my right flank, causing it to crash. He charged my terminators with his left most (my left, his right) Skyclaw pack. He ended up killing the last terminators, but I took a bunch of them with me, leaving a seriously diminished squad. My side of the turn saw me advance more towards a predator with my surviving Land Speeder, landing on the top floor of a ruined building after passing the dangerous terrain test. Moved the LRC in range to contest the center objective. I also moved my CC crusader squads further towards the right flank. During the shooting phase, I killed the Wolf Priest on bike, reduced the Skyclaw Pack down even further, and immobilized one Predator and stunning the other. Nothing to assault this turn. Turn three, Mark gets all three Grey Hunter squads and comes on the board (claiming both objectives on his side). One rhino moves forward in the center, aiming to melta the LRC. He also moves and completely surrounds my non-EC crusader squad's rhino with both of his Skyclaw packs on my right flank. Unfortunately, he is unable to get into the Rhino, just shaking it. He was also unable to do anything to it in assault. His attempt to get an easy kill on the crusader backfired as my EC crusader squad was in range. My turn resulted in extreme vengeance for the Space Puppy's transgressions. My Land Speeder moves into position to get a side MM shot on its target Predator, and blows it to kingdom come. The LRC fires everything into the middle GH rhino, destroying it. The EC crusader squad gets out, moves up, and shoots down several Skyclaws. The shooty crusader squad sitting on the objective on this side does the same, killing another. The rest of my army finds itself out of position for optimal firing and Mark cover saves all of these shots. The EC unit multi-assaults the two Skyclaw packs (16 total models included the two ICs) and the EC proceeds to kill the Wolf Priest of the larger pack. The rest of the squad kills the smaller pack (except the Wolf Priest) and a member of the other unit. The return damage is pretty significant, felling all but the 4 other members (not including the EC) of the squad. The combat was a tie, so they are locked. Mark's 4th turn, he moves up the GH rhino on my right side to further solidify its hold on that objective. He also moves up his GH hunter squad forward on foot to try and take the center objective. The remaining predator fires its AC and Lascannon at my idle Land Speeder, and wrecks it. I can't say I wasn't expecting it, but it did its job at neutralizing part of Mark's long range firepower before it died. He doesn't have anything else in range to fire. The assault phase sees the Emperor's Champion killing the other Wolf Priest, and three more Skyclaws. Mark managed to kill three more members of that unit, leaving just the power fist initiate and the EC against 5 Skyclaws. However, I won combat this time, and the Skyclaws fall back successfully. I tank shock the falling back Skyclaws with my non-EC crusader squad (in rhino), causing them to fall back another 3D6". He falls back deep into his deployment zone. My badly damaged crusader squad runs to follow behind the tank shocking rhino in an effort to claim Mark's right objective. My empty LRC also moves towards Mark's left objective to contest the next turn. In addition, my EC's empty rhino moves forward to the center objective and contests it, but fails the dangerous terrain test so is immobilized. I also move my leftmost predator forward full speed towards that left objective. Shooting destroys the last Predator and immobilizes the GH rhino on Mark's left objective. On turn 5, Mark disembarks his right GH squad and moves to nearly surround the non-EC crusader squad's rhino (again). The middle GH divert from the center objective and move towards my LRC to try to stop it from getting to the left objective. Shooting fails to do damage to the LRC, but does destroy the non-EC squad's rhino. Fortunately for me, in an odd twist of irony, it blows up. Allowing me to take less losses to emergency disembarking. The Emperor obviously despises easy kills. Still, between the explosion and the resulting combat, I lose 4 models. But I also kill 4 of his GH hunters in that combat, bringing his numbers down to 4. Mark concedes the game at this point, as he would have had both of his objectives firmly contested (and probably one captured) in my 5th turn. Nor did he come anywhere close to my Victory point total at that point (410 VP for him, to my 1635 VP). I also had all four table quarters firmly captured. A firm win for the Njesta Crusade. Final Thoughts: I don't want to toot my own horn here, but I had very bad rolling this game and still managed to pretty much do whatever I wanted to Mark's army. That was even with him making an insane amount of cover saves/armor saves. I think his decision to leave the GH squads off the board wasn't a good one, as it would have given me more targets to think about. As it was, my targets were pretty darn clear cut and was able to neutralize most of his force before his reinforcements arrived. At which point, I could easily point my attentions their way, as I had no better targets. Mark's two gambits trying to easily destroy my non-EC crusader squad by surrounding the rhinos didn't work out. It was actually surprising, as it was well implemented, but wasn't meant to be. He had slightly better rolling than I did during the game (especially armor saves), but failed on several key rolls. I also thought Mark was far too aggressive with his forces, committing them to battle against sub-optimal targets (i.e. my assault terminators, my CC-oriented crusader squads). This hurt him, allowing me to confidently hold my objectives with my 5-man shooty crusader squads. While they were both in cover, he could have easily put some fire on them to try and ping them down. It also didn't help that I completely mauled his main CC unit easily with my terminators first turn. He didn't have very much in the way of long range weaponry either, allowing me to fire at near full force the entire game (albeit from behind cover). Between his lack of long range firepower, over-reliance on assault elements, and deployment, Mark simply did not have the tools to defeat my army as there was simply too many targets for him to handle. I had only two larger squads, the rest of army is easily able to get up and move around whenever necessary, while presenting target priority issues. Do you let me continue blasting you from long range? Or do you let me destroy you in close combat? Its a hard choice often times. On my end of things, I deployed using cornering. While it worked out in the end, allowing me to firmly claim most objectives readily, it worked against my long range weaponry on my left flank mid-game. They ran out of targets that were in range, and the targets they had, were barely in LOS -- giving them high cover saves. This caused me some worry when the battle was primarily on the right side of the board, outside of the range of 1/3 of my forces. Fortunately, when the GH units came onto the board, my targets were renewed. I was got lucky with Mark's destroy outright attempts on my crusader squad. That would have helped his cause significantly, but I don't think it would have saved the game for him. I asked Mark what he thought I could have done better and he said that, minus the poor rolling, I played a pretty flawless game. I was happy to receive the compliments from a great player such as him, but I wouldn't have called the performance flawless. This game brings the record with this particular list during playtesting to 7 wins, no losses or draws. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ruinus Posted September 29, 2010 Share Posted September 29, 2010 Sounds like a pretty good Army, better if the dice were more on your side. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marshal Laeroth Posted September 29, 2010 Author Share Posted September 29, 2010 Hehe. Yeah, each game seems to swing one way or the other on the side of dice. I've also been extremely lucky at times. :) As for the army, there are concerns with it, but I think the "support" elements cover them sufficiently enough after playing those 7 games. Like I mentioned, I don't want to play my full hard-tournament lists, because I've won tournaments before with them...and I don't particularly want to deal with "power-gamer" accusations again. So I built something that fits somewhere in the middle. :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Loring Posted September 29, 2010 Share Posted September 29, 2010 I would 100% agree with you on your thoughts about his list. If anything, you were too nice about it. Nice report otherwise Marshal Laeroth. Any more thoughts on the 3 speeder list? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marshal Laeroth Posted September 30, 2010 Author Share Posted September 30, 2010 I really DO want that 3rd Land Speeder...but I decided I really couldn't afford to reduce the sizes of the CC-oriented crusader squads. Makes them inadequate in CC...which was the whole point of taking them. ;) I think the minor tweaks I've done to the list should work out well overall. But we'll see once I hit the tourney scene with it. Like I mentioned, the goal was to avoid being labeled a power-gamer again. There are some great competitive players around here (player base is somewhere around 15-40...depends on the weekend), but they don't always show up. So if they don't, I'm stuck "clubbing baby seals" with the uber competitive list and that's not fun. So trying to tone it down a bit, while fielding it as competitive as I can while retaining the "fluffiness". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
el dodger Posted October 8, 2010 Share Posted October 8, 2010 nice report, and nice army list also.. i think ill try something like that but in 1500 pts ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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