Battle Report: 1500 vs Mech Guard

[bulley]

Managed to get in a game against a very competative player this week, using an actual tournament-esque list - however he caught me off guard, and I had a very much tester list which didnt get a chance to change up. However we face off again in a couple of weeks and plan to have my "full on" army by then.

 

For some reason I have a foggy memory of this game exactly, so I'll not keep it to specifics per turn, but rather the general flow of the game and some points/annotations. I need to start taking pictures really, but have to say a bit gun shy about that (though a couple others did last night).

 

THE LISTS

 

I am terrible at remember guard specific's - but this was roughly his list:

 

Command w/ Flamers

Chimera (flamer/HB)

 

Squad w/ Autocannon

Chimera

Squad w/ Autocannon

Chimera

Vets w/ MG's

Chimera

Vets w/ MG's

Chimera

Vets w/ Plasma Guns

Chimera

 

Hellhound

x2 Hydra's (squadron'd)

 

Russ (w/ Str10 48") Flamer hull

Russ (w/ Str10 48") Flamer hull

 

 

MY LIST

Libby w/ URage / Shield

HG w/ x3 LC x3 SS

Razor w/ Lasplas

 

x5 RAS w/ MG TH

AssCan Razor

x5 RAS w/ MG

AssCan Razor

x5 RAS w/ Flamer

LasPlas Razor

x5 RAS w/ Flamer

LasPlas Razor

 

x1 BAAL w/ Asscan/HB

x1 BAAL w/ Asscan/HB

x1 BAAL w/ Flamestorm

 

THE SETUP

 

Standard table 6x4 was made of the GW modular 2x2 which saw us have a big hill section on the right hand side, and a "valley" on the left flank (hill = 4x4, valley 2x4 so to speak). In the left flank valley there was a big big ruin, and a couple of craters either side of it (north and south, not flanks). On the hill there was some small walls / buildings. On the far side of the table a few tank tracks and the likes.

 

MISSION: x2 Objectives

SETUP: Pitched Battle

TURN1: Guard goes first.

 

He takes the far side (which had better terrain) and puts his objective by the tank tracks in the sort of center right flank. I counter this by putting mine right in the left corner.

 

He sets up in 2 positions. His autocannon chimeras on his objective, 1 russ hellhound and the plasma and melta chimeras infront. He setups then infront of my objective with his x2 hydras at the back on a hill over looking the valley, the russ, melta chimera, command chimera infront.

 

I setup a parking lot near my objective, but really didnt setup well and didnt give myself good enough cover saves. Baals scouted infront of his russ etc... and flamestorm (useless vs this list) goes right to the front to try and block and pops smoke on the scout move.

 

THE GAME

 

I fail to seize so he goes about moving forward with his front running tanks. He pops smoke on my right (on the hills) with the hellhound and chimera. He manages to imob his command chimera on difficult terrain (crater) T1, this was my only bit of luck early in the game. The rest of his army now proceeds to stun pretty much all of my tanks. I believe only the flamestorm, 1 lasplas and 1 assault cannon came out with out a stunned result on it. In my return I try to fan out a bit to position myself w/ cover saves but also hopefully get some T2 shooting in, the lasplas does shake his chimera w/ MG's coming from the hills and thus cant shoot.

 

However in T2 he has a bit more effect, he manages to blow off baal#1's AC, shakes another load of tanks (including the other baal) and imob's one of my AssCan razors out in the open infront of his russ. Basically he is keeping his hydras on the hill, chimera's w/ auto's on the objective, everything else moving forward. His hellhound starts to get annoying aswell getting multiple shots on tanks w/ creative template use. He wrecks my Libbys/HG razor and kills a single guy with a Str10 template.

In T2 I decide I really have to be bold and actually play a bit of the objective and force him to play the objective as well. Thus I drop off the TH squad to protect my objective w/ the command squad w/ some charges, then send the empty razor off 12" to join a Baal and x2 lasplas razors on the right going after his objective. I leave 1 lasplas razor hiding infront of the ruin. The flamestorm runs right behind his russ but fails to do anything. I manage stop his melta chimera moving on the right flank aswell. My HG and TH charge his chimera w/ the melta vets (who had demo aswell) and wreck the chimera, 1 or 2 die from the explosion, I don't lose anyone due to FNP.

 

His T3 see's a bit more shooting, think he drops 1 from my TH squad, wrecks my lasplas razor going after his objective, and shakes my baal out in the open. He shakes the empty asscan razor again, and takes the lascannon off both the remaining lasplas's.

I popped smoke on pretty much all the tanks, which I had forgotten to do last turn, the imob'd lasplas did fire off at his chimera and destroyed it, and the assault cannon from regular RAS fired into the squad and forced them to run - they were never to return - so that was 3 less melta to worry about. I moved the AssCan (empty one) into a completely LOS blocked area getting ready for a 18" moves (which would require me to have a 6th turn though). The libby/HG charged his flamers, and the TH charged into dangerous terrain (the wrecked chimera) to his melta's. The HG w/ 4 powerweapons killed his command squad twice over, and consolidated into cover, the TH however won combat by 1 and he passed LD - the TH missed on all 3 hits!.

 

In his T4 he throws a good bit of fire power (inc a russ) at my HG, but only lose a couple (x2 SS's) leaving them with the libby a SS and a FNP/FC battery - I make ALOT of cover saves on them. Smoke at this stage saves my bacon, I make 3 6's in a row on the baal - 1 from a AP1 pen shot. I actually go into my T4 w/ no stun's!

This is where I start to claw back. The libby squad has no option to go and help out the TH (which lost combat last turn btw), they are a scoring unit and about 12" from my objective, and the only scoring unit on that side of the board. The Baal and AC ras move up on the hill to try and blast away at his chimera's on the objective, w/ no troop support near I begin to think abotu contesting - which I can do - or maybe get lucky and blow away enough to force his squads to run off the board (if they fail, they are off). In my shooting I manage w/ the plasma razor imob and shake the hellhound near my objective, the two assault cannons between them manage to destroy 1 autocannon chimera, but he passes LD and I dont have a 2nd shot on the other chimera. I send the RAS from the destroyed LASPLAS to go and hit his plasma chimera (which had been imob'd in T3) to try and wreck it w/ FC (they had red thirts) but just blow off the HB. The Libby squad destroys his MG squad - and they consolidate back towards my objective and in cover.

 

T5 - right now we felt we wouldnt have enough time to go beyond T5 - as it stood he had 1 squad and 1 squad in a tank on his objective. I had 1 lasplas w/ a squad near mine, 1 TH (a single guy) 6" away and x2 tanks about 23" away from his objective. He CANNOT contest in T5 - his russ would not be able to move far enough, (x2 tanks in the way) thought he still had x2 up - and the range was not quite far enough so he had to hope for some scatters etc.. to try and take out the single TH and pinn my guys from the lasplas razor. For me to win I'd have to blow away his squads and force them to run or be pinned.

 

So he gives it a go - his russ lands a glance on my lasplas - and it downgrades to a 1. His hydra's, for the first time in the game, failed to hit on re-rolls (he was missing 2 or 3 each time and hitting on the re-rolls, he rolled all 2's, then 1's this time). So the baal and asscan are still up.

 

My T5, and I make a HUGE mistake in choice - I fire the razor into the chimera - front armor - fails to pen or glance (needed rends) and the baal failed to do it anyway. So I cant contest. I roll my lasplas onto the objective, I send my libby into the russ and blow up its main weap.

 

GAME ENDS

 

It was a great game that I really really enjoyed. I learnt a few new tricks, and was nice to play the best guy at our store and not get beat.

 

Mistake 1 was my list - I pander to my LGS a tiny bit - and really my list should have been stronger (HG w/ melta's rather than LC's/SS's or no HG at all - no flamestorm, but dakka pred/lasplas pred)

 

Mistake 2 was the smokes in T2 for his T3 shooting - I did get a lot of shakens that I really needed to shoot back - I had great positioning. BUT the smokes I layed on T4 did save the game I feel for me.

 

Mistake 3 was the way I charged my Libby squad at first. I worked out that I could have done a sling shot to ge the TH (the weaker more expendable squad) into his flamer vets (and also nearer his big tanks w/ that TH) and the HG go into the melta vets (bigger squad possed more threat to my army). Since the TH had no invuln and the HG could have run back towards them w/ the x3 3++'s. However live and learn.

 

THe guy I played was a great guy, and suprised how close it was since he is a competative guy, and had a full on list, and I am still re-learning the game to a competative level.

 

The changes for my 1500 list (though doing 1750 next week) will be;

 

Drop the flamestorm = 115

Drop the HG + razor = 280ish

Drop the TH = 30

 

Turn all the RAS's into 165 point "x5 RAS w/MG - AssCan x3 LasPlas x2 or vice versa"

x2 BAAL's x2 ACLAS Preds - which will give me 6/7 lascannons 4/5 asscan's x5 melta's.

Libby will run w/ fear/shield since he wont be getting out of the razor.

 

Cheers - Bulley

[BigDunc]

Good report, thanks. Refreshing to see someone evaluate their own actions and not those of the dice.