Local Weekend Tourney batrep 1

[trefenwyd]

2nd Saturday of the month and time for our local 1,500 pt 40K tourney. I'll run through 3 BATREPs, first again DE, then Chaos marines, and finally against traitor Wolves.

 

The armies:

 

Mine:

 

HQ:

Rune Priest, LL, MH, chooser

 

Troops:

8 GH, meltagun, MoTW, Standard, PW, Rhino

5 GH, flamer, MoTW, Standard PW, Razorback w/TLLC

5 GH, flamer, MoTW, Standard, PW, Razorback w/LC, TLPG

 

Elites:

10 Wolf Guard:

3 Combi-melta/powerfist, split off to join GH packs

2 Bolt pistol/ccw, split off to join LFs 1/2

1 TDA w/cyclone missile launcher to join LF 3

4 Combi-melta/bolt pistol in a drop pod

 

Heavy support:

6 LFs, 4 ML, 1 LC

6 LFs, 4 ML, 1 LC

6 LFs, 3 HB, 2 PC

 

His:

4 Raiders (armed with bright lances and flickerfields)with:

1 full wyche squad

1 full wyche squad

1 full wyche squad

1 7-man incubi squad led by an Archon

 

2 Ravagers, one with devastators and one with bright lances, both with nightshrouds

1 Void Raven Bomber with 4 shadow missiles and nightshroud

 

10 man warrior squad

 

The Game: 6 objective markers numbered 1-6 were evenly spaced on the board, and at the end of every turn (starting with the end of deployment), we rolled a D6, and that objective became "active". By the end of the game, 5 of the 6 would be "active" and the one that never got rolled would not count for scoring purposes.

 

I get first turn with spearhead deployment, and my Long Fangs deploy in cover with the 3 rhinos/razorbacks spaced out to provide avenues of fire. The objectives are all spaced so that there is one in each deployment zone and 2 that are within about 8" (i.e., relatively close). I decide to play it safe and plan on hunkering down and holding each of "my" objectives while reducing the Dark Eldar into smoking ruins.

 

He deploys all 7 skimmers against his board edge, out of range of my missile launchers (he's played me before!).

 

He fails to steal initiative and the first objective to become active is . . . the one in the center of my deployment. Things are already going smoothly for the wolves.

 

Thus begins turn 1. First up, drop pod assault. I'm torn between the void raven bomber (4 S7 large pie plates with re-roll to wound is a bit scary, even if I do get my armour saves), the disintegrator-armed ravager, or the incubi-housed raider. In the end, I decide that the void raven bomber gets the nod. The drop pod comes down on target and 4 of the scariest "don't tell me the odds" wolves lumber out into the midst of the enemy army. Elsewhere, the rhino/razorbacks advance 6" and the LFs stay put. It's time for shooting, and now my opponent points out that because of nightshrouds, my melta shots don't benefit from the melta rule (I knew that, just didn't think through the implications earlier). As a result, we manage only a glacing "shaken" result. My TLLC razorback does better, immobilizing a wyche-carrying raider. My LFs open up on the only unit in range, his warrior squad in cover near his objective, taking out a few. Finally, Living Lighting for the win. I target the only skimmer that wouldn't get a cover save, his disintegrator-armed ravager, and manage to destroy it. My LC/TLPG razorback open up one on one of the raiders, only to miss, with the gunner thinking "that's why you're supposed to twin-link this thing". All in all, not a horrible turn 1, though it is the first time in many battles that my combi-melta drop squad has failed to explode a vehicle.

 

His turn 1: He moves his 3 remaining raiders flat out towards the middle of the board, while his bright-lance ravager peeks out from behind some cover on his right flank. With his immobilized raider not going anywhere fast, the wyches inside disembark and prepare to unleash evngeance upon my combi-melta squad. The void raven bomber spends the turn recovering from their shaken status. For his shooting, his bright lance ravager immbolizes my leftmost razorback (he's on an objective right now though, so I'm not too unhappy about it). Then his wyches charge into my combi-melta squad and make short work of them. End of turn 1: I'm down an immobilized razor and he's lost a ravager and an immobilized raider - minor success for the wolves, all will be determined in turn 2. Since I'm playing with fairly minimum troop choices, if his raiders survive and are able to charge my squads, it's going to be bad for the wolves. We roll for objective activation, and the objective to my near right starts shining - still looking good for the wolves!

 

Turn 2: My rhino/razors each move back 6" now and prepare to unleash hell on silly Dark Eldar floating things. The LFs all stay put, and the grey hunters in the immobilized razor decide that staying inside the shiny metal box is preferable to stepping outside into the middle of what is soon to be lascannon and missile heaven. Time for shooting (my favorite part of the game). I prioritize shooting the incubi-raider, seeing as how my wolves will be shredded if they manage to make it to combat (at least I'll have a chance against the wyches). I wish I could remember who fired at what, but all I can remember is that at the end of the turn, my 4 lascannons, 10 missiles and plasmagun exploded all three transports. The incubi failed their pin check, which left me free to unleash bolter/plasmagun hell on the 2 now-disembarked wyche squads. After taking massive disembarkation and shooting casualties, he is left with 6 wyches on my left flank and 2 in the center. his incubi squad is now 5 + the Archon. And as if that wasn't bad enough, I living lightning the circuitry out of his remaining ravager, which banks hard right into a mountainside and explodes in a shower of flame.

 

His turn 2. He now has 1) a small warrior squad holding an objective in his deployment zone with 2) a squad of wyches next the them, 3) a unit of incubi who are so perplexed at how their raider got shot out from under them that they sit around all turn arguing about who was responsible, 4) a unit of 2 wyches in the center of the table, 5) a unit of 6 wyches in the left-center of the table, and 6) a void raven bomber in his far corner. He does what he can - his wyches charge into my drop pod contesting his objective while his 6 man wyche team charges my immobilized razor and his void raven bomber moves forward 12" to at least salvo his missiles before he joins his brethren in the trash heap. His 2 man wyche squad in the center of the table look at the 8 mangled corpes of what used to be their unit, and they decide that cover looks really really good so they high tail it towards some nearby ruins. In shooting, the void raven bomber unleases all of its missiles against my center LF squad, and due to the enormous size of the templates, hit another nearby LF squad. 16 wounds later . . . I manage to save at least some of them, but my center LF squads are both about 3 models down. His 6 man wyche squad charges into combat with my immobilized razor and manage to magle the lascannon turret. End of turn 2 and time for another objective . . . this time my near left objective lights up (the one the wyches are fighting near)

 

Turn 3. Now we're officially in mop-up mode. Lascannon and living lighting the void raven bomber (and it goes down), the left razor squad decides to exit the razor as it's being pounded on one side by the wyches, so they can open up with bolt pistols and a flamer, taking down 5 of the wyches. The rest of the army takes aim at the incubi/archon and manage to kill all the incubi, leaving the archon sitting all alone. My left razor squad charges into the wyche sergeant, who misses all her "to wound" rolls and is then brutally beaten into Dark Eldar pulp. For his turn, there's not much to do, so he advances his 2 wyches and archon as close as he can (he ends up 1" out of charge range of my Long Fangs).

 

Turn 4. I obliterate his Archon with close range melta love and just take long missle shots at his remaining wyche squad on his objective. My 3 scoring units hunker down on objectives and wait for game end. In the end, I lost a total of 7 models, all Long Fangs. He lost his entire army except for 7 wyches. The objective activation mechanic was a nice twist to the game, but it ended up having no impact due to the absolute annilhation I wrecked upon my adversary.

 

Lessons learned: Nightshrouds affect melta range - a suicide melta squad is of absolutely no use here. Secondly, my opponent, as he said at game end, should have either reserved his entire army or deployed it full forward. By deploying full back, he avoided my Long Fangs, but my razor-mounted lascannons and LL still took down 2 skimmers, and he then had to waste an entire turn of all-out movement just to get barely past his deployment zone, in effect giving me 2 whole turns of shooting at them - better to deploy forwards and hope the flickerfields hold (or just forfeit when you realize that you're going up against wolves).

 

Stay tuned tomorrow for Battle #2, Khârn and his Battle-cannon loving Chaos Marines.

[Wolf Lord Hallbjorn]

All the shiny new stuff and they still have to kick it into high gear and get in your face to put it to any use. Those ravagers are squad destroyers, though. Those things are the priority target when I play my dark eldar friend. I've had similar results to yours thus far. He didn't make it close enough to get those melee monsters where they needed to be before his vehicles were all smoking ruins thanks to the hail of krak missiles from the long fangs. Even reducing them to 42" means i'm reaching out and touching you from a pretty safe distance.

[muadib02]

You really dont need the melta ability to take out an AV 10 or 11 vehicle. As well the DE list you faced was woefully lacking in the shooting department, im sure if it assaulted it would hurt, but outside of that its dead meat