GK vs DE 'Ard Boyz

[KnowThyEnemy]

Just did a practice game for 'Ard boyz, figured I'd give you guys a breakdown of the missions even though I'm still waffling about going or not.

 

ME

Crowe

3 Ven Psyrifle Dreads

4 x 10 purifiers (2 psycannons, 2 incinerators, 5 halberds, hammer)

4 Rhinos

Stormraven

2 Psyrifle Dreads

 

Him

Baron

Vect

9 Incubi w/raider

2 x 10 wyches w/haywires and raiders

2 x 4 trueborn w/3 blasters and venoms

15 hellions

3 ravagers w/dark lances

10 warriors w/dark lance and raider

5 warriors w/blaster and raider

4/5 beastmasters w/4 birds, 1 fiend and ALOT of dogs (8 or so i believe)

 

we played on a NOVA style board (ruins in 2 opposite corners, hill features in the other 2, opened up bunker in the middle, barricades on center of long table edges.) starting to prefer this type of board, lets the armies and generals do the talking, instead of getting hosed with a poor deployment side. i won the roll off, gave him first turn (no need to tempt fate with vects 4+ steal and i prefer second turn against "grab" style armies).

 

Deployement

- he picked a hill quarter to keep me out of the ruins. his deployment zone was pretty packed, with the hellions up front, vect/empty raider/wyches to their right and beasts/trueborns/wyches to the left. ravagers and 5 man raider squad hung in the backfield and 10 man squad deployed on his objective. his wyches get +1 S.

 

- my deployment was a single rhino hidden behind the hill/columns. still visible but at extreme range, plenty of cover from all angles and easy access to the objective if it got popped.

 

First Turn

- his turn involved the hellions making for the center objective and everyone else broke in their respective directions (left went to the left ruins, right went to the right ruins). his ravagers boosted around to get in better position for when i came in. no one had range to the rhino.

 

- my turn, i moved the rhino up towards his boardedge ruin and popped smoke.

 

Second Turn

- he moves his raider with wyches over the ruin and disembarks them to try and surround the rhino. beasts move closer to try and reach the rhino, hellions swarm onto the middle objective. everyone else boosts around a bit to get in some good firing positions and minimize their flanks showing. his now-empty raider shoots the rhino but misses. beasts have a poor run, as do wyches. wyches make combat, but cant surround it. they also fail to do any damage to it (12" move yay!).

 

- my turn, i get my stormraven (with crowe) 2 venerables and 2 rhinos in from reserve. i move the 2 venerables mid table along with a rhino (6" move). i move the second rhino right side (12" and popped smoke) close to the ruins and disembark, ready to lay into vects unit should i pop the raider. the stormraven boosts onto the table center left to pop the empty raider by the ruins. movement, i disembark the rhino squad by the wyches and then move the rhino 12" to clear the firing lanes and to keep it away from the beasts. shooting, the stormraven pops the raider, venerables stun 1 ravager and pop vects raider, 2 purifier squads burn the wyches (squad 1) and manage to cook off 5 incubi (squad 2), the embarked squad (squad 3) pops the raider holding the second squad of wyches, killing 2 and 1 nearby purifier.

 

Third Turn

- he moves vect and wyches into the ruins with the purifier squad. hellions move up to assault the rhino in my center backfield. beasts move to assault squad 1. venoms move up (1 gets immobilised), disembark the true born. ravagers shuffle around for better shots. venoms shoot at squad 1, killing a hammer and halberd. ravager 2 shoots at stormraven, failing to do nothing because of the 4+ cover. trueborn manage to shake 1 venerable (rerolled a 6), ravager 3 immobilises shakes the rhino in center back, empty raider fails to do anything to the same rhino and the raider with 5 warriors manages to destroy the stormbolter from squad 2's rhino. close combat sees the beasts making the charge into squad 1 as well as vect plus incubi buddies and the wyches piling into squad 2. the hellions mobbed the rhino in center back but couldn't quite surround it. squad 1 manages the cleanse a good portion of dogs, losing only 2 halberds in the cc exchange. they win combat, forcing the beasts to flee. they remain close enough to keep the beasts from rallying. squad 2 manages to burn and chop the wyches down to 3, but the incubi weather the storm. the keeper of the flame manages to survive 3 fearless saves, ready to do some burning next turn. the hellions immobilise the rhino, but cant get it to pop.

 

- my remaining 3 dreads come on, with the last rhino refusing to budge. i place 1 regular on my right flank to shoot some transports, with the 3rd ven and 2nd reg coming in right center to help stem the potential charges from vect and the wyches and they kill the keeper. squad 3 hops out of their rhino (barely) and prepares to flame some hellions. the stormraven boosts behind ravager 1 in preparation for some melta action. for shooting, squad 1 burns the beasts down below half strength, preventing them from rallying. squad 3 burns the hellions, causing them to flee and they wont rally because theyre under half strength. the stormraven blows up ravager 1, venerable 1 ignores his stun and destroys 1 venom, causing 1 trueborn squad to become pined. venerable 2 fails to damage the 2nd venom beyond not shooting. venerable 3 removes 2 lances from ravager 2. regular 1 shakes ravager 3 and regular 2 destroys the raider for the 5 man warrior squad. close combat is short, with 1 wyches dying to the flames and the keeper dying to vect.

 

Fourth Turn

- hellions and beasts keep running. vect steals the empty raider and maneouvers for a shot on a dread. 10 man warrior squad fail to fit regular 1 with their dark lance. trueborn whittle down squad 1 to a psycannon and keeper.

 

- rhino moves on with squad 4 at center right. they promptly pop out to shoot the last 2 wyches hiding in the ruins. regular 1 pops vects new raider and assaults the squad. 2 remaining members of squad 2 get back in their rhino that moves up to support them. venerable dreads finish off the trueborn, venom, and last ravager.

 

Turns 5 and 6 were basically me positioning the remainder of my forces for holding objectives (2 ruin objectives for 2 points a piece and center objective for 4 points) keeping crowe alive in his stormraven limo (another +1) and keeping my 2 regular dreads alive and well (another +1). i also contested his deployment objective with my storm raven. he had his HQ alive (for +1) and the ravager with 1 dark lance left (+1), though i didn't shoot my 6th turn since it was obvious i had the win. all in all a pretty scrappy battle for the first half, but once the other 3 dreads came in, it was all over. i crippled his mobility while keeping my rhinos moving and tarpitted vect and his remaining incubi, preventing him from ruining anymore squads or contesting. definately a favorable machup for GK, might have been different if he played a webway assault force. my changes would've been to start with my forces on (minus stormraven) to prevent any raiders from pushing mid field to deploy the portals. i accomplished my goals of weathering any initial firing from the ravagers and raiders. i made the ravagers early targets, destroying them or stunning them when possible. this limited his ability to hurt my dreads. MVP would be the stormraven, who tallied 1 raider, 1 ravager and a couple warriors. not bad for being the only 1 :tu:

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Very well played and a strong list. Those Purifiers are the business.

 

G :D

[Crynn]

How do you find the storm raven, do you ever wish it was a raider in game? I know many people tend to find it a bit flimsy, not against dark eldar obviously.

[KnowThyEnemy]

it honestly comes down to the list i feel like running. the majority of my games i dont use either. i've contemplated tweaking this list to switch in a godhammer and vindicare and give up the raven and a venerable, but it all really depends on what your goal for the army is. my peeve with landraiders is they always seem more of a threat than a stormraven, thus will always attract the bulk of AT fire.

 

also, you have some tough decisions to make with a raider. do you camp an objective but risk a lucky assault? do you get aggressive with it and risk melta fire? do you move 6" and get most of your fire or 12" and only get 1? don't get me wrong, i love my land raiders (have 5 with plans on an Achilles for my deathwatch), but they play very differently imo.

 

the goal of my landraiders is to be magnets, a figurehead for the army if you will. i try not to put to many eggs in them because i know theres always a solid chance of them blowing up (lots of melta around here). with the stormraven, im using it more for quick tactical strikes, not necessarily to deploy assault units. i like the mobility it gives to any list, even with 1.

 

AV12 isn't the greatest of armour, but its honestly not that bad considering what you get for it. barebones (which is how i run it), you get a 48" TL melta strike with 2d6 pen at 36". that in itself is pretty nice. coupled with taking away any melta nonsense in return, its looking pretty good when it comes to holding out against AT fire. 4+ cover? yes please, especially when only 50% of those melta/lance shots are doing any real damage. lascannons you say? sure, shoot my stormraven. i'm still getting a cover and you still have to roll well to get it to go boom. meanwhile, my dreads are having a field day with your transports. if they decide to ignore it and shoot the dreads, its still going to be a big headache for their pricey vehicles (always go for the big fish, itll either blow it up or get their attention). the only time i stop boosting is when there's nothing that can really harm me. otherwise, why give up your 4+ cover?

 

one thing i notice from time to time is players fixation on blowing things up. typically, if i get a vehicle to not fire, i'll move on to another target. a predator or vindicator not firing for a turn is great, why waste shots trying to pop it when you can get other things to not fire/blow up? to me, its all about maximizing your shooting/assaulting so that your opponent has little effective options come his turn.

 

so in conclusion: big fan of the raven for what it can do, just dont try and use it like a landraider or you'll be disappointed. it should not be a primary delivery system for anything more than a group of deathcults, and thats only if you really need to deploy them, and then only do it late game B)