Brother Darklight Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 Greetings Brothers! As I promised on Friday, here's the report from that game for your reading pleasure. Black Templars Strike Force: HQs: Deathstar 1: Master of Sanctity: Artificer Armour, Plasma Pistol [Warlord] Command Squad (10 man) Apothecary: Power Sword, Terminator Honours, Artificer Armour Company Champ: Terminator Honours, Artificer Armour Sergeant: Power sword, Terminator Honours, Artificer Armour Standard Bearer: Power Sword, Terminator Honours, Artificer Armour, Chapter Banner. Deathstar 2: Grimaldus w/ Servitors Command Squad (10 man) Apothecary: Power Axe, Terminator Honours, Artificer Armour Company Champ: Terminator Honours, Artificer Armour Sergeant: Power Fist, Terminator Honours, Artificer Armour Standard Bearer: Power Sword, Terminator Honours, Artificer Armour, Relic. (Yes, Grimmy can have 2 :)) Emperor's Champion: Suffer Not Troops: Knight Squad (10 man): Power fist, Flamer. Archer Squad (10 man): Multimelta Elites: Sword Brethren Terminators (5 man): 2x Cyclone Missile Launcher Chaos Warband (with Ork pets allies) HQs: Daemon Prince: Mark of Khorne, Wings [Warlord] Big Mek: Kustom Force Field Troops: Plague Marines (5 man): 2x Plasmagun Plague Marines (5 man): 2x Plasmagun Plague Marines (5 man): 2x Plasmagun Khorne Berserkers (10 man): Skull Champ w/ Power Fist - Rhino Khorne Berserkers (10 man): Skull Champ w/ Power Fist - Rhino Slugga Boyz (30 ork): 'Ard Boyz, Nob w/ Bosspole, PowerKlaw Heavy: Havocs (5 man): 4x Lascannons Havocs (5 man): 4x Lascannons Deployment: Vanguard Strike Mission type: Emperor's Will Turn Order: Chaos -> Templars Turn 1 (Both sides): Due to the terrain, not a lot happened. My two Deathstars stayed in close proximity and moved towards the Daemonprince/BigMek/'Ardboy cluster. 2 of the Plague Marine squads shot down one of my Termies, but I rolled a Righteous Zeal of 6 to get me nice n close for some pummelling. We both controlled a mysterious objective. Mine was the reroll to-hits of 1 while shooting, his was the 1/2 Charge range. Turn 2 Chaos: The Terminators ate plasma hard. Eliminating the squad [First Blood: Chaos], while his Rhinos moved up to blockade me from the middle objective. This was fine since it also ended up covering my Emperor's Champ and the Knight squad from the same Plague Marines for the next turn. And then this happened... Daemon prince, BigMek and 'Ard Boys charge Grimaldus' Reclusiam Squad, who was within 6" of the Chapter Banner. Huzzah Counter Attack. Now, in our group, we've come to agree that BT Apoth, Company Champ and Sarge are all 'Characters' for Challenging due to the shared unit argument pertaining to the reference sheets in the back of the rulebook, so for the sake of not getting slaughtered I challenge with the Company Champion. He accepts with the Daemon Prince. Poor Champion didn't stand a chance... But he served his purpose: Keep everyone else alive. I bust out, not one, but both Relics (Grimmy's Servitors and the Relic Bearer. Huzzah technicalities! Now, I'd never used them before so my opponent had never seen what they do. His morale went out the window when I counted out the attacks for JUST Grimaldus. Side Note: at that moment, I knew what it felt like to play as an Ork player when it comes to sheer number of dice. It was glorious. He loses combat by waaay too many. 27 'Ard Boys fail their saves and the Big Mek bit the dust. Due to clever placement, only my Servitors and 1 Marine fall to his attacks. His remaining 3 'Ard boyz head for the hills. Turn 2 Templars: Now my MoS's command squad joins the fun. The Daemon takes his chances fighting everyone, focusing on Grimaldus' group. Apothecaries are amazing... only 2 more Marines die. Needless to say, the Daemon Prince stood no chance against such a mighty force. The monstrosity dies. [slay the Warlord: Templars]. The conflict took place next to a large ruin, which blocked line of sight between the [waaay too] many lascannons guarding the enemy objective, I opt for Consolidating back around on the safe side to take the central objective. (By the way, my MoS and his unit had the Warlord Trait that counts them as a scoring unit ;) I'm hoping my opponent has forgotten this.) Meanwhile, My Emperor's Champion and his Knights have reached one group of Plagues. They only remove 4 of the five of the group, less than I'd have hoped for but the point is the heretics are dying. ;) Turn 3 Chaos: His Rhinos have effectively walled a chunk of the table, so it'll take another turn or two to run around to the centre objective! Clever... One of the Khorne squads decides to disembark and move in to attack the Emperor's Champ and his Knights. The result is a vast majority of my Knights fall to the Heretic's hands. Only the one with the powerfist and the EC are standing in this assault. The other Khornes secure the central objective. Naturally, it's another 1/2 charge distance modifier... This isn't going well. Turn 3 Templars: My Archer with the Multimelta tries to blow the Rhino away to open the wall and let the Deathstars through. The Bad news? It didn't work. The good news? That rhino has a nice new ventilation system to get the reek of heresy out of it. The two Deathstars try to run around, sticking to the plan. The Khornes finish off my Emperor's Champion and his remaining Knight... They Consolidate away from the Deathstars and back to the central objective to create a super blob of Berserkers. Turn 4 (both sides): Probably the most anti-climactic turn in the history of 40k. My Squads get around the Rhino wall, and no shots are fired aside from the bolter on the roof of the Rhino. It pings off of the Artificer armour of my Apothecary. Turn 5 Chaos: Instead of attacking me with one of the two Khorne squads, he pulls them both back so that they're as far away from my Deathstars as possible, but still in the range of the objective. He decides not to risk allowing me to use my Righteous Zeal to get closer by Forgoing any shooting on my Deathstars. Not sure who's favour this ultimately benefited. Turn 5 Templars: I ran. I ran into range of the objective, instead of taking my chances of 1/2 charge distance to his Khornes. The objective, however, is effectively 'contested'. Mere inches from the closest Khorne group. I prepare for massive assault... My opponent: "Man... this is going to be bad" Me: "yeah... I'm not sure how well this'll work" My opponent: "Wouldn't it be funny if we roll a 1 or 2 and the game ended in a draw?" Me: "That would kind of suck, considering..." We rolled a 2. Draw Templars: 1 Objective, Slay the Warlord - 4 points Chaos: 1 Objective, First Blood - 4 points 1 Contested objective. What to take out of this: -Deathstars with Grimaldus can be scarey-good, if you're willing to drop the 600~ for em. Definitely worth the price IMO, if they can take on a mob of 30 'ard boys(4+ saves), a Big Mek and a Daemon Prince while taking minimal losses. -I will never use Shooty Terminators. Circumstances always cause me to fail hard with them. (First Blood of the game is on Terminators... :) ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Honda Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 Very interesting...I have some observations... 1. You were horrifically outgunned with low AP shots. I'm not surprised that you took a lot of heat. To compound that, your opponent had a lot of regular shooters as well. 2. This means that with fewer targets to focus on, the effects of your opponent's shooting became magnified as the game wore on. 3. It's great to see deathstars work, but then you really expect them to and as you point out, 600+ points is a lot. So this is just me hypothesizing now, but think about this. What could you have done to lure him to your lines? I'm thinking not a whole lot. He could just sit back and shoot at you from distance until you cried "uncle" and then used his berzerkers to sweep up the debris. Also, his Deathstar ended up attracting (if I'm reading this correctly) both of your deatstars over two turns. It seems like one of your deathstars should have taken his on, while the other one went off to break face. Then he looks at your running a rampage in his backfield while his guys get chewed up. Now, it just occurred to me that he had a bunch of berzerkers as well, so in reality: He has one deathstar, that cancels out yours You bring your other deathstar in to kill his, which allows him to then jump on you with his berzerkers In the mean time, he's shooting the beejeebers out of you So, in a sense, you played into his plan rather than him playing into yours. Now, I'm not saying this because I figure these things out right when I'm supposed to, this is more armchair quarterbacking, but it does appear that you did what he wanted you to, primarily because you were unable to unsettle his plans. So the purpose of luring him to your lines would be to stretch out his assault units, possibly chewing off one at a time and having him attack into the teeth of your CC units. Also, on your side of the table you may have been able to use terrain to block shots to other units. Does that make sense? If yes, then do you still feel like your Grimaldus DS worked as well for you as you thought it did? I don't know, I'm asking now. I'll think on this more and look forward to some of your post-game thoughts. Thank you for sharing the batrep. Cheers, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marshal_Roujakis Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 A really fast reply to point out in your DS squads and just to make them cheap either way. If your willing to drop an attack from each of your "specialists" then I would drop the Artificer armour then get a Storm Shield instead, a 3++ will be much more reliable against those unwanted challenges than a 2++. Its also 5 pts less per model than an artificer armour per model. Also, Cyclones termies are good, but keep them at range and definitely behind cover, its a good way to get a tougher pair of Land Speeder Typhoons, but the points difference is too expensive. I'd get a Deep Striking Flamer/Assault Cannon Termies instead if you want to get into the suicide kill em' all squad. Also a Quick swap into some Power Mauls, for that concussive capabilities or a few Power Axe without any change in points cost should be something to consider. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Darklight Posted October 2, 2012 Author Share Posted October 2, 2012 You make some valid points, but to be honest I really wasn't aiming for a victory. This game was simply to test the combat effectiveness of Deathstars. To me, my results were victory enough. As for walking into his plan, I can tell you with fair certainty that I didn't. It's hard to describe without images, but after killing the Daemon Prince, I had 2 options. Head around his side of the ruins (deemed Impassible) and into the salvo of 8 lascannons and 2 plasma guns, or move back around with the safety of cover. After choosing the latter he'd said that he'd hoped I'd have taken my chances with the Lascannons. Also he told me the Rhino wall was to keep me from getting to that point at all. Which I ended up getting there anyway. We both expected the game to last longer too. Ultimately we were both interested in testing the effectiveness of our lists. Interestingly enough, I learned all I needed from mine even though there were only 2 assaults in the entire match. @Marshal_Roujakis I'd thought about Storm Shields, but I didn't expect him to use a Daemon Prince with its AP2 hits. He doesn't usually use Daemon Princes, he seems to prefer Chaos Lords/Sorcerers. (And the Latter usually blows itself up :P ) Will I make a list that incorporates these 2 Deathstars again? Probably not. But The Grimaldus blob, with some modifications will definitely go down in my books as worth the points. Most of the games we play nowadays are all 2000 point games, so 600~ for something that took out literally its own point-value with as little damage taken as it did, I'd definitely consider it again as a psychological weapon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marshal Severarse Posted October 3, 2012 Share Posted October 3, 2012 That was a great battle report. Fun to read. Moar preeze. That Grimaldus squad is like the dream squad I have never dared to use. It sounds like 'twas everything a Marshal could hope for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.