Battlebrothers Jan 2014

[Leonaides]

So, going to BB at warhammer world this coming weekend - partnering with a BT player.

 

I'm the allied contingent, with Meph (for hte first time taking advantage of the BT's new 'tolerance' for Librarians!!!), a full 10-man RAS with meltaguns and a power axe (?), an attack bike and a plasma-gun honour guard with jump packs...

 

He'll have some variation of a couple of crusader squads (poss 1 in a drop-pod and 1 in a rhino), a Pred annihalator and a Chaplain.

 

I'll let you all know how it goes - however neither list is truely fixed at the moment.

[JamesI]

Good luck!

 

Templars seem to be doing ok locally, but the idea of templars teaming with Mephiston is just wrong!

[MadMek83]

Nothing helps BT's tolerance for Psycher that it is Mephiston that can pretty much tear Landraider open alone. You don't want to mess with Mephiston.

[Leonaides]

it was always the big bugbear whenever I team up with this guy - I couldnt take librarians or Meph when ours were gold dust. Now tho, its time to show them what they've been missing.

 

I'll make sure to charge the camera up.

[Leonaides]

so my partner is bringing:

 

Chaplain with melta bombs

 

Crusader squad (5 initiates/4 Neophytes) in a rhino with meltagun/power sword

 

Crusader squad (5 initiates/5 Neophytes) in a drop-pod with meltagun/power axe

 

dreadnought (assault cannon/power fist/heavy flamer) in a drop pod (deathwind launcher upgrade)

 

Vindicator + siege shield

[Leonaides]

GAme 1- vs IG and BT. Dawn of war, relic. Meph kills hellhound, demolisher, dreadnought, then kills himself with perils while charging the enemy warlord. Won 4-3 with relic and linebreaker vs firstblood, warlord and linebreaker.

[Leonaides]

Game 2 vs tau chaos marines. Hammer and anvil, big guns never tire. LOst 7-6, they got first blood. Meph killed the tau warlord and cut down the squad, then took a railgun to the face. Sang novitiate took on a squad of 10 chaos marines for 3 rounds and lived.

[Leonaides]

Game 3- crusade, vanguard strike. 17-1 win vs IG and ultramarines. Only lost the vindicator for first blood. The dice didn't like them in this game...

[Leonaides]

GAme 4- 2 nil loss. NEarly got tabled by salamanders and red scorpions.

 

GAme 5- 15 6 win by killpoints, vs iron hands and inquisition, they only had a baby storm hawk left.

[Morticon]

sounds like awesome fun bud!! keep it coming!

[Leonaides]

Feeling very broken now so pictures and proper reports will have to wait. Final placing 41 out of 98, though only 6pts behind 21st place.

 

Meph was mvp in 4 of the 5 games- the only time he did badly was when he got mugged by assault terminators. Final game he put 4 penetrating and 1 glancing hit on a redeemer, killed an inquisitor, his acolytes, an iron hands squad, a damaged ironclad and a droppod.

 

Ras worked well with brave deep strike attacks, opponents weren't expecting us to try for some of the gaps they left and it paid off with melta strikes to rear armour or dropping behind aegis lines.

 

Attack bike didn't do very much but was crucial in the 4th game, was also a noticeable threat.

[Leonaides]

Battle 1: vs Black templars and IG

Templars had - crusader squad in razorback with twin las (x 2), Chaplain, Predator Annihalator, Dreadnought (twin las/misslie launcher) as the main detachment with IG allies - Command squad, Vets with plasma guns(cant remember - dont think they ever fired anything), Russ squadron (demolisher and Executioner), Hellhound and Sly Marbo. Also a defence line and Quad gun as fortifications.

Pics are our movement phase, turn 2 (just after deep strike rolls). The objective is on the wrecked baneblade in the middle of the battlefield.

Turn 1, we got first turn, dreadnought dropped down in front of their aegis line and tried to toast the command squad - 5 men, 1 heavy flamer and 1 assault cannon later and there were still 2 men left! Multimelta missed a razorback, vindicator scattered away from the hellhound and our Rhino moved up towards the objective/sheltering the vindicator from their predator on our right flank.Meph advances alongside the vindocator, usign it as mobile cover.

In return, the predator destroyed our rhino and the hellhound promptly cooks 6 of our crusader squad (survivors visible just in front of the hellhound below). Their dreadnought glances ours, and the russes miss/dont do any damage. Veterans charge the dreadnought, -losing 4 to overwatch and do nothing.

(vets just in front of dreadnought, meph just to the side of the hellhound on the edge of the picture)

4 surviving templars in front of hellhound - and you can see my deep strike 'no guts not glory' decision in the top corner!

Turn 2 - Time for some revenge.

Both combat squads of RAS arrive, 1 meltagun in each squad, the attack bike moves into half range and Meph eyes up the hellhound, while the templars pat down the flames and the meltagunner wants some payback too. The honour guard also turn up, scater onto the predator and mishap - the opponents place them in the far far corner, away from everything.

Shooting - RAS destroy the razorback on the right flank - de-bussing the chaplain and his squad. The other RAS toast the Predator. Then the attack bike fluffs the hat-trick! The honour guard start running (1 inch!).

Drop-pod by our dreadnought starts dropping pie plates on his commander (the only thing it can hurt) and kills the last bodyguard (i think).

Crusaders miss the hellhound, but Meph doesnt. 1 short charge later and its gone bang - carefully only doing a 1" explosion which meph ignores as expected.

razorback and predator gone, and hello chaplain!

Their turn - the russes reposition slightly, their dread walks towards ours (just gets to the aegis line i think), Sly turns up right on our right flank (behind the bastion next to the chaplain) and prepares a demo charge. Chaplain and squad leg it away from the RAS behind them (trying to get away from potential scatter distance), Other Razorback reverses (doing similar). Shooting - Sly hits and I remove 5 marines, the dreadnought and Razorback remove the attack bike with lascannon fire and the chaplain squad shoot at my other RAS (some time around here they die anyway). Dreadnoughts drop-pod is destroyed.

Turn 3.

Our second drop-pod turns up with the rest of the templars in it and lands just about where the other one was just destroyed (providing cover for the squad who need to pick up the objective - otherwise they'd be sat in the open in front of a demolisher if my plan doesnt work). They get out and collect the objective. Meph casts wings and jumps the building - eyeing up the Russ squadron. The dreadnought is still in combat with those veterans and the honour guard keep on trotting across the board)

The 4 BT's from the first squad back away from his chaplain (too far to charge, but close enough to get charged if they try to engage with pistols/meltagun). no shooting. Meph makes his charge, activates Sword and gets 5 S10 hits on the squadron! Demolisher is destroyed, and the turret is torn off the executioner - this is officially a good thing!

Dreadnought finally decides he's not going to be shown up by a filthy psyker and kills the last veteran - both move into the aegis line a bit more.

(this is during their movement phase - the russ has backed up and the dread is backpedalling from Meph).

Their turn - russ moves slightly, the razor moves 5" to fire on the damaged Crusader squad, their chaplain and men also head towards the objective, Sly starts running to our deployment zone for line-breaker). Meph's warlord trait was a bonus VP for killing enemy characters - so the IG captain decides to commit suicide by dreadnought to deny meph. Their dreadnought misses with the lascannon and the krak missile bounces off meph's armour.

(showing from Right to left - Sly on the board edge being a sneaky so-and-so, their chaplain squad, our damaged Crusader squad, their razorback still functional and our squad holding the objective)

Turn 4.

Our big Crusader squad back away with the objective (heading to our left away from his remaining units), while the Honour guard finally get in range to shoot his chaplain squad. Meph casts wings to catch up with their dreadnought, our dreadnought goes for the last russ and the hoour guard shoot at his chaplain squad - killing 3. Also a dead russ and a dead dreadnought by the end of our turn.

(mephs 5" consolidate to try to get away from a meltagun)

their turn -

Squad in razorback gest out to shoot at meph, chaplains squad move to shoot him also. He tanks all the shooting and looses 2 wounds from the las and a meltagun - leaving him with 1 left.

Turn 5 -

Dreadnought moves to shoot his 5 man squad who just got out of their razorback, honour guard try to get round the building to shoot anyone (think they fail) and meph goes for the warlord kill. Passes wings, reaches the combat and then this happens:

Fluffed his roll for unleash rage with a double 6 and lost his last wound. D'oh!!!!!

their turn, the razorback squad get back in the tank and it reverses away from our models, sly gets into our deployment zone and the game ends.

First Blood (vindicator), warlord (meph) and line breaker (sly) vs relic (3pts) adn linebreaker (2 crusader squads) - 4-3 win to us.

Edits - general plan in this battle was to get rid of the major threats (Demolisher, Hellhound, Dreadnought) that coudl stop us claiming the objective witha big fearless crusader squad (led by the chaplain). Secondary plan was to minimise the enemies manouvrability (the razorbacks) so allow us to either avoid his crusader squads or engage them at a tim eof our choosing (depending on how many casualties we had taken). The drop with the RAS, while risky, was hoping to both remove the razors and predator, as well as delay/distract the marines inside - if we could get them out of their transports 3ft away from the objective then they were much less important. The opponents took this bait, also using up Marbo's demolition charge on an irrelevant squad of marines - had he appeared nearer the objective we would have had more trouble... Meph got a bit lucky early on with his vehicle hunting - well, lucky with the move/charge over the building and the aegis line - but that was probably balanced out by killing himself with a daemon attack instead of getting us slay the warlord. Our dreadnougt took quite a while to actually kill the veterans who charged him - could have done with that happening a turn earlier - but at least it kept him functional for the end-game.

[Leonaides]

Battle 2 vs Tau/chaos.

this was our only Helldrake of the weekend - and he was a right pain in the fundament.

deployment saw the tau set up in two ruins, using them to anchor their aegis line with lascannon (fire warrior squad in ruin on the left, FW and HQ in the centre manning the aegis and icarus with a broadside, pathfinders and another broadside on the right flank ruin) with a hammerhead behind all this. 1 squad of Chaos marines were also in the ruin on the left, a squad of night lords, led by Khârn were skulking behind the aegis with the tau and the helldrake was in reserve. There were 4 objectives, they placed theirs at either end of their aegis and ours were about 13" in front in some wooded terrain again towards either side.

(deployment shot - our vindi, attack bike and meph on the (bottom) right - just behind the objective and a lonely rhino on our left, heading towards the other objective)

A better shot of their deployment:

Turn 1 - they go first, toasting the vindicator and putting a wound on the attack bike and meph - the other broadside, fire warriors, icarus lascannon and friends galnce the rhino once.

We deep strike our dread first (again - wanting to preserve the troops choice crusader squad), on our right, just round the side fo the building and usign it to cut down LOS to the dreadnought, pop smole on the rhino which moves up to the objective near it. The dread goes for the nearest broadside and fluffs it entirely. Meph moves up slightly thru the trees in front, though staying in cover, and the attack bike moves up to also take a shot at that broadside - melta misses :-(

Turn 2 -

The helldrake arrives, hoping to BBQ the crusaders in thr Rhino. More fire from the tau glances the rhino again but some lucky smoke saves keep the box alive so the helldrakes balefire cant get to the marines inside. The broaside moves away from the dreadnought (but towards meph) and Khârn and hs squad start moving over the aegis to try to melta it to death. They fail, the broadside misses and I think we've got a nice chance at some combat now.

Our turn - meph is too far away to rech the chaos marines but Wings allows him to get close to the Broadside that was trying to avoid the dreadnought (which moves towards the nice flamer-template shaped conga line of chaos marines). rhino sqaud can do nothing other than suffer - the chaos marine squad in the ruin on that side would cut them to pieces if they advance and there's still a helldrake kicking about. My RAS arrive, 1 scatters onto the tau tank (aiming to land behidn it) and is destroyed, the other lands safely just to the side of it but a snap-firignn icarus (fired by the tau leader) hits, witha precision shot and he snipes out my meltagun. The second crusader squad arrives in their drop-pod, landing inside the aegis, in the space just vacated by the chaos marines and the tau who had moves up to the wall so we didnt get a cover save from it any more. Squad gets out and fluffs it - think they killed a couple of tau fire warriors but not much. Attack bike shoots at the chaos marines, killing 1, dreadnought also shoots, killing 3 i think, and then charges -he fails his charge distance roll though. Meph charges the broadside - meaning that he is safe from shooting, even if it takes a while to kill it due to a 2+ save.

(just before our shooting phase - helldrake base just visible to right of photo about half way up)

Bit more detail of the drop-pod assault into the tau defences.

Turn 3 -

The helldrake slams on the brakes and hovers - allowing him to do a 180 and come flame the squad in the aegis line. 1 and the chaplain survive. The tau on the far side of the board destroy the rhino finally, but the squad inside dont take much damage. Khârn and friends move to engage the chaplain and crusader marine - net result, 1 Khârn left standing - everyone else is dead. The tau tank tank-shocks my RAS but they pass their test. I step aside instead of a risky death or glory, content to throw grenades and assault it in our turn. Meph stays stuck in combat with the broadside, the chaos marines start to move towards the objective our crusader squad is on.

Our turn 3 - honour guard arrive! They land between the chaos marines and the crusader squad, ready to open fire and sacrifice themselves to stop the chaos marines taking that objective away form the templars. Meph stays tuck in combat with the broadside. Attack bike takes a shot at the Helldrake but doesnt do anything to it - honour guard kill a couple of chaos marines. Somewhere around here the dreadnought finally catches up with Khârn but gets killed. My RAS bounce off the hammerhead...

Turn 4, helldrake goes for the squad on the objective, killing 6ish. fire warriors. Various shots exchanged, chaos marines try to charge the honour guard but fail after the tau shoot 3 of them, leaving the priest and 1 gunner, Meph finally kills the broadside and then spies a tau leader. Our turn 4 the Honour guard realise the only way to stop the chaos marine squad is to charge them (otherwise they'll just walk past to the objective) - net result, drawn combat and a valliant snaguinary novitiate holding of the squad on his own (no power weapons on either side) Meph goes for the Tau in the centre, my last 2 RAS try to take down the hammerhead again, and also try to get within contesting range of the objective on the right side - unfortunately this takes them into sight of the pathfinders...

Assault moves made...

End of the assault - the tau accepted the challenge surprisingly, died (unsurprisingly) and the squad broke and were cut down (unsurprisingly).

Turn 5 - the helldrake has another go at killing the last 2 templars on the objective, but only gets 1 wound. The pathfinders shoot at my last 2 RAS but 1 survives, and everyone else (incl Khârn) shoots Meph. the final wound is taken by the linal shot from the broadside just in front of him...

Our turn 5 - not a lot left to do - the Sang novitiate survives, the crusader marine survives a soul blaze and the drop-pods sit there.

Somehow we end up with a draw - 1 objective claimed each, 1 contested, they have first blood and warlord, we have linebreaker and warlord.

[thebymster]

Thrilling report, brill pics, thank you.

Showing how new I am to forums: what does RAS stand for? I'm guessing it means assault marine squad...?

[CaptainHelion]

Yeah, RAS stands for Regular Assault Squad (Or some rough equivalent). If I have things correct, it is a holdover from the days before Vanguard Veterans were called Vanguard, and were instead Veteran Assault Squads. So VAS and RAS were used to distinguish the two.

[Leonaides]

Game 3- crusade mission, vanguard strike deployment.

Ok - IG and Ultramarines - they have a punisher-cannon armed Russ, one with the anti-tank shots instead of a battlecannon (cant remember the name), a Chimera (with command squad), 1 Vet squad and 1 heavy weapon squad(? - might have been a second vet squad, it died very early in the game) and the marine contingent is 2 10-man tac squads (1 drop-pod with mm/meltagun/combimelta and 1 with a razorback, lascannon, meltagun and I never found out what the sergeant had) and a librarian to go in the razorback. Also an Aegis line and quadautocannon.

Picture below is in their first movement phase - just after their drop-pod arrives

Their set-up was a castle in the aegis line (vet squad manning the gun and the command squad in the Chimera, and the lascannon combat squad of marines in the ruin at the top of the screen with the second (unidentified) guard squad on the next level down. There's also a landspeeder just poking its nose out round the side of that building... I was quite surprised (pleasantly) to see that they didnt deploy either Russ or the Razorback...:-)

Our deployment was Meph, the Vindi, the Rhino about where their blue/red drop-pod is in that picture, with the attack bike just beside the building its moved in front of (about where their tac squad just disembarked to).

Objectives are: just behind our dreadnought, in their aegis line, in the dead trees to the right of the vindi and in the dead trees in front of the Rhino and one out on the right flank that you'll see later (next to their razorback when it dies). we were intending to play the game in adn around their aegis line, and put the objectives as close as we could to that, while leaving us some cover should we need it in the last turn to try and hold them under fire... My RAS were split up - my meltas needed to be able to hit more than 1 tank a turn...

First turn -

We go first, the attack bike moves to get LOS on the speeder, the Rhino moves 12" to get closer to the enemy before it gets popped, the Vindicator moves 6" ready to start droppin gshells on the aegis line and the vets in it. Drop-pod arrives bang on target and unleashes the dreadnought behind that ruin - his heavy flamer and assault cannon kill 8 of the guard squad that were on the first floor, and the remaining 2 models break and start running (they're somewhere behind out drop-pod in that picture) his quad-gun interceptor fire bounced off the dread. Bike misses the speeder, vindi kills a couple of vets in the aegis line. Rhino pops smoke.

Their turn, the drop-pod arrives and disgorges 2 combat squads with melta weapons (already not looking good for the vindicator, let alone in the rear armour!). The Chimera multilaser flubbs its shots, and the heavy bolter has no target. The combat squad with the melta gun kill the vindicator and the multimelta whiffs his snap-fire at the rhino. Tac squad with lascannon miss the dreadnought. They forgot about the landspeeder. Nothing else notable happens.

Our turn 2 - 1 RAS squad arrives, aiming for melta range at the rear of the Chimera. The templars drop-pod arrives and lands just to the right of their aegis line, deploying models right up against it and the quadgun shots kill 2 models (a scout and the meltagunner!). The Dreadnought moves up the ruin first floor to charge the tac squad in it (3 guys were down there). Meph turns around for revenge on the tac marines who just toasted the vindicator (need to get rid of annoyances in the back field) and the squad in the rhno get out to volley fire into the other combat squad. Attack bike moves forward again towards the speeder... Rhino moves to position sideways to block LOS to the squad who juts got out from the enemies back line (in case those tanks appear). Templars by the aegis shoot the vets, killing a few and the ones who got out of the rhino fail to kill a single marine. Attack bike destroys the speeder (too late for first blood though :-( ). RAS squad miss the Chimera with their meltagun. Assault goes pretty much according to expectations - Meph slaughters the squad sergeant but they pass their LD test and the dreadnought kills a couple of marines but they pass their test).

Their turn 2 - chimera shoots the marines in front of it, as do the vets - a couple of casualties only. The squad the dreadnought flamed turn 1 run off the board. Punisher cannon Russ arrives, just behind the Aegis line and shoots my RAS, killing 2 guys but leaving me my sergeant and meltagun. The other russ and the Razorback arrive and deploy about 18" to our right of the aegis line - heading toward the wreck of the vindicator and the objective there. Shooting - marines with multimelta who arent in combat shoot the BT crusader squad in front of them and kill a couple but nothing important. The vets in the aegis line and the Command squad shoot the templar squad and do nothing. Russ with anti-tank gun destroys the Drop-pod the squad just got out of (no, I dont know why). Combat - the dreadnought kills another marine but they pass their test, Meph butchers the rest of that squad and consolidates a mighty 1".

Our turn 3 - remaining RAS appear next to the big gun Russ. Meph lines up on the drop-pod (no chance of catching the Razorback and combat in the aegis will be over before he gets there so its his only real target). The crusader squad do likewise on the other combat squad. My RAS that arrived last turn move up to the Punisher Russ, the Dread is still in combat, The Crusader squad in ourt half of the board charge their target, the other crusader squad do a disordered charge on the last 3 vets and the command squad in the aegis line. My RAS destroy both Russ's - ouchy for them (but why they deployed the punisher Russ so close I dont know - its got a long enough range gun they really didnt need to do that)... The Crusader squads both destroy their targets, Meph kills the pod and the chaplain inspects the gunnery controls on the Quadgun...........

their turn 3 - its not lookign pretty already. We realistically have 3 of the 4 objectives and linebreaker and there's very little left of their army to fight back with. The Razorback moves forwards and takes a pop at Meph I think - nothing notable happens.

Our turn 4 - My honour guard turn up to the right of the Vindicator ready to act as a blocker in case it makes a run for it. the Crusaders in our deployment area move to the objective near them, Meph moves into cover behind the wrecked vindicator (may as well try not to loose him), the dreadnought hopefully starts running across the width of the battlefield to catch up with the Razorback, the RAS in that corner go and sit on the objective and the RAS near the Razorback try for another meltagun kill. They fail. The Templars chaplain however, nails the tank with the captured quadgun and kills a marine in the explosion.

and the Razorback just before it dies (objective is just next to my RAS behind the building)...

Their turn 4 - the squad and Librarian kill off one of my RAS near them, and move towards the building in front of them. Nothing else happens...

Our turn 5 - Honour guard move up to the bulding the Librarian and friends are next to and shoot the tac marines to death, and the Chaplain lines up on the Librarian now he's got his eye on on the Quad-gun.

Bang bang, 2 failed saves, game over.

Looking at the scores Meph must have been scoring since 17 vps is all 5 objectives and linebreaker and warlord....

Their list wasnt as bad as the result makes out - but they really needed all their tanks on the board to start with to hit us hard straight away - yes we would have been able to potentially kill any one of them, but as it was we could deal with them piecemeal and it hurt them more than it did us...