Sammael versus the warhound...

[Darkangeldentist]

Apologies for the wall of text.

 

My 40K has been thin on the ground for a while but last weekend I took the opportunity to grab a game and decided that my Ravenwing had lamented far too long on the sidelines and it was about time I got Sammael and the rest of the bikes out to see how they would fare in the new climate of fortifications, super heavies and other assorted devilry.

 

I did not know exactly what my opponent would be bringing but was aware that he had a warhound as well as a few other large pieces available to support his forces since he'd asked if I was alright with escalation. I've been very cautious about escalation and still don't know what to make of it's impact, the new knights are lovely models and the rules are good but there are some toys out there that are just so powerful...anyway, the point was I was a little nervous about what I might face. The game would be 1750pts so not that large a game meaning that if he did bring a big super heavy it would badly limit what else he could bring.

 

My list consisted of Sammael, a full command squad with apothecary and standard of devastation, 2 max bikes squads (one with flamers) plus a min bike squad sporting meltaguns, 3 attack bikes with multimeltas, 2x tornados (from the troops section due to the max sized bike squads) and a typhoon (from fast attack). Lastly a min sized unit of black knights and a 6 strong unit of deathwing knights. Both command squad and black knights had a grenade launchers.

 

My opponent brought a chaos warhound scout titan with twin turbo laser and plasma blaster! Supporting this behemoth was a chaos lord with black mace and chaos marine squad in a land raider, second chaos marine unit in a rhino and a hellbrute. He'd purchased the mark of slaanesh on everything (just about) and kitted up the marines with extra close combat weapons and several other toys, as were the vehicles.

 

We rolled for mission and ended up playing the Slay the beast escalation mission, I would be going first which was a huge relief for me although the vanguard strike deployment made me frown a little. Our table about about a dozen largish ruined building pieces but only one was tall enough to actually properly interfere with his titan's line of sight. Having also won the roll for table sides I chose to give him the side with that piece of terrain knowing that the battle would be fought on his side of the table and I would need the terrain to be there.

 

I deployed on my deployment line as close as possible with every bar the speeder (who didn't need to) and the Deathwing knights whe would be deathwing assaulting first turn. No point hanging around.

 

He deployed with the warhound hiding at the back of his deployment zone with everything in or behind terrain in the hopes of getting some cover. The chaos marines hid inside their tanks to ensure I would have to crack the armour before getting any shots off on the few living bodies in the army. I then made my scout moves and everything that could scooted forwards as fast as it could but also spreading out a bit just in case he stole the initiative. Thankfully he did not and I proceded with my first turn! 

 

 

Game turn 1:

 

Engines roared as the Ravenwing plunged forward as fast as their bikes could carry them crashing through the rubble and undergrowth of the now ruined city, attack bikes slowed their advance slightly to take shots on the now clearly visible enemy transports. The incandescent beams of heat tore through the corrupted tanks like it water through tissue paper, even the mighty hull of a defiled land raider no match for destructive power of the weapon and both were left nothing more than craters. Deathwing knights appeared not far in front of all this and as the rest of the Ravenwing accelerated to maximum speed to surround and encircle the chaos survivors scrambling out of the wreckage the knights ran to spread out against the inevitable return fire that would be coming from the scout titan. Sammael seeing the chaos marine scrambling out of thier ruined rhino took aim and levelled a plamsa blast into their midst adding to the casualties they had suffered from the explosion of their transport.

 

The heretics quickly recovered their wits though and as the warhound resposistioned and sought to fend off the swarming bikes attempting to encircle it the chaos marines scrabbled to engage. The lord's unit was caught flat-footed and instead were forced to form a cordon around the titan whilst their fellows rushed forwards in frenzied fury for the chance of retaliation. The titan having acquired its targets opened up with a devastating volley of fire, the attack bike next to Sammael and 3 of one bike squad were instantly vaporised by the destrructive might of turbo-laser fire and fully two thirds of the deathwing knights and a second attack bike fell to the plasma inferno that engulfed them. The hellbrute in contradiction to it uncontrollable reputation stood behind a wall and levelled a unsettlingly precise melta shot as one of the meltagun weilding ravenwing bikers who unable to avoid it was killed instantly by the blast. The chaos marine who had plunged forward covered ground as if they were flying and caught the squad who had been ravaged by the titan completely by surprise, the sergeant accepted the champions challenge but was not match for him. The last surviving biker held firm though and pinned the chaos forces in place.

 

Game turn 2:

 

Despite the engagement of forces casualties were already escalating quickly and the Ravenwing needed to press their advantage as much as possible. The remaining deathwing knights regrouped and made for the titan hoping that they might avenge the loss of the brothers before its guns could unleash oblivion on them as the command squad dived into the ruins alongside the last attack bike to poor plasma fire into the chaos lord and his retinue. The second squad of Ravenwing moved up behind to add their fire. As a rad grenade landed in the chaos units midst the initial plamsa shots caused disappointing little damage but with the standard of devastation flying proud the supporting bolter fire was deafening and all but the lord was gunned down. Having stayed mostly hidden initially the land speeder now made their presence felt as assault cannon fire tore the lord in two and the typhoons missiles downed the void shields of the titan but there was still no damage to beasts hull. The meltagun biker and small black knight unit attempted to dislodge the hellbrute but so entrenched behind it's wall was it that the bikers were forced to charge the bestial walker and hope their corvus hammers and melta bombs would work. They nearly felled it but the monstrocity stood firm as it crushed one of the black knights.

 

The titan leveled it's guns once more and the deathwing knights were no more, the last attack bike was also destoryed. With almost nothing left of the chaos forces bar the titan it was quickly beoming a desperate situation as the princeps controlling it was shrewdly and precisely removing the threats to him. The Hellbrute was brought down but the remaining black knights were killed by its death-throws and Sammael having dispatched the chaos champion and slain all bar one of the unit made a tactical retreat from the fight as did the surviving member of the squad to lead what looked to become a desperate charge to stop the titan from destroying his forces with it's devastating firepower.

 

Game turn 3:

 

The last chaos marine was surrounded and gunned down by bolter fire as the command squad now led by Sammael charged at the titan as the speeders and remaining meltagun attempted to inflict some damage onto the colossal machine. Krak missile removed the last of the void shield and assault cannon fire chewed into the hull in places, the melta shot bore a sizeable hole into the machines workings and the titan appeared to flinch as Sammael and his command squad made their desperate charge. The bikes scrambled about inbetween and around the titans feet expertly dodging the warhounds clumsy attempts to crush them underfoot and whilst their corvus hammers were all but useless against it they achieved what they needed to. The distraction was taking up all of the princeps attention and the guns were silent as the titan appeared to hop around trying to crush the nibble bikes darting around its feet. As it tried vainly the catch the bikes Sammael directed them to pull away to let the speeders and melta gun attempt another volley of shots.

 

Game turn 4:

 

With the opportunity to fire again at the titan as Sammael and his command squad disengaged to move around to the weaker side armou the speeder and melta gun levelled another barrage of shots into the indefatigable titan's hull. More damage appeared to have been inflicted but it was hard to tel and although the command squad had managed to find a spot where their plasma talons might do some damage luck ran out and the fickleness of plasma technology knocked one of the command squad off his back as it backfired. Again Sammael led the charge despite the futility of his own efforts against such a foe but again the titan proved equally incapable of dealing with the bikes zipping around its feet. As the combat continued the persistence appeared to be bearing fruit as smoke started to rise from somewhere within the giant machine. Seeing this chance Sammael and the command squad retreated to allow one more volley into the titan.

 

Game turn 5:

 

Night fell as a cavalcade of shots from plasma talons, assault cannons and melta fire tore into the hull of the titan a low groaning noise started from withing the heart of the machine and its reactor finally gave out. As the smoke rose and fires erupted from within it's core the titan fell, collapsing into a heap before the plasma reactor expoded and scattered the debris across the battlefield.

 

Victory for the Dark angels by complete annhilation of the chaos forces!

 

It was an amazing game and very entertaining to play. My opening shots were certainly very lucky and my opponent rather less so due to his failure to kill Sammael with the turbo-laser on the first turn. (Both blasts scattered completely off him.) Although I had almost equally poor luck with my saving throws when I was able to take them. I passed almost none for the first couple of turns and it was only due to the limited number of shots my opponent was able to direct at me that kept me from losing whole units. Super heavies against regular armies is quite tricky but this game, whilst I was very lucky, has relieved me greatly about just how much they skew the game. Make sure you bring plenty of tank busting options, spread them out and you should be fine. Deathstar and super expensive units are not a good idea since strength D weapons are so horribly powerful but ulitimately they are a lot of eggs in one basket and titans like the warhound are remarkably bad in combat. I was really quite shocked that Sammael and the command squad not only held it in combat successfully for 4 rounds but didn't even take more than one wound the entire time!

 

Anyway, I hope people enjoy the battle report and also that this signals a return for rather more regular 40K gaming for me.

[Gillyfish]

Wow, nice work on felling a titan! The write up was suitably cinematic too - I can certainly imagine the bikes avoiding the titan's feet. I also liked the use of hit and run there - very clever.

[march10k]

Wow...gives me hope that "mere 40k kit" can handle knights, if they can handle a titan...someone showed up with an army consisting of five knights (1850 points) in my league last night...my deathwing might be able to handle them...maybe.  Five is a lot, and I'd have to be killing them in melee, where my termies get no save!  Worse yet, the explosion when you kill one off is AP2, so only my thundernators would have a realistic chance to survive even when they do kill one.  Ugh!  Five of them!

[Darkangeldentist]

Thanks for the replies Gillyfish and March10k.

 

I've yet to face any knights and think that, though powerful, they aren't too strong. The slightly more manageable armour values on the front and sides means that more weapons can cause damage and the usual staples have an easier time. They do have quite a lot of hull points but in theory a couple of explodes results on penetrating hits could see one go down in just two hits! Not likely but it highlights the fact that they can still go down quite quickly to a few lucky high power hits. Dealing with 5 of them at once would be a real challenge though.

 

Thinking about your famous land raider Deathwing list March10k I agree that an army of knights causes you serious difficulties since your list doesn't really have enough long range firepower to whittle the knights at range. You can knock off a few hull points with krak missiles but really you need plentiful lascannon or melta shots for a chance to dropping the hull points quickly enough to matter

 

Although it's a trade the deathwing knights can take down one knight pretty reliably with their one turn of superstardom and depending on the size of the unit it could be worth going for a disordered charge to get two at once. You strike at the same time as the knight so everyone gets to swing and they hit and damage reliably enough so that 3-4 knights could quite conceivably take down a full strength knight to a smoking crater, even without the extra charge attack. (8 attacks, 6 hits, so about 3 penetrating hits and 1 glancing. You have a 1 in 3 chance of each penetrating hit causing an explodes result granting an addition D3 hull points.) Hmm... actually thinking about the math 4 knights with only base number of attacks are looking only 50/50 for taking out a knight from full to dead in one round so you'd need a large unit and decent rolls but it does show that even a minium squad charging is more than likely to kill a knight in one round.

 

Not going to be a pretty game but I've been surprised whenever I see knights put on the table for how quickly they go down.

[march10k]

Yeah...T5 and 2+/3++ is nice, but they're still vulnerable to torrenting, and they lose T5 pretty quickly anyway.  It beats not having T5 in the first place, but... I would probably prefer thundernators against knights.  Sure, you lose 1-2 before you swing, but you don't have to finish the job in a single round of melee...plus, any survivors can pile in on the next knight, you'd be surprised how much difference just one more model can make, especially when it's the model with the charmed dice rolls, like a thundernator of mine who survived an entire game after the rest of his squad died on turn two, and in spite of being targeted with every swing the enemy had (being a last man in a purge the alien match).

[Darkangeldentist]

All true.

 

I like the Deathwing knights and enjoy their ability to deal with one tough target well but certainly can't deny that in general play regular thunder hammer and storm shield terminators are better in the long run.

 

My only worry in the matchup against the imperial knights is that thunder hammers aren't all that reliable at bringing them down. You need plentiful penetrating hits to bring them down and regular thunder hammers are only just about to get those penetrating hits. Chainfists are best for this and sticking a single one into a unit is probably the best compromise to help deal the damage and just hope the attrition works out in your favour over the long run.

 

Nevertheless I reckon that pure deathwing could takcle an army of knights but you'd possibly have to tweak your list to help inflict the weight of penetrating hits. Looking at the knight loadouts I'm surprised at how resilient land raiders (particular deathwing vehicles) are to knights at range. With a powerfield generator for a save you could trade shots for several turns with a bit of luck.