Objective Secured! First game with 7th ed Deathwing

[Cactus]

Yesterday I played my second game of 7th edition, which also my first time using Dark Angels with the new rulebook. Hopefully you can glean some wisdom from this abbreviated account of my mistakes.

We arranged a four player game; two armies of 1500 points on each side. Our host said "Just bring stuff you want to try" and I wanted to try the venerable scoring land raiders so I took this:

Belial with the Sword of Secrets

Brother Jubanal - techmarine with servo-harness

Squad Matthiel - 6 Deathwing terminators with cyclone, chainfist and 3 thunder hammers riding in...

Land raider crusader with Deathwing vehicle, multimelta, extra armour and a dozer blade

Squad Gabriel - 5 Deathwing terminators with assault cannon, chainfist and 1 thunder hammer riding in...

Land raider with Deathwing vehicle, multimelta, extra armour and a dozer blade

Whirlwind

We chose sides randomly, which saw me paired with Jim's filthy blue fishmen tau against Andrew's Chaos marines and Josh's counts-as Ultramarines.* In the interests of having a reasonably fair game we ignored the penalties and restrictions from the allies rules. More random rolling saw us set up diagonally for a Cleanse and Control, mission 1 of the new Maelstrom of War.

Highlights and lowlights:

Mobility is obviously important for achieving most tactical objectives, and this also opens up a secondary role for armoured vehicles and transports. After my land raider delivered squad Gabriel I used it to claim or contest whichever of the two nearby objectives we needed at the time. Andrew's predator did a similar thing, forgoing a turn of snap-shooting (crew shaken) to drive flat-out for a tactical objective. Jim's piranhas were flitting about between objectives, as you would expect, and even Josh's whirlwind forged a path through a forest to earn a victory point.

I'm looking at librarians, and even watchers in the dark, in a whole new light. Two 3rd level Chaos sorcerers with telepathy and biomancy rerolling all failed psychic tests, and a 2nd level librarian who's dice were cursed, really did a number on us. However they were casting a lot of powers with one success on the psychic test and a few +1s would generally have doubled our chances of denying the witches. With only D6 dice in our pool we couldn't hope to stop the powerful powers cast with two or three warp charge so we trusted to luck and tried to roll a six against each one pointer. After Squad Gabriel wiped a scout squad off an objective in turn one they were roflstomped by a blizzard of terrify, dominate, psychic shriek, enfeeble, smite and haemorrhage. A librarian would probably have contributed more to the battle than the whirlwind (tally from 4 shots = 2 Chaos marines), and there was space for him in the crusader.

No guts, no glory! But don't forget to check your six. Bold moves to score points where available are highly recommended. Not only they fun and dramatic but our victory hinged on the 'hold all six objectives' card on turn three. Belial and his squad did what they do best, destroying the last few cultists with storm bolters before hammering the librarian and his command squad into the ground to take an objective. They swiftly suffered the same fate as squad Gabriel when two sorcerers rounded the corner, but holding that objective scored 1 VP and contributed to the tactical objective that earned us 5 VPs, plus another 2 for the Deathwing's warlord kill. We had to call it after four turns but the score stood at 9 VPs for the honurless traitors and 19 VPs for the noble Dark Angels and xenos scumbags.

The invincible Deathwing land raiders naturally fell short of their hyperbole. The crusader exploded when a dreadnought punched it, while the other survived a close encounter with a predator armed with all the lascannons. However scoring land raiders that can only be denied by another unit of Troops. That's a think of beauty and I want to do it again. I wouldn't fancy my chances with this army in a solo 1500 point game because I had too few units to be able to deal with up to six different locations effectively, but as an element of a larger force one or two land raider bully-boy units look good to me.

Is that the time? Goodnight all.

*Josh's steel, black and red colours are partly inspired by the Guardians of the Covenant, and he uses the Dark Angels chapter badge "because it looks cool". Should I be suspicious?

[Chaplain Lucifer]

Thanks for the battle report. We forgive your alliance with xenos only because sometimes dire situations demand dire alliances. Good job on the win. Give those SuperScoring Land raiders more oportunities. They're a wonderful piece of kit.. :)

[SnakeChisler]

Brilliant sounds a lot of fun with lots going on and thanks for taking the time to report on here your experiences with the new 7th missions & rules

[Tanhausen]

Nice reading, thanks for sharing your thoughts and impressions :)

[SvenONE]

Wait, how did a Dreadnought manage to explode a landraider? he penned and roll a 6 twice!?? Omnissiah why have you forsaken such a holy vehicle!

[Cactus]

He penned twice, rolled a 2 and a 6, re-rolled the 6 and got a 6. I seem to lose a Deathwing land raider every other game, which for a roughly 1/36 chance feels about right.

 

Thanks for the comments.