1850 mechanized deathwing batrep

[march10k]

So I had an...interesting game tonight.  The FLGS told us in advance that we would play purge the alien, but to expect a twist on arrival.  Now, knowing it was purge, I went with not quite something I would field in an all-comers situation, my mechanized deathwing:  Belial, a techie with servo and pfg, 2x5 thundernator squads, and a knights squad, mounted in two crusaders and a mars pattern.  My opponent turned out to be grey knights with raukan allies.  Why Raukan?  Better storm talon, some scouts, and dirt cheap TDA librarian.    Anyway, he also had coteaz, some assorted henchmen, a vindicare, shunting GKs, a dreddy, and five pimped paladins accompanied by a TDA inquisitor and a GKGM.

 

The twist was that only the three most expensive units on each side of the table were worth VP....Holy guano, robin.  It was a mixed bag.  I hit three homeruns, since he needed to kill a 4++ deathwing land raider AND the storm-shield-rocking squad inside it to get credit...times three.  On the other hand, his paladinstar was worth seven points, three for the squad, the GKGM was his third most-expensive unit, and then the TDA inquisitor was his warlord.  And...the other target was his storm talon, with me lacking anti-air.  

 

Since his paladins had both an apothecary and a warding stave, I was kinda stuck..shoot them, and they generally get a 2+ followed by FNP, and two wounds per model (minimum).  Assault them, and the warding stave model tanks pain until it fails a 2+.  So my best option was the godhammers on the mars pattern land raider....  But I didn't want to blow off first blood, warlord, and linebreaker, so...I rushed his deployment zone, thinking he'd come after me with the paladin star.  I wasn't too thrilled, I know it only takes one failed 2+ and then they go down hard, but with my dice?

 

Well, he outflanked the paladin star into my deployment zone and hid out of LOS.  I got first blood torrenting his vindicare with a crusader, then torrented a couple of meaningless henchman squads (hey, no credit for the kills, and they were no threat to AV14, but they were there)

 

He evantually blew up one of my land raiders (I #$^%$& forgot to use the deathwing vehicle rule to make him reroll the 5 he got with his flying multimelta....&^(*&*@*$*!!!!!!!!), and later killed two termies from the squad inside, I killed coteaz to shut him up (he tried to cast psychic shriek at me!), tried to charge his dreddy to preempt a charge against another land raider, coming up an inch short, the dreddy stripped it down to its last HP, but basically whiffed.  The shunters psychic shrieked my knights (who had failed their charge) for zero wounds, then charged...bad idea, it was the bottom of turn seven, so of course they popped smite and vaporized the PAGK.  That was game...I had first blood and linebreaker to his first blood, I killed seven GK, about a dozen henchmen, a vindicare, and Coteaz.  He had linebreaker and killed one crusader and two termies.  Really lopsided, but it would have been far worse for him under normal purge the alien rules, I would have won 7-2 instead of 2-1.  Of course, I would not field this list unless it was for sure a KP game instead of an objectives game...good times were had by all!

[Isiah]

Excellent. I like different homebrew comp rules - they add a little extra. Great result with an infantry-lite list :tu:.

[march10k]

The surprise twist that only the three most expensive units were worth VP was unexpected...obviously, having to kill a power fielded deathwing vehicle land raider PLUS the stormshield toting terminators inside is a tough way to earn three points, but then again, so is killing a flier without skyfire and so is chasing an outflanking deathstar worth seven VP around the board (are deathstars supposed to run away from you?  LOL), which is why neither of us managed any scoring kills.  

 

Actually, I was expecting the hobby master's surprise rule to somehow punish unbound lists...after all, if you're playing purge the alien, why not just drop three baneblades on the table with an evil laugh?  That kind of happened...one guy had one baneblade, and then about eight assorted leman russ variants lined up behind an ADL.  He got matched up against some poor guy with a cultist horde list...

[Prot]

Interesting read. I don't know Grey Knights that well. I usually only play them in tournaments since none of my local buddies play them, but I have read the horrors of massed Daemonology lists. (Sanctic) I guess he didn't bring that to the table.

 

In his list, what was the greatest threat to your LRs?

[march10k]

No contest...nothing was any threat at all except for the storm raven...twinlinked multimelta and twinlinked lascannon...the multimelta blew up one land raider, but mainly because I forgot that deathwing vehicle would let me force a reroll of the five that he got on the pen table.  And even so, it wasn't much threat, since it couldn't afford to go into hover mode, meaning that it only got to shoot me on turns 2, 4, and 6, flying off the table into continuing reserves on turns 3 and 5.  He really didn't have the tools to handle multiple land raiders.  The power field generator in combination with deathwing vehicle would have put things entirely beyond his reach if only I'd remembered deathwing vehicle.  I would have survived the game without losing a single model in that case!  (as it is, I lost the land raider and two termies, lol).  A penetrating multimelta usually has a 33% chance to explode, but with deathwing vehicle, that goes down to 11%.  Tack on the power field generator, and it's 5.6%.  For a penetrating hit from a multimelta...that's beastly.  The only real threat to my tanks is D weapons and massed chainfists.  Anything else is usually limited to a hull point if it can do anything at all.

 

/edit/I'm not really a believer in massed santic.  It's not that devastating against anything other than daemons.  The beauty of GK witches is that they're not forced to use santic.  I see it as more of an insurance policy than anything else.  Playing daemons?  Roll santic and beat them down.  Playing anyone else?  Divination or telepathy.  

 

I really like GK as allies in ANY loyalist list for that very reason.  Sure, you can get a primaris psycher with ML2 in your guard list for 75 points.  The thing is, he's squishy as hell and he'll kill himself if he tries to use santic (or malefic, for that matter) powers.  On the other hand, a GK librarian with ML3 is a better psycher to begin with, and doesn't have any issues casting santic powers...and to field him, you pretty much have to take a squad of superscoring marines with the BoS rule, force weapons across the board, and stormbolters to boot.  Did I mention that they deepstrike, too? That's not really a tax, IMHO, it enhances any list it touches.  While you're at it, why not a razorback with a psycannon as a dedicated transport...run it empty, it's a superscorer with a decent gun that generates an additional warp charge.  The whole package is around 450 points for all the psy you'll ever need in a list that doesn't sell out to the psychic phase (5+D6 is plenty for 1-2 powers per turn, maybe 3 if you're lucky), and the points cost is offset by the fact that it gives you a pair of superscorers, which means you can afford to take two fewer in your main list and still arrive at the same outcome.