DarkAngeal's BATREPS

[DarkAngeal]

Here it is, Brothers, my first batrep-- and I wanted it to be special.

I'm starting to move into the tournament scene, and I am going to be keeping track of my games so I can write reports for you all, and maybe even take some pictures!

Without further ado I will share with you my friendly game from this week with a local group.

 

The special part? This game is Dark Angels vs. Dark Angels.

The lists:

Mine:

Belial (Sword of Silence and Storm Bolter)

Deathwing Knights with relic (5 man squad)

Deathwing Terminators, Cyclone Missile Launcher, 2 THSS (5 Man squad)

Deathwing Terminators, Plasma Cannon, THSS

Venerable Dreadnought, Plasma Cannon

Land Raider Crusader, MultiMelta

Predator, TL Lascannon, Heavy Bolter Sponsoons, Storm Bolter

 

His list:

Librarian, displacer field, ML2, digital weapons, plasma pistol

Deathwing Knights (5 man squad)

Deathwing Terminators, Chainfist, Cyclone Missile Launcher, Assault Cannon (10 man Squad)

Deathwing Terminators, chainfist, Plasma Cannon

Tactical Squad, Plasma Pistol, Plasma Gun, Plasma Cannon (10 man)

Scout Squad, 4 snipers, Missile Launcher (5 man)

Predator, TL Lascannon, Lascannon sponsoons

 

We set up on the battle field with him winning the roll off to go first. I was really happy when this happened, and wrote down that I would deathwing assault turn 2 (to guarantee that I would see his placement before I deepstruck). It occurs to me that he SHOULD have deathwing assaulted turn 1 (assuming he guessed my plan to see his placement first) in order to get a full uncontested turn of terminators on the board, but he didn't.

It was the deployment map along the long board edge (dawn of war?) and he put his predator in one corner, his scouts in some ruins in the middle, and his tactical squad in the other corner with his librarian.

My deployment, I put my land raider (with nothing in it) in the corner as far away from his predator as possible, and hid my dreadnought behind it. I then hid my predator from view of his predator.

Belial joined the Cyclone missile launcher squad in reserve.

 

Opposing Dark Angels TURN 1

The dark angels on his side of the battle field were confused, they had been given orders to fire on a tank that they could see in the distance, but it appeared to be in the colours of the dark angels. Beside it was a dreadnought, and further away they could see the distinctive silhouette of a predator. The tactical squad decided to form up into cover, a wooded hill.

The scout squad could see the heavy armour advancing across the battle field. Knowing that their sniper rifles would be useless against the hulls of the imperial vehicles, they stood their ground in the ruins.

The predator was given orders to get into a position where it could fire on enemy armour, there was a large building blocking its point of view, so it moved flat out to head off its enemies.

Friendly Dark Angles TURN 1

The land raider and dreadnought had been given orders to advance on a tactical squad of marines in a small wood. They had been given information that a member of the fallen had posed as a librarian and infiltrated a small detachment of dark angels. At this point the entire unit had to be wiped out in order to ensure the corruption of chaos did not persist.

The predator consolidated closer to a plateau to take advantage of the cover and remain out of sight of the advancing enemy predator.

The land raider fired its main gun, killing 1 tactical marine hiding in the small wood. Meanwhile the dreadnought sent a ball of plasma into the middle of them, but thanks to the dense trees on the hill only one marine was caught in the blast.

Opposing Dark Angels TURN 2

The tactical squad recovered quickly from being fired upon. They radioed in to the small contingent of deathwing that had come with them to the planet, requesting reinforcement. Almost immediately they smelled ozone and saw the flashes of teleporting terminators. One squad came down on the small plateau, right between the enemy predator and land raider. The other squad was on the other side of the predator, flanking it to hit at the less reinforced side armour. Finally, a unit of deathwing knights phased in between the tactical marines and the enemy land raider.

The teleporting terminators arrived, guns blazing. But despite the heavy firepower that was sent at the predator, there was only one glancing hit on its hull.

Friendly Dark Angels TURN 2

Seeing the teleporting terminators, Belial gritted his teeth, knowing that he would have to personally kill some of his own company, marines that he had personally trained in some cases. But he still ordered the teleport. Belial came down immediately behind the enemy predator, and ordered the other deathwing terminator squad to protect the predator. They teleported in, right on target, and started charging the plasma cannon to be fired. The squad of deathwing knights landed in between the enemy tacticals and the scouts, and immediately started running towards the scouts.

The plasma cannon found its mark, felling 3 terminators out of the 5 it hit. Similarly, the dreadnought plasma cannon killed 2 of the 5 deathwing knights.The predator turned to face the ten man terminator squad on the plateau and unleashed its main guns and heavy bolters, killing 2 terminators, including the one with a cyclone missile launcher on his back. Belial ordered his squad to take down the enemy predator, but 10 storm bolter rounds, and 2 missiles later it still remained, although heavily damaged and with its left track a twisted mess of slag.

Opposing Dark Angels TURN 3

The tactical marines all jumped out of their cover on the hill to persue the deathwing knights that were hunting the scout squad in the ruins. The deathwing knights moved closer to the land raider they were approaching, and the two remaining terminators in the assault cannon squad formed up towards the predator.

A plasma cannon fired from the 10-man terminator squad on the plateau killed every single one of the terminators in the friendly plasma cannon squad..

The plasma from the tactical squad whirred through the air towards the deathwing knights, two falling to the balls of death before the others formed up their shields against the threat from behind.

The snipers also fired their weapons, but the bullets were like peas to the gargantuan armoured men.

The turret on the predator, both sponsoons rotated afull 180 degrees to fire at the terminators behind them, but the two storm shields in front absorbed all the fire without passing harm to those behind them.

3 remaining deathwing knights charged into the land raider, pushing the power fields on their maces to their limit, which caused the maces to slam into the thick armour. Only one hit made it through the armour, but the mace must have hit something critical—the tank exploded.

Friendly Dark Angels TURN 3

Made furious by the explosion of the land raider, the dreadnought advanced on the knights.

Belial ordered his unit to stand their ground, the rear armour of the predator was too tempting to throw away.

The deathwing knights reversed direction, away from the scouts in the ruins towards the tactical squad that had over extended out of the cover of trees, determined to fell the battle brothers that had fallen to plasma fire.

The predator reversed away from the two terminators advancing on it.

The dreadnought fired his plasma cannon at the knights, followed by his storm bolter, but missed wildly.

Belial casually destroyed the predator, leaving nothing but a smoking, battered hull.

The predator tried to fell the two terminators advancing on it, but the shots hit resistance against the power fields built into the armour.

The deathwing knights charged into the tactical marines, the overwatch fire bounced off their armour like so much dirt had been thrown at them. The knight master bellowed a mighty challenge, but when the sergeant stepped up to accept it, he flicked him aside with his shield and set about bludgeoning marines left and right (the hammer of wrath hit won the challenge). The librarian was forced to rely on his displacer field to save him from two flail hits, and found himself teleported far away from the combat. Without his leadership, or the leadership of the sergeant, the tactical squad fled from the combat with heavy losses.

The dreadnought made it into close combat with the knights. Their maces were already drained of power from their assault on the land raider, but they managed to damage the hull of the dreadnought, which picked up one of them in its massive claw and crushed them.

Opponent TURN 4

Things are starting to boil down here, less squads left alive.

The tactical squad regrouped but moved further towards the edge of the board, trying to get away from the large knights that they knew would regroup to chase them.

The scouts stayed put in the ruins, turning to face Belial’s advancing squad.

The deathwing terminators got in position to charge into mele with the dreadnought, and the other squad advanced further on the predator.

Tactical squad fired everything at the Knights, but thanks to their massive tower shields they kept wading forward through the fire.

Scouts fired everything at Belial’s squad, which lost a single terminator, his massive shield tumbling to the ground as a sniper shot flew through his eyepiece.

The terminators both charged their respective targets, killing the dreadnought and blowing up the tank, ripping both apart with their powerful fists.

Friendly TURN 4

Belial’s squad advances on the ruins towards the scouts. The terminator bearing the cyclone missile launcher is keeping his eyes on the enemy warlord though, his hatred boiling over.

The deathwing knights advance on the remaining 6 tactical marines, bitter, knowing that their brothers will be killed for the heresy of 1 man.

Belial orders his squad to fire everything they have at the scouts in the ruins, but most of them come out unscathed, hiding behind their cover. One of them does slump over with a bolt in his chest. The cyclone missile launcher finds another mark though, two powerful missiles streaking towards the librarian, but his displacer field saves him again.

The knights charge into the tactical marines for the last time. They kill one on impact, and drive the rest from the battlefield with their fury.

Opponent TURN 5

The scout squad, rattled by the fire from the advancing terminators breaks for cover, running towards the friendly terminators consolidating around the wreckage of the dreadnought.

The terminators run towards their scouts, looking to protect them. The guns of the opposing force were quiet this turn.

Friendly TURN 5

Belial and his force ran up to fire once more on the opposing warlord, who was teleported from the fire right in front of them. The deathwing knights formed up and walked after the scouts.

Two charges sounded, and two victories, the librarian was killed and the scout squad wiped out.

This marks a 5-6 victory for the friendly dark angels.

 

[Chaplain Lucifer]

Altough similar your list was an edge better thanks to that Land raider. Congrats on the Victory of the "training" game between the two companies. :tu:

[DarkAngeal]

Thank you!

Even though the land raider was a deathwing vehicle though, it was blown up by a single pen. I had him reroll the 6, but he rolled another.

[JGeils81]

Nice write up. Congrats on victory and keep it going!

 

For the Lion and the Emperor

[durdle-durdle]

Altough similar your list was an edge better thanks to that Land raider. Congrats on the Victory of the "training" game between the two companies.

I think that, and that because you took belial instead of a generic HQ here, you didn't need to pay the tax of scouts and tacticals. In a terminator fight, scouts are pretty much just useful for sitting on an objective, and they are really expensive for that role. The tacticals packing plasma were more useful, but other than the heavy and special guy, they are still very "meh".

Did you both know you were going to take DW-esque lists before the game began? i'm seeing a ton of plasma cannons, and most people I know avoid them unless they know they're fighting terminators.

[DarkAngeal]

I just threw a list together and went down to the lodge to play. The other guy put a list together. He knew I was playing DA, but hadn't seen my list or models yet.

[DarkAngeal]

Quick update on a short game today against grey knights. My opponent was running one massive deathstar unit with tigarius, 3 centurion devestators, two librarians, and draigo. There was other stuff in her army too, but it won't matter for this tale.

 

I scout moved sammael up 12, and then moved 12. He fired his plasma cannon at this deathstar unit, and hit 5 of them. The warlord librarian was killed, granting me first blood and slay the warlord.

More stuff then happened, but it's unimportant.

Her first turn she cast gate of infinity, deepstriking her deathstar behind my leman russ squad. But they scattered off the board. So she conceded when the mishap was a 1.

 

I was pretty ticked that she conceded (just kinda lame, I was there to play, not win). But I am sure some more of you have seen this unit (choosing invisibility and gate of infinity to jump around the board destroying things). How do you recommend dealing with it if it doesn't kill itself?

 

There's also a game against Eldar that I will fill you in on this coming week with more details, as well as games tomorrow.

[Loar]

I hate deathstar lists in general. It just creates dumb games most the time, either it is so broken your whole army can't do anything to it and its not fun for you at all. Or it dies like what you mentioned above and the player just quits and poutes. It then leads to list tailoring and oneupmenship in terms of cheese lists.

In terms of fighting against it there is always the culexus. I think one of the most hilarious games I ever played was against a similar grav cent deathstar, no draigo but tig as well lias issodon, literally no way to actually hurt it: in ruins cover that could infiltrate so it had +2 cover save, +2 armor, invisible, and a +4 invulnerable from div from tig, all while getting to start only 18 inches away. I asked ahead of time if he would mind if I added in a culexus as even he knew he was bringing the cheese, he said fine. I already had a caestus assault ram meant for a large deathwing knight squad. The assault ram also had the ignores cover on blasts legacy of glory (for its large blast twin linked metla). I decided to deepstrike them instead and stuck the culexus inside. I got first turn so did my best to try and kill his deathstar as the rest of his forces were all out of range and would be my best shot at shooting them without invis, he rolled well and made all his saves. His turn he buffs up and starts deleting my units. My turn I make my reserve roll and the caestus comes on, it parks itself within 12 and instantly cancels his buffs, no invis or invulnerable. I shoot my large ignores cover blast thats cancels his +2 cover save, his units are super clumped together to all get squished into a smallish ruins peice of terrain that he infiltrated into and so I hit them all, prior to this I also hit them with a rad grenade from black knights, so the cents are at T4 and the rest are T3: I roll to wound and instant death his entire 800ish points deathstar in one shot, the look on his face alone was one of the best wargamming moments of my life, think the scene from the office when dwight is getting fooled by "asian jim". After that he toned down the deathstar and started playing only minideathstars and more diverse but still threatening units, games against him are way more fun now, the whole "eggs in one basket" lists are just a real cancer to the game and once people realize this it makes the game way more fun all around.

I usually tell people to not try and minmax their army/lists like its a videogame, not everyone has the same funds or resources to match up, and the game is not at alll balanced enough to support that, our gaming group now has a pretty universal belief in this and so far with 7th has made the game environment a lot more healthier and fun to play in

[SnakeChisler]

I hate the multiple character from different Dex's type it doesn't really make any sense other than its the cheesiest thing to put out and sponge on any rule you can get hold of and doesn't make for a decent game.

 

If you have a hard counter to someone's deathstar then its short & painful for them as well, I have to say tho invisibility drives it to whole new levels of ridiculousness  

[DarkAngeal]

 

I have a new BatRep for you all, sorry about the lack of pictures.

This was 1850 points, Dark Angels Vs. Tau

I don't know how to spoiler alert a section so here's my army list:

 

Dark Angels Allied Detachment:

1. Belial-SoS/SB
2. Deathwing Command Squad- 2 TH SS, Plasma Cannon, Standard of Fortitude, Deathwing Champion
3. Deathwing Knights- 4+Knight Master
4. Deathwing Terminator Squad- 9+Sergeant, 2 Heavy Flamers, 3 TH/SS, 1 Lighting Claw
5. Deathwing Terminator Squad-4+ Sergeant, Cyclone Missile Launcher, 2 TH/SS

Imperial Knight Detachment:

          Knight Errant

 

My opponent was playing Tau, he had something like:

1. Ethereal
2. Battlesuit commander (irridum battlesuit)
3. 12xFirewarrior
4. 12xFirewarrior
5. 5xPathfinders
6. 5xPathfinders
7. 3x Broadsides
8. Riptide
9. 3x Crisis Suits
10. Tau Tigershark AX1-0

There were some shield drones in there, but I am not sure what unit they were attached to.j Obviously the Tigershark was a huge points sink.

The deployment was dawn of war, which gave the tau a really limited space to set up their gunline in. I got to choose sides, and I chose the side with more ruins, pretty much forcing him to deploy in the open. I won the role for deployment and chose to deploy second. He set up his gunline, near the front of his deployment zone towards the left side of the field. The mission was Emperor's Will, so there was one objective in each of our deployment zones.

My deployment was simple: Belial was with the 10 man squad, and everything was deathwing assaulting. The knight, my warlord, deployed on the corner opposite my opponent's gunline.

 

Here we go, the game.

 

My opponent chose for me to go first since he had nothing to shoot at, and my first turn Deathwing assault went off. Right away, the cyclone missile launcher squad had an 11 inch scatter directly towards the tau gunline, mishapped, and died. First Blood Tau.

 

Belial deepstruck into a risky position right behind the Tau Gunline. 

The command squad ended up in front of the gunline, but the banner bubble wasn't quite in range of belial's squad. 

 

The deathwing knights were separate from everybody else, being deepstruck far over on the left of the field near the tau objective.

 

I really regret my decisions on how I deepstruck for this battle. In retrospect there was a clear path for me to deepstrike next to the firewarrior squad with the ethereal in it, but the hole just big enough for 11 terminators in his backfield had tempted me. The only one that did this right was the Deathwing Knights who were exactly where the needed to be.

 

Turn 1 Shooting: Dark Angels

The Heavy Flamers in Belial's squad flared to life, engulfing the firewarriors in an inferno of irony. The squad without the ethereal in it was wiped out before the storm bolters in the squad could even fire. If one of my squads hadn't already went the way of the dodo, then I would have scored first blood. The plasma cannon didn't have any great targets, they were all very spread out, so it popped off a shot at the firewarrior squad that survived and killed 2 more warriors. The deathwing knights just ran up the field towards the objective. The Knight titan walked up the field a fair distance, and fired a large melta blast into his crisis suits, but it scattered off the table. He also killed a pathfinder with his Heavy Stubber.

 

Turn 1: Tau

The Tau were determined to fight back against the teleporting terminators. First, they scattered away from the landing site like roaches, and were split into two parts. The broadsides, a pathfinder team, and some crisis suits were sandwiched between belial's squad and the deathwing knights. On the other side stood the remaining firewarriors with their ethereal and the squad of 4 pathfinders that the Knight had shot at.

 

The Tau shooting was very concentrated, but thanks to the positioning of storm shields, only 4 terminators fell from Belial's squad, 3 from the command squad (which I forgot to take FNP for) and 1 deathwing Knight.

 

They used their assault move jetpacks to spread out a little more, but still didn't have many options

 

Turn 2 Dark Angels:

Belial's squad advanced on the Broadsides, whose shield drones were in front of them to absorb the awaited impact. The deathwing knights continued forward towards the enemy objective, and the Knight Titan continued towards the enemy riptide.

 

The command squad fired into the ethereal squad with plasma cannon, just the banner bearer and the company champion were left alive. Belial split fire into the crisis squad, and the rest of his squad fired into the broadsides, the flamers felling the drones. My knight titan managed to take a wound off of the riptide with a melta blast and killed one more pathfinder with his heavy stubber. The pathfinders failded a morale check and ran for the board edge, which was unfortunate because my Knight couldn't charge them at that distance.

 

The deathwing knights assaulted the pathfinders, Belial assaulted the broadsides, and the command squad assaulted the ethereal squad. The Ethereal squad took down the banner bearer in overwatch (awkward 1 rolling) but the champion made it in. 1 Terminator went down to the combined overwatch from crisis suits and broadsides, but they made it in, and the deathwing knights made their 2 inch charge as well.

 

Deathwing Knight Combat- 1 pathfinder died to hammer of wrath, and the other 4 were killed by hits from the maces.

 

Command Squad Combat- Killed 2 firewarriors, and rolled a 1 on his armour save. Dead.

 

Belial Combat- The squad had no problem mopping up all three broadsides, since powerfists do instant death to them.

 

The Imperial Knight technically tried for a 11 inch charge, but rolled 2.

 

Tau turn 2:

The Tigershark came on- finally there was something on the table for my knight to be afraid of, and afraid it really was. His firewarrior squad set off towards my objective, and his crisis team dealt 2 wounds to itself through dangerous terrain checks.

 

The tiger shark fired at the knight titan, but he made his invulnerable save. The crisis team fired at Deathwing Knights, killing the knight master (he wasn't doing much anyhow).

 

His pathfinders rallied, and consolidated. And his riptide wounded itself jumping into difficult terrain.

 

From here, the game was pretty clockwork. My deathwing knights managed to charge his crisis squad, and my knight titan wiped out his ethereal, at which point he called it a good game. Even without the CML squad that killed themselves, the deathwing performed admirably.

 

I learned to position my FNP banner better. I should deepstrike it first, and then choose a location for Belial&co. based on where they can get the FNP. The Tau player learned that 1850 is too small a point value for him to realistically play an AX-0 and reformed his list for the tournament we are going to next weekend to exclude the model (there goes the rule of cool).

[Chaplain Lucifer]

That's why I am not a fan of plasma cannons (unless in a devastator squad). Either the opponent spreads out or I roll a abysmal scatter...

As for the game, bad luck with the DS but you were still in the fight.  Good show!

[Isiah]

Yes agreed. Any Deathwing win over Tau has to be celebrated :tu:

 

Nice batrep. Your two flamers did very well. The merits of fielding a 10-man deepstriking unit outweighed the awkwarness of trying to find effective space to try to deploy it.

 

 

Cheers

I

[DarkAngeal]

I am going to a tournament in Vancouver WA this weekend, 1850 points ITC format (or the same format as the LVO is the way they phrased it)

I wanted to bring a fun, fluffy list, so I will be playing my same Knight Errant with 25 Terminators and Belial list. I feel like it should do pretty well with the mission sets that are in the tournament, and I am going to try to do a batrep for each of my games.

[DarkAngeal]

Well, I forgot to bring my notebook to the tournament, so I am going from memory here, I am only going to do one batrep, out of the three games I played, it's the only one I won. I am not doing this because I want to ignore my losses, or pretend they didn't happen, but rather because they were pretty boring and one-sided games. One was against a Spacewolves Thunderwolf star, and the other against an Ork elite list. They were just not what my list was equipped for.

 

The game I will tell you about was against a salamanders drop pod list. The mission was a variant on the LVO mission 2. Primary mission: Purge the alien, second objective the scouring. The diagonal deployment.

 

My list was the deathwing list with a Knight titan, with some changes- I took out the Deathwing champion in favour of an extra THSS, and ran 3 heavy flamers and an assault cannon. The real intent of this list was to be able to use heavy flamers against horde tactics and flimsy alien armour, but against space marines and PARTICULARLY salamanders. All those rerolled armour saves weren’t doing me any favours, but let’s get down to the nitty gritty.

 

We rolled for sides and deployment, my opponent winning the roll, since he was running 7 drop pods, and 2 Legion of the Damned assault squads, his deployment went pretty quickly, only deploying his knight titan (one of the Forgeworld ones) and a Techmarine with a Thunderfire. I deployed my knight titan in some ruins and put everything else in Deathwing assault, Belial with the 10 man squad. We rolled on the maelstrom table, and I got something like the middle objective and the objective in his deployment zone, and he got kill a unit, and something else. I’ll skip to the end of the objective story and tell you that he beat me with something like 8 objective points to 1.

 

Salamanders Turn 1:

 

4 Drop pods entered play, surrounding Jairus, their melta guns all focused on him. They had 3 firing arcs covered, and all the marines piled out, firmly within melta range. The knight titan lumbered forwards up the field, leaving the Thunderfire techmarine relatively unprotected and alone atop a ruin in the corner.

 

The marines advanced out of the drop pods, and immediately opened fire with melta shots. After only a short time of precision targeting, only allowed by their marvelously crafted melta guns, the knight titan fell and exploded, killing several marines in the blast.

 

Dark Angels Turn 1:

 

I was a little devastated at the fact that his alpha had killed my knight titan. I deepstruck my deathwing knights in my enemies deployment zone, behind the ruins that contained the techmarine, and the rest of my force came down in my own deployment zone to try to drive the salamanders out of it. One squad misshaped, but ended up in ongoing reserves, but Belial’s squad came down precisely, along with the command squad.

 

The assault cannon whirred into motion, spitting out shells, 3 of which found their mark in a marine squad. At the same time, storm bolters and heavy flamers torched the opposing command squad, killing all but the banner bearer.

 

The deathwing knights ran towards their target, a techmarine in the ruins.

 

Salamanders turn 2:

 

None of the drop pod squads were dead, but also no reinforcements came in this turn, leaving the marines on the ground to fend for themselves against the twenty or so terminators that had just teleported into their midst. They spread out and fired, as that was the only thing they could do, and took down a few terminators, although in the presence of the banner they seemed to ignore wounds that would easily kill a normal marine. The Thunderfire cannon ignored the advancing Deathwing knights and fired into the midst of the crowded terminators, but their armour seemed impervious to its fire. Meanwhile the hulking knight advanced towards the Deathwing knights, firing it’s massive weapon into them, but only killing one of the stalwart warriors. Then it attempted to charge them, but found itself lacking in momentum to make it to them.

 

Deathwing Turn 2:

 

The Deathwing had largely weathered a hail of fire, and now were ready to close into close combat. I really wanted them to stay there, in close combat, and chose to charge the strongest targets I could find. Belial and his squad chased one squad around the ruins, splitting off from the command squad, while my last terminator squad entered from reserve on Belial’s homer to attempt another bout of torching. The Deathwing knights advanced now in a new direction, towards the knight that threatened them, and raised their shields to be ready for a charge into its hellish fire.

 

Belial lead a charge into one marine squad, and they were carved to pieces in no time at all, the command squad couldn’t make a charge through treacherous ruins into another fleeing squad, and so resolved to fall short. Meanwhile the heroic Deathwing knight charged straight into the knight titan, overcharging the powerfields in their maces to smite it with their entire wrath. With their heroic feat, the monster fell, not managing to inflict any damage whatsoever in return. (If you ask me, this is what Deathwing knights excel at—taking cocky titans off guard when they go into smite mode).

 

Salamanders Turn 3:

 

The remaining drop pods enter play along with one of the legion of the damned assault squads. At this point, my opponent realized that there was basically no way for him to win the primary mission, and had to table me if he wanted victory, as I had only brought 6 killpoints to his 17 killpoints. He landed two drop pods near my deathwing knights, one containing Vulkan. The third came in near Belial and his squad, immobilizing itself on ruins as it entered play and costing itself 2 hull points. The legion of the damned squad chose to deepstrike back near the squad that had been delayed and opened fire on them. They went down to overwhelming melta fire.

 

Belial’s squad was shot at by mostly everything in the army, but their armour held true, only losing one Terminator to the firing. The drop pods that had just entered play focused on attacking the deathwing knights. They fired and fired and fired, felling them one by one. Finally only the knight master stood as the smoke cleared. It was during this fortuitous moment that a sergeant, his bolt pistol yet unfired let loose the round that felled him.

 

Deathwing Turn 3:

 

At this point, I realized that it would be easy to win my primary mission. I started targeting drop pods for kill points, and not paying much attention to the squads that danced around me. Belaial’s squad walked up, situating themselves between two drop pods, and split firing into one of them so it could be a target, while firing the rest of their weapons at a tactical squad. The command squad employed similar tactics.

 

Both charges met no resistance, and 4 drop pods exploded that turn.

 

Salamanders turn 4:

 

 Getting desperate to destroy the last few terminators, the legion of the damned fired at and then charged belial’s squad, while the other legion squad came in and deepstruck near the command squad. Slowly, but surely, the terminators fell. The legion knew that they weren’t falling fast enough though, and charged into belial’s squad. They were slaughtered to the last man.

 

 

At this point things drew on in close combat for a few turns. In the end, the command squad was killed, and only Belial and one terminator with a Thunder Hamer and storm shield stood on the field. It was an incredible and fun battle, but the deathwing emerged victorious in the end.

 

[DarkAngeal]

Moving this post over from the army list side of our forum:

Hello Brothers!

Thank you all for the great advice! I wasn't able to follow all of it, again because the number of models I have and some of them have specific glued loadouts. Here is the final version of what I did run:

 

Ravenwing Attack Squad

Landspeeder Galignis

-Heavy Bolter+Heavy Bolter

 

Bike Squad Raffael

Sergeant Raffael (Combi-grav)

Brother Adam (Grav-gun)

Brother Jaycas (Grav-gun)

 

Deathwing Strike Force

Librarian Kalenius

-ML1, Digital Weapons, Force Sword, Foe Smiter, Terminator Armour

Deathwing Knights

4 Knights

Knight master Boromius

perfidious relic of the unforgiven

 

Deathwing Command Squad

-Company Champion Vindus

-Apothecary Nisi

-Specialist Terbik (Cyclone Missile Launcer, Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield)

-Shieldmate Stalon (Deathwing Company Banner)

-Shieldmate Wortin

 

Deathwing Terminator Squad Ariolo

Sergeant Ariolo (TH/SS)

Specialist Arno (Assault Cannon)

Brother Modec

Brother Imus (2x Lightning Claws)

Shieldmate Oppilo

 

Dreadnought Prometheus

Drop Pod

Twinlinked heavy flamer

Powerfist with built-in heavy flamer

 

There's the list-- yes, everyone is named and labeled at this point-- and I think the changes you all recommended were for the better by far. Solrac was also kind enough to give me some personal advice on the list building and the invaluable tactical advice to deep strike all of your terminators close together. This was a huge help to me, as I have the tendency to try to surround my opponents, thinking this to be a boon. Here are the results:

 

First game vs tyrannids

 

Being a more fun tournament, my opponent brought a fun tyrannid list consisting of a bunch of warriors, and two big tyrannid monsters whose names I still do not know. I kill these things, I don't study them though. Basically what you should know about his list- 3 units of 7-8 warriors with rending talons or S6 18" ranged attacks. 1 big creature with a lot of ranged attacks. 1 Big creature with powerful close combat abilities. One of the warriors squads also had a "sergeant upgrade" of some sort of warrior that could eat things if it made enough of its attacks (4/5 of them?). It didn't do much, because you get an invulnerable save against the eating. Here's how the game played out.

 

Mission: Purge the Alien

Librarian Kalenius rolled mind wipe

His warlord trait was FNP within 3" of an objective. Not useful.

 

I deployed first, pretty wide open map, there was some blocking terrain on my side and a ruin in the corner. I deployed Speeder Galignis in the ruins, and Squad Raffael behind the big impassible terrain. He responded by deploying basically all of his warriors in a lump around his monsters. They had good spacing, but were all gathered still. He didn't manage to sieze, it was night fighting.

Turn 1: my bikers moved up the field to try flanking and getting a good teleport location. Galignis was deployed in a more or less useless position, so just moved over to open up options. Prometheus came down and roasted 2 warriors, the drop pod wounded another.

His turn 1 revealed my mistake. I didn't realize the threat range of his warriors, and they charged squad Raffael. Despite one warrior falling to improved Dark Angel overwatch, the squad was helplessly slaughtered. Similarly, Prometheus was taken down by the shooting of one of his monsters. However, the drop pod (which I really should name) withstood a charge, unbalking.

Turn 2:

Galignis moved further over, and I was careful to keep the speeder out of range of any enemy guns, knowing how fast it could fold to enemy fire despite its rerollable jinks. I decided to keep all of the deathwing in reserves, because I didn't feel like my board position was secure, but later I viewed this as a mistake. Terminators create their own board position, and just because I don't have the right area for a no- scatter deepstrike doesn't mean they shouldn't be there. Regardless, Galignis scored a kill and a half, and the hero drop pod killed the other half of the warrior galignis had fired at.

The warriors finished off the drop pod on this turn, and the rest of the warriors all consolidated again. I had missed my chance to strike while they were spread out.

Turn 3:

I still held my reserves back, moving and firing with Galignis once again.

He consolidated a little more. Null turn. Not sure why I indulged it.

Turn 4:

The Deathwing is summoned. I finally came to the inevitable conclusion that i couldn't get my deepstrike off in no scatter range without loosing my land speeder to overwhelming fire or a charge. So I went for it, scattering only a few inches here and there in ways that actually benefitted me. The Deathwing Knights lead by Boromius and accompanied by Kalenius scattered back into some trees, and were promptly joined by squad Ariolo. Finally Command Squad Vindus landed nearby outside the trees. They all unleashed fire and ran, consolidating the whole force into the trees and scoring a few kills. (Foe Smiter is amazing combined with the twinlinking from deep striking (and later on I would find it combines great with "The Hunt" too)).

His forces gathered and like a storm, raining all of their fire on... the Deathwing Knights? Thanks to their increased toughness and infallible armour the knights weathered the storm and then accepted several charges, as well as the squads on either side of them. Thanks to the cover they had scattered into, the knights struck first, 3 of their 4 strikes instantly killing, and Boromius following up with a kill of his own. Kalenius struggled to score his 1 wound. On the Squad Ariolo side of things, Ariolo himself was in a challenge with the Special Tyrannid character who eats. He was threatened to be eaten, but the storm shield was too much to swallow for the tyrannid monster. The rest of the squad pulped a few Tyrannids, taking no casualties. Storm shields saved all of the rends.

 

I will just sum up the next few rounds of combat by saying-- the deathwing triumphed. Squad Vindus was separated from the rest in the combat and was killed by one of the big monsters. Galignis kept on the fringe of the fight, scoring wounds on the monster tyrannids that forced them to engage in order to avoid the fire.

Mission: Purge the Alien: COMPLETE. (Opponent tabled turn 6)

It's getting late, I will update on the other two games tomorrow.