Battle Report: 600pts - Crimson Slaughter vs Harlequins

[Lucio]

First up, this is my first attempt at writing a battle report, so appologies if it doesn't flow very well. Hoping to gain some insight by writing these and sharing the experiences will also benefit others.

 

The game was a straight up fight against the local store manager's Harlequins, after getting a rough run down of his force for the sake of fairness (as he's primarily a Chaos player himself), we got stuck in

 

NB: The psychic phase will be omitted in the write up because he failed to manifest a single power all game.

 

The Lists

 

Crimson Slaughter

Chaos Lord - MoS, LC, Bike

5 Noise Marines - BlastMaster, 3 x Sonic Weapon

Rhino with Havoc Launcher and a Combi Plasmagun

20 x Cultists with Autoguns

3 x Bikers - Power Maul, 2 x Meltagun

Predator - Autocannon and Heavy Bolters

 

 

Harlequins

Solitare

Death Jester

Shadow Seer

2 x Jetbikes

2 x Transport jetbikes (no idea on the proper name here)

 

 

Deployment

He wins the dice roll and choses to go first, promptly setting up behind cover and could easily go either way around the centre terrain. My forces are arrayed on the hill, with the Predator and Rhino holding the left flank, the Bikers on the far right, Noise Marines in heavy cover with the cultists left out in the open with huge shoot me now signs attached.

 

Turn 1

His forces break cover to the left, towards the Rhino and Predator. Given his disbelief at the three weapons on the Rhino he's made it his main target, ignoring the more dangerous Predator and Noise Marine squads.

 

 

Unfortunatlely he forgot to measure his shooting when moving and only his jetbikes are in 24" range but manage to inflict 2 glancing hits with haywire launchers. The transport jetbikes turbo boost into cover

 

My retaliation is swift, the Rhino moves to close the range, the bikers move after his lone Solitarie and the cultists run for cover. During the shooting phase the Blastmaster is revealed for the beast it is and kills a jetbike whilst the Predator knocks off a hull point from a transport jetbike with a Heavy Bolter.

 

Turn 2

His lone jetbike, having passed the moral test, moves over to prevent the Predator getting a bead, whilst the 2 transport jetbikes move deeper into cover. At this point the Gods of Chaos show their favour, the jetbike with a single hull point fails his dangerous terrain test, loses his last hull point and crashes. First blood to me!

 

He does however activate Blitz on his Solitarie, which gives it 2d6 movement and 12!!!! close combat attacks which he sends straight up against my incoming biker squad.

 

The Rhino is taken out by the remaining Jetbike and the transport jetbike plus occupants take out the Blastmaster marine and another sonic gun marine.

 

The assault phase is brutal, my warlord is wounded by the Harlequins kiss, and suffers 2 futher wounds from the Harlequins Carress and is killed without striking a blow. My Bikers consolidate in but despite landing 3 hits, score no wounds and after seeing their Warlord cut down, try to flee but are caught and killed.

 

My turn 2 is short of options, I move the cultists towards the Solitarie to get all 20 into rapid fire range whilst the Predator pivots to get all 3 guns lined up on the remaing transport.

 

The cultists were blessed by the gods and after 40 shots, succeeded in inflicting 4 unsaved wounds on the Solitarie, killing it. The Predator was less successful and only managed to knock 1 HP off, so it all came down to the Noise Marines, needing 6's to glance the transport to tie the game. I was lucky to get 2 glancing hits but Unfortunately he had a 4++ save on the vehicle so saved them both.

 

 

At this point we called it due to time, he was ahead 4 VP to 3 and I felt I was in a weak position with only the Predator left to really inflict damage.

 

All in all a good game and I've learnt Harlequins have some evil gimicks to play!

[Xenith]

Yes, they do have some nasty tricks!

 

I think you made a mistake in closing with them. The more ground they have to cover, the more likely they are to fail a charge (although unlikely) and the more time you get to shoot them.

[Kierdale]

A good read, and it sounds like it was a fun battle.

Photos next time, please ;)