Prot Posted July 7, 2015 Share Posted July 7, 2015 I deviated a bit to the Strike Force Ultra. But tonight was a game using the Gladius + 1st Co again. This time I felt really like I was trying to fit too much into the list and even at 1850 I had trouble getting anything.... 'meaningful' for wargear running. It was an experiment trying to wedge in a proper Gladius with Sicarius + LibCon + 1st Co in the form of 5 Sternguard with Melta/Heavy Flamer, and 2 termie squads. The opening turn I realized as I put Tiggy's LibCon in a pod with Sicarius, and the Sternguard that the cost of this pod was... immense!!!! It was a MASSIVE gamble, but I deepstruck into the heart of the enemy Nid line... he had named a Melanthrope as his Warlord and as such I thought I would try for a first turn Warlord Kill, plus I had drawn a Maelstrom for killing stuff in the shooting phase.... Literally, this was one of the longest contemplations I've had in a game. Usually I know my turn moves well before it is my turn... not this time. This was so risky, and I knew even IF I was successful, I was essentially throwing LibCon/Sicarius/Sternguard into the wolf's den for sure. But he had left some space back there. He had a lot in reserve so with an aggressive deployment he gave me too much room... too tempted by the early big kill, I went for it.... The Pod bumped into his Melanthrope and the Ultra's poured out. Tiggy right away fired off the Deny Cover... he actually Denied it!!! D'oh!!! This changed a lot for my thinking, but I went ahead with the Tactical Doctrine as I got off Prescience anyway, and I took a 4+ invuln save, as well as the full BS overwatch /counterattack skill. I decided on Poison rounds, and went to town on the HQ, it took everything to get him to fail his cover saves.... but he went down, giving me 2 VP's right there. Also I had that linebreaker style objective so it gave me more points to have multi units in his zone. He was so aggressive, he put his Flyrants on the board, so since they weren't flying/zooming yet, I had my Centurions take a 24" shot at him... they couldn't quite kill him with Jink. BUT nearby I had an infiltrated Grav Cannon squad that finished the job. 2 Massive kills in the opening sequence. I netted myself a pretty darn high tally of points for those various moves, giving myself 6 VP's in turn one in total. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ He comes at me... big time. Brings all that he can, flies over me with his other flyrant which tried a psychic power... Psychic scream? Very strong ability that does the 2D6 + 2 minus leadershp = wounds with no saves/cover. I passed the test easily (luckily) and my opponent Perils'd! Wow, he rolls a 6 on the chart though, and becomes a mini-god of Nids for the turn. Thank the Emperor he was flying and could not assault me! He had a hovering flyer... I always forget the name.... with the missiles.... anyway, that and about 30 Hormagaunts come at me. Incredibly with the Prescience, and counter attack I do extremely well, but I feel lucky has his wound rolling isn't there. I take it with a grain of salt. It is a stellar turn 1. Turn 2 I come in with 2 Termie sqauds, and one bounced back into reserve, while the Tacticals put a hurt on a single Zoanthrope to get rid of some more Psyker dice to give Tiggy some breathing room. I have my stuff deep in my zone re positioning to get more victory points off of objective points but I don't draw any of those cards.. instead I get stuff that is mostly doable but I am discarding stuff like "issue a challenge" which is nearly useless. By turn 2, I make enough psychic passes, and kill enough in shooting to get another whopping score of 5, bringing me to 11 in two turns.... I felt bad. Truly as this point without one flyrant, and his HQ Melanthrope he was in a huge hole. I have to hand it to him though he carried on and while I was content to stop counting points, he insisted. So I did.... He did have an incredible turn 3 though: + eventually I get out of the drawn out combat from the Hormagaunts with LibCon/Sternguard and Sicarius, but just barely.... + He hits them with a ton of twin linked firepower, even with using the Look Out Sir goofiness to my best advantage, it's just too many wounds. All the Sternguard die in shooting, as does Sicarius and even Tigurius!!! I rolled horribly, to balance my initial turns of good shooting. + He gets off his last Flyrant zooming over my Centurions, and a 10 man infiltrating squad with a Grav Cannon AND 5 Assault Terminators which just came on the board.... he hits all of that with Psychic Shriek. Wow... I lose a centurion, 4 Tacticals including the Grav Cannon! And one Assault Terminator! To add insult to injury, the remaining Tacticals run 11" off my table edge.... obviously a tactical retreat to get some coffee at the local mall.... pffff. + He has his Carnifex shoot up more termies, gaunts hit up the 2 last Centurions... I am sort of surprised how much gets hit hard this turn. + the last Centurion has seen enough. I position the Assault Terminators around the Shrieking flyrant, and Shoot at him... he jinks, I need 6's but I called out the Dev Doctrine, and managed to land 2 wounds on him. He fails both saves, crashes to the ground, the Assault Terminators lose one of their number, but the Hammers in the squad are... tenderizing the meat for tonight's cook out! + At the end of my turn 4, I finally get the first two objective marker cards I've drawn in the game, and score 15 points total. He does a good job himself of getting a few points in his turn 3, but it's far too wide a margin. He concedes. I congratulated him on playing through the tough game, and complimented him on his comeback but he kind of disrergarded it. I reminded him how different things might have been since I had that huge risk 1st turn which hit him very, very hard. I think he might have even won that game. He uses an unorthodox list, with lots of those floaty things that recycle... He says he hates them, but I remind him how much I hate shooting at them since they give no VP's up, and they can recycle. He uses smaller spore mines too... combined all the spore mines are very annoying and the big ones are like a battlecannon round blowing up on you. He still seemed annoyed, and cited his Flyrants as being overpriced.... the thing is if I'm playing against this army, I can't really get anything going in the air with his 3 flying MC's he pretty much dominates it, and even after jinking, I count he averages about 8-9 wounds on me when he shoots.. Regardless, he also had some bad luck, and I guess he was pretty good about how things went so horribly in the opening rounds. This might be one of my better 1st Co assisted Gladius style lists, but it felt 'thin'. But still a very flexible list, with a good showing. It's hard not to enjoy the pure feeling of the Gladius being so thematic for Ultra's. Is it the best? Probably not, but I like being 'forced' to use so many tacticals, and the Auxilaries may not be min/maxed, but they can work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frater Cornelius Posted July 7, 2015 Share Posted July 7, 2015 Good game. Mind putting up the full list of what you used? Trying to get an overview here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prot Posted July 7, 2015 Author Share Posted July 7, 2015 Sure... by memory it was pretty basic stuff: Sicarius w/ LibCon featuring Tiggy in a pod with... 5 x Sternguard with Combimelta + Hvy Flamer (1 part of my 1st Co formation) 5 x Termies w/Cyclone 5 x Assault Termies 10 x Tacticals with flamer (ran out of points) and Grav Cannon w/Vet Sarge w/PwrSword 10 x Tacticals melta/combi melta Pod 5 x Tacticals 1 Missile 1 x attack bike MM 3 x Grav Cents on foot I think that's it at 1850. It has a little too much locked up into the main pod squad for my tastes, but the psyker protection is too important to me and only with the LibCon can I defend against it.... or ignore it entirely (which has not gone well.) Obviously I am spending 3 turns flipping through the Tactical Doctrine to make this list feasible. But this is my third game with 1st co, and it's really grown on me as my typically bane is Close Combat... not so much with 1st Co Auxiliary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chaplain Lucifer Posted July 7, 2015 Share Posted July 7, 2015 Question: Couldn't you DarkAngel-it better? ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prot Posted July 7, 2015 Author Share Posted July 7, 2015 Question: Couldn't you DarkAngel-it better? That's the problem.... I have been -decimating- people with my DA. I had to put them away. I feel like some people were just starting to groan if they saw a ravenwing or deathwing model. But hey, haven't you heard? The DA codex is horrible! Horrible! That's the word on the street! haha.... It's so horrible, my opponents cringe when they see it! But yea, on the Gladius, I know the Lion's Blade works just as well, but the Wings are so strong that I feel the Gladius is a very 'ultra-ish' feeling Detachment. Could I do it better with Lion's Blade? Perhaps.... I won't take anything away from my Tactical re-rolls, but the DA have more options which I prefer instead of Lion's Blade (just personal, because the 'other options' that DA have aren't even really an option for space marines.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chaplain Lucifer Posted July 7, 2015 Share Posted July 7, 2015 Thanks Prot. This reply will be very useful. :) Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frater Cornelius Posted July 7, 2015 Share Posted July 7, 2015 Question: Couldn't you DarkAngel-it better? That's the problem.... I have been -decimating- people with my DA. I had to put them away. I feel like some people were just starting to groan if they saw a ravenwing or deathwing model. But hey, haven't you heard? The DA codex is horrible! Horrible! That's the word on the street! haha.... It's so horrible, my opponents cringe when they see it! But yea, on the Gladius, I know the Lion's Blade works just as well, but the Wings are so strong that I feel the Gladius is a very 'ultra-ish' feeling Detachment. Could I do it better with Lion's Blade? Perhaps.... I won't take anything away from my Tactical re-rolls, but the DA have more options which I prefer instead of Lion's Blade (just personal, because the 'other options' that DA have aren't even really an option for space marines.) ...Are we looking at the same books? I am sorry for being a negative-Nancy here, but I am just making sure I have not missed something. I would love to play against a good Dark Angel player, but alas, there are none here. What I took away from my games was 'SM does it better'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prot Posted July 7, 2015 Author Share Posted July 7, 2015 Well I'm playing against 10 or so of the same armies with both books. Just go with your heart Immersturm. ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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