First Game, vs Chaos

[Vash]

So I had my first game with my army. Been waiting this long to field a fully painted army. In all the excitement, I forgot my camera...

 

Anyhow, my first draft army list includes:

 

Watch Company

Captain Artemis

 

Aquila Kill Team 9 members (two assault marines

2 Frag cannon, various minor upgrades

Artemis joins here

 

Aquila Kill Team

1 Frag cannon, 2 terminators, 1 librarian, minor upgrades, beacon of angelis, drop pod

 

Aquila Kill Team

2 Frag cannons, 2 plasmas, 1 librarian, tome, minor upgrades, drop pod

 

Aquila Kill Team

Stalker unit with a librarian

 

 

Militarum Hellrain Brigade

Commisar

Command squad with hot shot volley guns

 

Scions with 2 meltas

 

Taurox with missile launcher

 

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CHAOS CAD

 

Belacor

 

2 psykers on bikes

 

1 Nurgle character guy with nurglins, giving -1 ld army wide on enemy. 

 

Another psyker guy with a torrent AP3 flamer

 

Rhino with basic guys, plasma

 

Bike squad, joined by both biker psykers

 

Chaos Drop pod thing from FW, with chosen marines

 

3 obliberators

 

 

 

It was a really psyker heavy list. And he got "all" the powers he wanted he said. Invisibility two times, summoning power etc etc. There were so many powers I lost count. 

 

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Setup Terrain. 

 

We play on a table with a lot of ruins and some other 5+ cover save terrain pieces. Its pretty much a city fight environment. 

 

He went first with deployment. 

Deployed his obiberators, bikers and rhino on one flank, and Belacor among them. 

The Nurgle unit was in the centre of his deployment zone.

 

On my side I had my Tempestus command in a ruin holding an objective and out of line of sight from his army. 

The Artemis unit stayed behind the ruin with the command, and so did the stalker unit and next to it was the Taurox. And bunkering up from the Chaos drop pod with the torrent Ap3 flamer/chosen, and out of sight and out of range of his Obliterators who would get a power casted on them. Allowing them to see through terrain and ignore cover... 

 

 

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Turn 1 Chaos

 

He deep striked his drop pod next to an objective on my left flank. Putting priority on that one instead of a "death and glory" attack on my units who were all cluster up (there were very few good pots to land and get a decent attack out on them). 

The bikers went for the centre of the battle field. Rhino move along towards the centre. 

Obliterators saw nothing, and could reach anything. So the just moved up

Belacor flew across the table to my clusters units.

 

Psychic phase... invisibility casted on the bikes. 

Belacor tried to scare off my stalker unit from the battle field (they were standing next to the edge), and also succeeded on casting dominate on them. But nothing of interest happened really. 

The Nurgle character guy summoned 10 deamonettes in his deployment zone. 

 

Shooting nothing of note, the deamonettes ran towards the Nurgle unit to protect them from drop pods. 

 

Chaos completed one objective

 

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Turn 1 Deathwatch

 

I came in hot. Putting my self as close as possible to the nurgle unit as possible. The deamon units were the only things pretty much I could take care of in the first turn. The bikers were protected by invisibility, and the rhino was protected by ruins and good placement (a risk for me to go there)

 

I pulled in Artemis and he slingshotted behind the nurgle unit. And of course the second drop pod came in too. 

My psychic phase I casted prescience on the stalker unit. And that was it. My other power were pretty worthless for this fight... bad draws. Cant even remember now, because I didn't use anything except the primaris powers. 

 

The drop pod units and artemis took out all the deamon units. Actually... two units did. And only two frag cannons from each unit handled it by it self!

All the rest were just standing there... 24 models looking at 4 frag cannons guys taking care of all the deamons. 

First blood secured and the -1 ld army wide spread was gone. 

A note here, he had a small theme going on here. Lots of terrify, and ld based stuff. So I felt happy about getting rid of the -1 ld character

 

The stalker bolter unit opened fire on Belacor. Re-roll to hit really helped vs a the flying monster. 

Scored an unhealthy amount of hits, and with the watch company rules I had re-roll to wound too. 

I scored 5 wounds from 18 shots on the flying monster. 

Luckily for him, he made 4 saves on his 4++ (I used no cover save ammo, so he couldn't jink)

 

Next up was the command squad with hot shot volley guns. Scored one hit, and one wound. Belacor jinked, and failed :D So he took another wound. 

 

My first misstake came next. With my Taurox I forgot I had twin-linked hotshot volley gun and a heavy 2 missile launcher. I should have tried to take those shots at Belacor. Because the only thing I could see was the rhino in cover... score one hull point on it though. 

 

So turn 1 saw two deamon units dead, and I completed 2 objectives, and really scared the pants off Belacor

 

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Chaos Turn 2

 

Belacor flies towards my deployment edge next to my stalkers and command squad. 

Chaos drop pod floats towards the centre ruin where an objective is that he needs. Deploys his torrent flamer character. 

 

Rhino moves 6" and deploys its marines. 

Bikers move in closer towards the action

 

Obliterators moves close towards centre too. 

 

Psychic phase... invisibility again on the bikes. Lots of failed powers and minor stuff happened. 

Belacor casted dominate again. And that was pretty much the only thing that effected me. 

 

Shooting, Belacor boosted off the edge. Didn't want to risk another round of shooting from the stalkers. 

Obliterators got the see through terrain power and made three plasma cannon shots at Artemis unit, who were cramped together for a perfect blast opportunity. 

Only one went through though :D And my storm shield couldn't even tank one hit... So I lost 5 guys to that one blast. 

 

Some random shots were made, and a few marines fell. 

 

This turn he claimed 2 objective points

 

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Turn 2 Deathwatch

 

The empty pod came in, and the scions. Scion landed next to the Obliterators, and the pod next to an objective. 

Moved my deep striked (from turn 1) units into a bracing position for the next turns onslaught. 

Moved the stalkers into the Taurox and repositioned them more centrally. 

 

Psychic phase, I used the Fulgurim primaris power with two librarians, and pretty much took out the marins from the rhino. The remaining 2 where shot down by the other marines. 

 

The rhino was destroyed by the taurox. 

 

Scions scored only one wound on the obliterators, due to lucky saves :) 

 

Scored two more points, one hold objective, and destroyed one unit (rhino and marines... needed one more unit to get more points). 

 

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Turn 3 Chaos

 

Sadly we decided this would be the last turn. The local game store was going to close up... 

Bikers moved in for the kill against my veterans in his deployment zone. 

Obliterators turn around and targeted the Scions. 

 

Drop pod moved towards my command squad and deployed the chosen. 

 

Belacor flew in, keeping his distance from the stalker unit. 

 

Invisibility was cast again. I cancelled it once on the bikes, but Belacor was there to back them up with a backup invisibility spell... *sigh* 

 

A lot of shooting for once. Killed 5 marines from one unit with 2 frag cannons. One frag cannon, 2 plasmas, sergeant with shield (not able to tank any plasma hits...) and the black shield died. Funny part was that the black shield died last of them all. 

 

Flamers and boltguns shot down 4 of the command squad. I had gone to ground to survive that attack. 

 

The Scions... well they were burnt to crisp by the obliterators

 

Assault... even with re-roll he failed to assault with his bikes. He needed 8, but only scored 7... So I was lucky. 

 

In the end, he scored 3 points some how. Cant remember the things he did. 

 

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Turn 3 Deathwatch

 

I re-entered my scions, thanks to the formation rules. They deep striked next to the centrally located objective. It was of big importance as it was worth two points for me (2 mission cards pointing it out for various reasons). 

 

My stalkers, riding the Taurox went after the chosen who had killed most of the command squad. 

Now, given is that I am using the rules as written at the moment, meaning I have boltguns and stalker boltguns on my marines in this unit. 

So I deploy, and within rapid fire range. Take out all but one chosen. 

 

One unit of veterans went for another objective, limping towards it with its 4 members remaining. 

The other units made some shot versus the bikes, as there was nothing else to shoot at. Killed two or three of them. 

 

In the end I took 3 points.

 

 

 

Final score

9 - 7 to the Deathwatch

 

After math

Now, if it would continue, I would be in deep derp against the remaining bikers. They were not many, but the invisibility that they had going was going to tip in their favour. 

My stalkers pretty much could walk around my deployment zone undisturbed. He didn't want to go close to them, but I was closing in. 

 

We figured if the game went on, he would slowly win the close combats versus my units, but it would take time. And, if he did, he would forgo hunting for objectives. 

 

 

 

Final thoughts

 

I really underestimated the importance of my Tempestus detachment. 

The Scions, though small, had their purpose. First they put the pressure on armoured vehicles with their meltas. And they can't be ignored due to this. And if they are, they will charge in and perhaps stall a unit or get them self killed in the process. Either way win win for me. 

As they come in for free once they are dead, they can re enter over and over again. 

 

I saw this really good opportunity in this game, and it was when I got two mission cards indicating I should hold the centre objective. Since they died to the Obliterators, I could now reenter and claim the objective. 

 

With this in mind, the deathwatch, with limited units on the board, this is one way of getting to objectives. 

 

The command squad, though it didn't perform super well, is fairly cheap and can dish out a lot of damage. The invisibility and tons of ruins made it hard for them today to do anything. 

 

The Taurox... the ability to relocate the Stalker unit was really good. Its weapons were decent and I am overall happy with the use of it. 

 

Frag cannons... two were enough in this game in each unit. My friend was overwhelmed over its power. He was happy he had invisibility on his bikers, otherwise they would have been toast. 

 

Librarian with divination powers in a Stalker unit. While I didn't get a good power, the primaris proved really useful. Against the flying Belacor it really helped a lot. This is really situational of course, but I felt that a terminator with cyclone missile (similar price) doesn't add the same utility as a librarian.

Overall, the stalker unit didn't really bring back its points in full in this game, but scared the living hell out of Belacor and kept the enemy at bay. 

 

Drop pods, I hate and love them. 

Of course, facing them is not something I like, but using them my self... well then I love them. 

First pod I dropped was to get the Beacon of Angelis up. The other tow pods I used more "tactically". 

The second one to block the direct path to my veterans. This prevented the bikers to reach me in turn 2, and gave him difficulty in turn 3 (as it turned out he failed his charge). 

The third pod I used to claim an objective. As it was empty I didn't really care much for it at that point. 

But... in future games it will be used as a blockade for my small force. Either to shield me off, or to close the enemy escape paths.

 

 

[Vel'Cona]

Drop pods, I hate and love them.

Of course, facing them is not something I like, but using them my self... well then I love them.

Nice batrep! Right there with you on DP though, they're so good but it sucks on the receiving end.

[Vash]

Thanks mate. Hasty bat-rep, but helps me analyse the game to vent out what I experienced. 

Next time I am hoping to get photos and perhaps a video up and running. A video will be presented when I battle someone with a fully painted army. 

[Prot]

Firstly, thank you Vash for doing an actual Batrep. I find it a little disappointing so few people are playing their Deathwatch, or at least reporting about it. While I don't report all my games, I do try to post about one up a week....

 

I think your match up is a good case scenario for the Deathwatch capability in dealing with an Elite, non-formation empowered opponent. At the same time it does show my own experience of having a bit of trouble with a 'good' psychic army. (The 'great' psychic armies are a big issue.)

 

I like your approach with the allies. I'm thinking Skitarii... something that can spam, but I am really reluctant to ally.

 

It's really too bad your game ended there, it seemed like it truly would have come down to those final moments, and they could have been epic!

 

It was a very enjoyable read. Thanks very much for doing a batrep!

[Vash]

Firstly, thank you Vash for doing an actual Batrep. I find it a little disappointing so few people are playing their Deathwatch, or at least reporting about it. While I don't report all my games, I do try to post about one up a week....

 

I think your match up is a good case scenario for the Deathwatch capability in dealing with an Elite, non-formation empowered opponent. At the same time it does show my own experience of having a bit of trouble with a 'good' psychic army. (The 'great' psychic armies are a big issue.)

 

I like your approach with the allies. I'm thinking Skitarii... something that can spam, but I am really reluctant to ally.

 

It's really too bad your game ended there, it seemed like it truly would have come down to those final moments, and they could have been epic!

 

It was a very enjoyable read. Thanks very much for doing a batrep!

Thanks mate. 

I usually do battle reports, and they are usually accompanied with pictures and home made overview schematics of the battle field. But this game, as said, was to short, and I forgot my camera :(

 

The allies at first hand was a "filler" to get an army up and running fairly fast. But the benefits from the formation proved very useful. 

I was worried about the survivability of the Taurox, but vs an elite army, he had little interest in it. 

 

While it didn't really bring back its points, it did provide some tactical use. 

 

1. I could "protect" my units starting on the table against his "drop pod". This by using ruins and closing some unwanted gaps with the Taurox. This forced him to drop fairly far away from me, and made him go for objectives instead with his chosen marines unit. 

 

2. Blocking line of sight. Moving up the Taurox in my turn infront of my stalker team provided them some line of sight blocking versus his drop pod and units inside, and yet again forcing my opponent to relocate to something else. 

 

3. Transport for my Stalker Team. Now, given that I used the Stalker Pattern Boltgun/boltgun combo (which might/probably willet FAQd away), I could use the transport in turn 2 to relocate my unit, in preparation for turn 3. 

This actually forced him to attack my Tempestus command squad in his turn 3, as he couldn't reach anything else of value, and he needed to wipe out one unit for one of his missions (went to ground with them so they didn't get wiped out). 

This in turn led to an counter attack from my stalker team who could reach them (or another potential target) and take them out in return. 

 

4. While I didn't get to use it this game, I could easily block off paths to counter close combat units. As it is a fast vehicle, it can move at combat speed and still fire its weapons. If the game would have continued, I think this would have come in effect, to shield off my deep striking units from his bike unit. 

 

 

 

I'll try to get another game once I get home from a short work round. Wife is working a morning shift, and kids are at school. So I should be able to find an opponent for a game while they are busy :)

 

Thanks again for reading.