G-Potato unwittingly recreates the Istvaan Atrocity - Batrep

[God-Potato of Mankind]

Hi folks,

I had a 3,000 point Salamander v Mechanicum game tonight.

You can probably guess the outcome already from the thread title

Salamanders

Legion Praetor - MC Paragon Blade, Mantle, Iron Halo, Zeroth Conductor shield, Covenant of Fire

2x 10 Man Tactical Squads - Combi-melta, artificer, melta bombs and multi-melta rhino

5x Pyroclast - MC Power fist, melta bombs

3x Quad gun - Shatter & incendiary

2x Contemptor Dreadnought - multimeltas

Javelin - MM & oh lordy I forgot to give it HK missiles!

Achilles - MM

Achilles Alpha

2x Predator Magnamelta - AC

Falchion, AC, Neutron wave thingy

Mechanicum

Magos Prime - awful things

Magos Dominus x2

3x Darkfire Castellax, 1 Siege Wrecker

2x Mauler Castellax

2x 3 Thallax - Photon thruster

Lightning - Krakens & Sunfuries

Myrmidon Destructors - Imploder, 3x Irradiation engines - Arvus Lighter, Lascannons

Questoris Knight Styrix - boobgravgun & siege claw

Army shot:

http://i.imgur.com/FNCF91v.jpg

Mission Type: Dominion

Deployment Zone: Ambush!

So I immediately was on the backfoot. I failed to go first, so I got chosen to be in the ambush circle, while he deployed on all sides - up to 6 inches from my units.

So I...stupidly created a "laager" of tanks but failed to protect the front of the Falchion. Unfortunately this further compounded my bad luck and lost me the game before it even started really.

http://i.imgur.com/Efq037F.jpg

He deployed the Thanar and Dakrfire Castellax to the right - I deployed both Contemptors to interdict them.

Turn 1

The rapening begins.

Magos Prime gets a S8 AP3 Armourbane orbital strike. I SEE THE BLACK SANDS OF ISTVAAN WHEN I CLOSE MY EYES.

The rhino takes a hit, the Achilles Alpha is immobilised and the Falchion loses a hull point.

The knight fires it's weapons at the Rapiers, killing a single quad gun.

The knight then charges and plunges a siege claw through the Falchion and it catastrophically explodes, further damaging the Achilles and Rhino.

The Castellax blast and charge the mighty Contemptor, swiftly ending it in a flurry of explosions. The Thanatar throws two blobs of plasma (it got a Cyberthurgy blessing) on the tank circle, but thankfully I rolled some dank saves.

http://i.imgur.com/9jSmDJg.jpg

So a great, game ending start

http://i.imgur.com/gPcLne0.jpg

My might Salamanders react with maximum melta fire. I fire 4 melta shots into the Knight and reduce it to 3HP. Glorious. The quad mortars decide to get involved and smash it into little pieces though. Vengeance is victory indeed. The resulting blast stuns both of my predators, so they're not getting any shots in next turn. Wahey.

The Land Raiders pour fire into the Castellax, I think inflicting 1 or 2 wounds (out of 12, their troop choice has the wounds of my Lord of War, wahey). The tacticals try their best and inflict zero wounds on the Castellax.

The Pyroclasts disembark to hopefully blast some Castellax, but fire their meltaguns and get 2/5 hits and fail to wound.

The remaining contemptor, who will be known forevermore as Hero Dread, charges the Thanatar and inflicts 3 out of 4 wounds needed to kill. Wahey.

http://i.imgur.com/QAway1P.jpg

Turn 2

The Javelin is now very exposed and didn't really do anything to the Knight. Wahey.

The Lightning zooms in, tragically both Thallax and Myrmidons fail to arrive

Mauler Castellax score two penetrating hits on the Javelin, but I roll a miraculous double 6 to save both hits. The Dominus fires his inferno pistol and wrecks the poor lil fella real good.

The Lightning cuts two hull points off a Predator and it dies screaming. it fires two sunfury missiles at the raider, which makes the saves, but the blast kills 4 tacticals and blinds them.

The Darkfire Castellax charge the Achilles and reduce it to 1 hull point. Hero Dread finished the Thanar in glorious close combat.

The Magos Prime fires off his wild and crazy guns and stuns my Predator.

Finally, I can retaliate.

I fire everything at the Castellax. I bring the Darkfires down a few HP, but inflict one wound on the Maulers. He renegared this wound the following turn. Wahey. I launched a melta blast and took out 3 thralls though! Immobilised Achilles can fire one culverin at the Castellax. It has no effect!

My luck takes hold again, my Achilles meltas always hit, but never wounded. Here's the two wound roll. The quad gun never hit more than 50%, it's to hit rolls are below, for your viewing horror

http://i.imgur.com/qkPrxl7.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/5784Na1.jpg

Hero Dreadnought charges the Castellax and with his mighty melta and twin-linked bolter he kills two Castellax and the Magos in maximum Hero Dread fashion. The Praetor realises Hero Dread is stealing his thunder and jumps on the remaining Castellax and cleaves its cybernetica core out like a boss.

Oh and the Hero Dread was blinded by the Photon Thrusters while it was punching them to death. Maximum Hero Dread is Maximum Effort.

Turn 3

The rapening dials up a notch

http://i.imgur.com/0cNuSCZ.jpg

Oh yeaaaah. The Predator dies screaming, the quad guns are reducing to a molten puddle of radioactive goo.

So here we are. All kinds of "Did we learn nothing from Istvaan oh Emperor help us!"

http://i.imgur.com/w4alYfI.jpg

Another round of Mechanicum shooting and the rhinos, predators and tactical are down. The tacticals went down to 10 (out of 30) laslock hits. All of them failed their armour saves. Maximum effort.

http://i.imgur.com/yW6x6zQ.jpg

And so we called the game.

I made a massive error immediately, but even so I felt he had the upper hand from the get go. A heavy armour list like mine was always going to fare poorly in an ambush situation.

I could have ran to the objectives and actually beat him on VPs (Dominion = earn a VP per turn per objective) but I came here to chew bubblegum and kill traitors, and I was all out of bubblegum.

I got some heinous luck, while he regularly made 5 and 6 up invulns.

Also those bloody cyber-occularis are a PITA - he jet packed them into my units so they couldnt move due to the "1 inch" rule, vastly reducing my ability to retaliate while redcing my cover saves and requiring shooting! Oh and they have an actual armour save, apparently, so you can just wipe them with bolter fire as they may actually tank it!

This will be my 3rd 30k game and loss so far. Eventually I will triumph. You will all bear witness to my majesty then! Bear witness I say!

[Marshal Loss]

Being slaughtered seems like a bit of a Salamanders tradition. At least your troops looked good while dying!

[Son of Carnelian]

Hey, looking good while dying is my army's unofficial motto too. Grand work on this report though!

[Lord Asvaldir]

Sometimes you just end up with those games where completely unintentionally your opponent's list seems to be well made to counter yours, plus all the roles o against you. Safe to say that was one of those games, though I'm sure the Salamanders will have their vengeance on those robots. 

[Wolf Lord Loki]

One for the banner pole!!!

 

"mori horribile, dum spectat bonum"