Prot Batrep: Thousand Sons Vs. Astra+Scions 2K pts (Pics)

[Prot]

I thought it was time to put a batrep up. I have been playing a lot... with lots of armies too, and trying to get a feel for where I really like in 8th. I've resisted using Magnus only because I wanted to get a feel for a lot of the Thousand Sons units. That said... Magnus is in this game.

Let's get right into it...

The Game:

2000 pts, Maelstrom

Astra Army:

HQ: a couple of LT's from Astra and Tempestus Scions- Cadian HQ dude with all the orders + Commissar with Conscripts

Tons of tanks

Punisher,

Demolisher,

2 x Basilisks

2 x Hellhound (can't remember but they were both flame tanks)

Chimera

2 x Valkyrie flyers

15-20 Conscripts.

Lots of dudes...

Sniper Assassin - Vindicare

Tempestus Scions - 3 x special weapon squads (deep striking) and their HQ.

Thousand Sons:

Magnus

2 x Exalted Sorcs

10 Rubrics, Soulreaper, 1 flamer in a Landraider

Baledrake

Helbrute Las/Missile

20 Tzaangors

5 Scarabs

Baledrake

Thousand Sons Deployment:

+ Magnus knows how the small minded mortals of the Imperium think, and he boldly deploys front and center (plus as a massive peacock from hell let's be honest, he can't hide. +

I have far less items to deploy than the heinous loyalist.... so I get to go first. The Astra/Tempestus do not seize.

EARLY GAME:

- Thousand sons pull an objective card that forces my Warlord to actually accomplish the objective... it turns out to be a an objective deep in the Astra zone, high on the east side of the board. Magnus sends a psychic pulse to the Baledrake, they will rendezvous deep in the enemy zone to take the point.

- Tzanngors advance, the Landraider fires off las shots and pulverizes a Hellhound granting first blood. The Tzaangors run/advance, and the Exalted Sorcs stay hidden amongst their ranks. The Helbrute fails to hit on any shots.

- The Scarab Occult drop in front of the Leman russ Demolisher - their psychic attempt does one Mortal wound to the the tank. They would charge, successfully, but fail to do any damage to the tank, but prevent it from shooting.

- Magnus fires off some Psychic mortal wounds, but does extremely little to the squad of Astra with autocannon.... Magnus does very little here, but with the Baledrake they now threaten the Vendetta. Magnus must stay back, but the Baldrake smells the fear of the Valkyrie pilot and surges forward for a T1 assault...

+ High in the Eastern board flank, a view from the Astra Militarum pilot's cockpit. #84 probably needed an air sick bag after seeing the terror unfolding in front of him. +

- The Baledrake 'flames' the Astra in front of Magnus but again, only 1 wound. But the Drake does clash with the Valk and causes a few wounds.

+ Astra draw a card they can't accomplish. We houserule cards that are impossible to accomplish from T1 on. He re-draws but needs to grab an objective on my side.

+ The Astra unload all their Scions..... Did Magnus see this coming? Perhaps, but the Goatmen will have to fend for themselves on yet another hostile world with no edible grass.

+ Tempestus Scions unload... the Helbrute is caught unaware and is easily destroyed. The Tzaangor are vaped between the Scions and the Valkyries zooming overhead.+

- The Exalted Sorcs somehow evade the carnage and watch their Tzaangor disappear. More Tzaangor take casualties in the Ruins however several saves are made.

- The Astra largely ignore Magnus and the Landraider.

+ The Exalted Sorcs direct the Rubrics to disembark, while they advance on the Tempestus Scions. The Tzaangor lives will be paid for in blood!!!+

- The Exalted sorcs do suprisingly little for Mortal wounds. A large volume of fire power from the Rubrics hit the Scions, but they do not break. It would take a full out assault to break the corspe god slaves. They fought bravely and while the Exalted sorcs finished their squad, the Rubrics would be stuck in for 2 turns of close combat!!!

- Scarab Occult fires of baby Smite and does 1 wound to the tank which keeps retreating, his squad is largely diminished as an Astra squad keeps picking them off.

- The front lines threaten to collapse... masses of tanks are taking their toll on the last of the Tzaangors. The Baledrake continues to flame the Conscripts but their loses are not notable. The Baledrake continues to terrorize the Valkyrie but with very few wounds.

- This puts a lot of pressure on Magnus. He soars across the lines of Astra and smashes into a Basilsk, punching a hole through it.

- The Landraider failed utterly to hit anything.

- Astra valkyries continue to fire, now the Vindicare takes aim on Magnus but fails to hit. The Conscripts destroy most of the Tzaangors, and finally my Rubrics kill the last of the Scions.

+ Magnus collides with the second Basilisk. He is destroying the ordnance one vehicle at a time while the Tzaangor fight ferociously to keep the blob of Conscripts engaged. +

- The Punisher kils what it can. Line of sight is hurting the Astra a bit, but everytime the Thousand Sons break mid-table the Astra punish them with a hail of bullets.

- Magnus finishes the Basilisk off, and the Landraider tries unsuccessfully to take down one of the Valkyries. The Scarab Occult fail to do much to the Demolisher tank but the surrounding Astra are picking away at the Terminators, until they are destroyed.

- Thousand Sons get a few points in this turn and it becomes obvious the Astra need to get a few objectives this turn if they hope to succeed...

- Astra pulls a double point Defend objective card. They fly a Valkyrie over, and a Hellhound to secure the objective.... but the Thousand Sons still have options.

+Magnus soars over the backlines of the Astra. The Conscripts look on in horror, as they watch the Primarch slam into a Valkyrie in mid flight. +

- Magnus rips the flyer out of the sky preventing the point score. Meanwhile below the Exalted Sorcs have lined up with the Hellhound and jointly Smite it to death.

It becomes obvious that the Astra cannot hope to win at this point. But for the heck of it we continue with the bottom of the Astra turn, and just for interests' sake he fires everything at Magnus, and he dies... just dies... and I remember to use a command point, and save the last D2 wound to prevent Magnus' death!

[Archaeinox]

Great report- I will read it again later with a beer and when I can look at the pics better

 

Thanks, man.

[Captain_Krash]

Wait...no pivotal moment picture??? What Hersey is this???

 

Glad to see your back at it!! Missed your reports

 

Krash

[Skerr]

Thanks for sharing Prot! Wow Magnus was sure key. If you would not have taken Magnus what would you have taken in his place?

[Prot]

Great report- I will read it again later with a beer and when I can look at the pics better

 

Thanks, man.

 

Thank you... I will return the favour when I can sit down and watch the video!

 

Wait...no pivotal moment picture??? What Hersey is this???

 

Glad to see your back at it!! Missed your reports

 

Krash

 

I know... it's hard for me to find time right now to even post a batrep. I'm playing too many armies, and what little spare time I have right now is spent playing. I wanted to at least get one Thousand Sons' batrep out! Thanks for checking it out.

 

 

Thanks for sharing Prot! Wow Magnus was sure key. If you would not have taken Magnus what would you have taken in his place?

 

I have no idea. To be honest I had two lists ready to roll. I saw my opponent's list and I asked him for permission to use Magnus because 1) he didn't have a LoW and 2) I hadn't used Magnus in 8th yet and had no idea if he would be amazing or mediocre. 

 

Here's the funny thing... I think I auto lose that game without Magnus. I didn't have time to go through all the details but in one turn he did 10 mortal wounds to a tank. Oddly enough he had 2 turns where he did very little, but those other 2 turns he had massive output in assault and mortal wounds. Without his speed AND mortal wound capability I am almost certain I would have been tabled easily. 

 

The 'funny thing' I mention is that in hindsight my opponent did the '7th edition approach' to Magnus which I may have done the exact same thing. That is to say he ignored him.... until the last turn. Then BAM next thing I know he goes from 13 to 2 wounds! I couldn't believe it. Even the odd flashlight took him down a wound or two. I was laughing as I thought how ironic if he died now. Then he hit him with (I believe) a final demolisher cannon shot and did a 2 D wound to him..... I fail the invuln, and then realize I had 2 command points left, I blow one on the Invuln re-roll and make it... saving him at 2 wounds left. 

 

This made me realize that Magnus might have got unlucky losing 13 wounds essentially in one turn, but at the same time I had no answer for that amount of high T armour. Just would not have got there with normal sorcs.

 

We both agreed he dropped too many Scions in T1. He dropped 3 squads and essentially overkilled the Goats and Helbrute. 

 

The Valkyries were also a serious threat that I just could not drop until Magnus lanced one in the belly on the last turn.  

 

One other thing I forgot to mention... once again the Astra have their own Psychic phase called 'orders'. ;) And they don't roll for them. He simply was pointing at squads I was trying to tie up, and he'd have them just walk away from close combat, and 'Get back in the fight' with no repercussion for leaving CC. That really sucked too. (first rank second rank is still quite good now that you can wound anything).

 

The amount of special weapons he had rendered my All is Dust nearly useless. He largely ignored the Landraider for most of the game so my infantry was annihilated pretty good. The Rubric squad got to use 2+ saves though against Scions!! That was cool. But the tanks /basilisks/hellounds/flyers... just gross. I think Astra is legit in 8th.

 

I used Scarabs to shut down tanks, but I'm also shutting down my own assault phases by doing that. It was an ugly trade off but Scarabs really are overkill for Astra. They did nearly nothing else. 

 

So I guess that's a long winded way of saying I have no idea how to handle that Astra/Scions army.

[Brother Aiwass]

Great bat-rep!

 

For AT, may I suggest taking a couple of Xiphon Interceptors? They're just ~30 over a laspred and also come with a missile launcher that deals MW on a 5+ to wound IIRC.

[WarriorFish]

Another great batrep, lots of nice pictures too with well painted armies I'm not sure on how good the Guard will be in 8th yet (or what this "Astra" thing is you keep mentioning) but enough people seem to believe it as the barracks army lists section is pretty busy and I've not had time to catch up

 

Five or ten more CSM and then I'll be working on my Thousand Sons, look out for my shoddy impersonation of your batreps later this year

[Schultzhoffen]

I love your bat reps. Love the fact that they're nice photos with great armies. So much better than vid reports. I always look forward to reading them.

[Trevak Dal]

The goatmen might be like Billy goats and able to eat anything...

 

Good batrep Mr Prot.

Edited July 1, 2017 by Trevak Dal

[Marshal Loss]

Really enjoy your batreps - gorgeous army, and glad to see Magnus do some work. TS look like tons of fun in this edition.

[Hathor42]

Maybe get some rapier bolters batteries for those blobs of guardsmen? They look pretty cool.