"Military Exercises" - A quick Battle Report

[Berzul]

Hello.

I am bringing a small Battle Report from a game I had last friday. It was a 1500 points matched play game against Ultramarines. We played this game in order to show a friend who is just starting int he hobby, on how the game works.

 

The armies were as follows:

 

Dark Angels

 

A Batallion and a Vanguard, composed of a formation of 2 (5-man) Tactical Squads with Plasmas, a Ven Dread with an AC and a Heavy Flamer, a Darkshroud with AC, a Dark Talon, all led by a Company Master and a Techmarine with Servo Harness; then a Librarian leading some Deathwing Knights and an Ancient; with some Sniper Scouts to end the Batallion.

 

 

Ultramarines

 

A Batallion, composed of 5 (5-man) Tactical Squads with Missile Launchers, an Apothecary, 2 Dreadnoughts (one with AC, one with TLC and Missiles), a squad of Terminators, and a squad of 7 Primaris Intercessors; all led by a Terminator Captain, a Captain and a Librarian.

 

The mission was Seize and Control, from the Eternal War missions.

 

The deployment was Spearhead Assault.

 

The board was set up in the following fashion:

 

We had 2 main streets across the long end of the board. On one side of one, and in between both, we had 4 buildings, tied together through walkways, forming a sort of a defensive installation. On the other end of the board we had two other tall buildings, blocking LoS and granting high defensive positions.

 

The Ultramarines got to choose deployment first. With his list being somewhat defensive, and mine being clearly offensive, he chose the side of the board with the installation of buildings, leaving me to deploy between the remaining two. In terms of objectives, he placed his in the high-rise of his furthest building, and I placed mine atop the highest building on my end as well.

 

THe Ultramarines deployed in three formations. The Dreadnoughts and the librarian with one tactical squad on one side, behind a building. Two more squads of marines on the other side, behind another building. Then 3 squads of marines, the intercessors, and the captain, on top of the building the other tacticals were hiding behind, which is also where his objective was placed.

 

My Dark Angels deployed with the Deathwing and Librarian in Deep Strike, the Dark Talon on the very edge of the board and out of LoS (planning a 20 inch move that would leave it within the Darkshroud on turn one, and then a 35 inch move into the fray on turn two, a pivot to the side on turn three, and then another on turn 4, tracing a U-shaped path across the board), and then the Tacticals, the Techmarine, the Company Master, the Dread and the Shroud front and center on my deployment zone, ready to engage the enemy.

 

FIRST TURN

 

I got first turn.

 

During the first turn I kept my Deathwing in reserve, planning a turn two hit once I could see what his Dreads were going to be doing. The knights I brought specially to kill Dreads, so I needed to take my time and time it right.

 

My scouts I had placed in a building near the enemy, to snipe at the infantry that was hiding inside the objective building. I kept them stationary throughout the fight, firing at the tacticals with great effect.

 

The rest of the army moved forward; the infantry approaching the first building, with plans of climbing on it on turn two, then reaching the high rises on turn three, and then traversing the walk ways on turn 4, to take the enemy objective. The dread I placed next to the formation, to move forward down the street that was on the side (as opposed to the street that run in between buildings).

 

My first round of shooting was just the Dark Talon, taking out some intercessors and marines, as well as my Scouts, taking out some more marines. THe rest of the Ultramarines were out of LoS on turn one, so I would have to keep marching forward before I could actually fire my weapons fully.

 

 

On his first turn, my opponent marched the intercessors forward through the walkways, advanced his AC Dread down the main street and in between buildings to try and take out my Scouts, and finally repositioned all his missile launcher marines and his Twin Lascannon Dread, to fire at my Dark Talon.

 

 

Thanks to the Icon of old Caliban and Supersonic adding a -2 to hit, I managed to survive all the missiles and the 2 lascannon shots with just one single wound taken.

 

Turn ended with no casualties on my side, and some tacticals on his.

 

SECOND TURN

 

On the Second Turn I kept to the plan and climbed the buildings, closing the gap between both armies and gaining LoS with my Tactical Squads. My dread went around the building and marched forward, with the Techmarine behind it, expecting a Terminator drop this turn. This last part, I'll admit, proved to be a mistake, as his Terminators did not actually pick a fight with him, opting for another objective instead. WIth such short range weaponry, I only reached real combat with him by turn 4.

 

The scouts kep picking out Ultramarines, with many mortal wounds dealt. This time on the Intercessors. My Dark Talon had flown past them this turn, bombing the back-line tacticals that were still hiding out of LoS, then taking out the stragglers with bolter fire. The Rift Cannon, which I aimed at the Lascannon Dread, saddly, failed every shot, even with Strafing Run.

 

For their part, my Deathwing managed to arrive on the edge of the table, close to the enemy Librarian and the Lascannon Dread, but then failed their charge despite the use of a command point. The Librarian still managed to cast aversion on the Lascannon Dread, to try and help the Dark Talon survive the next round of firing.

 

 

On his second turn, my opponent started to panic a bit, and held most of his stuff in place. As he described it later, my army had positioned itself on three flanks, and this caused him to lose a bit of focus on what presented the biggest threat.

 

He still managed, through some awesome rolls, to blow up my Dark Talon, despite the Aversion on the Lascannon Dread that took it out of the sky.

 

He then proceeded to drop his Terminators, not to engage my Ven Dread as I had expected, bur rather away from the battle, and on my objective. I feld this to be a weird tactical decision, as he essentially left them out of combat range for the entire fight, but it served the purpose of making me nervous. I knew now that I had to get his objective, as well as at least 2 of the secondary objectives (Warlord Kill, First Blood and Line Breaker) in order to stand any chance of winning. Climbing the buildings was slow work, so I started to anticipate an uphill struggle.

 

With nothing to do but push forward, we moved to turn 3.

 

TURN THREE

 

On Turn Three I closed in on his Lascannon Dreadnought with my Deathwing, got up the walkways with my Tacticals, pushed forward with my onw Ven Dread and the Techmarine. I completly ignored his Terminators, and left them to babysit the objective.

 

My gunline, now with clear LoS, fired at his defenses, and most of the tactical marines and all of the intercerssors died under plasma and assault cannon fire.

 

For their part, the Deathwing Knights failed their charges once again, losing a guy to lascannon overwatch in the process.

 

This gave way to the Ultramarines turn, in which: They continued trying to kill my scouts with the AC Dreadnought (to no effect); tried to reposition around the objective with the remaining infantry to hold it down; and, lastly, decided to back off with his Lascannon Dread to try and get some distance for the fourth turn charge.

 

His missile launchers managed to take out two more Knights, so with just the Knight Master and the Ancient left on the field, the turn was over.

 

TURN FOUR

 

By now, the battle was somewhat decided, to be honest.

 

Despite the loss of Knights, my infantry had an easy task taking control of the objective building, wiping out the last if his tactical marines with plasma shots.

 

Down on the streets, my Deathwing Knights made their charge against the Lascannon Dread on this, the THIRD try, and despite being three models (counting the Ancient) they made quick work of it in close combat. In fact, they managed to rope in the Libarian into the brawl, killing him in the Ultramarines turn. 

 

Lastly, my own Ven Dread and the Techmarine managed to reach the undefended side of the Ultramarines. There, they shot at the Warlord Captain and then the Techmarine charged up the building to fight him. The two characters engaged in an amazing one on one duel, and after two rounds of combat, the Techmarine killed the Captain with his Servo Arms in a spectacular fashion.

 

For his fourth turn, all the Ultramarines had were a 5-man tactical squad, an apothecary, and his AC Dread, which kept firing at my scouts, now managing to kill one. The sgt. Who had no sniper rifle. It's fair to say, the scouts were the MVPs of the battle at this point, surviving 4 rounds of constant fire without (almost any) cratches.

 

TURN FIVE

 

In turn five my Deathwing Knights managed a charge against the last Tactical Squad, and although I lost the fourth Knight on the charge, I still managed to kill them all with my Knight Master. Then my Techmarine climbed the building to secure the objective, while the rest of the army cleared the board of all save from the AC Dread.

 

My infantry set up in a firing line across the walkway to shoot at the Dread, and with one barrage of overcharged plasma I left it weakened.

 

With that we went into turn six, after he -once again- focused on my scouts, now out of anger more than strategy.

 

 

TURN SIX

 

Turn six was short. I repositioned around the Dread with my gunline, and a full overcharged barrage of shots killed it off. As soon as that happened the game was called as a defeat of the Ultramarines.

 

In the end, I managed his objective, first blood, warlord kill and line breaker. He managed my objective and line breaker. The score was 6 to 4 for the Dark Angels.

 

 

Edited November 12, 2017 by Berzul

[Wrath of Bruinen]

Thanks for a great battle report, Berzul, and congrats on a hard-fought victory.

 

I couldn't tell from your report, so please feel free to correct/ignore me, but did you remember the dark talon has strafing run, so would have been hitting all of your opponent's army on 3+ with the rift cannon (+1 for strafing, -1 for heavy)? You probably did, but I just wondered given your comments about how unlucky you were with the cannon in the early turns.

[Berzul]

Thanks! I did write this rep in a bit of a rush. I hope it was clear enough. Ill improve on it later. I tried to rewrite it somewhat, to try and make the description of the battle a bit more clear.

 

As for the Dark Talon, yeah, I took Strafing Run into account. But rolled one shot each time, and a 2 on each to hit roll. Not even rites of battle was able to help me.

Edited November 12, 2017 by Berzul

[Wrath of Bruinen]

That's unlucky - I thought you probably did remember strafing run, but it's one of those rules that's easy to forget, especially with 8th's new way of doing modifiers etc, so I figured it was worth mentioning, even if just for the benefit of others reading your report.

 

Hopefully you have a bit better luck next time. For the Lion!

[Berzul]

Actually, what I tend to forget is that not all of the Dark Talon's weapons are Heavy. Sometimes I'll roll the Rift Cannon as a regular weapon, or the bolt weapons as Heavy.