Anticlimax, the Battle Report

[Berzul]

Hi guys!

 

Yesterday I had a somewhat narrative game against a Necron friend. What was supposed to be a 2000 points Cities of Death Battle turned into a 2000 vs 2015 Planetstrike Battle, with my Dark Angels defending against a Necron onslaught.

 

I played a very simple list.

 

A Planetstrike Detachment of two squads of 10 marines, with plasmas and heavy bolters, a squad of 10 scouts with bolters and a heavy bolter, a predator with autocannon and heavy bolters, a whirlwind, and devastators with plasma cannons. Also a Vanguard Detachment of company veterans with shields, swords and plasma pistols, in a drop pod, with a master, as well as an apothecary and a venerable dread. The army was led by a techmarine, and a librarian, both with the apothecary inside an assault cannon razorback.

 

My opponent played a Batallion and a Planestrike Detachments, and through them brought in 20 immortals, 14 warriors, 6 scarabs, 2 Triarch Spiders, 3 Destroyers and a Destroyer Lord, 2 Overlords, a Cryptek, a C'Tan, some Praetorians and the character that can take over the guns of your vehicles... don't remember the name.

 

Deployment was done in a small defensive position in the center of the board, with the enemy arriving via Deep Strike and down one of the long edges of the board. I deployed in a perimeter line, to prevent deepstrikers to reach my vehicles, and spread out so as to prevent firestorm bombardments from wiping me out too quickly.

 

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The goal was to force the Necrons to drop as far from the center of the board as possible, using the terrain to force him to come in through only three real fronts instead of 4.

 

Through this deployment, I actually did manage to prevent the firestorm bombardments from destroying more than 3 scouts and 1 marine, and he did have to deploy most of his stuff somewhat far back.

 

As per Planetstrike rules, Turn One went to the invading Necron force.

 

TURN ONE

 

My opponent rolled for his reserves, and managed to get everything in except for one triarch stalker, one team of 3 scarabs, and one overlord.

 

He placed his C'Tan and praetorians, with the named character, one one side, the Triarch and Scarabs came in walking from his table edge, and then placed everything else on the other side of the defenses.

 

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I used klap traps and auspex to try and take out the praetorians, and managed to kill 2 out of the 5. Then shooting came, and he focused all of his fire in taking out my Dreadnought, who took it like a freaking champion! After being on the receiving end of 20 immortals, 14 warriors, 2 staffs of light, and the destroyers, he took only the exact 8 wounds needed to get taken out.

 

After having spent all his shooting there, my opponent charged in. I failed all of my overwatch (in one instance landing 7 hits, but rolling 7 ones for damage). The Praetorians killed off the tactical marines that were behind the Aegis and then managed to consolidate onto my predator, locking it in combat. The C'Tan killed off some Scouts and got positioned on top of an objective. His Triarch Stalker locked my other tactical squad, and although it didn't kill anyone, the squad got stuck anyway.

 

So, things started to look really bleak.

 

One squad was gone. Same as the Dread. My predator was stuck in combat, same as the other tactical squad. My scout squad had gone to ground during the bombardment, so they couldn't do anything on turn one.

When my turn came along, though, I had 3 assault cannons in range of the C'Tan, and Devastators in range of the giant blob of warriors, immortals and destroyers.  Also, my master and veterans got into the battle behind the necron line, and in 9 inch range of the destroyer lord; and my Techmarine, Apothecary and Librarian got out of the transport and into charge range of the praetorians.

 

My psychic fase was a flop.

 

All my assault cannons then failed all their shots.

 

My devastators were actually out of LoS due to the incline of the building (I had prioritized area denial over clear LoS), so they had to move to shoot, and that cost me every shot. I only managed to hit with a Flakk Missile, that took out a Destroyer.

 

My veterans killed off 5 immortals with their pistols, but then failed their charges despite rerolls.

 

I only got into combat with the Techmarine, who then failed all of his hits.

 

And that was it. That was the battle.

 

It was late when we started playing, and near 23:00 my daughter woke up from a serious nightmare, and would not calm down no matter what I did. With that, and a quick look at the board, it was clear I was done for anyway... I mean, my veterans would die in shooting, same for my whirlwind. My techmarine, librarian and apothecary would die in combat, the devastators would die by the C'Tan. My tacticals and scouts were useless for the turn.

 

Yeah, I think it is fair to say that, even had my daughter not forced me to withdraw so early in the game, I was defeated before the morale phase of my turn.

 

If failure teaches, then last night I got taught a freaking masterclass

[Brother Captain Ed]

Every general is Hannibal when they roll 6s. Every general is McClellan when they roll 1s.

 

Not much one can learn from that.

[Chaplain Lucifer]

Win some, lose some. Some days the dice just don't want to roll. Better luck next time!

[Berzul]

Yeah, definetly. The dice were not on my side, at all. At least, not after the first bombardments. Those did little damage, thanks to some very lucky rolls.

[Kasper_Hawser]

Hooboy. So sorry you had to go through that. Nothing wrong with what you did, just poor rolls and I suspect you were tired since it was a late night game, and no doubt you had to put your daughter to bed earlier which can also be a handful.

 

If I had been with you, I would have been hankering for a beer afterward, or a shot of scotch. And this is even though I hate the taste of alcohol.

 

Lately I've been forcing myself to get a lieutenant for my games as additional wounding insurance. Maybe its best to start investing in a near naked lieutenant with Jump pack.

[Berzul]

Thanks Kasper_Hawser.

 

It was weird. For the one part, the battle was actually fun. Setting up the board around the narrative was pretty cool. This game was part of an ongoing narrative campaign my gaming group is playing, and the battle had a severe handicap because it was meant to end in a likely Necron victory, with only a small chance of my army making an upset and winning in the end.

 

For another part, I did NOT expect the Necrons to just overrun my army in such a way turn one. I expected the firestorm bombardments to decimate my infantry, sure. Weirdly enough, that is not at all what happened. He got 2 bombardments in total, killed just 4 marines out of 40 on the table. Missed the laser stratagem by a roll of double 6s, then went on to his turn.

 

What actually made a difference was that his entire army (almost) got on the board at once. That was absolutely insane. And since his army was 90% infantry or fly units, everything (save for one Triarch Stalked and a unit of Scarabs) got right in my face turn one. Then it was just a series of really, really, REALLY bad rolls, from saves to overwatch to morale, then to my shooting, powers, charges and combat.

 

The only time I rolled great was in making the saves and FnPs on my Dreadnought. He survived an enormous amount of shooting, and the Necrons did only manage the exact number of wounds to take it out (8 in total, out of around 75 shots fired).

 

Of course, had the battle gone on to the second turn, I think I would have been tabled fairly quickly, so there was not much chance of victory. What did stop the fight though, like I said, was that my daughter woke up from what looked to be a harrowing nightmare, and she would not calm down for another hour and a half. It was something like I had never seen her experience before.

 

My opponent was good sport though. Totally understood that I just couldn't carry on with the fight, and most likely would have lost around turn 3 anyway, so he was ok with calling it a victory by virtue of me retreating entirely from the battle. Also, even though we usually finish off each game with some beer and small talk about the match, armies and life itself, this time it was just not possible.

 

I have another planetstrike game, for the same narrative campaign, this friday, against my T'au nemesis. I plan on setting up the exact board, sans the buildings, and incorporate the battle into the narrative as more squads from the company having arrived at the battle ground to find it smashed and destroyed, but the vehicles curiously having been left mostly undamaged, just unmanned. So, my new squads will be trying to sweep the place, when the T'au forces will attempt a strike, and so the Deathwing will have to be summoned for support to allow the rest of the squads to be able to defend the place and/or eventually extracted.

 

Should be a fun game, and I expect to last longer than this one :D

[Kasper_Hawser]

This is why I always play eternal war games for the less random factors. But I admit, that's due to my narrow mindedness and unwillingness to do something different. As it is, I'm still reeling from my losses in 6-7th where I was losing 8/10 games due to formation shenanigans, and that I was an assault army that was severely restricted unlike now.

 

For the last few months, i've been carefully planning my lists and general strategy, and also restricted my games to no strategems and playing Retrieval mission only. Because of this, if something goes wrong, I know EXACTLY what I did wrong, rather than random cards or rolls determining the stage early on. As a result, my victory rate is now about 50%, and I learn a great deal more, rather than ending up on the losing end of strategems and other gimmicks.

 

That being said, it means I'm restricting myself from the other varied plays of the game. I still don't like the maelstrom like games or Open Play, but once in a while I think its good to break from the monotony of the Eternal War missions and do something crazy. But I think I'll have to create a special list for those crazy missions, where more often than not, mobility is key.

 

Much as i hate using them, time to give those Fenrisian wolves and cyberwolves a try. (yes, I'm a Space wolf but I hate using Thunderwolves and fenrisian wolves. Go figure.)

 

Regarding childhood nightmares, well, let's just say I'm a grown man and I still wake up sweating and wishing i could go to mum/dad sometimes, but my pride won't allow me. You're a great dad man. It'll be quite normal to get odd nightmares at that age. One thing I remember from my childhood was that I used to watch cartoons at night and it caused nightmares. Once I stopped, the nightmares toned down. Maybe try not to let her watch TV or videos in general at night.

 

Oh yeah, I just remembered, you got a new unit, the Talonmaster, which is a Lieutenant on Land Speeder. I was recommending a cheapish lieutenant on jump pack, but maybe a Land speeder that can buff wound rolling can be good too if you budget some points in it. With Dark Angels reroll 1s when standing, it would make your gunline even stronger, and still provide a speedy unit as a rapid reaction. And you can still charge, fallback without penalty due to fly.

Edited January 12, 2018 by Kasper_Hawser

[Berzul]

My gaming group is the exact opposite!

 

We almost always play Maelstrom of War missions, for the randomness of it all. Specially now that not everyone has a Codex.

 

With Tactical Objectives leading the missions, most of the time the game isn't determined by who has the most competitive list, but rather for who gets and manages to acomplish the objectives, which can turn a whole battle on it's head at any moment. The random factor often can make things more interesting and challenging for us, and gives even a lesser list (in terms of raw power) a chance to win a game.

 

Of course, this does bring in the problem that sometimes a battle will just not go your way. Like, at all. And that is just the luck of the draw. Kinda like real life, I guess. You can't plan for everything, but it helps to plan ahead for most things. The other drawback is that it does not help you in testing a list to see how it works on it's own, as the variables are too many to really determine what it is that is working and what is not.

 

Now, this game in particular was very much a narrative one. We played in points to keep things a bit balanced, but there was a narrative at play and that meant that the deck was stacked against one of the players from the start, sort to speak. That was part of the fun of it. It just combined with very lucky/unlucky rolls, as well as external circumstances.

 

This afternoon I'll set the same board (with some damage done by the Necrons), and send an expeditionary force to uncover the remains of the battle. My T'au friend is playing against me, with the same Planetstrike rules, in an attempt to make the most of my moment of weakness, and conquer the field. But, as support, I am bringing some 1st Company forces to balance things out.

I will play a list of:

 

A Planetstrike Defense Detachment of 10 Scouts with a HB, 2x10 Tactical Marines with Plasma Guns and Combi Plasmas on Rhinos, a Whirlwind, a Predator with just the Autocannon.

A Vanguard Detachment of 2x5 Deathwing Terminators with ACs, and a DW Champion, led by a Company Master, a Librarian, and a Lieutenant (from the first Detachment) in a Drop Pod with 5 Devastators (from the first Detachment as well) full Plasma Cannons, a Company Ancient, and an Apothecary.

 

My army will be placed with the Whirlwind and Predator acting as recovered vehicles from the first battle, placed at the center of the ruined fortifications with the Scouts by them, as they will have had just recovered them. Then I'll have the Rhinos start off one edge of the board, bringing in two reinforcement squads to claim the fortification. As the T'au arrive, my DW forces and HQs will drop down to assist the GW forces on the ground.

 

Will probably be a very quick game, again, but I expect it to be fun nonetheless.

 

(I thought of the Talon Master, and I have tried it to great effect, but it is too costly for this list, and it made more narrative sense to play it as I have planned it)

 

(...)

 

Regarding childhood nightmares, well, let's just say I'm a grown man and I still wake up sweating and wishing i could go to mum/dad sometimes, but my pride won't allow me. You're a great dad man. It'll be quite normal to get odd nightmares at that age. One thing I remember from my childhood was that I used to watch cartoons at night and it caused nightmares. Once I stopped, the nightmares toned down. Maybe try not to let her watch TV or videos in general at night.

 

(...)

 

Thanks, man. I really appretiate the compliment, as well as your advice.

 

Usually there is restrictions on tv times, or any kind of screen time, at my appartment. My daughter tends to naturally watch about an hour, an hour and a half of cartoons when se gets home from daycare. Before and after that, she actually prefers books, even at her age. Which is something I love about her, as I was and still am much more into books and novels than TV and movies, and even write short stories in my spare time. But yeah, sometimes she will binge watch something almost right up to her bedtime. I hadn't made the connection between both things. I'll keep it mind.

 

Luckly, she did fall asleep quite soundly after her nightmare, and had a very pleasent night sleep. Woke up particularly cheerful the next morning!

 

I hope she won't have another nightmare tonight. But, should she have one, my opponent is actually her godfather, so he can't complain about it

[Berzul]

Had a planetstrike battle agains T'au yesterday. It was a much more entertaining fight. Lasted three turns before I was defeated. In the end the T'au did win, of course, but I did manage to hold my ground for a couple of turns before things really started to go against me.

[Kasper_Hawser]

Had a planetstrike battle agains T'au yesterday. It was a much more entertaining fight. Lasted three turns before I was defeated. In the end the T'au did win, of course, but I did manage to hold my ground for a couple of turns before things really started to go against me.

 

Hope to see that battle report. The weaboos seem to be on the loosing end this edition so far to the point I actually pity them, except for the idiots who spam commanders. Their poor Gundams needed a nerfbat but even I who once had a phobia of riptides and stormsurges, thought it was too far.

 

As a last note, just don't introduce anime to your daughter yet. :P Kidding, unless its something totally harmless like Doraemon. Definitely not Pokemon.