BA Apocalypse 23/03 - 25/03

[Jolemai]

With turn three being our last we had to go for broke. As well as getting on all the remaining Knights (anything not on the board is automatically destroyed, so we'd rather they worked for any VP kills), notable inclusions were my Predator, Stormraven, Sicaran, Terminators and everything with a jump pack. A load more TDA and Charlo's jump troops arrived too.

In a game this big it really has to be pointed out how much faster the psychic phase is without any Eldar. Once the usual spread of buffs had been cast it was on to the shooting phase...

 

On our left flank two Knights went down fast (including a killshot from the TDA Librarian's storm bolter and third was left on five wounds :/ The centre and right saw two Warhound go down, one of which in spectacular fashion, the Knight-Atrapos twins being downed, and some smaller TITANIC units were popped to get the numbers up. Their Baneblade was also left on a handful of wounds following my Stormraven whiffing it's attacks :/

 

Combat phase didn't add to the kills as the Knight overwatch was stunning (better than their shooting phases tbh).

 

With the final player turn about to begin it was apparent that our opponents needed to grab five out of six objectives and remove all our remaining TITANIC units. Knight and chaff cleaning commenced and by the end of the shooting phase two objectives remained contested and a Knight had somehow survived.

 

Team Small Fry had won 15-12.

[Damon Nightman]

Go team small fry!

[Charlo]

Not to mention, there were plenty of Shenanigans to do around the objectives pending the survival of some of our units in the opponents charge phase.

 

I think it came down to a Reaver whiffing against our Kytan that left victory assured.

[Jolemai]

Despite the win we made a number of mistakes:

 

Mission: Night March

• Deployment zones and reinforcements take a few reads to get your head around. We ended up with non-optimal deployment zones (size wise) and when your reinforcements arrive within 18" of a marker and only 6" deep, it can be hard to get enough models on the board.
• Deployment was far too sparse. We left too many holes because we were playing it safe and were a tad naive about the schedule (as in, we could put it on later). We should have flooded our deployment zones.
• The first turn is at night and thus nothing can target more than 24" away. We didn't use this to our benefit for moving stuff up and we didn't alpha strike - meanwhile the titans we assumed we were out of range of moved 24/20/18 a turn when undamaged (Warhound/Reaver/Warlord)...
• Arriving via Deep Strike is hard in a normal game late on, so trying to drop stuff late game was never going to work :/
• A lot of stuff never made the board, which was namely down to naivety and a lack of understanding about the mission/Apoc rules

Individual:

• Plan for jump DC was to Forelorn Fury towards something tasty, then drop Lemartes and the model with Angel's Wing for charging fun - due to congestion they only killed five Devastators :/ What I should have done was be less rigid and played Upon Wings of Fire to move them somewhere tasty and then pulled off shenanigans.
• Angel's wing got thrown away in the above scenario. Should have hung around with Mephiston (or the Sang Guard)...
• Techamrine should have started on the board. I brought him on with my Cerberus but he had my Veritas Vitae (not that I gained back lots but it's the principle of the thing)
• Wasted my Scouts and Assassins trying to clear chaff for drop space
• Forgetting about things like Hellfire Shells and Flakk Missiles early on
• Put my transports on at the start. Every year I leave them off and every year they do nothing due to range.
• Not using Smite!!!
• Making Dante my Warlord - now now, here me out. Granted he's the fluffy choice and as he was accompanying the Sang Guard they would have benefited from re-rolls should they have made it to combat. However, a static Warlord on a the start would have meant for using an Orbital Strike (tightly packed deployment zones and fluffy) and for being easier to hide (given Dante was supposed to be in combat)
• ... and a myriad of other little things

Honourable mentions:

• Very happy with the tiny contributions made by my Hyperios (finally!), Sicaran (finally!), and Predator (finally!)
• My sniper Scouts killed a Devastator Squad in one shooting phase (they are gaining a reputation for this sort of thing)

Sadly everything else was there to make up the numbers :(

[Charlo]

Aye to back up what Jol has said, even with first turn, the mission rules combined with insane fast movement of titans meant little in terms of giving us an advantage to press.

 

We saved on dropping in all of our troops for fear of being shot up wholesale but probably should have just dropped AS MUCH as possible to box in the enemy.