Breacher Bat Reps

[DanPesci]

So I got a couple of games in over the weekend. Me and a friend were teaching my new flatmate how to play 40k. So we played a couple of 750pts games followed by a 1500pt game where they teamed up on me.

All games were eternal war missions as we didnt want to complicate things with maelstrom for the new player.

 

 

 

 

Game 1 - 750pts Admech vs Dark Angels

 

My mate had brought a quickly thrown together, elite Dark Angel force so he could try some of the new units/strategems.

 

My List

 

Stygies Servitor Maniple Battalion - 750pts

 

HQ

Tech Priest Dominus (prime hermeticon)

Engineseer (breacher field commander)

 

Troops

6x Breachers w/arc rifle and hydraulic claws

Rangers x5 (2 arqebus)

Vanguard x6 (2 plasma)

 

Heavy

Onager (neutron laster, 2 stubbers)

 

Elites

Servitors x4

 

Transports

Skorpius Dunerider

 

 

Dark Angels (may not be 100% accurate) - 750pt batallion

 

3x 5 Scouts

Large Ravenwing Bike Squad

Chaplain on Bike

Librarian in TDA

Large Deathwing Knight bomb

 

 

Mission - Eternal War - Vital Intelligence (CA 2018)

 

My opponent really struggled in this one due to the nature of the mission, and me being able to control more of the board due to his low model count.

 

I got first turn and deployed very aggressively. Rangers holding one objective, my servitors holding another, and the breachers and transport up front and center. I pregame moved my breachers 8" towards the center objective.

 

On turn 1 I managed to score first strike with massed onager/skorpius stubber shots deleting a scout squad. My breachers moved up to secure the center objective, and picked off a coupl eof bikes to boot.

 

My opponent had no choice but to leave his bikes hidden back in his deployment zone, awaiting the terminator support on turn 2, I was also scoring the double point objective for that turn which left me 5:1 up turn 1.

 

Turn 2 I dropped the vanguard off on the midfield objective, forming a screen infront of my breachers. The skorpius then advanced off onto the far corner objective held by a scout squad (which was again killed off by stubber fire). 

The breachers consolidated back a bit to be clear of a terminator charge, and picked off another bike (as did the onager who had little else to put its neutron laser into).

 

My opponent then brought up his bikes and brought in the deathwing knights, but was left with nothing to charge but the vanguard due to my screening. (the vanguard were promtly munched).

 

The turn ended 8:3 in my favour.

 

On turn 3 my breachers formed up around the terminators. The combination of arc rifles, neutron lasers and stubbers killed 4 of the squad. The breachers then charged the knights, finsihing them off in combat (rerolling hits due to the warlord nearby).

 

After that the game was pretty much done, with only a few bikes/characters left to worry about, and me holding 4 of 5 objectives. By the end of turn 4 my opponent had 3 scouts on the table and conceded.

 

 

Game 2 - 1500pts Admech Vs Imperial Guard/Space Wolves

 

Mission - Eternal War - Beachhead (CA 2018)

 

Admech 1500 Points

Stygies Dual Battalion

 

Battalion 1 - Servitor Maniple

 

HQ

Tech Priest Dominus (prime hermeticon)

Engineseer (breacher field commander)

 

Troops

 

Breachers x6 (arc rifle, hydraulic claws)

Breachers x5 (arc rifle, hydraulic claws)

rangers x5 (2 arqebus)

rangers x5 (2 arqebus)

 

Heavy Support

 

Onager (neutron, dual stubber)

Onager (neutron, dual stubber)

Onager (neutron, dual stubber)

 

Elites

 

Infiltrators x7 (uzi/goad)

Fulgurite Electropriests x10

Servitors x4

 

Transports

 

Skorpius Dunerider

 

 

Batallion 2

 

HQ

Daedolosus

Engineseer

 

Troops

 

Vanguard x7 (2 plasma)

Vanguard x7 (2 arc rifle)

Vanguard x7 (2 arc rifle)

 

 

 

Space Wolves/Guard Combined List

 

Catachan Guard Batallion/Spearhead

 

Had something like..

 

Field Commander

Psyker

Harker

Straken

Engineseer

 

3-4 guard squads with lascannon teams

autocannon heavy weapons team

basilisk

tank commader with 3 dmg relic battle cannon

 

Space Wolves Vanguard

 

Bjorn

2x Wulfen Dread with axe/shield

5x Wolf Guard jump pack. (4 SS/SB, 1 TH/SS)

6x Grey Hunter (plasma gun, leader with axe, wolf guard leader with TH/SS)

Razorback

 

This was a really fun, and at some times super tight game.

 

As it was beachhead, I knew id need to move up to take at least the middle objective at some point, but needed be vary wary of the threat of the SW dreadnoughts for the first couple of turns (breachers are good in combat, but not THAT good).

I had turn two, but deployed fairly aggressively anyway, with a vanguard screen, follwed by breachers, and then onagers/rangers at the back.

I decided to not move any units forward with the clandestine strat, as I felt I was close enough to the dreadnoughts as it was.

I then stole the initiative!

 

On turn one I moved up one flank of the table towards the objective the guard were camping on, foregoing moving up the center to the 2 point objective as that would have left me in charge range of all the dreads. I decided this would have to be a long term game.

The fire from the onagers/1 breacher squad managed to bracket both the tank commander and the basilisk. The 2nd breacher squad took aim at the wulfen dread deadolosus had sighted this turn, and using the maniple strat did 12 wounds to it (12 arc rifles hitting on 2s care little for dreadnought storm shields)

One of my rangers had obviously prayed to the omnissiah that morning, managing to put a wound onto none less than bjorn himself.

 

The wolves replied by moving to take the 2nd objective with their remaining dreads/razorback.

Bjorn and the guard lascannon teams managed to take down one of my onagers, but the wounded basilisk struggled to hit anything (now hitting on 6s due to being at half health and more than 12" away). 

The tank commander didn't fare much better, but did manage to take some wounds off one onager (I made at least 2 5++ here).

 

The turn ended 2:4 in their favour due to us both getting first strike, but them holding the centre.

 

 

Turn 2

 

With bjorn and a wulfen dread holding the center (and a unit of wolfguard incoming), I decided to let them have the center this turn and instead formed up a screen of vanguard and breachers, ready to counter on turn 3.

My flank continued to push up the left towards the guard, with my infiltrators arriving right in their far left corner.

Combined infiltrator, vanguard and skorpius small arms managed to remove a couple guard squads and 2 autocannon teams.

My onagers finished off the tank commander, with the breachers taking down another wulfen dread (with the help of daedolus) and injuring the razorback now blocking bjorn.

I had deployed my electropriests in the center ready to charge the wulfen dread (having purposefully only shot him with one breacher squad to try and leave him wounded but alive...but alas the breachers killed him anyway). Bjorn was still in range but it was a 11+ which they failed.

My infiltrators managed to charge the basilisk and finish it off with weight of attacks, leaving them another turn from the enemy objective.

 

On their turn 3 the wolf guard arrived, and hosed down some of the electropriest. 

Them, bjorn and the wolf guard then charged the centre breacher/vanguard/priest screen.

Bjorn killed 3 breachers due to some unlucky wound rolling, and I lost a few more electropriests. The remaining breachers interrupted before the wolf guard could attack, getting 3 attacks past storm shields and crushing 3 unfortunate space wolves to mulch.

 

Turn 2 ended 3:6 in their favour as they still held the centre

 

 

Turn 3

 

I had been hoping to get into the center by turn 3, but my fialed priest charge and the mass of space wolves now blocking this off made that near to impossible this turn. 

 

Instead I fell back from combat and moved in the second set of breachers to support the center

Some of my left flank vanguard also pulled back into the center to deal with the space wolf threat, them combined with my breachers/onagers/techpriest managed to kill some grey hunters, but only take bjorn down to 1 wound after some brilliant feel no pain rolls.

 

I then charged bjorn and the wolf guard with my remaning 4 electropriest, deadolus, and some vanguard (them being the only things left in range, but me knowing I couldnt risk leaving bjorn alive to charge again). 

They managed to bring bjorn down, but as fitting for one of the oldest warriors in the imperium, he then exploded killing breachers, servitors, grey hunters, vanguard and wolf guard alike.

 

The remaining TH/SS wolf guard promptly turned daedolus into a shiny metal pancake with his thunder hammer, before using the last SW command point to turn himself into a lone wolf at the end of my turn.

 

The guard player, having no heavy support left, moved all his remaining troops and characters to combat the infiltrators, their engineseer, and CC characters charged into them, killing enought that the infiltrators would now struggle to hold majority numbers over the enemy bjective.

The wolf guard player jumped his lone wolf so that he was out of sight, but holding the center ohjective still, with the razoback also holding.

 

Turn 3 ended 4:9 in their favour

 

 

Turn 4

 

I moved up towards the center, with a vanguard squad finally able to take the center due to number advantage over the razoback/lone wolf.

The numbers mattered little in the end as the razoback and lone wolf were finally put down by combined plasma/onager/ranger fire.

 

 

That left just the guard in the far left, I cleared the majority of their remaining infantry out with small arms, they had 2 characters which held off the remaining infiltrators for another turn, whilst another couple of characters made a heroic last run towards my advancing left flank, hoping to stop them.

Straken and another (cant remember!) managed to get off a charge and kill some vanguard. 

 

Turn ended 6:11 in their favour.

 

 

Turn 5

 

On turn 5 vanguard cleared out the remaining troops, leaving the remaining guard characters to the wrath of my remaining onagers and breachers.

My skorpius had managed to move back onto the now uncontested enemy objective, along with the vanguard who had fallen back from straken.

 

Turn 5 ended 14:11 in my favour due to grabbing all 3 objectivs, and scoring warlord and linebreaker, with no enemy left to kill, we claimed the field for the omnissiah.

 

 

 

 

Thoughts

 

The first battle I'm not sure what my opponent could have done much differently to win (other than hope I roll really bad). 

It was an unlucky matchup for him - and the list was quickly thrown together from available models. Taking an elite force at 750 is always a risk

My breachers performed well. Troops that can take down deathwing knights are useful things. Having prime hermeticon on the warlord makes them a really nasty counter punch to any elites too.

The onager was left with little to do but pick off 1-2 bikes/terminators each turn, but that was fine for this game.

 

 

The second game was really fun, and although I got off to a strong start kill wise, I had to really bide my time to score points and was scared id lost it at more than one point (especially around turn 3 when the centre was still firmly blocked off)

 

The breachers again performed excellently though, taking damage and dealing it out throughout all 5 turns - I had 7 of 11 left at the end of the game despite 3 of 4 servitors being killed when bjorn exploded.

 

Deadolus is a great new addition, getting onagers to 2+ and getting a breacher squad to 2+ (when using the servitor strat as well) = dead things 

The electropriests didnt do much but soak fire, but this is the first time in 4 games ive had them not make a charge, so it was due.

Onagers are still great. The 5++ kicked in at key points to deny my opponent kills (and crucially let me fix them up again). 

I had an amazing game with the neutrons, not rolling a single 1-shot all game.

I thought i may miss kastellans (who i bring a couple of at 2k), but the vanguard screen and skorpius cleared out chaff well (or died when needed), with advancing the vanguard can get around fairly quickly and still shoot, and the breachers cause a bigger threat to draw fire from them. The skorpius is a great little fast screen clearer.

 

Im actually thinking of tweaking my 2k list now so replace the kastellans with more vanguard/skorpius, but im waiting until the PA release before I buy anything else.

 

 

All in all a great day and great results for the admech!

 

These lists were variants on my usual 2k breacher list, which is also now also on a 6-0 streak against my friends 2k imperial guard list.

 

Stygies is still my favourite FW. Admech for me already shoot well enough without needding the cawl buffs, so making them more survivable/mobile wins out

The -1 to hit against armies like guard is huge. Being able to just wound tanks one bracket and get them hitting you on 6s is great.

Being able to move units up right at the start combines great with large squads of breachers, and your characters and onagers then have the speed to move up/support/screen/get LOS

 

Its going to be interesting to see how the FW traits are affected when PA drops, im fully expecting the moves to be nerfed slightly (e.g. can no longer move kastellans, similar to the centurion nerf for raven guard).

Ive no idea if Stygies will get to keep the -1 at all. Its very powerful against some lists.

So we'll see...

Edited March 2, 2020 by DanPesci