Prot Quickie Batrep: Black Legion vs Astra (Pics)

[Prot]

Prot's Abaddon Hardcore Experiment:

Hey guys,

This is a bat rep based on my thread focusing on playing Black Legion with a hardcore focus on Abaddon as the Warlord. I know it's never going to be optimal while I do this, however this is one of those experimental games.

I went with my second list from the thread: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/365735-hardcore-abaddon-black-legion-9th/?p=5587766

My opponent is playing Astra with a dash of Scions for specialized weaponry, and deep striking / grav chute insertion.

I'm in a bit of a rush so this has to be fairly quick.... The Astra list is basically:

- 10 man squads of troops

- Command Demolisher Tank

- second Demolisher Tank

- Bullgryn

- Psyker

- Master of something? Fleet? Ordnance? Sandwiches?

- 2 x Basilisks

- Banewolf

- Squad of Walkers (Las/missiles)

- Squad of Walkers (flamers)

- Chimera w/troops

- Flyer (scions)

- Scion squads/HQ.

- Vindicare Assassin

The Game:

From the tournament list, we play Search and Destroy (I think). With the old Dawn of War Deployment. I go first, and before I get into it, this is the BL deployment, and the Astra Deployment:

- Abe/Oblits/Termies in reserves. Apostle and Helbrutes far right with some troops.

- More Astra is to my right, but you get the idea... major vehicles hidden behind the Obscurring ruins.

My secondaries:

- Engage on all fronts

- Bring it Down

- Thin their Ranks

Astra Secondaries:

- Deploy Scramblers

- Engage

- Assassinate.

Early Game:

- Black Legion goes first.

- Apostle gives 5++ invuln (prayer) to 6" aura.

- All units stay relatively hidden for Black Legion so mostly the right side shifts forward..... Apostle/Helbrutes and some troops. From center the Rhino with Berzerkers/Havocs advances and smokes.

- The reason I make this decided move to the right/center of the board, is because they are all following the lead of the BaleDrake.

- From the Asta side: Baledrake backs in (as to not knock stuff over with the awkward wings).

- In total I only kill one Las Walker in shooting phase.

- But the big payoff: The Heldrake declares an assault on 2 of the three units in front of him. Only wounding 1 model, however after Activation/Consolidation the Heldrake is now engaged with 1 Demolisher Russ, 1 Basilisk, and the Lascannon Squad.

This is huge... for the million questions I've been getting about Heldrakes... that's the answer in a nutshell. Turn 1 shut down of 3 vehicles.

- The return assault/overwatch wasn't great. Next turn is going to be a real test.

Astra returns fire in their turn.

- Without hesitation the vehicles retreat, and others easily destroy the Baledrake as expected.

- The Melta Helbrute (which did nothing anyway) takes a few pot shots, and he couldn't get a bead on the Defiler, and the primary shooting he had available just went against my Heldrake as he didn't want anymore of that mess.

- Bullgryn finished off the 2 wounds on the Baledrake (I overwatch and kill 1).

- Also my left side a lot of units moved up to start engaging Cultists I had hidden on objective.

- Since the Baledrake is an obvious threat it takes a lot of available firepower, but the Astra manage to eek out a kill on my smoked Rhino. 2 Havocs die, and the rest of the squad and Zerkers get out.

- Black Legion Turn 2: Abe/TermieSorc/Termies/Oblits come down in deepstrike (above).

- Dark Apostle continues to advance up right side. Helbrutes go with him, shooting at tanks.

- Termie Sorc gives 'Warptime" to Defiler, then gives Delightful Agonies to the Oblits.

- Havocs seek shelter behind "astra" ruins, and shoot at plebs with 3 cannons. The Oblits just annihilate a vehicle, the contents get out, and are shot up by Havocs. Then the Zerkers move up into the terrain towards the squads that were just occupied by the Baledrake.

- Terminators shoot at a Scions airplane.... combined with "Cacaphony Oblits" the plane goes down, forcing the release of the Scions inside. This means my cultists get a lucky break and can breath a little easier.

- More shooting from Helbrutes result in quite a few wounds on one of the Basilisks, however they don't manage to quite kill it.

- The Assault phase is huge... Defiler makes it into 3 Flamer Walkers and kills them.

- Khorne Berzerkers make it into another Trio of vehicles! They kill the last of the Lascannon Sentinels somehow with fight twice, and lock up the Basilisk, and I decided against locking up the Banewolf because that plan would have -definitely- backfired. This way he has to back the Basilisk out to shoot the Zerkers up with the Banewolf. (I hope that makes sense, but it was key.)

- Bring it down points add up. We get another Engage on all fronts.

- The Defiler enjoying his spoils of victory... is about to get shot up real good.

- Astra respond:

- Astra pull out of combat of 5 Zerkers, and the Banewolf, and combined fire kill 4. I had one Zerker champ left in the ruins who just would not die!

- Deflier gets annihilated with the command tank Demolisher.

- We have to redo some shooting due to a misscommunication but the result is I lose 1 and a half Terminators. Not bad.

- Astra plant their Second Scrambles in mid table.

- Vindicare shoots at Abaddon. Halving damage he still takes 2 wounds. A little worried as it's early, but it could have been worse since he rolled a '6' to wound which turns the gun into D6 damage!

- He can't get rid of the last Zerker which is really huge.

Black Legion Turn:

- Abaddon moves out with Oblits which get Delightful agonies, and Warptime.

- Now the list starts to take control of a very large part of the board. This is largely due to the zerker/Baledrake taking away a lot of shots from the rest of the army.

- The Helbrutes (one is down to 4 wounds and the other has only lost 1). The Dark Apostle keeps the 5++ invuln going.

- With combined shooting the command tank is too well protected by +1 save, and I can't do anything to it because the Oblits have been rolling horibble stats all game (Always S7, AP1, D1) Horrible. But thanks to Cacaphony, I do get the secondary Leman Russ Demolisher down.

- Termies mop up a bit and kill a lot of infantry.

- Dual Helbrutes kill the damaged Basilisk. (I think it only fired once?)

- One Helbrute charges in and kills the Banewolf in CC.

- Folks you are looking at a hero! The lone Zerker would charge his Master of the Snacks (can't remember the actual name). And kill him.. barely! While just living somehow with that single wound... then he Consolidates into the last Basilisk!

Astra Turn:

- He plants final Scramblers in my zone.

- His intense hatred for the final Zerker is well deserved, and he annihilates him finally.

- Chainaxe > Basilisk? Doubtful, but this Zerker doesn't know when to quit!

- Shooting hardly can do too much damage, but the Bullgryn does charge my 'hiding all game' Havocs and they are killed easily.

- It is looking grim dark for Astra/Scions as they only have a few troops so we just walk through some of turn 4:

- From the Astra side: with dwindling troops, and one tank left... it's hard to get too much killing done.

Black Legion:

- Lots of points from Primary at this point, and I'm just going for 3 VP on the Engage on All Fronts now, and I cap on Bring it Down at 15 points.

- One Helbrute shoots/finishes off something... can't remember what.

- The Dark Apostle and last Helbrute with 4 wounds left, turn to the Bullgryn and charge it:

- Helbrute does just enough wounds (thanks to death to the false emperor!) and kills the 3 Bullgryn that are left.

- Second Helbrute did make a charge.....

- Since the game is all but over except one Basilisk and Command tank, we just call it there.

The finish was approximately: 45- 20 for Abaddon and the funky bunch.

So the 'unfocused' random, unit army list faired pretty well on this day. I have refined it a few times to come to this list, and while it may not make sense for some people, it has 'layers' to it that work for me. A steady stream of would be assaulters that can (in theory) tie up tanks in T1 is definitely critical. Though not crucial for success.

The 'fail' part of the experiment:

- Dark Apostle. The casting was great... just I don't think I passed a single 5+ save all game on anything the Apostle was protecting! (That includes Cultists,Marines, Helbrutes).

- The dual Helbrutes were good. As my opponent noted: you can actually hide them now on proper tables. Their 'bodyguard' effect continues to be helpful as in previous games.

- Defiler was fun, but it is really just one of many things my opponents have to shoot down in Turn 1, so it was fun to see it do well.

- Oblits. My opponent thought they were priced right at 315 points, but I quickly stated that I think the only reason they 'work' is Cacaphony. For 4 Turns their initial stats were S7, AP1, D1. Until I cacaphonied.... I believe in Turn 3 I got a critical second shooting out of them that finally had max stats.

- I could easily make some changes to this list, but the core of it is figured out now, and perhaps some fine tuning is needed but I'm not quite sure where yet.

Thanks for reading!

[Tallarn Commander]

Prot,

 

Thank you for taking the time to write this batrep. It was a joy to read.

 

I'm glad to see your Zerker champ do so well. My Zerkers often get blown away on Turn 2 after they kill an enemy unit. Your champion is a true hero and deserves a nice IG skull or similar trophy. :)

 

I've been reading the discussion of your lists. Your lists don't strike me as being unfocused. Instead, you are covering all your bases. You have assault units, mobility units, harassment units, anti-tank and anti-infantry shooting units, cheap objective grabbers, and buffing units.

 

And don't lose heart in the Dark Apostle. When he shines he effectively makes your 2 Helbrutes into much cheaper Chaos Decimators.

[Prot]

Thanks.  I like the Helbrutes a lot and your comparison to a Decimator is a good one... I used to use Decimators for a long time and they just went up too much. 
 

I am still on the fence with the Combi weapons but they do seem to work for with Oblits. 
 

This list is extremely similar to my last 6 or so previous 9th Ed games. The biggest difference is the Zerkers. I usually took 1 or 2 small possessed squads with the Greater Possessed on board. But I like the freedom of points and options these Zerkers afford me. Plus if it goes sour, it’s only 90 points. 
 

Not sure what to change. Everything seemed to play its part in this game.