1250 Batrep vs. Alpha legion

[Yeti]

After all the positive remarks I've had and several requests to write more batreps, I've put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and I'm writing anew, hope you all enjoy it.

 

This week I went up against those vile followers of Chaos, the Alpha Legion. The battle was at 1250pts, smaller than I'm used too but I took advantage of it and went all mechanized. I had no idea who I was going up against or what army he played, so made an all comers.

 

There is one little thing I should mention, my assault GHs are equipped with power weapons for a good reason. I have not gone insane and renounced my love for power fists ;) . This was part of a league that allows you to get cards and give your units special abilities, in this case, I had the cards to give my unit Furious Charge, so to take advantage of the I and S boost, I decided to go for power weapons.

 

My list was

 

Wolf Lord: BP, Frags, Frost Axe, BoR, Pelt

Venerable Dreadnought: Plasma cannon, EA, Smoke

 

5xWolf Scouts: Meltagun, Plasma Pistol

w/Wolf Guard Pack Leader: Thunder Hammer, BP

 

10x Grey Hunters: 2 power weapons, meltagun

w/ Rhino: Extra Armor, Smoke Launchers

10x Grey Hunters: Bolters, Plasma Gun, Power Fist

w/ Rhino: Extra Armor, Smoke Launchers

9x Blood Claws: 2 Power Fists

w/ Rhino: Extra Armor, Smoke Launchers

 

Landspeeder Tornado: Heavy Bolter, Assault Cannon

 

As mentioned, my opponent played Alpha Legion and (bear with me, I am not familiar with Chaos terminology) fielded:

 

Moderately-uber HQ: 4W, S5, T5, power weapon, pistol

2x5 Marine Tacs: Plasma gun, Lascannon, Tank Hunter

10x Marines: 1 Power Fist, pistols

2x20 Cultists: 1 Power weapon, icon

9 Nurglings

9xDevastators: 4xHeavy Bolters, Tank Hunter

 

The field of battle was a table made by the RTT for the local "Grand Tournament". It had a large hill running along the western quarter of the table as well as smaller "shelves" in the eastern corners. There were also large rock outcropping in running along the middle of the table, one in the west, one in the middle and a very large one (14"x14") on the eastern side. There were three forests along the southern deployment zone, far west and far east and one in the middle and another forest in the middle north and between two outcroppings on the western side. There was also a ruined building on top of the western hill in the northern corner and one at the bottom of the hill on the southern side. Nice and dense, just how I like it.

 

The mission was a Take and Hold for the rock outcropping in the center with a difficulty level of Gamma.

 

He won the roll for table edges and he chose the northern deployment zone and began deployment with his devastators on the northeastern shelf with a good view of the battle. He placed his assault tacs behind the forest in the middle on his DZ and one of the tacs next to it. The other tac went into the ruins on top of the hill. I placed the rhinos with my assault units behind the forest on the western hill, the rhino with the Bolter Boys behind the forest in the middle and the Speeder and Vennie went behind the forest on the eastern end of my DZ. A little spread out, but everything was out of sight and with everything fairly mobile, I figured I could get to the objective quickly. At this point, I wished I had a Rune Priest with Chooser because he pulls out his two cultist units, places one right behind the rocks that are the objective and the other behind the forest right next to it. Crap!

 

I won first turn on Vennie's reroll, but elected to let him go first since he couldn't see anything and it would let me make a last turn rush for the objective.

 

Chaos Marines

[Krave]

Nicely done. I think I'm going to take notes at the enxt battle I play.

[spyrer2000]

Well done, sir.

[Wolf Lord Duregar]

Great report Yeti! ;) You already know I like your reports. ;)

 

It seems as if you had your fair share of bad dice rolling though... ;)

 

Comments, suggestions, insults and inquiries are welcome.

 

I don

[Evil Homer]

@ YETI: Nice battle report, very enjoyable read. I was hoping you could shed some light on the campaign system you all are using. I may be running a cityfight campign soon and these cards your using sound very interesting. DO you guys have a document you could share?

 

Thanks

 

EH

[The WarpGhost]

good report, congrats on the win ;)

 

one note: Alpha Legion can only summon Daemon Packs, not Nurglings (who you need a Mark of Nurgle for, and dont need to be summoned). Not necassarily a good thing tho, as your opponent may be tempted to bring Bloodletters!

[Yeti]

Well, thanks for all the feedback, good to see I haven't lost my touch. ;)

 

To answer some of the questions:

Plasma Cannon: I think it's still very worth it and IMO it kill more than the assault cannon any day. Admitedly, with the new template rules, I rarely get more that 1 and 1 on 4+, and in this battle I only killed a few marines and a couple of demons, but I still prefer it to the assault cannon. That extra 12" in range makes all the difference and the S7 AP2 doesn't hurt. It may have lost some effectiveness, but it still hits hard for psyhological impact and with the extended range, you can better take advantage of a clump of troops that's a little farther off.

 

Assault GHs: In a drop pod, I'd rather go for a bolter squad, but in transports, especially a land raider, they are killer. I have regularly fielded a pack of 9-10 in every game I've played since 4th ed came out and they have never let me down. Against non-marines they hit just as hard as blood claws since they'll hit on 3+ and against marines, they are more resilient/less suceptible to bad dice rolls because the WS4 means they only get hit on 4+. Claws are still great, but against those nasty units, I'll take GHs any day! As a small testimonial they have killed:

 

- Ravener, 3-4 tyranid warriors and a dozen gaunts and the nid player finally neede a carni to stop them rampaging through his nid army.

- Against Iron warriors they ripped a couple of lascannons off a pred, took down an oblit fragged a rhino and walked through a tac squad like it wasn't there.

- Against speed freeks they took out an entire unit of 10 ork warbikes in a single round of assault

 

Simply put, they kick all kinds of ass. ;)

 

As for the demon packs, I'm not sure if they are nurglings specifically or not, but they were nurgle and had the stink effect (or non-effect as has been my experience!) ;)

 

For the campain, we don't have anything documented (which I don't particularly like as it leaves a lot of loop holes) but basically it works like this.

- When you sign up, you get 7 cards each of which has a special ability on it, each of which are different.

- You need three identical cards in order to give an ability to a unit

- When you play a game, your opponent choose three cards he wants to protect and you choose from the rest which one you want. (one of the glitches is that no one is quite sure what happens when the opponent only has three cards left! ::cuss: )

- When you have three identical cards, you can assign them to an appropriate unit and you have to declare that to your opponent before the game starts.

 

Examples of cards I have or have seen are

Infantry: Furious charge

Infantry: Infiltrate

Infantry: Tank Hunter

Infantry: Fleet of Foot

Bike/Jumpack: Furious charge

Character/HQ: Infiltrate

Character/HQ: Add one to rolls for first turn

Vehicle: Remove one from damage rolls

 

Basically each card applies to a type of unit (HQ, infantry, vehicle, walker, Jump unit etc...) and gives that unit a special ability (Infiltrate, fleet, furious charge, etc...). It's a cool concept, but I think that the ability should cost points (example, +3 for furious charge per model) since just giving the ability for free is too powerful IMO and lets you give abilities to units that they aren't supposed to have. As mentionned, I have three cards for Furious Charge and Infiltrate which I will put on my assault GHs and Bolter GHs respectively. (I could put both on the same unit, imagine assault GHs with furious charge AND infiltrate!)

 

Well, I hope this answers all your questions and I may have another batrep for you next week since there is a special day for the league with scenarios. Thanks again for the comments and keep 'em coming.

[The WarpGhost]

what the Demon Packs mean is all the daemons he can take are Horrors, Daemonettes, Bloodletters, Plaguebearers. Thats it. And Alpha Legion can only take MoCU, where Nurglings need 1 Mark of Nurgle per unit, and they dont need to be summoned, so your friend basically broke every possible rule with regard to those tiddlers ;)

[Yeti]

what the Demon Packs mean is all the daemons he can take are Horrors, Daemonettes, Bloodletters, Plaguebearers. Thats it. And Alpha Legion can only take MoCU, where Nurglings need 1 Mark of Nurgle per unit, and they dont need to be summoned, so your friend basically broke every possible rule with regard to those tiddlers ;)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Well, this won't be the first time my ignorance of the rules has allowed someone to cheat with his list. But they were probably plague bearers. Do they have the stink effect (1W on a six, roll for each model within 6" of a demon)?

 

In any case, there weren't much of a problem. Between the late arrival, bad scatter and slow movement, they only got to use the stink once and did little in CC.

[spyrer2000]

There's a pretty easy way to tell the difference between Nurglings and Plaguebearers. Nurglings are itty-bitty and come with several little models on a single 40mm base. Plaguebearers are tall, gangly fellows with big bellies and swords on 25mm bases.

[Yeti]

There's a pretty easy way to tell the difference between Nurglings and Plaguebearers. Nurglings are itty-bitty and come with several little models on a single 40mm base. Plaguebearers are tall, gangly fellows with big bellies and swords on 25mm bases.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

In that case, they were definatly plague bearers. Sorry for the confusion, but I am really not familiar with Chaos terminology. Which is not a good thing since I regularly go against them.