A thorough application of firepower ...
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Warhammer 40K – I had a chance to get my second game of 40K in with the new space marine book and i have to say I'm still loving it. Unfortunately I neglected to take photos during the game. But since I've been neglecting the battle reports section as of late I figured a text write up is better than nothing.
We played 1500 points. I ran my Twilight Ravens (as an Iron Hand Successor) against my buddy who ran a White Scars (Dark Angels using marine codex) detachment paired with an allied force of Deathwing Terminators. I don't have his exact list but this is essentially what we ran:
Twilight Ravens (As Iron Hands):
HQ – Master of Forge on bike with conversion beamer
TROOP – Tactical Squad, 10 man in a rhino with flamer and missile launcher
TROOP – Tactical Squad, 10 man in a rhino with flamer and missile launcher
TROOP – Tactical Squad, 10 man in a rhino with flamer and missile launcher
TROOP – Tactical Squad, 10 man in a rhino with flamer and missile launcher
TROOP – Tactical Squad, 10 man in a rhino with flamer and missile launcher
TROOP – Tactical Squad, 10 man in a rhino with flamer and missile launcher
ELITE – Terminator Squad, 5 man power fists and storm bolters
Dark Angels (White Scars)
HQ – Chapter Master on bike with burning blade and relic shield
HQ – Kosoro Khan on Moon Draken
TROOP – Bike Squad, 5 man with 2 grav guns and grav pistol
TROOP – Tactical Squad, 10 man, plasma gun, plasma pistol, plasma cannon, drop pod
Dark Angels (Allied Detachment)
HQ – Belial
TROOP – Terminator Squad, 10 man mix of thunderhammers, power fists, plasma cannon
FAST - Dark Shroud Land Speeder
We rolled up the Purge the Alien Mission with the diagonal deployment. This is the first time playing 40K on my in progress city board so it was interesting setting up. We called all the buildings buildings and said the roofs were battlements (not that is mattered with the forces we used). I rolled the Furious Charge Warlord Trait and he had Defender of Humanity on his chapter master. I chose the more open deployment zone and set up all my rhinos on the starting line with the Master of the Forge sitting back. He deployed his bikes, and shroud with the pod and terminators coming in on turn one.
Turn One:
I gunned the engines and spread the rhinos out to cover and block as much of the city as possible.
He dropped in behind my lines and was unable to do anything to the rhinos, despite his best efforts.
Turn Two:
Everybody got out. My Terminators Teleported in. I focused on the two squads that dropped in and was able to eliminate half the terminators as well as the entire drop pod squad. The bikes were more difficult as I was only able to score a single wound on the chapter master. First Blood goes to me.
My opponent sent the bikes down a narrow alleyway (foreshadowing) and killed half the tactical squad with a grav gun salvo. His chapter master split from the group and headed for my horde of maries down the block. The rest of his army was able to kill of two marines in the shooting phase. In assault the bikes couldn't make it. Belial and the terminators killed three more marines and the remainder of the squad fell back.
Turn Three:
I moved a rhino to block the alley containing the bikes and rammed the dark shroud with another to block the other end of the alley. I didn't do any damage to the land speeder however I did lock the nasty bike squad into an area they couldn't get out of. I focused fire on the remaining Deathwing models and the Chapter Master to whittle them down to just two models and took some wounds off the chapter master. The conversion beamer did nothing as we were to close for it to have any significant armour penetration.
He fired into a tactical squad and took out a few models with the land speeder. His chapter master called down an orbital strike which took a hull point off a rhino. The grav guns immobilized the rhino blocking the exit to the alley. This is the point he realized he couldn't get rid of them with the grav guns as the wreck will still block the alley. The assault phase saw him tear through a tactical squad with his chapter master leaving three marines that stood firm. Belial took out the last two members of the squad he was chasing after.
Turn Four:
With a ridiculous number of models still on the table I considered my options. Firing at Belial I was able to reduce him to just one wound remaining. The rest of my marines jockeyed for position on the table. During the assault phase my terminators moved in and the brave leader challenged his chapter master. He of course died horribly. However his brave sacrifice allowed the terminators to reduce the chapter master to paste. Slay the Warlord for me.
The Dark Shroud killed a marine during shooting and Belial then assaulted my Master of the Forge. Belial was unable to breech the armour of my warlord and my attacks back were able to kill him.
Turn Five:
Game Ends.
I scored 4 VP for killing his units, 1 for First Blood, and 1 for Slay the Warlord. He scored 1 VP for the squad he killed and 1 VP for Line Breaker with his drop pod.
In Summary:
The game was really fun my Feel No Pain made a difference against the grav guns but other wise I didn't benefit much from the Chapter Rules. I like the amount of scoring units I brought however in a mission like this it could have gone horribly wrong as I brought 14 potential VPs to his 8. However having 66 bodies on the table seems like a good way to deal with anything that might come up.
My opponent made some significant mistakes namely falling for the bait to head down that alley and then charging into a large squad with his chapter master allowing the terminators to get a counter charge. I also don't think sinking that many points into three HQs is a good idea. There was just no way for him to do enough wounds to my force in 6 turns even if he was able to hit with every shot and kill something.
The allies rule annoys me a bit. I like the idea behind it and I like the unique army builds you can make however I feel like it is open to abuse. Especially when a force is painted to look like an existing chapter like Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Ultramarines etc. I feel if you want to use or abuse the allies rules or the chapter tactics it's best to paint your stuff in a unique scheme. That way there's no confusion looking at the table and seeing Ravenwing bikers in the studio scheme and having to remember that they are White Scars and only the White Terminators are Dark Angels. It's a minor thing but still ...
Second, with allies if you chose to use it to represent a cohesive force you NEED to separate the detachments visually. Something as simple as an army badge or a helmet variation would help. Otherwise it's to easy to get confused with what is what. Sure you might know that this purple squad is White Scars and this purple squad are the allied Iron Hands but unless there is a consistent distinquising feature to separate the detachments your opponent won't know.
