right back into it we go! After a bit of a meal and a nap, the next day began straight back into the fray with what was essentially a mirror match!
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| Damn robots.. robotting all over the show. |
Round 5: David Wilson
Mission: Big Guns Never Tire
Deployment: Dawn of War
Dave had a very similar list to my own, with a few differences.
Destroyer lord, 2 units of 6 wraiths, 3 night scythes, 2 units of 9 warriors, 1 unit of 8 immortals, 3 annihilation barges.
I won the roll for first turn, and elected for Dave to take it. As our objectives effectively cut the board down to about 4x4, he set up spread along this line with his barges favoring one flank more than the other. I set up across from him, but with a drawn back approach so as to be out of range from his barges with my wraiths, and only 1 of my barges in range of 1 of his.
Turn 1 – Dave: With no real shooting to be done, Dave pushed everything forward, aiming to keep me so I would at least have to move forward.
Turn 1 – Me: As Dave had brought his wraiths into my tesla range, this gave me the initiative. I pushed one wraith squad up where LOS would be greatly restricted to it, and held the other two back outside of his wraith assault range unless they got an 11 which wasn’t likely. I also pushed up the command barge to try bait out the other wraith squad into my wraith assault range.
The tesla fired up, and when the smoke cleared only 2 wraiths remained from one of the squads.
Turn 2 – Dave: It is from this point on that dice became very bizzare in this game Dave separated the destroyer lord from the wraith squad, and sent both the destroyer lord and the 2 man wraith squad after my command barge. The other wraith squad hovered back, to counter punch whatever I threw at that advance force.
Only 1 flyer showed up despite Dave having rerolls, and his tesla shot at the wraith squad I had largely LOS hidden. The first barge could only see 1, and killed it. The second barge could only see 1, and killed it as well. The flyer then shot at the last 3, and I failed most of the saves so that there was just 1 wraith left. OH well, I guess swings from both side meant the wraith attrition was going at an equal pace.
In the combat phase, the truly hilarious random happened. To be safe, Dave elected it was all going to attack the barge. 1 wraith was mindshackled, but did not hurt his own squad. The destroyer lord and other wraith between them managed to destroy a weapon and shake the command barge, and bring the lord to 1 wound left through his stupid “im going to take wounds instead of hullpoints” shenanigans, but the important bit was both he and the barge survived. In return he took a strong dislike to the destroyer lord, doing 3 hits and 3 wounds, dropping him right then and there and giving me both warlord and first blood!
Turn 2 – Me: With that fantastic event, my lord proceeded to sweep over the wraiths, again doing nothing, but then falcon punched an annihilation barge out of the sky. Both flyers showed up, with 1 going for his flyer, and the other for his wraiths. One of my 5 man wraith squads went and assaulted the 2 man wraith squad, while 2 annihilation barges and a nightscythe killed 3 of his wraiths. My anti flyer shooting totally failed, and the 5 charging wraiths only managed to do a single wound. Whoops. My other wraith squad is pushed up into the midfield, untouched, ready to take over board control duty. My 1 remaining wraith from the 3rd squad assaults one of the other annihilation barges but only does 1 wound.
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| Robot wars! |
Daves free wraiths manage to destroy the barge, but the lord is ejected close to another of Daves barges.
Turn 3 – Me: My squads come on and begin to hunker down on objectives cowering. My lord goes and falcon punches another annihilation barge.
I make a huge mistake at this point, and needlessly push my annihilation barges forward, as I had planned to do so earlier, but had expected to be free of the wraith combat and assaulting his other unit, with either of the 5 man squads that existed at the end of my last turn! They do at least pull down a flyer, bringing Dave down to 2, with the rest having to snapfire due to successfully jinking a large number of glancing and penetrating hits.
Turn 4 – Dave: Daves warrior squad that went into reserve from their scythe going down comes on and rapid fires my lord, killing him. One of Daves flyers snapshots at an annihilation barge, killing it. Those pesky wraiths who are still free? They go kill another of my annihilation barges. A flyer goes and drops off a 9 man squad to rapid fire one of my squads on an objective, but only kills 4, 3 of which get back up. I finally finish off the remaining wraith I have been in combat far too long with.
Turn 4 – Me: My wraiths go and kill his remaining wraiths. My flyer shoots down his last flyer that is containing a squad, leaving him just an empty one cruising around. The rest of my combined shooting manages to kill 6 of the 9man warrior squad, but 3 of these get back up.
Turn 5 – Dave: He desperately tries again to clear my objective, with the remnants of the 9 man squad moving within contesting range of my objective and rapid firing, but does not wipe the squad out. His Immortals come on next to his remaining annihilation barge, killing my remaining flyer, putting the squad into reserve.
Turn 5 – Me: My wraiths are able to go assault his remaining annihilation barge, and be within contesting range of his objective. The 5 come on from reserve, get close enough to claim my objective, and through combined firepower kill the remaining 6, no getting back up!
At this point the game is much closer than either of us expected, but the tally currently sits at 9-5 in my favor (in a normal game this would be 13-7 due to warlord/firstblood/
Turn 6 – Dave: Dave has little left to shoot with now. He tries to clear out the wraiths, but I am left with 2 after the immortals are done. His remaining flyer can’t get an angle to attack, and nothing else is in range.
Turn 6 – Me: I do nothing with my wraiths as I’m happy with hiding out on his objective. I take some cheeky potshots at his flyer for no reason to no effect, and the game finished there.
Win – 15
First Blood – 1, Destroyer Lord
Warlord – 1, Destroyer Lord, 1 – Necron Overlord.
Line Breaker – 1, 2 wraiths breakdancing on his objective.
Final result, 18-1
Games that are pretty much a mirror match are always interesting. I felt at the end of deployment like I was in for a big win, and while some things early on went my way heavily, the next couple of turns were very crippling and made it far closer than I was comfortable with. Daves biggest mistake was to put himself in that position where I was able to get the jump on him in the battle of Tesla vs Wraiths, and ultimately this was too much to recover from.
Round 6: Mark Buttle
Mission: Purge The Alien
Deployment: Diagonal
Mark had Huron Blackheart, 20man CSM squad, 2 10man CSM squads, 3 nurgle spawn, 2 helldrakes with flamers, 2 havoc squads with missile launchers.
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| About to be not such a great game for the double-dragon! |
I won the roll to go first, and took it. I again deployed centrally, with the command barge out on one flank, and the intention of using the LOS blocking terrain while I shoveled wraiths forward.
Mark set up deeply in his quarter, electing not to infiltrate units as he only rolled only 1 on the d3, putting a havoc squad on each flank.
Turn 1 – Me: I was forced to push forward at max speed with the annihilation barges to get any shots, so they only killed half a 10man squad that was screening the rest. Everything else pushed forward, with 2/3 wraith squads hugging los blocking terrain.
Turn 1 – Mark: Mark managed to kill 2 wraiths, but that was the sum total of his turn. The half shot up unit pushed forward to block off the entrance between 2 large pieces of terrain to block wraiths from getting through.
Turn 2 – Me: Neither flyer showed up, which while handy for taking on his helldrakes, wasn’t what I wanted this time around. The command barge pushed up, shooting a havoc, and in assault mindshackle scarabs killed 2 havocs, while the lord killed the remaining 2. On the other flank, the smaller wraith squad pushed forward and cleaned out the other havoc squad. The whittled squad was finished off by the annihilation barges, and the 2 intact wraith squads remained out of LOS to launch a big assault next turn.
Turn 2 – Mark: Marks Spawn assaulted what was left of the wraith squad after the remaining 10man squad shot a wraith dead, and the remaining 2 wraiths only did a couple of wounds before being killed. The 20man blob with huron went and killed the command barge, but the lord hopped out on the other side safely.
Both Helldrakes arrived ,and despite the good invulnerable save, 3 wraiths died to the breath.
Turn 3 – Me: The 2 remaining wraiths went and assaulted the 10man unit. On the other side of the unit, the 5 man unit multicharged both it, and the spawn, who had the wounded spawn killed first so that there were only 2 remaining spawn. Both flyers showed up, killing one of the helldrakes and removing 2 hull points on the other. The lord ran away behind a corner like a sissy. In the combat, the 10man squad was reduced about 5, who killed one of the 2man wraith squad in the process, while the spawn were wiped out.
Turn 3 – Mark: The Helldrake went for a warrior squad, killing 3 of them, but also locking a flyers velocity with its vector strike in the process. Hurons squad tried to chase after the overlord, but were bogged down by terrain.
In the combat, the 10 man squad was further reduced, but managed to finish off the small squad and wound one of the wraiths in the other squad.
Turn 4 – Me: The locked velocity flyer flew off the table. The other one pushed forward and picked up the lord, guaranteeing safety. The 20 man squad was shot at by this flyer, which killed a couple, while the annihilation barges finished off the other helldrake.
In the combat, the 10man squad was finished off, and the wraith squad consolidated towards Marks last unit.
Turn 4 – Mark: Mark tried to kill the flyer, using the 20 man squad to shoot 2 meltaguns at it, which missed.
Turn 5 – Me: The flyer spat the lord back out, who moved up ready to do something if there was a turn 6, while it also spat out the 5 man squad it carried, who were in range to rapidfire the 20man squad. It then turned to move to where it couldn’t see anything but wouldn’t have to leave combat airspace. The other flyer came on in order to shoot the 20man squad. All 3 annihilation barges moved to where they could get LOS and range to this squad also, though some had to go over 6 so were snapfiring. When the smoke cleared something like a 10 had been killed. The wraiths then assaulted the remnants, with a few casualties on each side.
Turn 5 – Mark: A wraith was killed in return for another couple of marines.
The roll went off, and there was indeed a turn 6.
Turn 6 – Me: The lord was now able to walk up and touch just Huron, who bravely issued a challenge before he got confused by the mindshackle scarabs and punched himself in the face. In return the lord performed 3 hits, 3 wounds, and 3 failed saves to secure the warlord point, while the wraiths finished the remaining chaos marines for a tabling.
Win – 15
First Blood – 1, 10man CSM squad
Warlord – 1, Huron Blackheart
Linkebreaker – 1, A squad of Wraiths
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| Digested Chaos... |
Marks list currently struggles a bit from a bit of an identity crises. With missile havocs and a midfield presence, it feels like it’s trying to be spacewolves, except spacewolves do it cheaper and better. His Helldrakes are set up for anti-infantry, when all the rest of his army is anti-infantry, and the spawn squad seems out of place with the rest of the list, and is too little to impact the game meaningfully.
That being said, he had very little prep time and will likely go away looking to correct a lot of these errors.
Stay tuned for tomorrows finale against the tournament favorite and the wrap up!
T'was an entertaining game Charlie. In hindsight I think on my first turn I should have mirrored your deployment by moving my wraiths back and then looked to fantasy it up by looking at each other for a few turns. : P
ReplyDeleteThen it would have been up to my fliers to do a lot of te work, ie where I had the advantage, rather than throwing my smaller no. Of wraiths at yours. Either way learnt a lot from the weekend.