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Kill Team Report - Imperial Guard vs Chaos

Started by Mabbz, October 22, 2013, 12:34:01 PM

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Mabbz

Welcome to the second instalment of myself and Narric's Kill Team rivalry! Or more accurately, the two of us playtesting the Kill Team house rules that can be found here. Narric's Chaos Kill Team was stopped by the Imperial Guard sentries last time, but would my brave AdMech commandos be able to show them how stealth is done?

Our forces were chosen in advance in secret; all we knew was that I was using guard and Narric had Chaos. My immediate thought was power armour, so I took plenty of Ap3 weapons. Here's the full team:

Techpriest Nefarian
Servitor One – heavy bolter
Servitor Two
Sergeant Erskine Ravel – storm trooper sergeant with power sword
Private Vaurien Scapegrace – storm trooper
Private Thomas Bob (T-Bob) – storm trooper
= 158pts

The mission was Hit and Run; I had to reach the centre of the board and then escape. Narric then deployed his forces. I forgot to note down his list, but here's the gist of it from memory and the low quality picture above. Note: the version of vassal we used didn't have cultists, so Narric used some Dark Eldar stand-ins.

Chaos Sorcerer – spell Familiar, chainaxe, smite
5 Cultists – champion
5 Cultists – champion
5 Cultists – champion with shotgun
5 Cultists – heavy stubber
5 Cultists – heavy stubber
5 Cultists – heavy stubber

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Nefarian and Erskine surveyed the forces arrayed against them from a nearby hill, and were not happy. They had been sent to steal a daemonic artefact that was purported to be hidden in a vault in this area, guarded by the forces of Chaos. Their briefing had been light on details, but they knew how to fight traitor marines and had come prepared.

"Cultists," Erskine groaned. "Every bit of information they gave us said we'd be up against a small force of marines, not a Throne-damned horde of cultists. I brought two of my best marksmen, when I should have brought half a dozen recruits!"

"Look on the bright side," Nefarian replied. "I brought a heavy bolter. And they aren't nearly as disciplined as marines."

"True, but there's also about three times as many as I was expecting. There's too many to sneak past. We'll need something to draw them off. A distraction."

They turned and looked at T-Bob, who was idly juggling grenades.

----------------
Deployment and Turn one
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rules notes
We both either forgot or didn't notice the rule that says there has to be a 6" gap between each individual sentry squad. This rule is meant to prevent the defender simply packing the area with troops and making the game impossible. It's also to prevent one aware sentry alerting the entire board instantly.

Both of us missing that rule probably made things harder for me, but I doubt it would have had a huge effect on the outcome.

I have never fought against cultists before, and I never really expected to. My Kill Team was never going to be able to sneak past 31 models, so I had to come up with a new plan.

The Kill Team always goes first, and moves in from any board edge at the start of turn 1. So the plan was simple. T-Bob would come in from the north, sneak behind the building and make a big distraction, hopefully clearing most of the cultists away from the objective. The rest of the team would then plough through whatever stayed behind, grab the objective and run.

Anyway, turn one was uneventful, I moved on to the board, with T-Bob going between the ruins and the trees in the north while the rest of the team moved up from the south.

----------------
Turn two
----------------

T-Bob peered over the ruins and saw a group of cultists wandering in his direction. He wasn't in position yet, so now wasn't the time to set off the big distraction. He needed to get past them first.

Thinking fast, he stooped down and grabbed a rock. He hurled it over the past the cultists and hit a ruined wall with a resounding crack. Startled, the cultist's quickly headed to investigate, and T-Bob darted from cover over to another wall, smirking at their gullibility.

----------------

T-Bob's quick misdirection sent the northern sentries off in the wrong direction while he prepared to run behind the building. All good so far.

In the south, however, thing's aren't so good. The south-western cultists have a good roll, and bump straight into my team. They unload their pistols into my men and kill Servitor One! They follow this up with an assault.

----------------

Nefarian jerked out of the way of a cultist's weapon instinctively. One second everything was fine then suddenly Servitor One was deactivated by a storm of autopistol fire. Five cultists have jumped them, although one had already been cut down by Ravel's power sword.

Pushing through his surprise he reached out with his servo arm and crushed the fool that tried to harm him. To his left, Servitor Two had done likewise. The remaining cultists fled before them, presumably to warn their comrades. That was unacceptable. Nefarian and Ravel gave chase to silence the Chaos worshippers before it was too late.



----------------
Turn Three
----------------

T-Bob ran south and tried to take cover behind the watchtower, while what was left of the team easily caught the cultists. Nefarian's power axe made short work of them.

In Narric's turn, things took a surprising turn. His northern cultists showed a dangerous amount of intelligence and moved straight towards T-Bob, spotting him. They shot and charged him, but somehow failed to do any damage. Still, my distraction was effectively neutralised...

Except it wasn't. I won virtually every other control roll, allowing me to move everyone off of the objective. I would still have to fight, but I might be able to win this still!

----------------
Turn Four
----------------

Nefarian and Ravel could see the enemy leaving their posts. There had been no sign of the distraction, yet everyone was headed for T-Bob. Though worried for his private, Erskine and Nefarian couldn't afford to look this gift horse in the mouth. They darted forward, ready to grab the artefact and run like hell.

As they approached, they heard a chuckle from the shadows nearby. A Chaos Sorcerer led some cultists out of the darkness, weapons ready. A trap. They turned to run, only for another group of foes to emerge behind the. And gun down Servitor Two.

Nefarian opened his mouth to issue a challenge. Maybe the sorcerer could be goaded into a fair fight? Before he could speak however, he was struck down by warp lightning.

The words "Systems offline" were the last words he saw before darkness consumed him.

----------------

I moved my team forward, hoping for some good rolls next turn, while T-Bob somehow survived another round of combat.

Sadly, the sentries pretty much all become aware either by spotting me or noticing T-Bob's fight. Surrounded, everyone dies.

----------------
Post Game thoughts:
----------------

On the plus side, I got about as close to the objective as Narric had in the first game. Also the game was a hell of a lot of fun.

In the end though, this game basically confirmed what we had partially worked out last game; the defender has a big advantage in Kill Team games. It also didn't help that I had made my team with marines in mind but Narric seemed to expect that (in fairness, it had worked last game...)

Anyway, we plan to have another game in a few weeks time and hopefully I'll remember to screenshot every turn rather than just two. Comments are always appreciated.

Oh, Narric? If you disagree with my version of events, feel free to say. My notes weren't massively detailed and I forgot to note down your army list.

Narric

haha, excellent read, dude ^_^

Only one detail is wrong with my list, and that is one Cultist champion had a Shotgun, not that it really did anything :P Same with the Sorcerers' Chainaxe and Spell Familiar.

Did you keep a save file of the game? I've noticed if you save a game, it also includes all players armylists. As we were replaying our previous board, it also had my Kill Team and your defence team lists.

Hopefully for our next game we'll remember to double check all rules before we use them, deployment included :P

Looking forward to the next game. I've actually got a couple of "Themed" lists ready, and I'll be putting them up for the forum to vote on for which you'll be facing. I can't decide between them myself. Only one stands out to me, but not by much :P

Mabbz

Quote from: Narric on October 22, 2013, 06:29:34 PM
haha, excellent read, dude ^_^
Well, I had to try and compete with your report ;). I would have written some of it from the cultist's perspective (you wrote for my guard, after all) but I couldn't get into the mindset of a heretic.

QuoteOnly one detail is wrong with my list, and that is one Cultist champion had a Shotgun, not that it really did anything :P Same with the Sorcerers' Chainaxe and Spell Familiar.
I knew I'd missed something. Understandable since his squad did absolutely nothing all game, but I'll edit it in anyway

QuoteDid you keep a save file of the game? I've noticed if you save a game, it also includes all players armylists. As we were replaying our previous board, it also had my Kill Team and your defence team lists.
Sadly no. I did check to see if I could get find the lists, but no luck.

QuoteHopefully for our next game we'll remember to double check all rules before we use them, deployment included :P
At least you have the excuse of being unfamiliar with the rules. I wrote them and still missed it ::)

QuoteLooking forward to the next game. I've actually got a couple of "Themed" lists ready, and I'll be putting them up for the forum to vote on for which you'll be facing. I can't decide between them myself. Only one stands out to me, but not by much :P
Well, it's your turn to play the Kill Team again, so I need to write up some defender lists (I'll probably put them to a vote too, for fairness). Maybe I'll try using my PDF copy of the Tau codex for once.

One thing that's been bothering me, I still haven't had the chance to test those vehicle rules...

Narric

Quote from: Mabbz on October 22, 2013, 10:37:04 PM
One thing that's been bothering me, I still haven't had the chance to test those vehicle rules...
You can easily take a Valk as the Defender :P and have pts leftover for some lightly equipped Veterans.

The Valk would be classed as "Conspicuous" but with 20 models on the board, that may not be a big issue ;)

Ooh, or you could do a Sentinal-only Defence Force :P FA and Inconspicuous ;)

I could do a Guard Kill Team myself, against your 4th(?) ed Tau :P

Arguleon-veq

#4
Very cool guys, I love little games like this. I think it was an uphill struggle for the guard though, I just couldnt see any way of them getting past that many cultists. [+1 Karma Mabbz]
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