Battle Anecdotes

[Cammerz]

Forgive the double post but I think I was nearly out of space on the first one. Day 2 is now over so I've finished all five games.

Game 4 was against Blood Angels, they had a lot of very fast things including a Storm Raven and an outflanking Baal Predator which was able to drop a nasty S6 AP3 template on my big marine squad, killing 8. I lost a good deal of marines and terminators to a big combat involving TH/SS Terminators whilst the Cultists made friends with a nasty big Dreadnought so could keep attacking if he caused wounds (so that combat phase didn't end until there were no more Cultists in reach). The Bloodthirster performed poorly this time having failed to damage the Storm Raven with his Vector strike and his Lash. He then got murdered by incoming fire before he could charge the nearby Tactical Marines.
I was completely wiped out in, probably turn 5, if not 6. I also fully destroyed none of his units so the score in that respect was 1750-0.

Game 5 was the decider, to work out whether or not we would get the wooden spoons (I already have one from this place and I didn't fancy a second). We were facing the team who we'd faced before (Game 2) but this time I was against a Necron list which fortunately only had one flier. This was for the relic and I was very fortunate when my Warlord trait let me infiltrate D3 units, so my cultists found themselves within 6" of the relic at the start of Turn 1, so they were in contact with it by the end of that movement phase. My Bloodthirster rushed forwards to attack his warlord (a spidery special character in a squad of BS5 warriors). After several turns of my knocking them down only for some to rise back up every turn, he finally took me down to 2 wounds and then scored two wounds and my response was to roll snake eyes. My cultists moved backwards whilst the marines went forward to cover them, engaging a big squad of those sniper 'crons (and defeating them), then moving onto a big squad of warriors (and destroying them) and they were finally tied up with some scarabs at the end of turn 5. Each game was going to turn 6 but we sadly ran out of time at the end of turn 5, my cultists had fled from the relic and had just made it back into base contact but didn't count as holding it. My bloodletters actually did okay having tied a squad of immortals in combat and held them there until the end (going down to T3 and 1 Attack really hurt these guys).
So in the end it was a narrow victory, but he failed to destroy any of my units besides the 'Thirster.

A great game and a great tournament. We finished 7th out of 8, avoiding the spoons, and on the individual's table I came 21st out of 32 which I'm happy with.

[Chicop76]

I would say my 35 point Aluress killed a Bloodthirster was pretty cool. Earlier in the game I vector striked with my Tzeentch Prince, Bloodthirster, and Fate Weaver, before I vectored I used th Maladiction where I can force a player to re roll successful savings throws. After the 3 way winged orgy it left the thirster with one wound.

Latter that game he assaulted what was left of my daemonette squad that was tied up with 30 Nurgle space marines and 10 plague bearers. The chaos gods, plus grimore of true names gave my squad a +2 invulnerable.

Needless to say I was able to weather the attacks. The Bloodthirster challenge me and I accepted with my Alluress with 3 strength 4 master crafted attacks at ap 2. He failed to wound me and I failed to wound him. However I directed all my attacks into the bearers which allowed me to win combat by 5. His daemons both failed instability which killed his thirster.

The lesson from that game was taking an icon is a good ideal. The icon saved my butt and gave me a tie breaking win a few times. I felt naked without my herald though.

It was a funny game cause he was pround that his berserkers slaughtered my poor horrors. We gathered a crowd due to his rants on "Blood for the Blood God!" After slaying my horrors. Another daemon player said that is like being pround of slaying old people on walkers, or defenseless babies. The horrors is probably the worst combat unit in the game 2nd to Tau.

Also what drew the crowd was my deamonettes holding off his entire army and holding on to the relic for dear life.

I found nurgle marines to be a pain in the butt. As an after thought I should have given my damonettes prescience. Although +2 invulnerable saves for 2 turns, go Fateweaver, and +5 fnp due to endurance really, really helped. His entire army poured into 20 daemonettes and was only able to kill around 13 leaving 7 at the end of the game vs 30 nurgle marines, 10 berserkers, 10 nurglings, and kharne. I did however throw in another squad on daemonettes and a prince.

[Mabbz]

So today was fun. It started with me making a small change to my normal guard list, by adding a psyker battle squad. To do this, I either had to remove an armoured sentinel with a lascannon or one of my beloved but not that useful ministorum priests. Eventually I removed the sentinel, but I was still considering swapping the priests for something in the future.

Anyway, I had two games today. The first was The Relic against a tyranid force with two flyrants, a trygon, some termagaunts and a scythed hierodule for some escalation fun. I won with only three models left, but the fun parts were one of the priests challenging his warlord and eviscerating it with ease, and the many and varied wounds of the hierodule, which included one from a tank shock, one from three guardsmen charging it with krak grenades and the final one from a sentinel's lascannon in overwatch. Also, it couldn't attack my commander as he was at the top of a three story ruin and the hierodule couldn't climb it and only had a template weapon.

The second game was blood angels. The fun thing here was Mephiston charging my veteran squad, only to be challenged by a priest. The priest then passed eleven consecutive 4+ invulnerable saves over two rounds of combat, and landed a wound on the lord of death. Eventually my opponent decided Mephiston needed help and sent some bikers to take my moral support away. The priest only passed four of the six wounds from that third round of combat. I lost, but my priests clearly wanted to gain some more job security.

[BigToof]

I've been trying out the new Dark Eldar and well... it's a complicated book.
Dies horribly versus anything that ignores cover, but has quite nice tricks up it's sleeve.
DE Relic that drops Ld plus Farseers are NASTY.

Played also some Space Wolves versus... Orks.
It did not go as well as had hoped, despite my running a Thunderwolf-Star.

Haven't run Tau for a while, still trying to find a list that can deal with the sudden lack of Eldar help.
Maybe Farsight Enclaves?

Best,
-BT

[Mabbz]

So, the other day I finally got around to playing some games with my new copy of the rulebook. The first game was fairly dull, 1000pts, my guard versus space marines. Ended with a draw. The second game was a bit more lively, though...

I decided to try something new, and took a level 2 Primaris Psyker and have him use santic powers. He got Hammerhand, and Vortex of Doom. My opponent meanwhile had the most powerful yet fluffy blood angels lists I've seen. Five drop pods with various passengers, and a landspeeder. Having three drop pods land on my platoon and heavy flamer them was not pleasant, so I decided to get some revenge. The psyker stepped up, and cast the Vortex.

So, long story short, by the end of the game, my psyker had destroyed an armoured sentinel and a chimera and injured Straken before being taken down by bolter fire. He Perils of the Warped twice, neither harming him while one gave him a warp surge, which allowed him to survive half the blood angels firing at him. And he killed exactly none of my opponents models.

I am firmly of the opinion he was possessed, and on his death a greater daemon should have been summoned. I look forward to using him again one day.

[Scout Sergeant Mkoll]

One of my favourite anecdotes to this day is from 4th edition. I was playing in a 1500pt game, my Tyranids against my friend's Blood Angels. i've always favoured combat over shooting so my list was full of hormagaunts and genestealers, warriors, a Tyrant and a Carnifex.

Turn 2 my Hormagaunts reached his lines. By turn 4 the collective force of both our armies was engaged in a single mass combat in the centre of his lines. I lost the game in the end, but it was one of the best games I've played in and the looks of utter confusion from other players as we tried to work out which models could allocate attacks where.

[Cammerz]

I had a 6th ed three-player game today, 2x 1000pt lists versus a 2000pt list.

Myself wth Tau, my ally with Sisters of Battle and we took on a pure Tzeentch daemon list.

I had an ethereal, 3x 8-man fire warrior teams, a pathfinder team, 3 rifle broadsides, an ionhead and a railhead. The sisters had a canoness with squad in an immolator, 3x squads of 10 sisters, a squad of seraphim and an Exorcist.

The Tzeentchians took Fateweaver, 4x mastery 3 heralds on chariots, 2x squads of 20 horrors, a winged daemon prince and a soul grinder (the latter being the only unit that didn't develop at least 3 warp charge points a turn).

Turn one, the daemon prince took out half a fire warrior squad with flickering fire of tzeentch (everything had this spell), Fateweaver annihilated my pathfinders, both of these were of course flying at this point. We were able to kill the daemon prince with overwhelming firepower (he was within rapid fire range of all of my fire warriors).

Turn two, the big horror squads deep struck in, so did the soul grinder. Three of the herald shad begun on the board with the big daemons, the fourth nearly came in here but scattered too far and went back into ongoing reserves. I suffer a lot of pain as my fire teams are whittled down (although none completely destroyed at this stage).
We strike back, my railhead's submunition taking one horror squad down to half whilst the sisters deal with a couple of the heralds.

Eventually I remember the rule about being able to knock FMCs out of the sky and on turn 3 we remove Fateweaver from the game. Sadly at this point the horrors manage to kill my ethereal but with seraphims in combat with horrors and my gunline removing the last couple of heralds we eventually manage to wipe the daemons off the table right at the end of turn 4.


I had a bit of a look round online beforehand to see about 3-player all-v-all but it looks difficult to sort out, especially on a rectangular 6' by 4' table. One suggestion was for each player to hold their own objective and try to capture the one to their left so each player is attacking one opponent and defending from another.

Anyone had any experiences with three player games?

[Cammerz]

I had a couple of battles the other day; a 1500pt game and because we had plenty of time left, a 1000pt game.

First off was Chaos vs Chaos, I used Daemons of Khorne with CSM allies (2x Bloodthirsters, 2x 10 Bloodletters, Chaos Terminator Lord w. 5x Terminators w. assorted wargear, 10x CSMs w. Power Fist and Heavy Bolter in a Rhino, Defiler w. Power Scourge) whilst my opponent opted for Thousand Sons (Terminator Sorcerer w. 5x Terminators in a Land Raider, 2x 10 Thousand Sons in a Rhino, Spawn, 5x Havocs w. Lascannons).

His opening salvo destroyed my defiler, I moved everything forwards to try and engage him in close combat asap. My CSMs were severely damaged by a turn of TSon shooting but then a Bloodletter squad arrived and tied those TSons in combat for a while. One of my Bloodthirsters cracked open the Land Raider but was brought down by sustained lascannon fire whilst the other accepted a challenge from a TSon Aspiring sorcerer and after rolling terribly on his attacks he learned just how nasty force weapons can be and was insta-killed. My Terminators struck in and engaged his, mine dealing most of the damage but in the duel between his Sorcerer and my Lord I once more learned how nasty Force Weapons can be. So I lost this one.

Game two was much more one-sided. He'd come up with a 1000pt Eldar list but having seen what I was proxying, he altered it a bit to become (Illic Nightspear, 2x 10 Alaitoc Paathfinders (the upgraded Rangers that Illic can get), Wraithlord w. no additional weapons, Wraithknight w. no additional weapons).
I brought Imperial Guard with some help (Company Command Squad w. 1x bolter, camo cloaks and a Master of Ordnance, 2x Veterans w. camo cloaks, 1x bolter, 1x sniper rifle, 1x autocannon, Knight Paladin, Knight Errant).

His Alaitoc Pathfinders started in reserve and I took the first turn. The clash of the titans began as my big things closed with his big things, I also found that in the ruin-heavy map we'd laid out, the ignore cover order truly comes into its own. Illic manages to target my commander but a Look Out Sir! saves his life and an ignores cover autocannon saw the end of old Nightspear. The Wraithknight managed to inflict a couple of hit on my Paladin before engaging in melee, my Paladin went down to 1HP before annihilating the xenos filth. The Errant had no such trouble dealing with the Wraithlord at range. His Pathfinder teams appeared on opposite board edges and began exchanging fire with my veteran teams, all sides heavily entrenched at this point. One of his snipers took out a veteran and my men hit back stronger, throughout the game the Master of Ordnance did very little but with his big things dead, my Knights turned on the puny eldar and after a bit more fire they all fled the board. At the end of the game I had lost one veteran from my command squad and one veteran from elsewhere.

So the two things we can take away from all this; Force Weapons are really powerful, Imperial Knights are really powerful.

[BigToof]

Sounds like a great game Cammerz!
I have yet to really use Knights on a consistent basis, but I've heard many a good thing...
Looking forward to the next one.

-BT

[Cammerz]

Time for more anecdotes because I didn't take detailed notes. I had a 2000pt game yesterday using the Visions of Victory mission from Chapter Approved 2018. My Word Bearers vs Nephrek Dynasty Necrons.

The deathstar in my army was a Deathclaw Drop Pod containing: a Dark Apostle, an Exalted Champion, a Greater Possessed (from the new Shadowspear box) and 7x Possessed. All Possessed models were Strength 6 and the whole unit could re-roll all failed to-hit and to-wound rolls in the fight phase. They killed 8/10 Lychguard in a single round of combat but sadly I was 1CP short so couldn't play the Fury of Khorne stratagem and have my possessed fight again, this led to 7 of the Lychguard getting back up (thanks to a nearby Cryptek and an Overlord with the Orb of Eternity) so I had to do it all again. Fortunately the next couple of fight phases allowed me to wipe them out properly.

My opponent didn't have too much in the way of anti-tank which may explain why both of my Defilers survived the battle (I'm not sure I've ever finished a game with a Defiler still on the board), they hung around my back-field, killed the 10x Immortals who had been hiding in a Translocation Crypt, protected my Sorcerer and then charged and destroyed the 3x Destroyers and 3x Wraiths.

My Chaos Space Marines didn't last too long but they caused some damage to a few Necron warrior units and helped me secure the odd objective in my backfield. Also from Shadowspear I had 2x Obliterators who deep striked in with my Terminator Lord to cause serious problems behind enemy lines before charging into combat towards the end (because they're not terrible at that now, especially against non-dedicated combat units). Finally there was my Venomcrawler who rushed forwards early in the game to tie up the Lychguard and Scarab swarms for a couple of rounds.

I did have a Helbrute but he died really early on to an Annihilation Barge.

In the end I wiped the field clean of Necrons and won 15-8 (or thereabouts).

[BigToof]

Time for more anecdotes because I didn't take detailed notes. I had a 2000pt game yesterday using the Visions of Victory mission from Chapter Approved 2018. My Word Bearers vs Nephrek Dynasty Necrons.

The deathstar in my army was a Deathclaw Drop Pod containing: a Dark Apostle, an Exalted Champion, a Greater Possessed (from the new Shadowspear box) and 7x Possessed. All Possessed models were Strength 6 and the whole unit could re-roll all failed to-hit and to-wound rolls in the fight phase. They killed 8/10 Lychguard in a single round of combat but sadly I was 1CP short so couldn't play the Fury of Khorne stratagem and have my possessed fight again, this led to 7 of the Lychguard getting back up (thanks to a nearby Cryptek and an Overlord with the Orb of Eternity) so I had to do it all again. Fortunately the next couple of fight phases allowed me to wipe them out properly.

My opponent didn't have too much in the way of anti-tank which may explain why both of my Defilers survived the battle (I'm not sure I've ever finished a game with a Defiler still on the board), they hung around my back-field, killed the 10x Immortals who had been hiding in a Translocation Crypt, protected my Sorcerer and then charged and destroyed the 3x Destroyers and 3x Wraiths.

My Chaos Space Marines didn't last too long but they caused some damage to a few Necron warrior units and helped me secure the odd objective in my backfield. Also from Shadowspear I had 2x Obliterators who deep striked in with my Terminator Lord to cause serious problems behind enemy lines before charging into combat towards the end (because they're not terrible at that now, especially against non-dedicated combat units). Finally there was my Venomcrawler who rushed forwards early in the game to tie up the Lychguard and Scarab swarms for a couple of rounds.

I did have a Helbrute but he died really early on to an Annihilation Barge.

In the end I wiped the field clean of Necrons and won 15-8 (or thereabouts).

Hi Cammerz,
Sounds like it was great fun, and I hope to see more of your CSM!

BTW, have you taken a look at the new changes in the 2.0 Codex?

Best,
-BT

[Cammerz]

Only what I've seen on the Warhammer Community site and the contents of Shadowspear. But I can say that Obliterators are great now. I've heard a great deal about the new Dark Apostle (I used the old rules) and I can't wait to get my hands on the new model.

[Cammerz]

I've now tried out the Primaris side of the Shadowspear box with a 2000pt battle between my Alpha legion (counts-as Raven Guard successor) and Craftworld Alaitoc. Two sneaky armies made even harder to hit by the fact that we were playing the Cloak and Shadows mission from the core book (so above 18" we were both at -2 to hit which was made even more difficult by the Warp Spiders flickerjumping and the Rangers staying in cover with Illic Nightspear).

The Eldar had a lot of Warp Spiders (3x units of 10) plus three Wave Serpents containing Fire Dragons, 2x Farseer skyrunners, an Autarch, 3x units of Rangers and Illic. I had the Shadowspear Primaris plus; Intercessors, Hellblasters, Inceptors, Reivers, a couple of Dreadnoughts (a Contemptor and the Relic Leviathan) and a Primaris Librarian.

It was a close battle all the way through with both sides causing serious damage to the other but I was able to stay slightly ahead as the game drew to its close and I ended up at the close of turn 6 with my Leviathan (Omegon) closing down Illic having slain his Rangers.

Final score was about 15-13 in my favour.

I wasn't overly impressed by the Suppressors or Eliminators but the Infiltrators were solid, especially supported by the Phobos Librarian who kept casting Scryer's Gaze at them to wipe out Rangers. The Leviathan is always a stand-out unit, particularly early in the game when he's being buffed by the Primaris Librarian and Might of Heroes. Omegon just walked through two squads of Fire Dragons with barely a scratch. My Reivers and Phobos Lieutenant jumped in behind the enemy lines and acted like a serious Distraction Carnifex, drawing the entire Eldar force back to deal with them and allowing the rest of my force some respite for a turn.

[Narric]

From my game today in the Age of Sigmar system, playing Gunline Dwarves Vs Khorne Warband, ~900pts due to limitations in my collection.

I had managed to sieze the initiative, but had to use my first turn for some minor unit repositioning to account for my opponents deployment. My shooting phase had a single shot. My Cannon, held in the mid right  of my deployment zone, with roughly three quarters of the field in view. I had a few targets to choose from, but instead I decided to send a message. I target the Khorne Standard Bearer which is nestled behind their Warlord, and two units of Bloodletters. My Warlord sadly was out of range for his command ability (Warden King), but still I manage to strike a hit, and it wounds. Now for damage. My cannon does D6 Damage, and my target has 6wounds. I cast the die, and score a 6. I earn first blood of the game with a single lucky shot.

My Unforged was next to score some kills taking out two Blood Warriors in his first charge. Over the course of the king, my Warden King also dispatches two Chaos Spawn who had made the mistake of threatening my Cannon Crew. Sadly the crew were wiped out by the second before it could be dispatched. The cannon working as a fantastic marker of the Objective within my deployment zone, which ultimately marked my victory for the game.

Sadly, two whole units of eighteen strong thunderers were easily slaughtered by the bloodthirsty Khorne-ate force.

[Cammerz]

Some friends and I have been doing a series of 4-player battles, each 2v2 at 1000pts a player and each battle we switch teammate. This last one featured Sisters of Battle and Necrons vs Orks and my Primaris Alpha Legion. This was my first time using the new codex.

My team's main tactic was to set the Orks up in front with the Marines behind so I could shoot while he closed the distance to charge things. It went very well. We focused a lot of fire on the Sword and Board Lychguard so there was only one left when the Warboss and Nobz charged in. That unit had worried us beforehand.

The moment that most stood out for my guys was when my Hellblasters opened up the Sororitas Rhino and I played the Rapid-Fire stratagem on my 10-man Intercessor squad to delete the Repentia inside. I actually only rolled 20 of the 40 shots, 20 was enough. The Mistress of Repentence then held her own against a swarm of boyz for a respectable amount of time.

In the end we won comfortably, our opponents were tabled and I had only lost two models; my Captain died to a Vindicare Assassin and I lost a single Inceptor to a Seraphim with a pair of Inferno Pistols.