Well it's round 2 of working on my tourney list against Vince's list. Before this I just want to point out how much I hate 1500 ^^, gives you so little flexibility. You put in two mandatory Troops and an HQ and 1/3 of your army is gone. Add in the restrictions of this tourney and I essentially have 170 pts I can't really use. Will talk about possible changes after the game.
So list for me was the same but Vince had updated his to a much better mechanised list based around Immos. Went something like:
Palatine
4x 5xCelestians w/2xmgun & Immo
2x 10xSisters w/mgun, HFlamer & Rhino
2x 5x IST w/2xmgun
2x Immo
Exorcist
I think he should drop the Exo for another Immo/IST combo. I was pretty leniant with movement (though Vincey got a bit bitchy :P). In a tournament game you can't move something and move it back once you've started on other things, etc. This means you have to be careful and plan your moves and why stuns/immobs can be very annoying against Mech if the Mech play bunches up too much.
Now there's still a bit of proxying going on here so will explain what's what in the pics if it's not obvious. You can also see the lack of nice terrain (silly cityfight buildings). We rolled DoW & 4 objectives with me getting the first turn. First turn shooting was ineffectual by all sides. Here were our T1 move ons.
The crater you can see there is actually a forest. ahem. I used the central building and speeding Speeders (inculding the Vypers...) to cover my Rhinos which covered my Preds (inc the Chimera) & a Dread (my other Dread is hiding below the building). The scouts are holding the rearmost objective and the Speeders are in a position to pounce where Vince is most likely to come on and zoom to relative saftey to where he is most likely to bring his Exo in (seen in next pic).
Vince moved on as expected (the DPod is Impassable) with his Exo just out of range behind the building (so he has to move into the open to shoot my firing line) and his Immos and Rhinos hiding behind the central building (the Exos w/o guns are IST Immos, the 2 Rhinos are Rhinos and the other 4 vehicles are Immos w/Celestians).
Turn 2 I moved my Rhinos up (the old Khorne rhino holds my ISTs and Libby) with 2 speeders into the central building to hold midfield and gain cover and zoomed my other 2 speeders to draw the Exo out and be able to shoot him next turn (assuming they survive. Bad assumption). My dreads both moved up and my Preds and scouts stayed still to fire. My shooting was terrible. My meltas missed and my ACs and LCs all failed to pen bar one which got through Vince's smoke and stunned an IST Immo.
Vince also moved his Mech force up (here is where he needed to be careful with movement order as one Immo was stunned), popped a few more smokes and also moved the Exo into the open to shoot the Speeders. He openned fire at thespeeder squad w/the exo, 3 shots, 3 hits, 2/3 pens through and 2 explodes. The other 2 speeders were shot by the rest of the army which could exploded them all on pure 6s. 4 pure 6s. owie.
(yes the dice near the building are our new "crater")
Turn 3 saw a bit more damage from my side as I foolishly moved my IST Rhino out and I was able to Immob a Celestian Immo and Explode another (which had the Palatine) with my Dread. The other Dread was able to Immob and remove a Stormbolter from a Rhino. They promptly ran away. My Preds were able to knock off the Exo gun since it was now in the open and showing side armor.
Vince's Turn 3 saw him unload his two Sister squads, an IST squad and a Celestian squad (mostly from immobed transports, one of them was immobed by moving through a crater) and move up to immolate and melta a lot of things. He was able to explode my IST and a marine Rhino (stunned the other one) and the ensuing flamer and bolter death saw 6 marines and all of the ISTs drop. His celestians assaulted my Libby though no damage was done by either side.
Turn 4 saw the combat in midfield grow larger as I charged my 2nd Marine squad into the Sisters & Celestians. I was unable to sigifnicatly damage his vehicles (shook a Celestian Immo and stunned & weapon destroyed on a IST Immo) but my Scouts were able to account for 4 sisters who had opted out of their transport. My charging Marines and Libby were able to take down 10 sisters & Celestians (wow) but they remained in combat.
Vince's Turn 4 wasn't very effectual and it looked like the tide had turned as he was unable to do much damage other than exploding my now empty Rhino in midfield. His 6 remaining sisters shot at my remaining marines not in combat and they auto fell back. Everything else he couldn't see (thanks to immobed tanks) or was locked in combat. He moved his remaining IST immo towards the far objective where it hid behind the gunless Exo.
I don't have many pics from this point on as we were rushing so Vince could head out. My Turn 5 saw me explode an Immo (and pin the ISTs inside) with my Pred, explode a Rhino which was moving towards my held objective and moved my Dreads into assault. One dread tied up the remaining 6 Sisters whilst the other exploded an Immo w/Celestians which was moving towards my home objective. The combat in the middle ensued with the Vet sister the only remaining Witchunters combatant.
Vince's turn 5 was again ineffectual as things were winding down. He moved his ISTs and some more celestians to the middle objective and moved his Exo to a midfield objective outside the combat (which I may have gone for if it went to T6). The celestians which had survived the Immo explosion by the dread moved to contest my objective and shot the Dread, stunning it and taking off a TLAC arm. The Vet sister survived 6 wounds and killed the libby, forcing my marines to fall back.
We rolled for a T6 and got it. Both my Marine squads had rallied and ran towards the middle (finally taking the Vet sister with them). The rest of my army took aim at the Celestians near my home objective and took down all but one.
During Vince's T6 he made one of my Marine squads fall back (bad morale rolling again) and moved more units towards the middle objective. The game ended after that and it was 2-0 in Vince's advantage.
If it had finished T5 it would of been a draw (thanks to that damn Vet sister!) and if it had gone to a T6 it most likely would of also finished in a draw though if I could have gotten a run of 3" or more and killed his Exo I could of gotten a 2nd objective. Either way a close game, much closer than I imagined after my first couple of turns shooting. I think I went after midfield too aggressively. My tac MMs outranged his meltaguns and could of gotten a valuable turn of extra shooting in. However, clearing sisters is a pet hate of mine. Whilst I did relatively well in removign bodies throughout the game (31 out of 45 or so killed infantry) w/their Stubborn books and ability to get invuls (so no avenger :() they are hard to get out of cover and I think that led to my early push. I was happy with my predicting ability though pissed off that my Speeders all exploded :(. That and the fact that only 1 melta shot hit all game put me on the back foot. Vince played pretty well and was able to mass his firepower in midfield and finally kicked me out on T5 which won him the game.
Off to post some pics of comp mini but will talk about my list later.
