So here we are with Round 4. Moving through these rather quickly! Our game started a bit late due to us all walking around to look at opponent's armies and then me running back to my car to get my water bottle (which wasn't there...) not knowing the games had already started. Woops! So I played against Matthew Robbins and his Blood Angels who has some nice conversions and an easy paint job (apparently it takes him 2 hours to do a tank...curse him!). His list was something like...2x10 tacs w/double plas, 3x SP (2 w/JP, all w/a combat weapon), 2x5 ASM in AC RBacks w/Flamer & PWeapon Sarge, 10 man ASM w/double IP & PFist, Libby w/JP, Rage & Sword, 2 MM ABs, a Pred & a Furioso Dread in Pod. Not a bad list with a lot of FNP bodies out there which could be problematic but not much which can hurt my T6. This btw, is the game for all the naysayers of T-Fexes.
This was the secret orders mission and I picked Seize Ground (control more objectives) as my primary and protect the precious (no enemy within 6" of my home objective). I can't remember what Matt picked other than Kill Points as his primary. I won the roll-off an elected to go first and deployed on the left hand side. This game me some hills to provide cover to my midfield advance and put the center building on Matt's side which would be perfect for hiding my HG and holding objectives with Gants & Tervigons. Matt deployed his Tacs on top of a hill with his objective and everything else behind the building.
Deployment:
Turn 1 saw me move everything up and Onslaught the Hive Guard into position. My Gants ran to create a bubble wrap and discourage his Pod from landng in midfield and left my Tyrant in the middle of my army and hanging back somewhat in case he dropped his Pod on my objective (HT w./I5 & MC > Dread). My shooting saw my take a weapon off an RBack and instant death an MM bike w/my Hive Guard. The T-Fexes did little but the TYrant was able to drop a couple of Tac Marines with his HVC. Matt moved his ASM squad, bikes and Pred into the lee of the building and sped his RBacks round my right flank. His Dread attempted to drop on my objective near my Tyrant but rolled 12 and off the table where it was destroyed *sadface.* This hurt him badly as my whole army was able to advance rather than needing my Tyrant to turn back and poke the Dread. Matt shot at the Gants a lot and was able to knock a few out (one spawned squad down to 2) but no squads wiped out.
Turn One:
Turn Two saw my steady advance continue with a steady stream of Gants coming from my Right Tervigon (left Tervigon pooped out T1). Er did I say steady? Sorry both Tervigons were high and dry T2 so I was 'stuck' with 5 squads of the blighters and 2 squads were tiny! (one poor roll and the squad which got shot to pieces). Both of these squasd high-tailed it back to my objective so they could hold it and hide. Raveners came in (bit early for my tastes!) and deep struck on target near the ASM. They ran forward to block any defender reacts movement by them in case I charged. My Hive Guard were able to shake the RBack with weapon and the Pred whilst my T-Fexexes dropped the final Bike. A bunch of blasts and termagant guns couldn't do much to the ASM squad no losing a single guy and no damage was done to the Tac squads. Assault saw one squad of Termagants tie up the ASM squad who couldn't get everyone into combat thanks to the Raveners (it's like blocking is good or something). Gants managed to down 1 ASM (silly FNP!) and after Fearless saves there was 3 of them left.
His Turn 2 saw him zoom tank shock his shaken Pred into my lines to disrupt my movement and zoomed his mobile RBack around the hill to attempt to get into my deployment zone. His shooting was again pretty ineffectual dropping a couple of Gants and a few wounds on the Raveners. His assault saw the removal of the Gant squad locked in combat with his ASM (who consolidated backwards) and his 5 man ASM squad w/Priest drop the Raveners (though lost 3 themselves).
Turn Two:
Turn 3 saw me advance...again, specifically my MCs now as he doesn't have much left to drop them outside of combat. My T-Fex & HG on the right moved up and around the hill to get access to the juicy meat over there. My small Gant squads kept running back to my objective and I moved my Gants up so his ASM could only assault them or go around and try and get the MCs on the other side. If they assaulted the gants they'd be hit by multiple MCs next turn. Shooting saw me explode the Pred (which took 3 wounds off of the 2 HG squads nearby...ow) and destroy the remaining RBacks. Couldn't drop many Marines though again thanks to FNP. In turn 3 Matt moved his ASM around to try and assault my T-Fex and moved his ASM down my right flank onto the hill. His shooting dropped a couple of wounds off the northern T-Fex but he was too far away to assault.
Turn Three:
Turn 4 would be our last turn thanks to time limit and basically saw an MC massacre. Up north my T-Fex and Tyrant unit moved very close to the ASM squad to blast and then assault them (who were fearless btw from Red Thirst) whilst my HG & T-Fex down south did the same to the squads there. My Tervigons and Gants moved about to hold all 3 objectives and put any firepower they could on the Blood Angels. Enter the joys of T-Fexes. A S5 5" blast. A poison 2+ template. And 2 S10 shots. The T-Fex up north caused 15 or 16 wounds on the ASM squad and was able to drop 4-5 ASM by himself. The T-Fex down south was able to cause 7 wounds I think but all but one save was passed. The rest of my shooting was able to drop the ASM squad down to 5 men (Libby, Priest, TH + 2 ASM) and during my assault phase I wiped all but the Libby with my T-Fex & Tyrant unit. The T-Fex down south killed one but combat ensued and the Hive Guard assaulted the remaining Priest on the same side but did nothing. It was at this point that we were interrupted for painting score on Matt's army and told multiple times we were running out of time. Thanks. Matt then quickly did his T4 where he took down an HG squad with his tacs but lost his Libby and small ASM squad in the final combat phase (no pics sorry).
The game finished as a victory for me as I had completed both my primary and secondary objectives whilst Matt couldn't complete either of his. An 18 point win. Whilst we were rushed towards the end it was a great game and we had a bunch of laughs that only 40k players would find amusing... It was a shame his Pod scattered so far and poorly as it would of slowed my Tyrant's advance quite a bit and have given his big ASM squad a bit more freedom (Lash Whips are a pain). Matt's shooting rolling was quite poor early on as well but his FNP saves were pretty good but he didn't have much high strength firepower to drop MCs unfortunately.
Overall a great game and it was disappointing we were rushed and interrupted at the end but enjoyable to play all the same. Good game Matt!
8 pinkments:
Woops, forgot to say. Matt and I moved the terrain around a bit and actually didn't use it all because there was so much on this board. Before moving there were quite a lot of points where his RBacks/Pred simply couldn't fit through... and I didn't want perma 4+ covers on my MCs so for the sake of fairness we made it more accessible to him
Ahh you are a gentleman allowing the cover to be removed, even after you were completely shafted by lack of cover against the Eldar... Jolly good show old chap! I will have to scoot up to Brisbane from Canberra to give you a game sometime(also some fam live there :P ). Nice battle reps.
Woo, go T-fexes!
Hope you both enjoyed yourselves. It's a real pity about the whole paint judging thing.
I don't live in Brisbane atm Borkai =p, Sydney. By the end of the year though...who knows. Here is a PM I recieved from my opponent on wargamerAU via PM and he said it was okay to post it here. So from Matt:
"Hey Kirby this is Matthew Robbins (darkstarr on wargamerau)
Just thought I would send you a response to your Battle report which you can add to the post on 3++ or just keep as a counterpoint or whatever (your blog far be it from me to tell you what to do with info you come across)
The game I played against you was my 4th ever game in 5th edition and 4th ever game using blood angels(first tournament woo). It probably taught me the most out of all the games I played at lords of terra and had a direct link to me winning the 5th tournament game.
40k is a game you learn and better yourself more from hard fought losses than you do from wins so as a courtesy I thought I would share with you what you helped me learn through beating my army to pulp
1) proper spacing and spreading marines out a bit to rob templates of their vitriol.
2) Effective use of combat to stop template weapons
3) Ways to augment troops using psychic powers and combo’s
4) Greater discretion when choosing a location to deep strike
5) Picking objectives better.
6) Have a greater knowledge of newer codexes
High toughness monstrous creature lists were probably always going to be a problem for my army and when played by a solid competent opponent that didn’t make any mistakes they slaughtered me as they rightly should. I wasn’t so sure about my army list when I submitted it but in hindsight I think I would have been better served dropping a tactical squad and picking up a missile launcher dev squad but that’s hindsight and probably be what I’ll be working on next.
I honestly thought your army was better painted and present than mine and you deserved higher than the 16 points you were given, I was surprised that you didn’t get higher score than me (different color chitin for heads would look silly in a nid army seriously?) since I rushed a lot of it with only a few conversions, basic flock basic flocking and painting tactical and assault squad markings most of it done the night before. The judging of the army threw me off my game a little having to split my attention between both of you and took my attention away from out battle and after losing the initiative after losing my drop pod dreadnought of doom I couldn’t afford to not pay attention.
In the end I came equal 24th with 2 wins 2 losses and draw and 2nd out of all the blood angels players which I was happy with as it leaves room for growth and improvement.
You were a great opponent with a good understanding of rules which I was a little fuzzy on and very fun to banter over the table with made you one of the top opponents I faced and would be great to play against you again.
hope to face you across the table again
matt "
Here here for great sportsmanship...
These are the kinds of people I like to play against - win or lose...
Indeed and this was what Lords of Terra was about and what the game is about. having fun and being the best you can be :).
Kudos to matt for saying it and willing to have it published and it was a great game.
Sounds like a great time...
If you're reading, Matt - against an army like Kirby's, much better to drop the Pod empty just to block his movement., and deploy the Dread normally. It WILL get shot at, but hopefully that gives the other elements of your army - the shootier ones - more time to gun stuff down.
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