Big Game report. Nids V Marines

It has been a while since I last posted here. My marines have slowly being expanding. Since the last time I have painted:

• Assault terminators (lightening claws)
• Void Shield generator (started)
• Tactical terminators (heavy flamer)
• 5 man close combat scout squad
• Played some games
• New kitchen

Now I am in the process of buying a house so more time being used up doing no geekery stuff.

Anyway last weekend my local mates and i played a large game. we had been discussing it for a while as with any large games things can get complicated, time consuming, unbalanced and all of the above!

First of all to try and keep it simple we said the marines would defend a fortress in the centre of the table. The nids would come in from both sides (like a mission in Horus Heresy Book 1). The marines would set up and the nids would have turn 1 in which the moved on from the board edge. This would save time in not having to set the nids up then move them. When we setting the board up we decided that it would be best not to have any terrain between the base and the table edge. While this would not give the nids cover it would also not slow them down getting to the marines. The nids aim was to wipe out the marines (not flyers).

We agreed on a time limit for moving and shooting of 30mins (timer paused for the psychic phase). We didn’t time assault as it was felt you could not do an assault for an advantage, so all would have to be done, where if you forgot to move or shoot it is generally to your own detriment. Rather than play APOC we just played a big game of 40K. APOC has even more rules and situations to remember and to be honest we just wanted to roll dice and play!

I’m not going to give a turn by turn report or anything like that, but overall the game played well with very little that needed changing. We ran out of time (as usual) but managed to complete 4 turns, which isn’t bad for 21k points on the board. The marines held out and had a little over 2k left… the nids still had a lot left! The nids did start with 25% more models and could respawn stuff each turn. Their entry point also crept closer to the base each turn. I think it was a balanced game, maybe swinging to the easier side for marines. I think we still would have held out for 1 more turn, after that not so sure!

Here are a few pictures of the game.

More can be seen in my photobucket account here:

http://s856.photobucket.com/user/toonboy78/library/Big%20Game%20Sept%2015

Lessons learned:

• Big games are hard to plan. This took the best part of 2 months of chat to get a rule set we all liked (or at least compromised on!)
• Time: no matter how much time you give you will always run out
• Space: hosting is hard and we needed space for an 8*6 table (no deployment zone for nids) and plenty of space to walk around and put models out of the way. We were lucky and could hire a local room that allowed us to be there until after 11pm.
• Game rules: it was a little one dimensional and as the marine player I didn’t have to think about too much, no choosing between a run for an objective or shoot the nearest enemy. Not this scenario needed it but other games I would like to have a 3 tiered set of objective, turn based (maelstrom), game based (eternal war), secret (special one made up for that specific game, like kill all HQ’s, or hold any 6 objectives at the end of the game). each one worth more than the other so it would be hard to know how is going to win

So that is now over I am cracking on with finishing off my first load of Centurions and I have started the storm raven. That should keep me busy until my house move is complete!

Battle Report: Marines V Tyranids

This should be my final one for a while. 4 games in 2 weeks, and now my wife is starting to give me the look.....

 

This time I am taking on Alex_H and his NIds. It has been a while since we had played and this is our first 7^th game.

We played 1500 points. I am a big fan of this value.

1.       It allows plenty of chat throughout the game and still be finished at a sensible time. This game took 5 hours!

2.       Choices have to be made. At 1750 you can generally get everything you want in your list, and 2000 you can take an extra something a bit special that you have not used to see how it plays without affecting your army too much. 1500 something has to give. You can’t have all your fancy units and toys to play with. Some have to stay in the box

3.       There is so many rules to remember in 7^th and trying to keep track of what is going on you need to keep it as simple as possible.

I had chosen 3 lists initially so I could choose which to take at the time. The first was based on my unbound terminator list from a few games back. This time I used the Dark Angels codex with Belial, a librarian, 5 DW Knights, 2*5 DW and 1*10 DW. It looked good and if I was playing the emperors will missions then I think would have had a chance, but playing Maelstrom I did not have enough units or manoeuvrability to cover the board. Also I had no flyer protection (in hindsight I may have worried about that too much).

The next 2 lists were basically the same. The main change was terminators for stern guard. Here is the list I settled on:

Chapter Tactics: Imperial Fists

• Librarian level 1 Telepathy
• 9 Sternguard in a pod with PF and 4 combi-grav guns
• 10 tacts in rhino flamer missile
• 10 tacts in rhino flamer missile and veteran
• 10 scouts with Camo Cloaks and sniper rifles and missile
• Whirlwind
• Landspeeder typhoon
• Stormtalon with skyhammer missiles
• Thunderfire
• 10 devastators with 3 missile and 1 lascannon

I initially wanted 3 typhoons and was going to drop a talon. I am worried about Nig flying monstrous creatures as they can vector strike and shoot good weapons, as I found out. The grounding test now is definitely may FMC a solid choice for armies

 His list (CAD)

Winged Hive Tyrant

Winged Hive Tyrant
Venomthrope
Exotrine
Harpy
Mawloc
4 Zonethropes with a Nuerothrope (sp?)
4 Zonethropes
2 Spores

As you can see the basic minimal troop choices, and they don’t even have objective secured! I was not really expecting such a small force. When I think of nids I normally think loads of gribbly stuff supported by some fancy big stuff.

As Alex and I had played a few game recently we decided on a mission neither of us had played, Maelstrom 4. This had an interesting twist where both you and your opponent can claim tactical objective “secure objective X” when they are in your hand! The newer codexes will be at a slight advantage here as they only have 12 of those and 24 other ones where using the one from the books there rae 18 “Secure Object X” cards. As we both have an older codex  it levelled out.

Again I am not going to give a turn by turn report, but here are some of the main highlights.

·         I set up with the heavy stuff at the back. The idea was for the scouts to infiltrate up field and the 2 tactical squads (the assault half) would get forward for objectives on the other side.

·         I was interested to see how the whirlwind would perform as I had not used one. It would have been ok against a horde list but against this high armour/inv save list it was pretty poor. Will I still get the model.....probably

·         Initially forgetting about the sternguard! But when they came on they were OK. Helped kill a squad of zonethropes for first blood. There second round of shooting against the Exotrine with only 2 wounds left....5 grav gun wound and he made all 5 of his 5+ cover saves!

·         The librarian was poor but a cheap HQ choice. I am not sure what other option a marine player has. The others are more points, and a captain needs even more points to make him useful. The librarian did get shrouding off once but failed a perils test, and eventually died. He is a bit of a soft VP for slay the warlord and also some of the tactical objectives require you to kill the warlord and offer D3. In the turn he died he gave up 3VPs.

·         I worried too much about the spores. They couldn’t get objectives and worst of all they didn’t give up any VP’s killing it first did not get me first blood.

·         Again the lack of solid mobile units, objective secured or not, was my opponent’s downfall. He bunched in one corner and all I had to do was bombard him. He could not go and get the other 4-5 objectives. I had enough stuff to cover lots of area and on turn 4 I controlled every objective on the board. I was picking up objectives on both of our turns. It could be said I had reasonable luck  in getting the objectives, but I generally covered 4-5 of them in most turns.

·         The legendary deathstar units are a thing of the past at 1500pts. I can’t see how you can justify 450pts, for something like a land raider and a squad of assault terminators (about a 1/3^rd of your army) and still have enough stuff to get everywhere. Edit: my sternguard and librarian were 372pts!

·         The internet whinge about a lot of things! I was out gunned 8-1 in psychic phase. Did anything horrible happen in the psychic phase, no it didn’t? Power went off, powers failed, powers were nullified. Even rolling 3 dice for a warp charge one was failing. Additionally he got half of the charges from the zonethopes who used up a lot of points that could have been spent on other things.

·         The final score was 17-4 at the end of turn 4 where Alex conceded. His flyers were bombing around causing problems but nothing else was on the board. The flyers would have had to land to get the objectives when my fire power should have been enough to sort them out

·         Net lists are they any good. Alex played a strong net list that is doing the rounds. I think it would have been ok in the emperors will games. KP wise at the end I was 5-5. If we had carried on playing I had a lot of easy KPs that his flyers could have dealt with, but his venomthrope was about to go splay and his mawloc had one wound left.

 In review of my last few games. A solid core of marines is a hard army to beat. They have survivability and can manoeuvre very well. Boss Bludtoof has been playing something similar since 4^th but the older rules set and missions didn’t suit “balanced” armies. Now they do and we all have to adapt (apart from Boss Bludtoof!)

The aim of the game should not be to build a list that will be rock to your opponent’s scissors. I think the missions have produced a good levelling effect for this. Will we see the deathstar unit again? Yes, but not at 1500 and maybe not even 1750.

 

Pictures:

 

Setup-

Turn 2:

The End: 

 

 

 

Battle Report: Marines V Eldar

I am certainly getting good use out of my games board and scenery. Over the Easter weekend my dad came down with his steadily growing Eldar army.

He has only been collecting for about 1 year and has managed to get a fair bit of stuff. I recently purchased a job lot on Warseer for about 50% of cost which really boosted his collection


As this was his first game of 7th we kept the points low (1500)

His list (CAD)

Autarch
Spiritseer
4 dire avengers + exarch
4 fire dragons + exarch
5 Scorpians + exarch
10 Guardians
10 Guardians + missile launcher
10 Guardians + missile launcher
2 falcons
5 wraithguard in a wave serpent

My list was a pretty standard battle company (well as much as I could fit in)

Chapter Tactics: Ultramarines

Librarian in terminator armour
5 terminators with CML
10 tacts in rhino flamer missile
10 tacts in rhino plasmagun/cannon and pistol
5 scouts in a storm
Dakka predator
Landspeeder typhoon
10 Assault marines 2 flamers and a plasma pistol power sword
10 devastators with 3 missile and 1 lascannon

the army (without typhoon)

I tried to field a bit of everything as this was one of his first games and he still learning the rules. This would allow him to face most stuff and get an understanding of what he would be facing. We agreed no flyers as he did not have any.

We rolled for the mission and it was the escalation objective missions. Turn 1 – 1 objective, turn 2 – 2 objectives and so on.

Again I am not going to give a turn by turn report, but here are some of the main highlights.

• Forgetting I had a typhoon until turn 2, which it then stayed in reserves until turn 4! I could have done with it as in trying to get first blood I had a falcon left on 1HP and 2 missiles could have killed it.
• Forgetting about Chapter tactics: Ultramarines are not a permanent force “buff”. You have 3 doctrines to use throughout the game
• 1 round of shooting from a guardian squad taking out my terminators and librarian (turn 2)
• Spirit Seer psychic checks. Turn 1 perils looses a power, turn 2 perils rolls 6, turn 3 fails to cast warp charge 1 with 3 dice, turn 4 perils rolls 6 turn 5 perils rolls 6, turn 6 fails to cast with 3 dice.
• Scouts and storm were rubbish again (punishment for scouts not being painted and using a stand in model for storm?), combi melta failed to hit the falcon, storm gave up a VP for first blood.

This is now the second game in a row where my marines did not do anything great. They did a lot of nothing really. But yet again their versatility pulled off an unlikely win. At the end of turn 2 I was 7-2 down and had just lost my terminators and warlord about a 5th of the army, and yet after that my dad failed to score a VP despite getting more cards. We did manipulate the objective cards once or twice, blowing up a building and destroying a flyer we got rid of. Generally I say we play the deck and tough if you get a duff card, but that is the luck of the draw. In the end I won 16-7.

It was an interesting game where again sticking to plans and focusing on the objectives in hand were key to what I did. We tried to do that with my dad’s game plan too, but the elder just don’t have the versatility that marines do (when you are playing a non spammy list)


Pictures:

setup

 

Striking Scorpions (painted by my brother as a present for my dad)

In Game pictures

I see you

What is this snap fire rule........

I survived being hit bu teh aurtach in a challenge.......I hit back and all 3 attacks with teh power fist hit. 2's to kill........

Pictures towards the end of the game

Final positions

I have one more game tonight and then I will be back on expanding the chapter

Battle Report: Marines V Necrons

 

Battle report (again). Like busses, you wait ages then 2 turn up at once.

 

This time I was up against my old sparring partner commandojimbob. He has been out of the hobby for a while and is starting to get back in to it. He has bought the new Necron codex and cards and fixed up his models.

 

As this was his first game of 7th we kept the points low (1500)

 

His list (CAD)

 

Cryptek
Illuminor Szeras
5 Triarch Praetorians
Triarch Stalker
10 Immortals
10 Immortals in a Night Scythe
15 Warriors
3 destroyers
3 destroyers
Spyder
Spyder

 

For my list I wanted to try out a formation.

 

Librarian in Term
Tactical Squad in rhino
10 Sniper Scouts
5 scouts (CC) in a storm
Speeder Typhoon
Speeder Typhoon

Formation (Skyspear Assault (I think)
Raven
5 CC terms (all LC)
5 terms with Assault Cannon
Venerable Dread

 

We did each choose 3 lists and rolled to see which one we played with. You should try it sometime it adds another little dimension to the game.

 

We rolled for the mission and it was the 3 objectives and they are kept secret during the game until you claim it.

 

I set up first. This was a bit difficult as over half my list was in reserve. All the units combat squaded and I set up on 3 objectives in my deployment zone. For the second game in a row my opponent stole the initiative scuppering my best laid plans!

 

Again I am not going to give a turn by turn report, but here are some of the main highlights.

After stealing the initiative the crons immobilise the storm (I suppose it serves me right for using a proxy), but could only kill a few scouts. The thing with necrons is that they only have short range (24” or rapid fire)) weaponry so I had chosen plenty of long range stuff like missile launchers. The typhoons did their job and with 4 krak missiles took out a spider.... first blood.

 

My main issue during the game was my librarian and close combat terminators. They spent 9 rounds of combat trying to kill 15 warriors and his HQ. FAIL. There was a lot of poor to hit rolls so I could not make good use of the shred rule. Enfeeble proved invaluable as he had buffed them up. (Edit, just doing some quick maths and that is about right! I would have thought they would have been better)

 

The Necron reanimation is very useful for them as it is basically an additional inv save! He also passed some low morale checks rolls. The game was close throughout.

 

Here are the scores at the end of each of our turns

 

Nec1: 0-0
Mar1: 0-3
Nec2: 1-3
Mar2: 1-5
Nec3: 4-5
Mar3: 4-5
Nec4: 5-5
Mar4: 5-7
Nec5: 8-7
Mar5: 8-9

 

Game continued

Nec6: 11-9
Mar6: 11-13

 

Game continued

Nec7: 13-13
Mar7: 13-14 then we each got a point for linebreaker

 

Over all I am not sure how I won. My marines were very poor. No one unit stood out to have done anything useful. The typhoons killing a spyder on turn one was a standout moment. But the terminators (both squads) were poor. The storm was immobilised turn 1 and the scouts couldn’t hit a barn door. The Raven made little impact, but I suppose the versatility of the marines and my great commanding won me the game!

 

Would I use that formation again?  Unlikely as it were a lot of points to commit especially in 1500. The small bonuses it had weren’t really enough to justify it. I rarely run 2 squads of terminators and a venerable dread, so I can’t see it being used regularly

.

Next is a painting update in a few days and hopefully more games in April.

 

Pictures:

The Army

 

The battle field

 

 

 

Setup

 

 

 

ASSAULT and challenge!

 

 

 

mid game

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The end



 

 

 

I have also nearly completed Ashmantle on the Battle Automata. They require few more details and then they are complete. 

 

 

Afetr this i have the terminators and scouts to complete



Battle Report Marines V Tau

Battle report

7th edition has been out a while now and I have not yet tried using an Unbound list. I have read the usual whinging on the web that hey are over powered and cheese lists destined to bring the end of the universe, but I wanted to try them out for myself.

I think the first major thing was to let my opponent know what I was thinking, he agreed so he knew I was taking an unbound. We also agreed we would be playing maelstrom missions, as these I think are the best to play and would balance the unbound potential to take whatever I wanted to its lack of having objective secured.

My list was:
Chapter Tactics – Salamanders
BRAY'ARTH ASHMANTLE
5 Assault terminators (5*TH/SS)
5 Assault terminators (5*LC)
5 Assault terminators (1*TH/SS, 4*LC)
5 Terminators (no upgrades)
5 Terminators (Assault Cannon)
5 Terminators (Heavy Flamer)
5 Terminators (Cyclone Missile Launcher)
This was a venerable dread leading members of the 1st company in to battle, hopefully more Tesco cheddar than some Colston Basset Stilton.

My opponent (Wulfen_Kind) list was:
Dark Stider
4 *12 Firewarriors in Devilfish
Stealth Squad
Pathfinder Squad
2 Hammer heads with Ion Cannons
TAU XV107 R'VARNA BATTLESUIT

We played mission 1 where each turn we had to have 3 objectives to get, and the set up was diagonally. I won the roll and set up 3 squads and Ashmantle, the 3 Assault terminator squads and the heavy flamer squad went in to reserve (forgetting that they are not Deathwing and would not start coming in on turn 1)
Another slight hiccup in my plan was WK stealing the initiative and getting to start he shooting on my straight away.
I am only going to do highlights as I did not take detailed notes throughout the game

Turn 1 – I only lost 3 terminators to shooting, most of it was out of range, but one squad did kill 2 of the terminators. 2 1’2 on 3 dice rolled.....I had a horrible feeling 1s would haunt me all game! More importantly he picked up all his objectives. In my turn I was only able to achieve 1 of them. 3-1 WK

Turn 2- a stellar turn from WK. He drew objective 46 (control all objectives and gain 3+D3VP’s). He had enough objective secured stuff to sit next to my squads and still claim the objective. He got all of them, and 4 VPs in addition to the 2 other ones totalled 6 for that turn. This move did leave his forces spread out and close to my units. I only lost another 3 terminators, so still no first blood. In my turn all of the assault terminators turned up and dropped close to his lines. I got first blood, but managed to lose a remaining terminator in a squad to over-watch fire!  I got another bonus VP for Ashmantle killing a vehicle in close combat. The score was 9-3 to WK

At this point my big problem was covering the board (and on one turn I got a real duff objective or destroying a building) being able to collect the objectives if and when they came up. I changed tactics a bit and went for the kill. If I could kill enough and stop him scoring more I may be able to get objectives to kill thing and get lucky on being near an objective.

This was going to plan, and by the and o nturn 5 I corned his big battle suit and killed a drone in combat.....he failed the following break test and ran off the board! He only had a fleeing pathfinder, a Hammer Head and a devilfish (down to 1HP) left on the board. I still had 10 terminators and Ashamantle left, but the score was 12-8 WK. I could just do this with another turn.......YES!

Turn 6 – he got no more points and tried to manoeuvre stuff away from my guys. In my turn I drew objectives I was near and I had linebreaker, so the game was 12-12, but I was able to take out the last of his stuff and clear the table of Xenos scum.

In the end it turned out to be a very close game indeed.

What have I learnt?

1. Mobile units with eth objective secured rule are a must have!
2. Big expensive models don’t really get their points back. Both Ashmantle and the big suit killed a bit but were generally ignored and didn’t make their points back. Ashmantle could do with a drop pod but in the current marine codex that is unavailable for him without ally BA/SW shenanigans. He got a bonus VP and may have done more against a more aggressive army
3. Unbound can be fun and not necessarily chesses fests. They are hard to play with against Battle forged list and playing Maelstrom mission. They would probably be quite strong in the older Emperors Will games
4. Maelstrom missions are a great leveller, and I think they are the best part of 7th edition, to win games it is not about just killing the enemy (difficult to say when I won the game by killing all the enemy!) but other games that I have played have showed this. Previously all the other missions you would sit about killing each other for 4 turns then go grab an objective with what was left. Now form turn to turn things can change and you always need to be able to get around the whole board on any given turn.
Pictures

Battlefield

The Boys

The Enemy

 

 

Mid Game

 

Not sure how i won with dice rolling like this....

A close up of my current terrain project:

 

Must get on an finish off Ashmantle, and the terms, and scenery and......on and on and on.