Merry Cryxmas

It's that time of year again.  The time when the Dragonfather brings his blight to all the little boys, girls and steam powered robots of the world. Despite having a beautiful little 15 point Khador army ready to take for a spin I got myself into the holiday spirit and deployed pGoreshade against the Cyriss army I've been running against for a while.

     Click to see reports of the same Cyriss army against Everblight and Cygnar.

Here's the Goreshade list.  It is extremely heavy on stealth and at 15 points bringing in an extra unit of Bane Thralls from Goreshade's feat is devastating.  In fact I'd say that Goreshade is one of the best Cryx casters at the low point level just for this reason.

• Goreshade the Bastard
• Slayer Helljack
• Deathripper Bonejack
• Warwitch Siren
• Withershadow Combine
• Bane Lord Tartarus

My opponent won the roll and had me set up and go first.  I set up with the Warwitch Siren and Deathripper on my right and the Withershadow on my left.  Cyriss refused my left flank and set up his entire force on my right.

My first turn was pretty basic with Goreshade giving himself and his battlegroup stealth and everything running up into the center to take early board control. Cyriss responded by moving up slightly and lobbing scattered AoE attacks.

End of turn one.

On turn two I moved further into the center, and recast stealth on my battlegroup.  The Withershadow blasted two servitors out of the sky. Cyriss took the opportunity to climb the hill and put some shots into the bonejack.  The random AoEs either failed to connect with anything or didn't roll high enough with blast damage to hurt anyone.  Across the board stealth was causing a lot of pain for my opponent, but the Withershadow were still out of position, my Slayer was staring down an improbably matchup against the opposing Cyriss heavy and the three lights were poised to go after Goreshade if I didn't change the situation on my turn.

End of turn two.

Turn three would be feat turn for Goreshade. The Slayer and Tartarus ran in and knocked out the opposing heavy by taking advantage of the armor debuff from Dark Shroud.  The spell on the heavy triggered, letting it reconstruct within three inches of its current location, back in the forest.  My Warwitch and bonejack jammed what they could on the right side, but failed to connect in any meaningful way and the Withershadow took potshots at the heavy and unengaged light but didn't do much.  Then Goreshade moved up and took advantage of Tartarus' curse to send Bane Thralls to put the heavy down again, knock some damage boxes off the lights and jam up the center.

End Cryx turn 3

Facing down an angry mob of soul-fueled killing machines there wasn't much Cyriss could do. Syntherion floated around in the back, using his feat to have the remaining light 'jacks put some damage on Tartarus and kill a few Bane Thralls.  We played out the rest of the game but with Cryx so far ahead on the attrition game it was pretty clear how things were going to end.

The game went well for me. Taking control of the board center early on turned out to be a good response to the refused flank of my opponent. It kept him pinned into the corner of the board.  Lots of stealth units and an extra mid-game unit of Bane Thralls meant that I was able to blunt Cyriss' shooting prowess and get a strong alpha strike.  As usual with small games like this, taking down the opposing heavy first can really seal the deal.

There are a few things I could have done better:

• I should have used the Withershadow or Goreshade's spells to strip the reconstruction spell off the enemy heavy before going in for the kill.  If I had, my banes could have all gone after the opposing lights and the game would have been definitively over more quickly.
• The Wihershadow could have ad more effect.  They were basically stranded on my right flank and got slowed down blasting half point servitors out of the sky.Turn three saw them taking potshots at the heavy jack. I should have run them on turn three to get into better position for Dark Industries.
• There are better things to bring for Goreshade than the Withershadow.  His lack of upkeep spells means one of the Combine's major benefits is not even. Those points could have been better spent.

So that's the first game of Cryxmas 2013. There's still more than a week left in the year and I'm looking forward to trotting out some of the other Cryx casters before it's over.

Learning with Lylyth

Desiring a change of pace, I shelved the Cygnar for my next game and brought out pLylyth and her warpack. Like many of my outings with her this one ended in failure, but as always the most valuable lessons are those learned under duress.

It was a 15 point game so I brought the basic battlebox plus a Harrier.  My opponent brought the same Convergence of Cyriss list from my last couple of battles.  You can read more about those here and here.

The first portion of the game was mainly maneuvering so that we would both have some models in the center to keep from losing by objective. On the second turn he sent one of his light jacks hurtling towards my Carnivean.  Though it was surely a sacrificial gesture, a string of terrible dice rolls meant that the light was still left standing at the end of my turn.  I rushed the rest of my force forward to jam things up until I could free my heavy.  I figured if I had my Carnivean and Lylyth there was still a good chance I'd be able to get a caster kill.

Here's the board at the end of that turn.

Cyriss spent the next turn bringing up his warcaster to try to clear the jam.  The decent defense of the Harrier meant that it survived, but the two Shredders in front of Syntherion and the opposing heavy were not so lucky. Still, his caster was close and I had some resources to try to seal the deal.

The turn started decently when my left hand shredder frenzied, charged Syntherion and put a pile of damage on him with a lucky high dice roll. The rest of the turn went badly, with Lylyth's shots either failing to hit (because of the shot into melee penalty) or failing to damage (because of Syntherion's high ARM).  The Carnivean stepped away from the light that was harassing him, easily shrugging off the free strike. A quick breath attack later and Syntherion was on fire and left with only a few remaining health boxes.

The end of that turn left me exposed and hoping that fire would claim Cyriss' Forge Master.

It didn't. The fire went out. My heavy was killed by his heavy and the light jacks finished off everything else in my army, ending with Lylyth.

Despite being tabled in the end the battle was well fought, with both sides coming very close to defeat before the final blow landed.  There are only two things I would have done differently:

• Looked for a better use of my feat.  There were turns I could have used it to very good effect (especially the last turn's assassination attempt).
• Boosted my Carnivean's attacks against the light jack jamming him.  I needed a seven to hit the light in front of me and I missed 5 out of seven attacks. For his four fury I could have had two bites with boosted attacks instead of four normal bites.  I really needed the light dead and so I should have ensured hits from the bites which would have been rolling even dice on damage.

You can read more about my thoughts on the Legion of Everblight battlebox here.

Cygnar: Perils of Allistair Caine pt. 2

Allistair Caine.  Hate him or love him, he's probably got more personal warcaster kills under his belt than any other Cygnar caster out there.  In my previous post I talked about the first game I played against Cyriss and discussed the army lists that were used.  Now it's time to discuss the second game.

• Perils of Allistair Caine pt. 1

Here's what the board looked like at the end of the second game:

 

This second game was more decisive than the previous.  Caine was able to sneak in and leave Syntherion with only 3 health left using his feat.  Ryan from the Black 13th got the final shot in that killed the opposing caster.  Despite winning I still only managed the caster kill with my very last shot of the turn, and I definitely made some mistakes.

• Reinholdt wasn't able to give Caine a free shot on my feat turn.  He was just too far away. The little gobber can be fiddly to use.  Reinholdt needs to activate before your warcaster so you can get an extra shot, but also needs to end up in a position where he'll be able to get to your warcaster next turn.  Caine is a fast moving dude and can often outpace the little guy.
• The warcaster kill was a very close thing.  The last possible shot of my turn rolled exactly the number necessary to kill the opposing warcaster.  I should have activated Caine before the rest of my army so that if the assassination failed I would be able to use the rest of the army to secure his safety.

So in the interests of improving my game, here are some things I (and you!) can do to improve the Caine game.

1. Be wary of high ARM targets.  Caine's feat is great, but if you're putting shots into 18+ ARM you should think twice.
2. Move Caine minimally.  This will let Reinholdt keep up with him and help keep Caine himself safe from retaliation.  Use your ability to measure Caine's control area to position yourself exactly where you want to be.
3. Activate Caine first on the feat turn.  Unless you need an effect from another element of your army use Caine first.  After his activation is over you can evaluate the situation and determine if the rest of your army can finish the job or needs to move to protect him.
4. Always assume that your opponent can reach you.  Even if the opposing army looks slow you should assume they have some way of improving their charge distance.  Keeping this in mind will mean that you're never surprised by the mobility of your opponent.

I think that's enough things to try to remember for my next game.  What do you think are some rules for Caine to live by?

Cygnar: Perils of Allistair Caine

I've recently had the chance to pick up my Cygnar and roll some dice with them.  A group of folks at work have either just started or have dusted off their old armies. I've brought out a range of builds, including Everblight and Cryx, but last Thursday I had the chance to bring back premier assassination caster Captain Allister Caine against the new (to me) forces of Cyriss.

Let's break down the army lists (15 points each):

Cygnar

• Captain Allister Caine
• Defender Heavy Warjack
• Hunter Light Warjack
• Reinholdt
• Black 13th

Cyriss

• Forge Master Syntherion
• Cipher Heavy Warjack
• 3 Diffuser Light Warjacks
• 3 Attunement Servitors
• Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex

Let's take a look at the end of the first game.  Note that we didn't play the final turn, but just assumed that Caine and the rest of the army would be able to assassinate Syntherion without much trouble.  We called the game in favor of being able to get another one in.

The thing to talk about here are the mistake that I made that led to Caine being in such a precarious position.  By the end of Cyriss' last turn Caine had taken 8 points of damage and one reasonable roll by my opponent would have ended it before I could go after Syntherion. What led to me only surviving by the skin of my teeth?  On turn two my Defender, Hunter and Caine moved up to kill the heavy Cypher using Caine's feat.  Killing the opposing heavy warjack would leave me in a dominating position and I was hoping to have enough focus left to gate crash out.  I manage to kill the Cipher (You can see it's crater on the top edge of the hill) but almost died myself in return.  Here's a summary of my mistakes:

• Overestimating Caine's Feat.  Caine can do a lot of damage on his feat turn, but against ARM 18 and a heap of damage boxes even he can have a hard time getting the job done.
• Not prepping properly for the subsequent turn by closing the gap between the Hunter and the Defender.  Caine's pistols only need a small gap to shoot through or he could have shot the large based heavy over the top of the medium based Hunter.
• Relying on Caine's high defense.  The servitors and syntherion both have abilities that debuff Caine's defense.  DEF 17 is great, DEF 13 not as much. Caine's DEF should be relied on as a last resort and not as part of your battle plan.
• Caine strayed too close to the opposing army. Caine's pistols have a range of 12 which matches his control radius. Stopping at the exact point you need to stop at is easy to determine.  In this case I needed to stop 9 inches away from the heavy (Syntherion's Reconstruct spell allows the 'jack it's cast on to respawn within 3 inches of the point it was destroyed).
• Caine was way too close to the opposing army. The opposing army's light jacks allow allow charges against targets they hit to move an additional 2 inches.  Syntherion's DEF debuff gives an additional 2 inches. That adds up to a solid charge range.

Next post will go over the second game we played, and provide a concise list of actions I can take to improve my Caine Game.

(For the second game and an overall analysis click here.)

Kill Teams and Battle Missions

A buddy and I played a few scenarios from the Battle Missions book recently. I know that battle missions is pretty much old news at this point, but I wanted to give my impression after actually having played.

We both brought our chaos armies for the evening. Starting off with Kill Teams we plunked our minis down and went at it. I brought a handful of chaos marines with a rhino and an icon, and threw in another handful of summoned lesser demons. On the opposing side was a squad of plague marines with a plasma gun and melta gun.

I was pretty brutally mauled in this game. I managed to keep my guys shooting, and got some two vs. one assaults but in the end the survivability of the plague marines was my downfall. Because Kill Teams is lost by having half your army destroyed, I was banking on having a healthy number of models. Turns out eleven is still not a healthy number. I would have been better off bringing a few special weapons so I could capitalize on the instances where I had a clear shot on one of his guys. In a scenario that revolves around whittling your opponent away, I just wasn't survivable or killy enough.

Fun game though. It played a bit like War Machine without the casters. Very few units moving around and everyone counts.

Next game we played 500 points and since we were both Chaos, we diced off to see who would be the attacker and then rolled a d3 to pick a chaos mission from the book. I came up as defender on the Pillage Mission.

Our army lists started off similarly. We both had flying daemon princes with the mark of Khorne. Demon princes fulfill a lot of roles in a low point game and the khorne prince is one of the cheapest. Following his prince, my opponent had a squad of plague marines and a unit of berserkers in a rhino. My prince brought along two small squads of chaos marines, one on foot and one with a plasma gun in a rhino. Also a defiler.

The game started slow with his berserkers moving up and his plague marines camping the objective closest to his deployment zone in order to rack up some early VPs. His prince moved towards the center where he'd be able to support his flanks. For my part I moved my rhino up a bit and a hail of bolter fire and a couple of well placed plasma shots took out a good chunk of the plague marine squad. The other space marine squad assaulted the berserker's rhino, planting krak grenades and stunning it.

Continuing on the plague marines stood steady on their objective, ensuring more points. The opposing khorne prince bopped over to tear the tracks off my rhino, while his berserkers piled out and attacked my demon prince, putting two wounds on him but losing most of their number in return. On my turn the defiler showed up and tried to fleet close enough to the berserker rhino that it would be able to use it to get some extra movement on the charge but fell just short. The chaos marines piled out of their soon to be destroyed rhino and put some rounds into the demon prince causing a couple of wounds.

The rest of the battle was simply a series of moves and counter moves. The defiler moved onto my objective with the chaos marines surrounding it for protection. His demon prince killed the chaos marines with the plasma gun. My demon prince killed his plague marines. The culmination of the battle was his demon prince bellowing to khorne and assaulting mine. They pummeled each other across two rounds of combat until they simultaneously sent each other back to the warp.

With his entire army gone the final result was a victory for me.

Campaign Battle Report: Road to Glory Final Battle

It was end times. One final battle remained to determine the ruler of the wasteland. The Ork horde had finally slowed chaos' seemingly relentless advance. Now chaos was regrouping and the Orks were poised to take advantage of their momentary confusion.

Chaos Army List

• Abaddon (275)
• Tzeentch Demon Prince with wings, warptime and wind of chaos (205)
• Marines in Rhino
• Thousand Sons
• Defiler (150)
• Land Raider

Ork Army List

• Wazdakka (180)
• Warboss with mega-armor, cybork, bosspole, attack squiq (130)
• 20 Boyz led by nob with power-klaw and bosspole (160)
• Trukk with red paint (50)
• Battle Wagon with deff rolla, armor plates, red paint, big shoota and grott riggers (135)
• 5 Mega Nobz (200)
• 5 Nob Bikerz with 3 power-klaws, a painboy, waagh banner, 2 stikk bombs and all Cybork (371)
• 7 Lootas (105)
• 5 Deffkoptas (175)

Setup
The final battle of the Road to Glory campaign is Annihilation. Winning the last battle meant that the Orks were able to choose Pitched Battle as the deployment type. Chaos won the dice-off and chose to deploy first and take the first turn.

Turn 1
Chaos started out with a bang and a kerunch. The only movement came from the defiler edging closer to the center of the board. Masssed lascannon fire destroyed the trukk and the defiler's battlecannon landed square on the lootas in cover, killing a couple. On the ork turn, everything moved forward as fast as it could, except the lootaz who stayed in their trees, taking pot shots at the rhino. Wazdakka shot his fancy gun and managed to immoblize the defiler.

Turn 2
The chaos land raider moved back just enough to to stay out of deff-rolla range. The demon prince started to move towards the rhino in anticipation of providing counter-charge support. Chaos shooting results were slim, but a couple of bikes and a deffkopta bit the dust. The orks continued their rush forward, and the lootaz managed to put a wound on the demon prince in the shooting phase.

Turn 3
Now the battle was truly on. The land raider rolled forward and Abaddon and the Thousand Sons got out. The demon prince joined them, and together they shot up, assaulted and killed all the meganobz and their warboss. On their turn, the orks responded in kind. The lootaz and bikes shot at Abaddon, the boyz got out of the wagon and assaulted the thousand sons just as the battlewagon rammed the land raider, destroying it and catching five ork boyz in the ensuing explosion. By the end of the assault round, all the Thousand Sons were dead, and Abaddon had fallen to Wazdakka and the bike nobz in assault.

Turn 4
Looking to put the balance back in their favor, the chaos marines piled out of their rhino and assaulted the boyz, killing all but one and the nob. Struck by a bout of insane heroism, the orks stood refused to flee. The Defiler dropped it's battlecannon shell on top of the deffkoptaz, killing two. The demon prince hopped over to the battlewagon and put some hits on it, but didn't manage to do anything more than keep it from shooting the next turn. Still this was enough, because as the battlewagon turned to come about it managed to immobilize itself on the remains of the land raider, making it easy for the demon prince to finish it off in the close combat phase. Wazdakka and the bikerz came to the assistance of the boyz, leaving just two chaos marines fleeing towards the table edge.

Turn 5
With only a few assets left, chaos was looking to pick up whatever victory points it could. The rhino moved away from it's perch, and shot up the remaining nob and ork, scoring one victory point there. The demon prince launched itself at the deffkoptas, killing the last two in close combat. Finally it was down to the ork turn. With a two point deficit they needed to kill at least two of the three remaining chaos units without giving anything up in the close combat phase. Wazdakka zipped over to the defiler and used his great shooty gun to reduce the demon engine to scrap. Then it was up to the lootas to put their meager five shots into the demon prince. When the rattling dakka was finally over the smoke cleared, revealing the demon prince had failed its armor saves and been banished back to the warp.

With a roll of a die the campaign was over. Final score was 6 kill points for the orks and 6 kill points for chaos.

Final Thoughts
What a blast. Really I don't think it could have come out better than it did. In all the campaign was a good time and I recommend everyone crack open their big rulebooks and give it a shot.

Campaign Battle Report: Road to Glory Battle 4

With Mission 5 of the Road to Glory campaign coming up soon it's high time I got the battle report for mission 4 done. By the book battle 4 is called "Beginning of the End," but in this case it might more appropriate to call it "Turning of the Tide." In this engagement, each side is trying to gain the upper hand in preparation for the final showdown.

The Chaos army list was in this post.

Ork Army List

• Ghazghkull Thrakka (225)
• Warboss with warbike, cybork, power-klaw and bosspole (140)
• 20 Boyz led by a nob with power-klaw and bosspole (160)
• Trukk (35)
• Battle Wagon with deff-rolla (110)
• 5 Mega Nobz (200)
• 5 Nob Bikerz with 2 power-klaws (275)
• 7 Lootas (105)

Setup
The Mission was Capture and Control with Spearhead Deployment. The sneaky orks placed landmines around the battlefield. Chaos won the die roll for choosing first turn and decided to take the initiative this battle.


Turn 1
Chaos' first turn sees a little bit of jockeying for position, but not much overall advancement. Everything that could shoot unloaded on the orks and managed to destroy the trukk and kill a nob biker. The orks mostly moved in their phase, rushing forwards to come to grips with the marauding chaos marines. The lootaz bounced their shots off the defiler and the footslogging meganobz jumped into a crater in front of them.

Turn 2
Chaos brought the fight to the enemy this turn. The defiler and chaos marines shot at and assaulted the nob bikerz, killing a couple, losing a few in return, and ending the assault with a tie. The big disappointment was Abaddon jumping out of his land raider and assaulting the battlewagon. Zero attacks from the big guy and the battlewagon was set for deff-rolla action in the ork turn. The meganobz piled out of their crater and joined the bikerz in close combat. The boyz jumped out of the trukk and gave the evil eye to Abaddon. The battlewagon surged forward, slamming its deff-rolla into the land raider, tearing off a couple of weapons and immobilizing it. At the end of the shooting and assault phase all the chaos marines were dead, the defiler was destroyed, and Abaddon had taken a couple of wounds and given nothing in return, being too busy wrestling with his sword's bound demon.

Turn 3
The chaos bikers siezed the opportunity to meltagun the battlewagon, wrecking it for good. The rhino moved in an attempt to block the chaos bikers from being assaulted by the meganobz. Abaddon finally gets his sword under control and kills a fistful of boyz, but they still have numbers enough to be fearless. In the ork turn the lootaz shoot the chaos bikers, leaving naught but spinning tires and broken ceramite. This left the meganobz to assault the rhino, tearing off its bolter and leaving it immobilized. Abaddon killed another fistful of orks but they stood strong and the embedded nob managed to take off one more of abaddon's wounds.

Turn 4
Seeing the end in sight, the Thousand Sons left the land raider and began their movement towards the objective in the chaos deployment zone. The rhino managed to repair itself. If the Thousand Sons could make it to their objective and Abaddon and the rhino could keep the bikes and meganobz busy chaos might be able to pull out a win. In the assault phase, Abaddon finally managed to kill enough boyz to rout them. In their turn, the orks press their advantage. The bikerz finished off the immobilized land raider and the meganobz destroyed the rhino once and for all.


Turn 5
Abaddon muscled his way through the intertwined wreckage of the land raider and battlewagon, emerging on the other side to rush into an assault on the nob bikerz. The Thousand Sons moved and ran, trying to put distance between themselves and the orks hot on their trail. The assault phase went to the orks, with all of Abaddon's attacks either missing or bouncing off their cybork bodies and a host of power klaws removing the last wound from the chosen of the chaos gods. In the ork turn there was little left to do except kill the remaining Thousand Sons in a combined biker and meganob assault.

With all the forces of chaos destroyed, the Orks are declared the winner.

Final Thoughts
See. Abaddon isn' t so tough after all. A big squad of boyz is a huge tarpit for a lone model to get through. Chaos' mistake was not having a support unit to take some of the pressure off their general. The orks capitalized on this by throwing away a cheap unit as a tarpit and applying the rest of their force against a smaller portion of the chaos army, slowly chewing through them in bite-sized morsels.

Here's the campaign map at the end of battle 4.

Campaign Battle Report: Road to Glory Battle 3

The third battle in the Roady to Glory campaign is supposed to represent the attacker's attempt to break through the defender's front lines. In probably the shortest battle report I have ever written, here are the results.

The chaos army list can be found in this post.

Ork Army List

• Warboss with mega-armor, cybork and power klaw (135)
• Warboss with warbike, cybork and power klaw (135)
• 20 Boyz led by nob with power klaw and bosspole (160)
• Trukk (35)
• Battle Wagon with deff-rolla (110)
• 5 Mega Nobz (200)
• 5 Nob Bikerz (225)

Setup
The game was Capture and Control with Pitched Battle deployment. As the winner of the last game, chaos was able to decide that the orks got the first turn.


Turn 1
The orks gave it everything they had. Abandoning their defence lines, they raced forward to get to grips with the chaos interlopers as quickly as possible. Chaos rose to the challenge on their turn. Everyone got out of the land raider, which focused all it's armament on the trukk, destroying it. After the Thousand sons poured fire into the bikerz, Abaddon and the defiler charged into them. One quick but vicious assault round later, some bikerz and the warboss were dead, and the defiler had exploded. Fearing the continued attentions of Abaddon, the bikerz fled.

Turn 2
The battlewagon raced forward to get its boyz into combat, but with a loud ker-chunk, immobilized itself on a piece of terrain. The boyz piled out anyways and sort of jogged towards the melee in the middle. Seeing Abaddon standing out in the open all alone, the meganobz shot at and assaulted him. Luck was not on their side and Abaddon handily won that combat as well, killing the warboss and sending the one surviving nob fleeing for his life. In the chaos turn, the rhino moved towards an objective, but it turned out to be unnecessary. The Thousand Sons and Abaddon shot down a few boyz, then Abaddon charged in, killed half of the remainder and sent the rest fleeing.

With all the orks units fleeing from the table with no chance of rallying, we called the game. Chaos Wins.

Final Thoughts
Abaddon cleaned up. This strikeds a chord with a post on From the Warp about the unbalancing power of some special characters in games. Abaddon certainly unbalanced this game, but as we'll see in Battle 4, there are things that an opponent can do, even in lower point games, to deal with overpowered characters.

Campaign Battle Report: Road to Glory Battle 2

The second battle in the Road to Glory campaign is the battle to determine who is the attacker and who is the defender. It's also the first battle that has an effect on the next battle. Chaos and Orks were both taking this seriously and bringing their game face.

For those of you just joining us, here's the initial post on the campaign (including the chaos army list used), the battle report for mission 1 and the ork writeup.

I've also updated the campaign map to the right. Warning that it contains spoilers regarding the battle report below.

Ork Army List

• Warboss mega armor and boss pole (105)
• 4 Mega-Nobz with a deff rolla battle wagon (270)
• 12 Boyz in a trukk with a nob carrying a power-klaw and boss-pole (147)
• 5 Nob Bikerz (225)
  

Setup

Mission two was Capture and Control with Dawn of War deployment. We used the same board setup as the first mission. This time we had an objective in my deployment zone on the left flank and one on the right in the ork deployment zone. The bold orks deployed in the center and sneaky chaos refused to deploy anything.

Turn 1

The meganobz in battlewagon took off for the objective on the left flank and the trukk hung out in the center waiting for the chaos forces to arrive. The nob bikerz entered the board and moved up behind the trukk. In the chaos turn, everything came in on the right flank, with the defiler more towards the center and the prince and rhino on the right. The rhino popped smoke and the defiler bounced some rounds off the trukk. The thousand sons stayed off board, biding their time.

Turn 2

The ork battlewagon made it to the left flank objective and everyone inside settled in for a nice long lurk. The trukk popped over to the right flank, the boyz piled out, declaredwaaugh and ran. Not quite far enough to get to the demon prince. They did get to the rhino but nothing managed to damage it. The bikerz turbo boosted, lurking menacingly while watching the action. In the chaos turn the demon prince and marines in rhino ignored the boyz and rolled up on the bikerz, shooting and assaulting them, but not killing them all. The defiler walked up a hill and poured hot promethium and autocannon rounds into the boyz squad, killing everyone except the nob. The thousand sons stayed off board, biding their time.

Turn 3

In the ork turn the trukk retreated, setting up for late game objective contention. The last biker held out against the demon prince, keeping him locked in combat for the chaos turn. The meganobz turned on the battlewagon television, continuing to lurk in the trees by their objective. The lone nob is forgotten and unloved. In the chaos turn the prince and marines finally brought down the last biker. The marines consolidated towards the trukk and the prince started to move to the left flank.. The defiler also turned its attention towards the left flank, and knowing that it had a ways to go, started running. The thousand sons stayed off board, biding their time.

Turn 4

The trukk continued to lurk, looking for a position far enough away from the demon prince. The television turned out to be boring so the meganobz disembarked hoping to find something interesting to do near their objective. The lone nob remained forgotten and unloved. The chaos marines downed the trukk with concentrated plasma fire, sending it careening into a nearby forest where it exploded. The rest of the chaos forces moved as fast as possible towards the left flank where the thousand sons finally made their triumphant appearance.

Turn 5

The battlewagon tank shocks the thousand sons, crushing two under its deffrolla. The lone nob got remembered and manages to assault the chaos marines, pulling them away from their objective. The chaos marines fail to kill him in the ork turn, but do finish him off in the chaos turn, although they are unable to consolidate far enough to grab their objective. The thousand sons advanced and the demon prince moved up to contest the meganob held objective.

At the end of turn five no one has an uncontested objective. We roll for the end of game and it's over. Tie! Which is boring. So...

Turn 6

The battlewagon hit the demon prince with its deffrolla who met it head on with a death or glory attack. The battlewagon exploded but the prince took some wounds in the process. The meganobz danced and hooted when they finished him off with their shootas. In the chaos turn the marines finally got to their objective, the thousand sons ran to contest the meganob objective with the rhino in hot pursuit. The defiler assaulted the meganobz and smashed the warboss to paste before being pulled down by massed powerklaws.

With the right flank objective firmly under chaos control and the left flank objective in hot contention we ended the game with chaos winning, one objective to zero. Chaos has been declared the attacker for the Road to Glory campaign. They'll also get to choose who goes first in the next battle.

Final Thoughts

Deffrollas are probably nastier against vehicle armies. But against armored troops d6 S10 AP- hits isn't so bad. Sure it's S10 but if you've got 3+ armor you're not going to get too hurt. As for the current "controversy," I don't think it's unfair for the orks to have deffrollas as anti-vehicle. The ork codex doesn't have melta and most of its long range shooting is low powered. As an ork it's hard to get the S9 or S10 attacks that you need to nuke a land raider.

I'm enjoying making the map. The overall layout is similar to the campaign map in the main rulebook, but I've started from scratch using Inkscape. I've been drawing inspiration from the Battle Missions book for ways to better the map's look and feel.

Stay tuned! The next stage in the campaign should be played out tomorrow evening.

Battle Report: Road to Glory Battle 1 - Orks

My orky opponent for the Road to Glory Campaign was kind enough to do a writeup of the first battle as seen from his side of the table. I think it's important to analyze the battles you lose even more than the battles you win. It's also interesting for me to see what my opponent's plan was and what they think the major turning points in the battle were.

So without further ado, here's the message of the day from the orks.

Pre-Battle Thoughts

My plan was to have superior mobility and use that to mass my forces on the enemy’s flank. In a 500 point game, if you can kill even one unit without many losses to yourself, that can stack things against your opponent in a way that’s very hard to fight back from. I ended up deploying first and was able to put my entire army on, despite Dawn of War deployment restrictions. I placed everything in the center, as close to the opposing table edge as possible. My vehicles were close enough for the opponent to be able to walk on and shoot at them, but Mega-Nobz and a 12-man Boyz unit would not make it across the board if they were forced to walk from further away, so I just hoped that the Battle-Wagon at least would resist the first turn salvo. After that, rush toward whatever’s toughest, kill it early and hope that my opponent has a harder time whittling away my forces without their ace unit.

Then the battle happened.

Post-Battle Thoughts

Drat. Both vehicles were stunned on the first turn; no moving or shooting, so my slow-and-purposeful Mega-Nobz and small Boyz mob would have to walk from the half-way point. Fortunately, it was turn two so the waaagh helped me get some of them across. I prioritized the Daemon Prince because of its deadliness and mobility. I did manage to kill it, though my Boyz were also killed. With just Mega-Nobz left, chaos had no problem out-pacing me. The Mega-Nobz did survive a lot of shooting, but this wasn’t a kill-point game. I think if I was to summarize my mistakes, it would be that I was trying to play a 500 pt Objectives match as though it were 1500 pts. With so few units, running away or at least keeping 50% of my forces back should’ve ranked higher on my battle strategy list. Instead I attacked like an Ork ought to, and the Chaos Space Marines were all-too-ready.

Battle Report: Road to Glory Battle 1

My buddy and I started off the Road to Glory campaign this week. You can see the campaign map and chaos army list in the initial post.

The first battle was a hard fought mission with lots of jockeying for position.

First the ork army list:

• Warboss in mega-armor (100)
• 4 Mega-Nobz with Battle Wagon (250)
  
• 12 Boyz in a trukk with a nob carrying a power-klaw and boss-pole (147)

Setup

We set up a nice looking board with some snowy terrain and forests. The mission was seize ground and we ended up with three objectives. One was placed one near the center and the other two ended up on the left flank. The orks deployed everything in their transports in the center of the table and chaos declined to deploy anything.

Turn 1

The orks advanced full speed into the chaos deployment zone but with the enemy nowhere in sight had nothing else to do. The chaos defiler came in on the right and the rest of the army piled in on the left. The chaos marines on foot opened fire at the trukk, stunning it, and the defiler leveled it's autocannon at the battlewagon, leaving it stunned as well. The picture shows the disposition of forces and objectives at the end of turn two. Not shown is the defiler just out of frame on the right.

Turn 2

The warboss and meganobz abandoned the stunned battlewagon and began a long footslog across the board to the left flank. Similarly, the boyz abandoned their trukk, shout out a mighty waaugh and rush the demon prince and rhino. Having made a full move the previous turn, the rhino was safe, but the demon prince ended up taking some wounds and killing of a couple boyz. In the chaos turn both marine squads joined the demon prince against the hapless ork boyz. Between them they managed to beat the greenskins and catch them in a sweeping advance but not before the nob took the last wound off the demon prince. The picture shows the left flank at the end of turn two.

Turn 3

The warboss and meganobz continued towards the action on the left flank and the trukk moved to try to box in the rhino and keep the left flank objective contested. One of the space marine squads piled into the rhino which high tailed it through a forest. The second squad shifted into cover near the objective and shot up the trukk, destroying it. Over on the right flank the defiler began to chase after the meganobz, shooting at them but missing.

Turn 4

The meganobz continued their slow and purposeful advance. The defiler charged the forgotten and unloved battlewagon, handily destroying it. The rhino and marine squads secured the left flank objective in the ork deployment zone. The other space marine squad poured fire into the meganobz but only managed one wound.

Turn 5

Huffing and puffing from exertion, the meganobz finally reached the left objective and sat down for a rest. Fearing that the game would end in a tie, the chaos marines near them charged, drawing the orks away from the objective. By the end of the assault only one marine was left, but this was enough to force the meganobz to pile in even further away from their objective.

A final die roll decided the game was over on turn five and chaos won, one objective to zero.

Final Thoughts

Meganobz are tough nuts to crack in a low point game. Despite lots of shooting I didn't kill a single one. Instead, I had to use luring and containment to keep them ineffective for most of the game. As for the plan I laid out in the first post, some things worked and some didn't. The rhino with marines grabbed an objective in the back like I had planned, but the demon prince didn't really get to choose his own target. This was my fault for getting him an inch or so too close to the trukk. The defiler didn't end up being a major player, either. His task was to camp an objective and provide fire support but there were very few objectives and not many targets suitable for a battle cannon. If the game had ended up going longer the defiler would have come back into play on turn six or seven by contesting the meganob objective.

The other thing is Dawn of War deployment seems to do a role reversal, putting whoever goes first on the defensive. When you have the second turn there's little incentive to start with anything on the board. Denying your opponent an entire round of shooting, taking away any chance of a turn one assault, and being able to choose your initial deployment after seeing how your opponent is situated are very valuable advantages that I have a hard time giving up.

Stay tuned for the results of mission 2 and an updated campaign map.

Battle Report: Chaos Marines vs. Orks

I recently got a game in against a buddy of mine. He'd just picked up some new models for his ork army, including a battlewagon (sadly no deffrolla). I brought my chaos marines since I have enough of them painted now that I was able to field an all painted army, something I haven't been able to do in years.

We both brought along 1750 points of our respective armies. Terrain placed, we rolled up a Capture and Control mission with Dawn of War deployment. Orks deployed and moved first.

Here are the army lists. Chaos is accurate and the Ork list is from memory.

Chaos Marines

• Tzeentch Demon Prince wings, warptime, wind of chaos
• Tzeentch Demon Prince wings, warptime, wind of chaos
• 9 Chaos Marines khorne icon, 2 plasma guns, champion with power fist and combi plasma
• 8 Thousand Sons and Sorceror icon, wind of chaos, meltabombs
• 4 Bikers khorne icon, 2 plasma guns, champion with power fist
• 7 lesser demons
• 6 lesser demons
• Defiler
• Land Raider possessed, havok launcher

Orks

• Gazhgull Thrakka
• Warboss on bike
• 7 Nobs on bikes
• Squad of meganobz in battlewagon
  
• Large squad of boyz
• Large squad of boyz
• 3 Deffkoptas
• 3 Deffkoptas
• 5 Lootaz in Trukk
  

The cunning chaos plan going in would be to come in on the flank opposite from the battlewagon, delaying when Gazhgull and his meganobz would be able to get stuck in and start killing things. The land raider would carry the thousand sons in an attempt to push through to the ork objective and the defiler would advance, shelling the large squads of boyz. Bikes, chaos marines and lesser demons were in charge of securing an objective leaving the demon princes to troubleshoot.

Turn 1: Orks took first turn and chaos refused to deploy anything during setup. Orks advanced and chaos spun onto the left flank, leaving the bikes and lesser demons in reserve. The defiler took out a big chunk of the boyz sitting in center field.

Turn 2: Orks continued their advance, wheeling to come to bear on the left flank. The lootaz jumped out of their wagon and holed up in the crater in the center. A few koptas trained their mega-blastaz on the chaos marines taking out most of the squad despite their going to ground. Chaos took some baby steps forward with the demon princes taking on the bikerz and warboss, killing many but staying locked in combat, the thousand sons piled out of the land raider and wiped out the deffkoptas. Lastly the defiler picked up a few more boyz.

Turn 3: The battlewagon raced over, dumped gazhgull and his meganobz, waaghed and ate the thousand sons for a tasty mid-game snack. The demon princes finished off the biker nobz and consolidated to the warboss, remaining locked in combat on their turn. The boyz in the center charged the last of thechaos marines and sent them to their reward. In the chaos turn the demon princes finished off the warboss and consolidated towards the squad of boyz in the back and away from Gazhgull. The land raider immobilized the battle wagon and the demon princes finish off the warboss. The bikes move on and meltagun the trukk but all the lesser demons stayed home. Good thing too since at the start of the turn there were no iconn the table for the lesser demons to use.

Turn 4: Slow and purposeful slowed Gazhgull down so he and his meganobz take some pot shots at a wounded demon prince to no effect. The lootaz poured fire into the defiler but the demon within ingored their glancing hits. However, the big 'un in the boyz squad walked over and tore the tracks off the land raider with his power klaw. The Demon princes took wing, racing towards the ork boyz edging up to the rear objective. The defiler shelled the same mob of boyz, causing them to run towards their table edge, but ending their movement standing on top of the objective, lucky them. The lesser demons finally came in and used the bike squad's icon to land within striking distance of the forward objective. The bikes raced ahead of the demons and destroyed the koptas lurking around the forward objective. Finally, the land raider ignored the power klaw stuck in its drive train and wrecks the battlewagon sitting in front of it.

Turn 5: With no other targets, Gazhgull decided to show the lootaz how its done and kicked the teeth out of the defiler. The rear boyz squad continued to flee, but did not get to the table edge or off the back objective. As a final play the lesser demons consolidated onto the forward objective and the bikes turbo-boosted over to the back objective, contesting it, which proved unnecessary as the demon princes made it to the boyz squad, pounded most of them into green paste and sweeping advanced the remnants.

Conclusion.

Chaos wins with one objective controlled at the end of turn 5. The cunning chaos plan to punch through the ork lines didn't work perfectly. The land raider and defiler got stalled by the orks moving up the center. Still, the setup allowed me to adapt and still accomplish most of what the original plan intended. The bulk of my force stalled his army near my table edge and away from his objectives. I managed to roll up the left ork flank before the midpoint of the game and instead of the thousand sons in the land raider pushing to the rear objective the demon princes took up the slack and made it there on the last turn. Some lucky reserves rolls meant my bikes were able to put the lesser demons right where I needed them in order to secure the game winning objective. Biggest mistake of the game goes to the thousand sons who I thought were going to be screened from Gazhgull by the land raider, but I misjudged the battlewagon's threat range by a couple inches and the sneaky gits got to me. MVP goes to the tandem demon princes for taking out the nob bikers, pulling ork boyz off the rear objective and soaking tons of orky firepower.

We're planning on starting the Road To Glory campaign from the main rulebook next week, so keep an eye out for that!