This is the 3rd game of the tournament yesterday. I, of course, used the same list. My opponent was playing Vanilla Marines. He had a drop pod with lysander and 10 sternguard, a unit of assault terminators, led my the Chapter Master (can't remember his name, but the guy with 2 power fists), 3 vindicators, and 3 squads of tacticals.
I won this game by a large margin, primarily because I out-maneuvered him (although almost messed it up on the last turn by charging his unit away from an objective with my cultist, instead of the unit toward objective - had the game gone another turn, I would have had a minor victory instead of major). He dropped the pod and terminators behind my ADL, and swept through my back field, whereas I deep-striked everything with a 2+ save behind his lines.
In this game, my Helbrutes contributed by being roadblocks that he had to assault to get to my troops. They still died without killing anything, but by forcing him to charge them instead of my marines, I bought my marines 2 turns (which left me with an objective I wouldn't have had, and would have lost in 1 more turn).
My terminators and oblits landed behind his lines and took out 2 vindicators, and my autocannon heldrake killed the other with a side shot (I am liking the flexibility of having 1 each weapon on the heldrake). The fact that I was able to take out 3 vindicators in a turn is re-enforcing the fact that the helbrutes are superfluous in this list, and can probably be replaced, maybe with bikes or more terminators.
I already knew I would have a hard-time against terminators, but my plan of staying away from them worked, and I don't know of plasmaguns would have made much difference against stormshields (although, if i hadn't needed to kill the vindicators, I could have dropped plasma cannons on them). The only problem is, you can't stay away from them, if you need to hold an objective, so I might need more tarpitting (thinking more of zombies)
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Local Tournament - Game 2
This was game 2 of yesterday's tournament. I had the same army as I did in the last post, and my opponent played IG with Space Wolf allies. He had 2 blobs infantry platoons (with a space wolf chaplain in each) - the platoons were naked, no extra, special, or power weapons. He also had an aegis defense line, were he had a unit of grey hunters, 2 platoon heavy weapons squads, and a company command squad with a guy who gives me -1 to reserve rolls, and a master of ordinance. He also had Marbo and a second 2nd Hunter squad. Finally, he had 2 Valkyries (one of was modeled as a viking long ship, on a stormraven base - looked pretty cool, and will look even cooler painted).
Luckily, the first turn was night fighting, because I underestimated his fire power, and had started clustered up (I had deployed my ADL across my side of the board, but when I rolled crusader, I decided that I wanted to try marching across the board with everyone in 12", to benefit from preferred enemy. While it is rules as written, I think it is lame that a blob of IG can be led by a space wolf, and benefit from all of his perks, including preferred enemy, but, since it is an IG unit, my preferred enemy was worthless against him (this is not a bash against the player at all, who is a friend of mine, but rather a complaint about GW rules).
We traded blows, and it was pretty even, even without my dragons for the most part (he had also gotten the warlord trait that effects reserve, so my reserve roll was 5+). My dragons didn't really make a big difference - other than taking out his 2 flyers. I tried to kill his warlord, or his troops on the objective, and I did kill a lot of them, but I forgot that the heavy weapon teams also counted as troops.
My warlord and cultists got into a fight with one of the blobs. He had 3-4 sergeants that he kept feeding my warlord (which kept the combat going a while, but is also the first time I got to roll on the boon chart). I rolled a 1 twice during this combat, including once against his chaplain, but still one the combat and, on the last turn, killed the priest and broke the 2 infantry units (he had also thrown in the platoon command squad, although now that I think about it, I think he only make 1 leadership roll, and he should have rolled 2, so he might have screwed himself there.
Overall, I won by 2.
Thoughts - Again, the Helbrutes didn't pull their weight (and in fact, gave my opponent first blood).
The Heldrakes, while killing a lot of guys, were not really game changing, other than destroying his aircraft, since they didn't wipe out any actual units.
The Warlord and his guys killed a huge blog, and tied it up, and eventually won, so I again, I can't really complain - I wanted to kill it faster, so far this unit had been good for wiping out one unit, and I feel it should be doing more, but maybe my expectations are too high, after all, it took a big threat out of the game. (First Rank, Second Rank fire from 30 guys is a lot of shots - the other blob almost decimated a unit of T5 marines (granted it still took 4 turns, and there were 2 guys left, but had he moved closer, and added rapid fire, it could have gotten ugly).
Since everything except my warlord and cultists are nurgle, and the warlord is basically acting like a tarpit, I am thinking about adding Typhus, and using zombies as the tarpit -just don't want to do 70+ zombies, that's why I don't play orks :). Still zombies are pure tarpit, my Khorn guys are a tarpit that eventually usually wins.
Luckily, the first turn was night fighting, because I underestimated his fire power, and had started clustered up (I had deployed my ADL across my side of the board, but when I rolled crusader, I decided that I wanted to try marching across the board with everyone in 12", to benefit from preferred enemy. While it is rules as written, I think it is lame that a blob of IG can be led by a space wolf, and benefit from all of his perks, including preferred enemy, but, since it is an IG unit, my preferred enemy was worthless against him (this is not a bash against the player at all, who is a friend of mine, but rather a complaint about GW rules).
We traded blows, and it was pretty even, even without my dragons for the most part (he had also gotten the warlord trait that effects reserve, so my reserve roll was 5+). My dragons didn't really make a big difference - other than taking out his 2 flyers. I tried to kill his warlord, or his troops on the objective, and I did kill a lot of them, but I forgot that the heavy weapon teams also counted as troops.
My warlord and cultists got into a fight with one of the blobs. He had 3-4 sergeants that he kept feeding my warlord (which kept the combat going a while, but is also the first time I got to roll on the boon chart). I rolled a 1 twice during this combat, including once against his chaplain, but still one the combat and, on the last turn, killed the priest and broke the 2 infantry units (he had also thrown in the platoon command squad, although now that I think about it, I think he only make 1 leadership roll, and he should have rolled 2, so he might have screwed himself there.
Overall, I won by 2.
Thoughts - Again, the Helbrutes didn't pull their weight (and in fact, gave my opponent first blood).
The Heldrakes, while killing a lot of guys, were not really game changing, other than destroying his aircraft, since they didn't wipe out any actual units.
The Warlord and his guys killed a huge blog, and tied it up, and eventually won, so I again, I can't really complain - I wanted to kill it faster, so far this unit had been good for wiping out one unit, and I feel it should be doing more, but maybe my expectations are too high, after all, it took a big threat out of the game. (First Rank, Second Rank fire from 30 guys is a lot of shots - the other blob almost decimated a unit of T5 marines (granted it still took 4 turns, and there were 2 guys left, but had he moved closer, and added rapid fire, it could have gotten ugly).
Since everything except my warlord and cultists are nurgle, and the warlord is basically acting like a tarpit, I am thinking about adding Typhus, and using zombies as the tarpit -just don't want to do 70+ zombies, that's why I don't play orks :). Still zombies are pure tarpit, my Khorn guys are a tarpit that eventually usually wins.
Local Tournament - Game 1
Played in a local tournament yesterday. Points-wise, I was tied for third, but I had lost a game, and the other 2 third placers hadn't, so one of them got it. Following my own advice, I tried to take a diverse list, with tools to handle everything, without a auto-win gimmick.
My list was:
Chaos Lord - Mark of Khorne, Melta bombs, Sigil of corruption, Power Armour, Axe of Blind Fury, Bolt
Pistol
My list was:
Chaos Lord - Mark of Khorne, Melta bombs, Sigil of corruption, Power Armour, Axe of Blind Fury, Bolt
Pistol
Unit of 3 Chaos Terminators - Mark of Nurgle, (Combi-melta, Powerfist), (Chainfist, Combi-melta),
Terminator Champion (Combi-Melta, Power Axe)
Helbrute - Multi-melta, Power fist with Heavy flamer
Helbrute - Multi-melta, Power fist with Heavy flamer
30 Chaos Cultists - Mark of Khorn, 3x Flamers
10 Chaos Space Marines - Mark of Nurgle, 1 x Heavy Bolter (I waited so long to make my list and
assemble my Heldrakes that I had to go with what I had)
10 Chaos Space Marines - Mark of Nurgle, 1 x Heavy Bolter
10 Chaos Space Marines - Mark of Nurgle,
Heldrake with Baleflamer
Heldrake with Hades Autocannon
2 Obliterators with Mark of Nurgle
2 Obliterators with Mark of Nurgle
Aegis Defense Line with quad-gun
As usual, I am terrible at knowing what the opponent had, and I am least familiar with 'nids, but he had 7 monstrous creatures, and a total of something like 16 psyker powers (all of which were biomancy, so there was endurance and iron arm buffed monsters), and some monster that every shooting phase, causes every unit within 6" to roll 3d6 leadership test, and take ap 2 wounds for every point over your leadership (this cost me a unit of oblits on my turn, as I didn't realize that it worked on my turn as well, so I moved oblits closer to charge)
So turn 1, all he had were the bosses that spawned gaunts, and 2 large units of gaunts, everything else was in reserve. I had infiltrate,and he had the warlord re-deploy, so my Warlord and a unit of his gaunts were in combat pretty quickly. My warlord rolled a 1 for his deamon weapon, so it was not the charge on the slaughter it should have been (and in future turns, he buffed his guys with feel-no-pain, and de-buffed me with -1S and -1T. I still won that fight, just in time for his Warlord (bone saber guy with iron arm, so initiative 8, Str 9, Tough 9) to kill my warlord, break my squad and wipe them. - This was turn 3 (we only got 4 turns); the game was slay the warlord, and, up to this point, I was winning 7 to 3. This combat shot him up to 7 to 6. Then, on turn 4, I shot some stuff, came close to willing 2-3 monsters (all he had left), but with an average of T6 and 4-6 wounds (some of which were then buffed with Iron Arm), I couldn't kill one that turn (I probably could have focused fire, but since he was about to charge all of my units, I was trying to soften them all up for overwatch, or melee kills.
On his turn 4, he assaulted 2 units of marines, 1 unit of oblits, and killed them all, making it 7-9 nids.
Thoughts on the game -
The Helbrutes were about as bad as everyone said. I can see a use for long range Multi-Melta, but I have that with Obliterators. I didn't realize at the time, that Helbrutes don't even get a 5+ daemon save that every other walker in my army has. With no pods, no way to make them outflanking, and no invuln save, I was not impressed. Of all 3 games, this was their chance to shine, because they might have beaten an unbuffed monster in combat, but they couldn't survive the shooting to get there... from 'nids.
Warlord with cultists. They got him there, and he killed stuff, but not as quickly as I would have liked, although in this game, I was not going to win against his warlord no matter what I brought, so it is hard to make that call. The advantage to this, over bikes, is that I was able to use my warlord trait to give them infiltrate.
Everything else did about how I expected, and the heavy-bolter wasn't even a terrible choice, although double plasma guns would have been better (and 50 points more expensive) In fact, more plasma, or autocannon havocs was probably the only thing I could have about this list to help against so many monsters.
Tactics-wise, I should have fallen back through cover and made him chase me a little as I shot, although monsters have move through cover, and all his guys were fleet, but still, a few missed charges might have made the difference, as most of his monsters had at least a few wounds (which is also something I could have done different - I should have focused fire better, but my units were so spread out that they couldn't support each other). This match-up was a tough fight, but I don't think it was un-beatable with what I brought, had I played it better, although it showed a glaring weakness against psyker strong armies (unfortunately not a weakness I can do a lot about).
Terminator Champion (Combi-Melta, Power Axe)
Helbrute - Multi-melta, Power fist with Heavy flamer
Helbrute - Multi-melta, Power fist with Heavy flamer
30 Chaos Cultists - Mark of Khorn, 3x Flamers
10 Chaos Space Marines - Mark of Nurgle, 1 x Heavy Bolter (I waited so long to make my list and
assemble my Heldrakes that I had to go with what I had)
10 Chaos Space Marines - Mark of Nurgle, 1 x Heavy Bolter
10 Chaos Space Marines - Mark of Nurgle,
Heldrake with Baleflamer
Heldrake with Hades Autocannon
2 Obliterators with Mark of Nurgle
2 Obliterators with Mark of Nurgle
Aegis Defense Line with quad-gun
As usual, I am terrible at knowing what the opponent had, and I am least familiar with 'nids, but he had 7 monstrous creatures, and a total of something like 16 psyker powers (all of which were biomancy, so there was endurance and iron arm buffed monsters), and some monster that every shooting phase, causes every unit within 6" to roll 3d6 leadership test, and take ap 2 wounds for every point over your leadership (this cost me a unit of oblits on my turn, as I didn't realize that it worked on my turn as well, so I moved oblits closer to charge)
So turn 1, all he had were the bosses that spawned gaunts, and 2 large units of gaunts, everything else was in reserve. I had infiltrate,and he had the warlord re-deploy, so my Warlord and a unit of his gaunts were in combat pretty quickly. My warlord rolled a 1 for his deamon weapon, so it was not the charge on the slaughter it should have been (and in future turns, he buffed his guys with feel-no-pain, and de-buffed me with -1S and -1T. I still won that fight, just in time for his Warlord (bone saber guy with iron arm, so initiative 8, Str 9, Tough 9) to kill my warlord, break my squad and wipe them. - This was turn 3 (we only got 4 turns); the game was slay the warlord, and, up to this point, I was winning 7 to 3. This combat shot him up to 7 to 6. Then, on turn 4, I shot some stuff, came close to willing 2-3 monsters (all he had left), but with an average of T6 and 4-6 wounds (some of which were then buffed with Iron Arm), I couldn't kill one that turn (I probably could have focused fire, but since he was about to charge all of my units, I was trying to soften them all up for overwatch, or melee kills.
On his turn 4, he assaulted 2 units of marines, 1 unit of oblits, and killed them all, making it 7-9 nids.
Thoughts on the game -
The Helbrutes were about as bad as everyone said. I can see a use for long range Multi-Melta, but I have that with Obliterators. I didn't realize at the time, that Helbrutes don't even get a 5+ daemon save that every other walker in my army has. With no pods, no way to make them outflanking, and no invuln save, I was not impressed. Of all 3 games, this was their chance to shine, because they might have beaten an unbuffed monster in combat, but they couldn't survive the shooting to get there... from 'nids.
Warlord with cultists. They got him there, and he killed stuff, but not as quickly as I would have liked, although in this game, I was not going to win against his warlord no matter what I brought, so it is hard to make that call. The advantage to this, over bikes, is that I was able to use my warlord trait to give them infiltrate.
Everything else did about how I expected, and the heavy-bolter wasn't even a terrible choice, although double plasma guns would have been better (and 50 points more expensive) In fact, more plasma, or autocannon havocs was probably the only thing I could have about this list to help against so many monsters.
Tactics-wise, I should have fallen back through cover and made him chase me a little as I shot, although monsters have move through cover, and all his guys were fleet, but still, a few missed charges might have made the difference, as most of his monsters had at least a few wounds (which is also something I could have done different - I should have focused fire better, but my units were so spread out that they couldn't support each other). This match-up was a tough fight, but I don't think it was un-beatable with what I brought, had I played it better, although it showed a glaring weakness against psyker strong armies (unfortunately not a weakness I can do a lot about).
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Thoughts on list building
I have been having a really hard time coming up with a Chaos list. I don't think that it is because they are a bad army, and they have some awesome units. They also have a few USRs that you can build a list around - preferred enemy and infiltration for example.
Why then, has it been so hard for me to make a list? I think I have the answer. I was cruising some forums and blogs, and someone, in the comments (and I would credit the person if I remembered who, or which blog), said something like, "The problem is that so many people are trying to win the game in the list building phase, rather than playing the game."
I think that this is probably why I am having so much trouble. I think that, instead of playing some things that are cool, and giving myself the tools to face different enemies, I was trying to make an all-comers list that won the game before even playing - I don't know how I got to there, probably because I used to play games like Magic the Gathering - although even in 40K there have been games where I had lost before even starting the game.
I am not saying that this made the game not fun for me, or that I am so competitive that I am a jerk to play against (these are the first two questions I asked myself after realizing what I was doing), but it has created a lot of stress when trying to come with lists. From now on (or at least for a little while), I am going to try to focus less on the perfect list, and instead just make sure that my list is not auto-lose against certain armies.
The criteria I am using, which is from a blog that I will cite if I can find it again,is that my army must have a plan for:
AV 12 flyers
50 Man blob (with ATSKNF)
40 MeQ
3-5 Rhino / Chimera rush
Deep Striking (DA and Daemons)
Invulnerable save
Aegis Defense line
4 Durable Scoring Units
monsters / large group pf multi-wounds.
Like I said, this is not my list, and there are some things that I don't know if they need their own sections, for example Invuln save (Stormshields) and ADL would probably both be delt with by volume of fire, and I don't know if I'll always need 4 scoring units - but this is a good place to start. I will be able to test this (if my army comes in from ebay), because there is a tournament Saturday at the Local Gaming Store.
Why then, has it been so hard for me to make a list? I think I have the answer. I was cruising some forums and blogs, and someone, in the comments (and I would credit the person if I remembered who, or which blog), said something like, "The problem is that so many people are trying to win the game in the list building phase, rather than playing the game."
I think that this is probably why I am having so much trouble. I think that, instead of playing some things that are cool, and giving myself the tools to face different enemies, I was trying to make an all-comers list that won the game before even playing - I don't know how I got to there, probably because I used to play games like Magic the Gathering - although even in 40K there have been games where I had lost before even starting the game.
I am not saying that this made the game not fun for me, or that I am so competitive that I am a jerk to play against (these are the first two questions I asked myself after realizing what I was doing), but it has created a lot of stress when trying to come with lists. From now on (or at least for a little while), I am going to try to focus less on the perfect list, and instead just make sure that my list is not auto-lose against certain armies.
The criteria I am using, which is from a blog that I will cite if I can find it again,is that my army must have a plan for:
AV 12 flyers
50 Man blob (with ATSKNF)
40 MeQ
3-5 Rhino / Chimera rush
Deep Striking (DA and Daemons)
Invulnerable save
Aegis Defense line
4 Durable Scoring Units
monsters / large group pf multi-wounds.
Like I said, this is not my list, and there are some things that I don't know if they need their own sections, for example Invuln save (Stormshields) and ADL would probably both be delt with by volume of fire, and I don't know if I'll always need 4 scoring units - but this is a good place to start. I will be able to test this (if my army comes in from ebay), because there is a tournament Saturday at the Local Gaming Store.
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Thoughts on the Heldrake
I am having a really hard time putting together a good chaos list. I think that at least part of it is because I might be doing it wrong with the Heldrake. I have been tabled by 1 Heldrake, and it may have skewed my perception, and after facing it a few times, and running one a few times, I still think my perception is skewed from that one time I got slaughtered.
My most recent games showed me that positioning further back can stop the vector strike, and your opponent bringing his air on to the opposite side of the board from the rest of his army means you can vector strike is air OR flame his guys.
I think it is obvious by now that I am assuming that one is always taking the Baleflamer with a drake, because it is just too awesome not to. I believe that this is why I am having so much trouble coming up with a list that I like, I am assuming that the Heldrake has to have a baleflamer to be worth the points, so I am taking the Heldrake as my anti-infantry, and then I am spending too many points trying to cover anti-air. The issue is that Chaos has ALOT of was to kill stuff on the ground, but nothing nearly as efficient as the Heldrake for killing things in the air, and trying to force something else into the anti-air role is leaving me unhappy, because I end up with a list that doesn't have enough anti-troop OR anti-air.
So I am going to try to make some more lists, with auto-cannons on the drakes. If I take 3, then maybe the baleflamer on one, but I am starting to think that the baleflamer is a trap. It looks great on paper, and works very well the first time you enemy faces it, but it is not the unstoppable killing machine that you want it to be...
My most recent games showed me that positioning further back can stop the vector strike, and your opponent bringing his air on to the opposite side of the board from the rest of his army means you can vector strike is air OR flame his guys.
I think it is obvious by now that I am assuming that one is always taking the Baleflamer with a drake, because it is just too awesome not to. I believe that this is why I am having so much trouble coming up with a list that I like, I am assuming that the Heldrake has to have a baleflamer to be worth the points, so I am taking the Heldrake as my anti-infantry, and then I am spending too many points trying to cover anti-air. The issue is that Chaos has ALOT of was to kill stuff on the ground, but nothing nearly as efficient as the Heldrake for killing things in the air, and trying to force something else into the anti-air role is leaving me unhappy, because I end up with a list that doesn't have enough anti-troop OR anti-air.
So I am going to try to make some more lists, with auto-cannons on the drakes. If I take 3, then maybe the baleflamer on one, but I am starting to think that the baleflamer is a trap. It looks great on paper, and works very well the first time you enemy faces it, but it is not the unstoppable killing machine that you want it to be...
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Second game with Chaos
This was played the same day as the first post (and the same player). I used the same army as the first game with chaos. I was playing purge the alien against orks. My opponent had Gaz'gul and a mob of shoota' boys (I think 30), 3 units of 14 lootas, a unit of nob bikers with a warboss, and 3 ork fighter planes.
Again, I was using proxies, but this game was pretty straight forward, so I'll do it more in a turn by turn analysis.
Turn 1 - he went first, it was night fighting - it was dawn of war an we deployed in opposite corners, so nothing was in range. I moved my demon prince into cover, close enough that I could probably assault his bikers next turn, but where I had a 2+ cover save (because of mark of nurgle) from his lootas.
Opponent Turn 2 - His flyers came in, and all though it took all 3 of them, they did manage to kill my demon prince, meaning I was down 3 points right away (1 for unit, 1 for first blood, and 1 for slay the warlord). His bikers pulled back, so I was going to have to go after him.
Chaos Turn 2 - My flyers came on. He had positioned his orks so that I could not vector strike them (because there was no where to land). I couldn't vector strike the ork flyers, because they were on the other side of the board, and striking them meant that I would lose at least two turns of flaming (plus I think they were also too far back). I flamed his bikers with all three heldrakes, and killed 1 or 2. I deep striked my Oblits, 1 unit scattered off the table, and went back into reserve, but the other 2 landed behind his lines. The unit of 3 oblits assault cannoned the closest lootas and broke them. The other unit killed some of the mob of boyz. I started moving my rhinos to get my troops into range to help, but it would have taken them until turn 7 to get into melee with the orks (we didn't get a 7th turn), and it would have taken until turn 9 for my 2 units of marines to be killed by what was left of his ork mob, gaz'gul, and nob with powerfist)
Turn 3 - I think he forgets to roll for his lootas, so see if they stay or if they run off the board, but it's ok, because he didn't shoot them either. His bikes charge both units of my oblits (I use the heavy flamers, and kill 1-2 - I got 11 hits with wall of flame). We tie in combat, doing 3 wounds each, but I lost 2 guys, and he only lost 1). He shot at my flyers, but I made a lot of saves, took some hits, but only 1 of them went down - it took hits from 2 flyers and 2 units of lootas).
Chaos turn 3 - I vector strike some boys with my last 2 dragons, and then flame them. We're not sure how vector strike works, as far was where are the casualties assigned, so I let him pick, and he put them all on gaz' gul, who absorbed all but one of them on his 2+ save. My oblits fail their reserve roll, and my other 2 units of oblits get wiped out, killing another bike or two (leaving him with a war boss and a nob biker, each with one wound). One of my heldrakes flame a unit of lootas, breaking them and causing them to run off the board, and the other kills 3 more lootas from the group already falling back, so they can' rally without double 1's.
Enemy turn 4 - He declares Waaah!, letting his flyers to fire twice each. Between that and the lootas, he finishes off both of my remaining heldrakes. His bikers pop one of the Rhinos in melee. His lootas run off the board, leaving him with one unit at full strength.
Chaos turn 4. I deepstrike my oblits near his lootas, and assault cannon them, killing 7 of them, but they pass their leadership. I unload all of the marines from their rhinos, and finish off the bikers with rapid fire.
Enemy turn 5. He fires his whole army at the oblits, and kills one of them. He tries to assault the other, but it is through cover, and I wall of flame the closest guy, so he doesn't make it.
Chaos Turn 5. I put everything back in the rhinos and move toward his boyz, although even if they get there, I have already lost, because I had several more kill points to give up than he did, and I lost the first two optional points. My oblit moves towards the lootas, kills 2, and then charges...but fails because I only got 3" charge, and I had killed the closest 2.
Turn 6. Between his boyz and his lootas, he killed my last oblit. His fighers didn't do anything, because they had to turn to stay on the board, and didn't have any targets.
Chaos turn 6. I moved up the rhinos, and unloaded everything, and was able to shoot some of the boyz, but was too far out of range to charge. There was no turn 7.
Thoughts / lessons learned:
1. The demon prince needs more fast stuff to work well. In my first game, I held him back until my dragons came out, so that when my enemy's fliers came on, there was a saturation of targets. This game, my opponent went first, and when his fliers came on, my prince was easily their best target, and they killed him, which put me way behind from the start. While he did awesome the first game, I am thinking that his place is in a fast army, where there are a lot of turn 2 threats right away (maybe 2 princes and bike unit).
2. Again, the dragons, while doing great for their points (I really don't see a more efficient way to spend 170 points), they cannot carry the army alone, and they need anti-air support, because in the enemy has more than 1 flyer, the dragons are going to start dropping, and since 3 of them, point-wise, uses up most of your allotted anti-troop allowance, you need them to survive.
3. While there might be a time to drop oblits behind to wipe out a key target, they have pretty good range, and probably should kill stuff from a distance (I know the internet says they are at their best withing 24", which is true, they are also much easier to kill with volume of fire inside 24" (of course, this would also be different if one was playing a faster, turn 2 army - which I am having trouble making for chaos)
Again, I was using proxies, but this game was pretty straight forward, so I'll do it more in a turn by turn analysis.
Turn 1 - he went first, it was night fighting - it was dawn of war an we deployed in opposite corners, so nothing was in range. I moved my demon prince into cover, close enough that I could probably assault his bikers next turn, but where I had a 2+ cover save (because of mark of nurgle) from his lootas.
Opponent Turn 2 - His flyers came in, and all though it took all 3 of them, they did manage to kill my demon prince, meaning I was down 3 points right away (1 for unit, 1 for first blood, and 1 for slay the warlord). His bikers pulled back, so I was going to have to go after him.
Chaos Turn 2 - My flyers came on. He had positioned his orks so that I could not vector strike them (because there was no where to land). I couldn't vector strike the ork flyers, because they were on the other side of the board, and striking them meant that I would lose at least two turns of flaming (plus I think they were also too far back). I flamed his bikers with all three heldrakes, and killed 1 or 2. I deep striked my Oblits, 1 unit scattered off the table, and went back into reserve, but the other 2 landed behind his lines. The unit of 3 oblits assault cannoned the closest lootas and broke them. The other unit killed some of the mob of boyz. I started moving my rhinos to get my troops into range to help, but it would have taken them until turn 7 to get into melee with the orks (we didn't get a 7th turn), and it would have taken until turn 9 for my 2 units of marines to be killed by what was left of his ork mob, gaz'gul, and nob with powerfist)
Turn 3 - I think he forgets to roll for his lootas, so see if they stay or if they run off the board, but it's ok, because he didn't shoot them either. His bikes charge both units of my oblits (I use the heavy flamers, and kill 1-2 - I got 11 hits with wall of flame). We tie in combat, doing 3 wounds each, but I lost 2 guys, and he only lost 1). He shot at my flyers, but I made a lot of saves, took some hits, but only 1 of them went down - it took hits from 2 flyers and 2 units of lootas).
Chaos turn 3 - I vector strike some boys with my last 2 dragons, and then flame them. We're not sure how vector strike works, as far was where are the casualties assigned, so I let him pick, and he put them all on gaz' gul, who absorbed all but one of them on his 2+ save. My oblits fail their reserve roll, and my other 2 units of oblits get wiped out, killing another bike or two (leaving him with a war boss and a nob biker, each with one wound). One of my heldrakes flame a unit of lootas, breaking them and causing them to run off the board, and the other kills 3 more lootas from the group already falling back, so they can' rally without double 1's.
Enemy turn 4 - He declares Waaah!, letting his flyers to fire twice each. Between that and the lootas, he finishes off both of my remaining heldrakes. His bikers pop one of the Rhinos in melee. His lootas run off the board, leaving him with one unit at full strength.
Chaos turn 4. I deepstrike my oblits near his lootas, and assault cannon them, killing 7 of them, but they pass their leadership. I unload all of the marines from their rhinos, and finish off the bikers with rapid fire.
Enemy turn 5. He fires his whole army at the oblits, and kills one of them. He tries to assault the other, but it is through cover, and I wall of flame the closest guy, so he doesn't make it.
Chaos Turn 5. I put everything back in the rhinos and move toward his boyz, although even if they get there, I have already lost, because I had several more kill points to give up than he did, and I lost the first two optional points. My oblit moves towards the lootas, kills 2, and then charges...but fails because I only got 3" charge, and I had killed the closest 2.
Turn 6. Between his boyz and his lootas, he killed my last oblit. His fighers didn't do anything, because they had to turn to stay on the board, and didn't have any targets.
Chaos turn 6. I moved up the rhinos, and unloaded everything, and was able to shoot some of the boyz, but was too far out of range to charge. There was no turn 7.
Thoughts / lessons learned:
1. The demon prince needs more fast stuff to work well. In my first game, I held him back until my dragons came out, so that when my enemy's fliers came on, there was a saturation of targets. This game, my opponent went first, and when his fliers came on, my prince was easily their best target, and they killed him, which put me way behind from the start. While he did awesome the first game, I am thinking that his place is in a fast army, where there are a lot of turn 2 threats right away (maybe 2 princes and bike unit).
2. Again, the dragons, while doing great for their points (I really don't see a more efficient way to spend 170 points), they cannot carry the army alone, and they need anti-air support, because in the enemy has more than 1 flyer, the dragons are going to start dropping, and since 3 of them, point-wise, uses up most of your allotted anti-troop allowance, you need them to survive.
3. While there might be a time to drop oblits behind to wipe out a key target, they have pretty good range, and probably should kill stuff from a distance (I know the internet says they are at their best withing 24", which is true, they are also much easier to kill with volume of fire inside 24" (of course, this would also be different if one was playing a faster, turn 2 army - which I am having trouble making for chaos)
First Game with CSM
So, I was worried about my list, with 3 Heldrakes, being over the top. The was not the case today - I lost 2 games today, 1 to Necrons and 1 to Orks.
In the Necron game, even though I was making an All Comers List (ACL), I knew that I would be playing his Necron army, so I at least wanted to make sure that I had enough to cover the threats I knew he would bring.
His list - and I didn't get it from him, was Immotek and another Lord, 2 Courts (each one had a guy that allows rerolls, a guy with the staff that is Str 8, AP 1, targets leadership, and one other guy (with Str 8, AP 3 staff). There were split into the different units, the guys with the AP1 Flamer staffs each joined a unit of death-marks. He had 2 Heavy Flyers (with the Str 10, AP 1 beam) {I have the codex, I just don't want to look it up, plus my brother - who I want to help with this blog, wouldn't know the equipment by its name, so I'm putting why it is dangerous instead.}
He also has 2 units of death-marks (in transports)
3 units of Immortals (1 has a flyer, but it is not used as a transport)
I had Aegis Defense Line (ADL) with Comms relay
a unit of cultists on the relay, inside the ADL, along with 3 obliterators with Mark of Nurgle
I had a deamon prince of Nurgle as an hq
3 units of CSM in Rhinos
2 squads of 2 Oblits
3 heldrakes
My thinking was that the Heldrakes would be the anti-personnel (ignoring armor and cover), so I would just need to worry about being able to get people out of their vehicles (deep-striking oblits seemed like a good answer, and might have been against different armies.
Anyway, Immotek managed to keep this game in the dark all the way through turn 5, and his lighting had some good rolls from time to time (finishing off a Heldrake)
I proxied everything, so I have no pictures, so this isn't so much a battle report as it is lessons learned.
1. 3 Heldrakes do not carry an army, despite what the internet says. If your opponent has anti-air, or flyers of his own, the heldrakes will go down without some anti air support.
2. Vector strike is not reliable anti-air, especially if the enemy has more than one flyer (when I was building my list, I was imagining vector striking, then flaming the back (pretty sure I got this idea from the forums), but once the game started, I realized that flamers can't target flyers, even if coming from another flyer).
3. Oblits with mark of nurgle are pretty good, but but dropping them into enemy deployment zone to assassinate an enemy heavy support is an expensive suicide mission. While that was my plan, to drop into rear and kill vehicles or other threats, so that my dragon could do their thing, they generally died the turn they landed - even if they killed a vehicle, it's trading one unit for another, and mine is probably more expensive (although I can see where this could be useful).
4. Having 3 units of nine - 10 guys in a Rhino with no heavy weapon (waiting to strike out on turn 4 to score), means that I am playing with 400-600 less points for 2/3 of the game. (Granted, this strategy would have won me the game had the game not gone to turn 7, or had it been any mission other than the scouring).
5. My demon prince did pretty well, he soaked a lot of shots, and wiped out 1 unit and gave me line breaker. He might have won be the game, but, since it was close, I flew him away on turn 5, not wanting to give enemy slay-the-warlord, which is the problem with having a warlord that is a one man killing machine - if you use him like you are supposed to (which aggressively, since you pumped so many points into making him a melee killing machine), you are practically giving your opponent slay the warlord. I think I am going to save my killing machine characters for when I have two HQ, so that the support character can be the warlord.
In the Necron game, even though I was making an All Comers List (ACL), I knew that I would be playing his Necron army, so I at least wanted to make sure that I had enough to cover the threats I knew he would bring.
His list - and I didn't get it from him, was Immotek and another Lord, 2 Courts (each one had a guy that allows rerolls, a guy with the staff that is Str 8, AP 1, targets leadership, and one other guy (with Str 8, AP 3 staff). There were split into the different units, the guys with the AP1 Flamer staffs each joined a unit of death-marks. He had 2 Heavy Flyers (with the Str 10, AP 1 beam) {I have the codex, I just don't want to look it up, plus my brother - who I want to help with this blog, wouldn't know the equipment by its name, so I'm putting why it is dangerous instead.}
He also has 2 units of death-marks (in transports)
3 units of Immortals (1 has a flyer, but it is not used as a transport)
I had Aegis Defense Line (ADL) with Comms relay
a unit of cultists on the relay, inside the ADL, along with 3 obliterators with Mark of Nurgle
I had a deamon prince of Nurgle as an hq
3 units of CSM in Rhinos
2 squads of 2 Oblits
3 heldrakes
My thinking was that the Heldrakes would be the anti-personnel (ignoring armor and cover), so I would just need to worry about being able to get people out of their vehicles (deep-striking oblits seemed like a good answer, and might have been against different armies.
Anyway, Immotek managed to keep this game in the dark all the way through turn 5, and his lighting had some good rolls from time to time (finishing off a Heldrake)
I proxied everything, so I have no pictures, so this isn't so much a battle report as it is lessons learned.
1. 3 Heldrakes do not carry an army, despite what the internet says. If your opponent has anti-air, or flyers of his own, the heldrakes will go down without some anti air support.
2. Vector strike is not reliable anti-air, especially if the enemy has more than one flyer (when I was building my list, I was imagining vector striking, then flaming the back (pretty sure I got this idea from the forums), but once the game started, I realized that flamers can't target flyers, even if coming from another flyer).
3. Oblits with mark of nurgle are pretty good, but but dropping them into enemy deployment zone to assassinate an enemy heavy support is an expensive suicide mission. While that was my plan, to drop into rear and kill vehicles or other threats, so that my dragon could do their thing, they generally died the turn they landed - even if they killed a vehicle, it's trading one unit for another, and mine is probably more expensive (although I can see where this could be useful).
4. Having 3 units of nine - 10 guys in a Rhino with no heavy weapon (waiting to strike out on turn 4 to score), means that I am playing with 400-600 less points for 2/3 of the game. (Granted, this strategy would have won me the game had the game not gone to turn 7, or had it been any mission other than the scouring).
5. My demon prince did pretty well, he soaked a lot of shots, and wiped out 1 unit and gave me line breaker. He might have won be the game, but, since it was close, I flew him away on turn 5, not wanting to give enemy slay-the-warlord, which is the problem with having a warlord that is a one man killing machine - if you use him like you are supposed to (which aggressively, since you pumped so many points into making him a melee killing machine), you are practically giving your opponent slay the warlord. I think I am going to save my killing machine characters for when I have two HQ, so that the support character can be the warlord.
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Chaos
I said that I would be expanding my list to cover chaos, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Now that both the CSM and the Chaos Daemon book are out, I plan on trying some chaos stuff out. I even traded my necrons in for store credit at the local gaming store, to get things started. There probably won't be pictures for a while, because I plan on proxying things a few games before buying hordes of stuff.
I am torn between daemons and CSM, and will probably look at hybrids. I have spent some time reading both books, trying to come up with different single mark lists. While this will be fluffy, I don't think that the books are necessarily balanced this way (for example, only Khorne and Nurgle have a way to assault into cover without going at initiative 1). I will probably do a little bit of both (mixed and mono lists).
I am probably going to wait to review some units until I have actually used them in combat, but we'll see.
I have also toyed with the idea of using my Blood Angels as a fallen chapter (as described in the CSM book), and this would work because most of them are just primed red and all have different types of shoulder pads (I got most of them from multiple ebay lots, and didn't spend a lot of time "fixing them"). While this would be easy, realistic, and maybe a cool project, I am holding off right now, because I am not sure I want to abandon having some loyalists marines, and because I actually like the chaos models - but it may be something I do in the future.
I am torn between daemons and CSM, and will probably look at hybrids. I have spent some time reading both books, trying to come up with different single mark lists. While this will be fluffy, I don't think that the books are necessarily balanced this way (for example, only Khorne and Nurgle have a way to assault into cover without going at initiative 1). I will probably do a little bit of both (mixed and mono lists).
I am probably going to wait to review some units until I have actually used them in combat, but we'll see.
I have also toyed with the idea of using my Blood Angels as a fallen chapter (as described in the CSM book), and this would work because most of them are just primed red and all have different types of shoulder pads (I got most of them from multiple ebay lots, and didn't spend a lot of time "fixing them"). While this would be easy, realistic, and maybe a cool project, I am holding off right now, because I am not sure I want to abandon having some loyalists marines, and because I actually like the chaos models - but it may be something I do in the future.
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