Freebootaz Open Report - Part 5 - Bloody Wolves vs Chaos

If chatting too much had slowed us down in our first couple of battles we'd have no such problem here. Our third game saw us pitted against Leon Smith & Brett Armitage who had a 1500 point Chaos list. I'm sure they were nice guys but they didn't really say that much to us which was a shame since we'd had fun playing everyone else. I guess they were just focusing on their game. Their list:

1500pts of Chaos

1x Daemon Prince (Wings, Wind of Chaos)

1x Daemon Prince (Wings, Mark of Slaanesh, Lash)

3x Chaos Terminators (Chainfist, 2x Combi-melta)

(2x) 5x Chaos Space Marines (Meltagun), Rhino

(2x) 5x Khorne Berserkers + Skull Champion (Power fist)

3x Chaos Bikers (Meltagun x2)

(2x) 2x Obliterators

Well looking at that list we were certainly a little concerned. There were a lot of units in that army that could really hurt us. We'd need to ensure we got the charge on the Khorne Berserkers and we needed to wound the Daemons as much as possible before combat. Hopefully the long fangs could do that as well as taking down the obliterators. The mission was Seize Ground with a mandatory 5 objectives and Spearhead deployment.

Our opponents won the roll off but let us go first. We deployed our long fangs behind a wall with the blood angels around them and their razorback to their left. The rhinos were on the right and left of our zone. They deployed their whole army in heavy cover behind a large ruin. The bikers, terminators and both CSM rhinos were in reserve.

We advanced forward quickly and used the rhino to keep Mephiston hidden from view. The first couple of turns were very cautious. We were loathe to leave ourselves open to a charge. My rune priest on the right attempted to use living lightning to wound the daemon prince but he failed his psychic test. The long fangs scored a few wounds on the other prince and blew up one of the khorne rhinos. The occupants moved off into trees for cover. Mephiston and the rhino advanced together again and the blood angels walked into the area terrain in the centre of the board. The grey hunters on the right lost their rhino and I rather foolishly disembarked on the side facing the enemy. This lead to the berserkers charging in and causing heavy casualties.

Mephiston leaped straight over this combat and killed one of the daemon princes. The long fangs finished off an obliterator team who weren't having much luck with their shooting. The terminators dropped in behind my other rhino but failed to blow it up. The following turn my grey hunters disembarked and charged them down wiping them out. 

Matt went to jump his marines out of cover believing that dangerous terrain only applied when you land and not when you take off. Our opponents were quick to point this out to us! Of course the sanguinary priest fell victim to dangerous terrain and therefore when they charged in to help the grey hunters with the berserkers their attacks were pretty impotent. Matt had some atrocious rolling with his power weapon though. 

The berserkers finished off my grey hunters and Mephiston was charged by the daemon prince, obliterators and the khorne berserkers. He managed to take out the obliterators but the rest of the chaos forces brought him down. Both of the reserved rhinos came on in the middle of their deployment zone and the long fangs failed to cause any real damage. The bikes came on their far left to engage the grey hunters' rhino but fell short with their meltas. We fired at them in the next turn killing one and hoping for them to break which they sadly didn't.

The daemon prince came in to help out the khorne berserkers finishing off the assault marines but not before the berserkers died off. At this point the other khorne berserkers held their original objective with no other objectives being held (after a judge ruled that since one of the tokens was on a higher level the assault marines didn't actually control it.

Our opponents moved their rhinos onto the central objective and also the objective on their left. The assault marines tried to charge the marines on the central objective but rolled a double 1 on their terrain test meaning they fell short. With little else to shoot the long fangs fired at the remaining daemon prince, killing him to claim some vital VPs. The remaining grey hunters charged the CSM squad on the corner objective and cleared them off. In the final turn however the bikes which had come on earlier moved in to contest.

Final result: The central objective and the one on the far right were contested with the khorne berserkers holding the one on the far left. 1-0 to them. We managed to score 500+ more points than them so we claimed 2 battle points. Therefore we won on battle points but it was certainly a close game. We were now on a total of 12.

Conclusion

In the first few turns we were very cautious when we perhaps should've got stuck in. With the chaos forces being so tightly clustered we were sure to get counter charged though. What cost us the game was the mistake with the assault marines. Had we left them out of the cover and the priest had survived we'd have certainly killed off the berserkers and lived to tell the tale. That would've meant the grey hunters could hole up in the trees or behind their rhino to claim an objective. Mephiston and the remaining marines could then have attempted to kill off the prince, obliterators and berserkers. I think it's optimistic to say they'd have cleared them out but who knows?

The other squad of assault marines should've got onto that central objective and holed up there. This would mean the CSMs would have to charge in to remove them.

However, negatives aside we were very successful in dealing with the princes and obliterators which netted us a ton of points. I think the shear number of units they had meant our fire was spread too thin. We can't complain about time constraint on this one though since we managed a 6th turn because we barely spoke to each other!!

Freebootaz Open Report - Part 4 - Bloody Wolves vs Orks/Chaos

Full of confidence from our first fight we moved across the room to thoroughly nice guys playing a list of Orks and Chaos. This mission would be Pitched Battle deployment and Take & Hold which involves having a scoring unit in the centre of the board and no enemy units in range. There would be 1 point for holding the centre uncontested, 3 for holding it with nothing within 6" and the full 5 for nothing else within 12". The middle of the table was certainly going to be soaked in blood by the end of this round!

750pts of Chaos

Daemon Prince (Mark of Tzeentch, Wings)

3 Terminators (Chain fist, Combi-melta x2, Heavy flamer)

Land Raider 

Chaos Space Marines w/ Rhino (Havoc launcher)

750pts of Orks

Big Mek (Kustom force field)

18x Boyz (2x Big shoota) + Nob w/ Power klaw

11x Boyz + Nob w/ Power klaw, Trukk

10x Boyz + Nob w/ Power klaw

11x Boyz + Nob w/ Big choppa, Trukk

Report

We won the roll off and deployed the Blood Angels in the centre of our deployment zone with a rhino on each flank and the long fangs on the right between the jump packs and the rhino with their razorback close by. They put one of the boyz squads in the Land Raider and the rest were in trukks. The 19 man squad went in the battle wagon with the Big Mek. These were clustered around the centre of their deployment zone. The daemon prince and the two rhinos went on their left. The terminators were in reserve.

We advanced our force towards the centre. The long fangs and razorback stunned one of the rhinos and scored a couple of wounds on the daemon prince. They brought all of their ork vehicles towards the centre but in doing so they forced their land raider to move through difficult terrain causing it to become immobile. One of the rhinos advanced forward towards our lines.

The blood angels advanced and used their meltaguns to blow up the battle wagon killing some of the orks inside. The rune priest on the left then lined up a Jaws attack which claimed the nob with power klaw and two of the boyz. The Mek just managed to avoid falling into the abyss. Matt then charged in killing off most of the squad. The long fangs fired at the rhino immobilising it.

All of the orks piled out of their transports and charged into combat with the Blood Angels. Their trukks moved off to screen the fire of the long fangs (since they were using the old trukk models they had little effect). What followed was a long and bloody conflict that claimed the lives of all of the orks and a large chunk of the sons of Sanguinius too. Meanwhile the Spaces wolves had disembarked from their rhino and with help from the other grey hunters, were able to dispatch the terminators that dropped in behind our lines. The other squad of blood angels attempted to demech one of the CSM squads but their melta missed and they ended up giving a cover save to the rhino hampering the long fangs attempts. Eventually Mephiston cracked the transport and killed off the occupants.

The remaining squad of CSM proved to be a thorn in our side. We had similar problems demeching them and when we did they moved into area cover. The blood angels charged in to kill them off but with the game ending at turn 4 due to time constraints a sole marine held on to be in 12" of the centering. We claimed 3 battle points but were unlucky not to get the 5th.

Final Result In a similar story to the first battle a sole marine made the difference. We claimed 3 points for the objective and a further 3 for killing 750pts more than they did. A nice game total of 6 bringing our overall score to 10.

Conclusion
With the speed in which we dealt with the ork army we were confident we could deal with the CSM and then clean up to give us either the full 5 points or perhaps even table them. Mephiston was deadly yet again and the Grey Hunters fulfilled their support role well. The long fangs struggled to get many kills because of the sheer number of models on the table blocking their sight.

The key problem was our inability to destroy the Chaos transports. The land raider never really harmed us but the rhinos meant we had trouble dealing with the CSM inside.

However, what is for certain is that had there been time for a 5th turn we'd have finished off that pesky marine and claimed a full 5. Who knows we might have even been able to kill everything off. Less time talking more time rolling is the lesson here I reckon!

Freebootaz Open Report - Part 3 - Bloody Wolves vs Salamanders/Wolves

Having wandered round assessing the competition we decided we didn't like the idea of fighting an IG army or eldar with a bike council so we were pleasantly surprised when we found ourselves drawn against a couple of really nice guys (who's names escape me - sorry) playing Wolves and Salamanders. I can't remember a proper turn by turn (as I didn't have time to take notes). Now they only had a laminated copy of the Wolves list and I think they must've taken back the Salamanders one so I'll try and remember what they had:

750pts of Wolves

Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf mount (storm shield, wolf claw, 2 fen wolves)

2x 5 Grey Hunters (power fist, meltagun)

2x Razorback (twin-las)

2x Thunderwolf cavalry (storm shield, thunder hammer)

750pts of Salamanders

Librarian (Might of the Ancients, The Avenger)

Dreadnought (heavy flamer)

2x Tactical Squad (full strength, meltagun/flamer, missile launcher/multimelta)

2x Rhino

Vindicator

(I know these don't necessarily add up to 1500pts but I'm trying to piece it together from photos and what I remember - you get the idea anyway)

The librarian would go with one of the grey hunter squads but the judges ruled he'd have to be placed next to the transport and join the squad in the first turn (which seemed to make no difference at all). 

Report

The first mission was Cleanse from the 4th edition rulebook. For those not familiar with it essentially you have to have a scoring unit of yours in table quarter without a scoring unit from the other side. In this tournament both troops AND fast attack were scoring. 

We won the roll off and elected to go first picking the quarter with the sky shield pad as a nice spot to place our long fangs. The assault squads joined them on the pad with the rhinos in each corner of the zone and the razorback tucked in near the feet of the pad. Our opponents deployed most of their army behind a large building which would make our firing very difficult. The two razorbacks and dread were deployed over to our left in order to come in and claim a quarter.

We started by advancing the rune priests rhino up the right flank and having him cast living lightning on the thunderwolves. This resulted in one dead fen wolf and a wound on one of the cavalry. The long fangs had a very restricted view of the field which meant that only one of the missile launchers could pick out a target. He fired off a krak missile at the vindicator and to start off our first tournament in style he blew it up with the maximum blast radius. This put another wound on the wolves (not bad for a guy I only built a few days before). The blood angels advanced towards the building with Mephiston using his wings to keep up. With the vindicator dead their feel no pain would be very useful. The rhino on the left advanced into the nearby quarter and popped smoke.

Our opponents razorbacks and dread advanced forward blowing up the smoked rhino but failing to do damage to the razorback which passed it's cover save. The rhinos advanced whilst the thunderwolves drew back ready to make a devastating counter charge should anything hit the tac squads.

Sure enough the rune priest fired off another burst of lightning blowing up the rhino and forcing the occupants to disembark. One of the assault squads charged in killing all but a couple of marines. Mephiston and the other squad jumped around the other side of the building to help with the inevitable charge from the wolves. The grey hunters moved into the cover of some nearby ruins as the fled their burning transport. 

The remaining salamanders held the assault marines in combat whilst the might wolves charged in. They did so with such a ferocity that over half of the assault squad was cut down. Their glory was short lived however as Mephiston added some powerful S10 attacks to the mix instantly killing off the riders. The remaining. The other assault squad attempted to de-mech the remaining tactical squad but they failed and the rhino's occupants disembarked unleashing a torrent of rapid fire and a blast of flame.

Elsewhere the long fangs were having difficulty seeing targets which meant they only managed to pop one of the razorbacks (with the librarian in). The dreadnought advanced on the grey hunters in the ruins but luckily it couldn't make it into the terrain to charge. The grey hunters charged out of the ruins and with help from the long fangs they ripped the close combat arm from the dreadnought but not without it taking a heavy toll on their number. The librarian and his squad weathered fire from the long fangs and rune priest.

The remaining members of the assault squad that had been in combat with the wolves tried to make a move towards the razorback. Mephiston had to charge the other tactical squad when his brethren lost out badly in combat forcing them to flee. Mephiston wiped out the remaining marines but the assault marines were already fleeing. They made it as far as the grey hunters in combat with the dread but fell victim to the Avenger from the librarian which it was decided could fire through the combat at the blood angels meaning it claimed the lives of a couple of grey hunters. 

With time running short we were forced to end after turn 4 so we frantically played on. Our opponents grey hunters charged in to help out the dread and by some miracle they failed to finish them off. A sole grey hunter was left standing in combat with both.

Final result: Our rune priest held a quarter uncontested, the long fangs were alone in their quarter but could not claim it and the other two were contested (thanks to the hardy grey hunter). This gave us a 1-0 win! After adding up victory points were had a difference of more than 500 netting us a further 3 battle points.

Conclusion

With the vindicator and thunderwolves falling early on in the game it looked like it might be a lot easier than it turned out to be. The tactical squads really held on well, with help from some poor rolling by Matt, which slowed up the blood angels considerably. We were very lucky that their grey hunters missed with their power fist and that I rolled well on the armour save for the remaining member of my GH pack. Had he fallen it would've been a draw. 

Mephiston was absolutely vital in killing off the thunderwolves and mopping up the tactical squads. Without him both assault marine teams would've been dead far earlier and if the wolves hadn't died they'd have hurt him with their thunder hammer/power weapons. It was certainly the blood angels that did most of the work. I think the early kills made us a bit too complacent which meant we didn't think about our tactics enough. My grey hunters got stranded on the left and weren't in range to shoot anything. I didn't really want to move them out of the ruins as they'd be hard to kill off if they stayed. It's a shame I couldn't kill the dread (my meltagun missed of course!) as it was really deadly in combat.

I think our only real mistake was having that other rhino so far from the mix. It meant the only contribution they made came from the rune priest. Granted they scored us the table quarter but the fight might have been different if we'd been more agressive with them. Having said that they didn't use their razorbacks to great effect. I think that's the difficulty of having assault troops in them. You get torn between keeping the tank safe, so it can fire off the lascannons at meaty targets, and getting them forward so that your grey hunters can get stuck into the enemy.

Our opponents went on to finish second in the tournament so we were well pleased with this win.