Ugh, this is actually two reports one of them from a couple of weeks ago.
The first one was more of a lesson learner for me in a couple of ways. Both lists included the Doom of Mylanta (or something) that sucks the life out of troops. It might have been Wailing or Shrieking, but it is one of those xeno things. Unfortunately my notes are a bit sketchy for the first one, but I remember the main flow.
Two MCs were deployed on the board, one a Hive Tyrant I think (walking melee thing) and the other was a shooter who regenerated. I started out with my two Terminator squads, Assault Terminators and all three double Typhoon Speeder squadrons on the table. My five squads were in their pods with the EC. The 'Nid player was a reserve army with Spores and outflanking with two squads of Genestealers (8-9) with Brood Lords and a large squad of melee 'Gaunts. He won the roll and went second. I plinked some shots at one of the MCs, causing some wounds on the first turn. Second turn I had a couple of pods drop and put them in the center to start supporting my center/left setup. 'Nid second turn took advantage of my bad deployment as he rolled everything out of reserve on turn two.
The first one was more of a lesson learner for me in a couple of ways. Both lists included the Doom of Mylanta (or something) that sucks the life out of troops. It might have been Wailing or Shrieking, but it is one of those xeno things. Unfortunately my notes are a bit sketchy for the first one, but I remember the main flow.
Two MCs were deployed on the board, one a Hive Tyrant I think (walking melee thing) and the other was a shooter who regenerated. I started out with my two Terminator squads, Assault Terminators and all three double Typhoon Speeder squadrons on the table. My five squads were in their pods with the EC. The 'Nid player was a reserve army with Spores and outflanking with two squads of Genestealers (8-9) with Brood Lords and a large squad of melee 'Gaunts. He won the roll and went second. I plinked some shots at one of the MCs, causing some wounds on the first turn. Second turn I had a couple of pods drop and put them in the center to start supporting my center/left setup. 'Nid second turn took advantage of my bad deployment as he rolled everything out of reserve on turn two.
Not thinking about the outflanking 'Stealers, I had one pair of Speeders sniping on my far right and on Terminator squad on my far left and the Assault Terms in cover on the middle left. The other Terminators and other two Speeder squadrons were in the center. One group of 'Stealers came in on my right and spent a turn killing my Speeder squadron there, the other 'Stealers came in on my left and advanced on my Assault Terms, the melee 'Gaunts advancing on my left Terminator squad. In the meantime, the Doom thing dropped in a hole I left in between the my two Crusader squads and the center Terminator squad. Some shooty 'Gaunts dropped in between the two Terminator squads, one squad of Zoanthropes dropped in between my left Terminators and Assault Terminators, another dropped in front of my Assault Terminators. The Doom wiped out all my center Terminator squad, all but one of one Crusader squad and all of other Terminator squad, leaving the EC by himself. The shooty 'Gaunts killed one Speeder. Cost, two Crusader squads, Terminator squad and three of my six speeders with the Terminators and Assault Terminators about to get swarmed.
At this point, it was an "oh crap" moment, but I figured I'd see what I could do with what I had left. A little pod vs. spore shooting killed one of his pods, the surviving Crusader got another (before dying to a MC a couple of turns later). The right hand Terminators, knowing they were going to be trapped with one turn of shooting left unloaded on the Zoans inbetween them and the Assault Terms, killing two of them. The three Speeders maneuvered and unloaded on the shooty 'Gaunts, ending up killing them all with Frags and Heavy Bolter fire. The EC moved right away from the Doom thing.
In the next couple of turns, the Assault Terminators ended up wiping out the 'Stealers, dying in the process (amusingly enough, but "winning" the fight and having the last surviving 'Stealer fail its Fearless AS) and the EC took down the last Zoan in my rear along with a few more of the melee 'Gaunts that had finished off my other Terminator squad. The last three Pods fell around the squad of Zoans to my front and wiped them out shooting, despite being assaulted by and wiping out the depleted swarm of melee 'Gaunts for a few casualties. All of his Spores got killed.
We called the game since we were on turn 5, rather than going on to turn 6. I actually had a chance on paper to win in KP, but not realistically, since a lot of my KP were in Spores and he still had three or four more Pods to kill that he could get to easily. In the meantime, I had to kill two MCs that were only scratched, the Doom thing and about a half squad of 'Stealers and somehow not let him kill anything on his player turn (he had +1 or 2 KP advantage).
Lessons learned: Phear the outflanking 'Stealers. Phear the xeno Doom of Mylanta(sp?). Deployment killed me here against a codex I wasn't real familiar with, but even with half my force and almost all my heavy firepower wiped, I was able to fight back and make some kind of a game of it. The only thing that gave me a shot was the fact that I could drop in where I wanted, smashing bits of his army since he had to come in scattered to make up for my scattered units.
The second game went a bit differently since I could employ the lessons learned. This was a partial reserve army and I got to score an advantage on him that he wasn't familiar with fighting a potentially full reserve army. It had a Swarmlord w/ 4 escorting MCs oriented towards melee, a flying Hive Tyrant, Doom in a spore, the thing that pops up out of the ground, one other deep striking MC (Trygon?), two triple Zoan squads, 11 shooty 'Gaunt squad, a pair of 5 'Stealer squads and a squad of four Warriors. This was my first game where we rolled the mission instead of just going for Annihilation and we got the multiple objective one with standard deployment. I think I confused him by my objective marker placement. It ended up with two objectives in his two corners, one a bit to the left in my deployment zone, one in the center to the far right and one in the center to the far left.
This was also the first one where I won the deployment roll, so finally I chose to go second. He deployed the Swarmlord & friends on his objective to my right, the 'Gaunts into his objective to my left, with the flying Tyrant and one set of Zoans in the center right and the other in the center left. Everything else was in reserve, with the Warrior and 'Stealers on outflank.
With his bonuses to reserve rolls, I chose to put everything in reserve except the Speeders, which I deployed on the far left, hoping the Doom would come in before I had any troops on the ground. His first turn, he advanced and had one AI shot from one Zoan on one Speeder squadron and did nothing. His 'Gaunt squad took the objective on the right and the burrowing thing went underground. No, I wasn't crazy with my original deployment, I was about a foot from the flank and immediately moved left out of 'Stealer range and shot up his right hand Zoans, killing one and putting a wound on another.
His turn two, he got the Doom and his three outflankers, the 'Stealers coming in on my right, the Warriors coming in on my left and dropping the Doom in the middle. He continued to advance his right hand forces forward at my Speeders while slanting his left Zoans into the middle. His burrowing MC tried to come up in the middle of my Speeder swarm (I shouldn't have been so greedy and moved a second squadron 12" to spread them out really). Scatter took him outside the swarm and hit one hit on a Speeder just shook it. Zoanthropes got one Speeder.
My turn two, the reserves fell from the sky. I only had one Crusader squad left in reserve. Terminators were dropped far left and near left. Assault Terminators left center, one Pod (3xBolter, PF, Neo) into cover to get the far left center objective, the one with the EC at near center left, one at far center left (trying to form a triangle to cover that one objective) and on just past that one center left in his deployment zone. The one on the objective made its Dangerous roll, the near left Terminators scattered into Difficult terrain and lost one Cyclone. The Assault Terminators and other two Pods near the center left objective either hit or scattered a little. The far left Terminators and fourth Pod both scattered towards his edge. The Speeders moved left, two squadrons 12", one 6" and made appropriate Difficult Terrain tests. Shooting phase killed the Doom (whew!) with a couple of Krak missiles. The singleton Speeder got some hits in on the right Zoans and finished off the wounded one. The squadron that could both fire had moved 12" so I dropped four Frags and six Heavy Bolter shots on one squad of 'Stealers and killed four of five. Various other firepower killed one Warrior and left another wounded and one of the right Zoans.
His turn 3, he burrowed one MC down into the ground, the last MC (Trygon?)) deep struck in on my far right, looking to go after the Terminator squad there. His Warriors started trying to move up to support the left Zoan squad, the flying Tyrant moved up to assault my Speeders, the Swarmlord & friends moved to the left trying to close up with me. The last Zoan on the right moved up and shot. His Gaunt's took no casualties last time because he had gone to ground to cover their objective. Unfortunately, the last two turns his 'Stealers had been rolling badly on run and move through cover (where appropriate) so they hadn't gotten to far to the right. The Hive Tyrant killed one Speeder and shook the other (actually he stirred it, but simultaneous hits, so it could still move). The Trygon(?) killed half on one Crusader squad in shooting. The left Zoans killed one twin LC Terminator.
Here is where it begins to fall apart for him. My turn 3, I get the last Crusader squad and drop it on my far right on the objective. Fire from three squads with some bad saves killed that Trygon(?) that had deep struck in. The far Terminators, with no other real targets, unloaded Frags and Storm Bolters on the 'Gaunts, resulting in 24(!) wounds and all 11 'Gaunts died. The EC and his squad squeeze through the narrow bit between the area terrain and their Pod to get shots and assault the Warriors. The Terminators there also shoot and joined in. The EC finished off the last of the Warriors and consolidated to the right and the Terminators to the left. The Assault Terminators where in range and with AACNMTO, they charged the right Zoans. There, the ability to reroll hits and wounds shown through and the Zoans on the left ceased to exist. They reconsolidated back towards the EC's Pod.
The burrowing thing tried to come up in my Crusaders, but scattered to almost no effect, but near my Assault Terminators, it died and they consolidated back towards the EC's pod again, just in time to catch the flying Hive Tyrant in the rear as he was butchering the near Terminator squad, it died in a flurry of Lightning Claws and Thunder Hammers while taking the last Terminator with it. His 'Stealers ran back towards my squad on the far right, they killed the Pod, but ended up with four of them dying to bolter fire (the meltagun missed), so both singleton 'Stealers from the two squads assaulted and it ended up with a 'Stealer and an Initiate dead, next assault, the last 'Stealer died. The last Zoan (the right one) did some more moving and shooting and died to the last Speeder. The Swarmlord & friends still slogged to the left trying to get stuck in somewhere.
For me, the EC's partial squad (casualties from killing the Warriors) took the center objective on my side, I held both the left and right center objectives and the left objective in his deployment zone (with the other half dead squad). So I had four of five objectives and he held none, mainly because he had no troops left.
Lessons learned: This is the problem with winning, nothing sticks up for me as something I did wrong. The only big thing I see was getting greedy for shots from my Speeders which let them get run down and pinned against the board, but that in itself served as an excellent distraction force that delayed the flying MC until I could deal with the others. Pleasant lesson, power weapons slaughter 'Nid MCs.
The negative ones are applied to the 'Nid player.
1) Not enough troops. Four is minimal and when they are already minimum size and expected to do fighting work, it is not good.
2) Deployment too scattered, I was able to piecemeal him while however many points that Swarmlord & friends were kept slogging along, having to counter march after a couple of turns.
3) Not real sure about this one, but he kept GtG with the 'Gaunts, which did save him a couple of wounds, but in the end I just blew him off the objective.
4) He got too wrapped up in killing and trying to support and forgot about objectives. Yes, I tried to make it look like I was on a kill and be killed spree myself, but did it with bolters sitting on two objectives and moving on two others to at least contest them (although with troops, I could take them.
5) He really didn't realize how nasty Preferred Enemy is. Even when he reduced my Assault Terminators to WS1, I didn't care, yes, it wasn't as nice as 3s to hit, but it was still better than 4s to hit when I can reroll misses at 5s. Rerolling PW wounds didn't hurt a thing also. Having blast weapons helped too, because that pretty much made me BS2.
Chatting with him later, I think that this was actually a cut down list from his 2500 'Ard Boyz. So I think he sold himself a bit short o
At this point, it was an "oh crap" moment, but I figured I'd see what I could do with what I had left. A little pod vs. spore shooting killed one of his pods, the surviving Crusader got another (before dying to a MC a couple of turns later). The right hand Terminators, knowing they were going to be trapped with one turn of shooting left unloaded on the Zoans inbetween them and the Assault Terms, killing two of them. The three Speeders maneuvered and unloaded on the shooty 'Gaunts, ending up killing them all with Frags and Heavy Bolter fire. The EC moved right away from the Doom thing.
In the next couple of turns, the Assault Terminators ended up wiping out the 'Stealers, dying in the process (amusingly enough, but "winning" the fight and having the last surviving 'Stealer fail its Fearless AS) and the EC took down the last Zoan in my rear along with a few more of the melee 'Gaunts that had finished off my other Terminator squad. The last three Pods fell around the squad of Zoans to my front and wiped them out shooting, despite being assaulted by and wiping out the depleted swarm of melee 'Gaunts for a few casualties. All of his Spores got killed.
We called the game since we were on turn 5, rather than going on to turn 6. I actually had a chance on paper to win in KP, but not realistically, since a lot of my KP were in Spores and he still had three or four more Pods to kill that he could get to easily. In the meantime, I had to kill two MCs that were only scratched, the Doom thing and about a half squad of 'Stealers and somehow not let him kill anything on his player turn (he had +1 or 2 KP advantage).
Lessons learned: Phear the outflanking 'Stealers. Phear the xeno Doom of Mylanta(sp?). Deployment killed me here against a codex I wasn't real familiar with, but even with half my force and almost all my heavy firepower wiped, I was able to fight back and make some kind of a game of it. The only thing that gave me a shot was the fact that I could drop in where I wanted, smashing bits of his army since he had to come in scattered to make up for my scattered units.
The second game went a bit differently since I could employ the lessons learned. This was a partial reserve army and I got to score an advantage on him that he wasn't familiar with fighting a potentially full reserve army. It had a Swarmlord w/ 4 escorting MCs oriented towards melee, a flying Hive Tyrant, Doom in a spore, the thing that pops up out of the ground, one other deep striking MC (Trygon?), two triple Zoan squads, 11 shooty 'Gaunt squad, a pair of 5 'Stealer squads and a squad of four Warriors. This was my first game where we rolled the mission instead of just going for Annihilation and we got the multiple objective one with standard deployment. I think I confused him by my objective marker placement. It ended up with two objectives in his two corners, one a bit to the left in my deployment zone, one in the center to the far right and one in the center to the far left.
This was also the first one where I won the deployment roll, so finally I chose to go second. He deployed the Swarmlord & friends on his objective to my right, the 'Gaunts into his objective to my left, with the flying Tyrant and one set of Zoans in the center right and the other in the center left. Everything else was in reserve, with the Warrior and 'Stealers on outflank.
With his bonuses to reserve rolls, I chose to put everything in reserve except the Speeders, which I deployed on the far left, hoping the Doom would come in before I had any troops on the ground. His first turn, he advanced and had one AI shot from one Zoan on one Speeder squadron and did nothing. His 'Gaunt squad took the objective on the right and the burrowing thing went underground. No, I wasn't crazy with my original deployment, I was about a foot from the flank and immediately moved left out of 'Stealer range and shot up his right hand Zoans, killing one and putting a wound on another.
His turn two, he got the Doom and his three outflankers, the 'Stealers coming in on my right, the Warriors coming in on my left and dropping the Doom in the middle. He continued to advance his right hand forces forward at my Speeders while slanting his left Zoans into the middle. His burrowing MC tried to come up in the middle of my Speeder swarm (I shouldn't have been so greedy and moved a second squadron 12" to spread them out really). Scatter took him outside the swarm and hit one hit on a Speeder just shook it. Zoanthropes got one Speeder.
My turn two, the reserves fell from the sky. I only had one Crusader squad left in reserve. Terminators were dropped far left and near left. Assault Terminators left center, one Pod (3xBolter, PF, Neo) into cover to get the far left center objective, the one with the EC at near center left, one at far center left (trying to form a triangle to cover that one objective) and on just past that one center left in his deployment zone. The one on the objective made its Dangerous roll, the near left Terminators scattered into Difficult terrain and lost one Cyclone. The Assault Terminators and other two Pods near the center left objective either hit or scattered a little. The far left Terminators and fourth Pod both scattered towards his edge. The Speeders moved left, two squadrons 12", one 6" and made appropriate Difficult Terrain tests. Shooting phase killed the Doom (whew!) with a couple of Krak missiles. The singleton Speeder got some hits in on the right Zoans and finished off the wounded one. The squadron that could both fire had moved 12" so I dropped four Frags and six Heavy Bolter shots on one squad of 'Stealers and killed four of five. Various other firepower killed one Warrior and left another wounded and one of the right Zoans.
His turn 3, he burrowed one MC down into the ground, the last MC (Trygon?)) deep struck in on my far right, looking to go after the Terminator squad there. His Warriors started trying to move up to support the left Zoan squad, the flying Tyrant moved up to assault my Speeders, the Swarmlord & friends moved to the left trying to close up with me. The last Zoan on the right moved up and shot. His Gaunt's took no casualties last time because he had gone to ground to cover their objective. Unfortunately, the last two turns his 'Stealers had been rolling badly on run and move through cover (where appropriate) so they hadn't gotten to far to the right. The Hive Tyrant killed one Speeder and shook the other (actually he stirred it, but simultaneous hits, so it could still move). The Trygon(?) killed half on one Crusader squad in shooting. The left Zoans killed one twin LC Terminator.
Here is where it begins to fall apart for him. My turn 3, I get the last Crusader squad and drop it on my far right on the objective. Fire from three squads with some bad saves killed that Trygon(?) that had deep struck in. The far Terminators, with no other real targets, unloaded Frags and Storm Bolters on the 'Gaunts, resulting in 24(!) wounds and all 11 'Gaunts died. The EC and his squad squeeze through the narrow bit between the area terrain and their Pod to get shots and assault the Warriors. The Terminators there also shoot and joined in. The EC finished off the last of the Warriors and consolidated to the right and the Terminators to the left. The Assault Terminators where in range and with AACNMTO, they charged the right Zoans. There, the ability to reroll hits and wounds shown through and the Zoans on the left ceased to exist. They reconsolidated back towards the EC's Pod.
The burrowing thing tried to come up in my Crusaders, but scattered to almost no effect, but near my Assault Terminators, it died and they consolidated back towards the EC's pod again, just in time to catch the flying Hive Tyrant in the rear as he was butchering the near Terminator squad, it died in a flurry of Lightning Claws and Thunder Hammers while taking the last Terminator with it. His 'Stealers ran back towards my squad on the far right, they killed the Pod, but ended up with four of them dying to bolter fire (the meltagun missed), so both singleton 'Stealers from the two squads assaulted and it ended up with a 'Stealer and an Initiate dead, next assault, the last 'Stealer died. The last Zoan (the right one) did some more moving and shooting and died to the last Speeder. The Swarmlord & friends still slogged to the left trying to get stuck in somewhere.
For me, the EC's partial squad (casualties from killing the Warriors) took the center objective on my side, I held both the left and right center objectives and the left objective in his deployment zone (with the other half dead squad). So I had four of five objectives and he held none, mainly because he had no troops left.
Lessons learned: This is the problem with winning, nothing sticks up for me as something I did wrong. The only big thing I see was getting greedy for shots from my Speeders which let them get run down and pinned against the board, but that in itself served as an excellent distraction force that delayed the flying MC until I could deal with the others. Pleasant lesson, power weapons slaughter 'Nid MCs.
The negative ones are applied to the 'Nid player.
1) Not enough troops. Four is minimal and when they are already minimum size and expected to do fighting work, it is not good.
2) Deployment too scattered, I was able to piecemeal him while however many points that Swarmlord & friends were kept slogging along, having to counter march after a couple of turns.
3) Not real sure about this one, but he kept GtG with the 'Gaunts, which did save him a couple of wounds, but in the end I just blew him off the objective.
4) He got too wrapped up in killing and trying to support and forgot about objectives. Yes, I tried to make it look like I was on a kill and be killed spree myself, but did it with bolters sitting on two objectives and moving on two others to at least contest them (although with troops, I could take them.
5) He really didn't realize how nasty Preferred Enemy is. Even when he reduced my Assault Terminators to WS1, I didn't care, yes, it wasn't as nice as 3s to hit, but it was still better than 4s to hit when I can reroll misses at 5s. Rerolling PW wounds didn't hurt a thing also. Having blast weapons helped too, because that pretty much made me BS2.
Chatting with him later, I think that this was actually a cut down list from his 2500 'Ard Boyz. So I think he sold himself a bit short o