Region: Cerberus sector.
Death Guard / Nurgle Daemons vs Salamanders.
1500 points.
Mission: Tactical Escalation.
Deployment: Dawn of War.
The Imperium sought to restrict access to vital resources and points of supply to the traitor forces. Guilliman, still recovering from his recent battle against his brother Mortarion, determined that a port city designated Starport Twelve would be the perfect target for attack.
The Salamanders were chosen for this strike. A number of their battle brothers were able to breach the outer walls and enter the city. Once battle was joined in the streets, reinforcements teleported down from orbit to sow confusion and devastation among the enemy.
Tonight's match up was against Alex and his Salamanders army. He beat me rather well at our last meeting so I was looking for some friendly pay back. We picked Tactical Escalation as a mission that neither of us had played previously and I decided on 1500 points just to try some smaller point games for a change. I had a couple things to try out and this seemed like a good opportunity to do so.
We rolled the Dawn of War deployment and Alex began by deploying his terminator units in reserve forcing me to put my infantry down without knowing what was coming. It also forced me to spread out across my side of the table so that he couldn't deep strike those terminators in the middle of my lines. It wouldn't help though. Two roll offs and Alex got the first turn. I debated whether it was worth seizing as it was an objectives mission and sometimes going second helps knowing what I need at the end of the game but I failed to seize.
First turn and down came my opponent's thunderhammer and stormshield terminators, and his captain right in front of my plagueburst crawler. Immediately I knew this was not going to go well. The Salamander's shooting was spot on and I lost a whole plague marine unit in one go. The crawler lost most of it's wounds to a devastator squad as well. I could not make DR rolls to save anything it seemed. That is when it went wrong. For some reason I had forgotten that his terminators could assault the turn they came in and they went right into the crawler, smashing it to scrap with their hammers.
My first turn was difficult. Alex had drawn an objective that he could achieve easily and I drew one that wanted me to cast psychic powers. I tried to move forwards but Alex had nearly everywhere covered with multiple fields of fire. My new toy, a hellforged contemptor, had sustained some damage so I made sure it marched towards a scout squad on my right flank. My plan being to take a couple down, assault and heal from killing them. Instead my dice went into kill mode and all the scouts were cut down. I charged the terminators with my daemon prince but he didn't last long against the thunder hammers. At least I managed a victory point for casting a psychic power. It was going to be my only victory point all game however.
From here it just got worse and quick. Alex was drawing objective cards for the card type he had picked for the mission and I got nothing of the sort. The Salamander's shooting robbed me of the hellforged contemptor, a rhino, a second squad of plague marines and a fair chunk of my poxwalkers. Turn three I was considering conceding the match as there was just no way I was going to pull this game back but I decided to go on and see just what I could do. Turn four left me with just a lord of contagion and a plaguecaster. Turn five and it was just the plaguecaster. When he fell that was it. I had been tabled. I had one victory point and I just didn't want to consider how many Alex had secured. But them's the breaks.
Good game Alex. Next time I will have my revenge.
---
After thoughts...
A very frustrating game. From the get go I really did not have a chance here. It wasn't an alpha strike list but Alex was able to ensure that my envisioned battle plan wasn't going to happen. I had taken a Nurgle daemon prince from the daemons codex with the idea of using the "healing" psychic power (the name escaped me right now) to keep the plagueburst crawler alive as it is a Nurgle daemon. He could also defend it if the enemy got too close.
My dice didn't help either as for the first couple hours they didn't roll enough disgustingly resilient or armour saves for that matter. Only on the last couple game turns did that start to go in my favour. A little too late though.
I enjoyed the game but nothing went right for me at all. There's always next time.
---
++ Battalion Detachment +3CP (Chaos - Death Guard) [65 PL, 1162pts] ++
+ No Force Org Slot +
Gifts of Decay (1 Relic)
+ Dedicated Transport [4 PL, 94pts] +
Chaos Rhino [4 PL, 94pts]: Combi-bolter [2pts], Combi-flamer [11pts], Havoc launcher [11pts], Smoke launchers
+ Heavy Support [8 PL, 152pts] +
Plagueburst Crawler [8 PL, 152pts]: 2x Entropy cannon [40pts], Plagueburst Mortar, Rothail volley gun [12pts]
+ HQ [13 PL, 227pts] +
Lord of Contagion [7 PL, 117pts]: 2. Living Plague, Fugaris' Helm, Manreaper [17pts], Warlord
Malignant Plaguecaster [6 PL, 110pts]: Blades of Putrefaction, Blight Grenades, Bolt pistol, Corrupted staff, Curse of the Leper, Krak grenade, Smite
+ Elites +
Hellforged Contemptor Dreadnought [10 PL, 181pts]: Havoc launcher [11pts]
. . Left Arm [42pts]: Combi-bolter [2pts], Hellforged deathclaw [40pts]
. . Right Arm [25pts]: Kheres assault cannon [25pts]
+ Fast Attack [8 PL, 158pts] +
Foetid Bloat-drone [8 PL, 158pts]: 2x Plaguespitters [34pts], Plague probe [25pts]
+ Troops [32 PL, 531pts] +
Chaos Cultists [6 PL, 48pts]
. . 9x Chaos Cultist w/ autopistol and brutal assault weapon [36pts]: 9x Autopistol, 9x Brutal assault weapon
. . Chaos Cultist w/ special weapon [8pts]: Heavy stubber [4pts]
. . Cultist Champion [4pts]: Shotgun
Plague Marines [10 PL, 180pts]: Icon of Despair [10pts]
. . Plague Champion [42pts]: Blight Grenades, Krak grenade, Plague knife, Plasma gun [13pts], Power fist [12pts]
. . 4x Plague Marine w/ boltgun [68pts]: 4x Blight Grenades, 4x Boltgun, 4x Krak Grenades, 4x Plague knife
. . Plague Marine w/ Special Weapon [30pts]: Blight Grenades, Krak grenade, Plague knife, Plasma gun [13pts]
. . Plague Marine w/ Special Weapon [30pts]: Blight Grenades, Krak grenade, Plague knife, Plasma gun [13pts]
Plague Marines [10 PL, 183pts]: Icon of Despair [10pts]
. . Plague Champion [42pts]: Blight Grenades, Krak grenade, Plague knife, Plasma gun [13pts], Power fist [12pts]
. . 4x Plague Marine w/ boltgun [68pts]: 4x Blight Grenades, 4x Boltgun, 4x Krak Grenades, 4x Plague knife
. . Plague Marine w/ Special Weapon [27pts]: Blight Grenades, Blight launcher [10pts], Krak grenade, Plague knife
. . Plague Marine w/ Special Weapon [36pts]: Blight Grenades, Krak grenade, Plague knife, Plague Spewer [19pts]
Poxwalkers [6 PL, 120pts]
. . 20x Poxwalker [120pts]: 20x Improvised weapon
++ Auxiliary Support Detachment -1CP (Chaos - Daemons) [8 PL, 156pts] ++
+ HQ [8 PL, 156pts] +
Daemon Prince of Chaos [8 PL, 156pts]: Hellforged sword [10pts], Malefic talon
. . Nurgle: Smite
++ Total: [83 PL, 1499pts] ++
Battle is joined!
Hellforged Contemptor Dreadnought.
Salamanders camped out on their objective.
No comments:
Post a Comment