Sometimes Winning sucks - brief batrep

Flames of War campaign week 2 this Wednesday gone...

Only got one game in because only half the crowd turned up.  After reviewing the campaign mission here's the setup.

He deploys a platoon and his fortifications, inlcude two mahcine gun nests around the monestary at the top of the hill.  I deploy randomly on board edges.  I roll a 3, and deploy my 45mm A/T guns with 2nd in command facing his machine gun nests.  I then roll a 5 for my rifle/machinegun platoon (with attached commissar) and deploy them in the enemy left flank.

All attackers have cautious movement.  This means that if I move normally and don't shoot/assault, I'm +2 to hit (ie a 5+ rather than 3+).  I advance on him, my AT guns move up.  He fires and misses everything.  I use volley fire @ 16" and destroy his machine gun nest.  My troops move to point blank range and then assault without shooting.

They storm into the base and start handing out death.  The A/T guns shoot up the german infantry gun.  End of round three, opponent hands in the towel.

The problem with campaign games.

Real life is rarely fair, I had Russian Infantry.  They were confident and trained, but nothing to write home about.  I was facing German elite SS Totenkopf troops with MG teams.  A single platoon for me is 8 bases (9 with Kommissar).  My opponent didn't even have that at the top of the hill.  His elites were nullified by the 5+ to hit that cautious movement gave me.  My A/T gun didn't help either.

Outnumbered and outmanuevered, it was a tough fight, but could he have won?

Options.

Totenkopf have options.  For example, by moving all his machinegun teams to the left flank of his hill, he could have delivered devastating firepower, making an assault highly difficult.  His choice of the infantry gun also had limited usage.  It's low powered and lacking range, useful on the assault, but useless in defence.  The machine gun nests ARE good, but only really against rifle/MG troops. With the machine gun nests better placed he could have challenged my location.  Bringing the infantry gun to bear on my A/T would also have helped.  MG teams are good, but some Heavy machine guns with RoF 6 would have been better AND harder to kill.

I think he could have held me off and forced me off the hill with his machinegun teams.  All he had to do was get 5 hits and any charge would fail.  Shooting would get me nothing as it's harder to hit vets than trained troops.  Using 'stormtrooper' move would have allowed him to get into position to meet the charge and still fired every turn at the full rate of fire.

On the game, I rused a total of 5 points, and my opponent just the 1, but he could have made me bleed for it.  And it didn't really feel like a win.

In a nutshell, apart from my A/T guns, I had little advantage.  Which gets me thinking on the options for round 2 and 3.  Is dropping the antitank guns really the best idea.  Or it more a better one?

Thoughts on a postcard please...

Apocalypse Post #2: Running a Game in 5 hours.

Good GM'ing - A Necron Monolith Formation deepstrikes into the middle of a combine Tau MIRAGE and Armoured Interdiction Formation ... FIGHT!

Reading around the web ... there seems to be a lot of consternation about running a manageable Apocalypse game. As we are all aware, running a normal game of 40k that runs below 3 hours for less than 2000pts can be a challenge. Unless you are a tournament player and have your armies approach to opponents down pat ... umming and erring can lead to a 4 hour game with ease.

Below is my advice, built upon some considerable APOC experience in the last year, for keeping games within a 5 hour bracket.

TIP #1: "Always have a GM!"

Do you want the game to run over? Do you want to be squabbling like children over the paradoxical and diametrically opposed rules of the GW codici? Or do you want to blow s*** up? Well then someone needs to be GM ... otherwise its all over. The GM should be a comparatively 'strong' personality (teachers, managers and storeholders come to mind), have a good grasp of the game and be as fair as possible.

Someone independent AND in charge who can order the 'roll a 4+ to decide' discussion ender. If nothing else, like in the classroom ... the 'but my rules say...' discussion dries up when the GM approaches.

GM's also have the option of being 'in' on the cunning plans and giving them his blessing. Meaning that cunning formations or dirty tricks are given the green light BEFORE they are de facto dropped in.

TIP #2: 2000-3000 pts per player

We usually run 14k to 16k battles with everyone bringing 2500-3000 (this changes from month to month) with 500pts of reserves. 2500-3000 is a hefty amount, allowing superheavies and titans on the board. It's also a manageable amount too. Each player can move their models (even if they are 5pts each), within a reasonable time frame, larger forces per player will result in longer turns ... and an over-run or 'caught short' 3.5 turn game ... and no-one wants that!

TIP #3: Player turn length ... 30 mins

This is an easy timescale to work to, as its short enough for us all to be acutely aware of. Players with superheavies will find this easy to achieve. The toughest time I ever had was fielding hordes of nids ... rolling the dice for a unit of 30 hormagaunts against Terminators proved more of a feat in counting and collecting than anything else ... I wouldn't recommend it!

The game automatically balances out, with the early turns going quick due to reserves and fewer weapons in range, and the latter speeding up as the casualties and assault dead-logs shorten the number of sequences units are involved in. The bell curve is observed.

Don't enforce 30 minutes like a Nazi ... but simply remind, remind, remind as the deadline approaches ... you'd be amazed to see the dice fly!

TIP #4: Turn sequence ... what turn sequence?

Keeping to a strict turn (move-shoot-assault) sequence is pretty pointless in APOC as you'll have between 2 and 4 players moving, shooting and assaulting in asynchronous mayhem. The simple answer is that players will be left standing while other 'complete' their movement phase, repeat for shooting and for assault.

Players (for both side) become acutely aware of the huge scale of decisions and actions they must take ... and the propensity to 'miss something completely' rather than just miss a sequence. The 30 mins rule also encourages the opposition to 'assist' the other player in moving models for them etc. Forgetting turn sequence also means allowing 'missed' shooting ... like "OH, my superheavy ... I completely forgot!" ... and letting the game roll forwards.

All good gamesmanship practice and essential in APOC, where strict adherence to the letter of the rules won't win friends and will irritate the GM.

TIP #5: Keep it simple, stupid... the gaming environment that is...

I've played split games, games with reserves from one board to another and games with underground sewers full of nurglings. After the first turn, no-one can remember all the special rules you sprinkled on the table. APOC is about a dirty great mashed up, so get the players to place objectives (or place them yourself GM) ... five is a good number and then get fighting down and dirty.

Your special Christmas tree bonus D6 roll with fun things will not get used ... there too much killing going on.

TIP #6: Strategic Assets ... my arse!

We've pretty much given up on allocating Strategic Assets for the same reason as the above... too much information. SA's can make or break a game, but usually by some nasty denial tactic (stopping reserves for example) and can ruin the game for the other team. Alike to the old 'magic cards' round in 2nd edition ... the Strategic assets become a guessing game of trying to out-fox your opponent and a huge delay on the fighting.

Why aren't we killing things?

As I highlighted in the previous blog on winning APOC, very cheap formations now come with a sprinkling of Strategic Assets all round ... so the old 'allocate 2 each' become redundant. There could be a good, fluffy, reason for it BUT it delays the game and makes things complex ... why bother?

In the same way ... hugely complicated reserve or a long board will benefit certain armies or reserves moves etc... I once played a Tyranid game where the tyranids had to run over 100" to reach the enemy. We were (unsurprisingly) losing quite quickly and very badly!

A straightforward rectangle board works fine. We tend to push 3-4 6x4 tables together and play a 6' by 12-16' board. Cover makes it interesting.

TIP #7: Share and Share alike...

As mentioned in the previous blog, sharing armies and controlling player 'zones' is the best way to play and play efficiently. In a similar way, if a general isn't 'controlling' his sub-commanders well (IE dividing the army up and allocating forces) and the team are playing 'tug of war' then the GM really needs to intervene.

That said, if they are playing like a bunch of numpties within 30mins ... don't bother.

The best rule ... everyone CAN roll for models on their team. One player is bound to bring Nids, Space Wolves, Black Templars or another particularly choppy army ... in this case they are bound to be deploying multiple assaults across the board. A good team commander would divide these assaults up for maximum team efficiency.

Remember, it's in the teams interest to divide and be efficient ... it gives them move mulling and thinking time (actually coordination time) ... if a team is being hugely inefficient and breaking the 30min rule ... then stop the turn. They won't like it ... but they won't take the piss again!

TIP #8: BRING the datasheet.

IF you field it, you better have the rules. This can be a photocopy, downloaded printout etc etc. If its a homemade gizmo, then it better be cleared with the club/GM or it's going home. Nothing's more frustrating than a player bringing models they don't know the rules for AND then DON'T HAVE the rules for... sort it out!

TIP #9: Qualify your scorers...

Is it FOC Troops only, all infantry, jetbikes, bikes, cavalry, non-immobile vehicles, Titans? What can hold and what can contest.

We adopt the 'any infantry can score' and anything else (including non-immobile vehicles) can contest. The balance is quite difficult, depending on your local metagame. If you see a lot of superheavies, then making FOC troops only scoring (IE following 5th edition rules) will make these squads target numero uno.

Think about this ... it may take several attempts to get it right.

A really good game we had involved the old 4th edition ... any unit at 50%...leading to some real throwdowns over objectives.

TIP #10: GM chooses teams and team commanders.

First up, choose the teams for balance and options. If they is gonna be a titan on the table ... make sure the opponents aren't mostly necrons with a few space wolves thrown in (my bad ... it wasn't pretty!) Make the player explain their forces and choose the sides for fairness.

As you can probably establish from above ... you need a GM no-one's gonna mess with (not a Gordon Brown bully, but not a pushover) ... in the same way DO NOT let teams choose or roll for their commanders. Team Commanders need to be the most tactically aware and 40k savvy player in each team with a positive personality and assertive streak.

Think of it in military terms. You need a solid NCO (Sergeant) in charge of the team, to organise and control their team to victory. Rolling dice or the leadership will inevitably end up with the person who doesn't want it ... they ignore it, they'll lose or be incoherent and the GM will have to effectively 'play the commander' in timekeeping and so on.

The better the NCO, the less work for the GM.

Conclusion

Despite my misgivings, I've found APOC to be a hugely enjoyable and fun thing to do. What it lacks in 'strategy' (that dies in the first turn), it more than delivers in great fun and hilarious exploits! The introduction of superheavies and titans is a daunting fearful fun than makes for great games... in the same way the explosion of said superheavy makes it all worth while.

The tips above aren't fullproof (and there's probably others to add) but they're good advice to keep the game rolling and you home before the kids bedtime/favourite TV show...

Comments welcome.

GiftsforGeeks Tournament Roundup Battle Report

Will the Primaris Psyker lead my troops to one final victory...?

The final round Tournament game at GiftsForGeeks loomed and it was gonna be a tough one. The combination of Space Marines and Guardsmen is a potent one in doubles tournament. It is exceptional how the two armies complement eachother on the table as much as they do in the fluff.

Guardsmen offer cheap troops with strong transports, capable of capturing and holding objectives, while the Space Marines allow themselves the capability of fielding incisive units for scouring out the heart of the enemy... our progress so far had been prodigious:

Kochi VIII Guardsmen & Sons of Sparta

Round One: Defending against Chaos Marines. The scatter/double destruction of the deepstriking Khronate Terminators AND Chaos Sorceror put the nals permanently in a complete rout for the attacking Chaos forces... The deathguard died to our S6 dakka, the Demolisher dominated the centre of the board and the Banewolf proved a very nasty surprise.

Round Two: Attacking the Tau. Despite destroying the Tau militarily, the Tau held on to a draw through the disruption pods of their vehicles and our lack of high strength weaponry. It did however produce the charge of the year, when 75pts of Rough Riders killed 350pts of Crisis Suits!

Round Three: The Orks didn't appear, so I fought my partner ... typically the Guard forced too many saving throws on the Space Marines ... and the banewolf killed two whole combat squads.

Round Four: Planetstrike against defending Orks. Adam had a signficant points boost (+200pts) and neither of us fancied facing Orks. We fancied it even less once all our planetary gizmo's failed wholesale. Guard held down the exterior while the Space Marines slaughtered the Orks inside the Fortress of redemption ... total victory.

Round Five: Straight Up battle against Mark and Jack's Guard/Stormbringers Space Marine army ...

Introduction

Unlike the other battles, we opted for an open field between these two forces. Both players could choose either their attacking OR defending list and the battle would be a standard 40k random.

Mark asked me to roll, we got spearhead annihilation. We also won the first turn and deployment...

Now the above didn't fill me with a lot of confidence... Let me explain why...

ARMY LISTS

Kochi Imperial Guard - 1000pts

Primaris Psyker
Infantry Command Squad; 3 GL's and a meltagun
Squad #1: Flamer
Squad #2: Flamer
3 Chimera (Heavy Flamer)
4 Mortar Teams
5 Roughriders
Hellhound with extra armour and smoke
Leman Russ with 3 heavy bolters

Sons of Sparta - 1000pts

Command Squad with FNP, many power weapons and relic thingies!
Terminator Squad with Assault Cannon and many power thingies!
Assault Squad with SErgeant with PF and Melta bomb
Tactical Squad with meltagun and multimelta (they never hit anything with melta either)

And that's it! I supply the men, he provides the killy stuff. Against this we faced.

Marks PDF Troops - 1000 pts

Commissar Lord
A Priest
2 Veterans Squads (Carapace) with powerfist and plasma/melta.
2 Basilisks
2 Vendettas

Jacks Stormbringers - 1000 pts

Uber Chapter Master on a bike
3 Squads of 5 Biker Space Marines
Whirlwind
10 man Assault Squad

So as you can see ... we'd be facing down a tonne of bikers/assault marines AND vendettas and basilisks. It was like looking into a mirror of buffness, where everything on the other side was buffer and more killy ... worrisome.

One last thing...

Throughout the campaign, we'd been awarding 'buffs' to units (chosen by the other side). All the HQ's by this point were ridiculously hard. In addition to the cumulative buffs (for example, Paul's Assault marines have FNP and my Leman Russ had +1 BS), our opponent gained a further 150pts (because we'd won more games) and 4 USR buffs. They rolled and deployed them all on their 10 man assault squad.

Giving them FNP, Furious Charge, Fleet and something else quite nasty.

I didn't like them.

DEPLOYMENT

We deployed with one plan in mind. Get first turn and sink their charge. We knew the Terminators could take it, so everything else kept back out of charge range of the bikes. The Assault Marines would move down the flank (their FNP being useful).

TURN 1 (Us): 'FIRE FIRE FIRE'

The Terminators moved up front and centre ... holding the middle ground, while the Primaris cast 'nightshroud' to deflect the enemies attention. The Assault marines ranged left, hunkering down in some terrain. The Rough Riders moved through cover and got into a better counter-charge position, now the threat of flankers was over.

Paul's Terminators move up to take the brunt of the Biker charge!

First turn firepower was awesome. The Leman Russ kicked it all off with an incredible shot - killing 7 FNP uber buffed Assault Marines in a single shot. Jack failed his 4+ saving throws spectacularly and Only saved one guy. A further MArine went down to the Russes 9 Heavy bolter shots. The 'uber-killy' assault squad had two members.

The Mortars turned their attention to the Bikers. Raining 7 hits down per group. The clustering resulted in a couple of bikers being killed in the front group. They were forced to take a pinning test (which they passed) but failed their leadership test. The front squad presently fled the board! This meant that in one turn of shooting we'd halved the attacking squads. However we didn't have anything left for the Vendettas or the Bassies... oh dear.

TURN 1 (Them): 'Flight of the Vendetta's'

The Command Bike Squad, led by a uber chapter master, revved their FNP bikes and plowed towards the terminators. The bikers fired, scoring no wounds. However the Vendettas also targetted the Terminators and their twinlinked lascannons were lethal, killing 3 Terminators...

The other bike squad weren't so brave and backed away from the foot slogging Spartan command squad. They fired a few boltguns into the ranks and killed a member.

The Bassies let rip, but scattered awfully, landing well away from threatening anyone. The Whirlwind was equally useless... 'oh well,' I thought 'there goes the luck for this game...'

Paul's Terminators get mullered!

In the Assault phase the Chapter Master and 5 bikes plowed into the terminators. Unluckily only the Primaris couldn't make it into the assault. This meant that the Marines and Chapter Master killed all the Terminators - but the sergeant wounded wounded the Chapter Master. They'd charged right into our 'trap' - but could we take them?

Turn 2 (Us) - "CHARGGGE!"

First up the hellhound and 2 chimeras arrived (one with a squad). All three went as fast as possible and popped smoke. My plan was to open up the battle and present multilasers to the Vendettas ... such were my hopes at this stage!?!

The Roughriders prepare to charge as the mortars and Leman Russ light up the night!

Shooting first and things started to go wrong. The Leman Russ shot scattered from the front Vendetta onto the tail of the rearward one - lucky shot! However, then began a tumultuous argument which started with 'the tail isn't part of the hull', eh? and went onto a big rules argi-bargie about whether vendetta even had hulls as they were (according to them) aircraft and therefore had fuselages, wings and tails ... and therefore a hits a hit - etc. To make matters worse I roll a penetrating wrecked result... then being me I agreed to break it down the middle, and he made his 'saving throw'...

That said, these sort of 'minor disagreements' bother me less and less nowadays. It's interesting that my response to this was 'oh well, that a little luck banked for later...'

That luck didn't need long to show itself as the mortars managed to wound and pin the last biker squad ... within a turns move of their opponents.

The countercharge was a little overkill... 5 Roughriders and 10 Assault Marines plowed into the Fray. The Roughriders went first and opted to attack the Biker squad. 11 Attacks turned into 5 power wounds. The Squad was wiped out ... but this meant that none of the Assault Marines were in base to base contact with the Chapter Master - wasting their attacks. In return the Chapter Master killed the Primaris Psyker - and still passed his leadership on a -4!

The combat consolidated.

TURN 2 (Them): Shooty shooty missy missy...

The Vendetta's split to address the two challenges onthe battlefield. One attacked the Leman Russ, while the other went after our Hellhound. The buffed Assault marines left their fortress and swarmed towards the hellhound too. The Dreadnought moved forwards and contributed his shots as well.

All in all, the hellhound was in for a bad day ... except nothing hit. Thanks to smoke (and I believe my cashed in luck earlier), my hellhound survived untouched.

The close combat was nastier. The Assault marines managed a single wound while the Chapter master killed 2 rough riders. This resulted in a -1 ld test for both the marines and the rough riders. The Rough Riders balked and retreated, but the assault marines held the chapter master up.

TURN 3 (Us): "In the balance..."

The Vendettas came under sustained S6 firepower this turn, which resulted in a shaken result for the one targetting the hellhound. The Hellhound put his trust in the Guardsmen behind him and raced up to the Battlements. Immediately he vented flamer across all three artillery pieces. This resulted in a stunned and a shaken result - great. Unconventional fire supression...

The Tactical Squad focused firepower on the last two assault marines, and failed miserably to wipe them out with rapid fire... however they had a whole mortar battery behind and they cratered them. One mortar team also assisted the hellhound with a glancing hit on a Bassie. The Command Squad charge the pinned bikes and wiped them out with power and relic weapons. The roughriders continued to retreat - into the ruins.

The Assault Squad and Commander exchanged wounds.

The Infantry Command SQuad made a break from their command bunker (which they'd been sitting in all game) and moved out to shoot the Vendetta. They missed with their meltagun and the grenade launchers couldn't glance it... oh dear.

TURN 3 (them): "By the benediction of the holy Emperor .. and all that!"

Jack Dreadnought charged into the Spartans Command Squad and killed the final retinue member. The Whirlwind finally found its range and killed on mortar team, pinning the unit. One Vendetta stayed still and deposited 10 Vets in carapace, a priest and their uber-commissar lord in charge range. The Priest and Vets murdered my infantry command squad while the Commissar gave good account - killing 4 Assault Marines. The Chapter Master was finally pulled down after killing one more - so 4 Assault Marines balked and ran. Escaping the Commissar Lord and running 11 inches.

The other Vendetta moved 24" and gained a 'turbo boost' save, alighting above a hill. The Commissar Lord and Vets Squad consolidated towards cover ... moving towards my undefended back line!

TURN 4 (Us): "Target barrage ... fire fire fire"

This turn the mortars and Chimera did incredible work. All three mortar teams targetted the Veterans, barraging them mercilessly - as the Tau had discovered, 4+ armour is no armour against mortars and the whole unit were cut to shreds. In addition the Mortars had enough shots left over to target the Commissar Lord, ripping him to shreds (despite FNP) ... the assault marines were left standing bemused for another turn!

Meanwhile the Leman Russ caught the Rightmost Vendetta with a mighty BOOM and it plummetted to the ground. On the left, MArk had made the mistake of leaving his rear armour open to multilaser fire and 6 shots later the vehicle was wrecked. 3 vets died in the flames. The rest came under sustained fire from another chimera in the centre at point blank. It's squad on board contributed 10 lasgun shots to the heavy flamer and multilaser deluge. Only three vets survived, but gripping their plasmaguns they ran for it!

The Dreadnought continued a bizarre fight against the Spartans Captain. No wounds were scroed for the second turn.

TURN 4 (Them): "Whittled Down..."

With so few options left, Mark downed 2 more assault marines with plasma fire and killed another mortar team with Whirlwind fire - but it wasn't nearly enough.

The Dreadnought and Captain continued to spar - the captain unstickiest melta-bomb ever failing miserably.

The most lacklustre combat of the game ... Space Marine Dreadnought and Captain play slapsy...

TURN 5 (Us): "Cleaning Down..."

The Chimeras backed off the dreadnought as a precaution. The hellhound continued to cook the basilisk and managed to blow the earthshaker off one. The Meltagun armed tactical squad (remember them?) managed to make it to the bastion and blow the first Basilisk up...

TURN 5 (Them): "The End"

The Dreadnought pulled the arms off the Captain (finally!) and the basilisk shot two tactical marines...

VICTORY! 11-4 killpoints.

CONCLUSION

This battle totally surprised me. Our complete lack of dedicated antitank, combined with fielding easy targets against Vendettas should have be a recipe for disaster. However luck played a huge part, allowing our hellhound to 'silence the guns' while our units were able to hold back the charge on so many bikes.

The mortars were awesome. Barrage after barrage killing, pinning and routing the enemy. Any troops in the open (and even a basilisk) received sustained S4 fire.

What it did show was that sustained S6 shots can neutralise any vehicle. Having that kind of sustained firepower from the Chimeras, completely stopped the Vendettas from dominating. Marks' lack of caution here proved decisive as he offered shots. Whereas if he'd been more caution, back off to 32" and popped some AV10 side armour this battle might have gone a different way.

As for the others - well the Leman Russ dominated and defended our line well. Shooting Vendettas out of the sky with a battlecannon can't be the easiest - and we even forgot his +1 BS all game. The Rough Riders were awesome. Close combat is all about momentum. Rough Riders can give you the edge to turn a devastating unit into an anacronym in one charge.

Finally the Assault Marines turned out to be a great back stop, despite not actually managing to connect a charge all game (robbed by rough riders and mortars - how embaressing) they were a constant threat and gave me the confidence not to split my Chimeras and focus on killing the Vendettas.

GiftsforGeeks Tournament Update (Dec)

The Geeks all got together for another round of the tournament with the following head offs...

Where Necrons Dare V The Dirty Dozen: Mark and Jack's combination of a FNP Smurf Biker Horde and Marks Guards nasty uber command unit of hero's, 2 Vendettas and 2 Basilisks was like a bad dream for the necrons. In spite of some great shooting rolls by Hutch, the necrons got rolled by the Marine/Guard combo thanks to a lack of power weapons or instantkill shots.

Moment of note: Jack manages to elbow Marks Vendettas off the table and spins one across the floor ... the vendetta is unharmed although the autoejectmust have triggered as the canopy came off.

The Chaosmarine has Landed V Apocalypse Tau: Predictably bloody, I didn't stay for the end ... but the Chaos boys had a 200 points of extra nastiness (thanks to planetstrike). Ant's save rolling skills were put to the test as Dustin and Spence's Tau pummelled the encroaching deamons and marines with Plasmarifle and pulse fire... Despite this I had to leave before the end ... and so ask Anton to fill us in? Who won?

Moment of Note: Anton rolls 7 saves of 5+ on his deamons... Nice.

300 (Thousand) V Full Metal Waargh: Orks aren't designed for defending. In this case the planetstrike proved pointless as we hit nothing (despite 14 firestorm shots)... The Guard arrived on mass turn one and the Roughriders were picked off quickly. The mortars were targetted by Adam's counter attack and the S6 arsenal (Primaris Psyker/Hellhound/Grenades/Multilasers) proved too much for the Deffkoptas. The Guard managed to deny/defuse the exterior forces while the Space marines cracked open the Fortress of night (?!?) innit and proceeded to massacre over 60 orks over three turns. For 'cunning plan' reasons, Adam's Warboss in a Battlewagon spent the whole battle hiding at the back of the field...

5 objectives captured to two left empty ... demonstrable victory.

Moment of Note: many, many. An assault cannon achieve rending hits on all four shots needs mention. The Chimera behind the hellhound immobilising the hellhound (doh!). The mortar pinging every truck in range and the Primaris Psyker shooting up 8 shots a turn of S6 goodness.

Conclusion

At this stage the two Guard/Smurf armies are demonstrably ahead... so much so that they look like they could just wipe the Xenos from the face of the planet. The Chaos Lords are doing better, and the Tau struggle on and the Necron and Orks become the whipping boys of the group... and yet there's a glint of a plan in Adam and Hutch's eye.

Next up, my team face off against the other Guard/Smurf unit in an open battle. It'll be Chimera armour infantry versus Vendettas (eek!) and Terminators/Assault marines versus biker horde (double eeek!) - it'll be close.

GiftsForGeeks Tournament Update and Battle Reports

The situation at the end of the third round of the Gifts for Geeks Tournament is as follows:

1st-Chaos-11-Tiles
2nd-300-Thousand-11-Tiles
3rd-Tau-11-Tiles
4th-Guard/Stormbringers-10 Tiles
5th-Orks-8-Tiles
6th-Necrons-6-Tiles

And here's why...!

Round One Roundup: SEE HERE

Round Two Roundup

300 Thousand v Apocalyspe Tau: (no piccies, unfortunately) Despite my Kochi and the Sons of Sparta Space Marines decimating the joint Tau lines and reducing the army to a few tanks and a Shas'El, our lack of dedicated antitank proved meddlesome as the Tau could contest themselves out of the battle.

Moments of note: 75 pts of roughriders catch and kill over 350pts of Tau Crisis Suits and Commanders. Mortars decimate the Tau lines, despite the 3+ cover save afforded by the bastions.

Full Metal Waargh v The Dirty Dozen: The combination of Mark's Basilisk and the Vendetta gunships just rolled over the boy heavy lines. Too much ordinance in too small a space. The Orks are forced to cling on to the objectives and get whittled down. Clean victory for the Guard.

Moments of Note: Basilisk "Nob Crusher" manages to decimate and rout a horde of Orks holding the left flank with a single AP3 S9 shot...

The Chaosmarine has Landed v Where Necron's Dare: Despite Hutch's high hopes for the Necron boys following Chaos' defeat at the hands of some guardsmen, the combined attacking list including Deamon, Deamon Princes, Nurgle Terminators and Noise Marines just blows enormous chunks in the Necron horde. The Chaos boys defend their objective well.

Blasted Havocs ... or should that be blasting Havocs?

Moments of Note: Reports from the front lines highlight just how effective the noise marines prove, although with the amount of FNP power weapons floating about, one pitys the robo-skelly.

Round Three Roundup

The Chaosmarine has landed versus The Dirty Dozen: Despite taking horrendous losses from their own inaccurate Ordinance and rolling multiple 1's on dangerous terrain for their bikers - the Chaos boys manage to roll over the Space Marine/Guard force in a typical tour-de-force.

Mark cleverly convinces Jack that his Stormbringer Marines make the best bullet shield ... honest!

Watching the final two rounds, the Guardsmen evened the odds a little, but turn three-four had really stamped a 5 killpoint lead on the servants of the Emporer.

Ant's Spectacular Forgeworld Terminators - luuuvvelly (my precious, dribble, dribble)...

Moments of Note: Guardsmen take both Summoned Deamon and a Deamon Price with nothing but heavy bolters and flashlights. 'Willy the Coward' runs the length of the board to deny a pointless killpoint to the Chaos Boys, and Mark is stunned to discover that his Ratlings are both I4 (good times) and T2-S2 (bad times).

Part of the 'reserved' Chaos army, note the widespread use of Hordes, WFB and other models ... these guys mean business!

300 Thousand v Apocalypse Waarghhh: A battle I wasn't liking the look of turn our way as Coop cancelled earlier in the day due to poorliness. Get well soon Coop, but an autowin for the 300 Thousand boys! I gain preferred enemy to compliment the FNP and fearless on my Primaris Psyker and the Rough Riders gain Furious Charge (Yes I did actually roll it and yes it was witnessed and I am very pleased.)

Apocalyse Tau v Where Necrons Dare: Hutch canned the battle late (which left the Tau boys high and dry and playing with their 'greater goods'), this also meant they weren't able to reconvene against the 300 for a rematch. Spence and Dustin rolled for bonuses accordingly.

Thanks to Coop's early warning, Paul and I were able to reconvene our partnership into a head to head 1500pt battle ... and I had a chance to try out some cunning plans...

Battle Report: Kochi (Not so) Mobile Infantry versus 'Sons of Sparta' Space Marines

Army List

Kochi VIII Mobile Infantry (otherwise known as 'bring your own pillbox')
NB: All Chimera's are Multilaser and Heavy Bolter variants, upgraded with heavy stubbers.

• HQ Command: Vox-caster, regimental standard, Heavy Bolter in Chimera
• Infantry HQ: 2 Grenade Launchers, Heavy Bolter in Chimera
• Infantry Combined Platoon (30): 3 Autocannons, Commissar, Vox-caster
• Infantry HQ: 2 Grenade Launchers, Heavy Bolter in Chimera
• Infantry Combined Platoon (30): 3 Lascannons, Commissar, Vox-caster
• A Spare Chimera
  
• 5 Rough Riders with Lances, Frag and Krak Grenades, Laspistols and flak armour.
• 5 Rough Riders with Lances, Frag and Krak Grenades, Laspistols and flak armour.
• Banewolf (Heavy Stubber, extra armour, smoke, multimelta)
  
• Basilisk: Heavy Flamer and Earth Shaker Cannon.
• Leman Russ Battle Tank, 3 Heavy Bolters

Paul's Sons of Sparta Marines

• Lysander
• 10 Terminators
• 10 man Tactical Squad (Missile Launcher and Plasma Gun)
• 10 man Tactical Squad (Multimelta and Meltagun)
• Dreadnought (Multimelta, Dreadnought CCW and Storm Bolter)
• Space Marine Attack Bike, Multimelta and twin linked bolters
• 10 man Assault Squad, Sergeant with power weapon and meltabombs
• 5 man Assault Squad, Sergeant with power weapon and meltabombs

Battle Type: Annihilation
Deployment: Pitched Battle

Deployment

I won the roll for a change and opted to go second. I decided I wanted to see how Paul deployed and act accordingly. My army above was opting for a new option for me, optimising volume of fire in preference to AP penetration. As such, I was facing a bit of a problem with 11 Terminators facing my lines only so many inches away.

The Space Marines deploy in the open ... now if only I can steal first turn and hit with that Basilisk?!?

Paul brazenly placed his Termies, attack bike and Dreadnought in the middle, making a move for my lines, meanwhile he divided his tactical squads into combat squads and placed the missile launcher at the top of a building to the right flank. He then placed his other units in the open across his lines. The assault squads were placed as far forward as possible on the extreme left and right flanks, ten on the left and five on the right.

For myself I quickly established that Paul didn't have the long range firepower to threaten my tanks. This meant I would have several turns of shooting to down the arrogant smurfs. The Basilisk I set up on the far left flank (opposite ten assault marines), but positioned two rough rider unit in front of it. The two uber-units of guardsmen spread across the middle, forming a nice tarpit, with the Leman Russ holding centre stage and flanked on either side by 4 Chugs. The command and two platoon squads held sway from the Chimeras. The banewolf was positioned out on the right flank to 'tempt' the Assault marines in.

TURN ONE
'Charge of the light brigade!'

The Space Marines move forwards, with the Assault marines making serious tracks on the left and right flank. The terminators Attack Bike and Dreadnought stormed up the middle, but all the antitank shots (umm 3) missed in a spectacular display of 1's ... this was going to be interesting. The combat squads ran out of the open and went for cover. The terminators targetted the autocannon squad and killed 7 thanks to their reroll to hit (Lysander), but not enough to force a leadership test.

The Guard gunline opens fire as the Space Marines trudge towards them

Only the Rough Riders moved, making serious headway towards the 10 man assault squad. The Basilisk targetted the far right flank Assault Marines (in the open) but missed. The commander chose 'bring it down' for the Autocannons on Dreadnought and FRFSRF on the lascannon unit for the Terminators. The Autocannon managed to blow the Multimelta off the Dread. The Lasguns proved highly ineffective as Paul rolled lots of ones. Two command Chimeras opened up, laying down a total of 12 36" dice (3 multilaser, 6 heavy bolter and 3 heavy stubber) and despite this nothing rolled a one! The lascannon team changed that and killed a single Terminator.

The Leman Russ redressed the inaccurate fire of the Basilisk and killed 2 men, the follow on heavy bolter fire reduced the squad to a sergeant. The Rough Riders rolled well on their run and charge and smashed home. Despite fighting two battles alongside roughriders and watching them attack terminators (or try to, the termies died squirming in a wall) and massacring a whole Crisis Suit force 4 times their price, he was surprised.

Survivors after the first round of combat ... 6-5 to the Space Marines (well I should hope so!)

First he was surprised that rough riders have frag grenades. Then he was surprised that the unit had I5, S5 power weapons. Why was he surprised? The two guardsmen cavalry units smacked home and a total of 22 hits resulted (through evil dice gods - blah) in 5 dead space marines. The Roughriders had made back their cost in a single charge. In return the Emperors finest killed 6 horses (yah-boo), but the Rough Riders held firm... tying up the assault marines and buying my Basilisk another turn.

TURN TWO
'You may fire when ready...'

The Space Marines came closer, with the assault squad sergeant on the right flank leaping forwards. The left flank tied up, the Terminators hot footed it towards the autocannon uber-unit and opened fire. He killed a further 7 men, but not enough to cause me concern. The Multimelta bike targetted the Leman Russ, and at less than 12" I had a sweaty moment before Paul rolled a 2.

Paul's Terminators trudge towards the guardsmen's line

'I should really do something about that bike.' I thought to myself. 'It's quite dangerous and might actually roll a 3 in turn 3.' The Dreadnought added its stormbolter to the attacks killing the autocannon guardsmen (I still don't know what he had against them, very confusing)... The missile Launcher also rolled a 2 to hit (a pattern perhaps). The other combat squads moved into cover.

The Roughrider succumbed to the Assault marines, but not before the two sergeants had killed the Space Marine Sergeant - no meltabombs for YOU! The remaining 4 assault marines moved into cover.

With half his army out of range I concentrated considerable firepower on the real threats. The Leman Russ blew a hole in the Assault squad and the combined fire of this and the command HQ chimera reduced the assault squad to a single member. The Banewolf moved 18" and sailed past the single assault marine looking to hit it. He was subsequently gunned down by another 'gunship' chug which added 2 krak grenade launcher shots to the fusilade.

The Attack bike came under furious fire, but I underestimated its T5 and it lost only a single wound. The two uber-units targetted the Dreadnought (doing nothing) and the Terminators... the combined fire of this lascannon unit, the basilisk shot and an empty Chimera resulted in just one dead Terminator. Paul was rolling 2+ like he was born to it.

The last Infantry Platoon HQ lined up and fired it's 14 gun salute. And Paul rolled 3 1's on 6 dice. Now we're getting somewhere. 5 Terminators down, 6 to go.

TURN THREE
'Will somebody please shoot Chuck Norris over there...'

The surviving member of the Assault squad bounced towards the Basilisk. For a moment I panicked - why hadn't I moved that damn model at least an inch, but he was outside 6 inch charge and couldn't grapple me with his krak grenades. The squads at the back moved into cover. The Multimelta in the centre squad lined up for the banewolf, as did the Missile Launcher. Luckily for me the Space Marines had been training with the local PDF too long and ridiculous missing occured again.

The Attack Bike was less frugal and switching targets from the 'lucky' Russ, he wrecked an infantry command Chimera. The Infantry command piled out and stood next to their wrecked tank - ready to fire.

The Dreadnought (with only a stormbolter) wasted a run combining his fire with the Termies against the Autocannons. I should point out that Paul repeated pointed out that he 'couldn't wait for them to run off the board', but with a regimental banner and a commissar I had three rerolls on a Ld9 effectively. Like any smart player I kept this to myself. This turn, he had whittled the poor autocannon crew down to its last remaining plebs. So much so that only the NCO's, the commissar, the autocannon teams and the comms model remained. They passed their Ld9.

First up I moved up with the banewolf and the Basilisk. With no where to run - I move to point blank range with the assault marine and pointed my heavy flamer at him. Not trusting the heavy flamer, I also pointed the command HQ's Chimera's guns at him. My cunning 'Plan' is to kill the assault fly with the HQ transport,which frees up my basilisk to shoot something juicy.

I roll a total of 11 dice at the guy (heavy stubber, multilaser, heavy bolter (BS4), 2 krak grenades (BS4)) and Paul jokes that if this guy saves from this lot, he'll be Chuck Norris. He saves 6 wounds on a 3+ ... I revert to plan B, the heavy flamer - he saves.

'Sticking to the plan' is something I believe in. This is why my Leman Russ didn't shoot this man, but instead targetted the termies. The BattleCannon Blast caused 5 wounds and the heavy bolters a further 4, but he saves everything.

The banewolf is more successful. moving 12" up to the plasmagun combat squad it toasts 4 out of 5 on a 2+. Paul says 'Eeek!' and we carry on. I kit out my Banewolf with a multimelta and a heavy stubber for just such a 'survivor' - in this case it wasn't much help as I fail to kill the plasma gunner. I have to distract the 'unmanned' Chug to kill him. The other Chimeras and two uber-squads plow firepower into the Attack Bike and the Dreadnought. The Attack Bike soaks up a horrific amount of firepower - draining away all my attacks for the termies. However he's eventually murdered by a FRFSRF command from the autocannon survivors. This 'redundantifies' (to use a Bushism) the autocannons though.

Frantic shooting at 'THAT DAMN DREADNOUGHT' results in another weapon destroyed result. Facing an armless uninjurable dreadnought proves too amusing, as the 40k equivilent of 'the black knight' prepares to charge my 'unhurt' 31 man lascannon ubersquad.

TURN FOUR
'Tis but a fleshwound...!'

Chuck Norris makes it to his target and puts a bolt round in the side of the tank to let the crew know he's there. The Dreadnought charges into the Lascannon horde. The terminators shooting allows me to peel of the obvious target, but the Terminators still make close combat trudging across terrain.

The Missile Launcher proves resplendently useless at killing my banewolf (again!) and the multimelta team have no target on the anti MEQ tank.

So it all come down to close combat. Chuck Norris scores a hit, but fails to penetrate the Basilisk.

'You may be quite hard to kill, Chuck Norris, but you're crap with a krak grenade!'

The Terminator Sergeant AND one Terminator get to combat. He killed puts two wounds on a weapon squad (only S4), I roll a surprising 15 dice in defence (3 sergeants, commissar, heavy weapon team and a comms boy) and cause three wounds but none provoke a 1. My remnant (surrounded by littered bodies) fail by three, but the commissar in Stubborn, Ld9 and has a regimental banner nearby.

The 'Black Knight' squashes one man beneath his mighty carapace. I can't hurt the Dread but pass my morale check easily.

In my turn, the banewolf 'disolves' all but one squad of the missile launcher team, while the Chimeras break left and right to avoid the Termies. The furthest Chug gets immobilised (bloody 1's) and decides to shoot up the remaining Missile Launcher. The Basilisk floors it (a whole 7 inches) and flattens the assault marine (who had a choice between being pushed off the board or do or die ... he did, he died!)

The Leman Russ Rolls straight past the Termies and opens fire on the 'multimelta' squad that had shot at my fleeing Chugs (and missed). He caused multiple wounds with the battlecannon and heavy bolter, reducing the squad to 2 men.

In close combat the Dreadnought fails to wound with its single attack and the guardsmen stand around, not even able to attack it with frag grenades.

The other uber-horde is less lucky. With the remainder of the Termies piling in and Lysander joining the fray, only one round of combat was holding back this unit. As the combat is now moving into my turn, I'm hopeful that at least one man can hang on... this hope is dashed as the space marine sergeant quickly dispatches everyone but the commissar. My commissar stands alone against Lysander and buddy and manages 3 hits and 2 wounds. Paul rolls a 1 and the squads sergeant goes down. Autocannon Horde is down, the termies consolidate next to the Leman Russ

Commissar Bob sacrifices 30 men to get one good jab into the Terminator Sergeant

TURN FIVE
'Mopping up...'

The turn starts with the missile launcher taking one last pop at the banewolf with his missile launcher, S8 v AV12 is a bit much and HE fails again. The multimelta in the middle has little or no target and the squad on the other side are now playing 'killpoint deniance'. The close combat in the centre is predictable, with the dread killing one more guardsmen. The terminators destroy the leman russ and mange to kill a few more 'close combating' guardsmen in the mix.

In my turn, the mobile units near the terminators scatter. The Command Chimera and freed up Basilisk target the meltagun squad on the left flank and manage to kill them all. The banewolf melts the remaining missile launcher, leaving two tactical marines with an out of range multimelta. The immobilised infantry command chimera (still thankfully out of charge range) pummels the termies with fire to no avail.

TURN SIX
'Final points...'

The banewolf, remaining chimeras and other units target the last combat squad as the terminatiors and lysander dive into closecombat with the lascannon horde. The horde looses two combats badly, but manage to kill another terminator and Lysanders brough to a single wound. The Commissar continues to care not a jot and Paul is surprised to discover that the commissar is a squad upgrade and not an independent character (and therefore cannot be singled out!).

FINAL SCORE: 7-4 to the Guard.

CONCLUSION

I was very pleased with the performance of this army. Albeit Paul had brought the wrong weapons. I'd designed this army to face tough opponents and to 'nullify' an uber unit. The 10 terminators and Lysander were certainly that. What surprised me was the lack of drop pods, rhinos etc. He appeared to bring a short ranged gunline to fight my gunline - which is odd.

CHIMERAS: I suppose, when he saw all the chimeras fielded against him he thought 'lots of melta-targets', but in using the Chugs as a pillboxes they were invaluable. Throwing 14-15 dice per tank (thats 14 shots for 115 points BTW) was awesome, and it gave me a bit of tactical flexibility that was lacking with the 'uber-units'.

UBER SQUADS: The uber-squads are great. Ld9, double reroll Ld tests and stubborn are awesome lynch pins. The ability to offer a 'bring it down' or FRFSRF (or 'fire by rank' as I prefer to call it!) are the most useful combo's. Otherwise the boys just sit tight and soak it up. Flamers would have been my bane with this formation though, and this does concern me.

BANEWOLF: The banewolf was great, but in its anti-MEQ roll I'm seeing a strong justification for saving 15pts and dropping the multimelta. Yes, it'll reduce its antitank threat but thats no bad thing. However in multiple situations the chem-cannon failed to kill a single model - resulting in only 4 additional shots. A support heavy bolter would bring 6 shots to finish the job. Ok, they'd get saving throws ... but the odds are pretty good that they'll fail one. Better in fact than the chances of me hitting with a multimelta (it miss all game) or the space marine failing his cover save.

BASILISK: I was expecting great things from the bassie, but the leman russ actually killed much much more. The bassie was a great 'assault marine' magnet and the fact it survived was tops. I suppose I shouldn't underestimate the bassies threat on the game, which basically forced all the smurfs into cover for fear of their power armour. On average, a good buy for just 125pts.

ROUGHRIDERS: Who'd want to leave these beauties at home. They're great. The shock for Paul was being hit in cover first (frag) with I5, S5 power weapons. Despite really poor rolling they made their points in a charge. I'm struggling not to find a role for these guys as the Guard usually roll with at least one indirect fire attack option. Roughriders are the perfect bargain unit for complimenting them.

CRITIQUE
'If I'd been running the space marines, what would I have done?'

Terminators: Ok deepstrike is scary, but running the length of the board is meh? If you are going to run them ... RUN THEM ... paul stopped off for too many shooting at an unroutable squad - which were pointless. They would have worked better running the length of the board and getting into stomp range the sooner.

Tacticals: These guys were desparately needing transports. Tactical squads without razorbacks and rhinos meant that I could effectively ignore half of Pauls army. By the time I moved in for the kill, each five man squad was facing torrents of fire that would decimate his lines. Even running a couple of squads in behind the Terminators would have given him options and threatened my hordes with overwhelming attacks, and my tanks with krak grenades. As it was the banewolf was perfectly placed to kill and kill again.

Assault Marines: I love assault marines, but against this torrent of fire they had no chance. The roughriders did a wonderful job of killing them on the left flank and neutering the threat of such a large squad. Once down to 4-5 models these guys were easy meat for the ordinance and heavy dakka on the board. I was very lucky to have the bassie survive, but that's only one killpoint and the assault marines were outside of range. They would have been much better running down the middle or jump moving behind a rhino shield wall.

Dreadnought: I was actually pretty impressed with the vanilla dreadnought - it shrugged of firepower that should have downed it. It wasn't a game maker, but it tied up 31 men for half the game. Doh!?!

Final Thoughts...

A thoroughly enjoyable game, leaving the mortars at home proved less painful than expected. The sheer amount of shots the chimera pillboxes and leman russ delivered was breathtaking (60 S4-6 a turn, plus a S8 AP3 ordinance blast) and the uber-squads provided durability and good shooting with 'bring it down' and 'fire by rank'.

The real advantage for me in this game was my opponents unfamiliarity with facing guardsmen. He espected a commissar led uber squad to rout (not going to happen), he was surprised that roughriders had frag grenades, and he was stunned at the killiness of the Banewolf. He simply shouldn't have been.

His ignorance of my forces basic strengths proved the spacemarines undoing. The Assault squads were undermined by roughriders, the tactical squads in cover gained no advantage against the banewolf and the firepower alloted (A total of 73 shots at 32") made cover or no cover irrelevant ... I just rolled enough shots until he rolled enough one's. Against heavy armour I might struggle, but three lascannons are enough to worry most tanks and the amount of mid strength shots can take out light and medium transports...

In Annihilation games, against an opponent willing to march onto your guns, this is ok. against a more wilely opponent (or mechanised) it may prove less useful. Plus both the last games have been annihilation ... which has allowed me to sit back and shoot. I shall bend my mind into adapting the force to 'break' into a competitive objective grabbing force, without sacrificing too much firepower.

This shouldn't be too hard, thanks to the flexibility of choosing to combine units before a game and the number of Chimeras enabling me to 'split' the force very quickly.

Can I proudly present ... Anton

Pot Bellied Deathguard - Yeah!

Just a quick post to big up a new member of the blogosphere who's come on board recently. I've played against Anton a couple of times in 40k and he's subsequently given me a crash course in Hordes...

The Downside of being a Chaotic Princeps - an absorbing workplace!

One thing to say is that Anton is a very gifted painter. His mini's reek style and are consistently some of the 'best dressed' at GiftsforGeeks. Oh, and he's just finished painting up a chaos warhound ... which looks amazing I think you'll agree.

The Chaos Warhound ... Sans Grieves.

He's a 'multi-army' kind of guy, with a horde of chaos marines (all factions, but especially deathguard), Nids, Saim Hann and Guard. And a Warhound ... did I mention that already?

Anton's been speed painting some blood claws again ... speed painting (ED: Grrrrr...)

So go over and have a peek at 'The Anarchy of Anton!' for some premium enjoyment, add him to your blogroll for some serious amusement. Oh and as for the painting/sneezing thing...

Part of Anton's 'bodyguard' for Typhus ... I've faced them, they not nice.

... Just look at his Deathguard - it explains a lot!

Taking on the Warhound - 15000pt Batrep

This awesome battle took place about 10 days ago, unluckily for me I didn't update the timer before posting... which is a bummer ... check it out here - it's well worth the read, usual Suneokun fluff photo's and random writing...

TAKING ON THE TITAN LINKY THING

"Taking on the Warhound" - 15000 pts Apocalypse Batrep

The XV15 Stealth Team play hide and seek with the wulfenhorde.

Prologue

The meeting between the Stormbringer Space Marines and the Tau Cadre had not started well. Water caste members had struggled with the truculence of the Space Marines. Only the intervention of their own Captain had kept the meeting civil.

Maybe civil was the wrong word, thought water caste member Gia'la brushing down his blue demi-silk robes, perhaps unbloodied.

The Tau Cadre had been dispatched to the Ko'Het system in response to a distress signal from a Kroot enclave. The name for the enclave translated loosely as 'good visibility, strong prey, good hunting', but with more emphasis on the ground walking prey. Kroot had a lot of words for prey. This Kroot community had based their enclave on the ruins of a previous Imperial structure.

While no Gue'la presense had been notified by the Kroot, water caste Gia'la suspected that the Kroot hadn't been entirely honest in their 'specification' of kills. On entering the system they had been advised by the locals that a Gue'la was also waiting to meet with the Kroot. This had seemed strange to the Tau, but they're meetings with Gue'la or humans as they called themselves had been interesting in this sector and the offered hand wasn't turned down.

Gia'la felt that the Stormbringers would have been less charitable if it was not clear that the Tau outnumbered them ten to one and had arrived with a full armoured interdiction force, as the Shas'O had rightly suggested.

The position the Gue'la Stormbringer captain highlighted was of some concern. Apprarently a enemy group of Gue'la earth caste (or this is how Gia'la translated in, as the Earth caste were forever ferreting around with technology and 'creating' things, half of which made the water caste jobs harder, although the suspension seats were good.) had arrived many weeks back in the frozen tundra to the north.

They had apparently identified an ancient warhound titan (a giant cumbersome broadside battlesuit the height of ten such machina), what they also discovered was a hidden horde of Necron. The Tau had had some dealing with these evil creations.

The stormbringers were unclear how it was possible, but believed that the Adeptus Mechanicus forces (including the now-operational Titan) plus a unit of brother Gue'la, the Space Wolves (some large canine, Gia'la believed) had become enthralled of the Necron menace. To the Tau present, this was all too familiar, typical Gue'la...

Shas'O 'Clear Thought', student of farsight, decided quickly that this threat to their interest was sufficient to warrant significant force. The Shas'O instructed his water caste advisors to negociate this planet for the Kroot enclave in exchange for this obligation.

The water caste were surprised when the Gue'la agreed readily, either this was a truly horrific threat - or the Gue'la preffered the Kroot to occupy this world - blighted as it was.

*****

Introduction

Originally this was going to be an 8000 pt a-side dust up. However, three players dropped out and Hutch agreed to step into the brink with his legion of Necrons (hence the very weird army combinations fielded below!) Unusally for an Apocalypse game, only one superheavy came to the party ... but what a beast! A warhound Titan ... just arrived from ForgeWorld and painted up by the guys at minipainters...

Unlike previous battles we also had a 'gamemaster' - I'd certainly recommend it for games as a GM can keep an eye on the clock, impartially advise and make rules decisions and to top it off Ant did a great job and got the inside line on every dirty trick combo in play (there were quite a few)...

Army Lists

Necron Alliance: Necrons-Space Wolves-Guard (With a Titan)

A selection of the Necron alliance ... Space Wolves, Necron, and Titan ... a heady mix.

• C'tan Deceiver
• Several Necron Lords (all with toys)
• Four large necron squads (20 each!)
• 12 Necron Immortals
• 3 Necron Destroyers
• 2 Necron Monoliths
• 4 Space Wolves Special Characters (including Lukas, Arjac, Bjorn and Njal)
• Bloodclaws (lots)
• 10 Terminators
• Landraider
• 2 Rhinos
• Warhound Titan (no wonder the spacewolves were happy!) with Turbolasers and enormous plasmacannon death gun!
• 2 Leman Russ and a Demolisher
• 3 Vendettas, 2 with melta-carapace vets and 1 with 'Black Templars?!?'

The Greater Good: Tau x 2 plus Stormbringer Marines

• Armoured Interdiction Cadre Formation: 2 Skyrays and 3 Hammerheads with D3+1 markerlight allocated per turn (LoS only, no maximum range)
• MIRAGE Pathfinder Formation: 3 Pathfinder Squads with 4 Devilfish, all gundrones on devilfish upgraded to markerdrones. MIRAGE confers 'stealth' ability as defined in codex:Tau (2D6x3 to 'see' them) to all friendly models within 12". 3 markerlight hits on a target plus LoS (no maximum range) to formation results in 'precision strike' on target (all friendly forces can hit the target on a 2+). 3 railrifles with pathfinders.
• 2 Fire Warrior Squads of 12 with photon grenades and Shas'Ui.
• 4 Fire Warrior Squads of 9 with Shas'Ui and markerlight.
• Piranha
• 2 Kroot hordes of 15-20 models, master shaper formation (Shaper with a witchblade)
• Stealth Team #1: 5 XV25, 5 gundrones.
• Stealth Team #2: 3 XV15, XV25 leader with fusion blaster.
• Shas'El (with firewarriors) with missile pods
• Shas'El with 4 gundrones and bodyguard (flamers/AFP/Plasma)
• Crisis Suit Team with Plasma, Fusion and Missile Pods
• Crisis Suit Team with Missile Pods

The Action ... Preliminary

As in previous Apoc posts I'll divide the action up into the board sections where it all went down! The sections consist of four 4' by 8' boards - so plenty of space to be getting on with ...

Area #1: The Tau Home Territory Defence

The Tau home territory was the furthest away from the enemy. As such the other Tau commander and I felt this was the perfect position for our firewarriors. The 6 squads of firewarriors deployed across the board in bunkers and buildings with a strong line of sight to eachother. Our biggest concern was deep striking Wolves or Vendetta drops flanking our position. As it turned out we met both.

"It seems quiet, too quiet ... I wonder what that whistling noise is..." Said the Shas'la.

In turn one, a drop pod crashed into the earth a bare few inches from the home objective ruin and a small horde of blood claws (led by the mighty Ulrik "Very Deadly and must be shot immeidately") The claws managed to shoot up and kill a few firewarriors from Dustin's 12 strong group in the bottom of the objective ruin.

In return the firewarriors fired. We had a total of 4 markerlight (on the squads Shas'la (sergeants)) within 36" and managed 2 hits. The hits were given to the two largest squads within 12" and they opened fire. Despite a blistering fusilade of over 78 shots, the luck was with the wirey warriors and only 4 died, but we did manage to put a wound on Ulrik. This left Ulrik and a good 8 warriors attacking the 10 firewarriors in the bottom of the building. My 9 man firewarriors squads had markerlights, Dustin's had proton grenades.

The dust settles over the objective ruin as the burning Vendetta crashes

Despite refusing the spacewolves any additional attacks, the noble Tau were cut down by the bunch of nutters in turn two. The Tau responded by repeating their previous turns fusilade, this this they massacred the space-puppies to a man. For the majority of squads in area #1 that was the total excitement of the game. The only addendum being in Turn 5 where a Vendetta, devoid of its cargo of veterans reverted to 'skimmer' mode to challenge the objective. Unluckily it had positioned with its rear armour facing 9 firewarriors. A markerlight hit later, the firewarriors score over 12 hits and 1 glancing and 3 penetrating hits. The penetratings rolled all 5's and 6's as the firewarriors shots sheered through the fragile interior of the Vendetta and evicerated the flight crew. Mark rolled for his 'saving throw' - first roll, a 3 ... oh dear. The Tau firewarriors held their objective and held of all comers.

Objective 1-0 to the Greater Good

Area #2: The countryside

Out in the Countryside, all was not so peaceful...

Across the ravine from the Tau homeland, the grassy plains were onarmented with trees, a ruined church and a farmstead. This tranquil setting was infiltrate by two large Kroot carnivore hordes and 2 smaller squads of stealthsuits.

The larger Kroot unit were led by a master shaper (complete with 30pt upgrade witchblade!) and held the objective (the church), the other Kroot unit nestled in the courtyard of the farmstead, supported by a small squad of XV15 stealthsuits, led by their XV25 fusion blaster Shas'ui. The other larger XV25 unit had ranged out with its gundrones, and was looking to challenge the other objective.

The Kroot look strong, but only if they don't bring flamers...

These brave natives were subsequently attacked by none other than The spacewolf Psyker uberdeath man AND the uber dreadnought of death too! The farmhouse Kroot took two turns of shooting and then feld. The XV15 stealthers and a group of stingwings scored multiple kills on the bloodclaws accompanying these behemoths and even managed to destroy Bjorn's Assault Cannon.

Black Templars - where'd they come from, and how'd they learnt to charter flights on Vendettas...

Then uber spam cheat death (ED: He's joking, no really he is, honest, he's smiling ... or is that a grimace?) arrived in the form of one squad of 'Black Templars' in a Vendetta which deepstruck onto the objective. Hang-on a minute... I'm struggling with a Necron-Guard-Space Wolf-Titan army. Let alone an army with just one squad of double hitting black templars!?! Smallest crusade in history? Clearly.

The Kroot get crisis suit backup ... is it enough?

The Kroot in the objective gave reasonably good account, but even their multitude of attacks couldn't overcome powerarmour and prefferred enemy and they folded. Meanwhile the larger stealth team had run into a battlecannon cannoner with 20:20 vision and been battlecannoned out of the game.

Dustin had to steal one objective from half a squad of black templars, a mob of space wolves and Bjorn the fellhanded (the Dreadnought one anyway ... just pull anyname from Abba or Beowulf and then add a reasonably ridiculously violent surname ... Grindalwald the wife beater ... you get the idea.)

Dustin called in his reserves of one crisis suit battlesquad. These guys (including drones) managed to shoot up the black templars enough to stop them 'capturing the objective' - meanwhile he played a breathtaking (and I'm sure highly annoying for the SW player) game of cat and mouse with the space puppies and his XV15 team. They then made an 18" move-run-assault move across the whole board to get within 3" of the objective. The team had not lost a single member.

Objectives 2-0 to the Greater Good

Area #3: The City

Hot in the city, hot in the city tonight...

The city was the part of the battle I had least to do with. This is where the Stormbringer Space Marines targetted their strikeforce. Terminators, grey knights and power armoured forces fought the Space Wolves in this desparate city fight. The Battle Cannons of the Imperial Guard proved as much a hindrance as a help as shot after shot scattered onto the Space Wolves. The battle proved such a challenge, that even the denuded and damaged warhound titan turned his back on the railguns and marched for the objective! The Stormbringers did a classic Space Marine job against overwehelming guard, Titan and Space Wolf adversaries and challenged this objective until the last turn. Despite this, they were cut down and the 'home' objective secured for the enemy.

This board contained two objectives, one the Warhound loomed over for much of the game. The other lay in an abandoned drop pod.

The Tau tried (and nearly succeeded, in the last turn) to turn the tide by rushing forwards with their 'markerllight' devilfish and targetting the Pariahs with two seeker missiles. One pariah bought the farm with no 'I'll be back' thanks to the instantkill. Despite all railguns targetting the Leman Russ holding the objective, and a 2+ to hit. The emporers blessing was on the vehicle and it survived with just a stunned result (despite +1 railguns?!?). The enemies of the greater good held on.
Objectives: 2 held for the Necron Alliance, 2 Held for the Greater Good.

Area#4: The Tau'Va frontline

The Tau 'Bubble tank' faces down the might of a Warhound titan...

The Tau had managed to hold their backline with massed firewarriors and stolen a victory from the countryside with stealth tactics. Could the combination of a MIRAGE and a Interdiction Cadre prove enough against Vendettas, Necron Monoliths and a ruddy great Warhound titan?!?
Turn 1: "Execute the Mont'Ka on that titan, NOW!"

Mark (who owned the Titan) was a happy man. They were slightly bemused by the fact that the Tau tanks were so closely clustered ... Sighting up on the multiple battletanks and heavy suits he asked to place his template... and was asked if he could see it.

*****

Princep Marcus Veralius surveyed the ragtag aliens arrayed in front of his mighty warhound. Although only a lighter titan, the warhound and crew were a worthy defence force for the explorator Adeptus Mechanicus mission sent to this desolate world.

After 5 weeks of hearing of rumours of 'savages' and 'natives' from the lowly Guardsmen, all of which reeked of those Kroot mercenaries the planet was famous for. The Princeps now had a truly worthy opponent.

The Tau's technosourcery was impressive. He'd attended an induction, and the photostats he'd seen of the railgun technology was most impressive. That said, he didn't warrant their chances against the might of his turbolaser and void shields.

"Augeteur Finnial, target the enemy formation, 600 yards, medium spread." ordered the Princeps.

"Target aquired, Princeps." his Augeteur indicated. "Power redirected, weapon capacitors ready."

"Very well, Augeteur." said Marcus Aurelius. "You may unlease ... what the hell?" The enemy formation, all those close ranked armour. Had vanished.

"Reaquire!" Yelled Aurelius. "Reaquire!" The view-relayed still appeared blank, only a group of guardsmen, five terminators and a dreadnought now challenged the might of his titan. The princeps could feel his skin crawl as if he could sense the eyes of a multitude viewing his position.

Far below the titans lofty height Shas'Ui Kor'Vak watched the Titan's ugly canine head weave back and forth across their lines. Behind him the comforting hum of the MIRAGE stealthship brought a satisfied smile to his face. The stormbringers had doubted the Tau capability to face a warhound, recommending a close attack by their 'terminators', but the Shas'O had overruled.

"Not all power is obvious..." The shas'ui whispered, in recollection of the Shas'O's words. He actioned his commbead and contacted the broadside cadre. "MIRAGE is engaged, you may fire when ready..."

So much for the Stormbringers fears...

*****

The MIRAGE granted the stealth ability on every unit within 12". This meant that the Titans turbolaser shots were wasted as he couldn't see the target. Venting somewhat (ED: titan or owner?) the monster turned its ire on the Marine Dreadnought with twin lascannons. The Dreadnought quailed as the titan shot, but the shots only managed to immobilise the walker.

Subsequently the other ability of the Tau combo was put into action. Using their D3+1 markerlights from the Interdiction Cadre, and multiple shots from the pathfinders markerlights. They lit up the two groups of necrons and the warhound with 3+ markerlights each.

Susbsequently, a precision strike was declared on all three units (IE: 2+ to hit) - the Titan owner was astounded, and this is where having an independent and discreet 'gamesmaster' is useful as such powerful combinations can be 'pre-vetted' and approved... The Stormbringers started up, peppering the warhounds void shields with lascannon shots.

Everything hit, we then discovered that the crafty Necrons had empowered an energy bubble around the landing platform the Necrons were on. This gave all the models (including the Warhound??) a 4+ invulnerable save... the Stormbringers luck held and they managed to strip away all the Titans void shields and even put a structure point on the monster.

Mark (who owned the Titan) now sweated profusely as 7 railguns (4 twin linked) lined up the titan. However the 'luck gods' had turned in his favour and despite the 7 hits thanks to the precision strike, he rolled for his life and saved all.

Encouraged by this, the Stormbringer bikers let loose on the necrons and downed a couple - but the necrons recovered.

NB: The combination of the MIRAGE and IC (Interdiction Cadre) was striking. The titan had got 'lucky' in turn one and this impact severely shook the confidence in the titans domination. Subsequently the 'landing platform bubble' proved a hindrance, as only this had thwarted the Titan's loss, and subsequently the Titan player was cautious of moving out of its benefit and subsequently into 'view range' (2D6x3) of the MIRAGE. This reduced the titans efficiency to a fraction of its potential.

At this point the Tau'Va were looking mightily smug ... we were in for a surprise.

Turn Two: 'Keep firing, keep firing!'

The Titan player rolled for his void shields and regained one.

In the enemy turn, they turned the tables on the Tau'Va combo as two Necron Monolith deepstruck directly into the middle of the formation - shunting everything about. Necron Monoliths have a dirty deepstrike, that allows them to effectively 'shunt' everything out of their way and ignore every 'deepstrike' rules on enemy models. Their still vulnerable to impassable terrain, but Hutch was lucky with his rolls.

"Coming through, coming through!" Yelled the Necrons.

The arrival of the Necrons burst the 12" bubble, forcing the MIRAGE out of formation. Subsequently the two Necron ships let rip with a double strike of gauss nastiness hitting everything within 12" twice with D6 gauss hits (glancing on a 6).

The resulting hits caused one devilfish to come parking down, stripped the two gun drones from the Broadsides and killed several pathfinders, and caused shaken results on 2/3rd of the Armoured Interdiction Cadre. To top this off a Vendetta also dropped in and shot at a Hammerhead, thankfully the Hammerheads disruption field caused real problems (and is a real advantage against a flyer (who is automatically 12" away!).

The titan suddenly gained targets and wiped out the Dreadnought and a whole squad of fire warriors (the Broadside in the tower survived, thanks to his shield drone).

One Necron Monolith bites the dust...

The Tau cadre scattered, gaining some room to Necrons. Then the combination of markerlights and railguns were brought to bear. One Necron monolith was destroyed by railgun fire from the three man squad, the other Monolith survived. The Interdiction Cadre used their three markerlights to target the vendetta. While we couldn't announce a precision strike on it (specifically excluded), the markerlights could launch 3 seeker missiles at the target.

Tau technology allowed the seeker missiles to hit the skimmer on a 2+, and the flyer came crashing down! Meanwhile, there'd been more than enough markerlights to share out to the titan and the Stormbringer devastators had another bite at the 2+ cherry. While they failed to hurt the titan, they did keep it in check - keeping it at arms length.

Turn 3: "Necrotism..."

20 Necrons swarmed out of the Monolith and targetted the Broadsides as the remaining monolith launched another barrage. The barrage did surprisingly little, stunning a few more tanks, but the 'spread' had helped. The Necrons fusilade of shots killed the remaining shield drones (despite a 2+ save) and the broadsides looked weakened.

The 'spread' didn't help those that had dropped outside the MIRAGE range as the Titan rained down firepower on the heads of it's opponents. Further battlesuits and tanks died. Additionally, the other two Vendettas arrived, and although one set of shots missed - a skyray disintegrated from lascannon shots.

"Arghh ... Metal Skellybobs" yelled the Broadside, in 'broad' west country accents...

First up, one of the pathfinder groups had targetted the warlord, while the other targetted the necrons. With a huge impact, my Shas'O, bodyguard and another squad leapt in at point blank range to the necrons. The 'pathfinder devilfish' reroll helped and no-one scattered. The three squads they had 7 crisis suits with 3 flamers, 1 twin linked, 6 missile pods, two plasma rifles (1 twin linked), 3 fusion blasters and an air fragmentation projector. The resulting fire, all hitting on a 2+, was devastating. The flamers were particularly nasty, forcing the necrons to roll lots of ones or twos, the last desparates shots from a smart missile system killed the last necron and the unit was destroyed - phew!

The Crisis Suits show their worth and pummel the Skellingtons with Flamers and Plasma

With the damage from the warhound more devastating, I decided to target that with my remaining broadsides (spot the mistake) and failed to harm it. We also activated our 'stratagem' which drop a markerlight hits on everything in our deployment zone. Despite hitting the flyer, the seeker missile failed to kill.

Meanwhile Jack had droppodded a squad of sternguard into the line of fire with the enemy and these verterans rapid fired the opponent with AP2 shots. A C'tan joined the immortals and necrons in fighting the Sternguard and Bikers.

Turn 4 "Concentrate all firepower on the superstructure..."

The Monolith spouted forth 20 more necron warriors ... urghhh. This time they targetted the most 'threatening' crisis suit squad, landing lots of hits. Luckily only 4 kills resulted and these were bounced off on the 4 gundrones. The other firepower was more successful, the Monolith shuffled closer to the objective and blasted again, shaking a devilfish. Meanwhile the Vendettas proved dangerous, hitting and immobilising a hammerhead.

The Titan had even more fun, shooting up the outlying area, he double killed the Broadside in the building. The enemy moved closer with Heavy destroyers and a Leman Russ moving up to the objective. The group of guardsmen sneaking along some trenches to contest the enemy objective were ambushed by 3 pariahs and died a nasty death. They did manage to take one down though, but the pariahs were still over 50% and capture capable.

The Tau responded in kind. Assuming the broadsides might actually destroy the monolith this turn, the MIRAGE moved back in. The Tau targetted the Monolith with broadside shots, but these were thwarted by poor rolling. The recurred necrons met with another fusilade, but the reduction in armour and crisis suit deaths due to titanic weapons proved too much and they failed to kill all the necrons. Of the four that survived, 12 rolls their I'll be back rolls... things looked desparate, and even the intransigent Suneokun railed against the impossibility of pulling off a win (not knowing about his own crafty XV15's making a break!) ...

Turn 5: Endgame

The game for turn 5 was fought heavily in the 'city' against the Stormbringers. The Titan turned away from the Tau front line and turned it's attention to its own objective, confident that we couldn't destroy both the Monolith and the necrons and the countryside was out of reach!

Meanwhile the Sternguard managed to kill the C'Tan Deciever (nice work Gue'la) and found themselves wrapped up in combat with immortals.

In the Tau front line, we noticed that the Monolith was 3 3/4" away from the objective... hmm. This meant that if we could just kill those necron warriors?!? The Necron moved into the building, running and hiding for a 3+ saving throw. The pathfinder devilfish rushed off to finish off a pariah (see earlier) and the broadsides ignored both the warhound and the monolith to target the Leman Russ. The Russ survived, but the warriors were less lucky.

Three crisis suit teams plus all the vehicles and even pathfinder railrifles targetted the Necron Warriors - preparing to fire and then assault the warriors in their ruined objective. The XV8's didn't get the chance as lots of 1's and 2's were rolled and the Necrons died surprisingly easily. Dustin used an assault move to claim the obejctive.

Final Result: Greater Good: 3, Necron Alliance 2.

Conclusion

That was a very difficult battle made especially difficult by last minute changes. Knowing that I'd be maybe be facing Orks or Guardsmen, I'd fielded lots of non anti-Meq Tau weaponry from burst cannons, Missile Pods and Rail Rifles. The shock of finding the army facing a weird mix of Necrons (3+), Space Wolfs (3+) and Guard vets in carapace (4+) made the game a saving throws nightmare.

And what a combination! The Necron codex may creak in the metagame, but in Apocalyse its got the room to really throw its weight around. The weakness of necrons is in close combat against power weapons. Therefore Tau have a real problem as although they have the firepower, they only have three AP2 and 1 weapons and S8 is essential for killing necrons. If i'd been fielding my guard, I would have had so many options to stop them. Without this the Tau struggled.

Tactics

The 'double bubble' Formation of the MIRAGE plus interdiction proved even more lethal on the table than it did on paper, easily ecilipsing the 'markerdrone' strategic asset we deployed. For 100 points we gained a markerdrones on the devilfish, and for every three hits you could gain a 2+ to hit for all friendly forces. This 'force multiplier' is something standard in 'Hordes' but turned our double bubble into a very durable 'Tau Titan' replacement. Even when split by the Necrons and shot up by the Vendettas, the formation proved highly durable.

On reflection though, we were very lucky. Jack's Stormbringer did a brilliant job deflecting the Guard and Space Wolf forces on the last turn. While I believe we 'scared off' the warhound from approaching our lines, if the reserves had attacked elsewhere - we would have been in trouble.

Imagine if the drop pod had attacked the broadsides? Combined with one Monolith. Or the other monolith had attacked the Tau home objective? Or the veterans had attacked the home objective, firing meltaguns and lascannons at Crisis Suits? If the Warhound had bitten the bullet and come closer while the Broadside were engaged - the destroyer weapons would have reeked havoc on those tanks. If the opponent had targetted our MIRAGE at any point, or the command tank on the Interdiction Cadre... The 'Tau Titan' would then have been eaten up.

Luckily for us, the firewarrior response to the droppod was enough to discourage further visitors. Without those, even flanking we could focus our forces. Added to that, the stealth abilities of the XV15s, XV25 and MIRAGE effectively meant that we could control the combat. The Space wolves only fought firewarriors and kroot. We effectively 'distracted' our way to victory.

On our side Jack did a brilliant job challenging the enemies objective, but shot at the titan with lascannons instead of targetting the leman russ holding their 'other' objective in turn 5. On both sides, the forces split off into 'individual armies', this never works. The most successful forces were those combined where I handed the control of the countryside battle to Dustin, and he gave me the 'Tau-titan' on the front line. The opponents controlled their forces alone, so the Necrons attacked without spacewolves close combating the broadsides. The Vendettas spread themselves too thin and the Leman Russes 'accidentally' blew up space wolves .. which in my opinion, says it all.