Post by jenburdoo on Mar 13, 2011 20:52:52 GMT -5
Experimented today with a "river-crossing" scenario, inspired by the Battle of Lae in September 1943. On a 4x4 grey table, I laid out an assortment of hills and forests to represent islands, then assumed everything else to be difficult terrain and 5+ cover (for crouching in the mud). I talked a newbie Chaos player into playing against me, and we each fielded roughly a thousand points -- I had somewhat more than him, I think.
Daemon Prince
10 Chaos Marines with Nurgle Icon
10 Berzerkers
10 Plague Marines
5 Possessed Marines (who rolled 'scout' for their ability)
Vs.
Two 35-man platoons (combined into two 30-man blocks armed with power weapons and plasmaguns)
HQ squad
Mortar squad
Five Sentinels
Vet squad with meltaguns and demo charge (which I forgot to use)
My goal was to get one unit across the board. It ended up being a "wipe out the enemy" game instead, as I gradually knocked off wounds to kill the Prince and poured plasma into the Marines, wiping out the Plague Marines before getting into cc with the other three squads, which killed off two command squads and ran down and destroyed one 30-man mob. By turn four, I had one command squad and a 30-man mob more than halfway across on my right, and he had two partial squads on my left. He conceded at that point, though I think he had a fair chance of catching me. He would have had to wade into my fire for a turn, though.
A few thoughts:
- He had no long-range weapons and was not set up to deal with an infantry-heavy army.
- He had terrible luck with his rolling, and I had pretty good luck. We discovered a "sweet spot" on the table that, whenever we rolled on it, we rolled well.
- The cover save and lack of LOS-blocking terrain favored me. In hindsight, we should maybe have used a 6+ save (though the 5+ helped him against the plasma), and some higher "islands."
- My ability to roll three dice for the "runrunrun" order was a gamewinner - I was racing.
All in all, it was a fun change of pace.
Daemon Prince
10 Chaos Marines with Nurgle Icon
10 Berzerkers
10 Plague Marines
5 Possessed Marines (who rolled 'scout' for their ability)
Vs.
Two 35-man platoons (combined into two 30-man blocks armed with power weapons and plasmaguns)
HQ squad
Mortar squad
Five Sentinels
Vet squad with meltaguns and demo charge (which I forgot to use)
My goal was to get one unit across the board. It ended up being a "wipe out the enemy" game instead, as I gradually knocked off wounds to kill the Prince and poured plasma into the Marines, wiping out the Plague Marines before getting into cc with the other three squads, which killed off two command squads and ran down and destroyed one 30-man mob. By turn four, I had one command squad and a 30-man mob more than halfway across on my right, and he had two partial squads on my left. He conceded at that point, though I think he had a fair chance of catching me. He would have had to wade into my fire for a turn, though.
A few thoughts:
- He had no long-range weapons and was not set up to deal with an infantry-heavy army.
- He had terrible luck with his rolling, and I had pretty good luck. We discovered a "sweet spot" on the table that, whenever we rolled on it, we rolled well.
- The cover save and lack of LOS-blocking terrain favored me. In hindsight, we should maybe have used a 6+ save (though the 5+ helped him against the plasma), and some higher "islands."
- My ability to roll three dice for the "runrunrun" order was a gamewinner - I was racing.
All in all, it was a fun change of pace.
