My First Time (At Vets Night)

[Trickstick]

Don't worry, this is not some kind of erotic story. Its a battle report.

So I went along, in rush hour traffic, to the local GW to get myself a game. All our names were put into a hat and I drew a guy called James and his Blood Angels. He only had 1.6k so I chopped a few things out. This was my list, with the omitted items crossed out:

CS - Plasma Pistol, Fist, 3xPG, Vox, Astropath, Chimera, Krak - 215 180

Vets - 3xMG, Vox, Chimera - 160 155
Vets - 3xMG, Vox, Chimera - 160 155

Platoon A - 210
Pcs - Vox, 3xGL
Inf - Flamer, Vox, Commissar w/PW
Inf - Flamer

Platoon B - 210
Pcs - Vox, 3xGL
Inf - Flamer, Vox, Commissar w/PW
Inf - Flamer

Rough Riders

Sentinel - AC, HK - 50
Sentinel - AC, HK - 50

2x Demolishers - LC, DB - 380
2x LRBT - LC, HB - 350
Manticore

He came at me with Dante, some Sang Guard who got red thirsted, Mephiston, terminators with thunder hammers in a land raider, an assault squad with jetpacks and a baal.

To set the scene, we were playing dawn of war capture and control. The terrain was set up as so:



He won the roll and decided to go first. His only deployment was to hide his 5 man assault squad behind his objective building, right on the board edge. He outflanked his baal , put the terminators and mephiston in the raider (I know, we worked out this was not allowed later) and deepstruck the raider and dante/guard.

I deployed a 20 man squad in the swamp, the PCS behind them and the CCS on my objective. I outflanked the sentinels, kept the vets and demolishers in reserve and left everything else in "dow reserve".

First turn he did nothing. I rolled on with my CCS's chimera and parked it to the left of the objective. The manticore and 2nd platoon rolled in behind the ditch, with the pcs/squad bubble wrapping the manticore. The rough riders came on south of the swamp and advanced forward. 1st platoon advanced through the swamp. The ccs ran into it's transport. The manticore shot indirectly (I know, not allowed) at the assault squad and missed.

2nd turn:

His baal rolled on the right flank and took a weapon of the manticore. Thus ended its use for the game. Why is it things are useless the first game you field them?

One of my sentinels came in behind the baal and wrecked it, I was really pleased. My vets and a demolisher came on, the vets behind the CCS and the demolisher went on the far right, to take his baal. It wasn't needed and did little else for the game. 2nd platoon advanced into the ditch and 1st continued through the swamp. The riders hid behind the vets.

3rd:

His land raider came on and deepstruck just northeast of the swamp.

I got another sent on the right flank. Both vets rolled 12" and disembarked, popping the landraider despite failing to get BiD. 5 vets died in the explosion, 3 and 2. 2nd platoon advanced onto the objective for the rest of the game.

4th

Mephiston and the terminators charged the vets and butchered them.

I countered the terminators by firing everything in range at them, killing 2. Then the riders charged in and killed another 1, although they died in the return attacks. Things kept moving a bit, although 1st platoon stayed in the swamp (error on my part really). My last demolisher rolled on south of the swamp, but did little this game.

5th

Dante turns up and drops between 1st and the objective.

2nd pcs takes a pot shot at mephiston and does 2 wounds with 3 krak, not bad. Also some generally ineffective fire at his terms, although I managed to take out a few sang guard with 1st platoon's flamers. The vet chimera try to make it to the objective.

6th

We decide this will be the last turn as it is gettting on a bit. He drank the blood of first platoon with his raged sang guard, and stunned my lead chimera with a thunderhammer. As this meant that no one could contest the objectives, we declared a draw.

I really enjoyed this game. A few rules quibbles came up but we sorted them out no problem. Things like him thinking that you can't move 12" and disembark, or me not knowing how to set up missions. I would do it again though. If only he had sent Dante onto my objective I would have lost.

A few units were pretty useless. The right hand demolisher sucked, and 2nd platoon didn't fire a shot, only the pcs did. I learned a few things, although my demolishers sucked and the manticore was a wast.

I think next time I may go with a more mechanised force, It will be easier to play quickly. Also, I'm only taking 1.5k.

[dcrabb]

Thanks for the great report. Demolishers need to be kept close to the fighting with their limited range 24". When you scaled back your list I would have kept the regular Russes and cut the demolishers. Because of the added range they can reach out and hit more of the board even if they are misdeployed or the enemy moves away.

I've used a Manticore in one game and got all four shots off, however, I didn't kill much against Marines due to the fact it allows power armor saves. I found the Russ battle cannon was more effective against marines and it comes on a more surviveable chassis. However, if you're going up against a player with lots of vehicles the Str 10 on a Manticore is very helpful.

Are you going to keep fielding Riders? Have they earned their points yet? I have some but have been using a Vendetta w/melta vets as a fast attack force.

I have found the massed flamers are are kinda hit and miss against Marines, more miss if they have feel no pain. One game I rolled a 4xflamer PCS up to a tightly packed squad of Blood Angels and scored 27 hits which worked out to 4 or 5 unsaved wounds. In another game they hit another squad of marines and scored 28 hits but he armor saved or passed FNP on all his wounds. Luckily for me I had a CCS 4x plasmas and a 3xplasma vet squad near by to save the day.

[Trickstick]

Thanks for the feedback. I probably should have kept the normal russes but I just prefer demolishers.

The riders managed to kill a teminator so that was 45 points back. I think that they were worth it though, they werejust fun to use. My opponent complimented me on using them and they were a lot of fun to use. I think that I will run them for a few games just to get a good use out of them.

[dcrabb]

How many Riders do you have in your unit and do you arm them up with anything other than what they come with? At 55 pts a min unit/no frills Rider sq has the potential to do some damage to a Termie unit.

Figure a Sgt and 4 riders with lances on the assault get 11 Attacks (2 sgt, 1 ea rider, plus 1 each for the assault) against termies. That works out to 5.5 hits at Str 5 so that's 3.7 wounds with lances that count as power weapons. The termies get their invulnerable save (5+) and you get 2.47 dead termies which equals 98.8 points or almost twice the cost of the Riders unit. Then the Termies squish the riders worth 55pts.

I may have to dust my riders off and give them a go or two. The hard part will be giving up a FA slot that I use for one of my three Vendettas. Keep us posted on how they work out

[Trickstick]

Yeah I kept them minimal. Unfortunately the enemy had storm shields so it blunted my attack a bit. They are quite fun though, especially shouting "charge" and doing a trumpet sound.

[Paradill]

A very good battle report Trick, and a thoroughly good read.

[Trickstick]

Cheers Paradill.

I noticed and error. The Baal came in on the right, not the left. Silly me.

[Rook]

Is there a reason you brought the CCS on not embarked in the chimera?