Post by treadiculous on Sept 28, 2014 15:58:37 GMT -5
City Fight Battle Report
We planned a small battle over very dense city terrain.
7th Edition, Featuring Maelstrom Missions.
The mission would be along the long table edges fighting across 24” of no mans land in which 6 mysterious objectives were placed (marked by groups of silver or grey oil barrels). Each objective held at the start of a turn would allow that side a maelstrom objective which would detail what was required to score a victory point.
I saw that 7th edition armies could field formations and had a quick look through the list given to me by the army builder program I was using, I stumbled across the 'Catachan Ambush Patrol' which seemed to fit what I was doing really nicely – I had already planned my gunline platoons and wanted something that could get me up-field quickly as I had a distinct lack of Anti-Tank weaponry. The Ambush Formation allowed me to outflank a squad of veterans and a platoon, so I equipped the vets with melta and everything else in the army with melta bombs.
Side note: I picked out this while feeling half asleep, having neither the 7th ed book or the Astra Militarum book to hand and using the internet to get an idea of what was legal. I regret now choosing what was an apocalypse formation for a 1k game as the game went on it became obvious it was over powered.
For those who don't know it, it allows 1 platoon and up to 3 veteran squads the outflank special rule, all units gain shrouded on the turn they arrive unless they move into the open, shoot or assault, and also gain the 'Traps' rule which means any enemy assaulting through cover has to take dangerous terrain tests.
Army List:
CCS
Platoon: PCS with 2 flamer, 2 squads of 10, 3 HWS of Mortar
Platoon: PCS with 2 flamer, 2 squads of 10, 3 HWS of Mortar
Ambush Patrol Formations
Veteran Squad with 3 Melta
Platoon: PCS with 4 Flamer, 2 squads of 10
And across the army I bought Melta Bombs for everyone that could take them (not the vets as they can't unless upgraded to demolitions)
Anyway...
I rolled on the Tactical Warlord table and got a +1 to steal the iniative and +1 to my reserves rolls, this suited me nicely.
I can't recall what Empty rolled, it was something from the Ork codex.
Empty had brought something like this:
Warboss + Flashgits
Weirdboy in Trukk with 10 Boys
Weirdboy Warphead in Trukk with 10 boys
Trukk with 10 Boys
Traktor Cannon Mek Gun
4 x Lobba Mek Guns
3 Defkoptas
1 DakkaJet
Empty deployed most of his barrage units in the corner and had a unit of flash gitz with Warboss amongst them. In the centre he had a couple of trukks filled with boys, a traktor kannon and on the far flank another trukk of boys. All empty's trukks were equipped with rokkits.
I deployed a spread of 10 man squads, With PCS amongst them, the CCS holding the line with the mortar teams. I was keeping the Ambush Patrol in reserves.
(please ignore the autocannon teams – due to an error calculating points they were not part of the game and were removed shortly after the picture was taken)
Empty had chosen to deploy first after winning the roll, his plan to take the first phase and attack me, however I stole the initiative...
Tread Turn 1:
I was able to start moving toward objectives straight away, my shooting wasn't that successful this round, despite 6 team squads of mortars I barely did anything, I did many to wound some artillery crew on the trctor kannon which then ran away – however, I had no airforce so this weapon would have been unlikely to have done much anyway.
Empty Turn 1
Empty started his turn and moved toward objectives and my forces:
...then began the psychic phase in which his weirdboy rolled perils of the warp; becoming a super powered combat monster, unfortunately he was embarked in a trrukk for that turn. He did manage to cast a fierce spell though my guard made several cover saves and only 2 died.
Then it was the turn of the Warphead, again Empty rolled perils of the wasp and this time his psyker got sucked into the warp – but not without first exploding the trukk he was in!...not only this but I managed to dispel the power that would have been super-deadly to my unit... and then the boys failed their leadership test and ran. Empty was able to rally them and bring them back into the fight though:
Empty had his shooting phase and showed how much more potent a S5 4 shot artillery barrage was than the imperial mortar teams, by blowing big chunks out of an imperial squad as it approached an objective.
There were a few more shots here and there though nothing much happened, the Flash gits returned fire on the guard squad that had shot at them through the window of an old shack, successfully taking out a couple of guys:
Tread turn 2:
I rolled for my reserves and scored well, allowing me to choose which side my outflanking would arrive, I choose to flank behind the flash gits and to try and swarm the artillery as these units seemed critical to holding the objectives on that side of the board.
I moved the rest of my main force forward to try and reach objectives:
I had gained two 'secure objective 2' cards and this was quite a way from my fore, so this was a longer term plan, I also had scored a 'kill 3 units and get D3 victory points' which I wasn't paying much heed to as I was wanting to kill as much as possible anyway.
My orders weren't that significant though I gave the outflanking platoon the order which enabled them to run after shooting – that way I could spread out an be a bit safer from Empty's barrage. The shooting by the platoon was very effective, the 4 flamers and 20 lasguns cut down the flash gits and warboss.
The melta veterans tried to lay down the hurt on the artillery crew though only managed 1 wound.
Elsewhere there wasn't a great deal to do as the boy were in trukks and I had nothing which could hurt them.
Amusingly I had also rolled for 2 mysterious objectives and gained 'skyfire nexus' both times.. however I had nothing capable of hurting AV10 aside from my melta vets.
It was now Empty's Turn 2.
Empty received a Maelstrom mission from his objective that was entirely impossible to achieve, so that was an additional blow to his force as victory points seemed out of grasp.
He rolled well for his Dakka Jet reserves which tore across the sky, heading straight for the outflanking Ambush Patrol.
Elsewhere he moved his trukks forward:
and unloaded his boys:
In Empty's next psychic phase his remaining weirdboy attempted to cast a power though this failed due to more poor dice rolls.
In the shooting phase Empty targeted the newly arrived platoon with his barrage and took out a few of them, elsewhere a few orks got lucky with their slugga's though Tread's ability to roll well for cover was generally denying them the kills they wanted.
The DakkaJet blew away several infantry as it soared over the Ambush Patrol:
….and Empty's Deffkopta's scored a kill on a couple of the mortars leaving one team left to face the inevitable charge.
Surprisingly, Empty chose to charge his grot artillery into close combat:
….and elsewhere his boys scrambled across the terrain to get into bloody hand to hand... unfortunately the Ambush Patrol had laid traps ALL OVER THE ENTIRE MAP according to the ruling...
so Empty's poor orks got skewered and explodicated, sliced and diced by machinations of evil intent prior to reaching their targets. The dangerous terrain tests probably accounted for the around 5 ork deaths in total though considering it was only 2 units of 10 charging that's a high percentage.
After the terrain tests came the overwatch, several orks falling to the wall of fire and various lucky snap fire shots...
Once (finally) into combat the orks tore through the guardsmen with ease, a single survivor from one squad bravely running away while the shredded remains of his squad were stamped upon by the boys who pursued him.
The other combat finished even more successfully for the orks with the guard entirely wiped out... their next targets in sight...
Unfortunately we had run out of time so had to finish the game at that point, which for the orks is misleading; the first couple of turns are always the hardest and most painful for the greenskins and the subsequent turns are where they get to catch up as they massacre he enemy in close combat.
I feel that I would have struggled to hold the lead I had (4 VP's over 1) as I had no way to hurt the Dakka Jet... it alone would put down a lot of hurt.
Add to this the DeffKopta's had little opposition, they would be able to attack and then 'hit and run' from the various assaults with the HWS and it would be hard for me to assault him with enough bodies to take him down (The Koptas would likely be using hit and run to avoid tarpits and this would put them a decent enough distance from my guardsmen to keep them safe, add their toughness versus flashlights plus the their save I would be hard pushed to take them down).
Empty still had 3 units of troops with enough boys in each to cause problems on the charge, these would probably fall victim to mortar and lasguns and I might be able to claim objectives though the longer the game continued the more likely I would be to get wiped out.
All in all I feel disappointed that I didn't challenge the ruling of the Ambush Patrol myself, It has left me feeling the same way as when I used a special character – that I had little influence on the game and the set of special rules I had bought won it for me.
I will say that it was enjoyable as Empty is a great player and he did an excellent job of tracking the mysterious objectives and the maelstrom missions. He also took the exceptionally poor luck he was given very well, not succumbing to adversity!
In analysis of 7th Edition and the Mission; It feels like an update to 6th in that so much is familiar and the changes that have occurred seem to make sense, Maelstrom missions add a sense of unpredictability to the game as you don't know what will be expected of you.
I find that subsequently to this game I am writing my army lists with consideration to 5 area's,
1) Anti – Infantry
2) Anti – Armour
3) Anti – Air
4) Anti – Psychic
5) Scoring Units with High Mobility
I think the last point is very significant, if an army can built around troops with high mobility and a specific anti-armour or anti-infantry role, then backed up with significant anti air support I feel it will do well. Throw in a psyker or two if you feel the need to fight back in the psychic phase (which seems worth doing as the various 'spells' seem worth the points investment).
I am fully aware the list I took to the game was flawed, the lack of ranged anti-armour was very apparent, as was the lack of anti-air. I also think that relying on melta bombs was very high risk due to low survivability of guard sergeants in assaults. I was also very lucky that Empty's psychic phase's went so badly... some of the effects he was threatening sounded very potent. However, the list felt fluffy as heck and it was a really pleasing concept to field a sneaky jungle fighter army. It was a real shame how unbalanced the rules were in play I should have realised before the game, however, it was all picked very last minute so I didn't dwell much on its implications.
On a side note – this was one of the most aesthetically pleasing games I have played in while, loads of ruinss, florea and fauna which make the jungle fighters colour scheme 'work'.. and interestingly, the yellow of Empty's orks shines well in light of the firey sunset.
We planned a small battle over very dense city terrain.
7th Edition, Featuring Maelstrom Missions.
The mission would be along the long table edges fighting across 24” of no mans land in which 6 mysterious objectives were placed (marked by groups of silver or grey oil barrels). Each objective held at the start of a turn would allow that side a maelstrom objective which would detail what was required to score a victory point.
I saw that 7th edition armies could field formations and had a quick look through the list given to me by the army builder program I was using, I stumbled across the 'Catachan Ambush Patrol' which seemed to fit what I was doing really nicely – I had already planned my gunline platoons and wanted something that could get me up-field quickly as I had a distinct lack of Anti-Tank weaponry. The Ambush Formation allowed me to outflank a squad of veterans and a platoon, so I equipped the vets with melta and everything else in the army with melta bombs.
Side note: I picked out this while feeling half asleep, having neither the 7th ed book or the Astra Militarum book to hand and using the internet to get an idea of what was legal. I regret now choosing what was an apocalypse formation for a 1k game as the game went on it became obvious it was over powered.
For those who don't know it, it allows 1 platoon and up to 3 veteran squads the outflank special rule, all units gain shrouded on the turn they arrive unless they move into the open, shoot or assault, and also gain the 'Traps' rule which means any enemy assaulting through cover has to take dangerous terrain tests.
Army List:
CCS
Platoon: PCS with 2 flamer, 2 squads of 10, 3 HWS of Mortar
Platoon: PCS with 2 flamer, 2 squads of 10, 3 HWS of Mortar
Ambush Patrol Formations
Veteran Squad with 3 Melta
Platoon: PCS with 4 Flamer, 2 squads of 10
And across the army I bought Melta Bombs for everyone that could take them (not the vets as they can't unless upgraded to demolitions)
Anyway...
I rolled on the Tactical Warlord table and got a +1 to steal the iniative and +1 to my reserves rolls, this suited me nicely.
I can't recall what Empty rolled, it was something from the Ork codex.
Empty had brought something like this:
Warboss + Flashgits
Weirdboy in Trukk with 10 Boys
Weirdboy Warphead in Trukk with 10 boys
Trukk with 10 Boys
Traktor Cannon Mek Gun
4 x Lobba Mek Guns
3 Defkoptas
1 DakkaJet
Empty deployed most of his barrage units in the corner and had a unit of flash gitz with Warboss amongst them. In the centre he had a couple of trukks filled with boys, a traktor kannon and on the far flank another trukk of boys. All empty's trukks were equipped with rokkits.
I deployed a spread of 10 man squads, With PCS amongst them, the CCS holding the line with the mortar teams. I was keeping the Ambush Patrol in reserves.
(please ignore the autocannon teams – due to an error calculating points they were not part of the game and were removed shortly after the picture was taken)
Empty had chosen to deploy first after winning the roll, his plan to take the first phase and attack me, however I stole the initiative...
Tread Turn 1:
I was able to start moving toward objectives straight away, my shooting wasn't that successful this round, despite 6 team squads of mortars I barely did anything, I did many to wound some artillery crew on the trctor kannon which then ran away – however, I had no airforce so this weapon would have been unlikely to have done much anyway.
Empty Turn 1
Empty started his turn and moved toward objectives and my forces:
...then began the psychic phase in which his weirdboy rolled perils of the warp; becoming a super powered combat monster, unfortunately he was embarked in a trrukk for that turn. He did manage to cast a fierce spell though my guard made several cover saves and only 2 died.
Then it was the turn of the Warphead, again Empty rolled perils of the wasp and this time his psyker got sucked into the warp – but not without first exploding the trukk he was in!...not only this but I managed to dispel the power that would have been super-deadly to my unit... and then the boys failed their leadership test and ran. Empty was able to rally them and bring them back into the fight though:
Empty had his shooting phase and showed how much more potent a S5 4 shot artillery barrage was than the imperial mortar teams, by blowing big chunks out of an imperial squad as it approached an objective.
There were a few more shots here and there though nothing much happened, the Flash gits returned fire on the guard squad that had shot at them through the window of an old shack, successfully taking out a couple of guys:
Tread turn 2:
I rolled for my reserves and scored well, allowing me to choose which side my outflanking would arrive, I choose to flank behind the flash gits and to try and swarm the artillery as these units seemed critical to holding the objectives on that side of the board.
I moved the rest of my main force forward to try and reach objectives:
I had gained two 'secure objective 2' cards and this was quite a way from my fore, so this was a longer term plan, I also had scored a 'kill 3 units and get D3 victory points' which I wasn't paying much heed to as I was wanting to kill as much as possible anyway.
My orders weren't that significant though I gave the outflanking platoon the order which enabled them to run after shooting – that way I could spread out an be a bit safer from Empty's barrage. The shooting by the platoon was very effective, the 4 flamers and 20 lasguns cut down the flash gits and warboss.
The melta veterans tried to lay down the hurt on the artillery crew though only managed 1 wound.
Elsewhere there wasn't a great deal to do as the boy were in trukks and I had nothing which could hurt them.
Amusingly I had also rolled for 2 mysterious objectives and gained 'skyfire nexus' both times.. however I had nothing capable of hurting AV10 aside from my melta vets.
It was now Empty's Turn 2.
Empty received a Maelstrom mission from his objective that was entirely impossible to achieve, so that was an additional blow to his force as victory points seemed out of grasp.
He rolled well for his Dakka Jet reserves which tore across the sky, heading straight for the outflanking Ambush Patrol.
Elsewhere he moved his trukks forward:
and unloaded his boys:
In Empty's next psychic phase his remaining weirdboy attempted to cast a power though this failed due to more poor dice rolls.
In the shooting phase Empty targeted the newly arrived platoon with his barrage and took out a few of them, elsewhere a few orks got lucky with their slugga's though Tread's ability to roll well for cover was generally denying them the kills they wanted.
The DakkaJet blew away several infantry as it soared over the Ambush Patrol:
….and Empty's Deffkopta's scored a kill on a couple of the mortars leaving one team left to face the inevitable charge.
Surprisingly, Empty chose to charge his grot artillery into close combat:
….and elsewhere his boys scrambled across the terrain to get into bloody hand to hand... unfortunately the Ambush Patrol had laid traps ALL OVER THE ENTIRE MAP according to the ruling...
so Empty's poor orks got skewered and explodicated, sliced and diced by machinations of evil intent prior to reaching their targets. The dangerous terrain tests probably accounted for the around 5 ork deaths in total though considering it was only 2 units of 10 charging that's a high percentage.
After the terrain tests came the overwatch, several orks falling to the wall of fire and various lucky snap fire shots...
Once (finally) into combat the orks tore through the guardsmen with ease, a single survivor from one squad bravely running away while the shredded remains of his squad were stamped upon by the boys who pursued him.
The other combat finished even more successfully for the orks with the guard entirely wiped out... their next targets in sight...
Unfortunately we had run out of time so had to finish the game at that point, which for the orks is misleading; the first couple of turns are always the hardest and most painful for the greenskins and the subsequent turns are where they get to catch up as they massacre he enemy in close combat.
I feel that I would have struggled to hold the lead I had (4 VP's over 1) as I had no way to hurt the Dakka Jet... it alone would put down a lot of hurt.
Add to this the DeffKopta's had little opposition, they would be able to attack and then 'hit and run' from the various assaults with the HWS and it would be hard for me to assault him with enough bodies to take him down (The Koptas would likely be using hit and run to avoid tarpits and this would put them a decent enough distance from my guardsmen to keep them safe, add their toughness versus flashlights plus the their save I would be hard pushed to take them down).
Empty still had 3 units of troops with enough boys in each to cause problems on the charge, these would probably fall victim to mortar and lasguns and I might be able to claim objectives though the longer the game continued the more likely I would be to get wiped out.
All in all I feel disappointed that I didn't challenge the ruling of the Ambush Patrol myself, It has left me feeling the same way as when I used a special character – that I had little influence on the game and the set of special rules I had bought won it for me.
I will say that it was enjoyable as Empty is a great player and he did an excellent job of tracking the mysterious objectives and the maelstrom missions. He also took the exceptionally poor luck he was given very well, not succumbing to adversity!
In analysis of 7th Edition and the Mission; It feels like an update to 6th in that so much is familiar and the changes that have occurred seem to make sense, Maelstrom missions add a sense of unpredictability to the game as you don't know what will be expected of you.
I find that subsequently to this game I am writing my army lists with consideration to 5 area's,
1) Anti – Infantry
2) Anti – Armour
3) Anti – Air
4) Anti – Psychic
5) Scoring Units with High Mobility
I think the last point is very significant, if an army can built around troops with high mobility and a specific anti-armour or anti-infantry role, then backed up with significant anti air support I feel it will do well. Throw in a psyker or two if you feel the need to fight back in the psychic phase (which seems worth doing as the various 'spells' seem worth the points investment).
I am fully aware the list I took to the game was flawed, the lack of ranged anti-armour was very apparent, as was the lack of anti-air. I also think that relying on melta bombs was very high risk due to low survivability of guard sergeants in assaults. I was also very lucky that Empty's psychic phase's went so badly... some of the effects he was threatening sounded very potent. However, the list felt fluffy as heck and it was a really pleasing concept to field a sneaky jungle fighter army. It was a real shame how unbalanced the rules were in play I should have realised before the game, however, it was all picked very last minute so I didn't dwell much on its implications.
On a side note – this was one of the most aesthetically pleasing games I have played in while, loads of ruinss, florea and fauna which make the jungle fighters colour scheme 'work'.. and interestingly, the yellow of Empty's orks shines well in light of the firey sunset.
