Deathwatch vs Tempestus

[Aeon]

Got my 2nd solid victory today against my friend's Tempestus. I was a little worried about those AP -2 guns and all the melta and plasma, but storm shields and hyper aggression saved the day

Lists were

Deathwatch
Battalion Detachment

H.Q:
Watch Captain
Storm bolter, Relic Blade, Bane bolts of Eryxia

H.Q:
Librarian
Force staff, Bolt pistol

Troops:
Kill team
5x Marines
Combi melta, 3x Storm Bolters, 1x Storm shield, Frag Cannon

Kill team
5x Marines
Combi melta, 4x Storm bolters, 1x storm shield

Kill team
6x Marines
4x Heavy bolters, combi plasma, 2x storm bolters, 1x storm shield

Flyer:
Corvus Blackstar
Twin assault cannon, hurricane bolters, infernum launcher

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Tempestus
Battalion Detachment

H.Q:
Tempestor Prime
Command Rod

Lord Commissar
Power sword, plasma pistol

5x Squads of 5 Tempestus
Various melta and plasma

Taurox Prime
Autocannons, battle cannon

Auxiliary Support Detachment
Cadia

1x Leman Russ Battle Tank
Heavy bolter sponsons

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I regret that I didn't get pictures, but we played Decapitating Strike, with the random objectives. I had a landing pad and a building on my side, he had some ruins and patches of tress on his. I set up my Corvus in the middle, with my 2 HQs and 2 non-heavy kill team teams in them, and the "devastator" squad set up behind the landing pad. He placed his Leman Russ in 1 corner, and the Taurox in the other, with his commissar inside

Turn 1 I zoomed across the board, and manuvered my heavy bolters to get some shots at the Taurox. Had some pretty bad luck, launched 12 heavy bolter shots, 12 hurricane bolter shots, 12 assault cannon shots, and 2 storm strike missiles, and didn't wound it once! Thought the rest of the game might go that way

He countered by firing back with both vehicles, and took 4 wounds of the Corvus. He couldn't deep strike until turn 2, and that's when things got interesting

Luck played a massive factor in my victory today. My opponent simply couldn't roll very high, and I didn't fail a single armor save until turn 4


Turn 2
I drew Defend Objective 2, so I rushed my heavy bolters for it (atop the landing pad), then I got some pretty simple objectives like "destroy 1 enemy unit" and "manifest 1 psychic power"
I dropped my 12 men out of the Corvus, then moved it back to the board edge I was near, kind of forming a line to prevent nasty deep strike shenanigans. In the psychic phase I cast Null Zone to disable the commissar's refractor field, and used smite on his Taurox, then dumped a ton of bolter and frag cannon fire into it. Got my first kill there. The commissar tried to flee, but I managed to make a 9" charge. His overwatch with the plasma pistol hit and caused a wound, but my storm shield stopped it

Spend 2 turns beating up the Commissar, and he did wound me twice with his power sword. Storm shield came in handy again. Still hadn't lost any Marines by turn 3

On his second turn, he deep struck all but 5 of his men down. The Tempestor and 15 men deep struck near my entrenched heavy bolter team, and 5 men dropped by my (now isolated) Librarian. A slight mistake with my movement phase saw him become a prime target for deep striking rapid fire. They did manage to cause a wound on him on turn 2. However, I made up for it by using the Auspex Scan strategim, and managed to fire all my heavy bolters at a deep struck squad, and killed 4. They succeeded a morale test and stuck around

Turn 3:
I mostly stayed put, I used the Corvus in fly mode to drop black star launchers on the newly arrived Tempestus, and managed to put myself behind his Warlord. Later on, I'd use the Corvus's payload to blast him off the board, securing slay the warlord, as well as king slayer.

In psychic phase, my Librarian manifested Veil of Time to buff one of my squads, and then proceeded to blow himself up on a snake eyes PotW. He sucked another Marine into the warp with him. So that was my first casualty, haha. I did it to myself, and now I trust psykers a lot less My frag cannon squad did end up wiping out the unit that wounded him though


During his turn 3, he devastated himself. I think he was starting to lose motivation and focus, because he moved his Tempestus forward and shot at my entrenched squad atop the landing pad. They caused a few wounds with melta, which I stopped with my storm shield. I had to use a command re roll on one of the saves, and got lucky

Then, he assaulted me, and we both learned that you can overwatch every unit that assaults you, as long as you wipe out the previous unit. He charged me with 11 Tempestus, and they all died from an extremely lucky trio of overwatch rolls

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At this point, only the Leman Russ was left. I spent the next turn walking forward, plinking it with storm bolters, a few combi melta shots, some heavy bolters, and the shell profile of my frag cannon. That was enough to wipe him


I learned a lot from this game. Hopefully anyone reading this who plays Tempestus will learn a thing as well. Deathwatch with storm shields and aerial fire support is not to be fethed with. Even though I was out numbered, I was extremely durable, and had the ability to churn out way more shots than he could possibly hope to match, even with orders. As I said though, luck had a lot to do with it, I shouldn't reasonably have been able to kill 11 soldiers with overwatch, or make as many 3++ saves as I did, but the dice were on my side, and then I have fire superiority

[nutty]

That sounds like an interesting game

[Aeon]

It was. I expected heavy casualties from the high Ap of their guns. It appears invuln saves are more valuable than I thought