First game of the day, and I pull Mike Brough, Deathwing. The mission is:
Pitched battle, Primary mission Capture and control, Secondary mission is Kill Points.
Pants... CNC and KP vs a low KP elite army with good saves, my slight advantage of massive blobs giving me KP might be nulled by his elite killers and massive blast amounts, at least I don't have light armour facing all that S8 and S10 plates.
My list is as per the previous Article.
His List was roughly as follows:
Belial, 2 Lightning claw (LC) termies, 3 TH/SS termies, Banner, Apoth.
1x Termie squad, 2 LC, 2 TH/SS one with Cyclone, chain fist(CF).
2x Termie squad, 3 TH/SS one with cyclone, 1 CF, 1 LC.
3x Vindicators with Dozerblades
3x Single Typhoons with MMeltas
I win roll for first turn, deploy as shown below (Ignore his models they weren't on the table yet).
From closest to furthest, Platoon with PCS behind it right at front, Strakens squad just before hill at back with PCS right in far corner with other platoon overlapping them for cover.
Few more deployment pics and also showing Mike deploying his forces.
With his army deployed Mike then seizes the initiative, the squad with Belial deep strike Right in front of my left hand blob (Very bottom of pic you can see banner guy) and 3 suffer Dangerous terrain, the apoth is the only one to die... good start for me. Termies walk forward and he moves the 2 right hand vindicators forward and round while the third moves straight forward and all smoke. He kills a few men in the blobs.
My turn I move the PCS on the Right up alongside the bastion to get some side armour shots on the vindis if they don't move next turn while my reply fire kills some of the termies in front of my lines and the right blob BID's on a typhoon making it immob and WDestroyed which I took the typhoon launcher. Straken's melta in the squad sneak between the lines to get uncoversave shots vs the termies but still retain majority cover. The men in the building are my dead pile so far.
His turn 2 he assaults the left most blob killing 7 and most of Straken's squad, though Straken Lives and I bust a few termies, make leaderships and sit tight for my next turn. Pic below shows his turn before he does assault moves.
My turn 2 I shake a typhoon to help with the blast management, and blow a vindi on the far right which was just nicely in 12 inches of 4 melta guns. In assault I kill another termie and wound Belial and he kills loads but Straken is unable to get into BTB so is safe for now, least its only Belial left in combat.
Turn 3 he kills the PCS with melta and krak missile fire, and a few other men die, in assault Belial is killed before striking and I consolidate back into the hill.
My turn Al'Rahem comes on the left flank with the SWS coming in behind the Left most bastion and Al' coming in behind the blob just on the other side of the same bastion for cover. They kill 2 termies in the nearest squad in assault; the rest of the shooting is minor.
Turn 4 Straken is sniped by a krak missile and vindi kills few of a squad and assaults in other termie squad to the combat. Few termeis die a fair few guardsmen die.
My turn 4 I kill off already weakened squad in HTH, killed a speeder right behind the combat with Al' an have to shoot a Sgt to stay in the fight.
Turn 5 combat still goes on while in the shooting phase he kills a few more men, my SWS survives with 1 man from the shooting and holds.
My turn 5, I hide the SWS survivor, kill termie in HTH, lascannon a vindicator in the side and a few of his termeis holding his home obj.
we roll and turn 6 happens.
His turn he moves to hold his obj with termies and tries to block fire to them. Combat still goes on with a termie or 2 left and me holding again.
My turn 6, kill another termie or 2 on his obj, Al's LTW (like the wind) order only nets me a 1 inch move, just out of range of his obj (1 inch out if even).
Game ends sadly, I needed either the combat with the remaining termie to finish so they could move right up and on to the obj and like the wind shoot then assault on.
Score is a decent 13-7 for me, with me winning secondary, drawing primary and a very good opponent played. I think both Mike and Myself were unsure how to combat each other, massive squads vs small HTH orientated squads and some tanks meant it was tough to decide when to assault and when to move back.
My findings:
- Blob guard really can eat termies, the 35 odd wounds allows so many power weapons to keep striking and with counter attack (And furious charge which my outflank guys got on the charge vs. his termie squad he had to roll a fair number of wounds. 41 man blobs can take down 5 termies at least when fighting them for 1 turn and the next another squad piles in and still keep fighting. It helps there was so few Ini 4 attacks meaning I could kill the TH/SS guys with inv saves before they strike me.
- I'm exceptionally slow in mobility, so I need to focus on how to get to the enemy objectives in CNC, I can't rely on Al' to come save the day. Thus I will have to give thought to shooting lascannons vs. moving forward.
- Blasts can hurt the blob, but cover at least gives me massive saving of lives bonus, my cover saves were slightly better than average and he was rolling a fair number of scatters.
Michael never has much luck at arkam in the first Round, of any tournament, but he did say it was a great game.
ReplyDeleteCheers Tom, glad he enjoyed the game, was the first time I've got to play him and was nice to finally see if I could take on his DW army like I'd hoped I could.
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