Battle Report

Al and I decided (perhaps foolishly) to do a 4500 pt game at Bayshore on a 7 or 8 foot table. I thought four and a half hours should be sufficient but forgot that when playing Al, you sometimes need to factor in a bit more time.

 

The board was set up with have being a large urban area and half being a mostly wide open scrubland. I deployed heavily in the scrubland with garrisons because Al was cruel and placed both objectives there. My plan was to head sucker his army to the scrubland and then strike diagonally into the city where my three objectives were.

 

The first turn was marked by sneaky ploys with scouts to prevent the terminators from charging the whirlwinds, Forlorn Hope making awesome armour saves to frustrate Al, and dogfights between our airforces all over the place. I surprisingly won initiative on turn 2 (actually, it was a tie but since Al won first turn I got it this time) and launched an assault by bikes and daemons on the Warlord titan. It was a huge gamble, especially with a tactical squad within supporting distance, but I was feeling bold and it paid off. I got three damage on the big guy (no crits) and even though Al got 7 hits in return, my armour was red hot and only one daemon died. Supporting fire saw only a second daemon go down. The roll off saw me with plus two and it was enough to win and break the titan before he even moved.

 

I paid for the awesome armour saves a few moments later when the second terminator formation engaged the tactical formation and I lost three stands. Fortunately I killed all but the commander and the scrubland was well within my control.

 

In the city, Al had Devstators, whirlwinds, land speeders, and a scout formation. I attacked with a platoon of infantry with attached havocs in rhinos, Forlorn Hope, and a tank company. Despite taking serious damage from the whirlwind barrages, I broke both the land speeders and devestators and attacked the whirlwinds with lascannons getting one of them. I had Al on the defensive…

 

Turn three saw the warlord rally and advance to take the two objectives, then shooting up a deathwheel and getting two hits on the hull, one of which turned out to be critical! Damn! The second deathwheel, no broken and vulnerable. Al made a valiant effort for the Blitz objective, but despite numerous bombing runs by Thunderbolts into obliterator flak, the Forlorn Hope formation maintained their positions and continued to contest.

 

In the city I took the Blitz and another objective, but the half strength scout formation scooted in and contested the Blitz despite two bombing runs from Hellblade fighters.

 

We were running out of time so we looked at the board after three turns. Al was up 1-0 by virtue of controlling two objectives for Take and Hold (darn Warlord holding both of them), but I was close to securing Take and Hold and Blitz once I destroyed the last of the scouts. On the other hand, the Blitz on my table edge was in a precarious position and the second deathwheel was being hunted by the warlord titan for the BTS. In order to declare a clear winner we needed the fourth turn but lacked the time. We called it a draw.

 

Analysis:

This was a game of back and forth. I had crappy armour saves in turn 1, amazing armour saves in turn 2, and some decent ones in turn 3. On the other hand, except for one interception his thunderbolts made decent armour saves and my obliterators were on and off for hitting flak.

 

I forgot overwatch on garrisoned units which allowed al to break a critical platoon, and my defilers were negated right from the start by a whirlwind slavo. On the upside, I destroyed both Thunderhawks, one by flak and one by winning an assault (go Deathwheels!). Al’s terminators launched assault after assault and almost always decimated their targets. I wish my termies were as effective!

 

I learned quite a bit in this game and I look forward to our next match.