His army was based on three individual shadowswords and a Warlord titan, as well as a Lunar Cruiser. My army was led by two deathwheels and contained the usual suspects of infantry.
My plan was to see where the warlord was and attack anywhere he wasn't. The plan was good, but my execution just didn't click. I planned to send two deathwheels, two infantry platoons, two forlorn hope, and two terminator formations towards a flank held by two plain infantry platoons and a single shadowsword. After four turns, the two IG Infantry platoons had been removed, but my deathwheels were dead, one infantry platoon down to three stands and the other broken, one terminator formation dead and the other broken. And the Forlorn Hope formations weren't in great shape either.
What happened?
Well, in turn 1 he used a Lunar Cruiser lance strike to kill a shield on a deathwheel, and followed that with a doubling shadowsword which managed to get three hits. One absorbed by the sheild, I was like "ok, deathwheel has two hits and two DC left" but then BOOM! He rolled a six for critical. One deathwheel down and the other broken. Before they had even done anything! Crap. Then, to make matters worse, at the end of the turn I had two tries at 3+ to rally the remaining deathwheel and I rolled a one both times. ^%^#&*^$^&#^%@!%
Turn two I still had hope. Or rather, two teleporting terminator formations that didn't get any blast markers on the way in. I brought them down right behind the naughty shadowsword and an infantry platoon on the flank I was attacking. And then promptly lost the initiative roll.
Well, Dave wisely moved the shadowsword away from the terminators and turned to put a blast marker on them and kill one, and retained to put another BM on them from the infantry platoon to break them.
I then launched my attack by moving up one infantry platoon (the other infantry platoon was in the process of getting hammered by the warlord titan. Damn those 60 cm ranges!) and then retained to engage with the terminators. I think I won combat but the terminators got broke in the process as they lost two stands.
Or something like that. I'm a little foggy on the details, but the main thing is that my attack was going poorly on the flank.
Later on at the beginning of turn 4 I tried two assaults. First one was rallyed Deathwheel on lone shadowsword. I thought with one void shield, 4 attacks at 3+ compared to 3 at 4+, and more DC I could take him. But I had a blast and he had a commisar (which I forgot about) and damn him if he armour saves weren't on tonight. Regardless, I lost combat and the shadowsword laughed evillly as it pursured later and nuked the deathwheel to accomplish BTS.
On the other flank my second assault was a 90% undamaged infantry platoon on another lone shadowsword. This time I had no blastmarkers! And apparently, no tank busters. Despite 7 x 4+ attacks, 4 x 6+ attacks, and one 4+ MW attack, the war engine took only one pt of damage (damn RA!). So of course, I ended up losing the assault and my second largest undamaged formation was sent packing with its tail between its legs.
At this point I surrendered. My advance was destroyed, my BTS deathwheels down, and it looked like he was going to be able to keep me out of his half of the table.
Again, what happened?
I think my plan was solid. After all, only one 400pt infantry platoon really took any damage from the warlord titan.
I think my army selection was ok, although not inspired. I had two other lists that would have been better but forgot them at work and had to go with a generic list instead. But still, I should have done better.
What I think broke my back was losing the 550 pt deathwheels for effectively two turns, and failing to kill any shadowswords to give the remaining DW a chance to do anything. By the time I was launching my desperate assaults in turn 4 I think the game was already lost and I was looking for a grand slam to turn things around.
On the upside, my defiler formation worked brilliantly and succeeded in killing lots of infantry and taking a basilisk formation out of the game. And Dave was due for a victory against me.
I'll get you next time you foul loyalist!
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