Battle Report #3 (04.02.2012)

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen to this Warhammer 40k battle-report. Sorry for the delay on this one - i was a bit busy, so i was unable to play any games previous week. But lets jump straight to this battle we have here.

Today we have a battle between Tau and Daemons(my army, obviously). For start lets take a look at the armies, deployment and mission.Both armies are 1850 worth(as you may have already understood, this is the most popular point amount in my local gaming club). For this battle i brought in a sort of balanced army list, with a bit too much in terms of tank-hunting. My army list is like this:2 squads of Bloodletters, 2 Soul Grinders(both with the "Tongue" upgrade(Str10 AP1 24")), Fateweaver, Bloodthirster(Unholy Might(+1 Str), Blessing of the Blood God), Plaguebearers(Icon of Chaos, Instrument of Chaos), Bloodcrushers(Fury of Khorne(rending), Icon of Chaos, Instrument of Chaos), Pink Horrors(Changeling, Bolt of Tzeentch(Str8 AP1 24"), Screamers. The Tau brought in a competitive list, pretty much the only army list in Tau army that is decent and can stand up against other competitive armies. Let's take a look at the Tau army:3 squads of Fire-warriors(marker drones), Kroot Carnivore squad, 2 Hammerheads(both with the Rail-guns), 2 squads of Crisis-suits, HQ in a Crisis suit with body-guards, Broadside squad. While the daemons seems to lack any thought in their list-making(and they lack a good commander so far), Tau are combined pretty well, capable of dealing with most of the combat situations. The mission objective is annihilation(kill-points), deployment type is table-quarters.

Deployment. Nothing too special. If you ever seen tau deploy once, then you saw them all. Tau just sits in his nice little corner there, surrounded with kroots and fire-warriors. A good, clumped up army. It's a shame i didn't bring any units with blast templates. As always i do not deploy, and just wait for my first turn to get on the table. I won the roll-off and gave the Tau player the first turn in this promising game.

Turn #1 - Tau
For obvious reasons, Tau decided to completely skip through their turn without doing anything. And, realy, he doesn't have to do anything until I'm on the board, as he is already in a position he wants to be.

Turn #1 - Daemons
Let the game begin! Or, probably, let the fail begin. You must really enjoy reading about my failures, otherwise i doubt anyone would waste his time with this at all. Anyway, let's get to the point - i rolled poorly for my Daemonic Assault, so my second wave (that is a lot of squishy infantry) drops in on turn one, while my good units are stuck in reserves, and will ,without a doubt, be deployed in one by one, just to be shot to pieces. But let's not go ahead of our-self's here, anything can happen, maybe i still stand a chance, we'll see. For now i tried to appear close to him. There is no sense in hiding or deploying on the other side of the table, as he still has the advantage of range on his ridiculous guns.

As i can not charge him in turn 1, i had to run most of my units, to get closer for the next turn. Also, since there are no objectives on the table, i'm using my Plaguebearers to provide cover for my other, more deadly daemons. I really hope that rolling 4+ cover instead of 5+ Inv. will benefit me in the next turns.

Turn #2 - Tau
Here it comes. Tau seem not to like the presence of my daemons so close to them, so i guess we will go straight to the shooting phase, as the only movement that happened this turn was a bit of positioning of the Crisis suit teams. Well, the Tau seem to do pretty well when there are not much targets to shoot at. To say the least - the shooting was DEVASTATING. I lost a whole unit of Bloodletters, a half of the other unit, and all but one Pink Horror. It does seem that i will be taken apart through out this game, as when there not many targets on the field, Tau does seem to perform well. Also, fun fact, the Kroot's shooting was far more deadly then that of a Fire Warriors.No assaults from him though. But there is no surprise here, as his army is just not designed to do such a thing.

Turn #2 - Daemons
Let's bring in some heavy guns! One Soul Grinder and a Bloodthirster came out of the Warp to eat some delicious Tau. I positioned both of them so that the Soul Grinder was screening my Big Bad Daemon of Khorne. I am worried about those Rail Guns though, but for now this is all i could do. The Soul Grinder tried to kill one of the Hammerheads, but failed, because they had some system that granted them 4+ cover saves almost all the time. The lonely Horror attempted to shoot his Bolt of Tzeentch at another Hammerhead, but failed to hit it. now it's time for the bog cleanup. Both the surviving Bloodletters and Plaguebearers charged down the Kroot squad. Sadly, the pitiful Kroots were not a challenge, and my daemons ripped them apart in a single phase of combat. This is a tactical miss-read on my part, as i wanted to tie my squads in combet to avoid that nasty shooting.

Turn #3 - Tau

Bring it on! While all the Kroots are long gone, the most dangerous squads are still fine and well, ready to unleash their deadly weapons up against my forces. Tau Crisis suits move from the defensive circle of Fire Warriors to get a clean shot at my daemons. Other then that, all the other forces are standing still. While the moving phase takes a couple of minutes, the shooting is much more action-filled. at the ned of the shooting i was shocked. My losses were enormous. I managed to lose my entire squad of Bloodletters, half of the Plaguebearers, the Bloodthirster, and the Soul Grinder also lost a weapon, and is immobilized. I just couldn't believe my own eyes, as my army melted almost completely in a matter of one turn. While i still had some power in my reserves, i knew that this goes the wrong way for me. The only unit unit that actually managed to get out of this massacre without any harm are my Screamers. But at this point i knew for sure, that the only thing i can do right now it try to get as much points as possible, to at least make this loss less shameful.

Turn #3 - Daemons
Good Gods! Why me? Why am loosing to the bloody Tau?! It seems like no one is listening. Oh well, it's my own fault that my initial army list was far from perfection, and that i'm not even an middle-skilled player yet. But i'll get there, i promise! OK, back to the battle. All of my reserves came on the table this turn. Yay! I still stand a chance.... or do i? The last Soul Grinder has scattered far away from intended position of deep-strike, and landed on the first 'Grinder. I rolled for mishap result and got a 2. It means that , without a chance to do any damage, the red Soul Grinder is remover as a casualty. As for the other units, i dropped my Fateweaver and Bloodcrushers close enough to each other, in order to ensure that the 'Crushers for re-rolls of the failed saves.Movement and Shooting phases were pretty fast. With the Soul Grinder immobilized and both the Hammerheads surrounded by protective ring of Fire Warriors, the only units who could move to attack position was the unit of Plaguebeares. in the shooting phase i sacrificed the Fateweaver's shooting to get him and the Bloodcrushers closer. I thought that i first need to keep them close, and then go towards my enemy. The only assault this turn was from my Plaguebearers. Knowing that the Fire Warriors are not a close-combat unit at all, i thought that this wasn't such a bad idea, because this actually allowed my to tie them in combat, and prevent any shooting from at least this squad. Without severe losses from both sides, this small combat continues, making it one less shooting squad for the next turn.

Turn #4 - Tau
The Tau player seems to have a good fell of the battlefield, as he seems to know my army's key elements, and tries to take them down one at a time. After a bot of maneuvering from the Crisis squads, the shooting begins, shoving me what my opponent is really afraid of. He concentrated his fire on my Bloodcrushers and the Fateweaver. He completely ignores the half-destroyed Soul Grinder and a unit of Screamers in the open field. But, i think, that this is what he was doing the entire game, as he continues to do now. With the fact that my good units came in pretty much one at a time, he had an easy time so far, as my key units appeared on the field he concentrated his fire-power on them, bringing them down in a matter of a turn, ready to face new threats in the next turns. This time it wasn't different. With the amount of incoming fire, even the Fateweaver's re-rolls didn't save all the wounds, as i managed to  lose one of the 'Crushers and a wound from the Fateweaver himself. After all the firing and dieing, we return to a fairly slow-paced combat, where Fire Warriors still engage the Plaguebearers, with no side getting a good advantage over the other.

Turn #4 - Daemons
Move move move! As there is no point in standing still waiting for something to happen, i move up all the squads i have remaining. While the Fateweaver has no problem in moving around with his wings, the 'Crushers got stuck on the terrain, rolling poorly on both their move through terrain and run rolls. It seems that i will be forced to engage Tau in close combat, at least to keep my units safe for a while, and to deal as much damage as possible. For now, the Fateweaver unleashes his entire arsenal of spells at the closest units. For some inexplicable reason the damage was minimum, so i will be force to charge them, just for the sake of battle. Well, at this point there is no way for me to win, so i might as well do some damage, instead of holding back and standing like a practicing target. I've even managed to keep him 6" from my Bloodcrushers, i hope that they will survive until next turn to get to the enemy. The Plaguebearers, with some help from Screamers, have managed to finally kill the Fire Warrior squad, consolidating towards the Fateweaver. While it is a small victory, the worst thing is that these two squads are noe out in the open, in the sight of the enemies guns.

Turn #5 and the game ending.
Oh Tau, you're shooting is amazing. If only it wasn't aimed at me! I just .... i can't describe my emotions. It is all wrong. I lost all the units but the Fateweaver in one round of shooting. This battle-report could go on further, telling about the epic failure of both sides in the close combat of Tau VS Fateweaver, but this would take up a lot of unnecessary time. At turn 6 i shook my opponents hand and congratulated him on his victory. From the start this game did not go well for me. But as long as there's fun involved, there is a point to play.

Thank you for you're attention. Usually in this segment i ask for you're comments and suggestions. But after this much failure, i believe there is no way to give me simple tips on how i could've turned this game around. I got so much advise from people in the club that  i know what composition i will be going for, as well as tactics i should use. I will probably post these suggestions on this blog. Leave your comment, about what was you biggest failure in Warhammer 40k, and did you actually had fun that time, because, i can say for sure, i had a lot of great time and a lot of laughter during this game. For now, thank you for your attention, I'm Ursa06, and good luck to you.

Blog, my army, personal thoughts and all that good stuff.

Hello there ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this, let's just say, personal message from me to you. A quick warning - this is not a battle report, so if you are not interested in reading through my thoughts, army update, blog problems and other, you can skip this. I don't want to waste your precious time. The reasons are - firstly, i wanted to give you guys a little update about what i am doing, and secondly, i was unable to visit my local gaming club this weekend, well, you know, family stuff. If you decided to stay with me, then let's begin.

Personal thoughts, army updates and blog weirdness.

First of all, i want to say "Big, mighty Thank You" to all of you. This blog exists for about a month, and i have already got a total of 130 views. As far as i'm aware, each day i get from 2 to 9 views. I, personally, thought that this crap will not be noticed for a month or two. Oh well, i can't complain. Once again, thanks to all the people who are actually reading my blog. I'm not getting any comments and feedback telling me about quality of my blog, but i can't ask for too much at this point.

Now, a bit about the blog itself. First of all, for some reason my first post disappeared. It contained my first army list, my plans for the future, and some other stuff i can't remember now. Anyway, the reason is unknown and i was unable to restore the post(and i didn't make a back-up copy of it).I have already made back ups of all the battle-reports, and this post, and any one after this one. Should any posts disappear again, i should be able to easily put them back where they belong. I'm sorry if this made any awkward moments when reading through my battle-reports(i did mention the "First post" a lot, because it contained my original army list).

Blog content. Nothing to say here so far. I will keep on making battle-reports, i will try to increase their number each week though. But for now this is all there will be. You see, the Warhammer 40k 6th edition rules will come out very soon, so making any tactics posts is pointless - the strategies will change very soon. As for transferring from pictures\text posts to videos, i am working on this, as i should be able to buy a video-camera this year("this year, eh?" sounds "promising", i know, but i am working on making this happen as soon as possible)

Army. I was told, and i was told this many times, that i have to change my army list. I play in a very competitive environment, almost every player in the club i play is somehow a championship player. Most of the players have highly competitive armies, and, obviously, i am no match to them(except for the newbies like me).  So this means that my army list will evolve over time into something better, stronger and just not as disgraceful as this. I will post my army lists at the beginning of every battle-report, rather then say "look at post ...". I will probably bring different units at most battles to test different combinations.

"All that good stuff" ... wait, what?!

So, this will be a little ending to this little post of mine. Leave your comments, ratings and "all that good stuff". Tell me what you want my battle reports to be like, what my army should be like and etc. For now, i leave this picture of my entire Warhemmr 40k model count. It's not much, i'm sure that many people have a lot more to show, and in a better quality. But for now i am sot of stuck with what i have. Anyway, thanks for you attention, i am Ursa06, and good luck to you.

Battle Report #2 (22.01.2012)

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. I bring you yet another Warhammer 40k battle-report. This one is Daemons of Chaos VS Blood Angels. I have decided to change my army a bit to bring in some close-combat power. The Blood Angels army seems to be composed fairly well, capable of dealing with my monstrous creatures, walkers and infantry, while my army is more concentrated on dealing with infantry. But let's wait and see how it goes. Both armies pack 1850 points of destructive power. While the points are ETC standard, the mission is basic from the rule-book. We rolled for the turn, i won the roll-off and gave the Blood Angels' player first turn. After deployment and mission rolls we ended up with spearhead deployment (aka table corners), the wining conditions are kill-points. Let's take a look at the armies and go straight to the battle.

I decided to bring some changes to my standard army build, and there is a high chance i will keep playing with this one. So what i have changed - i dropped the Daemon Prince, Flamers, Screamers and the Skulltaker. Instead i took 2 units of 10 Bloodletters and a Bloodthirster(btw, as soon as i compose a competitive army list i will make a post on the blog explaining my choices, talking about the units and etc.). The Blood Angels' player brings in this unit composition: Assault Marines squad(2 meltas, power fist), Death Company squad(Thunder Hammer), Furioso Dreadnought (Blood Talons), 2 Predator tanks(laser sponsons, auto-cannon turret on both), Land Raider Crusader, Storm-raven, Assault Terminator squad(some with a pair of Lightning Claws, others are with Shield\Hammer combo), Librarian, Corbulo. So, let us not wait any longer and jump right into the first turn of this game. 

Turn #1 - Blood Angels

After about 5 minutes of thinking and asking for advice, the Blood Angels' player decided to move up his Storm-raven a bit closer to the center and end his turn at that point. There is, actually , not much he could do, my army was not even on the board yet.

Turn #1 - Daemons of Chaos

So, the game started better then i though it would - i actually managed NOT to fail my Daemonic Assault roll. The units that i wanted to see come on first turn did so, making a very promising start. With only the Bloodthirster scattering too far from intended position, i already was dangerously close to my opponents army. After a short phase of running, my units got closer to each-other(and, of course, closer to the Fateweaver) my models ended up in a valid battle-formation. It is fortunate that the enemy had no blast weapons, or this would end up badly.

Turn #2 - Blood Angels

But the real battle is only about to begin. Blood Angels, understanding the danger of letting my Khorn units get the charge, moved up closer to deny me this opportunity, and get the charge themselves. But, first things first - in order to successfully defeat my close-combat army, a simple fight is not enough - they have to do some damage at range first, to weaken my striking force, and grab an advantage. For now my opponent moves up his units, while the Predators still keep at distance, while providing heavy fire support.

Shooting, oh shooting. It seems that the Blood Angels really hate my Fateweaver. Most of the heavy fire was concentrated on him, while some bolters and other smaller guns tried to harm my Bloodcrushers. It takes more then that though. After all the shots were made, only a single wound on the Fateweaver was the result. The Blood angels shot good, they rarely missed and wounded a lot - it's the Fateweaver's and all the daemons close to him ability to re-roll saves that denied most of the wounds (and possible kills). I didn't fail Fateweaver's leadership roll for taken wound, so i still stand strong, and the fun part was only about to start. The angels decided to keep their distance for a while though - probably my opponent wanted another round of shooting before he gets to charging me.

 
Turn #2 - Daemons of Chaos

More reserves! Surprisingly, more hard-hitting units came out to say "Hi". Both the Soulgrinders have came out on the icon located in the Bloodcrusher's unit. The Plaguebearers unit decided to hide. You see, i tried to drop them in between the Land Raider and my army, but they ended up scattering in the building in the side, showing me that they do not want to be used as a meat-shield. Other units are moving up to engage the Blood Angels, while staying in close proximity to the Fateweaver.










Shooting phase. Rather running phase. All the close-combat units moved up even closer. Both the Soulgrinders and the Fateweaver tried to shoot down the Storm-raven, but failed awfuly, either failing to hit or to penetrate the armor. No assaults though. My opponent positioned his forces in such a way that there is no way for me to reach him at this point.

Turn #3 - Blood Angels

So, finally we are close enough to deal harm to each other. Blood Angels moved up even closer, anticipating an inevitable assault against my forces. It was inevitable, but we have to wait for a little bit before the epic battle. First things first. As the transports move up they unload their deadly cargo - Terminators, Death Company, Librarian and Dreadnought appear right in front of my forces, priming their weapons to unleash a final volley before charging in to a glorious rampage.

Blood Angels, eager to inflict as much damage as possible, manage to deal some minor damage to the Bloodletters in the back of my forces. But most importantly - a combined fire from both Predators and a Land Raider first immobilize, then totally destroy my blue Soulgrinder. No harm was dealt by the explosion, but now i have only one powerful walker, while on the other hand i wasn't able to deal any damage at all yet.

Blood for the Blood God! BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! Finally, after two turns of boring positioning, we got here. A glorious bloodshed has begun, with the Blood Angels charging my forces. As the battle cries are roared and weapons clash, there is no way to say who will be the victor of this battle. And i end up with some minor disadvantages. First being the fact that the Angels got the charge, giving them a powerful advantage, another is that my other Soulgrinder and both Bloodletter squads were left out, forced to stay at least until my assault phase out of the close-combat. When the first blood was shed, and the first casualties were dealt, we found that the forces are almost evenly matched. With a minor loss on the Blood Angel's side, they all made their leadership rolls and saves for fearless wounds.(btw, the building on the left was temporarily removed for easy access to the models in combat)

Turn #3 - Daemons of Chaos

As the fight in the middle goes on, other daemons are eager to join. They really want to spill some Space Marines blood. No reserves had made it to the table though. It is not a big loss - the only units left there are two squads of Pink Horrors, being shooting units they are not very useful in hand-to-hand fight. The Bloodletters and a Soulgrinder move up closer to cover both flanks and provide additional strength to my fighting force. No shooting was made during my turn. The only thing was Soulgrinder running to free some space for Bloodletters near him. Both Bloodletter units charge in, as does the Soulgrinder.(his Fleet special rule came in handy)Casualties. Casualties were a bit painful. Losing his final wounds, the Fateweaver returns back to the warp, as do some of my Bloodletters. The Bloodthirster still stands strong without even a scratch, while all the Bloodcrushers ended up with only one wound left on each. Some Plaguebeares did went down as well. And while i do suffer loses here and there, even more Blood Angels go down, all for the sake and glory of one massive bloodbath. This time, once again, i was the victor in terms of wounds inflicted\suffered. But still, as the last time, Blood Angels stayed in combat.










Turn #4 - Blood Angels

Sneaky little plane. This gets interesting. Understanding that the fight in the middle is going the wrong way for him, my opponent decides to back out all of his forces that are not engaged. Both Predators and the Land Raider move as far as possible and use their smoke-screens. The Storm-raven, on the other hand, moves to an opposite table edge, preparing to deal maximum amount of damage to my forces as soon as they finish this fight. And, once again, no shooting was done as there are no not engaged units from my side.
As the close combat continues, more and more fall. But now we can see one side getting the upper hand in this.










Turn #4 - Daemons of Chaos

And now, finally, the epic blood shed has ended with the Daemons victory, but the battle is not over yet. There are still a lot of Blood Angels left on the battle-field, and there are a lot of things to be done. But for now, as the Daemons got rid of their close-combat enemies, they consolidate towards different targets - all but the Soul Grinder move closer with most of the enemy forces, while the 'Grinder goes after the Storm-raven.










Turn #5 - Blood Angels

None of the Angels dared to move closer to my forces, they did try to shoot, but, apparently they have inherited the shooting abilities of Orks - no wounds, no damage dealt to the Soulgrinder, NOTHING AT ALL! What the ... ? This was somewhat funny, as the marines are supposed to do more that this. Anyway, this was pretty much the Blood Angel's turn 5, nothing too interesting and\or exciting to talk about sadly.

Turn #5 - Daemons of Chaos

Finally my last two units came out of reserves. The bigger unit of Pink Horrors with a changeling appeared in front of my forces guided by the icon, while another one decided to play a little joke. I wanted to deal damage to the last Assault Marines squad over there, so i was over-zealous, and deep-stroke my horrors in a very close proximity to them. My daemons ended up scattering and falling on the squad they were supposed to shoot at. Mishap result - destroyed. Well, that's a fail suicide. Other that that - everyone's moving up. There are two major targets that i have to destroy - the Land Raider and the Storm-raven. Let's see how well it goes.










Almost no shooting was done in this turn. Most of the units used this phase for the purpose of running, or stayed still to assault their targets. The Soulgrinder assaulted the Storm-raven, unfortunately failing to do more than scaring the crew a little bit. On the other side of the table the Bloodthirster has filled himself with my hate of Land Raiders, and managed to immobilize it. If i'm able to remove these vehicles out of the picture i will be in a massive lead.

Turn #6 - Blood Angels

And the game continues! Blood Angels are desperately trying to score as many kill points as possible. While the Predator tanks are standing far from the main scene of action(while still being in range of their weaponry) the Assault squad moves closer to eliminate as many of my units as possible. On the far back of this little battlefield , the Storm-raven moves 6" away from my Soulgrinder, making sure that it can't hit it in this assault phase, while still keeping his ability to fire all the weapons.

There was not much shooting coming my way, and even less damage. The Storm-raven unloaded it's entire arsenal(las-cannon, multi-melta, 4 missiles) against my Soulgrinder failing to do anything. That's right, it's not easy to damage a daemonic vehicle. Assault squad shot it's pistols and meltas at the Bloodthirster, managing to wound him once. The assault was a bit more interesting - Assault Marines charged at the Bloodthirster and one of the Bloodletters squad. I decided to direct all of the Bloodthirster's attacks at the Land Raider, resulting in it's explosion, the Corbulo inside has failed his leadership test and gone to ground. The Bloodletters were, sadly, wiped out. I lost combat. but managed to save the fearless wounds on the Bloodthirster.

Turn #6 - Daemons of Chaos

Let us move forth! Towards future victories! While the Bloodcrushers moved to assist the Bloodthirster, second Bloodletter squad, Pink Horrors and Plaguebearers started to slowly move towards the Predator tanks in the corner. The cowards though that they could hide forever. The Soulgrinder tried to shoot down the Storm-raven, but the blast marker scattered far away, making assault the only option.
Bloodcrushers charged into the rest of the Assault Marines while Soulgrinder attempts to, once again, bring down the Storm-raven. The result was fantastic - the Storm-raven finally went down with a "Bang!", and the Assault Marines were wiped out, finally giving my Greater Daemons of Khorn ability to move towards other targets.

The game ended at turn 6 with a massive advantage for the Daemons. This is, to say the least, my first full victory, against a good army as well. We enjoyed this game a lot. And i hope you enjoyed this battle report. Leave your comments about the battle report, armies, tactics and etc. Tell me how you would've behaved in this scenario, or what improvements my army needs. Thanks for your attention, and good luck to you.