Finished basing the Merkans last night. Too wet and cool to seal, but packed them up anyways and took them out to the local store to get a re-inaugural game in with the Imperial Guard. Managed to get a game with Chris, who I've talked with a number of times but have never played. He was up for something outside the standard missions and wanted to give the "War of Attrition" mission from Battle Missions a try. We broke out 1500pt lists and crammed them into a 4x4 table.
War of Attrition uses Victory Points to determine the, well, victor. The big feature of the mission is "Unlimited Reserves", which recycles all troops choices (but not transports).
The Merkan 76th brought:
Company Command Squad (PW, Regimental Standard, HB team)
Platoon Command Squad (PW, 2 GL)
3xsquads with Plasmagun
Mortar HW squad
Lascannon HW squad
Heavy Bolter HW squad
2xML HW squads
Platoon Command Squad (PW, 2 GL)
2xsquads with Plasmagun
Leman Russ Eradicator - hull lascannon
Leman Russ - hull lascannon, HB sponsons
Leman Russ - hull lascannon, HB sponsons
Chris brought his World Eaters:
3xBerzerker squads, two in Rhinos
Lord with Bloodfeeder
Chosen with Icon of Khorne, 3 flamers, plasmagun, heavy bolter
10 Terminators with a variety of death-dealing devices
Defiler
The IG went first, and furious shooting managed to immobilize the Defiler and shake one Rhino. The World Eaters advanced through the hail of shells and energy blasts, and the Defiler blasts some Missile Launcher teams to oblivion.
The Guard reposition slightly to try to open up the Rhinos, but smoke > battlecannons, lascannons, and plasma. The devotees of Khorne pile out and prepare to collect skulls.
Predictably the guardsmen are no match for the blood-crazed berzerkers. The Lord gets an extra 11 attacks from his daemon weapon and his kills alone take out an entire squad.
Guard shooting takes down a few 'zerkers on the right, and a battle cannon with some supplemental fire wipes the squad in the open. The Chaos reserves arrive, with Chosen coming in on the guard right flank and wiping out the mortar squad, and the mass of terminators plops down facing the battle tanks.
The lord rolls a one and struggles with his own cleaver, but his associates collect more skulls for him. The destroyed IG squads come back on, and help rain fire down on the World Eaters. The terminators fare well, but the Chosen are wiped out except for the icon bearer.
Chaos destroys more IG squads. They recycle, and it's hard finding enough room to bring them all in!
The remaining Chosen and the Lord with his squad are wiped out. The terminators have their chainfists and powerfists in the back, so the IG attempt a couple of tank shocks, but the World Eaters hold firm. Firing takes down two terminators. They retaliate by charging both tanks, disabling the main gun on one and wrecking the other.
Some more squads get chopped to ribbons, and the terminators suck tons of fire, but three manage to survive.
Eventually the game ends, and we total up points. Some of my squads managed to die twice, but nobody died three times. Even with such a high body count, the expense of the Chaos squads made the difference, and I ended up ahead in VP. The line was held, the World Eaters pushed back.
It was a fun game, I had a good time. The mission definitely favored my army build, with almost everything being Troops. The matchup against an assault army may have helped too - anything that got close to a chainaxe died, but with the action on my side of the table I was able to get a lot of rapidfire (often FRFSRF aided) into the enemy from returning squads.
Great battle report and thanks for the pictures. That mission sounds like a blast. I definitely would not want to face that mission if I was playing against Blood Angels using Jump Pack Assault Troops. Could you imagine the carnage and pain of trying to contain them.
ReplyDeleteOh, I guess I really would not want to face Snake-Eyes and his all bike army either...goodness.
However, the missions book sounds like a blast. I really need to pick it up. Keep the batreps coming.
Mags, I definitely recommend the Battle Missions book. A lot of it isn't really earth-shattering, mostly different deployment rules and rules about reserves and mostly modified KP or objectives, but it does throw some curveballs in, and it's good for a change of pace when you're tired of the standard missions. (You can also see my post about secret goals for a little variety there too!)
ReplyDeleteJust a quick question, well questions. Do you have to stay away from the edge of the board? For instance could the berserkers have crowded you board so you could not bring in reenforcements? Im interested to hear what the rules are for redeploying. My friends and I kinda made up a 2 v 1 assualt gametype. Just wondering if it ended up similair to this with redeployment. Great victory btw love the pictures.
ReplyDeleteNo rules about the board edge, so it would conceivably be possible to block off the other guy's reinforcements. But by that point you've probably won anyways, or may even want to leave a pocket open for them to deploy in so you can keep getting even more VP.
ReplyDeleteTroops (FOC) recycle, but does not include transports. So squad would recycle but their Rhino/Chimera etc. would not.