Conway Chaos: Battle Report Deathfin vs. Daemons

from http://felipechoque.newgrounds.com/

While on vacation, I happened to be be close to where the 11th Company plays, and had arranged with Pat to meet up and get a game in.  Between getting on the wrong road and then going to what proved to be an old location for the store I was running a good deal behind, but we still managed to get the game and a little visitation in.


We played 2000pts, my Space Sharks "Deathfin" (Dark Angels) with Imperial Guard allies against his Chaos Daemons flying circus with Chaos Marine allies.

I took:

(130) HQ Belial twin claws
(280) Troops Terminator squad-command squad - apothecary, assault cannon, chainfist
(235) Troops Terminator squad - cyclone
(235) Troops Terminator squad - cyclone
(240) Troops Terminator squad - cyclone, chainfist
(250) Troops Terminator squad - assault cannon, chainfist

(75) HQ Company Command squad – regimental standard, heavy bolter

Troops Infantry Platoon

(40) Platoon Command squad – 2 grenade launchers

(65) Infantry squad, plasmagun

(65) Infantry squad, plasmagun

(105) Lascannon HW squad

(90) Missile launcher HW squad

(60) Mortar HW squad

 (130) Vendetta (proxied in with borrowed stormraven)


Pat took:
Fateweaver
Lord of Change
2xWinged Daemon Princes
3xsmall packs of horrors
16xPlague marines with 2xplasma
Typhus


We ended up with long edge deployments and the Big Guns Never Tire mission.  I had not heavy support, but his Daemon Princes would score and would also be worth extra VPs if killed.  Pat won the roll off and gave me first turn/deployment.

Note snazzy 11th Co. objective markers

 I figured that the big threat would come from the pack of flying monstrous creatures.  I needed to try to minimize their advantages and take them down fast if possible.  Accordingly, I strung out near the board edge, making landing nearby at least somewhat risky, providing few opportunities to fly over and vector strike (especially non-2+ units) and provide the ability for units to support each other.  Rather than teleport the terminators in, I put them all on the table to have their firepower available from the start.  Vendetta in reserve (as required), Night Fight first turn.

Across from my lines Pat put the plague marines in a ruin with another objective (fourth and final objective is in the ruins in center of table/right side of this pic).  I moved one terminator squad up to take some pot shots at the plague marines and try to bait in the demons with a more exposed unit.

I don't know if the unit enticed him or not, but the result was the same - four winged chaos gribblies over on my left flank.  They proceed to do some damage, but then get shot at by 90% of my army.

I don't expect to be able to kill the swooping MCs with shooting, but hope to get enough hits to ground them, getting extra free smacks and then being able to assault them with a bunch of powerfists.  Fateweaver is hit, and fails his leadership check disappearing back into the warp, making taking down the rest easier.  The lord of change and one DP are also knocked out of the sky, and charges manage to connect with the LoC, banishing him as well.  This put me in the VP lead, with getting both First Blood from Fateweaver, and Slay the Warlord with the Lord of Change (amusingly, Fateweaver being only Ld9 is outclassed in Warlord-ism by the generic Ld 10 Lord of Change).

Some good work so far, but not without loss - 8 terminators out of 26 down so far.

The princes move in to do some more damage.

While some horrors drop down to start the fight for another objective, and Typhus lands by the mortars to try to start rolling up the guard.  Vendetta, disguised here as a storm raven, flies on and does some shooting throughout the game but doesn't do a whole lot.

A lot of firepower is turned on Typhus, taking off a few wounds.  A terminator squad is also recalled to deal with him and finishes him off in close combat, but not before Nurgle's Rot and fire from the horrors ran off a squad of guardsmen.  As the table edge shows, about half the terminators have also become casualties by now as well.

Though their numbers are depleted, the terminators continue to bash on the princes.

Three MCs down, one to go.  Plague marines stay put, and another horror squad enters but mishaps and is destroyed.

"Belial" joins the fight against the last prince...

...but is gifted with a Boon of Mutation and explodes out of his armor as a frenzied Chaos Spawn!
Slay the Warlord VP for Pat!  In the background you can also see the third horror squad, landing to try to control another objective.  Through the whole game, we forgot about the Mysterious Objectives, which I imagine is a pretty common occurrence for many players!  We did remember to roll Warlord Traits, but neither of us got anything useful.

I manage to slay the last prince and firepower had taken out both horror packs, leaving the spawn and the plague marines as the last things of Pat's.  I moved to cover three of the four objectives, leaving the end result with Pat at 4VP (one objective plus one point for my warlord) and me with 13VP (three objectives, warlord, first blood, and two heavy support kills).

A fun game, but it did not go at all like I expected!  I was worried that the MCs would get off lots of wind/breath of chaos shots on the terminators, taking them out too fast.  Once the termies were dead, the IG wouldn't have had much chance on their own.

Instead, the plan actually worked, being able to take out the big threats and make use of the firepower.  I think that Pat made two main mistakes that I was able to capitalize on.  One, the big plague marine unit was really wasted.  It would have been much better used IMO pushing down the field, forcing me to deal with it, though dealing with it would take 3+ full terminator squads, effectively removing them from the rest of the fight.  Using them to move on the stone circle objective or the ruin in the middle would have had them much more involved in the battle, while the horrors could drop on the backfield objectives.  Especially if once they were involved Typhus had landed near them and joined up, that could make for a really nasty threat!  Two, I think he committed his big gribblies too early.  By dropping them when and where he did, he let me shoot at them with everything while the rest of his army couldn't support them. I think if he had waited for the PM blob to absorb my initial attention more and hidden the gribblies until I was weakened more they could have cleaned up.

The store, White Widow in Conway, SC was pretty nice.  The owner seemed like a good guy, they had nice terrain, lots of light and given that they also sell incense and stuff it smelled a whole lot better than many other game stores!  It was great to meet Pat and other 11th co folks too, and getting in a game during my vacation was a big bonus for me.

It was nice seeing two armies with allies against each other, especially classic ones like Daemons and CSM vs. Marines and IG.  The IG really helped me out with some extra firepower, and I tried out some Battle Brother shenanigans with attaching Belial to the lascannon squad to give them Fearless and to use his Ld10 for Orders.  Plus, since I only have 1500pts of Deathwing, it was a good way to bulk the force up to the 2000 level.

Thanks again to Pat for the game, and great to meet folks!