Fields of Blood 2010 BatReps - Part One

Well, to be honest, I had already forgotten a fair bit of the first day's action after the drinking between it and the second day - so, I can't give this series the proper, fleshed out detail I'd like.  Awww.



However, there are loads of pics from my first game, so I am going to provide you with those, and a sort of running commentary.  Sadly, this will probably be the most detailed of the games.  Now, before we start, I've know and been friends with these guys for years, although we aren't close friends, know I'm not ragging on them, have no beef with them, and still consider them friends.  But - I feel I can only do this by expressing what I felt at the time.

So, Mark and I got drawn against a pretty Mech-ed up SM list.  Great.  The thing we LEAST want to face.  Admittedly, there are (I think) 2 Daemon armies, one SoB, 3 Orks (2 in the same team!) one Eldar, one Tau (both in the same team) and 2 Necrons (obvs same team) with everyone else being  IG or some variant of Marines. Wolves are most common.  Shocker.  Roughly 4 IG, and about the same Chaos.

Their army can be seen below, but was roughly 2 regular Raiders, 5 TH/SS, a Whirlwind, a Typhoon, a Vindicator, a Razorback, 2 Tac Squads, a Storm and some Scouts.  Oh, and a Drop Ironclad.  Pics:
 - the Chapters are the Red Scorpions, and the Blue Dragons, for those of you who care.  As already stated, Mark and I were Ultramarines and Scythes respectively.

They deployed first, stringing along the table, and placing a Raider opposite 2 of the 4 Objectives.  [NOTE - TO Fail.  We were told to roll for Objectives, rather than having it predetermined.  I don't feel this should occur at an Event, but, if it does, it needs to be consistent.  Later on, we were told there were auto-5 in the second Seize Ground.]  We Deployed to take 3/4 Objectives, and to try and be able to fall back and hold 2 while still contesting, to ensure the win.  In hindsight, our Deployment sucked balls.


We were too afraid of the Raiders disgorging (great word) the Termies into the middle and using those to wreck face, and too defensive given their mediocre shooting.  Lesson learnt, I hope.  Too late for the Tournament though.  Anyway, what you can't see in the pics is the MotF is deployed alone in our bottom right corner, with a clear shot at the Whirlwind.  Frankly, I think Mark should have let us try for the Initiative, especially in hindsight.  Hell, in hindsight he may agree.  lol

Turn One went like this:


We had that Rhino Immob'd (I think it recovered? Too late to do anything, anyway.)  Their Ironclad tried to land where the YGO Box is, but scattered off-board and back into the sky.  Whirlwind moved and launched at out of range something (Scouts, I think)  Raiders pivoted.  Vindi advanced - I think it blasted the Rhino on our extreme left [No - It killed 3 Scouts].  Closer Rhino lost it's ability to shoot, so drove and smoked as did the Pred beside it.  Other Preds advanced to the hill with a Rhino to shoot Autocannon at the Typhoon, but only Shook it.  MotF scattered off the Raider, having survived a Lascannon shot despite being in the open (2+ to wound, eh? lol)
Speeders moved to stay in cover, and get ranged AP1 shots at Raider.  Colossal cock-up by me.  I should have insisted they get up in the foe's face, but I played them like Serpents/Vypers, and it nearly cost us.  S8 does fuck all to AV14, as I know.  I just didn't act like I knew.

Somehow I seem to have lost the mid-game pics I thought I had taken.  :(

In summary, the MotF got splatted on 3 by the Storm.  Also on 3, the Ironclad came in and slagged a Speeder, preventing the other from Shooting - which I forgot, and moved it behind the Ironclad to nuke it.  Duh.  (Blue) Raider with AssTerms advanced, and they jumped out to engage our armoured wall.  Unluckily for them, they resolved other combats before moving the Termies, so we said no.  Judge agreed.  Their Typhoon did nothing, really.  Whirlwind blasted a Tac Squad and killed 2.  We consistently stopped the Vindi and Razor from firing, but couldn't destroy them.  Blast it! Found some pics.  Here:

 Our two.  There was maybe an hour left at this point.  Yes, really.  We took 15ish mins for our turn.
 - This was end of their Move 3.  Note the Speeder in position to try and prevent them getting close to the objective until the Pred can take that position (Ram a Pred? 8" away? Yeah, sure...)

 - This was the end of our 2.  Note, the Speeders failed to dent the Raider, and the Termies are a-coming. If you squint, you can see them blatter my poor Predator.   See how I COULD have Cockblocked them efficiently, had I not fucked up.  Note Drop Pod on very edge.  Bad Scatters against us.  lol  Combat Squad in the middle of our lines is about to get shelled.  Maybe the Vindi killed them, not the Whirli? Who knows?

 - My MotF got beaten up by children.  :(

 - How messy is our table? lol  Anyway, we have just finished our 3.  Note excellent Cockblocking, finally.  Mark has brilliantly put the Dread right in front of the objective to block off contesting.  Blue middle Pred moved across to close the door to the middle Objective for the Termies and Raider.  Speeder went to contest - hoping a ML, a Whirlwind, and a Typhoon don't kill it.  lol  Dreads bash each other.  Our blue one died, then the Scythes one killed the Ironclad.  Only unit of theirs we killed.  Only two of our Speeders remain.

 - The Contesting Speeder.  The Raider got it.  TLLC vs AV10.  Hrrmmm.
 - Razor tried to Ram the Dread in their turn 4.  At this point, we had <5 minutes of game time left.  Yes, they insisted we start Turn 4 even though we couldn't get one.  Having already had a judge over to prevent them charging with the TH/SS the turn the debarked, we didn't press the issue.  Note well, naysayers, how this is the opposite of being a dick.  I let my opponents dick on me, although it nearly cost us the game.  Anyway, they got stopped, of course.  Although a Judge ruled we could strike them in their Assault Phase, Mark declined, not feeling it made sense.  He was, ofc, wrong - the rules very much allow this, and it should be done to punish the stupidity of Ramming a Walker.  Still.

 - In the middle, the TH/SS and Cassius could not be dissuaded from their task.  If only it had been made a Wreck instead of Exploding, that Rhino full of Tacticals may have been able to prevent them Contesting, but it was not to be.  Perhaps Mark was right, and it should have been Combat Squadded like the other two.  Irrelevant now.

 - Finally, the centre-left Objective.  With the truly phenomenal work by me in that Speeder's positioning { ;) } they could only disembark one model, the Captain, and he could not get close enough to contest.  They weren't happy about our rigid enforcement of the 1" Rule.  Hey guys? Suck less.  Technically, the Captain couldn't even get that close.  We let you off.

So, in the end, we won the game 2-1 on Objectives.  We claimed a meagre 145(?) VPs (Dumb fucking VPs system!) and they got approx 750, for a Pred, a Rhino, MotF, 5 of our 6 Speeders, a Combat Squad, half the Scouts...etc etc.

Their Rock had been blunted.  None of us knew at the time they would go on to win all their matches until Round 5, when they finally lost.  If only WE had played their R2 opponents, maybe we would be crowing? :p No, unlikely.  Rather, their opponents after that, the ones with no anti-tank to speak of, and no ability to handle 2 Raiders. Makes me EMO.

Anyway, twas kinda fun - but the fact that we all spent so long on Deployment (my first game of Doubles, check.  First game using full list, check.  First game as 2k Marines in months, check.  Fewer than a dozen games as marines that weren't Vulcan, check.  lol) hurt us - I think we lost about half an hour to Deployment, perhaps a little less.  Then again, even at that, an hour and a half, at 15/20 mins a turn is more than 7 turns.  So, since we played fast (we took 8 mins for our turn 3) you can fill in the blanks.  I don't think they did it to gain advantage, it's the way they are...but it certainly worked in their favour.  Throughout the event.

Game Two in a couple days.