We played a deployment 6, maelstrom of war (Chapter Approved) mission 4.
My list was an unusual one for me, but one that I am tempted by (with further play testing and tweaks of course!)
HQ
Captain - Plasma Pistol, Power Axe
Primaris Lieutenant - Master Crafted Bolt Rifle
Troops
Intercessor Squad (5 Intercessors), Auto-Bolt Rifles x 5, Auxiliary Grenade Launcher, Power Sword x 1
Intercessor Squad (5 Intercessors), Bolt Rifle x 5
Intercessor Squad (5 Intercessors), Bolt Rifle x 5
Heavy Support
Hellblaster Squad (5 Hellblasters), Plasma Incinerator x 5
Dedicated Transport
Repulsor, Las-Talon, Twin Linked Lascannon, Storm Bolter x 2, Icarus Rocket Pod, Krak Launcher x 2, Ironhail Heavy Stubber
Repulsor, Heavy Onslaught Gatling Cannon, Onslaught Gatling Cannon, Twin Heavy Bolter, Storm Bolter x 3, Fragstorm Assault Launcher x 2, Krakstorm Assault Launcher x 2, Ironhail Heavy Stubber x 1
Custodes Patrol Detachment - 766 points - see below, all proxies
HQ
Shield Captain in Allarus Terminator Armour with Castellan Axe
Troop:
Custodian Guard, (5 Custodians), Guardian Spear x 4, Sentinel Blade x 1, Storm Shield x 1
Fast Attack:
Vertus Praetors, (4 Vertus Praetors), Interceptor Lance, Hurricane Bolter x 4
Command Points: 6
Relics: Santic Halo (Free) - Space Marine Captain
PreGame Stratagems - None
Garviels list you can see below:
Battalion Detachment
HQ
Captain: Power fist, Storm shield
Librarian in Terminator Armor - Force sword
Troops
Intercessor Squad:Bolt rifle, 5 x Intercessor
Tactical Squad: Meltagun, Heavy Bolter, 10 Marines
Tactical Squad: Meltagun, Lascannon, 10 Marines
HQ
Lieutenant
Heavy Support
Devastator Squad: 4 x Lascannons, 5 Marines, Cherub
Hellblaster Squad: 5 Hellblasters
Land Raider Achilles: Quad launcher, 2x Twin multi-melta
Vanguard Detachment
HQ
Lieutenants
Elites
Apothecary
Company Ancient
Relic Contemptor Dreadnought - C-beam cannon, Twin heavy bolter
Relic Sicaran Battle Tank - Heavy bolter, Two lascannons
Length ways deployment did not help one bit here I think!
Turn 1:
I managed to go first (the +1 helped) and I went for the aggressive approach, deep striking in my Shield Captain, and the Custodians (who I had paid 1 command point for to put into Deep Strike). His Hellblasters used Auspex Scan to hit me with 10 shots, of which I failed enough saves that I lost three Custodians - super charged shots of course, not helped by a double 1 for the first two hits that I took on my Storm Shield guy!
You can see the Deep Strike decisions below-
The rest of my shooting was out of range (other than those deep strikers), and ineffective, I think I took 3 or 4 wounds off the Achilles.
When it came round to my Charge phase, I failed both of my 9" charges, and that included where I rolled a 6 with my Shield-Captain, and when I re-rolled the 1 I had, got another 1! This was not going how I had hoped!
The plan really had been to try and lock his Contemptor & Achilles in combat so that they couldn't affect the first turn.
In Johns first turn, he took 9 wounds off the Repulsor, and killed two of the Vertus Praetors, while also wiping out the remaining Custodian Guard and the Shield Captain! My dice were not with me as I didn't really make it hard work for him - which I had hoped to!
The Vertus Praetors moved up ready to charge the Achilles (still needing a 9... my deployment really was off for them!)
In the shooting this time I managed to kill four guys from one of the tactical squads, and knocked down the remaining Devastators so there were no more Lascannons for me to worry about!
Roll round to the charge phase, and the Vertus Praetors charged, losing one of their number (down to just one now! and failed their charge, again 6 + 1 or 6 + 2 does not a 9 make - I used the command point to re-roll and still no help!
My Hellblaster squad was also wiped out in the shooting phase at this point.
The Repulsors left all pretence of staying in range for re-rolls to advance into the face of the enemy, with the Repulsor that was undamaged getting its Intercessor squad out, and then moving up so it was in range to charge the Sicaran.
In combat I charged with the Intercessors (to try and help lock that Achilles down, and with the Repulsor shooting and charging the Sicaran I got it down to 7 wounds remaining.
In his turn 3 he backed out of combat with both to try and get the shooting done to kill the Vertus Praetor & Intercessors. Due to some unlucky rolling he was able to kill only two of the Intercessors, and only put one wound on the Repulsor.
The Vertus Praetor got in position to charge the Achilles again (here I had the choice of the achilles or the Sicaran, and to be fair I chose wrong!)
The Repulsor split its fire at the Sicaran & Achilles failing to get its 1 wound removed (he had three 3+ saves and didnt fail one, while the its Strength 5 or higher weapons targetted the Achilles, knocking 5 wounds off it... this was a mistake as I could have just gone to lock the Achilles in combat, and killed the Sicaran outright, which would have also scored me another Tactical objective!
The Intercessors popped some shots at the HQ units he had floating about, but didnt manage anything before charging the Achilles again to ensure it was locked down and couldn't shoot.
In his Turn 4 he backed his Achilles up, and finally nailed the Vertus Praetor with the C-Beam on his Contemptor, while the Characters moved in to finish off the Intercessor Squad.
I hadnt charged the Sicaran - instead opting to throw it into the Achilles, which proved fatal for it, as even on 5's to hit the Sicaran managed to throw out two sucessful Lascannon shots, a Heavy Bolter shot and no less than 5 of its Twin Accelerator cannon shots.
Between this and his Hellblasters my Repulsor was toast, leaving me with a 5 man Intercessor squad - well 3 man by this time and my Captain & Lieutenant left alive.
Turn 5:
My shooting was less effective with me failing to kill his Intercessor squad, his shooting in return wiped out my remaining Intercessors, leaving me with a Lieutenant & Captain alive on the table.
End of Game:
We had to end the game there due to time contraints - we didnt roll to see if the game continued - with two turns I have no doubt that John could have killed both my Lieutenant & Captain as the Quad Launcher didnt require line of site, but we didnt check if they were coming along.
At the end of the 5th Turn John had achieved 7 Tactical Objectives, as had I. I had First Blood, but John would have gotten Slay the Warlord.
I think - although Garviel can confirm - that we agreed for it to be a draw, but marking it as a loss for me wouldnt have been far wrong
Post Match Analysis:
There were some interesting bits in here, but I know where my mistakes were.
- Shooting anything at the Achilles was a mistake, I should have tried to take out the Sicaran instead.. I wasted some Lascannon shots on something that got a 4++ save against them instead of targetting the Sicaran that would have only gotten a 6+ save!
- Deep Striking in the Custodes - I still think this was the right decision where some poor dice rolling made it look a lot worse than it could have been
- Not Advancing the Vertus Praetors... I didnt do this to ensure i got first blood and the objective for killing something with Fly, had I though and I would have had the charge on the Achilles not being charged by it!
- Final Turns target selections, I went for the go big or go home approach spliting my fire to try and kill the Sicaran & cripple the Achilles, if it had worked it would have been amazing, but it significantly reduced the odds of my success... I need to do this less!
- Apothecary + Company Ancient + Standard of Annoyance + Captain are a very effective combo
Thoughts for the future here for sure, but I look forward to using some real custodes models next time out!
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