Sunday 22 November 2009

Apocalypse

Last saturday I had a 5000 point apocalypse game against Ginge. Black Templars and titans vs Imperial guard.

I had written my army list based around an anti tank force. Knowing Ginge owns quite a few baneblades and variants (about 6). I decided the heavy hitters have to come out:

My Army:

Reaver titan (bols variant rules)
Warhound titan

Helbretch
Terminator chaplain
2 x Landraider crusaders
2 x Rhinos
2 x Multimelta dreads in pods
Dreadnought
Terminator assault squad
Emperors champion
Terminator Squad with assault cannons/tankhunters

3 x 10 man crusader squads
predator annaliator.
damocles rhino
6 man crusader squad

Rules:

  • Troops can only claim objectives
  • Anything can contest
  • Troops have to be above 50% to claim
  • Can attempt to seize the initiative
Deployment:
After sorting out the deployment lines, the black templars won the roll for table edge and also bidded the lowest for deployment time.


We played on a 6'x6' table


After deploying most of my army, with the exception of the two drop podding dreads. Ginge announced that he would be playing a guard infantry horde list. Darn.

We used paint pots as objective markers. Lacking anything to use as an objective at this point



Ginge had 5 callidus assassins which he used to move my transports into difficult terrain. Knowing my luck with difficult terrain tests (I tend to roll a lot of ones when making them).

Ginges army was literally a forest of men.

Turn 1:
As expected the rearmost landraider immobilised itself on the first difficult terrain tests, effectively crippling its effectiveness for the rest of the game. The rest of the difficult terrain tests were made with no problems. The rest of my army advanced relatively slowly pouring fire into the guard defence lines (3+ cover save is annoying). the titans turbo lasers wiping a couple of squads from existence (I'm not sure about this but I think the turbo lasers remove the barricades but we forgot if that is the case).

The heavy firepower took a heavy toll on the guardsmen. it was like a drop in the ocean though

The guardsmens return fire wasn't as effective as ginge would like. The most effective shots immobilised 1 rhino and destroyed the second one. Of great amusement was the two primaris pyschers (spelling?) both rolling double 6 for their perils of the warp test, leading to them both promptly being shot by commissars. It's for their own good though :-P

Turn 2:

The templars steadily move forward hosing down waves of guardsmen

On my second turn my army moved forward hosing down swathes of guardsmen. The titans continued to pour fire into the massed ranks causing horrific casualties.
High note: Yarrick was cut down due to fearless wounds when his squad was massacred.

On the guard second turn numerous callidus assassins and psyker battle squads turn up. Ginges (admittedly brilliant) idea of using the PBS to reduce my leadership to 2 then hit me with the flamer template gun of the callidus (meaning 2s to kill). Combined with the callidus subsequent charge more or less wiped out one squad of templars and the terminators, the third smaller squad of templars luckily weren't effected by the PBS but were still charged by a callidus, the lone surviving marine and callidus spent the next three combat phases trading blows in an epic show of ineptitude on both parts. Yarrick stood up again and charged my 6 remaining marines from the other squad. Killing 3 of them.

Over the following turns the templars continued to waste guardsmen by the bucket load, while ginge was more surgically taking out anything I had left to claim objectives. The straken bomb was dropped off of the green valkyrie wiping out the remaining squad of black templars with the help of marbos demo charge. They were subsequently taken out by the reavers turbo laser.







On the final turn the heavy weapons squad near the dead valkyrie (green) claimed one objective, while the other valkyrie positioned itself to drop off the embarked convict squad in the event of another turn.

Looking at the remains of ginges' army; I valkyrie with penal troopers, 1 lascannon and a lone assassin. In comparison to my 2 dreads, drop pods, four terminators, (immobilised) landraider, predator annaliator, (immobilised) damocles rhino, and two titans. i was clearly in the stronger position.
Despite this ginge still lived to claim the objective.

All in all a good, and different, game. Congratulations to ginge for the win.

7 comments:

  1. I like how the term "Straken" bomb has found such widespread usage ;o)

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  2. It's quite catchy, also a good description.

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  3. Whatever you drop it on is going to die. Sure, with str D around you can make sure it only kills one target. But even then, out of a valk it gets to kill one choice target for sure.

    In regular games where you haven't got str D and the carapace armour, cover saves and feel no pain actually count for something, it becomes a whirlwind of destruction once the bomb has been dropped :oP

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  4. at your position, there wasn't any cover save, so negating that, a battle cannon would have had the same result, AP3 so no armour save, Str8 so instant death, so no 'feel no pain'.

    But that's by the by.

    I still think valkyries are extremely undercosted. Especially in apocalypse.

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  5. I can't comment on the Valk points cost, I havn't had the chance to use mine yet. Only played one game with Guard and it was 100% infantry! I will say though you can get two Chimeras for the cost of a Valk.

    I read Ginge's batrep some time ago, so it was great to see pictures to go with it. The Titans look awesome on the battlefield! One day I'll get some.... one day....

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  6. For the price of it. In a normal game it is undercosted. Even ginge admitted that. The vendetta is even more undercosted. But when it comes to apocalypse it's an armour 12 flyer. Meaning 6s to hit 4+ cover save. 12" from range always counts as staionary. Hits side armour. Meaning it's a largely unkillable 3x twin linked lascannon for 140 points

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  7. Is it three twin linked lascannon? I thought it was two twin linked one normal. For 130. But I don't have my codex to check.

    Chris you had 100% infantry APART from the valkyrie that dropped your vets off to kill my hellhound. My sentinals then came in, and one H/K missile later, dead valkyrie. The optimistic heavy flamers also "accidentally" toasted the veterans for good measure.

    The best way to look at the costing of a vendetta is to compare it to a predator. Armed with lascannons, the pred has similar firepower (only one is twin linked, but better BS) It has better front armour, but weaker side armour, meaning it needs to face the enemy, whereas the vendetta just needs to keep it's arse away from the enemy. The vendetta also has transport capacity. Is a fast vehicle. Can move quickly as a skimmer for a cover save. And in apoc can fly, making it harder to hit, less range on the guns, and immune to blast weapons (like those irritating titans get) It also means it targets side armour, which while it's a disadvantage against the titan (can't use your manouverability for rear armour shots) it rapes things like... oh, a predator!

    Chuck a scoring unit in it for a late game objective grab and you're laughing.

    In comparison to the 2 chimeras (for a basic valkyrie) the valkyrie can deep strike, outflank, is fast, can turbo boost and still drop off troops, can claim a cover save for moving fast, comes with a couple of tank killer missiles, or better yet upgrade to the rocket pods which are defensive weapons that cause havoc in horde armies... it's a bargain.

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