White Scars vs Tyranids 06/10/22

This was a game played in a rush, and with a list specifically selected to minimize unit count, because we only had about an hour and a quarter to closing time at the store when we began. 

I played against a local player whom I have played before, who previously ran Necrons. He's switched over to Tyranids of Hive Fleet Leviathan for the second Phase of the Octarius campaign that we're playing out, among our group of about 10 that have been frequenting the Warhammer store lately.

My list:

Librarian in Terminator Armour

Terminator Squad

Terminator Squad

Terminator Assault Squad

Land Raider

The Tyranids:

Winged Hive Tryant

Screamer-killer

Exocrine (I think)

Neurothrope

Zoanthropes

Tyranid Warriors (I think)

This was my first time ever playing against Tyranids, and I don't know that army very well at all, so I'm a little unsure of what some of his models were. And, we were hurrying through the game, at times forgetting rules or even whole phases (lucky for me). Neither of us even bothered to select Agendas for the game, as far as I know. I only made use of Marked for Greatness this game, for my part. 

We played the Recon Patrol mission from the Crusade set, which stipulates that half or more of your army has to start the game in Strategic Reserves, but might join the battle in the first round if you roll a 4+. I only had one model to deploy before the game, my Land Raider, which had my Terminator Assault Squad embarked within.

He deployed his Winged Hive Tyrant and his Tyranid Warriors, then won the roll-off to get the first turn, as well.

Our units in Strategic Reserves at the beginning of the game:

In his first turn, his Hive Tyrant flew up the board to grab objective 2, and also to shoot at my Land Raider. He knocked 8 wounds off it, but it survived, since he forgot to do his psychic phase this round. The only reason I stood any chance at all, in all likelihood.

In my turn, my Terminators in the Land Raider hopped out and charged the Hive Tyrant. Another squad came in from reserves and also made their charge distance. The final squad of Terminators came in further up the board, and got off some pot shots at the Warriors, but didn't kill anything.

My combined Terminator assault was able to bring down the Hive Tyrant, and the Assaulters with the Lightning claws consolidated toward the Exocrine.

He used the Exocrine to shoot at my squad I'd left on objective 2 in his second turn, so in my second turn I was able to Smite and Lightning Call it, as well as shoot it and assault it to death.

After which the board looked like this. So far so good for the Scars!

But it wasn't going to last, because the Tyranids are phenomenally strong in the psychic phase.

Soon, all my Terminator squads were telekinetically blasted off the table, leaving only my Librarian and Land Raider to take on the Screamer-killer.

They made a go of it, but couldn't quite pull it off, and so my force was tabled in the third battle round.

Again, this was a quick and dirty game, just enough to get a Requisition Point and a little experience on my Terminator Assault Squad and Land Raider. Luckily all of my units passed their out-of-action tests this time around.

My Crusade force is very heavily oriented around elite infantry units. I'm running a lot of Terminators, which is kind of the theme, as well as Centurions. I think combating a list like this might require more bodies to absorb the mortal wound bombs dealt out each psychic phase, at least in a screening capacity so that my elite infantry's heavy armor isn't obviated by the psychic attacks that ignore it altogether.

I should probably play the mission more as well, but I just wanted to scrap, and actually had some fun doing so, so in the end, a good game is a good game.

White Scars vs Chaos Knights 05/25/2022

I was lucky enough to get in a couple of Crusade league games the other day, against the new Chaos Knights codex. I won't do a thorough move by move account of these games this time, but the pics below tell the story well enough. It was more or less a slaughter both times. The War Dog Karnivores in particular were absolutely brutal, capable of wiping a whole squad of either Terminators or Centurions in a single round of combat. It didn't help that I failed a ton of 5+ save rolls, either.

In our first game, I won the roll off to go first, and I really made the most of it, getting both of my Terminator Squads into combat and doing some serious damage with them. Unfortunately the big Knight on his side, the Abominant, had a way of reducing my damage incoming to it by 1 per attack, which meant that it lived longer than it otherwise should have, in either game. 

There's really not much more to say here, other than that Tejek Khan did get his second Titanic kill of the crusade, but that was just about the sole bright spot in either game for my force. My opponent is a good guy, though, and so both games were enjoyable. 

Unfortunately I wasn't able to really do anything with the Centurions in either game. I believe they died to attacks on the charge both times out, and the game where I went first they didn't even make it in range to shoot their meltaguns before being charged. The Vindicator did well enough in the one game where it was able to take some shots, at least.

On the bright side, we both came away with two Requisition Points, which is always good. We've both got orders of battle hungry for more supply.

White Scars vs Orks 05/13/22

This was a game for the local Crusade campaign, against a mixed list of Orks, Goffs and Snakebites. We used the Open War card deck to generate a mission at the Incursion (50PL a side) size.

Below you can see the deployment. The red D6 in the center of the board represents a relic we were after. Any model that moved into contact with it could pick it up and then carry it until they were destroyed and dropped it. The victor would be whoever had control over it at the end of the game.

My army of White Scars:

Terminator Captain

Terminator Librarian

3x 5-man combat squads of tactial marines

5-man Terminator squad

3-man Centurion assault squad

Land Speeder Tornado

The Orks (to the best of my understanding):

Beastboss on Squigosaur

Warboss

Weirdboy

2x Nob on Squighog

2x 10-model Beast Snagga Boyz 

2x Squighog Riders

10 Gretchen

Lootas 

Orks got he first turn, and the Beastboss on Squigosaur right straight across the table toward my Land Speeder. The Weirdboy attempted to cast a buff on him, with an 11 on the psychic test. My Librarian totally shut that down with an amazing Deny the Witch roll of 12, though:

After the Orks' first shooting phase. I had a Terminator take a couple of wounds:

The Orks have now made their charges

In the Fight phase, the Beastboss killed my Speeder, but my Terminators slaughtered the Squighog Boyz after interrupting the fight order via the Counter-Offensive stratagem.

In my Movement phase, I send my Terminators and the Captain up the board a little, and my Centurions move over to address the Beastboss situation. The combat squad in engagement range of the Beastboss tried to fall back, but the Orks used a stratagem to prevent it. The one on the right moved up just a little for melta range, but also stayed in cover. 

In my psychic phase, my Librarian does some decent wounds to the Beastboss, bringing him down to 3 wounds remaining

Here I've made my charges and I believe we have skipped a few phases, but in short the Centurions killed the Beastboss, but were (wrongfully) destroyed in the process. As I would discover after the game, doing some rules research, the Orks were benefitting from rules in this game where they should not have. Mistakes and misunderstandings do happen in a game as complex as 40K.

Here the Orks' backup leader, the Warboss, has killed my Captain, and the remaining Squighog riders have charged into my Librarian and a combat squad.

In my turn, my combat squads have repositioned, and my Librarian has fallen back, so...

He shouldn't actually have been able to attempt casting (see, mistakes do happen), an attempt which caused him to die from Perils of the Warp, doing mortal wounds to each of the other nearby units, as well. This was actually the second Perils of the game, offsetting the amazing Deny from before.

Here, my Terminators have fallen back from combat to pick up the relic.

Here all of my units have made their charges for the turn.

Somehow combat didn't go as planned for the Terminators, and the Warboss got the best of them. I think it had to do with over-strong Ork rules again.

Not to be deterred, a combat squad does its best to kill the Warboss.

Then also makes a run at the Weirdboy.

Unfortunately, in the final round, the Gretchen come out of nowhere to scoop up the relic for the win!

Despite the rules interpretation handicap, I felt like my White Scars did an admirable job at handling these unruly Orks. The strategy, execution, and even the dice rolls were mostly there when needed, so I am actually chalking this up as a win in my book. I have no doubt it could have been and would have been if everything had been played as written and intended. 

White Scars and Thousand Sons vs Necrons and Chaos Knights

Today's game represented the culmination of the Octarius System campaign's first phase, stage 4, a mission called Break the Stalemate, from War Zone Octarius book II.  This was a two on two game, where my White Scars were paired off with the campaign master's (Sam) Thousand Sons against the same Necrons I played last time paired with some Chaos Knights.

The Thousand Sons:

The Chaos Knights:

The mission is an interesting one where it's Dawn of War deployment (on the long edges), and five objective markers are put in a line down the middle of no man's land, representing the front lines of a battle. In your command phase, you can move the objectives you control 6" toward your opponent's deployment zone, as though pushing the battle line back. You get VP each round based on how many objectives are pushed in this way.

We were defending, so we went first in deployment. We were also both using the entire side of the board, so our forces were intermingled. The field was pretty limited in terms of terrain, so to try to avoid deploying in the kill zone of the big Knight Tyrant, I put my Centurions over to the other side of the board, obscured from that one model. My Terminators were in striking distance of an objective, and the War Dogs, as well. I had a combat squad of Tactical Marines in some ruins where their heavy bolter could pick targets of opportunity, and my other combat squads and bike squad were poised to head toward other objectives and hopefully harry some necron warriors. My Stormseer Librarian was with the Centurions, and my Captain was with the Terminators to help them hit with those power fists.

Left side deployment:

Right side deployment:

Sam deployed a bunch of Tzaangors, a Defiler, some Rubricae, and some Scarab Occult Terminators, along with an Infernal Master and an Exalted Sorcerer on Disc of Tzeench.

The enemy lines:

We won the roll-off for first turn, and decided to take it. In the first turn, I moved everything up but the one combat squad in cover. Most units advanced, so there wasn't much shooting, and no charging done this turn. I cast Ride the Winds on my Centurions to help them with mobility for the next round, and I did Smite three wounds off a base of scarabs on the necron side, and also kill another with a single Centurion's meltaguns (the other two were out of range). There was a lot more psychic from the Thousand Sons, of course, and some shooting, as well. I couldn't tell you exactly what of either, because we were taking our combined turn at the same time, and sort of loosely calling out shots and agreeing on what to focus down where it really mattered.

The Thousand Sons had the brunt of their force over on the left side, out in front of my Terminators and Centurions. Probably due to them being faster, even though I had advanced my stuff up 7 or 8 inches each.

On the enemy's first turn, the Knights moved up.



As did the Skorpekh and Lynchguard and necron warriors.

The Defiler and my combat squads look small beside the Knight Tyrant.

The War Dogs went melta-crazy on my Centurions, killing two of them. The necrons' Chronomancer killed the third. New unit curse confirmed! There went a lot of our answer to the Knights! 

The Tyrant then charged one of my combat squads and stepped on them in combat.

My bike squad has also been mostly wiped out by the Tyrant and nearby necron warriors' ranged attacks.

Back in our turn, I double up on mortal wounds spells with my Librarian, and the Thousand Sons also chip in some, and we burn down one War Dog. 

My single biker moves over to maybe distract the Tyrant or chip away at one of the necron units nearby.

In combat, my Terminators do what they're paid for, and get to work with power fists on heavy armor, killing the other War Dog.

I choose to charge my biker into the nearby unit of Immortals, and the Tyrant Heroically Intervenes into him. I think I killed a model or two, but the Knight smooshes the biker.

Terminators are saying, "Yeah, you just mosey on over here and see what we got for you."

The Tyrant decides to instead charge into another combat squad who were on this objective by it.

If they'd have survived, I would have used a melta bomb on it...

In my third turn, it's now Assault Doctrine, and the Terminators and Captain have flown across the board and into combat with the Tyrant. 

The Tyrant takes 18 wounds from my Terminators, but kills three in return, then tries to fall back.

I use the Butchered Quarry stratagem to pursue with my Captain, so he can't get too far away.

On the enemy's fourth turn, the Tyrant charges my Captain again, and kills him, but! I saved CP, so Only in Death Does Duty End, and my Captain fights back, dealing the final 9 wounds to kill it right back! 

In the end, we have tabled the Knights at least, though there are still more necrons around. They win on VP, probably. We called it a little early, but that's how it looked like it was going. My Captain actually got the final blow on a War Dog as well as the Tyrant, so he was awarded Marked for Greatness this game. 

Too bad the Centurions couldn't contribute much this time out, but they did each soak up a meltagun and thermal spear each from the War Dogs, and another meltagun equivalent from the Chronomancer.

The Thousand Sons did a lot of fighting with the necrons throughout, but I was not really involved too much in those skirmishes. Though that combat squad that was in cover ended up charging and finishing off some Lynchguard in the fourth round.

By the end of the game, I think there were two small and depleted squads of Rubricae and his Infernal Master left. I'm not sure what was left of the necrons, but I imagine some Immortals and some warriors and probably a Skorpekh or two, as well. Maybe even his Overlord and Chronomancer, also.