Wednesday, September 02, 2009

+ CSM VS SISTERS: FIRE BAD! +

School's back in session, but that just made the wait for my last game all the longer ... Threwdown against my friend's fledgling Sisters army, which is so WIP that he had to proxy two rhinos with cardboard squares. It would be his very first outing with C:WH, and maybe his 3rd game of 5th edition.

Anarchonquistadores vs Sisters [1000]

I brought along an entirely undivided bunch of maniacs -

Sorcerer - MoCU, warptime, doombolt, familiar, melta bombs
10 CSM - IoCU, 2 meltaguns, AC w/ powerfist; rhino
9 CSM - IoCU, flamer, AC w/ powerfist, combi-flamer; rhino
10 CSM - IoCU, autocannon, plasma gun, AC w/ power weapon
Oblit
Oblit

- and he met me with more rhinos and power armor:

Cannoness - blessed weapon, artificer armor, rosarius, auto-pass-faith book
Priest - flamer, power armor
10 Sisters - meltagun, flamer, VSS; rhino
9 Sisters - meltagun, flamer, VSS; rhino
9 Sisters - meltagun, flamer, VSS; rhino
5 Seraphim - melta-pistols, hand-flamers, VSS w/ power weapon
Penitent Engine

Game came up a pitched battle capture and control, and he won The Roll and took it. I was looking at a rhino (sisters + priest) & penitent making a run for the objective near my zone, the other two rhinos prepping to take 'his' objective, and the seraphim in orbit. In response I deployed oblits to the left and right, the shooty CSM center and near 'my' objective, and both rhinos revving their engines to intercept the Inquisition rhinos on the right. The sorcerer joined up with the flamey CSM, pimp hat and all.

Sisters 1
The penitent raced forward 16" or so (rage + move + run), while the left rhino moved forward 12" in support and the right rhinos advanced more cautiously, keeping their own objective nearby. It was here that I was reminded of how awkward not automatically having smoke on rhinos is, and since he didn't spring the 3 points he couldn't pop any ...

Chaos 1
As obliterators shuffled around to draw beads on transports, the two spiky rhinos slammed forward 12" and discharged their own smoke launchers. The shooty marines locked, loaded and managed to stun the penitent (which it ignores), though the oblit came through and wrecked it with a lascannon beam. The other oblit however failed to pen the rightmost rhino with his own laser cannon.

Sisters 2
Playing a cagier game than the eevil marines, the Imperial rhinos responded to chaos' show of force - the left rhino advanced and put the penitent's smoking corpse between itself and the shooty marines, and the right rhinos moved 6" or less to park in front of their objective, while allowing the specialists within to fire. And melta they did, stunning the sorcerer's ride (smoke fail) but being unable to hurt the chopped-top rhino (smoke win). This turn the seraphim arrived as well, striking behind chaos lines and unloading on the right obliterator - but a shakey 5+ inv later and the melta-pistol was shrugged off.

Chaos 2
Time for killing things! All marines disembarked their transports and moved up to the two right rhinos, and the sorcerer started out strong by rolling an 11 to cast warptime for melta bomb fun later ... But shooting first: the left oblit las'd the left rhino, immobilizing it, which left the shooty marines to happily turn in place and shower the seraphim with lead, killing 2, which the oblit brought to 4 with twin-linked plasma fire, leaving just the VSS. The melta CSM failed to hit the rhino right in front of them, which meant they'd have to make things personal ...

The Huntsman was happy to oblidge and smashed his love-glove through the rhino, detonating the Sisters' sacred stock of hairspray and showering ALL the rhino-borne marines in fire - an amazing four hardened killers would succumb to the flames!! Dirge repeated the show in his squad's assault on the other rhino, wrecking the vehicle and disgorging the Sisters within. The oblit had less luck with the seraphim VSS, who popped faith, wounded the oblit (!) and coasted through his fumblings with her 3+ inv save.

Sisters 3
Retaliate! The Sisters from the wrecked rhinos readied flamers and pistols to blaze into assault, but first the sorcerer did his warptime dance ... and rolled a 12, wounding himself (and I learned how nasty PotW is, having to reroll my successful 5+ save :P). Unphased the chicks cooked a few marines and charged in - cannoness & friends into sorcerer & flamey marines, other sister squad into melta marines.

Before fighting ensued, two sisters from the squad hanging out in their broken rhino took pot shots at the left oblit, combining with the stormbolter to put 3 wounds on the beast. Thankfully a 2-2-2 to save kept him from an embarrassing end.

Fighting, and a lot of faith, finally went down. The seraphim kept up her 3+ inv save jig, drawing combat vs the oblit. The unassisted sister squad was beaten up by the melta marines, broke and the VSS / melta / flamer were sent running. The cannoness & crew popped +2I, but thanks to the sorcerer distracting the cannoness (5+ saved the only wound through) and the CSM shattering haughty cheekbone the girls lost by 3, only to hold on 7.

Chaos 3
With targets few and mostly locked in combat, the chaos boys got right to business, starting with the sorcerer casting warptime (!!) for once. The left oblit tagged the immobilized rhino and zaped off its stormbolter, and the melta marines (6 left now) and both rhinos hammered the fleeing sister squad, who had popped SotM in fear of the meltaguns. The flamer chick dropped, then the other two were pulped when the melta marines charged in shortly after.

In sadder combat news, the oblit was killed by the (still inv) VSS, freeing her to do irritating things. The sorcerer was stuck fighting the cannoness, who's 4+ skills absorbed his force weapon attaks, and the combat was looking bad for chaos - Big Sister chopped down 2 marines and her underlings accounted for another, with chaos scoring a big 0 from sorcerer and normal marines. Thankfully Dirge stepped up his game and fisted 2 sisters into submission, making the -1 break test easily passed.

Sisters 4
Time, and options, were growing short for the chicks. The priest-led girls finally left their rhino and moved for the chaos objective, dropping a CSM from the shooty marine squad with a single rapid fired bolter. The seraphim VSS hopped behind the shooty marines, aiming to get in the way and possibly contest the objective in Turn 5.

Combat drug on with the invinco-cannoness, who popped SotM for the hell of it, easily absorbing the sorcerer's attaks - who, it should be noted, rolled a 2 for his warptime this turn, wounding himself again. Wow. Despite this incompetence, Big C's squad all but vanished, leaving just the cannoness against the sorcerer, the fister and two spiky marines.

Chaos 4
Sisters needed to die, so the forces of chaos mobilized a bit to make that happen. The shooty marines scooted up and rapid fired into the ex-rhino sisters, killing 3-4 girls and wounding the priest, while the remaining oblit rapid-fired plasma into the VSS that had killed his new friend. Alas SotM once again saved her supple buttocks from certain death and defilement.

In combat the chaos gangbang resulted in a flamer marine eating blessed weapon and the cannoness' 2+ inv save keeping up with the flurry of attaks, except for 1 slap from Dirge which crushed her irritating skull. What was left of the squad booked it 6" through central ruins to get at the remaining squad of girls.

Sisters 5
One objective firmly in chaos' talons meant the jig was all but up, but the Imperium might at least annoy the spooky marines a bit yet. The last sister squad popped Divine Guidance and bathed the shooty marines in 10 hits of flamer ... 5 wounds but 0 6's meant the dice were in my hands now, and 2-2-1-2-1 meant half the squad was dead! The panic test was easily passed, but the odds for the coming assault had been evened up some. However The Reaver showed how it's done and killed 3 chicks with his 3 power weapon attaks, which combined with solid armor saves from the other marines meant the girls had lost by 3 - they broke and were caught.

The seraphim meanwhile suicide charged into the sorcerer to try to tag off his last wound, but he lashed out with his power staff and caved her 3+ inv save skull in. This after rolling another 11 to cast warptime.

The Witch Hunters called it at this, as only an immobilized, weaponless rhino was left on the field.

CHAOS WIN

Post Game Thoughts:
  • The sorcerer was ridiculous, managing to fail to cast warptime twice, get PotW twice, and successfully cast only once. Easily worse than the deathscreamer, who vs sisters is pretty good (S4 is only so-so against the world of T4) barring 1's. Eh, I suppose if I run any HQ that can hurt itself, it will. I still like what warptime does for my bad-dice problems, if I can ever get it off!

  • I appreciate the free smoke launchers / grenades a little more after fighting somebody who has to pay for all these little extras, or more so doesn't pay for them and suffers a bit for it. Makes your troopers seem more properly equipped, while making your points go further and be less odd-number-y.

  • My friend asked what he could have done differently, and I'm frankly not sure. Maybe been more aggressive with the rhinos? But he was trying to cover his own objective too ... I clearly had him out-gunned as far as ranged AT goes, but he might have come off better had he swapped his two wings, sending the two rhinos full out for my objective and leaving the other sisters to hold his, with the penitent as counter-assault or along with the two rhino wing as distraction / support.

  • My new big, square, translucent green dice make me happy. They aren't totally amazing, and there were a couple BAD rolls (the 5/5 armor fail one!), but they're either somewhat hot overall (hence sorcerer rolling HIGH on his tests no doubt) or I was getting the feeling that the luck was more even, rather than being a suckfest through all the phases.


Somewhat of a random aside, but there was also a newbie kid there with his chaos, running an interesting (if model-dictated) list, including 5 possessed and something like 6-7 spawn. He was basically playing his first game of 40k, and I so wanted to help the little blighter out, with a little list tweakage and in-game guidance. Maybe next time I'll be able to show him the ropes, though I did encourage him to keep the painting up and not jump armies quite yet ...

Painting: Sorcerer
Building: Pyre Troll

3 comments:

studder said...

painting a pyre troll? what count as nonsense is this?

Boss Salvage said...

Gorger ;D

Yea I've got Fluffy all converted and painted up, but I've got this "weird T5 stuff = trollbloods" thing going on that I really like. Also an excuse to buy a cool PP sculpt.

- Salvage

Inquisitor M said...

sounds like a good game. though i will say that the sisters list sounds a tad illegal. if those two 9 sister squads are standard troop choice squads they must be 10-20 sisters.
any ways umm the only bit off help i can provide your friend with is that A) sisters should avoid close combat at all costs except for seraphim and cannoness of course you will usually do far far more damage rapid firing bolters than by trying to punch things to death. B) sisters are not marines do not play them as such your toughness 3 hurts you far more than you might think. think of them more like vet guardsmen with power armor and fight like that. again so shoot over charge and try to focus 2 or more units at trying to kill one thing (team work saves lives and will force your opponent to chose how to retaliate and hopefully mess up). sisters are a short range shooty army (effective range of 7 to 12 inches really) so you have to get close. the key is to kill the unit you shoot at the first time you shoot it so it doesn't assault back or if it does it is soo below strength it cant possible win C) when it comes to penitent engines (and arco's and repentia for that matter) your deployment is key because you really can't direct or control them too much once the game starts. after that just keep playing and you'll figure it out. it took me like 4 or 5 games before i really started to get it and i'm still learning too.