+ 2010 Battles 03 & 04: Tau & LatD +

These next two battles aren't going to be covered in remotely the same depth as that last GK one, but I figured I should toss them up for completion at the very least. Briefest of background: I rampaged PA last week and got in rematches against two good friends that live down there. First one marks the 8th or 10th game between my Chaos boys and these particular Tau - we're pretty sure I was up 1 win overall, so this would be a chance to pull ahead or tie it up.

Anarchonquistadores vs Tau [2000]

I ran my list from the tournament back in November, and he ran something like this:

Shas'el - frag launcher, plasma gun, meltagun
3 Crisis - plasma, melta, multi
3 Crisis - plasma, melta, multi
12 FW
12 FW
10 Kroot + 10 Kroothounds
1- Kroot + 10 Kroothounds
5-6 Pathfinders w/ warfish
5-6 Pathfinders w/ warfish
Railhead
Railhead
3 Broadsides - plasma, targeting arrays

Game: 5 objectives, pitched battle

I figured I had lost this one as soon as five objectives were rolled up vs Tau, and I was pretty much right. How about a by-the-unit summary?

Deathscreamer & 1k Sons - Stumbled painfully slowly towards some pathfinders in a building directly across from them, and were ignored until around turn 3 when the entire unit evaporated under SMS fire, save the 'Screamer. However he was doing his best to be useless, taking a wound from jamming his weapon, having the pathfinders make 100% of their cover saves and finally reaching the objective building on turn 5, when his robots were finally put down. Either he was killed or he simply cowered 6" under the objective at the top of the building.

Plasma Termies - Dropped early and dropped 1 broadside. Were brutally wiped out by a counter-dropping crisis team next turn.

Plasma Dread - After he outflanked all 40 kroot things down the eastern flank and gutted a rhino CSM squad (which killed 10+ kroot hounds on the way down), the plasma dread reserved on and eventually pounded through a building to pounce on one of the kroot packs. Needless to say heavy flamer + being invincible in combat killed that unit and got them off an objective, but it drew the attention of a crisis remnant and a railhead, which were able to drop the dread before he could kill the other kroot unit sitting on another objective. Really, he almost pulled this one back out single-handedly!

Missile Dread - Reserved on and scampered up the hard west flank behind a very tall building, eventually exploding a warfish that he caught stationary. Then he ate broadside railguns and died.

Melta CSM - Boosted their rhino at both railheads, but managed to only knock the gun off one of them before a crisis team arrived. They lost 8 members to AP1/2 fire, though the fist and a meltagunner survived for vengeance! Ish. The meltagun missed @ 1" range, and the fist flopped entirely as well. Both marines were clubbed to death by the tau suits. Guh.

Flamer CSM - Tried messing with some pathfinders in the NE, but were jumped by 40 kroot. As noted they took out over a quarter of them, though twas all for not.

Shooty CSM - Sat on my SW objective, but lost an inordinate number to the 12 FW in a ruin across from them. As in, 12 shots = 12 hits = 12 wounds = 6 dead marines. After that opening volley they hid until game end, when the autocannon marine clinging to the objective (hidden behind a wall) had his point contested by crisis suits.

1k Sons - See above (recap: shot pathfinders in cover, walked very very slowly, died)

Demons - I have no idea what the girls did. I think they helped the flamer CSM kill all those kroot, but were eaten along with them.

Havoks - Stood atop a building and pumped missiles into a railhead for 3 turns (immobilized it only, even with a sterling 3 hits a turn). Then switched to frags and pounded kroot to hell, though their going to ground in hard cover made that a moot point.

Defiler - Nestled down behind a wall and threw shells at those 12 FW turn after turn. Only 1 of 3 templates didn't scatter off (...), but that one mashed ~4 and broke them - they rallied and returned late game, but meh. Note that the defiler took 4 turns of railgun attention from the broadsides, but they somehow kept missing, having their shots cover saved or didn't do anything the defiler cared about. Oh, the defilotron also lobbed a shell at 3 crisis suits standing in the open (OMG SO DELICIOUS!!) ... and scattered away. A horrible trick to tempt me so :(

Oblit - Missed a hammerhead, was instant-deathed in return. Le shrug.

CHAOS LOSS

Well played by the Tau dude, and the CSM were well and truly out-maneuvered this time around. Also as usual I got the feeling of too few guns killing far less often then they need to to work. Ah well.

Second game was against my host's Lost and the Damned army, built using Codex:Orks. Totally awesome army modeling-wise, with quite a bit going for it in game too.

Anarchonquistadores vs Renegades of Sanctus Fornax [2000]

(Wehr, forgive if that army name is off, but I remember something to that extent)

Warboss - mega armor, attak squig
5 Meganobz - kombi-skorcha
Battlewagon - deff rolla, red, big shoota, etc

Zogwort
20 Shootas - rokkit, nob w/ klaw, armor, bosspole
Battlewagon - deff rolla, red, big shoota, etc

Snikrot + X kommandos - 2 burnas
12 Sluggas - rokkit, nob w/ klaw, armor, bosspole; trukk
12 Sluggas - nob w/ klaw, armor, bosspole; trukk
12 Sluggas - nob w/ klaw, armor, bosspole; trukk
15+ Stormboyz - Zagstruk
Battlewagon - killkannon, etc

Aye, something like that anyway!

Game: 3 objectives, cleanse

So there would definitely be fighting! He won The Roll and deployed very aggressively with all his armor, ready to smash forward and tear chaos faces off. Once again, let's do some unit-by-unit summarizing, as I don't quite want to recreate the game at the moment:

Deathscreamer & 1k Sons - Ork first turn, Zogwort looks at Chaos Lord Severus Gaal, a bit of green lightning tzaps between their eyes ... and Gaal is SQUIGGED! There's a pic of this somewhere, but regardless it was both hilarious and so so so unfortunate. The deathscreamer squig would meet his fate next time the 1k Sons received fire, as Neugog the sorcerer, now acting army commander, pushed the ex-lord into the incoming bullets. The 1k Sons would be pounced by a trukk squad and ripped limb from limb, save for Neugog who stuck around for another turn before succumbing to the choppa maelstrom.

Melta CSM, Flamer CSM & Plasma Termies - I knew that I needed to apply a LOT of force to have a chance at dropping that meganob squad (which is scoring, do note), so the rhino CSM led the charge. Both units stayed in their rhinos after boosting up on either side of the warboss's battlewagon, with the melta boys only able to immobilize it. Both rhinos detonated after being assaulted by various trukk mobs and/or meganobz, and so the CSM fell out and threw themselves in against the nob-star. A lot of average dice later and the CSM lost (both held), after killing a couple nobz and suffering heavy loses. Counter-charges by trukk mobs saw the CSM (and nearly 1/2 my troops) mashed into paste, but only the warboss (1 wound) + 1.5 meganobz had made it out alive. A tactical drop by plasma termies saw off the 1.5 nobz, and when the warboss charged in they crumped him too - for the loss of their own lives, 6 S10 klaw attaks hurt!

Shooty CSM - They had deployed a bit farther back behind some debris with the intent of providing fire support into board-center, but Snikrot's early arrival made things difficult for them. The CSM managed to drop ~4 kommados before they struck, with burnas flopping meaning they drew combat. Next round CSM began to disappear ...

Defiler - ... but the defiler mobilized and jumped on the kommandos, smashing the unit (which couldn't hurt it) even as the last of the shooty CSM were gutted. The demon engine continued to excel at fighting things that can't hurt it, as it was able to twin-heavy flamer the stormboyz (who, forced to deep strike with Zag, failed to make it into combat the turn before) and crump them up nicely. I actually complained about how the defilotron never hits, after which he switched from rolling 0-1 hit as usual to rolling 3-4! So after breaking and catching the kommandos, breaking and catching the stormboyz, the defiler went on to ransack the middle of the board, killing off the trukk boy remnant claiming the central objective. Not too shabby!

Havoks - Bounced krak off battlewagons until Zogwort's shootas turned their guns their way, ripping their meatshields off. For those trying to piece the game together, around this point I had lost ALL of my power armored troops and ALL of my icons ... except for the one on the havoks. With the demons due to hit table ASAP, all available enemy fire went into the havoks, but they held on and summoned the girls down into Zog's squad. After that they switched to frag and slammed missiles into various mobs with varying degrees of success.

Demons - So ladies show Turn 4, and kill Zog's unit handily. From here they waded through a lot of ruin to the eastern objective, being depleted to 2-3 girls at game end. They spent their last turn going to ground out of LoS, handily claiming 1 objective for chaos.

Oblit - Did nothing to Zog's battlewagon despite being ~12" away for 2 turns, then was killed by a trukk boy fist.

DREADS - Ah yes, can't forget the twins. They showed up later than I wanted, and missile dude was less than impressive - walked on and helped the defiler burn up stormies, then helped the defiler a little more by fire frenzy frag missiles into him ... He fragged some mobs too, but was a bit too far east to do much. However plasma dread was on it, powering into the parking lot of busted vehicles in the board center, exploding the boss battewagon sitting on the central objective and holding those few trukk boyz (so the defiler could get to the squishy insides) and then continuing his rampage into the final turn, where he nabbed the killkannon bw too.

In the end, the Renegades held 1 objective with a few trukk boyz, and the Anarcho lads had another with a couple demons. Nothing else was alive except for a couple dreads and defiler playing amongst the vehicle carcasses.

DRAW

Great game with so much carnage. The early squiggening was disheartening, but the demons and dreads once again pulled things out for me!

Painting: N/A
Building: Soulgrinder