Battle report time! I was up against Chaos again this week, but in the form of Chris' Khorne Bezerkers. Last time we played it was fairly close, and fielding the new Helldrake this promised to be a difficult affair! I did however have a couple of new tricks up my sleeve..
In my last game against Louis, I borrowed a drop pod off Bam, and it worked ok considering the scatter was well off. So I decided to treat myself to one... along with a second Storm Talon! Chris had bantered that his Helldrake would 'bend the Storm Talon over' so when I showed Chris the two of them I mentioned he'd be having a threesome. His look was priceless! Just had to make sure my dice would do me justice... Yoinks!
2000 points, Crusade, and Dawn of War deployment.
Looking at Chris' force, the Daemon Prince and Helldrake scared me. Daemon Princes can be taken down by mass bolter fire, but I'd planned on using rhino's so would either have to disembark to take care of it and then be left open to attack or counter it with my termies and captain. The Helldrake I could take care of, however I knew even in one turn of it being alive its Baleflamer could do a lot of damage. The Bezerkers themselves were Chris' weakness as these were his only two troops choices, so taking these out would stop him from capturing objectives. Kharn was in one of these units, but I'd taken plasma cannons to take infantry and rhinos out. My dreadnought in drop pod would disrupt part of the enemy battle line, and rhino's wait for the right time to surge forward and capture objectives late in the game.
This was deployment, and on the first turn my Land Raider was immobilised. This meant the termies had to come out and look to assault asap. My Rhino on the left flank was blown up and I lost three marines from the explosion, so they took position up on the left most objective. The Daemon Prince came down but I couldn't ground him to charge, so had to try and charge some bezerkers whose rhino I had managed to wreck. Failed! I then got charged by the DP and Khorne Bezerkers, pain! I managed to take out half the bezerkers and took two wounds off the DP but lost my captain and termies.
The helldrake came on, and as predicted, its baleflamer did pain. Wiped out my devastators with plasma cannons, and also a tactical member from a nearby squad. Just over 200 points killed in one fell swoop! Luckily, my Storm Talons came on (surprisingly reliably) and the first shots with an assault cannon took it down, almost blowing a Khorne Rhino up. Payback! I couldn't have this surviving too long, it would slaughter my troops!
Wrecking both of Chris' rhinos meant exposing his troops, and the unit with Kharn was heavily fired at. I managed to Kharn out with a couple of Krak missiles by a Storm Talon and whittle the squad down over two turns. The other Bezerkers moved back to hold the objective, and after Chris had wrecked my Rhino I advanced carefully firing as much as I could. The Vindicator took out 7 of the 9 marines, but the two survivors held fast as I tried to blow the Vindicator up. Going into hovering mode, the Storm Talon unleashed its firepower and tore the vindicator apart.
The game ended 10-2, but going into turn 5 Chris lead 5-4, and it was a hugely close game. Chris' lack of troops meant destroying two units stopped him from capturing objecives, whereas I took three tactical squads and broke one up into combat squads, giving me 4 scoring units which was well worth doing. The predator didn't do a whole lot, managed a couple of hull points on one Rhino, and took a couple of Bezerkers down. What it did best though was attract enemy heavy firepower, surviving 4 shots from a demolisher cannon and numurous lascannon shots from an obliterator. 85pts well worth it! The Storm Talons worked a treat, although I'll rarely use both again in this sized battle. The Termies and Captain stopped the Daemon Prince from running rampage, who was promptly gunned down by a disembarked Tactical Squad. I love boltguns!
Great game in all, close til the end and Chris is really starting to get the hang of his army. He does need to be a little mroe aggressive, but thats something that will come with experience.
Now, a quick word about projects! In less than two weeks we have the all dayer, and I've got about 6k of Evandalists I want to field but some work to do first. I've got two chaplains to build/convert, the biker and a running one, I've just got my ratling sniper to convert into a Squat to use as Telion (will explain more when I cover this) plus a limited edition Boarding Captain that I swapped the Games Day BA Captain for. I've got an old school jump pack I may use for him and the chaplain, and it looks amazing on him, so we shall see!
Keep tuned for more details, not just on my stuff but also some of the club members who I'm bugging to send WIP piccies of their mini's.