League Night

Cityfight and small points games adds some new wrinkles

Because the league officially started on a Thursday, week number one is running through St. Patrick's Day.  I'm pretty stoked about that as it allowed me an extra opportunity to pick up points for my team...  Okay, who am I kidding, it's all about my numbers.  But seriously (or as seriously as Warhammer gets anyway), I appreciated the chance to not start a game behind some folks.

My opponent this week, Nick, is building a brand new Necron army.  The nice thing about this is watching him progress both at the table and while painting.  The downside is that it's hard for him to get games in while the list is under construction.  I offered to play him at a reduced points level to make sure he got a game in and we settled on 775 points.  He agreed to let me run a Deathwing version of the all-Terminator list, because otherwise I'd have been running Logan and not much else.  While Logan may have been able to run through a whole army himself, it wouldn't have been much fun to play for either side.

I hammered out a quick list that included Belial, two squads of Terminators with an Assault Cannon and a Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield in each squad, plus a Dreadnought.  Nick brought a Necron Lord, a Cryptek, a five man and twenty man squad of Warriors, five immortals, and nine scarabs.  We agreed to play on a 4x4 table and snagged one of the special mission tables which meant we were playing a scenario called "The Prepared Mind."  Essentially, it was a Cityfight game with a primary objective of holding table quarters, each worth a preset number of points, between one and four.  Based on a random table we had to roll on, my side had quarters worth four and two, while his had sections worth three and one.  The secondary objective was to have one unit positioned entirely out of cover on one of the roads.  The tertiary objective was to wipe out your opponents most expensive unit.

Orange: Striking, but makes you stand out in the grimdark

He had first turn and spent most of it trying to get his models into position.  His twenty man squad climbed the large building in the center of the table, while the rest of his army ran forward at street level.  I did mostly the same, hugging cover and trying to stay out of the line of sight of the giant warrior squad.  With few targets, my Assault Cannons opened up on his scarabs.  For worthless little insects, their high attacks were probably the scariest thing for my heavy armor.  Unfortunately, their cover saves and my poor rolling meant I only killed two of them in the first two turns of shooting.  Meanwhile, my Dreadnought acquitted himself well.  Two turns of good shooting at the five man squad meant that the Lord and Cryptek were running across the field together.  Additionally, in turn three, he downed four Immortals in one go, and their remaining squad member failed his morale check and slowly fled off the board.  

Sadly, the Dreadnought's run would not last.  He was charged by the Lord, and though he killed the Lord once, the Lord made his We'll Be Back roll, stood back up, and wrecked the Dreadnought in the following turn.  During the same turn, I assaulted the Scarabs who had gone to ground in my shooting phase.  The Power Fists went to work, causing Instant Death across the board.  I didn't do nearly as much damage as I should have, with lots of ones on rolls to wound, but I did just enough and killed the last of them.  I consolidated into the far table quarter, which meant I controlled quarters worth four and three.  He then charged his Lord into one of my squads.  While he killed one of the Terminators with his War Scythe, the Storm Shield did its job and the Power Fists were just too many high strength hits to handle.  In the following turn, the Cryptek failed to stand up, but the Lord did again.

League Night!

With the game coming close to ending, we both positioned units to try and score objectives.  He moved his Lord to contest my four point square, while his warriors moved into the three point square.  I then moved one unit of Terminators back into the four point square, hid Belial in a corner in the three point square to contest it, and moved the second unit of Terminators onto the road in the two point square.  The Terminators gunned down the Lord so they could score, but he stood up yet again.  Three different units killed the robot, but he refused to stay down.  That turned out to be the last act of the game and I pulled out what was actually a pretty narrow win.


Once the Immortals and Scarabs went down, I think the writing was pretty much on the wall.  He just didn't have enough things to contest and score.  I made a conscious decision to ignore the tertiary objective, his giant squad, reasoning that the only way to lose my Terminators was to march into rapid firing Gauss weapons.  I scored 16 points for the Imperial side, bringing my week one total to 36 of a possible 40, which has to put me somewhere near the top of the league.  As an added bonus, because I won the special mission of the week, one of my squads was to be rewarded for their exploits.  The squad on the road that scored the deciding points gained the Stubborn USR any time they're contesting an objective, which is actually pretty cool.  Now I just have to remember I have it.

Hobby Accomplishments
-All the red on the Land Raider is done!
-Good first week of the league.
-Primed Khorngors and Stormboyz.
-Assembled Death Company.  Pics to follow.

Hobby Goals
-Finish the Vargheists.
-Clean up the banners and the white on the Land Raider.
-Airbrush 10 Possessed with Mechrite Red.