Wednesday 28 July 2010

Loganwing Vs Nids 1500 BatRep

Mission: Capture and Control

Deployment: Dawn of War

Space Wolves (me):

Logan

Rune Priest – LL, Jaws, Runic Armour

5 x 5 Wolf Guard, inc 1x TDA w. CML

Long Fangs – 5 MM, Power Weapon, Drop Pod

Long Fangs – 5 ML

Long Fangs – 4 ML

Nids (AJ):

Tyrant – HVC, Lash whip & Bonesword, Old Adversary, Hive Commander, Leech Essence, Paroxysm, Acid Blood

3x Tyrant Guard w Lash Whips

Very, very expensive and confused Tyrant. LW&BS, AB, Paroxysm, OA all state this is a combat beast, the HVC and HC state this is a support ‘rant.

Tyranid Prime – Lash Whip/Bonesword,

Wow. A lot of points here, but when combined with the ‘Rant, we have 10 T6 wounds to pound through.. too many points here at 1500 is my thoughts…

2x 2 Hive Guard

Cool. Standard. Misses having a 3rd unit IMHO.

Warriors x 4; Lash Whip/Bonesword, Deathspitter, Adrenal Glands, Venom Cannon

Expensive and vulnerable to ID. Goes with the Prime and creates a very killy unit.

10x Termagants w Devourers

Shooty. Enables the Tervie as troops. Good, but a lot of points for some torrent firepower…

1x Tervigon, Catalyst

Cool, standard.

1xTrygon; Adrenal Glands

Lonely.

So, I win roll off to go first, pass it to AJ. He places his objective more or less in the middle of the table, I place mine 6” on from the board edge directly opposite his. I can hold mine fine, but focussing fire and support whilst attacking his objective means I need to not spread out my army, always allowing support.

He deploys nothing, holding everything in reserve, outflanking the warriors and attached prime using Hive Commander.

I deploy 2x Wolf Guard squads and attach a Rune Priest.Central, with one of my unit on the objective, one forward of this, but both in a piece of area terrain with great views...

Turn 1:

He does nothing, I roll on and run all units into position, using Grimnar’s High King to make his unit Fearless – to avoid running off the table due to casualties…not likely but why leave it possible? I am positioned in a central position to avoid the outflankers and force the deep striking units to pop up on either flank where I can focus half my army on it.

Turn 2:

All of the Nid units except the Tyrant and one unit of Hive Guard show up. Sure enough, the Trygon pops up on my left avoiding the right hand side with Grimnar and the majority of the Long Fangs. Everything else comes on from his board edge and runs too.

The Warriors and Prime appear on the right hand side and move into area terrain for cover save love.

Shooting - the Trygon who shoots at the nearest Wolf Guard unit. Wounds a couple but kills none. Warriors and Prime pepper deathspitter fire into Logans Long Fang unit and kill no one.

My turn… All Wolf Guard units reposition for fire into the Trygon on the left, the Long Fangs stay put, except Grimnars unit who moves forward fractionally to get into MM range.

Shooting – The Trygon dies to CML, rapid fire boltgun fire…down to one wound…makes his last two saves from the bolt fire and forces me to use a unit of Long Fangs who can draw LOS, but he’ll get cover, they all hit and 4 wound, he fails cover saves and Trygon is gone.

On the right hand side, 2 Long Fang squads and the Rune Priest w LL fire at the Warriors, killing a couple and putting a wound on the Prime.

Turn 3:


Nids – Hive Guard shows up on the right hand side and the Tyrant and Guard show up from the Trygons hole on my left hand flank. Silly.

Tervigon spawns 11 gaunts. FNP’s one unit. Moves. Runs – a lot of action? Too much? Whatever. Everything else runs forward towards their own objective and to get into range. Warriors and Prime stay put in cover.

Good.

Fuck you Lash Whips.

Shooting, HVC Tyrant kills a marine, Deathspitter warriors kill a MM Long Fang and put a wound on the Rune Priest.

My 3. I move a single unit of Wolf Guard into a tempting position in the open near the Tyrant, MM Long Fangs move left through cover closer to the Tyrant. Every one else shuffles for clear LOS.

Shooting – Warriors and Prime die to Missile fire from Fangs. I remove 4/10 wounds from the Tyrant and Guard unit.

Turn 4:


More spawnage from the Tervigon – 14 pop out but it doubles out so no more. Everything else jockeys for fire positions, Hive Guard units pop off some shots and kill a marine.

Assault – Tyrant takes the bait and eats the Wolf Guard unit. Big surprise. Consolidates an 1”. Half in cover.

My 4. I move forward a bit towards his objective. Grimnar detaches himself from his squad and legs it forward to eat a large unit of spawned Termagants who are now close ish to my lines.

Wolf Guard combined fire removes the 6 T6 wounds in cover from the Tyrant and his Guard. Long Fang fire removes a wound from the Tervigon…great, 5 to go. Its in cover too by the way.

Grimnar makes it into CC and kills (combined with fearless wounds) all bar 3 Termagants. He’ll eat them in the Nid turn 5 and then get onto the next Gant unit on the Nid objective.

Turn 5:


Everything moves forward towards my lines. Termagants w Devourers kill 2 marines from a unit, force leadership at -1 and they run off the table! Bastards. Inducted into the Wolf Guard for the leader of the entire legion and what do you do? Fucking run off the table at the sight of a couple of bodies!

Ah well, not a massive issue.

A couple of wounds into a couple of units, mainly from Hive Guard shooting, but the AP4 lets them down and my marines make their saves.

Assault, Grimnar wipes out the 3 idiot gants still standing in his way. Consolidates 5”. Sweet. I’m right now within 3” of his objective and on full wounds.

My 5. Tervigon is killed from Long Fang and CML fire. Psychic backlash wipes out most of the gant unit on his objective. Oh dear. More are killed to Frag missile fire. Rune Priest casts LL and kills another. One left.

Grimnar doesn’t make it into assault with this guy. Bugger.

Game over? No. Turn 6:

His 6, he moves and runs the sole scoring unit towards the nid objective, but only runs an inch. About 5” away from objective now. Piss poor luck.

Hive Guard fire from 2 units kills a marine.

AJ calls it there. No point in getting tabled. Left on the board are 2x2 Hive Guard, 10 Termagants w Devourers, 1 spawned gant. I have lost 2 units of Wolf Guard and a couple of Long Fangs from different units. Still 1200ish points of 1500 left. Sweet.

It was easy to target prioritise in this game as AJ put the Tyrgon and Warriors in my threat zone. I had only 2 targets total for turns 2-3. Tygon – killed. Tyrant –killed, Warriors – killed. Offensive threats – gone.

I then spent turns 4-6 removing gants and Tervigon. I basically ignored the Hive Guard for the game as they are designed to de-mech, and I have none – bar the drop pod, which podded in on his objective empty and died on Turn 2 to Hive Guard fire and tervigon assault.

Systematic and simple. Never really felt threatened.

We had a good chat afterwards going over his list. Stripping and creating efficiency. Just by losing a couple of upgrades from the Tyrant, one TG and the Venom cannon from the Warriors, AJ gained a 3rd unit of 2 Hive Guard. All the same elements in the list, just now it has more firepower and a net gain of 2 T6 wounds.

The Warriors and Prime are a hideous unit IF they get into CC…but facing 19 missile launchers and 5 MM means a lot of ID-causing cover saves are going to be taken before they can ever get close.

They are expensive and perhaps another Trygon would be better than the Warriors? Keep the Prime and attach to a Hive Guard unit as a very viable CC counter attack unit…

I am pleased with the Loganwing so far. Have a good number of battles under their belt now and a good ratio for W:L:D.

I have removed the Cavalry (lord and TWC x4) from the list though to get another Long Fang unit, Rune Priest and another Wolf Guard squad.

Seems more effective and points efficient, but does lack the extra mobility.

Mobility is key for a competitive foot army. I know this. But I am confident I can de-mech in a turn or 2, so I am not sure if I need them?

Are my most recent changes apt?

Back to painting… God I love the summer holidays. Teaching FTW.



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