ETC Game 1

Day 1 Game 1 – Switzerland

Sorry but I didn't manage any pics game 1 due to my phone running out of battery :(!
Pre match ups saw us pitted against the Nation holding the ETC this year, Switzerland.
We were all rather worried about this round as we were a man down and therefore 20-0 in scoring down before the round has begun. This didn't destroy our spirits but certainly hurt our chances of winning the round.
 I was put forward second and as expected, they put the dual raider chaos army against me.
Expected you ask? Well the mission was Kill points – spearhead as primary (worth 8points), capture & control seconday (worth 4 points).
He got to choose the table and choose a fairly balanced board with a few trees, ruins, hills and bits of LOS blocking terrain for rhinos which was useful for me if I could advance.
To do this I would need first turn.............

which I obviously didn’t get.

His army contained:

2x Lash Princes
2x 3 Terminators with Combi-meltas & Dedicated Land raiders.
2x5 Chaos Space marine squads with meltaguns, 1 in Rhino.
2x3 Obliterators
1x2 Obliterators.

Pretty standard dual raider list, which my army isn’t too good against in Killpoint missions due to lack of scouts & speeders. So he takes first turn and deploys as far back as possible. Now one thing I find out before the game starts is that, any unit (including vehicles & walkers) which are in or behind woods get a straight up 5+ cover save. Interesting ruling which stops people playing around with trees etc, but this further benefited his army. He deployed in the corner with clear firelanes. Both land raiders in the trees, 8 oblits & lash princes behind them & chaos marines in reserve. I decided to play this out aggressively as there is no way I can out shoot him from afar, so deployed all but 1 Rhino GH squad & Dreadnought which were in reserve to try hit up his side of the board later on.

Turn one saw him take down (wreck or explode) both my rhinos turn 1. They both had a 3+ cover due to facing and yet still I failed my cover saves! Sad panda. My turn one I pushed my GH’s forward and ran them, all space out nicely so I could prevent getting bundles from a small lash roll & then plsama cannon’d. The Long Fangs moved up as they were a few inches short of any targets which is my fault due to poor positioning on my part. I wanted them on top of a hill slightly further back so I could see my opponents models which was a bad move as I would have been better to simply position them closer in their own fire lanes.

Turn 2 saw my opponent shuffle around & one of his Chaos marines arrived, hiding behind the Land Raiders. Shooting saw little in the way of damage, his plasma cannons were either out of range or scattered off my advancing Grey Hunters, and his Lascannons bounced off my Razorbacks who were hidden in cover. In my turn I continued to press forward whilst my shooting was a little better this time, killing two Obliterators with some lucky Kraks, and shaking a Land Raider with my Lascannons. My Rhino GH squad arrived from reserve and pushed up behind cover on the right side of the board opposite his army to put pressure on him.

Turn 3 and the Chaos player decides now is the time to act. He moves his Oblits around and his Lash princes move out of hiding to get some lash off. He lashes one of my squad twice and moves them up ready to be assaulted by one of the Lash Princes. Shooting sees my newly arrived Rhino losing its ever so useful Storm Bolter…damn! My Grey Hunters lose a few of their numbers to plasma fire, and one of my Razorbacks gets stunned. I get assaulted by the Lash prince and lose 4 Hunters, before my Fist takes 2 wounds of the prince in return. With 3 guys left I pass my LD test and pray my fist can try survive and kill the prince next turn. My turn my other Dreadnought arrives and sets up to hurt his other prince. My Grey Hunters who arrived from reserve get out of their transport ready to multi-assault his Prince & an obliterator squad. Shooting sees his Prince take two wounds, one of his Land raiders losing a Lascannon & another Obliterator dieing. Combat, my lone fist survives the ensuing combat but whiffs his return attacks. My Grey Hunters assault his prince & the Oblits (stupid but desperate times call for desperate measures). I lose 4 marines before I get to swing, but I managed to take down 1 oblit & the prince.

Turn 4 and 5 my opponents other Chaos marine in a Rhino moves on hiding. He shuffles his oblits around and moves his land raiders up to intercept my other advancing GH squad with the Rune Priest. Shooting sees one of my Dreadnoughts exploding and not much else, and combat was quick and bloody. His Terminators destroy my squad of GH’s & priest, but not before losing 5 of their number. My turns I tried but failed to finish off two single Obliterators and a single Chaos Terminator (3 killpoints and over 300VP’s), but managed to immobolise one of his Land raiders & kill his other Prince for extra VP’s. I lost the Primary quite comfortably which was expected, but pressed on to gain a footing or at least draw the VP’s but his 5+ inv saves were stupidly good. In these last two turns he must have made around 7 5+ inv saves from plasma & lascannon fire.

End result was 16-4 in his favour, with me picking up two points for drawing the secondary mission and gaining a few points from VP’s. I wasn’t overly happy with my performance but looking back I don’t think I made too many mistakes. I could have sat back and hidden, hoping to simply lose Primary and draw the rest resulting in a 12-8 loss, but that wasn’t guaranteed. If I deployed far back, he would have moved up and dragged me out with Lash & plasma fire. It would have been risky but perhaps a better strategy in the long run. I decided to push forward because I had the chance to win which was perhaps silly as all I needed to do was preserve points, so it was a big learning curve which I took into account in my future games. Overall as a team we took a lucky Draw (by two points), but we could have won had Alex Fennel been there and at least drawn 10-10 which was certainly possible.

Props goes to my opponent for showing his skill with the army. Well, thats what I would of said had he not told me he had 8 (yes 8) practise games against my list...talk about preparation haha.