Onslaught 2011 day 2

Day 2 of Onslaught and I was ready for action, I had stayed off the ale the night before so I was quite fresh in the morning which is a refreshing change from my usual stinking hangover.

The round 4 postings were up and I saw I was up against Nathan "The Fat Angry Geek" Roberts from the WH40UK Podcast and his Dark Eldar.

Game 4 vs Dark Eldar
Seize Ground + Pitched Battle.

Army List:

Baron
Haemo
15+ Hellions
3+ Venoms with Blaster Trueborn inside
4+ Venoms with 3 Wracks inside
3 Ravagers

The terrain on the board we got was actually very good with a nice balance of area and LoS blocking terrain. I won the roll off and chose the deployment zone that suited my Fangs the best and then set up. I could see Nathan would be able to shield his Venoms with an Imperial Bastion so I planned to set up a cross fire with my Fangs and the Drop Pod Wolf Guard, couple that with a Relentless Long Fangs pack and I should be able to pull off a nice little Alpha Strike......

Nathan set up as I expected and took time to make sure is units got tucked in behind that Bastion the best they could, it would save some of his stuff but he was in a vulnerable position ..... And then he Seized the initiative.

That was pretty much it folks in one dice roll I was done for.

Nathan's Alpha strike pretty much crippled my army, my Fangs were gone turn 1 and by the end of turn 3 I was down to pretty much a quarter of my army sill on the board. by the end of turn 6 I had one Lone Wolf Left. Despite being absolutely raped on the battlefield I knew it would happen so it didn't bother me too much, Nathan capitalised on the opportunity and my hat goes off to him it was a well played game.

Game 5 Vs Dark Eldar (AGAIN!!)
Kill Points + Spearhead

Army List:-


Baron
Haemo
15+ Hellions
3+ Venoms with Blaster Trueborn inside
4+ Venoms with 3 Wracks inside
3 Ravagers
Same as Nathans list thereabouts.

In the final round I was up against the old enemy Matt Robertson, the last time me and Matt played was at Caledonian Uprising back in January where Matt sneaked victory from me by refusing to let his Skull Champion die to a torrent of fire thus winning him the game.

The terrain was again pretty good with a good mix of area and LoS blocking features. I won the roll off and chose a quarter of the board that would leave Matt with no where to hide all those paper planes of his. I then set up the Missile Fangs in my primary firing position which had 4 or 5 excellent lanes of fire into Matts quarter. Logan then deployed with the Lascannon Fangs but in a position where he would be able to move first turn with them and get some clear shots should the Dark Eldar find some cover. The Wolf Guard went into the pod and everything else took shelter behind a giant wall out of sight of all those Dark Lances. Matt then deployed the best he could with the terrain he had, in the end he had to deploy his Hellions as a giant screen across the front of his skimmers.

The first few turns were a long range slug fest. In turn one The Wolf Guard dropped down on his flank exposing all of his skimmers and to be honest my first turn was pretty poor as I only managed to stun a single Ravager luckily though Matt’s was the same and he only managed to kill a few Wolf Guard off from my big pack. Turns two and three were more eventful though as my missiles started to get through and reap havoc on those skimmers giving me a clear lead in kill points as my Rhino’s were still hidden at this point. It was in Matts turn 3 that he had to deal with my Lone Wolves as they were now in threat range, this meant he had to put a lot of firepower into them to drop them of which he only managed to kill one of them. He then charged the other with his Hellion mob but failed to kill him with about 62 billion attacks, it was at this point I realised I had made a mistake that could have cost me the game!

Matt charged those Hellions 6” into the Lone Wolf, in my next turn he killed the Lone Wolf and then he consolidated about 5” towards my lines. He was now in charge range of my Rhinos, with furious charge from killing the Lone Wolf off and..... I hadn’t moved the Rhino’s!

As expected the two Rhinos were swamped with Hellions and through the sheer number of attacks one was wrecked and one exploded. I lost the pack inside the wrecked Rhino and the Rune Priest and the other pack just managed to deploy but lost a few men in the process. Bloody Hell what a muppet for not seeing that coming!

After I had stopped crying I mustered the troops and counter attacked in the following turn with Logan and what troops I had left. Logan popped his Battle Howl giving everyone an extra attack and then ploughed in, I put the Rune Priest on the Baron and the rest of piled into the Hellions. The Hellions did bugger all damage and suffered about 50% Casualties in return with Logan hacking 6 down. The Rune Priest then laid into the Baron and managed to get a wound through his Shadowfield... pop went the Baron and so ended the tyranny of the Hellions.

This was pretty much the end of the game, Matt had very little left on the table except a few stragglers and a couple of damaged skimmers. I was dead worried about this game to start with due to my previous thrashing. I was helped vastly by the terrain and winning the roll off for first turn. Logan was the bomb in this game as he allowed that Lascannon Fangs pack to move freely and fire as the skimmers moved to avoid the lanes of fire. Some people may argue that 275 points is a lot to spend to give out a USR each turn but I think he brings so much more to this list and using him in a supportive role is the optimum way to use him chucking him into to combat when the time is right.

I was happy overall with my list though despite a few set backs. I think the mass of Combi Plasma doesn’t work and will be swapped out for some Combi Meltas to help me against those Land Raiders that I always struggle against, I may even try to strip down the Grey Hunters and squeeze an extra scoring unit into the list.

But that's for another post.....