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| Thousand Sons mustering for war. |
For this matchup, I had Thousand Sons fighting against a Veteran Indominus Crusade Intercessor squad. To be more precise, my opponent brought two detachments of Adeptus Astrartes from the Raven Guard Space Marine Chapter. One was a Battalion, with a Primaris Captain Warlord (having the -1 to psychic tests relic, ouch! and the Warlord Trait that gives 6+ wound rolls a bonus AP -1), a Primaris Lieutenant, a 10-men Intercessor squad, 2 5-men Scout squads (it seems like Space Marines are all running Scouts instead of Tactical Marines these days), a Devastator squad with a single missile launcher and a heavy bolter (for the hellfire shells Stratagem), 2 squads of 5 Hellblasters and 2 Repulsors, and an Outrider Detachment of a smash Captain with jump pack, thunder hammer and storm shield (oh dear, where has all the old Raven Guard jump pack dudes gone?), a group of 5 Inceptors with the bolt weapons, and 2 squads of 4 Scout bikes (I'm surprised they have Scout bikes). Anyway, for some reason, he started the game by combat squadding the Intercessor squads after spending the Command Point to upgrade them into Indominus Veteran Intercessors, as well as an additional Command Point to upgrade the detachment into an Indominus Crusade Detachment. Okay, it was the other way around, but you know what I mean. In any case, he then placed the combat squads and the Hellblasters inside the Repulsors.
As for me, I brought my usual mechanized Thousand Sons list. A Battalion of Daemon Prince of Tzeentch, Ahriman as my Warlord, an Exalted Sorcerer on disc with 2 power swords, 2 squads of 5 Rubric Marines with inferno boltguns and a squad of 10 Rubric Marines with warpflamers inside their Rhino, and then a Vanguard Detachment of an Exalted Sorcerer on foot, a Contemptor Dreadnought with 2 butcher cannons, a Contemptor Dreadnought with 1 butcher cannon and a chainclaw and soulburner (yay for soulburners!), 5 Scarab Occult Terminators, and a Leviathan Dreadnought with a grav-flux bombard and siege drill. The Hellforged Dreadnoughts are essentially the automata for the Thousand Sons. And I love automata/robots, so this was a really fun list to try out.
We played the new Chapter Approved Maelstrom missions, and had Disruptive Signals show up. We ended up picking Dawn of War deployment and thus the game began.
Turn 1
I ended up winning the roll and starting first, after my opponent deployed and failed to seize the Initiative. So I had Ahriman, the Daemon Prince and the Leviathan Dreadnought move up one corner, and the Exalted Sorcerer move up on the opposite corner. The Rhino also surged forward to grab the center objective, though I didn't draw that objective, so whatever. I think I had drawn 4 objectives, which asked me to grab Objectives 1, 2, 3 and 4 (I have no idea how I shuffled that, but to be fair, I just opened a new Thousand Sons tactical cards so the cards were mostly left together). My opponent spent a Command Point to deny my one of the Objectives (I believe it was 3) that my little gunline was holding. Ouch.
I placed a bunch of mortal wounds on the Scouts and essentially killed them with...Smites. First Strike. I also took out a bunch of Devastators with Doombolt, if I'm not mistaken. On the other side of the table, I had my Exalted Sorcerer also used Smite on the Scouts, and killing maybe a few. I think all but two or three died. I also cast Glamor of Tzeentch on my dual butcher cannon Contemptor Dreadnought to make sure he would be harder to kill, but failed my Weaver of Fates on my Leviathan Dreadnought. Oh well. On the other hand, I pulled of Warptime and had him get within range of the Repulsor Dreadnought. Nice! Anyway, I think that was all for the psychic phase.
My Contemptor Dreadnoughts made short work of one biker squad, wiping it out. On the other side of the table, the Leviathan Dreadnought did 5 damage to one of the Repulsors. That was all, as I wasn't in range to charge anything. With First Strike and Objective 1, I had 2 victory points.
My opponent drew a bunch of stuff, including secure objective 6, and I think Critical Mission Objective (the one where you draw another tactical objective, and you have to achieve it with your Warlord). And...he drew Monster or Tank Hunter for that (where you need to destroy a model with 10 wounds or more). But bloody hell, he had to achieve it with his Warlord. Ouch. Anyway, he had his Repulsor shoot everything into the Rhino and it bloody survived everything it threw at him, even the 3 lascannon shots, onslaught gatling cannon, fragstorm grenade launchers and krak. He was just not rolling well whereas I actually rolled a 6 to stop a single lascannon shot from getting through. In the end, he destroyed it with his other Repulsor's lascannons, only to realize that the Critical Mission Objective could only be achieved by his Warlord. Whoops.
Oh, right. Before the shooting phase, he had disembarked his Intercessors and Hellblasters, and moved his bikes and smash captain up. He also used the Signum and Cheribum to have his heavy bolter Devastator shoot twice with the Hellfire Shells Stratagem, dealing 4 mortal wounds to my poor Leviathan Dreadnought. But he had to use all his Intercessors and Hellblasters to wipe out my poor Rubric Marines who poured out of the destroyed Rhino (I lost 1 guy to the Rhino's destruction). I think he did reserve a single squad of Intercessors and Hellblasters to fire at my Leviathan Dreadnought and brought him down to 4 wounds. In just a single shooting phase, my warpflamer Rubric Marines were destroyed before they could even fire a single shot. On the bright side, they were a great distraction Carnifex that drew a lot of firepower away from my Leviathan Dreadnought and other stuff. Phew. The scout bikers the shot and maybe pinged a couple of wounds from my Exalted Sorcerer and then charged him. They failed to kill him, he had maybe 1 or 2 wounds remaining, and then I proceeded to deal only 1 wound despite having 5 attacks with 2 AP -3 power swords. Well, bikers are Toughness 5, not 4. I should have cast Diabolic Strength on him. Oh well.
I think my opponent picked up 1 victory point from First Strike, and maybe he achieved one objective? I denied him Objective 6 with Disruptive Signals, so we were tied on 2 Victory Points each.
Turn 2
I can't remember what Objectives I drew, but I know he continued to deny me Objective 3. I think I had Hold the Line or something, I can't remember. Anyway, I had my Daemon Prince of Tzeentch, Ahriman, Leviathan Dreadnought move up, and my Exalted Sorcerer fly out of combat. Then I had my Scarab Occult Terminators Deep Strike 9" away from the Devastators. Again, Smites and stuff knocked out quite a few wounds off the Intercessors that had piled out of the Repulsor, and I used Temporal Manipulation to heal the Leviathan Dreadnought, bringing him up to 6 or 7 wounds, using a Stratagem to swap Death Hex out for it. But the -1 to psychic tests relic kicked in and Ahriman took 2 mortal wounds from a single failed psychic test. Ouch. The Exalted Sorcerer also used Smite on a Scout and killed one or two, leaving just one guy (Scout) remaining on Objective 6. The Scarab Occult Terminator Sorcerer killed one Devastator with his baby Smite, and this time the Aspiring Sorcerer's Weaver of Fates succeeded and the Leviathan Dreadnought had a 4++ invulnerable save.
The Contemptor Dreadnoughts wiped out the other remaining scout bike squad, and I think I might have taken a couple of Hellblasters out with the other Contemptor Dreadnought. I can't remember. Or maybe everyone had to shoot at the bikers to wipe them out. I can't remember. The Scarab Occult Terminators took out 4 Hellblasters, leaving just one guy remaining. Once again, the Leviathan Dreadnought did another 5 damage to the damaged Repulsor, bringing him to just 6 wounds or something. The Daemon Prince and Leviathan Dreadnought charged into combat, smashing the Intercessors apart, and then consolidating into combat with the single Hellblaster or something. I can't remember. Meanwhile, Ahriman failed his charge against the Devastators, but the Scarab Occult Terminators got in and hacked the remaining Devastators apart with their power swords. I don't think I even got to use the force stave on the Scarab Occult Sorcerer. With that, I secured Objective 2 and I think I had Hold the Line or something similar to that. I remember having 4 victory points by turn 2.
This was where everything went downhill for me. I know my opponent wasn't drawing very good objectives, but I think he did get Scour the Skies, which was good for him, and Secure Objective 4 (or was that last turn? I can't remember). In any case, he moved his Jump pack smash Captain toward my wounded Exalted Sorcerer on disc, and his Repulsors further forward or something. And then he Deep Struck his Inceptors a little more than 9" away from Ahriman. Hmm, I think he finally destroyed the Leviathan Dreadnought with all the combined lascannon fire from his Repulsor. His Hellblasters also destroyed the Daemon Prince and banished him to the Warp. Nearby, his Inceptors fired everything they had on poor Ahriman, but with his 3++ invulnerable save, he tanked almost everything and lost 3 wounds...except that he had taken 2 mortal wounds prior to the failed casting. I decided to spend a Command Re-roll for one of the failed saves, and saved it, and Ahriman survived with just 1 wound remaining.
Wow, that was hilarious.
As for combat, the Smash Captain smashed into my Exalted Sorcerer and promptly bludgeoned him to death with his thunder hammer, killing the guy. The Inceptors failed their charge, though! But I think I lost one Scarab Occult Terminator to something, I can't remember. Anyway, my opponent had 2 victory points, one from Scour the Skies, and the other from...something, but I can't remember. He had 4 victory points to my 4, and would have 5 or more if he succeeded in slaying my Warlord Ahriman (he had Kingslayer!). But alas, it was not meant to be. I had returned the favor by denying him Objective 6 so he didn't score that one. Heh.
Turn 3
This was where I started drawing the cool objectives. This time, I drew some psychic stratagem (Cabal force or Cabal focus or something) that gave me a Victory Point for every 2 psychic spells successfully manifested, to a maximum of 6! And I also drew a Critical Mission Objective, which meant I drew another tactical objective, which was cast a successful psychic spell for 1 victory point, and 3 or more psychic spells for D3 victory points, but the Critical Mission Objective meant I can only achieve it with my Warlord...who is none other than Ahriman. So yay.
Without my Daemon Prince and Leviathan Dreadnought, however, things were getting harder for me. I can't remember, but I managed to fly Ahriman out of there, while my Scarab Occult Terminators moved closer to the Intercessors hiding behind the wall of Objective 4. I had moved my Rubric Marines up to be within rapid fire range of the Inceptors Smite put one mortal wound on those Inceptors, and Ahriman's combined Smite and Doombolt also took out another couple of Inceptors and halved their movement speed (and they couldn't advance). On the other side, the Scarab Occult Terminators pulled a Smite off and took out that last surviving Inceptor. I think my Exalted Sorcerer on foot put a few mortal wounds on the wounded Repulsor with Smite or something, I can't remember. Hell, I don't remember what my Contemptor Dreadnoughts shot at this turn, but I think I reduced one of the Repulsor to 1 wound or so. The Aspiring Sorcerer from another squad pulled off a Smite and put D3 mortal wounds on the unwounded Repulsor, but because I rolled double 6s, he periled and 2 Rubric Marines from his squad blew up. Hmm, I think I pulled Glamor of Tzeentch off as well. Oh, and Ahriman healed himself with Temporal Manipulation, bringing him back up to 3 wounds. Phew. I know I managed to take out a few Hellblasters before charging into them with my Scarab Occult Terminators, and wiped them out or something in combat. On the other hand, my Rubric Marines failed to do anything with their inferno boltguns despite me using Veterans of the Long War and I think 3 of them survived. Damn. That was pretty much it, I believe.
I scored Objective 3, finally, because my opponent chose to deny me the Critical Mission Objective, but because he didn't deny me the Cabal Force thing, I earned 4 victory points from casting about 8 or 9 psychic powers successfully. Hell, yeah! That was 5 victory points, which brought me up to 9 or something. Awesome!
My opponent couldn't do much during his turn, but he did kill my Scarab Occult Terminators with the Inceptors. By now, I opted not to spend the Command Point to deny him Objective 6, so he could have it with that single lone scout there. His Smash Captain flew away to hide from line of sight so that he wouldn't get shot at by the Contemptor Dreadnought. Um...I think he had to shoot everything with his remaining Repulsor (the other one was too wounded and was hitting on 5s by now and missing everything) to kill 1 or 2 Scarab Occult Terminators, and he finished them off with the Inceptors. He scored Objective 6 and maybe 1 other objective? That brought him up to 5 or 6.
Turn 4
This time I drew Wrath of Magnus, which required me to kill something in the psychic phase with Smite or something. My opponent no longer had any Command Points left so he couldn't deny me the Critical Objective, and I also drew Supremacy. Which meant my Rubric Marine squad had to remain inside the Objective to capture it. I also had my Contemptor Dreadnought with chainclaw move forward toward the unwounded Repulsor or something. I don't remember what exactly I did, but I know I achieved two of my objectives this psychic phase by having Ahriman destroyed the wounded Repulsor with Smite, thus earning me Wrath of Magnus. YAY! And then he used Weaver of Fates on himself to get back to 4 wounds (that was anticlimatic), and Warptime so that he could pull off the 3rd psychic spell. I had to spend a Command Re-roll to ensure it went off, ouch. But with that, I scored D3 victory points, but more on that later. Anyway, the mortal wounds from my Aspiring Sorcerer and Exalted Sorcerer piled up on the unwounded Repulsor (who took maybe 4 or more mortal wounds last turn), and the other Aspiring Sorcerer did 1 mortal wound. And then the Contemptor Dreadnought fired his butcher cannon into him, taking him down to maybe 3 wounds? I wanted to charge him, but I decided to fire the soulburner for the fun of it, and I ended up doing 3 mortal wounds, destroying the 2nd Repulsor as well. Actually, I can't remember if I destroyed the first Repulsor this turn or the previous, but I'm pretty sure Smiting the first Repulsor got me Wrath of Magnus where I destroyed a unit in the psychic phase. Anyway, by the end of this turn, both Repulsors were dead, and my Contemptor Dreadnought with dual butcher cannons, having nothing else to shoot at, fired at the closest model - the Primaris Captain - and dealt 4 wounds to him. The poor guy had 2 wounds left. But he made a lot of his saves despite me firing 8 shots into him! Oh, he was Raven Guard, so I had a -1 to hit. On the other hand, despite using Veterans of the Long War again, I failed to kill the Inceptors with my unwounded squad of 5 Rubric Marines. Fortunately, Ahriman was on hand, and having used Warptime to fly closer, he charged the surviving Inceptors (about 2 of them) and killed them with his Black Staff.
Not only did I get Wrath of Magnus, I also achieved the Critical Objective and scored D3 victory points for it, and I also had Supremacy. By now I was ahead by 14 to 16 victory points. I know I rolled a 3 for at least one of them!
My opponent conceded. He only had about 5 Intercessors or so left, his wounded Primaris Captain, the Lieutenant, and the Smash Captain as well as the lone Scout. He didn't think he could catch up to my 14 or 16 victory points, only having about 5 or 6. He was also stuck with the Monster Hunter for his Critical Objective, so unless his Captain can slay the Contemptor Dreadnought in the middle, which would prove to be fatal because he only had 2 wounds left, he wouldn't be able to gain enough victory points. He needed about 8 to 10 victory points to catch up despite having a rapidly dwindling force, so...ouch.
It ended in an overwhelming victory for the Thousand Sons, my warband cackling madly with eldritch energy as they watch their schemes unfold...
Match 2: Deathwatch and Astra Militarum versus Orks
The second game was a much closer affair, and it only lasted 2 turns despite taking a lot more time than the first game. That's a horde game for you. It was a 2,100-point game because my opponent wanted to take an extra buggy or something.
Hmm, I can't remember exactly, but my opponent brought 2 Battalions of Sunz. Crazy Sunz or something? The one that adds 1" to their charge, advance or movement. Or all 3. He had 1 Warboss, a Big Mek, 2 Weirdboyz, a Painboy, 3 mobs of 30 Boyz (whoa), 3 squads of Grots (2 squads of 10, 1 squad of 11), 2 squads of Stormboyz (1 squad of 20, 1 squad of 10), 2 Dakkajets, 2 buggies, 2 Wartrikes or whatever those new Speedfreakz cars are called. I honestly think that's it. That was a lot of models, I can assure you. A literal greentide.
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| The Orks have arrived! |
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| Deathwatch and Astra Militarum mustering for war. |
Turn 1
This was quite the brutal turn for me. The Orks mostly moved and advanced, with only a single 30-Boyz mob moving instead of advancing. This was because the Weirdboy planned to use the Jump on them, and they showed up in front of my poor Guardsmen, then proceeded to shoot my Corvus Blackstar, and actually dealing 1 wound. The first Dakkajet fired on my Basilisk and did only 1 wound despite using the Dakka Dakka Dakka Stratagem to explode on 5s instead of 6s. The other Dakkajet fired on my infantry squad and killed 7 Guardsmen in one go. Ouch. On the other side, the wartrike or whatever buggy killed 6 Guardsmen. Ouch again. I think the Big Mek or Warboss or buggy or someone shot and killed a single Veteran with a plasma gun. Needless to say, the third squad was massacred by the Orks who jumped right in front of them, killing only 2 or 3 in overwatch.
But the damage was done, the green tide was at my doorstep and I was pretty much screwed over. I think he had 4 victory points from this turn, which included First Strike, so cool for him. I mean, he did a charge, and scored his 3 objectives (or did he discard 2 to get 1?). In any case, even if he did discard 2 to get 1, that 1 was worth 2 Victory points, and he had everything this turn. The squad that lost 7 broke and fled because of morale, and the Sergeant was the sole survivor of the other squad, where everyone else ran away also because of morale (I rolled a 4 for both, so I lost all for one, and only 3 for the squad that lost 6). Fortunately, that meant my Sergeant was still alive to hold an Objective.
I kind of had weird Objectives, 2 of them which I couldn't get, so I discarded them for an objective I could get. The other Objective was where my Sergeant was standing on, so I could get that just fine. Good thing he survived despite the morale doing so much damage. Yay. I disembarked my 2 Veteran squads with Deathwatch frag cannons and storm bolters and proceeded to go to town on the 30 Boyz squad. Between them and the Leman Russ tank commander, who did 6 damage to one buggy with his lascannon and fired his plasma cannons on the 30 Boyz, they managed to wipe out all 30 Boyz. Phew! The Corvus Blackstar flew away, and erased a single squad of Grots with its hurricane bolters, but only did 1 damage to a Dakkajet with his Corvus Blackstar rocket launcher. Um, I think the 2nd Basilisk didn't do much, killing maybe a couple of Boyz. The wounded Basilisk failed to do any wounds to the Dakkajet despite auto-hitting with a heavy flamer. He did, however, destroy the wounded buggy at the other side of the table, the one who ate a lascanon shot from my tank commander. The plasma Veterans shot and did 4 wounds to the wartrike, who had a 6+ save and made 2 of them against the plasma guns, but he ended up dead when my Contemptor Dreadnought fired upon him with his dual autocannons. The Intercessors used Kraken rounds to get within rapid fire range of the Boyz and killed all the Grots instead, I believe, but a couple of Boyz did die. I don't remember what else happened, but yeah...I think I managed to get both my objectives and First Strike, which netted me 4 victory points and allowed me to tie with my opponent!
Turn 2
The green tide continued onward and swept across my lines, and even the Stormboyz made an appearance this time. They fired and...didn't do much to my Corvus Blackstar, to be honest. I think they also shot at my Deathwatch Veterans and killed 3 of them. Or was it the buggy? Or maybe both. But I know I had only 2 Deathwatch frag cannon veterans left by the time the shooting phase was over. The Stormboyz on the other side decided to kill the single remaining Sergeant who was holding the Objective, and of course he died, but he had heroically done his job and secured me the objective so his sacrifice was not in vain. Everyone that could charge did, and the buggy took 7 wounds or so from my Deathwatch Veterans' overwatch - their Deathwatch frag cannons were 8" 2D6 auto-hits, so it was pretty nasty. Unfortunately, he spammed the mortal wounds Stratagem and wiped them out wth mortal wounds, then proceeded to consolidate into my storm bolter Veterans. The Dakkajets had to fly away, one fired and did...a total of 1 wound to my 2nd Basilisk. The other...where did he shoot again? Weird...I think he shot at my Corvus Blackstar or something and didn't do much. Between those shots, and the Stormboyz crashing into my Corvus Blackstar for assault (losing maybe 1 or 2 guys to overwatch), they did a total of 4 wounds to my Corvus Blackstar, and he remained on his first bracket, having only taken 5 wounds total. On the other side, the Wartrike ate a bit of overwatch from the heavy flamer and despite me spending a Command Point on Defensive Gunners, I didn't do much to the wartrike. Maybe 1 or 2 wounds at the most. Oh well. The Stormboyz only killed an Intercessor and wounded 1 in combat, and then my Intercessors went to town on them and wiped them out in combat. Not to mention, they killed quite a few on overwatch as well with their hellfire rounds and AP -1 bolt rifles! Intercessors are insane! I didn't know they were so strong in combat as well! Hmm, I think that was about it. I used Counteroffensive for my charged plasma Veterans and with their chainswords, they killed maybe 4 or so Boyz, but needless to say they died under the weight of so many melee attacks. Better than nothing, since I had so many Command Points and I was refunding quite some of them (I refunded 2 in the last 2 turns). In contrast, my opponent was burning through his Command Points and he had like almost none left by the end of his second turn. Fortunately, he had scored 3 victory points, getting all his Objectives this turn, and getting 7. Good for him! He also charged my first Basilisk with his Wartrike and did a total of 2 wounds...so my Basilisk only took 3 wounds in total. Funnily enough, my Basilisks were making all their armor saves against the Dakkajets and taking minimal wounds. They just refused to die! It was so funny!
Eventually I drew No Prisoners and had to discard 2 Objectives, drawing Kill Strike for the other Objective, which meant I score D3 victory points if my Veterans killed something. No Prisoners also promised D3 victory points if I killed 3 units, so I needed to plan my shots very carefully.
My Corvus Blackstar disengaged and flew away from the Stormboyz. Ah...the wonders of Fly. My Leviathan Dreadnought then Deep Strike behind the mob of 30 Boyz and unleashed hell on them, his dual grav-flux bombards killing 14 of them in one go. I'm not sure what happened, but I killed 10 of them in the first turn, and also another few in overwatch (4 of them because of countermeasure) so there were exactly 20 of them left, and I unleashed 21 shots, killing 14 of them. Re-rolling ones because of Mission Tactics, so yay. Hmm, what else? Oh, right. The Corvus Blackstar killed a bunch of Grots, but I only managed to wipe them out when the Leman Russ Executioner tank commander, 2nd Basilisk and Intercessors shot the Boyz, and killed a huge bunch of them too. The Contemptor Dreadnought also killed about 8 Boyz or so, reducing their number quite thoroughly. The tank commander's lascannon scored a good hit and brought the wounded dakkajet down to just 1 wound. Nice! Apparently my Intercessors couldn't charge the Boyz because they were out of line of sight, so I couldn't charge them, but I didn't need to because they died from morale anyway. Meanwhile, the storm bolter Veterans took the remaining wound off the buggy with their chainswords and destroyed it. I think that was about it, and I scored D3 victory points for No Prisoners, rolling a 2. I rolled a 1 for D3 victory points regarding Kill Strike because my Veterans killed the buggy, but because it was an objective I secured by discarding the other 2, it was worth double the points and I had 2. That brought me up to 8 victory points against my opponent's 7.
We had to end the game then because it had gotten pretty late and the store was closing. Oh well. So it ended in an Imperium victory...for now. He had only a single mob of Boyz left, a bunch of Stormboyz, and all his Characters. Also a single wartrike and his two dakkajets, one of which only had 1 wound left. Weirdly enough, his Weirdboyz failed to deal any mortal wounds to my Intercessors (phew!) and I managed to survive the game. I wonder how the game would have gone on if it continued. His wartrike might remain stuck in combat for a while, and I would eventually go to town on either the Stormboyz or Boyz with my Intercessors and storm bolter Veterans, not to mention my tank commander and Leviathan Dreadnought still hanging around and getting ready to blast the Characters to bits if I managed to wipe out all the infantry. Heh. Cool, right?
One was an overwhelming victory for the Thousand Sons, and the other was an extremely close game for the Imperium. I hope I can get more games for today!
Can’t use temporal manipulation to heal a leviathan in their entry they can only be healed by killing things in combat
ReplyDeleteYes, you can. The exact wording is that "This unit cannot be healed of wounds by any other means in the same turn as this ability is used." In other words, if you don't use the ability, you can heal it by any other means.
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