I managed to get another Horus Heresy game today! This time, I was playing against a friend with Space Wolves, and we decided to re-enact one of the many skirmishes in Prospero. You know, the Razing of Prospero by the Space Wolves. We chose Blood Feud for the mission and the Dawn of War deployment because they were the simplest, and having not played many Horus Heresy games, we were just trying to familiarize ourselves with the rules more than anything.
My friend had a cool Space Wolves list, but he chose the Armored Spearhead Rite of War, so that meant he had a single Predator that was the Master of Armor with the Warlord Trait that gave the tank BS5 and a 5++ invulnerable save (and it was armed with a neutron blaster, lascannon sponsons and pintle twin-linked bolter), a Predator squadron of 3 tanks with the standard autocannons, lascannon sponsons and pintle twin-linked bolters, a tactical squad in a Rhino, a Praetor in Cataphractii Terminator armor, a Forge Lord Centurion in Cataphractii Terminator armor, an Apocethary (with the tactical squad), 10 special Varagyr Wolf Guard Terminators, a Spartan Asssault Land Raider for the Terminators with twin-linked lascannons, an Outrider squad, 2 Spatha Attack Bikes with multi-meltas, heavy support tactical squad with 5 lascannons in a Rhino, 2 Leviathan Dreadnoughts - one with 2 grav-flux bombards and one with siege claw and storm cannon, and...I think that's pretty much it, actually.
In contrast, my Thousand Sons had a regular Praetor with Raptora psychic discipline, a Praevian, 2 tactical squads, a Techmarine, a Numerologist Cabal, 2 units of 2 Castellax-Achea battle-automata, 2 Contemptor-Osiron Dreadnoughts with gravis melta cannons and aether-fire blasters, a squadron of 2 Predators with the plasma executioner destroyer and lascannon sponsons, and a Knight Household detachment of a Questoris Knight Errant with Stormspear rocket pod and Albalester upgrade and 2 Armiger Warglaives with meltaguns.
My friend had first turn, I failed to seize the initiative, and he moved everyone forward. Despite having immense firepower where he emptied all the shots of the Predators into the Castellax-Achea battle-automata, he only destroyed one of them. The Outrider squad and attack bikes sped ahead, while the Terminators and heavy support tactical squad disembarked. The multi-meltas didn't do much because I made my ion shield saves, and the heavy support tactical squad was snap shooting with their lascannons because they moved and they didn't have Relentless. Damn. The Spartan also emptied everything it had into my Knight Errant, and failed to do a single wound (or it did a couple and I saved them). Even with Sunder. My opponent's rolls were awful, yeah. Poor guy. The Leviathan Dreadnought with storm cannon had better luck, taking 2 wounds off one of my Contemptor-Osiron Dreadnoughts. Ouch. Anyway, that was about it. He charged the Outrider bikes into one of my Contemptor-Osiron Dreadnoughts and they got annihilated. The same went for the attack bikes. They got stomped...well, more like they got shredded by the reaper chainsword of the Knight Errant, and...yeah. Oh, well.
I proceeded to have my Castellax-Achea battle-automata surge ahead, shooting and the Predators with their aether-fire cannons. The Predators also tried, but they didn't do much, or maybe it was their lascannons and one rending blow that allowed me to finally destroy one of the Predators. Oh, the Numerologist Cabal was a great help in improving their BS. Yay. On the other side, the Knight Errant shot and didn't do a single thing to the Spartan, but his thermal cannon succeeded in killing a bunch of Varagyr Wolf Guard Terminators and reducing their number. Yes! The Armiger Warglaives also killed a couple of Terminators with their meltaguns and thermal lances, and my friend was fed up with his garbage rolls because he was rolling 1s and stuff. He ended up throwing away half of his dice, and his rolls actually improved after that. Oh, and my two Contemptor-Osiron Dreadnoughts fired into the Leviathan Dreadnought and only did 1 wound. Oh, well.
Anyway, I had my Knight Errant charge and he...failed his charge because I rolled 2 1s. The Contemptor-Osiron Dreadnought also failed his charge against the Leviathan Dreadnought, but at least one Armiger Warglaive made it in, but he didn't kill any Terminators because his WS4 meant he was hitting the WS5 Varagyr Wolf Guard Terminators on 5+. Ugh. He took 2 or 3 wounds instead. Damn. On the other hand, my Castellax-Achea battle-automata made it into the Predator squadron and wrecked the remaining two tanks, blowing up one and actually dealing a hull point of damage to the commander Predator. Yikes!
My friend continued shooting, and this time he had better luck with the lascannons from the Spartan and the heavy support tactical squad, taking off 4 wounds from my Knight Errant. The Leviathan Dreadnought shot and charged my Armiger Warglaive...only to roll 2 1s for the wound rolls and only did 3 or so wounds to him. I think I took like 1 wound off him in return, but yeah. I can't remember what else...oh, right. The Terminators killed my Armiger Warglaive in combat. Yikes. He also disembarked his tactical squad from the Rhino earlier, for some reason. The second Leviathan Dreadnought shot with his double grav-flux bombards and...did nothing to my Knight Errant. Like I said, he was rolling horribly.
I think my Castellax-Achea battle-automata fired at the Warlord Predator tank, but they didn't do anything, and he made his invulnerable saves anyway. Maybe they took one hull point off him, leaving him with one. They failed their Achean Force so that wasn't going to do anything anyway. The Predators moved up and shot the Terminators, killing another two or so, while absolutely decimating the tactical squad. On the other hand, the Apocethary's Feel No Pain rolls came in clutch for him, and so I think only 4 or so died.
The Knight Errant actually blew up the Spartan Assault tank with his thermal cannon because I rolled a 5 on the vehicle damage table, and the AP1 meant I added 2 to the result, so it became a 7 and an Explodes! result. Nice. The heavy stubber did nothing against the Terminators, but it did mean I could charge them, though I didn't manage to do much because WS4 sucks against WS5. And the stomps all missed. I think I did kill one or two, so there was literally only one Terminator left, alongside the Praetor and the Forge Lord. On the other hand, the Leviathan Dreadnought killed my last Armiger Warglaive, only to find itself charged by one of my Contemptor-Osiron Dreadnought, who brought it down with his Achean-Force blade. Brutal was awesome - my Armiger Warglaive did one wound to the Leviathan before he died, and then I did enough Brutal wounds to shave off the last 4 of the Leviathan and killed it. Yay! Oh, and my Castellax-Achea battle-automata charged the command Predator and wrecked him in combat, though he didn't blow up this time.
The Wolf Guard Terminators fell back because "All Our Weapons are useless!" The heavy support tactical squad shot all their lascannons and they took another 2 wounds off my Knight Errant. The Leviathan Dreadnought finally made his points back with his grav-flux bombard destroying my Knight Errant, who blew up and killed another Terminator and the Forge Lord. Ouch. Just...ouch. Damn. I don't know what to say, man. He rolled 2 1s for a 2+ armor save. The tactical squad fared better, I think, but there were like 2 guys left and the Apocethary. Nonetheless, he had succeeded in destroying all of my Knights. That was painful and netted him 7 points for Blood Feud alone, because of Price of Failure.
I retaliated by wiping out the lascannon heavy support tactical squad with my 2 Predators, though my Numerologist Cabal blew themselves up by failing their power and suffering Perils of the Warp. 3 guys just got dragged screaming into the immaterium or mutated into chaos spawn before being put down by their brothers. Still good enough to take out the heavy support tactical squad, which was pretty much the only threat to my Predators, though they had a 4++ invulnerable save thanks to my Raptora Praetor passing his psychic check. The Contemptor-Osiron Dreadnoughts continued onward and killed the Praetor in Cataphractii Terminator armor with gravis melta cannon, and the second one killed the tactical marines and Apocethary with the gravis melta cannon and aether-fire blaster too. And it was a Rend too, yikes. Poor Space Wolves. Meanwhile, the Castellax-Achea battle automata fired from afar and did one hull point to one of the Rhinos, but that was about it.
At that point, my friend surrendered. He only had 2 Rhinors and a Leviathan Dreadnought left, while I still had a healthy army count. We rolled for fun to see if his Leviathan Dreadnought could kill one of my Contemptor-Osiron Dreadnoughts, but he only did 1 wound. Actually, he did 2 wounds, but I saved one of them (and rolled a 1 for the other, so he ate a wound). The volkites also didn't do anything, not against a Contemptor Dreadnought with a 2+ armor save. Nope, nothing was going right for him. If it kept going, my Contemptor-Osiron Dreadnoughts would have charged the non-melee Leviathan Dreadnought and rip him apart with their achean force-blades, so yeah.
Eventually, the score was 7 for him and...uh, 13 points for me. 14, because of Slay the Warlord. So I had double his amount of points. It was closer than the score makes it look like because I was missing one Castellax-achea battle-automata, one of my Contemptor-Osiron Dreadnoughts had half his wounds left, and 3 of my Numerologist Cabal had died. If they died, he would have gotten 12 points to my 14. So yeah. It could have gone either way, and...frankly, his rolls were garbage to the point he threw his dice to the bin, and I don't blame him.
Still, it was a nice victory for one of the many skirmishes that took place in Prospero, so yay! Great work, Thousand Sons and Imperial Knights!
No comments:
Post a Comment