I'll try to post some updates over the weekend — too much work and traffic this week.Played some combat patrol over the past week with gobsan: I played Dark Eldar list, he tried Orks, Blood Angels, Space Wolves. Combat patrol involves following rules, put simply:
- You must field one troop choice
- No Vehicles with summary armor value (front, side, back) over 33
- No models with more than 2 wounds
- No 2+/2++ saves allowed
- Combat mission - Annihilation, on a 4x4 table with 25 % terrain
- No Psykers allowed - you can field a Librarian, if you want, but you can't use powers.
My list looked like this:
Haemonculus, Venom Blade, Shattershard, Hex Rifle.
9 Wracks, Liquifier, Acothyst, Hex Rifle, Raider with Flickerfield.
8 Wyches, Hekatrix, Venom Blade, Raider with Flickerfield.
Then I realised that I'm like 40 points over, for some reason, so I had to drop Hex Rifles and Acothyst, and switch Shattershard for a Casket of Flensing.
Anyway, this list proved to be really solid in a Combat Patrol setting. It rolled over Orks, losing maybe 3 models that fielded a bunch of Nobs in a Trukk with Painboy and wound allocation tricks, a squad of Tankbustas and Grot squad as a requirement. Wyches managed to take out Tankbustas on turn 3, rolling really good on a Fleet roll, and then hold against charging Nobs, losing 1 or 2 models. Then Wracks with Furious charge came in and landed something like 13 wounds. Ez.
Space wolves were easy too, but list was a bit weak - Rune Priest with a squad of grey hunters, in a Rhino, with a Land Speeder as support. Basically, I immobilized Land Speeder turn 1, I was too far away from shooting, and Wolves decided to hide behind ruins. Land Speeder exploded, Rhino got a glance and Shaken. Raiders moved to Rhino, still out of range. Rhino blew smoke. Raiders moved in, inflicting immobilize. Wolves stayed in, as they can't really charge even if they blow up a Raider with melta. So I decided to disembark and assault. Dark lances wiffed, but no biggie, wracks and wyches blocked sides and back on the Rhino, wracks managed to do whole 3 glances out of 30 attacks. Nice! But that was enough. Weapon destroyed and Immobize got upgraded to Wrecked, and Space Wolves were trapped inside. Win!
Blood Angels I can't really remember - there were Sternguard squad in a Razorback with TL plasmagun and lascannon, plus 8 strong squad of Assault marines. Dark Lances failed to do anything in this game, 5 Wyches died horrible death from Sternguard shooting while waiting outside of a Raider for a charge, tried to counter-charge being 3 strong, but lost combat and ran. Assault marines deepstruck in and got eaten alive by Liquifier and Casket of Flensing. Wracks then cleared Remaining 4 Sternguard.
Next day we played with updated lists, King of the Hill style: my list was the same, and gobsan tried to overcome it.
Space Wolves: Grey Hunters in a Rhino with melta, power weapon, wulfen, standart, and Long Fangs with 5 missile lauchers, and a Land Speeder. Tough. Damn. No power weapons in my list and it's almost impossible to kill Grey Hunters with torrent, when standart is down. Anyway, I managed to dodge Long Fangs nicely and save one missile with Flickerfield. Wyches Raider got blown by a melta in terrain, instead, I lost 4 models. Bolter fire would have wrecked it anyway, but they disembarked for it. Nice start, I thought. However, I killed one wolf with Splinter pistols, then charged and wiffed, not doing much, lost combat and girls ran for their lives. Next turn Liquifier and Casket combined almost wiped out Wolves, leaving 3 models on table. No chance to charge, Wolves ran away and tried to hide. Long Fangs, still unable to fire due to los, embarked on a Rhino, which was stupid - next turn Rhino got shaken, so they can't shoot off top hatch, can't disembark, because then they are just sitting ducks. Liquifier burned rest of Grey Hunters, Space Wolves concede.
Blood Angels: damn, this was hard. 20 tactical marines with MLs and flamers, and one Sanguinary priest. I kept my distance, moved flat out with both Raiders, LOSed Missile Launchers, saved Bolter Fire and was able to comfortably shoot and assault next turn. But, I made a horrible, horrible mistake. I assaulted each squad with only one of mine. My shooting proved ineffective, killing 2 or 3 models. Power armor with FnP coupled with bad rolls on ap on Casket and Liquifier is too much. On a charge, wyches killed one model. Haemonculus won 1v1 against Priest and got him killed, granting Fearless to a squad but wracks didnt really do much, because of FnP - same Initiative step. We stuck in combat for something like 7 turns, unable to kill each other. In the end, after almost an hour of nervous rolling, screaming and cheering, Hekatrix made her stand against 3 Space marines, and Haemonculus with 3 wracks stood his ground against 4 Space marines. Hekatrix killed one, but it was too much and Sergeant ran her down. Haemonculus killed 2 models, Wracks wiffed and got killed. So yeah, board looks like this: 2 Raiders, unable to shoot whole game, Haemonculus with one wound stuck in combat with two marines, and another marine and sergeant ready to charge. That was epic. Like, truly epic. Haemonculus kills one marine and saves 3 wounds thrown against him. So 2 morale test for tacticals, one on 8, one on 7. Both failed. Marines run. Not too far. We stopped at that and called it a draw, because we had no idea whose turn it is.
Big lesson for me: do not, for the love of Vect, get stuck in combat with superior numbers of marines. You have to kill them either on charge, or tie them up until some other unit comes in and helps them.
I'll play CSM combat patrol next time:
5 Plague Marines with 2 Meltaguns, Rhino, Havoc Launcher
5 Chosen with 5 Plasmaguns, Rhino, Havoc Launcher
