1850 - RTT - G3 - 9-8-12

Game 3

Deployment: Dawn of War
Mission: Purge the Alien (Killpoints)
Opponent: Imperial Guard w/ Dark Angel Allies

My army list can be found here.

HQ
Company Command Squad w/ Plasma Gun, Medic
Primaris Psyker w/ Lightning (other useless power)
Allied: Librarian w/ rolled powers Prescience, Force Dome

Elite
10x Ratling Snipers

Troops
Platoon w/ 2x Lascannon, Plasmagun
Veteran Squad in Chimera w/ 3x Meltagun
Veteran Squad in Chimera w/ 3x Plasmagun
Allied: 10x Space Marines w/ Plasmagun, Plasma Cannon

Fast Attack
Hellhound w/ hull Heavy Flamers
Allied: Land Speeder w/ Multi-Melta

Heavy Support
Leman Russ Demolisher w/ Heavy Bolter Sponsons, Hull Lascannon
Leman Russ Battle Tank w/ Hull Lascannon
Basilisk
Allied: Vindicator



My opponent has a large number of blast templates - although they are more suited to taking down MEQ than to Daemons.  There is also not a lot of hand to hand prowess if I can make it into his lines with any of my Daemons.  The most dangerous vehicle, from my experience, is the Hellhound which is anoying to take out and can put out a lot of hurting.  Luckily for me, this is a Kill Points game and my army us low on Kill Points - while my opponent can cough up 15 of them.

We roll warlord traits and I get reroll reserves, while my opponent gets something useless.  We then roll for deployment/turn and the Guard take it. They elect to make me go first - this is something I actually like with the new Night Fighting potentially providing a lot of cover on Turn 1 if I go first, and then I can move in Turn 2.

Deployment

The Guard deployment is in a long gunline.

Anchoring the center is the Basilish, with the Leman Russes and Vindicator on the flanks.  The platoon squad is in terrain, but mainly shielding the battle tanks, while the CCS sat between the Basilisk and the Vindicator.

The Dark Angels deploy in front of the Hellhound, spread out to avoid flamers (although if I land a hit all those guys are dead anyway). 

Finally the Ratlings infiltrate deep into my backfield - I though this was a great opportunity for me to score first blood.  The Land Speeder remains in Deep Strike reserve.

1 - Daemons

I select a first wave that can weather the storm and put out some hurt. That means:

2x Soul Grinder

Flamers w/ Herald of Tzeetch

Bloodcrushers w/ Herald of Khorne

Screamers

Last time I did not get my preferred wave - so I informed my opponent that the law of averages dictated I must get it this time.  The Dark Gods themselves did not want to mess with probability - and I rolled up a 6.

Whenever I have a player isolate half their firepower I try to overload a flank to fold up the army.  Also, the Platoon squad provided a good opportunity to get stuck in, so I dropped both grinders first on the left flank. The Bloodcrushers dropped in front of them to get annoyingly close and provide a difficult target.  The Flamers are more cleanup duty this game - there are not really any 'hard' enemies for them to take and I did not want to give up first blood with a risky deep strike.

The screamers came down in the center to keep out of Line of Sight, and so they can use their Vector Strikes to take down the Ratlings.

The Blood Crushers are expecially close, and one Grinder shoots and immobilizes the Basilisk (we realize a moment later it is really Explodes! due to it being open topped and I get First Blood) and the other grinder takes out all but one member of their CCS somehow survives.  On the same note, one Ratling survives as well and they both make Morale!

 Aftter run moves and turboboosts, I have a huge chunk of my army my army hanging out on his left flank.



Daemons - 2 (First Blood)
IG - 0

1 - IG

The guard shuffle around to get some clear lines of fire and move the Chimera/Hellhound forward.

 Their shooting bounces off the Soul Grinders while I fail 2 of 3 Lookout Sir! saves on the Crushers and then fail a ton of normal armour saves.  Somehow I survive with the Herald, and two crushers - one wounded.

Both grinders, however, remain unhurt from the shooting and I prepare to roll into the guard.


Daemons - 2 (First Blood)
IG - 0

2-Daemons

I bring in all my reserves without even needing my Warlord's reroll.  The Daemonettes come in on the right flank while the Horrors get ready to take some rear armor shots on the Hellhound.  The main event, however, occurs near the Soul Grinders.  Their shooting fails to inflict any permanent damage - I took side armor shots at the Vindicator and the Chimera.  The Flamers though get some shots off against the Chimera and manage to stun it with the Herald's bolt.

I get a bit ambitious and assault both the Infantry Platoon and the Leman Russ - hoping to rend it out.  Unfortunately I whiff big with the Herald and due to terrain the Guard take down both crushers before I even have a chance to swing.  Those are some hot guardsmen!  We pile in with the Herald on one wound, and me feeling a bit nervous for his life.

On the other flank the Horrors take down the Hellhound with a disgusting number of Warpfire shots.  The Screamers pile into the Marines and I forgo the multi-charge due to my nervousness about failing to make it through the overwatch - I still do not have a good feeling for how much of a risk this is.

I inflict just enough wounds to leave the Librarian standing on his own among a pile of screamers - things are not looking particularly good for him.


Daemons - 4 (First Blood)
IG - 1

2 - IG

The Veterans hop out of their ride to take a few melta shots at the Grinder while the Speeder Deep Strikes behind the Grinder but whiffs with its Muli-Melta shot.

The distraction Daemonettes lose 10 of their number to combined fire by the Leman Russ and the Psyker squad in the Chimera.  In combat the Herald of Khorne makes his one required Armor save - then sweeps the platoon and consolidates towards the company command squad.

The Librarian fails to kill any Screamers and then gets chomped to death by the surrounding Screamers who put their eyes on the nearby Vindicator and Russ


Daemons - 6 (First Blood)
IG - 1

3 - Daemons

I move forward and charge the Grinder into the Russ - taking it out.  The Flamers frag most of the Veterans and the Chimera, while the Herald of Tzeetch takes his We Are Legion shots at the Speeder and takes it out.  The Screamers demolish the Leman Russ and the Vindicator while the Herald of Khorne kills the remant of the CCS.

Tragedy strikes, however, when the explosion from the Vindicator manages to wound (on a 6 no less) the Khorne Herald who fails his armor save and goes down to fratricide.

Nearby the Horrors hang out a bit while the Grinder assaults and takes out the Chimera - killing 6 in the explosion but leaving the unit unpinned.


Daemons - 14 (Slay the Warlord, First Blood)
IG - 3 (Slay the Warlord)

3 - IG

Some angry Melta vets shoot into the rear of the grinder and take it out.

In the meantime the Psyker assaults the Horrors with his men - I kill two with my 50+ overwatch shots (pretty bad performance by me!) but manage to win combat with the Horrors.

Daemons - 16 (Slay the Warlord, First Blood)
IG - 4 (Slay the Warlord)

4 - Daemons

The Meltas eat flamers and go down, as expected, while the only exciting part of the turn is to see if the Plagues who have been making their way down the side of the board can get into assault.

I managed to track down the lone Ratling with Plagues I set to the task on Turn 2 - the little guy just ran out of room to run.  He manages to poke on in the eye, but it makes its Feel No Pain, and the final IG model is removed.

Daemons - 19 (Slay the Warlord, First Blood, Linebreaker)
IG - 4 (Slay the Warlord)

Tournament Results

There were four undefeated players going into the final round of the tournament.  Naturally two of us came away with wins - we both tabled our opponents.  I had, however, tabled all three of my opponents and the tie breaker was on total points scored.  With maximum points in all three games - and a ton of points in the last guard KP heavy list I took first and picked up the Dark Vengeance starter set.  

There was some discussion after the tournament about the scoring.  Compared to the other undefeated player in game 1 we both rolled the same number of objectives and I had 0 Heavy Support choices to try to kill for bonus points. This was the minimum possible points for the mission type, but I took a max score in that game.  In game 2 we played the Relic and I scored 5 points (missed first blood with my mishap) and he scored lower.  At that point I was ahead in points - so even if we had normalized the points for the last mission I had the victory.  Further, I scored 36/37 possible points - while others left a number of points on the table.

This is not taking anything away, from the other player - but I think in this case the outcome was not influenced by unfair scoring.  In the future, though, I agree with the sentiment that the number of scorable points for each person should be the same in the case of a tiebreaker.

Closing Thoughts

This was a rough game for my opponent - not having the massed small arms fire necessary to really take down my Daemons hurt - although the Soul Grinders really demonstrated what an AV 13 walker can do to armies that are not high in Meltas.  The Grinders also benefitted from some great cover saves - since a template will hardly ever miss them now due to their large footprint.  Their saving grace was the Bloodcrushers sucked up a lot of firepower from the guard - even if they did fail numerous 3+ saves on their way down.

We discussed deployment a bit after the game, and the standard theory against Daemons is to Castle up somewhere.  I am not sure if that is a good strategy against the new Daemons - with the revised template rules, the brutality of Screamers and the forgiving Deep Strike mishap table - Daemons can deploy very aggressively and take down clumped enemies.  Unfortunately, the other option is to diffuse their firepower - like what happened in this case and Daemons made it into combat largely unscathed.

Overall I like the way this list played, I did miss having Fiends in there but the Screamers fill their role very well - and in some ways better with slashing attacks and armourbane.  The one advantage for Fiends, is their higher Initiative can protect them from some enemy return strikes.  Another advantage is I own 12 Fiends but only 9 Screamers.  I might consider running one unit of Flamers and two units of Fiends along with the Screamers next time for a very fast army.

For those who said Crushers are dead - I found them to be a great unit in all my games.  You need to be careful of Terminators, but in general they put down a lot of wounds with High Toughness and some aggressive deep strikes can put them into contact with the enemy fast.