Three Way

One of Keno's damaged Rhinos.

John and Keno and I played an odd three player Kill Point game on Wednesday because we were the only 3 guys at Frontline that had armies handy.  We made up the deployment and seizing rules as we went along.  Turned out to be pretty fun.  We figured the guy in the middle was screwed so we let him deploy last and go first.  The screwed guy ended up being John.  Keno won second.  I got last.
John brought his Wolves from my last bat-rep, a nice and balanced list.  Keno his Death Guard, not so balanced as he has no troops (table or tie!) but super choppy.  Close combat is a death sentence for the opposing squads.  I had my CSM army with my Dreadclaw dual Khorne Lord Power Weapon Deathstar, same as the last bat-rep.

Deployment was basically right triangles, pointing one way, on either short end (18” into one long table edge over to the opposing table corner) and an isosceles triangle, pointing the other way, in the middle (18” base centered on one long table edge with a vertex on the opposite long table edge) .  There was about 18” of no-mans-land between each deployment zone.

I’m not going to go into a full bat-rep, so this is basically just an outline of what happened.

Turn 1

John split his shooting between both me and Keno,  Did a bit of damage (killed a Rhino of Kenos with Long Fangs) and stunned one of my Rhinos but nothing earth shattering.

Keno advanced his remaining 3 Rhinos and a Raider straight at John trying to close to assault range ASAP.

I ‘sploded one of Johns Rhinos with an Oblit lascannon.  I was trying to leave a wreck so his Rhinos would have a tougher time getting to me.  It sorta worked.

Turn 2

John focused most of his fire on Kenos advancing armor but did little to no damage.  For some reason he ignored the Raider.

Keno tried to move up but one of his Rhinos failed a diff terrain test and got stuck in a ruin.  His transport-less troops just plain ran at John.

I kill Keno’s stuck Rhino dead.  His troops spill out.

Turn 3

John killed another of Keno’s Rhinos but it was really close anyway so he’s going to get assaulted by its contents when it’s Keno’s turn.  John also used Jaws of the Werewolf and killed 2 of my Oblits.  Bastard!

Keno keeps advancing; the Raider and the last Rhino are right on top of a couple of Johns squads. Keno disembarks the Rhino squad and assaults John’s central Long Fangs but fails to kill them off… only one model left.  Then Keno’s Termies(!) plus a couple of HQs jump out of the Raider and assault another Long Fang squad, killing it.  Side Note: Neither John nor Keno have their lists written out ‘cause they’ve been playing these lists forever, so John was surprised and dismayed due to the Termies being in his midst.  He pretty much gave up the game mentally at that point.  Out of courtesy, I always have my list written out for just this reason.

My Dreadclaw comes in and I try to land it within assault range of a squad of Keno’s Death Guard but scatter 11”!  Not close enough to disembark and assault.  Crap!  I leave the squad inside, luckily.  I take a couple of pot shots at some of Keno’s squads that are out in the open with my Oblits and score some kills.  It was at this point that my stratergery changed.  If I can let them kill each other off maybe I can table them both!  Tabling is the only way I can win at this point seeing as they have been kicking the crap out of each other and each have more KP than I do and I don’t think I have enough speed to catch up as my units are about a quarter table from the action.

Turn 4

John advances to the rear away from the Terminators as they will surely rip him up.  For some reason he forgets to use Jaws.  I think he scored some kills against Keno elsewhere, but I don’t remember.  Sorry.

Keno has to advance and assault through difficult terrain with his Terminators because of the Rhino I sploded in Turn 1.  He moves to within 3” of the Johns main troop squad.  The shooting phase goes by with a little damage to John’s squad.  Now Keno has to roll for difficult terrain for the last 3’… and he rolls SNAKE EYES!  The assault fails!  Suddenly John is back in the game!

Because the only thing between me and Keno’s Termies is John, I decide to help John out with some Oblit lascannon fire and kill 2 of them darn Termies.  Conversely, I fail to stop one of John’s Rhinos from retreating.  If I could have imob’d that Rhino they could have destroyed each other that much quicker.

 

Turn 5

John kills 3 Terminators with Jaws and mops up the rest of that unit with a combo of pistol fire(!) and an assault.  John also loses his final Long Fang squad to Keno elsewhere on the table.

Keno’s troops are now enraged and must attack the closest enemy unit.  One of his squads is headed for the retreating rhino and the other is headed for my Dreadclaw.  They are close enough to move the full amount and then assault the Claw, which they do.  They wreck it and my guys tumble out.

My Oblits fire some more ineffectual and poorly planned shots.  But when it comes around to the assault phase my Dreadclaw Deathstar troops rip up Keno’s Death Guard except for the power fisted sergeant.  He scores two killing blows against my unit, killing one Zerker by a failed save.
I roll for the game to continue and it does.  On to turn 6!

Turn 6

John is finally able to destroy that Raider!

Keno is able to kill John’s HQ with his but then the rest of John’s squad kills Keno’s HQ.

I kill the sergeant, which is the last of Keno’s forces.  Keno rolls for the game to continue and it doesn’t.

Outcome

John beats me by 6 KP (I think).  Oddly enough, I lost only one unit the entire game, the Dreadclaw, and scored 3 KP.  It was a really fun game.  Had I been able to get my Plague Marines closer to Johns army earlier in the game, I might have done better.  I waited too long for them to kill each other.  I should have helped more!