Battle Report – 1000pt CSM vs DE – Tourney Test Game!

I don’t do many battle reports because I’m scatter-brained and I forget to take pictures.  I go in with every intention of snapping some shots… I really do.  But when the game starts I completely forget because I’m doing my damnedest to win.  Fortunately, last night my opponent over at Frontline Gaming, Jeremy, was a picture-reminding machine!  I actually took pictures (thanks to him)!  Most of them at the start of each turn!

On a side note, I’ve lost every solo game since my last battle report… lets say 6?  Usually due to my dice failing me at a critical point.  (Bummer)  I’m confident I haven’t been playing poorly because I can see my opponents having to think about the next move, see them making hard choices, see them being forced to do things that are risky.  I am getting better at the game.  I just need my dice to stop pooping on me.

This match was a list testing match for me for the small 8-player tournament that is happening over at Frontline on Sunday.  The tournament is a standard rules tourney (i.e. not BAO format, which is Frontline’s signature) of 1000 point armies on a 4x4 table over 5 rounds of play.

Jeremy’s list was a 1500 point list that he cut down to 1000 so I could do my testing, so it’s not optimized for the game which probably helped me a lot.  It’s still pretty scary as I’ve never played Dark Eldar before.

The Game

Mission: Capture and Control (1 command post objective each)

• My CP is behind the shipping container in my deployment zone.  It’s a small pile of skulls.
• His is in the forest on his table edge.  It’s a large alien skull that he sculpted himself which I should have gotten a picture of because it was frakken cool.

Table: we didn’t want to muck about with placing terrain.  We just made a symmetrical table so we could get to playing as quickly as possible.  The store was going to close soon, after all.

Deployment: Pitched Battle (no more than 12” from own table edge)

I won the choice and chose to go first.  He failed to seize.

My list (Chaos Space Marines):

Assault Force (In Rhino closest to the tank farm)

Dedicated Rhino
Lash Sorcerer
Squad of 6x Berzerkers with 1x Skull Champ with PW

Control Force (In Rhino closest to my table edge)

Dedicated Rhino
Squad of 4x Plague Marines, 2x Melta, with 1x Plague Champ with PF

Heavies

3 squads of 2x Oblits

Jeremy's List (Dark Eldar):

HQ Squad

Urien
Haemonculus, Fleshgauntlet, Shattershard, Webway
Grotesques 3x Liquifier, 4th, Sgt. Fleshgauntlet

Troops

5 Wracks. Liquifier
5 Wracks. Liquifier

Heavies

Talos, Chainflail, CCW, Heatlance
Talos, CCW, Heatlance
Cronos, Vortex, Siphon

Turn 1

I lead in CP objectives 1 to 0.

My Assault Force moved up 12” to threaten his deployed unit and CP early.  All the Oblits moved forward a bit as did the Control Force Rhino.  My Oblits on the left Plasma Cannoned his sort of exposed HQ unit and caused a wound or two but no deaths.





He distributed some pain tokens and pushed his HQ unit forward and placed a webway behind the LOS blocking tank farm in the center of the table.  No shooting on his part.

Turn 2 (we both forgot to take pics)

I lead in CP objectives 1 to 0.

I moved my Control Force Rhino forward and spun it to plug the gap between the ruins and the shipping container.  I also backed off my Assault force toward my right table edge and attempted to Lash his HQ squad into a place where I could PC it to death but failed the roll with an 11.  All the Oblits did a lot of shooting but only killed 2 of his Wrack squad that were back by the webway.

2 of his units made it in from reserve: a Wrack squad the Talos with a Heatlance.  The Talos shot at the Assault Force Rhino but only destroyed TL Bolter.  He then assaulted and handily wrecked it.  My Berzerkers spilled out.

Turn 3

CP objectives are even at 0 to 0.

Seeing the Talos as a major threat I disembarked my PM’s hoping that the Melta Guns will bring him down.  For some reason I forgot to move my Zerks toward the Talos to put everyone right in his face.  Apparently I could have been forced to roll difficult terrain to make the charge because I left Zerks behind the Rhino wreck.  I got around that by Lashing the Talos forward (sort of between both the wrecked Rhino and the live one) so I could Melta and assault it with both the Zerks and the PMs, if need be.

Melta failed utterly but 2 of my Oblit squads managed to deal a wound each.  I then assaulted it with the Zerks (fail) and the Plaguers (Power Fist Win!) but lost 2 PMs.  I was then able to consolidate my Zerks back 6”, away from his super choppy HQ squad, and the PMs 1” back toward the still running Rhino.





Jeremy’s two other Heavies busted out of the webway but they weren’t able to do anything significant upon arrival.  His HQ squad moved up on my troops and Urien laid down a flamer template and a pie plate (sorry, I can’t remember what these weapons were) and killed 2 Zerks.  The HQ squad was just short of assault range, thank the Chaos Gods.

Turn 4

CP objectives are even at 0 to 0.

I moved my Berzerkers and my right-most Oblits as far as possible down the right table edge and toward his CP.  I didn’t want to tangle with his HQ squad, they are all powerful multi-wound and multi-attack models.  I load the PMs into the Rhino and high-tail it back to the CP, well out of LOS of his HQ squad.  I attempted a Lash, failed again, but this time caused a wound to my HQ (typical).  The Oblits fired some more PCs but didn’t do much as Jeremy made most of his cover saves.





Jeremy’s final troop choice came out of reserve and he moved his entire force forward.  His damaged Wrack squad is able to grab his CP objective after a long slog around the back of his table half.  He was able to kill another Zerker with a flamer-type weapon from one of the remaining Heavies.  He’s now fairly close to my CP.  If he gets the Run! roll he needs he can contest.  It was at this point we realized that it was past 11pm and we had to wrap the game up at the end of turn 5, no matter what.  Further, the store was staying open late (they close at 10) just for us!  Thanks, Will!
 

Turn 5

CP objectives are even at 1 to 1.

In order to keep him from contesting my CP I disembark my PMs and moved my Rhino up to a position where it would block his HQ squad’s path and help eat up some movement distance.  I parked it right across his path.  They could either go around the Rhino, or try and kill it and roll for Difficult Terrain in order to get close enough to contest.  I placed my PMs in a blocking formation, too, just in case.  I move my Zerks and Oblits up on the right and Lash his 3 remaining Wracks into charge range of my Zerks.  My Oblits shoot them with Lascannon in hopes of only killing 2 and leaving one for assault but they fail miserably.   I assault and crush them, roll a 5” consolidate, and I’m on his CP!  Elsewhere my Oblits do nothing of importance.  In the middle of Turn 5 it’s 2 to 0 in my favor but Jeremy can still pull off a tie, maybe!
 



Jeremy moves his HQ squad up to try and get in position to contest.  He also moves one of his Talos’s in to assault range of my troops on his CP.  At this point his only hope to capture my CP is to wreck/explode the remaining Rhino and then make a really good difficult terrain roll.  Unfortunately for Jeremy, the Talos is unable to kill the Rhino.  My CP is in the clear!

His fresh-from-the-webway Wracks assault my Oblits in the forest and kill one.  The remaining Oblit squashes a Wrack.  Combat is a wash.





Switching over to Jeremy's CP: The Cronos fires but does no damage to the Zerks.  Unfortunately, it’s juuuuust within assault range so it charges… this is a big 3-wound model that can kill the entire squad if my dice poop on me yet again.  My Sorcerer can strike first with his Force Weapon, though.  I need at least one 6 out of the 4 to-hit dice.  I get one 6!  Now I roll for the Force Weapon (this is where my dice usually fail me) and I roll a 5!  The Cronos has the life sucked out of it’s body and out into the Warp somewhere!  Jeremy’s CP is mine!

Chaos Wins!

This was a nail-biting game for me.  Oddly enough, it was a low casualty match; there were only 3 KP’s inflicted, total.  Here are some things that I learned:

• You can win the game without doing much fighting.  Really most of what I did was stay out of Jeremy’s way.  My Oblits were not doing much damage, my Sorcerer was 50% for successful Lashing, and my Berzerkers were outmatched in Close Combat vs. his HQ squad.
• I always forget to pop smoke.  I don’t know why, I just do.  Maybe I’ll write a crib sheet for the turn sequence with reminders on it like “Pop smoke, you idiot!”
• I also forget to roll “Gets Hot!” for my Oblits.  I brought this up to Jeremy midway through turn 2 and he graciously forgave me.  I really need to make that crib sheet.
• Pain tokens suck.

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