Kabal of the Malevolent Storm BatRep 1500/4500 pts.
Some of you may have already noticed from the title that the White Templars did not take part in this battle. Instead, this is a battle with my Dark Eldar. But, since I only have one 40K blog, it gets mentioned here. (Actually, I really need to change the name of the blog, but have yet to come up with something I like that is universally 40K sounding.) This will also be a little different because this was a three on three fight where each of us brought 1500 point. I know what I brought, but only slightly know what anyone else brought. I started to do a battle map, but quickly realized that the first step, where you input the forces, was a large problem for me because of the aforesaid. So... no map. But I do have several pictures, so you can see the table and stuff, just no cool arrows. I also didn't take notes, so some small errors may creep in, especially in the parts of the battle which did not involve my forces like the early action on our left wing. Also, as normal, when I say left and right, I refer to the left and right from my perspective, never from the opponent's.
The Kabal of the Malevolent Storm's force was:
* Archon, Agonizer, Blaster, Haywire Grenades, Combat Drugs, PGL, Shadowfield (deployed with Incubi)
* Haemonculi x2 w/ Liquifier Guns (1 with Incubi, 1 with foot warriors)
* Incubi x5, Raider w/ Night Shield and Dark Lance
* Wyches x7, Haywire Grenades. Hekatrix w/ PGL and Venom Blade. Raider w/Night Shields and Dark Lance
* Kabalite Warriors x10, Blaster, Spinter Cannon. Sybarite. Raider with Night Shields, Splinter Rack, and Dark Lance.
* Kabalite Warriors x10, Blaster, Spinter Cannon. Sybarite. Raider with Splinter Rack and Dark Lance.
* Kabalite Warriors x20, Shredder, Splinter Cannons x2. Sybarite.
* Ravager w/ Night Shields, 2 Disintigrator Cannons, 1 Dark Lance.
* Talos w/TL Splinter Cannon and TL Liquifier Gun.
My allies were both Chaos Marine forces. One was exclusively Nurgle with Typhon, a sorcerer, a Heldrake, and several squads of Plague Marines. The other was Khorne and Nurgle, mostly on foot, plus a Vindicator and some Havocs. Both CSM forces included some Oblits. For my combat drugs, I got an extra pain token. The sorcerer got invisibility and something else. My warlord trait made my warlord scoring. I don't remember any one else's warlord trait.
Facing us were two Space Marine forces and some Speed Freak Orks. The Orks had three trucks. One had a lone Mechboy. The others both had Meganobs (or some terminator like thing) and one held the Ork Warlord. They also had a stolen Rhino, some cannons, some buggys, some deft-koppters, a large mass of shoota boyz, and maybe some other stuff. One marine force was five or six drop pods, three dreads (1 rifleman), 2 tacical squads, some scouts in a Land Speeder Storm with Heavy Bolters, a Thunderfire Cannon, and a Master of the Forge with a Conversion Beamer. The other marine force was largely rhino based with 5 rhinos, each with a tactical squad along with a command squad. (Actually, the command squad may have had a rhino.) This force also had two Predators with AC and 2 HB each.
We played the Emperor's Will with Hammer and Anvil deployment and nightfight on turn 1. We opted to use two identical ruin towers as the objectives instead of markers, with each side getting to place their objective. We got to choose our side and picked the one with slightly taller cover at my urging. Strategically, we decided that with the long table deployment, we were unlikely to be able to penetrate all the way to their objectives without loosing the bulk of our forces and vice versa. So instead, we decided to assume a tie(and not even go for their objective) and concentrate on the secondary objectives, of which first blood was the most important since only one army could get that. This meant that any forces they deployed to cover the objective would be largely wasted points.
The board (pictured below) had a large central area ruin terrain with a door in it. Each of us our objective tower, both placed on the left though ours was more central. We had another ruined building which we placed to the left of our tower. They had some smaller ruins which they placed to the right.Other than that there were a few scattered trees.
We deployed my FNP foot warriors in our objective with a squad of Khorne Bezerkers outside. Our right was Typhus, one unit of Oblits, and a lot of disbursed Plague Marines. Or left was a mix of Bezerkers and Plague Marines. The Havocs deployed in the other ruined building with lines of sight throughout our DZ and also up the left flank all the way to the enemy objective. One set of Oblits was also deployed in this area. The Vindicator deployed between the objective tower and the other ruin. (This was a mistake - it never got to fire.). I placed my Raiders and Ravagers in as much cover as I could just in case we lost initiative and poised to go either way.
The enemy deployed a wall of vehicles on the right. The front of the wall was empty rhinos with Ork trucks behind that, followed by the two predators. Since not all the vehicles could fit here, to the side behind the large ruins were two more rhinos, each with a tactical squad. On their left, they put two tactical squads and the command squad in thier objective tower. At the base were the Ork cannons, the speeder, the Ork buggies, the rifleman, and the Master of the Forge, all set to lay fir into anything coming up the left side. We believed their plan was some variant on the refused flank where they planed to make the left a kill zone and come swinging around at us from the right.
Deployment
The wall of vehicles
They failed to seize the initiative.
TURN 1:
I can't give the blow by blow. Our right flank began a slow advance. I moved my vehicles around and used the DLs to take out two of the empty rhinos, creating difficult terrain in front of the speed freaks. The oblits killed a rhino with marines in it. We may have advanced on the left too, but I'm not sure. We prepared for the arrival of the drop pods. I put the Talos in sort of a middle position to come back towards drop pods or advance into the large central ruins. The vindicator moved behind our objective tower to have a shot at the only good drop pod landing area in our DZ.
The enemy pods came in mostly where we expected with the two melta dreads deploying in our backfield. An empty pod (from the thunderfire) came in between our two forces on the right. The remaining two rhinos (one empty) moved forward and turned their sides to us. The speed freaks hid behind the rhinos. The mechboy in his buggy advanced on the left. The melta dreads targeted the Vindicator (stunned) and warrior raider (1 glance - love my jink save).
TURN 2:
Bezerkers advance on the left. Typhus (invisible) separates and advances on the left followed by my troop raiders. I dark lanced one dread, exploding it. The wyches moved in and assaulted the other, wrecking it. Did not manage to hurt the pods. The Heldrak came in on our left and burned out the disembarked marines except for one. I shot the raider warriors at the other to almost no effect. The raider dark lances blew the autocannon off of one predator. The lone marine chose to fail his leadership and ran to the rear, away from Typhus. So Typhus assaulted a rhino and destroyed it somehow.
On their turn, no additional reinforcements came in except the def-koptas which came in on the right in the back corner of our DZ. The pods took shots at the wyches and the foot warriors using a template weapon. The wyches may have taken a casualty and the warriors lost 2 including a splinter cannon. The predators shot everything at my two raiders, stunning one and shaking one(again, thanks to jink saves). The Ork Shoota Boyz advacned into the central ruins. Ork Def-koptas forgot to shoot. Ork Mechboyz assaulted inviso-Typhus, doing two wounds but being wiped out in return.
TURN 3:
The warrior raider that could still move got out of LOS and began moving over to the left where things were not going as well. The other warriors disembarked from their raider because it was such a good target, but they used it as cover. The Incubi, Archon, and HQ disembarked and moved to assault positions on the def-koptas. Wyches moved to assault either of the drop pods. Typhus moved towards the truck with the Ork Warlord. Talos and some Plague Marines advanced into the ruins and into assault range of the shoota-boyz. Dark lances wrecked one drop pod so the wyches tossed grenades at the other, wrecking it in turn. The haemi tried to liquefy the def-koptas doing a wound. Talos shot at the shoota boyz. Heldrake burned up some more stuff. Incubi assaulted the def-koptas, killing them and concolidated back towards their raider. The Talos assaulted the shoota-boys taking a overwatch wound and killing one boy. Inviso-Typhus assaulted the Ork Warlord and killed him in challenge.
The enemy got in its space marine flyer and some gretchen. They shot almost everything at the Heldrake, including the weapons on their own flyer, to no effect. At this point we learned the enemy plan had been to wall off the right with drop pods and empty rhinos, and that they judged that they had not done well with that. They also noted that they needed more forces on the left since they could not advance up the right and were now behind by 1 warlord kill and first blood. While they were doing well holding up our advance on the left, they themselves were not advancing either. The result of this was that the last two drop pods of tactical marines, instead of dropping in our DZ, dropped on the left, close to the enemy DZ. Typhus finished off the enemy mechs in close combat and became a demon prince (or maybe he became one last round, not sure). The Talos failed to wound any shoota boys.
Unfortunately, that is the last picture because I forgot to take any more. Looking at the pictures, I may be wrong. Typhus may have become a demon prince on our T3 and then they shot everything at him on their T3 killing him (b/c I don't see him in my T3 pictures).
TURN 4:
With no more threats to drop in our DZ, the wyches and the Incubi raiders shot up the left side along with the warrior raider that had been headed that way. The warriors on the right re-embarked in their raider and shot up a three marine squad (just barely killing it). The plague marines on the right positioned to assault the shoota boyz. The warrior raider on the left failed to impress with its shooting. The Heldrake went to hover and backed up to put its rear to their back board edge and maintain LOS on the forces investing their objective tower. The Ravager vaporized the Master of the Forge with a dark lance. The Plague Marines assaulted into the Talos combat. Combined with the Talos, they managed to kill several shoota boys but there were still enough to be fearless. Oblits, plague marines, and bezerkers on the left moved up though I can't remember if we assaulted or if the oblit got assaulted.
On their T4, the mechboy in the buggy moved up on the right. They shot and wrecked the warrior raider on the right who managed to disembark outside of the mechboyz's flamer range. The SM flyer moved over towards the area by the drop pods on the left. Not sure what else got shot this round. In the assault phase, the plague marines and Talos killed enough shoota boys that they broke and fled. We consolidated in their direction with the Talos fixing on the Techmarine who had lost his cannon.
TURN 5: Talos moved in and assaulted the Techmarine after doing nothing to him with the flamer (and forgetting it was TL). Techmarine died in the assault. Plague Marines finish off shoota boyz. Incubi move in, disembark, and assault one drop pod tactical squad which was locked up with two plague marines, killing it. Neither drop pod killed. Raider warriors on the left shoot at 2 man tactical squad investing enemy objective tower and kill it - barely. Ravager shoots at enemy flyer but fails to hit. Warriors from the wrecked raider on the right fail to wound anything. Wyches cross from left to right, disembark in the ruins, and assault the buggy but roll all ones on their grenade hits and do nothing.
On their turn, they bring the flyer right between the two drop pods and I don't remember what it shot at. Drop pod tries to large blast template the Incubi and warrior raiders along with the oblit. It kills the Oblit but does not touch the raiders. The enemy command squad exits the objective tower leaving a single marine in it and charges the plague marines. On the right, the mechboy flamers the wyches killing all but 2. Thanks to the Hekatrix's Ld, they make their Leadership roll.
We rolled to go to turn six, but it is getting late and the other side throws in the towel. In the next turn, the two wyches and the warriors would have gone after the buggy again, the raider warriors would have shot the lone marine in the objective. The Incubi would have assaulted into the plague marine/command squad melee. We win with linebreaker, 2 warlord kills, first blood, and our objective (7) to their objective (3).
Our strategy was really important to our victory as was going first and being able to claim first blood with shooting. My MVP was probably my wyches who killed a dreadnought and a drop pod before they could do much damage. that said, the Incubi did for the def-koptas and a tactical squad, but then I EXPECT Incubi to rip through anything short of terminators. Early in the game I felt like I had placed my Incubi and Wych raiders too far back because they were out of range to add their dark lances to the alpha strike. But then when those drop pods came in, I was glad the Wyches were there. The Incubi however, probably did not need to be in the backfield to take out the def-koptas (and had the Ork player remembered to shoot, they could have killed the Incubi Raider, making the Incubi WALK everywhere.). The Incubi would only have been useful in the backfield if the tactical squad drop pods had dropped back there and we already had Bezerkers in the back field who had no fast transport to move forward with. thus, I think the Incubi were under utilized. Typhus when invisible was a beast and then he became a demon prince as icing. And the Heldrake with the Baleflamer... woof!
By contrast, I was underwhelmed with liquifiers even when I was getting AP 1 and 2. Likewise the warrior raider with splinter racks failed to impress. Against MEQ, the 3+ save just guts the effectiveness of these guys. I need to focus them on shooting big things maybe.
We are making a league for play and I can either take my Dark Eldar or my White Templars as my league army. Torn on this question. The WT are fully painted and much more WYSIWYG. I'm also on the team with the "good guys" meaning the guy who only has loyalist vanilla marines. We also have the Ork player who will probably play his Sisters/Grey Knights. The other side looks like it will be CSM, CSM, and IG. The Templars fit this theme better than the Kabal, but the Kabal adds more variation to the league; otherwise, it is a LOT of power armor on both sides. I would however, have to do some serious work to get the Kabal ready - right now I basically have one army I can field and I need some variation. Plus all my stuff is 3rd Ed. I have no venoms, no flyer, etc. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
The Kabal of the Malevolent Storm's force was:
* Archon, Agonizer, Blaster, Haywire Grenades, Combat Drugs, PGL, Shadowfield (deployed with Incubi)
* Haemonculi x2 w/ Liquifier Guns (1 with Incubi, 1 with foot warriors)
* Incubi x5, Raider w/ Night Shield and Dark Lance
* Wyches x7, Haywire Grenades. Hekatrix w/ PGL and Venom Blade. Raider w/Night Shields and Dark Lance
* Kabalite Warriors x10, Blaster, Spinter Cannon. Sybarite. Raider with Night Shields, Splinter Rack, and Dark Lance.
* Kabalite Warriors x10, Blaster, Spinter Cannon. Sybarite. Raider with Splinter Rack and Dark Lance.
* Kabalite Warriors x20, Shredder, Splinter Cannons x2. Sybarite.
* Ravager w/ Night Shields, 2 Disintigrator Cannons, 1 Dark Lance.
* Talos w/TL Splinter Cannon and TL Liquifier Gun.
My allies were both Chaos Marine forces. One was exclusively Nurgle with Typhon, a sorcerer, a Heldrake, and several squads of Plague Marines. The other was Khorne and Nurgle, mostly on foot, plus a Vindicator and some Havocs. Both CSM forces included some Oblits. For my combat drugs, I got an extra pain token. The sorcerer got invisibility and something else. My warlord trait made my warlord scoring. I don't remember any one else's warlord trait.
Facing us were two Space Marine forces and some Speed Freak Orks. The Orks had three trucks. One had a lone Mechboy. The others both had Meganobs (or some terminator like thing) and one held the Ork Warlord. They also had a stolen Rhino, some cannons, some buggys, some deft-koppters, a large mass of shoota boyz, and maybe some other stuff. One marine force was five or six drop pods, three dreads (1 rifleman), 2 tacical squads, some scouts in a Land Speeder Storm with Heavy Bolters, a Thunderfire Cannon, and a Master of the Forge with a Conversion Beamer. The other marine force was largely rhino based with 5 rhinos, each with a tactical squad along with a command squad. (Actually, the command squad may have had a rhino.) This force also had two Predators with AC and 2 HB each.
We played the Emperor's Will with Hammer and Anvil deployment and nightfight on turn 1. We opted to use two identical ruin towers as the objectives instead of markers, with each side getting to place their objective. We got to choose our side and picked the one with slightly taller cover at my urging. Strategically, we decided that with the long table deployment, we were unlikely to be able to penetrate all the way to their objectives without loosing the bulk of our forces and vice versa. So instead, we decided to assume a tie(and not even go for their objective) and concentrate on the secondary objectives, of which first blood was the most important since only one army could get that. This meant that any forces they deployed to cover the objective would be largely wasted points.
The board (pictured below) had a large central area ruin terrain with a door in it. Each of us our objective tower, both placed on the left though ours was more central. We had another ruined building which we placed to the left of our tower. They had some smaller ruins which they placed to the right.Other than that there were a few scattered trees.
We deployed my FNP foot warriors in our objective with a squad of Khorne Bezerkers outside. Our right was Typhus, one unit of Oblits, and a lot of disbursed Plague Marines. Or left was a mix of Bezerkers and Plague Marines. The Havocs deployed in the other ruined building with lines of sight throughout our DZ and also up the left flank all the way to the enemy objective. One set of Oblits was also deployed in this area. The Vindicator deployed between the objective tower and the other ruin. (This was a mistake - it never got to fire.). I placed my Raiders and Ravagers in as much cover as I could just in case we lost initiative and poised to go either way.
The enemy deployed a wall of vehicles on the right. The front of the wall was empty rhinos with Ork trucks behind that, followed by the two predators. Since not all the vehicles could fit here, to the side behind the large ruins were two more rhinos, each with a tactical squad. On their left, they put two tactical squads and the command squad in thier objective tower. At the base were the Ork cannons, the speeder, the Ork buggies, the rifleman, and the Master of the Forge, all set to lay fir into anything coming up the left side. We believed their plan was some variant on the refused flank where they planed to make the left a kill zone and come swinging around at us from the right.
Deployment
The wall of vehiclesTURN 1:
I can't give the blow by blow. Our right flank began a slow advance. I moved my vehicles around and used the DLs to take out two of the empty rhinos, creating difficult terrain in front of the speed freaks. The oblits killed a rhino with marines in it. We may have advanced on the left too, but I'm not sure. We prepared for the arrival of the drop pods. I put the Talos in sort of a middle position to come back towards drop pods or advance into the large central ruins. The vindicator moved behind our objective tower to have a shot at the only good drop pod landing area in our DZ.
Bezerkers advance on the left. Typhus (invisible) separates and advances on the left followed by my troop raiders. I dark lanced one dread, exploding it. The wyches moved in and assaulted the other, wrecking it. Did not manage to hurt the pods. The Heldrak came in on our left and burned out the disembarked marines except for one. I shot the raider warriors at the other to almost no effect. The raider dark lances blew the autocannon off of one predator. The lone marine chose to fail his leadership and ran to the rear, away from Typhus. So Typhus assaulted a rhino and destroyed it somehow.
On their turn, no additional reinforcements came in except the def-koptas which came in on the right in the back corner of our DZ. The pods took shots at the wyches and the foot warriors using a template weapon. The wyches may have taken a casualty and the warriors lost 2 including a splinter cannon. The predators shot everything at my two raiders, stunning one and shaking one(again, thanks to jink saves). The Ork Shoota Boyz advacned into the central ruins. Ork Def-koptas forgot to shoot. Ork Mechboyz assaulted inviso-Typhus, doing two wounds but being wiped out in return.
TURN 3:
The warrior raider that could still move got out of LOS and began moving over to the left where things were not going as well. The other warriors disembarked from their raider because it was such a good target, but they used it as cover. The Incubi, Archon, and HQ disembarked and moved to assault positions on the def-koptas. Wyches moved to assault either of the drop pods. Typhus moved towards the truck with the Ork Warlord. Talos and some Plague Marines advanced into the ruins and into assault range of the shoota-boyz. Dark lances wrecked one drop pod so the wyches tossed grenades at the other, wrecking it in turn. The haemi tried to liquefy the def-koptas doing a wound. Talos shot at the shoota boyz. Heldrake burned up some more stuff. Incubi assaulted the def-koptas, killing them and concolidated back towards their raider. The Talos assaulted the shoota-boys taking a overwatch wound and killing one boy. Inviso-Typhus assaulted the Ork Warlord and killed him in challenge.
TURN 4:
With no more threats to drop in our DZ, the wyches and the Incubi raiders shot up the left side along with the warrior raider that had been headed that way. The warriors on the right re-embarked in their raider and shot up a three marine squad (just barely killing it). The plague marines on the right positioned to assault the shoota boyz. The warrior raider on the left failed to impress with its shooting. The Heldrake went to hover and backed up to put its rear to their back board edge and maintain LOS on the forces investing their objective tower. The Ravager vaporized the Master of the Forge with a dark lance. The Plague Marines assaulted into the Talos combat. Combined with the Talos, they managed to kill several shoota boys but there were still enough to be fearless. Oblits, plague marines, and bezerkers on the left moved up though I can't remember if we assaulted or if the oblit got assaulted.
On their T4, the mechboy in the buggy moved up on the right. They shot and wrecked the warrior raider on the right who managed to disembark outside of the mechboyz's flamer range. The SM flyer moved over towards the area by the drop pods on the left. Not sure what else got shot this round. In the assault phase, the plague marines and Talos killed enough shoota boys that they broke and fled. We consolidated in their direction with the Talos fixing on the Techmarine who had lost his cannon.
TURN 5: Talos moved in and assaulted the Techmarine after doing nothing to him with the flamer (and forgetting it was TL). Techmarine died in the assault. Plague Marines finish off shoota boyz. Incubi move in, disembark, and assault one drop pod tactical squad which was locked up with two plague marines, killing it. Neither drop pod killed. Raider warriors on the left shoot at 2 man tactical squad investing enemy objective tower and kill it - barely. Ravager shoots at enemy flyer but fails to hit. Warriors from the wrecked raider on the right fail to wound anything. Wyches cross from left to right, disembark in the ruins, and assault the buggy but roll all ones on their grenade hits and do nothing.
On their turn, they bring the flyer right between the two drop pods and I don't remember what it shot at. Drop pod tries to large blast template the Incubi and warrior raiders along with the oblit. It kills the Oblit but does not touch the raiders. The enemy command squad exits the objective tower leaving a single marine in it and charges the plague marines. On the right, the mechboy flamers the wyches killing all but 2. Thanks to the Hekatrix's Ld, they make their Leadership roll.
We rolled to go to turn six, but it is getting late and the other side throws in the towel. In the next turn, the two wyches and the warriors would have gone after the buggy again, the raider warriors would have shot the lone marine in the objective. The Incubi would have assaulted into the plague marine/command squad melee. We win with linebreaker, 2 warlord kills, first blood, and our objective (7) to their objective (3).
Our strategy was really important to our victory as was going first and being able to claim first blood with shooting. My MVP was probably my wyches who killed a dreadnought and a drop pod before they could do much damage. that said, the Incubi did for the def-koptas and a tactical squad, but then I EXPECT Incubi to rip through anything short of terminators. Early in the game I felt like I had placed my Incubi and Wych raiders too far back because they were out of range to add their dark lances to the alpha strike. But then when those drop pods came in, I was glad the Wyches were there. The Incubi however, probably did not need to be in the backfield to take out the def-koptas (and had the Ork player remembered to shoot, they could have killed the Incubi Raider, making the Incubi WALK everywhere.). The Incubi would only have been useful in the backfield if the tactical squad drop pods had dropped back there and we already had Bezerkers in the back field who had no fast transport to move forward with. thus, I think the Incubi were under utilized. Typhus when invisible was a beast and then he became a demon prince as icing. And the Heldrake with the Baleflamer... woof!
By contrast, I was underwhelmed with liquifiers even when I was getting AP 1 and 2. Likewise the warrior raider with splinter racks failed to impress. Against MEQ, the 3+ save just guts the effectiveness of these guys. I need to focus them on shooting big things maybe.
We are making a league for play and I can either take my Dark Eldar or my White Templars as my league army. Torn on this question. The WT are fully painted and much more WYSIWYG. I'm also on the team with the "good guys" meaning the guy who only has loyalist vanilla marines. We also have the Ork player who will probably play his Sisters/Grey Knights. The other side looks like it will be CSM, CSM, and IG. The Templars fit this theme better than the Kabal, but the Kabal adds more variation to the league; otherwise, it is a LOT of power armor on both sides. I would however, have to do some serious work to get the Kabal ready - right now I basically have one army I can field and I need some variation. Plus all my stuff is 3rd Ed. I have no venoms, no flyer, etc. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
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