Not a BatRep... More like Bat Cliff Notes
I played in a 3 on 3 game in a local store at 500 points per player. We had 2 vanilla marines and some Gray Knights. They had 2 Chaos Space Marines and a 'Nyd. Force org was one troop with the option for another troop and/or one from any other part of the force org chart. I ran 2 x 10 man tacticals and a thunderfire. The tacticals both had plasmaguns and one had a lascannon while the other had a plasma cannon. The other vanilla had a deathstar in a drop pod and 6 tacticals. The GK had some terminators and some space marines. I squadded.
Opposing us was a Maulerfiend with lashers, a CSM squad with a lord, some Slaanesh raptors with a lord, a ten man noise marines unit with sonic blasters, 2 units of genestealers and a unit of 7 Ymgar genestealers. Dawn of War, night fight on the first turn, they went first. 3 objectives along the mid-line. Fair amount of terrain with a big pipe/tank thing in the center.
They deployed mostly on our left and center with everything but the noise marines who deployed on the right. We deployed entirely on the left and center, planning to give them the objective on the right.
They came straight at us on their turn with the maulerfiend leading the charge. They blew up three GK terminators including one with a demon hammer. We shot a lot for almost no effect (I shot every weapon I had, rolled horribly, and killed nothing which is saying something considering I had a thunderfire and the genestealers were all nicely packed in.) The only good thing that happened was that the drop pod came in on the left rear flank of their current army position.
The maulerfiend ended up charging the five person GK marines squad, mostly to avoid being shot at by my lascannon and plasmacannon again which is why he picked the safer distance rather than charging my lascannon squad. He killed one and they responded by glancing him with a krak grenade. This ended up tarpitting the maulerfiend for about 4 rounds which seemed like good use of a 5 man marine squad. I ended up charging it with a 4 man tactical squad (sans the plasma cannon who had fried himself - did I mention my dice sucked?) in the bottom of turn 6. In my only really good dice roll of the game, I killed it with two glances in the top of turn 7 and then consolidated towards the middle objective. In the entire game, the maulerfiend killed 5 marines, made no IWND rolls, and made no invuln saves.
The noise marines camped out on the right objective until late in the game when I finally turned the thunderfire at them (lacking any other targets). The game ended with the last two noise marines cowering out of LOS, still in possession of that objective.
Our deathstar charged the CSM squad w/ lord at the bottom of turn 2 and obliterated it off the table (first blood and warlord). It went on to kill some raptors and another lord (warlord), before getting charged by three genestealer squads (including the ymgrils). At that point the two remaining GK termies can to its aid and that combat ended with only the deathstar chapter master (with two wounds) and one GK termie surviving. Meanwhile, the single surviving tactical marine from the other vanila's squad moved to claim the center objective which, with the demise of the genestealers was now uncontested.
The genestealers were the bane of my forces - they cut down 15 of my tactical squads which was basically our entire right flank before they decided to attack the deathstar.
The game looked really bad for us on turns 1-4, but began to swing our way starting on turn 5 and we went for 7 turns. At the end of 7, the bad guys had only the two cowering noise marines left gaining three VP. We had 9 VP (2 objectives, 2 warlords, and first blood). I had 4 tacticals remaining and the thundefire. My vanilla ally had 1 tactical and his chapter master. The GK player had 1 terminator and 4 tacticals.
First, the maulerfiend really underwhelmed me. It may be good for tarpitting elite assault units, but it seems vulnerable to being tarpitted by troops. It did not help that its owner rolled badly, but that WS3 really hurt it. It needed more attacks and/or better odds to hit.
Second, my plasmapower underwhelmed me. For all the good it did, I might as well have brought a 5 man scout squad. Again dice were not kind as the plasma consistently rolled 1's to hit and 1's to wound when it did hit. The plasma cannon killed itself with a 1 to hit and then a 1 on the armor save. In fact, the only two unpainted things I ran were 1 plasmagun and the plasma cannon. Neither did a single kill the entire game. Maybe I just need to paint them.
We did well in the number of troop units we brought. I had 2 which squadded to 4. The GK had 1 which squadded to 2. And the other vanilla player had 1. That gave us 7 troop units. By comparison, the genestealers had 2 and each chaos player had 1, giving them a total of 4. At the end, we still clung to 3 of those troop choices (by a single model in one case) and that lest us claim objectives. The deathstar wracked up three VPs also and so was just as good as the troops and without its CC power, our troops may well have died.
Once the t-fire started to actually hit stuff, it did okay, forcing the genestealers to take the long road and forcing the noise marines to take cover which stopped them from sniping at our troop units around the center objective. Obviously marines are not it's favorite target, but it did okay.
I also think we played the game better by focusing on only two objectives with our whole force. The enemy could really have used the noise marines shooting on the right by about turn 3 and that very expensive unit just stayed parked most of the game.
Opposing us was a Maulerfiend with lashers, a CSM squad with a lord, some Slaanesh raptors with a lord, a ten man noise marines unit with sonic blasters, 2 units of genestealers and a unit of 7 Ymgar genestealers. Dawn of War, night fight on the first turn, they went first. 3 objectives along the mid-line. Fair amount of terrain with a big pipe/tank thing in the center.
They deployed mostly on our left and center with everything but the noise marines who deployed on the right. We deployed entirely on the left and center, planning to give them the objective on the right.
They came straight at us on their turn with the maulerfiend leading the charge. They blew up three GK terminators including one with a demon hammer. We shot a lot for almost no effect (I shot every weapon I had, rolled horribly, and killed nothing which is saying something considering I had a thunderfire and the genestealers were all nicely packed in.) The only good thing that happened was that the drop pod came in on the left rear flank of their current army position.
The maulerfiend ended up charging the five person GK marines squad, mostly to avoid being shot at by my lascannon and plasmacannon again which is why he picked the safer distance rather than charging my lascannon squad. He killed one and they responded by glancing him with a krak grenade. This ended up tarpitting the maulerfiend for about 4 rounds which seemed like good use of a 5 man marine squad. I ended up charging it with a 4 man tactical squad (sans the plasma cannon who had fried himself - did I mention my dice sucked?) in the bottom of turn 6. In my only really good dice roll of the game, I killed it with two glances in the top of turn 7 and then consolidated towards the middle objective. In the entire game, the maulerfiend killed 5 marines, made no IWND rolls, and made no invuln saves.
The noise marines camped out on the right objective until late in the game when I finally turned the thunderfire at them (lacking any other targets). The game ended with the last two noise marines cowering out of LOS, still in possession of that objective.
Our deathstar charged the CSM squad w/ lord at the bottom of turn 2 and obliterated it off the table (first blood and warlord). It went on to kill some raptors and another lord (warlord), before getting charged by three genestealer squads (including the ymgrils). At that point the two remaining GK termies can to its aid and that combat ended with only the deathstar chapter master (with two wounds) and one GK termie surviving. Meanwhile, the single surviving tactical marine from the other vanila's squad moved to claim the center objective which, with the demise of the genestealers was now uncontested.
The genestealers were the bane of my forces - they cut down 15 of my tactical squads which was basically our entire right flank before they decided to attack the deathstar.
The game looked really bad for us on turns 1-4, but began to swing our way starting on turn 5 and we went for 7 turns. At the end of 7, the bad guys had only the two cowering noise marines left gaining three VP. We had 9 VP (2 objectives, 2 warlords, and first blood). I had 4 tacticals remaining and the thundefire. My vanilla ally had 1 tactical and his chapter master. The GK player had 1 terminator and 4 tacticals.
First, the maulerfiend really underwhelmed me. It may be good for tarpitting elite assault units, but it seems vulnerable to being tarpitted by troops. It did not help that its owner rolled badly, but that WS3 really hurt it. It needed more attacks and/or better odds to hit.
Second, my plasmapower underwhelmed me. For all the good it did, I might as well have brought a 5 man scout squad. Again dice were not kind as the plasma consistently rolled 1's to hit and 1's to wound when it did hit. The plasma cannon killed itself with a 1 to hit and then a 1 on the armor save. In fact, the only two unpainted things I ran were 1 plasmagun and the plasma cannon. Neither did a single kill the entire game. Maybe I just need to paint them.
We did well in the number of troop units we brought. I had 2 which squadded to 4. The GK had 1 which squadded to 2. And the other vanilla player had 1. That gave us 7 troop units. By comparison, the genestealers had 2 and each chaos player had 1, giving them a total of 4. At the end, we still clung to 3 of those troop choices (by a single model in one case) and that lest us claim objectives. The deathstar wracked up three VPs also and so was just as good as the troops and without its CC power, our troops may well have died.
Once the t-fire started to actually hit stuff, it did okay, forcing the genestealers to take the long road and forcing the noise marines to take cover which stopped them from sniping at our troop units around the center objective. Obviously marines are not it's favorite target, but it did okay.
I also think we played the game better by focusing on only two objectives with our whole force. The enemy could really have used the noise marines shooting on the right by about turn 3 and that very expensive unit just stayed parked most of the game.
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