For Game 2 of the Metagames tournament I was up against Chaos Marines.
(2) Sorcerors of Chaos
(3) units of 7 plague marines, armed with melta or plasma guns and combimeltas in rhinos
(1) Defiler
(1) predator with lascannon turrets and sponsons
(1) Vindicator
(2) units of summoned lesser daemons
(1) Greater Daemon
The mission we were playing was a modified kill points. Enemy HQs were worth 5 kp each, and fast/elite/heavy choices were worth 2 points each. The deployment was pitched battle but with a turn of night fight. Troops were still worth one kill point per unit. My opponent won the roll and chose to go first. He deployed a rhino with plague marines in the center of his deployment, and a rhino of plaguemarines with a sorcerer inside to anchor both of the far ends of his deployment zone. The predator set up on one far side, with the vindicator near the middle, and the defiler on the far opposite side.
My general strategy was going to be to deploy and rely on night fight and search lights to keep my things safe, while neutralizing a few of his. I elected to deploy off to one side using the length of the board to my advantage. I put my hydras and demolisher on the side closest to his defiler and deployed my chimera mass towards the same end of the board. I wanted to engage him piecemeal, but wanted to be close enough so that the furthest HQ and rhino full of plague marines would move toward me so I could gain those HQ kill points. I elected to put my Company Command Squad and chimera in reserve to keep him safe, but also allow me to pop in and hopefully wreck the last rhino filled with plague marines when it got close.
Turn one saw a few exchanges of fire, but neither of us really accomplished much. I managed to shake his vindicator and a stun a rhino after all the rhinos had moved 12” toward me. I popped open the rhino at midfield, leaving the unit of plague marines in cover. I placed inside my minimum range and so automatically missed with 3 shots from my manticore once it was opened. Stupid Mistake that I should not have made – I knew I couldn’t dwell on it so just moved on and tried to forget it. I was still pissed at myself though. Things like that can cost you games in a close matchup - I was hopeful it wouldn’t come back to bite me later.
Turn two, Mr. Big Daemon pops up to play but is just short of assault range against one of my chimeras. He becomes target priority number one for me or he will maul by armor. On the far left flank, the plague marine squad disembarks and shoots at a vendetta shaking it. The sorcerer leaves the unit and moves toward my hydras and hides behind a wall so I can’t shoot him. On the far right side the other HQ unit continues to barrel toward my lines. The defiler also moves and sprints forward just short of my line. Shooting also shakes my demolisher which I have positioned to remove the exposed unit of plague marines from the board.
My CCS comes out of reserves a turn earlier than I would like so I can’t melta the HQ rhino as I had hoped. I instead move up toward the Greater daemon and unload on him. Torrent of fire removes him. I reposition my vendettas, moving away the shaken vendetta from the plague marines. The other vendetta moves to open up on the last remaining rhino next turn. I also move up a veteran squad and do just enough damage to remove the loan sorcerer from the board. I move the demolisher 9” to offer it as a target for the defiler. I bank on it not being able to roll any 6’s to hit.
Turn three sees the other vendetta shaken, and the defiler assaults my demolisher. It fails to strike the lumbering tank. Success! The officer of fleet allows only a single unit of lesser daemons onto the board which assault and glance off of chimera chassis. Marbo also enters on this turn and his demo charge removes almost all of the unit of plaguemarines out on the left flank. Shooting from Chimeras removes the remaining marine. The hydras destroy the vindicator. From here the game is mostly finished and turns go by very quickly.
On turns 4-6 I manage to finish off the remaining daemons with flamers and had just enough shooting to kill the last plague marine squad and sorcerer. The defiler was also destroyed before it could do any more damage to my line. The predator annihilator survived the entire game despite being shot by two vendettas for the last 3 turns.
A great game against another solid opponent, but the table, list and certainly the scenario favored my army heavily. He needed a lot of things to go right, and for all his gambles to pay dividends. However this ended up being one of those games where his dice completely turned just when they were needed.
Stay Tuned for Game 3