My forces of Kingfisher Craftworld
Morning Fresh-Farseer Doom singing spear
10x Dire Avengers exarch dire sword bladestorm wave serpent TL BL
warlock conceal
11x guardians starcannon
warlock destructor jetbike
4x jetbikes
wraithlord BL
wraithlord BL
Vyper Scatterlaser
Vyper Scatterlaser
Under 1300 by a bit
Joel had a command squad
Storm troopers
Armoured fist squad
Platoon with two squads
3x heavy weapons squads
Sentinel w auto cannon
Leman Russ
Basilisk
1300 ish
Table has five large bits of height 3 difficult terrain 4+ cover save, one in the middle, one in each quarter, and is 6x4.
Cleanse, he rolls to choose quarters I place a wraith lord behind the central terrain forcing him to deploy back from the centre. I basically won with this move as he has a slow army. deployed the rest of my guys around the wraithlord with the exception of the two vypers and the bikes which I kept back a bit for a flank attack.
We roll for first turn I win and let him go first, as it is a quarter capturing mission, and I like the last turn in these.
He establishes a fire base on his bit of terrain with heavy weapons and two squads, moves his fist squad up the long table edge, moves the sentinel towards the middle terrain, as well as his command squad. Lem Russ moves up the short table edge towards the nearest quarter popping smoke. Firing was only his sentinel at a wraithlord with no damage and his Basilisk scattering off my big pile of troops near my other wraithlord.
My first turn I set up firing lanes and moved quickly towards his armoured fist with my wave serpent and jet bikes. I popped his sentinel with a Vyper and fleeted my guardians towards the Russ and Joel's stormtroopers who were running for the terrain feature in the adjacent short edge quarter(I hope that makes sense!)
The next turn saw Joel move his command squad into the central terrain and disembark his fist squad into terrain in the long table edge adjacent to his starting quarter. He also moved the Lem into a firing position next to the terrain which his stormtroopers had just moved into. His command squad had a go at my farseer, who was escorting one of my wraith lords and took a wound off him. The lem scattered off my guardian squad. The basilisk took out a bike with another crappy scatter. The chimera from his fist squad multi lasered my wave serpent to no avail, and failed to penetrate with its hunter killer (phew!) his heavy weapons guys blew up the vyper I had killed his sentinel with last turn.
My second turn I disembarked the dire avengers into the same cover as his fist squad and moved my wraithlord forward ,I also advanced the guardian squad towards the stormies catching up with them with a wraithlord and my farseer. I moved my remaining viper back a bit as a mobile reserve. The bikes headed towards the fist squad.
I fleet of footed all of 2” with my avengers as I had too much terrain between them and the fists(more than 6”) to shoot and was hoping to assault(that was now impossible!!) I missed with the TL bright lances on my serpent (absolutely point blank too!) fortunately I annihilated them with my bike squad (love destructor) and the wraithlord on that side took out a member of the weapons squad. The other flank saw an ineffectual shot from the wraithlord at the Lem, and the guardians took out one stormtrooper with their star cannon. There were no assaults.
The third turn saw Joel back his chimera up a bit, move his stormtroopers up to the lip of their terrain and move his command squad off the central terrain towards my farseer! His shooting was devastating this turn. His heavy flamer and multi laser and heavy stubber on the chimera toasted my avengers (one guy left, who promptly fled the field.) his basilisk took out all of my bikes except the warlock, who was pinned. His Lem put a pie plate on my guardians, wraithlord and farseer, I ended up losing seven guardians despite conceal. His command squad elected to forego shooting my Farseer in order to charge the remnants of my guardian squad. The assault phase saw the command squad defeat and run down my guardians, and consolidate into my farseer! (Curses) A very good turn for Joel.
I stoically moved forward with my wraithlord towards his heavy support weapons, I hopped the chimera with my serpent to get a shot off on the basilisk and moved my remaining viper up for a few potshots at the stormtroopers. I stunned the basilisk, had no luck against the weapons squad due to cover protecting it from my wraithlord, and didn’t shoot with my other wraithlord as I needed to help the farseer in combat. Assault saw the wraithlord pile into the command squad doing no damage at all and the farseer took a wound in the ensuing combat, but made the morale role. I’m looking thin on the ground now!
The fourth turn saw the chimeras move off towards the far table edge turning for a shot at the serpent. Nothing else moved. The chimera failed to penetrate the rear armour of my serpent (without a doubt the biggest gamble I took in the game!!) the lem and stormtroopers had no viable targets. The heavy weapons took a wound of my unengaged wraithlord.
I decided to make the most of my mobility moving the warlock on the bike (he made his Barry roll (Barry Manilow = Man alone)) to attack the flank of the chimera. And moved a little closer with my vyper and serpent. I took out the basilisk finally with the serpent and took out another stormtrooper with the Vyper, having ensurd that it remained out of sight of the Lem. I had no luck with the unengaged wraithlord shooting at the weapons team. In assault I killed two of the command squad for no returns and they lost combat, fled and were run down. I consolidated the wraithlord towards the Lem, it was going to be him or me next round! I also stunned the chimera with the witchblade of my bike mounted warlock. Pulled back from the brink that round.
The fifth turn saw Joel elect not to move (as I was definitely coming for him!) his weapons team missed my wraithlord (thank goodness) and his Lem Russ failed to wound my other wraithlord as did two squads firing krak grenade launchers at him (I love toughness 8!!!) there was no other shooting. And no assaults.
I had little to do except move my wraithlords forward again and hide my farseer from any fancy last minute victory point loss, I moved my serpent away from the enemy lines in order to be in a position to take a vacant quarter, if the chimera was destroyed and I lined up on it with the serpent to make sure. The warlock again made his Barry roll and closed once more to charge the chimera.
Shooting saw the cover largely negate my wraithlord shooting against the weapons crews only taking out one of them. The other wraithlord popped the Lem at last and another stormtrooper was scatterlasered to death by the vyper. In the assault phase my warlock on the bike chopped up the chimera into small destroyed pieces.
The sixth turn for Joel saw ineffectual firing at the wraithlords, and as nothing else was a viable target that was it. I moved up my warlock to the weapons squad, moved to claim vacant quarters with my Serpent and Vyper and the shooting saw the warlock destructor the living poo out of the weapons team and the wraithlord on that side flamered and shurikened his way through five of the other squad in range. The other wraithlord flamered the stormtroopers but was foiled by their armour (lucky rolling!) the wraith lords then ploughed into assault and the game ended with me holding two quarters and contesting two, a narrowish victory once points were calculated.
I think that we have a definite advantage in cleanse against a largely static force but it must be said that the scatters on Joels ordinance also helped a lot, especially in the first two turns when my forces were tightly bunched, still you’ve gotta ride the dice Gods eh? :D
sounds like a good close game. and don't you just love the days when nearly every dice roll you make is decent or your opponents is cr*p.
Well I missed twice with the twin linked bright lances on my wave serpent (cross eyed gunner syndrome!) and rolled a cr*p distance for fleet with my avengers which resulted in their anigelation! but you are right I was safer clumping my troop as his scatter rolls were terrible for ordinance and I made crucial "Barry" rolls with my warlock on bike. It was a great game and demonstrated the strengths of having two wraithlords in any list (my usual setup as I only have one Falcon, and dislike Prisms) cheers.