2000pts battle report - Imperial Knights & Dark Angels v Nurgle Chaos Space Marines - LCO 2

APOLOGIES - it would appear the text for the battle report I wrote within a week of the LCO somehow disappeared. I've tried to replace it but weeks later accuracy and details will be sketchier than usual [if that's at all possible!].

Dominik Brundler was my game 2. He had Mortarion, a squad of Blight Haulers, a couple of Drones, a fair few Pox Walkers a couple of Champions on Flies [I think] and a couple of Plagueburst Crawlers. For some reason I felt the Poxwalkers were a real priority - killable and sitting on objectives I didn't need them knockign around - that may well have been a completely stupid assessment

Once again I won the first turn and the Lancer sprinted across the board. I don't even think I felt the need to use Flank Speed as this deployment got him to their lines with ease. The Dark Talon Stasis Bombed the Pox-Walkers and with additional support took one unit out. I felt the Lancer could tie up a Crawler, a Drone and even the Blight Haulers. A Warglaive got in there too but despite some excellent rolling from the Lancer, putting wounds on the Crawler and Drone they both managed their invulnerable saves. The Warglaive also saw its attacks shrugged off by daemonic resilience. I had 3VPs for killing a unit, First Strike and holding an objective.

Mortarion swooped over the Warglaive to land between it and Euronymous with one of the Drones heading towards the ziggurat I had my Scouts on.

I think I was quite lucky in overwatch, hitting Mortarion twice, but I think he shrugged off the Thermal cannon shots. The Drone also made a huge charge to get in behind Euronymous and engage the Scouts.

Morty absolutely eviscerated Euronymous with his scythe Silence. He had been on 21 wounds before the charge and they were all gone. But he did blow up, once again delivering more damage in death than anger [a theme for the weekend!]. The Scouts somehow survived. The Warglaive got smashed by the Daemon Prince and Blight Haulers, it may well have blown up too as we're missing a Blight Hauler.

I think the fly initially whiffed his charge on the Dark Talon but a re-roll got him in. My overwatch was again hot, but so was its invulnerable save.

With the Dark Talon down to 7 wounds it did not take much for the fly's rider to slash the Ravenwing Flyer out of the sky. This secured 4 primary VPs for Dominik with kill 1, hold 1, kill more and hold more. He probably got First Strike and Slay the Warlord too,

The Lancer fell back and charged Morty, with support from the last Warglaive while the Ravenwing tried to bring down the Bloat Drone. I'm not sure what I killed, possibly not the Drone, as it would end up in my back field next turn, but I killed something for a VP and held an objective for another 2 points total.

But the Lancer AND the Warglaive got trashed. It looks like the last of the Poxwalkers were killed, but with heavy armour to hold objectives the success at removing ObSec troops was moot, or even worse with the loss of all my heavy hitters.

Mortarion swooped over to my back field and ultimately wiped out the rest of my army.

The final score was 39-7 to Dominik, he was quite apologetic throughout because his invulnerable saves were so successful, but my attacks were equally good, I can't complain. You take Nurgle for its resilience, there's no reason to apologise when it does its job.

I may well have got my priorities mixed up, perhaps Morty is the number 1 target but he waltzed his way through two Knights and a Warglaive, I'm not sure what else I could have done. You probably need to commit everything to kill him and if he survives hope you are still far enough away to avoid a counter attack and hope you get a second chance. I should probably see if I can find any battle reports that deal with Morty and big invul bubble wrap lists

Regardless of the result it was a great game and Dominik was awesome, what would game 3 bring?

2000pts battle report - Imperial Knights & Dark Angels v Astra Militarum - LCO 1

I'd had opportunity to see my match up from the Best Cost Pairings App and the Honest Wargamer review a couple of days before:

Keith Martin-White [www.hexwar.com] had around 9 Leman Russes with 90 conscripts in three rows in front of them. Having played Ben the other day with his Aeldari and he'd 'screened' his vehicles with three blobs of Dire Avengers alongside each other I realised that the conscripts would be in rows and the guys were right - how was I going to get through them? Keith had deployed right at the back so my only option was to try and smash through his army. Perhaps with hindsight I should have flanked from the right, forcing him to move his tanks to get a firing angle but instead I went head on, luckily I somehow won the first turn, even with Keith finishing deployment first.

The Lancer made an 11" Flank Speed Advance and was in the faces of the Conscripts from the off. The Dark Talon got into the back-field, dropping a Stasis Bomb but only killing 5 Conscripts. I then made the dubious decision to split fire between the first two ranks of conscripts. I'm not sure what my reasoning was, that I would ultimately have to pile through both of them anyway. Frustratingly Keith had Petrov's pistol [Relic] that meant any failed Morale check could be reduced to just 1 casualty. 

The bikes managed to do a fair bit of shooting on the 'scripts but left me without any models to charge. 

The Lancer managed to finish off quite a few of the first rank of 'scripts but they just fell back in their turn.

Leaving it exposed and easy prey for the Russes, I think he was destroyed by the 2nd or 3rd tank even with rotated Ion Shields leaving the rest to target my remaining forces. He might have blown up I'm not sure. Primary objectives it was Keith with 3 VPs to my 1 [we worked out secondaries at the end]

Turn 2 and Euronymous gets into the back line but again the bubble wrap prevented him from getting at anything worthy. The Dark Talon continued to strafe the 'scripts.

The Warglaives got into the mix, while one went around the ruins so he was obscured with the bikes seeking to capture the objective and be within striking distance of support. 

'Scripts fell back leaving Euronymous exposed like the Lancer and similarly he was blasted apart but he exploded taking quite a few with him and doing more damage to the Russes than he had with his weapons. I think he actually took one of them out! I managed to kill 1, hold 1, kill more and hold more for 4 VPs to Keith's 2. It was 5:5 on primaries but most of my army was smoking wrecks and there were more tanks than I could deal with.

The Warglaives managed to break through the lines and get at the tanks, but not without one losing 8 wounds. Unfortunately the one in the right couldn't kill his target,

but the damaged Armiger somehow took out his!

With few targets to choose from my pretty useless Predator was picked off with ease. We each scored 3 VPs turn 3, with me holding more and Keith killing more.

Turn 4 and I was pretty much just trying hold objectives but it was futile. The Armiger's were destroyed, again I think at least 1 blew up doing more damage than they'd actually achieved in anger!

The tanks steam rolled my scouts

and wiped out the Dark Talon, their massed Battle Cannons too much even for this supersonic flyer.

Turn 4 and Keith was able to wipe me out, ultimately scoring 16 primary VPs and 9 secondaries. I managed 8 primary and 6 secondary. Final score was 25:14 to Keith.

A tough game but nothing I hadn't expected. Keith knew his army, knew his plan and stuck to it. I'm not entirely sure what I could have done apart from focused on a single unit of 'scripts at a time or tried to flank him, although alternating deployment might have prevented that option.

Still, a good challenge and having set the bar low my next match-up might be more my speed...