Battle Report [40K-002]

Battle Report [40K-002(ZS)]: 1,500 points; Space Marines - Horus Heresy List (AO) versus Eldar (ZS); Mission: The Relic; Vanguard strike (angled) deployment.

So I wasn't going to report this one because we could only get two turns in, but some interesting things happened and I thought it would be interesting to recap a few and open some up for discussion...insert skyshield.

The forces:

Ultramarines (Great Crusade Army List; Rite of War: Pride of the Legion)

HQ:

Praetor (Warlord) - MC Paragon Blade, Digital Weapons, Iron Ialo

Librarian (Level 2) - Force Rod, Artificer Armor, Refractor Field

T:

Veteran Tactical squad x10 (Infiltrate) - 2 Missile Launchers, Plasma Gun, Rhino

Veteran Tactical squad x9 (Sniper) - Melta Gun, Power Fist, Rhino

Veteran Tactical squad x9 (Sniper) - Plasma Gun, Combi-Plasma, Rhino

HS:

Predator - Predator Cannon (Autocannon but Heavy 4), 2x Lascannon sponsons

Predator - Predator Cannon, 2x Heavy Bolter sponsons

Vindicator

Eldar ( theme...Illic and pathfinder defensive core with a fast attack force)

HQ:

Illic Nightspear ( warlord with trait called mark of the incomparable hunter that grants him splitfire)

Farseer with a singing spear, runes of warding and runes of witnessing

T:

Guardians x10 with bright lance platform and warlock in wave serpent with twin linked bright lances, shuriken cannon, spirit stones and holofields

Pathfinders x6 (get shrouded and precision shot because of Illic)

Pathfinders x6 

Jetbikes x6 two shuriken cannons and warlock with singing spear

Jet bikes x3 one shuriken cannon

FA: 

Vyper squad x2 with scatter lasers and shuriken cannons and spirit stones

Vyper with bright lance and shuriken cannon

HS:

Fireprism grav tank with holofields spirit stones and shuriken cannon

Terrain set up - the bombarded crossroads leading to an operational sky shield landing pad

Deployment: space marines roll priority and choose to go first.  The relic is placed in the center of the board.  The librarian rolls hallucination and something else, but I think elects to take the primaris power for the psychic shriek.  The predators deploy in the middle of the crossroads facing the relic and basically secure the fire lane towards the objective.  A rhino with marines and the praetor is next to them.  Another rhino starts on the opposite side of the basilica administratum to come at the relic from the other side with the librarian, and his vindicator starts on top of the skyshield landing pad... I contested this placement but Ashwin pointed out that there looks like a lift in the center of the landing pad.  I never really noticed this, but I'll allow it for good fluff backup, I mean the vindicator could be scheduled for an airlift or something.  Thunderhawk transporter perhaps?  So, new house rule, you can deploy tracked vehicles on the landing pad, and you can drive off if unfurled, dangerous terrain test of course, but you can not go up, even though the rules for the pad state level changes as treated as difficult terrain...  He leaves a tac squad to infiltrate. They eventually infiltrate into the ruins of the basilica.  The extra rhino was accidentally left in reserve...

Eldar deploy close to the line near the center to try to grab the objective early with the jet bikes but still are basically hiding behind cover.   The ruins provide nice line of sight blocking so most of my tanks deploy behind these as well.  One squad of pathfinders infiltrates and holes up in the shrine of the Aquila, and the other with Illic are in the ruins far away hoping for long range support.  The farseer joins the guardians and warlock in the wave serpent.  I am not able to seize the initiative.

Space marine turn one:

The vindicator moves up about 6" and activates the skyshield to furl up the cover...again, the rules just state that any model in base contact with the landing pad can change its state at the beginning of its move...I am forced to allow this :)  this also puts his demolished cannon in range of the relic.  Not good especially now that the tank has a cover save because of the landing pad walls.  Also, that strength 10 ap2 large blast will not be good for my troops if they happen upon the relic.  His librarian disembarks from the left rhino and joins with the troops in the ruins to bolster the offensive.  The rhino then moves up and around the ruins towards the middle of the board.  The tac squad in the ruins takes some shots at my pathfinders in the opposite ruins not doing any damage due to their very high cover save.  His rhino with the praetor moves around the opposite side of the ruins and b-lines down towards the crossroads.  The predators actually shift around towards my warlord on the far right side and unload on Illic and the pathfinders in the far ruins.  This was a little unexpected to me and it turned it that this was a terrible place to deploy this unit.  For some reason either I wasn't thinking about the range of the predators weapons, or maybe thought that the would be going towards the middle, but Ashwin made the obvious choice to shoot at the closest and easiest thing to hit and does a ton of damage and kills over half of the squad on this first turn.  Even with their cover saves, this was just a really bad choice to place this group.  I really should have also placed my warlord in the center ruins where he had more of a circular foreign vantage point and could do more damage.  This position did not allow any good lanes of fire and really I'm not sure what I was thinking with that placement.   Both of his rhinos also used their smoke launchers on this turn.

Eldar turn one.

My wave serpent shifts left along with two of the vypers.  The wave serpent uses its shields to shoot at the rhino on the left and even with the smoke launchers, manages to blast through and explode the rhino.  The guys inside take a wound or two and the schrapnel I think kills one of the guys in the ruins.  The vypers are a little too far out of range and don't do much.  The fire prism shifts right and takes a long shot at a predator but whiffs.  The other vyper however strikes true with his bright lance and explodes one of the predators ( this was the actual first blood kill that granted me one vp).  Here my rolls begin to pick up and ashwins saves start to take a turn for the worse...  The pathfinders with Illic, with no where else to go, take some random shots at the predators as nothing else is in line of sight and whiff.  The pathfinders in the ruins however return fire on the tac squad opposite the relic and with their precision shots, manage to strike home and take out two marines with missile launchers.  My big squad of jet bikes moves into countering positions behind the other jet bikes who make a run for the relic.  They can't get there with their normal movement and are forced to move flat out to reach it.  This is fine as it grants them a 4+ cover save next turn, which I would need due to the amount of firepower surely coming their way.  Now, here i make the optional 2d6 assault move with my jet bikes as usual, but while carrying the relic, I am limited to 6" movement in any phase.  I move down back towards my deployment zone slightly.  Turns out this is not allowed which I read after the game as after moving flat out, bikes are not allowed any voluntary actions in the turn after that.  I knew they couldn't shoot or actually assault, but I hadn't read the eldar jet bike rules closely enough prior to this very crucial maneuver.  

Space marine turn two.

This turn basically consisted of the other predator wiping out Illic and the last pathfinder, granting him the slay the warlord victory point and then moving up to try to kill the jet bikes holding the relic.  The combination of good base armor and also the extra jink save this turn somehow granted the lone jet bike holding the relic to emerge unscathed after a torrent of fire.  His other two comrades were destroyed, but after passing a morale check, he was the last man standing in the middle.  With ashwins firing over, and the jet bikes out of assault range, this basically sealed the game as we had to call it after this turn.  The relic was worth three victory points so that basically ended the game.  

Ending:

In theory, the jet bike rush is good, but the small squad that I had up there probably would have dropped it in a more normal average armor saving versus damage applied.  They should have went down in most circumstances, but the rest of the jet bikes were ready to pick up their slack in the next turn.  The illegal assault move didn't really change much except Ashwin might have been able to try to tank shock them back in his turn of he moved flat out with his rhino.  Still risky, but the shooting would have been pretty much the same as the six inch difference didn't really matter.  There might have been a few extra Bolter shots from the squad in the ruins but it was close.

Interesting game and I would have liked to see it finish.  The extra troops he had coming down the middle would have been tough to deal with and if the jet bikes went down in the middle, it would have been pretty bloody pretty quick for all parties as we descended towards the middle.

Next time I should have deployed Illic in the middle where the action was and even though it was closer to the enemy, it was a safer position than I had really thought through.  I might change this list a bit in the future, but I think it would be an interesting 1500 to work with.   Dice rolls played a pretty big part in this game and I don't want to rely in those in the future...

-ZS