Last week, we played our first practice game for double trouble. I know I know, it's still 5 months away, but hey! Practice makes me less incompetent.
We randomised the pairings and they came out as follows:
Team 2
Me (imperial guard - Leman Russ eradicate, standard Leman Russ, 35 guardsmen including a command platoon with 4 Flamers) & Dan (Eldar shenanigans - 3 squads of guardians/ dire avengers, a farseer and a tank with a d-flamer.)
Vs
Team 1
Topher (tyranids - flyrant, 2 tervigons and a big swarm of gaunts) & Matt (HH blood angels- contemptor dread, big unit of marines with a captain and a stormraven)
We played the 3rd mission, which for those in the know means that you set up in all four corners. For those wanting more information, we set up like this:
The Tyranids were 1A, Eldar 2A, Blood Angels 1B and I was 2B. I managed to grab a warlord traight that allowed 3 units to outflank, so we outflanked most of the Eldar army, leaving only a farseer and a d-strength tank in 2B. All of the objectives were in the right 2/3 of the map.
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| pew pew pew |
Our oppenants went first, and didn't have much to do but run towards me! The flyrant swooped over to try and alpha strike Dan's tank, and one of the tervigons spawned some gaunts onto a central objective. The other tervigon, plus a squad of 30 gaunts, went as fast as they could towards me. meanwhile, on my other flank, the Blood Angels began to close in, slightly slower than the space bugs. Between them, I believe they registered either 4 or six victory points in the first turn as they were mostly claim objective ones. we also lost most of an autocannon team and most of a squad of guardsmen. Whilst I say "we" I of course mean me. Dan's tank jinked and got glanced but lived on. This did mean that they didn't get first strike.
In our first turn, we drew reasonably unreachable objectives, given that they were all claim this or that number objective. We did score our first maelstrom points as a squad of guardsmen heroically ran towards the Tyranids to claim objective #3. In the psychic and shooting phase, Dan's Farseer single handely took down a Tervigon through a combination of Mind war (I think) and a Singing Spear. Im hazy on the details because I wasnt 100% paying attention. I was way to busy watch the 18 inch gap between the Tyranids and what increasingly looked like lunch close down. So i opened fire to devastating effect. It felt very dramatic having two lines of ten men shooting at an oncoming hordes whilst the tanks lobbed shells overhead. all in all, I killed 15-20 gaunts. I felt more like a man than I had done all day.
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| Before |
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| After |
That meant at the end of turn 1 we had 2 points - one for first strike and 1 for claiming an objective but not having an ally on another objective.
In turn 2, things started to go downhill for us. Suffice to say, the Farseer died to a drive/fly by from the flyrant, Blood angels marched further towards me (although they were put off by the battlecannon a bit I think), and most scarily, the Tyranids moved in very close. You know its going badly when you're trying to help your men die so that the Tervigon is out of combat so you can shoot it. Luckily for us the Stormraven didn't turn up, but unluckily for us i believe they achieved another 2 objectives, whilst also smashing most of my army in. so they were up something like 9-2.
In our second turn, 2 units of dire avengers showed up as well as my Platoon Command Squad, which had four flamers. I'd decided to put them in normal reserve, since I figured they'd come on from my board edge. Which mean I could jump on what was left of the small space bugs. I did. They burnt to death. True story. The dire avengers that showed up on my right flank totally wiffed, leaving it to both my Leman Russ tanks to bring down the lumbering behemoth before it reached them. And unfortunately on the other side, they were too far away to do anything. This meant we didn't scire any VPS in turn two.
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| The stormraven appears! |
In turn three, matts gunship flew on in fine style, and began doing things. The rest of his army advanced towards the centre of the board, holding the middle ground. Apart from the contemptor dreadnought, which was lagging behind a bit. He'd been bugging the cover and claiming an objective, doing a worthy job of stacking up VPs over the previous turns.
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| dead blood angels. everywhere. |
Suffice to say, over the course of the next couple of tens things didn't go well for us. I loose track of the turns, but it was 1-sided enough that we stopped recording maelstrom points! In fact, we only achieved 3 over the whole game - our third coming in the 4th turn when both leman russ tanks opened fire into the big unit of Blood Angels. Many of them died, but significantly so did their warlord, with Matt opting to catch Battlecannon shots with his Captain guy. Plus, the remaining marines marched relentlessly into the squishy elder from what I remember.
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| a failed late game objective grab from the leman russ |
Overall, on blood points we probably were a lot closer, there weren't many space bugs left at the end of the game, and we gave the Blood angels a bit of a mauling as they moved towards the centre of the board. But by that point we were already behind significantly on both areas, so it was a tough ride.
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| these Dire avengers did nothing |
After game thoughts
The deployment corners makes a massive difference in this game. we went into it thinking our triple outflank was going to be great, and it proved to be our complete undoing, allowing for our opponents to focus on my army almost exclusively. When they did turn up, everything was to near the middle and the surprise was lost.
Normal reserve however, is awesome. I may need to check with Alex, but our interpretation of coming on the long board edge allows you to just jump your opponent.
Guardsmen may be to squishy for this deployment. My build didn't have any staying power, and I ended feeling a bit trapped.
Objective Placement. Basic, but important. they need to be spread out, especially since they are occurring 50% of the time!
I think next time I might be tempted to try a infiltrating list, or something that doesn't need to deploy normally. Anything that has the power to break the deployment restrictions basically!
