Another 'Ardboyz Practice Game - Shrike/Vulkan vs Deathwing

I was able to get in another game with my 'Ardboyz list against reklawsj Friday morning.   He is in that glorious transition phase between finishing college and starting real life, so he had a chance to get in another game before moving to Charlotte.

He tweaked the Deathwing list for this game.  He took out 2 units of the terminators and added a Landraider Crusader and 2 dreadnoughts.  This leaves 6 troops choices filled with units of 5 termies.  Three of these units have 5 TH&SS plus a Cyclone, while the other 3 pitch one hammer for a chainfist.  The seventh squad is an elite unit and is also 5 hammers with a Cyclone and the Librarian and Belial attached to ride in Crusader.  Belial also pulled out the claws for this game.

We rolled up a Seized Ground Mission with 4 objectives and Pitched Battle setup.  I'm not doing a full battle report, just some highlights and a summary.  We played to a 2.5 hr time limit.

After setup, I seized the initiative.  Normally, in an objective mission I would not have attempted this, but he had a juicy Landraider that I could alpha strike with my Storm Scouts and/or Dreadnought.  This list gives me four chances to take down heavy tanks before game starts.   It should be noted he didn't reserve any models, not using the Deathwing assault rule as last game.

So, I go first deepstriking the Dreadnought right in front of his all army.  The Storm also moves 12 inches and drops the scouts a couple inches from the Landraider.  The Scouts whiffed their shot with point blank melta on the Raider, but the Storm came through getting an exploded result and removing it from the table.  No casualties inside, but they are on foot now.  The Dreadnought stuns one of his dreads, neutralizing it for a turn.

In his turn, he charge my dreadnought with character unit and only removed weapon.  My dread held this unit up for four rounds of combat against 5 thunder hammers.  This was awesome and let me do work on opposite side of the board.  On opposite side of board he charged my Shrike unit with 2 of his units.  Next turn I would add Vulkan and his unit to this melee fest.  He would also feed 2 more units into this grinder.  After 3 turns my 15 termies took down 20 of his termies in combat, with only loss of 8 of mine and Vulkan was insta-killed by Hammer early on.

By turn 3 I had mopped up left side of board and started moving my combat squadded tactical squads toward 2 of the objectives.  I also started trudging through building in center with leftover termies, heading for more kills.  By turn 4 I had 2 objectives solidly in my control with no way he could contest.  I also had a 3rd objective in my control, but he would get there with 2 units before end game, so I also started getting my Landspeeders in position for last turn contesting.  But going first hurt this as he just Cycloned these in his turn.

After 5 turns we rolled and game ended.  We each had 2 objectives controlled with scoring units for the draw.

This was an attrition game for both of us.  He had to get the charge on my termies or lose combat, unless using multiple units.  My master-crafted hammers were very good.  It also must be said that his dice hated him the entire game and mine were on fire again.  At one point he put 13 wounds on my TH&SS unit with his Thunder hammers.  I proceeded to only fail one of these invulnerable saves, the other 12 were all 4 or better.  Ridiculous!

With the strength of his army, I could only feed termies to grinder, hoping to hold his units from slogging to objectives so I could win.  The rest of my army had to use hit and run tactics or just run, haha.  In the end, I didn't slow him down enough on my right side.  Oh well, it was an awesome game.  I finally got to use my Storm Scouts/Podding Dreadnought alpha strike.  Taking down the Raider paid for all of this, not to mention my Dread holding for 4 rounds of combat.

So, I think lists are pretty much finalized already.  I have a few models to build to get the army completely WYSIWIG, while my cousin has decided his Deathwing will be built as the First Company of the Salamanders.  This will go well with his normal Salamander army he has used to make it to 'Ardboyz Semi-finals these last two years.  Hopefully, he'll put up some posts once work starts on the building of this army.  He has great plans.  They will all be padded up with Forgeworld shoulderpads and be put on Secret Weapon Lava Flow Resin Bases.

This was probably the last game we'll get in before August, so I hope we're ready for whatever shows up.  At least we have a little experience with our armies this year.  The last two years I have played with lists I only wrote and never played with until tournament day.  This lack of practice put me in 4th two years ago and 2nd last year.