Legion Of Caliban

As the special rules for the Dark Angels have been leaked at this point we still don't know for sure what rules are linked with what models and we don't know point costs. There is alot that we can infer safely at this point however. There are alot of rules in the the book and i wont go through all of them but will go through some stuff that has caught my eye. Greenwing grim resolve lions blade formation supreme fire support - formation compliant units overwatch at full BS vehicle squadrons  - tanks taken in groups of 3 gain special rules Deathwing 1 Deathwing special rules - hatred ChSM Deathwing assault may come in on T2-4 Smite now counts as a smash attack Sx2 AP 1 only 1 attack at initiative. Ravenwing 1 Ravenwing special rule - reroll cover saves attack squad - landspeeder hitting boosts +1BS of other models in formation Ravenshield - charged ravenwing units may draw supporting fire from ravenwing units up to 24" antigrav upwash - if three speeders...

Hi before you scroll through what is quite possibly the longest and most intense batrep you've ever read, please consider donating, using the link to paypal. Suggested donations are $1.00 for a view, all proceeds will go to the Evil Dice Gaming Club in Malden Mass, which needs some support and is the best place to play 40k in the boston area. Please consider helping a local game store and local club remain viable. Now with that done onto the batrep... Here you will find the lastest installment in the annals of the Gordium campaign. In which the cogitators first found crashed on the planet of Gordium were decoded leading to three names. The names of fallen Dark Angels who have been hunted and what that hunt has wrought... Prelude to Apocalypse Check the  Tactical Assessment of Cypra Mundi

We join our hero's on Umbral Void, were Belial and Capt. Ranuk are deep in conversation on their strategy regarding the war effort... Having concluded his buisness with the Captain of the Deathmarines, Belial invites his strike team to the ready room and briefs his sergents and their teams on the mission...

At the southern tip of the Killjar mountains, Chief Librarian Ezekiel, has been overseeing the construction of the Castellum Stronghold around the Void Shield Generator in the area. Enjoying a brief moment respite after the construction, the speaker system, sounds suddenly throughout the base... The Ad Mech alliance unleashes seven S 9, Ap3 attacks, collapsing all shield generators, destroying all but one devastator on the shield gen, and destroying an emplaced lascanon.

Opening Firestorm... Firestorm salvo collapses the void shield on the third hit. Deathwing assault first turn, lands all squads safely. Belial lands directly next to the demon prince. The assault squad has a mishap and is placed in the corner.  

They came from far and wide, the myriad races of the galaxy, their invasion was swift and quickly they claimed their territory. Then then after the landing craft departed the generals began their assaults... The first week only empty spaces could be claimed, as we all got to try out the planet strike rules.

Note there may be some spoilers in this thread as I am wrapping up the post game and posting thoughts on stuff that we got wrong and Improvements. 1.) Turn times - at the outset we really should have had turn limits, turns 1+2 took a long time. 2.) Rules for scoring on strat objectives. The way we did it that was to have them be the same Points value all game. The rule book suggests multiplying the value by the break number on which they are scored. Eg. an objective is worth 1point on break 1 and 2pts on break 2 and 3 pts on break 3. 3.) We didn't realize that you could spend strat VPs for new asset purchases. These two things are linked, if you wanna be able to buy assets you need to have a greater number of VPs availible hence increasing the points. 4.) We didn't really play pure 7th ed rules. eg. "objective secured" for troops in battle forged armies. We played everything as scoring equally. This was something that would have changed the game alot. 5.) Didn...

While the full batrep isn't ready yet, here is a teaser of what took place. VPs could only be scored after each break.

Game 3 After tough matchups versus too opponents that were able to out manuver me in objective games, it was time to purge some tratiors. The legion of the Iron Warriors stood before me and it was time to really bring the heat. This game was kill points and I have been succesful against this army in the past, only time would tell if that trend would hold. Deployment - I castled up the deathwing as usual and my opponent planted his troops on a hill with a great LOS to all over the board. His entire deployment was castled and behind an aegis, which to mean screams out come get me... if you can. For this game i decided to say screw it to my typical divination roll and instead I rolled on telepathy and took psychic screech. I also decided that given his extremely defensive set up I needed to pry him out of his rusted chaos rabbit hole. To accomplish this Belial would again be droping with a squad and trying to prise open some of that armor. Chaos took the first turn.

Relic Game 2 Onward to game 2. Having lost to the Dark Eldar in round 1 there was nothing to do but try to overcome my next opponent. This was an army similar to one that I had faced in the Balance of power batrep, this time the only objective was a central statue which you could score if your troops were within 6" of the statue. what was unclear is if this meant that denial forces could be used to stop scoring. On a personal note this guy was going to re-write his list after disovering that he he only brought two flying stands, so i leant him one, then he plays me... karma can be a b. Ultramarine LRC speeds its payload torward the Relic.

Game one versus Dark eldar. I had known that there would be a dark eldar army at the tournament but unfortunately I was unable to avoid it in the first round I knew that this would be a serious problem for my army, but hope springs eternal! First the table. similar to a table i had played on before, this setup means no line of site blockers. Even with all of those ruins there is no LOS blocking happening here. The objectives were all the same points value. there were 5, middle and table quarters.

Tactics of the Deathwing, part 2 Fresh off a recent touney in which I had some success with the Deathwing I will try to speak for a bit about what works in a Deathwing style list. Given the schizophrenic nature of my other tactica post I will try to be a bit more focused. Terminators especially the dark angel variety are expensive. They cost about 3x the cost of a tactical squad, they are only 2x as durable, and have about equal firepower. They can deep strike, but where they truly excel is assault. you need to be able to use those powerfists. terminators need to be used for assault. Therefore you need to use them aggressively. terminators assaulting gives you 2 advantages. 1 is that you avoid being shot, 2 is that your save of 2+ will be more likely to help since invariably there are far fewer weapons that have AP 2 in assault, especially when you can use your sergent's powersword to kite him in a challenge. In a Deathwing list this is further complicated by ...

The deathwing army is a fearsome opponent full of deadly save making terminators, but how do you win with an army of only 25-30 models on the board? There are several ways to help yourself acheive sucess with the the deathwing army, but first we need to understand some basic terminology. In battle there are tactics and there is strategy and the two are not the same.