A Day Shrouded in Darkness; Game 3

by TheGraveMind

 

Strung Muppets Nurgle chaos marine force fighting some Eldar?

So my Win in Game 1, and Draw in Game 2 Have led me to my last game of the Day shrouded in Darkness. My opponent from game 2, moves on to face the Tyranids, pitting him on the top table. The ultramarines that fell to the swarm, gather themselves up, only to be faced by the swift Plasma drakes. Wild Ultramarine Appeared!

Mission 3: Into the Sunset
Night fight on turn 4+, List with the most units is attacker, Spear head deployment. The Defender (Me, by one unit) gets to choose table quarter, and set up four objectives on the board, outside of attackers deployment zone.
Well this does not suit me, I'm an aggressive melee force, I want to move towards him. So I set two objectives in my back quarter, and two on my far right, planning to sweep the flank and end up there. Deepstrike and Reserves are not options for this game. Which further sucks, cause he has a Vindicator and I have jump marines.

I set up defensively, using the middle piece for cover how I can. VV and dread ride in the SR.

His deployment

His list was something like this....
Captain Relic blade, storm shield
Jump pack chaplain
Lascannon ML dread
Tac squad flamer/missile
Tac squad Melta/ Multi melta
5 man Scouts with heavy bolter
Terminators with assault cannon
Land speeder Assault cannon

And.. I seized the initiative. I have gone first every game this tournament. WOOO! and fail..
Partly from being to conservative last game, partly trying to keep my opponent on his toes from seizing I fall for the Vindicator trap. The Vindicator Trap, TVT, Over prioritizing the Vindicator's threat. As was later pointed out in the car ride home, I would have been better off taking out the Dreadnought first turn, limit his ranged fire power, securing my own ranged superiority and taking the Vindicator shot for a turn. Worse case it could have killed half an assault squad, the half that doesn't matter.

Instead, I turbo boost the SR up in front of the Vindi, and attempt to multi melta it point blank. Little did I know that Vindicator was immune to melta. I miss, but it's twin linked so I manage to hit the second time. I roll my double penetration dice and... 2, 2.  A S12 vs AV13 front. Failraven. My land speeders were hidden in the back field, decide to open frag shots and heavy bolter rounds into the scouts on the far right side. I missed with near everything, and killed only two.

Of course his dread shot down my SR, leaving everything out in the open as they disembark. Vindicator kills two assault marines, a missile blows up my dread, and terminators open up and kill off my vanguard (except the sergeant with the power fist, who ends up running away). Well I'm down 510 points turn one.... Excellent start to the game. But that's ok, pressures on and that's where I thrive.

Ok, Time to take the flank then. The storm raven at least in death did something. It actively slows down his entire foot army by blocking him in. A terminator even failed a Dangerous terrain test going over it. Kill for the Storm Raven!! Back on focus, my typhoons glide to the side, and open fire into the side armor of the Vindicator, blowing off its main cannon. Good, but not enough. Rec squad jumps to the side, and aggressively takes on the melta Tactical squad who has the captain in it. They wipe the squad to the man, but the darn Captain with the 3++ and S6 power weapon has to keep going. The vindicator moves up to mid field to bother me some, but ends up giving my typhoons a cover save from the dread. The surviving tactical squad moves up and huddles on the objective closest to them.

His assault squad moves in to save their captain, get a few good hits in to kill of my squad, while losing most of theirs along with them. It ends up with my Reclusiarch, vs his Captain and his chaplain. My surviving assault squad shoots melta into his speeder, and blows it up. I didn't want to jump them too far out that turn, as terminators and return fire was still possible. After my vanguard sergeant had regrouped and assaulted the scouts and cleared them away, he then jumps up and attacks the vindicator to no avail. After what seemed like 4 turns of combat, I kill his captain with my Reclusiarch, but his Chaplain avenges him and is the Last man standing.

Coming to the end of the game, I turbo boost my surviving speeder over to the objective. I pull my assault squad down to the other objective, and go for the win/draw. His turn, he fires everything into my speeder, who makes most of the cover saves, and only gets a shaken result. His vindicator moves down. Unfortunately, there is enough time for another round, as we both only have about two units left. I move my melta gun models up to the front (they were in the front, but now up to melta range) and open fire. Two melta guns and an inferno pistol. Three shots, two hit. First one goes 1, 1..... ugh, ok, second shot, 1,2..... You have got to be kidding me. I fail to penetrate the Vindicator, I would have assaulted the darn thing, but It would have pulled me off the objective.

My Land speeder moved 7" to the other side of the tactical squad, and gets shot down. and he is able to drive his weaponless Vindicator around to contest my objective. Game ends, Win Ultramarines.

It was an incredibly close game, even after losing 1/3 of my army first turn, I was able to get moment and have him sweating as I chewed through parts of his army. His captain stalling my assault for two turns really hurt, but not as much as his melta resistant Vindicator. I want one of those. As I packed up my marines, I ripped off all the arms of my VV, seeing as they were acting like they didn't have them. (They're magnetized, don't worry) They were meant to deepstrike in and tie up devastator like units, but I'm either without a target, or they fail miserably. Over three games they killed a single grey knight, and three scouts. So they are being cut from the 1.5k tourney list, and I'm using those points to adjust for what I noticed was my discerning weakness.

I ended up 4th or 5th for the day, out of 12 people puts me about in my average. I'm always in the top half, but right below the top 3. The tyranids actually ended up top score for the day, which makes my biomorph known as a heart a little warm inside. Strung muppet ended up the rank above me, so not a bad day. No entry fee, and good games left me with a good feeling, even if I was kicking myself for all three games. My first real tournament with the Plasma Drakes, and I feel I learned a lot.