Hello everyone hopefully you did not miss the battle last night. It was hard fought between two very skilled players. We also gave away a Betrayal at Calth boxset on Twitch. Make sure to not miss out on the weekly giveaways and tune in to the Tuesday Night Fights. Anyways here are the thoughts on the game.

Alan:

Well where do I begin.  I knew this matchup was going to be a tough one for me.  Frankie has tabled my “take all comers” KDK list before with his battle company.  So going  into it I wanted to make a list focused on high probability anti-tank (Laser Rapiers) and high wound count assault (dogs) with teeth (Jug Lords).

Here is a quick play by play of my Master Game against Frankie’s brutal Battle Company.

Setup and Deployment

I lucked out with Purge the Alien as our mission but the secondary’s for that scenario are hard for my army.  Frankie made me go first so I put my void shield in  the middle  of my deployment zone and bubble wrapped my whole army around it to prevent the dreaded melta drop pod from destroying my fortification.

Turn 1

I just played conservative and moved my squads within the void shields.  I also moved my Sorcerer to the left flank away from his assassin. The plan was to pop a rhino or two and survive until my drakes came in.  I set up my two dog squads for turn two assaults which I was hoping would be my hard hitting turn.

Frankie dropped my shields and did some work on my rapier squads killing 3 of the 6 guns.  Overall my dogs suffered minimal damage but he was pressing super hard and really swung for the fences that turn.

Turn 2

Both drakes came in and did work on Khan’s unit and some marines.  Khan failed every save and look out sir thrown his way dying to the drakes.  This was lady luck showing some love to make up for the time Cooper had Khan kill my Bloodthirster with a hammer of wrath wound. My dogs and jug lords started dropping units and it was looking good for me.  I got lucky again when my Blind Axe Lord stayed in combat with scouts from a failed hit and run. I was able to get 2 of 3 void shields back.

Frankie started moving up with his assassin looking to put pressure on my back field. He dropped my shields and tried to kill the drakes.  I was hot with my invuls  and my drakes survives thanks to demonic possession and 3+ grounding tests. His assassin made a boss move charge killing one more of my laser rapiers.

Turn 3

We were neck and neck on the maelstrom missions and I kept rolling objectives that were in the vicinity of my pressure points on the board. I used 5 blood tithe points to make dogs that I summoned in his back field. I landed my drakes and was hoping to keep the pressure on his flank to my right.  My last rapier unit blew up his rhino carrying his HQ.  I broke off the Jug Lords to set up more assaults. My assault units had reached his back field and killed several units getting me back to 4 blood tithe. Void shield was up to 1.

Frankie kept the pressure coming this turn killing several of my dogs and dropping my KDK drake (5^th tithe) and immobilizing my other drake.  His assassin assaulted bloodletters and was holding his own.  He did a lot damage this turn and made me pay for getting greedy with my drakes. The choice to land them cost me because the damage they inflicted was minimal.  Also I thought I had placed them both within the shield but only was in.

Turn 4

This was when the game was looking to go my way.  I was up 2 in the maelstrom at the end of turn 4 and had killed 10+ units.  I dropped more dogs in his back field using my blood tithe. I set up more assaults and killed off his Chaplin and scouts.  My Sorc has to challenge and wrecked a Scout Sergeant then rolled a 21 on the boon table… goodbye Sorc hello Chaos Spawn! My Blind Axe Lord finished off his Chaplin and rolled a 66 on the boon table… good by Jug Lord, hello Daemon Prince lmao! You have to love the CSM book.  Not what I wanted but the pressure was on and it was looking good as long as I didn’t mess up with the maelstrom.  I had pushed my largest remaining dog squad into several units of marines killing none of them but Frankie rolled 6s for hit and run, locking him in combat.

Frankie had rolled the same maelstroms several turns in a row.  Unfortunately for him they were in my deployment zone or to keep me out of his. He pumped his remain units intro my summoned dogs that were contesting his backfield in an effort to catch up on maelstrom.  My 5+ were on fire this turn shrugging off most of his wounds and denying his back field.

Turn 5

I used my 4 blood tithe for feel no pain and looked to control the board.  I set up some assaults and was looking to win the game.  Man battle company is a pain because I felt like I was killing stuff left and right but Frankie still had a ton of models left.  I put my new Daemon Prince to work and started working on rhinos.

Frankie is called the “G.O.A.T.” because he is the Jordon of 40k.  He may have been down but he is never out. He moved a bunch of rhino and turbo boosted to tie maelstorm. His assassin was now fighting two squads of bloodletters like a boss. He rolled a 5 to continue the game.  If we had stopped at 5 I would have won 6-1

Turn 6

The assault train was in fulll swing and the game ended in my favor 11-0

Overall

Frankie’s list is insanely powerful. I think his flavor of battle company is the best I’ve seen.  My list was indeed talored to fight battle company and after playing I feel it could hold its own as a take all comes tourney. But lets get real I enjoy playing different list all the time so its back to the drawing board.   I had a few thing go my way in the fight that affected the outcome but I was confident that if my dogs made it to turn 3 I would have a good chance of stealing a W from the G.O.A.T.  It was a great game and Frankie is always a blast to play.

Frankie:

Last night’s game was a tough one. Alan brought a list that was built to kill the Battle Company. We also rolled up ITC mission 2 which is Purge the Alien. It was not looking good for me from the get go. I was looking at his list all week and could not figure how I was going to beat it but I gave it my best shot.

I made a few mistakes, unfortunately. I jumped a lot of units out of my Rhinos on turn one in order to bring down the voidshield. My original plan was to keep everyone inside the Rhinos and pop the Voidshield with my meltas from long range. Unfortunately I went with option two and jumped them all out which ended up costing me. I also failed a charge with Khan on turn one which would have really helped. Kharn could have done some damage to one of the dog units and dodged being hit by the Helldrakes. But he failed and then failed all of his saves from the Helldrakes dying and giving Alan a kill point.

As the game went on more and more things like that went Alan’s way. He go two shields back on turn one which hurt and made a ton of saves on both Helldrakes to keep them alive for turn three. He also rolled really well on his Maelstrom getting objectives that helped him get closer to my army. The stars were not aligning for the White Scars, unfortunately. I failed a few key hit and runs and was not able to do any damage to Alan in close combat.

Going into turn five I was not in a good place. I for sure needed some luck, and the game to go on. I was able to tie it up on Maelstrom and  rolled for the game to continue. As I looked around at the table I figured that as long as Alan didn’t kill 4 units I would be able to tie the game on this turn. Alan made a charge with his DP and ended up killing all 4 units h needed to kill with his various units, leaving me with 2 units of marines and no hope of coming back. That was the game! It was pretty close, even though the score doesn’t show it. If I had some units survive I could have tied the game and had it down to the dice roll for turn seven. Unfortunately, it was not meant to be and Alan took home the W.

Great game though and was a lot of fun. I will look for revenge in the play-offs and will make sure to list tailor next time. Maybe bring a Fireraptor or some Thunderwolf allies.

Next weeks game:

 Between Reece and Danny, some hot Astra Militarum on Astra Militarum action.