Hopefully you all tuned in to the hard fought battle between Danny and Reece. It was close all the way to the end with a surprise finish. We also gave away a Ravenwing Dark Talon to a lucky viewer/ subscriber on Twitch. Make sure to tune in next Tuesday for your chance to win our weekly giveaway. Here are the write ups from the two players.
Follow this link to see the lists!
Score Card:
- Big Guns Never Tire: Reecius: 4pts
- Maelstrom: Danny: 4pts
- Warlord: Reecius: 1pt
- Linebreaker: No one. Note: Originally we thought Danny had gotten Linebreaker, but upon reviewing the rule, you must be wholly within 12″ of the enemy deployment edge to earn this point and Danny was not wholly within but just barely within the distance.
- King of the Hill: No one.
Reecius: 5pts
Danny: 4pts
Danny:
First I’d like to thank Reece on a very fun, tough fought game. I made my list with the limited knowledge I had of what he would be bringing to the game. I included the Hydras knowing he would be bringing flyers, which turned out to be easy targets for Reece’s deep striking units. I felt my list would give him trouble as everything was mounted in a transport and mobile. I also rolled the warlord trait to give my army stealth in ruins and move through cover. I can now freely move my vehicles through most pieces of terrain on the board. My first couple of turns I positioned my vehicles to capture objectives quickly, but moved on and committed too aggressively which left units to unsupported, and Reece’s first couple of turns went well and crippled my army and I was fighting an uphill battle most of the game.
After getting my composure back, I fought hard. Failing every pin check on my units proved to hurt me in the long run as Reece had clumped up models near all my flamers, and I was unable to set them on fire as I was pinned. I never felt totally out of the game as I kept up on the secondary mission points and aimed to control two of the four objectives for primary. My strategy was to control two and let Reece control two while killing his heavy support units to give me an edge on the primary mission (Big Guns Never Tire). This almost worked, but the game ended in 5 turns. If the game had went on, I feel I would have had a better shot at taking the victory as two devastator units had one model left and their drop pod was on its last hull point. Taking our those Heavy Support is just as good as controlling a third objective, but mission failed! Overall it was fun and a hard fought game, good playing you Reece! Next time I’ll get the win!
Reecius:
What a fun game! Danny is always a great opponent and kept a good attitude the entire game, even after my brutal turn 2. Danny gave me first turn, and my army almost fully null deployed, leaving only Issodon and 2 units of Scouts on the table and largely hidden on my objectives. First turn I did nothing, but turn 2 my entire army came in and just kicked Danny’s army right in the nuts! That is what my army does though, and I win or lose based on how well that critical turn goes for me. I know it would be tough as Danny was fully meched up and chewing through both the transport and the men inside is a challenge for my army. Luckily though, he failed every pin check after I popped almost all of his transports. Whew! That meant I wouldn’t get hit as hard on the counter attack. Also, one of my Skyhammer assault squads was able to charge his CCS and slay the warlord, which would prove to be critical.
After that point, the game looked to be pretty lopsided as I had done so much damage. However, Danny was rolling super lucky on the maelstrom and kept getting the missions that scored for holding his own objectives. I was trying to apply pressure on him to contest his objectives, but he kept his Knight in his backfield and was able to sweep aside any of my squishy MSU deep strikers that tried to contest. As the game rolled on, Danny started really kicking the crap out of my army and by turn 5, neither of us had much left.
Luckily, I had already killed all of his Heavy Support units with Deep Strikers and Assault Marines, so all I had to do was tie on objectives to win the primary mission. I was trailing on Maelstrom though, and one lucky snap shot from a Plasma Gun toting vet killed one of my Scouts on an objective and caused them to break, running off of it to deny me a Maelstrom point and securing Danny the win on Maelstrom.
As both of us totally forgot about King of the Hill, lol, neither of us had a unit on it at the bottom of 5, so hey. I normally am very good at remembering mission objectives, but I got really relaxed when I thought I was winning and let it slip from my mind. That dang near cost me! The game ended on 5, and it looked like a straight draw after Danny’s Vulture dropped into hover mode and contested an Objective and had its tail within 12″ of my deployment edge for what we thought was Linebreaker. However, upon reviewing the Linebreaker rule, you have to be fully within the 12″ zone to count. I asked Danny how he wanted to handle it and he said he didn’t want to count the point so what we thought was a tie turned out to be a very minor victory for me!
Very fun game, and in retrospect, I should not have put Las Cannons on my Skyhammer Devs. I should have stuck with Heavy Bolters and played them aggressively, dropping for rear and side armor shots where their rerolling 1’s and Tank Hunter would have made them deadly to both transport vehicles and the occupants that popped out. Plus, they would have been in position to apply additional pressure on objectives. Also, play to the mission! Haha, I could have so easily gotten King of the Hill (as could have Danny) and forgetting that was a big goof. Oh well, live and learn. Victory for the Tratarus 151st Airborne!