3-Person Free-For-All

Had the opportunity today to play with a couple of friends. We each had a 1000pt army, and so we did a three-way battle. Whoever had the most stuff on a central objective on turn 5 would win.

Not a tournament-style game, obviously, but still an opportunity for me to see how various units perform.

SMs (Imperial Fists):
Captain
Chaplain
Apothecary
Lieutenant(?)
Lieutenant(?)
4 Bladeguard Veterans
5 Assault Intercessors
5 Assault Intercessors
3 Bikers
Predator Annihilator

SoB:
Canoness
Hospitalier
Repentia Superior
5 Battle Sisters
5 Battle Sisters
5 Celestians
5 Retributors
5 Repentia
5 Repentia
5 Seraphim
3 Arco-Flagellents
Penitent Engine
Rhino

My list:
AoO Detachment (Cult of Strife)
Master Succubus (Hypex, Glaive & splinter pistol, Parasite's Kiss) Warlord: Master Executioner
5 Wyches (Grave lotus, blast pistol)
10 Corsair Voidreavers (7x splinter rifle, 2x shredder, 1x wraithcannon)
5 Incubi
3 Reavers (Splintermind, heat lance)
3 Reavers (Splintermind, heat lance)
3 Reavers (Splintermind, heat lance)
Venom (2x Splinter Cannon)

Patrol Detachment (Obsidian Rose Patrol)
Archon (huskblade, blast pistol, Djin Blade) Tolerated Ambition: Soul Thirst
5 Wracks (2x Liquifier Gun, Electrocorrosive Whip)
Raider (Dark Lance)
Raider (Dark Lance)

The Corsairs went in one Raider, the Succubus, Wyches and Wracks piled in the other, and the Archon and Incubi got the Venom.


We weren't doing secondary objectives or anything. The SMs got one table corner, I had the one opposite, and the SoBs were in the middle, on the opposite edge. The Seraphims went into reserve but everything else was on the table.

Turn 1
I got first turn and decided to throw caution into the wind and just rush everything forward. The SMs were mostly out of range, so the SoB bore the brunt of my shooting. A Heat Lance took 3 wounds off the penitent engine, other weapons reduced the rhino to one wound, and some battle sisters were killed. The Venom was ineffective.

The SMs moved up, though only their bikes were in a position to do much. They killed 2/3 of my Reavers, while the predator plinked some sisters.

The sisters moved forward a little. The celestians moved to screen the rest from the SMs. Sister shooting brought the Corsair-Raider to 4 wounds and the penitent engine incinerated a Reaver unit. They then charged into my last Reaver unit with repentia, while arco-flagallants went after the wounded raider. Thanks to ASF, the Reavers got a repentia or two, before being reduced to the champion. The Raider was left on 1 wound.

Turn 2
I disembarked the raider units. The corsairs stayed largely where they were, taking aim at the sisters. The Succubus and Wracks went after the bikes, whilst the wyches went towards the sisters (I figured they'd be more useful against T3). The Raider fell back, moving to screen the wracks. Both reaver champions also fell back to lick their wounds. I kept the Archon and Incubi in reserve in the Venom, moving it into position to charge next turn.

The corsairs failed to finish the wounded rhino, and also failed to kill the falgellents right next to them! They did at least kill the repentia. The Succubus killed one bike with her pistol. The Venom failed at killing sisters. The Succubus and Wracks then charged the bikers, killing another and leaving the last wounded. In return the Succubus took a wound. The Wyches charged a depleted battle sister unit and hospitalier, killing the sisters.

The SMs moved closer, sending most of their forced towards the central objective (and sisters, who were closer to it than I was at that point), and sending a Lieutenant and Intercessor squad my way. Shooting was nonexistant. Various SMs charged the celestians and deleted them. The succubus/Wracks finished off the bikers.

The Seraphim came down behind the SMs. The Penitent Engine moved towards my Corsairs. Despite shooting twice, the Seraphim struggled to inflict much damage to the SMs. Alas, the same cannot be said for my Corsairs - which were char-grilled and then thoroughly flagellated. The wounded raiser was destroyed and the other lost 3 wounds to shooting. The Repentia Superior and Repentia charged the Wyches. However, the Wyches struck first and killed the repentia, and their Superior proved thoroughly ineffective.

Turn 3
I still kept the Incubi in reserve, relying on the Succubus/Wracks. They moved towards the SMs, the Wracks Advancing (the Succubus didn't need to). The pair of unit-less Reaver champions moved up to the penitent engine. Thankfully, the first shot brought it down. The Succubus killed a couple of SMs with her pistol, regaining her lost wound. Two liquifiers finished them off. The Venom managed to plink a few wounds off an exposed SM captain. In combat, the Succubus/Wracks killed the Lieutenant and the Wyches killed the Hospitalier.

The SMs moved up, obliterating my Wrack unit and wounding my Succubus. They charged some battle sisters and (I think?) Retributors. The seraphim were also charged. A Lieutenant charged the Succubus but she struck first, knocked a couple of wounds off him, and then used Show Stealer to sod off. The battle sisters were mostly slaughtered by the veterans/chaplain, who then moved my way. I think the canoness was tied up with some intercessors (I'll admit I lost track of things in that area   ).

The SoB were mostly tied up with the SMs at this point, but annoyingly the Rhino managed to finish one of my Reavers, whilst a surviving flagellent locked the other in combat.

Turn 4
Okay, with a lot of my stuff depleted, it was time to bring up my reserves. The Archon and Incubi disembarked to meet the veterans/chaplain head-on. If I could bring those down, I'd have a solid unit and twin-character blob in the centre, and the others would have little else to challenge them.

The Succubus came out, killed a couple of SMs with her pistol (healing herself to full) and then charged the Lieutenant. The Archon and Incubi charged the veterans/chaplain. For fun, I had the Archon attack the Chaplain, whilst the Incubi went after the squad. The Archon proceeded to whiff all his attacks, doing nothing at all to the chaplain. Annoying but not fatal. What's a chaplain without his squad? The Incubi hit and wounded with almost all their attacks. Perfect. The veterans rolled their invulnerable saves. The net result . . . one of them died. Very much not ideal.

On their turn, the SMs reduced the Venom to 2 wounds and charged the captain into the melee in the middle. The Chaplain took out the Archon, who naturally failed his Shadow Field on the second roll (did I mention that I hate Shadow Fields? Hate them! Hate them! Hate them! Hate them! Hate them!). The Incubi were similarly slaughtered by the Captain before getting the opportunity to swing again.

At this point, the SoB player and I opted to concede, as we had almost nothing left to challenge the SMs.

Aftermath:

Units that worked well:
Wyches! By the end of the game, my 55pt unit had killed about 200pts of enemies - including 2 mini-characters.
The Succubus. My build was definitely sub-optimal, but it was still fun and worked well enough. Only think that irks me is that I'm essentially paying an extra 20pt tax for a build I'm not using.
Wracks. These hit quite a bit harder in melee than I'd expected, and are decently tough as well. Granted, they weren't capable of taking as much punishment as I might have liked, but I guess that's what you take grotesques for.


What didn't work:
The Archon. Failed dismally at the only thing he tried and then died pathetically afterwards. In future, it's Hatred Eternal or a different character.
The Venom. Not a surprise, but its guns proved just as pathetic as I expected them to be.
Shredders. Whilst I liked the Corsair unit otherwise, these felt like a complete waste. Continuously ineffective and underperforming even against good targets.

What I'm unsure about:
Splintermind on the Reavers. BS2+ Heat Lances were very useful (though the splinter rifles were still just a lightshow). However, it also left them feeling rather weak in melee. I'm wondering if Grave Lotus for S5 would be better.

Final Thoughts:
From a tactical perspective, I probably should have hung back on the first couple of turns and played a more shooty game, but it was fun, regardless.

Well, that about wraps it up. Thanks for reading.