2000pts vs Deathwatch, Skyhammer and Custodes

Sooooo......


Going into this game, I was only aware of incoming Deathwatch. The guy had a decent sized force of it, so thats what I expected. I planned accordingly.
(Note: not to say he conned me or anything, he's a lovely guy.)

The first thing I knew I wanted, expecting a Corvus Blackstar, was to test out some recently built Vengeance Weapons Batteries. They're tough, they're cheap, and they come with Interceptor Lascannons. Whats not to love?
Based on some previous advice to castle down and effectively null deploy, I opted for two Vengeance Batteries and a unit of Mandrakes to hold the board for a turn or two, whilst the rest of my army came in for a Beta Strike.

The rest of the force, I wanted to pack as much of an anti-Marine punch as it could. So, step one, Archon with a Webway Portal. On a Tantalus. With ten Medusae. Teehee.
This was backed up by a unit of Incubi in a Venom, four units of Warriors in Venoms (all with extra cannon of course), two Ravagers with Disintegrators, and in case the Batteries failed at their job, a pair of Razorwings to take on the Corvus/Corvi.

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When I arrived for the game, I found my opponent was core Deathwatch (two Kill Teams, one of which was all Flamerfull and packing Captain Artemis on a Corvus), but also brought extra fun. An Ultramarines Skyhammer, and a unit of Custodes. I foresaw great joy.

We roll out Hammer And Anvil, The Scouring.

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So the game began, he got turn one, and everything made its entrance.many Drop Pods made their entrance. Each Vengeance Battery got one hull point off of a Drop-Pod, but didn't manage to kill anything.
He landed right amongst me, shoot one Vengeance to hell, and took a Hull Point off the other. The Mandrakes, withstood an impressive amount of firepower, before being charged by an Assault squad. They survived, but were stuck.

My first turn, and absolutely nothing happened. The only remaining Vengeance had used Interceptor so couldn;t fire, and the Mandrakes were stuck in combat.

Opponent's second turn, and the guns did their thing. The Corvus arrived, and twook a Hull Point (plus a shaken) from the remaing Vengeance, but lots of fire took the Vengeance down afterwards. Mandrakes lost their last members, leaving me in trouble.
Thankfully though it was already turn two, so I did get my Reserves rolls.

Maths::

My second turn. Reserve rolls. And I got ALMOST everything. One Razorwing and one Ravager sit the turn out as everything piles onto the board to hilarious effect.
The one Ravager unfortunately wasted its by killing a single Invisible Deathwatcher, but everyone else got their kicks in. The Tantalus shot half a Devastator squad, which was finished off by a Venoms and crew.
The Medusae wiped out an Assault Squad with their Eye Blasts.
Two Venoms plus crew wipe out a Devastator squad.
Two Venoms plus crew wipe out an Assault Squad.
Razorwing takes a Hull Point off the Corvus.

Turn three, and things start to go skewy.
My opponent spent a good portion of the turn rearranging his force to compensate for completely losing the Skyhammer, and capitalizing on what was a fundamental balls-up on my part. You see, three of my Venoms were slightly too close to each other. Sort of slightly too "under a Flamer template" close to each other. The Corvus swept in under the effective range of the Razorwing and dfropped of its cargo - far too many Heavy Flamers. I lost three Venoms, and two of the Warrior squads. And one Incubi.
And then fire from the other Kill-Team took down a Ravager.

I took a hit, and now all I had to deal with were some extremely annoying and tough units.
Second Ravager and Razorwings turned up.
Razorwing fails to do anything to the Corvus, whilst its partner joins its fire to the Ravager to kill only two members of a perpetually Invisble Kill-Team (which contained two Librarians).
My Archon abandoned ship and tried to get a shot in on the Corvus which failed to do any damage, whilst the Medusae got some shots in on Artemis' unit and knocked them down to half strength.
The Tantalus meanwhile, along with the surviving Venom and its passengers, poured their fire onto the Custodes, killing one and taking a wound off another. These guys are rock solid.
Combat, and the four Incubi become three after Overwatch, and two after combat, but manage to knock their opponents down to just Artemis and one other Deathwatcher.

Turn four, and an Invisible Kill Team and some Custodes advance on the Tantalus, immobilising it. The Corvus sweeps around and immobilises the Ravager, and the turn ends with Artemis and feiend, not killing any Incubi, who likeswise kill nothing in return.

My fourth, and I'm in trouble. The Razorwings have no decent places to go. They movement takes them out of range of EVERYTHING so, I fly them off, hoping to get a decent target in what could be a final turn.
My last Warrior squad bail out to take an objective.
Ravager, Tantalus and Venom fire on the usual targets, killing one more Custodes, and taking the last three guys to just wound each.
Invisible guys get knocked down to just the Librarians, also one wound each.
Combat comes, and Incubi die.

Fifth, and I'm hoping for a final turn. Corvus turns and destroys my last Venom thanks mainly to rolling lots of ones, but rereolling because he HAD declared his Mission Tactics against Troops units. Meanwhile the Invisible Lib-Team moves in on the immobile Ravager, but thankfully they fail to kill it.
Custodes advance and kill the Medusae, while Artemis kills my Archon.

Two Razorwings return and throw missiles at the Corvus (now in Hover mode) but fail to harm it at all (damn those flares!).
Immobile Ravager manages to kill the last Librarians though!

An end of game roll, and its important. I'm sitting on a 4 point Objective. he has First Blood, Linebreaker and my Warlord. 4 points to 3.
And we get another turn.

His sixth, and it goes pear shaped.
Artemis and friend move onto a 3 point Objective.
The Corvus pulls back and hides in an annoying place, thankfully failing to harm the Ravager.
The Custodes however move on, and oppone tis thrilled to finally get them into close combat. With 5 Kabalite Warriors.
Lets face it, those Warriors were dead, and the Custodes claimed the 4 point Objective.

My turn, and two Razorwings turn. Its them, an immobile Ravager, and an immobile Tantalus, and they can't get to the Corvus.
So instead they bear in on the Custodes, and fire their remianing Monoscythe Missiles, and mage to kill them!
Extremely bad luck on my opponent's dice though!
The immobile Tantalus gets one last chance of shooting, and kills Artemis' friend, but not Artemis himself (one wound taken only).

And thats where the game ended.

Final tally, was 6 points to 0, as he added one 3 point objective to Warlord, Linebreaker and First Blood, and I had nothing left on the board which could have held an Objective.

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As a final assessment, I say my big mistake was those Venoms.

I was really, really stupid leaving close enough together for all those Heavy Flamers. If they'd been just a little further apart, I wouldn't have lost five units to a single enemy unit's shooting, and could have done a lot more with those men and vehicles.

Deathwatch are extremely interesting. Their strength I think isn't in their Mission tactics, that barely came up at all. But its the sheer customizability of their units. The number of special weapons they can get in a single unit, and the speed with which they can deploy them. FIVE Heavy Flamers in a single unit! Frag Cannons! The pain!
And that Corvus is a monster, especially with the Flares thingy which lets it reroll Jink!

I can definitely see why he teamed them up witha Skyhammer, for the extra Heavy Weapons and combat hit that comes with it.

Custodes meanwhile, are a hard little unit. I think deployment like Hammer And Anvil works well for them, because you don't want these guys too close. They hit hard, and take a LOT of effort to get rid of. They're the sort of unit you pray for a Deep Strike Mishap, even if they just get a Misplaced result.
They seem to be better than our combat units, of course stronger and tougher than any of our units. I looked at them, and honestly think the thing I need to take them on properly is a Talos unit. I'm not quite sure a Dark Artisan is quite enough though. You'll want more attacks and more strength than a Dark Artisan offers.

Final notes:
[*] If you're playing against Deathwatch, keep your vehicles a decent distance apart. If he's planned for this game, he WILL have Heavy Flamers and Frag Cannons in abundance.
[*] If you're playing against Custodes, takes Tali, and do what you can to keep them away from things. They will take a lot of spammed fire to eventually take down, so the better tactic is to treat them like a Corpsetheif Claw, a unit you want to keep away from your army while you deal with other things.
[*] If you're playing against a Skyhammer, beta strike is your friend.
[*] Vengeance Weapons Batteries are good. They lucked out a little in this game with some bad rolls, but even after this I think they work very well and will be trying to use them again.

This may come a little too late but are you aware that template weapons used against vehicles have to be placed to cover as much of the vehicle as possible?

Quote :

Against vehicles, the template must be placed to cover as much of the vehicle as possible without touching a friendly model.

This is often overlooked and can make a big difference, especially if, for example, you've put your Venoms slightly too close together.

Huh.

I'm not overly certain it would have helped, but certainly does bring up some interesting ideas. May have to keep any eye out for that.

But even with the flamer, he can target the farthest vehicle, and "just happen" to it the other 2.

But still good call on that, I definately have made this mistake in the past

@Squidmaster, care to post your list? I am suprised that you didnt bring either a DA or a Grotesquery. And I can only assume that (like usual) the Incubi were sub-par? Or were you happy with their performance?

Lastly, wouldent any Talos just get frag-cannoned to death? I thought they had an "alternate fire" which was basically a 24" dual shot las cannon. And he can take as many as he wants in a squad.

Where are the rules for those vengeance batteries? They sound point-efficient.

Nothing to hold an objective? I thought everything can hold one but only troops get objective secured?

@fisheyes I'll dig the list up and post it sometime soon. I left out bigger but slower creatures so I could hit hard and fast with as much firepower as I could muster, thus the lack of DA or Grot.
The Incubi I was reasonably ok with. They suffered, but I think that's because they were hit in the stupid-flamer-death (I really hate "No Escape").

On Vengeance Batteries - Stronghold Assault! They're technically an add-on for the Wall Of Martyrs, but you can take them on their own.


@CptMetal At the end of the game, I only had Zooming Flyers (because we don't have the other option) and Immobilised Skimmers who weren;t close enough to any Objectives.

Thx Squidmaster, I will have to check out the Stronghold Assault for any other fortifications that look abusable