Local Single Battalion Tourney Win - Part 1 (Kabalites v Raven Guard)

My list is posted here

Match 1
I won a small local tournament with a Kabalite list on Sunday.  The tournament was 1500 points, single battlion. While we only had 8 players, this was the first of a monthly series of tourneys that we just started to try and grow our community a bit. I’ll be going over each of my three battles in separate reports.

Scenario
The first match was based on holding objectives. 4 Objectives were pre-placed and each player placed a key objective in their deployment zone (Front Line Assault was set for all tables for this round and each table had a large piece of LoS blocking terrain in the middle of the board between the two deployment zones).  Players got points at the end of their turns based on controlling the 5 preset objectives.  The on in their deployment zone was 1 point, the middle two were 2 points, and the one in their opponent’s deployment zone was worth three points.  Each key objective was worth 5 points if held at the end of the match. A sudden death victory could be achieved by tabling your opponent or by controlling all six objectives at the end of your turn.  Tournament points were awarded by point differential. The losing player got 0 points; a draw was 2 points for each player; 4, 6, or 8 points were awarded by how many points you beat an opponent by (I forget the exact amounts), and 10 points were awarded for a sudden death victory).



My Opponent
Space Marine Battalion- Raven Guard

HQ
Primaris Captain
Primaris Lieutenant

Troops
5x Intercessor
5x Intercessor
5x Intercessor
5x Intercessor

Elites
1x Primaris Ancient
1x Redemptor Dreadnaught (gatling)
5x Aggressors (flamer fists)

Heavy Support
5x Hellblaster
5x Hellblaster

Transports
1x Repulsor (gatlings, storm bolters, heavy bolters)

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Deployment
We each deployed conservatively, he kept the majority of his army at the center; aggressors were in the repulsor; one hellblaster squad and the dread were behind a building on my right flank. I kept my venoms spread out and my ravagers to the back, just right of center.  The Flyers were deployed early in the corners where they could easily react to wherever I needed them. Mandrakes and scourges were in deep strike, as is right and proper.



Round 1
My opponent won the roll off and elected to go first; my seize was unsuccessful. He kept the dread and the hellblaster squad to the right protected, but moved forward with everything else, failing to adcance far enough with his rightmost intercessors to nab the middle objective to the right. The repulsor and one of the intercessor squads moved to the left; the repulsor nabbing the center left objective.  The back intercessors just moved forward far enough to cover their own objective. The repusor had to advance & couldn’t fire much.  The hellblaster squad that moved was able to plink a few wounds off of a venom. [0-3]

I moved the flyers to move block the repulsor and disembarked the left-most venom before moving it forward to contest the left objective, finish the move-block of the repulsor, and act as a sacrificial decoy when my opponent popped the aggressors out. The Kabalites from the venom moved to some cover & camping on my key objective, with the blaster just in range of the repulsor. The other three venoms moved forward on the right, one of them taking the right objective. The ravagers and attendant archon also moved to the right to deal with intercessors and the hellblaster squad (though not in that order). The other archon moved to hold the center objective in my deployment zone.

Shooting killed the hellblasters and the open intercessor squad & brought the middle intercessors down to 1 marine, but I was unable to kill the squad, which would have allowed two of my ravagers to shoot at his characters, but it wasn’t meant to be.  My remaining fire killed a few more intercessors on the left flank. [3-3]

Round 2
My opponent moved both the remaining hellblaster squad and the dread out from their cover (the dread came out around back towards the center and the hellblasters moved out front). The 1-marine squad moved to ob sec the right objective.  The left-most intercessors (now with 3 marines) moved to wards the left objective while the aggressors came out to take the venom bait. Unable to move forward, the repulsor stayed put. The characters just shifted to gain some protection from the left two intercessors.

As expected, the left venom was flamed into oblivion.  The repulsor shredded the kabalites on my key objective, and the hellblasters destroyed the venom camping on the right objective, with one warrior failing the escape.  The dread and the lone marine tried to kill the kabalites that escaped, but only managed to kill 1 (I was able to have them escape into cover).  The lone marine killed one mare after charging in but I still had more on the objective, keeping him from scoring those points [3-6]

I moved forward with the right venoms, moved my flyers into his backfield, and shifted my ravagers to have LoS on both the aggressors and the dread. I then popped the scourges down on the right-forward corner, where two were lost to the auspex scanner strat being used on the hellblasters.  The mandrakes came down forward-center to try to dislodge the marine squad on the fwd objective.  Shooting killed the hellblasters, the dread, the aggressors, the 3-man squad, the 1 man squad, the veteran, and 2 of the intercessors holding the fwd objective.  Ouch.  Mandrakes made the charge but were unable to take the last wound off of the last remaining marine. I scored 6 points for the back, right, and fwd objectives [9-6].

Round 3
The Repulsor moved forward to spite-kill my non-WL archon camping on the back objective and the remaining characters moved to kill what mandrakes they could.  The archon failed his fourth shadowfield save with almost all of the repulsors guns left to fire.  Yeah… he dead. The characters killed a venom and four of the mandrakes. The remaining marine sergeant killed off one more before the mankdrakes finished him off. [9-6]

Sensing the kill, I disembarked one of my remaining venoms and moved it on to the left objective and moved the squad within range of the fwd objective for some objective secured. The scourges moved onto my opponent’s key objective while one of my ravagers moved onto mine.  The remaining ravagers and my WL retook the back objective.  The razorwings then took out the lieutenant, the lone remaining threat to the kabalites holding the fwd objective removed, my opponent and I agreed to end the turn early, securing a sudden death victory for holding all six objectives. [27-6; 10 tourney points]

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What I did right
Bring dissie kabalites against primaris.  My opponent acknowledged at the beginning of the match that he had no chance, to which I agreed. Still:
-since I knew his only chance was playing objectives, I ignored the repulsor and focused on the infantry (hellblasters fist, since they were the only real threat to me).
-move-blocking with my flyers effectively prevented his repulsor from getting in range of my ravager squadron.

What I could have done better:
-I forgot about auspex scanner. I could have deployed my scourges outside the 12” range if I had remembered.  It didn’t matter here, but in a closer game, an extra haywire blaster getting to its shots off could have a huge impact.
-I split fire with my flyers on the first turn.  If I had focused fire on that middle intercessor squard, I likely would have sniped one or two of his characters with my ravagers on the first turn.  Instead, they only one got to shoot.

What my opponent did right:
He knew his situation and tried to make the best of it by playing objectives.  However, 13 dissies are just brutal against primaris.

What my opponent could have done better
-I think if he had deployed the dread fwd center, he might have been able to use it earlier to some effect.
-He took the bait on the venom, I think one of the flyers would have been a better target for the aggressors’ flamers.

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Please let me know if you have any questions about the match or anything that wasn't clear.