Hello all! I had a game against a friend of mine, so I thought I’d use it to try putting together a report, ambitiously called ‘Report 1’, using the Battle Chronicler. This was quite an epic trial, but I got there in the end.
I should note that my friend is returning to the hobby and is in the process of building a deadly Necron force, but needs a few practice games with his old Ultramarines while that is being done. His Ultramarine army is somewhat...dated and not really up to the task, but it served to allow him to become acquainted with 6th edition. I helped with some suggestions as we played (some of which he ignored, lol!)
DE: The Kabal of Shadows AscendantHQ
Succubus, venom blade, HWG
TROOPS
5 Warriors, blaster Venom, SC
5 Warriors, blaster Venom, SC
5 Warriors, blaster Venom, SC
5 Warriors, blaster Venom, SC
ELITES
3 Trueborn, 2xSC Venom, SC
4 Grotesque, Aberration with flesh gauntlet Raider, NS
FAST ATTACK
9 Reaver Jetbikes, 3xHL, champ with venom blade
HEAVY SUPPORT
Ravager, DL
Ravager, DL
Ravager, Disi
UltramarinesHQ
Chaplain, jump pack & plasma pistol (Warlord)
Librarian
TROOPS
10 Tactical marines, heavy bolter, flamer, power axe Rhino
10 Tactical marines, plasma gun, plasma cannon Razorback, heavy bolter
5 Scouts
FAST ATTACK
10 Assault marines, 3 plasma pistols, power fist
HEAVY SUPPORT
Land Raider Crusader, multimelta
5 Devastators, 4 lascannon
Mission: The Scouring
Deployment: Vanguard Strike
Night Fight on first turn: Yes (see below)
First Turn: DE
Warlord Trait DE: Night Attacker
Warlord Trait UM: Legendary Fighter
Combat Drugs: Grave Lotus (+1 strength)
ObjectivesUltramarines won roll off to pick sides & placed his 3 objectives close to his own corner. I placed mine a little more dispersed to take advantage of my mobility.
Deployment:
I won the roll off for deployment and chose to deploy first. Despite having night fight, I decided it was better to get first strike. I deployed to mitigate damage if my opponent seized. I hid all 3 ravagers & 2 venoms behind the LOS blocking terrain in my corner. The trueborn venom sat in the open close by to take advantage of their firepower right from the start. 2 more venoms & the raider (with succubus) took cover behind ruins in the centre. Reavers went in reserve. All infantry began embarked in their transports.
For the Ultramarines, The razorback hid behind ruins in the centre with the plasma gun combat squad behind. The devastators deployed in the crater nearby. The rhino sat just behind them with the plasma cannon combat squad behind it. The scout squad took cover in the ruins in the far corner with the assault squad & chaplain behind. The Land Raider went hull down behind the building on the right with the big tactical squad & librarian sheltering behind it.
Ultramarines attempted to seize the initiative, but failed.
Turn 1 (DE)
The objective in the ruins on my side of the board turned out to be a scatterfield (+1 cover save, nice!), as did the objective the scout squads were sat on. The objective close to the razorback was sabotaged.
3 of my venoms moved to cluster around the scatterfield & grab the bonus +1 to jink (a misinterpretation of the rules in retrospect). The ravagers swooped over the building in their way. The last warrior venom moved over to the ruins in the centre & the warriors on board hopped out to grab the objective, which turned out to be sabotaged! The trueborn venom sat tight.
The trueborn & their venom plus the disintegrator ravager wiped out the devastators despite them going to ground. However, I fired them the wrong way round and didn’t get a pain token. One dark lance ravager fired on & exploded the rhino, the other fired at the land raider to no effect. One venom was in range of the plasma cannon combat squad now its cover had blown up, but caused no damage. The remaining venoms shot at the scouts (there being no other targets), who went to ground for a 2+ cover save & only lost 1 man to the deluge of fire.
Turn 1 (Ultramarines)
The razorback advanced forward right into the open(!) and the marines behind it moved onto the objective just in front of them. The land raider moved out from behind the large building, followed by the large tactical squad. The assault squad jumped forward, still out of sight. Everything else stayed still.
The plasma cannon shot at one of the venoms, but it jinked and avoided damage. The razorback fired at a ravager but did nothing. At this point we realised the land raider was completely out of range as we had both forgotten it has nothing beyond 24” (learning point: pre-measure at all times!).
At the end of the turn both sabotaged objectives exploded, killing a warrior but leaving the marines unscathed.
Turn 2 (DE)
The reavers didn’t arrive. The venoms and raider around the centre shuffled around slightly to retain jink, as did the ravagers. The trueborn venom moved flat out over to the left. The warriors on the centre objective, spooked by the booby traps, hopped back onto their ride and it zipped around the building to the flank of the razorback.
The ravager on the left fired its lances at the land raider and one shot punched though the hull, blowing the tank into a column of flaming debris. Ravager crew not mucking about for once!
The warriors on board their venoms fired at the razorback and stunned it. The other lance ravager shot at it too, immobilising it. The disintegrator ravager & two of the venoms wiped out the plasma cannon squad. The remaining venom & the raider killed a couple of the plasma gun squad behind the razorback.
Turn 2 (Ultramarines)
We both agreed it was pretty much all over at this point, but would play on for a while anyway.
The plasma gun squad in the centre edged forward to get in range. The large tactical squad with the librarian moved around the building in their way, the librarian casting force dome. The assault squad flew over the large building and ran to close the distance to the eldar. The scouts left their excellent hiding place to go after the higher value objective in the open (more tactics training needed for them!).
Shooting did very little, one of my venoms once again jinking to safety.
Turn 3 (DE)
The reavers arrived on the right, going after the scouts.
Ordinarily I would have simply shot the assault squad to death & not risked assault, but since it was a friendly game, the raider moved over to the assault squad (in retrospect I moved it too far to disembark, but the passengers would have easily made it to assault anyway) and the grotesques plus succubus jumped out. The trueborn venom continued its outflanking move, and the rest of the vehicles jostled for position.
The reavers shot the scout sergeant. The warriors wrecked the razorback with their blasters. The raider shot the assault squad with its disintegrator and the succubus threw a plasma grenade – killing 3 in all. 4 venoms plus all 3 ravagers fired on the large tactical squad, but some good saves combined with the force dome resulted in only 3 marines going down (it happens).
The grotesques charged. Overwatch resulted in 1 bolt pistol & 3 plasma pistol hits (wow!). I mistakenly allowed the character shots to be precision shots, and one failed LOS later my warlord was cooked by plasma! This was so funny that we just let it go. The sergeant challenged and the aberration stepped up and tore him to pieces. The chaplain hit but I made 2 FNP saves. The assault squad killed a grotesque and they in turn killed 2 marines. Fearless, the marines stayed in combat.
Turn 3 (Ultramarines)
The scouts ran to take the objective in front of them, seemingly unfazed by the reavers. The remaining marines fired on the closest venom, but it jinked again.
The aberration challenged the chaplain and he accepted, hitting but failing to wound the beast. I chuckled evilly as my foul minion flexed his deadly gauntlet – and caused one hit, one wound....and the chaplain saved. The other marines caused a wound with none in return. At this point the grotesques should probably have failed their morale check and been destroyed but I forgot that they weren’t fearless.
Turn 4 (DE)
I went objective grabbing, warriors squad disembarking onto 3 objectives (again I think I moved >6” with the venoms, so it should have been a case of the warriors needing to do a bit of running to get position, but I’ll remember for next time). The trueborn venom finally got LOS on the marines they’d been stalking most of the game. The reavers advanced on the scouts and everything else lined up on the tactical squad.
The trueborn and venom wiped out their target and the trueborn got a pain token (I remembered to do it the right way round this time). The tactical squad was destroyed in a hail of darklight & poisoned barbs, the wounded librarian choosing to fall back. The reavers melted the scouts with their heat lances (cancel the extra training) earning a pain token and then moved back to stay away from the combat to their left.
In the combat, the chaplain wounded the aberration, who struck back, again only hitting once, wounding.....but the chaplain saved & avoided a gruesome death once again (stupid, expensive wargear...).
At this point we were getting hungry so we finished the game and went for some field rations.
Final result: DE 9 (first blood + eight from objectives)
Marines 1 (Warlord)
ConclusionsA bit of a one-sided game, but I still found it quite instructive.
Clearly I still can’t accurately recall all the rules during a game (& constantly checking the rulebook slows things down too much), so it’s actually really handy to record a game in a report to see where I erred. My biggest mistake was that I reverted to playing 5th ed skimmer transport rules for a while!
I knew turn 4 would be the last turn, so should have disembarked the trueborn to get linebreaker. Also the reavers should have moved forward after killing the scouts to the claim the objective close to them rather than backing off – or should have simply bladevaned the scouts and bagged linebreaker themselves.
I also forgot that grotesques aren’t fearless. This mistake cost me a chance to wipe the assault squad, since they would have left combat just before my next turn.
The succubus being shot was just for fun, but it’s worth remembering so it doesn’t happen to you too!
Getting pain tokens is certainly a little trickier with venoms since they seem to do a lot of the damage, leaving the warriors as onlookers some of the time. However, I’d rather my opponent’s army was wiped out & have no pain tokens, than the other way round.
Mysterious objectives can give you some nice bonuses, so don’t forget about them. The +1 cover save was very useful for the scouts, though I realise now my vehicles can’t claim it as they don’t control objectives – damn!
In any case, the marine list just didn’t have enough firepower to worry me, particularly after the devastators & land raider were gone. We’ll try & work out a more challenging list for next time. Maybe we’ll proxy a few units.
Anyway, we’ll probably have some more warm up games and I’ll report them too, if I can face wrestling with the Chronicler again! Setting up the terrain was difficult as the graphics all seemed to be for warhammer.
All comments welcome.
Cheers.
Subject: Report 1: Shadows Ascendant vs Ultramarines - 1500pts 
Mon Feb 25 2013, 22:04
