1500 DE vs Nids

batrep

1500 DE vs Nids

Haemi w/Hex rifle and liquifier

5 Wracks.  
Liquifier
Acoth w/Hex Rifle.

10 Warriors in Raider - FF, NS, SR
10 Warriors in Raider - FF, NS, SR
10 Warriors in Raider - FF, NS, SR

7 Reavers, 2 Caltrops, 2 Blasters
7 Reavers, 2 Caltrops, 2 Blasters

Cronos w/Probe and Vortex
Ravager w/Disintegrators
Ravager w/Disintegrators


Nids:
Nid Prime
3 HiveGuard

5 Warriors
4 Warriors w/Spore

~20 Gargoyles
10 Rippers
~16 Termagants

2 Zoanthropes w/Spore

8 Genestealers w/Brood lord
8 Genestealers w/Brood lord


Mission: Crusade, 4 objectives.
Deployment: Dawn of War

This was a great game.  I won the roll for table sides and to choose who deploys first.  I let my opponent deploy first, then turned around and seized.  The table had plenty of cover, I'll try to get pictures up tomorrow.

Reavers are in the bottom left.


There is another ravager in the bottom right. Only the front piece is visible in this image.


I deployed my two objectives about 16" apart in my DZ.  One behind a large hill, the other behind a small ruin.  The other two were almost directly opposite mine, deep in my opponents DZ.  

My opponent groupd his termagants on one obj while the nid prime, a group of warriors and the hive guard held the other.  He reserved the rippers, zoanthropes and other warrior unit.  The genestealers both infiltrated on the opposite side of the large hill which placed them in easy assault range of my right objective.

My general strategy was to keep my Haemi and Wracks on an obj behind a small ruin mid table.  The Cronos was placed inbetween and slightly forward of the objectives in order to provide local support to either as needed.  The 3 raiders were deployed on slightly behind the one behind the large hill on the right side while the ravagers were in the bottom right corner with a clear shot to his termagants.  The Reavers were setup on the left side in order to sneak up the left board edge and start pushing my opponent to the right.

Turn 1.  My ravagers moved forward enough to see around the hill and shot at a group of genestealers, killing a couple.  Raiders moved closer to my board edge to ensure they were outside of assault range.  Reavers moved up the left side and shot at the other group of genestealers, killing a couple.  Cronos moved a little to the left to discourage the genestealers from poking their heads out.

My opponent moved his gargoyles up the middle and to the left.  One group of genestealers decided to assault a ravager, destroying a weapon.  The other decided the cronos might be too hard a target and started to follow the first group of genestealers.

Turn 2.  Ravagers moved up a bit more, one shot at the termagants holding the objective, killing a few.  The other shot at the genestealers that had assaulted it and wiped all but the Brood lord and one genestealer.  The Haemi and Acothyst shot their hex rifles at the brood lord, turning it to pure glass, leaving only 1 genestealer from that group alive.  The cronos shot and killed a few gargoyles.  One group of reavers moved up slightly to kill more gargoyles and the other moved to line up for a blade vane attack on his nid prime.

My opponent brought it all of his reserves.  They landed about 5" away from my right objective.  Zoanthropes popped out and sent 2 warp lance shots at a raider, amazingly only destroying a weapon.  Warriors popped out of the other one but had no shooting weapons.  He sent his second genestealer group towards the wounded ravager, and took it out.  Gargoyles shot then assaulted a unit of reavers, taking them down.  Hive Guard shot at the other reaver unit, killing one.

Turn 3.  Remaining ravager moved forward and concentrated on the termagants, killing a few more.  They were in a crater and were making most of their cover saves.  1 unit of warriors opened up on the second genestealer group.  Wiping it completely.  Another warrior group focused on the closest nid warriors, wiping them out.  The third warrior unit shot at the rippers, but they went to ground so only caused 2 wounds.  The Reavers blade vaned the nid prime/warrior unit killing 3.  Cronos shot at the gargoyles, killing a few more.

My opponent used his zoanthropes, which, amazingly, only caused another "weapon destroyed" result on the same raider as before, which immobilized it.  The gargoyles started retreating towards his nid prime.  The gargoyles, termagants and hive guard all shot at and MISSED the reavers.  Go go gadget Jink Save.  He then decided to assault them with the gargoyles, termagants, nid prime/warrios and the hive guard just to make sure they died; which they did.

Turn 4.  My warriors and cronos finished off the rippers, two spore pods and the two zoanthropes; leaving the lone genestealer hiding behind the hill in my DZ and My ravager killed a couple more termagants.

He finally killed the ravager and attempted to line the gargoyles up in a way to prevent my raiders from jetting forward to get line breaker. It was a futile attempt.

Turn 5.  One raider with warriors turbo boosted into his DZ; there was plenty of space.  Other warriors all disembarked in a way to ensure his genestealer couldn't contest my right objective.  

At this point in the game I had 8 VP: (2) 3VP objectives plus first blood and line breaker.  He had 7VP (2) 3VP objectives and line breaker.  He had no choice but to try and kill the raider in his DZ.

My opponent surrounded the raider with gargoyles in an effort to prevent the guys from getting out if it was wrecked.  He then shot it and caused an explosion.  The explosion took out 4 of the surrounding gargoyles and 3 of the warriors.  The warriors passed the pinning and morale checks standing still.  He then assaulted the warriors with the gargoyles and hive guard.  Overwatch did nothing.  I went first and killed 1 gargoyle.  The gargoyles and HG killed 3 warriors; and the warriors then proceeded to pass their morale test.

Game ended here with a lovely roll of a 2.

If it had gone one more round, my warriors in his DZ would have been killed; but so would his genestealer.  So still would have been a win for me.

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Post Game:
This is the first game where I've used a cronos in almost 2 years and it did exactly as I wanted.  It scared away an otherwise highly capable close combat unit and managed to cause enough kills that it gathered 3 pain tokens for itself and passed out 2 others.  

This is the first time I've taken that many bikes, usually I only run 6.  However they did great by distracting my opponent from his real goal.  Instead of targetting them with the gargoyles he should have went straight for my haemi/wracks.  To be fair, if I had played the bikes slightly better they might have caused a bit more damage before being brought down.

All in all I think this army list is good.  Cronos supports wracks/Haemi.  Bikes put positive pressure on my oppponents DZ.  Ravagers should have done better, but I normally take them with lances for anti tank...  Meanwhile keeping the 3 warrior groups fairly close together provided enough supporting fire to vaporize what came close.  

By the end of the game I still had 24 warriors, the haemi and wracks, cronos and a functional raider.  He had nid prime, a few gargoyles, a few termagants and 3 warriors.