1000 pts Kabal vs Iron Hands

Played against my usual bud. The points were set low-med as a test for a speed-round tourney later this month.

Emperor's Will, Hammer and Anvil. The board had 5th ed style (25%) terrain/cover, asymmetric, but not hugely so.

My list:
Tooled up Archon
9 whyches with haywires, hekatrix and agonizer. Combat drugs = hypex. Oh well.
Raider with aethersails, grisly trophies, FF/NS, DL.
Blasterborn, Venom with NS and SC
3x10 Warrior squads, 1 SC each.
1 Ravager w NS/FF and DLs.

His list
Techmarine on Bike.
3x Razorbacks w/tl lascannon, and 5 man tac squad, 1 plasma.
2x Razorbacks w/heavy bolter and 5 man tac squad, 1 lascannon
1 Whirlwind.
1 Speeder with heavy flamer.

He wins deployment, and picks the side with the heavier cover, putting his objective deep in ruins. I put mine in the open, but behind ruins cover.

He sets up his Razors generally in a line at the edge of deployment. The Whirlwind is placed to have no line of sight to *anything*. One bolter Razor starts empty with the squad in a bolstered ruin. The speeder and tech are hidden behind ruins at about 12".

I set up with the Ravager and Venom about 12" in, the Raider is set at 24" behind some ruins. The warrior squads are all behind ruins cover, close to the edge of deployment.

Nightfight.

I do not steal the initiative.

1st Turn. His: He moves things around, mostly going flat out because the nightfight and Night Shields are denying him any shots on my vehicles from his. The whirlwind targets one warrior squad at exactly 36" using the 'ignore cover' rounds. Direct hit, so barrage works. 8 dead warriors. Oops. At least they don't break.
Mine: I slide the Venom up to let the blasterborn take aim at one of the flat out Razors. 4 hits, 3 go through, the one penetrating hit is insufficient to blow it, but it's dead, I have have first blood. Venom Splinter fire, and one warrior squad do 2 of the marines in. I run the raider up close enough for the whyches to exit the raider and threaten another one of the Razors. I position the Ravager to attack said Razor along with the demolished warrior squad and one of the other squads. But, nothing doing, the lances only put a hull point on.

(Note, I've played this gentleman often enough to know that having not popped two vehicles on turn one, I will be in for a difficult game.)

Since I haven't exposed the tasty bits of the second Razor, I use the splinter cannons of the warrior squads to reach out and touch the two tac squads in the open. One dead marine.

Assault. As much as I am wary of popping vehicles with haywire grenades because of the inevitable return rapid fire, I don't see a way of avoiding it, so the whyches pop that Raz, and it doesn't explode, fortunately. However, the squad inside is pinned. I caught a break there!!.

Turn 2 / His: His movement goes from aggressive to delicate. With night fight gone, he targets his lascannons on the Venom and Ravager, but only does one hull point on the Venom. the Whirlwind targets the Whyches, but scatters off the board (you just gotta love barrage and full scatter!) Heavy bolter fire takes one one warrior in ruins.

My side: Movement. Conceptually, the same as the first round: slide up to have the Blasterborn target another Razor, move the raider and ravager to target a second one, and arrange the warrior squads to torrent the tasty insides. Too bad it doesn't work. All that lance fire just puts one hull point on each targeted Razor. Sigh. But, the splinter fire from the warrior squads and the Venom destroy the squad that had been previously exposed, so one of the warrior squads get a pain token. Assault. The Whyces assault the pinned squad. Lose one whyche to dangerous terrain (assaulting over the wrecked Razor), but then kill two of the five Marines. Archon is a fail.

Turn 3/ His. Not much movement; he's happy with everything's placement. He piles the squad from the forward Razor. He forgets his repair attempt on the damaged razors (remember; Iron Hands get that for free). Shooting; again he targets the vehicles, but the FF perform like a boss; 5/6 saves. Cool. The only one that gets through takes the DL off the Raider. The Whirlwind targets my objective squad, but misses. (Whew). Shooting from the forward squad kills one warrior. Assault. I kill one more of the previously pinned marines, and lose none. Archon continues to fail.

My side: Movement, pretty much the same as turn two. Shooting: lance fire takes out the forward razor, and blaster fire takes off a twin-linked lascannon. Splinter fire is completely ineffective. Assault: Yet one more marine dies, no thanks to the archon. One left.

Turn 4/ His: At this point, he decides to bring the speeder and the techmarine in. The speeder comes around the side, and will obviously be flaming my ground troops on turn 5, and the techmarine will be assaulting the objective holders. He positions the tech to minimize line of sight from my splinter. Bwahh-hah-hah-hah. Shooting; the forward tac squad tries to shoot, but he wants to assault, so doesn't rapid fire. Kills two. The Whirlwind targets the objective squad again, but scatters just enough so I only lose one. The lascannon in the bolstered ruin puts a hull point on the Venom. Assault. He makes his assault distance, but I forget to overwatch. But, I have assault initiative, hit 7/8 times, WOUND 6 TIMES (needing a 5), and he fails all of them. Dead squad, and I have my second pain token on that squad. The hekatrix finally kills the last marine from the pinned squad and I consolidate back to the raider.

My side. Climb into the raider, use aether sails to zoom up within assault distance of the Whirlwind. Pile the blasterborn out in range of the damaged Razor. Move the warriors to see the techmarine, and the Venom to be close to the (now) 5man squad of warriors. Shooting: the Ravager takes out the last undamaged razorback, but does nothing to the squad inside. The now grounded blasterborn puts another hull point on the previously damaged razor back. Splinter fire from the venom and all of the remaining warrior squads kill the techmarine, even with his 2+. Hey: I have kill the Warlord. Smile. No assaults to be had.

Turn 5/ Him: Movement. He moves the speeder to threaten the blasterborn and Venom. The squad in his backfeild moves toward his objective. He moves the damaged Razor into the ruins to provide line of sight denial, and immobilizes it, thus killing it, but succeeding in denying me LoS. Shooting: the Whirlwind misses yet again. (My theory was his targeting was still calibrated for night fight....) The Speeder flames the blasterborn and the Venom. He pens the Venom and it fails the FF. Oh well. 4 of the BB get caught in the flames and become tinder. the last one decides to run. His one remaining lascannon takes a pot shot at the Ravager, and all good things come to an end. No assaults.

Me. The whyches get out to assault the (never having moved Whirlwind). The trueborn keeps running, but slowly. The warrior squad originally demolished by the Whirlwind moves to be in range of the tac squad headed for his objective, and my objective holder squad moves to have some range on it as well. The raider moves to be handy for re-embarking after the Whirlwind is destroyed. Shooting. The true born takes a potshot at the Speeder, but a 5 misses. The warrior squads shoot the running tac squad and kill 4/5. Assault: the whyches kill the Whirlwind and despite 3 pens, dodge the blow-up bullet.

Game continues.

Turn 6. He gets the last remaining marine into the ruins by his objective. The bolstered squad tries to come down, but it's 7 inches up, and is stuck. Whoops. He moves the speeder up to flame the 2-pain-token squad. Shooting. The Bolstered squad misses. The Speeder flames 4/5. He stays. Wow. No assaults.

My side; Pile the whyches back in (this was a mistake). and move up 12 inches, which puts me in snapfire pistol range of the objective holder. Move the two-token guy close to the speeder. Shooting: Pistols at dawn, two hits, both save. Nothing else to shoot. Assault. Remember the two token guy? Furious Charge! Str 4 means I might damage the Speeder, and LO! I do a hull point.

Game ends.

I win with the two secondaries. Had I left the whyches (or just the Archon) on foot, I would have had linebreaker as well. If the game had gone to 7, I probably would have had both objectives, unless I broke after the Speeder flamed my holding squad. His mistake was probably leaving the Speeder back one two many turns. Had he moved it up sooner, I would have had to choose between a lascannon Razorback and the Speeder.

Loser of the game: the Archon. MVP. The warriors with one pain token from shooting, one pain token from winning an assault, and one hull point.

My list was about as vanilla as it gets, and it did just fine. His list sacrificed model count for vehicles (perfectly in keeping with Iron Hands), and it showed in the takedowns due to splinter fire. We both made a couple of mistakes, I'd call them offsetting, except for the Speeder.

I think the key here was there was no 'killing field'. There was always cover for both of us, but his save means he never uses it, while it helps us immensely. I did get lucky with the one squad getting pinned.

Thanks for reading. Any comments?

Nice fight! A few questions, as I'm fresh back to 40k and DE after a years long absence:

Late in the game the Trueborn run, but then take a shot at the speeder. I don't have my rulebook on me, but I thought that a unit that runs can't under any circumstances shoot (unless they're our pansy Battle Focussed cousins...) ?

Also, how did you find all the vehicle upgrades? Were they worthwhile?

Between them and the Hekatrix upgrades I count 90pts: enough to field a tiny Wrack squad with SC Venom or 20pts shy of a 5 man warrior squad with a SC Venom.

Also, what was the Archon's loadout? I'm surprised s/he failed so hard!

Under 6th, a broken unit may snapshot. It's the only useful thing they can do. If it recovers, it gets a 3 inch movement, can't run, but can shoot at normal BS. I don't have my BRB handy, so I can't quote the page.

The 60 points of vehicle upgrades have saved my butt so often, I don't even think about it.

You wouldn't think a 5++ would make a lot of difference with Jink providing a 5+ cover, but so many things ignore cover the FF nearly always makes up for it. And when it does work, it increases my opponents frustration ever so slightly, which, um, "subtly influences" their decision making process.

The NS is another bone. A lot of my local players place their lascannons or other 48" heavies in the backfield, figuring on them providing cover for their forward troops set up between 30 and 36". BUT! The Nightshield lets me find a sweet spot for my 36" weapons while staying out of their range. It's not quite as effective with all the 60" weapons introduced in 6th, though. Grrr, Tau.

Aethersails are 5 pts, I'll usually just put them on one raider I want to push forward. Consider that gives me a 37" avg (move+sails+flat out) on first turn, and while it's gonna die, with a little luck I can get the forward unit (usually whyches) into combat round 2, if I choose.

Grisly trophies are also 5 pts, only on the raider, and there mostly for the re-roll if I fail my pinning or morale check after being blown out of the sky ;-)

The hekatrix and agonizer is used primarily for leadership buff, and semi-guaranteed one-shots on challenges against non-HQ MEQs or lesser. It lets the Archon stand back (fluff, y'know) and try to tear apart the rest of the squad. Oh, and sometimes use the 2++ of the shadow field to buff the whych squad.

The Archon had the SF/HB/ST combo with combat drugs and a haywire grenade. The reason he fails so bad against MEQ is he still needs a 5 to wound because of the S/T match, and in this game, he (that is, my dice) just failed. Other times, he's gold, especially with different drugs. But, I've come to expect that, just like my lances in turn 2.

I find having more bodies (the wracks + venom) is as often is counter-productive as useful, because not having those upgrades frequently means my glass cannon is no longer 'tempered' glass, if that makes sense.

Good read, thanks for posting