Down to a Heldrake

Even though I missed last weekend due to family awesomeness, I did manage to get in a game on last Thursday versus my now only opponent, Shea. He once again brought out his Orks, this time with a Truk heavy list, with two Battle Wagons with Nobs. I brought back my CSM list, now completely devoted to the Black Legion, but sans Cultists, add Las Pred. I also moved the Chosen from mixed squads to pure weapon squads. I wasn't super happy with the list as a whole, but it did give me plenty of food for thought. It also turns out that I could use an opponent that lets me make more mistakes.

We played kill points and this time around he took first turn after winning deployment. This meant he was close enough for me to charge things turn one with my Daemon Princes. I moved all of my Rhinos forward, though the flamer tank got bogged down in some tree. All four of my Chosen units piled out and moved into firing positions, save the flamers, who also had issues moving through the forest. I then proceeded to destroy both Battle Wagons, which was interesting, since they are now strong enough to glance Truks. I even manage to glance one each. I then cross assaulted the Nobs with his Warboss with my Daemon Princes. I failed to issue a challenge, and in hindsight, that was a mistake, and severely hurt me later. I did manage to do 5 or 6 wounds, but his Warboss's strength 10 attack in return pasted my Warlord. Sad days. The following turn saw a similar fate for the other DP. My Chosen, however, continued to wreak havoc, especially since he skipped most of his movement phase. My Predator also did better on turn two, solely because I forgot to fire it on turn one. And that's the only reason. Lascannons suck more than a little now, since they need 6's to destroy a vehicle, otherwise doing a hull point and possibly something else useless. The Predator died before my turn three, so, all in all, a waste of 100 points. I am looking at a Autocannon Pred with Heavy Bolter sponsons for future games.


Even with the Pred's lack luster performance, I was able to pull ahead quickly, scoring both First Blood and matching his Slay the Warlord on turn two. But as time went on, I found it harder and harder to bring any real pain. First my Meltas died, then my other squads, leaving his Truks mostly open, and I only really had Vector Strikes to deal with his jets. On turn four, I went from ahead to trying to keep pace on turn five.


In the end, I was down to just my Heldrakes. I sent one into his deployment to hover on five for Linebreaker and the other spent the whole of end the game on a piece of impassable terrain, just moving a little to get some shots. On turn five he boarding planked my Linebreaker Drake, which just left me a mostly impervious Heldrake on terrain, since he couldn't get his Dakka Jets in line. On turn seven I made one last hail mary and sent the Drake Vector Striking over his Dakka Jet, but didn't manage to do enough hull points. However, I rolled for damage and pulled a six, then read my book(I should do this more often), and the Heldrakes vectors are AP 2, meaning I exploded it! It still wasn't enough to win the game, since I had apparently over counted my kills and still lost by one, after my First Blood, his Linebreaker, and a shared Slay the Warlord. A good game. I made my share of mistakes and forgot rules, like templates now affect models in open topped vehicles. That alone could have been the kill point I needed, as he had a unit in a Truk that I Baleflamered several times. Had I thought of the flamer rule, I think my flamers would have been a lot more effective, and my targets for Baleflamers slightly different. It would have been awesome to remove models he didn't even have on the table yet. But than I am evil and cruel like that.

So, that was basically my week. It led to more hobby progress, with my Heldrake mostly done, save green stuff work and, of course, Night Lord head and shoulder pad. I think he is coming along real nicely. Can you say "nicely" about Night Lords? Well, I guess its to the skinning pits with me. See you on the other side.