Faith and Fire

[thekinginthewoods]

Curennt Reports:
First outing versus the Tau Empire.
Doubles Tournament Game 1.

So here I am with hopefully a series of battle reports recording the crusade of the Sword Saints space marine chapter, and the rise of the Living Saint Joanne.

My aims: To get to grips with 6th ed and the various changes to the rules in the last year that have passed me by utterly (such as Necrons, Grey Knights and much of Dark Eldar). To become competent with the list, and hone it to the best it can be (without becoming a homogenous tournament list).

So, without further ado, the first battle, against the forces of the Tau Empire.

1750pts (so that I can decide what I want to lose in order to fit into 1500pts-which is the aim)

Chapter Master Allandro (Pedro Cantor)
5 Honour Guard, 2x Power Maul, 2x Power Axe, 1x Power Sword, Chapter Banner
1 Chaptr Champion, Power Sword
Rhino

10 Tactical Marines, Plasma Gun, Missile Launcher
10 Tactical Marines, Plasma Gun, Missile Launcher

Brother Hephaeston
Dreadnought, Twinlinked Heavy Flamer, heavy Flamer, Drop Pod

Brother Zantiar
Dreadnought, Twinlinked Heavy Flamer, heavy Flamer, Drop Pod

Sworn Shield
Predator, Heavy bolters

Silver Dawn
Predator, Heavy Bolters

Dark Venger
Vindicator

The Living Saint Joanne

10 Battle Sisters, flamer, Meltagun, Rhino

Sorsha’s fallen
5 Repentia, mistress


The Tau Empire:

2 Commanders with 2 bodyguards each and a plethora of gun drones (Plasma/Missile)
2 Battlesuits- Twin Missile pods
2 Battlesuits- Twin Missile pods

2x 6 Fire Warriors
2x 16 Kroot
2x 3 Broadsides.

So not a typical Tau list, lacking any tanks, but with plenty of ranged fire power as was expected.

Allandro rolled counter attack in own deployment, and the Battlesuit commander rolled -1 to enemy reserve rolls (which was infuriating )

Deployment

The mission was kill points

Both Dreadnoughts were set to deepstrike.
Joanne took the righ flank, with her faithful sisters, and Sorsha’s fallen between them.
A predator and one unit of tactical marines took the centre, whilst Allandro’s honour guard, the second tactical squad, and the two remaining heavy slots took the left.

The enemy deployed fairly evenly opposite, with the fire warriors and broadsides centrally placed, and the battlesuits off to each side (weirdly semetrical). The krrot chose to outflank.

Turn 1:

The Sword Saints barrelled forwards as much as possible, but were foiled by annoying run moves (the saint and central tactical squad both managed 1’s, whilst the Repentia rolled a 4, but only needed 1 inch to get into decent cover). Both rhino’s popped smoke as Brother Hephaeston hurtled from the sky, deviating slightly from his intended target, and landing wide on my right flank.
His flames reached out, but were only able to manage a couple of gun drone deaths, whilst the fire from the 2 predators only managed to kill 3 fire warriors. The second tactical squad helped out, and reduced the other fire warrior squad to 4 models. Lastly, the Vindicator found himself out of range (a fact I should have dealt with by moving 12” and not firing, but oh well, premeasurement is something worth remembering…)

The Tau responded by hurling bolts of charged plasma ruthlessly across the field. The battlesuit squad on the right flank managed to strip Brother Hephaeston of both his weapons, before the Broadsides behind them obliterated his adamantine shell. The commander with them focussed fire onto the newly risen Saint, and an explosive missile found it’s way through her armour to put her down (albeit tmporarily).
On the other side the Chaptermaster’s rhino was destroyed, and hi squad piled out (disembarkation, so I believe no assault was allowed afterwards, correct me if we played this wrong) and the vindicator was ripped apart by the efforts of the other Broadside squad (making cover saves was not one of my strengths in this game…)

Turn 2:

Realising that support was needed Allandro stayed still whilst his squad advanced and brought down an orbital strike, which although it missed the intended target of the Broadsides, managed to obliterate a pair of unlucky fire warriors. Unfortunately, communication with the fleet other than this was limited by the foe’c commander, and Brother Zantior failed to arrive (rolled a 3, grumble). Additionally, Saint Joanne lay where she fell, as yet unmoving, requiring her warriors to fight on without her.

This turn’s shooting was even worse than before, managing to lay low just 3 firewarrios, one battle suit, and another couple of gun drones. The tactical marines’ shooting rolls were terrible, and the predators had the choice of firing at firewarriors with cover, or the far more lethal battlesuits. Either way they achieved little, and the Repentia continued to slog across the battlefield, clearing the building they had sheltered in.

The Tau return was brutal: one unit of Kroot entered from the left flank, and managed to bring down one of the tactical marines who were entrenched in my deployment zone. The battlesuits on the left killed a large portion of the honour guard, taking them down to 2 and Allandro, who mercifully passed their pinning test. The small number of firewarriors left converged on the centre, but their combined shooting failed to damage the sister’s rhino. The battlesuits however managed the task comfortably, and ripped it apart, leaving the sisters to tumble out of the burning wreck. The predator on that flank was also decimated, this time by the high velocity rounds from the Broadsides at the back of the board.

Turn 3
These turns had already been incredibly bloody, and at this point I realised that with so many more kill points than my foe I would need to do something very special to bring this back (basically tabling him….) Anyway, the advance continued, with Brother Zantior once again failing to appear (3 again…) and Joanne remaining in the dirt. The sisters of battle unleashed their fury, easily despatching a pair of battlesuits in their holy fussilade, whilst Allandro led the charge against the lone battlesuit on the left, brutally killing it. The Repentia too leapt into action charging into a lone firewarrior, Sorsha easily killing him before he attacked, and the central tactical squad took out the last pair of warriors.
My last vehicle, my predator Solver Dawn, fired at the battle suits but managed little, whilst the tactical marines on my left managed a solid 10 wounds against their kroot assailants.

The Tau seemed as though perhaps they were on the backfoot, and I briefly hoped that I would be able to crush the rigthflank with my large number of units, but they took the task in hand, using the smart missiles from the broadsides to obliterate the repentia squad (yep, failed every save…) whilst the commander’s squad killed 6 sisters (including the superior and the meltagunner) who promptly fled. The Battlesuits on the left managed little, wounding Allandro and killing the penultimate member of the honour guard with shooting, before once again retreating to the edge of the field.
The Kroot changed target and assaulted the predator, managing to glance it 3 times and destroying it!
The second unit of kroot also arrived this turn appearing at my right board edge where they remained, planning on taking a linebreaker victory point.

Turn 4
Finally Brother Zantior arrived, and perhaps foolishly, I placed him on the right flank, though pretty centrally. The sisters rallied, and Saint Joanne, though bloodied, rose from the ground and once more soared aloft, ready to bring holy vengeance to the Xenos scum.
The tactical marines managed to whittle the Kroot down to just 4 bodies, whilst Zantior’s flamers accounted for 2 wounds on the commander and a number of gundrones, and the tactical marines managed to kill off a broadside on the left hand side.
Joanne, sailed into combat with the commander’s unit, killing a number and then routing and chasing them down, placing herself in front of the broadsides that were behind them.
Allandro managed to survive overwatch, but then rolled terribly for charge distance and ended up stuck in front of the second commander’s (and warlord) entire unit of plasma/missile battlesuits…

The Tau dutifully ended Allandro’s charge taking him and the last of his honour guard out, whilst the broadsides claimed the life of Brother Zantior. On the rigthflank Joanne’s armour was unable to help her, and she once more bit the dirt.

Turn 5
Joanne failed to rise, and that really was the end, but the sword saints refused to give up! The sisters fired their bolters and achieved nothing, whilst the tactical marines continued to fire at the other squad and killed a second.
The tacticals in my deployment zone then shot and finally killed the last of the kroot squad, and then wearily turned their gazes towards the other squad that had appeared and bunkered down in the left hand corner.

Tau firepower put paid to 9 of the 10 marines and Zantior’s drop pod.

Turn 6
Joanne rose and charged, hellbent into the last broadside (having killed one with her incendiary blade). The Tactical marines at the back were out of range of the kroot, and the sisters and remaining marine were able to account for the other lone broadside.
Joanne’s blade rose and fell, but she only scored one wound upon the Broadside, who remained in the fight.

The Tau finally killed off the lone marine, and Joanne failed to harm the tau suit at all, remaining locked in combat.
At this ominous point, the game ended.

Final Score:
Tau: 14
Sword Saints: 9

Well that’s that. An enjoyable game despite the at times heinous luck, which wasn’t altogether terrible, just seemingly at crucial points!
The Tau had fewer kill points to concede, and managed to claim all three extra objectives (first blood only due to my terrible opening shooting phase though…).

All in all I’m happy with the way the army performed: Joanne for absorbing a lot of firepower and destroying more than her points in combat, even when she had a rough game (what with being dead during a lot of it )
Allandro wasn’t great, but the combat he and his squad got into was obviously an auto win, and his squad absorbed a lot of firepower (2+ saves, yay!) but I’m uncertain how they could be used in these sorts of games, where the rhino is an easy point for the enemy without giving them many advantages, and they don’t have the numbers to sit out in the open for very long.

The repentia weren’t terrible, as they got into combat, and were poised to decimate (damn broadsides being able to kill infantry as well as tanks!) and I feel that for 90 points, they weren’t so bad as they drew fire from the other pressing targets.

My troops choices were the stars of the game surprisingly, reinvigorating my belief in tactical marines and in sisters of battle. Really impressed with their boost due to rapid fire rules and looking forward to using them more.

The vehicles were all a bit of a let down: it wasn’t like the new rules weakened them, in fact hull points were only an issue for one tank, and the snap fire helped out a bit: I just feel that my opponent had too much anti tank that could punch through my higher armour values, and did well with it (Zantior not arriving earlier also meant fewer targets at one time, as perhaps had he arrived turn 2, he would have been shot instead of the vindicator, giving me a chance to decimate either a broadside squad or a crisis team, but who knows).

Overall a fun game that hasn’t really helped me decide what to drop, but has encouraged me to keep playing with this army to improve my skills.

Much of it is painted, so soon there will be pictures to accompany this tale!

[thekinginthewoods]

Faith and Fire.


I also accidentally ended up playing in a doubles tournament, yesterday, and thus the Sword Saints took to the field of battle alongside forces of the Raven Guard.

My list was hurriedly put together and was thus:

Master of the Forge, conversion beamer (TERRIBLE MODEL! Killed next to nothing, except on the odd occasion, and even the psychological impact was small: all in all, will pass in future)

10 Tactical Marines, Plasma, Missile, Melta bombs.

3 Predator destructors.

2 Super Flamey Dreadnoughts in drop pods.

Raven Guard.

Shrike

10 TH+SS Termies

10 marines, plasma, missile, combi flamer, melta bombs

5 scouts, snipers, Missile Launcher.

(Now it turned out this tournament had slightly weird rules we weren’t informed about, and we turned up to discover forgeworld models all over the place, and that each army had it’s own force organisation chart: therefore armies tended to have high numbers of elites and/or fast attack).

Game 1: Space Wolves and Blood Angels
Thunderwolf lord, TH+SS
2x 4 Thunderwolves
5 Grey Hunters, mlta gun
6 Long fnags, 5 Missile Launchers

1 Reclsiarch
4/5 Assault Terminators (Mix of LC and TH+SS)
10 Assault Marines, 2 Plasma Pistols
Storm Raven
Furioso with Blood Talons

Mission: The Relic, Dawn of War.
The game began with a pretty standard battle line for our armies, with the Dreadnoughts in reserve and the Termies outflanking to the far right. Most of their infantry bunkered down on our right hand side, with one squad of thunderwolves. The other squad was joined by the lord on our left flank, opposite the master of the forge.
Shrike was our warlord, and the thunderwolf lord was theirs.

Turn 1
They seized the initiative and raced forward with both wolf units, one engaging Shrike’s terminators on the right. The Longfangs unleashed a lot of crack missiles on the Raven guard tactical marines, and killed about 3 of them. The Thunderwolves brutally attacked the Terminators, and after the dust settled 5 had died! (That was a lot of 1’s: a theme which continued throughout the day…) The termies struck back with Shrike, and by the end only one wolf remained on 1 wound. He promptly fled and the Terminators sallied forth from the building.

They continued their rampage in our turn, moving forwards towards the newly rallied wolf and the Blood angel assault marines. Brother Hephaeston shot from the sky and landed in front of the Wolf Lord’s pack, ready to tie them up. He began by unleashing both heavy flamers, and wounded the wolf lord. Seeing his success other units turned their guns on him and the scouts scored another wound. One predator also managed to kill off one of the lord’s compatriots. The termies multi assaulted and killed everything: all the assault marines and the last remaining thunderwolf on that flank….

Turn 2
The Storm Raven pelted on, arriving near to the objective in the centre (which both our tactical squads were approaching). Between the Longfangs and the Storm Raven, their shooting was slightly better than previously, claiming a predator in an explosive blast, and killing 4 more tactical marines from the two squads (the blast from the predator killed 3 of my men, two of whom were the missile and veteran sergeant, serves me right for hiding them at the back of the unit).
The Wolf lord and his fellows assaulted the dreadnought and managed to claim one hull point, whilst the dreadnought failed to kill the wolf lord.

The Terminators continued their rampage, climbing up the building containing the Long fangs and Grey hunters. Fearing the Furioso’s arrival next turn, both our tactical squads retreated from the objective, whilst Brother Zantiar plummeted to earth right in front of the Storm Raven. Our shooting slew the squad of grey hunters whilst one tactical marine with a missile launcher, hit the Stormraven with a snap-fired shot and took off a hull point.
The terminators predictably slaughtered the spacewolves, killing all but one, who fled near to the board edge, and then rallied. The Wolf lord finally dispatched Brother Hephaeston.

(It was at this point that I noticed that without Troops units, they couldn’t claim the Relic. Also, we’d taken First Blood- the thunderwolves and assault marines- so were winning 1-0. We also had terminators in their deployment zone for the linebreaker point, and so only needed to keep Shrike alive to win).

Turn 3
The Blood Angels disembarked, their terminators racing towards their raven guard counter parts whilst the Furioso faced off against Brother Zantiar. The Wolf lord’s unit moved within range of our scouts and Master of the Forge. The Sotrm Raven’s shooting did little, killing one marine. The furioso charged and failed to do anything to Zantiar, who took a hull point from his foe in return. The Wolves charged in and challenged, but were met my the loyal sergeant, who though hitting twice was unable to wound the lord and was struck down for his miss placed courage. The other wolves made no impression due to the Master of the Forge’s artificier armour.

Shrike’s men bounded out from the building and assaulted the Chaplain’s retinue, whilst the tactical marines surged forwards and everything that could fired at the hovering, and thus vulnerable flyer. The combined fire power of the predators saw to it that the stormraven tmbled from the sky, and though in the assault phase the enemy attempted to challenge Skrike, he declined and the terminator sergeant took his place, before being struck down by the enraged reclusiarch. The other terminators made short work of their counter parts (who predominantly had a 5++ rather than 3++).
The Thunderwolves killed the remaining scouts even as the Lord took the Forgemaster apart.

Turn 4
The Wolves streaked towards the centre, hoping to clear the tactical marines off of the relic, and killed one with a lucky bolt pistol round. The Chaplain challenged Shrike and neither scored a wound upon the other, whilst Zantiar finally got into his swing and felled the Furioso.

It was at this point that time was called, but victory was ours. We held the Relic, Linebreaker and First Blood for a 5-0 win (the wolves had moved out of our deployment zone to stop us taking the relic). We also had 2 predators, Brother Zantiar, and two tactical squads, one with a plasma gun and missile launcher, all lined up to fire at the Wolf Lord (on one wound) and his two thunderwolf buddies that remained, whilst the relic squad was shielded from them by the dreadnought, a predator and another squad of marines: a convincing win! Their only other model was a Reclusiarch fighting Shrike and 4 TH+SS termies.

I’ll put game 2 and 3 up in a bit, but first thoughts were: Flyers, what the ****. 6’s to hit is mean, and also, First Blood is game winning, which is unfortunate, as we never went first all day…

[zawyvern]

Hey there... awesome reports KitW. Nicely written and fun to read. I actually was looking at your first list and decided to pull out the ol' SM codex. I was thinking that Maybe you really outta take 3 full squads of sternguard and try em out. Stick em in Rhinos to keep em mobile and safe for most of the missions and leave the rhinos in reserve for kill point mission.
How can you pass em up? They're like uber tac marines... 2 A base, plus a selection of awesome infantry guns. That 30" AP4 round would have let you take on Firewarriors better, especially since most cover is 5+ now, plus you can rapid fire at 15". The AP3 round lets you take on marines and battlesuits alike. Not to mention the combi weapons. Flamers are oh so good up close, plasma will let you take on those heavy armored squads etc...
The fact Pedro makes them scoring gives you access to much better "troops" than regular tac marines, plus they don't give up any extra VP in any of the missions. You will still need 2 troops though. I would suggest taking a captain on a bike so you can take 2 squads of bikes as troops. Fast, tough, with some decent options and more importantly they can assault in right behind the advancing sternguard to help stop any retaliation fire. And being stubborn they likely will stick in there for a turn or 2 even if they don't do so well, but they should do seeing as if they're supporting the main thrust with Pedro they should get his bonus A by being close enough. You can tool the captain up to be half decent in combat as well.
You might even want to stick pedro and the squad he joins in a landraider to really give the enemy a hard time if you play a higher point game. Sternguard, bikes, Predators, Rhinos and perhaps a Landraider and you're bringing some pretty nasty firepower to the board, you're quick and maneuverable, have a decent model count but not so many units total and some half decent assault ability. I think even THSS termies will have a 2nd thought of getting too close considering the amount of combi-plas you could field. And you'll be getting 3 attacks per dude even when charged as long as you keep pedro in the middle.

[thekinginthewoods]

Yeah, it's been so long since I played Space Marines that I forgot one of his main abilities (woops...) but I've just found that Sternguard never live up to expectations. I know tactical Marines have been given a great boost in terms of rapid firing which also affects Sternguaard, but I don't know, a veteran with combi weapon is 30 pts which quickly adds up.

(Anyway, sorry for delay in posting, had a seriously hectic week: the next two battle reports will follow soon, I promise...)

[agurus1]

Scoring sternguard is one of kantor's biggest advantages, I'd say try it out but don't run them naked, stick them in a rhino and give them special weapons

[DailyWaagh]

Cool to see someone playing with tau