catalyst2 | Battle #16

2000 points against Dave's Ultramarines. Dave's a great player and a person who has taught my most of what I know about 40K so I was really looking forward to this. I've never beaten Dave in a genuine battle - only in an early one where he gave me lots of advice.

Deployment was Dawn of War with Seize Ground mission. There were three objectives on the table, two close to my deployment zone and one squarely in the middle of Dave's. My standard Drop Pod Dreadnought opening ploy failed miserably with the Dread missing his shot and then getting destroyed in the same turn. On the left, I got both of his dreadnoughts, one destroyed and the other weaponless, Unfortunately my tank busting combat squad ended up in close combat with the Dread - I couldn't harm it and all it could do was kick me to death. That wing was pretty much a stalemate.

The objective marker on my left had both a Razorback-mounted combat squad and a foot-slogging combat squad on it, also covered by a 10-man scout sniper squad. That objective should have been secure. The objective in the middle was unoccupied until turn 4 when Dave got two combat squads over it. I managed to destroy one squad and the other ran too far away to hold it. On my right was where it was really decided - a rampaging Land Raider Crusader and Terminator squad did untold damage, driving me off the objective and destroying both my Predator Annihilator and my Vindicator.

Eventually it came down the the sixth turn. I held the objective on the left, withstanding the full might of TL assault cannon/multi-melta/hurricane bolter sponsons from his Land Raider Crusader, along with a Vengeance round from his Whirlwind, with just two marines from a combat squad and six scout snipers remaining. In the centre, combined HB/assault cannon from my last remaining Land Speeder and HB/storm bolter from my Razorback shot his squad off that objective.

On the right, even though he had driven me off that objective, I managed to kill one of his last two scouts with another Vengeance round, that squad then failing its morale test and running five inches off the marker. He had no other scoring units near that marker despite having a terminator chaplain and five terminators over that side.

Result: left marker held by me, centre and right markers held by no-one so WIN to me! WOOHOO! Thoroughly entertaining battle, right down to the very last shots of Turn 6 when it finished. Thanks to Dave for one of the most enjoyable and fun games ever.

What I learned this week:
1) Even though these things shouldn't be a surprise to me, marines really can bear a hell of a lot of punishment
2) No matter how lost it looks, staying calm and sticking with the plan can pull it around. Here, at the end of Turn 5, Dave was winning 2-1. If it had finished there, I was done but in Turn 6, not only did I withstand very heavy fire from Dave but I was able to shoot him off both of his objectives.
3) Sniper squad scouts are very effective - even though I had them on the left, covering that objective, they were able to swing around and, because of their 36" range, shoot 2 combat squads out of existence that were away on the other wing
4)Lanes of fire - keeping those clear and being mindful that minute changes could make the world of difference was very important tonight. In the past, I have often obscured my own shots but tonight I kept the important lanes open with very careful movement and inflicted significant casualties on at least three units that I can recall.

My W-L-D record is now 11-5-0