Last weekend I was able to get in a 2000 pt game against Alex's Crimson Fists. He was running Pedro and assault terminators in a godhammer pattern LR, a captain on bike, bike squad, 2 tac squads in las-backs, devastators w/ 4 lascannons, and a large sternguard squad in drop pod. I was running a slightly different list, one that I put together with the premise that I was going to use every space marine scout model that I own. Some of these models hadn't seen play in a long time and others (scout bikes) hadn't ever been used. I thought it would be fun to return to more of a 'Raven Guard' themed list before I start playing with my other armies. My list included Shrike, a captain on bike w/ close-combat tooled command squad on bikes, a full-sized bike squad, 2 half-sized bike squads, 6 scout bikes (3 w/ grenade launchers), 10 sniper scouts led by Telion, and 8 close-combat scouts.
We rolled up Annihilation with a Spearhead deployment. My plan was pretty straightforward; hope to win the roll off to go first then infiltrate / deploy aggressively to pull off an alpha strike. Everything was going according to plan until Alex reached for his dice to seize the initiative (see picture above).
Rats! There it is, that insidious six! Ah well, this is exactly why you shouldn't build a list that's dependent on going first. You never know what is going to happen! My plan would have been to fleet the close-combat scouts forward to multi-assault, power fist sgt. on the razorback and the other half engaging the devastators.
On the right side, my scout bikes would have gone after the second razorback with the Sgt's combi-melta and grenade launchers, while the captains and command squad move to deal with the land raider.
But none of that matters now, haha :)
Moving on to turn 1...
Alex drops his sternguard near my large bike squad then moves his bike squad and captain up to deal with my cc scouts. Pedro and the termies hop out in attempt to grant the bikes the +1 attack from his Inspiring Presence.
When the dust settled, my bikes were reduced to half and my 3 remaining scouts were falling back.
On my turn, I moved the weakened bike squad up to engage Alex's bikes, then moved my 2 other bike squads over to deal with the sternguard.
Shrike broke away from his bikes to fleet into the devastators with a lucky roll of 6 to assault into cover.
My command squad failed to hit the land raider with their meltas and the scout bikes failed to do anything to the razorback. But my assault phase was pretty effective. Shrike took out 3 but failed to catch the remaining 2 lascannons. My power fist touting bike sgt landed a fatal blow to Alex's bike captain before being wiped out, while the other bike squad locked up the sternguard in close combat.
Turn 2, Alex moves his remaining bikes to bail out his sternguard.
He also moved his LR and razorback on the right side out of harms way from my melta command squad. The tacticals in the razor hop out into cover. His other razorback moves up to discharge a tac squad then insta-kills Shrike with its twin linked lascannon. The tac squads runs towards my scouts to keep them running.
On my turn 2, I move the 3rd bike squad up to join the ongoing sternguard/bike conflict. Telion takes aim and headshots the power fist sgt in the tac squad directly in front of the snipers, pinning the squad.
My command squad attempts to damage the razorback but can't land a hit. The scout bikes move up to rapid fire their grenade launchers onto the clumped up terminators. With some decent dice rolls, I land a ton of hits that end up killing a terminator and wounding Pedro.
Turn 3, Alex moves his terminators to charge the scout bikes, wiping them out with ease. The rest of his army guns down the remaining cc scouts to secure the kill point.
On my turn 3, the sternguard/bike conflict finally resolves with only 2 of my bikes and attack bike remaining. On the other side, my command squad and captain charge in to wreck all but 1 terminator.
Turn 4, Alex charges his tacticals and Pedro into the command squad/terminator conflict. Lots of wounds were exchanged on both sides, and at the end this was all that was left:
Alex's tac squad moved to engage the sniper scouts in the ruins, while his tanks continue to move at least 6".
On my turn, I finish off the last marine and move toward the remaining 2 lascannons from the devastator squad, the kill point that got away. My bikes forgo shooting the multimelta at his armor in hopes to bail out my wavering scout squad.
The following turn, Alex hits a string of unlucky dice rolls, failing to finish off my 2 remaining bikes from the command squad, only killing 1 after shooting 5 lascannons at them (3 of which were twin-linked). My scouts and attack bike finish off the tactical marines, with the scouts consolidating back into the ruins as the attack bike heads for the LR.
On my turn, the apothecary finishes off the last of the devastators. The multi-melta attack bike shakes the LR and the missile launcher scout fails to damage a razorback.
Alex rolls but the game ends there. What a blood bath! All that remained was an apothecary (ironically, the only one in the command squad without an invulnerable save), an attack bike, and half of my sniper squad to Alex's LR, 2 razors, and drop pod -- 6 killpoints to my 8, but I wouldn't call this a win. I like to employ Nova's 3 KP margin to determine annihilation results, as I feel it's much more representative of the true outcome. And it definitely is in regards to this game. At the end, we both barely have anything left, but had the game continued both have things that can hurt the remaining units on the other side. That's a draw in my book, and I'll take it! It was an awesome game, full of surprises from the very first roll to seize all the way to the end. Great game, Alex!
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