CATACHANS:
HQ:
CCS: Straken, medic, 2 laspistols with close combat weapons,2 bodyguards, carapace armor and vox.
TROOPS:
PCS: Vox and heavy bolter HWT.
Infantry squad 1: grenadelauncher, HWT with missile launcher and vox.
Infantry squad 2: grenadelauncher, HWT with missile launcher and vox.
HWT 1: 3 Missile launchers.
HWT 2: 3 autocannons.
Veteran squad: Harker, 2 melta, flamer and 1 demolition charge.
ELITE:
Marbo:
Ogryns: 2 ogryns + bone ead
FASTATTACK:
1 scout sentinal squad: 1 with autocannons and 1 missile launcher
GENERIC SPACE MARINES:
1 chapter captain with 5 terminators with stormshield and thunderhammers in a Landraider.
1 razorback twinlinked assualtcannons with 5 spacemarines(one vet sergeant)
1 razorback twinlinked assualtcannons with 5 spacemarines(one vet sergeant)
5 scouts with sniper riffles(one vet sergeant)
With a few upgrades i cant remember in my head. Extra armor and captain was armed with some kind of a power weapon and more i cant remember, but basically that's it
Mission: Capture and control.
Deployment: Dawn of War.
My opponent won first turn..
1st turn: Night fight.We both place our objectives in our corner furthest away from each others armies and he deploy his Landraider and 1 razorback closest to my forces as possible. 1 razorback in defense and his unit of scouts in the ruin with the objective.
My eyes almost starts tearing up when i see him pulling his landraider up from his bag.. armor 14... my strongest cannons have str 8.. How am i gonna stop this monster?!
I decide to turtle up in the ruins in the button of my left side. Everything but 1 infantry squad and my pcs is dedicated at stopping his advance. I placed my objective near the ruins hoping if i couldn't stop them i could maybe contest it while Harker sneak in and grabs his objective. I deploy Straken and his boys + the ogryns ready to move in and act as meat shield for my squishy squads. Straken have not yet let me down in my 4 games and he is about to begin the ultimate test...
He got first turn AND it is night fight.. this means he gets two turns of driving towards me without me doing much shooting. 1st turn nothing really happens... he drives forward, rolls to see if he can see anything and he cant. His snipers notice something in the ruins and fires, so does his razorback. My inf squad and pcs makes the saves. I fire with about half my weapons and i didn't penetrate anything. I move Strakens squad + the ogryns forward!
Turn 2: Here comes the pain...!
He drives his landraider in front of Straken and his terminators + captain rushes out! His las cannon hits the auto cannon sentinel and it explodes. His scouts shots some more on the inf squad and 1 dies. His razorback shots at my pcs and they do their saves.
His terminator squad charges in and engages both Strakens squad and my ogryns, which ends in me killing 1 terminator and me loosing 1 bodyguard 2 vets, gets one wound on Straken and 1 ogryn gets 1 wound! Strakens squad holds the line but the ogryns run..!
My turn, my ogryns rally and consolidate 3 inces towards the terminators! Marbo and Harkers boys comes in from just the right side! Overly joyed i realize that Marbo coming in was a very bad thing.. All my opponents units are inside razorbacks cept for the sniper squad(which Harker can take care of) and the engaged terminators.... I decide to try and blow up the razorback with his demo charge.
I try to pop the razorback so Marbo can throw his demolition charge in the marines faces. I failed... As a last resort Marbo throws it on the razorback and misses!! After the failure i realize i still had one sentinel left with a missile launcher and i penetrate and its wrecked! His marines are climbing out and gets pinned.
Back to Harkers boys. I throw the demolition charge in the snipers faces and misses again. My flamer, meltas and rapid firing lasguns nails 2 and the rest runs over the board(Might not have been pretty much they got the job done).
Back to the terminators.. The ogryns charges the terminators again and to everyone's surprise.. Straken and the ogryns wipes the terminators...! Only the captain survives.. who immediately flees(I am getting the fuck away from that)!Hes runs 2 incs and i consolidate behind him to use him as a meat shield to gain a cover save. Not a bad turn for me!
Turn 3: Who is gonna win?!
The intact razorback drives towards Harkers squad and fires its weapons. Harkers squad takes 3 wounds but passes their moral test. The captain auto rallies and choose to move back while firing at Straken but misses.
My Turn Harkers boys moves towards the razorback and my opponent remembers that the boys are carrying meltas... My Ogryns moves towards the pinned marines and Straken and marbo(with melta bombs) charges the Landraider. Harkers boys nails the razorback and it explodes! 2 marine dies in the explosion and the rest passing their pinning test.
On the Landraider Straken and Marbo fails to damage the Landaraider with absolutely horrible rolls!
The space marines jumps into the Landraider and drives towards the objective..! In the other corner his marines fires on Harkers boys and they take 2 more wounds. The land raider puts 1 wound one one autocannon HWT and kills another. The captain shots marbo.
My turn, Straken charges the landraider. the captain dies to massed fire from my infantry and heavy weapons team and Harkers boys manages to kill only one space marine! Straken glances the Landraider but only rolls 1!
The marines charges Harkers boys and kills 1, who in return do nothing, the pass the leadership test. The landraider drives to the objective and unloads the marines who rapid fires into the the auto cannons and kills one more, landraider puts another wound on the last HWT.
My turn i move my sentinel into position to shot at the marines near the Landraider. Straken runs with the ogryns towards my own objective along with the infantry squad and the last heavy weapon team. Its a race! I pour all my fire into the 5 marines and only manages to kill 2 with 4 missile launchers and rapid fire from 6 lasguns! Realizing my mistake and that i can actually loose the game i run my pcs and inf squad towards his objective! My inf squad charges the marines, loosing and runs of the board!
His marines jump back in the Landraider and it fires at the sentinel which destroys it. Marines vs Harkers boys end in a draw with no wounds.
My turn Straken charges the laindraider thanks to his bionic arm, blows it up! The marines looses one marine. 2 left..... Harkers boys kills 1 marine and the last marines fails to kill any! He passes his leadership test tho my last hope of pulling a turn 7 win is gone.
Turn 7: Game Over. The game ends and we are overly joyed over the most intense game any of us have had so far. Its my game 5 and his game 4 so we are both very new to the game and our armies. It ended in a draw and we hand shook and agreed that we need a another game soon.
I think what could happen, happened in this game and i learned a very valuable lesson. Never be lazy and think you won when you haven't. I should have moved my PCS towards the razorback when it went down. I might not have made it but i might have. The Landraider was a nightmare and i really need some hard punch in my 1500 list. Maybe a vendetta gunship and a HWT las cannons?The demolition charges failed me this game, but it just shows that i was unlucky,one game doesn't prove anything i will keep testing it in the next few games as well.
Thanks for watching, i hope you enjoyed the battle report. Critic is always welcome so i can improve on making battle reports and use more tactics.
Ras
Fun report, thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteGreat battle report. Easy to follow and the pics helped me see where everything was happening. Can't wait for the next one.
ReplyDeleteI agree wholeheartedly with Pettsy: thanks and well done.
ReplyDeleteMay I respectfully suggest not taking a lacannon heavy weapons team? - At 105pts they're a big points spend, and they'll shoot straight to the top of your enemy's target priority list. Of course, any weapon of Str 6 or higher will wound on 2s then instant-kill them if they fail cover saves too, so they're pretty flimsy. Plus of course they're only BS3.
For five points less you could get a team of ten BS4 veterans with three melta guns, higher Ld and 7 ablative wounds...but then that's no fun!
Don't forget the advantages of putting your sentinels into single-model squadrons - especially when they have different armourment! It'll be soul-destroying when you decide to fire one sentinel's missile launcher at an AV14 tank knowing full well that if he misses his (BS3) shot then the other sentinel will have foregone his autocannon shots for nothing...
I'm very glad that Straken earned his wages for you!
@Sonsoftaurus your very welcome i am happy you liked it!
ReplyDelete@Pettsy I am happy that i am getting better at taking pictures that shows more of the game, more is sure to come!
@Drax thanks! That's the reason why i didn't add them to my list so far and you make some very good points i didn't think about to! As i see it, i have two choices when it comes to stopping armor 14 and still keep within the fluf. Veterans squads with meltas or vendetta gunships. I don't wanna take sentinels with lascannons for the same reason as the HWT lascannons.
Vets in vendettas might be a very good choice tho but would set me back a lot of points and would give my opponent something to shot his big guns at. At the moment i have only soft stuff(cept fo strakens gang and the ogryns, which i hide from shooting til they close in.
I think i need to get in some meltas in my squads, maybe a special weapons team or two with meltas demolition charge? with my main army. Any ideas without mech?
I normally split them up after you wrote in one of the post about it. Works very well indeed! However in this game my target was to halt the landraider as much as i could(immobilize) and i knew the autocannon couldn't do that so i put them together so he couldn't target out the missile launcher sentinel.
Ahh, I see what you did with the sentinels: clever!
ReplyDeleteI'm a big fan of special weapons teams; not least as they tend to slip 'under the radar' when you have a predominantly infantry force.
You'll always struggle for anti-tank weaponry with infantry, but given how quickly enemy units tend to close with guardsmen, meltas are often a good bet. For your reference, my standing infantry company can be seen here: http://admiraldrax.blogspot.com/2010/07/213-b-coy-224th-cadian-light-infantry.html and here's them in anger: http://admiraldrax.blogspot.com/2010/07/210-new-gaming-club-part-ii-pics-brief.html.
I always give my infantry squads a single special weapon, alternating in turns between plasma, melta and grenade launchers. I love grenade launchers.
As a general rule, if I'm playing infantry my tactics revolve around the idea that no single unit is indispensable...which is an apt way to play Guard, I think!
@Drax The opponents i been playing so far have very fast armies. Mech eldar, spacewoves(with 3 rhonos and bikes), Generic space marines(lots of rhinos) and even tho i can take some of his forces appart im still forced to Close Combat cause they know they can beat me even tho i outnumber them by a lot.
ReplyDeleteWhat if i put a special weapon team or two with my main body. Keep em behind my death star unit(Strakens gang + ogryns) or when i am weakest if several groups are inc, Ill feed em a unit and when they consolidate from the win, i run out and demo charge Grenade launcher/flamer and roast them in firepower.
I am also planning on adding a Lord commisar as my secound HQ for that 10 ld aura and the second leadership test(after execution).
I see in your infantry list you got the special weapons teams with meltas. I am doing that with Harkers gang, its very strong vs most but i also ran into problems with that. After i pop a armor vehicle i cant demo charge or shoot at the infantry that crawls out. Which have a few times resulted in taking rapid fire on my boys or getting into cc the round after since melta is so short range.
Now what if i dedicate my HWT/infantry squads with ML + melta or GL to pop the light vehicles and then uses my special teams to demolish the infantry inside. If a landraider comes i speed bump its cargo(properly Termies) with ogryns/straken and demo charge them if that fails and use the tactic on the light vehicles.
They might learn to fear the Catachan infantry;).
Great batrep ... good reporting and well handled. Fighting Thunder-chumps is always tricky as they don't die easily. Glad your Oggers did well! As for your list I would make two changes:
ReplyDeleteConsider upgrading your Sentinels to Armoured Lacannons. Think of them as your Alpha strike anti armour option. 3 lascannons SHOULD do for most vehicles ... although Landraiders are not the standard.
Alternatively consider camo on your lascannons, they'll get a 3+ armour save if they don't move. Giving them decent 'stand and fire' punch.
Finally, drop some Missile Launcher in favour of mortars. I run up to 15 mortars and 9+ is devastating. Read up on indirect fire and barrage and you'll soon realise just how good these boys are, the lack of a line of sight effectively makes them invulnerable to return fire, while some lucky rolls can pour on the wounds turn after turn after turn.
At a pinch they'll even glance Rhino's and Trucks.
Nothing screams Catachan like massed mortar fire, they are missing from your list, cheap objective holding units (great with the commissar lord) and provide your other 'artillery'.
I'm inclined to agree with Suneokun here: mortars en masse are truly great - even against marines; nay, even against terminators.
ReplyDeleteIn one game a single turn of mortars firing (two batteries of 3 each) yielded 3 dead marines, 1 dead terminator and a de-weaponed whirlwind...plus the terminators and one marine battle squad were pinned!
Multiple barrages rule...even at Str4!
Funny you should post about that because I was thinking about adding mortars to my catachan foot list because frankly the heavy weapons are alright at 4+ to hit but they can be even better if you can pin that enemy down. then you have a complete turn of movement to get away or speed bump or even keep pinning them down. plus the range and the indirect fire pay for themselves. Then you save 5 points per squad which means you can take the special teams squad for cheaper or another infantry or even another unupgraded sentinel- just outflanking to take more heat off your mortars to give them more pinning times.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing I have been looking at is Penal legions- They are a bit pricey for your list and somewhat weak but if you can get them to work with harkers gang as meat shields or to soften an objective while they get into place it might be worth the points too. Recently I played a very small 300 point match versus a space wolves crew and although they got spanked in CC (dang blood claws) they had real potential for causing my oponent to do some running away and gave me free reign to shoot their rhino up.
I've only used my penal legionnaires in 3 games, but check out the box on the left sidebarf of my blog marked "Cool things my Penal Legionnaires have done:" to see how much they've impressed me.
ReplyDeleteThey can really be game winners.
If you fancy them, I have a couple of metal Catachan mortars with crew you can have...unless you prefer the plastic ones...
ReplyDeletelet me know, mate.
Damn guys now you had me rethink my 1750 points army, just as i started to see an end to the HWT! I will be posting my 1750 points army list after i write this post. Believe it or not it contains one penal legion squad haha.
ReplyDeleteI just came from town, i went out to eat with my girlfriend at a cafe and to buy a cadian box of footmen to convert into penal legion for my 1500 point list, so you can imagine the smile on my face when i came home to read your comments!
Well, mine are by no means the best examples of post-Cadian conversions, but there's a link to them on the right of my blog under 'posted units' if that's any help...
ReplyDeleteOhh by the way Drax i would love the mortar model mate, as you know i love the old Catachan ones and it sounds like i am going to test out some mortars in the future;)
ReplyDeleteOi i didn't notice you had a penal legion squad already! ill go check it out and prolly get inspired(have happened more than once after checking your blog)