Nova Open 2011: Game Three!

09/27/2011

18 Comments

 
Been out for the count the past few days, so you've obviously seen a lack of content from me.  I'm on the recovery, so we're jumping back on the horse and getting these Nova Open reports out.  They need to get done, as I have some rather pressing BT Gunline list things I need to talk about.

Next up, we have my game against Brian Hudson.  He plays a very nicely converted Space Wolves army called the "Lords of Oblivion".  I had met him the previous evening on the Nova Open bar crawl and chatted a bit about how our armies would be the polar opposites fluff-wise.  So I thought it a little funny that we got paired together.  The first thing I noticed when I sat down, was the fact that Brian seemed a bit angry and/or "off".  He mentioned that he was slightly hung over, as well as being angry about how his first couple games went.

I knew right away that this game could end up being a long one, because I knew my opponent right away was in a bad mood.  Coming into a game with a bad attitude can only cause problems and really dampers the mood of the game.  I did my best to cheer him throughout the game, but it didn't seem to take.  This was the only game where I scored an "Average Game" from my opponent (all the rest were Excellent Games).  It was also the game where I had the best LOS to my opponent, but it wouldn't matter, as you will soon see!  :D

Game Three -- Brian Hudson

HQ:
* Wolf Lord w/ Powerfist, Storm Shield, Runic Armor, Wolf-Tooth Talisman, Wolf-Tooth Necklace, Thunderwolf Mount, Saga of the Bear, and 2 Fenrisian Wolves.  [290]
* Wolf Guard Battle Leader w/ Frost Blade, Storm Shield, Runic Armor, Wolf-Tooth Necklace, Thunderwolf Mount, and 2 Fenrisian Wolves.  [220]
* Rune Priest w/ Jaws of the World Wolf & Living Lightning.  [100]

ELITES:
* Wolf Guard: 4 Wolf Guard w/ 3 Powerfists, 1 Power Weapon, and 4 Combi-Meltas.  [162]

TROOPS:
* Grey Hunters: 9 Grey Hunters w/ 1 Meltagun, Wolf-Standard, and Mark of the Wulfen.  Mounted in a Rhino.  [200]
* Grey Hunters: 9 Grey Hunters w/ 1 Meltagun, Wolf-Standard, and Mark of the Wulfen.  Mounted in a Rhino.  [200]
* Grey Hunters: 9 Grey Hunters w/ 1 Meltagun, Wolf-Standard, and Mark of the Wulfen.  Mounted in a Rhino.  [200]
* Grey Hunters: 8 Grey Hunters w/ 1 Flamer, Wolf-Standard, and Mark of the Wulfen.  Mounted in a Rhino.  [180]

FAST ATTACK:
* Thunderwolf Cavalry:  3 Cavalry w/ 2 Storm Shields and 1 Powerfist.  [240]

HEAVY SUPPORT:
* Long Fangs:  5 Long Fangs w/ 4 Missile Launchers.  [115]
* Long Fangs:  4 Long Fangs w/ 3 Missile Launchers.  [90]

Total:  [1997]

Mission Goals:
P) Kill Points
S) Table Quarters
T) Objectives

Deployment was Dawn Of War.

We roll to see who was going to go first and Brian wins the roll.  He decides to go first and begins deploying his forces.  He places his Librarian in the smallest Grey Hunter unit and deploys that Rhino, plus another right next to each other behind some BLOS terrain towards the middle of the board.  At this point, I mention he can only deploy one unit, as a transport was ruled to count as one of your troops units in DoW.  He gave me a hard time of it, so I said whatever and let him do what he wanted.  I just took advantage of the same "mis-reading" and deployed two of my Crusader squads and their Razorbacks centrally behind terrain, but with clear fire lanes to most of the board.  Thus begins this wonderful game.
So the game begins with Brian bringing all of his units onto the board.  His Long Fangs take a position in his far side terrain, with the other two Rhinos coming up on his left flank, hiding behind some BLOS terrain (common theme here?).  Then he brings his TWC directly to his right flank, right into that open space.  Brian had some terrible luck on his running rolls all game and usually ended up with a "1" or "2".  This turn was one such time.  He attempts to cast Living Lightning on one of my Razorbacks, but doesn't have the range due to Night Fighting.  On my turn, I bring everything onto the board in traditional gunline format.  The only time in this entire tournament I was able to do so.  After I had everything positioned with optimal fire lanes and covering the highest likely routes for my opponent, I started firing.  Most of my things were not able to see, but I was able to explode one of his Rhinos and do several wounds on the TWC unit, killing off two or three of the Fenrisian Wolves.  Not bad for Night Fighting.
So turn one turned out fairly well for the good guys, putting some wounds on a very dangerous TWC unit and blowing up some of his mobility.  I really needed to get those TWC dead or they would be the end of my army.  I had the LOS, so all I needed was Lady Luck on my side.  Brian's turn is pretty simple:  advance and fire.  He moves his TWC closer to my line, as well as moving the Rhinos on his left flank around the terrain feature.  One went around the backside, the other the front.  His shooting blew up my left most Land Speeder, as well as shaking one of my Razorbacks.  He also tried using Living Lightning once again, was successful at targeting one of my middle Razorbacks, but got shut down by one of my many "Abhor the Witch" saves this game.  So far, he's not doing so much damage to me so I'm confident in my chances at this point.  My turn arrives and examine the board.  I know that the TWC are going to be trouble in a couple turns, so I move one of my Typhoons to hopefully block their advance.  I immediately blow one of the Rhinos up that had exposed themselves on his left flank.  Then I start laying into his Long Fangs with my right flank because that is really my only clear shot.  These guys are really the only firepower that can hurt me, so I wanted to see about taking them out.  I managed to kill all but one from his leftmost squad.  On my left flank, I knew that it would be only one more turn until the TWC had a clean charge, so I put everything else in my army into them.  Success!  I managed to put at least one wound on every TWC (and two on the Lord), as well as killing the remaining Wolves.  However, he still had an intact unit, so I needed to do some serious damage next turn.  If I could keep up my average rolling, I'd be set!

The third turn arrives and Brian continues the advance.  He knows I have a turn before the hammer falls, so he moves everything full speed ahead.  The Rune Priest Rhino shoots around from behind the terrain in the middle and disembarks the unit (moved 6").  In addition, the now footslogging Grey Hunter squads slowly start hoofing it towards me.  His remaining Rhino speeds around to my right flank and disembarks it's unit.  Brian tries once again to fire Living Lightning at me, but is again blocked by "Abhor".  His frustration at my psychic defense is starting to show.  However, the rest of his turn goes well.  He's able to ping my left-most terminators with a lucky storm bolter shot from Rune Priest Rhino and they fail their Righteous Zeal test, falling off the board.  Ouch!  That hurts big time.  The rest of his shooting takes down a couple more terminators from the other unit, blowing up my right-most Razorback, as well as destroying my right Typhoon.  He was also able to shake my right-most Predator with his one Long Fang dude.  Because of a poor run roll, Brian is unable to successfully charge around my Typhoon, so decides to just prep for the next turn instead.  However, he was able to charge my now disembarked Crusader squad and eats them with his Grey Hunters.

My turn is critical, I need to stop those TWC or the game is over.  I move one of my right Razorbacks forward, in the attempt to both block advancement towards my squishy Crusader squads, as well as getting a clean shot at the Rhino sitting on my right flank.  As it currently stands, nothing has a shot at it so I need to move or it stays safe.  The mission is kill points after all, so Rhino kills matter just as much as unit kills.  My movement of the Razorback forward blocks the LOS of the Predator, but it can't shoot this turn anyway.  The Terminators will be going after the TWC, so that doesn't matter either.  I then shoot at the Rhino.  And miss.  Because it's twin-linked, I get a re-roll....and miss again.  Okay, it happens.  Moving on to the rest of my forces, they shoot literally everything at the TWC.  I manage to take out two TWC, but the full weight of all of my shooting doesn't even barely dent the unit.  I was missing left and right on easy shots/wounds.  My dice had left me.  It got so bad that Brian made the comment that he noticed that the closer the enemy was to a Space Marine army, the worse they got at shooting.  This was in full force now, with over 70% of my army's firepower failing to kill off an already fully wounded TWC unit.  It didn't matter what shot (bolters, lascannons, plasmaguns, etc), it was either missing to hit or rolling ones when I needed a two to wound.  The wounds I did cause did not force the unit to fall back, unfortunately.  I knew that was game over, as I put everything into those TWC and failed to stop them.
It was cleanup mode at this point, with Brian pretty much picking apart my army with the TWC.  My right flank had collapsed to the Grey Hunters there with some nice dice rolls on his meltaguns which blew up my right Predator.  His Rune Priest finally got Living Lightning off as well, blowing up my advanced Razorback.  Brian also blew off the turret on one Razorbacks.  On a multi-charge, his TWC managed to blow up both of my left Predators but was unable to kill the Typhoon.  It had seemed that my average luck had been given to Brian to add to his own, giving him godly rolls.  My turn looked bleak, with pretty much everything I had being dead or barely alive.  I position my EC-led Crusader squad for a counter-charge, hoping to get some kills that way if I'm unable to get the job done in the shooting phase.  I manage to kill off one of the TWC somehow, which is surprising considering the rest of my rolls for shooting.  Next, I charge into the TWC squad, which is now only the Lord and Battle Leader.  I hit the Battle Leader with all of my EC's attacks (4 of them) and need 3's to wound.  Giving me a good chance to kill him.  What do I roll?  Four 1's.  Fail.  My opponent chooses put his Frost Blade attacks into the squad itself, wiping them all out.  The Lord then attacks the EC, who fails the single save that is needed to survive, instantly killing him.
Picture
The game goes all the way to turn seven, which gives him enough time to kill my remaining two vehicles on the board, giving Brian the tabling.  Brian wins outright on Kill Points, as there is nothing left in my army.  I managed to score 5 KPs.  He was also able to secure all four quarters and two objectives, with me obviously holding none.  The victory point total worked out to be 2000 to 612.

This game was my only lopsided loss at Nova Open.  It was horrid how badly the dice had left me.  The only thing that managed to go my way was the fact that I blocked Living Lightning with "Abhor" four of the six times it was cast on me.  Early game looked like I was going to do just fine, because of that, I got over-confident on my right flank.  I figured that my Crusader squad and Typhoon would be able to stall out the advance on that end long enough for my forces to kill off the TWC and move on to the rest of Brian's forces.  I didn't realize how wrong a decision that was going to be.  In retrospect, I should have started flying my Typhoons forward much sooner to block those TWC and spent my time firing at the rest of his forces as they came out from behind the terrain.  That might have netted me enough kill points to win at the end, but there would be no guarantee he'd leave the terrain to come for me.  In the end, it wouldn't have made much difference as my dice were crap after turn two.  Even still, I joked around about it with Brian but I was unable to get him to even smile.

There wasn't much that Brian could have improved on, other than not being grumpy the whole game.  His list was very point and click, and that is what he did.  I don't know what would have happened if I had average rolling throughout the whole game, but there isn't much use thinking about it.  Bad dice games happen and Brian did a good job of taking advantage it.  His target priority mid-late game was flawless, taking down the critical parts of my army.  The untimely loss of a terminator squad hurt me especially, as I was counting on them to put wounds into those TWC.  It really fell apart after that, with a pretty close game sliding quickly into a rout.  But such is the game of Warhammer 40k.  ;)
 


Comments

Algesan link
09/27/2011 8:16am

Bringing a bad attitude to the board messes with everyone's game. This is why I don't think much about any of my games until after the gaming is over. Then I beat myself up over the mistakes.

Why didn't you advance the Terminators away from the edge? I've gotten much more aggressive with my THDC Terminator squads and while I've gotten them wrecked in assaults, they shoot the entire way in and almost invariably return the favor by wrecking the CC-heavy unit they hit. That is with AACNMTO though.

<sigh> I just know I'm going to end up shafted by our 6th edition codex when it comes out, but until then, I don't see anything replacing our drop pods for transport. Rhinos cost 140% of everyone else's (151% with smoke, 164% if trying to get the mythical "savings" of XA to go with the smoke). Ditto for Razorbacks, Predators, etc. Okay, we get a price break on a Tri-Las Predator, which is nice if you use one.

Consider the Crusader squads as nothing more than objective takers/holders. 5/0 or 5/1 with melta and bolters mounted in a Pod. Their only purpose in life is to sit on objectives, do a little dakka, help with an assault, play bubblewrap and maybe be given the glorious honor of being suicide melta. Now, gut out the transports in both your Gunline 3.0 and NOVA 2012 lists.

Gunline: Net gain of 244 points.
NOVA 2012: Net gain of 189 points.
Just for the transport swap, not including any reconfiguring of the specific squads.

I haven't lost an objective game since I blew the second one in the first round of 'Ard Boyz that cost me advancing. I've had my brothers die like flies buying time and I've had to take a draw a couple of times, but one of the earliest points you had in favor of a drop list still works: If they have less turns to shoot at your troops, it will be harder to take them down.


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Devjon link
09/27/2011 1:57pm

I think that even had you gotten average rolls (or at least mediocre rolls) you had still made a mistake, in deployment, in target priority, and in movement. I admit, I got this from the newest [url=http://kirbysblog-ic.blogspot.com/2011/09/tactics-playing-against-rocks.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+3IsTheNewBlackKirbYourEnthusiasm+%283%2B%2B+is+the+new+black.+|+Kirb+your+enthusiasm!%29]blog post on 3++[/url], but still.

You were playing Kill Points, but rather than scoring easier kills you focused the weight of your shooting on the toughest target, and one that you could have avoided for a couple more turns at least by simply moving away from it and perhaps splitting your army. Moving 6" a turn wouldn't have reduced your firepower except for your Crusader Squads and your Predators. Your Predators could have sat in good positions and fired at the TWC, trying to get their attention both by being annoying and by being (I think) easier to kill with assaults against their rear armor than with guns on their front armor. You Crusader Squads don't add a lot of firepower and would still be able to fire their Plasma Guns at 12".

Of course, even if you had done these things, you still would have been hurt by the rolling and there is nothing to be done about that.

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Marshal Laeroth (Admin) link
09/27/2011 4:20pm

@ Algesan

He really wasn't so much a bad sport, other than fighting me on DoW deployment rules, but his attitude really set the tone for the game. Unlike all of my other opponents, I couldn't sit there and joke around with him. Which was one of the things I enjoy about the game. Just a grumpy guy during our game. To be fair, he was just fine the previous night and that was why I was kind of blindsided by it all.

The BT list I've since decided on using for Nova 2012 (the Tony K fusion list), I briefly looked at adding some Drop Pods to the list last night, but didn't like how it turned out. However, there is lots of time to work it out. I'm going to be doing some work trying to incorporate Drop Pods into a list to see if I can come up with something I like. It'd be more of a hybrid list, as I already know MSU pods work.

Why didn't I move the terminators? I'm not sure to be honest. I'd like to blame the fact that I was already exhausted by this time, having had a really long night (which was my fault), so I wasn't really thinking 100% clearly. But I think the real reason was that I was far too over-confident in their ability to survive hits and pass their RZ test. They fell off the board three times over the weekend, twice in the first set of games and once in game 5. Though, the last one was a fluke as I was 11" away from the edge.

@ Devjon

Looking back, perhaps split deployment might have saved me, but it would have come at the cost of my LOS. If you take a look at one of the pictures above, deploying in such a fashion would have cut my LOS to the rest of the board nearly 75%. The Gunline list had been hampered in the previous two games by BLOS issues, so I was going to take advantage of the open fire lanes when I got them. My confidence at being able to kill the TWC (which I was able to do in my playtesting games) ended up costing me though.

After I deployed the way I did, moving would have cost me dearly in my shooting. Not that it really mattered though, so I might have been able to pull it off. Another thing that needs to be addressed on that front is the fact that TWC are able to charge 12", so their charge range would far outstrip my 6" movement.

Now, had I split forces (which was one of my tactics in previous games), the TWC would have had to concentrate on one side. Assuming, of course, that he didn't break the Lord/Battle Leader off to assault my other side. But as I mentioned, I'd not had any real shots at Brian's forces from the corners due to those large pieces of terrain; which is something my force needs at least marginally to be successful. One of the things that needs to change in later versions of the list.

Now, it should be noted that whenever a target popped up that was easy to kill (i.e. Rhinos), I shot at it. Early game, I was very successful at killing them. But that was also when the TWC were getting too close for comfort and I didn't get my Typhoon out there quite far enough to stall the charge a turn or more.

But you are right, I did make a few mistakes in the game that I should have tried, but the combination of lack of sleep and Brian's bad mood kinda affected me. The thing that really bothered me after the game was the fact that I didn't throw one of my Crusader squads at the TWC to buy a couple of turns. For the cost of a 200 point unit, I might have saved the rest of my army and I really kicked myself later for not doing it.

I wasn't really concerned with Brian's long range shooting because A) He deployed them with very little LOS to me (Long Fangs) and B) He only had two units able to hit me that far. The rest of his stuff came from the Rune Priest, which was neutralized most of the game, and meltaguns. I COULD have probably gotten out of the way of some of the melta shots, but he still had the mid-field covered pretty good so where ever I would have moved, he'd have gotten shots.

Bad dice happen and unfortunately, I didn't do what was needed to account for that in this game. Which is abnormal for me (if you don't count Day One). To Brian's credit, he stayed on his game pretty well and got the job done. My decision making was infinitely better on Day Two after getting a fairly good night's rest. :)

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Lucion
09/28/2011 7:34am

I didnt read all the details.

But a simple glance at his list and TWC, TWC.. TWC game over.

Its basically heavy cavalry vs a mass archer/balista deployment on poor LOS terrain - with no pikemen anti cavalry.

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Lucion
09/28/2011 8:35am

If one was to take the gunline formation again where such terrain could pop up - some form of dedicated counter would be neccesary.

Hes put in 750 points into heavy cavalry.
The BT list has 0 points dedicated to real anti cavalry apart from bowmen.

A possible counter if the battle occured in similar settings.

A dreadnought and a large foot crusader squad with neophytes could be good here. They would act as the pikemen. Their not the best troops, but good for that kind of attack - whereas a 5 man squad is pointless.

His powerfists are not optimal vs a dreadnought. In combination to a dreadnought and receiving cover - the high number of bodies and neophytes would be good vs the low but high strength attacks. They are also matched with fearlessness.

Your whole army is archer heavy.
He has 205 points in archers which fulfils the basic role of cracking open transports.

In summary, and as in antiquity - gunline/archer heavy mass is optimal for open battlefields, but obviously no good for a situation like the last samurai - in the forest - cavarly vs gunline.

At the same time gunline on a hill with open line of sight is going to to rock cavalry.

Napoleon however combined artillery and cavarly so he had duality. Gunline does not have duality.

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Devjon link
09/28/2011 3:06pm

@Lucion

Actually, in antiquity Cavalry trumps Archers except when the Archers can get into terrain that is hard for the Cavalry to traverse. Plus, Napoleon isn't known for combining his Artillery and Cavalry, he is known for concentrating his Artillery to eliminate enemy formations, rather than just damage them like everyone else had been doing. He also used Cavalry well, but not in any way that gave him Duality as far as I can see.

One final point is that Cavalry in antiquity had their advantage because of speed and being able to chase down fleeing enemies to deal additional casualties, which is not TWC. Back then Cavalry could not overcome Infantry by charging them, and not just pikemen but any that were capable of giving or receiving a charge (basically any Infantry who wasn't an archer/musket man, and any Infantry after the early 1700's). TWC are not like that. TWC are capable of destroying any Infantry who aren't specifically designed to match such units (such as Assault Terminators or similar units) and the main advantage of antique Cavalry (their speed) is less defining and more just an advantage for TWC.

As an aside, if Lascannons and Missile Launchers aren't artillery, then what is? Only things with high strength and a blast radius? So just Demolisher Cannons and Plasma Cannons. What do you mean Gunline doesn't have Duality? Because it doesn't have a strong basis of close combat that isn't needed in all lists?

Also, how would a blob Crusader Squad be good against TWC? Sure, they will tar-pit them and might even kill them, but how much does this unit cost? Assume that this is for a Gunline, so give them a Lascannon and Plasmagun (you could also give them a Powerfist and a Flamer or a Power Weapon and a Meltagun for nearly the same price), say an equal number of Initiates and Neophytes and have ten of each for maximum effect. 281 points. A 7-man unit of Assault Terminators without Special skills costs 280 points, and they will still stop the unit of TWC, and they can be used in more battles than just the ones where you need to tar-pit a unit (the option of teleporting them in or even just running them towards an objective that will be hotly contested, plus deadly bubble-wrap).

Even a 5-man Assault Terminator Squad would be sufficient and better than the expensive Blob Crusader Squad. It isn't scoring, but it is more efficient at killing things, drawing fire away from your other scoring units, doing what you brought it to do, and it is less likely to fail a RZ test (from being less likely to take a casualty) and fall off the board (by only being 7 40mm bases instead of 20 20mm bases).

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Algesan link
09/29/2011 9:21am

Regardless of which combined arms imagery we choose, what was lacking was the ability to stop the TWC unit with anything except for the THDC Terminator squads or depending on dice.

A list needs Rock, Paper and Scissors. While I liked the Gunline list's downrange firepower, I have always disliked its lack of a CC threat. No AACNMTO (which is a threat all by itself), no CC units, nothing.

I like Stelek's 4+2 concept and the first thing I'd do with the Gunline list is apply it by ripping out two Razorbacks and leaving two foot Crusader squads that swapped the lascannon for either a missile launcher or plasma cannon. Static objective holders. The only reason I don't apply that to my Deep Strike list is because part of it's shtick comes from being able to drop everything. All the rest of my foot & mech lists include the pair of fire support Crusader squads on foot.

Even Ork armies need a base of fire and while I'm not as familiar with them, I'd say that 'Nids don't lose much by incorporating their own bit of firepower, even if it is short ranged.

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Lucion
09/29/2011 12:25pm

@ Algesan

Gratz for grasping the bigger picture for what I was talking about.

No CC units might work in the specific context's but its by no means realistic.

I wonder what would have happened if this was spearhead - even better for the TWC.

@Devjon

This seems like 20 questions. I cant say I am comfortable with answering them all since I asked for a simplification of this post:

http://www.implausiblenature.net/1/post/2011/09/re-blog-competitive-vs-optimized.html

Almost 2 weeks late and no reply.

=\

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Lucion
09/29/2011 12:50pm

@ Algesan

I've found with a Deff skull theme Ork army the a fun combo is some melee and some range.

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Devjon link
09/29/2011 4:37pm

Reply is being left on the other Blog post (linked by Lucion) in an attempt to keep these comments related to this post.

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Lucion
09/29/2011 5:58pm

You may need to check your sources too:

I checked both with a senior Historian and several websites. Its confirmed and Napoleon used Cavalry and Artillery at the most famous battle of all. Waterloo.

Precisely why he lost is because the environment was wet and muddy and he could not move the artillery.

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Devjon link
09/29/2011 6:19pm

Sorry for misinterpreting your post, I know it'd annoy me to no end if someone did that to me. However, I think that I have grasped your(pl.) point about Gunlines needing Close Combat units to act as Counter Assault (stop me here if that is wrong).

Frankly, they don't. A Close Combat unit weakens the shooting ability and is difficult to merge with the list effectively. Algesan, you mentioned that you didn't like how Marshal Learoth's list didn't have any way to handle the TWC apart from the Terminators and the luck of the dice? With the dice rolls that he got, a charge from Assault Terminators with AAC would have done no better.

And what would either of you suggest to counter such a tactic that Mr.Hudson used? Taking 750 points of dedicated Close Combat units? You would get charged and probably defeated, though not in the first turn because you're fearless, which means that you are playing right into your opponent's strategy without any gain and are actually worse off than without the Counter Assault. So you would have to be sure that you can defeat whatever enemy rocks you find, probably through a combination of being a strong unit and reliably getting the charge. Assault Terminators in a Land Raider? That's nearly what you would need, three squads of them because two wouldn't be able to stop all of the TWC. You can't afford three, so what about large Sword Brethren Squads in Rhinos? You trade in a lot of durability for what you save, and you would still need to drop both Terminator Squads and skin some points from your Crusader Squads to get sufficient Sword Brethren Squads that are in danger of being de-meched.

Okay, okay, you could have Blob Crusader Squads, which I'll grant seem like they would kill off the TWC, even if they got charged. But then they serve no purpose other than dealing with Close Combat units that are unequipped to deal with mass sturdy Infantry (and you'd have to contend with wounds ignoring your armor save in addition to fearless wounds whittling you down). Isn't that kind of a specific, one dimensional unit that is wasted against nearly any other type of opponent? You don't need an objective sitter, you won't be capable of running across the board and smashing face unless a) the rest of your army is already or nearly dead or b) you're already winning; either way they add nothing or hurt you.

Or...you could have a bunch of reliable Low-AP fire to start bringing them down T1. Marshal Learoth's list has that, it has worked before and even given the terrain it should have worked this time. This Battle Report doesn't show that it is a weakness that he doesn't have Counter-Assault units.

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Devjon link
09/29/2011 6:34pm

Gah! I should have checked for any new comments before posting a large comment. I remember next time.

Anyway, I didn't say that Napoleon didn't use Cavalry and Artillery, I said that he isn't known for it, sorry for any confusion. He used both in almost every battle, as did every other general in that era and before unless they didn't have one or the other. It just seemed strange to be something to specifically mention Napoleon for and, to a large extent, it still does seem strange. It isn't something he began the practice of (such as focused fire with cannons among a few others).

Man, Napoleon met his Waterloo at Waterloo, you'd think he would have been tipped off by the name.

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lacoste uk link
09/30/2011 1:10am

army is already or nearly dead or b) you're already winning; either way they add nothing or hurt you.

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Algesan link
09/30/2011 2:07pm

@Lucion
Why did Napoleon lose Waterloo? Let me count the ways....

It wasn't the muddy ground, they waited on that to dry and the artillery was aggressively handled, but if you wanted it boiled down into a nutshell, Napoleon was already ill and deferred a great deal of the running of the battle to the lesser Marshals and Generals. Waterloo actually is a classic example of the idea that it isn't competence on the battlefield that wins, but the one who blunders the least.

One thing for sure, there was no "combined arms" present vs the Anglo-Allied army, unless you count the fact that the Infantry, Artillery and Cavalry all were on the same field and all took turns at Wellington's crew.

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lacoste uk link
10/02/2011 4:41am

I think the post is good for us.of the idea that it isn't competence on the battlefield that wins, but the one who blunders the least.

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Marshal Laeroth (Admin) link
10/02/2011 9:51pm

Well, Napoleon aside, I definitely appreciate the comments here! I do want to note that I will be examining battles like this and the changes needed in a new post, but I'll briefly explore a few of them here.

I agree with Devjon here, unfortunately. My list was designed to saturate the board with so much firepower, that my opponent couldn't kill neutralize everything. And thus, keep me shooting longer and harder. I don't necessarily think that a counter-assault unit would have helped me in this game. My problem was that I took too long to position units to act as bubblewrap, as I was SURE I could kill those TWC with shooting. However, the dice went south at a critical moment and I wasn't able to accomplish that goal. I could have salvaged my left flank had my Emperor's Champion had done anything in his charge against the TWC, but even he couldn't do anything due to poor rolling. I have a LOT of low AP weapons and my first two turns caused A LOT of damage to Brian with only average rolling. Had I had one more turn like that, the TWC wouldn't have made it to my lines, several more Rhinos would have died, as well as that lone Long Fang. But I don't play the woulda, coulda game. It didn't happen, so I need to examine what happened and see if things need to be improved. :)

Now that isn't to take anything against Brian, he played an excellent game here. But even the best players (or worst) get poor luck every once in a while. The Law of Averages demands that it is so. And this was the game for that to happen. I don't think anything other than a 5+ TH/SS Terminator squad could have stopped that unit with my rolling. In all of my other games, I preferred having the shooting capabilities over CC, but having it would have given me some tactical options. We'll see what I can do in the future with that.

More important for me, I think, is the need for more mobility. With all the terrain, it was difficult to get to objectives that were not close. It pretty much guaranteed that home objectives were always locked down by their respective players. I'll gain more from having that mobility, as well as increasing my Troop count to 6 (if I can) to get things done. But even still, I like the gunline archetype. I think it does very well and this year's 'Ard Boys tournament has done so. I know of two BT players who won their 2nd Round Tournaments using gunline lists and one more that placed 4th.

If nothing else, this game showed me that I needed to potentially make some changes to account for rock units. I knew going in that there was the possibility of facing one, but in my playtesting, the shooting got the job done. Didn't turn out that way when I needed it to. But I'm okay with that.

Don't worry, Game Four is a win. ;)

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Boss Grabnutz
10/03/2011 9:44am

Lol...one of my Black Templar foes who frequent this site showed me the page. Brian plays at our store all the time. He often comes across as grumpy or unfriendly, but he's like that to everyone,even when you know him. It's just how he is, so don't take it personal. He's also won ard boyz semi's, and is never an easy victory, so your assessment of his target priority is dead-on. I face that TWC lizard list all the time. In fact, my games agaisnt him are why I hate ALL TWC...they are stupidly hard to kill, taking 200 shoota boyz shots and still coming at you (one time I hit him with Lootas and have ALL of them down to 1 wound, then charged in with a nob biker unit led by the warboss to 'finsh' it off...one Thunderhammer to the face, i lose combat by 2, and get run down...it just sucks to face them)...of course, when i do stomp a mud-hole in his ass, it makes it a fun win >:)

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