Other Worlds 40k League - Short summary of the first match of the Other World Games Monthly League

Heya all, it has been a while since I wrote anything resembling a battle report, and mostly this is due to me trying to get the gist of 6th edition properly rather than taking pics of the battle proper. Nonetheless I always bring a camera and tried to take pics of some of the battles that I fought in.

Which brings me to my first game for the 40k Escalation league for Other World Games. It is something they wanted to try out and test out a few things that they wanted to do for a monthly league events for the store (a game each week, each increasing in point value). Since I got nothing to lose, I decided to sign up for the league. The League is relatively conservative, with the use of multiple objectives and some of the more reasonable parts of the rulebook like alternating terrain and such. The main thing that makes this league interesting (at least for me) is that if a painted army is facing off against an partially painted or unpainted army (3 colours minimum for fully painted armies), they will get rerolls for any 1s to hit in shooting and assault. Since my forces are always fully painted with details to boot I can only benefit from facing off against unpainted armies.

With that, our first game for the escalation league is on. Nonetheless, due to the lack of pictures, I will not write the battle report in my usual way. Instead I will be making a very short summary of what happened in the game.

Pre-Game
The first game in the Escalation league is a 1000 point game with 3 mysterious objectives alongside the three secondary objectives, and the two armies will be deployed ala Pitched Battle (I still like using the old terms for the 'new' deployment zone).

My list is quite spartan;

Haemonculus with liquifier gun

5 Warriors with Blaster in a Venom with two splinter cannons

5 Warriors with Blaster in a Venom with two splinter cannons

5 Warriors with Blaster in a Venom with two splinter cannons

5 Warriors with Blaster in a Raider with Night Shields

5 Wracks

Ravagers with 3 Dark Lances and Nightshields

Ravagers with 3 Dark Lances and Nightshields

Razorwing with 4 monoscythe missiles, 2 dark lances, a twin-linked splinter rifle and Nightshields

Not my most favourite lists for 1000 pts, but I do need to test out a few things such as the viability of wracks as objective sitters. Razorwing is there for flyer shenanigans, but one flyer hardly breaks the game when it comes to Dark Eldar flyers.

As for my opponent, here is his list;

Captain with Storm Shield, Thunderhammer and jump pack

Pedro Kantor

10 Tactical Marines with flamer and Missile Launcher

10 Tactical Marines with flamer and Missile Launcher With a Razorback with Assault Cannons

10 Vanguard Marines (I do not remember what they have but I remembered a Relic Blade, and two Powerfists in there and some plasma pistols)

1 Land Speeder Typhoon

Vindicator with pintle-mounted Storm Bolter

Personal opinion about my opponent's list?

That Vanguard squad.....can it even fit in there? And then looking at my opponent's list, apparently so.

We proceed to roll for the number of terrain and stuff, and it appears that somehow one side of the terrain is more sparse than the other. Unfortunately for me, my opponent managed to get the high roll and managed to choose his deployment zone and also placing the objectives first, which also means that he starts first. However, to my surprise he actually chose the area with less cover and that leaves me with two ruins and a bunker on my deployment zone to hide in and behind. He placed two of his objectives behind the two terrain on his side, while I dropped the objective into the bunker.

For the warlord rolls, we both decided to roll on the Strategic trait and he got the trait that allows him to reroll his reserve roll, while I rolled up the one that reduces his reserve rolls by 1. However the traits proved to be useless as he deployed everything on the table thus negating our warlord traits.

He deployed his forces quite centrally with his entire forces being able to destroy anything that comes in its way. My deployment? Hug the shades. I hid the Wracks in the bunker where the objective is, and the vehicles behind the two terrains.

I am not fond of his firepower, and if he goes first as intended, he can and will move to the objectives and camp there for the rest of the game while waiting for me to get out to go towards the game-winning objectives in his deployment zone. So rather than risking the 'Storm the Citadel' situation, I decided to try and seize the initative and throw everything off. And to my opponent's utter horror, I did managed to pull it off. And since he was assuming that he would get his first turn the way he wanted to, his deployment has quite a number of holes in it. So what do I do when I discovered that A)I seized? and B) His deployment has a fatal flaw?

Yes, I actually smiled like that when A) and B) popped in my mind.....

The battle (Essentially the main highlights)
1) The my opening salvo started with a bang with a bang (Literally!) The Vindicator went down hard, and exploded, taking three Vanguards and also one Tactical with it thanks to a side shot from my Ravager. The second volley from my other Ravager exploded the Razorback (Damn those Ravagers). Unfortunately the Raider only managed to strip a hull point away from the Land Speeder.As for the Venoms, they managed to whittle down the tactical marines with Pedro attached to it down to half the squad.

2) His Pedro used his orbital bombardment and managed to explode both of my ravagers and immobilized the Raider. Damn that Str 10 AP1 from the sky!!!!

3)The Razorwing came in during turn 2 and almost obliterated the second Tactical squad with its monoscythe missiles. Razorwing proceed to kill off Pedro and the other marine on turn 3

4) Immobilized Raider managed to blow up the landspeeder in turn 3. Surprisingly the Land Speeder did not managed to kill off anything in my list despite its Typhoon launchers.

5) The Venom and their passengers moved up 6" and shot the second tactical squad gangland style on turn and almost killed them. They also did the same to the Vanguards and the Captain the next round but failing to wipe them out.

5) Vanguard and Captain ran back to one of the objective and discovered that it is sabotaged. My opponent rolled ones for the two turns he was on the objective.

Moving in for the kill

Such sweet cacophony of explosions and screams!

In the end, thanks to first blood and capturing an objective with my Wracks, I managed to get a 4-0 in my favour against my opponent. Nonetheless it was quite clear to both of us that the game's victor is already decided by the top of turn 3. His forces have lost all means of killing my vehicles (the Tac missile launchers were sniped out of their freaking minds, exploding vehicles) and also my guns have the range advantage over his forces.

I believe that the game would have gone much more in his favour if he had chose the heavily terrained side of the table, and his exposed flanks due to the lack of terrain and haphazard deployment did him much harm as he has nothing to truly hide from the firepower of my list. As for me, I should not have lumped up my Ravagers and Raiders like that knowing that he have an orbital bombardment and also Vindicator. In hindsight, it was out of luck that the Vindicator blew up the way it did and thus limiting the number of Str 10 large blast template firing at me. One orbital bombardment is much easier to deal with as compared to one angry vindicator.

I know that I will not be as fortunate for the next league game against another opponent and thus I have to not let this victory go into my head. Hubris kills.

Until next time!