Clash of Heroes!
So with the new battle missions book I was curios about the special mission Clash of Heroes. It is all about the special character and how many kills they can rack up. Of course, if your character kills your enemies, you instantly win.
Thinking about this, as good as Straken is, against most enemy commanders, he'd get badly beaten. He wouldn't stand a chance. So guard can't go for instant win, we have to go for a points decision. So I designed an army.
My hero? Marbo. He's cheap. He can deploy anywhere I like. And will hopefully make his points back and then some with a well placed demo charge.
To counter my opponent. A mob of 50 conscripts joined by a commissar lord. 5 squads of infantry (mobbed up around a commissar) with chimeras to channel the enemy. A valkyrie for dropping in key avenues of approach, and a couple of stubborn penal squads for desperate situations.
I played against a chaos army, led by Kharne the betrayer. It isn't entirely clear whether killing your own side counts, but we assumed not (thankfully, as he killed most of his squad over 12 rounds of combat!) He had a couple of squads of marines, a squad of beserkers, a defiler, a squad of lesser daemons, a daemon prince and a couple of rhinos.
Target 1 for me was the rhinos. I wanted kharne walking where I could keep an eye on him. I also ran all my (empty) chimeras straight at the enemy to bunch up the field of play. I then steered my 50 strong mobs towards Kharne. My opponent took the bait. Now over the course of the game he managed to wipe out the conscripts, with the daemon prince and the beserkers sharing the spoils of victory. But with a stubborn Commissar Lord keeping the conscripts in check, the fight lasted a long time. Long enough for the infantry platoon to pile in. My opponent made a big error - assaulting the valkyrie with two squads. He did nothing, and the valkyrie could move off, leaving him in a nice demo charge bundle... sadly Marbo showed me his one flaw. Relying on a reserve roll. He failed to come in till turn FIVE!!! In which time kharne hacked and slashed, and between conscripts and guardsmen, killed 35 men over the course of a 7 turn game. But my men would not run.
In the end, the combat was still going as the game drew to a close, and Kharne had made back 158 of the 165 it cost to buy him. So -7 scoreline. Marbo? Turned up, and despite my opponents efforts to keep the demo charge at bay by assaulting tanks and hoping for an immobilised result but not a kill, I got to throw it and killed 5 lesser daemons, making his points back in one fell swoop. The chaos marines then charged him (aware of his sniper pistol) and over a couple of rounds of combat they killed him several times... course in this scenario he cannot die! He struck a couple of them down to give an overall score of 30 for the win.
So my theory proved workable, depsite many things going wrong. Oh how I'd have loved to face Abbaddon and a term squad, with Marbo showing up promptly.
A: "Who dares blow up half my terminator squad?!? You! I'll kill you. Wait, die silly conscript... out of my way you foolish human... Marbo, where are you going? Face me... not you conscript! How many more of you are there?!? 40 more! And who's that guy in black at the back waving you all forward? Don't listen to him! Fear me! Marbo I'll get you yet... You've got yourself an ICE CREAM?!?!? Gah! Get off my shoe you worm!!!"
Thinking about this, as good as Straken is, against most enemy commanders, he'd get badly beaten. He wouldn't stand a chance. So guard can't go for instant win, we have to go for a points decision. So I designed an army.
My hero? Marbo. He's cheap. He can deploy anywhere I like. And will hopefully make his points back and then some with a well placed demo charge.
To counter my opponent. A mob of 50 conscripts joined by a commissar lord. 5 squads of infantry (mobbed up around a commissar) with chimeras to channel the enemy. A valkyrie for dropping in key avenues of approach, and a couple of stubborn penal squads for desperate situations.
I played against a chaos army, led by Kharne the betrayer. It isn't entirely clear whether killing your own side counts, but we assumed not (thankfully, as he killed most of his squad over 12 rounds of combat!) He had a couple of squads of marines, a squad of beserkers, a defiler, a squad of lesser daemons, a daemon prince and a couple of rhinos.
Target 1 for me was the rhinos. I wanted kharne walking where I could keep an eye on him. I also ran all my (empty) chimeras straight at the enemy to bunch up the field of play. I then steered my 50 strong mobs towards Kharne. My opponent took the bait. Now over the course of the game he managed to wipe out the conscripts, with the daemon prince and the beserkers sharing the spoils of victory. But with a stubborn Commissar Lord keeping the conscripts in check, the fight lasted a long time. Long enough for the infantry platoon to pile in. My opponent made a big error - assaulting the valkyrie with two squads. He did nothing, and the valkyrie could move off, leaving him in a nice demo charge bundle... sadly Marbo showed me his one flaw. Relying on a reserve roll. He failed to come in till turn FIVE!!! In which time kharne hacked and slashed, and between conscripts and guardsmen, killed 35 men over the course of a 7 turn game. But my men would not run.
In the end, the combat was still going as the game drew to a close, and Kharne had made back 158 of the 165 it cost to buy him. So -7 scoreline. Marbo? Turned up, and despite my opponents efforts to keep the demo charge at bay by assaulting tanks and hoping for an immobilised result but not a kill, I got to throw it and killed 5 lesser daemons, making his points back in one fell swoop. The chaos marines then charged him (aware of his sniper pistol) and over a couple of rounds of combat they killed him several times... course in this scenario he cannot die! He struck a couple of them down to give an overall score of 30 for the win.
So my theory proved workable, depsite many things going wrong. Oh how I'd have loved to face Abbaddon and a term squad, with Marbo showing up promptly.
A: "Who dares blow up half my terminator squad?!? You! I'll kill you. Wait, die silly conscript... out of my way you foolish human... Marbo, where are you going? Face me... not you conscript! How many more of you are there?!? 40 more! And who's that guy in black at the back waving you all forward? Don't listen to him! Fear me! Marbo I'll get you yet... You've got yourself an ICE CREAM?!?!? Gah! Get off my shoe you worm!!!"
Sounds like an interesting mission and very epic. I'd like to try this one out at some point, although not sure what character I'd pick. Did you say if upgrade characters count or not?
ReplyDeleteI'll have to check, it said named character (or lacking one of those, an IC or monstrous creature)
ReplyDeleteWith a souped up command squad to use as ablative armour, and a couple of battle tanks to blow apart your rivals bodyguard, then yes Straken may have a chance in combat against some of the best opposition characters. I still think one of the strongest would be ELdrad Ulthran... Mind War FTW.
Emporers chump?
ReplyDeleteMoves into base contact with commissar. Mwhaha instant death. Taking care of the stubborn option. rest of the templars waste the conscripts leaving the chump to chase them all down. Not bad for a 140 point model.
Hmm good one. Against him it'd have to be a different tactic. Perhaps a battle tank squadron to decimate his bodyguard, then tie him up with penal legion squads (naturally stubborn, no characters)
ReplyDeleteIf I used the same army as last time (which i designed knowing I'd be facing a chaos character) then my best bet would be to send seperate squads in, feed them in one at a time, the templars squad should decimate them meaning no run down bonus. Just try to only feed him one squad per marine turn, limit him to 250 points tops. So 110 profit. Then all it takes is a well placed demo charge from Marbo wiping out a squad to claim the win :oD