|
Hi
I had a 2,700 points game Epic last Wednesday playing SM (Crimson Fists) against local gaming club members IG (Steel Legion). My opponent, Alex, took 3 Leman Russ companies, a Basilisk company & 4 Sentinels ? no infantry!!! I took 3 tactical detachments, 1 devastator, 2 assault, 1 bike, 1 predator & 1 terminator detachment- effectively I had 1 reinforced SM company. 2 of the tactical detachments were bolstered by Supreme Commander and Librarian respectively, with a Chaplain exhorting 1 of the Assault detachments on.
We played on a 6? by 5? table. The main bits of terrain was a some thick hedges placed diagonally in the middle of table, which Alex decided should be impenetetrable terrain ?and thus you could not move or shoot through, apart from 1 gap which was in the dead centre of table. Apart from that 1 had small urban area on my left (3 of FW building) and a hill on the right. Alex had 2 further hills on his deployment zone, one on each flank.
I set up my bikes on the extreme right flank with my tactical, devastator & predator detachments in the middle, with infantry mounted up in rhinos. The assault formations lurked behind the rhinos (the almost ubiquitous T-Hawk not yet painted up in Crimson Fists colours) with terminators ready to deep strike. Alex placed his 3 Leman Russ companies evenly across his baseline with artillery company centrally and the sentinel on his extreme left opposite my bikes.
First turn:
I was lucky to win initiave and seeing 9 basilisks without infantry cover there was only 1 option. Terminators have kicked butt in every game of Epic ?we have played so far and this was no exception. The terminators took out couple of basssies and their tough armour shrugged off return firefight. Rolling a 6 on the combat resolution roll certainly helped and with Alex?s unfortunate low roll meant that a further 5 bassies were wiped out!! The 2 surviving bassies fled from these teleporting nasties to leave them at the mercy of IG revenge fire.
Some 30 dice rolls later three quarters of the termies were wiped out, their armour unable to withstand the weight of enemy fire. The sole survivor ran for cover but satisfied by a job well done. The central company of Leman Russ went onto overwatch whilst the other rumbled forward to park on the hill overlooking my left hand flank.
On the other flank the sentinels and bikes zoomed towards each other, the assault bike placing a solitary blast marker but doing no damage. The rest of my army rushed forward at triple speed with 1 of assault detachments able to jump behind the sentinels to set up potential cross fire for turn 2. The central Leman Russ company had an opportunity to fire at 1 of my tactical detachments as it zipped forward but chose not to given the cover bonus. In end phase both bassies and terminator rallied and the sentinels cleared their 1 blast marker.
Second turn:
Winning initiative again I shot with the attack bike again, this time killing a sentinel due to cross fire reducing their armour save. Trying to retain the initiative I failed before I remembered the Supreme Commander re-roll in the nick of time. The assault marines ambled forward chopping up the remaining 3 sentinels with ease. This time I remembered the consolidation move to nudge closer to the enemy lines.
The Leman Russ parked on the hill on my left flank went onto overwatch. Faced with 20 Leman Russ on overwatch, I left that flank untouched and concentrated on the other flank. ?I was able to use the SM speed (90cm when triple move!!) to radly redeploy to allow my smaller formations to gang up on his much larger formation- the 3 rd Leman Russ company.
My shooting did n't do much damage with only 2 casualties from fire of 2 SM Tactical formations, devastators AND predators (cursed 4+ reinforced armour on his Leman Russ) but also placed 5 blast markers to suppress their return fire. I was surprised when Alex chose not to fire with this 3rd Leman Russ company choosing to move to be in position for next turn. Even though 5 of the remaining 7 Russes were suppressed I would personally have shot to start whittling down the SM. In the end phase the 3rd Leman Russ company cleared 3 BM?s to leave just 2.
Third turn:
Winning initiative again I ganged up on the 3rd Leman Russ company, shooting at them with devastators (killing 2 more Russes) to add another ?3 blast markers before charging into close assault. My tactical detachment bounced off their thick armour, and I suffered 2 casualties to none. However again I had good rolls for combat resolution and with all bonuses for outnumbering & blast markers I won the combat by 1, breaking the 3rd Leman Russ company.
The other 2 Leman Russ companies remained on overwatch but there was no way I was going near them. It may not have been heroic for SM tactical detachment with Supreme Commnader to hide behind hill but it was certainly tactically advantageous. As they were Crimson Fists rather than frothing Blood Angels/Space Wolves I decided would be stupid to brave the fire of 20 Leman Russ.
At end of 3 d turn I had won 1 victory condition (They Shall Not Pass) and almost won 2 others Take and Hold (foiled by enemy forces being 1cm within range to contest baseline objective) and Break Their Spirit (the 3 rd Leman Russ Company was broken but not destroyed). So it finished one-nil.
After game debrief:
It was shame that game ended up being as one sided as it was was. I don?t think it was that enjoyable for Alex.
Alex definitely needed to get a supreme commander as he was very unlucky with his activation rolls. When he did get to activate his firing was very deadly but he suffered from not getting enough turns of shooting in. Because Alex had so few formations, when he did fail an activation it did cost him dearly.
Alex definitely needed some infantry to protect his artillery from my deep striking terminators. He could have then taken supreme commander for re-rolled failed initiative and also taken some commissars.
If he could have shot his artillery early in the game it could have destroyed the far smaller SM formations and at the very least would have made it harder for me to activate if I already had Blast Markers.
In my previous games against Alex I had used my Orks. Those games were far more straight forward slugfests with real war of attrition between IG & Orks meaning that we had had a close win apiece. He had faced Jim?s SM before but Jim had n?t exploited the full manouvreability of the SM. I think my use of triple moves for the first two turns to redeploy caught him on the hop. His Leman Russes did n?t get enough shots in as he was keeping them in Overwatch in static positions rather than moving & firing. I know when you adavance that any shooting is ?1 to hit but with the weight of shots from 20 Leman Russes that would have made me far more cautious.
From my side it was good to play Epic Armageddon again after couple of months break. Also good to finally play decent sized game. The previous games I had played were slowly working up from missions in the rulebook to then 1,000 points and then 1,200/1,500/1,800/2,000/2,500 points. It was good to finally play a Grand Tournament size legal army. Next up we will try 3,000 points to allow us 1/2 more units.
So far we have managed to get 4 regular players of Epic at our local gaming club with another 4 more sporadic occasional players. I am hoping to play Hanbury?s Orks soon and then Jim?s Chaos when he gets back in a month.
Cheers
James[B][/U][U]
|
