Battlereport for Approval, Number 2Another game on Vassal. Here are the army lists used:
AirAssault Marines, 3000 POINTS Codex Astartes (NetEA Tournament Pack 2018)
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TACTICAL [350] 6 Tacticals, Hunter, Rhinos
ASSAULT [175] 4 Assault Units
DEVASTATOR [300] 4 Devastators, Dreadnought, Drop Pods
SCOUT [175] 4 Scouts, Rhinos, Razorback
SCOUT [175] 4 Scouts, Rhinos, Razorback
TERMINATOR [400] 4 Terminators, Chaplain
PREDATOR [250] 4 Annihilator
LAND SPEEDER [200] 5 Landspeeder
LAND SPEEDER [200] 5 Landspeeder
Navy
THUNDERHAWK [200]
THUNDERHAWK [200]
STRIKE CRUISER [200]
THUNDERBOLT SQUADRON [175] 2 Thunderbolt Fighters
Stormtroopers and Double Vultures, 3000 POINTS Mobile Forces of Catachan (Mobile Forces of Catachan 0.4.3 Developmental)
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Core
AIRBORNE REGIMENTAL HQ [350] 7 Infantry Units and 1 Supreme Commander, 3 Valkyrie, 1 Vendetta
AIRBORNE INFANTRY COMPANY [300] 7 Infantry Units and 1 Commander, 3 Valkyrie, 1 Ogryn and 2 Vendetta
AIRBORNE OGRYN COMPANY [400] 5 Ogryn Units and 1 Commander, 4 Valkyrie, 2 Vendetta, 2 Drop Sentinels, Sky Talons
Support
AIRBORNE STORM TROOPER PLATOON [350] 8 Stormtroopers, 4 Valkyries
AIRBORNE STORM TROOPER PLATOON [350] 8 Stormtroopers, 4 Valkyries
VULTURES [300] 4 Vultures
VULTURES [300] 4 Vultures
AIRBORNE SUPPORT PLATOONS [225] 1 Imperial Guard Infantry Unit, 1 Imperial Guard Commander, 4 Imperial Guard Fire Support Units, 3 Valkyrie
Navy
THUNDERBOLT SQUADRON [150] 2 Thunderbolt Fighters
LIGHTNING SQUADRON [150] 2 Lightning Strike Fighter
SPACECRAFT [125] Lunar Class Cruiser
This time the game was against fairly regular Marines. I chose a rather light Air Wing this time. Marine player chose L-shape for deployment and placed the objectives so that I could not use up my Vultures to maximum effect. Albeit I had two formations I only put up one in overwatch, the other Overwatch formation beeing the Thunderbolts, because of the THawk with Terminators inside and their potential to destroy everything singlehandedly.
I missed out to do a screencap of the deployment, sorry for that.
Marines won initiative and opened up with the drop of the Devastators. Barrage and Deathwind destroyed one of the overwatching Vultures and pinged the Valkyrie formation on the left side of the table. Retaining with the pinged (Overwatch from Vultures) Devastators, the Marines do a sustained fire on the damaged Valkyrie formation and crippling the formation even further. Retailiation is harsh, from a formation of Stormtroopers engaging the damaged devastators. Due to some good dice the devastators are reduced to a single stand and the Dread and wont rally till the end of the game. After pinging the BTS formation with some Thunderbolts and stalling for a good moment, the Terminators fly in and the CAP'ing Tbolts of the Catachans fail to destroy the Hawk. Terminators nearly bounce off the BTS because of horrendous dice, killing only just enough stands to break the formation and loosing a single Terminator as well.
Rest of the turn sees Catachans struggling to put damage on the Marines, mainly because they are advancing fairly defensivly, apart from a horribly bad Land Speeder move, risking their life to shoot down a Vulture, getting decimated in return a bit.
This is the game after rallying and removing flyers.
Full sizeTurn 2 starts with Marines again. The Scouts still camp out at their respective objectives and are lucky that the barrage of the Lunar hits nothing at all, even with the THawk out of the picture because it in fact did not land in T2. Predators realize they are placed very bad on the right side and move over to the middle of the table. Overall a very cautious turn again, seeing the demise of the Terminators by combined arms of the whole Catachan army, because the Marine player could not stall long enough last turn to pick them up safely without risking their lives in the secon THawk, beeing parked in the middle of the Catachan army for bus duty. Pretty disappointing are two engages bouncing off due to very weak dice and great saves from me are a full Tactical formation with support from some Land Speeders and the Assault Marines who loose three stands reducing them to objective contestors. Overall Catachans loose fairly few units this turn, mainly because the Predators were parked at the wrong point last turn, the failed engages, the Scouts non-contributing to the battle because of their guarding duty and the Terminators, well, beeing dead.
This is the game after rallying and removing flyers.
Full sizeTurn three started with the Marines again, but without the real need to capitalize on that. The catachans can play out their superior numbers and mobility at this point but they cannot put enough pressure on the Marines to end the game. One speeder formation is destroyed by the Fire Support platoon. The second Stormtrooper formation moves up to catch the Blitz and win the game in T4, but because I played that defensivly I could not claim victory in T3. Scouts finally take part in the battle and the predators finally try to put a tally on the Valkyries and other VTOL. At this point only 10 Valkyries (15 downed already) and 6 Vultures (only two downed) remain, stranding a fair amount of infantry on foot (13 stands, but affecting 3 of 6 possible formations). The Marines really need to win the next iniative roll, to kill the Stormtroopers on the left half of the table ideally to do some useful stuff with hte nearly destroyed speeders as well. Currently the game is 0-1 for Catachan
This is the game after rallying and removing flyers.
Full sizeBut they fail. What follows is what was to be expected - Scouts get nearly wiped out from the Catachans, but they can't protect their BTS against the Marine aircraft, giving the Marines their first goal. After a couple of very bad activation rolls on both sides, Catachans can't move up to the Blitz, nor can the Scouts on the right side conga up to contest/claim their own Blitz. In the end of the turn not much had happened apart from the Scouts beeing destroyed. The speeders failed to activate, and unable to move around the Vultures on the right they could not contest the objective on the right side. The Thunderhawk, intending to give fire support on the left side and clip-engaging with the Assault marine results in two rounds of combat - and the Assault Marine sadly dead afterwards and a Valkyrie formation sitting on the Blitz. The other Thawk was needed to kill the BTS and the Predators beeing used to destroy the Stormtroopers Valkyires and contesting/holding the own objective removing the last unit which contested the "Defend The Flag" goal.
This is the end of the game.
Full sizeThe game ended with a 2-1 (Defend the flag and BTS vs BTS).
Conclusion:
The army feels very brittle but the Scout rule is a real pain for the enemy and probably the greatest weapon the Catachan player has available. It is even stronger than the Vulture Rockets and their insane range and overwatch capability. Templates from the Valkyries doesnt do that much, their psycological effect is much higher due to them moving on doubles or risking the passengers on the other hand. The Marine player did not felt "without hope", but the list ain't a walk in the park either. The missing Titans and nonexistent tough BTS unit choices for the Catachans are feeling pretty well, putting an emphesis on the mobile aspect of the army. Stripping the formations of their Valkyries and Vendetta is a serious problem and feels satisfying for the enemy as well as each loss contributes to the downfall of the army and not like Krieg lists where you reallly have to kill that darn Gorgon/Warhound to have any effect on it's winning strategy.
I plan to do some more games, against Guard this time, but with actual miniatures with Spike in roughly a week. Now I only need two more groups to contribute/test/give feedback. So... pretty please?