However, once the Kauyon supplement got released, I immediately fell in love with the Scarblade Strike Force. I love the "Decurion" style detachments, as I'm sure you could tell if you ever looked at my list building. If I can, I almost always build to these formations, because getting benefits on top of benefits is always good, and it makes me use units that I otherwise might never take in my army. So, that being said, the formations in Kauyon are amazing, and fun, and very fluffy for the armies involved.
The Armies:
Scarblade Strike Force 1850
Stormlance Demi-Company
Chaplain w/ Bike, Hunter's Eye and Meltabombs
3 x 10 Tactical Marines w/ Meltagun, Combi-Melta and Rhino
Attack Bike w/ Multi-Melta
10 Devestators w/ 2 Grav Cannons and Rhino
Hunting Force
Ko'sarro Khan w/ Moondraken
3 x 5 Bikers w/ 2 Gravguns, Combi-Grav and Melta Bombs
Attack Bike w/ Multi-Melta
3 Scout Bikers
Speartip Strike
2 Attack Bikes w/ Heavy Bolter
1 Landspeeder w/ Heavy Bolter
The core of the army revolves around the Stormlance; they're my objective seekers, they do some duty as tank hunters and getting re-rolls against anything trying to hold an objective. The Hunting force is where a lot of my hitting power hangs out; it packs a ton of shooting power, and coupled with re-rolls against the hunting targets is just brutal. The final formation, the Speartip Strike, is only okay. I think it could be pretty amazing with a lot of unis, but I didn't really have points for this, and so I just made sure that they were pretty cheap (as you have to take an auxiliary unit in the Scarblade).
I played my friend and co-star of previous battle reports Jon M; he brought a combo of Grey Knights and Blood Angels, as he usually does:
Mortalis Strike Force:
Chaplain w/ Special Jump Pack (the re-roll scatter deep strike one)
10 Death Company, 4 Power Swords, Thunder Hammer
5 Death Company with Jump Packs
5 Death Company w/ Bolters and Las/Plas Razorback
2 Death Company Dreadnoughts, one in Lucius Pattern Drop Pod
Stormraven w/ Multi-Melta, Assault Cannons and Hurricane Bolters
Grey Knight Nemesis Strike Force
Librarian w/ Master Level 2
5 Terminators w/ Psycannon
Dreadknight w/ Hammer, Gatling Psilenser, Heavy Psycannon
Dreadknight w/ Sword, Heavy Psycannon and Heavy Incinerator
It's a pretty nasty list; with the terminators, and Pod-naught dropping in the first turn, and the Death Company plus another Dreadnought coming in fairly reliably in turn two. In this case, he even got the Warlord Trait on the Chaplain that let him re-roll his reserve rolls.
So, we rolled up Big Guns never tire, as we decided not to play an ITC mission this time. I actually won the roll-off to see who gets to place first, and I gave it to my opponent. I wanted to see how my army would do against Jon's Alpha Strike play-style; this was a test run for a list I was pretty proud of. So, he deployed first, setting up both Dreadknights as well as the two small squads of Death Company as well as their transport. I had to choose my Hunting Force Targets; I chose the Chaplain as Primary, the Heavy Incinerator Dreadknight and Secondary and the Heavy Psilenser Dreadknight as Tertiary. I then scouted up my rhinos and bikes, but not too far; hoping to stay out of assault distance of the Dreadknights and JP-Death Company. I failed to Seize.
Turn 1.
Jon got great scatters on the first turn, deploying his Terminators behind my lines in my deployment zone with no scatter, and also no scatter on the drop pod. The Psilencer DK teleport shunted up the table, while the incinerator one jumped up, and was realistically in assault range. I'm not great at scout redeployments yet; I guess I thought I was more out of range, but clearly I wasn't. The JP-DC were also close enough to assault my other flanking DC-Squad.
His shooting was pretty decent - the Razorback killed a rhino, and I lost about four marines from this squad from other shooting. I also lost two bikes from the squad Jon was going to assault with the DK, but after killing them it was a huge charge and he failed. The JP-DC did manage to assault, even after I killed on on overwatch. We weakly flailed at each other in melee and I hit and ran out of combat. He consolidated with the DC onto an objective (which ended up being a bad idea).
On my turn one, I moved my bikes away from his dreadnought at towards his deepstriking terminators and DK's. I ended up killing both everything in the terminator squad minus one terminator (so both the chaplain and librarian as well), and the secondary target DK. Jesus re-rolling grav is powerful. I also vaporized a coupe of the JPDC on the objective with my tactical marines; since he was controlling it, they got to re-roll to hit against them. I believe I also took a hull point off the razorback. I tried but failed to assault the lone terminator with my biker/HQ squad.
Turn 2.
On my turn, my scout bikers arrived from Outflank, and I managed to bolter and then assault the razorback doing a couple hull points. My other biker units finish off the last DK. Everything moves around in an effort to get to some of the backfield objectives or out of the line of fire from the surviving units. One of the mutli-melta attack bikes finishes off the immobilized dreadnought.
Turn 3.
I try and do nothing absolutely nothing to the Stormraven. Some tacticals finish off the Razorback, and the combined shooting of several land speeders, plus some bikes and attack bikes finish off the other dreadnought. The biker "command" squad braces for a huge Death Company assault.
Turn 4.
On my turn, Khan and the Chaplain move into coherency with my last biker unit, and between them and the rest of my army, they destroy the Death Company. Jon made 0 FnP saves though, so it probably should not have been as effective as it was.
Turn 5.
Overview:
Let me know what you think; I'm still working on my style. I know I need more pictures, but I'm having a hard time stopping in the heat of battle to take some pics.
Thanks for reading!
Great battle report! It definitely seemed like a very fun game. I really enjoy playing the decurion-style detachments as well, they generally sate my thirst for competitive and thematic play, which really is great. Do you think the Stormlance is worth taking in a White Scars themed army, or is it better to go with Hunting Forces or Demi-Companies? I like the idea of battle focus-ing back into transports, but I wasn't sure if it was anything beyond a cool move. What do you think?
ReplyDeleteHey Hunchkrot,
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I think I like it better than the Demi-company, and it's hard to compare it to the Hunting Force because it's so different - it's a good way to add a lot of basic infantry models into your army.
I like it even when they're out of the rhinos, as it gives me a little more mobility; the nice thing is that I can move after firing heavy weapons too (like the Grav Cannons, for example).
Also, getting twin linked is pretty great against people who like to camp objectives with weaker troops, like Gretchin or Cultists (or even heavy troops when you're rolling Grav). Also, since you're never ObSec, you can be as close as you want without worrying about knocking yourself out of control.
I haven't found objective secured to be super useful; I can think of only one game in seventh that I've won because of it. I'd rather have more abilities.
Thanks for posting!