Re: [Epic] Elias vs Andy Battle Report

From: Elias Tiliakos <elite_at_...>
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 21:35:26 -0400

At 08:31 AM 9/15/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Sorry, Elias, this isn't going to be very detailed. I'm busy, have a cold,
>and don't remember well, anyway. :)

I'm sorry to hear that. Get better soon. :)

Just in case people have forgotten or already deleted my post of the detats
I used, here you go:

-Three Kults of Speed, each with:
Warboss buggy
7 buggies
2 DR speedstas

-One Warband with:
Warboss
Weirdboy
10 boyz
4 Big Gunz
4 Pulsa Rokkits

-One Warlord detachment with:
Warlord, mounted in a battle wagon
6 Nobz
6 battle wagons

-One Battle Fortress Mob with:
5 Battle fortresses.

>
>This was a pretty good terrain setup. The main flaw was to have not enough
>cover on the edges, but that's typical of me. I think our best terrain
>setups are where we use Geo-Hex to create the basic shape of the land, and
>then put terrain items like hills, forests, and towns on top of it. This
>time there was a ridge that went down the length of the table for about half
>the table, and then angled and spread out towards the opposite side. Oh,
>dear, I'm going to have to draw a picture.

I would have to say this was by far the best terrain setup for a game we've
had yet.

<snip map>

>The first was our discussion of orders for detachments. I firmly believe
>that when a detachment of transport units carries a detachment of infantry,
>both must have the same orders. I stated this at the beginning, and it
>wasn't until we were in the game that I figured out Elias' point--Orks don't
>use transport, they use hitching a lift. Sorry, Elias. We have some sort
>of discussion about hitching a lift every game--I keep forgetting about it.
>It already is really an exception to game rules, so detachments could use
>different orders. I'm still not sure about the infantry on overwatch,
>though.

You know, I really wish the hitching a lift rule could get some
clarification from JJ or AC. Pure Infantry detats would be so much more
useful if they could get lifted to a hotspot on a bunch of bwagons from a
separate KOS and still be able to shoot that turn...

>
>I sent an armor detachment up the left, infantry into the ruins, and the
>rest up the center towards the dragon hill. All except titan were on
>assault, so I could move further. Elias very often marches on first turn,
>and did so. He did bring a unit in the ruins close enough for me to
>firefight or assault. However, an orbital barrage did a lot of damage to my
>infantry. I wasn't very careful with assaults or firefights, and took
>several on during the game with minor or no bonuses. I don't remember who
>won the assault, but I lost some more guys. On the left, Elias' detachments
>were mostly behind woods.

I set up with the bforts, the supreme commander, a KOS and the infantry
detat on the my left flank, and 2 KOS's on my right. The first turn, Andy
had to go first for movement, and I didn't notice that most of his detats
were on assault orders, so I marched one of my KOS's right up about 30 cm
away from his infantry detat on the other side of a small ridge. I was
lucky, though. I had the "Orbital Barrage" fate card, and used it with
pretty good success. It only had 12 firepower, but I scored an amazing 4
hits. Both whirlwinds and 2 rhinos got blown to smithereens, and one of the
SM tacticals inside one of the rhinos got killed. The SM Captain in the
other rhino survived by the skin of his teeth. The Infantry detat took
cover in some ruins/woods which wer about 30cm from their starting position,
the bforts lumbered along in a line, and 2 KOS's and the supreme commander
marched out to the right flank. Not much shooting went on this turn, as
nobody was in range. Although the whirlwinds did get to shoot off a salvo
before being destroyed, I had spaced out my buggies, and only 2 firepower
could be mustered from the 2 whirlwinds which were firing. I don't think
the barrage resulted in any casualties.

I think in the assault phase, the SM infantry firefought (firefighted?) the
KOS, but we ended up tieing (sp?) at least once, if not twice. I think I
was fought off in the end, but I rallied pretty quickly. There wasn't
really that much action anywhere else on the board.

>
>
>Oh, I'm just going to summarize.
>
>In the second turn, I played a card to win movement initiative, and Elias
>took it and used it himself. I brought the assault marines and put them
>near the cliff hill. They spent the game moving a little one way, then a
>little another. They never were able to assault the Ork guys in the woods.

I almost felt bad about playing that "Curses, Foiled Again!" fate card. But
hey, all is fair in love and war, right? :) Anyway, the Thunderhawks
swooped in, and dropped off a whole load of assault marines right behind my
supreme commander detat. That didn't prove to be a problem, though, as I
moved farther forward out toward my right flank into some wooded areas with
my Warlord. The 2 KOS detats that were in that area moved up to shoot at
the SM armor detats that were coming into range.

>
>Elias' detachment of infantry, big guns, and pulsas went behind, into, and
>around the woods, and sat there firing at my assault troops or some marines
>in the ruins or my titan.

Yep. This detachment barely got touched the entire game. I think it lost
one or 2 stands of boyz. There just wasn't much Andy could do to get to
them. The assault marines were close enough that any attempts to assault
would have been foiled by blast markers placed by the bforts and the
infantry. Of course, the bforts were easily destroyed once the reaver titan
got into range, but where they faltered in doing significant amounts of
damage, they really helped divert attention from other detachments,
particularly the infantry. The game ended with 3 bforts destroyed, one
wrecked, and one still burning.

>
>His death rays didn't do as much as you might think, mostly due to range.
>The single surviving LR in a SM armor detachment took out two that would
>have meant bad things for the titan.

Well, the DR's were half the reason that SM armor detat only had one LR left...

>
>The Battle Fortresses did exactly what everyone said--they soaked damage.
>Their huge firepower stripped the shields from the Titan, but he regenerated
>all of them (I think the blast markers had an effect, though). I took my
>assault marines and lots of work from my titan (plus some explosions from
>closely packed battle fortresses) to finally destroy them, sparing the Orks
>in the woods and an Ork mob with Death Rays. We forgot to roll for
>critical hits, as one of our multiple missteps.

And we also forgot to count the morale boosting effects of destroyed War
Engines. The morale score was 10-0, in the orks favor, when we tallied it
up at the end of the game. But then Thane posted a message about bugs, and
he mentioned the morale change when he destroyed one bfort, which led me to
reread the morale rules. So the real score should have been either 10-6 or
10-8. A very marginal victory for the greenskins.

>
>Elias was pretty worried at several points in the game,

Heck, I almost conceded the game on the first turn! I hadn't noticed any of
the assault orders, and was lucky I got out of that first turn so unscathed.

> but my infantry
>detachment was at half strength very early, I lost all but one LR in one
>armor detachment, and my assault marines never really got it together, while
>he had at least one almost untouched detachment.
>
>At the end, my Reaver was down to 3 DC, and had 9 BMs. That was 17 morale
>right there. (I rolled a 1 in the rally phase for BM removal.)

The reaver got hammered in the last turn. At least 2 DR's shot the reaver,
but I think one just killed a shield. The infantry detat did some nice work
on it, and the DR that got through after the shields went down immobilized
it. By the end of the turn, it had 9 BMs on it. I was kinda happy about
that, because I normally find Imperial Titans almost impossible to destroy.
Plus it made up for that time I drove a Mega Gargant in range of 3
Scoprions... The darn thing went up in an enormous fireball in one turn. :(

>
>I'm pretty sure that Elias has been replaced by the pod people, because in
>one turn he removed every single blast marker. That couldn't have been the
>real Elias.

Hm. You've figured me out. :)

But really, this game was great on luck for me, because I normally have 2 or
3 detats per turn that just can't do anything because they've been
immobilized by BMs. My rolls for removal, up until this battle, have been
absolutely horrendous.

>
>It was a fun game. I played the Space Marines fairly recklessly in the
>assault phase, but timidly when giving orders. Mobility is such that if you
>move first and go on overwatch, you may face no opponents. I think Elias
>played better, using March orders (I'm usually afraid to do so) and
>generally moving guys around better.
>
>We had some questions:
>1) The rules say you have to make a leadership test to move in the movement
>phase, move in the assault phase, or set overwatch. Does that mean if you
>fail a test for overwatch, you can roll to see about moving in the movement
>phase, or vice versa? Or does it mean that if you fail a single leadership
>test, you can't either move in the movement phase or set overwatch? We
>chose the latter, but I'd guess the roll to move in the assault phase is
>separate.
>
>2) I don't remember the other questions.

Well, I think the hitching a lift thing was the other problem. I can't
recall any others, anyway.

>
>Sorry this is so sketchy.
>
>andy
>


Elias
Received on Wed Sep 16 1998 - 01:35:26 UTC