Battle for Salvation: Game 4

Game 4 came. Obviously just after a loss its harder to get pumped for your next game. Add in that its the 4th game of a long day. And even worse... or better... I had to play my good friend and traveling partner in crime Bob from my home club. And we are both exhausted.

The good thing about playing your buddies in this time frame in a tournament is that you are looser with each other and less likely to get annoyed or stressed out. The bad part is you have to either knock out or get knocked out by your friend.

Bob's list is intimidating to mine. He has enough both anti infantry shooting and high strength shooting to mess with my units. But at the same time I have some of the tools to really mess up his lynchpin unit.

Baron Sathonyx

Haemonculus

7 Incubi (Raider with Flickerfield, Enhanced Aethersails, and Shock-Prow)

19 Hellions (including Helliarch with Stunclaw)

3 Wracks (Venom w/ 2 SC)

3x 5 Warriors (Blaster; Venom w/ 2 SC)

3x 6 Reavers (2 Heat Lances each)

3x Ravager (Dark Lances; Flickerfields)

Our mission in game 4 was spearhead, with quarters primary, followed by objectives and kill points or vice versa I dont remember.

I ended up going first... though if I won the roll or he passed it is beyond my intelligence to remember.

Here is our deployment. Me using my harlequins again to deploy my Archon with webway.

Bob his his Helions way back in the building. Had his reavers close to my line. and venoms and ravagers off on the edge.
Turn 1 I moved up and dropped the portal. Bob's turn 1 he turbo boosted all the reavers over my unit... and bladvanes killed me to the last man... ouch. The rest of his army shuffled around a bit. Nothing so far or since has been so effective at killing off my harlequin unit like those reaver jetbikes were. Im glad I was going first and wasnt seized on, that was brutal.

My turn 2 I got both beast packs and a unit of wyches in. I sent each one into a unit of his reavers. In hindsight I should have sent just the wyches into two, and used the beasts to get pressure on the rest of his army. But I wanted to end the reaver threat immediately and totally.
Bob's turn 2 he shuffled his rides around and began taking shots at my beasts and wyches. Wycehs got 4+ cover plus feel no pain. Beasts soaked wounds on birds.
Turn 3 I got the Cronos, 1 Talos, other wych unit and the Incubi in. Cronos came out of the portal in the center to threaten his flank up there. Talos, wyches, and Incubi came off my edge on the right. Its something that people forget that can happen with this list, since units arent dedicated to the webway they can come out of it or the edge. In spearhead I like to place the portal up high in the middle and push units that way early, in the hopes that the enemy slides towards my board edge to create a pincer effect.

Well either my plan or Bob's tiredness worked here. Couple of venoms and a ravager were sitting closer to the edge than he would have liked. Talos wrecked a venom. Incubi got both a huge fleet and huge assault though cover roll and ate a small warrior unit. Not only getting them closer to his lines but also earning them feel no pain.

Wyches on the left stretched out towards the middle and back objectives. Beasts slid around with the left unit hedging toward the objective there with some thoughts of simply hunkering down on that objective.
mmm tasty warriors. I really like how the blue scheme I chose is popping with the purple in these pictures. I cant wait to get the whole army done up like the Incubi are.
Bob kept shooting in turn 3, I think my central and rear wyches went to ground for improved cover. His helions jumped forward to reinforce his lines. His lances easily downed the Cronos as I expected they would.
My turn 4 I got the other Talos in, putting him in the center to reinforce the objective there. Beasts on the left moved to get back towards the fight.

On the right my beast pack and INcubi assaulted his venoms. Took a gun off one venom leaving me in the open with the Incubi. Beasts exploded the other venom leaving one warrior alive.
Bob multi assaulted like crazy. After shooting down all but one Icubi and Drahzar. Did some damage with my beasts and Drahzar, killing all but 2 or so of his Incubi, and perhaps a few helions. But he won combat. Beasts passed morale, and Drahzar passed fearless saves. Helions hit and ran out of combat, leaving Drahzar free to move as he was too far from anything else.
mmm Drahzar likey killy Incubi.
My turn 5 I sent Drahzar scuttling after the Helions who were standing in front of my wych unit. Wyches and Talos joined them in the assault. Beasts made it from the other side to assault a venom, but did nothing.

Drahzar assaulted in with 6 attacks, and killed 7 helions(every time he rolls a 6 to wound he gets a bonus attack, I rolled 3 6's). Talos ate some more, Helions broke and were cut down. Other combat was a draw between beasts and Incubi.

Bob's turn 5 he boosted over to claim an objective with his wracks on the top left. And settled his ravagers to take shots on my Talos.

At this point in the game we were both so lost we lost track of turns... its only in rehashing it that we got it right lol. We ended up thinking that I had last turn, and so we played my half of turn 6 and called it there. I ended up moving to take all 4 quarters, and had 3 objectives to his 2. And was winning on kill points. If we had really done it correctly, he would have likely gotten 1 quarter and 1 objective, perhaps a second quarter, and I would have still gotten 2-3 quarters and won on either objectives 3-1 or kill points.

Bob is great. We have close tight games, especially since we know each other's lists so well as we spend lots of time debating and helping each other craft them. I would have loved to have played someone else, who I dont see every week. But sometimes thats how the cookie crumbles at tournaments. And you cant ask for a better person to play than Bob, and Im not the only one who would say that, he won best sportsman at BFS.

Check out his blog here for his version of events: http://bloodskullsfire.blogspot.com/2011/10/bfs-game-4.html