Events
and Battle Reports
Counter
Offensive 6
Intro
<> Battle Summaries Part 1 <> Part
2 <> Part 3 <> Bug
Hunt 2 <> Photos
Counter Offensive
6: Battle Summaries, Part 3
by Patrick Eibel
“Lord, I am so tired. How long
can this go on?”
--Devo
It is hard to believe a year has
passed since the last Counter Offensive,
so I was more than ready to face three days of non-stop gaming once again.
Long gaming weekends can be draining, what with staying up late and playing
so many games, but they are also immensely fun. This year I managed
to get in seven games with four different armies, ranging from 1500 points
to about 6,000 points. The great thing about this event is that it
is a casual weekend of gaming with none of the pressure of winning a tournament,
so even though I was bone-tired by the end I had lots of fun over the course
of the weekend.
The rule of thumb for the weekend
was to have 1500-point army lists, so I wrote up a Kult of Speed list and
an all-purpose Imperial Guard list. I would use these lists for the
games during the day, but there were some special events planned for the
nights. On Friday night, July 31, I had planned an Apocalypse battle
between Chaos Space Marines and Loyalist Marines. I would provide
3,000 points of the bad boys using my Space Wolves as Wolf
Brothers. Saturday, I would run a special scenario based
on the Bug Hunt idea that was done at Spring
Offensive eight years ago. With the help of Michael Lietzke,
who ran the original Bug Hunt, I would be fielding the Tyranids
while the players would be bringing about 1,000 points of Troops and HQ
and trying to survive.
Friday
The festivities got off to a start
on Friday as people started to arrive from out of town, and by 6:00, four
of us from the excellent Millenium
Gate forum were sitting on my patio drinking margaritas and eating
hamburgers. After catching up (and cleaning up), we got down to business.
Mel Glover (aka Cambyses) and Michael (aka Ryjak) would make
up the loyal side, and Bryan Layton (aka Justiciar) and I would
handle the renegades. Each side would have a total of 5,500 points,
including a Baneblade. My Wolf Brother list also had the following:
-
Daemon Prince with
wings, Mark of Khorne
-
Chaos Lord with
plasma pistol, Bloodfeeder, meltabombs, icon, Mark of Khorne, and
Juggernaut
-
9 Chosen led by
Aspiring Champion, 1 with icon of Khorne, 2 with power fists, 1 with meltabomb,
the Aspiring champion has lightning claws
-
5 Chaos Terminators:
3 with combi-weapons and power fists, 1 with heavy flamer and power fist,
Champion with combi-weapon, power weapon, and icon
-
4 Chaos Space Marine
Squads in Rhinos. Each Squad is led by a Champion with a power
fist and has an icon of Khorne. 2 squads have flamers, 1 has a meltagun,
and 1 has a plasma gun. All Rhinos have extra armor
-
15 Berserkers led
by a Skull Champion with a power fist
-
8 Lesser Daemons
-
Chaos Land Raider
(used by the Chosen)
-
Predator Annihilator
with extra armor
-
Vindicator with extra armor
The game took place on my gaming table,
which is 4' by 6'. To make up for the lack of width, we played the
game with each side deploying at the far ends. As with most two-on-two
battles, the game broke down to Bryan against Mel and Michael against me,
and with both Baneblades facing off against each other. The game
was a real slugfest, as both sides were content to trade shooting for most
of the game, and without any D weapons, significant casualties were hard
to come by. In the end, the Chaos side won because we had taken the
Objective stratagem that allowed an objective count as two. A close
game and a good time had by all.
Pat in one of his trademark
Hawaiian shirts, prepping for a game with his Kult of Speed
Saturday
After recovering from the previous
night’s festivities with coffee and breakfast at the Silver Diner, I was
set to roll out the Kult of Speed for a day of games. I had created
a 1500-point list designed to get in the opponent’s face ASAP. The
list included the following:
-
Big Mek Speedo
with Kustom Force Field, burna, ‘eavy armor, bosspole
-
3 squads of Trukk Boyz
with 9 boyz including one rokkit launcha and led by a Nob with ‘eavy armor,
bosspole, and power klaw. Trukks have big shootas, grot riggers, armor
plates, stikkbomb chukkas, and red paint jobs
-
17 ‘ard Boyz led
by a Nob with ‘eavy armor, bosspole, and power klaw
-
Battlewagon with
grot riggers, armor plates and stikkbomb chukka
-
3 Warbuggies with
twin-linked rokkit launchas and red paint job
-
2 Wartrakks with
twin-linked big shootas, red paint job
-
19 Stormboyz led
by a Nob with ‘eavy armor¸ bosspole, and power klaw
The first game of the day would be against
a familiar face: Mel and his Emperor's Wolfhound Space Marines that had
been in the Apocalypse game. The mission was Capture and Control
with Pitched Battle deployment. I sent the Orks up the left side
of the board and ran into the wall that is Pedro Kantor. My Ork units
ended up separated and fighting Space Marine units straight up, and with
Pedro hanging out nearby, that was not a fair fight. I lost badly,
but learned some valuable lessons that would help me for the rest of the
day.
Pat and Mel duke it out
while Michael Lietzke (in white shirt) waits for a piece of Ork
To continue the sense of déjà
vu, my second game was against Michael, the other Marine player in the
Apocalypse game. The mission was Annihilation with Dawn of War deployment.
Michael's Vindicator Marines found it hard to get shots, and soon enough
were locked in desperate close combat. Using the lessons learned
from the previous battle, I made sure to send multiple Ork units against
the Marines. In the end, I had three units chasing down two Marines
squads and their Razorbacks. The Orks pulled a win by one Kill Point.
The Kult would get one more game
before the end of the day. I found a willing opponent in PJ, one
of a group of players that had drove down from Frederick. To finish
out the mission choices for the day, I suggested Seize Ground with the
Spearhead deployment. PJ had full complement of Deathwing Terminators,
so I knew I would have my work cut out for me.
PJ's Terminators plod into
action against Pat's Kult of Speed. That's a LOT of 2+ Saves....
The game started with PJ dropping
a unit of Termies right outside my deployment zone. Knowing that
I would have to really slam any Terminator unit in assault, I threw 30
Orks and a lot of fire at the unit near my lines, and they fell to a man.
I proceeded to keep the heat on, but Belial was every bit the match for
the Orks in close combat. The game ended in a draw, with PJ holding
one objective, me holding one, and one being contested. After the
game, I realized that had I moved one Trukk closer to contest PJ’s objective,
I could have won.
The day ended back at my house with
The
Bug Hunt 2.
Tyranid Warriors and a Carnifex
converge on Kenton's Dvergar in this
year's Bug Hunt
Sunday
Finally, on the last day, I brought
out the Imperial Guard. I was trying out a new list that used the
Command HQ as a mobile assault unit. Here is the 1500 point list:
-
Company Command
with medipack, Standard Bearer, 2 meltaguns, and a Commander with a power
weapon; accompanied by two bodyguard
-
Lord Commissar
with a power fist
-
Priest with an
eviscerator
-
All of the above in a
Vendetta
-
Infantry Platoon
with 2 squads with missile launchers and grenade launchers, 2 squads with
heavy bolters and plasma guns, two Platoon Command squads, one with an
autocannon and plasma gun, the other one with lascannon and meltagun.
There are also two Heavy Weapon Teams: one with 3 lascannons and one with
3 heavy bolters
-
Veteran Squad with
3 meltaguns and Sgt Harker
-
Leman Russ Demolisher
with hull-mounted lascannon and extra armor
My first game of the day would be against
James
Arnold, author of the Fighting Tiger Black
Ops articles and--as we found out Satruday night--a mighty fine
Rock
Band drummer. James had his contingent of Black Templars, which
were beautifully painted and ready for business. I made the mistake
of concentrating my heavy fire on his Land Raider full of Terminators rather
than his three squads of dudes, and in the end could not kill enough of
them (damn zealot Marines) before they closed to assault range and the
game was effectively over. Had the Demolisher focused on the exposed
troops in the rounds before it was destroyed, I may have had better luck.
At least the Veterans smoked the squad of Terminators.
James' beautifully-painted
Land Raider Crusader. It even has inscriptions on the bottom of the tank!
To round out the weekend, I played
in a three-way battle with Michael and Bryan in a capture-the-hill kind
of thing. I had to leave before the game was truly over, but it was
fun to hang out for a little while longer.
So in all, I got seven games in one
weekend, including a giant Apocalypse battle. The main thing I took
away from the weekend was the fun of hanging out with the other gamers.
When there are so many good people to hang out with, it makes me wish the
weekend was longer. Of course, there is now talk of doing something
in October, so maybe it won’t be so long before I get to do it again.
Counter
Offensive 6
Intro
<> Battle Summaries Part 1 <> Part
2 <> Part 3 <> Bug
Hunt 2 <> Photos
Related Pages
Other
Counter Offensives
Posted September 2009
Top |
