Battle Brothers January 2014: Game 1

Mission: relic

Deployment: dawn of war

Terrain: forest in the centre of each deployment zone, ruin in the left of each deployment zone and a big ruin in the centre of the table

Warlord trait Tau: Predator of the skies (one use skyfire)

Warlord trait Iron hands: Not sure, might have been librarian got blessing of the omnissiah

Psychic powers

Eldar: guide, misfortune, presience

Iron hands: endurance

Night fight: yes

Opponents:

Iron hands

Librarian, terminator armour, storm shield, force axe (warlord)

10 tactical marines, meltagun, combi melta, melta bombs, multimelta, drop pod

8 tactical marines, meltagun, combi melta, melta bombs, drop pod

Storm talon, skyhammer missiles, assault cannon

Storm talon, skyhammer missiles, assault cannon

Space sharks allies

Tiberius the red wake

5 lightning claw terminators

Land raider redeemer, multimelta

Storm talon, skyhammer missiles, assault cannon

Deployment

They deployed only the land raider (containing the terminators) which sat in the centre of their deployment zone beside a forest.

We placed the hunter, and suits in reserve. The hammerhead on our left with the pathfinders ready to scout into the ruin on our left, both firewarriors and fireblade in the forest in our deployment zone, riptide in the centre. Skyray behind the firewarriors, and a unit of jetbikes on either side of the skyray to protect against drop pods. The farseer joined the jetbikes nearest the riptide.

With a spot of good fortune, we seized the initiative.

The farseer guided and presienced a whole load of stuff, and the riptide charged up his gattling gun, advancing on the land raider. The hammerhead swung round to the left using the pathfinder’s markerlights to destroy the land raider with a clean penetrating hit (first blood). The terminators pile out, only to be blasted apart by riptide fire. I believe three died and Tiberius lost a wound.

The marine’s retaliation involved a mad dash from the terminators and a drop pod landing behind the hammerhead. The marines piled out, only to be cut down by rending interceptor fire from the riptide. Crucially however, the melta sergeant and multimelta survived blasting away at the hammerhead, knocking off a hull point and the smart missiles.

The hunter arrived, soaring onto the battlefield but with a lack of targets it hid behind a ruin. A crisis suit deepstruck to mess up the terminators and the hammerhead ran away from the space marines which were being chased by a swarm of angry jetbikes and a farseer. The other jetbikes began a play for the relic. The hammerhead failed to kill the drop pod, a few marines were bladestormed by the bikes and Tiberius’ guard were shot down by the crisis suit. Diverting full power to shields, the riptide charged Tiberius. Bringing a massive metal hoof down on the chapter master the giant battlesuit smashed the life from the space marine, before he could lash out with his chainfists, stalking on to stand defiant in front of the relic.

With the scream of jet engines, the three storm talons roared into battle, blasting apart the crimson hunter in a shower of debris and skyhammer missiles, the elegant crafts jinking turns no match for the blessed missiles. The others tore into the riptide, but the suit’s armour withstood the battering.

The space marines on foot again tried to silence the hammerhead but their grenades could only bounce off the hull.

The crisis suit wasted no time in blasting apart the remaining tactical marines, even as his strike partner touched down on the other side of the table, and failed to snap shot at a storm talon, though the drones stole a hull point. The skyray blasted another’s assault cannon off in a barrage of missiles. The fire warriors skyfired up and put a glancing hit on one the already limping storm talon, knocking it out of the sky. The riptide failed to hurt the third, being out of range of guide.

The librarian and friends turned up, going for the fireblades unit. The iron hands storm talon regenerated a hull point. Both fliers flew over to kill the fire warriors and the skyray, but did little to no damage.

The tau and eldar mobilised to hunt down the warlord and marines. Several marines fell, but not enough. The hammerhead missed the drop pod, the jetbikes grabbed the relic, and the skyray shot it’s last missiles, ripping the missiles off the regenerating storm talon, leaving it with no guns.

The skyray’s victory was short lived as the space sharks flyer went into hover mode and tore it apart with rending. The marines charged into the warlords unit, the fireblade accepting a challenge from the librarian. However, everyone fluffed their attacks and combat was a stalemate.

The hammerhead finally did something, blasting the space shark flyer out of the sky.the tau converged on the combat, the farseer and bikes charging in. The farseer heroically shoved the fireblade out of the challenger. Again combat was drawn.

With a snarl, the space marine librarian finally landed a wound on the eldar psyker in combat, activating his force weapon, banishing the xeno to the warp. Bolstered by this heroism, the marines slew several fire warriors, running them down (slay the warlord).

We rolled for turn six (we needed this to charge the riptide in and claim slay the warlord) but we rolled a one.

Final score: Tau 5 (relic, first blood, linebreaker) Marines 2 (linebreaker, slay the warlord)

After game thoughts

We played a reasonably solid game, though we got very lucky with that first turn alpha strike. The marines were hampered by being unable to focus their forces on a particular section of the army allowing us to take them apart piecemeal. The fire warriors could have had more of an impact, but overall the units all played the part.

I'm very glad we took the skyray, it's a really cool looking model and it provides good anti-air defence. It's rules are nice, good, but not so good that it can be used without a bit of thought.

Unit of the match: riptide, proved to be a good all-rounder, and conjured up some great imagery charging Tiberius