ATC Game #3

After a stellar first round and poor second, we were about in the middle of the pack so we had no clue about our next pairing.  We faced off against "The Chicago Kimikazes" who Jay and Shaun faced at Adepticon.  I don't remember all of their lists, but I believe they had horde orks, mechdar with eldrad, ba with meph, space wolves, and one more.  At this point, I really didn't want to face eldar again or jaws, so I ended up against blood angels.

My opponent was Aaron (also my name) and I kinda wanted this match anyways.  His army was one of the best present with every single model customized or converted to look like Lamenters fully meched up in skimmer rhinos.  And so game #3 was pitched battle, Aaron vs Aaron showdown!


Aaron's list:
Mephiston
Librarian w/Unleash Rage/Blood Lance/melta bombs
3 Sanguinary Priest
5x squads of 7 Assault Marines
X1 w/Melta-Gun x1 w/ Power fist
5x Rhino w/extra armor
Baal Predator w/Flamestorm Cannon
Baal Predator w/Flamestorm Cannon
Devastator Squad x5
X4 w/Missile Launcher
Devastator Squad x5
X4 w/Missile Launcher

If I remember right, I actually won the roll, but gave him the first turn.  8 missiles isn't bad, the rest is meltas and flamers which I want him close to use anyways.  The table had a big impassible building in the middle so I'll let him zoom into hive guard range, castle up with spawned gaunts (he has way more KP then me anyways), and counter with stealers and the tyrant.  This was my 3rd game of the day, 7th of the weekend, played in 85+ degree heat with no AC and only a hotdog in my belly.  Sorry that the photo quality is going down hill.

Aaron deploys his two dev squads in two ruins.  All 5 loaded rhinos across his dz, 3 had priests, 1 had the libby, with meph behind one.  Both baals outflanked.

I deployed with tervigons behind terrain.  Tfex went on the right flank, tyrant unit in the middle, hive guard up front screened by gaunts, and one unit of genestealers infiltrated on each flank.  Aaron moves up all rhinos and pops smoke on all of them.  Meph jumps up behind.  Each tervigon takes 2 wounds from missiles.  I move up everything...

And blow up a couple rhinos on the left flank.  My tyrant unit is favoring that side so I roadblock my right side with gaunts and try to sweep his left.  My tfex manages to immobilize a rhino also.  My tyrant even kills enough marines from the libby's unit to fore them to fall back a bit.

Aaron gets a baal on my right flank and tank shocks the genestealers.  I DoG one to try for a rend but fail.  He empties out the immobilized rhino and heads for the stealers.  He decides not to flame them because if he inflicts too many casualties, he'll be out of assault range.

He assaults the stealers and I think it went about 7-5 in his favor, but I assassinated the priest and passed morale (I was also out of synapse, I was starting to get sloppy).

I move my castle up and spawn more gaunts.  At this point, I think I'm at 39ish with 9, 13, and 17 with only 1 tervigon burned out.  I pack the models in on the right so meph can't jump in.  I put the tyrant in the dead center for SiTW and PE.

My shooting is far less effective this turn, but I think I exploded another rhino, and killed a marine or two.  Genestealers eat the rest of the assault squad on the right.  At this point, I also have a solid anchor on more objectives and I'm up a ton of kp's.  Aaron sends meph to punch the victorious genestealers on the right and also kills several with the baal.  Meph kills about half of them but we stay locked.

He sends in the marines that lost their ride and beats on me with furious charge and FnP.  I beat back on him with counterattack and preferred enemy.  He wins by several.

I send my genestealers rushing up the left flank now, away from Aaron's second baal that just came in on the left and roasted several.  My tyrant holds the middle and I send more gaunts towards the melee.  The tfex moves up to take out another rhino and stand as a speed bump to meph.

Genestealers assault into his half of the board, but I need to cross craters to get in and I lose a shocking amount of them before I can swing.

At this point, I realize I forgot to assault the newly spawned gaunts into the middle fray.  Aaron offered to let me go back and send them in, but I wouldn't feel right and I ate my mistake.  Meph finishes off the genestealers on the right, next turn is gonna hurt!  Aaron mows through a huge unit of gaunts with frag missiles, then sends meph over and knocks out the tfex, successfully activating str10 and the force sword despite shadows.  At this point, I'm quickly running out of models and getting desperate.  Meph is almost to my objective and the stubborn assault squad is still stuck in my dz due to me forgetting to assault the extra unit in.  I decide to multi-assault both meph and the marines with my tyrant unit.

I wanted to get a whip on meph, but didn't make it.  Mephmeph back to the middle to take out the tervigonbaal to contest my c&c objective.  This is the top of 5 btw and time is about out.

He's scoring the top two sg objectives and his own c&c objective.  I'm up a lot of kp's.  I put both units of hive guard into the baal and wiff.  My tervigon saves the day though, headbutting the tank off of my objective.  With time called, we end 15-15 with Aaron winning sg objectives, me winning kp's, and drawing on c&c.

Well, I could have won this if not for my own blunders.  Forgetting to assault 13 gants who would have had furious charge, poison, and preferred enemy allowed his assault squad to cause more damage then it should have.  Sending the tyrant against meph was probably a mistake also, but meph succeeded on every single psy check in SiTW.  Aaron was a pro opponent tho and very comfortable with his army and it's capabilities.  It was a pleasure to play him and his masterpiece of an army.

I believe Chris won his match 30-0, Jay won 25-0, Shaun lost 10-20 or so, and Joe 5-25.  Not stellar, but at least we got some points.  I popped a 5 hour energy after this game and was fully into my second wind for the 4th and final game of the day.