3 Way - Nite's 1k Sons [1000] vs Emperor's Children [1000] vs Imperial Guard [750]

[NiteRabbit]

This is a game I played at my club yesterday. Originally, it was supposed to be a simple 1000pt game of my Thousand Sons vs the Emperor's Children but at the last moment, a kid with his IG (he had to take doctrines to even make the army legal) came and started demanding to play. In the end, he whined so much that we had to give in, but we decided that we would team up on him and then finish each other off.

Terrain: Not much terrain on the board, we put down a few small Cities of Death buildings but the only two worth mentioning were static firebases in each of my opponents' deployment zones for various heavy weapons. The IG player kept complaining about his lack of cover vs our larger armies (see a pattern here?) but in the end, the terrain stayed where it was.

Deployment: Since the IG player's deployment zone was immediately to the left of mine, I deployed my Predator on the left of my zone, followed by another one on my right flank and my two squads of Thousand Sons + Terminator Lieutenant in the middle. The Guard deployed a unit of Storm Troopers and a Leman Russ in an attempt to target the side armour of my Predator and the rest of his Storm Trooper squads attempted to encircle my left flank as much as possible. The Emperor's Children toted a decent sized Havoc squad along with a large block of Noise Marines with Sonic Blasters, about 16 or so Daemonettes in reserve and a Statured Prince with no Dreadaxe.

We roll for first turn, I get first, Guard go second, EC go third.

Turn 1
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My Rubric Marines advanced towards the Guard as planned and my opening volleys reduced the entire Storm Trooper squad targeting my Predator's side armour as well as another generic squad to slagging heaps of meat. My Lord cast Bolt of Change at the Russ but missed (twice) and cost me a Thrall Wizard. Both Predators got a decent shot at the Russ with their Lascannons and I scored a penetrating hit, immobilizing the tank and stunning the crew. His two squads of Storm Troopers subsequently failed their Morale checks and ran off the board.

After a bit of whining from the IG player, he had his Ratlings take a few potshots at the Daemon Prince and inflicted a wound on him. By comparison, he failed to inflict that much damage (having tried to target my Predator's front armour with a Grenade Launcher) on my army although I was particularly unlucky, having lost my remaining Thrall Wizards in his opening volley, and failed an Armour Save on my Terminator Lord. From a Lasgun, no less.

The Havocs toted 4 Blastmasters but inflicted zero damagae on the Ratlings he had targeted. The Sonic Blasters on his large block of Noise Marines did the rest of the work, however, and wiped out the entire squad. The Daemon Prince flew down the middle of the board - I began to suspect treachery but I thought nothing of it at the time; my "ally" assured me that he was planning nothing of the sort. In retrospect, I should've been my usual cynical self but I could not afford to have both of them turn on me at this point. I personally think he was planning treachery from the beginning.

Turn 2
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My Rubric Marines once again advanced and unleashed a volley on his remaining squads of Storm Troopers, killing off one and severly damaging the other. My Predators once more inflicted Crew Stunned results on the Russ and my Lieutenant charged into close combat with the remaining Guardsmen (who had passed their Morale check). With his Dark Blade and extra Close Combat Weapon, he tore a bloody swathe through their close-order-drilled ranks but it failed to make them run at all.

Meanwhile, the Command Platoon charged my Lord and failed yet again to inflict any damage. I retaliated by cutting through his troops, but his Commissar and Junior Officer remained untouched. He whined incoherently about my Stunning of his Russ, but I paid it little heed - I was getting so much satisfaction out of killing him and was too blind to notice the Emperor's Children creeping up on me.

The Traitor finally played his hand when he summoned his Daemonettes on to the table and had them charge my foremost squad of Rubric Marines. I swore revenge in a manner that was also slightly incoherent as his Prince charged my other squad of Rubric Marines and his Havocs took potshots at my rightmost Predator, missing by a mile. The opening attacks of his Daemonettes rended two of my Rubric Marines apart (halleluja for Daemonic Essence) and they retaliated doing little damage to the Daemonettes' numbers. As I recall, they killed nothing. The Aspiring Champion with his Power Fist managed to kill two, however, but as everyone was fearless and no one was outnumbered, they piled in. The Daemon Prince, by comparison, managed to inflict no wounds at all but I struck back with a Power Fist and dealt him a wound in return. I won and he should've taken more than 1 Wound due to outnumbering but I let it slide - by the time I remembered my Rubric Marines had 2 wounds each it was a bit late.

Turn 3
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My Predator could ill afford to leave that Leman Russ alone and so shot it from the side, stunning it yet again. My Predator on the right flank shot at the Havoc squad and killed 2 of them off as I began to take pieces out of the one squad that could do my Thousand Sons damage at a fast enough pace. The IG player whined some more and the staff exchanged some passing comments that I should've made the game a bit more equal, so I explained the circumstances to him. He shrugged and walked away; I hope he understood. During the Assault Phase, my Lieutenant finally died at the hands of a Commissar, a Junior Officer, and a Guardsman. I was so close to killing them too. Incidentally, this guy hadn't read the rulebook at all and kept asking us rules questions, so I felt obliged to not tell him about the Mastery tests I should've been taking. It's not my usual policy to cheat but in this case, I feel he deserved it for being such a whiny brat.

The Guardsman did nothing but whine. Oh, and they took All Alone tests which they passed.

The Emperor's Children continued their assault, Immobilizing and Stunning one of my Predators and killing another Rubric Marine due to Rending. My Power Fisted Aspiring Champion retaliated and killed another two Marines and nothing happened to the Daemon Prince, though he did manage one wound on my squad.

Turn 4
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A final volley of Lascannon shots from my Predator killed the Leman Russ and sent the IG packing. The kid had the nerve to brag to me about how much he would pwn my army when he got 1000 points. I made a mental note to face him with an army that generally included as many shots as I could get my hands on - or the Movie Marines. I'd even use only 2. No Stunt Doubles either. Anyway, the combat continued as my Daemonettes killed one more of my squad. If memory serves, I was down to about 4 Marines by this time. My Marines fighting the Prince inflicted one more wound on him (He had 1 Wound left at this point) and he killed one of my Marines in exchange.

The combat still continued into the EC player's turn as he rolled spectacularly poor rolls against my Predator. I failed to do any wounds to the Daemon Prince but I did manage to kill a couple more Daemonettes.

Turn 5
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With both my Predators firing their Lascannons at the Havocs, I removed all of his ablative wounds and left his Blastmasters exposed. I killed a few more Daemonettes for one of my Rubric Marines and finally managed to kill the Daemon Prince. I believe by this time it was only my Aspiring Champion fighting one of the Daemonettes so I consolidated into them with my winning squad in order to deny them a charge bonus during my next turn.

The Emperor's Children directed all of their attacks at my one Aspiring Champion and wiped out that entire squad, though I wiped out his Daemonettes in return with my newly arrived Rubric Marines. His Havocs failed to do any damage to my Immobilized Predator, the last mistake they would ever make. The Noise Marines finally fought free of their paranoia to move from cover towards my Predator.

Turn 6
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My Lascannons killed three of his Havocs and my Rubric Marines rolled a particularly good Difficult Terrain test, charging into his squad of Noise Marines. I killed a couple before he removed one of my Marines, tying the combat.

His last Havoc failed to do anything to my Predator and he proceeded to take my Rubric Marines apart.

Turn 7
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My one mobile Predator retreated to avoid the inevitable consolidation move. However, it happened and the Noise Marines charged the Front Armour. The one havoc died after a massive Lascannon volley from my immobilized Predator and my opponent finally conceded.

Victory Points
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Thousand Sons: 1835
Imperial Guard: 173
Emperor's Children: 567

VICTORIOUS SLAUGHTER TO THE THOUSAND SONS!

That game hung in the balance for awhile, I'll have to admit, and even though I came up on top in the end it was a game I wish I had never played. The constant whining of the Guard player and the eventual betrayal caused me to lose much of my faith in humanity and reminded me why I originally hated multiplayer games in the beginning. There was a small consolation of poetic justice that both players got what they deserved and I still walked away with a Massacre result. It was amusing what kind of mistakes my two opponents made despite advice from various staff members, for which I was not too grateful.

What I did right: Going after the Guardsman player first, my overall strategy never truly varied from concept to execution. Killing Havocs in cover was a long shot but I knew that I would have to if I wanted to stand a chance of surviving. Holding up the Daemonettes for a long time was important for me in that I was able to do a very costly form of damage control.

What I did wrong: I was a bit naive to think that the Emperor's Children would support me and then settle the fight between us. In the end, I think that I survived only because he made key tactical mistakes and didn't have a very well-written list. I would hate to think what would have happened to me if I had been up against a competent Emperor's Children player or even the same guy with a much better list. Considering that I'm supposed to be practicing for an upcoming tournament, I can't gauge how well my army will do if I'm constantly fighting players like this.

[Bruiser117]

Good job on the massacre despite 'treachery', although I can't completely congratulate you as it seems like you took advantage of the newbie IG player with 'forgetting' some rules. If you truly wanted to come atop the odds, you should have played as fairly as possible, that way you could be truly satisfied with yourself if you won, and if you lost, well hey you were honest and played fairly and the enemy tag teamed you.

Good report, nonetheless.

[NiteRabbit]

A good point. In my defense, the only thing I neglected to mention was the rules for Daemon Weapon mastery, which my Lieutenant would most likely have passed anyway due to Ld10 and he got to take something back by getting 6 Power Weapon attacks off his Command Platoon each turn when he should really only have gotten 3. He was also rolling his attacks in a really weird and confusing order so I didn't know what was what, but I let it go in the end because I really didn't care anymore. Comparatively speaking, my "mistake" cost him less points than his "mistake" cost me.

[Bruiser117]

It was still a good report. I personally HATE any game where its a 1v1v1, and not just specifically warhammer. I have that same paranoia that you got, and I always suspect others are going to team against me, and they usually do.

[tedbob]

I know this is a little off topic but where can we get the rules for movie marines? Are they postable? If its copyrighted then dont bother but Ive always wanted to use them against a swarm nid army.

[NiteRabbit]

The Movie Marines were a humorous army list published in a White Dwarf article way back in (I believe) 2004 in order to show the power of Marines in Black Library books and if they starred in their own movie compared to how they perform in the game (where their power has been toned down for game balancing purposes). Essentially, the Marines were priced to the point where you could only really field a Tactical Squad with a Sergeant and Rhino at 1500 points but that alone was sufficient to take down an army of at least twice its size. They benefitted from an enhanced statline, re-rollable armour save, invulnerable save, superior weaponry (Bolters...that are Assault Cannons). Oh, and don't get me started on the Rhinos and Razorbacks they could take. Some parts of the Movie Marine list were actually pretty funny too - like Stunt Doubles :lol:

[DP Excerion]

Congrats on smashing the Guard player. That whining kid deserved all he got.

[TheEndIsHere]

lol yeah i hate whinnig mostly because of little sister..

TheEndIsNear