Battle Report by Gary (glc)

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I can not take credit for the name. This site was named by Aaron Cains.

Battle Report by Gary Christopher

Battle Report - 16 Mar 1999
(1000 pt conflict - Recon Mission)

Opponent: Chaos Space Marines (Thousand Sons)

(1) Chaos Lord
- (5) Thousand Sons (retinue)
(3) Obliterators
(1) Chaos Dreadnought
(5) Thousand Sons Marines
(5) Chaos Marines w/Jump Packs (dunno, I don't have the Codex)
(5) Chaos Marines
(5) Chaos Marines
(5) Chaos Marines

Me: Sisters of Battle (Order of the Bloody Rose) (1040 pts due to battle honors)

(1) Canoness w/Bolter-Flamer & Power Weapon
- (6) Celestian bodyguard - Kraks,Hvy Flamer,Flamer
(1) Missionary w/Storm Bolter,Power Weapon
(1) Callidus Assassin
(6) Battle Sisters - VSS w/Power Weapon,Hvy Flamer,Meltagun
(6) Battle Sisters - VSS w/Power Weapon,Hvy Flamer,Meltagun
(6) Battle Sisters - VSS w/Power Weapon,Multi-Melta,Flamer
(5) Seraphim - VSS w/Plasma Pistol,Frags,Meltabombs,Flame Sister
(5) Retributors - VSS w/Power Weapon,Kraks,Hvy Flamer (x4),Immolator

Death World Terrain: 3 Hills (1,4,6), 2 Spitting Cactus (1/4 cntr,4), 1 Venus Mantrap (2/3/5/6), 1 Jungle (3) - sections as below:

1 | 2 | 3
-----------
4 | 5 | 6

I won roll, took side 4/5/6.

His deployment:

Lord & retinue: 18" in from edge between S1/S2
Obliterators: on hill in S1
Dreadnought: 18" in, center of section 2
Jump Marines: slightly behind dreadnought
Marines #1: 18" in S3
Marines #2: 18" in S2 (next to dreadnought)
Marines #3: 18" in next to Lord

Mine:

Canoness w/Celestians: 18" in, next to Immolator
Immolator w/Retributors: 18" in, ctr S5
Missionary: in front of spitting cactus area S4 (not too close!)
Sisters #3: behind missionary in S4
Sisters #2: next to canoness on LH side
Sisters #1: next to immolator, RH side
Seraphim: behind hill in S4

SISTERS TURN 1 (I won roll)

Movement:
Immolator goes 11 1/2" up center of table, egress Retributors, all other Sisters except Seraphim move straight forward 6". Seraphim move 12" up behind spitting cactus area in S4. Missionary joins Sisters #3.

Shooting:
Retributors can't shoot 'cuz they moved (egressed).
Sisters #1 shoot at Marines #2, kill 2. They pass morale check.
Sisters #2 shoot at Marines #3, kill 1.
Sisters #3 shoot at Marines #3, kill 1. They pass morale check.
Canoness & Celestians Shoot at Marines #2, miss.

MARINES TURN 1

Movement:
Lord stays put (w/retinue).
Obliterators stay put.
Dreadnought stays put so he can fire his heavy lascannon.
Marines (all) move 6" forward.

Shooting:
Obliterators score a glancing hit on the Immolator, crew shaken.
Lascannon kills one girl in Sister unit #1. That's it (I made some great saves).
Lord casts Chaos flame spell (I dunno what it's called - S9 hit, no armor save if he hits). Kills a Celestian.

SISTERS TURN 2:

Callidus makes reserve roll, deploys directly behind Lord.

Movement:
Seraphim move 7" forward, staying behind cover.
Retributors stay put.
Sisters #1 move 6" forward, toward Immolator.
Sisters #2 move 6" forward behind cactus on border of S1/S4.
Sisters #3 move 6" forward toward Immolator & S1.
Canoness moves up next to S2 on the RH side.
Immolator tries to run over Marines #2, they step aside.

Shooting:
Retributors at Marines #2 - nada.
Seraphim - no targets.
Canoness & Celestians at Marines #1 - kill 1
Sisters #1 shoot at Obliterators - kill 1 (I think I got 3 wounds, he failed a 2+ save, YES!!!)
Sisters #2 shoot at obliterators, out of range (damn it!).
Sisters #3 shoot at Marines #3, kill 2 - fail morale check & falls back 8" (one guy left, so he'll keep running)
Callidus flames lord & 2 retinue (no hits)

Assaults:
Callidus assaults Lord, he releases spell in banner that does D6 S6 hits (he rolled 5). 5 wounds, she saves 1 & dies! (Shoulda gone with the Vindicare)
Sisters #2 Assault Marines #2, kill 1 (2 guys left)
Retributors assault Marines #2, no damage.

MARINES TURN 2:

Movement:
Obliterators stay put.
Jump pack marines move 12" behind Sisters #2
Marine #3 keeps going 7"
Marines #2 in HtH
Marines #1 move 6" forward next to Venus Mantrap (he forgot about the trap) & takes 4 S4 hits, but saves all.
Lord stays put.
Dreadnought stays put.

Shooting:
Obliterators blow up Immolator (literally). Everyone in 3" takes a S4 hit. 1 Sister dies from Sisters #2. However, 2 Marines are in range and die as well.
Lord does his spell, misses.
Dreadnought shoots lascannon & misses.
Marine #3 shoots, hits, & wounds but I save.
Marines #2 in HtH
Marines #1 shoot at Sisters #2, several hits, I save all.
Jump Marines shoot at Celestians, kill 1 girl.

Assaults:
Jump Marines assault into the fray with Sisters & retributors, no kills.

SISTERS TURN 3:

Movement:
Seraphim move out into the open & pray no one gets hit. Plan to hit the Obliterators next turn.
Canoness & Celestians stay put.
Sisters #2 in HtH.
Sisters #3 stay put to fire multi-melta.
Sisters #1 move 6" straight left behind Immolator wreck.

Shooting:
Canoness & Celestians shoot at dreadnought, then realize they can't hit it.
Sisters #3 fire multi-melta at dreadnought & miss.
Sisters #1 fire at thousand sons & lord & realize they can't hit either.
Seraphim keep praying.

Assaults:
Canoness & Celestians assault into the big fray & kill 1 Jump marine. The Canoness then kills a fourth Jumper & the remaining Jump marine kills a Sister from Sisters #2 (down to 4 girls) and fails morale check (he's outa here!). Marines #2 kill 1 sister from Retributors. (down to 3 girls).

MARINES TURN 3:

Movement:
Lord stays put.
Dreadnought *FINALLY* moves toward the fracas near the immolator.
Obliterators stay put.
Marine #3 keeps going, but will get another shot off.
Jump Marine also keeps going & will fire later.
Marines #1 move toward my deployment zone another 6" (takes another 3 hits from the mantrap, but saves all)

Shooting:
Lord casts his spell & kills another Celestian.
Thousand Sons shoot at Sisters #3 & kills 2 girls (his rolls are finally getting better).
Jump Marine & Marine #3 fail to hit anything.
Marines #2 in HtH.
Marines #1 fire at Sisters #1, several hits but all save.
Obliterators fire at Seraphim & kill 1 girl.
Dreadnought can't fire.

Assaults:

Marines #2 kill a sister in Squad #2.

SISTERS TURN #4

Movement:
Seraphim move up toward Obliterators & are finally in range.
Canoness, Celestians, & Sisters #2 still in HtH with Marines 2 (only 1 left).
Sisters #1 stay put to fire meltagun at Dreadnought.
Sisters #3 stay put to fire multi-melta.

Shooting:
Seraphim unleash on the Obliterators & kill 1.
Sisters #1 fires at dreadnought & misses.
Sisters #3 fires at Thousand Sons & misses.

Assaults:
Seraphim assault remaining Obliterator & VSS kills him (YES!).
Canoness kills remaining marine from Marines #2. That's 4 units either fell back or were annihilated. Hope I can keep doing this well.

MARINES TURN #4

Movement:
Dreadnought moves & will assault this turn.
Marines #1 finally avoid the mantrap by moving toward the edge of S3/S6.

Shooting:
Lord kills another Celestian (2 girls left (incl. Canoness))
Thousand Sons fire at Sisters #2 who are free now & kills one. (girls down to 3)
Marines #1 fire at Sisters #1, several hits, I save all.

Assaults:
Dreadnought assaults into Canoness & Celestians. He has warp flames & kills the remaining Celestian. Canoness takes one wound and tries krak grenades (no good).

SISTERS TURN #5

Movement:
Seraphim move across the front of the Thousand Sons in between them & the dreadnoght.
Sisters #2 move 6" toward the Thousand Sons.
Retributors face the blasted Dreadnought (which I can't seem to kill, damn it)
Sisters #1 & #3 stay put.

Shooting:
More misses from the melta & multi-melta (don't know why I even bothered with them)
Sisters #2 shoot at Thousand Sons, but can't hit them.
Seraphim don't shoot.

Assaults:
Canoness, Retributors, and Sisters #1 assault the Dreadnought w/Krak grenades & make a glancing hit (he can't shoot, whoopee). I lose a girl due to the flames from Sisters #1.

MARINES TURN #5

Movement:
None.

Shooting:
Thousand Sons kill another Seraphim (they're down to 3).
Marines #1 shoot at Sisters #3, couple hits, I save.

Assaults:
Dreadnought attacks, warp flames incapacitate the Canoness.

SISTERS TURN #6 (last one)

Movement:
None.

Shooting:
Meltagun tries one more time & scores a glancing hit (he still can't shoot - AGAIN).
Heavy Flamer from Sisters #2 hits, but he saves.

Assaults:
Since I have nothing else to do, I assault the Thousand Sons with the Seraphim (3 girls) & Sisters #2 (3 girls). The only things I can hit him with are the Plasma Pistol & VSS #2's Power Weapon. I do 3 wounds, he saves 1. (they have 2W each).
Retributors & Sisters #1 try the grenades again - nada.

MARINES TURN #6

Movement:
None.

Shooting:
Marines #1 shot at Sisters #3, couple hits, I save.
Lord tries spell again, this time he misses.

Assaults:
Dreadnought kills another girl from Sisters #2 (down to 2 girls)
Thousand Sons hit back for 2 hits but I save.

END OF GAME

Marines' Victory Points - none.

Sisters' Victory Points
3 Seraphim (60%) in his deployment zone - 100 points
3 Battle Sisters (50%) in his deployment zone - 100 points

Winner: Sisters (200 VPs)

Notes:
1. Had he remembered the mantrap, Marines #1 could have made it to my deployment zone with 80% of their number intact. Especially, since I spent so much time trying to kill the dreadnought instead of shooting with the rest of the girls at something they could hit - i.e. Marines #1.

2. I overestimated the effect of the heavy flamers and should have probably taken multi-meltas in my retributors and meltaguns in my squads instead of flamers. I don't think my flamers or heavy flamers killed even one Marine in this battle. Of course, I didn't expect him to be playing Thousand Sons. Since they can't be hit by S4 or lower power weapons, except for the melta weapons, I was ineffective against them.

3. I made some *extremely* good saves early in the game when it mattered most. He also had some unluch rolls with his powerful weapons, particularly his dreadnought early on. He also didn't take a power fist on it, which surprised me. I think he probably forgot. If he'd had that, My Celestians, Retributors, & Sisters #2 would've probably been annihilated.

Anyway, it was a good game, if a bit lucky on my side. Of course, I planned to get units in his deployment zone & keep them there and fortunately was able to do so. Since the Dreadnought had moved out of my his deployment zone, I never did send my Seraphim after it - they were the ones with the meltabombs and probably could have taken it out. If I had had another turn, that's what I would have done.

Well, I probably missed a few things, but I hope it's not too incoherent.

Cheers, Gary

Oh, and my Sacred Rites rolls (based on the playtest codex) were:

Canoness & Celestians: 7 - never fall back
Sisters #1: 6 - always regroup
Sisters #2: 5 - reroll morale checks
Sisters #3: 5 - reroll morale checks
Seraphim: 5 - reroll...
Retributors: 4 - Ignore negative modifiers to morale checks.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi all,

OK. Since Jimi was kind enough to point out the errors in my battle report, here's my effort at clarifying what *really* happened (It was 2:00AM when I wrote the other one and wasn't too awake at the time).

MORALE CHECKS
Yes, I did have to make them! When Sister Squad #3 dropped to 3 members from shooting, I had to roll and made it. Same with Seraphim. I only lost one close combat and that was with the Canoness & Celestians who didn't have to take the test due to Sacred Rites roll #7.

SHOOTING
Yes, I could have shot the Retributors when they egressed from the Immolator, but there were no targets in range. That was a mistake on my part, but it had no effect on the game as I would have egressed them anyway since I knew the Immolator was a soft target for his Obliterators and the Dread.

SUCCESSES & FAILURES
No, the Obliterators didn't kill anything except the Immolator. They rolled really bad to hit and when they did hit, I saved.

I don't consider the Callidus assassin move a failure because if it weren't for the banner, I had a good shot at severely wounding, if not killing the Chaos Lord. It just didn't work out for me. For the record, I know the Neural Shredder couldn't hurt the Thousand Sons Marines, but they were under the template (and I like *LOTS* of enemy under the template!).

At the end of my turn 5, I had Sisters Squad #1 and the remaining Retributors fall back voluntarily so my multi & meltagun could shoot next turn. The dread followed, but didn't catch me. When my turn 6 came around, Sisters #1 auto-regrouped due to Sacred rites & the Retributors made their roll. After the melta weapons missed, these two units re-assaulted the dread because he was still in range (& I rolled low on the fall-back dice the previous turn).

GRAMMAR
Yes, in close combat I could hurt the Thousand Sons with all the models that assaulted :-). However, the only ones that actually hit were the Veteran Sister Superiors (identified from the rest of the squadmembers by weapon type).

MISTAKES
That I am aware of, I made two *actual* mistakes during the game:
1. I mistakenly thought I could use the kraks against the dread (I still think you ought to be able to, but that's neither here nor there). Had I known I couldn't I probably would've just kept trying to evade him. Of course, maybe not, since it held him up and kept him from shooting.
2. I mistook my Hvy Flamers in the retributor Squad for Heavy 1 instead of Assault 1. My bad. Problem was, the actual models I was using for them *are* multi-meltas because I still haven't received my latest order from New Wave yet (over 2 weeks now). In the end, it mattered very little because by the time any enemy was in range, I was in close combat & couldn't use them.

My opponent, however, made one crucial mistake (not counting bad dice rolls early on) and that was not moving & firing with his Dreadnought. He might've been able to get the dread into my deployment zone by the end of the game as long as I didn't slow him down like I did.

His other mistake was, as I pointed out in the original report, he forgot about the mantrap. But it didn't kill anyone, so it didn't *really* hurt him, other than to slow his advance down as he tried to get away.

Anyway, mighta, shoulda, coulda. I'll definitely have a rematch with him if for nothing else than the fact that the dice were as they say "with me" last night. I can't count the number of times he scored 6 or more hits and I saved them all.

As I said, it was 2:00AM and I was tired. I was trying to get as much written down as I could before I went to sleep and forgot it all. I don't take copious notes during a battle, and usually only note those things that will net a particular unit experience in the campaign. I'll try to take better notes for you guys next time though <grin>.

Hope this clarifies things a little...

Cheers, Gary