|
I know it's CSM, but I thought I'd share some summoning results as they are obviously relevant. Some of this was also posted on the SG site.
====
Game 1, CSM v Eldar, 3000 points
CSM (all Slaanesh)
===
Retinue w/havocs, pact, icon
Retinue w/ 3 defilers, pact, icon
Retinue w/ noise marines, rhinos
FH w/pact
Bikes w/pact
Swiftdeaths
4 LRs
21 LDs in pool
Eldar
=====
Aspect host in Vampire w/exarchs
Aspect host in Vampire w/exarch and autarch
Guardian host w/ wraithguard and wraithlords
3x Scorpions (different formations)
2x Cobras (1 formation)
Nightwings
Overall: The CSMs set up a hard battle line, reinforced with daemons. They managed to pin the Eldar in their half and restrict their movement for the win.
Setup: The objectives were basically a straight, symmetrical 1-2-2-1 pattern right down the middle of the board, though shifted slightly to the CSM half. Garrion havocs just left of center. Garrison Defilers right of center. Noise marines in the middle. LRs on their left. Bikes and Scouts on left flank with the goal of eventually shutting down Eldar maneuver on that side. Eldar have guardians in ruins just right of center (CSM view). Scorpions evenly spaced across the frontage and Cobras on the left.
Turn 1 - Eldar win initiative
Eldar want to wave the ground assaults for later in the game, but also wants to avoid CAP. They elect to activate first and do a ground attack on the defiler formation. CSMs intercept with Swiftdeaths and shoot down the Vampire, which sounds lucky but really has ~1 in 3 chance to succeed. Basically, the rest of the turn is taking pot shots at each other. The Havoc formation summons and redeploys to the middle of the board to take position for eventual OW. Second Vampire kills Noise Marine rhinos to slow them down. Defilers summon and move forward. Noise marines move up behind for (hopefully) good position to react from. Cobras move up to take shot, but can't withdraw far enough. Bikes move up to threaten and Scorpions pummel them 3 kills). Scouts move up to threaten and Scorpions pummel them (3 kills). Both break but hold position to block movement. Nightwings take the Swiftdeaths down to 1 plane.
Bikes rally, scouts stay broken and withdraw behind cover. Everything else on both sides shakes off all BMs.
Turn 2 - CSM win initiative
LRs double to get LoS and fire at Cobras, doing 1 point of damage. Bikes summon and assault, destroying Cobras completely while losing 2 stands. Center scorpion shoots at havoc formation but doesn't get past the daemons. Havocs summon and go on OW. Right scorpion does hit-and-run to kill another Defiler and CSM stand. Defilers marshall and move forward (forgetting to summon - AARGH), again controlling territory and gaining forward position for either assault or OW. Guardians move forward and take potshots at Defiler formation. Left Scorpion hits LRs for 1 kill and moves to center. Eldar Vampire hits LRs and breaks them. Nightwings finish them off completely.
Defiler formation fails to rally. Everything else on both sides rallies.
Turn 3 - Avatar appears between Guardians and Defiler formation, CSM win initiative.
The threatened Defiler formation summons and Marshalls (stop that +2 assault resolution) and moves back so the Avatar can't CC. Avatar moves forward to FF but misjudges and all the marines and daemons can FF. The avatar kills 2 daemons but takes 3 damage and dies so the CSMs win. Between the countercharge and consolidation move, they have good position to hold that flank. Swiftdeath goes onto CAP orders, because we know that air assault is coming. The left side Scorpion hits the bikes to keep them from charging. Guardians move towards the center and towards the Havocs into support range and fire. Little damage, but adding BMs. Havocs elect not to OW fire in order to cover the army against the air assault when it comes. Then the Vampire drops in to FF Havocs. They have to pick a spot on their side of the board to avoid serious support from the noise marine formation behind the Havocs. CAP is shot down. OW fire does nothing but add a BM. Havocs lose, but have ~8 units left because of daemons. They back up but hold the center board position. The right side Scorpion tries to drive back the Defilers, but fails. The Forlorn Hope formation moves within 10cm of the center Scorpion and fires. That places a BM and puts the Scorpion in their ZoC. The Noise Marines withdraw and spread out to cover all 3 CSM objectives. The Bikes marshall and move to cover another Eldar objective. The sole remaining Eldar Scorpion then fails to activate and must move out of ZoC with its hold action. The Scorpion was the last unit that might have been able to cross the mid-line, so the CSMs had They Shall Not Pass and Defend the Flag.
CSM win 2-0 (and killed BTS in Turn 2).
Conclusions: It would have been possible for the Eldar to go to turn 4, but they would have been in a less than ideal position if they did so. My opponent plays a positional game with Eldar and was unwilling to commit to forcing the TSNP issue until he had no choice. There was no way for them to recover with respect to territory, but it would have been close on points.
Daemons are very nice versus Eldar because Eldar have relatively few but high-quality shots. They make a very good screen. In fact, I would go so far as to say that versus Eldar and Tau (due to all the AP disrupt), the daemons are at their best.
Still, despite the Vampire loss in turn 1 and the daemon
effectiveness, it was relatively hard fought. If the Scorpion hadn't failed to activate at the end of Turn 3, he could have forced the 4th turn and I think he had lost less material than I had overall.
==============
Game 2 - CSM v Orks, 2700
Briefly, the forces were a very (875 points) summoning-heavy CSM force. The Ork army was 2 Supastompa formations and 4 landas loaded with Warbands.
I won't go into detail, but CSMs resigned before the end of turn 2. I got slaughtered. Counting on daemon shields and horde charging across the board doesn't really work when the major enemy offense can hit from any angle (fliers). A lucky salvo killed a lord/champ/icon stand right away, so one formation was useless. A retinue with a summoned Keeper of Secrets was trying to set up an assault on a Supstompa and was unable to take a position that kept it out of LoS after the Supastompa moved. A lucky salvo killed the KoS outright.
While there was a lot of luck involved, it seems that the lesson is that a heavy daemon army is very fragile until it gets rolling. For CSMs which aren't blessed with stupendous holding power anyway, an early strike before the daemons are rolling (as with the massed air cover he had) can really put the hurt on.
Oh, and that Ork force would be wicked in a tourney against any army. Against this one, it just hit all the right combos of strenght versus weaknesses.
=====
Conclusions: It seems that the ability to summon is balanced, but may be just a touch too expensive. I feel the 125 point GD in the CSM list is too expensive. It's 250 points once you buy the Champion and Icon and it has a good chance (~40%) of not being summoned on any given summoning roll.
It's probably not feasible for CSMs to spend more than ~25% on summoning. Much past that and their "hard" material on the board becomes stretched thin.
===
Edit: Corrected the goals for CSM victory.
_________________
Neal
|
