Hey Kyuss,
Due to my own personal battle against the legions of nurgle (AKA a sinus infection
) this batrep is both later and less extensive than I originally planned. So, I'm just going to put the results and my thoughts in this thread. Apologies to berzerkermonkey for taking all those wasted pics during the game.
Here's what I took:
Tactical, bunkers/minefield, 275
Tactical, bunkers/minefield, 275
Tactical, SC, rhinos, hunter, 450
Assault terminators, chaplain, 375
Land raiders, hunter, 400
Land speeder, typhoon, 225
Thunderbolt, 175
Thunderbolt, 175
Scouts, rhinos, 150
Predator annihilators, 250
Predator destructors, 250
3000
I wanted to test out fortifications, especially minefields, and see if I could make the assault terminators useful.
Berzerkermonkey took orks:
Blitz brigade, 'uge, flack wagon, 2 oddboys, 4 deth kopta, 450
Warband, flackwagon, 235
Warband, flackwagon, 235
Storm boys, 150
Storm boys, 150
Blitz brigade, uge, 4 deth kopta, 2 oddboy, 450
Kult of speed, 6 scorcha flackwagon, 235
Gargant, 650
Fighta squadron, 150
Fighta squadron, 150
Fighta squadron, 150
Orks won, 3-0 with T&H, blitz, and BTS.
Testing points
Fortifications: I garrisoned the tacticals in their bunkers behind minefields, along with the speeders. Eric garrisoned his warbands across from them. I placed the fortifications around the T&H objectives. It quickly became evident that I should have put the minefields farther up the board, as the opponent could claim the objectives without crossing them. I felt a bit stupid for that placement mistake
![:{[]](./images/smilies/headbang.gif "Headbang")
however, if an opponent places the objectives just over the midline of the board, there's almost no way to use the minefields to make objective claiming harder on him (except for the blitz, of course). The bunkers made the tacticals hard to shift, even with a gargant shooting at them. It did greatly limit those tacticals' mobility however. The walker ability when crossing their own minefield was greatly appreciated, as I rolled 2 1s during an assault.
Assault terminators: I was able to catch a blitz brigade with these guys. Even after having 2bms for teleporting, and missing 3 out of 5 regular attacks, they still won the assault pretty handily. I drove up the scouts in support position at the beginning of turn 2. The scouts' only real effect was to keep the deth koptas out of the combat as they were closer to the scouts than the termies. After all that glory, however, the scorchas doubled back and fried the termies pretty good. I had one broken unit left for the remainder of the game. Because they don't have a ff or ranged shot, there's less value in getting two formations and teleporting them in support of each other. Maybe a captain can bring them all in at once if numbers are really needed (8 vice 4), or just two separate assaults in tactically significant directions. My point is that the termies will probably be pretty lonely in the enemy's backfield after you use them. Perhaps they would be better used mid-board, disrupting the opponent's advance on the trenches. They would end up closer to their friends.
Mobility of IF formations: my plan was basically to hold the center with tacticals/fortifications, and use the fast stuff and the termies to get on the ork side of the board via the flanks. with the heavy use of air, Eric was able to strip away my mobile formations over the course of the game. I tried to take a bunch (preds, scouts, speeders, the BTS tactical), but all save the annihilators were gone on turn 4. The fortifications felt more like an anchor than an asset at that point.
Because the IF limit their own mobility by taking fortifications instead of rhinos, I would hesitate to limit objective holding by the platforms. If they're the only units around an objective, why does that mean the IF doesn't hold it? Logically, they are denying the objective to the enemy, and holding it for the IF. If the IF player takes a few fortifications and other things to keep the IF "flavor", that shouldn't limit his ability to hold his own objectives. Like baran, he has to fit some mobile FMs into the army to grab objectives, and these are rare enough to be picked off by the opponent. Honestly, if I took any more mobile FMs, it wouldn't have felt much like an IF force.
In future games I'd like to try out the platforms and bastion. Also a 6-strong whirlwind fm. I just have little in the way of proxies for the platforms. I'm sure I'll figure something out. I couldn't see anything that was broken in the list. I'll just echo Eric's comment about the siege quality of the list: by taking fortifications, the IF besieges himself, rather than the opponent. I think this is a product of the nature if E:A rather than list-specific. One can't force the opponent to put himself in trenches so one can try to dig him out
If possible, I recommend making a siege assault list build possible, so that the Fists can methodically root out opponents from cover (not necessarily trenches etc., but buildings and forests).
[just joking]. Perhaps instead of length you provide an area to this and the player can model what they want?