Weekly Battle Report #10: Salamanders vs. Khan Double Raider List

Hey there folks, time for the next installment in my Weekly Battle Reports!  Today pits my Salamanders against Vince's Double Raider Khan outflank list of doom!  Vince got best general at the last Tacticon (a 40-person event) and has placed well in other various events.  Read on to see how my Green Tide does (see what I did there?)
So, first, the lists.

1850 Salamanders

Vulkan
Librarian w/ Null Zone/Avenger

10x Tactical Marines w/ Flamer, Combi-flamer, Missile Launcher, Rhino
10x Tactical Marines w/ Flamer, Combi-flamer, Missile Launcher, HB Razorback
10x Tactical Marines w/ Melta, Combi-melta, Multi-melta, Power Fist, Rhino

Dreadnought w/ Multi-melta, Heavy Flamer, Drop Pod
5x Terminators w/ 5x Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield

2x Attack Bikes w/ Multi-Meltas
2x Speeders w/ Multi-melta, Heavy Flamer
1x Speeder w/ Multi-melta, Heavy Flamer

Land Raider Redeemer w/ Multi-melta, Extra Armor

1850 Khan List (from memory):

Khan
Librarian w/ Null Zone/Avenger

5x Tactical Marines w/ Las/Plas Razorback
5x Tactical Marines w/ Las/Plas Razorback
5x Tactical Marines w/ Las/Plas Razorback

5x Assault Terminators w/ 2x Lightning Claws, 3x Thunder Hammer/Storm Shields
5x Assault Terminators w/ 1x Lightning Claws, 4x Thunder Hammer/Storm Shields

Land Raider Crusader w/ Multi-melta, Extra Armor (this was a dedicated transport)
Land Raider Crusader w/ Multi-melta, Extra Armor

Speeder w/ Multi-Melta, Heavy Flamer
Speeder w/ Multi-Melta, Heavy Flamer

If you've read my other reports, by now you know that me and Vince tend to play quite a bit.  His list is a good double-termie list that I generally have difficulty dealing with.  I have a weakness as a player, of forgetting what is in reserves, and this generally makes the game much more difficult for myself when I don't account for deepstriking Blood Angels, outflanking Wolf Scouts, etc.  His army thrives in this sort of play.

So, we rolled for objective, and got 5 objectives, which we placed sort of equidistant from each other in each quarter, and one in the middle.  We used poker chips for the objectives- you'll see them in a minute.  The deployment we used was Spearhead, and we agreed to play to only 6 turns, to play like we were in a tournament.  We rolled to see who went first, and I failed... again.  That makes it what... 4/4 times now?  5/5?  I can't keep track.  Anyways, he elected to go second, as is wise in most objective missions.

Here is my deployment.  Nothing too crazy- I wanted to bait his Khan Raider to outflank onto the objective in my quarter, and charge my (somewhat useless) missile combat squad.  He reserved/outflanked/deepstruck everything.

 Salamanders Turn 1:  Heh, I moved around.  I needed to see where his stuff was going to come in, in order to be able to react.  I knew that my own Land Raider needed to be close enough to affect at least three objectives, and I decided that if I could, I'd try to put pressure everywhere on the board, so he would have to choose wisely where to come in.

See... I knew I had another turn before his guys came in.  That let me move guys out of position the first turn to set up for the next turn.

Khan Turn 1:  

HAHAHA 

Salamanders Turn 2:

This was the vital turn in which I needed to make sure I was covered from deepstriking models, and such.  You'll see in a minute that the Attack Bikes turbo-boosted this turn, and are real close to 20" from the side of the board- if Vince wanted to outflank with Khan and hit the attack bikes, it would be a very close call.  If he did, I would be able to shuffle around, and make him waste an extra turn with them, and (hopefully) kill his Raider, stranding the Termies in the middle of nowhere.  That was my thought, anyways.

Everything popped smoke, except for the librarian's ride.  

Wooo... Attack Bikes!  Also note that I put my tactical melta squad closer to the objectives, slightly shielding the Raider, making Vince's deepstrike with speeders a little scary (for him, due to no good place to try and scatter the speeder).

  
Khan Turn 2:


Well, he only got two razorback squads in.  They came in, shot at my Librarian's rhino, and immobilized it.

Lol... I've really got to stop tempting fate like that, and just pop smoke.  Remember kids- smoke- it saves lives.

Salamanders Turn 3:

I really didn't have a whole lot I could do this turn.  I got a single speeder in from deepstrike, and put it next to one of his razorbacks.  The attack bikes went into the cover, passing their dangerous terrain rolls.

Shooting went alright- I was able to kill his more 'middlish' razorback, though when my melta speeder landed in range of the other razorback, it rolled snakeeyes to penetrate.  Yikes!

I'm trying to keep my guys from being within his outflank range.  Once he commits, I can start to act conclusively.

Guess I took a picture of his wrecked Razorback.  That was mean of me.

 Khan Turn 3:

His stuff all came in this turn, with one of the speeders mishapping and going back into reserve.

One razorback came onto the left board edge, next to Khan's Raider.  Vince disembarked his Termies, prepping to charge my 'bait' squad near the objective.  The Librarian Raider came in and decided to take care of the other side of the board- the one my Raider was partially in.  His speeder decided to take a crack at wrecking my Raider.  His disembarked (forcibly) tactical squad made a dash to the nearest piece of terrain, but failed their run roll something fierce.

His shooting wasn't very awesome, sadly (for him).  In the end, I think he killed my (ever useless!) Dreadnought and shook my speeder.

In combat, he was able to charge with his Termies + Khan, and kill everyone in the combat squad.  Heh, poor dudes.

Finally he's in- now I can actually start playing the game, lol.  Turn 4 and the game is just now starting...

Salamanders Turn 4:

My other speeders came in, so that all of my forces were finally on the table.  I knew that I needed to kill his troops on the left side of the board, so I 'struck the speeders there with the intention of killing his razorback there.

I moved the bulk of my forces out to the left, and moved the missile combat squad that had been sitting on 'my' objective toward the center one- no sense in letting the Khan squad kill them next turn.  Make the Termies waste a turn wandering around :)  Tactical squad with meltas disembarked, ready to kill his speeder.

Shooting went as well as I needed- the speeders popped his razorback on the left, and the attack bikes gunned down his combat squad who had been scrambling for cover.  The speeder also met a grizzly demise.

No assault, and it was his turn.

Well, he's spread out, and so am I.  Hopefully he's spread out enough that I can kill his tac marines on the left (so that his termies are useless for holding objectives) and overpower his forces on the right- all in 2 turns.

Here's a closeup of the left side.

And a closeup of the right side.  Looks like his speeder actually did shake my raider last turn- sorry for the misreport :-p

 Khan Turn 4:


His speeder deepstruck mishapped again, and I got to place it.  I put it facing his table edge, in a place that my bikes could finish it off easily next turn (hopefully).

His termies got back into their ride (like they had to, since they weren't in range of anything else) and the Raider moved 6" in order to shoot up my speeders.  His Raider moved up some, shielding 'his' objective.

Shooting didn't do a whole lot- I think he ended up shaking or weapon destroying one of the speeders in the squadron.  He also failed to kill my lone speeder on the right as well, somehow.

No assaults, and it was my turn.

Lots of game to play, still.

Salamanders Turn 5:

Well, I started off strong, immobilizing my Raider on his downed speeder.  The tactical squad got back into their ride, and they zoomed off.  The two speeders (who couldn't shoot), moved over to block Khan's raider from getting to my combat squad making their way to the central objective.  Attack bikes zoomed over to try and kill his speeder in the back.

Shooting didn't do a whole lot- I was able to kill his speeder, and that's about it.  His tactical marines on the left were hiding from me, to claim the objective in my original quarter.

I was poised to hopefully win next turn- if I played everything right.

See... he can't get to the guys sitting on the objective in the middle because my speeders are in the way, ready to 'dodge' save against any attempt by the Raider to move there.

 Khan Turn 5:


He got his terminators out on the left, and got ready to try and kill my speeders.  His tacticals on the left moved a little more toward the objective on the left in 'my' quarter.  The Raider on the right moved a little, so as to block my guys from contesting his objective next turn, and position himself to kill the rhino holding the melta squad.

Shooting commenced, and he again didn't do a whole lot- my invincible speeder stayed alive, and the librarian's ride did the same.

In combat however, the termies made short work of the Speeders.  Guess it was bound to happen sometime.

Well, his guys are positioned the way he needs them to be.  Hopefully I can kill some terminators this turn.

 Salamanders Turn 6: (last turn)


Well, it was do or die trying time.  We had previously agreed to play to turn 6, and we both recognized it was the final turn of the game.

So, my Terminators got out, and got ready to assault his Land Raider (or hopefully, it's contents).  Vulkan got out to join them.  Vulkan's rhino moved up, in order to block his Raider (if it survived) from being able to reach the squad sitting on the objective there, which had disembarked.  The Attack Bikes moved up and prepped to shoot at Khan's squad, while the squad in the center moved a little farther out of the range of his Raider's shooting.  Also, the Librarian and his squad full of flamers got out and prepped to flamer Khan's squad like their lives depended on it (which it did).

Shooting went well.  I was able to pop his raider on the right, and flamer/melta/bolterfire to death 3 or 4 terminators with Khan, as well as putting a wound on Khan.  Other shooting killed one of his Termies on the right as well.

Assault went well on the right, wiping out his librarian and all of his Terminators, for minimal (if any) casualties.

Vulkan + Terminators stayed in the crater, because it looked cool.

So you see, I contest one objective here, and hold the other.

And I contest one here, and hold another.  The 5th one is sitting untouched.  Told you Vulkan and the Termies looked cooler in the crater.

Khan Turn 6:

Vince did what he had to do- move Khan and his depleted termies up to charge the Librarian's squad, and move the tacticals up to claim the objective on the left.  On the right, he disembarked his tacticals to contest the objective, and try to shoot my tacticals enough to force a moral check.

Shooting, he had me a little scared, because he shot his Crusader at Vulkan's old squad on the right, but only managed to kill 2.  I passed moral.  Whew!  On the right, he didn't cause enough damage to force a leadership, luckily for me.

In assault, Khan failed to do a whole lot, and the tacticals + Libby ended up killing both of them in a strange twist of fate.  This game just did not really go Vince's way, during any part of it.

The game ended.

Here's the overview.

One contested, one controlled by me.

One contested, one controlled by me.  And some cool looking Terminators.  lol

So, I ended up snagging the win, 2-0 on objectives.  It was a good game, and I felt like this was the best game I had played since I started out with this list.  Having patience definitely paid off for me, not committing to something until I knew I had the advantage.  My diversion of keeping Khan + termies occupado was good as well, since every turn counts, and I knew I couldn't reliably stop both squads of Terminators.

The librarian + flamer squad did much better than I thought they would, killing lots of terminators.  The Melta bikes helped in killing one or two extra.  In fact:

Game MVP:  Melta Attack Bikes

They killed:  A Razorback, 5-man Tactical Squad, Speeder, and 1 or 2 Terminators.  Not bad for 100 points, eh?  Just think of what 9 of them would do, instead of just 2.  I'll be working on that soon, never fear! (as if you would)

I will add one thing, in defense of Vince:  he hadn't really played 40k for a couple months, as he has fallen into the quagmire of Warmachine of late.  It makes me sad, but at the same time, I'm enjoying the opportunity of sharpening my Cryx skills on his Skorne :)  That being said, I think he played it well anyways, but most of the dice rolls went in my favor.  It was a fun game, he's a great guy, and great competition :)

What do you think of the game?  Let me know :) (feel free to chime in your thoughts if you want, Vince!)