SMURFS vs Dark Elda - the Defense of Gargamels Chapel - 1750

[skari]

Time for another batrep! Played against the New Us again, this time full blown Smurfs! Its a sorta rematch from last game, will the blueboys stop uriens rampaging? Vote before you read!

1750 Smurfs!


Smurfin List:

Smurfette (Tiggy)
Pappa Smurf (Calgar) Armed with the Gauntlets of Ultrasmurf

Grandpa Smurf ( Dreadnought) - Drop pod

10 Tactical Smurfs, MMelta, melta, combi melta - Drop Pod

10 Tactical Smurfs, MMelta, melta, combi melta - Drop Pod

10 Tactical Smurfs, Mmelta, melta, combi melta - Drop Pod

9 Tactical Smurfs, Flamer, Combi melta, meltabomb - Drop Pod

3 Centurion Devastatators, Hurricanes, Gravs + Amps



The Coven


Uriens Carnivale of Pain:

Urien Rackarth

3 Grotesques, liquifier, aberration - Raider

3 Trueborn, 2 splintercannon - Venom, dual cannon

3 Trueborn, 3 blasters - Venom, dual cannon

10 Kabalites on Foot, Blaster, Darklance

10 Kabalites, Splinter Cannon, Blaster - Raider, Grisly Trophies

10 Wracks, 2 Liquifier Guns - Raider

5 Wyches, haywires - Venom, dual cannon

5 Wyches, haywires - Venom, dual cannon

Talos, TL Splinter Cannon, TL Liquifier

Talos, TL Splinter Cannon, TL Liquifier

Razorwing, 4 monomissiles, 2 lances, rifle, flickerfield


The Table


Mission Parameters:

The mission was simple. Do not let Gargamel get taken as a slave back to commoragh... he might get good at his alchemy and magic!
On a serious note.
The mission was Crusade (3 Objectives)
Deployment was Hammer and Anvil
Initiative- Dark Eldar

Pre Game Analysis:

Smurfs: The Centurions + Tiggy have to survive for a turn for the drop pods to show up. The drop pods are key, with propper target priority the Dark Eldar will be taking a lot of damage from the initial drop and this should cripple them.

Dark Eldar: The coven has played a very similar army of ultramarines not too long ago, this army relied on rhinos rather than drop pods. The Tiggy + centurions could be devastating against the Talos, so staying out of range is important. The advantage is for the space smurfs.

Smurf Deployment:
Drop Pods at the ready, the only thing deployed were the Centurions and Tiggy in a ruin.


The Covens Deployment:
Ready to go first, the Coven spread out. If the Centurions deployed centrally the taloi were to step back and support the advance later, but they deployed in a ruin. The plan was to advance and hit the Smurfs with everything on turn 1 to do as much damage! - if they were tabled then I win...


Turn1

The Smurfs Try to steal!

They fail.
And the forces array for battle.

Coven: The Dark Eldar advance! And everything that can fires into Tiggy and the centurions... when the dust settles!:

All is left is tiggy with one wound, and a centurion with one wound... So close!

Smurfs: Tactical Doctrine. The Drop pods scream to the ground. The dreadnought, and two full tactical squads. Their aim is to knock as many venoms out of the air as possible before they do more damage.

Shooting sees the trueborn venom explode kiling 6 warrios for First Blood. The Wrack raider also goes down and another venom looses a hullpoint and a cannon.

Both units pass their pinning tests and its on to the Dark Eldar turn!


Turn2

Much Carnage, the Coven roll for their reserves. The Blasterborn and their venom show up. The razorwing and the warriors are sitting in reserve, waiting for the Smurfs to commit.
Coven: The Coven surrounds the newly arrived Smurfs... liquifiers at the ready (flashback to the last game against the Ultrasmurfs)
Before

After the liquifiers:

The wytches had charged Granpa smurf (the dreadnought) only to rip his MMelta off and then loose combat! They are falling back. But the Smurfs have taken massive casualties. In combat one of the talos charges a Mushroom (drop pod) and wrecks it.

Smurfs: Tactical Doctrine.The other two drop pods and the Storm Talon arrive! Time to press the pressure home on the coven.

Tiggy and the remaining centurion fire and immobilize Uriens Raider:


Pappa smurf and his drop pod arrive near Uriens Raider and wreck it after the centurion volley:

On the other Flank the other tac squad shows up. The Grandpa Smurf assaults and blows up the other wytch venom. The other venom gets taken down by one combat squad and the wracks loose two members to the bolters... I got lucky there:

The Smurfs have laid out their hand!


Turn3

The coven rolls for their reserves. The Raider full of warriors arrives, and boosts up the flank that Urien is on to help take that objective later in the game. The razorwing moves to engage the Storm Talon to try and gain air superiority. The rest of the army shuffles arround, to take advantage of the clumped up marines once again.

Urien Looks menacingly at pappa smurf! A showdown at the ready.


And THEN! - Life got in the way. My opponent was called away to a family emergency an was unable to finish the game. So... this part of the report is purely theoretical, what would you have done? Now that you have seen the opening gambits for the armies, who do you think had the upper hand? Thanks a lot for reading! (And this is how I felt when they cancelled Firefly...)


And for those that like video batreps:



Cheers!

[Jack Shrapnel]

I so wanted to see how that one ended Skari... next time you're in Kingston we've gotta do this one again!

For what it was worth, here was my plan in this battle:

#1 priority - choose where the bulk of the fighting was to take place -> As the objectives were near the chapel (Stupid Gargamel, always taking our stuff!) I wanted to have a line that kept you away from the objectives if at all possible, then I could fall back as necessary to claim at the end (Poppa's special abilities help me choose this)... this is why I dropped where I did, making the proverbial line in the sand and trying to disable your mobility so that you had to come to me on foot - where bolters really shine!

#2 priority - if it's a venom it must die. I knew pretty much immediately that if your venoms live I die. They just put out a disgusting amount of firepower that foot marines cannot take...it was a huge risk just deploying smurfette and the centurions, as they could have just died and cost me the game, but I felt I had to go big or go home and I couldn't hold anyone back with hammer/anvil deployment, as they'd be useless to me late game when I needed them.... and basically once their grav weaponry came into play, I'd be in big trouble if the venoms weren't already dead... but at least they got urien's raider... in hindsight I probably would have had them a little farther up, as they couldn't threaten anything turn one, and I had rolled the 4++ power anyways so why I bothered hiding them in a ruin I have no idea - not that they would have been in range, but I could have had more targets to choose from turn 2

What I learned...

oh man liquifier guns are brutal... I had no clue what they could do... and when you said D6 armor pen I was like "oh that's not that bad, it's pretty random I can risk it"... yeah basic math escapes me sometimes! So my advance line / fall back to objective tactic was good for taking out the venoms, but man what a field day those liquifier guns had... if I had to change one thing I did wrong that game, it would be doing this! I certainly will not underestimate them again!

I dropped far too close to those Talos - again liquifier guns... wow... 18 marines gone in 1 turn to liquifiers... almost half my army!

What I needed to happen:

Wracks to fail FNP vs. bolters...lol...

the dread dropping in to actually blow up something with his multi-melta (it's ridiculous how often this happens to me, like 90% of every game!)... opened topped AV10 vehicles should be easy pickings right? right?

All in all I think I had a chance to pull it out with the loss of so much of your firepower, but my chances were definitely not good at this point due to how many models I lost so early... the dread was doing well running amok even with his multi-melta knocked off (damn thing didn't do anything anyways!) and I had 20 marines, but you were about to unload once again with liquifier guns, and we probably would have had a nasty fight on our hands with poppa smurf and his boys in blue vs. urien, grotesques, and probably a Talos (who of course would have dropped a liquifier gun on them before charging in!

So I'd call it for the dark eldar if it would have played out.... you had more scoring left, and your remaining venom could play keep a way for quite a while, and you had a raider full of scoring to go grab whatever objective you wanted ...

[thesanityassassin]

The AP roll on the Liquifier guns would be huge I think. If the Dark Eldar managed to strip away most of your troops choices it would be easier to tarpit Marneus for a while and then scoot to objectives. Were I Skari I likely would have thought about pouring my Razorwing into that Dread. It had the ability to cause a ton of trouble left alive, but with the missiles and lances into the back he'd have a good chance of bringing it down. I can't see where your Stormtalon was and he's not listed in your list so I'm not sure what he was armed with, but I think the Dread might have been a bigger threat at the moment unless he could get some haywires or a Talos to it in combat that turn. I know long ranged anti-vehicle was a big problem for the Coven against me, and even my AV10 War Walkers caused trouble and basically won the game for me late.

Being able to get after those Venoms early is huge though. They shredded me, effectively taking my bikers out of the game, as I couldn't close with them to use my special weapons, and lost badly attempting to trade shots at 24". I wasn't able to take them out until late, and it really hurt.

[skari]

Thanks so much for the well versed and in depth comments. A rematch will be had in due time! This weekend... the Michael Mudd Memorial Tournament! cant wait the covens true test.

[voodoo]

Good luck at the tournament, take some names and get some grist for the mill that is Urien’s crazy babbling mutation factory.

[skari]

coven had a lot of fun at the tourney!

[Jack Shrapnel]

how'd it turn out? (in other words - more battle reports please! lol)

[skari]

For sure Jack. I have the tournament report on my youtube channel Skaredcast. I also have one against the white scars being edited and then against my brothers raven guard also being edited.