In the aftermath of the Space Wolves assault on K’Nosha Prime, three worshippers of chaos were able to get past enemy lines in an attempt to reach a secret space dock. The wolves had sent a kill team to retrieve them, as it was believed one of them may possess vital tactical data. Knowing that they were being stalked, the forces of chaos unleashed a band of daemons from the warp to stop the marines and see their minions to freedom.
In this battle report, Ernie and I play a game of Special Operations: Killzone. The mission for this game was 34.6 Person of Interest. In this mission, each team is trying to retrieve the Persons of Interest (PoI) from the center of the board. We played the game on a 4’x 4’ with heavy terrain. We also decided to use the Fate and Secondary Missions cards for the game.
When it came to the force I was using for this game, I elected to use my Chaos Daemons. I am quickly finding them to be my army of choice for Killzone, mostly because I like the simple play of them and how the army works at this size. While selecting my forces, I decided to drop the Slaanesh elements from it and focus on Khorne and Tzeentch.
Bonecrusher w/ FNP
6 Bloodletters
1 Fleshhound of Khorne w/ Blade Master (+1 Attack and Rending)
2 Horrors
1 Flamer w/ Resistant (+1 toughness)
Ernie gave me a surprise when I arrived and revealed that he was playing his Space Wolves. It had been a long time since I had faced the grey beards, and was honestly expecting him to bring his orks to the game. When it came to his list, it was a nice mix of terminators, scouts and wolves.
When it came to draw cards for the game, I first drew the Reverse Engineering card for my secondary mission. This card has me select a model with a non-standard equipment choice as my target for the game. If I can kill the model in CC, I earn an extra 10 mission points. Ernie had two models that fit the requirements, so I wrote down that I was targeting his Wulfen model for the mission.
As for my Fate card, I drew ‘Die, You Git’. This card allows me to re-roll any/all failed re-rolls to wound by a single model during a single enemy’s phase. When it came to the Fate card, I wrote it down and forgot about it. Since all of my CC attacks are with power weapons and I am typically getting 2.5 swings per assault phase, I just felt like I would never need it.
Early Turns
The early turns of the game saw Ernie quickly move his wolves into position to grab two of the PoIs. He also set his scouts into overwatch to sniper my forces as they came out of hiding. During my turn, I ran my Khorne units forward and had the flamer jump ahead. As for the horrors, I moved them into a position to get some shots if Ernie chose to move out of cover.
Middle Turns
The middle game saw our forces clash in the center of the board, each side trying to grab the PoIs. I was able to bring down one of Ernie’s terminators with my bloodletters. In exchange, his other terminator was able to bring down my bloodcrusher with the help of a well placed sniper shot.
Late Turns
The late turns of the game saw Ernie move two of the PoIs off the board with the help of one of his wolves and a grey hunter. As they were capturing them, my forces continued to assault what remained of Ernie’s team and press forward. I also snagged the last PoI and began to move him towards my board edge. The game concluded with Ernie having only a single wolf remaining and failing his leadership test to continue the game.
Conclusion
With the game concluded, we sat down to figure out the scores. I knew it was going to be close, as I clearly had the edge when it came to kills, but Ernie played the smart game and focused on capturing the PoIs. As we figured out the scores, Ernie revealed that he had drawn the ‘Traitor” card for his secondary objective and had selected one of my horrors to be the traitor. In the end, I had score XX points, and Ernie had XX points.
Lessons Learned
1. Never trust Tzeentch! How cool is it that the game was won by Ernie drawing the ‘Traitor” mission and playing it on a horror.
2. I need to really think about when is the right time to drop a player below 25% and start forcing the test to end the game. In this case, I controlled the board and had the tactical advantage when it came to forces remaining. The smart play would have been to pull back and secure the last PoI before dropping Ernie below 25%.
3. I need to remember that every decision matters. I had won the roll to see who would go first. I selected to go second at the start of the game. After the game, we talked about my reasoning why I elected to go second. Reflecting upon it, I really didn’t have a good reason and really just made a gut call during the moment. Looking back now, the call didn’t cost me the game, but it didn’t help me either considering the primary objective.
4. For the first time, I have to admit that I am a bit concerned about balance with the game. This concern has nothing to do with what actually happened in our game, but comes from the thought that a team composed of only bloodcrushers could be over the top. Again, not something I am worried about for casual games like this one, but it is something to consider when playing Killzone on a more competitive level.
Yeah, the final score was really close: Daemons 38, Wolves 47. The game turned on one secured PoI or successful secondary objective. You would've won by one point had you gotten your PoI off the table, and you were really close. I needed to lose my break roll when I did. If I had been a smart Battle Leader, I would have removed my PoI escorts with the PoI or run my remaining models at the Daemons rather than waiting for them to come to me.
ReplyDeleteIt's tough to balance the need for points a player gets for a kill against forcing break tests. That's a delightful part of the game's complexity.
I thought you had a good balance for your team: c/c, shooters, fast movers, and tough guys.
I think this was the best K/Z game we've played yet.