40k Fate of Konor – Ynnari v Thousand Sons 2

Red played through another Fate of Konor scenario at her FLGS.

Red’s List

Battalion Detachment

• The Visarch (Warlord)
• Warlock (Conceal/Reveal)
• Warlock (Conceal/Reveal)
• Guardians x10 + Bright Lance Heavy Weapon Platform
• Guardians x10 + AML Heavy Weapon Platform
• Rangers x5

Outrider Detachment

• Farseer Skyrunner + Singing Spear (Guide, Doom)
• Windriders + Shuriken Cannons x4
• Windriders + Shuriken Cannons x4
• Windriders + Shuriken Cannons x3

Vanguard Detachment

• Spiritseer (Enhance/Drain)
• Fire Dragons x5 + Exarch with Firepike
• Fire Dragons x5 + Exarch with Dragon’s Breath Flamer
• Wraithblades + Axe and Shield x5
• Wave Serpent + Twin Bright Lances + Shuriken Cannon
• Wave Serpent + Twin Bright Lances + Shuriken Cannon

The Opposing List

The guy I played last week – one of the workers at the FLGS – was itching for a rematch against my Ynnari, so he could get a little more used to the tactics of countering Soulburst. Although my list remained largely the same, his list was a bit different.

• 9 Rubric Marines with one Apsiring Sorcerer and one Soulreaper
• 2 Exalted Sorcerers
• Hellwright
• Hellforged Deredo Dreadnought
• Hellforged Contemptor Dreadnought
• 2 Hellforged Predators
• Magnus the Red

To top it off, this was my first game against Chaos Space Marines using their new codex rules, so there were still some surprises and unexpected twists.

The Game

Playing another Fate of Konor mission, this game was narrative-wise supposed to occur on the planet of Drenthal, which was so overcome by the invading Chaos forces that the Imperium wanted to destroy it by overloading a fusion core in a mining facility. The Imperium, and allies, tasked with evacuating the planet, had to get as many of their forces off-world as possible.

For the scenario, the Attacker was given 12″ of board to set up in; meanwhile, the Defender was tasked with setting up in the other half of the board. The Attacker’s objective was to get as many units off the board via the Defender’s deployment edge as possible – representing those units escaping to a space port where they could be ferried offworld. As the game progressed, the board slowly disappeared; at the end of every battle round 6″ of the board disappeared, any models on it being immediately slain unless they could Fly. This meant that, by the end of the game – turn 6 – 36″ of board would be gone, so only 12″ would be safe from the impending collapse.

To win, the Attacker had to get more than one third of their army’s power level – not counting models with the Battlefield role of Flyer – off the board; while the Defender only had to prevent this. To keep the game approximately even, the power level of a unit exiting the back of the board was the original total of the unit, no matter how many casualties it had taken.

Since an Imperium army would have been automatically Attacker, my opponent and I had to roll off to see who would take what role. My opponent won this roll, but since a large portion of his army wanted to remain stationary, he opted to be Defender, even though he was aware that my army’s speed advantage would be difficult to counter.

Deployment

Guaranteed that I would get first turn by the mission, which strangely had no Seize the Initiative mechanic at all, I set my units up as far forward as possible but in two different clumps. All of my bikes, one set of guardians with their warlock, and the Wave Serpent ferrying the Fire Dragons ended up on one side; while the other set of guardians and warlock accompanied the Wave Serpent ferrying my Wraithblades, the Visarch, and Spiritseer on the other side of the board. The Rangers, on the other hand, got set up in reserves after we rolled to see if that was even possible since the mission held no mention of it.

Since we took turns placing units, my opponent also divided his forces in two. The Rubric Marines with one Exalted Sorcerer, placed in the cover of a tall tower, and Magnus staged at the far back of the deployment zone opposite the bikes, and the Deredo, the other Exalted Sorcerer, Predators, Hellwright, and Contemptor were staged opposite the smaller force.

Turn 1

I started by moving up all of my forces their full distances, advancing the Guardians and Warlocks to keep up with the superior movement speed of the other units. The Rangers infiltrated in the far corner of the board, inches away from freedom before the rest of the army did their best to do some damage, although only five Rubric Marines died. I unfortunately forgot the psychic phase, lowering my damage output significantly.

In response, the Thousand Sons cast smite to put 4 wound total onto the Wave Serpent ferrying the Wraithblades and to put 1 wound on the other Wave Serpent. After dropping the Wave Serpent ferrying the Fire Dragons down to 2 wounds left, Magnus assaulted and destroyed the Farseer, which then turned into a Spawn. Lastly, the Exalted Sorcerer with the Predators ran after the Rangers and assaulted them, although he failed to kill them to keep them from exiting.

Turn 2

The Rangers fell back off the table edge to escape, and two of the bike squads moved off. The Exalted Sorcerer that had assaulted the Rangers died to tank fire since he was out on his own, and one more Rubric Marine died to the shooting from the bikes that were left.

My opponent then used Magnus to destroy the Fire Dragon’s Wave Serpent, ejecting them out in front of the tank although six of them died to the tank collapsing. I opted to evenly split the deaths among the two squads to minimize the potential Morale issues, and as we were looking at the layout of the table, my opponent noted that he should have flown Magnus over the Wave Serpent so he could assault it by placing his body between the tank and the table edge. This would have forced the Fire Dragons to be ejected farther back on the table and walk all the way around the other side of the tower, likely keeping them on the table long enough for Magnus and the Rubrics to kill them. The Spawn and Contemptor, meanwhile, assaulted and killed one squad of guardians since they were lagging behind the others.

Turn 3

To finish off the game, the rest of my army, except for the two Warlocks who had been rolling very badly for their advance moves, moved off the table. This left the Thousand Sons with nothing else to do but kill the two and end the game.

Overall, I had managed to get the following off the table: the Rangers, all three squads of Windriders, the Visarch, both sets of Fire Dragons, the Wraithblades, and one squad of Guardians. This put me with 57 power of my total 95 off the board, plenty to secure me the victory.

Conclusions

Overall, this mission was incredibly strange and really only put my army’s speed to the test. Although the Thousand Sons did a lot of damage – most of the squads that made it off the table were maybe half health at best – they did not focus fire enough to kill the units they needed to. Unfortunately, this method was the best to kill my army without provoking extra Soulbursts, so it really just came down to the mission heavily favoring my army.

It might have been interesting to see what would have happened if my opponent had forced me to be the Defender since he got to choose, but he was very convinced that the mission would have been worse for his army that way, especially since a large portion of my army had the Fly keyword, which allowed them to ignore the collapsing planet.

Ynnari Win