Battle Report: Two 500 point games

Played two quick 500 points games last night, as part of the doubles tournament. My team mate couldn't make it, so I played solo in both games (against a single opponent though).

My list in both games was:
Daemon Prince, Mark of Nurgle, Wings, Warptime
6 Plague Marines, 2 melta guns, rhino with a dozer blade
Vindicator

Both games were on the same 4x4 tables, just flipped edges in the two games.

Battle 1: Chaos Space Marines Vs Space Marines
So this one turned out to be brutal, and not in a good way for me... This was annhiliation with the pitched battle setup.

My opponents list:
Chaplain
5 Scouts with sniper rifles
5 Scouts with bolt pistols and CCW
Land Raider

At the kick off, the only thing I was worried about was the Land Raider, so I deployed away from it (the Chaplain and scouts with bolt pistols were embarked). His scouts with sniper rifles infiltrated and deployed high up on some terrain with LoS to pretty much the whole table. Here's how we looked at deployment:



He got first turn, and rumbled the Land Raider forward and blew the twin linked bolter off my Rhino. In my turn, my DP flew forward to try and move round the big ruin in front, followed by the Rhino. I was aiming (wrongly I think) to get within 18" of the Land Raider without getting too badly shot up so my DP could charge it. He took off from the ruins he was in, failed his dangerous terrain test and took a wound... In keeping with this, my vindicator turned to be just out of range of the Land Raider.

In his turn, the Land Raider advanced but its shooting was ineffective, whilst the scouts sniper rifles took another wound off the DP. In my turn the DP and Rhino advance around the back of the ruin. We looked something like this at this point:



My vindicator fired at the Land Raider, I was hopeful of getting some damage on it. In keeping with my luck in the previous turn, it got an 11" scatter and missed.

In the following turn, the Land Raider shook the Vindicator, and the scouts killed the Daemon Prince thanks to their rending sniper rifles. This was not going well for me...

I changed my plan here and thought I'd try and advance on the LR to melta gun it out of the fire points, so I turned my rhino around. He responded by blowing up my Vindicator, and then in the following turn blew up my rhino, killing a Plague Marine in the explosion. His Chaplain and Scouts jumped out of the LR, and my remaining PMs moved into the ruins. Over the next couple of turns the PMs picked off a scout with shooting and lost a model to the sniper rifle scouts. Eventually I got a charge into the Chaplain and scouts and killed one, but by the end of turn 7 I was down to one model.

A thorough thrashing for me. I played indecisively and not aggresively enough and it cost me. I should have rushed the LR with my Rhino, popped smoke, crossed my fingers and gone for the meltagun shot it.

Battle 2: Chaos Space Marines Vs Daemons
This second battle was capture and control (pretty much irrelevant at 500 points when everyone just tries to kill each other) with the dawn of war setup. I went second. The table was the same as battle one, we just played on the other two edges.

My opponents list was:
Skulltaker
10 Bloodletters
Soulgrinder with all the upgrades (its a new model for him so he's trying them all)

I deployed just my PMs in the Rhino and parked up near my objective and held my DP in reserve so I could react to any deep striking daemon surprises. On his first turn he dropped in his Soulgrinder, who then used phelgm on my Rhino (fortunately is was out of tongue range), which shook the crew. In my turn, I bought on my vindicator opposite his Soulgrinder, and then I destroyed it with the demolisher cannon. A good start for me. On his second turn Skulltaker and Bloodletters arrived and scattered closer to my Rhino. They then ran to spread out a bit. In return my vindicator and rhino killed 3 of them (I hit alot more but he made a load of saves), and my DP arrived behind his daemons.

Skulltaker and his crew then turned around and charged the Daemon Prince. The rest of the game was a combat between daemons and the daemon prince. It ended with the Daemon Prince killing a load of Bloodletters and then finally killing Skulltaker, but not before Skulltaker took the Daemon Prince's last wound off him. This ended with 3 Bloodletters facing off against two tanks they couldn't hurt, so a victory for me.