Black Legion vs Sisters of Battle: 1750 Relic

Last night I got to play against a rare treat, a fully painted and beautiful Sisters of Battle army, played by my buddy, Obadiah Hampton.  Aside from being a fantastic painter, he is also a pretty solid general, which meant I was up for a good game.  Until now, I've been mostly putting my Black Legion army to the test against Tyranids and Space Marines, so fighting something that played very differently was going to be a challenge and a treat.  Enough with introductory banter, lets get on with it! We rolled The Relic as our mission with Hammer and Anvil deployment, which happens to be my least favorite mission coupled with my least favorite set up, yay!  The board was fairly covered (we played with 12 pieces of terrain), with a large graveyard in the middle, hiding the Relic.

My army was my standard 1750 Black Legion, while Obi's was a rock solid SOB army, with 4(?) 10-girl squads of Sisters (Meltagun and Heavy Flamer, in Rhinos), 2 Exorcists, an Immolator (with meltas), Celestine and her Seraphim (with 1 set of hand flamers and one set of inferno pistols) as well as the ubiquitous Uriah Jacobus, Protector of the Faith joining a squad of Heavy Bolter Retributors.

Turns 1-2

The game started off as I had planned, one Maulerfiend got decimated by a volley of 6 Exorcist missiles, while the other advanced more carefully (and luckily) up the other flank.  The rest of my army, mostly consisting of Abaddon, his cultists and 2 units of Rhino mounted marines beelined it straight for the objective in the middle.  His army advanced more cautiously and kept mounted up in fear of the impending fire storm that would come from my Helldrakes.

I was able to move up on to the objective with Abaddon and his lackeys, though after deciding I'd try to use Abaddon to tank some shots for the cultists, rolling 4 armor saves, I managed 3 1's... So lesson learned, Abaddon doesn't put his life on the line for anyone, even with a 2+ save, and especially not cultists...

Turns 3-4

This was your typical slugfest, I annihilated Celestine with a Plasma gun, my CSM squad closest to the objective got their rhino wrecked and subsequently were pinned, and the Heldrakes mopped up copious amount of Sisters and Seraphim.  My Maulerfiend charged into the Retributors (who were in the way of the Exorcist I wanted to eat), and was in return charged by the remaining 2 Seraphim (one of which had an Evicerator).  Unfortunately for him though, my Maulerfiend hit the Seraphim twice squashing them both before they could hurt him.

During this fight for domination however, I did a fairly decent job of keeping mobbed up on the Relic, at least keeping him away.  Abaddon slaughtered 2 units of Sisters, before suffering his final wound to a Rhino-mounted stormbolter... Oh the humanity.

Turn 5

The last turn of the game saw me desperately push to get more bodies on top of the objective.  The last two previous turns had no sighting of Celestine, so at this point I was just hoping she wouldn't come back... which she naturally did, right with the Sisters needed it the most.  After showing up with perfect timing, she proceeded to torch some more cultists and kill the remaining marine I had near the objective.  I rolled to see if the game would continue and got a 1, the gods were not on my side that day.  Nobody had the objective and Obadiah had 2 minor victory points to my 0.

Wrap Up

My army did what I thought it would, though I failed a few more armor saves and LD tests than I would have liked, and my Sisters of Battle opponent, while not rolling too well at the beginning, still accomplished what he needed to and won the game.  I still like my current list and don't think I'll be changing it, had the game gone to turn 6, I was confident that I could have won it, while he was fairly sure that his Sisters wouldn't have appreciated another turn of the Chaos onslaught.