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Background
So 6th edition has finally come upon us. I've been looking forward to diving into the new edition, the rumours were getting me excited to try the new added features. After sharing a couple lists using the new edition, my friend, Lord Graveline, decided that we should face off in a 6th edition practice game. He'd be using his Imperial Guard, while I used my Space Wolves with Imperial Guard allies.

Andilus Greatsword's Great Company + Guardsmen


52nd Victorian Regiment


DEPLOYMENT
Since we didn't really know the rules yet, it took us a little while to get everything straightened out, but when we finally did, we rolled for the mission type. We got a 2 – Purge the Alien. Wait... DAMMIT! The 6th Edition equivalent to Annihilation? SON OF A !!! Anyone who has read my previous reports will know that I hate Annihilation, and have absolutely brutal luck with it (in fact, almost every single one of my losses has been in an Annihilation scenario). Regardless, I would soldier on and try to complete the mission in any case. If it was any consolation, Lord Graveline didn't like Annihilation either. To compensate, he blobbed up his Infantry Squads to make things even harder for me.

We then rolled for deployment and got Dawn of War (equivalent to the old Pitched Battle). We rolled off to see who got the first turn, and I won it. However, I deferred the privilege to Lord Graveline to counter his deployment set-up.

We then rolled for Warlord Traits – my Warlord, Wolf Lord Andilus Greatsword, got Master of Offence (Furious Charge inside enemy deployment zone) while Alexandre Graveline got Night Attacker (choice of automatic Night Fighting on Turn 1). We then rolled for our psychic powers. My Rune Priests both took the Divination discipline while the Primaris Psyker took Telepathy. The Priests both took Prescience, while one got Foreboding and the other got Perfect Timing. The Primaris Psyker got Psychic Shriek and Terrify. Meanwhile, Lord Graveline's Primaris Psyker got Psychic Shriek and Terrify as well. Finally, after deploying, we rolled for seizing the initiative (lots of pre-game rolling in this new edition! ), which I failed to do.

Note: the pics could have been a bit better admittedly, but the lighting wasn't so good where we were playing.

















Turn 1 – Imperial Guard
Right off the bat, we made our first new rules mistake – we forgot to roll for Night Fighting, which was bad for me considering how many big guns he brings to bear...

Lord Graveline is used to playing a largely immobile Guard gunline. However, thanks to the new Rapid Fire rules plus Snap Shooting, 6th Edition has giving his army a lot more options for sending withering fire at the enemy. The Guardsmen and Leman Russes advanced to open fire on my forces. The fire from the Russes was devastating, completely annihilating my right-most Long Fang squad (and giving Lord Graveline 1 VP for First Blood), while the Mortars nearly wiped out my Veterans (Graveline's characteristically good scatter rolls held up once again). The Demolisher also shot one of my Rhinos, but only Shook it and took off 2 Hull Points. My other forces were unscathed, but Lord Graveline's alpha strike had halved my fire power in one volley...











Turn 1 – Space Wolves
Knowing they'd be blow up imminently, I launched both my Rhinos straight forward to try to meltagun the Russes next turn. I didn't realize I could go Flat Out with the Rhinos though, if I had I would have done so rather than shoot. Instead, one of my Rhinos' Storm Bolter fired at one of the blobs and killed 2 Guardsmen. Hoping to take out some of Lord Graveline's guns before his Vendettas arrived, my Long Fangs aimed for the Basilisks. The Rune Priest cast Prescience on the squad and then opened fire. Unfortunately, they only managed to strip 2 Hull Points off the lead Basilisk.

Well that was underwhelming... I needed my Storm Eagle or Vendetta to arrive and deliver its payload, pronto.





Turn 2 – Imperial Guard
One of Lord Graveline's Vendetta's arrived this turn (we had to proxy it as a Monolith), while the one with the melta-vets stayed in reserves. Unfortunately, we hadn't read all the flyer rules so we used them somewhat improperly. Normally they only get a single 90 degree pivot at the start of the turn, but we were treating them like skimmers (without being in hover mode). Anyway, it moved up the field ahead of the infantry to open fire on the Rhinos.

In the Shooting Phase, the Demolisher fired at my right-most Rhino, blowing it up. Then the 2 LRBTs fired at the disembarked Grey Hunters and Rune Priest. CRAP. To make matters worse, Lord Graveline's scatter rolls managed to continue to be good, so the unit was destroyed nearly twice-over. Meanwhile, the Vendetta shot at the other Rhino, blowing it up, while the Basilisks bombarded the Grey Hunters. Luckily, their shots were a little off for once, so the unit only suffered a couple casualties. However, Alexandre Graveline's command squad shot at them with their plasma guns, scoring a wound. Not used to the wound allocation, I placed my Primaris Psyker closest to them, and he was incinerated by it (also, in another rules gaffe I didn't realize he couldn't enter my transports).

Aaaaaaand once again I got destroyed for the second turn in a row. I really needed my flyers to come in this time or I might just get tabled.







Turn 2 – Space Wolves
Well one of my flyers did show up – the Vendetta (which was proxied using... a bottle of Lysol ) moved to try to take out Graveline's Vendetta. Meanwhile, my remaining Grey Hunters tried to move into cover, but I rolled a terrible difficult terrain test, so they were still stuck in the open. To make matters worse, on their run roll, I rolled a !

In the Shooting Phase, my Rune Priest cast Prescience again, and they fired at the Basilisks. I did manage to wreck one of them, although I had hoped to take out at least 2. The Lysol... er, Vendetta shot down Lord Graveline's Vendetta with ease. With any luck, it would survive the 2nd Vendetta's arrival.









Turn 3 – Imperial Guard
Unfortunately for me, Lord Graveline's 2nd Vendetta (carrying his melta-vets) arrived and moved to the same place as his first one. It then shot down my Vendetta (I tried to jink, but failed). The remaining Basilisks then blew apart my Grey Hunters, while the Mortars killed my surviving Veterans and the LRBTs killed half of my remaining Long Fangs, causing them to fall back.





Turn 3 – Space Wolves
My Long Fangs managed to regroup, but my Storm Eagle STILL didn't show up!!! The Long Fangs tried to shoot at the Vendetta, but didn't do any damage...



Turn 4 – Imperial Guard
Predictably, the combined arms of the Guard annihilated my remaining Long Fangs. We had heard that you lose if all your models on the board are dead, but couldn't find the exact entry in the rulebook to confirm it. In any case, we decided to play another turn or 2 to see what happened with my Storm Eagle...





Turn 4 – Space Wolves
The Storm Eagle (proxied with a Land Raider) came in in Hover Mode so I could disembark my Grey Hunters and Wolf Lord. In the Shooting Phase, the Storm Eagle's typhoon missile launcher fired at the Vendetta, but unfortunately I failed to shoot it down. Meanwhile, the Vengeance missile launcher (S5 AP4 2x Large Blasts) fired at one of the blob squads. The result was pretty brutal, killing 12 Guardsmen (and as it was the first real damage I'd caused all game, it was pretty satisfying). The Grey Hunters didn't bother shooting, they wanted to make sure they could assault the other blob squad. I wanted to try to multi-assault the blob and Alexandre Graveline's command squad, but I didn't figure I'd have a chance to Thankfully, I managed to get a successful charge and wiped out all but 2 of the blob (the sergeant and a lasgunner). Predictably, they fell back immediately, leaving my last squad open to Lord Graveline's gunline once more. I consolidated them towards the nearby forest for some cover, but most of them were still stuck in the open.





Turn 5 – Imperial Guard
A little surprised about my Storm Eagle's firepower and its destructive capabilities on his infantry, Lord Graveline's big guns prepared to shoot it down. The guns thundered, and the Vendetta managed to shoot down the Storm Eagle (AP2 is huge in this edition!). Meanwhile, risking blowing up his own command squad from a poor scatter, Lord Graveline directed his Russes, Mortars, Basilisks and infantry to open fire on the Grey Hunters. Luckily for him they didn't blow up any of his own men, and killed all of the squad except for Andilus Greatsword himself (he was only wounded once).



Turn 5 – Space Wolves
Obviously, I was screwed at this point, so I wanted to get as many VPs as I could before the end. Andilus charged straight towards Alexandre Graveline and his command squad. Unfortunately, I got my first taste of the drawbacks of random charge ranges – Andilus rolled really poorly and didn't make it in!





Turn 6 – Imperial Guard
Hoping to wrap things up, the Guardsmen opened fire on the last Space Wolf. However, he didn't go down easy, only suffering 1 wound from most of Lord Graveline's fire. The only units left to shoot at him were Alexandre's command squad, which opened fire with their plasma weapons. There were 4 hits, and we rolled to see who would (probably) get the final kill. Andilus made all his saves from the plasma gunners, but failed his last save from Alexandre Graveline's plasma pistol! The Wolf Lord toppled, and the massacre ended.



Total VPs:
Space Wolves – 2
Imperial Guard – 16 (including Slay the Warlord and First Blood)

VICTORY FOR THE IMPERIAL GUARD!!!

AFTERTHOUGHTS
...Ouch. There's pretty much no other way to describe this battle. Definitely a learning experience, although next time we'll have a better idea of how to play with the new rules. I'll probably tinker with the list as well and try out some experimental units over the course of the next few months.

As for 6th edition, I wish it hadn't nerfed assault armies so badly, and that vehicles weren't so fragile, but I'm enjoying it overall. I'll have to adapt, and maybe play more defensively with my Space Wolves (my Nids, on the other hand, will be run in bigger hordes than ever!). Flyers are fun, but fragile. I'm guessing gunships will be more popular than transports, especially when flakk units start showing up. I'm also a fan of fortifications, the defence line was handy this game.

In any case, haven't fought Lord Graveline's armoured Guard in ages (since he only had 2 Leman Russes), so it was painfully fun to be reminded what sort of hurt they could throw out there at you. We're planning on having a rematch in the near future after we've read the rulebook more thoroughly... and this time it'll be something BESIDES kill points!

If you enjoyed this, be sure to check out my other battle reports!

Wow, what an interesting battle. I just got my rulebook today; trying to figure out the rules that are new and which ones aren't.

Great report man! I'm definitely looking forwards to an objectives game rather than kill points!

Hopefully I'll get my guys painted soon so they'll look a little more intimidating on the field. Finally have my paint job in mind, so hopefully I can get it on them quickly!

Love the battle map!

Decio wrote:Wow, what an interesting battle. I just got my rulebook today; trying to figure out the rules that are new and which ones aren't.

That's one way to put it... I got my ass kicked! I'm certain I'll perform much better in our rematch though!

Lord Graveline wrote:Great report man! I'm definitely looking forwards to an objectives game rather than kill points!

Hopefully I'll get my guys painted soon so they'll look a little more intimidating on the field. Finally have my paint job in mind, so hopefully I can get it on them quickly!

Agreed, I can't wait to see them all painted up!

timthehierodule wrote:Love the battle map!

Thanks, I find that it adds a lot of clarity to my reports!

I wish my snipers had performed better. I got a precision shot, but it failed the roll to wound. After the first turn I either forgot about them (not used to running them), or they never had a target in site
Next time, I'll try to be more mindful of some of the intricacies I'm not used to running in my army.

cool report. I think its more important now to run a more balanced army or at least a few shooty units. Makes sense that its going to be risky to try the old transport rush likein 5th ed. I think once you guys get more 6th ed games in their will be more fantastic strategies than you can shake a power sword at.

I was actually quite surprised by the result; I'd like to know more about what you thought about the massive punch delivered by the guard.

Decio wrote:I was actually quite surprised by the result; I'd like to know more about what you thought about the massive punch delivered by the guard.

I haven't fought Lord Graveline's Guardsmen head-on with my Wolves in years (I've done a few team games against him, but usually stayed away from his tanks; we've been Allies for the most part) - back around when 5th ed started in fact. Back then he only had 2 Russes, but they were enough to annihilate my foot-slogging Wolves. He was basically the reason I took up mechanized units. Since then, he's gotten even more pie-plate dropping units that can wipe out my models in 1 shot. It's quite scary! In this game, I hoped cover would make up for this, but I had a combination of terrible luck and bad placement which messed up my plans and put me on the run off the bat.

If I was to redo the battle, I'd castle up a little more. A common problem I've noticed with my deployment strategies is that I spread myself out way too thin. I should have just deployed in such a way that I could just completely ignore the Russes for the first couple turns while pounding the rest of his army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

lonedrow02 wrote:cool report. I think its more important now to run a more balanced army or at least a few shooty units. Makes sense that its going to be risky to try the old transport rush likein 5th ed. I think once you guys get more 6th ed games in their will be more fantastic strategies than you can shake a power sword at.

Yeah, I just played a game against Blood Angels, and I've gotta say I love challenges! They add so much fun tension to the game.

They are super-fun, although they're annoying with two models who have the same initiative and the same AP weapons, it does create a funny Rocky freeze-frame result though

hehe I love the layout and the deadly lysol bottle of doom. Very entertaining. Keep it up

sudojoe wrote:hehe I love the layout and the deadly lysol bottle of doom. Very entertaining. Keep it up

For sure, I love the Lysol proxy. I'm sure I'll be using it for our next battle. If/when I get a Vendetta, I'm definitely stencilling "Lysol" onto the side of it!

It kicks the crap out of the opposition and cleans the crap off the surface of your toilet bowls!

Nice map layout and discription.