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This is going to be fairly text heavy as it has analysis from both players.

Company Command Tank, Vanquisher, co-axial Stubber, Sponson Heavy Bolters, Veteran Commander, Extra Armor, 220
Leman Russ Battle Tank, Skilled Driver, 155
Leman Russ Battle Tank, Skilled Driver, 155
Leman Russ Executioner, Extra Armor, 205
Leman Russ Punisher, Heavy Bolter Sponsons, Extra Armor, 215
Armored Fist, Heavy Bolter, Grenade Launcher, Gung-ho Crew, 125
Armored Fist, Heavy Bolter, Grenade Launcher, Gung-ho Crew, 125
Armored Fist, Flamer, Hull-mounted Heavy Flamer, Gung-ho Crew, 115
Medusa, Bastion Breacher, Enclosed Crew, 155
Colossus, 140
Colossus, 140
1750

No, this isn't Guard. It is actually an Armored Battlegroup from Imperial Armor 1, and it isn't my regular army. I had about 70 points left over so I threw upgrades on the army just to use them up. The special rules on the tanks don't come into play, save the Veteran Commander rule which I'll explain later. In preparation for a biker heavy list I did exchange a Medusa for a Colossus, but I kept one and the Vanquisher incase he was actually running Khan and pulled an outflanking Landraider Crusader on me.
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Sanct's Bikers:
Captain, Relic Blade, Storm Shield, Bike
8 Bikers, Fist, 2 Meltas, Hvy-Bolter Attack Bike (HBAB)
8 Bikers, Fist, 2 Meltas, Hvy-Bolter Attack Bike (HBAB)
8 Bikers, Fist, 2 Flamers, Hvy-Bolter Attack Bike (HBAB)
3 Multi-Melta Attack Bikes (MMAB)
3 MMAB
3 HBAB
1490.

To expand out to 1750 to meet the points limit:
+Digital Weapons to the Captain.
+Techmarine, Full Harness, Power Weapon, Bike.
+Techmarine, Full Harness, Power Weapon, Bike.
260.

1490+260=1750.

Pregame: I did know this would be an Armored Company. The basis of my 1750 list is my 1500 All-Comers list.
I had 260 points to spend and went with what I have tried/own.

Yes, the Techmarines are a weird choice. I chose them because I’ve used them before and that they fit nicely with the biker theme.
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DarkHound: I won the roll to go first and elected to deploy on the bottom left, much to Sanct's surprise (the record shows he said "Really?" 6 times). The plan was that although there was road for me to use, and more objectives on that side of the board, I needed to keep his bikes off me as long as possible. He can't Turbo across the pipes, so he either has to eat pie for a turn while he cuts across them, or eat pie with a 3+ save for two, or even three, turns while he drives around through the middle. Deploying on the top right would have led to a turn of Turbo-boosting, then his bikers in my face on turn 2.

Sanctjud: So, I went full reserves. To deploy in a small tight area just doesn't make sense with pie plates....esp. pie plates that ignore cover and armor. So...as inadvisable as it is to leave things to the Random Number Generator (RNG)... it was the safest bet.


DarkHound: This is the end of my second turn. The plan was the Leman Russ Battle Tanks would clear out the top for the two Chimeras behind them. If they didn't, and that was more likely, then atleast they'd contest it and choke the gap, keeping Sanct's bikers off my mortars. Meanwhile the heavier chasis would secure the bottom of the board for the Chimera. That plan came close to falling on its face right off the bat when my Vanquisher, the first tank crossing the pipes, rolled a 1 on its check. The Veteran Commander ability allows a single re-roll on almost any die that affects the tank, so I had to spend it on the very first turn or risk the rest of the game.

Sanctjud: I had tea for my first turn.


Sanctjud: Reserves: Fudge! Is the only thing I can say. 1 Techmarine, 1 Multi-melta Attack Bike squad, 1 Heavy Bolter Attack Bike squad, and ALL of my troops come in. Not good; I wouldn't have minded 1, I'd be irked with 2, but damn it all of them came in. The Techmarine Turbo-boosted to get behind the wrecked Leman Russ and waited to engage next turn. The flamer bikers Turbo-boosted on the right side of the board to put some pressure on that side, and they really didn't have much to contribute early on. The Heavy Bolters moved onto the board just a little to get line of sight on the left Chimera. Both melta bikers combat squad. One squad comes in next to the Multi-melta Attack Bikes and one squad Turbo-boosts into the middle. The Heavy Bolter support squads move on centrally. All the Multi-meltas fail to do damage, only shaking the left Leman Russ, and the Heavy Bolters don't do anything either.


DarkHound: And so I started shooting. At this point my plan is the same: baracade the top, push out to the right. I know that the mess at the top of the board is basically irrelevant. What is important is the black based squad. They have the power to hold two objectives or contest my second objective (the one I've yet to get to). Despite that, it would be foolish to move my tanks to engage them with other targets bearing down on them. By the end of the shooting phase the MM Attack Bikers have a single bike with a single wound left, another squad is killed outright and a third flees. The Colossi and Executioner fire on the black bases, but to no avail.


Sanctjud: The Captain and the last Techmarine come in, while the last MM Attack Bikes are still having tea. The black-based flamer bikers on the right Turbo-boost again. The Heavy Bolter Attack Bikes, orange, and teal support squads move up and open up on the chimera in the center and manage to immobilize it. So something went my way. The last MM Attack Bike on the left moves to get a side shot on the Chimera on the left but misses. Captain and Techmarine charge the top left Russ. They needed 6's to hit, but the Captain gets one glance and shakes it. The Techmarine charges the other Russ on the left but misses both fist attacks despite needing only 4's and fails with his krak grenades. So the Techmarines finally get a chance to perform and fail. 250 points well spent , but I knew they weren't gonna do much to begin with.


DarkHound: Please excuse the trail marks from the scatter die. Top of the fourth turn, and at this point my priorities have switched around; the bottom right tanks are stuck between a rock and a hard place, while the top objective looks ripe for the taking. A couple tank shocks see one of the Tech Marines fleed the board, and the last Multi-Melta dies to fire from the Chimera's passengers. The Captain eats a wound from the Chimera sitting on the home objective. Back on the bottom of the board, I chose to shoot the Bikers with the meltaguns over the ones on the black bases. I figure the Meltas are more dangerous, and if the Vanquisher and Executioner can keep the black bases off my Punisher I can use it to clean up the black bases later. 2 turns of Colossi bombardment turn a profit when they manage to kill 2 bikers, but not enough to force a morale check.


Sanctjud: The remaining MM Attack Bikes come into play and try to show how it's done, but only manage to immobilize and shake the Russ in between the two ruined buildings. The Heavy Bolter Attack Bikes charge the Russ on top left, but miss all their krak grenades. The remaining scoring bikers (Attack Bike and teal biker) Turbo-boost or move to try and stay out of the way. Black bikers combo charge the Vanquisher and Executioner, and after like 3-4 results (DH: the records show two pens on the Vanquisher and a pen and two glances on the Executioner) I Immobilize them and take off their main weapons. The Captain and Techmarine shoot the Chimera and only immobilized it with the TL-plasma pistol, then proceed to charge the Chimera, causing it to explode, killing 5 members. They make their pinning and morale tests. Not good. It's nice I'm killing something and taking the mobility of the Tank Company, but I'm losing bikers fast and not cracking the metal boxes to kill the squishies fast enough.


DarkHound: Top of the fifth turn, do or die for me. I've got to nail the lone teal biker, and finish off the entire black base squad. Unfortunately Sanct had been saving all of his luck for that one squad, where he saved 9 of the 11 wounds my Punisher put on them. The Chimera and the exposed Armored Fist squad were able to kill the Techmarine and put a further wound on the Captain. The Medusa killed one of the MM Attack Bikes, while the Colossi both missed the lone teal biker. Fortunately my Leman Russ was on target and pegged him. The end of that shooting phase saw all the bikes hold their morale except the Captain, who fled off the board at the start of Sanct's turn.


Sanctjud: So, turn 5 with mauled squads and there's little I can do. The last scoring Attack Bike Turbo-boosts to the objective near the pipes. The black-based bikers Turbo-boost to the top right objective. The MM Attack Bikes Turbo-boost to contest the object the Chimera was sitting on. The Heavy Bolter Attack Bikes kill off the exposed IG infantry. I don't have anything, so my only choice was to contest and score what I could. It's up the RNG and it's been a bitch the whole game.


Sanctjud: A third party roll for turn 6 and it's a 4. Well, good game, cause everything died to 3/3 Hits on the scatter weapons that mattered.

DarkHound: You had me sweating bullets 'till that roll showed a 4. After that I knew Ringo had given me the game, and the scatter rolls weren't surprising. The fact that you took so many casualties, yet was so close to winning meant you played the cards you were dealt correctly.
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Sanctjud: The RNG hated me. I just wanted to point that out.

That aside, I joked throughout the game that I had a portion of my list that offered nothing to the task at hand (points spent on flamers, power weapons, some-what hvy bolters). But I will say now before others jump on it, I didn’t really feel I was playing at a disadvantage. Note: everything in my army could deal with armor. Each member was armed with Krak grenades and had speed, so I couldn’t complain about that.

Full reserves: I feel it was the right call with the deployment, mission, and going second versus my opponent’s list. He’s castled, coming in from reserves still allows me to combat squad, and going second is useful for a mission with some luck (that didn’t come).

Target Selections: I chose the right targets I feel. MMs and Hvy bolters tagged the targets they needed to shoot at…results are disappointing at most times.

RunThrough:
I’m actually am not gonna do this as normal and drawn out.
Honestly, I don’t think I did anything wrong. In addition, everybody was in their positions to do their jobs. The dice really screwed things over as there is nothing I can do about that really.
Terrain limited my ability to create force concentration and I didn’t want to bunch up as much as I already did. The idea was to get close and hurt things at range when the opportunity arose which was done, but I just couldn’t smash the wall of armor and was only able to crack it slightly.

Blame: Techmarines were points black-holes. It’s not to say they couldn’t perform: they did have 4 fist and 2 krak attacks between the two, but it was too much to ask for one to hit on 6’s and the other to completely miss on 4’s for the fist.
Now, in hind sight, the Mortis Dread (Rifleman) dread would have been better points; my opponent’s Chimera’s would be prime targets and he did leave 2/3 of them expose their side armor. But I don’t own them, so I didn’t go for them.
Another option would have been scouts to outflank and primarily aim to charge the Chimera or Corner tanks.

Bottom Line, I gambled and lost to the RNG. Darkhound was awesome to play against, especially at 4 in the morning when we were making pretty simple mistakes by that point. I look forward to our next game.
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DarkHound: Thanks. The luck on this game can be summed up by our roll for going first. I rolled first and got a 1. I swore, then Sanct rolled and also got a 1. We laughed and I tried again. I rolled a 3 and shrugged, then he rolled a 2. Ringo was gakking on us both, but Sanct got it worse than I did. Even with all that, the whole game came down to that last 3+ on turn 5.

I've gotten precious few games in with this Armored Company, so while I knew how things were supposed to perform I hadn't quite felt out the army yet. The Colossi were rather dissapointing, which leads me to believe I need to either spend more money on them (squadroning them with a Griffon) or less. Given that I'd normally only take one, I think they're valuable enough to keep around, but not good enough to spend more on. The Punisher was a monster though, followed by the Vanquisher and the two Battle Tanks while the Executioner didn't really earn its keep. Now I know I didn't throw the Executioner at anything particularly juicy, but just looking at how few saves it forced him to make, I'm not comfortable enough with the tank to take it again. Yes, the Punisher beat out the Executioner for me. Now, with the points I save on that Executioner I can pick up a remedy for something else I learned this game. Immobilized tanks ruin your battle plan, confining you to single file movements or stopping you all together. I think I'll bring an Atlas Recovery Tank; it is really cheap AV14 saturation with the ability to repair and tow broken tanks.

I eagerly anticipate our next game. I might just let Sanctjud write up the report for it.

Good game and good report

Have to say though thinking through running bikers against tanks reminds me of that famour Polish Cavalry (ie men on horses) charge at start WW2 against German Tanks..

Sanct good to see your dry humour in full force
Dark Hound you gotta be happy to beat Sanct :O)

Good game, and nice report. I am left to wonder if armored company is appropriate in 4th ed, what with russes being troops and thus scoring and all.

For Sanctjud - This game seemed similar to the last one you played against an armor-heavy group. The difference was that in the last one you drove a wedge between his forces. In this game, your opponent split into two flanks (though not as badly), and you sort of attacked on a broad front. Perhaps if you would have kept everything on the right side (and out of LOS of a third of his forces), you would have been able to punch through the side and get to the artillery.

@Loricatus Aurora:

Funny you should mention that. My Real Life army has WFB knight models as basis for conversion for bikers.
You should see the game log...very colorful language

@Ailaros:
Maybe.
Focusing on any flank has problems:
-More clumped up than it normally clumped up.
-Terrain means less space to space out.
-Closer together = better shots for the Colossi, they can fire indirectly and ignore 3+ armor and 3+ cover saves from boosting.

The rationale for the flamer squad to go down the right flank was to 'maybe' bait the Colossi and since they have no range threat they were gonna charge as a large squad so that's where most of the 'open space' was on the board.

I had to do a broad front because of terrain restraints.... in addition, I didn't expect ALL my fire power to fail, nor did I expect 73% of my forces to come into the board turn 2.

Seriously... I only had to deal with 2 russes and 2 chimeras in my way to the Artillery....I failed for 2-3 turns to do any meaningful damage to them when a majority of my points working to take them out.

Again, I feel the plan and exection was sound, both of us rolled poorly, me more so.
By turn 4 I had better saves, but they were against trash shooting. Darkhound by turn 6 balanced out his luck by triple hitting ordinance that wiped out whatever I had left that was alive to seal the deal.

Darkhound, maybe next game we can increase it to 2000 so I can use all the models I own.

-Sanct.

Yeah, I'll start building a 2k list now. And I'll build a new map. Maybe something less urban, more volcanic this time. When should we schedule it?

Hmm, lets set this coming Friday like this one.
But tentative.
Hopefully the RNG warmed up to me by then .

Aha, thanks for the report.

Armored company. I just use squadrons of russes, shame on me. I have the IA books, but if I ever used the armored company, I would use chapter approved.

I wouldn't mind watching the re-match.

Yeah, squadrons simply don't cut it for me. I've never actually read the Chapter Approved Armored Company. Could you compare it to the AI1 update? As far as I've heard they're the same.