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To view the previous report in this series, click here. To view the next report in this series, click here. To view more battle reports in The Hand of the King series, click here.

To view the tactical overview for this report, click here.

***

Melchoir rubbed his fingers together, flaking the last few crumbs from his roast beef sandwich off his black leather glove. He cleared his throat softly before returning to the surveyor carefully perched in the fingers of his power fist.

The officer never felt comfortable being deployed on the flying edge of a guard position, but that's where his line commander had put him. It was his turn, or something to that effect. Before him stretched a shallow gully that made a good impromptu defensive position. The ruins of a small outpost on the other side had provided him with an excellent vantage point to direct any action that might occur.

Melchoir saw it fit to take a little bit of lunch, and his men were just finishing up and beginning to man their positions.



The officer took in a deep breath, inhaling the cold, crisp air. Air that, for what felt like the first time in his life, wasn't filled with freezing rain. Indeed, now that the sun had made an extended stay for a few days, Melchoir could almost find it in himself to call things pleasant. Sanario likewise seemed more chipper than usual as he sat sunning himself and carefully trimming his mustache with a tiny scissors (which were stolen from the medic, who apparently couldn't find any use for them).

Something caught Melchoir's attention. On the other side of the ditch there was a defile that would provide an enemy a way to encroach on his positions nearly unnoticed. A flash of the sun off of a vehicle confirmed the officer's suspicions.

"Alright, men," Melchoir called through the micro-bead, "Enemy units are approaching from the other side of the field, prepare for action!"



The enemy, as it left the defile, abandoned stealth and rushed forwards the far crest of the ditch. The tanks behind roared into action as the troops prepared to fire.

"What... abomination is this?" The priest shouted as he squinted downfield.

The officer adjusted his optics to where the priest was pointing.

Then he saw it.



The metallic xeno foe was arrayed before him, prepared to extinguish all life for the sake of their arcane star gods. In front of them rode out an inquisitor, cape billowing in the breeze as he strode atop the vehicle.

"What madness?" Sanario choked, unable to find the words, "What treason?"

Melchoir could hardly understand it. The inquisitors were supposed to be the holiest of mankind's greatest defenders. Had the enemy found some way to enslave them? Had the inquisitor thrown away all that he held dear and the very fate of humanity itself and its only hope, the great God-Emperor? Worse, was the inquisitor LEADING the enemy force? What could possibly cause the epitome of stalwartness to defy every oath, and to slay all those he would protect... for a machine? He felt sick.

The officer glanced down at the pin that the inquisitor Gaius Sixtus had given him many years ago. Melchoir had proven a friend of the inquisition then. The true inquisition. He couldn't let himself be swayed from the truth because one of the leaders had abandoned the holy light of sacred Terra. This must be stopped.

Suddenly, Melchoir was instantly knocked to the ground as a massive explosion blasted behind him. A massive fireball erupted from what had once been a Leman Russ as molten shrapnel and burning fuel sprayed everyone. Screams and cries of alarm filled the air as smoke began to chase the vaporized fragments of the vehicular carnage.

Tiny flaming chunks of plasteel began to drop out of the sky as Melchoir desperately struggled towards his feet. The cold, wet grass smouldered at the bits of man-made volcanic debris. A loud ringing permeated his consciousness as he propped himself up onto one knee. Where there had once been his army, there was now a pile of corpses.

Those who struggled to regain their senses found themselves under a withering hail of incoming enemy heavy weapons fire. Cadets went down as soon as they rose, riddled with machine gun bullets and blown to eviscerated pieces by autocannon fire. Chunks of human beings were everywhere.

The officer made it to his feet and stumbled for cover. His wobbly legs found themselves constantly slipping on oil and on blood that covered the once-green grass with a thick, greasy slick.

He and the priest had just managed to make it to a ruin when the enemy machines came in.



Melchoir could faintly hear shouting to his right, sneaking through the roar of battle and the horrible drumming in his head.

A small unit of Kingsguard had been loitering around and speaking with some of the cadets before the action started. Upon seeing the tank explode, they rushed forward to the rescue.

The officer watched as the meltagunners in the squad took steady aim and fired into the nearest threat.



The skimming vehicle was easily downed, bucking the necron overlord off of the side.

No sooner had the threat been handled than the enemy swept their fire over towards the officer. The ruins themselves began to break apart and collapse under the weight of the enemy barrage. Large chunks began to fall in, and guardsman around began to fall everywhere. Melchoir caught a glimpse on the other side of the ditch of a pair of grey knight dreadnoughts almost gleefully butchering the forces of their once-Emperor.

As the ruins dissolved before his very eyes, fire began to patter off of his refractor field. The officer winced hard as something, perhaps a bullet, or perhaps shrapnel from the ruin bit him hard in the leg.

Stunned, and in pain, Melchoir saw that everyone around him had been either blown up or gunned down. He was now alone.

At least, he was until the enemy overlord arrived.




***

Meanwhile, the last few survivors depserately faced down an enemy overlord of their own.



The cadet sergeant looked around. To think, it was only going to be one more week until he was inducted into the Kingsguard. Now would be the time to put all of his many months of intense training to their ultimate test.

He looked around and saw a single cadet still able for duty, and three more that held his squad's plasma guns. He had to find some way to hold his ground, and to survive. It was going to be tricky with an enemy chariot running them over.

The sergeant quickly took action, ordering the men to unlock their safeties (or, rather, to switch them from "lethally dangerous" to "suicidal"), if they were going to die anyways, it might as well be taking someone down with them.

The sergeant gave the order to fire, and the three plasma gunners pulled the trigger. Instead of firing rapid bursts of shielded plasma, the guns simply opened the plasma vents. The result was less of controlled gunfire and more a scarcely contained plasma explosion as the weapons drained an entire canister of fuel instantly.

The enemy vehicle was horribly consumed in a massive, crackling ball of disintegrating energy. The rider dove from the vehicle as it blew away into sub-atomic pieces. The cloud of eldrich flame collapsed on itself and disappeared nearly as quickly and as violently as it had exploded into existence, leaving a tangled wreck in its wake.



The sergeant averted his gaze from the temporarily neutralized threat.

Some of his friends from the Schola had been hanging around while waiting for orders. He was glad that they brought their guns. A unit of them charged up behind him to attack the traitor vehicles as they barreled into his position.



With precision shooting, the stormtroopers managed to peel apart the closest warmachine, leaving it a disabled wreck.

From behind the twisted metal, a shape materialized. It was the inquisitor.



He slowly marched forward, seemingly immune to the gunfire of the stormtroopers. Whether it was his armor or some newfound arcane power that kept him alive against the onslaught of the hellguns, it could not be said.

As he strode forward, he began to chant. Arcane powers began to swirl around his once-holy form. The air began to tingle with anticipation. A calmness took over everything as the sergeant stood transfixed.

The inquisitor pointed a finger at the stormtroopers and the air suddenly burst into flame. The Kingsguardsmen were bathed in witchfire, taken form as corporeal combustion. The sergeant watched on in horror.

He only broke his attention to see the enemy overlord standing above him, metallic scythe in hand.


***

It seemed there was a war on, as best he could figure.

He and his cadets had been chatting with some stormtroopers from their schola when a massive explosion had erupted from just over the hill. The fireball had crept into line of sight just as an incomprehensible amount of gunfire opened up behind it. Munitions came whizzing over their position.

The Kingsguard had been instantly ready, but it had taken the sergeant some non-instant amount of time to prepare his own troops. Some of his soldiers had unstrapped or even temporarily discarded some of the pieces of their carapace armor. Some lasguns had been put down somewhere, rather than always kept on person. It was this kind of sloppy behavior that marked out the cadets from the real deal in the Kingsguard.

After a few minutes, they were ready to go, and the sergeant bravely stormed the hill and descended into the chaos of the other side.



Even in these few brief moments, the amount of devastation was almost too incredible to believe. There were twisted wrecks of vehicles everywhere, and the ground was matted with blood and with casualties.

In front of him, he could see an enemy warlord of some type and quickly had his meltagunners take him down, which they did with ease.

This accomplished, the sergeant looked around. There didn't seem to be anyone around who was still standing. He couldn't see the enemy at hand, and he couldn't see any battleworthy friends around either.

It was like he was alone.

The enemy gunline did not fail to appreciate this fact.


***

I think this has been suggested before, but have you considered switching dice. Or die rolling techniques?

I'm reaching here, but this sort of consistent brutal luck can't actually be luck based.

Do your dice have squared off edges? The rounded ones tend to give more 1s.

I dunno. Not much can be taken away from this blood bath.

Love the stories that you write for these, I have to say that I wish more people would do that, or at lest attempt to make a battle report entertaining to read.

As for your gaming I have to say looks like you were hit hard, I think a wall unit like the one you enemy had would be great for you, I mean really there was a big no mans land on the field and your opponent's wall made for good cover.

As for actual list changes, I not really the guy who knows how to play guard, I know how to fight them and I've seen how a enemy without a lot of speed is KILLED by a good guard army but if you smack'm hard and fast enough you can get them, I thought that overwatch would have helped you guards out but maybe not enough...

bogalubov wrote:I think this has been suggested before, but have you considered switching dice. Or die rolling techniques?

Hmm....

In all serious, I have 4 precision dice. The $7.50 per pair kind.

It's not the dice, it's the luck. Really.

Ecstasy in Service wrote:As for your gaming I have to say looks like you were hit hard, I think a wall unit like the one you enemy had would be great for you, I mean really there was a big no mans land on the field and your opponent's wall made for good cover.

I actually just dropped my ADL, and find I didn't rather miss it. Pretty much everything was already able to hide behind 4+ cover. I also don't know how throwing an ADL in the middle would have really changed anything.

The low rolling for terrain and thus the sparseness of the field is an easy thing to see, but a difficult thing to see the actual impact.

Ecstasy in Service wrote:As for actual list changes, I not really the guy who knows how to play guard, I know how to fight them and I've seen how a enemy without a lot of speed is KILLED by a good guard army but if you smack'm hard and fast enough you can get them, I thought that overwatch would have helped you guards out but maybe not enough...

I'm actually not convinced that even if I went with a gunline I'd be able to outshoot this list with guard. Guard are no longer the undisputed kings of long-ranged shooting.

Even if I could match it, then I'd be stuck playing a gunline...

Your last series of reports it seemed that everyone where you play was bringing middle of the road power level armies to game night (you included). Now it seems like you are bringing your awesomely flavorful guard army to a WAAC tournament. It seems the meta around you has become much more competitive and has much more disposable income than before. Are you not on friendly terms with your regular gaming crew? Are these games some sort of competition or league? I'd just ask them nicely to bring something other than dirtiest list they can come up with so you can both have a good time.

You can attribute some to luck, but it seems like you are mismatched in one way or another before the game even starts over this series of reports.

true, seems like Necrons are the badasses of 6th, really I keep reading how people are rocking with them and seen little to NO reports of crushing Necron defeats.

Also awesome Hmm... link, made me laugh.

I was looking forward to your next report and I must say I'm sad read that you had such a.... ....disheartening... ...experience.

One thing I thought about was if it would have taken some heat of the infantry if you deployed the tanks alone on the far left instead. Just looking quickly at the deploy pic it seems he was a bit low on AT over there.

Other than that it's a really poor match-up for your list I think and poor rolling doesn't actually help... And you seriously need to get some more terrain on the table! This one would be too open even to play fantasy!

I blame the massive lack of terrain. This game eats a dick if there isn't a decent amount of Line of Sight blocking terrain to force maneuver. That table has none, so the only way of denying firepower looks to be outranging the pair of Assbacks and ignoring the Henchman squads.

I have to admit that I'm astounded by the Necron player's army, though. So much of what became bad in 6th, with so little of what stayed good, mixed together badly seems wacky. Then again, if it works, it works.

It occurs to me of what this new series of reports reminds me.

World War I.

The weapon technologies have advanced rapidly, the ability to maneuver has not.

The middle of the field is frequently barren in the games you've been playing and it has been the perfect rendering of no-man's land.

The enemy has brought machine guns and dug in. You brought waves of men and now they're getting horribly gunned down.

These are possible solutions as I see them:
1. You either have to bring your own machine guns and dig in
2. You figure out a way to maneuver.
3. You try to remove no man's land so the awesomeness of enemy long range guns is mitigated.
4. You play games where killing power is not the only thing that decides the game.

You're opposed to doing #1. You either have to start another army or drastically change your army makeup for #2.

These seem like hard things to overcome and starting a new army or revamping your current one costs money and time.

So how can you make 3 and 4 come true? I suggested a solution in your thread about starting another army. Try to get your gaming group to play NOVA style missions. These rely heavily on troops that you bring to the game. You can't get away with minimal troops in these missions due to the amount of objectives and area that you have to control to win. Plus the suggested terrain is much better than the random placement of stuff suggested by the BRB. You can find the rules online for free.

These missions are not perfect, but they do require movement and not just obscene amounts of shooting. Above all else, this is our hobby. If Gamesworkshop fails to produce rules that make the game fun, we can alter the rules to make the game more exciting.

So, as for the terrain, I still don't see the problem. In none of the eight games I've played so far has the lack of stuff to hide in been the reason someone lost (well, perhaps in game 3). I'm still getting cover saves, it's that my army is still getting tabled regardless.

The only benefit I can see to more terrain at the moment is that it would make it easier for me to advance. The sad truth, I've been finding, is that you really don't need to advance to win games of 6th ed. At most, you just need to have a few objective denial units and you can win from your deployment zone (especially with secondaries).

In any case, the stormies or some vendettas would certainly be doing a better job of advancing compared to infantry.

As for NOVA missions, I might perhaps bring that up as a suggestion for the next league. I have a vague feeling that the next one might be kill teams or something basically the opposite of 1850 point games.

BladeWalker wrote:Your last series of reports it seemed that everyone where you play was bringing middle of the road power level armies to game night (you included). Now it seems like you are bringing your awesomely flavorful guard army to a WAAC tournament.

How to put this...

So, in 5th edition, I was a competitive gamer, and saw 40k as a strategic exercise. I quit playing 5th edition once I realized that 40k is not, in fact, a strategic exercise. It's a dice game.

You could say that me getting into 6th edition, I'd have to come back to 40k with something other than taking the game seriously in mind. This is true, but it's not completely comprehensive. I still like 40k for the challenge. The ability to do stuff to allow me to work towards a win or a draw even when my dice take a massive, steaming dump all over me. It's the using creativity to attempt to overcome adversity. It's the reason you bother with competition at all - it keeps the challenge fresh over time.

But 6th edition broke power blobs. As such, what you've been seeing over the past two months is my attempt to return foot guard to its previous level of competition. I've always had hope that this could be done, and have obviously been putting a fair amount of effort into trying to figure it out. So long as it can be made to work - give me the ability to act to "solve the puzzle" so to speak, then it doesn't really matter what form my foot guard takes.

However, I am starting to come to the end of my patience. It may, in fact, be impossible to run foot guard in such a way where, in a properly competitive environment, I'll never actually have the tools to be able to actually play the game. If this is true, then it really begs the question what to do.

I could, of course, start playing some other form of guard. The problem with this, though, is that I don't really have much by way of vehicles. Being able to run mech guard or air cav would involve many months of work and several hundreds of dollars. In short, I'd be making a new army. A new army that I'm not actually completely certain will get me what I want. If I'm going to be starting a new army, then it would make sense to start from scratch.

If I'm going to continue to play foot guard, I'd be running with an embedded handicap (in the case of this game, a handicap of about 1:2). In order to not just get thrown off the table right away, I would need to have opponents who were willing to take on their own handicaps. This doesn't seem likely. I'm not entirely certain that my FLGS has gotten more competitive per se, but even if they just stayed the regular level of competitive, I still don't know if I'm going to really be able to make a go of it.

That said, perhaps it has gotten a little more competitive. In a store of about 10-12 regulars, 2 play GK, 2 play BA, 2 play Necron and 2 play DE. To put it another way, my store basically only plays Matt Ward codices. With the exception of another guard player, nobody plays an army with a codex older than 2.5 years old.

Thus the problem spelled out in the tactical side of this battle report. It seems like either I can find new people to play against (not terribly likely), or, if I'm ready to finally give up hope, stop playing foot guard.

 Ailaros wrote:

That said, perhaps it has gotten a little more competitive. In a store of about 10-12 regulars, 2 play GK, 2 play BA, 2 play Necron and 2 play DE. To put it another way, my store basically only plays Matt Ward codices. With the exception of another guard player, nobody plays an army with a codex older than 2.5 years old.

Hmm...you rarely seem to play against people with painted armies. That does suggest some WAAC behavior from your opponents.

Ailaros, I was just wondering I saw a thread where you modelled some awesome looking Chaos Space Marines, where are you with that project and could we be looking forward to some outstanding bat reps in the future with them?

I think the terrain you need isn't for cover saves, it's for blocking Line of Sight. Any time there's at least one big piece of LOS blocking terrain in the middle, armies have to maneuver to engage the enemy, this opens up a lot of possibilities for close ranged armies (which is what you're playing). Unfortunately, to some degree, what it keeps coming down to is that:

1.) You want all foot guard.
2.) You don't want a gunline.
3.) Guardsmen on foot are best at gunline, this is what they're pointed for.
4.) By not using foot guard as a gunline, you're using a tiny slice of a Codex, and not using it at it's optimal role. Success is going to be tough.

I don't know if you've tried an all-out gunline with 30 Stormtroopers as your maneuver elements (Melchior and Sanario, of course, as counter-attack). You'd just have to accept that you probably won't be claiming any enemy objectives, and have to count on your Stormtroopers to contest.

I'm only using a tiny slice of the codex? I don't follow. So far, in the last 8 games, I've used 2 of 3 HQ choices, 2 of 4 elites choices, 2 of 3 troops choices, 1 of 4 FA's, and several different HSs. I don't think that foot guard is limiting me to only a few units in the codex.

Furthermore, you haven't in the past needed to play gunline to play foot guard. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that the same can be said now. That's rather what 6th ed has been an experiment of, I suppose.

As for CSM, I'll certainly take a keen look at their new codex, but I'm not holding out much hope. 6th ed completely ruined what I wanted to take my khorne army for.

I read in the tactical overview that Harker is meant to be the "dagger" of your army, outflanking and shooting some stuff up. Have you thought of adding more outflankers to your list? A squad of three Sentinels with heavy flamers or autocannons is just a hair over 100 points, and if you take an Astropath it'll help bring them all in on time, and keep what happened this game with your flamer Stormies from happening.

Aside from that, his list was definitely stronger than yours, and packed with scary units. I don't know how much of it is your dice, the lists, or the game, but I honestly think an awful lot of your defeats are coming from the matchups.

I have always appreciated your take on foot IG and loved reading your reports. I hope that you find your niche. Maybe adding a marine character here or there might really assist your foot blobs?

DaddyWarcrimes wrote:
I blame the massive lack of terrain. This game eats a dick if there isn't a decent amount of Line of Sight blocking terrain to force maneuver. That table has none, so the only way of denying firepower looks to be outranging the pair of Assbacks and ignoring the Henchman squads.

This!

I think you games would be a lot more fun if you had 1-3 really solid pieces of terrain on the field. Think the size and solidity of a shoe box. In your last battle every unit could more or less see and shoot a every emeny unit. The only thing up for discussion is how good cover save you get. For this kind of table going first with long range firepower will have a huge impact on the outcome.

I mean your vetereans rock at short range, but how are you ever going to get them across 24" of no mans land to get within 12" melta range?

To be fair, veterans really are a defensive weapon that I'm trying to give some offensive punch to, rather than an offensive weapon that I'm stuck trying to use defensively. The only reason I was trying harker out is because there would be 30 stormtroopers to take the backfield objective in the first place, allowing harker to just sort of stroll onto it.

Would a Penal Legion squad (or two) do instead of Harker?

infinityandbeyond wrote:
Would a Penal Legion squad (or two) do instead of Harker?

No special Weapons. Not BS 4, and have crappy rules for an extra 1ppm. So No. Penal Legions are one of the worst choices in the codex.

Wow.... terribad rolls man.

Necrons and Grey Knights? I'll say it again in all caps so everyone can understand my fury...

NECRONS AND GREY KNIGHTS? SHOOT ME NOW.

So, I probably would've looked that guy in the eye and said 'No way in hell." But, overall, it seems as though you're a better guy than I to stick it out with that beard.

That said, i've been following this line of reports closely, both the fluff perspectives and the tactical over views and I must say I am very saddened by the lack of success. I always get incredibly excited to watch these games and read them, and I always hope that you'll pull it out in the end, but usually there's just too much of a handicap, as you said, to overcome.

It sucks, unfortunately, that 6th edition has changed the blob. It's changed a lot about what I loved from my own main codex (orks). My 30 boy mobs look a lot less scary when the nob gets picked off by a random precision shot and 5+ cover all around. And I even have it a little better due to toughness 4.

I desperately want to see your foot guard move, and I know you do too. I generally see the original picture you post of deployment and think, damn, theres no way he can move from that position (aside from your stormies). I know you had al'rahem (sp) in your army in 5th edition, why not bring him back? Slap an astropath in your command squad and have a good chance (even with poor rolling) to come in on the right side.

With Harker and Rahem outflanking, you'll have a lot of units that can show up in deployment, and if you can get one or two of your storm trooper units in at the same time you can perform a serious threat overload. Even if they're T3 4+, there's a lot of em, and they're in your deployment zone so you have to deal with them.

Hearing you reason through all this makes me wish that guard had drop pods. It seems like they'd be perfect for you. You don't want vendettas due to the fact you think it makes you look like a donkey cave, but you want the movement it gives. A 35 point steel tube with a vet squad in it that drops wherever you want it sounds pretty damn good.

/end rant
/end long post of unrelated thoughts

 gpfunk wrote:
Necrons and Grey Knights? I'll say it again in all caps so everyone can understand my fury...

NECRONS AND GREY KNIGHTS? SHOOT ME NOW.
..........

Hearing you reason through all this makes me wish that guard had drop pods. It seems like they'd be perfect for you. You don't want vendettas due to the fact you think it makes you look like a donkey cave, but you want the movement it gives. A 35 point steel tube with a vet squad in it that drops wherever you want it sounds pretty damn good.

I think I agree with the first sentiment there, I just can't think of anything unfluffier - who the hell in the whole frikking 40k galaxy is a big enough threat to get those two working together? Not even Nids or Daemons, in my opinion.

And drop guard? Have you ever considered using the Forge World Elysian list for a game or two Ailaros? It might be worth a try.

Regards,

Cap'n R.

eh, not true Capn. The Nids DID get the BA and Crons to work together.

Well captain necrons made the teseracts the grey knights carry around so that means they had some level of good relashionship between them. And i dont feel my list was super competitive as me (Necron player in this report) have lost 2 out of 3 games with this list
THO i do agree the table was very low on terrain even and Ailaros had very bad rolling.

Perhaps try hiding the vetrans behind one or two AV 14 tanks? After all, the enemy can't destroy what they can't see. With the new heavy rules the tank wall can steadily advance until your veterans get into range.

Combine that with your use of stormtroopers, and maybe you'll see more fruitful results.

You seemed to do pretty well with artillary, except that one time you scattered into your own men... Looking at your opponents list I think a Manticore or 2 would have done a lot for you.

Ailros have you considered playing Eldar? I don't know, I feel they have the type of army options you're looking for with fast stuff such as jetbikes, and lots of options and stuff idk. Although I would be sad to see you stop making guard reports. Of course play whatever you like, I'm just sayin Eldar's where it's at man.

rivers64 wrote:
Ailros have you considered playing Eldar? I don't know, I feel they have the type of army options you're looking for with fast stuff such as jetbikes, and lots of options and stuff idk. Although I would be sad to see you stop making guard reports. Of course play whatever you like, I'm just sayin Eldar's where it's at man.

This is terrible advice. He likes foot armies and no army is objectively worse on foot than Eldar.

though i must say warp spiders are very good now that glancing = death.