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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.


***


Commander: That is confirmed, marshal. Enemy sighted. Infantry and two pieces of armor at twelve.

Y22: Woah, look out. There's a third enemy tank behind the buildings. Left of the other two.

S-103: This is Melchoir. Do we have confirmation?

Commander: Negative.

H41: I can't see from here, sir.

Hull: What's going on up there?

Gunner: Just counting chickens. Nothing to get all uppity for.

Y22: Well I can see with my own damn eyes. A second gatling tank, on my ten.

S-103: Understood. What is the disposition?

Y22: Three tanks straight ahead, twenty infantry or so in some trees off to the right.

Commander: Targets confirmed.

S-103: Slow to combat speed, prepare to engage the enemy.

Commander: Everybody ready down there?

L. Sponson: Ready.

Hull: Ready.

R. Sponson: Good to go.

Gunner: Rounds are loaded. Tell me where you want them.

Commander: This is H43, standing by.

H41: H41 standing by.

Y22: Ready as I'm getting.

S-103: Chimeras are ready to go as well.

Y22: Marshal Theleos, they're not waiting for us. Enemy armor moving right. Looks like they're fixing a welcome.



S-103: Understood, Hellhound. Are all three pieces moving right?

Y22: That's confirmed, sir. They're coming straight for us.

S-103: Russes, Hellhound. Continue forward and block them off. Engage as able. I'm going to take the chimeras around the left and flank them around the houses.

Commander: Yes, sir, preparing to engage enemy.

Driver: We're almost there. What do you want me to do commander?



Commander: Drive up behind the house straight ahead. Get ready to turn right and move around the building at my command.

Driver: Got it.

Hull: Woah!

H41: We're coming under fire!

Gunner: Firing their gatling cannons at armor? What a pointless waste of firepower.

Gunner: Oh, nevermind, they've got lascannons.

Commander: You hear that everyone? They're not just armed with anti-infantry weapons. Get ready for things to get hot.

L. Sponson: There goes our infantry support.

Commander: Don't worry, we'll see them soon enough.

R. Sponson: Yes!

H41: Enemy armor piece neutralized! Nice shot, hull!

Driver: How many are left, commander?

Commander: If we do our jobs right, two. If we don't -

S-103: This is Melchoir! Tanks, take these guys off us! Advance, quickly!



S-103: They're coming right at us!

Y22: Well hell, enough of this. I'm going all in.

L. Sponson: Commander, our transports are taking fire at our ten. Our infantry is out in the open.



Commander: All right, punch it driver! Swing around on the right. Left sponson, I'm going to deliver you into kissing range with your multimelta. Get ready to use it!

Driver: Going now.

L. Sponson: Yes, commander!

Gunner: Enemy infantry under fire. Literally, commander. Permission to engage.

Commander: Granted, but get ready to traverse left at my command.

Driver: Clearing the building.



Hull: Yeah, let 'em have it.

Gunner: Do I have to do everything myself? 41's gunner couldn't hit the broad side of a land raider.

Hull: Die, random foliage!

S-103: Yes, now! Bring it down!

Driver: What's that chimera doing?

S-103: This is - This is Melchoir to all units. The tank on the left is down. We got it!



Y22: Well this is it, boys! We've almost got them.

S-103: Come on, everyone. Attack in.



Hull: Woah.

Driver: Dammit.

Commander: What are you doing, trying to get us in a tank crash? Stupid box jocks.

Driver: Yeah, learn to friggin' -

Hull: Woah!

R. Sponson: What was that? What's going on?

Commander: Well, that wasn't ours. Looks like our infantry just gave them a kiester full of melta.

Gunner: Wow, good thing they're protected by some steel plating. Look at that.

S-103: That's confirmed, everyone. Enemy armor is done for. Clean up the rest of the infantry, and I think this village is clear.

Hull: Hey, driver, point me the other way, I want to shoot at more infantry.

Y22: HA HA HAH!!! See how well your chaos gods help you now, faithless scum! Take THAT!

Gunner: Umm...

Commander: Belay that, driver. I think they've gotten everything pretty well taken care of. Just straighten us out and prepare to form back up.



Hull: Well, that's wasn't so bad, I suppose.

Driver: All in a day's work for Foleran armor.

S-103: This is Melchoir. We seem to be... hung up on some rocks. Can somebody give us a bit of a push?

Commander: Heh heh.

Gunner: What?

Commander: Nothing. Driver, bring us around to the left. We've got one last little thing to take care of.


***


Melchoir sighed as he looked at the right track of his transport slowly spinning freely, catching nothing but air. Even this, though, couldn't keep him down.

As Amns had guessed, the enemy had put up a fierce fight, to the very last of their strength. Once their strength was gone, though, they had just sort of imploded on themselves. After two days of hard fighting in their one last, epic struggle, the enemy had all but vanished.

But that wasn't what was making Melchoir happy. What was making him happy was that he had finally gotten relieved. After perhaps two months of endless, continuous battle, at every moment under agonizing stress, malnourished, wounded, and short on sleep, Amns had given him a reprieve. When he arrived at the quarters assigned to him, he collapsed in his bed and slept for 18 hours straight. He woke long enough to take some food and walk about a bit before settling in for a three hour nap. In fact, he didn't do much more than sleep on his other day off either.

He felt phenomenal. His wounds, with the help of various drugs, were even starting to heal as well.

The officer had returned to duty after his two days off, and was quickly brought up to speed. There were still tiny pockets of enemy resistance scattered everywhere around the planet. The remaining loyalist forces were split up into several smaller units and sent off on zone-clearing missions to sweep away the remainder of the enemy. It was fast-paced warfare of maneuver with gross local superiority at his command. Melchoir could hardly have it better.

This village had just fallen, just like the others. It was only a matter of time before his orders were complete. He still had time as well - despite the slow speed of the Leman Russes, his armored line might well be able to clear off another before the day was out.

Assuming that someone came by and un-stuck his transport.


***

Hey Ailaros, this might be the best 1000 pts guard list I ever saw! Kudos!

To avoid misunderstandings I do not mean best as in it will always win. I mean best in the respect that every unit is unique (well except for the two vet squads) yet every unit is versatile enough to affect any kind of target AND mobile enough to make the units work together AND everything is on the table on turn one. I also believe this army absolutely must move to be effective, which means both terrain and skill will come into play. In other words a strong list, but both fun to play with and against!

Barring the Hellhound I have the models for this army painted and I think I'll try something similar in the near future!

As for the result it seems you won the list building, deployment and dice rolling with a small margin. I also think you played better than your opponent in this game. With all these factors aligned it is no wonder you got a landslide victory! Well done!

Like the paint job and the story line! Great job!

Nice work in defeating those pesky traitors. A victory well earned!

Thanks!

zoat wrote:I mean best in the respect that every unit is unique (well except for the two vet squads) yet every unit is versatile enough to affect any kind of target AND mobile enough to make the units work together AND everything is on the table on turn one. I also believe this army absolutely must move to be effective, which means both terrain and skill will come into play. In other words a strong list, but both fun to play with and against!

I'm glad you said that.

Clearly, winning every single game I play isn't a priority. If it was, I'd play the game on easy mode with a bunch of sabre platforms and artillery emplacements (among many other forgeworld options for guard). I'd like to think I aim for somewhat more noble purposes, though.

Naturally, I want to bring a reasonably strong list, and I really do play every game to win (something that I can feel more comfortable doing with a weaker list), so that there is a real challenge for my opponent. On the other hand, I also want to plonk down an army that's fun to play, and fun to play against.

In 5th edition, power blobs did a fantastic job at this. Reasonably powerful (I won more games than I lost), and a hoot to play (forward you abblative fools! Plus, the way it worked tactically on the table), and, even better, even when my opponents lost, they still got to kill off 80+ guardsmen in the process. It never felt hopeless to play against. You always got to assault if you were an assaulty army, and you always got to clear off a bucketload of guardsmen with shooting if you were a shooty army.

If there is any one theme to my time spent in 6th ed, it's been to recreate this experience, and it's been rather a struggle. Foot guard wound up being WAY too fragile with the advent of 6th, for a lot of very good reasons. This meant that my foot guard wound up being rather gunliney, which was boring for me to play (and, presumably, against), and it was also rather weak. No longer was it a way of providing entertaining guard slaughter while having a close game, it was now much more of a "you tabled a gunline on turn 4... whee..."

But after playing 53 games so far, and constantly trying to innovate, I think I'm finally starting to settle on how to provide the best guard experience on both sides of the table. It's a little flaky, especially if my opponents don't bring enough anti-tank (like this game), but against my FLGS's better players, I'm starting to get some properly close games with interesting tactical decisions to be made. Like last game, or the next game in this series. The pointless, largely immobile one-sided slaughters are starting to give way to proper games. A sad thing that it's only starting to happen at the very end of this battle report series, I suppose.

Anyways, I'm glad that people are liking what they've been seeing. I can only hope to be as inspirational as I try to be entertaining.

Yea keep it up Ailaros, these reps are always good fun to read.


Not to mention your Guard look awesome on the table.

I agree with what Zoat said. I've been following your batreps with great interest, since I, too, desire an army that is "a strong list, but both fun to play with and against".

If you don't mind, I'd be interested to see how you would expand this list to 1500 and 1850 points, respectively. Thanks in advance.

Well you're in luck, then. My next two battle reports will be at 1500 and 1850 points.

Great! I await those reports with baited breath. Keep up the good work.

I love the reports from the perspective of the armor. Especially the new Hellhound driver.