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So I finally got a chance to break out my guard for a test game of the new guard codex. I didn't make a ton of tweaks to my old army, mainly because I just don't like proxying weapons. Plus I thought it would be interesting to see what the old list would do with some new rules attatched to it, and a little bit of shifting of equipment. And I finally had someone show up with another fully painted army and wanted to take advantage of that and only fielded painted models myself.

So here's the redone mechanized list (definitely a work in progress) :


HQ
1 Company Command Squad
4 plasma guns
1 Officer of the fleet
1 Bodyguards
1 chimera w/ heavy stubber, heavy bolter, multi-laser

Troops
1 Platoon Command Squad
4 plasma guns
1 chimera w/ heavy stubber, heavy bolter, multi-laser

1 Infantry Squad
1 plasma gun
1 auto-cannon
1 chimera w/ heavy stubber, heavy bolter, multi-laser

1 Infantry Squad
1 plasma gun
1 auto-cannon
1 chimera w/ heavy stubber, heavy bolter, multi-laser

1 Platoon Command Squad
4 plasma guns
1 chimera w/ heavy stubber, heavy bolter, multi-laser

1 Infantry Squad
1 plasma gun
1 auto-cannon
1 chimera w/ heavy stubber, heavy bolter, multi-laser

1 Infantry Squad
1 plasma gun
1 auto-cannon
1 chimera w/ heavy stubber, heavy bolter, multi-laser

Fast Attack
1 Spearhead Sentinnel w/ lascannon
1 Spearhead Sentinnel w/ lascannon
1 Spearhead Sentinnel w/ lascannon

Heavy Support
1 Leman Russ Demolisher w/ hull heavy bolter, sponson multi-melta
1 Leman Russ Demolisher w/ hull heavy bolter, sponson multi-melta
1 Leman Russ Eradicator w/ hull heavy flamer

My opponent was playing an Iron Hands themed space marine list

His list was (from memory)
HQ
Master of the forge w/ conversion beamer
Librarian

Elites
Dreadnaught w/ plasma cannon
Dreadnaught w/ plasma cannon
Ironclad

Troops
Tactical Squad (missile launcher, flamer), razorback w/ tl heavy bolter
Tactical Squad (missile launcher, flamer), razorback w/ tl heavy bolter
Tactical Squad (missile launcher, flamer), razorback w/ tl heavy bolter

Fast Attack
Typhoon
Typhoon
Typhoon

Heavy Support
Dreadnaught w/ multi-melta
Dreadnaught w/ multi-melta
Ironclad

Mission: Annihilation
Deployment: Pitched Battle

Imperial Guard Deployment:
I won the role and chose to go first. I basically just made a wall o tanks. Demolishers towards the middle, command squads in the middle, sentinnels on the flanks, and normal infantry squads on the flanks.


Now thats a lot of tanks!

Iron Hands Deployment:
He deployed line abreast with his dreadnaughts with the rhino's behind them for cover. The initial thought here is that he wanted the dreadnaughts to be as close to me as possible so that they could run and get into my lines quicker. My inital thought was that he should have put them behind the rhino's for cover saves. He also deployed his army in a line but anchored the far flanks of his list with the typhoons and tactical squad halves.


Now thats a lot of dreads!

He tries for the seize the initiative but fails.

Imperial Guard Turn #1
The demolishers move up, and the sentinnels start maneuvering for shots. I then unleash a massive amount of dice. I kill 4 out of 5 marines from one of the combat squaded tactical marines, they flee and run off the table. I pepper one of the other squads down to about 2 models. I then unleash multi-lasers and heavy bolters on the razorback's and one of the typhoons that I could draw line of site to. I manage to knock out one typhoon and stun one of the razorbacks. I then unload 2 demolisher cannons, 2 multi-melta's, 3 lascannons, and 4 auto-cannons into various dreadnaughts. Between las cannon fire and demolishers I manage to take out both iron clads. All the other fire nets me a stunned multi-melta dread, and a shaken multi-melta dread.
Kill Points Imperial Guard: 4 Iron Hands: 0

It was a very demoralizing turn for the Iron Hands. Both iron clads out of the game that early really hurt, as well as the multi-melta dreads not being able to do anything for the round

Iron Hands Turn #1
Razorbacks moved at cruising speed, dreadnaughts ran, and everything popped smoke. The typhoons moved up to get shots but failed to do anything, the master of the forge's conversion beamer scattered off harmlessly into the wind. This was an impressive round of rolling, the typhoons with 4 shots missed with two and failed 2 chances on 2's to penetrate the side armor of a chimera.
Kill Points Imperial Guard: 4 Iron Hands: 0



Imperial Guard Turn #2
One demolisher moved the other stood still to unleash multi-melta fury on an advancing dreadnaught. The sentinnels shuffled around. On to the shooting phase. I unload a very impressive amount of firepower (at least I thought it was impressive) all I manage to do is rip all the guns off of both typhoons and kill the last 2 members of a combat squad and stun a razorback. My opponent finally got some decent roles on cover saves. I unleashed a lot of plasma that round, but probably the funniest thing that happened was a platoon command squad firing 4 plasma's, getting 3 one's, and killing 3 guys out of the squad. Do you have to take morale checks if you are in vehicles?
Kill Points Imperial Guard: 5 Iron Hands: 0

Iron Hands Turn #2
His two multi-melta dreads make it inside of 12 of my demolishers, one of them goes up in smoke the other is unharmed. The plasma cannon dreads take some shot's on chimera's, the master of the forge aims at one of the sentinnels and blows it sky high
Kill Points Imperial Guard: 5 Iron Hands: 2



Imperial Guard Turn #3
I move some sentinnel's and that's about it. The two plasma cannon dreads are, immobilized and stunned. The far multi-melta dreadnaught is unharmed, but is more than 18 inches away from my lines. I blow up the leading razorback, and immobilize the librarians razorback. The eradicator and some other shots take out 2 of the marines from the downed razorback. I dump an insane amount of fire power into the multi-melta dread near my lines. Something like 1 demolisher cannon, 2 multi-melta's, 5 plasma guns (at long), and 3 autocannons, none of them do anything, the last model with line of sight (one of the sentinnels) finally takes it down.
Kill Points Imperial Guard: 7 Iron Hands: 2

At this point my opponent on his turn had 1 multi-melta, 1 missile launcher, and the conversion beamer left to face off against my army, and decided to concede.

Aftermath:
We knew going in to the game that it was going to be rough for the Iron Hands. Lackluster roles the first round and failing to get the first turn really hurt. Talking about it after the game and discussing it probably his best bet would have been to start everything down in the same corner where the master of the forge was (the bottom of the pictures). That would have limited my return fire and given the dreads more of a shot at reaching my lines. Of course that would have given me more run away room. That and he needed to play some tricks with the dreads, run them in 3 packs with an iron clad in front (so the two behind can get cover), put them behind the razorbacks. I think he just wasn't used to an army that could throw out that many shots at range.

Something I haven't seen anyone talk about all that much, is the change to the fire point rules on the chimera's. It's been mentioned but man does it make a huge difference to an all mech list. The no more open top plus the ability to fire all of your special weapons and your heavy weapon out of it is amazing. Spearhead sentinnels are definitely cool with that front armor, but 2 of them are 140pts, one vendetta will give better fire power and mobility, plus be able to carry troops. The sentinnels will probably go back on the shelf once the new valkryie kits are released. I was really wanting to like the multi-melta's on the demolishers, however I noticed it made me want to sit still so I could fire both sponsons and the mail gun. I think it's a better idea to leave the sponsons at home and give them either a heavy flamer (to keep it cheap) or give them the lascannon to help him with a bit more tank punch. So dropping all 3 spearhead sentinnels and the multi-melta sponsons will give me 270 pts which is 2 vendetta's.

As much fun as it was rolling all those dice, I actually didn't like playing this list. Back under 4th edition I never gave my line squads heavy weapons, and the tank company did a sort of rolling thunder with everything in the army usually moving 6 inch's a turn, with the command squads jetting up 12 and unloading hot plasma on someone. Part of this is because of the model's I have available. I need to figure out a good conversion for steel legion vet's. And I also need to saw apart some of the model's so I can stick in some melta guns and flamers. I also would like to convert up some of the chimera's to have heavy flamers and multi-lasers. The vendetta's will also help to get some more mobile elements in the list. As far as a stand and shoot gunline tho it was amazing and it dished out a serious amount of firepower I just don't like the static play style.

How do you feel the Eradicator worked for you?

It did all right, in three turns I thnk it killed 3 marines and glanced a razorback. This list is meant to be an all comers list and the units the eradicator is in there for weren't on the table. It would have been much better if my opponent had some scouts . But really it's in there for chewing up kff save ork's, scouts, ranger's, grots, etc, basically anything trying to dance in the terrain on the other side of the table.

Yeah, my dice sucked horribly this game. I think Warmaster also failed to mention that I failed just about all of my meager cover saves on the first turn too.

To be fair, though, my deployment and not getting 1st turn pretty much lost me the game. In making the list, I recognized that gunline was going to be its major weakness and indeed it was here. But, it was good to see how the list might perform against IG, and some of the stuff they're capable of, since I rarely saw them before.

Great report. That is ALOT of tanks. I think Tzeentchling was a bit undergunned, too for facing armor. The list looks great against SM/CSM and weak against armor. Also kind of slow - if you could somehow get 3 of those multimelta dreadnoughts in drop pods you could get two of them in the enemies face right away.

Anyway, armchairing is easy, playing is hard, especially with handfulls of bad dice rolls :-)

I have been thinking of trying out a 5 or 6 dreadnought list myself (I have the models, may as well, you know?)

It's a fun list, honestly, though not as overpowering as everyone seems to think it is when they first see it. Works great against Daemons, does reasonably well against Ork Bikers, can trounce enemies if they're not expecting it. Drop pods might make it better, nominally, but there's not a lot I could sacrifice out of the list for them. It's pretty tight on points as it is. It does easily get outgunned, you're right about that. Probably needs some more multimeltas in place of the plasma cannons.

Somnicide wrote:Great report. That is ALOT of tanks. I think Tzeentchling was a bit undergunned, too for facing armor. The list looks great against SM/CSM and weak against armor. Also kind of slow - if you could somehow get 3 of those multimelta dreadnoughts in drop pods you could get two of them in the enemies face right away.

Anyway, armchairing is easy, playing is hard, especially with handfulls of bad dice rolls :-)

I have been thinking of trying out a 5 or 6 dreadnought list myself (I have the models, may as well, you know?)

The problem is that if he had drop podded I would have employed deep strike defense . I have 55 infantry models to shield my 7 chimera's and my 7 chimera's are more than enough to shield the 3 big tanks and sentinnels it's going to be real hard for him to get to the demolishers which is what he needs to take out to protect his advancing armor. But then I would have gotten to use one of the new orders! I actually would like to see tzeentchlings list as an all pod list. I still think all pod marines are viable against a lot of opponents. And dropping 2 tac squads and 2 dreads on the first turn would definitley have given my list fits.

Warmaster, if you want to buy me the 9 drop pods to make that list, I'll play it!

Yeah, try that target saturation thing that daemons are so good at :-p

Warmaster wrote:

Somnicide wrote:Great report. That is ALOT of tanks. I think Tzeentchling was a bit undergunned, too for facing armor. The list looks great against SM/CSM and weak against armor. Also kind of slow - if you could somehow get 3 of those multimelta dreadnoughts in drop pods you could get two of them in the enemies face right away.

Anyway, armchairing is easy, playing is hard, especially with handfulls of bad dice rolls :-)

I have been thinking of trying out a 5 or 6 dreadnought list myself (I have the models, may as well, you know?)

The problem is that if he had drop podded I would have employed deep strike defense . I have 55 infantry models to shield my 7 chimera's and my 7 chimera's are more than enough to shield the 3 big tanks and sentinnels it's going to be real hard for him to get to the demolishers which is what he needs to take out to protect his advancing armor. But then I would have gotten to use one of the new orders! I actually would like to see tzeentchlings list as an all pod list. I still think all pod marines are viable against a lot of opponents. And dropping 2 tac squads and 2 dreads on the first turn would definitley have given my list fits.

I think somnicide is saying a couple MM dreads in a pod could have torched a couple of tanks on the first turn pretty reliably. Would your 55 infantry have been able to make a shield at least 12" deep to prevent a tank from getting melta'd? Probably not.

whitedragon wrote:
I think somnicide is saying a couple MM dreads in a pod could have torched a couple of tanks on the first turn pretty reliably. Would your 55 infantry have been able to make a shield at least 12" deep to prevent a tank from getting melta'd? Probably not.

You never know I might be able to, haven't set it out on the table and tried it. Actually the point I was trying to make is that I could insure he wouldn't have been able to get within 12 of the demolishers, or the sentinnels. I will gladly trade a 65pt chimera for a 100 plus point dreadnaught. So the two dreadnaughts in their pods come down and blow up two chimera's at best (and that is being extremley lucky, think about hitting a third of the time, I'll give you a guaranteed pen, but then you only actually destroy the chimera 50% of the time) . I'm fairly confident that I can keep 2 dreadnaughts from hitting my lines, they might not be dead but they aren't going to be able to assault the next turn or I simply wall them off with a chimera or two. Now if it's 2 dread's and 2 tac squads I'm much less confident I can handle all of that and something will make it into hth or be assaulting mutliple tanks.

Yeah, but getting in your face like that would change the whole dynamic of the game - if he wanted, he could use the ironclads in the drop pod and that is rough to get through, while you are dealing with them up close (as the most immediate threat) he might have been able to have some kind of follow up. I have noticed with the SM games I have been playing that the single dread usually dies pretty quickly, but before it does it usually takes a lot of attention off the rest of my army and the drop pod is nice for giving obscure saves to the rest.

Anyway, just a little something to try out and see how it works.

I actually like the idea of dropping an ironclad a lot more than the multi-melta dread. Especially if you then just sit him behind the pod to get a cover save or throw him out front but don't shoot just pop smoke. Too bad you can't get a venerable ironclad, now that would be awesome!


He's definitely a threat and a 4+ cover save coupled with his armor 13 is going to make taking him down hard. Especially with the list I had since I haven't converted any melta guns yet.

Nice report, shame it was so one sided!

Sweet another new foe to play against, maybe this time I will actually get in a game against your army of the month Warmaster! One of these days I still gotta play your Daemons.

Overall did you have much use for the orders? I find myself consistently lacking any reasons to use them during my theory hammer sessions with the new book.

Kroeger wrote:Sweet another new foe to play against, maybe this time I will actually get in a game against your army of the month Warmaster! One of these days I still gotta play your Daemons.

Overall did you have much use for the orders? I find myself consistently lacking any reasons to use them during my theory hammer sessions with the new book.

Umm, maybe if I had ever gotten out of the chimera's . I was actually waiting for it but it sadly never happened. That list while dumping a lot of shots was really boring to play, it really was dice hammer. I think more mobile mech lists will get some use out of it. I would also expect to get some use out of the orders when playing against nids and daemons.

I actually played the daemon army for a long time before switching off of them, and I really only switched off them because everyone was getting tired of playing against them. All you tzeentch haters out there, and of course I can only listen to Augustus bash the daemon book so many times . It's not my fault I have too many armies, I even tried to unload a couple of older ones at the bitz trading day but didn't have any takers.