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So, I got another game in with my foot guard against a friend's Necrons. Normally Crons in the hands of a good player give my Mech Guard fits, as a canny player will keep the threatening vehicles stunned but with foot guard I found it to be a really different story.

Guard

HQ

CCS OoF 6 80

Troops

PCS Flamer x4 5 50
Squad 1 A.Cannon, P.Gun 10 75
Squad 2 A.Cannon, P.Gun, Comissar 11 105
Squad 3 Flamer, P.Weapon, M.Bomb 10 70
Squad 4 Flamer, P.Weapon, M.Bomb 10 70
Squad 5 Flamer, P.Weapon x2, M.Bomb, Comissar 11 115
Heavy Weapons Squad 1 Mortars x3 3 60
Heavy Weapons Squad 2 H.Bolter x3 3 75
Heavy Weapons Squad 3 M.Launcher x3 3 90
Heavy Weapons Squad 4 L.Cannon x3 3 105
Heavy Weapons Squad 5 L.Cannon x3 3 105
Special Weapon squad Demo Charge x 3 6 95
Veteran Squad L.Cannon, P.Gun x3 10 135
Veteran Squad L.Cannon, P.Gun x3 10 135
Veteran Squad L.Cannon, P.Gun x3 10 135
Penal Legion 10 80

Elites

Ogryns 6 250
Ratlings 10 100
Marbo 1 65


Crons

HQ

Lord: Veil, Orb, staff of light
Lord: Phylactery, Orb, staff of light

Troops:

Warriors x 16
Warriors x 16

Elites:

Immortals x 10
Flayed ones x 10

Fast:

Destroyers x 4
Destroyers x 4

Heavy:

Monolith

Mission: Seize Ground, Pitched Battle with 5 objectives.

I won first turn, put my two objectives as close to a flank as possible, stacked most of my firepower on them both, the rest of my units deploy out along an extended front. Penal Legionaries and Marbo in reserve.

My opponent places his three objectives strung across the edge of his deployment zone as close to the opposite flank from mine as possible. He deploys across a broad front (big mistake) and outflanks his Flayed ones and deep strikes his Monolith.

The initiative is not seized.

Guard Turn 1: I focus fire on the destroyers opposite my objectives, with orders to reroll successful cover saves and massed fire power I drop them all. The other squad is on the opposite flank so they can't WBB. Ogryns and 30 man Blob squad run up field towards his objectives. Sporadic fire kills a few more Necrons.
Necron Turn 1: Veil Lord veils himself and Immortals in front of my objectives, fire on a Las Cannon team, I go to ground, one survives with a single wound, breaks and runs. His Remaining destroyers and one Warrior Squad shoot at Ogryns, kill one.

Guard Turn 2: Penal Legionaries show up on flank, roll a 1 for their ability (las guns become assault 2) shoot and charge the Destroyers to tie them up in combat. Demo Charge special weapon team runs out, chucks demo charges on Immortals and Lord, waste them. My guns shoot up some more Necrons. Orgyns and blob squad run forward. I use an order to get the fleeing Las Cannon back in the fight.
Necron turn 2: Because of OoF, Monolith and Flayed ones fail to appear. Lord gets back up, tries to Veil over to help out his flank, mishaps and I put him right back in front of all my heavy weapons. Destroyers kill some more Penal Legionaries, they fail their morale check and get run down. Ogryns get shot up by everything the Crons have, get dropped down to one model with one wound.

Guard Turn 3: Marbo comes in, chucks a demo charge onto Destroyers, wastes all but one who is killed by heavy weapons fire. Ratlings manage to pin the remaining large warrior squad. Lone Ogryn moves up to charge Warrior squad on two objectives, Blob squad does likewise. My big guns shoot up some more necrons and the veil lord takes two krak missiles to the chops and drops again. Last Ogryn charges, Blob double taps because I wasn't paying attention so I can't charge. Lone Ogryn dies in combat, sorry buddy, but he does pull the crons off the objective.
Cron Turn 3: Monolith comes in, deep strikes on blob squad, disperses them, hits them with its flux arc, kills a few. Flayed Ones fail to come on. Remaining Crons move back onto objectives.

Guard Turn 4: In mop up mode now, Blob charges Warrior squad on objectives, wipes them. My big guns shoot the Crons down to just a squad remaining, fail to scratch the pain on the monolith, but don't really care at this point.
Cron Turn 4: Flayed ones fail to come in, opponent calls it as they were his last hope of pulling a draw.

Review:

This was just a list mismatch for my opponent. I think I had as many heavy weapons as he had models. And I had so many more units than him, he couldn't possibly shoot them all. He would have been better off taking three units of warriors instead of two big squads. A bad deployment didn't help either. He needed to refuse a flank and focus his entire army on half of mine, plus splitting the Destroyers was a big mistake. Some Scarabs would have been ace for him in this game. Had the Flayed ones come on Turn 2, it would have been hugely beneficial too, as they could have multi charged my heavy weapons teams on the flanks and silenced a lot of my firepower. Crons have a rough go of it in this edition, you can still win with them, you just can't make ANY mistakes.

I am really enjoying the Infantry guard list as a change of pace and because of the raw fire power it puts out. I hardly think it is an optimized army, it has tons of funky squads, which makes the list fun for me.

The demo charge special weapon squad again was off the charts. Anytime you play an opponent that is coming to you, they shine. In both of my games they have taken out squads worth many times their cost. I just hide them somewhere where my opponent won't think about them and then move them up to blast an assault unit that gets too close.

Ratlings, again were pulling their weight. They killed quite a few crons and pinning a 16 man squad turn 3 when they could have come up to take out my blob squad was clutch.

The Ogryns, while not killing anything but a few Warriors, were well worth it as they absorbed nearly the entire Cron army's shooting for 2 turns, keeping the heat off of my other units.

Marbo was the man, as usual.

The CCS was great issuing orders to my squads. Those orders really take guard shooting to the next level. You don't get to use them much in Mech lists and I find it to be a lot of fun.

Penal Legionaries, while not performing any miracles, were worth their points again for the distraction they caused.

The missile launcher squad has been great in both games I have played the list so far. With the ability to take out hordes with the blast, or with kraks, I am really finding them to be well worth their points cost. especially when combo'd with orders.

So that was that, next time I will try the boys with Al Rahem. I want to play a mobile mech list and see how the Guard infantry SAFH holds up. Something with some nasty assault units, too.

I just wonder what would happen if you are facing a mech style list, or an objective mission. Also, I don't think I could convert enough beastmen to field that. It's still awesome though!

Yeah, I have the models and have wanted to do it for a while so I put it down and had a go. It is a really fun army, the shooting phase is nuts!

I am going to move things around and try it against some more competitive lists, see if it holds up.

Sounds like a decent game. I can spot a few mistakes your friend made though, with the necrons. Or, rather, things I would have done differently so not really "mistakes". Good job on the victory.

Yeah, he should have forced a flank, he spread out against a gun line which was a big error. Had he focused on one flank he could have gotten a lot better results.

Thanks, it was a fun game but I felt bad for my opponent as he just had a serious uphill battle list wise.

Well, I've rarely found that deep striking my monolith has been useful. More often than not, it's not there when I need it. Deep Striking flayed ones was a mistake too, though one could argue that taking them wasn't the best either. In a 2000 point game he should have, in my opinion, fielded 2 monoliths (if he had it) and modified his warrior count to match the points. Screen with the monoliths and keep everything packed behind them while he advances to a closer range. Though depending on how the board was set up could have changed things a lot as well.

Each game is a learning experience, and it sounds like he hopefully got a good one.

Yeah I agree that his list was not ideal, and with Crons you pretty much have to go balls out to have a hope to win.

I think he learned a lot and hopefully next time we play he has a better go of it. I think some Scarabs would have been awesome for him as he could have multi charge some of my heavy weapons teams and tied them up, taking the heat off of his units.

Yeah, Reecius, I watched your game, and he seriously could have screwed you up if he had used a squad or two of Scarabs.

Fun game to watch, though.

Necron list is really bad. Flayed ones suck vs everything. warriors need 3 squads. He should've brought two liths. he shouldve picked either destroyers or immortals, not both.

Flayed ones are good vs all foot Guard, but they didn't come in till turn 5, so it was just crap luck for him.

Hey it was nice to meet you Gavo, you should come to the Wednesday night League if you can, there are some really good players there.

I played him again tonight with my foot Eldar and he got it bad again, I felt bad for him. His list just doesn't have the tools to take a foot list, he lacks the anti infantry punch.

Flayed really ARENT good for anything. They're just too slow. W/ foot guard you shoul be able to just chew right through thembefore they're even close to you, even if there DS.

I'd like to come Wednesdays, but I have rowing. Over the summer, though, I'll finally have a painted WYSIWYG army set up, so I'll probably swing by Wednesdays then.

@Iggy
Yeah, they aren't the best, they need to have rending and be a troops choice, but a lot of the Cron dex needs to be redone.

His list wasn't optimal, by any means, I agree on that point.

@Gavo
Yeah for sure, it is a good crew of guys, usually about 24 players and there are some very skilled guys in there.