On Friday I had a game against a local Word Bearers player, and I brought my Ultras. It was a 2000 point game, with Hammer and Anvil deployment, and the mission was the one with 5 objectives that each accrue a point every turn you're on them. Secondary objectives were slay the warlord and attrition. Lists were something like this:
Ultramarines:
- Chaplain, Artificer armor, power axe, refractor field
- Tactical Marines x20, vexilia, sergeant with artificer armor and power sword
- Tactical Marines x20, vexilia, sergeant with artificer armor, plasma pistol, and power fist
- Apothecary x2
- Invictus Suzerains x5, Thunderhammer
- Land Raider Proteus, heavy bolters, extra armor, ceramite plate
- Contemptor Dreadnought Talon, one with Kheres and fist, one with Kheres, fist and plasma blaster
- Sicaran, lascannons
- Deredeo with autocannons and delicious aioli missiles
Word Bearers:
- Erebus
- Zardu Layak and two Blade Slaves
- Veteran squad with plasma gun x2, sergeant with artificer armor and power weapon, marksmen
- Veteran squad with plasma gun x2, sergeant with artificer armor and power weapon, marksmen
- Veteran squad with meltas and combi meltas, tank hunters
- Sicaran with lascannons and ceramite
- Gal Vorbak x5, power fist on Dark Martyr
- Gal Vorbak x5, power fist on Dark Martyr
- Mhara Gal Tainted Dreadnought
The battlefield - objectives on the hill, in the wrecked rhino, the ammo bunker, the manufactorum, and the temple. Word Bearers had the first turn, and both units of Gal Vorbak were in Deep Strike reserve:
The defenders of the Imperium!
The filthy heretics!
Erebus leads a veteran squad
Zardu and his Blade Slaves
The Sicaran covers the veterans' slow advance:
Turn 1 sees a few Tactical Marines die to the tainted Dreadnought's spooky plasma cannon.
The Ultramarines move on to the objective:
Shooting kills Zardu and one Blade Slave, and puts the hurt on the possessed Dreadnought! Killing Zardu nets the Ultramarines Slay the Warlord for 3 victory points.
Holding the line:
With Zardu dead, the Blade Slave must hunt! He goes after his own allies, butchering two veterans.
Turn 2:
The Word Bearers advance, taking a few chunks out of the forward tactical squad
Things are about to look real bad for these vets!
The two survivors break, outrunning their possessed beother
His Sicaran knocks a hull point off my Sicaran:
The combined fire of the Ultramarines armor wrecks the possessed Contemptor
Erebus and his boys try and sneak around
But are targeted by the Ultramarines!
While Tim's Gal Vorbak start arriving, they show up too late and too far away to protect either the possessed Dreadnought or the Sicaran, which are both wrecked.
The steadfast Ultramarines line:
On his turn 3, the backfield vets make a conga line to continue scoring points as they advance
The second and final unit of Gal Vorbak arrive on turn 3, coming very close to my Sicaran
Erebus leaves the veterans and joins up with the first squad of Gal Vorbak. He goes on to cast Iron Arm and gets a Perils result, knocking off a wound and causing him to lose a power - he loses Smite, which he's used to kill a Marine or two.
The Word Bearers use what cover they can in their advance:
The Suzerains, led by their Chaplain, disembark to hold the line!
The Tactical Marines unleash the Fury of the Legion and unload into the Gal Vorbak!
Roughly 1000 points of shooting later, and the Gal Vorbak are no more!
On turn 4, the surviving squad of Gal Vorbak advance but are bogged down in the terrain, and are promptly shot again. This time, the Dark Martyr and Erebus are all who remain. The Word Bearers Veterans attempt to charge the Tactical Marines but fail the charge, and are killed by that squad's Fury of the Legion attack.
This Contemptor cleans up the surviving veteran, as they regrouped after fleeing and killing the Blade Slave with shooting
On turn 5, Erebus and his Dark Martyr charge into the Suzerains! The two chaplains face off.
Yet the Ultras completely whiff it! We call the game here. Victory for the sons of Guilliman!
Final score, we called it before tallying up Attrition or turn 5 objectives for the Ultras.
It was a real enjoyable game with a great opponent. He was happy to roll with the punches when things went wrong, and was definitely going for the narrative kind of force I was trying to show with my own army. Those Gal Vorbak are nasty though! I might need a Vindicator to deal with those big lugs next time, but his army coming in piecemeal really hurt him. Attacking a prepared position is one thing, but when you're coming in one at a time it's even tougher. I was fortunately able to deny his psychic powers almost every time, which would have made his Gal Vorbak even nastier, and had them come in on target as well. Definitely looking forward to the rematch on this one though.
