No love for the little friend. So sad.
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Against my friend Brandon, at the lovely Battle Standard game store, in Auburn, Massachusetts, I got a game of my Guard versus his Iron Hands/Sisters of the Steel Lily army.
Board, deployment. I have three Vendetta in reserve, he'll keep a group of three Land Speeders in his reserves.
We're playing a Maelstrom mission, the Adepticon card set. I have my book with me, so I get to use the
IG tactical objectives. It is the Intercept the Cargo mission, there are six objectives on the board.
He wins the roll off to choose sides, and go first. He chooses to thematically defend his fortress monastery against what he claims to be heretical guardsmen.
Mind you, *I'M* not the one building Iron Hands models using tau and necron bitz, nor am I the one fielding a daemon-like creature (Celestine).
I am just dutifully following the orders sent down from high command, and taking a fortress full of HERESY away from HERETICS.
Brandon disagrees.
I point out that I brought artillery.
Game on!
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Turn 1 (Night Fight)
At the dawn of the day, forces rumble out of the fortress, to deal with the invaders.
Brandon advances across a wide front. A lone Sisters Immolator full of melta-goodness advances into the teeth of the trio of Leman Russ Exterminators, one of which is my Warlord.
On my right flank, a Rhino rushes forwards and gets stuck in the swamp. The squad of Sisters will hover the rest of the game around a single objective marker. That entire flank will barely roll more than a '3' for difficult terrain the entire game.
Celestine LEAPS forwards!
On my turn, the Deathstrike crew amble down from their warm crew compartments, and take a look about. They will decide, eventually, to launch their missile, but first hot toddies all around.
The two Manticores open up on the lines, stripping hull points and stunning vehicle crews. The Immolator gets hit, and Celestine is put down for her nap. She will awaken, angry.
Brandon: 2VP, Brian: 0VP
Turn 2
Brandon continues his general push. His Warlord, a Techmarine with servitors, walks slowly toward the artillery, with the full intention of reaching into various crew compartments, and stealing the various ignition keys.
Celestine wakes up form her nap, jumps forward again, and fries a pile of so-called heretics, who burn. I remove 8 miniatures from the board, giving each one a little death scream.
On my turn, more firepower leaps from the Manticores, and the three russes push to their absolute forward positions, infantry using them as shields ala the movie "Fury". This tactic actually worked!
In what will be a STUNNING turn of events to my Adepticon team-mates, all three of my Vendettas arrive out of reserves, at the same time. Now, I had the Emperor's Spear formation going, but I didn't need it. I rolled two fours and a five. Drink heavily, friends.
The Venedttas annihilate Celestine, who goes down for a longer nap. Additionally, the Helldivers suicide special weapons squad not only Grav Chute Drops without incident, but manages to land all three demo charges on the Techmarine and his remaining servitors.
The Deathstrike crew break out their boxed lunches.
My Warlord issues his first and only order, which allows them to fire, and pop smoke. This will protect his turret-mounted autocannons for a turn.
This is the moment when Brandon realizes he's forgotten to deploy a couple of Rhinos. We decide to give him an additional
VP for keeping them in "Tactical Reserves" in the motor pool, to preserve equipment.
Brandon: 3VP, Brian: 6VP
Turn 3
Brandon easily erases the Helldiver squad, and continues to advance on the artillery, trying to beat the clock, and stop the rain of death coming down from the corner. The surviving Melta Sister will hold up my entire center push, immune to tons of lasgun and flamer fire.
His Landspeeders arrive, and put six shots of Pure Melta (
tm) into the back of my Warlord Tank, and obliterate it.
I will continue to bombard his tanks, and start removing his two Dreadnoughts from the board, through hull-stripping. with the Warlord dead, and a second Russ immobilized, the third Russ becomes free and clear. He pivots back, and will strike down the landspeeders. Squads will start pushing toward more objectives, taking #6 (on my right side) for more points.
The other two Helldiver squads fail to land anywhere near the enemy, and pitch their charges out in desperate attempts to do anything, before being erased by bolter drills. They nick a few Marines.
Brandon: 4VP, Brian: 8VP
Turn 4
Brandon will struggle, regretfully, all game with troops just not being able to get out of the swamp.
He easily removes the two remaining Helldiver Squads, but can't remove the immobilized Russ, or get successful shots onto the Artillery, as his Predators have either lost their primary guns, or are the single autocannon variants, and my magic trees are jumping in front of the shots.
Miracle Mary downs a Vendetta with a 6-6-6 (heh) set of rolls.
I bring in vendettas from ongoing reserves, dropping into hover or zooming off, doing more damage to tanks, and removing the last dread. My remaining squads continue to take objectives, claiming the center of the table for King of the Hill, as well as denying another objective to be claimed.
It is at this point that we remember that anyone's numbered objective cards can be claimed by either side. AND that we forgot to roll Warlord traits. Hooray, US.
BOTH manticores manage to get off salvo #4, and the Deathstrike crew, perhaps seeing the empty launch rails of their compatriots, decide 'what the hell', and launch their strike as well. This final artilly bombardment will remove Brandon's forces on my right flank.
The rest of my infantry move forward to attempt to counter-claim objectives, and will inevitably be scythed down like wheat.
Brandon: 5VP, Brian: 9VP
Turn 5
This is pretty much mopup, the turns go so quickly, I forget to take pictures.
I gain an additional
VP in turn 5, as Brandon tries to push figures into my backfield.
Brandon: 5VP, Brian 10VP
Turn 6
At this point, Brandon is down to a few marines, and a couple of sisters. His final push fails to break the line, but he does pick up some
VPs due to last turn card draws.
I push men and equipment onto final objectives.
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Final Tally:
Brandon: 8VP (Slay the Warlord)
Brian: 12VP (First Blood, Slay the Warlord, Linebreaker)
A well fought game by Brandon, who recovered from some early bad dice rolls, and stuck with it. He is new this this version of the game, and much of the game was discussing tactics, and such.
An enjoyable day!
Game notes:
Brandon forgot that I have an air force, and failed to bring anything that could really handle knocking things out of the sky. He gamely went forward, anyways.
Hard for me to pick an MVP. All the units did what they needed to do, and I do think that I like the Heavy 4 Autocannon Russ, with three heavy bolters.
Zero of the game: Imperial Guard Orders. There just wasn't anything to do with them, aside from an occasional 'run better' order. However, the Tank Commander order of "Shoot and Shroud" definitely proved its value. Admittedly, I did not have a lot of "boots on the ground", but the fact that orders take effect before the normal turn sequence means I have to put troops in position the previous turn, and pray something survives to be able to TAKE an order, next turn.
I know what you mean about the taste of failure, but you have to rationalise. It's the nature of the hobby that we end up with far too much crud all the freakin' time.
