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On the Eastern Edge of subsector Trovnosa lies the agri world of Lothos. This worlds great grain crops feed the majority of the subsector, and it is rumored that some travels to Holy Terra herself! However, not all is well with this world. Astropathic transmissions had been received at the nearby capital world of the subsector, Lubya. Concerned at the possible distruption of grain supplies to the rest of sub sector, Departmento Munitorum adepts had dispatched the 707th Aquila Banner Shock Regiment to investigate.

Upon landing, the regiment found the world bare of citizenry, and the many Sanctums used by the Planetary government to overview harvests destroyed. Cadia Company of the regiment was detached from the main force to investigate one such sanctum......

Army Lists (This game was odd in that I was facing two opponents with my 1500 pts list, each of whom had 750pts. )

Cadia Company

CCS: Standard

Platoon 1 & 2
PCS: 2x Melta, Chimera w/ Heavy Flamer
IS: Autocannon, Commissar
IS: Autocannon

HWS:
Platoon 1, 3x Lascannon
Platoon 2, 3x Missile Launcher

Veterans: 2x Plasma

LRBT: Lascannon, Heavy Bolters
LRBT: Lascannon, Heavy Bolters

2x Basilisk (one is proxied by a Manticore)

OpFor (approximately)

Grey Knights Grandmaster w/ Psycannon
Space Marine Librarian

Grey Knights Squad in Vendetta
Tactical Marine Combat Squad (Heavy Flamer, Combi Flamer, Powerfist) in Vendetta
Tactical Marine Squad (Melta, Combi Melta, Powerfist) in Vendetta
Tactical Marine Combat Squad (Missile Launcher) in Rhino

Assault Terminators (5 w/ Storm Shield and Thunder Hammer)

Mission Type: Capture and Control
Deployment: Pitched Battle
Initiative: Imperial Guard

Deployment Notes: I've set up a firebase around my objective in the South-east of the table edge (assuming I'm on the South side, my enemy on the north). My HWSs are using the small ruin my objective is in for cover, while my Leman Russes and Chimeras are setting up to give cover to my Basilisks. My two infantry platoons are in the center and West flank, with the veterans also holding the West. My plan is to try and draw the enemies fire onto the Bassies and tanks in the south-east, while my infantry push up the center. He's coming in with a lot of out flankers, so I'm hoping that my position will draw him in while my infantry swing around to be the hammer. ......Of course, as things turned out this wasn't a particularly good plan.

My opponent(s) decide to reserve everything, with Termies deepstriking in, and the Vendettas outflanking.

IG TURN 1
Movement: My infantry blobs moved up slightly, and my tanks redeploy a bit to give better cover.
Shooting: Nothing to shoot at.
Assault: I'm going to be skipping this phase a lot.....

OpFor TURN 1
Movement: Nothing on the board
Shooting: Nothing on the board
Assault: Nothing on the board

IG TURN 2
Movement: My center blob makes it to the big ruins in the center. Run rolls get most of them up to the 2nd floor and into cover. My Western blob and veterans make the forest and some sandbags. Hopefully they draw some attention.

Shooting: Anticipating the swarm of death about to come down on me, I pop smoke on all my tanks that have them.
Assault: .....

OpFor TURN 2
Movement: They roll for reserves and get 2 Vendettas with both tactical Marine squads and a Rhino. Both Vendettas manage to outflank on the Eastern side of the board where my objectives are. They fly in and drop off their angry cargo. The Rhino simply trundles up to their objective to hold it. (Notes: Arguably, this is where I lost. Most of their army is out facing a small chunk of mine, while my slow moving infantry are spread helter skelter around the map. Not. Good.)

Shooting: Their shooting phase is decent. The 6 lascannons on the Vendettas succeed in stunning both Basilisks, and blowing ones gun off. However, the 2 Melta shots into the Eastern Russ fail thanks to the smoke. However, flamer attacks kill one of my lascannon teams, and put a wound on my missile launchers. Morale checks see the lascannons fail and run off the table. It's times like these I really question the utility of the standard.

Assault: Nothing yet.

IG TURN 3
Movement: With something to engage (finally) I begin my flank march with my Western flank, hoping to get my infantry into shooting range. My Western Leman Russ and Chimeras both move forward to get better shots on the looming Vendettas.

Shooting: Great shooting phase for me. Both Leman Russes team up to kill a Vendetta, while my missile launchers take down the other, sending those birds crashing down. One Chimera had moved 12" and was unable to fire, but the other shot off its multilaser, and the PCS inside joined in with their melta fire taking down a few Marines. Autocannon fire from the Guardsmen in the central building take down a couple more.

OpFor TURN 3
Movement: They roll for reserves and get their Termies (with attached Grandmaster) in. These deepstrike to the West of my objective, and scatter to within an inch of the board edge. If the dice had rolled one higher......ah well. The Marines advance over the wreckage, of the Vendettas, the 10 man full squad moving towards the Leman Russ, while the now 2 man Combat Squad moving towards my CCS. Panicking, my infantry force begins to advance South East, hoping to rescue their tanks, artillery and HQ.

Shooting: A good flamer template kills 3 of my CCS Veterans, while a melta shot bounces off my Leman Russ. The Termies choose to run towards me.

Assault: The Tactical squad multicharges my surviving HWS and Leman Russ, while the combat squad charges whats left of my CCS. Both combats end horribly for me (predictable) the HWS, Leman Russ and CCS are all annihilated by the Marines, not killing a single one in return.

IG TURN 4
Movement: My Leman Russ trundles forward to try and kill the Rhino holding their objective. If I can wipe that unit out, I can at least hope for a draw, as I doubt I'll be able to kill all the Marines swarming over MY objective at the moment. My Chimeras move back in an attempt to get within range of the Termies. Unaware that the Captain they sought to rescue is already dead,

Shooting: Shooting reveal that all of the Emperor's blessings had been used last turn. I fail to kill a single Terminator despite inflicting wound after wound after wound, and even including my lone Basilisk shot (the only shot either of them got off the whole game!). My Leman Russ also fails to do anything to the Rhino.

OpFor TURN 4
Movement: My opponent moves his Terminators towards my Chimeras, while his tactical marines swarm towards the 2 Basilisks, taking my objective as they do so. The regular Grey Knights fail to come in.

Shooting: The Grand Master's psycannon blows up one Chimera, and that's about it. Bolt pistols fail to ding the Basilisks.

Assault: The Grand Master and one Assault Termie slaughter the PCS that popped out of the dead Chimera, while the rest of them utterly annhilate the other leaving a very confused PCS standing in the wreckage. Tactical Marines charging with krak grenades and powerfists wreck both Basilisks.

IG TURN 5
Movement: My Veterans and Infantry blobs try to get to the actual fighting.

Shooting: More fail shooting from me. The Leman Russ fails to kill the Rhino (again) and the rest of my army fails to kill a single Terminator (god damned 3++ saves)

Assault: Foolishly, my lone PCS chooses to charge the Terminators, figuring they might as well go out in a blaze of glory. The Termies use the 5" consolidation roll to move closer to my Platoons.

OpFor TURN 5
Movement: The Grand Master seperates from the Termies who move instead towards the Leman Russ that still remains. They finally get their Grey Knights in though.

Shooting: The newly arrived Vendetta kills a few Guardsmen of the center Platoon.

Assault: The Grand Master plows into my Veterans, kiling 4 of them and making the surviving 3 retreat. The Termies make it to my Leman Russ and destroy it in a hail of thunder hammer blows. At this point, even though we've rolled to continue, I decide to call it quits and yield.


ANALYSIS

Hoo boy did I screw up here. My deployment meant that nearly all of my enemies army was fighting about half of mine the entire game. Not to mention, the reserve everything ploy made it so that my shooty army of doom had nothing to shoot at for two whole turns. The turning point in the game came relatively early when those tac marines disembarked on my door step and sent my lascannons running. Being in close quarters made big blast templates too unwieldy to use, and the dead lascannons meant that the Marines survived quite well.

The Assault Terminators merely sealed my coffin, but I do have to admit I despise 3++. Those Termies shrugged off EVERYTHING I shot at them. Lasguns, Heavy Flamers, Autocannons, Melta Guns...EVERYTHING. Not one died the whole game.

Overall, I attribute my crushing defeat here to crappy deployment. My infantry were too far away to be of use, and without their meat shield, my tanks died horribly to close combat. If I were to do things differently, I would have had one of my infantry blobs hold the objective instead, with the artillery and fire base in the center of the table, safe from out flanking. My other blob actually had a pretty commanding position in the central ruin, but outflanking made it so that such a position was next to useless. I think I would have thrown them in to hold the objective too. The charging Marines simply wouldn't have had enough attacks to kill all of my guardsmen in any short order, and would have been tarpitted. My only problem then would have been the termies, and the only way I can imagine taking them out would have been just shooting every weapon I had ever at them. Sooner or later, they have to fail a save.....

We actually decided to play around a bit after the official end of the game, and let me drive a Baneblade onto the field, just for the hell of it. It successfully managed to kill the Terminators.....not that it helped me any.


Picture Gallery



IG Infantry Holding the Central Ruin



My Western Blob and Veterans who did nothing all game



My Eastern Firebase with the small ruin visible. You can see the Vendettas deploying their cargoes as well.



A slightly better look at the onrushing Marines.



After surviving a turn of shooting from the flanking Vendettas, my tanks maneuver for clean lines of fire.



The results of my first shooting phase with SOMETHING to shoot at.



Marine Charge #1



The Terminators who managed to not die no matter WHAT I threw at them. I really wished they'd gone off the table and died.



Despite most of my remaining firepower going into them those terminators would. Not. DIE.



Marine Charge #2



My hapless infantry, trying to get to the fighting.



The battlefield when I decided to yield. We continued to resolve attacks just to see what would happen, which was what I wrote up in the main report, but this was the moment I admitted defeat.



The real end of the game, as you can see, the Termies have killed my Vets, and have proceeded up to smash up my Russ.



Continuation of the game (just for the hell of it), with the IG gaining some minor reinforcements.

Urgent Transmission
From: Sergeant Ludwig Tokovoff, 707th Lubyan Regiment, Cadia Company, Senior Surviving Officer
To: Colonel Joaciff Noskona, Commander, 707th Lubyan Regiment

My Lord Colonel,
It is with great regret that I must report the defeat of Cadia Company in its mission. While the target seemed undefended, we were attacked by hostile Astartes forces, utilizing Vendetta Gunships. I have had unconfirmed reports from the men that the Astartes force included Grey Knight Space Marines. While I can not independently verify these reports, I can confirm that all attached Leman Russ and Basilisk detachments have been annihilated, along with--I am sorry to report--Major Noskova, our commanding officer as well as the Company Standard. The entirety of the company would have been annhilated had it not been for the timely arrival of the Fell Lord from Astartes Super-heavy company. The arrival of the Baneblade managed to drive the opponents from the field, leaving the ruins to us. The enemy has left no trace of his presence, with all bodies and vehicle wrecks removed from the battlefield over the course of the fighting.

As it stand, I have managed to preserve two platoons of Guardsmen, along with the Fell Lord. However, even with such a mighty warmachine at our side, the sight of the burning wrecks of vehicles and smashed bodies of comrades that they had fought alongside for so long has deeply shaken our remaining soldiers. I do not know if we can hold out if the enemy chooses to strike again.

I beg your forgiveness for this failure, and pray with all my heart that the Emperor will allow me and my men to atone for this defeat and humiliation of the vaunted 707th name.

nice battle report, but i am confused why the Sm have vendettas, that isnt codex rules?

One of the opponents armies was IG with Grey Knight allies. We were a little flexible on the rules here....

ChrisWWII wrote:My infantry were too far away to be of use, and without their meat shield, my tanks died horribly to close combat

I couldnt' have put it better myself.

Remember that when your opponent starts all-off, there is no advantage to keeping artillery stationary while they're off the board. Furthermore, there is little advantage to keeping a russ stationary ever, due to lumbering behemoth.

Splitting your forces in half against an opponent who could pick and choose exactly where to strike a concentrated blow ended up with a relatively predictable result.

Keep your forces more cohesive, don't sweat loosing a couple of support pieces (the tanks turning around and leading a solo charge to bail out the already doomed artillery didn't help), and keep your fire focused, and you should do fine.

Also, upgrading your infantry platoons from worthless weapons to worthwhile weapons would have helped a lot. 4 infantry squads with 4ACs was probably going to put down about a terminator only once every other turn or so. 4 infantry squads armed with 4 plasma guns and 4 plasma pistols, on the other hand, would have put down about 2 terminators a turn, even with the 3++. Power blobs would likely have done even better.

Don't be afraid to lose the PCS chimeras in order to outfit your infantry properly.

I'm seriously considering power blobs at this point. Dropping the Chimera's gives me power weapons for all of my Sergeants, the Commissars, as well as krak grenades for the PCS with points to spare on nice upgrades. I'm thinking giving my infantry squads plasma guns as you suggest. 2 Plasma guns, one in each platoon, and I'm swinging between a heavy bolter or another autocannon for my CCS. Probably heavy bolter, simply due to models I have available right now. But my next purchase is almost definitely going to be an IG squad along with the metal plasma and melta packs.

But I've learned my lesson when it comes to highly mobile enemies....I have to stick to one point and force them to come to me. Spreading out the way I did was the root cause of my defeat, I can't hope to deny that.

ChrisWWII wrote:I'm seriously considering power blobs at this point... I'm thinking giving my infantry squads plasma guns as you suggest. 2 Plasma guns, one in each platoon

I'd actually go one way or the other. FRF+BiD plasma shooty blobs (plasma guns+plasma pistols or meltaguns+meltabombs) or "go go go" power blobs (power weapons + meltabombs), but not both. That just makes for an expensive blob.

And don't get medpacks. The way that guard handle plasma burns is with MOAR PLASMA!!!

ChrisWWII wrote:But I've learned my lesson when it comes to highly mobile enemies....I have to stick to one point and force them to come to me. Spreading out the way I did was the root cause of my defeat, I can't hope to deny that.

I do actually want to warn you, though, that what you just said is both true and false.

On the one hand, the whole advantage of high mobility is that you can concentrate your power against an unconcentrated foe. You waste points on mobility, but you gain more than you waste in achieving local superiority. Wherever his stuff was, he always had more points of stuff there than you did. This is why people take mobile lists.

Of course, this advantage can be completely negated if you keep your forces cohesive. For example, in this game, my opponent had a HUGE pile of hurt that was able to attack just one spot at a time. When he charged my power blob, it was nearly wiped out in a single go. However, because my forces were cohesive, I was able to quick pile in reinforcements, which neutralized his local superiority. In fact, in my most recent game, my forces were so cohesive that when my opponent tried to use his mobility to attack several places at once, I had MORE local killing power than he did.

On the other hand, you don't always have a choice. Seize ground requires you to spread out a lot, while capture and control also requires you to split your forces in order to win. This usually requires you to be VERY up on it with both field position and with support choices. As a guard infantry player, you have enough redundancy and sheer model count to make it so that wherever your opponent attacks, you have the ability to do just enough damage and tie them up for just long enough for the rest of your forces to arrive as reinforcements (see the first linked game above). Plus, if you really dominate field position, it can actually be kind of challenging for your opponent to figure out where to attack, like in this game.

Plus, if your opponent decides to go all-off, there's nothing stopping from you going all-off either

As far upgrades, what I'm currently thinking is taking power weapons all around for my Guard blobs. They won't be out trying to get the charge, but it'll make them a prickly lil' porcupine to get at in close combat. The rest of the points will go into a SWS with 3 flamers. The SWS will travel with my melta PCSs, and hopefully be able to give them cover long enough for them to get within melta range of the enemy. If anything, at least the melta squads will have friends alongside them.

Nice read for the linked battle reports. Does do a good job of illustrating what you said....as far as I can see right now, my army is basically split up into a cover hugging fixed section, and the more mobile blobs, tanks and potentially the special weapons carriers. That mobile chunk of my army can swing around and hopefully be mobile enough, or at least take and hold ground far forward enough to successfully engage the enemy on my own turns.

plus, remember: power blobs can still camp objectives. you don't NEED a dedicated static section of your army.

Well, yes. But I still have a bunch of HWSs, and they need to stay still. The artillery--especially if it's deployed out of LOS--will also be standing still alot. Since I've got a lot of points invested into that, for me it almost makes sense to dedicate that group to being static. So yeah, do I necessarily need a static portion? No. But with the list I run right now, I kinda have no choice.

What I think is needed here, then, is a slight change in attitude. Your support units are SUPPORT units. They are the ancillary things that you sprinkle on top to add some zest to your list. If they die, your attitude should be more like "so what?" and less like "oh no!".

In this case, instead of allowing your support units to be more or less expendable, you kept on charging in wave after wave to save them, until eventually your core units were supporting your support units, rather than the other way around.

You can have a static part to your list, that's fine, but you can't let what your static units are doing dictate the tempo of the rest of your forces on the field, like in this game.

Plus, most artillery can move and shoot in the same turn. Advancing the basilisks with the russes in this particular game probably would have been a good idea.

You do have a point....I think that if I'd kept my left side blob moving towards his objective, instead of doubling back towards mine, I could have at least forced a draw. He had a Rhino and a 5 man combat squad with a ML holding his. The blob and plasma vets would have ANNIHILATED it with ease in all honesty.

I guess this is all good, as this is me experimenting with this list for a 1500 pts tourney in a couple weeks. Live (or not live as was the case for most of my Guardsmen....) and learn for me. With this experience, I'm getting a better handle on how to actually run this list, and I think I may have a better plan this time. My current plan is, pretty close to what you suggested. I want to avoid using the Basilisks as assault guns, but my FLGC has a dearth of big LoS blocking terrain, so I have a feeling I may have no choice as far as the assault gun role goes. Hopefully, the armored blitz draws his attention, and hopefully cripples a chunk of his army while my infantry blobs take and hold objectives or try to avoid dieing.

ChrisWWII wrote:You do have a point....I think that if I'd kept my left side blob moving towards his objective, instead of doubling back towards mine, I could have at least forced a draw. He had a Rhino and a 5 man combat squad with a ML holding his. The blob and plasma vets would have ANNIHILATED it with ease in all honesty.

Right, learning to do what gets you the win, rather than what preserves your forces can be a tough habit to break (I should know...)

ChrisWWII wrote: I want to avoid using the Basilisks as assault guns

Well, in THIS particular case, there was no reason to hide your basilisk while your opponent was off the board, and little use at all given that he had outflanking vendettas.

I think another tough skill to learn is how to break out from the conventional use of units. Yes, artillery USUALLY hides and shoots, but that's not ALWAYS the best way. For me, this has been learning that there are some times to FRF rather than purely charge with my power blobs. Sometimes the best solution is to deploy all off, or a bunch of other counterintuitive things.

It's that thinking outside the box that lets you pull pure awesomeness out of your pants when you're on the verge of being utterly destroyed.

ChrisWWII wrote:I guess this is all good, as this is me experimenting with this list for a 1500 pts tourney in a couple weeks. Live (or not live as was the case for most of my Guardsmen....) and learn for me.

Heh, "bleed and learn", that's the guard way.

In my case, starting out with my new power blobs started out with my first five games being 1 win, 2 draws, and 2 losses, in part due to stupid list building and serious mistakes. My most recent five games have been 3 wins and 2 draws. A small data set with lots of variables I know, but if anything I at least feel much more confident, now that I know what my list can do, and how to use it.