Imperial Guard ITC GT 2k

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**Alpharius Walks**

I played in a 5 round GT this past weekend using the list I previously discussed in this thread: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/753629.page

I went 4-1, bringing my ITC total for this season to 9-1-1, with this list at 2k or a variant in Highlander at 1500.

As far as general meta there was lots of Tau and Eldar. Some Chaos and Imperial but each sub-faction did not have more than 1 or 2 players.

As before the wall of text is broken down into spoilers. Unfortunately my cell camera cannot take not blurry photos inside of a gaming store so no pictures.

List

Spoiler:

For general thoughts on how the list functions please see the earlier thread I linked to above.

Round 1 vs. Space Wolves

Spoiler:

This player came in last with five losses, which was unfortunate because he had a beautiful army and was quite pleasant to play against. The TO did well by him for sticking out the event and gave him a nice last place prize (one of the SW flyers).

The list was a giant pile of Thunderwolf Lords staring down my own, various Space Wolf special characters, a rune priest, some lascannon Longfangs, a squad of Wolf Scouts, some Intercessors, a Primaris Ancient, some Hellblasters, a Primaris Lt. and three bolter Inceptors.

The mission was Seize Ground with Dawn Of War deployment. My secondaries were Old School, Recon and Headhunter. He had BIg Game, Old School and Behind Enemy Lines. I got first turn. The map was pretty open, a few bigger temple type pieces and some hills. Not a lot of LoS blocking although I was able to use a combination of range and some LoS to make the Longfangs move in order to be able to target my Basilisks.

His characters were spread out across the board and the Scouts/Inceptors/maybe a character or two were in reserve. Same thing with the Intercessors and Wolf Guard. He also used the SW stratagem on the Hellblasters.

While it was nice to get the jump my Basilisks, even with the Relic, were remarkably ineffective. I went after the Long Fangs and between some bad rolls on my part and a big streak of making 6+ armor saves I was left without a unit kill. That of course cost Old School, unit kill and most units killed in the round. The Space Wolves took out some infantry but otherwise not much happened. I left my Rough Riders and Shadowsword off the table until I could get bigger holes in the line to place them. He killed more but I held more.

In the second turn I had a little more success, taking out some intercessors, Longfangs, a couple of Hellblasters, etc. I dropped Rough Riders around the table edges. One squad made their charge against Wolf Scouts while the others failed against the Wolf Guard. The Wolves had the Inceptors come in. The Hellblasters did some more damage to the Basilisk they were in front of and a Thunderwolf character got into combat with it and an infantry squad. I killed and held more for the round. The Wolf Guard and characters over on the left side ate the Rough Riders there.

Turn three was where things started taking off for me. I brought in the Shadowsword to kill off an Intercessor squad, while my Rough Riders left combat to take an objective. I dropped another squad in the backfield to maintain recon. The Wolf Guard Leader also got into combat with the Rune Priest and finished him off while one of my Thunderwolf Lords fought his. He did some more damage with his characters in his turn but he was running out of bodies. I got kill more and hold more including the bonus point, Recon and some Headhunter points.

In turn four I continued to grind away at what was left on the board, although he did finish off the Basilisks. At this point we stopped for time. I won 25-18. I had 15 primary points and 10 secondary points (3 Old School, 3 Recon, 4 Headhunter). He had 9 primary points and 9 secondary (3 Big Game Hunter, 3 Old School, 3 Behind Enemy Lines).

Round 2 vs. Dark Angels

Spoiler:

Mission was Cut To The Heart with Spearhead Assault deployment. Secondary objectives were Big Game Hunter, Recon and Old School (me) to Old School, Headhunter, Titan Slayers (Dark Angels). The table was fairly open, mostly low/rolling hills so not many places to hide. I think the only time LoS ever came up was using it to screen some of my Rough Riders from Auspex Scan when they dropped. Dark Angels went first.

The list was Azrael, Master, Intercessor Squad x3, Company Ancient, Inceptor with 6 plasma, Ravenwing Darkshroud, a big squad of Hellblasters, Relic Leviathan Dreadnought and Stormraven Gunship.

I was able to deploy without giving him much space to bring in the Inceptors, with the conscript blob pushing things back nicely. He killed off some conscripts with the Intercessors but nothing important was in range. While the conscripts lived he did go after a few infantry squads and one was wiped out.

I moved my conscripts onto the middle objective and spread my reserves across the table. I made a mistake in not concentrating my Rough Riders more on the back objective, instead using them to provide a big safe zone where the Shadowsword could come in. In retrospect I should have taken Behind Enemy Lines instead of Big Game and dropped everything in the far back, making him split his heavy hitters more. I was able to take out some Intercessors, a couple of Hellblasters and hurt the Dark Shroud a bit but not nearly as much damage was done as I needed. I made my next big mistake this game and assaulted the Hellblasters with the conscripts, forgetting that they have the fallback and shoot stratagem, 2 attacks each and the Azrael buff in close combat. That was quite painful, especially as my opponent burned the CPs to make them fight again. Just a disaster all around as I only have a few left.

I did hold more objectives and no had the lead in kills so I had a slight lead going into the next turn. The rails started coming off a bit in his second turn though, as the Hellblasters fell back and wiped out some Rough Riders, plasma Inceptors killed a Wolf character and a Basilisk and the Leviathan started doing Leviathan things. The flyer unleashed its lighter weaponry on infantry squads while using its bigger weapon to shave a few wounds off of the Shadowsword (not quite enough to degrade). In my turn my remaining two Rough Rider squads killed some Intercessors, but unfortunately the squad by the Intercessors on the objective did terribly and would remain stuck in combat with them for the rest of the game. This was huge as it denied me the hold more bonus and the primary mission bonus a few times, swinging the game. He got kill more. I did wipe out the Inceptors using the Shadowsword.

In round 3 I did manage to get the center objective with characters as he had mostly moved off of it. We continued to slug away at each other, although my shooting was not very effective at removing things from the table. I made another mistake in that I forgot that I wanted to assault the Darkshroud with my Shadowsword and shot the big gun at it instead of the Leviathan. Ugh. I had hold more and he had kill more.

In round 4 the Shadowsword exploded from many things attacking it (flyer/Leviathan/Hellblasters). Because he was focused on one thing I did finish off a few random squads and characters, giving me kill more for a change. Unfortunately I did have the middle objective anymore to get that bonus and the one or two lone ObSec Intercessors were still on his objective. In either this round or the next I did get a Thunderwolf Lord who had just killed the Master into combat with this squad. Unfortunately he one wound left and naturally after killing everything except one Intercessor that Intercessor got him by hitting and wounding twice.

Round 5 was mop-up. I never did manage to kill that last Intercessor. He finished with kill more and hold more in that round and then it was time. My remaining Primaris psyker did make his flyer explode though by smiting it for all three of its remaining wounds.

I was pretty disappointed in myself as better secondary objective choices and a few better decisions in game could have swung things around, even if I did not have an effective answer for a hard to hit flyer under the Darkshroud buff. I ended up with 22 points (13 primary, 9 secondary) to 24 (14 primary, 10 secondary). Notice the nice symmetry of 1 extra primary and 1 extra secondary for the victor.

Round 3 vs. Tau

Spoiler:

Round 4 vs. Eldar-Ulthwe

Spoiler:

Round 5 vs. Tau

Spoiler:

The mission was Precious Cargo with Hammer And Anvil deployment. Let me just say right away that Hammer And Anvil has been amazing for me against Tau, both in this game and practicing against their new Codex. The 48" range creates some dead zones where, even without a lot of LoS blockage, I can still keep the Basilisks out of range for a turn or two.

This was another Bork'an list, featuring a cyclic ionic blaster commander, three units of stealth suits, three Y'vahras, a quad fusion commander and a lot of shield drones. I kept the Basilisks in one corner again, as far away from the Y'vahras as possible. My conscripts were in a line-I got a first drop so I was able to push back stealth suits. One stealth suit squad was on each objective while the big suits and cyclic commander, with the drone wing, were clustered around his priority objective. My infantry squads were spread around my two deployment objectives and spaced to deny deep strike. The same was true of my various characters. The Wolf characters were clustered on the right flank so that I could make a run at the not-priority objective if the battlesuits stayed away.

Secondaries were Recon, Big Game Hunter and Old School for me while the Tau went with Old School, Objective Secured and Headhunter.

I got first turn again, dropping one Rough Rider squad on each flank near the stealth suits on the objectives. One stealth squad had dropped 12" from my conscript line and basically melted under psychic attacks and weight of fire. I did keep the Shadowsword off the table for a turn while the Basilisks and mortars killed off many drones. The Rough Riders failed their charges.

In his turn he killed off the Rough Riders to get kill more, objectives were balanced. To do this he pretty much turned the Y'vahra line around, with the commander, getting the points but placing them even further out of range. One Y'vahra flamed some conscripts away.

In my turn 2 I continued to wipe out drone units. I dropped off another unit of Rough Riders on the left; while they would get the charge off again it was minimal damage. I continued to get Recon. Not much excitement, but it was going to take a little while to wear out the drones. I also dropped the Shadowsword, which mostly just contributed to drone killing.

His commander did the advance and fire ability in his turn and moved in on flank with Wolves, Shadowsword and Basilisks. He was able to kill two of the Wolf characters with flamers, overwhelming the 3++ with wound rolls.

In return I was able to finish off the drones in turn 3 and shoot a Y'vahra and get a second Y'vahra down to 1 wound. I have no idea how it survived but that was not so great, except that he was pretty much out of CP to burn on the stimulant stratagem (starting with 5 is painful I would imagine for Tau). In return the quad fusion commander got the Shadowsword but I was able to smite the second Y'vahra and then shoot away at the commanders.

My conscripts also managed to march across the table and onto his priority objective for two turns, surviving the stealth suit fire coming their way.

At the end of the game he was down to just three stealth suits sitting on his priority objective, but I could not quite kill them off. Considering how much more I had on the table the score was surprisingly close 26-24. I got 17 from Primary and 3 each from Recon/Big Game/Old School for a total of 26. He had 15 from Primary and 9 from Secondary (2 Old School, 3 Titan Slayers, 4 Headhunters).

Closing thoughts

Spoiler:

Thank you for reading.