Battle Report 5

As a bonus, here is the shelf I've been allocated. Don't let the picture fool you - my army is limited only to the top level, the other 3 below my Imperial Knights belong to someone else.

My own display case! Top level is mine, the rest aren't.

A close-up look of my infantry, for those interested in what's inside those boxes.

The infantry are getting boxed in!

A mix of Imperial Guard infantry and Skitarii infantry, which make up the bulk of my Draconian military. The Draconian Armored Defense Force and the Skitarii of the Forge World Draconis IV. Yay.

So I just finished painting my Imperial Guard army 2 days ago and I was eager to try it out in combat. That led to me having a game against one of the staff's Space Wolves army, and I decided to try out a 1,850-point game.

The result? Absolute disaster. But hey, at least I managed to survive until the 4th turn. Sigh.

Anyway, my 1,850-point list consisted of:

Knight Commander Pask in Leman Russ Punisher with heavy bolter sponsons
Leman Russ Executioner with plasma cannon sponsons, 1 with lascannon, the other with heavy bolter

Veteran squad with heavy flamer and 2 flamers, Grenadier and Forward Sentries Doctrines in a Chimera with dozer blades, heavy flamer and multi-laser

Veteran squad with 3 plasma guns and Grenadier Doctrine in a Chimera with dozer blades, heavy bolter and multi-laser

2 Vendetta gunships

Stormsword as my Lord of War

My 1,850-point list. Hooray!

My opponent brought a bunch of Space Wolves, Sternguard with Terminator something in a droppod, Librarian with Sternguard in another drop pod, Wolf Lord attached to Thunderwolf Calvary, 3 squads of Long Fangs, 2 with missile launchers and 1 with plasma cannons, a Stormwulf, and then he added Space Marine allies, 3 tactical squads with melta guns and combi-meltas, all in drop pods. These guys were devastating to my poor tanks.

Anyway, here's the deployment.

My opponent's Space Wolves deployment

 It was Maelstrom, and we placed down 6 objective markers. I decided to let my opponent go first because I'm Imperial Guard and I'm supposed to let him come to me. Otherwise I've nothing to shoot if the drop pods don't come down.

My tanks being deployed. A Stormsword, a Leman Russ command squadron and a Chimera.

The 2nd Chimera on the other side, as well as the 3rd Leman Russ tank, which was unseen earlier.

 Anyway, I failed to seize the initiative, and my opponent began dropping all his drop pods in front of my tanks. In one turn, he immobilized a Chimera and destroyed its heavy bolter, taking 2 hull points off it, meltagunned my poor Stormsword and took 7 hull points off, leaving 2. My other Chimera lost a hull point and its heavy flamer. The Thunderwolf calvary ran and closed in on my position.

Ouch. But despite the massive damage, my Stormsword survived, as did all my vehicles. Hooray for good old Imperial Steel!

My turn came next and I chose to stay still. The plasma squad fired on the Marines that damaged their Chimera, but as they were stunned earlier, all their snap shots missed, and I lost one Veteran to a Gets Hot! roll of one. Even his carapace armor couldn't save him. Damned bastards survived. On the other side, I managed to get rid of a squad of Marines and the attached Librarian with my heavy flamer, flamers, lasgun array and multi-laser. First Blood to me. Yay. I then fired the Stormsword's twin-linked heavy bolters, lascannons, and Pask's Punisher cannon into the other Marine squad but they made all their armor saves and only one died from a lascannon shot. Lucky bastards. My Stormsword then opened fire with his Stormsword Siege cannon and obliterated a Long Fang squad with plasma cannons, while my Leman Russ Executioners executed the other Longfang squad, leaving only one survivor who passed his morale test. Hooray for Gunners, Fire on Sight! Tank command.

So I basically did terrible, terrible damage to my opponent in my first turn of shooting.

However, it all went awry for me from the second turn. My opponent's 4th drop pod thudded down, but his 5th drop pod and Stormwulf failed to come in, lucky for me. Phew. However, the Terminator dude and his squad managed to wreck my poor Stormsword with their meltaguns and he blew up. The apocalyptic blast explosion scattered forward into the poor Marines and obliterated most of them, leaving just one Terminator and one Marine. Fortunately, the explosion did no damage to my Leman Russ tanks, but it did take off a hull point from my already wounded Chimera. The first Marine squad on the far end that attacked my other Chimera finished it off, but my guys survived the explosion. I think one Space Marine died in the explosion, funnily enough. The Space Marines then charged in and killed 2 guys, but this time my plasma guns found their mark as I scored 2 sixes, killing another 2 Marines. So only 2 made it into combat, but as I said, they were more than enough to kill 2 of my Veterans while they made their armor saves. Damn.

The Thunderwolf Calvary then smashed my poor Chimera aside, causing the Veterans within to disembark from the wrecked APC.

Survivors after the destruction of the Stormsword.

Veterans versus Space Marines tactical squad in melee combat

 My turn came and I moved my Veterans back to screen my Leman Russ tanks...or at least I wanted to do so but I forgot. Stupid of me, I only remembered when my opponent went for a smoke.

Anyway, I retaliated by firing everything I had on the Thunderwolf calvary. First, my flamer Veteran squad killed the surviving Marine with flamers and heavy flamers, while they took down a Terminator - a Space Marine in Terminator armor!!!! - with mere lasguns. 2+ armor save, my opponent rolled a single one under the onslaught of lasguns, and the Terminator was fried. Wow, whoever said Imperial Guardsmen couldn't take on a Space Marine and win really have no idea what they're talking about.

The Punisher cannon took only a single wound off the Wolf Lord, with him making all his 3+ invulnerable saves from the rending shots, and the plasma barrage from my Executioners only succeeded in killing one Thunderwolf and adding a 2nd wound to the Wolf Lord...I think. So the deadly Wolves continued their charge.

Thunderwolf Calvary charging in.

Forgot to move my Guardsmen. Stupid of me.

Now that's more like it.

Combat continued for my Veterans and my opponent's 2 Marines and nothing happened, with the Marines missing 2 of their attacks and failing to wound with 1 of them. I dealt 2 wounds from 8 attacks, half of which missed, but he made both armor saves. They remained locked in combat.

Now the 3rd turn was what destroyed me completely. I thought I was lucky when my opponent rolled a 2 and a 1, failing to bring his Stormwulf and last drop pod from reserve. Despite my attempt to screen my Leman Russ tanks, my opponent split up his Thunderwolves to charge my tanks, with only one wolf engaging the Veteran squad in combat and utterly ripping them apart. Prior to that, they already lost 4 of their number to the surviving missile launcher guy whose squad that I killed in the first turn and the 2nd Long Fang, the frag missiles overcoming their carapace armor (I rolled 2s). So they got wiped out in combat. Damn. The remaining Thunderwolves basically tore apart my 3 tanks in just one assault phase, leaving me just stunned, broken and defeated.

On the other hand, I scored a minor victory because while the Marines crushed 2 Veterans in combat, my remaining 5 Veterans rallied and clobbered the Marines to death with the butts of their lasguns. Or actually, the Veteran sergeant hacked them apart with his close combat weapons because funnily while removing those 2 Marines from play, I found them tangled with my Sergeant's sword. Ha ha ha!

My Vendettas also failed to come in, so I could only get my surviving Veterans to move, and then run in the shooting phase to score linebreaker.

Turn 4 came and my opponent told me to concede because I was going to die anyway, with my Vendettas not around, and the Stormwulf coming in automatically. Plus there was still the drop pod...so my Veterans weren't going to survive their trek up the table. Reluctantly I surrendered, mourning over such a crushing loss.

Analysis

In hindsight, I made a major mistake during my first turn. I should not have obliterated the Long Fangs. My opponent told me as much, I should have launched the Stormsword siege cannon on the Thunderwolf Cavlary and destroy them first. Had I done that, there was virtually nothing left on the table that could threaten my tanks, with the plasma cannons ineffective and the missile launchers requiring sixes to glance the AV14.

Harsh lesson learned today. Maybe I'll try again tomorrow, but I just bought Mechanicus datacards so maybe I'll try playing Maelstrom with my Adeptus Mechanicus army instead.

The final score was 7 to 3, with my opponent scoring psyker powers, slay the warlord, a couple of objectives, kill something in the assault phase and stuff. On the other hand, I had objective 4 for 2 turns, and First Blood. It might have been a more even game if I had my target priority correct. Damn it.

Oh well, at least I tried. I'll play Imperial Guard again next time, but tomorrow will be my Adeptus Mechanicus War Convocation's turn. I would appreciate it if anyone reading this can offer advice, suggestions, tips and ideas to help me improve. Maybe my target priority. Or maybe I should tweak my list. One suggestion from my opponent was that I use an infantry platoon instead of Veterans. But he then realized that my list wouldn't work as I need 2 infantry platoons and so he suggested I get 1 infantry platoon and 1 Veteran squad.

What do you guys think?