Incomplete Battle

I meant to post this on Saturday night or at least yesterday, but I spent the whole of Sunday studying (being a graduate student is tough). So I'm doing it now that I have some free time. Phew.

Basically, I went to my local gaming store today, and a couple of kids wanted to face my Imperial Knights. I tried futilely to convince them to play against my Adeptus Mechanicus army of Skitarii and you know, no Knights, basically, but they insisted on playing against my Knights. They wanted big, Apocalypse sized games. So I gave in. But I didn't want it to be one-sided, so I went around asking someone to help them and lend them a Shadowsword. The kids brought a huge Space Marine army, and with their borrowed Imperial Guard army that had a Shadowsword, they went up to almost 250 power level army. I ended up allying with a Tyranids player and our total was about 242 power level.

This was at the start of the game. A Shadowsword!

It made for a nice narrative. The Adeptus Mechanicus had enslaved the Tyranids (much like the Aphelion Project in the Imperial Armor series, or the United Earth Directorate's enslavement of the Zerg), and the Space Marines and Imperial Guard viewed that as heresy. So they attacked us and our pet Tyranids. Heh.

The Adeptus Mechanicus has enslaved the Tyranids!

A Freeblade (?) Knight with a Land Raider and Banewolves (they proxied the Taurox Prime as a Banewolf).

 The battle didn't even last 2 full turns.

Yup. That's what happened after one turn. Blew up the Shadowsword and almost everything around it. See how empty that side of the table is now?

My ally and I took out the Shadowsword first. I had three Imperial Knights, but we had this weird deployment zone where my ally and I were stuck in the middle, and the kids had both edges of the table. Oh well. The mission objective was supply cache, so they managed to get the supply, but we didn't get a chance to snatch it because they gave up (there was a Knight and a bunch of Hormagaunts and a Carnifex bearing down on the poor Manticore with the supply cache before they gave up - and the Knight hadn't even shot or charged yet). We killed a huge portion of their army, taking out not just the Shadowsword, but a lot of the tactical marines, and I succeeded in wiping out a Devastator squad, a Thunderfire cannon, a couple of bikes and more.

What else...I can't remember. I think they killed a huge bunch of Gargoyles and 'gaunts, put a few wounds on the Carnifex and two of my Knights, but otherwise my army remained virtually untouched. The Tyranids absorbed most of the firepower. Heh.

But yeah, with my army virtually unscathed, except for one Knight who had half his wounds left, and another who took about seven wounds, there was no way they were coming back. Not with a dead Shadowsword, an injured Banewolf, and a damaged Manticore. The Basilisk was blown up too. Their infantry was decimated, and I was about to kill a bunch of bikers. The only things that would swing the game in their favor was their Knight, which had about 10 or so wounds left after my shooting (I fluffed my neutron laser shots, and the kids made their invulnerable saves), two Stormtalon gunships, one Valkyrie gunship, and two Land Raiders, but I was in position to charge and slice up both Land Raiders with both my Knights in turn 2, which I never got to because they gave up before I could. Oh well.

With this much forces on this side of the table (well, actually the infantry on the table behind the Taurox Prime and next to the Index are all dead and out of the game) - there's still one Knight behind the green building in the foreground - they could still turn the tables on us.

I actually think they stood a chance, but their tactics were admittedly all over the place and they were wasting their weapons on the wrong targets.

So they ended up playing a small skirmish game after giving up on the big game, and I could finally teach them the proper rules on how to play. Phew. They were playing a small skirmish match between Space Marines or something, and I was happy to show them the ropes. Start small, don't start big, learn the rules and learn how to use your army before you jump into a big game and challenge my Knights.

Anyway, the Adeptus Mechanicus codex will be dropping next week, and I hope I can get a game against the elite Tau player that I lost to twice and beat once, and see if the new Stratagems and forge world dogmas will make a difference. I'll probably use that Mars dogma and Stratagem and ally my Knight Paladin in. I can't wait!