I actually expected to play Kill Team today, so I didn't bring my Chapter Approved book or Matched Play Scoring Sheet. I didn't even bring my Imperial Armor Compendium because my bag was full of the Kill Team books. That was why I was kind of surprised when I was asked to play a Matched Play game instead. I was completely unprepared. Whoops. My opponent brought a Thousand Sons list, and I was more than happy to play, but I thought I would get hammered. Well, we'll see! It's always fun to play, and I can never say no to a game of Warhammer 40,000!
We were playing Matched Play, a Strike Force Game, and we chose Retrieval because it was the easiest and I didn't bring my Chapter Approved book. My opponent brought a Thousand Sons list that looks like this:
Thousand Sons Battalion Detachment (Cult of Duplicity)
Exalted Sorcerer on Disc
Exalted Sorcerer
Daemon Prince with wings
2 Sorcerers
2x10 Rubric Marines with warpflame pistol, 8 warpflamers and 1 soulreaper cannon each
2x10 Tzaangors
2 Rhinos
Leviathan Dreadnought with cyclonic melta
5 Scarab Occult Terminators
I think that's about it. Huh, for some reason, I thought there were more, but I guess I'm mistaken. Against that insane number of psychic powers, I brought my Imperial Guard. Again, I was thinking that I was going to play Kill Team, so to my horror I realized I actually didn't have enough points to field a pure Imperial Guard list. Ouch. Anyway, I managed to scrape together 2,000 points by throwing in a single Vanguard Detachment of Assassins. And the Assassins were awesome. No, really.
Imperial Guard Patrol Detachment (Gunnery Experts, Jury Rigged Repairs)
Tank Commander (Tank Ace, extra order, Leman Russ Executioner tank with lascannon and plasma cannon sponsons)
Tank Commander (Leman Russ Executioner tank with lascannon and plasma cannon sponsons)
10 Guardsmen with plasma pistol, power sword and plasma gun
3 Armored Sentinels with sentinel chainsaws and plasma cannons
2 Leman Russ Executioner tanks with lascannon and plasma cannon sponsons
Imperial Guard Super-heavy Auxiliary Detachment (Gunnery Experts, Jury Rigged Repairs)
Stormblade with lascannon and twin heavy bolters, Tank Ace Steadfast Leviathan
Assassins Vanguard Detachment
Eversor Assassin
Vindicare Assassin
Culexus Assassin
Battlescribe didn't update the points for the Stormblade for some reason. He's 400 points now, not 440. Somebody please inform Battlescribe about the errors. Anyway, that cost me 5 Command Points because I spent an extra CP for Tank Ace, 1 for the Super-heavy Auxiliary Detachment, and 3 for the Assassins' Vanguard Detachment. Ouch.
For secondaries, my opponent picked Bring It Down, Engage on all Fronts and Mutate Landscape. I chose Abhor the Witch, Assassinate and Engage on all Fronts.
Anyway, we rolled off and I was lucky enough to get first turn. That meant I could blow up the two Rhinos and wipe out one Tzaangor squad. That led to the Daemon Prince being right in front, inside a building, and so I nuked him with the Stormblade. The poor Daemon Prince never stood a chance. 2 Tzaangors died in the first Rhino, only to be wiped out, while the 2nd squad of Tzaangors lost 4 when their Rhino was wrecked. Yeah, my opponent was unfortunate enough to roll 4 1s. The Vendetta gunship flew to the other side of the table to get me Engage on all Fronts, but did f all with his 6 lascannons. Whoops. The Vindicare Assassin also rolled a 1 for his shot, which sucks. He did nothing with his Exitus rifle. Oh, well.
He then teleported two of his Rubric Marine squads to my backline and flamed my Stormblade and Leman Russ tank. My Stormblade took 2 measly wounds from all that flaming while my Leman Russ tank was down to 2 wounds. Ouch. The Leviathan Dreadnought nuked the poor Vendetta gunship out of the sky and it was my turn to roll 4 1s, so only 6 Guardsmen survived. Ouch. They lost another 2 to the Exalted Sorcerer and Sorcerer's inferno boltgun and plasma pistol, but I rolled a 1 for morale, so they were fine. Phew. A few tanks took a few mortal wounds here and there, but by and large, they largely survived. The Rubric Marines then charged my Stormblade and made it into combat, piling into my Armored Sentinels to get into combat with them too, but the 2nd squad of Rubric Marines failed to make it into my wounded Leman Russ tank. Then they did maybe 2 or so wounds to my Stormblade. Ouch. Meanwhile I didn't do anything at all.
I tried to shoot them at pointblank range, but they made their saves against my heavy bolters. On the other hand, one died to a lascannon shot. Yay! Meanwhile the plasma went to the other Rubric Marines, and despite popping Unwavering Phalanx (I think that's the name), I eventually killed all of them, with my wounded Leman Russ tank (and going back to 4 wounds thanks to Jury Rigged Repairs and the Jury Rigged Stratagem) and second Leman Russ tank in the backline also firing into them. The tank commander fired into the Exalted Sorcerer on disc who moved up to grab an objective, and killed him. On the other side, the other Tank Commander killed the remaining six Tzaangors. This time, the Vindicare Assassin did land a shot, but the Exalted Sorcerer made his save. Well...it is what it is. The Eversor Assassin, on the other hand, wounded the Exalted Sorcerer with his pistol before charging into him and a regular Assassin to kill the Exalted Sorcerer in combat. Yes! The Guardsmen did 2 wounds or so with their lasguns and plasma gun (he rolled a 1 for the armor save against a lasgun, ha ha). The Culexus Assassin didn't do much, I don't think, because he rolled his saves against the spectrum animus or whatever his weapon is called, but his -2 modifier to psychic spells really helped. The WS 6+ of the Stormblade and the Armored Sentinels' Damage 1 chainsaws did nothing to the Rubric Marines, and my Stormblade ate another couple of wounds. Ouch.
For some reason, my opponent decided to teleport his Rubric Marines away, to the front of my Armored Sentinels. He also had his Scarab Occult Terminators deep strike in front of my Tank Commander, while his Leviathan Dreadnought moved up, only to realize that he wasn't within range of my wounded Leman Russ tank. Not to worry, his volkite was, and with 2 mortal wounds and me failing a single save and taking 2 damage straight, the Leman Russ tank blew up and did 3 mortal wounds to my Tank Commander. Ouch. Meanwhile the warpflamer Rubric Marines destroyed one Armored Sentinel and did only 1 wound to a second, which kind of sucked. The Scarab Occult Terminators tried to shoot my Tank Commander, but he made his save against a Hellfyre missile, and then most of his saves against their inferno combibolters and soulreaper cannon - well, wounding on 6s aand 5s meant that they hardly wounded him at all, so he took a total of...one wound. On the other hand, the regular Sorcerer killed my Eversor Assassin, only for him to go into biomeltdown and do 3 mortal wounds to him as revenge. Heh.
My Vindicare Assassin finished off the Sorcerer, finally doing something. Then the Stormblade and surviving Leman Russ tanks and Armored Sentinels killed the Rubric Marines (who popped off Unwavering Phalanx once more) and the Scarab Occult Terminators, as well as putting maybe a couple of wounds on the Leviathan Dreadnought, who had moved forward earlier to claim the objective, as well as get within cyclonic melta range. But not enough to kill him. That meant my opponent had a total of 2 models left on the table...
The Sorcerer failed to do anything because of my Culexus Assassin affecting his psychic spells, but the Leviathan Dreadnought moved forward and killed my Tank Commander in a single blast. Melta. That's all I can say. That was all he could do, unfortunately, for in the next turn, my Stormblade and surviving Leman Russ tanks' firepower obliterated him from existence. Then my Vindicare Assassin sniped the last Sorcerer off the table, his Exitus round dealing 3 wounds, and me rolling a 4 for the Deadshot (or was it Headshot?) and doing a mortal wound. Yes! That's awesome! That meant my opponent was effectively tabled on the top of turn 4. Well...yeah. That was unexpected. Very unexpected. I couldn't believe it either.
Total score: Since I scored 8 for Engage on All Fronts, 35 for primary, and maxed out Abhor the Witch and Assassinate, I had a total of 73 points. My opponent got 15 for primary, 6 for Engage on all Fronts, 7 for Bring it Down (he killed my Vendetta, 2 Leman Russ tanks and an Armored Sentinel) and 0 for Mutate the Landscape for a total of 28 points. That was...quite one-sided, and very unexpected. I think what happened was that my opponent brought an anti-infantry list against my tank-heavy armor list and I was lucky enough to go first, so...yeah. He also didn't have Magnus. If Magnus was in his list, it would be a whole different ball game altogether. Assuming I don't shoot Magnus off the table with my Stormblade and other tanks in the first turn, of course. Also, my opponent made a mistake by teleporting his Rubric Marines away. If he kept them locked in combat with my Stormblade and Armored Sentinels, I wouldn't be able to shoot at them with so much plasma. Oh, well. Lessons learned. Looking forward to playing with my armored Imperial Guard list again! But I need more...stuff. The Assassins really helped out a lot, and I'm tempted to keep them in the list just for the laughs. And firepower. The Vindicare killed both regular Sorcerers and the Eversor Assassin killed an Exalted Sorcerer, so they more than made back their points. The Culexus was also pretty damaging to my opponent's psychic spells. We'll see. Till then!
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