5 consecutive Battle Reports in a row!

Time for a speed-writeup of 5 battle reports in a row! Don't worry, I'll keep it brief. Basically in the past 2 days, I played 5 games in a row, 3 on Monday and 2 on Tuesday (which is yesterday). I thought I'll just write about them but I won't go into too much detail. For one thing, it's a lot to write, and for another, I'm sure nobody wants to read a super-long post. Hell, I'm not even sure if anyone reads this blog in the first place, but whatever.

First things first. All the matches were 1,500 points and used Matched Play rules. Since we didn't have tactical cards and objectives, we played Eternal War. First one was...Secure and Control, I think, then the Relic Mission, and then the Scouring, and then the Scouring again, then the Retrieval Mission. For 4 out of 5 games I played Imperial Guard because that's my primary army (actually Knights are, but whatever).

First Match

As I said, first one was Secure and Control, so that meant 2 Objective Markers - one in my deployment zone and the other in my opponent's. He brought 3 Knights, so a Knight Castellan with 2 siegebreaker cannons and 2 shieldbreaker missiles (plus Cawl's Wrath and the Ion Bulwark Warlord Trait), a Knight Paladin and a Knight Crusader with thermal cannon and Ironstorm missile pod. I brought 2 Battalions of Imperial Guard - one a normal regiment with 2 Company Commanders, 3 infantry squads with plasma guns and 3 Leman Russ Annihilators (had to proxy my 2 Leman Russ Executioners as Leman Russ Annihilators), and the other a Storm Trooper regiment with 2 Tempestors Prime, a Tempestus command squad with 4 meltaguns, 3 Tempestus squads - 1 with 2 meltaguns and the other 2 with 2 plasma guns each, and finally a Vendetta with 6 lascannons. Sorry, I was playing against Imperial Knights, so obviously I was trying to bring as many lascannons as I could. Hey, at least I'm not spamming like...three heavy weapon squads with nine lascannons and giving all my infantry squads lascannons while abusing the Take Aim! order to give them re-rolls to hits! That said, I basically have 21 lascannon shots (if I don't move more than half the movement characteristic of the Leman Russ Annihilators, otherwise it'll be cut down to 15) plus 6 meltaguns.

Nothing much to say, I managed to get first turn by pure luck and I wounded his Knight Crusader with lots of lascannon shots, but didn't manage to kill anyone. I did cause him to degrade a lot, though. Ouch. The next turn his Knight Castellan wiped out one of my Leman Russ Annihilators with the volcano lance but the other survived his plasma decimator. Phew. I can't remember but he tried to wound a couple of my tanks and the Vendetta gunship, but only took out one tank. First Blood to him. He took out maybe zero infantry with that failure of his Ironstorm missile pod, which failed to even wound my Toughness 3 infantry. Poor guy. I feel sorry for him. Not to mention, he fluffed his Shieldbreaker Missile shot against my Company Commander. Ugh. He was not rolling well at all.

On my second turn, I finished off the wounded Knight Crusader after Deep Striking my melta and plasma Stormtroopers right next to his Knight Castellan. I did tons of damage to the Knight Castellan, but didn't manage to finish him off. Oh well. He then tried to get his Castellan to run away because of how little health it had, he was worried that it would die if it ate a couple of melta shots from overwatch. I think he killed a second Leman Russ Annihilator with his Volcano Lance but because of the degradation, he didn't manage to shoot the last tank or my Vendetta. The Knight Paladin moved up and tried to kill the melta guys and I think he actually killed all but just 1 guy who stubbornly passed his morale and survived everything else. Wow. I can't remember if he charged, but I think his Knight Paladin was too far away to charge.

On my third turn, I destroyed the Knight Castellan while running my Storm Troopers to prevent the Knight Paladin from charging them. Heh. His Knight Paladin then tried to shoot them and maybe killed a few Storm Troopers, but he was finally taken down by my remaining Leman Russ Annihilator and Vendetta gunship in the fourth turn. I won through a tabling. Ouch.

Second Match

I felt sorry for the guy so I decided to alter my list. I took out most of my Storm Troopers and 2 of my Leman Russ Annihilator tanks, replacing them with a Knight Crusader (and losing all my Command Points in the process).

This time it was my turn to get tabled. It was Relic so my Knight Crusader ran up to grab the relic, only to be destroyed by the Knight Castellan's Volcano Lance. My Leman Russ tank was also destroyed and wrecked by the other Knights, if I'm not mistaken. I had nothing to fight him with, and his Knights basically grabbed the Relic and wiped out my remaining infantry after taking care of the Vendetta gunship. Well, what goes around comes around. I crushed him the first game, so it's fine if he won the second game.

Now here's the thing I want to talk about. Karru or whatever his name is on Bell of Lost Souls has been campaigning for nerfing allies and complains about how allies ruin the game, how allies are overpowered, how people just pick and choose the best units from allies or whatever. This is absolute BS. My pure Imperial Guard list is much better than me trying to take Imperial Knight allies for my Imperial Guard list. I was much better off playing pure Imperial Guard than trying to take allies for them. Honestly, whoever makes those statements should try playing with allies before jumping to such conclusions.

Third Match

This time I played against a different opponent, someone with Adeptus Custodes. He brought his Jetbikes, a squad of Custodian Guards, a Shield Captain on a jetbike, the flagbearer who gives a -1 to hit rolls to units within 6" of him (I think), and a Battalion of Imperial Guardsmen consisting of a Primaris Psyker, a Company Commander, 3 infantry squads all equipped with a lascannon each and a heavy weapons squad of 3 lascannons. I played Imperial Knights because why the hell not? I borrowed a couple of Knights from the Knight player I just played against and my own Knight Crusader, so it was basically a Knight Castellan and a Knight Errant.

Um, basically I got screwed over. I failed to kill any of the infantry squads despite dealing horrendous casualties to them (losing up to 7 men for one of them), but my opponent spent 2 Command Points to stop the lone lascannon guy from failing morale. Nonetheless, I did get First Blood after killing the heavy weapons squad of 3 lascannons, but he still had 3 lascannons left over. What...oh, and he placed his jetbikes in reserve so I couldn't shoot them during my first turn. Oh well.

He then Deep Struck his jetbikes and moved his Custodians out, and with lucky lascannon shots and melta missiles, plus his Captain charging in, he killed my Knight Crusader. Ouch. Oh well. That hurts a lot.

In my second turn, I tried to shoot everything I had into the jetbikes, and a lucky Shieldbreaker missile actually killed the Custodes flagbearer, which meant I no longer had to worry about the -1 to hit. Even then, I only took out one jetbike at most, I can't remember. I know I took out another storm shield Custodian, but I can't remember. Meanwhile my Knight Errant charged into the jetbike captain and dealt 2 or 4 wounds to him with his Titanic Feet, while receiving a bit of damage in return.

My opponent then retaliated by having his jetbikes, shield captain and Custodes all move up to the wounded Knight Castellan, after taking potshots at him with the lascannons. They then killed him in a combination of close combat and shooting. Here, I used the Noble Sacrifice Stratagem and scored a single 4+ (the other was a 1, ugh), and he blew up, dealing D6 mortal wounds to everything. The wounded shield captain ate a bunch of mortal wounds (I think 4?) and died, another Custodian died, and he lost a 2nd jetbike, leaving just two.

My last remaining Knight Errant moved up and killed 2 infantry squads through heavy stubbers and melee (Titanic Feet) while kiting and shooting the jetbikes with his thermal cannon and doing absolutely nothing. They moved up and tried to melta-missile me, but I tanked them with Rotate Ion Shields. Phew. Unfortunately, they were getting too close, so I charged them in my last turn, only to eat 2 melta-missile shots in overwatch and had him brought down to a single wound. I spent my last Command Point on Machine Spirit Resurgent and stomped the two jetbikes to death with Titanic Feet. The Custodians then charged him and killed him, only to die when I rolled a 6 and blew up in their face. But alas, for all the mortal wounds I did, I only managed to kill 1 of them. I was tabled. While my opponent still had a company commander, a wounded Primaris Psyker (who took 2 mortal wounds from the Knight Errant's explosion), half of a Custodes squad left, and about 4 guys in his last infantry squad. Hey, that's actually not bad, considering he tabled me with a lot more stuff than that when I played Imperial Guard against him. Anyway, I went home after receiving 2 thrashings in a row, probably to lick my wounds. The Imperial Knights guy asked me for another game the next day, wanting to try out his Blood Angels because he was getting a little bored of his Knights. I mean, Knights were really extreme. Either you crush the opponent or you get crushed by lascannons and anti-tank weaponry. I'm not sure what to say. But I thought it would be fun to play against Blood Angels and his Sanguinary Guard (especially when I remembered how I played against Blood Angels last year with my Knights and Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarii - here's the match report for that game).

Fourth Match

So I arrived with my Imperial Guard army the next day and decided to go with What You See is What you Get. Other than proxying one of my flamer guys as a Tempestus Sergeant (because I didn't have enough), and the Commissar as a Company Commander (I only have 1 Company Commander in Singapore, the rest are all chilling in the States), I used whatever I had. So my army was pretty much a Draconian Battalion (cough, Cadian Regimental Doctrine) of 2 Company Commanders, 3 infantry squads with a plasma gun each, a Leman Russ Annihilator and 2 Leman Russ Executioner tanks, and a Kamikaze Troopers Battalion of 2 Tempestors Prime, a Tempestus command squad with 4 meltaguns, 2 Tempestus squads with 2 plasma guns each, and 2 Tempestus squads with 2 hot-shot volley guns each, plus my Vendetta gunship. My opponent brought a single Blood Angels Battalion plus a Vanguard Detachment with Mephiston, a Librarian Dreadnought, 2 Intercessor squads of 5 guys each, a squad of 5 Scouts, 2 Dreadnoughts with twin lascannons and autocannons, 10 Sanguinary Guard, a Sanguinary dude with a standard that provides Feel No Pain (and was his Warlord and had a jumppack), a Captain...and that's basically about it, if I remember correctly.

First game, I let him start first and he slowly inched out his Dreadnoughts while using that Blood Angels Stratagem to Deep Strike his Sanguinary Guard right in front of one of my Leman Russ Executioner tanks, then the Stratagem to roll 3D6 for their Charge rolls for a first-turn Charge. Huh, I thought the FAQ nerfed the Deep Strike stuff, but apparently it only applied to "normal" Deep Strike units and not the Deep Strike Stratagem for Blood Angels. Whatever, I just let him do it. Anyway, because he moved his Dreadnoughts, he suffered the penalty to his hit rolls, and with my Vendetta still in airborne mode, he was hard to hit and he avoided a few lascannon shots. Phew. Anyway, the interesting thing was when he charged his Sanguinary Guard at my Leman Russ Executioner. I used the Stratagem Defensive Gunners, which allowed me to fire overwatch on a 5+, and I actually killed four Sanguinary Guard with supercharged plasma shots. No kidding. Even I was astonished by how it worked. My opponent's face fell when he failed the saves and he had to remove almost half of his Sanguniary Guard just from Overwatch alone.

And that was the least of his worries. His Sanguinary Guard made it into combat and failed to kill my Leman Russ Executioner in melee. That's right. I think he did maybe 7 wounds? So my Leman Russ Executioner still had 5 wounds left. Of all the terrible luck...

So it came to my turn and I decided to Deep Strike my Tempestus Scions in my own deployment zone, just 9" away from his Sanguinary Guard. Not all of them, just the plasma squads. I stupidly did not Deep Strike my Tempestor Prime to give them re-rolls of ones, thinking I was going to use him to Deep Strike with my melta squad to take out the Dreadnought and the Intercessor squad inside the building. I wrecked his closest Dreadnought with my Vendetta gunship and Leman Russ Annihilator (I think my Vendetta gunship completely missed and I had to rely on my Leman Russ Annihilator to actually do anything). Meanwhile my uninjured Leman Russ Executioner, closest infantry squad and the 2 Tempestus squads that had just Deep Struck fired upon the 6 Sanguinary Guard and completely wiped them out. My opponent became deflated. I can't remember what he did in his turn, but maybe he killed a Guardsman or two, but wasn't able to take out any of my tanks or Vendetta gunship, even with his other twin lascannon Dreadnought. No matter. I deep Struck my melta squad behind the Dreadnought, along with the Tempestors Prime and hot-shot volley guns, then proceeded to kill one of his Intercessors squad with my Leman Russ Annihilator. Needless to say, my melta Tempestus squad wrecked the Dreadnought, but he thankfully did not blow up. My Vendetta was about to fire into his Librarian Dreadnought, but before I could roll, my opponent conceded. He wasn't able to kill any of my tanks, and I was taking out all of his anti-tank weaponry and leaving him with nothing but a single Intecessor squad and Scouts (though the Intercessors will probably be decimated after my 2 Tempestus squads with hot-shot volley guns are done with them). So it was my utter win because let's face it, I was going to table him sooner or later while he only had a single Scouts squad left.

Fifth Match

But we decided to have a go again, and my opponent tried to pick a game and deployment zone that was advantageous to him. Having crushed him the earlier game, I decided to give it to him and handicap myself. He took the deployment zone with all the Objectives (it's a Retrieval Mission) while my gunline army had no objectives to guard and was pretty far from all the Objectives.

It made no difference.

He tried to move his Dreadnoughts up to shoot my Vendetta gunship, but with Hard to Hit, I managed to avoid most of the damage. I think there was a time when I actually rolled 2 sixes to tank his lascannon shots, so I was incredibly lucky. Phew. Anyway, I destroyed one Dreadnought with my Vendetta gunship, and then moved up my Leman Russ Annihilator to shoot the other. No re-rolls of ones, but it was enough to destroy the second Dreadnought. Wow, that was brutal. But that was the only thing I can do because I honestly did not have anything else that had the range to fire on my opponent's side of the map. Leman Russ Executioner tanks with 36" range isn't exactly suited for gunline armies, heh.

Nothing much happened in his second turn, so when it came to me, I Deep Struck the majority of my Tempestus squads in front of an objective and took out 4 Intercessors. Well, that wasn't exactly very good shooting, but whatever. Meanwhile my melta squad Deep Struck in front of his Librarian Dreadnought and destroyed him with their 4 meltaguns. Yay.

My opponent then had his Captain and Mephiston run forward to shoot and slay my Tempestus Scions in combat. I think he killed 3 guys in the hot-shot volley gun squad and I lost one guy to supercharged plasma in overwatch. I did 2 wounds to Mephiston, but nothing to the Captain. The Captain killed 2 guys in the 2nd Hot-shot volley gun squad because my opponent fluffed his wound rolls. Ouch. Mephiston, needless to say, killed my Tempestor Prime. On the other side of the table, the Sanguinary Guard came in and wiped out my 4 Tempestus Command Squad meltagunners in close combat. Funnily enough, I actually rolled 2 sixes in overwatch and killed 2 of the Sanguinary Guard. No kidding. I have no idea how I'm rolling my Overwatch rolls.

I had my other Tempestor Prime and surviving Storm Troopers fall back so that my Vendetta gunship and Leman Russ Annihilator can shoot and kill both Mephiston and the Captain. The Tempestor Prime Ordered the 2 plasma Tempestus squads to Get Back into the Fight! and the first one killed the last remaining Intercessor in the building. The other squad then fired into the Scouts and killed maybe 1? Or 2? Meanwhile my Leman Russ Executioner moved up and decimated the Sanguinary Guard, killing about 5, leaving them with 3. But at a cost - he took 2 mortal wounds from supercharged plasma as I could no longer re-roll 1s because I moved 5".

My opponent than used that Blood Angels Stratagem to teleport his 3 remaining Sanguinary Guard from one end of the table to the other end where they proceeded to kill the Tempestor Prime so that he could no longer give any orders. Oh well. That sucks. Makes me a sad panda. The Scouts also took shots at my Tempestus Scions, but I think he fluffed his wound rolls and they survived. Poor guy. The Storm Troopers also survived a round of shooting from the Intercessors. Heh.

Anyway, this is when I began moving up my infantry squad into the Objective at the center, along with one of my Leman Russ Executioner tanks, who advanced. I had already loaded another infantry squad and the company commander into my Vendetta gunship, but I haven't moved him yet. Anyway, my other Leman Russ Executioner tank also moved up. I then ordered the moving infantry squad to Move! Move! Move! to move further up, and then my Leman Russ Executioner killed the Sanguinary Guard that my Tempestus Scions were falling back from. The Leman Russ Annihilator tank and Vendetta fired on the scouts, with the Vendetta basically missing most of his shots. So it was only my Annihilator who took out a few scouts.

My opponent was getting desperate. He moved his Sanguinary Warlord dude with Feel No Pain to grab one objective, hid his Scouts out of sight to grab a second objective and his Intercessors moved and Advanced to grab the last Objective. He basically had 3 out of 4 Objectives, and would have won the game on points if I didn't do anything. Of course I did a lot of stuff.

Basically my infantry squad moved and advanced to capture the objective in the center, thus securing me one objective. The Vendetta Gunship zoomed upward and I used the grav-chute rule to land the infantry squad and Company Commander embarked within to drop more than 9" away from the Sanguinary Feel No Pain Warlord. Then my hot-shot volley guys moved and advanced to capture the objective from the one that the Intercessors were holding. I only had 3 guys, and I think he also only had 3 or 4 guys. No matter...with my Leman Russ Annihilator, Leman Russ Executioner (both moving up) and my Tempestus squads with plasma guns, I wiped out the Intercessor squad to safely claim that Objective. On the other side, I had my Company Commander order my infantry squad to Move! Move! Move! and capture the objective from the Sanguinary Feel No Pain Warlord from right under his nose (I rolled a 3 for the Advance and moved up to 9" to capture the Objective while staying more than 1" away from the dude). In other words, I turned the tables on him and secured 3 out of 4 of the Objectives for 9 points to his 3. Not to mention, I secured Linebreaker and First Blood (for killing the Dreadnoughts), so that gave me a total of 11 points to his 3. He only had 2 units left - his Warlord and the Scouts. Ouch. That sucks for him. Meanwhile I only lost 1 Tempestus Command squad, 1 Tempestus squad and both of my Tempestors Prime, but had 3 Leman Russ tanks, a Vendetta, 3 infantry squads, 2 Company Commanders and 3 Tempestus squads left on the table. Good luck taking on all that with just two units.

Even when giving him an advantage, terrible luck combined with horrible rolls and uh, well, other stuff ensured that the Imperial Guard prevailed over the notorious Blood Angels again. Oh well. That sucks for him. I felt sorry for him.

No matter...he'll bringing both his Blood Angels and a Knight Castellan on Friday for a rematch, and I shall welcome it. I mean, I practically tabled him 3 times (out of 4) and demoralized him, so it's fine if he destroys me on Friday with his Castellan and Blood Angels. Funnily enough, this isn't even a strong Imperial Guard list (maybe his Blood Angels list isn't optimized?). It'll easily get destroyed by the Adeptus Custodes (with Imperial Guard Battalion) list. I have no idea how to fight that Adeptus Custodes list, but maybe I'll figure something out. Adeptus Mechanicus, maybe?