My opponent brought a heavy tank list.
Blood Pact Battalion Detachment (Vostroyan Regimental Doctrine)
Company Commander, Warlord, Vostroyan armor thing, Grand Duelist Warlord Trait
Lord Commissar Yarrick (represented by a beastman)
Primaris Psyker
Platoon Commander with Kurov's Aquila
3 infantry squads, all with grenade launchers
Blood Pact Battalion (Vostroyan RD)
Company Commander (Genestealer mutant thingy, so uses power axe)
Primaris Psyker
Platoon Commander
3 infantry squads, all with grenade launchers
Blood Pact Spearhead (Catachan RD), Emperor's Fist Armored Company
Tank Commander with Hammer of Sunderance and Unflinching Resolve
Leman Russ main battle tank squadron (3 tanks)
Leman Russ Executioner tank squadron (2 tanks)
Basilisk squadron (2 artilleries)
2 Heavy Weapon squads (3 mortars)
Veterans with shotguns and 3 flamers
Platoon commander with bolt pistol
Chimera
Against this heavy armor and horde of Khorne infantry was the loyalist battlegroup of my Draconian Knights and Skitarii. This time, I opted to use House Taranis and go for Questoris Mechanicus because I was bringing Skitarii instead of Imperial Guard, otherwise I would have stuck with Questoris Imperialis and House Griffith, so...yeah.
House Yato Imperial Knights Super-heavy Detachment, House Taranis Household Tradition)
Knight Lancer (Warlord)
2 Knight Crusaders with Stormspear rocket pods
Draconian Skitarii Battalion (Lucius Forge World Dogma)
Tech-priest Dominus with volkite blaster
Tech-priest Enginseer
2 squads of 5 Skitarii Rangers with 2 arc rifles each, alpha with arc maul and arc pistol
5 Skitarii Vanguard with 2 plasma calivers, alpha with taser goad and phosphor blast pistol
5 Skitarii Rangers with 2 tranuranic arquebuses
10 Secutarii Hoplites
That's about it. I love seeing my Cerastus Knight Lancer with Secutarii Hoplites. That's so thematic! And using the Lucius forge world Stratagem, I placed 3 Skitarii squads in Deep Strike (not the transuranic arquebuses one, obviously).
We got the 4 pillars mission, and proceeded to roll off. I managed to get first turn, thankfully, and my opponent failed to seize the initiative!
I moved my Knight Crusaders to capture 2 objectives while my Tech-priest Dominus and Skitarii Rangers camped on a single objective, thus giving me 3 objectives. Yay! The Tech-priest Enginseer ran to follow one of the Knight Crusaders, to keep repairing him. The Secutarii Hoplites also ran with the Knight Crusader, because they can't catch up with the Knight Lancer. I killed about 2 infantry squads with shooting, and sniped a Primaris Psyker with my Skitarii Rangers. I failed to do more than one or two wounds to the tank commander despite shooting with my rapid-fire battle cannons and Stormspear rocket pods...my shooting really sucked, ugh. On the bright side, I killed a bunch of infantry, so there's that...not that it helped. My Knight Lancer stomped a bunch of infantry to death, and then consolidated into one of the Leman Russ Executioner tanks, but he otherwise did nothing. Ugh. That was a poor turn of shooting for me. At least I got First Strike and 3 objectives.
My opponent then focused everything on my Knight Lancer and killed him with all the tanks firing upon him, as well as the grenade launchers. He tried to move some of his infantry out and killed 1 Secutarii Hoplite. He also moved his Chimera out as well. They captured the objective my Knight was on. Ouch. And after killing my Knight Lancer with 4 of his tanks' combined shooting, his last remaining tank (because the Executioner fell back) did 5 wounds to my Knight Crusader. It was a great turn of shooting for him. The Basilisks were a little lackluster and killed only 2 Skitarii Rangers. Whoops.
However the funniest thing that happened was me using Noble Sacrifice and nuking my Knight Lancer right in the middle of his tightly clustered forces. I did a bunch of mortal wounds to everybody with 8" (or was it 10"?). I killed his Warlord (Slay the Warlord!), 2 of his platoon commanders, brought Yarrick down to his last wound (he made his 3+++ saves to survive on his last wound), and cleared out some infantry. I also did a range of mortal wounds to his tanks, but none of them took that much damage (most was 4, but usually 1 or 2 mortal wounds - I did a lot more mortal wounds to his infantry and Characters). Holy Terra. That was indeed hilarious. Running my Knight Lancer into his lines and nuking his whole blob of units was just about the most epic thing that ever happened in the game.
Cheers, Knight Lancer. You did your job. Funnily enough, he did much more damage with his catastrophic explosion than when he was alive and stomping through the puny infantry. Funny how things work, huh?
That was about it. Yay. I gained 1 Victory Point for No Prisoners.
In turn 2, I couldn't find a place to deep strike my units in his backlines, and only my Eversor Assassin was small enough to deep strike more than 9" away from his infantry squad and stuff, but other than that, I had to deep strike my Skitarii Rangers next to my Secutarii Hoplites, and my Skitarii Vanguard next to the tanks.
With my Knight Lancer gone, there was nothing I could do against his tanks. My shooting was ineffective, but I managed to bring a single Leman Russ tank to his lower bracket. My Skitarii Vanguard hit one Executioner with plasma and did 4 wounds to him. They also cleared out an infantry squad with radium carbines, and my Knight Crusader also killed another 2 or 3 infantry squads. By now I think my opponent only had 4 or 5 infantry squads left, because I was just murdering them. I killed yet another infantry squad with my Skitarii Rangers, and my Secutarii Hoplites managed to take out some guys from an infantry squad before charging into them and killing them, while capturing the objective. My Knight Crusader charged the Chimera and I completely fluffed my stomps, and did less than 4 damage overall. Despite rolling 3D6 and spending a command re-roll to re-roll a 2, my Eversor Assassin failed his charge. Bloody hell. My dice was really not on my side that day. The only good thing on my side was that my Skitarii Rangers killed Yarrick with their transuranic arquebuses. He made his 3+++ against a mortal wound, but failed the actual wound and died. YES!
The Chimera fell back, the Veterans disembarked and proceeded to wipe the floor with the Secutarii Hoplites. The tanks fired upon my Knight Crusader, but I managed to keep him in the top bracket. Phew. I think. I can't remember. Anyway, the Leman Russ tanks killed all my Skitarii Vanguard, but that was about it. The Basilisks killed 1 sniper guy, but at this point I had cleared out almost all his Characters, so there was nothing to it. My opponent had 1 infantry squad fire upon my Eversor Assassin, but failed to kill him, then they charged in to attempt to stab him to death with their bayonets. Bad mistake. My Eversor Assassin wiped them out with his Rampage going in a rampage and dealing extra hits. Heh. Again, I managed to get another point for No Prisoners, but it seems that we were even on objectives again. So 2 Victory Points to me, with Slay the Warlord and First Strike, while my opponent also had Slay the Warlord and First Strike. 4-2 to the Knights of House Yato and their Draconian Skitarii allies for now.
In turn 3, I managed to reverse the situation somehow, with my Skitarii Rangers capturing the objective and killing the Veterans. Phew. My Knight Crusader wiped out all the remaining infantry squads except one, and charged and killed the second and last Company Commander. The other Knight Crusader managed to wound a single Leman Russs Executioner to 1 wound, and destroyed another Leman Russ Executioner tank. So my opponent had 5 Leman Russ tanks left. Finally got rid of a single tank. Ugh. My Eversor Assassin failed his charge again (this time against the Company Commander), but that was all right, since my Knight Crusader took care of the Company Commander. I just wanted to gain an extra Command Point, you know? My Skitarii Rangers had charged to capture the objective, and I lost a couple to the Platoon Commander with Strength 4 and chainsword.
My opponent dealt more damage to my wounded Knight Crusader, bringing him down to his last bracket or something (or was it his middle bracket?). I managed some saves with House Taranis's Grace of the Omnissiah, or I would have taken more. In any event, I managed to have him survive that round of vicious shooting. The mortars killed a single Skitarii Ranger squad, leaving just one squad with 2 arc rifles left. My opponent then charged with his Chimera and tied up my Skitarii Rangers in combat, but I had nothing better to do than have them camp on the objective and capture it with objective Secured. This thus gave me 3 Objectives, and for the first time I had more Objectives than my opponent, giving me 1 extra Victory Point. Combined with No Prisoners, I had 2 Victory Points this time, allowing me to pull ahead to 6 against 2.
Turn 4 went all right for both of us. The Chimera took a couple of wounds, and was probably down to his second bracket. The Eversor Assassin finally did something useful (other than wiping out a single infantry squad half his points), moving toward the Catachan/Blood Pact Platoon Commander and wiping him out in combat, plus earning me a single Command Point with his Priority Objective Achieved or whatever that Stratagem was called. The Knight Crusaders took out another tank, bringing one to just one wound. My other Knight Crusader failed to kill the mortar squad (killing just one or two teams) with his Avenger Gatling cannon, with my opponent making all his saves and me fluffing so many of mine, as well as the heavy flamer doing nothing against the last infantry squad. He did charge in and kill a single Leman Russ tank with his Titanic Feet, leaving my opponent with 4 Leman Russ tanks left. Phew. I had to spend a Command Point for Machine Spirit Resurgent for my wounded Knight so that he could shoot on his top bracket, and it did help wound quite a few tanks.
My opponent destroyed the wounded Knight with his remaining tanks and Basilisks. My Skitarii Rangers with the transuranic arquebus lost yet another guy to the mortars, leaving just the alpha. My Tech-priest Enginseer ate a single mortal wound from my Knight's explosion (I rolled a 6), but was otherwise fine. Ouch. The Chimera and Skitarii Rangers did nothing to each other, still locked in combat.
This time, I still held 2 objectives to his 1, and killed more dudes (a tank and the Platoon Commander), which allowed me to go to 8 Victory Points against his 2, but I was running dangerously low on units while he still had a healthy amount of tanks and Basiliks.
Turn 5 was slightly better for me. I managed to kill a tank with my remaining Knight, and then charged right into them, but failed to kill any with Titanic Feet. I also failed to kill any of the Mortar squads again, despite hitting them with my heavy flamer. For the love of the Emperor, my dice hate me. Ugh. My Eversor Assassin ran in, wiped out the Infantry squad and snatched the Objective from my opponent. My Tech-priest Enginseer advanced and captured the other objective as well. This time I actually had 4 Objectives, so that was good.
My opponent fired everything on my Knight and killed him. I think the mortars killed my Skitarii Rangers that was camping on an objective with the transuranic arquebuses, but my Tech-priest Dominus was there to hold it, so yay. So I still held all 4 objectives, which gave me 3 Victory Points. We both killed 2 units this turn, so I didn't get No Prisoners, but the 3 Victory Points was good enough for me. That allowed me to pull ahead to 11 Victory Points to his 2. But I had nothing left, just a bunch of Characters and a single Skitarii Ranger squad still locked in combat with the Chimera and securing the Objective with Objective Secured. No matter what Karru complains about on Bell of Lost Souls, Objective Secured is still useful, and Troops still matter. They make a whole lot of difference to help you secure an Objective and win the game, especially when it comes to earning Victory Points. I know Karru has been whining about how Troops suck, how Troops don't matter and how Objective Secured is useless, but do not believe him. As I have shown from experience, Objective Secured matters, and has helped me earn a lot of much-needed Victory Points.
We rolled to see if the game continues to Turn 6, and it did!
My Eversor moved in, and failed to do anything except kill a single Mortar team. But both Mortar squads were still alive, one with two teams, and the other with one team. Emperor damn it. I just can't roll well, can I? I fluffed all my shots, and what little shots got through, my opponent made his saves. He was rolling a bunch of 6s for his Mortar guys. HOW?!
My opponent then killed my Tech-priest Dominus with the Basilisks, the remaining three Leman Russ tanks killed my Tech-priest Enginseer, and the mortars killed the last squad of Skitarii Rangers after his Chimera fell back. His Primaris Psyker then charged my Eversor Assassin, and of course I had to fail my invulnerable saves and died. On the other hand, he exploded...only to do 1 mortal wound to the Primaris Psyker and 1 team, and killing NOBODY. He did kill a team for the squad that had two teams left, doing 2 mortal wounds, but again the squad survived with just one team left. The dice really hate me that day. For the Emperor's sake...
Well, that was it. I got tabled. My opponent gained 2 Victory Points from controlling more objectives (his Chimera on the objective), and from killing more units than I did (I killed absolutely zero that turn, absolutely terrible). So the game basically ended on Turn 6 with me having 11 Victory Points and being tabled, and my opponent dragging himself up to 4.
Since I got tabled, you would think I lost, right? NOPE. Thanks to Acceptable Casualties, the rules of Sudden Death do not apply. So I actually won the game 11 Victory Points to 4 Victory Points because of Acceptable Casualties! Awesome, eh?
I guess in this scenario, the Adeptus Mechanicus succeeded in capturing all four pillars, siphoning the energy they needed, and got away with a transmission of much-needed data, so even though they got completely wiped out by hordes of Blood Pact infantry and tanks, they achieved their objectives and won. Apparently. At least my opponent got the moral victory. But I still won despite being tabled, and that's what matters! After all, to the Tech-priests of Draconis, their Skitarii Legions are disposable! The Knights less so, but for the sake of STCs and data/knowledge, their sacrifice might be worthwhile. After all, Draconis IV has the technology and resources to build more Knight warsuits, so what's a few that's destroyed? Plus that Noble Sacrifice was just so awesome, ha ha ha ha ha!
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