Skitarii Slaughter

 I had another 9th edition game today! Finally, need to practice these 9th edition games and get used to the new rules and everything. Covid19 has been stifling, but now that I'm vaccinated (and everyone is too), things should be returning to normal. I hope. In any event, we can now take the fight to Nurgle and challenge them for dominion over the Charadon Sector and the realm of Ultramar!

Funnily enough, my opponent today was Ultramarines, and he brought a whole bunch of stuff! I can't remember everything, but here's his list off the top of my head.

Primaris Captain in Gravis Armor, relic that gives him a 3++ invulnerable save, and I think Storm of Fire Warlord Trait that gives core units an additiona AP on wound rolls of 6s.

Primaris Lieutenant, relic that gives all units within 6" re-rolls of wounds against a chosen enemy unit (he selected my Knight, duh), and...I forgot what his Warlord Trait was.

Primaris Apocethary, promoted to chief, gets a relic that increases his aura bubble to 9", can't remember what his Warlord Trait was either.

Primaris Ancient

6 squads of 5 Intercessors, auto bolt carbines

2 squads of 3 Inceptors, bolt weapons instead of the plasma exterminators

3 Suppressors (I almost thought they were 3 Silencers or something)

5 Hellblasters

10 Hellblasters

3 Eradicators

I think that's it, really. All 2,000 points. No Dreadnoughts, have a lot of firepower - especially anti-infantry. Needless to say, it didn't go well for me. Oh, what did I bring?

Tech-priest Dominus

Tech-priest Enginseer

2 squads of 5 Skitarii Rangers, 2 arc rifles, omnispex, alpha with arc maul and arc pistol

2 squads of 5 Skitarii Rangers, 2 transuranic arquebuses, omnispex

2 squads of 5 Skitarii Vanguard, 2 plasma calivers, omnispex, alpha with phosphor blast pistol and taser goad

2 squadrons of 3 Serberys Sulphurhounds, phosphor carbine, alpha with arc maul, phosphor blast pistol.

4 Kastelan Robots with incendine combusters

Skorpius Dunerider

2 Skorpius Disintegrators with Belloros cannon

Knight Preceptor with multilaser and Ironstorm missile pod

Huh, I thought I had more than that. Guess not. Anyway, it didn't matter...because my Skitarii got slaughtered (you saw the title, you know what is going to happen).

The Mission was Retrieval, so a simple set up. He took one side, I took the other, as you can see in the pictures. I tried to hide most of my Skitarii in terrain, but given the long range of the Primaris Marines, it didn't matter. My opponent chose Domination and Bring it Down as well as Raise the Banners for his secondaries. I also chose Domination, but I took the mission's secondary (minimize losses or casualties) and the secondary where I chose 3 of my models with the highest power level (I think it's called we stand, we fight? Or something like that), and if they survived, I get victory points. Needless to say, I got none of that, heh.

My opponent got first turn, and he basically ran most of his units up the table. In a single gigantic ultramarine wave. No, seriously. It was like a blue tide (yeah, I was reminded of a green tide...so Space Marines have become a horde army now). His Inceptors and Intercessors opened fire - and just 4 squads because 2 decided to raise the banners - and they decimated all my Skitarii. The 2 sniper squads, the 2 arc rifle squads...all dead. The Eradicators blew up my poor Skorpius Dunerider...and I rolled 5 1s, so an entire squad died in the explosion. Ouch. My rolling was horrible today, I failed most of my saves and I kept blowing myself up - I lost 2 Skitarii Rangers to mortal wounds when I rolled a 6 for my destroyed Skorpius Dunerider! Then 5 ones! Can you believe that!? You know what was the worst thing? I returned home, went through the Stratagem in Engine War and found out there is Evacuation Sequence, which costs 0 points and allows me to not roll for them to be slain in the explosion. Ugh!

So...my 30 Skitarii infantry got reduced to just 1. One Skitarii Ranger Alpha who hid nside a building to get the objective in my deployment zone. 29 Skitarii infantry, dead and buried after a single turn of shooting. All my Troops gone in a single turn. Ouch.

The Hellblasters fired at my Kastelan robots, but they whiffed their rolls, heh. At least there was one thing going my way.

My turn came...and with all of my infantry and dedicated transport destroyed, there wasn't much I could do...now that I think about it, I had literally 9 units left on the table. The Serberys Sulphurhounds charged forward, and though one squad took out like 3 or so Interecessors, the other squad completely whiffed their shots and did absolutely nothing. Like I said, the dice gods are not on my side today. One Kastelan robot fired his incendine combuster into the Inceptors and took 1 wound off them while the other 3 incinerated a few Intercessors, but failed to kill the whole squad. I think there was one Sergeant left or something. I killed that Sergeant with the Knight Preceptor's multilaser, then fired his las-impulsor on the Eradicators. Once again, I did absolutely nothing with it. The Ironstorm missile pod did a bit more damage, killing another Intercessor and leaving just the Sergeant left - with just one wound (my opponent made the Feel No Pain saves because of the Chief Apocethary), but that was about it. I had kept him way back in my backline to keep him out of range of the Hellblasters, and while that paid off, he was nowhere close enough to do anything significant. Should have brought a Knight Crusader or Knight Castellan instead (but I don't have the points, whoops).

The Skorpius Disintegrators fired...and did very little. I maybe killed 1 or 2 Intercessors here or there, but other than that...nope. I failed most of my wound rolls...again. Oh, well.

The Serberys Sulphurhounds charged into the Inceptors, then piled in and ended up locked in combat with the Hellblasters somehow. The Kastelan robots also joined in and charged the Inceptors, and while the Serberys Sulphurhounds killed one Inceptor (the Alpha making his attacks while the other two completely whiffing their roles...though he only took one wound off, and it took the claws of the hounds to take the damned Inceptor down). The Kastelan robots finished off the Inceptors, but the Hellblasters basically killed my Serberys Sulphurhounds. I couldn't even make a single save. What the hell? On the other hand, the second Serberys Sulphurhound squadron charged into the Intercessors on the other side...and did absolutely nothing. This time, though, the Intercessors also did nothing to them. So it all evens out in the end. Nice. Phew.

This wasn't going to last, for the Ultramarines could fall back and shoot. Needless to say, the second squadron of Serberys Sulphurhounds didn't last long, being torn apart by Inceptors and Intercessors alike. On the other hand, it took shooting from 3 Eradicators and all 15 Hellblasters to finally bring down my Kastelan robots. And with that, all my chances of winning went up with smoke. I literally only had 2 Skorpius tanks and a single Knight left against over 20 Intercessors, 15 Hellblasters and 3 Eradicators.

Once again, I tried to shoot the Eradicators...but did absolutely nothing because they made all their saves against his las-impulsor despite me scoring an impressive 11 shots...only to do 2 wounds because of Transhuman Physiology. 50% change of wounding, and I only scored 20%. Why, Omnissiah? I rolled horribly once again. Ugh. The rest of the weapons went into the Hellblasters, with the Skorpius Disintegrators also firing into them...and I think I only took out nobody. Not even a single Marine. On the other hand, my Knight could charge into the Suppressors and stomp them to death with his Titanic Feet.

On the third turn, my opponent continued advancing forward with his forces. His Eradicators and Hellblasters fired on my Knight, and between all 18 of them, they brought him down to 6 wounds, at the cost of 2 Hellblasters dying from supercharging their plasma incinerators. They had the re-roll to wound because of the Primaris Lieutenant's relic, remember. Not good for me at all. The Primaris Captain in Gravis armor charged in and...did a total of 2 wounds with his gauntlet. I used Machine Spirit Resurgent and stomped on him, but with his 3++ invulnerable save, I could only do 2 wounds to him. I rolled average and took 4 wounds off his 8. Not too bad.

Then I decided to be defiant and see how far my Knight can defy him. Once again, I used Machine Spirit Resurgent, but despite all my shooting, I failed to kill any Eradicators. I was rolling horribly. I probably took out 3 or 4 Hellblasters thanks to my Knight and 2 Skorpius Disintegrators, but that was all I could do. My Knight then charged the Primaris Captain...and did absolutely nothing with his Titanic Feet. Transhuman Physiology was one thing, but I just rolled utterly poorly. Then the Primaris Captain swung back and took away the other 4 wounds. Of course, my Knight didn't blow up to deal mortal wounds to him (would be cool if he did). Sad to say...it ended in a crushing defeat for my Adeptus Mechanicus force.

Oh, well. Better luck next time! We decided to do a rematch next week, so I'm looking forward to that. I'll bring less infantry and more vehicles. I'll probably bring a Knight army with a small Skitarii patrol instead. If I can get my 2nd Archaeopter done today and painted by Sunday, I should be able to field 2 gunships to harass and take out Marines from afar. I hope. We'll see. A loss is something to learn from, so I'll take my lesson, adjust my list and strategies, and try again next week!

Until then!

Update: Apparently Blogger has reevaluated my post and reinstated it. Thank you, Blogger. I don't know what happened, but that's good news at least. So I no longer need the other post, I deleted it. Hah!