Battle report 25

So today we had our rematch, with the game being 3,000 points. Awesome. Anyway, my opponent brought 2 Spearhead Detachments today. Uh, he brought an Iron Priest and Logan for his 2 HQs, then a squad of Hellblasters with heavy plasma incinerators, Longfangs with lascannons, 2 Land Raiders, a Land Raider Crusader, a relic Sicarian battle tank, Wulfen with thunder hammers and storm shield, Wolf Guard with thunder hammers and storm shield, Lukas the Trickster, a Razorback with twin lascannons, a Storm Fang and Thunderwolf Cavalry. I think that's about it and I was surprised by how little models he had despite it being a 3,000-point list. Huh. Okay.

As for me, I brought an Imperial Guard Brigade Detachment with 3 Tempestors Prime, 3 Tempestus command squads with 4 plasma guns each, 3 Tempestus squads with 2 plasma guns each, 3 infantry squads with 1 plasma gun each, 2 Armored Sentinels with lascannon, an Armored Sentinel with plasma cannon, 2 Leman Russ Executioner tanks and 1 Leman Russ Annihilator tank. Then the rest of my 3,000 points went into an Imperial Knight Super-heavy Detachment. I had a Knight Errant, a Knight Paladin with Stormspear rocket pod and a Knight Castellan. Originally my opponent was supposed to bring Imperial Knights as well, but I have no idea what happened. Apparently 1 of his Knights was damaged or he forgot to bring it or he changed his mind, but the list I brought to face his Knights ended up...not facing Knights. Okay. Oh, I chose House Krast and gave the Knight Castellan the First Knight Warlord Trait, plus Cawl's Wrath, and spent 1 Command Point to give my Knight Paladin the Mark of the Omnissiah. Yay!

Finally get to field my Imperial Knights in battle! Proxying my Knight Crusader as a Knight Castellan.

We rolled off, and he got the first turn. Oh well. Right, he used the Cunning Wolf Stratagem again to infiltrate his Thunderwolf Cavalry or something. He also placed his Storm Fang in reserve. Wow. How scary. Anyway, all his Land Raiders moved up but his Land Raider Crusader advanced. They, along with the Long Fangs, fired all their lascannons into my Knight Castellan, but I spent 3 Command Points to Rotate his Ion Shields and I think he took a total of 5 damage, which eventually became 7 damage when one of his Sicarian Battle tank's 8 accelerator shots went through despite my 4++ invulnerable save. His Hellblasters also fired on my Knight Errant but did no damage at all, while he had huricane bolters or something from one of his Land Raiders fire into my plasma Armored Sentinel and took 2 wounds off him. The Razorback missed his lascannon shots. Ouch. I think that was basically it. I think someone fired a hunter killer missile into my Knight Paladin and took 3 wounds off him, but that was about it. My opponent failed to kill even a single Knight despite all that firepower andd amount of lascannons.

When it became my turn, I moved up all 3 Knights to get a better angle and fire upon the Land Raiders. My Knight Paladin healed 1 wound thanks to Mark of the Omnissiah, bringing him back up to 22 wounds. Well, my tanks fired first and my first Leman Russ Executioner killed all but one Long Fang, leaving just the Sergeant with  plasma gun. The other Leman Russ Executioner killed all but one Hellblasters, leaving just the Sergeant. Two Armored Sentinels fluffed their shots, but one Armored Sentinel actually did 5 damage to a Land Raider. Nice! The Leman Russ Annihilator fired and left the Sicarian Battle tank with just 3 wounds. The Knight Castellan fired, but his volcano lance only succeeded in doing a single wound roll, so perhaps about 6 damage or so? The Knight Errant destroyed one Land Raider with his thermal cannnon, along with the Knight Castellan's plasma decimator (Cawl's Wrath) already dealing massive damage to it. The Knight Paladin fired and I think ended up bringing the wounded Land Raider Crusader down to just 1 wound despite his rapid-fire battle cannon. He also destroyed the Sicarian tank with his Stormspear rocket pod when I rolled a 3 for D3 wounds despite missing 2 shots. I then charged the Knight Paladin into the wounded Land Raider but despite the Reaper chainsword going through, my opponent made 2 saves and I only did 6 damage to bring it down to 3 or 4 wounds.

Oh, wow. Well, I did manage to get First Blood, so no complaints there - especially since my opponent failed to kill even a single Knight or unit.

The second turn still didn't go as well for my opponent. He disembarked his Wulfen from the wounded Land Raider Crusader, and his Terminators from the wounded Land Raider locked in combat with my Knight Paladin. His Storm Fang flew in from reserve while his Thunderwolf Cavalry Deep Struck right next to my Leman Russ Executioner tank on the far right. His shooting was ineffective as always, but thanks to a misunderstanding (I thought he was shooting at my Knight Paladin and not Knight Castellan, so I didn't use the Rotate Ion Shields Stratagem), he damaged my Knight Castellan and left him with just 10 wounds. All the lascannons from the Razorback and the Storm Fang's multimelta, lascannons and Helfrost cannon. Ugh. Ouch. That sucks. Logan fired into my poor Armored Sentinel but failed to wound him. Yeah, the Land Raider Crusader fired into him too and failed to wound the Armored Sentinel as well. The Razorback also fired its stormbolter into my other Armored Sentinel and did nothing as well. These guys are tough! As I said, never underestimate Armored Sentinels! The Terminators and Wulfen charged into my poor Knight Paladin and did another 9 wounds in total, which meant he had 13 wounds left. On the other side, my Leman Russ Executioner only did 2 wounds with his Overwatch (Defensive Gunners Stratagem activated!) so he didn't kill any of the Thunderwolf Cavalry, who charged in and took 6 wounds off him. Ouch. My Knight Paladin retaliated and stomped only one Terminator into oblivion with his Titanic Feet because of their storm shields providing a 3++ invulnerable save.

So many infantry!!!! This is the IMPERIAL GUARD!

I had my Knight Paladin and Leman Russ Executioner fall back while Deep Striking my Tempestus Scions everywhere in the map. My Knight Paladin rolled a 6 for his Mark of Omnissiah this time and healed 2 wounds. Nice! He now has 15 wounds. My Leman Russ Executioner who wasn't locked in combat fired and destroyed the Land Raider Crusader, blowing him up. Poor Logan, who was within 6" of the exploding Land Raider Crusader, ate 3 mortal wounds from the blast. My Leman Russ Annihilator fired and dealt 13 damage to the Storm Wolf with his lascannons, 3 actually hitting the supersonic flyer. Phew. That was lucky as the warp. Anyway, the Armored Sentinel with lascannon fired and destroyed the Land Raider, while the 2nd Armored Sentinel with lascannon fired and dealt 5 wounds to the Razorback. On the other hand, the Armored Sentinel with plasma cannon failed to do anything again. My Knight Paladin fired, and his Stormspear rocket pod brought down the Storm Fang. Finally. His rapid-fire battle cannon killed a single Wolf Guard. The Knight Errant also fired and killed another Wolf Guard with his thermal cannon. Damn, these things are hard to kill. I then used Machine Spirit Resurgent and Oathbreaker Guidance System. The Shieldbreaker missile dealt 4 wounds to Logan, killing him. The Knight Castellan fired his volcano lance and siegebreaker cannons into the Wolf Guard and wiped them out, and I was about to roll for the plasma decimator into the Wulfen when my opponent called the game. Apparently he had something urgent come up and he needed to leave immediately. But it was clear that I was winning. He had nothing left on the table except the Wulfen, Lukas the Trickster, 2 Sergeants from the Hellblaster and Long Fangs squads that lost all their heavy weapons (aka heavy plasma incinerators and lascannons), the Iron Priest and the Thunderwolf Cavalry. I was poised to begin shooting his Wulfen with the Knight Castellan's Cawl's Wrath plasma decimator, and all the plasma Scions that Deep Struck in front of them. Another plasma squad and normal squad with plasma guns had Deep Struck behind the Leman Russ Executioner tank and near the Thunderwolf Cavalry, and another 2 normal squads in front of the Hellblaster Sergeant to finish him off. Oh, and I had Slay the Warlord and First Blood. I haven't even fired any of my Tempestus Scions' plasma weapons yet, and my Knights had yet to charge into the Wulfen and stomp them with their Titanic Feet plus their House Krast's re-rolls for fight phase. So...quite frankly, it wasn't looking very good for him, even with all those storm shields and 3++ invulnerable saves and Feel No Pain. If I wiped out the Wulfen in combat, all my opponent would have left is Lukas the Trickster, a Long Fang Sergeant, the Iron Priest and...the Thunderwolf Cavalry. And I still had 3 Knights, 3 Leman Russ tanks, all my Storm Troopers and Armored Sentinels. Actually, he hadn't even killed a single unit or model...oh well.

So it was my overwhelming victory, or at least it seemed that way when my opponent left. Can't say much except that it was...fun? At least he tried a different list with all those Land Raiders and tanks, but bad rolls with the lascannon shots let him down. My Imperial Guard Brigade and their Imperial Knight allies succeeded in destroying the Space Wolves again. I think the Imperial Knights were overkill, but I was expecting to face other Imperial Knights, so...yeah. I wonder what would happen if we went with the original plan and he brought his Knights instead of Land Raiders.

Battle Report 24

I meant to go and paint today, but my friend wanted to have a game, so I ended up having a match with him today. I did manage to finish painting my Storm Troopers after the game, and most of my Skitarii, Guardsmen and all my Storm Troopers (including Commissars) are painted. The only models I have left are my Leman Russ tanks and Armored Sentinels, plus 15 completely unpainted Guardsmen, a Leman Russ Annihilator and a few completely unpainted Skitarii. I hope I'll be able to finish painting them tomorrow, or at least sometime next week. Once I'm done with that, I'll proceed to get my Armiger Helverins sometime next week.

Original list, until my opponent said, "please no super-heavies." Poor Shadowsword.

Anyway, the game today was 2,708 points...because my opponent wanted to squeeze in his Sicarian Battle Tank. Or something. He brought a Space Wolves Brigade, so Logan in Terminator armor, an Iron Priest, Lukas the Trickster, some other HQ unit (I can't remember, seems like a Wolf Priest or something), Terminators with storm shield and thunder hammers, Wulfen with storm shields and axes or something, 5 Intercessor squads, a single Blood Claws squad with Terminator Wolfguard in it, 2 squads of Inceptors, Thunderwolf Cavalry of 3 dudes on wolves, Longfangs, a Land Raider Crusader and the Sicarian Battle Tank. So scary. My Guardsmen probably wanted to run away and hide under the table instead of facing such ferocious melee combatants. Gosh, and I remember how the Space Wolves utterly ripped apart the poor Prosperine Spireguard in both A Thousand Sons and The War of the Fang. Ugh. This is gonna be brutal.

On the other side, I brought an Imperial Guard Brigade of my own, a Spearhead Detachment and a Skitarii Battalion. Originally I was going to bring a Shadowsword and Valkyrie, but my opponent wasn't very enthusiastic about playing against a super-heavy, so I swapped out my Shadowsword and Valkyrie for Skitarii. In my Brigade, I had 3 Tempestors Prime, 3 Tempestus command squads with 4 plasma guns each, 2 Tempestus squads with 2 plasma guns each, a Tempestus squad with 2 meltaguns and 3 infantry squads with 1 plasma gun each, 2 Armored Sentinels with lascannon, 1 Armored Sentinel with plasma cannon, a heavy weapons squad with 3 lascannons and 2 Leman Russ Annihilators. The Spearhead Detachment had a Company Commander and 3 Leman Russ Executioners. The Skitarii Battalion had a Tech-priest Dominus, a Tech-priest Enginseer, a squad of Skitarii Rangers with 2 transuranic arquebuses and omnispex, 2 squads of Skitarii Vanguard with 2 plasma calivers and omnispex each, and 2 Kastelan robots with 3 heavy phosphor blasters each. Heh. Basically the Space Wolves had fallen to Khorne's influence and are going berserk, so they attacked the Adeptus Mechanicus research installation, and the Skitarii and their Astra Militarum allies have been enlisted to fight against the rampaging Khorne-fallen Space Wolves. Or something. At least that was the narrative we came up with, anyway.

So my opponent has 15 Command Points and I have 21 Command Points. This is just hilarious. This is why I play Imperial Guard...not that we have any awesome Stratagems to spend all those Command Points on anyway. Wait, that's what the Draconis IV (basically Mars) Skitarii Battalion is for. To spam the Wrath of Mars Stratagem. Yay.

The core of my army. Infantry, Storm Troopers, Armored Sentinels and 5 Leman Russ tanks.

Anyway...where were we? Right. My opponent went first, rolling a 6 and getting a +1 to his roll since he has a lot less units than I did. I rolled for my Canticles and had the re-rolls of ones for both fight phase and shooting phase. He moved his Sicarian Battle Tank a little forward, and had most of his Intercessors and his Blood Claws Advanced. Only 2 squads of Intercessors moved normally. The Land Raider Crusader moved and Advanced for some reason. Probably to unload its cargo of Wulfen as close to my frontlines as possible. Ugh. The Sicarian Battle tank unloaded its main weapon - some accelerator that was 8 shots Strength 7 AP -1 but becomes AP -3 if you get a wound roll of 6 - onto one of my Leman Russ tank (Annihilator) and did a total of...2 damage. Its lascannons did more wounds, which was 8 and brought my Leman Russ Executioner down to 4 wounds. The Longfangs also fired and did another 5 damage to my Leman Russ Annihilator, bringing him down to 5 wounds. That sucked. The Intercessors who didn't advanced fired and shaved off 5 of my poor Guardsmen in the center squad. Another Intercessor squad fired, and for some reason he decided to fire into my Armored Sentinel, taking off 2 wounds if I'm not misaken. I don't think anyone else fired anything...if I'm not mistaken, I managed to pass morale for the 5 Guardsmen, just barely, by rolling a 2. Phew!
Then it was my turn and I retaliated. Before that, I had my Tech-priest Enginseer move up and repair my wounded Leman Russ Executioner tank, and used Tech Adept Stratagem to repair twice. Thanks to that, he now had 8 wounds instead of 4. Yay! Between 2 Armored Sentinels with lascannons, the Leman Russ Annihilator and Leman Russ Executioner, I wrecked the Sicarian Main Battle Tank. Woohoo! My Leman Russ Annihilator killed about 4 Intercessors with his plasma cannon sponsons. On the other side of the table, my heavy weapons squad fluffed their shots and missed most of them despite having re-rolls to hit due to the Take Aim! Order and them following the Cadian Regimental Doctrine. It was up to my other 3 Leman Russ tanks to fire all their lascannons into it, which brought it down to just 3 wounds remaining. The Leman Russ Executioners fired their plasma cannons into the Intercessors, though, which wiped out another 2 squads. I think my Guardsmen also fired and killed another 4 Intercessors, so there were 2 squads left with 1 Sergeant each. Killing the Sicarian Battle Tank gave me First Blood, by the way. The Skitarii Rangers fired their transuranic arquebus and killed a single Longfang. I almost forgot about my Kastelan Robots, and I had them fire into the Blood Claws, with the mortal wounds from Wrath of Mars killing the Wolfguard and the rest getting wiped out by the normal Heavy Phosphor Blaster rounds. Then one of the Sergeants fled due to morale, but the other passed because of They Shall Know No Fear, which meant he only had one Intercessor squad, one Sergeant, the Longfangs and the Land Raider Crusader left on the table. On the other hand, he failed to kill even one of my units.

No Shadowsword allowed? Okay, let's bring in the Skitarii and Legio Cybernetica.

Turn 2 began and this is where the real fun begins. This time, I had Shroudpsalm, not that it matters because he didn't shoot at any of my Mechanicus units. The other one was re-roll failed morale tests for Adeptus Mechanicus units. Ditto. Anyway, he disembarked his Iron Priest, Wolf Priest, Lukas and Wulfen from his wounded Land Raider Crusader and had the Iron Priest repair 3 wounds on his Land Raider Crusader (he actually used a Command Re-roll for that, having rolled a 1 at first, and I stole his Command Point with Kurov's Aquila). He then Deep Struck his 2 squads of Inceptors in front of one unit of Guardsmen and the tanks they were protecting, infiltrated the Thunderwolf Cavalry right behind the Inceptors, and his Terminator squad and Logan in front of my wounded 5-men Guardsmen squad. The Wulfen were bearing down on my Guardsmen squad on the far right. His Longfangs put another 4 wounds on my Leman Russ Annihilator, bringing him down to 1, while his surviving Intercessors killed 1 Guardsmen from the wounded squad. I can't remember what he did, but one of his units fired on my Leman Russ Annihilator and blew him up after taking out his last wound. I can't remember who did it, it might be the Land Raider Crusader and his hurricane holters or heavy bolters. I do know the Land Raider Crusader fired its storm bolter and assault cannon into my Armored Sentinel of all things, dealing him another 2 wounds - the poor Sentinel was left with just 2 wounds. But he did his job well, distracting the firepower of my opponent away from my tanks. Speaking of that, instead of firing into my Guardsmen, the Inceptors fired all their assault bolters into my Leman Russ Executioner and did a total of 2 wounds. Uh...okay. Why in Holy Terra would you do that? Apparently he was confident of making his charge and having his Inceptors destroy my Guardsmen in combat. Alas, it was not to be.

The charge phase was brutal, as I would expect. Funnily enough, both Inceptor squads failed their charge, despite charging into one Armored Sentinel and my unscathed Guardsmen squad respectively. My Guardsmen even managed to put a single wound on an Inceptor through overwatch - he failed his 3+ armor save and ate a lasgun shot. For nothing. In the middle, Logan charged and ate a plasma gun shot to the face. He failed his charge, unfortunately and took 2 wounds. Hah! Serve you right! The Terminators or Wolf Guard with him, however, made their charge and my plasma gunner who put the 2 wounds on Logan killed himself with his supercharged plasma gun. Oh well, no matter. I mean, he would have died in melee against the Wolf Guard and their thunder hammers anyway. On the other side, the Wulfen made their charge without taking a single wound, and they utterly wiped out the 10-men infantry squad camping there. The 4 surviving Guardsmen were also hammered to death by the Wolf Guard, and both the Wulfen and Wolf Guard consolidated toward my plasma cannon Armored Sentinel and one of my lascannon Armored Sentinels respectively. So my opponent finally managed to kill 2 infantry squads and 1 Leman Russ Annihilator. Hooray for him.

I had both my Armored Sentinels fall back, and then Deep Struck my Tempestus squads with 2 plasma guns behind the Longfangs. The rest just Deep Struck in front, with the 2 plasma Tempestus command squads appearing in front of the Wulfen and the final command squad and the melta Scions jumping in front of the Terminators/Wolf Guard. The Tech-priest Enginseer continued to repair my Leman Russ Executioner and brought him back to 10 wounds. In the shooting phase, I proceeded to destroy everything. My heavy weapons squad dealt 5 damage to the Land Raider Crusader, and his last wound was removed by my third lascannon Armored Sentinel who was the only Armored Sentinel not locked in combat. Never underestimate Armored Sentinels! Not only did they divert a lot of firepower away from my tanks and infantry (and survived, to boot), they also prevented the Terminators and Wulfen from consolidating into my more important units such as Kastelan robots and Leman Russ tanks in melee. This is why you field them! They are extremely important and useful so don't dismiss them and call them trash units or useless - in the hands of a good commander, they can turn the tide of battle. Anyway, both Tempestus squads with 2 plasma guns each fired and wiped out the Longfangs. On the other end of the table, the first Skitarii Vanguard with plasma calivers, the 2 Tempestus command squads with plasma guns, and 2 of my Leman Russ Executioner tanks fired and wiped out the Wulfen. Wow, those bastards really take a lot of firepower to kill. I know I had a couple of plasma cannon sponsons fire on the Intercessors, but they made their 6+ armor saves. Damn it. So the Intercessor squad still had 4 guys left apparently, but at least the Wulfen were dead. Meanwhile the Skitarii Rangers with transuranic arquebuses fired on Logan and they rolled double 6s for wound rolls, dealing 2 mortal wounds straight, and another 5 damage when he failed his armor or invulnerable saves. Despite his Tenacious Survivor Warlord Trait, he didn't get a single Feel No Pain roll off and he died. Slay the Warlord! And death to the traitor Logan! Meanwhile, my Guardsmen and plasma Tempestus command squad killed a squad of Inceptors. The Leman Russ Executioner then wiped out the 2nd Inceptor squad with a barrage of plasma. My Leman Russ Annihilator fired on the Thunderwolf Cavalry and killed 2 of them while putting a wound on the last one (probably rolled a one for a lascannon shot or something).

My 2nd Skitarii Vanguard squad with 2 plasma calivers and the melta scions fired, but the Wolf Guard saved everything with their storm shields' 3++ invulnerable saves. Then my Kastelan robots fired, and I used the Wrath of Mars Stratagem. Between mortal wounds and unsaved wounds, I killed almost the entire Wolf Guard squad except 2 Terminators, one of whom had one wound left. Desperate, I had my Tech-priest Dominus fire his Volkite blaster in hopes of rolling a 6 to deal a mortal wound, but alas, it was not to be. Funnily enough, my opponent rolled a one for his save and the wounded Terminator died. Only one Wolf Guard was left, standing in front of my Kastelan robots, Armored Sentinel, Tech-priest Dominus, Company Commander and 2 Leman Russ tanks.

That was it for my turn. I left it to my opponent, but he called it game. He only had one Terminator, Lukas, the Iron Priest, the Wolf Priest, one Thunderwolf Cavalry and 4 Intercessors left on the table. 9 models, to be exact. Whereas I only lost 2 infantry squads and 1 Leman Russ Annihilator and had almost my entire army on my table. Never mind my infantry (all my Tempestus Scions and Skitarii were still alive), I still had 4 Leman Russ tanks and 3 Armored Sentinels left on the table. It would be very difficult for him to do anything to me and I was in good position to table him the next turn with all the firepower I had at my disposal. Oh, wow...I absolutely destroyed his army, even the Sicarian Battle Tank he was looking forward to playing. That's...a little sad for him. But he did make several weird decisions, like shooting my Armored Sentinel or tanks with anti-infantry weapons. Why did his Inceptors shoot their assault bolters at my Leman Russ tank? Why did his Sicarian battle tank fire its main weapon at my Leman Russ Annihilator instead of my infantry? That was just plain weird. On a side note, his units were absolutely brutal in melee - they tore my poor Guardsmen apart. Ouch.

The Draconian Armored Defenders and Draconian Skitarii come under attack by Khornate Space Wolves (or whatever Traitor Heretics that use Space Wolves rules).

Well, he asked for a rematch tomorrow, and it seems that it'll be a 3,000-point game. I'm tempted to bring Imperial Knights (I know he's bringing his Knights), but I might just go the Shadowsword route instead. We'll see. Anyway, we destroyed the Khorne heretic Space Wolves with our faith in the Emperor!

Trooper Matsuda raised his head, puzzled, as the heretic Astartes withdrew. There was howling, but whether it was from rage or despair, he couldn't tell.

"Well...that was surprisingly easy."

"Easy for you to say," Umezu growled beside him, lowering his smoking lasgun. "Didn't you see Kurosawa's squad? They were torn apart by those monsters."

Mastuda gulped at that, remembering the gruesome scene when those mutants in power armor lunged forward and ripped Kurosawa's squad apart. The Emperor's Vengeance had fired its Executioner plasma cannon in retaliation and vaporized the howling mutants, but there was no one to save by then...both loyalists and heretics melted togethering into a fuming puddle.

There was still a single Chaos Terminator bludgeoning through the Draconians' lines in the center, but Matsuda was happy to leave it to the Skitarii stationed there. Magos Mecharius Sigma could take care of him, especially with a cohort of Kastelan robots at his back and 2 squads of Skitarii Vanguard armed with plasma calivers.

That left a single Daemon in front, but the foul creature had turned tail and fled after Solar Burst had fired its twin and hull lascannons and extinguished two of its comrades. Matsuda was grateful for the Leman Russ Annihilator and its brother Executioner tank, Macharius Shining, for watching their backs. Otherwise his squad would have ended up like the other two, torn apart by armored monsters and mutants.

"For heretic Astartes, they were pretty...ineffective," Matsuda observed. "I was expecting more..."

"We lost Holy Beacon and 2 entire squads," Umezu reprimanded him. Matsuda nodded.

"Exactly, Yet we wiped out 5 squads of Heretic Astartes, 2 Daemons, a pack of mutants, and almost an entire squad of Terminators, plus 2 heavy tanks. Oh, and the heavy weapons Marine squad at the back. That's quite a low tally of casualties on our side, considering the enemy."

"The Emperor protects," Umezu snapped. "These Traitors turned their backs on the Emperor. Of course they wouldn't receive the same divine protection we would."

"...right."

Matsuda gave up arguing with him and turned his attention back to the fleeing heretics. The Traitors would be back, he just knew it.

And next time, it wouldn't end with just 2 squads and a single Leman Russ Annihilator dead...

Short Battle Report

Here's a short battle report. Before I get to it, I'll just post a picture of a Forgebane poster that I finally managed to get and put up in my room.

Oh, and I had to repair my poor Knight Crusader. The poor guy was pretty banged up and literally in pieces when I took him out of my luggage. Yeah, if you want to transport your models about, you need the Citadel cases with foam or sponge. Putting them in your luggage will only end up in a disaster. Ugh. But I glued him back together with much difficulty and he seems to be standing pretty tall, especially when placed next to my Thanatar and Castellax (which I still can't use because they don't have 40,000 rules! When is Fires of Cyraxus ever going to come out?!). Oddly enough, my Leman Russ tanks were a lot more durable. Unlike the humongous Knight, my Leman Russ tanks came out of the journey virtally unscathed. As they say, the Leman Russ tanks are trusty, reliable and hardy. Can always count on them to pull through for us!

I also got my Skitarii back, so yay. This blog will be reverting back to Adeptus Mechanicus, Astra Militarum and Imperial Knights. I can pretty much field a combined arms army with my Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarii models and Astra Militarum regiment. It'll change things up, makes gameplay more interesting and offer me options rather than fielding nothing but Guardsmen and tanks. Oh, and I can play several Kill Teams with my Skitarii or Guardsmen (or Storm Troopers). Oh, and I'm really grateful to my friend. Not only did he return me my Skitarii, he even gave me several of his Skitarii Rangers. Thanks! I'll make sure to use them well!

Anyway, after I received my Skitarii back, I had a game with my friend. Since we had about an hour left, we decided to play a quick 1,000-points game. He played Space Wolves and I brought my Imperial Guard army. He brought 2 squads of 5 Intercessors each, 10 Blood Claws, Lukas the Trickster, Logan Grimnar and Ragnar Blackmane, plus a Land Raider Crusader. He invested so many points into Characters that...he didn't have a lot on the table. On the other hand, I brought 2 Company Commanders with plasma pistols, 3 squads of Guardsmen with plasma guns, and 4 Leman Russ tanks - 3 Executioners and 1 Annihilator. The reason why I was able to bring so many tanks was because Guardsmen are pretty cheap. Just for as little as 211 points, I could bring a Battalion and fill up the rest of the points with tanks.

My opponent got first turn and he moved and advanced his Land Raider Crusader, which was holding the Blood Claws, Lukas, Ragnar and Logan. His Intercessors moved forward and mowed down an entire squad. First Blood to him.

My Leman Russ Annihilator then fired and wounded the Land Raider Crusader, dealing about 5 wounds or so with the lascannons, and then maybe another 2 damage? In any case, I used the Overlapping Fields of Fire Stratagem and had my Leman Russ Executioner tanks shoot the Land Raider. The 2nd one brought him down to just 1 wound, and the third one decided to fire his main cannon on one squad of Intercessors while finishing off the Land Raider with his lascannon and plasma cannons. The Intercessors were wiped out, and the Land Raider Crusader exploded, which meant 3 or 4 guys died. My remaining 2 squads of Guardsmen fired their lasguns and plasma guns on the surviving Blood Claws, but the lasguns didn't deal any damage (or the Blood Claws made their saves against the lasguns). On the other hand, the plasma guns killed a couple of Blood Claws, and the Company Commanders' plasma pistols killed the remaining Blood Claws, wiping them out. With nothing between them and the last Leman Russ tank, despite being a Character, Lukas became the closest model, so I killed him with my final Leman Russ Executioner by shooting everything into him.

The Intercessors fired and...only killed 1 Guardsman. Ragnar also fired and...killed 0 Guardsman. I actually got lucky, as I amde most of my flak armor saves. No kidding. I was rolling 4 5s and 6s. I can't believe how lucky and sturdy my Guardsmen were, despite wearing only cardboard-thin flak armor. The Emperor protects indeed. Logan fared better, killing about 2 Guardsmen. Ragnar charged in and...killed only 1 Guardsman in combat. Yeah...my opponent was rolling pretty badly. Logan, on the other hand, killed 3 Guardsmen in melee, and I lost another 2 to morale.

I had my Guardsmen fall back, and my Company Commanders order them to get back into the fight! Despite firing everything they had, plasma guns, remaining lasguns or plasma pistols, between their 2+ Terminator armor save and 4++ invulnerable save, they tanked everything.

Then my Leman Russ tanks fired.

Probably because these were the tanks named after their Primarch, neither Character/Hero stood a chance against their devastating firepower. The first Leman Russ Executioner and the Leman Russ Annihilator slew Logan, despite his Tenacious Survivor or whatever Warlord Trait that gave him Feel No Pain. Plasma bombardment and lascannons vaporized him into nothing. That granted me Slay the Warlord. One of the remaining 2 Leman Russ Executioner tanks fired and killed Ragnar with a bombardment of plasma despite his 4++ invulnerable save. The final Leman Russ Executioner tank fired into the Intercessor squad and killed about 3 guys, leaving just 2.

The Intercessors moved within rapid fire range, fired and killed another 2 or 3 guys in my 8-men squad, then tried to charge and failed. Didn't matter, I failed my Overwatch anyway. Then my Leman Russ Executioner tank wiped them out in one volley, an easy job since there were only 2 of them left. My opponent was utterly and completely tabled. Victory went to the Imperial Guard again!

If only this was a reenactment of Warzone Fenris, where the Prosperine Spireguard attacked the Fang in mass numbers...We would have conquered the Fang and hand Fenris over to Magnus and the Thousand Sons! Ugh. What a waste. Oh well. Then again, we're loyalists and fight on the side of the Emperor, so what's done is done. Still, I'm kind of surprised at how strong Imperial Guard is, and why people hardly use Leman Russ tanks in tournaments. Well, if I ever participate in a tournament and get my ass kicked, I'll find out. Till then! For the Emperor!

Adeptus Titanicus

I'll be honest. I'm currently trapped in transit to Minnesota, stuck in San Francisco for 14 hours while I await my connecting flight to Minneapolis. That's why I wasn't able to update you guys when Adeptus Titanicus dropped.

I'm exhausted after a long flight (try flying across the Pacific Ocean, you'll see what I mean), so I'm going to keep it short. Basically, Warhammer Community announced that they will be releasing Adeptus Titanicus next week. The focus is on Horus Heresy, but it seems that they'll be open to future expansions that take place in the 41st Millennium and perhaps even include xenos titans such as Ork Gargants and Eldar Revenant Knights. Or something. Anyway, the Grand Master Edition looks awesome. If you get it, not only do you get the rules and everything, you also get 2 Warlords and 6 Imperial Knights. The Knights have been downsized, of course, so they aren't the usual big stompy super-heavy walkers we're used to on the tabletop for years, ever since they first dropped in 2014. No Reavers and Warhounds, you say? Well, they're coming in separate boxes, like the Warlords. Of course, it seems that Games Workshop believes that the Warlords will rake in the most profits, and no argument there.

Warhammer Community has also posted an article describing what Adeptus Titanicus is about. And it seems that scatter dice and blast markers are back! Huh. Okay. Cool.



Anyway, these guys look really, really cool, so I'm looking forward to seeing more of them. Unfortunately I can't afford to buy them and real-life things happened (my phone broke and I need to buy a new phone, which means there's a low chance of me being able to afford Warhammer 40,000 stuff this month). Oh well. It sucks, but that's life in the poor, bloody Imperial Guard. We get to do most of the fighting and dying before someone else shows up late to the party and take all the credit. Okay, I evidently have been reading too much Macharius. I'm actually reading the trilogy now, and am near the beginning of Angel of Fire. Oh, speaking of Titans and Black Library, Imperator: Wrath of the Omnissiah is awesome. Warhammer Community talks about Mechanicum by Graham McNeill and while that certainly is one of my favorite Horus Heresy books, don't forget about Dan Abnett's Titanicus and Gav Thorpe's Imperator: Wrath of the Omnissiah. Oh, and David Annandale's Warlord: Fury of the Machine God as well. They are all awesome reads, no exceptions. I would throw in the Knights novels by Andy Clark (Kingsblade and Knightsblade) but you either already know about them or I've already talked about them.

Anyway, I'll keep you guys posted. Now I'm just whiling my time away in the airport, waiting for my flight...

Final battle report in Singapore

Well, this will be my final battle report in Singapore...for this year, anyway. I'll be returning to the United States on Monday (August 6th) so I won't be playing any more games here. :(

Anyway, I had another game against the Blood Angels player that I played on Monday and Tuesday. This time, he brought a Primaris Apocathery, a Captain with thunder hammer, 3 Intercessor squads, a Librarian Dreadnought, a Predator Annihilator (4 lascannons), Saguinary Guard, Sanguinary Ancient and a Redemptor Dreadnought. I brought the same list as Tuesday, so basically 2 Battalions of Imperial Guard. You know, 2 Company Commanders, 3 infantry squads with plasma guns, a Leman Russ Annihilator, 2 Leman Russ Executioners, a Vendetta gunship, 2 Tempestors Prime, 2 Tempestus squads with 2 plasma guns each, 2 Tempestus squads with 2 hot-shot volley guns each and a Tempestus command squad with 4 meltaguns.

I got rekted.

Never mind, let's talk about the mission first. We had Secure and Control, which meant 2 objective markers - one in each deployment zone. My opponent went first, and his guys moved and advanced, and he scored First Blood when his Intercessors, combined with the Redemptor Dreadnought, erased an infantry squad and killed another infantry guy. Meanwhile, his Predator Annihilator fired and dealt 5 wounds to my Leman Russ Annihilator.

My turn came and I fluffed all my shots despite the number of lascannons I was sporting. I only managed to deal about 9 wounds to the Predator Annihilator, leaving it with 2, and maybe 7 wounds to the Dreadnought Redemptor despite supercharging all the plasma on my Leman Russ Executioner tanks. My infantry squad fired on the Intercessors, and despite having First Rank, Fire! Second Rank, Fire! they failed to even wound one guy. Lasguns are not exactly good against Space Marines.

My opponent capitalized on the advantage and took out one Leman Russ Executioner with his Captain and Thunder Hammer plus Librarian Dreadnought. The Sanguinary Guard wounded my other Leman Russ tank, but failed to kill it, and my Leman Russ Annihilator was brought down to 4 wounds. Meanwhile, the Intercessors and wounded Redemptor Dreadnought killed my 2nd infantry squad without batting an eyelid. Ugh. I think he lost one Sanguinary Guard to a supercharged plasma pistol shot when he re-rolled his misses and rolled a 1. Heh. I also used Defensive Gunners and killed another one or two of them if I remember correctly.

I had my Leman Russ Executioner fall back, and Deep Struck my Tempestus Scions into my objective marker, with only the melta command squad in my opponent's deployment zone. I split my fire, having 2 fire at the Predator Annihilator and the other 2 fire at the Redemptor Dreadnought, but only killed the Predator Annihilator. The Leman Russ Annihilator, despite hitting on 5s, managed to finish off the Redemptor Dreadnought, while the Vendetta gunship killed about 2 or 3 Sanguinary Guard. Meanwhile, all 4 Tempestus squads fired and killed just 1 Intercessor squad. Wow. That sucked.

On the third turn, my opponent closed in, trying to finish off all my tanks. He killed my Leman Russ Annihilator, left my final Leman Russ tank on just 2 wounds, and then killed 1 Tempestus squad and left another with just 3 guys. I retaliated and killed about a couple of Sanguinary Guard on overwatch or so I think, but I can't remember. Anyway, I left both Intercessor squads with just 1 guy each even with my melta command squad running and advancing to get within range of them, which sucked. Oh, and the Vendetta gunship flew away to take the objective marker on my opponent's side of the map. I think he tried to charge my Vendetta gunship, and I killed 2 guys in overwatch while he failed his charge for the Sanguinary Guards.

On the fourth turn, the Sanguinary Guard and everyone turned toward my Tempestus Scions while the Captain killed my wounded Leman Russ Executioner. I think I lost all my Storm Troopers except one squad, and my Tempestors Prime mostly survived (one had 2 wounds left). In any case, I had my Vendetta shoot the 2 Intercessors and finished off both squads for good, and the melta command squad dealt only 2 wounds to the Sanguinary Ancient, but that's all I could do. The fifth turn basically ended with the Sanguinary Guard and everyone charging into my Tempestors Prime, 2nd Company Commander and last Tempestus squad and killing them. My Company Commander survived the duel with the Librarian Dreadnought, thanks to his refractor shield, but only had 1 wound left. Ouch. I could only bring my surviving Tempestor Prime to capture the objective while my Company Commander fell back. Meanwhile, my 2 surviving melta command squad ran to take the objective that my Vendetta gunship was hovering over, but didn't actually disembark my Warlord and the infantry squad within. I think I killed another couple of Sanguinary Guard with the lascannons on the Vendetta.

My opponent rolled and the game continued to turn 6.

Nothing to say except that he moved his 3 surviving Sanguinary Guard, Captain and Ancient to capture the objective while killing my Tempestor Prime. Poor guy. The Librarian Dreadnought finished off my wounded Company Commander without so much as a thought. Ouch. With nothing to lose, I had the melta command squad hold the objective in my opponent's deployment zone while zooming my Vendetta back to my deployment zone and grav chuting my guys 9" away from the Blood Angels holding my objective marker. I rolled 4 ones and lost 4 guys to the drop (what the feth?!) but I had my Warlord order them to Move, Move, Move! and rolled a 5 for them to move 11" during the shooting phase. They piled onto the objective and captured it right from under the Sanguinary Guard, Ancient, Primaris Apocathery and Captain's nose because they are Troops and have Objective Secured. And they passed their morale, thankfully. Ugh. My opponent then rolled and the game ended there and then.

Final verdict: I scored 6 points, 7 if I include Linebreaker. My opponent scored 2 points from First Blood and Linebreaker. Phew. I actually won. Wow. I don't freaking believe it. That was so close, just by the skin of my teeth. I had nothing but 2 melta guys from the Tempestus Command squad left, half an infantry squad left (how the hell did I lose 4 guys to grav chute...), a Company Commander and a Vendetta gunship. My opponent still had a Librarian Dreadnought, a Captain, a Sanguinary Ancient, a Primaris Apocathery and 3 Sanguinary Guards, enough to wreck whatever forces I had left on the table. It was such a tough fight, and I almost lost. Ouch. I almost got tabled. Thankfully I managed to win through Objectives alone, or I would have gotten rekted, like, completely. Phew.

I wonder what I should have done to improve my play.

Astra Mlitarum Competitive Scene

I just happened to chance across this article in the Bell of Lost Souls and it seems pretty interesting!

Basically, Imperial Knights and Imperial Guard (both of which are my main armies) are the top 2 of both Most Played Faction and Most Winning Faction!

That made me a little happy and pleasantly surprised, especially since I'm struggling with my Imperial Guard list right now (okay, I'm not exactly struggling that hard since I do win more games than I lose with my Astra Militarum list)...at least until I read the comments. Apparently most of the supposed "Astra Militarum" lists are armies that only bring the bare minimum Battalion-sized Imperial Guard Detachment (the infamous 32 Guardsmen - 2 Company Commanders and 3 Infantry Squads) and name them as their "primary" army because the Warlord happens to be from there (Grand Strategist and Kurov's Aquila relic), but they usually don't even make up 10% of the actual army. Meaning most of those lists bring about 180 points worth of Imperial Guard, and then over 1,800 points of something else (Adeptus Custodes, Imperial Knights, Space Marines, whatever), but still call themselves "Imperial Guard" lists because the Warlord is from there. No kidding.

The infamous 32, Imperial Guard Battalion Command Points Battery, min-maxing, etc. At this point it's no longer funny. I mean, people should play what they like, and all the more to them if they want to create an army around the infamous 32, but...they're starting to give Imperial Guard players a bad name, especially those of us who play pure Imperial Guard lists...like me. I really have no idea what to say. But whatever. I guess I'll just continue playing whatever I'm playing and hope I don't get mixed up with those other "Imperial Guard" players whose Imperial Guard Battalion is only 10% of their Adeptus Custodes/Space Marines/Imperial Knights/whatever armies.

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?