13th Alcomari 'Prometheus Unbound' Campaign Report

[Cap'n Tightpants]

My lists for the campaign can be found bottom of the page here: www.commissar.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=armylist&action=display&thread=16486


Week 1 was not a great one for my guard. First up I played Tau on quite dense urban terrain.
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My Forward Sentry vets w/shotguns and Flamers infiltrated right up to his commander, and the rest of my army deployed in cover. Penal Legions scouted a little further forward than everyone else, and the Tau deployed in the terrain, hugging the board edge. I stole the initiative (yes!).

First turn, I moved closer to his lines with nearly everything except my CCS and Plasma Squad, and made one of his Fire Warrior Squads leg it off the board with a couple of Autocannon wounds. He shot me up a little in his turn, and then turn two I advanced further on his position. My forward sentry vets got really close to killing his commander (shotguns/flamers removed his drones, and left him with 1w)

I decided to charge, as I just needed him to fail the one armour save. Unfortunately, my vets got toasted by his flamer, and then fluffed all their attacks. They ran and suffered the igmony of being chased down by a Tau. On the other flank my Penal Legion attempted to charge some other crisis suits behind a wall, and not only failed, but got roasted by flamers AGAIN

His turn, his Commander went 'phew' and Airburst Fragmentation Grenaded my Infantry blob. This army does not like large blasts or AP5 weapons at all. As he was a new player and I'm still not 100% on the rules, this was all we had time for and so we called it a draw.

Game 2 was against 'nids. Now I hate 'nids. I've always struggled against them and will probably continue to do so for a bit whilst I work out how to stop them with my new Guard army. Deployment for me and him was thus:

and thus:

his entire army was old 2nd (3rd?) edition 'nids and was pretty cool. I decided to bunker my forces as best I could and just await the onslaught. First turn pretty much nothing happened as I either missed with everything or he did. Took a couple of men off my blob with the barbed strangler, and I nuked three or four termagaunts with my MoO (he actually hit something! YAYYYYY!)- I also took down a Hive guard, which was important for me in the next turn. Second turn he literally jumped down my throat with his Hormagaunts and Gargoyles- the gargoyles took a fair bit of damage from my shotgun vets on overwatch, but assaulted the building and turned them into goo. His Gaunts and my penal legion had a little bit of a fistfight, and whilst I lost all my penal legion, he still had 5/6 gaunts left by the end of the turn. Perhaps the most notable thing about this turn was me advancing my blob up to 12" and then letting loose with FRFSRF on his Hive Tyrant. After my Psyker failed to cast and my heavy bolters failed to do any damage, through sheer weight of fire my lasguns ticked off 1,2,3,4 tyant wounds, and down it went. Cue happy dance and a lot of laughter. Unfortunately luck turned around when my blob got charged by Termagaunts, Gargoyles and Hormagaunts in his turn. Only being able to overwatch the Termagaunts, I nevertheless took them from about 12 to 3 strong. Then my blob got mushed. My Psyker and Priest both died before I got the chance to attack with them!



Stuff I learnt from Week One
- FRFSRF is my friend with that infantry blob. I can kill pretty much anything if I shoot 70-ish shots at it. I might drop the Heavy Bolters though, they do nothing for me. Having a Psyker attached is great as it gives them another 2D6 S6 hits with lighting. However, i can't rely on him as Psychic shooting is pretty hard to get off now.
- My MoO is a waste of 30pts., but unfortunately I'm stuck with him.
- Plasma Vets barely got a look-in in either battle. I think this was more to do with one battle being gunline vs. slightly assaulty IG, and the other being 'nids down my throat faster than I could say 'ARGH!'. Also the blob did their work for them.
- My Priest... this is difficult. I have yet to actually get to use him. Either my blob has never made it to combat, or it's been annihilated before he, or anyone else, gets a chance to attack. This may well be just a case-by-case problem though.
- Penal Legion can be nasty with Rending, but are a paper tiger. AP5 is so prevalent (including flamers) that a lot of the time I would charge and be ripped apart on overwatch. I do, however, like the idea of supporting my Forward Sentry vets with them.

[Cap'n Tightpants]

Week Two

Two games again this week (with me using list 2 from the link above). First was against Black Templars, we played Crusade with Mysterious Objectives. Terrain was slightly less dense than last week, but still pretty urban. Deployment went like this:

Bit hard to see (bad photo, sorry), but the closest building has my Grenade Launcher/Autocannon Forward Sentries vets in the upper floors, with a Penal Legion on the bottom one (they all got Psychopaths this game). Back corner is my leman Russ, far right is my Infiltrating Chimera with shotgun vets inside, more penal legion next to them, and then my CCS and Plasma Grenadiers squad in the middle.

He had one small squad with lascannon/Plasma gun, and two large squads with neophytes, meltaguns and blokes with power fists. One had the Emperors champion and one had his marshal. He also had some Terminators and a Land Speeder Typhoon in reserve, while I had my scout sentinel. I failed to steal the initiative and he went first.

Turns 1/2
My vets jumped out of their chimera and camped on the objective, and it moved up to shield them from the small squad of Templars. I was also thinking getting it into my opponents deployment zone might give me another VP for linebreaker (not 100% on that though). Penal Legion on the Right went for a death or glory charge on the Templars advancing on that objective, to try and hold them up for a turn or maybe two.


With that big combat unit tied up, I fired everything I had at the other one (led by the Emperor's champion). Due to some jammy rolling on my part, (and some un-jammy armour saves from my opponent), the squad was reduced to just the Champion and one Neophyte. Unfortunately, this proved to be my downfall. (on left of photo)


The Penal Legion did the important thing of not dying out completely in the assault phase, keeping the black templars there for their turn, and importantly, meaning they'd be ripe for a battlecannon shell in my next turn.


Templars Turn 3
His termies showed up, and decided to shoot the biscuits out of my Plasma Vets, but despite two assault cannons and three storm bolters, they killed but one due to the 5+ cover and 4+ normal save. 30pts. well spent there...

He charged my chimera (which was on one hull point due to earlier shooting), and his emperor's champion went into my Penal Legion on the left flank. Down primarily to said champion fluffing his attacks, and me failing to touch him, that ended in a stalemate. It did, however, trap my grenade launcher vets in the top of the building. Ah... He wiped out my other penal legion, destroyed my chimera, and then consolidated as wide apart as possible

Imperial Guard Turn 3
As they say in the tank corps, 'it's boom time'. My Leman Russ lined itself up for the money shot, my shotgun vets got into range with their flamers, and my plasma vets made sure they were within 12". My Scout Sentinel decided not to show up.

Shooting was brutal. I reduced the termies to one man with autocannon, lascannon and Plasma. The last man fled.
My Battlecannon decided to scatter a stupid amount and so missed the money shot entirely. My shotgun vets and grenade launcher vets made up for this by absolutely ruining the Marshal's unit. My opponent had trouble making 3+'s for some reason. The remnants held, a roll which cost me the game.


The Emperors champion remembered what he was supposed to do and cut down a few penal legion. I failed to kill him or the Neophyte.

Turn 4/Endgame
The game pivoted on turn 3 for me. The fact I hadn't killed the single Neophyte earlier meant I didn't get first blood, and his Marshal's unit being able to assault meant I didn't get my objective. His Land Speeder came on, my sentinel did too, but the game had been won, at great cost, by a single neophyte. He only had 7 guys on the table at the end of the game, but won 1-0, purely down to first blood (killing my right-hand side penal legion). I was slightly miffed, but only really had myself to blame- in previous editions, getting a unit down to one or two blokes meant you could direct the rest of your shooting elsewhere. In this edition, one man is the difference between getting first blood and not. I need to get better at fire control.

Hope you've found this interesting: next game and my thoughts on this army list will be in another post.

[Cap'n Tightpants]

Game Two, Week Two

So this one was against Dark eldar, and a player I'd warmed up against pre-campaign. His army is beautiful, really nicely painted (the stuff that is painted so far anyway), and he uses all old Harlequin Models for almost everything (but doesn't take Harlequins to avoid confusion...). It was basically Wyches, Wyches and more Wyches in Venoms and Raiders (the raider ones had a haemonculi each), with an Archaon and a few Incubi. And a huge unit of Hellions. I was feeling slightly wary- I'd massacred him in previous games, but I had a feeling he'd worked out what was going on and had my number.

Deployment went like this (he deployed and went first- due to having a power station on the campaign map he got +1's to all his rolls, so I was expecting this).


With no dark lances in his list, only Haywire grenades, my Russ took the same 'sit in the corner and shoot everything' posture it had previously. My Chimera-mounted shotgun Vets and grenade launcher/autocannon vets went in the same building on the right, near my russ- I decided to try and do some mutual supporting of each other, as one squad is suited for popping light vehicles, and the other is suited for hosing down light infantry- both of which were abundant in his list. The centre was again held by my CCS and Plasma Grenadiers- I was slightly hoping they'd survive/be ignored, but I was willing to use them as bait if need be for a russ shell/multiple flamers. My Penal Legion went together on the left, with eyes to jump on that objective.
View from the left flank:


He put his big unit hellions on my right flank, a raider full of wyches next to them with his haywire grenade wyches on their venom next to that. On the left he stuck his other raider full of wyches and his venom with its lord/incubi load.


Dark Eldar Turn 1
I failed to steal the initiative (which in retrospect would have helped a great deal). He turbo boosted his raiders and a venom right on top of my CCS and Plasma vets. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of this, but trust me, it was slightly intimidating. The hellions moved up shot a couple of my grenade vets, and the other venom (with Haywire wyches) turbo-boosted into the cover of the building to have a go at my tanks next turn.

In my turn, all hell broke loose. I kept to the plan with my frontmost Penal Legion and sent them towards the objective on that flank. The other moved back to help my centre. Shotgun vets disembarked and my chimera moved up to flame the hellions. After my shotgun vets, chimera, and russ had shot at the hellions, there was one left, who legged it, and continued to do so until the end of the game.


My plasma vets shot down their nearest raider. It exploded (5"), cutting down three of their number and my MoO. My CCS destroyed the other Raider. It TOO exploded (6"!), and killed another two plasma vets and a couple of penal legionnaires. The grenade/autocannon vets wrecked the venom (which thankfully didn't explode). The penal legionnaires then picked off a few more of the remaining wyches that had clambered out of the wreckage. Despite losing roughly 50% of each squad, all the Dark Eldar held. My Penal legion who had taken a couple of hits from exploding raiders, decided however that they'd be better off off the board and ran. Grrr. Picture is not great, but the aftermath is shown below:


This basically left me with two (much denuded) Wych Squads, the archaon, and most of his Incubi within about 2" of my damaged CCS and Plasma Vets, with the only unit close enough to help legging it. Sacrifice it is then...

Dark Eldar Turn 2
As far as Turn 1's go, that was probably the most fun I've ever had. With little options open to him, my opponent disembarked his Haywire Wyches for a charge on my Russ, and assembled his forces for a massacre in the middle. He charged my PCS and Plasma Vets, and despite my commander plasma pistolling a incubi on Overwatch, he then Challenged with his Archaon and I accepted because it seemed thematic. His Archaon, (with a Husk blade) did about 9 wounds overall, and poor old Captain Gyto didn't even get a chance to draw his sword. On a modelling note, his Archaon is beautiful.

His wyches killed my plasma vets, and my CCS got caught and killed when they ran from combat. His 5 Haywire Grenade Wyches hit with 4 grenades (my tank had moved last turn), and caused two glancing hits. Phew. His units in the centre consolidated only a couple of inches. They seemed to be nicely arranged in a pie-plate sized formation, and a cunning plan presented itself to me...

Imperial Guard Turn 2

Scout Sentinel arrived and happily on the board edge I needed it, next to my unsupported Penal Legion. I moved my shotgun vets to within flamer range to clear the filthy eldar off the front of my Russ. My Chimera advanced round the ruins to shoot at the last Venom hiding round the corner. My Penal Legion rallied (hurrah!), and the other squad finally made it to the objective.


My flamer/shotgun vets owed the russ a new coat of paint, but immolated all the wyches. My russ rotated its turret, took aim, and...

Missed. Badly. 12" scatter. Arse. My Penal Legions shot at the Archaon and Incubi, and dropped a couple. Grenade Launchers and Autocannon shots killed the remaining wyches in my deployment zone.

Dark Eldar/Imperial Guard Turn 3+4
With very little left, my opponent attempted to save some face by getting his Archaon onto the left-hand objective protected by my Penal Legion. If he could force me off it he'd have a chance of getting a draw. Unfortunately with my sentinel there, and him having nothing that could take it down, and no troops choices left, it wasn't going to happen, and despite a valiant attempt, there was little he could do. I won 7-1 (2 objectives, first blood vs. killed a warlord). He did, however, gain a moral victory as my Commander was one of his Secret objectives. As our campaign is heavily fluff-driven, I now have to think of a way of writing my Commander out of Husk-blade death...

Stuff I learnt from Week Two
- Penal Legions are better used together or with something else in support. Whilst this may seem obvious, I had a tendency of chucking them forwards alone.
- Dual infiltrating vet units in ruins have a 3+ cover save, which increases to 2+ if the enemy is within 8" (Defensive grenades). I shall also be using them in tandem a lot more. Having the shotguns/flamers in the bottom of the ruins, with the grenade launchers/autocannon above makes it a really nasty bunker to assault.
- The Chimera for my flamer vets made a world of difference. Whilst they didn't survive at all last week, they made it through both games relatively unscathed.
- My 'core' of CCS+Plasma vets is solid, and I'm happy with how they work in tandem. I have yet to find anything they can't take down together through shooting.
- I really need to start picking targets in my opponent's turn. Fire control and picking the right targets is vital with this army, and I often get flustered in my turn and don't do it in the right order/correctly.
- I didn't miss moving my 30-man blob.

I shall be back next week with a 1500pt. report. I'm hoping to play the Tau again, as they have a Hive city I want. Unfortunately, they also have a Hammerhead...

[Cap'n Tightpants]

Week 3

Week 3 brought our 1500pt. armies to the table. This basically meant I had some extra vets and sentinels, and a couple of bodyguard for my CCS. Importantly, because of a brainfart whilst writing my army list, my grenade launcher/autocannon vets, who had been SO effective as Forward Sentries, were instead Grenadiers. I decided to play Tau (as he had a hive city I wanted), and we deployed on a 6X4.

He won to deploy/go first, and also to deploy infiltrators, which annoyingly meant that there were two small units of kroot in the way of my shotgun vets in their Chimera deploying anywhere decent. So I stuck them on the right flank. Quite why, now, thinking about it, I have no idea, but I was probably hoping for some rear armour action on the Hammerhead.

My Left Flank, with his Aegis defence line, two squads of fire warriors, and Broadside Battlesuits lined up against my 30-man blob, penal legion, and Plasma Vets (who camped on the objective marker).


My Centre- with the CCS and Leman Russ. This was basically pie template central, and I was hoping to get as much cover as possible for the Russ against the Hammerhead and Broadsides. As well as the obligatory Hammerhead, he also had his Commander and attendant battlesuits, and another squad of Fire Warriors.


My right flank consisted of my Auto/grenade launcher vets, a (rending) penal legion, and my shotgun vets (in chimera) against a Pirana and some kroot. I was hoping to get my rending penal legion into his commander and take him down, however this may have been a bit of a stupid idea. I was also I think hoping to get my shotgun vets into their deployment zone and go for Linebreaker. Again, opposite a Pirana with Fusion blaster, I have no idea why I thought this was a good idea.


Overall view of the battlefield.



I completely forogt about my Penal Legion's scout move, something which cost me the initiative on both flanks.

TAU TURN 1

His Crisis suits all moved up, along with his Hammerhead (to get its Jink save). His central unit of Fire warriors moved up behind cover, but his other two guarding the objective were quite happy to sit there. His Pirana nipped into cover, as did his kroot (just- they rolled extremely poorly)

Shooting, was, well, Tau-like. His Fire Warriors on the left dropped some of my blob, his Battlesuits took a hull point off of my Chimera with plasma, his Broadsides failed to take a hull point off of my Russ (thanks to cover), but his Hammerhead made up for that by large-blasting my blob and killing another handful of blokes. His Kroot took down a penal legionnaire. His crisis suits all jumped back into cover.

IMPERIAL TURN 1
I advanced my left-hand blob. I rolled awfully with difficult terrain and they barely moved. My PCS hung back a bit to stay in CCS order range, as I had a cunning plan to deal with the kroot in front of them. My Russ moved up a little, making sure its front armour was facing the broadsides and it was as covered as possible from the Hammerhead. My Penal Legion on the right and Chimera with shotgun vets inside moved up too to get closer to the Tau Lines.

Shooting- With a deft order, my Company Commander ordered my PCS to fire on his target- 3 frag grenades spiralled gracefully into the ruins with the kroot inside, and when the explosions finished, all were dead. My CCS proved they couldn't hit a barn door at 2 paces, with my Master of Ordnance proving particularly useless, scattering a full 18" off the board. My Russ scattered a bit too, catching a few Fire Warrors instead of the Crisis suits I'd hoped to catch. A theme in this game was that my scatters would always move AWAY from centres of density. A couple of Autocannons and my CCS' Lascannon did nothing to the Hammerhead due to disruption pod couple with Jink saves. My Chimera failed to damage the Pirana.

TAU TURN 2
Movement- in a similar story to last turn, the crisis suits advanced from behind cover and the remaining kroot unit advanced on the right. He dropped in some Drones behind my lines.

Shooting- Not too bad this turn. With fire warrior squads and a hammerhead, my blob suffered a few casualties. Chipping away at the whole unit was working for me, but I was worried about getting into combar if I stayed out in the open too long. The kroot that were close enough to my right-hand penal legion decided not to assault- he was right in his assumption his men would do more damage on overwatch than if they charged.

IMPERIAL TURN 2
Movement- My blob advanced! Badly... I rolled a 3 on the difficult terrain (because of tank traps, stupid annoying tank traps), and everyone shuffled forward slightly. Unfortunately, I forgot to measure his rapid fire range...



Penal Legions continued their advance, and my PCS decided they'd make a bit of forward movement too. My Chimera jumped forward far enough for some heavy flamer fun on the Kroot. Oh, and one of my Plasma vets burnt his face off with his first shot of the game.



Shooting- Oh scatter dice... I really loathe mine. I seem to able to hit nothing with it. Whether with my guard in 40k or my Brets in fantasy, everything scatters stupid inches in the wrong direction. This continued the theme. Russ missed fully, and my MoO, well, you must know the drill by now...

I honestly think the only thing I did this phase was drop the kroot unit with a heavy flamer. Not encouraging.

TAU TURN 3

Movement- same ol' drill. Hammerhead moved enough to jink, crisis moved to see their targets, yada yada. The Pirana got into the rear arc of my Chimera.

Shooting- ouch. A unit of 12 fire warriors behind the Aegis opened up in rapid fire at my blob (because I'd stupidly left them JUST within 15"). Everything but four shots hit, and then nearly everything wounded too. Cue the screams of 18 men dying to pulse fire. The Hammerhead tried to pie plate the blob again, but this just scattered onto my Plasma vets and killed ALL THE PLASMA AND MY SERGEANT, as well as removing a few members of my CCS, including the Lascannon (see MoO, THAT is how Scatter is done!). His Pirana shot the back out of my chimera, which exploded, taking out my Rending Penal Legion and most of the Vets embarked inside it, but failing to damage any of the Tau who were close enough. The Crisis suits in the ruins plasma'd my autocannon/grenade launcher vets till there were few left. My Leman Russ took one glancing hit from the Broadsides, and one from the Drones in its rear arc.
Crisis suits and drones jumped about a bit, and then it was my turn to try and salvage something.

IMPERIAL GUARD TURN 3
That shooting phase was brutal. I knew my game was going to pivot on this turn, and specifically the shooting phase. With my Leman Russ on its last legs, my Lascannon, MoO and majority of other vets out of action, very few members of my blob left, and barely any Tau dead, I needed this to go well to stand any chance of scraping a draw. This was not helped by my sentinels not turning up.

Movement- I moved up my blob and Penal Legion on the left to rapid fire range. My PCS stayed behind to try and keep the objective if my Plasma Vets bought it. My CCS decided to try and find some cover, and possibly set themselves up for a charge on some Fire Warriors, because my MoO was going to miss whether I moved him or not.

My Leman Russ decided to go for the big lump of stuff that had accumulated in the centre of the Tau Lines- a Hammerhead, the commander, some fire warriors, some crisis suits, and some kroot were all in a roughly 24"x12" box.

Due to campaign special rules I had 100pts. of troops I could respawn. I dutifully brought on my rending penal legion, to try and give a bit more protection to my objective.

My flamer vets on the right, knowing theirs was a lost cause, decided that taking down the Kroot and then attempting to get linebreaker would be a worthwhile goal. My grenadiers on that side decided to try and take out the Piranha.


Shooting- Urgh. Everything I needed to happen didn't. My flamer vets didn't kill enough kroot to make them run. The Grenadiers on that flank took 1 hull point off the Piranha. My Leman Russ missed EVERYTHING from point-blank range (the blast template literally ended up in the curvature of the Hammerhead's hull- you couldn't make it up). My blob (with added Primaris Psyker lighting action) and Gunslinger Penal Legion on the left took down the closest unit of fire warriors to two men. They decided to pass their leadership test though, and so the objective stayed in Tau hands. Curses. My CCS did manage to get rid of some drones though (my Company Commander has yet to miss with his plasma pistol), and they fled.

TAU TURN 4
Movement- Similar to the last three turns, very little moved far, apart from the Piranha, which came behind my flamer vets to flank my remaining grenadiers on that flank.

Shooting- The broadsides took out my russ. The nearest fire warriors to my CCS opened up now there was nothing between them. The rest of the CCS were peeled off, leaving three saves on my Commander. He failed all three. He's now died two games in a row. This meant that we were level on VP's. The Fire warriors behind the Aegis line took out another handful of blokes from my blob, but it held. What had started the game as a 30-strong unit with attached psyker and priest was now down to a psyker, priest, sergeant, 2 heavy bolter teams and a flamer. Hmmmm....

The crisis suits and tau commander opened up on my remaining Grenadier vets. They were wiped off the board.

Stuff jumped about. Then it was my turn to try and salvage something.

IMPERIAL TURN 4
Just to recap, I'd killed a unit of kroot, some fire warriors, and... that's about it. He'd removed one unit of penal legion (which I respawned), most of my blob, pretty much all of my forces on my right flank, completely destroyed my Russ, Company Command Squad, and Plasma Vets (to such an extent they weren't Plasma vets anymore...). Turn 5 was to be our last turn due to club ending time. I had little hope of winning at this point, but was happy to give it a go, particularly as my sentinels turned up in the right place, if not perhaps at the right time...

Movement -The remnants of my blob advanced post haste towards the objective. My gunslinging Penal legion (the three blokes that were left anyway) advanced into some cover, ready to lay down a bit of fire on the fire warriors. My flamer vets legged it towards the Tau board edge. It was unlikely they'd get there unless I rolled excellently twice, but I had to try... My respawned rending penal legion advanced to try and draw the Tau away from my objective. I moved my PCS back to try and support the (no longer) plasma vets on the objective. I should probably have gone to ground with my plasma vets, but I honestly forgot.

Shooting- My Sentinels tried to take out some Broadsides. Unfortunately Drones got in the way and I only scored one wound on them. My gunslinging penal legion dropped one fire warrior, and my rending penal legion did nothing with speculative lasgun shots.


"Perhaps we should have joined the greater good instead..."
"Oh, you say that NOW!"

Assault- I'd nearly forgotten this phase existed! My blob charged the two remaining Fire Warriors. I JUST made it in, and massacred them. 1" of consolidation, however, was NOT what I wanted. I placed my two independent characters (and their LOS! rolls and invulnerable saves) closest to the fire warriors, to try and get some protection from the hellish shooting that was bound to follow...


TAU TURN 5
Movement- with very little of my forces left on the board, his entire army swept towards my left. His broadsides and fire warriors about turned to shoot my linebreaking, objective-stealing forces off the face of the planet.

Shooting- The Hammerhead dropped a pie plate on my plasma vets and annihilated the remnants of a once-proud unit. The fire warriors, crisis suits, Tau commander, Piranha, and drones got rid of my Rending Penal legion. The fire warriors closest to his objective rapid fired my blob. Taking saves one by one, I absorbed a heck of a lot of his 28 S5 AP5 with my Priest and Psyker. However, once they died, I had 6 wounds left in my hand. Just enough to remove the 6 blokes I had left. Poop. The broadsides killed one sentinel, which meant I could still charge them into the fire warriors in my turn. I may have whooped and punched the air at this point, as I (wrongly) believed Sentinels, as walkers, could contest objectives. Apologies to my opponent.

IMPERIAL TURN 5
I had nothing to do really. I moved my PCS back to retain the objective, and moved up my sentinel for a charge on the fire warriors. My flamer vets legged it for the tau deployment zone but didn't make it. My sentinel shot at the tau and dropped one, then charged and dropped another. They did nothing back, and he passed his leadership (he deciding NOT to use 'our weapons are useless!' and run away).



The game was over, and I'd scraped a draw. One more turn though and I would have had it. I had a 5-man PCS, a 3-man penal legion, a 3-man vet squad gunning for the tau board edge and a scout sentinel left. He had his entire army, minus a fire warrior squad and a kroot squad.

Tau are vicious opponents.


"We can hold the line lads? Right?"

Some things I've learnt from this battle.

1. Me and blast templates SCATTER DICE don't get on. Honestly, I need to go home and sacrifice some goats or something.

2. Against Tau, especially in objective-based games, I need to bunker up and sweep down one flank. I spread my forces too thin this game, which meant I didn't have fire superiority on any section of the board. If I had concentrated my forces and got superiority on one section of the board (the left flank with his objective) I would have probably smushed his defenders, taken the objective, and then been able to play the 'sit still and let them come at you' game Guard are good at.

3. I need to remember my Psyker has psychic powers other than lightning. His shoruding one might have helped protect my blob better.

4. I think I need to remove the autocannon from my Plasma vets. With it in, they sit there and don't get to use their plasma against armies like Tau.

5. I think I prefer Forward Sentries to Grenadiers in general as a doctrine. As one of my previous opponents has said, it gives you 'too many special abilities'- +1 cover saves, infiltrate, defensive grenades etc. My plasma vets will keep grenadiers, but all my other vets will be forward sentries from now on I think (though I have one more game with this army list, so I will try using the two grenadier units as anvils with my CCS)

6. As I've mentioned before, my MoO is rubbish. I think I am going to move to using my CCS as a mobile special-weapon toting/counter-charge unit, as opposed to the 'sit still and fire lascannon/ordnance' unit that it is atm. I either leave them out of order range, or they get left behind and singled out.

Join me next week for another 1500pt. game, the culmination of my campaign, some hard thinking about my army composition, and how I think I've fared in my first Imperial Guard 6th ed. campaign.

[Cap'n Tightpants]

Week 3

Week 3 brought our 1500pt. armies to the table. This basically meant I had some extra vets and sentinels, and a couple of bodyguard for my CCS. Importantly, because of a brainfart whilst writing my army list, my grenade launcher/autocannon vets, who had been SO effective as Forward Sentries, were instead Grenadiers. I decided to play Tau (as he had a hive city I wanted), and we deployed on a 6X4.

He won to deploy/go first, and also to deploy infiltrators, which annoyingly meant that there were two small units of kroot in the way of my shotgun vets in their Chimera deploying anywhere decent. So I stuck them on the right flank. Quite why, now, thinking about it, I have no idea, but I was probably hoping for some rear armour action on the Hammerhead.

My Left Flank, with his Aegis defence line, two squads of fire warriors, and Broadside Battlesuits lined up against my 30-man blob, penal legion, and Plasma Vets (who camped on the objective marker).


My Centre- with the CCS and Leman Russ. This was basically pie template central, and I was hoping to get as much cover as possible for the Russ against the Hammerhead and Broadsides. As well as the obligatory Hammerhead, he also had his Commander and attendant battlesuits, and another squad of Fire Warriors.


My right flank consisted of my Auto/grenade launcher vets, a (rending) penal legion, and my shotgun vets (in chimera) against a Pirana and some kroot. I was hoping to get my rending penal legion into his commander and take him down, however this may have been a bit of a stupid idea. I was also I think hoping to get my shotgun vets into their deployment zone and go for Linebreaker. Again, opposite a Pirana with Fusion blaster, I have no idea why I thought this was a good idea.


Overall view of the battlefield.



I completely forogt about my Penal Legion's scout move, something which cost me the initiative on both flanks.

TAU TURN 1

His Crisis suits all moved up, along with his Hammerhead (to get its Jink save). His central unit of Fire warriors moved up behind cover, but his other two guarding the objective were quite happy to sit there. His Pirana nipped into cover, as did his kroot (just- they rolled extremely poorly)

Shooting, was, well, Tau-like. His Fire Warriors on the left dropped some of my blob, his Battlesuits took a hull point off of my Chimera with plasma, his Broadsides failed to take a hull point off of my Russ (thanks to cover), but his Hammerhead made up for that by large-blasting my blob and killing another handful of blokes. His Kroot took down a penal legionnaire. His crisis suits all jumped back into cover.

IMPERIAL TURN 1
I advanced my left-hand blob. I rolled awfully with difficult terrain and they barely moved. My PCS hung back a bit to stay in CCS order range, as I had a cunning plan to deal with the kroot in front of them. My Russ moved up a little, making sure its front armour was facing the broadsides and it was as covered as possible from the Hammerhead. My Penal Legion on the right and Chimera with shotgun vets inside moved up too to get closer to the Tau Lines.

Shooting- With a deft order, my Company Commander ordered my PCS to fire on his target- 3 frag grenades spiralled gracefully into the ruins with the kroot inside, and when the explosions finished, all were dead. My CCS proved they couldn't hit a barn door at 2 paces, with my Master of Ordnance proving particularly useless, scattering a full 18" off the board. My Russ scattered a bit too, catching a few Fire Warrors instead of the Crisis suits I'd hoped to catch. A theme in this game was that my scatters would always move AWAY from centres of density. A couple of Autocannons and my CCS' Lascannon did nothing to the Hammerhead due to disruption pod couple with Jink saves. My Chimera failed to damage the Pirana.

TAU TURN 2
Movement- in a similar story to last turn, the crisis suits advanced from behind cover and the remaining kroot unit advanced on the right. He dropped in some Drones behind my lines.

Shooting- Not too bad this turn. With fire warrior squads and a hammerhead, my blob suffered a few casualties. Chipping away at the whole unit was working for me, but I was worried about getting into combar if I stayed out in the open too long. The kroot that were close enough to my right-hand penal legion decided not to assault- he was right in his assumption his men would do more damage on overwatch than if they charged.

IMPERIAL TURN 2
Movement- My blob advanced! Badly... I rolled a 3 on the difficult terrain (because of tank traps, stupid annoying tank traps), and everyone shuffled forward slightly. Unfortunately, I forgot to measure his rapid fire range...



Penal Legions continued their advance, and my PCS decided they'd make a bit of forward movement too. My Chimera jumped forward far enough for some heavy flamer fun on the Kroot. Oh, and one of my Plasma vets burnt his face off with his first shot of the game.



Shooting- Oh scatter dice... I really loathe mine. I seem to able to hit nothing with it. Whether with my guard in 40k or my Brets in fantasy, everything scatters stupid inches in the wrong direction. This continued the theme. Russ missed fully, and my MoO, well, you must know the drill by now...

I honestly think the only thing I did this phase was drop the kroot unit with a heavy flamer. Not encouraging.

TAU TURN 3

Movement- same ol' drill. Hammerhead moved enough to jink, crisis moved to see their targets, yada yada. The Pirana got into the rear arc of my Chimera.

Shooting- ouch. A unit of 12 fire warriors behind the Aegis opened up in rapid fire at my blob (because I'd stupidly left them JUST within 15"). Everything but four shots hit, and then nearly everything wounded too. Cue the screams of 18 men dying to pulse fire. The Hammerhead tried to pie plate the blob again, but this just scattered onto my Plasma vets and killed ALL THE PLASMA AND MY SERGEANT, as well as removing a few members of my CCS, including the Lascannon (see MoO, THAT is how Scatter is done!). His Pirana shot the back out of my chimera, which exploded, taking out my Rending Penal Legion and most of the Vets embarked inside it, but failing to damage any of the Tau who were close enough. The Crisis suits in the ruins plasma'd my autocannon/grenade launcher vets till there were few left. My Leman Russ took one glancing hit from the Broadsides, and one from the Drones in its rear arc.
Crisis suits and drones jumped about a bit, and then it was my turn to try and salvage something.

IMPERIAL GUARD TURN 3
That shooting phase was brutal. I knew my game was going to pivot on this turn, and specifically the shooting phase. With my Leman Russ on its last legs, my Lascannon, MoO and majority of other vets out of action, very few members of my blob left, and barely any Tau dead, I needed this to go well to stand any chance of scraping a draw. This was not helped by my sentinels not turning up.

Movement- I moved up my blob and Penal Legion on the left to rapid fire range. My PCS stayed behind to try and keep the objective if my Plasma Vets bought it. My CCS decided to try and find some cover, and possibly set themselves up for a charge on some Fire Warriors, because my MoO was going to miss whether I moved him or not.

My Leman Russ decided to go for the big lump of stuff that had accumulated in the centre of the Tau Lines- a Hammerhead, the commander, some fire warriors, some crisis suits, and some kroot were all in a roughly 24"x12" box.

Due to campaign special rules I had 100pts. of troops I could respawn. I dutifully brought on my rending penal legion, to try and give a bit more protection to my objective.

My flamer vets on the right, knowing theirs was a lost cause, decided that taking down the Kroot and then attempting to get linebreaker would be a worthwhile goal. My grenadiers on that side decided to try and take out the Piranha.


Shooting- Urgh. Everything I needed to happen didn't. My flamer vets didn't kill enough kroot to make them run. The Grenadiers on that flank took 1 hull point off the Piranha. My Leman Russ missed EVERYTHING from point-blank range (the blast template literally ended up in the curvature of the Hammerhead's hull- you couldn't make it up). My blob (with added Primaris Psyker lighting action) and Gunslinger Penal Legion on the left took down the closest unit of fire warriors to two men. They decided to pass their leadership test though, and so the objective stayed in Tau hands. Curses. My CCS did manage to get rid of some drones though (my Company Commander has yet to miss with his plasma pistol), and they fled.

TAU TURN 4
Movement- Similar to the last three turns, very little moved far, apart from the Piranha, which came behind my flamer vets to flank my remaining grenadiers on that flank.

Shooting- The broadsides took out my russ. The nearest fire warriors to my CCS opened up now there was nothing between them. The rest of the CCS were peeled off, leaving three saves on my Commander. He failed all three. He's now died two games in a row. This meant that we were level on VP's. The Fire warriors behind the Aegis line took out another handful of blokes from my blob, but it held. What had started the game as a 30-strong unit with attached psyker and priest was now down to a psyker, priest, sergeant, 2 heavy bolter teams and a flamer. Hmmmm....

The crisis suits and tau commander opened up on my remaining Grenadier vets. They were wiped off the board.

Stuff jumped about. Then it was my turn to try and salvage something.

IMPERIAL TURN 4
Just to recap, I'd killed a unit of kroot, some fire warriors, and... that's about it. He'd removed one unit of penal legion (which I respawned), most of my blob, pretty much all of my forces on my right flank, completely destroyed my Russ, Company Command Squad, and Plasma Vets (to such an extent they weren't Plasma vets anymore...). Turn 5 was to be our last turn due to club ending time. I had little hope of winning at this point, but was happy to give it a go, particularly as my sentinels turned up in the right place, if not perhaps at the right time...

Movement -The remnants of my blob advanced post haste towards the objective. My gunslinging Penal legion (the three blokes that were left anyway) advanced into some cover, ready to lay down a bit of fire on the fire warriors. My flamer vets legged it towards the Tau board edge. It was unlikely they'd get there unless I rolled excellently twice, but I had to try... My respawned rending penal legion advanced to try and draw the Tau away from my objective. I moved my PCS back to try and support the (no longer) plasma vets on the objective. I should probably have gone to ground with my plasma vets, but I honestly forgot.

Shooting- My Sentinels tried to take out some Broadsides. Unfortunately Drones got in the way and I only scored one wound on them. My gunslinging penal legion dropped one fire warrior, and my rending penal legion did nothing with speculative lasgun shots.


"Perhaps we should have joined the greater good instead..."
"Oh, you say that NOW!"

Assault- I'd nearly forgotten this phase existed! My blob charged the two remaining Fire Warriors. I JUST made it in, and massacred them. 1" of consolidation, however, was NOT what I wanted. I placed my two independent characters (and their LOS! rolls and invulnerable saves) closest to the fire warriors, to try and get some protection from the hellish shooting that was bound to follow...


TAU TURN 5
Movement- with very little of my forces left on the board, his entire army swept towards my left. His broadsides and fire warriors about turned to shoot my linebreaking, objective-stealing forces off the face of the planet.

Shooting- The Hammerhead dropped a pie plate on my plasma vets and annihilated the remnants of a once-proud unit. The fire warriors, crisis suits, Tau commander, Piranha, and drones got rid of my Rending Penal legion. The fire warriors closest to his objective rapid fired my blob. Taking saves one by one, I absorbed a heck of a lot of his 28 S5 AP5 with my Priest and Psyker. However, once they died, I had 6 wounds left in my hand. Just enough to remove the 6 blokes I had left. Poop. The broadsides killed one sentinel, which meant I could still charge them into the fire warriors in my turn. I may have whooped and punched the air at this point, as I (wrongly) believed Sentinels, as walkers, could contest objectives. Apologies to my opponent.

IMPERIAL TURN 5
I had nothing to do really. I moved my PCS back to retain the objective, and moved up my sentinel for a charge on the fire warriors. My flamer vets legged it for the tau deployment zone but didn't make it. My sentinel shot at the tau and dropped one, then charged and dropped another. They did nothing back, and he passed his leadership (he deciding NOT to use 'our weapons are useless!' and run away).



The game was over, and I'd scraped a draw. One more turn though and I would have had it. I had a 5-man PCS, a 3-man penal legion, a 3-man vet squad gunning for the tau board edge and a scout sentinel left. He had his entire army, minus a fire warrior squad and a kroot squad.

Tau are vicious opponents.


"We can hold the line lads? Right?"

Some things I've learnt from this battle.

1. Me and blast templates SCATTER DICE don't get on. Honestly, I need to go home and sacrifice some goats or something.

2. Against Tau, especially in objective-based games, I need to bunker up and sweep down one flank. I spread my forces too thin this game, which meant I didn't have fire superiority on any section of the board. If I had concentrated my forces and got superiority on one section of the board (the left flank with his objective) I would have probably smushed his defenders, taken the objective, and then been able to play the 'sit still and let them come at you' game Guard are good at.

3. I need to remember my Psyker has psychic powers other than lightning. His shoruding one might have helped protect my blob better.

4. I think I need to remove the autocannon from my Plasma vets. With it in, they sit there and don't get to use their plasma against armies like Tau.

5. I think I prefer Forward Sentries to Grenadiers in general as a doctrine. As one of my previous opponents has said, it gives you 'too many special abilities'- +1 cover saves, infiltrate, defensive grenades etc. My plasma vets will keep grenadiers, but all my other vets will be forward sentries from now on I think (though I have one more game with this army list, so I will try using the two grenadier units as anvils with my CCS)

6. As I've mentioned before, my MoO is rubbish. I think I am going to move to using my CCS as a mobile special-weapon toting/counter-charge unit, as opposed to the 'sit still and fire lascannon/ordnance' unit that it is atm. I either leave them out of order range, or they get left behind and singled out.

Join me next week for another 1500pt. game, the culmination of my campaign, some hard thinking about my army composition, and how I think I've fared in my first Imperial Guard 6th ed. campaign.

[Cap'n Tightpants]

Week 4
Final week of the campaign and I was happy in the knowledge I hadn't embarassed myself (much) and also that I would finally have a chance to muck around with my army list with a little bit more experience of what works well.

With the same 1500pts. list as last week, we played the Relic scenario. I ended up playing a new player to our club, who was using orks, and had, quite literally, a big mob. Thee kans and 5 bikers were the only things not on foot. I won deployment/go first.

Deployment was like this:

Left Flank, with the relic next to the ruins. Penal Legion (with gunslingers), PCS behind. Blob on their right, with Rending penal legion behind.


Centre/Right. CCS behind barricade, Plasma Grenadier Vets, Leman Russ, Grenade/Autocannon Grenadier Vets, and the Chimera with my Forward Sentries inside (unfortunately due to the sheer numbers of his force, there was nowhere decent to put them that wasn't 18" away...)

His deployment was lots and lots of slugga boys everywhere, with a grot meat shield in front. He had one Killa Kan on my right, 3 Mega Nobz, his Wyrdboy, and Warboss across from the objective, 2 Kans slightly to the left, and the bikers all the way on the left flank.

I had the vague plan of keeping my blob within 12" of the objective, waiting for him to come for it, and then blowing off whatever he had there. With three flamers, 3 GL, 2 heavy bolters, and the sheer amount of lasguns at my disposal, I had high hopes of this.

Unfortunately, we rolled night fighting for turn 1.

IMPERIAL GUARD TURN 1
I advanced my blob into the crater. They rolled a 3 on difficult terrain and barely made it. My line shuffled forward where necessary to get some shots off, but with night fighting and grot shield in full effect, I wasn't expecting a great deal. I did, however, do the remarkably stupid thing of marching my PCS in front of my penal legion.

Opening fire over the entire line, the full combined firepower of my entire army, including a battlecannon shell and a MoO did this:


5 ork boys and 16 grots. The grots didn't even run away. Oh, and two of my plasma gunners toasted themselves.

I hate night fighting.

ORK TURN 1
Shockingly, his entire force lurched forwards, running where it could.
His Bikes shot my PCS off the planet, getting him first blood. A small unit of Tankbustas that he'd advanced into some ruins opposite my Russ shot at it and took off two hull points. I was displeased. His wrydboy eadbang'd himself.

IMPERIAL GUARD TURN 2
Movement- I forgot to roll for my outflanking sentinels. I moved my forces up to get within 24" of as much as possible. I reversed the russ to take it OUT of tankbusta range. My priest detatched from the blob and joined my rending Penal Legion. The two Kans approaching could scupper my plans by holding up my blob, and so I decided that re-rollable Rending attacks plus an eviscerator should be able to handle them without chucking away too much of my objective-camping ability. They conga-lined around the crater, as I didn't trust myself to make the roll, my blob having just rolled a mighty 2. Field training for them when they get back to barracks...


My vets in chimera nipped forward for some good-ol flamer fun on the right flank. Apart from the Tankbustas and a kan, there was just a small mob of sluggas there, and I was confident I could break them with flamers and shotguns and then get linebreaker.

Shooting- My MoO missed with a mighty 18" scatter into no-mans land. He was actually lucky not to hit my grenade launcher vets. The Leman Russ seemed to have caught the sickness, and it too scattered onto a mighty one grot, which it promptly failed to wound... My lascannon sniped a mega nob however, so that was a bonus.

My flamer vets roasted and toasted a good 9/10 orks, and the shotguns rolled well and accounted for another 6/7. The mob, down to 7 models, still passed their leadership test.

WHY WON'T YOU RUN DAMMIT

My grenade launcher vets blast-templated the tankbustas to death, nicely removing a problem for me. Good lads. The plasma vets did diddly squit to the grots within 12" of them. Bad job lads.

The gunslinging penal legion took out three bikers thanks to a 'fire on my target' from the Company Commader (nicely negating their mobile cover save). He then used FRSRF on my blob, who targeted the massive ork horde close to the objective. With nearly 60 las-shots, I killed a miserably low number of orks. My psyker's lightning was dispelled by his wyrdboy.

ORK TURN 2
Movement- surprise surprise, everything moved forwards into slightly closer-to-clobbering-distance.



Shooting- nothing much really happened as far as I can rememeber. I lost a few members of the blob, but they weren't really missed. The Ork shooting was either out of range or ineffective. His wyrdboy gave his squad +1 attack or something like that, but as he wasn't in combat, it didn't help matters much.

Assault- His sluggas on the right charged into my flamer vets. I rolled awfully on overwatch and he got 5 out of the 7 in. The vets pulled down one ork and then took 6 casualties. They fled, and the orks actually caught them (he rolled a 6 and I rolled a 1). The Chimera driver did not take this kindly.

IMPERIAL GUARD TURN 3
Movement- would you look at that, I forgot to roll for reserves, meaning my sentinels didn't arrive AGAIN. My blob jostled slightly forward to get within 12" with as many lasguns as possible, which was probably a mistake on my behalf, as I should have attempted to go after the relic, range be damned. My chimera reversed to get the remaining slugga boys into its heavy flamer template, and also to stay nicely far away from his Kan on that flank. My rending penal legion moved up to shield my blob's flank from his kans.

Shooting- my MoO hit four orks, including the warlord! He failed to wound two of them, not including the warlord! His warlord passed his LoOS! roll. Two orks died. Well done MoO, you're proving your worth. My Russ showed him how it's done and blasted a chunk out of the big boyz unit nearest the objective. My blob FRSRF'd the daylights out of the same unit. Due to 4+ cover saves, however, with over 80 shots I killed about 5. The psyker's lightning was dispelled again.

Greande Launcher vets lobbed a couple of grenades at the ork mob opposite them, they scattered badly and mostly missed.

Plasma vets opened up on the Mega nobz, and took off three wounds. The remaining mega nob ran away like a little girl (in 2 tonnes of armour).

Lasguns from my penal legions didn't do much damage to the bikers.

My chimera torched the sluggas with its heavy flamer.

ORK TURN 3
He called his waagh. I awaited the storm with baited breath.
Movement- Everything moved up. Some grots grabbed the relic.

Shooting- very little of this did much damage. His wyrdboy got the wrong power again.

Assault- with a resounding WAAAAAAAAAGH! everything that was even vaguely in charge range charged at me (apart from the grots). In overwatch I took out a biker, a few of the main boys unit next to the objective, and then waited for the storm to hit. But it never did. Everything he charged failed to get even vaguely close enough, even with fleet. A nice big lump of boys and grots were now stood in a clump next to the objective. MUWAHAHAHA may have been said by me at this point.

IMPERIAL GUARD TURN 4
I forgot my sentinels again. This turned out to be the last turn, but honestly I don't think they would have made much difference.

Movement- My Blob moved up to flamer range. My Psyker detached from them and sat in the crater- if we had another turn I was going to try and take out his warlord. My Rending penal legion moved to point-blank range of his kans (I was worried his bad assault rolls would infect my dice), and my gunslinging penal legion went to take care of the bikes. My Chimera, seeing no easy route out, decided discretion was the best part of valour and reversed away from the Kan.

Shooting- I had a cunning plan here. I was going to FRFSRF my blob at the orks, and with my flamer templates I would then be able to coat much of the gretchin unit too. Any remaining gretchin/orks would be handled by my Psyker's lighting. With some average dice rolls, I should be more than able to get rid of all his troops choices around the objective, leaving it nice and free for my rending penal legion to consolidate onto after they killed the kans. My Vets were to help in whatever way they could.

What's the old adage? That plans are perfect until they contact the enemy? Well for me they're perfect until you introduce dice. I've moaned on here about how bad my dice rolling is at times, and in my defence, I have yet to play anyone who doesn't agree.

FRSRF went off, but my men only hit with 9 shots out of 39. This created 3 wounds. 2 were saved. On 6's. 3 flamers dropped about 6 grots and 5 orks. My heavy bolters missed completely.

"Never mind" I thought, "I can lightning the grots and then ordnance blast the orks. Possibly."

My Psyker rolled a double 6. My ordnance scattered into nothing.

"My vets will rescue the situation, surely!"

My grenade launcher vets' templates missed entirely. My Plasma vets went one better,with the last plasma gunner frying himself.

I knew I'd lost the game at this point.

Assault- I was cheered up slightly by both my penal legions getting in. The gunslingers took down a biker, leaving the nob on his own, and his fist crushed two of them, but they held. The Rending Penal Legion did fantastically well, taking out one kan on their own and leaving the other on one hull point. The kan fluffed its attacks and my priest penetrated it twice with his eviscerator (ooh err matron). Conveniently the Kans didn't explode. Slightly less conveniently, the Penal Legion consolidated a mighty 1".

ORKS TURN 4
Movement- every single ork model moved forwards/towards the objective. I realised my opponent had been able to sneak a unit of burna boys right next to my blob. Oh my.

Shooting- We decided to resolve the burna boys' attack on my blob an then call it a game as we both had a lot of models to pack away, and the campaign results needed to be sorted out.
This is before the burnas got me.


And this is after.


I lost 27 men. It wasn't pretty. The orks won 5-0. They got first blood, the relic, and a unit of grots snuck into my deployment zone for linebreaker.

That was it! After 4 weeks of Planetary Empires campaigning, I finished with pretty much what I started with, but I did win the narrative prize for my fluff, which I was pleased by. After 5 games I'd drawn 2, lost 2, won 1. However, I've learnt quite a lot about 6th ed., and my Imperial Guard. I'm going to do another post running through what I've learnt tomorrow.

As a final thought for today however, I would like to swear violently at my scatter dice. It has yet to behave in one game I've played with guard, and is a major reason why I'm rethinking what my planned army expansion was going to be.

Thanks for taking your time out and reading my reports, any comments or criticism (other than that I need to take more, and better, photos, as I know that already...) are appreciated.

[Cap'n Tightpants]

Week 4
Final week of the campaign and I was happy in the knowledge I hadn't embarassed myself (much) and also that I would finally have a chance to muck around with my army list with a little bit more experience of what works well.

With the same 1500pts. list as last week, we played the Relic scenario. I ended up playing a new player to our club, who was using orks, and had, quite literally, a big mob. Thee kans and 5 bikers were the only things not on foot. I won deployment/go first.

Deployment was like this:

Left Flank, with the relic next to the ruins. Penal Legion (with gunslingers), PCS behind. Blob on their right, with Rending penal legion behind.


Centre/Right. CCS behind barricade, Plasma Grenadier Vets, Leman Russ, Grenade/Autocannon Grenadier Vets, and the Chimera with my Forward Sentries inside (unfortunately due to the sheer numbers of his force, there was nowhere decent to put them that wasn't 18" away...)

His deployment was lots and lots of slugga boys everywhere, with a grot meat shield in front. He had one Killa Kan on my right, 3 Mega Nobz, his Wyrdboy, and Warboss across from the objective, 2 Kans slightly to the left, and the bikers all the way on the left flank.

I had the vague plan of keeping my blob within 12" of the objective, waiting for him to come for it, and then blowing off whatever he had there. With three flamers, 3 GL, 2 heavy bolters, and the sheer amount of lasguns at my disposal, I had high hopes of this.

Unfortunately, we rolled night fighting for turn 1.

IMPERIAL GUARD TURN 1
I advanced my blob into the crater. They rolled a 3 on difficult terrain and barely made it. My line shuffled forward where necessary to get some shots off, but with night fighting and grot shield in full effect, I wasn't expecting a great deal. I did, however, do the remarkably stupid thing of marching my PCS in front of my penal legion.

Opening fire over the entire line, the full combined firepower of my entire army, including a battlecannon shell and a MoO did this:


5 ork boys and 16 grots. The grots didn't even run away. Oh, and two of my plasma gunners toasted themselves.

I hate night fighting.

ORK TURN 1
Shockingly, his entire force lurched forwards, running where it could.
His Bikes shot my PCS off the planet, getting him first blood. A small unit of Tankbustas that he'd advanced into some ruins opposite my Russ shot at it and took off two hull points. I was displeased. His wrydboy eadbang'd himself.

IMPERIAL GUARD TURN 2
Movement- I forgot to roll for my outflanking sentinels. I moved my forces up to get within 24" of as much as possible. I reversed the russ to take it OUT of tankbusta range. My priest detatched from the blob and joined my rending Penal Legion. The two Kans approaching could scupper my plans by holding up my blob, and so I decided that re-rollable Rending attacks plus an eviscerator should be able to handle them without chucking away too much of my objective-camping ability. They conga-lined around the crater, as I didn't trust myself to make the roll, my blob having just rolled a mighty 2. Field training for them when they get back to barracks...


My vets in chimera nipped forward for some good-ol flamer fun on the right flank. Apart from the Tankbustas and a kan, there was just a small mob of sluggas there, and I was confident I could break them with flamers and shotguns and then get linebreaker.

Shooting- My MoO missed with a mighty 18" scatter into no-mans land. He was actually lucky not to hit my grenade launcher vets. The Leman Russ seemed to have caught the sickness, and it too scattered onto a mighty one grot, which it promptly failed to wound... My lascannon sniped a mega nob however, so that was a bonus.

My flamer vets roasted and toasted a good 9/10 orks, and the shotguns rolled well and accounted for another 6/7. The mob, down to 7 models, still passed their leadership test.

WHY WON'T YOU RUN DAMMIT

My grenade launcher vets blast-templated the tankbustas to death, nicely removing a problem for me. Good lads. The plasma vets did diddly squit to the grots within 12" of them. Bad job lads.

The gunslinging penal legion took out three bikers thanks to a 'fire on my target' from the Company Commader (nicely negating their mobile cover save). He then used FRSRF on my blob, who targeted the massive ork horde close to the objective. With nearly 60 las-shots, I killed a miserably low number of orks. My psyker's lightning was dispelled by his wyrdboy.

ORK TURN 2
Movement- surprise surprise, everything moved forwards into slightly closer-to-clobbering-distance.



Shooting- nothing much really happened as far as I can rememeber. I lost a few members of the blob, but they weren't really missed. The Ork shooting was either out of range or ineffective. His wyrdboy gave his squad +1 attack or something like that, but as he wasn't in combat, it didn't help matters much.

Assault- His sluggas on the right charged into my flamer vets. I rolled awfully on overwatch and he got 5 out of the 7 in. The vets pulled down one ork and then took 6 casualties. They fled, and the orks actually caught them (he rolled a 6 and I rolled a 1). The Chimera driver did not take this kindly.

IMPERIAL GUARD TURN 3
Movement- would you look at that, I forgot to roll for reserves, meaning my sentinels didn't arrive AGAIN. My blob jostled slightly forward to get within 12" with as many lasguns as possible, which was probably a mistake on my behalf, as I should have attempted to go after the relic, range be damned. My chimera reversed to get the remaining slugga boys into its heavy flamer template, and also to stay nicely far away from his Kan on that flank. My rending penal legion moved up to shield my blob's flank from his kans.

Shooting- my MoO hit four orks, including the warlord! He failed to wound two of them, not including the warlord! His warlord passed his LoOS! roll. Two orks died. Well done MoO, you're proving your worth. My Russ showed him how it's done and blasted a chunk out of the big boyz unit nearest the objective. My blob FRSRF'd the daylights out of the same unit. Due to 4+ cover saves, however, with over 80 shots I killed about 5. The psyker's lightning was dispelled again.

Greande Launcher vets lobbed a couple of grenades at the ork mob opposite them, they scattered badly and mostly missed.

Plasma vets opened up on the Mega nobz, and took off three wounds. The remaining mega nob ran away like a little girl (in 2 tonnes of armour).

Lasguns from my penal legions didn't do much damage to the bikers.

My chimera torched the sluggas with its heavy flamer.

ORK TURN 3
He called his waagh. I awaited the storm with baited breath.
Movement- Everything moved up. Some grots grabbed the relic.

Shooting- very little of this did much damage. His wyrdboy got the wrong power again.

Assault- with a resounding WAAAAAAAAAGH! everything that was even vaguely in charge range charged at me (apart from the grots). In overwatch I took out a biker, a few of the main boys unit next to the objective, and then waited for the storm to hit. But it never did. Everything he charged failed to get even vaguely close enough, even with fleet. A nice big lump of boys and grots were now stood in a clump next to the objective. MUWAHAHAHA may have been said by me at this point.

IMPERIAL GUARD TURN 4
I forgot my sentinels again. This turned out to be the last turn, but honestly I don't think they would have made much difference.

Movement- My Blob moved up to flamer range. My Psyker detached from them and sat in the crater- if we had another turn I was going to try and take out his warlord. My Rending penal legion moved to point-blank range of his kans (I was worried his bad assault rolls would infect my dice), and my gunslinging penal legion went to take care of the bikes. My Chimera, seeing no easy route out, decided discretion was the best part of valour and reversed away from the Kan.

Shooting- I had a cunning plan here. I was going to FRFSRF my blob at the orks, and with my flamer templates I would then be able to coat much of the gretchin unit too. Any remaining gretchin/orks would be handled by my Psyker's lighting. With some average dice rolls, I should be more than able to get rid of all his troops choices around the objective, leaving it nice and free for my rending penal legion to consolidate onto after they killed the kans. My Vets were to help in whatever way they could.

What's the old adage? That plans are perfect until they contact the enemy? Well for me they're perfect until you introduce dice. I've moaned on here about how bad my dice rolling is at times, and in my defence, I have yet to play anyone who doesn't agree.

FRSRF went off, but my men only hit with 9 shots out of 39. This created 3 wounds. 2 were saved. On 6's. 3 flamers dropped about 6 grots and 5 orks. My heavy bolters missed completely.

"Never mind" I thought, "I can lightning the grots and then ordnance blast the orks. Possibly."

My Psyker rolled a double 6. My ordnance scattered into nothing.

"My vets will rescue the situation, surely!"

My grenade launcher vets' templates missed entirely. My Plasma vets went one better,with the last plasma gunner frying himself.

I knew I'd lost the game at this point.

Assault- I was cheered up slightly by both my penal legions getting in. The gunslingers took down a biker, leaving the nob on his own, and his fist crushed two of them, but they held. The Rending Penal Legion did fantastically well, taking out one kan on their own and leaving the other on one hull point. The kan fluffed its attacks and my priest penetrated it twice with his eviscerator (ooh err matron). Conveniently the Kans didn't explode. Slightly less conveniently, the Penal Legion consolidated a mighty 1".

ORKS TURN 4
Movement- every single ork model moved forwards/towards the objective. I realised my opponent had been able to sneak a unit of burna boys right next to my blob. Oh my.

Shooting- We decided to resolve the burna boys' attack on my blob an then call it a game as we both had a lot of models to pack away, and the campaign results needed to be sorted out.
This is before the burnas got me.


And this is after.


I lost 27 men. It wasn't pretty. The orks won 5-0. They got first blood, the relic, and a unit of grots snuck into my deployment zone for linebreaker.

That was it! After 4 weeks of Planetary Empires campaigning, I finished with pretty much what I started with, but I did win the narrative prize for my fluff, which I was pleased by. After 5 games I'd drawn 2, lost 2, won 1. However, I've learnt quite a lot about 6th ed., and my Imperial Guard. I'm going to do another post running through what I've learnt tomorrow.

As a final thought for today however, I would like to swear violently at my scatter dice. It has yet to behave in one game I've played with guard, and is a major reason why I'm rethinking what my planned army expansion was going to be.

Thanks for taking your time out and reading my reports, any comments or criticism (other than that I need to take more, and better, photos, as I know that already...) are appreciated.