Last night I went to my local store (
Eagle and Empire*) for a pickup game, and I ended up getting a great one. It was my Iron Hands (on their third "mission") versus a leafblower-looking Imperial Guard list.
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| Iron Hands vs. Imperial Guard at the bottom of turn 5, right before my last turn |
We rolled for deployment, got Dawn of War and decided to re-roll, we settled on Spearhead. The mission was Annihilation, nice! We put lots of terrain on the table; the game store has a set of very cool industrial looking pieces that weren't being used so we threw it all down. My opponent won the roll-off and decided to set up first, I chose not to try to seize because after my last game I wanted the last turn.
Lists - my list is led by a master of the forge and librarian (with gate and null zone), I have 5 shooting terminators with a cyclone missile launcher, 2 squads of tactical marines with meltaguns and lascannons - the sergeants have power fists and combis, 3 landspeeder typhoons for fire support, and finally the heart of my list five dreadnoughts all with extra armor and heavy flamers - 3 with assault cannons, 1 multimelta, and an ironclad with a meltagun.
His list seemed like a typical tournament style IG list - company command squad with plasmaguns and chimera, 2 hydras (squadron), 1 hydra, 1 manticore, 2 vendettas each with melta-vets, 1 valkyrie with flamer-vets, chimera with plasma-vets, and two more foot-vet squads with plasma and meltaguns (all the vet squads also had autocannons).
Deployment - he set up his force in a quarter that gave him good cover and some high ground, unfortunately the opposing quarter didn't leave me to many places to hide all of my dreadnoughts. He put everything except the valkyrie and vendettas on the table, and held them back to outflank. All of his stuff was behind or next to the large building in the top right of the photo. the manticore and hydras were in the open with the chimeras behind the building and a squad of vets with an autocannon in a tower right in the middle.
I decided to deploy my razorbacks and combat-squaded lascannons behind and in the row of vertical tanks directly opposite him, they were spaced so I had line of sight through them. I started my dreadnoughts on the table. Three were near the middle of the board behind the large line-of-sight blocking building, the other two were on the right side of the razorbacks (trying to hug cover behind the tanks). I held my landspeeders and terminators in reserve.
The game -
Turns 1 and 2
I take a pounding and don't manage to do much damage in return. He took the weapon off and immobilized one razorback, and wrecked the other. He killed a couple guys from each lascannon squad, and directed lots of fire at my dreadnoughts. I popped smoke and ran them toward his lines, and the ironclad ran through the LOS blocking building in the middle doing his best immitation of cool-aid man. Oh Yeah!
Turn 3
His valkyrie comes in he keeps pounding me and I still haven't done much in return. I lost a couple more marines, a dreadnought is immobilized behind the large building in the middle (right in front of the middle vendetta in the picture). The ironclad comes out the other side of the building and continues running toward the manticore. The ironclad pops smoke on this turn and really makes that smoke count. Two of my landspeeders come in from reserves and come on from my board edge. The landspeeders and dreadnoughts form a conga-line behind some low ruins putting them out of sight of everything except his valkyrie and manticore. The dreadnought at the front of the line pops smoke giving the whole mess cover from his side of the board.
Turn 4
His vendettas come in and I'm thinking this is the beginning of the end. He shoots the right-most vendetta at the ironclad , and also deployed meltavets and they shoot too. The ironclad takes it like a champ making many cover saves but also loosing an arm - he's also shaken and stunned many times, but I remind my opponent that he has extra-armor and can still move...and assault. He decides to shoot his hydras and a foot squad of plasma-vets to try to finish him, but just can't make it happen. He realizes that the dreadnought is going to assault something no matter what he does. Lots of other shooting happens too, at the end of it one landspeeder is immobilized and looses it's typhoon launcher, and the marines take another casualty or two.
My turn the final landspeeder comes in from reserves and comes up the right table edge to get missile shots on the side armor of the chimeras and hydras. The dreadnoughts keep running toward his lines, and the librarian and his combat squad disembark from their immobilized razorback and move toward the valkyrie. They don't shoot and opt to assault the valkyrie (this was a mistake - if the meltagun had shot it down they could have assaulted the vets inside). Two typhoons move up the right and finally do some damage blowing-up the command squad chimera, and wrecking a hydra. The immobilized landspeeder is able to shoot it's heavy bolter are the disembarked command squad. The dreadnoughts on the right are in range to shoot some of his vehicles but don't manage any damage. The marines and librarian assault the valkyrie and manage to shake it, and take off the multi-laser. Also, I finally get to assault something with a dreadnought - the assaults the melta-vets. They get to go first because they are in cover, but can't hurt armor 13 with krak grenades. The ironclad stomps on the vets killing two and winning combat...and they fail their moral and get caught in a sweeping advance! The ironclad consolidates an inch.
Turn 5
I've finally diminished his firepower (and the manticore is out of ammo) and my dreadnoughts are close enough that he's worried. The flamer-vets jump out of the valkyrie and throw some templates on the marines killing everyone except the sergeant and librarian. The vendettas keep working on the dreadnoughts, finally immobilizing the ironclad, the center vendetta also dropped its melta-vets to try to finish off the other immobilized dreadnought (hiding behind the building in the picture) but only take off the heavy flamer. A chimera and some vets destroy a landspeeder on the right with multilasers and autocannons.
On my turn my terminators finally show up and walk on at the far left side of the board - left of the hill visible in the bottom left corner, and almost behind the valkyrie. The lascannon tacticals finally take something out killing another hydra. The immobilized dreadnought fires his assault cannon at the melta-vets causing them to flee, and the terminators fire everything at the flamer-vets under the valkyrie killing everyone but one flamer who flees. In assault, the remaining sergeant and librarian manage to blow up the valkyrie.
We roll the dice and the game ends there. The Iron Hands win 6 kill points to 2! The marines are amazingly resilient compared to my tau. Although many units took damage only one typhoon and one razorback were destroyed. The troops were knocked down to a man or two in each unit, but none were finished off, and two of the dreadnoughts were immobilized but none got destroyed. I managed to take out two vet squads, a valkyrie, a chimera, and two hydras.
Overall it was a great game, we both had lots of fun.
*
Eagle and Empire - highly recommended, they have open 40k games on Friday nights, and the people that play there are great. Also lots of tables and tons of cool terrain.
