Since my kitchen table isn't wide enough for a standard game, we played spearhead deployment and used table quarters. I also left what little terrain I have at Zach's so we made up for that with Lost DVD box sets, books and dishrags. It didn't look very impressive, but it worked!
I took a similar army to the one I took against Zach and Josh. It was a good mix of stuff for Karl to fight since it was only his second game with 5th edition. I took a 10 man assault squad with sanguinary priest, 8 death company with Reclusiarch in a Rhino, a Death Company Dreadnought, and a Baal Predator (the only change, and it proved to be a useless one).
I'm not very familiar with the Imperial Guard troops so I can't remember exactly what Karl took, 2 heavy weapons teams, some veterans, a command squad, a sentinel, and a Leman Russ (I think executioner).
We rolled off, Karl went first. I scout moved my predator forward, Karl choose to outflank his sentinel.
Much like the Tau, I was nervous. I haven't faced the Hammer of the Emperor and I know it's shooty reputation. I just prayed I could get into Karl's lines soon. The terrain helped early (as did Karl's horrible rolls), as after 1 round of shooting Karl failed to kill anything of mine.
On my first turn I rushed ahead. My Baal moved between a hill and a building allowing my rhino to surge forward creating a choke point which the rest of my army stayed behind. My Baal was in range of 1 of his units and unleashed the fury of a twin linked autocannon
and two heavy bolter sponsons and managed to kill 1 guy. That was it for my turn 1.That's how Karl's turn 2 started, as you can see in my picture, Karl jumped forward towards the Predator, with lots of melta. Moments after this photo the Predator got wrecked creating an even tighter choke point. I was getting nervous by this point since it was obvious that if my Rhino got popped, I would probably lose troops and everything would be trapped. Luckily, Karl was unable to do much else in his shooting phase...he may have killed 1 assault marine with a mortar shot, but I can't remember. His outflanking Sentinel also arrived.
In my turn 2 I realized it was time to get in Karl's face. His poor dice rolls wouldn't last through three shooting phases and if I didn't get out of that choke point it was going to get ugly. First I moved my Rhino 18 inches and tank shocked two of his units. Both guard units passed the morale test, and my Rhino was in the middle of his forces, but the choke point was open and the rest of my army surged forward. My assault troops flew over the temple to assault the command squad in cover and the death dread moved forward to take down the melta unit. The Death Dread was a beast, he crushed nearly all of the 10 man squad in one round, forcing them to flee (they never rallied and fled off the table in the following turn). The assault squad did not fare as well. I hit Karl's unit with 9 assault marines and a sanguinary priest all with furious charge...and rolled like poop! It was about this time that Karl and I flipped our luck around...I
couldn't roll for shit and he kept making save after save. I left only 3 or 4 guardsmen, but his powerfist commander crushed 4 of my marines, and either the combat was tied or he just lost by 1 and was able to make his morale roll.The third turn saw the battle for the black rag continue. As you can see in the pic, I was hoping that on Karl's turn 3 I would finish his command squad with my assault marines and then on my turn I could assault 1 heavy weapons team with my Dreadnought and the other with the assault marines...instead Karl held on and only lost 1 more guy and I lost a few more to the powerfist commander (I think I lost my Sanguinary priest this round also).
On this turn he also turned his attention to my Rhino that was in the middle of the rest of his army. It took a veteran squad, a sentinel, and finally the Leman Russ, but they blew that Rhino open...unfortunately for Karl it contained my Death Company and Reclusiarch. This unit cost me nearly half my points and they were now in the middle of the Guards line. The Rhino had served its purpose, these guys
would chew threw any guard unit in hand to hand. Note the intricate work I did on the crumpled up towel to represent the wrecked Rhino.Although it didn't work for him, Karl smartly charged my death company with his veteran squad and his sentinel. The death company are much more effective when they charge, so he was hoping the soften the blow. I was able to take out all but 1 of the veteran unit and hit the sentinel twice. Both units broke, and I was able to wipe out the Sentinel, but the lone veteran ran.
On my Turn 3 I was able to finish off the command squad at the Battle of the Black Rag, my death dread was able to charge 1 unit of heavy weapon guys and thanks to a 6 on my consolidation roll I was able to make it around the tower with the death company and assault the remaining heavy weapons team. Both squads got wiped and that left only the Leman Russ and the 1 fleeing veteran. We both agreed the battle was over, but Karl wanted to shoot his tank at least 1 more turn, so we played turn 4.
Karl's dice came around and he did some heavy damage to my death company (I think he killed like 3 or 4 guys in one blast). On my turn I used my melta pistol on the tank and did nothing, I used my death dreads flamer to kill the lone veteran (his commissar would of just shot him anyway) and assaulted the tank and managed to wreck it with my powerfist. However, I did manage to kill two more of my assault marines by trying to move through cover (stupid rule). In the end I had a death dread my Reclusiarch, 5 ish death company and a few assault marines.
Here you can see Karl's last stand.
Once I finally got in Karl's face things turned quickly, but if the first two rounds of shooting had Karl even rolled the averages things would of been very different (I don't think in 4 turns of shooting he ever wounded with a lascannon). The guard have some hardcore shooting and are much better in hand to hand then I would of thought, once Karl gets a few more toys (transports, psykers, Valkyrie, more tanks, etc.) he is going to have a very, very scary army (assuming he can roll over a 3).
No comments:
Post a Comment