Milwaukee Battle Report

Last night I drove down to visit Karl and wage war against his vile Imperial Guard. 1500 points, capture and control, spearhead deployment...let's get it on!

I had some new toys to play with...my land raider and the Librarian Dreadnought. I also took a vindicator, 10 man death company a 10 man assault squad with Sanguinary Priest and the Sanguinor.

Karl took his usual Leman Russ, a war walker, a few heavy weapon teams, command squad, regimental advisors, a blob squad with Commissar, a Chimera with veterans and muther-trucking Sly Marbo!

I won the roll off, and deployed only my Dreadnought, Land Raider, and Vindicator (mistake #1). Karl outflanked his war walker and Chimera. Karl quickly seized the initiative and began beating me senseless. In the first two turns I moved my vehicles forward, killed a guardsmen with a vindicator shell and that was it. Karl outflanked behind me with his Chimera and blew up my dreadnought with a rear shot on turn two. Because of his master of the fleet, I failed my reserve rolls and by turn 3 had a blown up dreadnought, a crippled Vindicator, and a land raider. It was on Karl's turn 2 that Marbo emerged from the water in front of my vindicator and demo charged it. Although it didn't die, it was removed from the fight. Then on turn 3 Marbo walked up casually to my land raider and blew it to hell. Marbo made up his 65 points plus some to say the least.

By my turn 3 I had lost nearly 700 points and Karl had lost just a handful of Guardsmen (plus, I got no use out of my new toys!). The objective point in my deployment zone was unprotected and Karl had a troop choice basically hanging out waiting. Karl had almost his entire force on his objective point. I wasn't sure I could get to my objective by this point, so I went all out for Karls. The Sanguinor and the Assault squad came in. The death company charged Marbo and finished him off.

As you can see in this picture, Karl was using some of my tactical marines to represent his giant blob squad. I had 21 guys out in the open versus all of Karl's shooting. On Karl's turn 4, I don't remember exactly what happened, I believe he killed 1 or 2 assault marines with shooting and then opened up on my death company with 59 lasgun shots....I lost 2 models. I luckily survived his turn 4 and then opened up the can of beat ass on my turn.

I was able to multi assault his blob squad and heavy weapons team with my death company. I killed around 11 guys in his blob and about 3 in his heavy weapons team. The heavy weapons team broke and ran off the table. The blob squad was stubborn thanks to the Commissar and stayed. In fact, Karl killed at least 3 death company with power weapons. I was pretty much ready to call it here. I didn't think the death company would survive another round against the blob (Karl still had like 10-15 guys). However, my assault marines wiped out his heavy weapons team and The Sanguinor took on Karl's Command Squad, crushed them, broke them, and then wiped them with sweeping advance.

So by Karl's turn 5, I was in his control point (but he could contest) and he owned mine. His blob squad had my Death Company tied up, and he had a platoon command squad ready to charge in. Plus, he still had that damn tank and war walker. It was at this point that I totally lucked out. Karl had this game, he should of won. Even if he couldn't kill my Assault squad and Sanguinor, he could wipe my death company and contest his objective and hold mine. It was turn 5, he didn't have long to hold on. However, he wasn't able to hold, specifically his blob couldn't hold. In his turn the combat continued, I won but only killed a handful of his troops. Karl failed his leadership roll, the Commissar executed the commanding officer and demanded that the squad hold, Karl rerolled and failed again! The squad broke and the death company caught them with sweeping advance.

The game went to turn 6, but it was that failed leadership that determined the game. In my turn 5, I killed his war walker, tied up his platoon squad with my remaining death company and charged the leman russ with with my assault squad, disabling it. On Karl's turn 6, my 1 remaining death company finished off the platoon command squad, the assault marines blew up the Leman Russ (thus capturing Karl's objective), and the Sanguinor walked around wasting 275 points worth of badass. One ugly tie.

I learned 2 valuable lessons. Don't take so many vehicles against IG, and don't keep half your army off the board until turn 3. Honestly, I should of deep struck my assault squad onto my objective and tried to take out his Chimera and let the Sanguinor play in Karl's objective. I'm not sure this would of worked, but it may have given me a shot at winning, but that's a lot of woulda and shoulda and some maybes.