Round
4: 1750
Deployment:
Hammer of Wrath
Cam
(Imperial Guard)
Company
Command Squad w/Master of Ordinance, Master of the Fleet
Platoon
Command Squad w/Plasmagun, Commissar
Heavy
weapon Team w/3 x Lascannon
Heavy
Weapon Team w/3 x Heavy Bolter
5
x Veterans w/3 x Meltagun, Chimera
Infantry
Squad w/Plasmagun, Missile Launcher
Infantry
Squad w/Plasmagun, Heavy Bolter
Infantrry
Squad w/Plasmagun, Heavy Bolter
Hydra
Griffon
Hellhound
Leman
Russ squadron w/2 x Battle Cannon, 1 x Executioner Plasma Cannon
Aegis
Defence Line w/Quad Gun
I
was actually getting set to fight someone else, a Grey Knights
player, when a couple of late arrivals forced Matt to juggle some
opponents around to keep things on the level. Given the choice
between Cam, here, and Graham and his Grey Knights, I pretty quickly
called dibs on facing off against Cam. I can
beat Graham, it's not impossible, but that guy wields his Grey
Knights like a surgeon's scalpel, and I wasn't really looking to test
myself against the current number one in the league. So, instead, I
traded a couple of Stormravens, a Dreadknight and a Vindicare who
looks like Deadpool for heavy artillery, a Fast flamer-tank, and a
squadron of Leman Russ.
It
never rains, but it pours.
Commander
w/Iridium Armour, Stimulant Injector, Shield Generator, 2 x Plasma
Rifle, PENchip, Relic (+1 WS/BS for squad, Hit and Run)
2
x Bodyguards w/2 x Plasma Rifle, 2 x Twin-Linked Fusion Blaster
Ethereal
XV104
w/Ion Accelerator, Early Warning Override, Stimulant Injector
3
x XV8 w/6 x Missile Pod
3
x XV8 w/6 x Missile Pod
8
x Fire Warriors
8
x Fire Warriors
8
x Fire Warriors
8
x Fire Warriors
4
x Pathfinders
4
x Pathfinders
Hammerhead
w/Disruption Pod, Blacksun Filter
Hammerhead
w/Longstrike, Disruption Pod, Submunition, 2 x Seeker Missiles
Aegis
Defence Line w/Quad Gun
Ironically,
I finally got something other than Dawn of War when I finally lost
the meaningful range advantage over my opponent. Cam won the
roll-off and opted to seize what was, frankly, the better side of the
table, with a three-storey ruin and a building with a wide, flat roof
and battlements, just perfect for deploying Guard infantry into. He
put his Chimera full of Vets, Colossus and Hydra on my left, the PCS
and a squad along the Aegis with the Quad Gun and the Hellhound in
the middle, the CCS and lascannon heavy weapons team in the ruins
with a truly commanding line of sight, and anchored the right flank
with his Leman Russ squadron, the Executioner out in front, and the
two heavy bolter infantry squads blobbed together on the battlements.
In turn, I left my Commander and his bodyguards in deep strike
reserve, set a deathrain squad on either side of my lines, put my
ionHead on the left and my railHead on the right, and plunked my
Riptide, Ethereal with Fire Warrior squad and additional Fire Warrior
squads around the middle of the board. With no Night Fight, I rolled
to seize, and for the second time in as many games managed to pull it
off.
Unfortunately,
I largely wasted the accomplishment. I spread my forces out, trying
to bring my Fire Warriors into optimal range on Cam's infantry
squads, but he was just a little too far back for me to get more than
the first rank into range. Longstrike failed to penetrate the Russ'
considerable front armour, even with his reroll, while my Riptide
failed its Nova charge and then it and the ionHead both sent their
blasts scattering uselessly away. The only thing I actually managed
was to blow up the Chimera, killing a handful of Vets inside and, at
least, scoring me First Blood. It wasn't much, but it would have to
do.
Especially
since Cam's turn wasn't nearly so ineffectual. His tanks advanced,
the Griffin immobilizing itself on the edge of the Aegis line but
still inside its considerable range to fire on my left flank, the
Hellhound cruising forwards and then moving Flat Out to position
itself in the centre of the board, practically on the relic. His
Russes trundled forwards, then proceeded to show exactly what real
heavy armour was capable of. They dropped blast after blast on my
Fire Warriors with Ethereal, and when the smoke finally cleared the
squad was gone, and the Ethereal had used every single one of them as
meat shields to keep himself alive. One more failed cover save and
I'd have been down by a victory point first turn, and lost my LD10
bubble to boot! The Griffon also fired, taking aim at the Fire
Warriors on my left flank, who went to ground for the 2+ save from
the Aegis; they managed not to lose anyone, but they were stuck
there, just waiting for the Griffon to reload and fire again next
turn, forcing them to keep riding out the barrages. It was an
inauspicious start. And things didn't get any better when Cam
pointed out that his Master of the Fleet bumped my Reserve rolls up
by one, though given that I insisted on rolling nothing but 1's and
2's to bring my Commander in it hardly mattered. For turns two and
three I basically did nothing but ride out Cam's firepower,
ultimately losing my Riptide, one of my Deathrain suits and most of
the members from all three of my remaining Fire Warrior squads in
exchange for managing to kill the remains of the Veteran squad and
wreck the Hellhound, ironically after a scattering Leman Russ blast
killed most of the Fire Warriors it had been aimed straight at before
it got a chance to fire. The only real bright spot was that my
Riptide had survived long enough to shepherd my Ethereal to safety,
out of sight behind a building and, happily, on top of an objective
I'd placed there (though annoyingly it turned out to allow re-rolls
of 1's to-hit for the controlling unit, which nobody could make use
of because of its position). I also almost lost another deathrain
from the left-flank squad to dangerous terrain tests before
remembering that my Ethereal passed out FNP 6+, which amazingly I
managed to make. Cam was steadily rolling me up, and with Longstrike
stubbornly refusing to get so much as a glancing hit (statistically
improbable given three straight turns of firing) and my left-flank
deathrains incapable of silencing the Griffon, it seemed as though
the best I could hope for was to try and keep from being routed too
catastrophically. It didn't help that my Riptide and ionHead,
despite firing into clumps of infantry for turns 2 and 3, managed to
mostly scatter off-target, and the few shots that did hit were
shrugged off by cover.
But
then, Turn 4 started; my Reserves came on automatically, bringing my
Commander to the field. And he changed everything.
The
Commander dropped in behind the Leman Russes, exactly as planned, and
between four plasma rifles and two twin-linked meltaguns, with Tank
Hunters, that so-troublesome squadron simply disappeared. One of the
basic Russes and the Executioner exploded, and the third was wrecked
on hull points. And apparently, it was that kind of moment of
heroism that the rest of my cadre was waiting for, because Longstrike
turned to blast the Griffon to pieces and the ionHead killed most of
the CCS, including Cam's warlord, while my right-flank deathrains
turned the Quad Gun on the Hydra, stripping off a couple hull points,
and the left-flank team hopped up on top of the building the Ethereal
was sheltering behind to shoot the infantry squad closing on the
relic, blasting away the leading edge to take them from being right
on top of it to thrown back no small distance. In his turn Cam tried
to rally, but with so many of his heaviest hitters annihilated in a
single turn there wasn't much to rally with. His lascannon team did
manage to blast Longstrike's ride to pieces, annoyingly, but by that
point I was largely fed up with his consummate failures and
practically welcomed seeing him killed. Other than that, firepower
rattled harmlessly off my Commander's iridium armour, while my Fire
Warriors finally managed to go a turn without being forced to go to
ground. And when Turn 5 started, my Commander demonstrated he wasn't
done winning this battle single-handedly, yet.
The
mission was, as always, Crusade, and we'd rolled up four objectives.
I had two, and Cam had two, and given that we were both playing
infantry-heavy forces in a league that allows any and all infantry to
score, neither of us were having much trouble keeping hold of our
respective pair. Which is why my Commander's attack on the
double-strength infantry squad in the building was so important;
softening them up with some firepower from himself and his
bodyguards, he failed to reach assault range on Turn 5; after
splitting his bodyguards off to pincer the infantry in Turn 6,
however, he managed to make it into combat, and over two assault
phases killed enough Guardsmen to break their morale, sending them
off the objective and racing for their back table edge. Annoyingly,
a single heavy bolter heavy weapon team model (the last survivor of
the squad) managed to get up there in Cam's turn to contest, and his
lascannon team doubled out my bodyguard squad while they were
standing on the roof making sure to contest just in case, so I
couldn't actually claim it for my own. But Cam didn't have it,
either, and that was what was important.
My
deathrains made another run for the relic, aiming for a three-peat,
but alas, it was not to be. I did manage to put them on the relic by
jumping, running and then thrusting, but the rules in The Relic
specify you have to be on it at the end of the movement phase to
claim it, and sadly the game did not go to Turn 7. Again, though,
while it would have been nice to have it, the real purpose was to
contest; by ending in base contact with the relic themselves, they
ensured that the infantry squad Cam had dispatched to seize the relic
for his own forces couldn't get within 1” of them, and therefore
it, in their own movement phase. I'd have preferred taking it for
myself (until Scott rolled it up just to see what it would've been,
and it turned out to explode, at least), but as the saying goes, if I
can't have it, nobody will.
My
MVP of this round is obviously and indisputably my Commander.
Despite being waylaid by Imperial air defences (that's his story and
he's sticking to it), when he did finally hit the table he did so
with a terrifying vengeance, leading his bodyguard in absolutely
annihilating the Guard's heavy armour spearhead and then turning back
to take on twenty Guardsmen on his own, and winning, to secure me
both Linebreaker and the overall win by tying up one of Cam's two
objectives. Behold, Commander Swordwind, terror of the gue'la!
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