I went with the army list from the previous post, and that morning pulled out all the figs - I have to say, it's always edifying when the first words out of one's opponent's mouth are "Holy crap".
My particular terrain setup runs exclusively to the urban persuasion, and generally I try to set it up with a mix of density to portray the outskirts of a ruined city. For this game however, I thought it would be fun to do a table representing a more inner-city feel.
My friend brought his heavily assault-themed Blood Angels army, which has savaged my guardsmen on a number of occasions. The usual pre-battle smack talk ensued - I had taunted him earlier in the week that "He'd better bring the big guns to deal with all the tanks". Little did I realize he'd follow through with his counter-threat to build a Terminus Ultra. The name of the tank is a matter of some debate. He favored "Godhammer", whereas I was pretty sure "Le Tanque Du Fromage" had a nice ring to it...
We ended up playing the Dawn of War scenario, which had some odd repercussions on each of our lists - it forced his usual deep-striking HQ unit onto the table up front, invalidated my infiltrators, and posed an interesting question regarding the ordinarily-immobile Medusa Siege gun. We decided to go for it anyway, and see how things panned out. I set up first, and in turn 1 most of the army moved onto the board. The Medusa was towed into position by a chimera and spent the rest of the turn unlimbering to cover the road down the middle of the town.
I use the Ogryns as a "Tar Pit" unit against my opponents heavy close combat troops. In this instance, Thargadd and the lads held an entire Assault Squad led by a Chaplain with a power fist for three turns. When the dust settled, they had accounted for seven of the assault marines, and had prevented them from slaughtering the company command in the nearby building. 150 points well spent, I found.
After Thargadd took his last wound, the nearby infantry made short work of the remaining Assault marines via the judicious use of "First rank, FIRE! Second rank, FIRE!". The Chaplain ended up chasing a couple vehicles around for the rest of the game.
On the opposite flank things didn't go quite so smoothly. While the guardsmen managed to disable several of the Blood Angel landspeeders, they were assaulted and completely butchered by a second Assault squad. Several units were slaughtered to a man before they even had a chance to strike back.
We ended up calling the game at the end of turn four due to time constraints, though it looked to be a fearsome conflict brewing in the center of town.
We tallied up the losses, and he'd managed to destroy about half the Guard by the end of turn four, losing about a third of his points in return. Nevertheless, that's significantly better than the guard has fared in the past! The Assault squad was set to roll my flank in turn 5, though the HQ likely could have withstood a turn or two before collapsing. The ratling snipers spend the game running around the table rather than shooting from cover, so I didn't really get a feel for how they played. I enjoyed the Psyker Battle Squad, and will likely take them again - their leadership modifying capabilities in concert with ordnance barrage and pinning weapons could prove to be very effective. The terrain and mission worked to our disadvantage in certain ways on both sides of the table, though it was an entertaining scenario overall.
This coming week I hope to polish off the last of the orks as a brief change of pace before I dive into paining the next batch of guardsmen...
My friend brought his heavily assault-themed Blood Angels army, which has savaged my guardsmen on a number of occasions. The usual pre-battle smack talk ensued - I had taunted him earlier in the week that "He'd better bring the big guns to deal with all the tanks". Little did I realize he'd follow through with his counter-threat to build a Terminus Ultra. The name of the tank is a matter of some debate. He favored "Godhammer", whereas I was pretty sure "Le Tanque Du Fromage" had a nice ring to it...
We ended up playing the Dawn of War scenario, which had some odd repercussions on each of our lists - it forced his usual deep-striking HQ unit onto the table up front, invalidated my infiltrators, and posed an interesting question regarding the ordinarily-immobile Medusa Siege gun. We decided to go for it anyway, and see how things panned out. I set up first, and in turn 1 most of the army moved onto the board. The Medusa was towed into position by a chimera and spent the rest of the turn unlimbering to cover the road down the middle of the town.
The Blood Angels entered the fray, and the Terminus Ultra moved onto the table. The guardsmen decided that discretion was the greater part of valor, and fell back into cover. The Land Raider effortlessly destroyed the Leman Russ Executioner, which exploded quite spectacularly in turn two.
On the left flank, the hardened veteran squad sped towards the Land Raider, hoping to make it close enough to utilize their melta bombs. However, the first assault squad pounced on their Chimera - rolling forty-some-odd attacks, and tearing the turret from its collar. Only by virtue of the tank's speed the previous turn did it avoid utter destruction. To the marine's consternation, Thargadd's Thumpers managed to move within striking distance. With a roar, the Ogryns charged into combat as the chimera continued towards the Terminus Ultra, albeit slightly on fire.
I use the Ogryns as a "Tar Pit" unit against my opponents heavy close combat troops. In this instance, Thargadd and the lads held an entire Assault Squad led by a Chaplain with a power fist for three turns. When the dust settled, they had accounted for seven of the assault marines, and had prevented them from slaughtering the company command in the nearby building. 150 points well spent, I found.
After Thargadd took his last wound, the nearby infantry made short work of the remaining Assault marines via the judicious use of "First rank, FIRE! Second rank, FIRE!". The Chaplain ended up chasing a couple vehicles around for the rest of the game.
On the opposite flank things didn't go quite so smoothly. While the guardsmen managed to disable several of the Blood Angel landspeeders, they were assaulted and completely butchered by a second Assault squad. Several units were slaughtered to a man before they even had a chance to strike back.
We ended up calling the game at the end of turn four due to time constraints, though it looked to be a fearsome conflict brewing in the center of town.
We tallied up the losses, and he'd managed to destroy about half the Guard by the end of turn four, losing about a third of his points in return. Nevertheless, that's significantly better than the guard has fared in the past! The Assault squad was set to roll my flank in turn 5, though the HQ likely could have withstood a turn or two before collapsing. The ratling snipers spend the game running around the table rather than shooting from cover, so I didn't really get a feel for how they played. I enjoyed the Psyker Battle Squad, and will likely take them again - their leadership modifying capabilities in concert with ordnance barrage and pinning weapons could prove to be very effective. The terrain and mission worked to our disadvantage in certain ways on both sides of the table, though it was an entertaining scenario overall.
This coming week I hope to polish off the last of the orks as a brief change of pace before I dive into paining the next batch of guardsmen...
Great recap. I've not played in terrain like this. It sounds like it was a great game.
ReplyDeleteNice report, and your army looks great arrayed out on a table like that.
ReplyDeleteThanks - the terrain was a little too dense, in retrospect. I have a tendency to set up a table like I'm going to be playing Necromunda, which usually ends up looking nice, but isn't conducive to 40k-scale games. Nevertheless, it was a fun game as usual!
ReplyDeleteWhere did you get those buildings from? Did you make them yourself?
ReplyDeleteMost of the buildings are standard Cities of Death, but the larger intact ones are made from foamcore board, toothpicks, white glue and spraypaint. I'd picked up a couple on ebay years back, and have made a couple more since then based on the ones I'd bought. The floors are all magnetized together so you can get at the interiors, but hold together enough to survive the inevitable table-bump here and there.
ReplyDelete