Another weekend, another thrilling battle report from Herosand V!

Game Setup:

We’ve reached 600 points! Normal detachment rules now apply, so I’ve expanded to create a battalion:

Our Heroes

We have Captain Incusator in Grav Armor. I’ve increased our intercessor count up to 15 for three squads. You are all of course familiar with Reginald, our Dreadnought. Finally, we’ve added Lieutenant Marculus, wielding a master-crafted stalker bolt rifle. Since I now have eight CP to play with, I’ve spent two to make Incusator a Chapter Master.

The mission type was Secure and Control.

Match 1:

Imperial Guard

Their Forces:

Company Commander, Tank Commander, 3x Infantry Squads, Astropath, Bulgryns, and Heavy Weapons Squad with Mortars

My Narrative:

After word reached back to Medusa of the difficulties the Iron Hands had faced, they were bolstered with reinforcements, with the third and sixth squad filling in. Captain Incusator was given an updated list of the latest in tactics and strategy and promoted to Chapter Master. Now suitably fortified, it was time to march across Herosand V and take back the planet from the vile forces of… Well, pretty much everyone else. There had been a lot of confusion and fog of war, and now even Imperium forces were fighting each other.

Soon, their mettle and metal would both be tested.

quote:

“It’s good to have you aboard, Lieutenant,” Chapter Master Incusator said, patting the young man on the shoulder.



Marculus stumbled forward, nearly losing his footing. “Erm, yes sir,” he said. Then he flinched and nearly fell again as an explosion shook the earth beneath his feet. “What in Terra’s name was that?” he said, his voice cracking.



“Oh, it seems the Astra Militarum are getting ideas again. No worries. The Medusan Academy might have taught you a lot, but one thing they didn’t teach you: The flesh is weak!”



“But… but they did teach me. That was in Tactics 101, Iron Hands Doctrine, and Advanced Ways in Which the Flesh is Weak. It was on every test!”



But the chapter master was already walking away, ready to give those pesky guardsmen a pop quiz!

Tanks for the Memories

I got to pick the deployment, and I picked spearhead. My idea was that I didn’t have much anti-armor and I’d need to get the dreadnought and chapter master up where they could open the tank like a can opener. Armor is honestly my biggest weakness right now, and I’ll probably struggle with it until I get to 800 points at the earliest. We each had an objective in our backline. Mine I had in some nice convenient ruins that partly blocked line of sight. I parked a group of intercessors on it (just out of sight to the right) and deployed the rest of my forces with an eye to moving them up the board. He parked his mortars behind a magic box and set of the rest of his gunline.

Ignore the strip of tape. Previous rounds were 2'x4’. We’re now playing on 3'x4’ sections of table to accommodate our larger armies.

I seem to remember there being guardsmen here.

Two rounds of shooting saw all of his troops gone. By this point, though, my dread was down to about half health and I was starting to realize that getting all the way down to the other end of the field was easier said than done. However, I also realized that I had first blood. So long as I could keep control of my objective, and not let him kill my warlord, I’d win on points at the end of the game. If the tournament was tracking how many points people got, I might have considered keeping up the fight, but as it was, only victory mattered. I had a near-guaranteed shot, so long as I could get my army into cover and out of range of most of his guns.

“Why is the dreadnought ticking?”

The bullgryns held me in combat just long enough to help him get another round of shooting. My dreadnought died finally went down to the tank commander’s weapons. I probably should have used Vengeance of the Machine Spirit to give him one more round of damage on the enemy. I didn’t get my stratagem cards out, and I ended up with four CP left at the end of the game unspent because I kept forgetting what I could do, aside from Duty Eternal to buff my dread for a phase.

However, by this point, I had gotten the Tank Commander down to just a few wounds left, so its movement wasn’t up to chasing me all the way down the board. It was now time to make the march back to my objective. You can see where I have my intercessors parked in a cozy little hut with the objective.

Snug as a Bug in a Rug

I was down to four intercessors in three squads, my lieutenant, and my captain left. I was about to have my army either in cover or behind boxes. So long as he didn’t take out my captain by the end of the game, I was going to be a point ahead. We were starting up round six. I would have at most two more rounds to survive his mortar fire.

Then one of my intercessors managed an extremely lucky shot and took out his tank commander. He rolled a six on the explosion, and it also took out his astropath and hurt his company commander. At that point, he conceded the game and we shook hands.

I’m starting to learn to think a bit more tactically. At the start, I felt my best route to victory lay in getting into melee with the tank commander. But once I realized I had the advantage on points, I went for the surer path.

I will say that the Chapter Master was pretty clutch. Being able to reroll all hits was a lifesaver at points. The rerolling of 1s on wound rolls was helpful too, though not quite as clutch.

I also need to remember to use the auxiliary grenade launchers. Frak grenades are better against armor than stalker bolt rifles. When I can, I need to remember that I have them.

Match 2:

Necrons

Their Forces:

Overlord, Necron Warriors, Flayed Ones, Lychguard

quote:

“What did I tell you, Lieutenant?” the Chapter Master said. “Hardly broke a sweat.”



The lieutenant looked at the repairs on Reginald, who was booping and beeping in a rather sad way, and then insisting that he was not actually sad, as robots do not have emotions. “Er. Yes sir. Though, the tank seemed a bit of a problem.”



“Bah. Easily dispatched with a little stalker bolt fire. After all, Marculus, flesh inside of a tin can is still nothing more than flesh! Right, Sergeant?”



“Yes sir. Very good, sir. Almost self aware,” said Caminus.



“Yes, rather, I–Wait.” The Chapter Master started to turn to the sergeant when a green flash flew past his head.



Necrons surged over the hill in closed silent ranks, completely refusing to provide witty banter for the battle report. The fiends!

Iron and Steel

My opponent chose the deployment zone. He put his flayed ones into deep strike, hid his warriors behind some LOS-blocking terrain, and kept his overlord with his lychguard. He went first, and he started moving his lychguard and overlord on the far side of the field. He moved his warriors forward, putting as many as possible on top of the building in front of them. They managed to take out an intercessor, but with most of them still behind cover, he wasn’t able to do much.

My dread went and took out eleven of his 12-necron squad. I was also able to take out all but one of his lychguard with stalker bolt fire. The remaining warrior in the squad skedaddled in the morale round. The other warrior squad would stay in cover for the rest of the game, around his objective.

Warriors from the Dark

On his next turn, he brought his flayed ones out of deep strike. And here I made a mistake that screwed over my opponent. I used Auspex Scan and played it on my dreadnought, who promptly took out the entire unit. I missed that Auspex Scan can only affect infantry. It likely didn’t change much, but it would have at least kept the gaming going another turn or so, depending on what he ended up charging. I brought it up to him after the game, and he was fairly cool about it. We’re both learning the rules of the game. I’ll remember next time.

His lychguard regenerated two models, and he used a special ability to move his warlord and the lychguard into my backline, charging me. The lychguard made it into combat and took out all but one of the intercessors in that squad. I removed all of the models near his lychguard to get out of melee range. We both forgot about the consolidate part of the fight phase, so the lychguard ended up getting shot up when my turn came.

Hmm…

And now he only had his remaining warriors behind cover, and his warlord.

Hmm!

With his warlord dispatched, he conceded and we called it.

I feel pretty bad about the rules I forgot here. I need to read my stratagems more clearly so that I don’t make errors, especially not ones that give me such an advantage as forgetting the Auspex Scan limitation. I also keep forgetting the pile in/fight/consolidate order. In this case, we both forgot, but if he’d remembered, removing the models as I did would have given me no benefit (especially since I took out my sergeant to try and build space).

Still, I’m looking up less than I was last week, and far less than the week before. I’m starting to get better at grasping the fundamentals. I just need to get the details of my army down.

quote:

“Ha!” said the chapter master. “Xenos steel can’t stand up to good Imperial Iron!”



“Our armor is actually made of plasteel and ceramite,” said Marculus helpfully.



“I was being poetic!” Incusator snapped. “Can’t a man have a moment of quiet glory?”



“Ah, um, sorry, sir,” the lieutenant said.



“Oh, go drill the men.” Incusator turned and brooded as he looked to the horizon. Soon, he thought, they would be marching across it, bringing the glory of Medusa to all before them.



He was, in fact, turned around and facing the way they’d come. But in a more poetic sense, his point still stood. What adventures await them?

We’re now halfway through the League. I’m 6 for 8 fights and standing at #11 in the league. I’m currently at halfway through painting my 800 point increase, and then just three units to get me to 1000. It’s very exciting, and I can’t wait to play some of these units!