For this game I decided to try out some vehicles, namely Pask in a LR Punisher, a Leman Russ battle tank, a hell hound and two chimeras each containing a commissar, a platoon commander and a vet squad, one with 3 meltas and one with 3 plasmas guns.
My opponent was playing mechanicus and came with 2 tech priest dominus, 2 dune crawlers, one with the big Neutron laser thing and one with the Icarus array. He also brought two squads of rangers, one with plasma caliver and one with the sniper rifles, lastly he brought some infiltrators.
Both of our warlords took the resilient survivor warlord trait.
Setup
The board was set upand we rolled for deployment. I got first drop and we deployed. Surprisingly I managed to finish deploying first, which is a rare feat!
Turn 1
Cards - 14,15,24,33,46,55 - Secure objective's 4 (x2) and 5, Defend objective 3, Domination, Psychological Warfare
scored - 14,24,33,55
The cards were good to me for my first turn, with three of the objectives easily reachable. I was already sitting on objective 4 and 3 was easily reachable in the centre of the table. While the hell hound moved to secure objective 3 in the centre, one of the chimeras also moved out to sit on another objective, objective 6, just for good measure, while Pask sat tight on objective 4. In the shooting phase, only the Leman Russ and right hand chimera were able to shoot, targeting the Rangers in the top right hand building, the big one at the top of the picture below. This resulted in a couple of casualties, enough as it turns out to cause them to fail there morale test, netting me another point. At this point I decided to discard Domination, as it would be difficult to achieve.
Moving up to take objectives
The dead pile on the left
Cards - 12,13,23,32,34,61 - Secure objective 2 and 3 (x2), Defend objective 2 and 4, Kingslayer
scored - none
For my opponent the cards were less helpful. Objective 2 was across my side of the board and I was sitting on 3 in the middle of the field and Pask was sitting on 4. Plus he'd have to kill of Pask to get Kingslayer, not an easy task these days. He moved up with the centre of his forces and the Dune Crawlers did some damage, but the main threat this turn was the Infiltrators, who dropped in near to Pask and then charged in, doing some damage but loosing two members to overwatch in the process.
AdMech forces moving up
Infiltrators drop in and......
.......Charge in on Pask
Turn 2 - score 4 - 0
cards - 15,22,35,52,54 - Secure objectives 2 and 5, defend objective 5, Blood and guts, Area Denial
scored - 54, First blood
After a good first turn, the cards weren't so kind. With both objectives on his side of the table, although, with some manourvering I could have achieved more. As for blood and guts? Well not much chance of that. Anyway, Pask fullback from combat to free up the infiltrators for shooting and be LRBT did its thing, making short work of the squad, although annoyingly one was left alive. I also completely messed up on objective two, forgetting about it and moving the chimera in the wrong direction. The other chimera dropped of its commissar at objective 6, just to hold it in case in came up on the cards.
The guard continue to push forward
scored - 13,23
Again, my opponent struggled with his cards, mostly due to the game type. Having not achieved any cards first time round, he was forced to discard a card and then had to retain the rest. This time however he was able to move forward and take objective 3 in the centre of the field, mostly by weight of numbers over my hell hound. He was also unlucky with targeting Pask, reducing him down to just a coupe of wounds and to his lowest level. The final infiltrator decided to charge in on Pask and see if he could finish the job, but was gunned down on overwatch, even hitting on 6's, 29 shots is still a lot of shots.
Turn 3 - Score 6 - 2
cards - 15,22,35,45 - Secure objectives 2 and 5, defend objective 5, Supremacy
scored - 22,45, Warlord,
I continued to gain points with so decent cards, being able to secure objective 2 easily and also gained supremacy, I was unable to secure or defend objective 5 as my chimera tried to advance in to range but came up an inch short. In the rest of the turn I managed to eliminate the central ranger squad, with a combine firepower of a hell hound, chimera and Pask. This was mostly due to the fact that the hell hound didn't perform very well all game, hitting well below average all day.
Chimera on the right failing to take the objective in front of it
The Rangers behind the centeral building are eliminated
cards - 12,42,53,61 - Secure objective 2, Behind enemy lines, No prisoners, kingslayer
scored - 53(1),61(3),WL
This was a great turn for my opponent and really put him back in to the game, with a bit more luck he could have pulled in to the lead. His hard work targeting Pask paid off with the Warlord finally being destroyed, in addition the laser armed dune crawler made short work of the chimera near by, reducing it to molten slag in no time and in the resultant explosion the platoon commander was slain. This meant that he claimed warlord and kingslayer (for 3 points) but was also able to gain No Prisoners, although he only manage to roll a 1 for the points. In an effort to maximise the turns destruction he tried to charge in one of his Tech Priest Dominus, his own warlord as it happens, unfortunately out of all the overwatch that managed to hit, it was one of the Melta guns, which promptly incinerated the priest before he could charge.
Chimera.....
No chimera or platoon commander for that matter.
And now, no Tech Priest Dominus
Turn 4 - Score - 9 - 7
Cards - 15,35,44 - Secure objective 5, Defend objective 5, Mission Critical objective
scored - 15,35,44
At this point I was pretty confident that I could deal with what was left of the enemy forces or at least I could win the game, with only the two dune crawler, both of which were still on full health, a Tech Priest Dominus and a couple of sniper armed rangers on the board, he was going to struggle to compete on maelstrom points. I decided to focus on eliminating the last of the rangers, doing so with the LRBT, which also fired at the front dune crawler, chipping off a couple of wounds. The vet squad that had been dumped out of its chimera, went after the rear dune crawler, destroying it easily with their three melta guns. I was also lucky with the cards, with the melta vets easily being able to secure and defend objective 5 this turn and the hell hound sprinted back to get the Mission critical Objective, which turned out to be objective 4 in my deployment zone.
Mopping up operations
Cards - 12,25,36 - Secure objective 2 and 5, defend objective 6
scored - none
With only two units (for a total of 2 models) on the board, it was going to be hard for my opponent to do much. The cards were not easy, as I held all the objectives in question. So he decided on a bit of a risky strategy and targeted the chimera with the dune crawler before charging in and also performing the same tactic with the Tech Priest on the vets. This time the Priest didn't take a melta gun to the face, in fact he managed to get in completely unharmed. Both combats resulted in dead lock, the priest did manage to take out a couple of vets, but with the commissar around, they weren't going anywhere.
Last stand of the Mechanicus
Turn 5 - Score 12 - 7
cards - 26,51 - Secure objective 6, overwhelming firepower
scored - 26,51
Now there was little that I really could do this turn. As it happens, the commissare that I dropped off at the start of turn 2 finally came in handy as he had been sitting on objective 6 for 4 turns, doing nothing, but now he picked up an easy point. The vets were locked in combat and could probably hold their own with the commissars help, but the chimera was not going to cut it in combat with the dune crawler, so I decided to disembark the vets and then the chimera fell back from combat. Now we couldn't find anything to say that this wasn't allowed or that the vets then couldn't shoot, I might have missed something in the rules, but its sounds fair to me. Anyway, the vets jumped out and supercharged their plasma guns, on the orders of the platoon commander that is, and as a result, the Dune Crawler was vaporised in a giant ball of plasma. On the other side to the field, the commissar charged in to the Priest, striking hard and doing damage, to which the vets added, finishing off the Tech Priest and with him, my opponents army.
Now you see it
Now you don't. The tech Priest can just be seen before his demise at the hands of the vets.
And with the death of the Tech Priest the game ended. Although I managed to table my opponent, on the maelstrom points I was also in front, with the points being 14 to 7 at the end game. If my opponent had managed to last until the end of the game, with only two cards available, being two from the three objective cards he had, he could not have made up the 7 point deficit. I think the only real game changer would have been if the vets could not have fired after getting out of their chimera before it fell back from combat, as the dune crawler would have survived to the end of the game.
From my perspective I think that I played the game pretty well, I did forget about the tank orders at the beginning and by the time I did remember it was a little late as Pask was dead. The list performed well though and I was surprised just how resilient vehicles have become these days, they really are strong and durable, just like they should have always been. Although I still think that some of the rules around cover are far to over simplified.
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