So the game itself! As you can see from the photos below, there was a lot of terrain on the tables and there was a real cities of death feel to it, my opponent did really a fabulous job on the table. As I said, we went for the city of death option from the rule book, which with a tank heavy army and a superheavy!
Some views of the table
This was actually pre-deployment, the units have just been dumped down on the table.
The main street
My opponents view of the battlefield.
The guard lined up ready to deploy.
The GSC ready to hide.
Some deployment photos.
The thin green line, screening the tanks.
The guard deployed. The Valkyrie is actually part of the scenery but it did help to create a cool narative.
GSC post their deployment? Each genestealer represents a 'blip' counter or a unit, only the two sentinels are actually deployed as is.
After the big reveal! Traitor guard and GSC units everywhere!
The Valkyrie.
The Valkyrie was actually part of the terrain and it's placement was completely random, however, once the deployment zones has been decided it became clear that it would make a cool focal point for the game. Sitting at the centre of the guard lines, a story quickly developed. A downed Valkyrie, carrying vital supplies in danger of being captured by the forces of the four armed Emperor and used against the forces of the imperium. As such a force of astra militarum have been deployed to secure the cargo, unfortunately they may not be the best forces for the job, manoeuvring their heavy vehicles through the narrow streets of the city.
Turn 1
Turn one was pretty quiet. The GSC moved up to get in range of the guard and took some pot shots, doing very little damage to the vehicles, knocking out some of the infantry squads but failing to score first blood.
The tanks remain but the thing green line got a little bit thinner.
In reply the tanks selected their targets and opened up, doing some damage to the enemy, including scoring first blood and setting themselves up nicely for turn 2.
Some holes start to appear in the GSC lines.
Turn 2
After settling in nice, things take a turn for the worse. The psychic might of the brood reaches out and drives the crew of the Hellhammer in to a frenzy and guns blaze in all directions! Yeah, not fun having a unit turned upon yourself, especially when it's a super heavy! It's a bit of a strange rule this, as it states that it can shoot as if the shooting phase, so all of its guns, or make 1 close combat attack if it's in combat, just 1! Why can it shoot all its guns as per the shooting phase but only make 1 attack and not just attack as if the fight phase? Anyway, the hellhound killed a chunk of my army including my warlord! That's what a Hellhammer cannon to the face will do! Apart from that though not a lot happened.
Hellhammer cannon to the face!
In reply I gunned down a chunk more of the army, keeping a good gap between me and the GSC units or so I thought anyway.
Turn 3
I had been kind of concentrating on the closer units in addition to those that I thought would be most dangerous, which is why I ignored the likes of the mortars, as they can't do much to leman Russ battle tanks. However, the whole genestealer advancing and charging thing crept up on me again, despite already knowing they could.
Genestealers knocking on the door.
Genestealers knocking on heaven's door
I played a couple (I think?) Of stratagems when my opponent tried to charge in 4 units to my Hellhammer. In total he charges a GSC unit, a blood brothers guard unit, a patriarch and a brood of genestealers. Unfortunately, the GSC and Guard units were bother destroyed, the guard unit actually failed there charge. The patriarch tries next and was wiped from the board, despite throwing a number of hits across to the genestealers next to it. The remaining genestealers were then dispatched with easy, after also failing there charge, with snake eyes, twice. 6 heavy Bolters, 2 lascannons, an autocannon, a Demolisher cannon, a Hellhammer cannon and of course the little lasgun out the back really can put out a hell of a lot of firepower, even on overwatch.
The clean up begins.
After the failed charges destroyed a chunk of the forward units and also killed off the warlord, the guard went about killing off the rest of the GSC units, finishing off a couple of sentinels and some of the more depleted infantry units, although the shooting was less than satisfactory this turn, with the Hellhammer failing to do as much damage as it should have.
By this point it was getting late, nearing midnight at a rapid rate so we decided to call it there. As the game stood, I had 2 objectives and contested a third, while my opponent controlled just 1. This meant that the scores were 8 (2 objectives, first blood, slay the warlord) to 5 (1 objective, slay the warlord, line breaker) in favour of the guard. However, we reasoned it out over the next two turns and it would have probably ended up a lot closer, something like 8 to 11 or 11 all, depending upon if my opponent could claim the final objective up on the top floor of one of the ruins. In fact, it may even have ended 14 to 8 or even 17 to 5 in favour of the GSC but only if my shooting had been terrible and he had a lot of luck with his shooting and advance rolls.
As it was we decided that it would likely have been 11 to 8 in favour of the cult, however, I would claim the moral victory for killing the patriarch and holding the Valkyrie crash site, even if I didn't hold enough actual objectives to win. It's a shame we didn't get to finish the game as it was shaping up to be a close finish but any later and the wife probably would have killed me!
