0010101100 Come All Ye Faithful: Thousand Sons vs Adeptus Mechanicus

The narrative campaign continues: The Hunt for Ahriman, Part III

Plasma streaked towards him over the dusty ground. There was nowhere to hide from it, no time to protect himself. Ahriman extended his will and with a terrible effort, tore apart the fabric of reality around him. 

The warp opened, and he fell in. 

Chapter 3: And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place

A few novelties for this battle. The most important one is, Kraken has absolutely no idea of what he's facing. I, Stylus, recently acquired a small painted army, and have brought it up to 1000pts in secret. He won't know what he's facing until the Skype camera turns on!

+++ cackles in binary +++

  The Prodigious Returned - Thousand Sons

This is terrifying. I'm going into battle, and I've got no idea what I'm going to be facing!

Now, a sensible man would take a generalist army. Something that can handle anything, a Swiss Army Army. As all of you know by now, I am not remotely sensible. 

Option two is therefore trying to out-think Stylus, guess what he's taking and come prepared. I know! I know how terrible an idea that sounds! I'm doomed! 

But he's obviously taking Daemons, so I'm loading accordingly. 

Ahriman is an auto-include for narrative purposes. I have to rescue him off the table, so a bodyguard of fast reaction Terminators and a Rhino to jump into, then a nippy Warlord with Warptime all feel like mission-accomplishing dudes. 

To hold the line and thin the tides, plenty of Rubrics with lots of nice hoard-thinning guns, and a pack of counter-striking Tzaangor who can pop out where I want them and then try and tar-pit the foe as the leadership escapes. The Tzaangor Enlightened are an afterthought, a way of mopping up the spare points (and they also look great). 

Foolproof, right? Nothing can possibly go wrong, those Daemons are doomed!

• Traducio - Exalted Sorcerer on Disc (HQ)(Warlord)
  Force Stave, Warpflame Pistol
  
  Psychic powers:  Death Hex, Warptime
  Warlord trait: High Magister
  Relic: Dark Matter Crystal
• Ahriman on foot (HQ)
  Black Staff of Ahriman, Inferno Bolt Pistol
  Psychic powers: Prescience, Temporal Manipulation, Weaver of Fates
• 10 x Rubric Marines (Troop)
  Force Stave, Inferno bolt pistol, 8 x Inferno Boltgun, 1 Soulreaper Cannon
  Psychic power: Temporal Manipulation
• 5 x Rubric Marines (Troop)
  Force Stave, Inferno bolt pistol, 4 x Inferno Boltgun, 1 x Warpflamer
  Psychic power: Glamour of Tzeentch
• 15 x Tzaangor (Troop)
  Brayhorn, Tzaangor blades
• 5 x Scarab Occult Terminators (Elite)
  Force Stave, 5 x Inferno Combi-Bolter, 4 x Power Sword, 1 x Heavy Warpflamer
  Psychic power: Weaver of Fates
• 3 x Tzaangor Enlightened (Fast)
  Fatecaster greatbow
• 1 x Chaos Rhino (Transport)
  Combi-bolter, Combi-flamer, Havoc launcher

Points: 998 | Level: 68 | Battle-forged + Battalion: 8 CPs

+++ Spoiler alert: I'm not playing Daemons.+++

The Logic Engine - Adeptus Mechanicus, Forge World Graia

By the Omnissiah, you get a lot for your points with AdMech!

Not much to decide here - this was everything I had, and I could get a double-battalion out of it, so plenty of command points to learn about my new stratagems.

In the spirit of learning, I took the two different weapon options on my two Dominus (let's see how they work out), and divided up my special weapons between my 25 Vanguard and 10 Rangers, all broken into squads of 5.

I also went a bit Omnispex-happy with the squads - not because I think they're worth it (on the sniper squad maybe), but Chapter Approved 2019 dropped even more points on these guys, so I had to scramble to spend more on them. At least cover saves aren't going to be a problem!

All the big guns went on my walking machines. I think I would prefer Dragoons to Ballistarii, but since the whole point of this new army is to teach me about shooting armies, it's probably best I don't have anything to charge into melee.

In terms of Forge World, I'm going to skip around until I find something I like. I originally went with Agrippina (because 5+ Overwatch is easy to remember, and I like their narrative) but that seemed a bit brutal, especially against Chaos.

So I went with Graia, who at least come with an anti-psyker stratagem, and I like the warlord trait that allows me to fire on my own guys in melee (just like The Purge - my troops love me)

• Calpurnia-114 - Tech-Priest Dominus (HQ)(Warlord)
  Omnissian Axe, Eradication Ray, Phosphor Serpenta
  Warlord Trait (Graia): Emotionless Clarity
• Plinius-296 - Tech-Priest Dominus (HQ)
  Omnissian Axe, Volkite Blaster, Macrostubber
  Relic: Autocaduceus of Arkhan Land
• Tech-Priest Enginseer (HQ)
  Laspistol, Omnissian Axe, Servo-arm
• Tech-Priest Enginseer (HQ)
  Laspistol, Omnissian Axe, Servo-arm
• 5 x Skitarii Rangers (Troops)
  3 x Galvanic Rifle, 2 x Transuranic Arquebus, Omnispex
• 5 x Skitarii Rangers (Troops)
  5 x Galvanic Rifle, Omnispex
• 5 x Skitarii Vanguard (Troops)
  Alpha: Radium Pistol, Taser Goad, 3 x Radium Carbines, 1 x Plasma Caliver, Omnispex
• 5 x Skitarii Vanguard (Troops)
  Alpha: Radium Pistol, Taser Goad, 3 x Radium Carbines, 1 x Plasma Caliver, Omnispex
• 5 x Skitarii Vanguard (Troops)
  4 x Radium Carbines, 1 x Plasma Caliver, Omnispex
• 5 x Skitarii Vanguard (Troops)
  Alpha: Arc Pistol, Arc Maul, 3 x Radium Carbines, 1 x Arc Rifle, Omnispex
• 5 x Skitarii Vanguard (Troops)
  5 x Radium Carbines, Omnispex
• 2 x Ironstrider Ballistarii (Fast)
  Broad Spectrum Data-tether, Twin Cognis Lascannon
• Onager Dunecrawler (Heavy)
  Broad Spectrum Data-tether, 2 x Cognis Heavy Stubber, Neutron Laser
• Onager Dunecrawler (Heavy)
  Broad Spectrum Data-tether, 2 x Cognis Heavy Stubber, Neutron Laser

Points: 992 | Level: 70 | Battle-forged + Battalion + Battalion: 13 CPs

Mission and Terrain

I recently read a Star Wars: Legion mission that I liked the design of. This will be a homebrew mission based on that. 

Ahriman is the sole Objective. I win by getting him into my backline and keeping him alive for a turn. If he dies, he turns into a Relic-style portable objective that either side can hang on to. If I get him out, I win. Otherwise, Stylus does. 

After narrowly fleeing the Space Wolves, Ahriman is escaping the Warp. My Sorcerer has done his cabalistic maths and plotted out where to find his master. The Ad Mech have detected some kind of Empyrical Anomaly and come to investigate without entirely knowing what it is.

There are three drop sites, just outside the forward edge of Stylus' Deployment Zone. I have picked one in advance, and Ahriman drops in on it at the end of my second movement phase. This gives me one turn to try and dummy the foe out of the way, although I very much doubt Stylus is going to be easily fooled!

Deployment

I get choice of edge and first deployment, and go for a hedgy kind of bet - Terminators and Tzaangor in the warp, ready to deep strike in, everything else in cover but keeping spread out. 

My list has a decent amount of speed, so I'm hoping to nip about and keep my actual objective confused for a turn.

With my congregation of Skitarii, it's no hardship to flood the entire length of the battlefield, and that's what I do: six squads are spread along (Rangers on the far left, Vanguard for the rest), while the sniper squad of Rangers sit on top of the cantina.

For heavy firepower, I put the two Dunecrawlers in the castle on the left, attended by my warlord, the other Dominus and Enginseer. The Ironstriders go over on the far right, looked after by my Demiurg Enginseer (same as a regular one, but this is how we'll tell them apart).

The plan is a simple one: flood the objectives with expendable troops, and lay waste with the big guns.

Thousand Sons - Turn 1

Traducio spoke the nine Words of Time backwards in a trance and the Rhino became a blurred shimmer of speed. 

The sorcerer's mind was mostly elsewhere, performing a complex algycadabric equation that would give him Ahriman's arrival point. The Machine Cultists were an unexpected problem. Their base on this world had been long abandoned, the generators and forges burnt out for long ages the last time anyone had checked. When had they resurfaced here? And why?

Nevertheless, Ahriman would not find himself back in reality without protection. If the Prodigious Returned had failed him as bodyguards once, they must not fail again. 

Misdirection and trickery were their strongest allies now. With a simple thought, Traducio sent the nearby Rubrics forward into cover. Elsewhere, the Tzaangor lurked, both behind the humming generators and folded behind the skin of reality where the imperial lackeys couldn't detect them. 

Ahriman would be here soon. And they'd all be gone before the mechanical fools could react.

A short and simple turn - hide! Easy enough to use Warptime to slingshot the Rhino towards the opposite corner of the central building, where it was out of Neutron Laser range. I popped smoke on it too, what with having slungshot it right into the range of all those lascannons. No easy choices here, though, I have to advance on my target, and there's no perfect hiding places here. 

The Enlightened are too fragile to leave out in the open, but fast enough to catch up later, I decided. This leaves me lurking centrally, not easily shot apart and ready to go in either direction. Which way will I go, Stylus? 

Adeptus Mechanicus - Turn 1

Tech-Priest Domina Calpurnia-114 narrowed the focus of her ocular lenses. The heretics had slipped into their blindside to the east. Some witchcraft, no doubt. The selfsame that had brought these traitors to this dormant installation.

As the Skitarii marched relentless forward to secure the field, Calpurnia sent a data-blurt to the Tech-Priest Demiurg, who was securing their right flank.

+++ Bring all guns to bear upon the heretic vehicle. Eradicate them. +++

Those sneaky Tzeentchians - half my gunline - including the Dunecrawlers - can't see anything! No matter, it's the objectives I want, and the four lascannons on my Ironstriders should be enough to crack a Rhino (must deny Ahriman his getaway car!), leaving the contents exposed to get mopped up by all that small-arms fire.

I move everything forward, then spend 2 CP on the Ironstriders for Protector Doctrina Imperative (+2 to hit) and Rage of the Machines (one of them can ignore the heavy weapon penalty). With the penalty from the Rhino's smoke launchers, that means one will be hitting on 2+, the other on 3+.

,,, and then they whiff! Four lascannon shots, and I only take off two wounds! I'm going to have to crack this Rhino the hard way.

Every bit of small-arms fire goes into the Rhino. I overcharge all the plasma calivers I have (losing one in the process) and open up with a barrage of radium carbines and transuranic arquebus. Luck swings back my way, and I destroy the vehicle with my very last shot.

One Rubric Marine is destroyed in the wreck, but I have no further shots to mop up the rest, so my turn is over.

Thousand Sons - Turn 2

Implacably, the Rubric marines advanced out of the blazing wreckage of the Rhino. 

It was like walking into a hurricane. The incoming hail of firepower was appalling, glowing streaks of radium-painted autofire spraying into their armour with a noise like deafening static. The blasts of lascannon and neutron laser left blue-black stripes across the sky where the eye shut down rather than acknowledge so much power. It seemed impossible that anything could face so much fire and live.

But so few of us really live now, Traducio thought to himself. And those of us who do, we know what true fire really is. 

Now, he thought, as his arcane equation resolved itself. His third eye opened and shone. 

A triple bulge in the walls of the Empyrean sent shockwaves rippling across the battlefield. Not one but three portals burn open, melting the real like snow. Tzaangor flocked out of one, whooping and wailing. The relentless forms of the Scarab Occult strode out of another, guns pouring warpfire ahead of them. 

And Ahriman spilled out of the third, there on the right flank, just as Traducio had calculated. 

The Tzaangor Enlightened swept past overhead, bows hurling crystal-tipped spearbolts into the clanking Mechanicus monstrosities. Traducio sent his own will out like a bow-wave, pushing Rubrics ahead of it like boats on a tide. They would swamp the foe, wash them away. 

Ahriman, meanwhile, could fend for himself. Let the master know his straits were dire before he was rescued. That way, he'd be all the more in their debt.

Hmm. Stylus hasn't really budged much from his original position, as I feared. Gunlines aren't reknowned for their mobility, as a rule, and this firewall is no exception!

However - Ahriman is currently out of Neutron Laser sight at least. The Scarabs blast off most of the nearest Vanguard squad, leaving the nearby Rangers as a handy hiding spot for Ahriman, who can probably deal with them in hand to hand. Not too well, hopefully, ideally the Scarabs will charge in to help and surround him. 

Not, of course, that this works out. Although I do a decent number of hits across the board, my firepower is too split to finish a single squad, although the Rubrics do total an Ironstrider with some help from the Enlightened. They take their own casualties as they charge some Rangers, and end up tied up in combat, unable to spill on to the last Strider (the map's not quite right there, the Vanguard were screening rather well) and unsupported by the Tzaangors, who fail the charge even on a reroll. 

"It's nice in here!"

Ahriman does so well at not wiping out his opponents in hand to hand, he even manages to get hurt by them! This after getting Perils earlier, losing three wounds and then getting them back with Temporal Manipulation. Dolt. 

Doesn't leave me in the strongest of positions, but there's still time - I'm sure a ruthless opponent could easily just shoot me to bits next turn, but Stylus is almost certainly too gentlemanly. I hope.

Adeptus Mechanicus - Turn 2

The arch-sorcerer! Calpurnia-114's neuro-cables sang with the realisation of the quarry that lay within their grasp. With such a prisoner, their Forge World would rise in the ascendancy of the Imperium, and all would be forgiven.

While her fellow Dominus, Plinius-296, directed the firepower that rained down upon the heretic forces, Calpurnia herself led a squad of Vanguard Skitarii to secure their prize.

But Ahriman proved just a wily as legends told. Every blow struck dissipated against his enchanted armour. Above the screech of their binaric psalms, Calpuria thought she could discern laughter...

There's Ahriman! And what do I do with my brand-new shooting army? Throw the warlord pell-mell into combat, that's what! The Domina rushes forward, backed up by a squad of Vanguard to save the Rangers and grab the Arch-Sorcerer.

Hurrah for Gentlemen Opponents!

While my Dunecrawlers' move to get an angle on the Terminators, the rest of my Skitarii sweep over to the right to screen my last Ironstrider and take care of the Tzaangor.



I gun down the Tzaangor Enlightened with all the foot troops, then plink off a couple of the infantry ones with the Dunecrawlers' heavy stubbers. The real treat is sniping a couple of wounds off the Exalted Sorcerer with my transuranic arquebus - you're not safe back there!

Boo! Not Cricket!

The good run in the shooting phase ends as my Neutron Lasers are blunted by the Terminators' invulnerable saves. Despite rolling a healthy number of shots, only one of them falls (and another winged by my Dominus' volkite blaster).

Undaunted, I charge into Ahriman, my warlord swinging wild strokes with my Omnissian Axe - though all-but one strike bounces off his invulnerable save! My foot troops have no better luck, and the arch-sorcerer remains standing on two wounds.

Thousand Sons - Turn 3

So many of the machine cult! Traducio knew he would have to hurry now. His hand slipped to the irregular shard of darkness at his belt. Clutching it, he twisted the crystal halves, and the world around him reconfigured. 

Now, the Rubrics were on the other side of the domed building, striding and shooting as though they had always been there. Tzaangor descended on the Ironstrider, hacking and cawing, and then Traducio lost sight of them as he was catapulted forwards by the riptide currents the Dark Matter Crystal caused.

There - he was amongst the foe, right where the spider-like Domina reared up against Ahriman. The great sorcerer was entirely undaunted. Blasted rangers lay scattered around him, he was flanked by the armoured hulls of the Scarab Occult.

"Pitiful," he said, his helmet broadcasting his warp-scorched voice so that it echoed. "Your minds have no nuances. You are trammeled by your logic." A gesture, and the Domina was engulfed by blinding black fires, a halo of negative light that etched runes into her mechanical shell. 

"I defy logic!" Ahriman shouted. The Scarabs butchered the Skitarii around them. Only one remained, lying on its back like a twitching beetle. Ahriman towered over him, his aura shimmering like a star. Traducio smiled. This could only end one way.

"I defy your attempts to stop me!" Ahriman thundered. "I defy the very GODS!"

The crumpled Ranger at his feet, terrified and malfunctioning, fired his taser goad less by design than accident. And more by accident than design, the sparking probe end lodged directly into Ahriman's third eye, discharging its entire battery right into the heretic's skull. 

Traducio gaped, and Ahriman fell.

Nooo!

A disaster of a turn. Although I moved all the pieces into position well enough, I couldn't manage to beat my oldest opponent, The Whiff. 

Ahriman somehow failed to kill or even hit the Domina in close combat, although I'd wounded her with smites. Stylus very sensibly used his Steel Mind, Iron Logic stratagem to stop me healing Ahriman with Temporal Manipulation, and this meant that when the Scarab Occult also failed to kill the Domina or the remaining Ranger, the bloody pair of them somehow managed to take Ahriman down!

My exalted sorcerer was in combat, but only with the screening Vanguard Stylus had brought in. They all died, but they saved the Domina from another fight. 

Elsewhere, the big Rubrics took off a feeble clutch of wounds from one of the Dunecrawlers, too little to slow it down even after I used Veterans of the Long War. And the Tzaangor ripped up another screen of Vanguard but couldn't pull down the Ballistarius, even losing two of their own to its lanky feet. 

And worse of all - that surviving taser sergeant from the Rangers was Troops, something I had none of nearby. Which meant he could secure the Objective Ahriman had now become! 

Adeptus Mechanicus - Turn 3

The Litany of the Electromancer had failed to bring down Ahriman, but the mettle of the Skitarius had proven stronger than any spell.

With another blurt of data, Calpurnia ordered all forces to fall back, and those remaining to give covering fire. The heretics had come for this prize, and would surely fight to retake it.

Ha! Ahriman is in my pocket, and now I just have to keep him there. The one surviving Ranger throws the sorcerer over his back and scrambles over the rocks, back to my own lines.

My Domina, who's had enough melee for the day, skitters in the opposite direction, and gets close enough to my gunline to repair some wounds on damaged Dunecrawler. So does the Tech-Priest Enginseer. So does the Dominus with the Autocaduceus of Arkhan Land relic, so the machine is now back to full strength!

(ohh ... it's right pain when all your hard work gets undone - I almost feel bad).

My remaining Ironstrider legs it, and the Tech-Priest Demiurg braves blocks the path of the Tzaangor (I don't think one model is much of a screen).

I also seem to be absent most of my infantry. So the half-strength Ranger squad I have remaining, falls back before the Rubrics, pumping the trigger of the plasma caliver, and picking one off as they do.

Shooting is better on the left flank, as my Dunecrawlers find their range, and utterly obliterate both the squad of Scarab Occult Terminators and the Exalted Sorcerer. No quick rescue for Ahriman now, although that does leave a full-strength Rubric squad untouched.

Thousand Sons - Turn 4

The heavy boots of the Rubrics were all around Traducio now. This is how I shall always see the world around Ahriman, he thought to himself. Staring up at the sky, wracked by agony and beset by foes.

The Domina was engulfed in warpfire. Even her steel carapace had limits, it seemed, and she staggered to several pneumatic knees under the barrage. Then the Rubrics were on her, the deathblow falling from their curved knives. 

They were a living wall, the Rubric Marines. A triumph of will over flesh that the Mechanicus would never comprehend, a final desire to conquer mortality beyond their stale, robotic understanding. The tech adepts might see flesh as an inconvenience, a frailty. But they would never relinquish it entirely, not truly. Like caterpillars trapped in their cocoons for eternity. 

Rubrics were souls evolved beyond that, butterflies in their own deathless way. Changed, made beautiful, transformed utterly at the cost of everything they had once been. No lackwit of the Empire would ever achieve a transfiguration so complete. 

And yet, the Rubrics were not enough.

This is very likely a losing battle - I can keep the Ironstriders tied up with a heap of Tzaangor but not finish them, so all that killing power is tied up. And tough as the Rubrics are, they really can't deal with heavy armour (oh, how I miss the versatility of a standard chaos marine equipment list here!), they're relatively tame in hand-to-hand (although take that, Domina!) and they're dreadfully slow.

Come back here with my Ahriman!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Turn 4

Plinius-296 was unmoved by the fall of his Tech-Priest Domina. She would be recovered, repaired, rebuilt. The only thought processing his cortex was to hold what the Forge World had taken.

The final waves of heretics were beating against their iron walls. But logic would prevail.

I decide the leave my Dunecrawler in combat with the Rubrics - they're not going to bring him down in a hurry, and while they're fighting, they're not chasing after Ahriman.

My last Vanguard with the plasma caliver (he's a bit of a hero, this one), falls out of combat with the other Rubric squad, and the Ironstrider backs away from the Tzaangors, leaving the Tech-Priest to face the music.

My other Tech-Priest runs to back up the Ranger to secure the objective that is Ahriman, just in case some psychic trickery connives to remove him from play.

I've got a fair few guns left, and only two Rubric Marines available to shoot at, so they don't last long.

In assault, I throw the Dominus into the fray against the Rubrics - because why not - although I don't think he manages to dent any of them.

Thousand Sons - Turn 5

They would not die. They would not accept defeat. Slipping away into the blackness, Traducio gave his Rubrics a final command - reclaim Ahriman. All else was dust. 

I'm locked into my course of action here - keep on plugging away and hope that the Onagers give enough that I can somehow squeeze through, then try and change the victory conditions retroactively and claim that being near Ahriman is somehow some form of chaos-favouring draw!

Realistically, there's no way for me to win this now, but I'm very much enjoying the fight all the same, so we keep playing for bragging rights. Can I bring down any more of those walkers?

Adeptus Mechanicus - Turn 5

+++ All machines. All stations. All guns. Annihilation protocol. +++

The prize is mine, now to see how many ducks I can knock down in this shooting gallery. Everyone who can fall back, does so. Everyone who can shoot, takes aim.

When the dust settles, only four Rubric Marines are left standing, as well as a flock of Tzaangors on the other end of the field, still chasing their chicken-legged cousin.

The field belongs to the followers of the Omnissiah!

Result: Victory for Adeptus Mechanicus!

+++ Are you now restored to function? +++

Calpurnia-114 detected a resonance of concern in Plinius-296's data-blurt. He had always been more clouded by emotion. It was why she commended The Logic Engine, not he.

She flexed her servos, hearing the reassuring click of mechadendrite appendages. Her physical attack upon the arch-sorcerer had not been the flare of passion, but a calculated risk. One that. as with all her calculations, yielded results.

+++ Where is the prisoner now? +++ she blurted.

+++ Sedated and nullified. We have already received transmission from the Wolves of Fenris. They want him back. +++

+++ Do they indeed? +++

+++ They were insistent. +++

Locker Room

That was fun! Quite sincerely - even though I failed the mission totally, it's always refreshing to take on a new enemy. A long time ago, one of our first 40K battles was AdMech against Thousand Sons, all heavily proxied back in that dark age. So it's great to get this done in glorious technicolour this time!

The mission might have been better on a longer field, somehow, more chance to send the foe the wrong way or exploit a slower enemy. But a 4x4 field usually suits a smaller battle, so that's where we'd gone.

Yes, I wondered about myself. But with the amount of long-range firepower I could bring to bear, I thought any bigger table might be a shooting gallery (more than it already was!)

Certainly, I did myself no favours by tooling for a lighter hoard army! I was missing the heavy weapons to really even attempt to finish an Onager, for example. My movement shenanigans were solid, at least, although I should really have put the Tzaangor on the other flank. Other than stopping crossfires from the Ironstriders, and the small Rubric squad could have done that, they were wasted points. 

But interesting - the vaunted firepower of the Ad Mech didn't really do as well as I feared against the heavy armour of the Rubrics. Neutron Lasers and Lascannon are all well and good, but can't pull infantry to bits terribly well. And the former seem rather swingy to me, those variable shots are a valuable weakness! Thank goodness, I really had nothing to stop them. That heavy flamer on the Scarabs should really have been the missile racks instead.

Agreed. They are cheap for big tanks, but the main gun leaves a lot to be desired (probably by designed). I might be tempted to try some conversion beamers for a greater output of shots.

In a different game, I could have swung this - the Mechanicus were stuck in their own deployment area almost all game, so I might have picked up Maelstrom objectives fairly easily. And this list melts to melee and (partially) small arms fire. I look forward to meeting them again, now that I've taken names and addresses!

After their first spin, I do like AdMech. It's always nice when an army matches the narrative and sending hordes of Skitarii to clog up the enemy and protect the big machines seems about right to me.

The humble Skitarius isn't too bad either - cheap enough to throw away, but with just enough bite that it can't be fully overlooked. Conversely, neither the Dunecrawlers nor Ironstriders blew me away (or anyone else for that matter) with their firepower. What they do have in their favour is staying power, and the capacity for my many tech-priests to keep topping up their wounds.

I did okay with the stratagems (not too hard when you have 13 CP!), but I failed completely with Canticles of the Omnissiah. As they activate at the start of the battle round (which was the start of Kraken's turn), I kept forgetting them. So that's something else to wrap my poor organic brain around.

I'm trying to avoid next purchases for the moment, but my next purchases for this lot would be some Kataphrons, to really amp up the firepower, and Infiltrators, because it would be nice if something could reach the enemy's deployment zone.

But for now, they'll remain a humble little side-army about which I have a lot to learn!