A New Mantis: Mantis Warriors vs Tempestus Scions

The Mantis Warriors have strayed onto the private reserve of a planetary governor, searching for information on the whereabouts of an elusive foe. Tempestus Scions have been dispatched against them, racing to destroy the interlopers before they can ransack his data terminals.

Skype battle! And tonight Kasfunatu is taking the Mantis Warriors for their (and his) first foray into 9th Ed. I, Kraken, command the Tempestus Scions. Can I maintain the Mantis Warriors unbroken losing streak? Or will Kas finally beat the Mantis Challenge?

Mantrap

Kas is a stranger to 9th, so I've done both lists before he's blind picked which side to command. 

The Mantis Challenge is a thing I made up last ed - this team of green meanies haven't beaten anyone, ever. This is partly through the models I've got, which are a rather underpowered and mismatched selection of Tac marines, Primaris characters and transports. 

And the huge bike squad, which is quite good! Surprisingly frail, though, although that's mostly just a sign of how much ammo gets slung at them. Today, thanks to my maths problems, there is one more bike in the squad than I actually own, so one of them is riding invisibly at the back. 

Otherwise, it's the usual suspects. A big Tac squad and two small, sniper Intercessors, Gravis Captain and Librarian. Then a Rhino to make the Primaris guys feel left out, and a Land Speeder Typhoon for fire support. 

Battalion Detachment - Mantis Warriors, 1000 Points

• HQ - Gravis Captain, Warlord with Chogorian Storm
• HQ - Primaris Librarian with Lightning Storm and Spirits of Chogoris powers
• Troops - 10 x Tactical Marines, plasma gun, missile launcher
• Troops - 5 x Tactical Marines, heavy bolter
• Troops - 5 x Tactical Marines, Flamer and a Sarge with power fist and plasma pistol
• Troops - 5 x Intercessors with Stalker Bolt Rifles
• Fast Attack - 7 x Bikers, including a plasma and melta gun and a Thunder Hammer for sarge, plus an Attack Bike with heavy bolter
• Dedicated Transport - Rhino with storm bolter

Where Eagles Dare

Facing this team of armoured ground pounders is a pretty standard Tempestus list for me. Three large Scion squads armed to the teeth with special weapons, today fielded as the Kappic Eagles. Hit bonus on the turn they get out of a car, and they ignore movement penalties for shooting. 

And they're pretty mobile! Two Taurox Primes and a Valkyrie, and Badger is packing the Master Vox trait today, so he can bark orders from inside transports. Joining him in the Valkyrie will be a Bullgryn squad, hungry for Primaris blood, a Commissar Lord to boost the troops and a techpriest to keep the engines running. 

Finally, a Primaris Psyker to use up spare points. Fast and shooty, I should be able to blast marines off objectives and then move in to secure once they're dead. 

Battalion Detachment - Tempestus Scions, 998 Points

• HQ - Tempestus Prime with command rod and power fist, Master Vox trait
• HQ - Commissar Lord with The Emperor's Benediction and power fist
• HQ - Primaris Psyker with Nightshroud 
• Troops - 10 x Scions inc. 4 Hotshot Volley Guns, vox, chainsword and bolt pistol for Tempestor
• Troops - 10 x Scions inc. 3 Plasma Guns, a Flamer, vox, chainsword and bolt pistol for Tempestor
• Troops - 10 x Scions inc. 2 Melta Guns, a grenade launcher, power sword and plasma pistol for Sarge
• Elites - Techpriest Enginseer
• Elites - 3 x Bullgryns, all with bullgryn mauls, 2 slabshields and one brute shield
• Dedicated Transport - Taurox Prime with Taurox Battlecannon, storm bolter, twin autocannons
• Dedicated Transport - Taurox Prime with Taurox Gatling Gun, storm bolter, twin hotshot volley guns
• Dedicated Transport - Valkyrie with 2 heavy bolters, lascannon and twin multiple rocket pods

Mission and Terrain

Snowy ruins tonight, a 4x4 field of ruins and roads. All these ruins have Scalable, Breachable, Light and Hard Cover keywords, so they're great cover for infantry but bikes and vehicles will have to stick to the roads. The four largest bits (the towers and skull mountain) also have Obscuring, so there's a bit of LOS breaking cover across the middle. 

We're playing Centre Ground, an Incursion mission. Diagonal deployments stretching from the middle to the corner, and a zigzag chain of objectives to try and claim as the primary.

For secondaries, I'm taking

• Linebreaker - I'm fast and mobile and should be able to get there
• Attrition - make sure I kill more of them in a round than me
• Centre Ground - the mission-specific one. Infantry can perform this action on either of the two central objectives, missing their turn to get you 3 points on your next command phase if they're still there, or 5 if you hold both. 

Kas picks out

• Slay the Warlord - tried and trusted
• Thin Their Ranks - every ten of mine (or one tank) gets a point. Good pick against my numbers
• Centre Ground - as above

Deployment

I end up attacking, so Kas picks the side nearest the camera and I deploy first. 

Without knowing quite where he'll be, I decide to split the teams. One Scion pack with meltas in deepstrike, the others take a Taurox each, and the command elements hide in the Valkyrie at the back, Bullgryns squeezed in with them. Only the Primaris Psyker stays on the floor, hidden behind a Taurox, in case I need powers or denies. 

Those two Tauroxes take one side each, ready to race out and plant boots on the objectives, and the Valkyrie hovers behind. 

Kas spends 2 CPs to put his Gravis Captain and Intercessors in Reserve, which is alarming! They could ambush from the sides later, I'll have to watch for that. Otherwise, he matches my deployment, with bikes and Rhino (containing both small Tac squads) facing my Battlecannon Taurox, and Librarian, large Tac Squad and Land Speeder hidden in the ruins opposite the Gatling tank. 

Kas goes first!

Mantis Turn 1

Off they storm, with the Bike pack roaring off into the side streets ahead. Their huge advance puts them squarely on the objective near the Tempestus line.

The combination of the army trait (can advance and assault) and strategem allowing bikes to advance and still shoot was tasty and well worth it. So with a 20" move (no rolling advance for the bikes) I could get nicely into the Taurox grill (and still claim the objective).

The Rhino drops one Tac squad off to race up the steps to the nearby objective, then keeps trucking forward towards the middle. 

On the south flank, the Tacs advance to claim the objective along with their Librarian, and the Land Speeder nips into the street to start shooting.

I knew I was trading shots for cover, and so only a handful of the troops were going to get shots off, but felt more comfort inside the ruins and holding the objective.

No psychics, the Librarian is out of range, so it's straight to shooting. Here, the bikers use the Hunter's Fusillade strat to open up with all their guns on the Taurox. The tank is rocked badly by this, right down to four wounds. It's a similar picture to the south, where Typhoon missiles rip half the Gatling Taurox away. 

Then the bikers follow through with a charge. Only three can actually tag the tank, which retaliates with Defensive Gunners and Overwatch, killing that pesky invisible biker before anyone forgets about him. But one of those three is the hammer-wielding sarge, which is worrysome. 

In the event, it's a whiff, and the Taurox lives on a single wound. But Kas now has three of the four objectives firmly controlled, so I'm going to have to work hard to shift him!

Objectives scored: 0

Lampreys Turn 1

The Gatling Taurox heads onto the nearest objective, then tapes its doors back on with the Jury Rigging strat. Overhead, the Valkyrie screams past, dropping the Bullgryns and Commissar Lord behind it for a possible charge, but it drops them a bit hard and one of the Bullgryns goes pop on impact. 

The Battlecannon Taurox has autocannons! So it might just kill a bike or two, and stays in combat where it can keep shooting. The passengers all leap out, though, and train their guns on the marines ahead. 

After sticking Nightshoud on the Gatling Taurox, I get to firing. It's not great, really. Although the Battlecannon tank manages a pretty decent round of shooting despite being very battered, the Attack Bike soaks the three wounds. And then I realise that of course, I can't shoot the nearby plasma Scions into combat! While I'm being dopey, I also forget to issue orders for them, so their shooting merely bounces off the marines in the middle. 

The Valkyrie was going to try and snipe the Land Speeder, but it's behind a tower, so instead I settle for taking a mere two wounds off the Rhino and squandering my other shots on covered marines to limited avail. 

And the Gatling Taurox does nothing at all - the Land Speeder saves a couple of hits, the big Tac squad take a couple of casualties, and that's it. Much less than I needed! 

Worse, the Bullgryns fail their charge, even after a reroll. But the Commissar, in splendid form, makes it in alone. Not a clever move, although commendably plucky. He kills a lone marine before taking three wounds back. Then Battlecannon of course gets hammered, and disgraces itself by not exploding. 

This is not a good start. 

Objectives scored:0

Mantis Turn 2

It's a pretty target rich environment for the Mantis Warriors, and they certainly make the most of it. More Tac marines pour out of the Rhino, surrounding the Gatling Taurox on all sides along with the Land Speeder. The Librarian moves into the street and readies his powers - my Psyker stops the smite, but Lightning Storm hits the Gatling tank hard for five wounds. 

These new Tac Marines then torch the Psyker, then as the Land Speeder finishes the tank with missiles (and rerolled damage), they fall in behind the charging Rhino against the reeling occupants as they stagger clear. This turns into a bit of a stalemate, luckily, the Scions have decent armour, and I even pull one marine down in return. Even though the Land Speeder also charges in, I'm holding the objectives with five troops to four by the end, and spend two CPs to keep them there. 

The Bikers open up with all they've got, then drive happily over the two survivors, leaving nothing standing and retaking the objective. All that bolter fire in Tactical Doctrine is extremely punishing!

The Commissar Lord does his best, crushing another Marine, but that's it, he's shot his bolt. The others gun him down at the foot of the ruin. 

Worst of all, though, is that I've gone and walked right into the Mantis Warriors' trap. Their reserves arrive right next to the Bullgryns, and after a round of heavy bolt rifle fire, the Gravis Captain murders the rest of the hapless humanoids with a vicious charge. Nine attacks with Chogorian storm? Yikes. That failed charge has really cost me!

And the new reserve rules work nicely.

Objectives scored: Primaries for 10

Lampreys Turn 2

The North side is a wash, clearly, but I could still take the south back. So the Valkyrie goes into a fire support hover and the grav chute melta squad drops in, ambushing the Primaris Librarian. Because he's out in the road to do smiting, he's also left a bit exposed, and the meltas duly claim him.

I guess that's fair game. I had incorrectly, or perhaps hopefully, thought that the reserves rules had changed the mission as a whole, and had not considered a troop dropping in like normal (I was expecting from table edge). 

Then between orders and concentrated fire from the Scions and the Valkyrie, I take his Tac marines down to four, whilst fixing bayonets on the contested objective and killing another Tactical marine there. 

But then that's kind of it, I'm already rather short of bodies! The battle on that central objective starts swinging away from me, I lose three men, but they pass morale. Unlike the large Tactical squad, who fail theirs even after And They Shall Know No Fear gives them a reroll. Two more of them run. Good news!

Objectives scored: Primaries for 5

Mantis Turn 3

Although quite a lot of the Marines are now left out of position, they're all pretty fast. The Bikers zoom back towards the action and unleash another Fusillade on the Valkyrie, who rides its armour and shrugs it all off. 

The squad on the Northern objective starts their action, hunkering down and fiddling with the data terminal there, as the Intercessors and Captain plink a few wounds off the big gunship. Down south, the Land Speeder stays in combat and shoots away another Scion, then the Tac Marines kill the last one. 

The plasma gunner from the big Tac squad blows himself up trying to hurt the Valkyrie, but that's really the only good news for the Scions this turn. The Mantis Warriors have full control of this board, and I'm rapidly running out of any way of shifting them. 

Objectives scored: Primaries for 15

Lampreys Turn 3 

My surviving squad darts through the trees to the south, closing in on the centre, and the Valkyrie sweeps through to cover them. Even with orders to Take Aim, it's a frustrating round of shooting that leaves the Land Speeder teetering on a single wound, and doesn't quite finish the Tactical Squad either.

Those Marines on the north need to die before they achieve their purpose, but the extra armour from cover proves too much for the Valkyrie's guns. Double one for rockets doesn't help either! A single marine dies, then the Land Speeder miraculously saves a lascannon shot. Gah! 

Before the Valkyrie sweeps in, though, it dropped the Techpriest off, and he charges the surviving Sarge of the Tacs. Big mistake - it's Assault Doctrine, and I only manage to shed wounds against the boosted marine. That's, oo let's see... no points to me this turn!

Objectives scored: 0

Mantis Turn 4

Still bossing the territory, the Mantis Warriors sweep towards me with that huge bike pack. Although wounded, the Land Speeder still slams a pair of missiles home into the big flyer as the Intercessors keep trying to pick the pilot out of his cockpit, but I mostly save the incoming damage. Same for the torrent of fire from the bikes, and I'm lucky in that their melta guy is at the back where he can't reach. That doesn't stop the bikers, though, they go revving into combat!

Thankfully, this is a huge whiff. A single Thunder Hammer strikes the hull, whacking off four wounds, but I'm alive!

A few other casualties from bolter fire into the Scions, but the woods (which are counting as ruins right now) mostly save me from death. But the Tac Marines to the North have achieved their mission once, and are starting it again. The Techpriest and Tac Sarge struggle on against each other, but the game is running waaaaay out of my control!

Objectives scored: Primaries for 15, Centre Ground for 5

Lampreys Turn 4

The Valkyrie turns and runs, although it barks orders as it leaves and the Scions line up in firing ranks. At this range, First Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire means their hotshot guns get a lot of shots, and I'm hopeful that I can put in some good work. 

No, I can't! I do kill a bike and a half, but that's really not going to slow them down, and although I'd considered the charge in, I bottle it in the end. The Valkyrie, which has pulled out of combat, can't fire, and can merely watch as the Techpriest is stabbed to death by his Tactical opponent. It's another flatline of a turn, and the writing is clearly on the wall. 

Objectives scored: 0

Mantis Turn 5

There's not much left to kill, but the Marines carry on their good work. A few more Scions die in the woods to the bikes, who at least can't charge them, and then some rather splendid bolter fire from the Tactical Squad on the wall manages to take the last few wounds of the Valkyrie after all the heavy guns fail. Boom!

The last Flamer marine charges into the woods, where the Bikes and Rhino can't go. He gets shredded by overwatch for his temerity, but that's probably the last kill I'll manage. 

Objectives scored: Primaries for 15, Centre Ground for 5

Lampreys Turn 5

The last few Scions rush back towards the Mantis deployment zone as I belatedly remember what I'm supposed to be doing, but they don't get far enough for the whole unit to make it. Badger watches them, wondering where everyone has gone. 

Oh dear. 

"Hello? Everyone?"

Objectives scored: Nope

End Game Objectives Scored: Thin Their Ranks for 6

Result: 71:5 to the Mantis Warriors!

Locker Room

Well, good to know you can still whomp your opponent in 9th Ed! 

The smaller board really helped the bikers here, who put in some smashing work. And being able to camp on lots of objectives plays very well to Tactical Marines, who are hard to remove from cover and seemed to be everywhere throughout the game. It's grand to see the Mantis Warriors finally do well, so hats off to Kas, who also wins something nice to add to one of his home armies once I get it sorted. He's cracked the Mantis Challenge!

ooh! exciting, I thought it was just a metaphorical prize.

For my part, shame on me! Been a while since I played as Scions, and I'd forgotten a lot in that time. 

First off - keep them together and keep their fire focussed. If I'd deployed both tanks together (and in cover!), I'd have been able to spread out later if I needed to while taking down nearby targets faster. 

Second, don't leave your tanks in combat without good cause! The fire from a banged-up Taurox was never going to outperform, say, three overcharged plasma guns with reroll orders at close range. Or a barrage of krak grenades. Or souped-up hotshot gun fire, another strat I could/should have used there. 

Third, watch the flanks! I walked my Ogryns right into that ambush. If they'd stayed in the Valkyrie for another turn instead, they'd probably have been able to pull a guaranteed charge the turn after, and that would have made a huge difference to the game. 

On the flip side of that, I thought Kas was spending more CPs than he needed on reserving the Grav Captain. But it got him exactly where he needed to be much faster than foot slogging. The new reserves rule is certainly going to be very useful for a lot of units!

I really liked that option, and as they could not get into a transport, they were the contenders. They perhaps weren't the natural pairing (heavy bolter single shot and a close combat commander) but I would do the same again.

The large bike squad was effective especially coupled with the White Scars trait and strategems.

Also worth noting is how much better Valkyries and Land Speeders are now they can shoot without the heavy weapons penalty. They feel much more mobile and dangerous, it's a good change. 

Well - my dice rolling is certainly much improved from 8th Ed. Alas, that means I can't blame it for this defeat. Or either of the other two so far! Three for zero? Better get my game face on for next time!

As my first game of 9th: I really liked some of the changes; some for speed and some for tactical reasons.

The potential asymmetric victory point conditions added a great dimension to the game; and the change in overwatch (something I thought was a problem before playing) I thought was a good move - in the game I fired overwatch once, and Kraken: three times. I also liked the steady CP growth. Other little things just helped speed up and/or solved some ambiguities.

I am very much ready for my next game of 9th; in fact Kraken and I will be checking in on the internal politics of one of my forces in the coming week.