It's still Easter, so the games are running in full spate!
Tonight, it's the Inquisition trying to cause trouble on Drawbridge. Imperial fights Imperial as I, Kraken, send the Adeptus Custodes against the Mantis Warriors under Captain Pootle (in bold). Who's got the best genetic enhancements? Let's find out!
Lion Down
Everyone expects the Inquisition these days (I certainly did so I'm on the back foot immediately!), so I'm sending Custodes instead. If they can't teach the incompetents running Drawbridge security a thing or two about enforced compliance, nobody can.
Lions of the Emperor rewards my troops for splitting up and taking on impossible odds. Given that's what they have to do anyway, it seems like a decent choice! I'm going to have to split up the army and start with a max of three units on the ground, so the rest will have to be able to get into the middle fast one way or another.
Luckily, the Goldilockers are pretty good at that. I'll have to hope that my invulns hold on long enough for the cavalry to arrive, but chewing through a bunch of double-supermen isn't going to be easy for the Marines, and woe betide them if they get close enough for me to engage!
Drawbridge Pardners
- Shield Captain on Dawneagle Jetbike, Warlord with salvo launcher and Admonimortis (+3S, extra AP and D on his spear) relic
- Blade Champion, Superior Creation (comes back to life on a 2+ first time he dies)
- 4 Custodian Guard, 2 with spears, 1 with blade/shield, one with Vexilla/shield
- 3 Allarus Custodians, axes
- 4 Custodian Wardens, spears
- 2 Vertus Praetors, salvo launchers
990 points, no internet points for me.
Mantilly Lace
Interesting! Pootle seems to have gone for something of a mirror of what I've taken, a fast-moving elite assault strike force. Only he's got points over for a Land Raider...
Yep, I've not played this new mission but have read Kraken's reports from his previous games and it seems to me that mobility could be really important in being able to grab objectives at the requisite time. The Mantis Warriors will (obviously) be using the Stormlance detachment so they can advance and charge. The whole list is pretty mobile, with the Bladeguard and Intercessors (plus their leaders) being able to ride in the Land Raider.
- Captain on Bike (Warlord) with Fury of the Storm enhancement leading 6 Outriders
- Lieutenant with storm shield and power weapon leading 3 Bladeguard Veterans
- Judiciar leading 5 Assault Intercessors
- 3 Inceptors w. assault bolters
- Land Raider Classic
- Land Speeder Typhoon
1,000 points on the nose
Mission and deployment
This is Planetary Assault, the mission from the campaign pack a few months back. Because I've not re-read the rules properly, we're playing it back to front, so the scoring goes
- Defender scores 15 for each objective held at the end of turns 3 and 5
- Attacker scores 5 for one, two, three and more at the end of each turn
This makes just as much sense in the game (the Attacker should be trying to hold their beachhead), but skews the gameplay. Instead of forcing the Defender to dash in and reclaim their turf, they could hang back and shoot the Attacker away. Luckily, Pootle's army is not here for gunplay, so it doesn't really make much odds!
We're in a shattered industrial complex; the Twist (which both of us completely forget about) would have been that once per game, each of us could give a unit on an objective Sustained Hits 3 and Hazardous as they use up extra heaps of Drawbridge's surplus bullets. Pootle wasn't on objectives while shooting, and I wouldn't dare risk the hazard rolls with so few troops, so no great loss!
Pootle has to set up first, and picks the two corners to the East.
I set up my Party Bus in the south east, slightly screened by a ruin but ready to roll forwards towards the centre. The rest of my army goes in the north east. The Bikes are ready to scream forwards and are flanked by the Inceptors and Land Speeder.
I'm very wise and decide not to try and sit on the objective near the Land Raider. The Bike Captain and the Praetors have gained Deep Strike as a special mission bonus, so they're up in the sky. The Allarus take the far point, the other two units hunker down over the northern objective and prepare to repel boarders.
That leaves us like this:
I get first turn! Hurrah! D'oh - I think I could really have done with first turn... now I risk getting jumped on instead of doing the jumping.
Custodes: turn 1
The key thing to try and do here is kill as many bikes as possible before they hit me, so the Blade Champion takes the Wardens romping north. He can give them advance and charge once a game, and I do that straight away, but roll a stinking one for it.
I spend a CP on Windswift Evasion to move the Bikers a further 6" away from the Wardens - the Inceptors are toast, but I want to protect the Bikers as much as possible.
Bah! With a decent advance roll, I might still have been able to hit the Bikers. Toasting the Inceptors is a poor second best, even if I do like toast.
In the centre, the Guardians go into the ruin and the Allarus hide behind it. That Land Raider has four lascannons too many, I want none of it. Not quite max points - 15 is a good start, but I've spread myself out a bit much (in order to get my detachment rule working), so I didn't get all three objectives.
Mantis Warriors: turn 1
It's pretty clear that I need to make the Wardens my Oath of Moment target, though I'm painfully aware that the Blade Champion will resurrect on a 2+ thanks to his enhancement.
In the south, the Land Raider rolls forwards and aims all its weaponry at the Custodian Guard. Even without Oath I'm hopeful I can take one or two down, but in the end I don't cause a single wound. Gulp!
 |
| Is that a Cantabrian Circle? |
Fortunately, it's a different story in the north. The Bikers surround the Wardens and unleash a hail of Bolter fire, supported by the Land Speeder. Kraken pops the Wardens' once-per-battle 4+++ but he still loses a couple. Then the Bikes crash into them and, because they've charged and their Chainswords are now damage 2, manage to kill the lot of them.
The Champion uses his Precision ability to try to kill my Captain, but doesn't quite manage it, reducing him to only one wound (thankfully he'd taken a Relic Shield, boosting him from 6 to 7 wounds, which saved his bacon).
Typically, I then roll a one when it's time to resurrect the Champion. Dead means dead, apparently, which is a bit of a blow - he could have finished that Captain off otherwise!
Custodes: turn 2
The Land Raider is in the perfect place to ambush - the mission lets me deep strike onto points 6" away from the enemy, and as long as I'm totally on the objective, I can still charge. That's what the Shield Captain does, and his Praetor pals drop down on the Western objective to help with shots as the Guardians trot towards the Outriders, determined to paste them.
Once again, I spend a CP on Windswift Evasion to move the Bikers 6" away from the Guardians. They were 8" away already so I considered about moving the Speeder and hoping the Guardians failed an 8" charge, but as I've not lost any models yet I'm prepared to sacrifice the Speeder and protect the Bikers.
Sure enough, that's what happens - the Outriders are now more than 12" away, so cursing I blat the Speeder out of the sky and then retreat to the objective irritably.
All my shooting is for naught as well! Pootle drops both Smoke and Armour of Contempt on the Raider, and it shrugs off all the Salvo fire the Praetors can muster. The Blade Captain rams the back of it, whiffs his attacks fairly poorly and fails to even scratch the damn tank. Pootle makes pinging noises as the bounces off it, and then somehow backs the tank over my toes so I lose a wound. Have I really taken Custodes here, or are these just Chaos Cultists stacked three-deep in a suit of mail? At least he can run away to try and save face, so that's what he does.
 |
| A big boy did nothing and then ran away. |
Mantis Warriors: turn 2
Oath of Moment is on the Guardians this turn as I feel that the Bikes need the assistance more than the Land Raider (it's been resilient as hell, but I could do with it actually killing something this turn). Accordingly, the Bikes move through the gap in the ruins towards the Guardians and pepper them with (rather effective) Bolter fire. Kraken spends a CP to move them away from the Bikes to lengthen the charge, but only manages to add 3". When the Bikes do successfully charge then (just) manage to kill every one of them. That's really impressive from them.
They are at least Defiant to the Last, and just before dying, one of the Guardians manages to jam his spear into the Captain hard enough to take out two and half bikers behind him. Boy, he must have been cross.
The Custodes Shield Captain had used his special ability to fall back from melee at the end of last turn (only captured in this turn's map as it would have looked really odd last turn), so the Land Raider moves forwards and aims its guns at the Praetors in front of it. I'm planning to ram the Bikers later in the turn as the Land Raider (OC5) will outscore the two Praetors (OC2 each) even if I don't shoot them to death.
I get two Lascannon hits through their invulns but manage to leave one on a couple of wounds. The obvious solution is to use Tank Shock to finish off the last Praetor and it works nicely.
Custodes: turn 3
Looking a bit short on the old materiel here, but I have to use what I've got. The Shield Captain zips back in behind the Land Raider, the Allarus shake their shoulders out - their time to shine.
Reader, they do not shine.
Between another set of dismal rolls and some decent armour work from Pootle, I do no damage with shooting. Armour of Contempt comes out again when the Allarus swing their axes, entirely blunting their best efforts, and all I manage is three wounds off from the Shield Captain. At least I get two objectives for my paints, so I've scored an entirely reasonable 15 points a turn!
Sadly, I rather suspect that's going to be all I'm scoring...
Mantis Warriors: turn 3
This is my scoring round, so the Bikers can rest easy in the North (they've achieved rather a lot) and claim me 15VPs for the north-east objective.
Meanwhile the Land Raider shoots all its guns at the Oath-of-Moment target Allarus Terminators. Assisted by Oath, I manage to kill both of them (after it's blip in the first turn, the Raider has done a sterling job).
Standing just in front of a Land Raider and knocking gently on the hull is apparently a poor life choice. Who knew?
The infantry have disembarked and both charge into the Shield Captain. The Judiciar and Assault Intercessors go first and take the enemy Warlord down to just three wounds. He then interrupts, but can only kill two of the Bladeguard. However, the Lt and remaining Bladeguard can't quite finish the job, leaving their opponent alive on just one wound.
Custodes: turn 4
It's short, it's sweet - the Shield Captain goes and butchers all the Outriders in revenge for his dead companions.
Except he doesn't even manage that! He misses his missile shot, flubs his attack rolls and just kills two of them, even after they try and run off again. This leaves one on the objective, which means it's tied.
I could really have left it there, but I'm so cross with his rubbish performance I force him to sit out the last round and take his lumps.
Mantis Warriors: turn 4
It's all over bar the shouting to be honest. I move all my units forwards to deal with the Shield Captain. The Land Raider can see the target, but the Lieutenant hurls some Grenades at him to end the battle.
Poof! They're all gone. Serves them right, the useless lunks.
Victory to the Mantis Warriors, 90:45
Locker Room
I thought beforehand that the game was unlikely to go the distance - one or other of us seemed likely to cause enough damage early on to be decisive in terms of ability to score VPs later.
Yep, both of us were quite able to wipe out enough of the other to cause whatever was left problems. In the event, it was me, and I'd like to thank my dice for their constant support throughout the years.
That does seem to me to characterise many games of 10th edition given so many units are just so powerful; my Outriders had 24 attacks at S5 AP-1 damage 2, even aside from the benefits of Oath of Moment. The Land Raider was always going to be a problem for Kraken to deal with, but the Bikes were definitely my MVP and I was happy to trade the Inceptors and Speeder for the chance to shoot and charge the Wardens and Guard one turn at a time.
It's a truth universally acknowledged that Custodes are really good as long as you don't fail your 4+ invulns a lot. I didn't struggle there, oddly, I fell down on causing damage and not rolling very well for advances or shooting. Accordingly, my MVP is also Pootle's Outriders, who outperformed my entire army by themselves.
Unfortunately it doesn't look like 11th edition is likely to change this power dynamic given current Codices will remain valid, but I do know that it's still possible to have close and exciting games by not pushing the lists to their maximum potential. Even this game remained fun despite the one-sided result.
Hard to know in advance, of course, but my suspicion is that the mix'n'match grid of objectives for games is likely to cause some nasty mismatches. Is it 'solvable' by tournament players, or will it lead to better narrative games, as it seems to be aiming to do? I hope so! Hard to get too excited about the new edition for a Grognard like me at the moment, though, especially when it's looking more like 10.5 than a full new rules shake-up.
In the meantime! Pootle has batted me away from Drawbridge. He sends my fleet in Disarray into the Vulnis Inferniis, where the Chaos Fleet has also fled...
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