Spiked Guns: Crypt Angels vs Custodes

Just a quick report!

This was an online game Kas and I played a few days back, so nothing in the way of photos I'm afraid. It's the last action from this round of the Jimulthuan Campaign, and it was the Crypt Angels trying to shuck the last vestiges of Imperial control from their home system, Rylstone. 

I reckoned Custodes would probably be making an appearance for this. Who better to remind these marines of their loyalty to the throne? 

Custodes are apparently a meta threat on tournament tables at the moment. I don't know about that, but I took a bunch of stuff that Kas has that I don't - one of their scary hover tanks and a big Ted dread, along with a generalist detachment and one that helps dreadnoughts. Take and Hold for me!

2000 points, Might of the Morotoi and Shield Host

• 4 Custodian Guard (spears) led by Trajann Valoris
• 2 Allarus Custodians (spears) led by a Shield Captain (axe) with the Castellan's Mark (redeploy two units after deployment)
• 4 Custodian Wardens (spears) led by a Blade Champion
• 4 Prosecutors (hide at the back and defend the base)
• 2 Vertus Praetors (salvos) led by a Shield Captain (salvo, from the Hall of Armouries, a relic to give extra strength and damage in combat)
• 2 more Vertus Praetors (salvos)
• Caladius Grav-Tank with twin arachnus blaze cannon (anti-tank)
• Contemptor Achillus with twin adrathic destructors and Interred Expertise (reroll ones to hit)
• Telemon Heavy Dreadnought (accelerator culverin, caestus and win plasma projectors)

Kas was bringing what he described as a casual list (i.e. not tournament competitive standard). He went with Priority Assets, probably the keys to someone's car that they left on the last battlefield, and he gets an extra CP and a free relic from the state of play in Rylstone.

Reading through the list, I was thinking 'oh yeah, I see what he means, it's a skew list full of shooty tanks and not quite enough infantry' until I got to the last entry and choked on my coffee. 

2000 points, Fulguris Task Force and Headhunter Task Force

• Roboute Guilliman (he's ridonkulous)
• Techmarine (to fix and bump the tanks)
• 5 Vanguard Vets with shields
• 3 Eliminators (sniper rifles)
• 5 Scouts (missile luancher, sniper rifle)
• 3 Outriders
• Gladiator Lancer (tank ace and gunnery honours)
• Land Speeder
• Storm Speeder Hailstrike (the gatling one, strips cover, I think)
• Storm Speeder Hammerstrike (the melta one, gives extra ap - and with the other two speeders can do a first turn deep strike, so very good at picking off enemy armour assets early, although you generally lose them after that if you do, this one also has a Raptorial Cogitator Core to let it ignore cover)
• Whirlwind (tank ace, Redoubtable Machine Spirit to heal itself)
• Astraeus (the choke of moment - a superheavy artillery tank that can gun down heavy infantry for days. It's also a tank ace with Firestorm Coordinators to give all its guns sustained 1 aw jeez)

Mission/Deployment

We used the standard map. Kas has some very nice new 3D printed resin stuff to fit the templates - alas, there are still no photos, but it isn't painted yet and I'm enough of a paint nazi to refuse to show them even if there were. 

Take and Hold vs Priority Target gives you this:

which is pretty fitting for the narrative! The Crypt Angels are trying to secure their final assets for full control of the Rylstone system, and the Custodes are here to remind them that actually, no, they serve the Imperium. 

We even remembered the twist, which is that a failed Battleshock costs you a wound as well due to the weapons-grade Grimdark in the system. 

FIGHT!

Kas drew the short straw of first turn. Neither of us wanted to run out into the ruins where the opponents' guns could see them, but he doggedly sent the Vanguard Vets, Bikes and Scouts out into No Man's Land to tag objectives. His ubertanks lurked behind ruins at the back, and the big speeders stayed in Deep Strike. 

That was because I'd gone for a very defensive deployment - bikes and infantry on each wing, tanks and dreads either in reserve or hiding behind walls, so it would have been nearly impossible to target the big guns Kas wanted to get on turn one. All the same, I took casualties when the Whirlwind started bopping off Prosecutors. 

My first turn was to rush both flanks. I didn't want to be in the middle, because getting killed there would give the Crypt Angels bonus points. Instead, I murdered the baby Speeder and all the Vanguard Vets with a combined lucky charge from Wardens and Praetors. 

Turn two, well, it was goodbye bikes. Kas's guns rumbled into position and did horrible horrible things to my assets - double Oath from RG, plus denying cover and extra AP from the big speeders, and that before the Astraeus opened up? Yuk. I also lost the small Dreadnought. I didn't fancy my chances after that. 

But I was wrong! The dice went on to get heavily involved in the narrative. Somehow, even firing through cover, the Calladius managed to knock half the wounds off the Astraeus. Wardens and Allarus cleared the centre ground of Scouts and Eliminators, and that left Kas extremely short of boots on the ground. 

Turn three was the clincher, though. Tank Aces battled it out across the field, with the Astraeus pinpointing the Calladius in a cannon duel and the Lancer trying to take out the Telemon. Somehow, neither target died, and that left Kas in a very bad way. 

Guilliman did his best to beat up the Wardens, but fell to some sharp pokes from the Blade Captain and then failed to get back up. That saw the start of a swathe of cripplingly bad dice for Kas, who spent the next turn and a half hitting a 1.5 average on all his dice. The Calladius picked up the Astraeus with a second hot turn of shooting, Trajann and his Custodians clobbered the speeders and swept into the centre, and the only survivor of the whole sorry incident was the Whirlwind. 

It clung on to the bitter end, when the remaining Warden and the Blade Captain charged and killed it. It blew up, and since the Blade Captain was half-dead from Eliminator shots earlier and had also just failed Battleshock, killed both of them. 

Final score was about ninety-sixty. Losing all his troopers had meant Kas couldn't score much after turn three. We'd been neck and neck until then, but that shocker of a middle from his dice was pretty conclusive!

Well, lessons learned all round. I learned Custodes probably deserve their meta reputation, Kas will probably not bring a fluffy list against me next time and the Crypt Angels have learned the cost of defying the Lex Imperialis. That's all the games done for this Campaign round, the write-up is on its way!