White Scars vs Genestealer Cults 2000 pts 01/28/20

Another battle where the White Scars vied for supremacy with the Genestealer Cults! These are both appx 2,000 point forces. Mine came in at 1,995, exactly. It consisted of two battalion and one outrider detachments, for a total command point total of 14, 5 of which I spent on upgrades and promotions for units before the battle, leaving me 9 CP to play with. 

Said upgrades were for promote Veteran Intercessors, a Chief Librarian, a Master of Sanctity, to put a warlord trait (The Imperium's Sword) on the non-warlord (Gravis) captain, and to put Artificer Armour on my leftenant to give him better armor saves, including an 5+ invulnerable. The Khan on Bike was my warlord for this game.

The armies! 

We decided to randomly select from the standard set of ITC missions, and wound up taking the first one, which meant the table was set up like below. Then, I rolled for deployment from the standard in the core 40K book, and got Spearhead Assault, which meant we were once again playing the table lengthways. I was fine with that since our last game was that way, and I had come up with several things I might do to race across the board.

Below you can see how I deployed. The Genestealers were alternating with me, but they only put out blips until after I was finished, at which point the Basilisk tanks came out--three, though only two are caught here in the pic.

I had three objectives right off the bat, within my deployment zone. I put tactical squads on two; one to the left, and one just out of sight on the other side of the wall of the terrain piece on the right. The intercessor squad at the fore is on the third objective. The Predator tank is set up to see to the basilisks in his back field. The Land Raider has a squad of tactical marines within, and is set to rush out into the field in the first turn. The Stormraven gunship is at the back for now, keeping its options open, having been set down before any basilisks, which will be its first targets. You can also see some bikers and intercessors in the backfield to screen for deep-strikers. Character-wise, my Khan on Bike is over to the right with the Scout Bike Squad. My Chief Librarian is just behind them with the Veteran Intercessors (with auto bolt rifles). My Chaplain/Master of Sanctity is between the land raider and rearguard intercessors, my captain in Gravis is with the intercessors at the fore, and my lieutenant is with the tactical marines and predator by the left side objective. I had no reserves.

In my first movement phase, I flew the stormraven up so that it was 24" way from the basilisks. I moved, but did not advance, the land raider up and then played Lightning Debarkation to have the tactical marines hop out. They couldn't advance up to the objective though, because the blip there means they have to stay back 9" from it. I moved my Attack Bike up a little, not wanting to open my screen up too much, but wanting it to be within movement range of the middle objective so I could go up and shoot it's multi-melta on the next turn. Further over to the other side of table, my right, I moved my scout bikers and khan on bike up that side of the table, planning to then strike toward the middle or enemy deployment on the next turn.

Another view of the table after my first movement phase. For Psychic, no enemies were in range at all, so I buffed my scouts and khan on bikes.

At the end of my movement phase, the Genestealers have to de-blip, and either appear on the table or go into reserves via CP. The ones that come out onto the table are a lot of mortar teams and bikers on one objective (below) , then many neophytes and more bikers on another objective (further down).

In my first shooting phase, I used the stormraven, land raider, and predator, to cripple all three of his basilisks, bringing two down to their final tier on the damage table, and the third to the middle tier. The missiles on the gunship and the lascannons on the two tanks took care of that. The dakka on the gunship then took out some of the mortar teams and bikers in that area, as well. So far so good!

The view at the end of my first turn.

In the first Genestealer turn, they really only moved up to the midfield objective. Nothing came out of reserve (first turn). My poor easy kill Attack Bike was the first thing I lost, to basilisk and mortar rain. Two games in a row! This speaks to how ITC incentives twist what you might think of as conventional or common sense strategy. He killed this unit because it was the easiest thing on the board to kill, not for any good (from the battlefield perspective) reason. From my point of view, he should have prioritized either my stormraven or predator instead. He did go on to win with this play style, of course--though it was close, in the end. I think I'd rather play GW rules, though.

He had some other shooting that killed one of my scout bikers, as well. You can see that guy missing from the pic below. This pic is from sometime in the second battle round. You can see the stormraven has pivoted from where it was and moved up some. My tactical squad is now on the midfield objective, and the land raider has also moved up some, as have the bikers. It was a combination of fire from the gunship and land raider that finished off a couple of his basilisks and the bikers near the midfield point. While my tactical squad advanced up there, there didn't end up being any combat, If I recall. They got close enough for a gimme charge, is all.

Go, land raider! You got this! 

You better be glad I'm forced to fly away!

These guys are still here at the bottom of my second turn, getting bored waiting for Genestealers to pop up.

Here they come! And these are the Aberrants.. no joke, whatsoever. 

He had some Neophytes pop in to take potshots at my tacticals on the midfield (actually the tip of his deployment, come to think of it) objective. I was scoring "hold more" at this point, for the ITC side objectives. I had my three plus one of his. 

And now the hand-flamer nonsense, as well. Acolyte Hybrids. There was really little to nothing I could do to prevent this, but sadly I lost my other scout bikers and khan to this ambush, where they pop up 3" away. Without castling up like the sons of Dorn, they're going to get you somehow.

Slow-motion, orchestral music as our last hero falls.

Then, to make matters worse, the Aberrants charge at my intercessors and captain in Gravis, avoiding overwatch since they were behind the ITC-rules terrain, which blocks line of sight, but can be freely traversed by infantry. This pic is from after they have fought and killed the intercessor squad and done all but a single wound off my captain (thanks, Transhuman Physiology!). My captain fought back and killed a couple of them that round, boosted by The Imperium's Sword, having Heroically intervened. 

Back over to my turn for the third battle round. Finally, assault doctrine! The stormraven pivoted again to the right and moved up 20" to waste a good portion of the unit that had ambushed my bikers earlier. My land raider also shot into that same unit, for lack of any other meaningful targets. There was still a single basilisk on the board, but it was down to 1 wound and was worthless anyway. There was some other shooting as my support around the captain in Gravis tried to whittle down the extremely durable aberrants before charging into combat.

When it did come down to combat, my intercessors and librarian rushed his acolyte hybrids, killing a bunch of them. Come to think of it, I think I spaced the Veteran status and forgot to apply the extra attacks! They wiped out the unit they fought anyway, though.

The lone flamer tactical marine below left the "midfield" objective to charge a nearby character. He would have been killed had he not, anyway, and this option let him do some good, advancing, flaming, and then charging into the guy there.

Back over to the melee with the Aberrants, I've charged back in with my Gravis captain, who had fallen back to allow for shooting, but also to then trigger Shock Assault and his warlord trait. Also charging in to finish off these tough beasts are the chaplain, leftenant, and bike squad.

Together, and with Honour the Chapter on the captain, they get the job done, wiping out the unit of Aberrants and the character one that came along with. I should again note that my Gravis captain is down to a single wound due to this encounter. 

Another view of the action from that same phase. If I recall, the flamer tactical marine finished off that character in combat.

Here you can get a good view of where the Genestealer Patriarch (warlord) has been literally hiding.

These guys are still holding this objective, and I've done little to try to push them off. They got a round or two of fire from one of the stormraven's weapons, but that's about it.

This is what I spent my 9 CP on. One command reroll, Lightning Debarkation and later Steady Advance on the tactical squad that came out of the land raider, Armour of Contempt when a psyker cast Smite on the stormraven (nothing in return; might not recommend), and THP and HTC on the Gravis captain.

Now it's the third battle round, so all of his reserves need to come in or die, so a last unit of acolyte hybrids pops in here. Also note how I have reversed my land raider off the hill it had been on. This was to get it way from the mass of infantry he had not too far away from it. Here it also had a better angle on a couple of his other units.

When it gets to his Fight phase, he has enough near my intercessors over there to finish them off.

The backfield intercessors finally have their purpose fulfilled. Fire! Note we're back to my turn for battle round 4, which will be the last due to time (his family wanted him home), but I've forgotten to move my tactical squad through the terrain onto the point (and out of sight of his acolyte hybrids). That would have been a good move, though.

I mentioned his Patriarch had been hiding. Well, it disappeared using a stratagem, leaving only a weaker character behind in this nook. My bike squad sped over and shot him up.

There was a lone enemy biker on the midfield objective (which is below my land raider in the pic below). I wanted him off it and to take control of it, so I charged him with both the land raider and the stormraven, which was now in hover mode in order to reposition. The stormraven whiffed, but the land raider ended up killing him in combat, with its six S8 attacks! High five! 

The bike squad charges some nearby neophytes just to get more kills in, since I was working toward the points for killing 80 models (the ITC side objective).

Sometimes you fight off a pack of gene-cursed xenos abominations, and sometimes a lone guy with a pistol pops you in overwatch. RIP

The battlefield as he begins his final turn.

I've eroded his acolyte hybrids a good deal with shooting and in overwatch, but they eventually charge into my squad keeping the objective here. They kill two, if I recall, and I kill two in return.

The Patriarch resurfaces! 

He, with the buff shown below, proved too much for my leftenant, even with the 2+/5++ relic he was holding.

And that was pretty much it! We could have kept going, for sure, but by this time it was after 9:00, and he needed to be going. We had been keeping score throughout in the ITC fashion (he had the app on his phone which seems to make it pretty easy), and it came out 18 to 15 in his favor, though it could very easily have been the other way but for some dice flukes (see my Gravis captain's death for instance).

I think I've covered just about everything here. Takeaways:

I got some solid use out of my various biker units, aside from the unlucky Attack Bike, of course. I'm not certain I've entirely got them figured out yet, though. They certainly work well as highly mobile and tougher infantry, but I think that extra mobility opens up more of a tactical possibility space that I will need more time to explore. I don't think I was wrong-headed with my approach in this game, but maybe a little careless with the scouts and the Khan. I didn't have a clear, defined reason for sending them where I did, other than it was toward the enemy. I don't think I could have saved them, per se, or that I should have. They ended up being a good magnet for the 3" 20 flamers strike that was inevitable, anyway. If that had appeared in my backfield I could have lost an objective to it. I think I need to get more bikers to run a larger force of them.

Not only was this my first game with my stormraven, in which it really demonstrated what it can do, but my land raider put up its best ever performance, as well. The predator, too, was instrumental. I neutered his basiliks in the first turn, and all but annihilated them on the second. It was a good game for the vehicles. The one small issue I ran into was that after that, all the lascannons went to waste shooting a lot of 3 and 4-toughness infantry! I would have done better to have taken the predator autocannon, after all. Of course, I had no way of knowing this going in. I was expecting Leman Russ on his side, but as it turns out, he says the Genestealer variants are not very good, and likes Basilisks better for his purposes, at least.

My first time with a flyer went about as well as can be expected. I didn't fly it off the table, and he only took two wounds off of it the entire game, through Smite. It also fairly churned through his infantry and vehicles, both. But then, he was ignoring it and the other vehicles almost entirely, looking to kill characters and weaker units for his ITC sub-objectives. Again, I think they add odd incentives to the game. I don't think every game will play out like that for the stormraven, unfortunately!

White Scars vs. Genestealer Cults 1500 pts 01/14/20

This game took place at the Ordo Fanaticus wargaming club in Portland. I met my opponent, Joel, to face off with my White Scars against his Genestealer Cults force which I had first played against using my small Astra Militarum army a week before. He suggested we play a larger game next time, and I happen to have about 2800 points of White Scars to choose from, so I was happy to agree to it. He was also interested to see what the White Scars are like now, since the rules updates in the last few months.

My army is hardly exemplary of the force, but I do have a detachment of bikes, so he probably got a little taste of what they might do in the hands of a veteran or competitive player. We were playing a mission from Chapter Approved 2019, which had us set up four objectives. There was one in each of our deployment zones, and two in the middle of the table. When scoring was done at the end of each battle round, you would get more points if you controlled the objective in your opponent's deployment zone, fewer for your own, and a middling amount for either of the objectives in in the middle of the battlefield. I believe these numbers were 1/2/4, or something to that effect.

We were playing Hammer and Anvil style on the table, which means lengthwise, with two feet from the edge of the table being your deployment zone, the two feet in the middle being no-man's-land, and the final two feet being the enemy deployment zone. 

The way we did setup and such meant that I would be the attacker, and so deployed my entire army first. Below is what that looked like. I almost immediately had a couple of regrets about what I did here, and then later on I most definitely did, as it dawned on me that his reserves would be popping up in my backfield. How did I not realize this? I was certainly planning on my own reserves popping up in his! 

If I were to redo it, I would have moved that bike squad forward to the line, and that Intercessor squad on the terrain piece onto the objective together with the Captain in Gravis armor, who was my warlord. If I had even more to redo, I would have made my Khan on Bike the warlord instead! This Gravis Captain didn't get to do much of anything, and his Warlord trait was basically wasted as it played out.

Below is the Genestealer Cults' deployment. The Basilisks from the last time we played are back, and there are nine "blips" shown. These are to be revealed during my first turn, at the end of my movement phase, if I recall. He's able to either put a unit at each blip, or to spend CP to relocate or remove blips instead, when the time comes.

A view from my edge of the table before we begin.

My reserves, who will end up coming into play in my second and third turns.

In my first movement phase, things advance toward the mid-field objectives, and claim both.

The warlord moves up to take control of the point near him, as well. Why didn't I just deploy him on it to begin with? I guess I thought I'd block line of sight for a fraction of my own turn?

At the end of my first movement phase, the blips start to materialize into bastard xenos worshippers. That gold token is counting as one more of his biker models (he'd forgotten one at home).

I think a whole turn has elapsed between pictures here. Anyway, in my first shooting phase I don't think anything at all got to shoot, with everything of his being out of range or out of sight. Moving into his turn, he pretty much staid put with everything, shooting with mortar teams and Basilisks. He took out my Attack Bike first, and then a couple of Intercessors from the mid-field squad on the objective there. After that he was done, and the second battle round began. I was ahead on points here, scoring 5 or 6, I forget what it was exactly. He scored 2, I think, for his own objective and first strike (my Attack Bike).

I moved into Tactical doctrine, first. Then I went into my movement, and starting from the right in the pic below, I moved my Scout Bikers up the field toward the far objective in his territory. As I recall I couldn't get them far enough to shoot at more than one squad of mortar guys. I left Intercessor squads on both mid-field points, moved my Khan on Bike (alone, stupidly) toward his deployment zone and into range to shoot at more mortar guys, but too far to charge. My Librarian moved so that he would be in Smite/Lightning Call range to do mortal wounds to the Atalan Jackals (his bikers) that were screening his Basilisks (the pic above). My Bike Squad moved up to be able to shoot at those same Jackals, and my Intercessor squad that was on the terrain, not having anything nearby to shoot at, moved down to floor level. At the end of Movement, I brought in my Terminator squad (storm bolters) 9" from his screening bikes, and my Reiver squad and Terminator Ancient over on the other side of the field 9" away from his mortar guys over there.

I then moved into Psychic phase. Smite was not an option due to line of sight, so instead I tried Lighting Call, but didn't make the warp charge. I think I also put Ride the Winds on the Bike Squad there, to buff their charge into the screeners, but it never came up, because as I moved into Shooting phase, my bikers and Terminators wiped out half of his unit of bikers right away, and he removed in such a way to make charging harder for my buffed bikers. Other shooting on my part resulted in two or three mortar teams being removed.

In Charge phase, I used 2 CP on Fierce Rivalries (10 for list - 2 for promotions -2 = 6) so my Terminators could roll 3d6 (discarding the lowest) for their charge into his remaining Jackals. They then bludgeoned and sawed them to death very easily.

In his second turn, it was time to bring in his reserves. All of them, below.

That is a lot of guys. There's a Patriarch, a Kellermorph, a Magus (psyker), a banner bearer, a 20-model squad of Acolyte Hybrids, and a couple of 10-model squads of whatever the kind of basic troops are called.

I think he must have also had the unit of four bikers above here also in reserve, or else he brought them back to life or something like that. 

Below you can see his plan with his Patriarch and, I guess, cultists. To take my backfield objective! Damn it, why did I only put my Warlord actually on the point, alone?

The unit of 20 Acolyte Hybrids popped up 3" away from my Intercessors (using a stratagem).

Then there were more of his sorry infantry guys in the area here sort of between the two midfield objectives. They are armed with webguns and autoguns and shotguns, as I recall.

My warlord takes a few wounds from his shooting here. I was really rolling very lousily this whole game. I saw more 1s and 2s than anything, no doubt about it.

Here 79 hand flamers are shot at this squad of mine.

The aftermath. I wasn't super duper lucky or anything, it was more like most didn't manage to wound. Which I guess is luck in its own right. I think there were 28 wounds, and then 7 failed saves.

Here you can make out what my Scout Bikers had to shoot at, which at this point was not much. The unit of his three bikers hadn't been there in my previous shooting phase.

Back to my turn now! It's now Assault Doctrine (a first!) and I have brought in the rest of my reserves (TH/SS squad and Term Cpt.) 9" away from his Basilisks, and teleport homer-ed my normal Terminator squad back to my delpoyment zone to help out my warlord. And, as you can see below, they have charged his Patriarch (warlord).

They fought and did I think literally nothing, (very bad rolls) and then two got killed in the fighting back, and the remaining Sgt was injured.

I forgot about taking pictures for some time in this game, but as you can see my Khan on Bike charged himself into a little bit of trouble and took some overwatch wounds from flamers as a result. I think I should probably shoot Hybrids of the board rather than fight them off. Hmm....

My tank bashing crew charged in and got to work.

My Scout Bikers and Reivers killed their way to controlling the point in his backfield.

Here below my Bike Squad have seen the tank bashing crew arrive and turned back to go help the warlord, while my Intercessors have moved through the terrain to that same objective. My Librarian has relocated over to the midfield objective. He tries Lightning Call on the squad on the other side of that rock, but only gets off one mortal wound before the spell falters.

My Terminator Ancient has made his way over to where a couple of Jackals were, and made sure they weren't there anymore.

With my Intercessors gone off one midfield objective, his infantry turn to the remaining one, but they have a little trouble getting to my Librarian.

Finally the Kellermorph gunslinger kills him.

At this point his Patriarch had charged in and killed my warlord before I could fight back.

Things not looking so hot now.

At least I still have one objective.

I wiped out this side of the board.

These Terminators just chewed through the Basilisks.

In a last-ditch effort, my Biker Sgt and remaining Intercessor squad take the midfield point again and kill off some of the cultists there.

He's got my objective sewn up, and is making lot of victory points off it each round.

He's also got this point locked down, for the time being.

Eventually it comes down to a lone Intercessor on the midfield point.

And then he's gone, too.

Now I've peeled my Scout Bikers off, leaving just a Reiever Sgt on the opponent's objective. The bikers will go on to kill a bunch of Hybrids and take that point again, but to no real purpose because I'm too far behind on victory points for it to matter, and we get to the end of the final round.

In the end it was 32 to 25 victory points, in favor of the Genestealer Cults.

What did we learn?

I could really improve my deployment strategy, firstly. I just should have anticipated his deep strikers better, and done more to prevent them.

I let most of my characters go off on their own alone, too, which I should probably avoid doing where possible. 

Bikes can be a real plus when you have a lot of ground to cover, and when they're White Scars they're even better. I should probably get another couple of squads of each type, and lean into the unique abilities and stratagems I have for my chapter choice.

AP and damage bonuses from Doctrines are very good. I even forgot to apply them about half of the time, but still got a lot of extra wounds done due to their help. It might be beneficial to have a few more heavy weapons, especially to fire off in the first battle round under Devastator doctrine. Maybe I should get a Whirlwind or something. 

The enemy's Basilisks and mortar teams were a real nuisance in the first half of the game, even from far across the table. I felt drawn over there to take care of them, or suffer their damage each turn. I was forced to make a decision on the enemy's terms, in other words. It would be nice to have a countermeasure of some sort.

If I had a plan going into this game, it was to teleport in my TH/SS Terminators to bash up his Basilisks, and at least that went off with flying colors. Even so, it didn't happen until the third and fourth battle round. Maybe the Stormraven I've almost got ready to play would help some, or bringing along my Predator or Land Raider, each kitted out with 4 Lascannons.