As the weekend happened to play out, I had several hours to kill on Sunday, so I decided to check out the Sunday 40K play at the Friendly Local Game Store, a place called Rainy Day Games. I happened upon another player I know there, and was thinking to play a game against his Ynnari, but another player came up free first, so I got a game against his Iron Hands instead.
He was apologetic about only having them to hand, because the army recently got a rules update that lot of people regard as broken--a too good twist on a faction (Space Marines generally) that is now generally accepted as pretty good anyway. Iron Hands' chapter specific rules mean that they are very durable, even in comparison to run-of-the-mill Space Marines, and that they benefit beginning turn one from their Doctrine rule, which boils down to harder hitting heavy weapons, which they tend toward anyway. I was down to play anything, however, and I had never faced Iron Hands before, so off we went.
I rolled a D6 to determine which mission we'd play from the Chapter Approved 2019 supplement. I think it might have been called Ascension. It was the one corresponding to rolling a 3. I believe next up was him choosing whether to attack or defend, and then me rolling to determine the deployment type, and choosing which deployment zone to take. I rolled and got Dawn of War, which is a simple zone of table edge out to a 12" line. There were three mission objectives, one in the center of the table, and two off to the sides on the center line (as dictated by the mission).
As attacker, my opponent deployed his whole army first, which consisted of a Repulsor Executioner tank, Iron Father Feirros, a few squads of Intercessors and Incursors, a Thunderfire Cannon, and a Land Speeder. I then set up my Guard regiment across the table, one infantry squad aimed at each objective, with tanks deployed to best offer heavy fire support. I had officers and Commisars covering each squad as best I could.
I tried to seize the initiative to go first, but failed, and so knowing I would be weathering fire in turn one, spent a couple of command points (down to 7) on Prepared Positions, thinking it might help. As it turns out, the overwhelming AP (armor piercing) of the Iron Hands' heavy weapons in Devastator doctrine completely overrode my guardsmen's weak armor saves as well as their cover bonuses, and in the first turn I lost my Leman Russ Punisher, my heavy weapons squad, psyker Aradia Madellan, and a whole infantry squad, the one nearest to objective 3 on the left side of the table.
On my first turn, I used the Valhallan stratagem Send In the Next Wave (down to 5 CP) to bring back my heavy weapons squad, placing them in a different spot on the field where they would be able to shoot at his Land Speeder. I also moved my other two infantry squads with attendant officers and commissars up to the nearby objectives, for which I would score some victory points. In my Psychic phase I buffed the armor saves of one squad, then went on to Shooting and managed to focus fire and bring down his Land Speeder.
Here is the battlefield at this point:
His squad of Incursors just out of sight of one of my infantry squads, and out of range of the other, who had advanced twice (due to an order) and were unable to shoot anyway.
His Intercessors, tank, and Techmarine with Thunderfire Cannon
This is after his Incursors and tank wiped out my infantry squad. I was trying to concentrate Smite, Plasma Pistol and Laspistol fire to take them down, but only did away with a couple of them in time.
My Warlord, Yarrick, and a Platoon Commander without any infantry to order, head toward Objective 3.
Now it's down to his whole army versus Commissar Yarrick, who can be tough to kill, to be fair.
Yarrick putting another point on the board before the inevitable end!
So, in four battle rounds, he had it wrapped up. I had led until that round on victory points, however. I didn't just let him walk away with a win, no contest!
I can hardly imagine this matchup, my 1000 pts versus his in this instance, playing out much differently. Maybe if I were able to go first and throw everything at the tank to kill it on the first turn, perhaps? I wonder if even my whole army would have enough firepower, given how fickle dice can be. Regardless of the outcome, it was fun to play out.
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