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.
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