Alpha Legion vs Space Wolves 12/18/22

I got in a game at the local club against Space Wolves the other night. We played the mission War of Lies on a Dawn of War deployment at 3,000 points.

My opponent was proxying some 40K models, but from what I recall his list was like this:

Geigor Fell-hand

Hvarl Red Blade

Varagyr Terminators x10

Grey Hunters/Stalkers (not sure which) x10

Another unit of the above

Contemptor Dreadnought

Leviathan Dreadnought

2 Land Raider Spartans

Sicaran Battle Tank

He won the roll off to choose to deploy first and go first (unles the other player can Sieze the Initiative), but let me have the first turn. I infiltrated my Headhunter Kill Team, but not very far up. I knew he would be coming my way, and I wanted to keep some range to let them hopefully do their thing and take out a character.

In the first turn, I destroyed his Sicaran with my Spartan, and killed a few of his Troops with my own Sicarans. I think I shot at his Leviathan but didn't ping off any wounds with the Kratos. I got confused regarding my Kratos about whether I had paid the points for Flashburn shells (I had), so I didn't use those, and so the Kratos was weaker against the Leviathan and Spartans on the other side than I would have liked. From now on I'll remember that yes I definitely have paid for the Flashburn shells every time I field the Kratos tank. 

Later on, I went to fire at his Spartan with mine and mine was immobilized by a Return Fire reaction. It slipped my mind that this reaction was not actually possible (only defensive weapons can be used when a vehicle reacts), but we made good on it later on when he gave me a freebie reaction with my Spartan under similar circumstances. He even let me target something out of my firing arcs.

The play of the game has to go to his use of his Advanced Reaction. When I moved up a squad of Veterans to make use of the 9" Rapid Fire range of their Banestrike bolters, he reacted allowing a unit to first make an Initiative move toward me then a charge, in my Movement phase! 

We wrapped the game up early after only 3-4 rounds of the 6 this mission states, because it was getting late. We talked through what might have happened if we carried on, and while he was confident I would have taken out his Dreadnoughts, and thought I had a chance to win (as VP seemed close), I think it would have come out in his favor once my remaining Line units were wiped. I was already down to almost no answers to his heavier units, and without the scoring units, he could have had it sewn up, I think.

I guess this way I don't have to count it as a loss, though! 2-0-1 for the Alpha Legion, so far.

Lessons learned:

It's hard to go into lists with 2 Spartans and 2 dreadnoughts. I don't know if tooling up more for them is the right answer yet, though.

Always take the Flashburn shells on the Kratos.

Heart of the Legion is very good, make sure to use it. Evade's 5+ Shrouded roll is also very good.

Graviton (from my Contemptor's palm gun) can make charging difficult since it leaves behind a blast area of difficult/dangerous terrain. Charging through difficult terrain means a -2 to the roll, and those chargers fight at Initiative 1 in the following combat.

Watch out for that Space Wolves advanced reaction! 

Alpha Legion vs Word Bearers 12/10/22

Last night at the Ordo Fanaticus club in Portland I had my second game out with my Alpha Legion, playing The Horus Heresy.

I played against a guy called Gregor, whose Word Bearers army I had played once before, with my White Scars, a few months back. Indeed, I recognized a few of the units he brought along this time.

He was running a list like this:

Warmonger Consul

Moritat Consul

2x Tactical squads

Tactical Support squad with plasma guns

Reconaissance squad with shotguns

Gal Vorbak big unit of 6

Ashen Circle unit of 10

Contemptor Dreadnought

2x Sicaran battle tanks

My list was this:

Delegatus Consul

2x Tactical squads

Veteran squad of 7

Veteran squad of 5

Cataphractii big unit of 10 in a

Land Raider Spartan

Headhunter Kill Team of 10

Contemptor Dreadnought

2x Sicaran battle tanks

Interesting coincidence that we both brought 2 Sicarans. At least one Contemptor seems like a given, with how good they are in this game. We were playing at 2500 points. I have a little over 3000 painted, but Gregor didn't have quite that much done and wanted to maintain a certain standard in that regard.

You can see much of his deployment below.

We were playing the mission Tide of Carnage on the Search and Destroy deployment map.

I won't do a play-by-play report here, but only some of the highlights.

I began deployment and took the first turn, and started my Headhunter unit infiltrated and scouted very close to his lines, aiming to take out his Support squad with the plasma guns. I managed to take out 7 of them in the first turn, and caused the remaining 3 to flee. Then, when it was his turn and he was going to try to take out the remaining Headhunters not killed by Return Fire, I used Smoke and Mirrors, the Alpha Legion advanced reaction, to redeploy them 12" away and out of sight! 

My units of Veterans again proved their worth in this game by twice slaughtering opposing squads more than twice their size of Tactical marines. Their high Weapon Skill and power swords make them slice through regular infantry like butter.

Gregor reserved his Warmonger with Gal Vorbak to deep strike, as well has his Moritat with Ashen Circle. In both turns when one of these units arrived, I got off a double Interceptor reaction. There was minimal effect into the Gal Vorbak, just because they are so tough, but the Ashen Circle were substantially damaged. Augury Scanners giving free additional Interceptor uses might be a bit much!

I did learn from one mistake I made this game. It was neigher the pic above or below this line, though. They were both good plays.

When his Gal Vorbak appeared in my backfield, I knew I had to deal with them immediately.

I used Interceptor against them, as I mentioned. The template on them is from my Contemptor's Graviton gun.

Here's my mistake: deploying my WS4 Cataphractii Terminators to charge into the WS5 Gal Vorbak.

My Terminators did very little to them in combat, and ended up losing the combat, falling back, and being swept by the Gal Vorbak! I lost 7 unscathed Terminators with little in return aside from perhaps roadblocking the Gal Vorbak's way into my nearby Tactical squad.

When the Ashen Circle and Moritat arrived from reserves, they scattered and landed on dangerous terrain, which, combined with my two Interceptor reactions, immediately killed 8 of 10.

In the end, with my Cataprhractii fled, I cut down the Gal Vorbak with ranged fire from my Sicarans, Spartan, and Contemptor, then used the dreadnought to charge and smash the enemy Warlord, the Warmonger consul. Here is where we ended the game, after my fourth turn.

A few takeaways from this game:

1) Veterans are still very good value for points, particularly into WS4 infantry. Mine are extra good because they have Banestrike bolters (Alpha Legion) and I also pay for power swords on them, which does make them expensive. Worth it, though.

2) I should probably run them with either a character in each squad, or vexilla at the least, since they top out at Ld 8.

3) The above, but doubly so, for my Cataphractii. They are mostly Ld 7.

4) Never ever ever ever fight against a unit with higher WS

5) Coming in from reserves is very risky in a world of Augury Scanners giving units free Interceptor reactions to no limit.

Talons of the Emperor vs Deathskullz 12/02/22

This game is really only notable in that it is the first time I have taken my Talons of the Emperor force out to play against another live player. I had a casual list put together for a game at 50PL, which is the standard for play at my local Warhammer store. I had pre-arranged a game with Hassan, a guy I know from the store and who I have played before, only with my White Scars force. 

Come to find out, the Warhammer store was closed today, so I messaged Hassan about another venue, a local game store called Rainy Day Games which only recently opened up their play annex. This was my first time playing there, and I would rate the experience very highly. Granted, it was nearly empty on a Friday night, so they were pretty accommodating, even on a non-40K night, allowing us to commandeer a couple of tables and relatively large space and a bunch of their terrain and such.

Chatting with Hassan, we decided to go ahead and play a larger game than I had originally planned for, at about 1500 points. For me this meant only the addition of three more models, albeit high value ones. For Hassan, it meant he could get closer to his actual tournament list. Considering how the game went, maybe we should have stuck at 50 PL!

I got the first turn, and got off to what looked like a decent start, clearing an objective of his Kommandos with my Allarus Terminators.

However, his first turn was a hammer blow to my conical Custodes helmet, as he called the Waaagh and surged across the board with his Orky jet (Wazbom something perhaps) and Deffkoptas loaded out with Rokkits, and his Morkanaut and tons of other hard-hitting stuff.

I had a couple of good moments, getting to use the Tanglefoot Grenade stratagem to try and foil a charge of his. He re-rolled it and got a 12 anyway. He charged my Witchseeker squad, which was full of flamers, and I got to do a superpowered Overwatch which knocked out a couple of the Deffkoptas.

Otherwise, it was a slaughter.

His Squighog boys annihilated a trio of Custodian Guard, and his Bikers were enough to take care of my Allarus, too. Meanwhile his plane was in my base, his Mek Guns were all still operational, and the Morkanaut had not even been brought down a bracket on it's damage table.

It was getting to be about the time we'd both planned to leave anyway, so we called the game early, even though it was clearly all but over before his second turn. Hassan advised I add some Vertus Praetors to my list, and as much as I am ambivalent about those models, I think he's right that they would help. My preferred additions would be some Sagittarum Guard and Pallas Grav-attacks, but they would also cost twice as much or more in dollar terms, and not being plastic GW models, wouldn't have the rules support (Stratagems, Codex inclusion) the Vertus Praetors do. I picked up a Blade Champion model while there at the shop. I like to buy something every time I play at a place to show support, and I particularly like this place since it's got a wide open, well lit space and also happens to be only about 10-15 minutes drive from my house.

White Scars vs Tyranids 11/18/22

This was a very casual game that happened accidentally. I brought an Outrider detachment of:

Khan on Bike

Apothecary

Scout Squad

Bike Squad

Bike Squad with Attack Bike (Heavy bolter)

Bike Squad with Attack Bike (Multi-melta)

Scout Bike Squad

Land Speeder Tornado

Devastator Squad

My opponent was running Tyranids with:

Hive Tryant

Tervigon

Termagants

Biovores

Scarab-like things

Zoanthropes

Deployment was wacky because we were originally setting up for a 3-player free for all, but then one player pulled out to give someone else an opponent. We just kept rolling with what we had so far, though. 

The mission was randomly generated from the Open War deck, and put a single objective marker in the center of the board that could be moved each round by whoever won a roll off. The Twist was that all psychic powers had one added to their warp charge roll, and ranges extended 6", which was a nice buff to my opponent's Smite capacity, and did nothing at all for me, since I had not brought a Stormseer for this game.

The way the game played out, I used my mobility to stay on the objective the whole time with my Devastators, and I let my bikes roam wide around the table, keeping near to their max range for bolter fire. My thought was to mow down all of his small stuff and then later focus on the big monsters.

This was broadly a pretty good gambit. I had the most trouble dealing with the mortal wound spam from all his psykers, but my Apothecary was able to revive a bike one time, which was nice. The Devastators were mostly wasted by having to shoot a lot of small single-wound bugs on his side, but at least they won the game by holding the objective. 

My opponent might have been able to make more of a play for the objective if they'd wanted to, but mostly seemed content to inch forward at me. I mostly held off the urge to charge into battle, but notably when I did give in to temptation, it cost me my Khan, who only succeeded in killing one of the three Biovores on the other side. He always seems to disappoint. 5 attacks that hit on a 2+, and he rarely lands more than 3. Anyway, he got Smite blasted off the table after his first charge.

Apart from that mistake I think I handled the battle well enough, though. Realizing the White Scars should lean into the theme of the hunter rather than the headlong charging berserker has really helped my game with them.

White Scars vs Deathwatch 11/04/22

I got a pickup game at the Warhammer store nearby this evening. Open War, which means a randomly generated mission from a card deck, the details of which are in the pic above. 

I play White Scars, of course, whose main benefits on top of being just another Space Marine chapter are generally centered around the things they can do after having Advanced. The Twist in this game obviated all of that, since there would be no Advance moves permitted in this game. Sucks to be me!  

My opponent was running 50 PL of Deathwatch to my own 50 PL. His list was something like:

Primaris Captain

Something or other Kill Team

Two Invader ATVs

Assault Centurions

Gladiator Lancer

Inquisitor

He combat-squaded his Kill Team such that one half had four veterans with missile launchers and one terminator with a Cyclone missile launcher, and the other half had four veterans with fancy shotguns and the sergeant with a power sword and shield of some type. I'm not overly familiar with the Deathwatch kit.

My own list this time was the easiest way I could get to roughly 1000 points, or 50 PL, going with a Primaris theme, for variety. Not an optimized list by any means. No anti-tank capabilities to speak of.

Primaris Captain in Gravis Armour

Primaris Lieutenant in Phobos Armour

Primaris Librarian

Intercessor Squad with Bolt Rifles

Intercessor Squad with Bolt Rifles

Intercessor Squad with Auto Bolt Rifles

Reiver Squad

Aggressor Squad

Suppressor Squad

Eliminator Squad

He put his Centurions in a teleportation chamber to Deep Strike them, and I put both my Aggressors and Reivers into Outflank. Pics of deployment above and below. Most of my stuff began in the large ruins in my deployment zone near to a couple of objectives.

I won the roll off for first turn, but I decided to let him have it to allow him to come to me. I felt like this made sense without the capability to Advance this game, plus it would mean he had to stick his neck out first. 

In a first, he actually decided to use the Orbital Bombardment stratagem on me, as my stuff was all bunched up to begin with. This would mean that I would have to move a lot of it during my turn or face mortal wounds when it got back round to his turn. This suited me, since I had three Intercessor squads I wanted to get out onto objectives anyway, and my Suppressors were more than capable of moving to find a good line of sight. Only my slower moving Captain and the stationary Eliminators would knowingly risk the mortal wounds, though it turned out one Intercessor squad was also close enough to get clipped in the end.

You can see the results of my first movement phase below. The troops all moved out and onto objectives or toward the central one, and the Suppressors moved first onto the top of the crates, then after shooting made a successful charge into his remaining ATV. I believe their shooting and the Libriarian's Smite did for the first one.

Below is the state of the board at the end of my first turn. I had lost one Eliminator and one Intercessor at this point, but gained a VP by controlling more of the objectives for the round. 1-0.

When the Orbital Bombardment went off, my Captain took a fat 3 mortal wounds from it, leaving him with 4 wounds remaining.

During his turn, his ATV fell back from my Suppressors, toward my troops on my left side objective. He used a stratagem so that it'd be able to shoot, as well. 

By the time of this next pic his and my reserves had both arrived, so this had to be during his third turn. When I brought in the Aggressors over in his back corner I had them fire at the half Kill Team near them, but only one guy died. It took the rest of my second turn's shooting to kill only three of them in total.

His ATV had shot at my units close to it, but not done anything. In my next turn I had charged it with my remaining Suppressor, and everything else nearby, killing it with my Captain, who them consolidated over to the right back behind the crates.

This was the body count at that point. As of this point he had lost one full unit (the two ATVs), and I had not lost any, meaning I had a point from the second victory condition of the mission, as well as a second from the objectives, so 3-0 here.

This unit below with all the missiles blew my Aggressors away before they could move after their initial outflank arrival. Rough stuff!

Below, in my third turn, I have moved the Reivers up toward his Inquisitor, looking to charge him in order to get them on that objective. A note about his Inquisitor: he was running a proxy model, and wasn't quite sure what he wanted to do with the unit aside from Deny the Witch, so he elected to play it as nothing more than a backfield point holder and Deny source (no offensive moves). Whatever. My unit made their charge and he just picked up his Inquisitor at that point. Fair enough. He would have been facing something like 21 attacks, in Assault Doctrine.

There are a couple of Veterans in the pic above near to my models. They're gone in the pic below, to Smite and my Captain's shooting. I believe this gave me the "kill more" point for Round 3 as well, so 5-0 here if I'm not mistaken.

Below you can see how my Reivers have grabbed that objective, and also how his missile combat squad is lining up their shot. His Gladiator did a lot of shooting this game but mostly wasted shots at my Eliminators in cover, who he found extremely tough to kill (though they did very minimal work for me other than drawing his fire).

I know well the value of Assault Centurions with melta guns and siege drills from my own. Dealing with his was rough. I was able to Smite one away entirely with a D6 damage cast (4 mortal wounds exactly). I took another out when my Captain charged the remaining two. I should have been able to kill both, with nine power sword attacks on the charge, hitting on 2s and wounding on 3s (WL trait buffing his S stat), especially since Assault Doctrine made each attack -4 AP and 2 damage! Instead I had absolutely awful hit and wound rolls, and only two of the nine attacks made it through to damage. Four made it through to need saving, but he miraculously rolled two 6s to save. Well, two attacks at 2 damage each meant another dead Centurion. That left one, however, that was able to smash my Captain to bits after I failed three invulnerable saves at once.

His missile guys opened up and killed three of my Reivers, as well. I think two survived due to Transhuman Physiology.

In Round 4 I also moved my Lieutenant back into cover but still on the left side objective.

I was controlling 3/5 objectives at the end of Round 4, but he had killed more units, so 6-1.

In Round 5 he was finally able to finish off my Reivers, Eliminators, and kill my Librarian, leaving me with only my Lieutenant, and also him in control of more objectives, so the score was then 6-3 at the end of the game, in my favor, with my Phobos Lieutenant retreating to take the news of the battle to high command.

My list was not really geared to take on his Gladiator, or the combination of the ATVs and Centurions, either. If not for very cold dice I could have done for the Centurions, though, and the ATVs were taken out, too.

His combat squad of missile guys wrecked both my Aggressors and Reivers (over a couple of turns), but the other of shotguns didn't do all that much. Armour of Contempt makes marine on marine battles real slugfests.

This was a very fun game that felt very close all the way through. I was tracking my own VP as we went, but he wasn't, really, so I didn't know how much of a lead I had until I sat down to write the game up and figure it all out. We both kind of came with half-baked casual-ish lists (his was meant for Crusade night), and ended up having a good time. Win/win/win! 

Alpha Legion vs Iron Hands 09/29/22

I'm writing about this game well after the fact, but at the end of September there was originally to be a small RTT, or Rogue Trader Tournament, which in Warhammer-speak refers to a small casual tournament event, usually only over a single day.

Well, a few people had to drop out for one reason or another and suddenly the tournament was off. The organizer had become an acquaintance since I'd attended a previous tournament though, and was going to be at the store that day anyway, so he said he'd be glad to play a game against my new Alpha Legion force anyhow.

If I recall, we played at 2500 points. He had an Iron Hands army featuring a unit or two of Veterans, a unit of Scouts, a Spartan, a Leviathan, a unit of backfield artillery whose name escapes me at the moment. Rapier Batteries, I think they were. Or perhaps some Iron Hands variant. Oh, and he had some Terminators.

I remember his Terminators giving me some trouble by deep striking into my backfield early on. I had to peel off my Contemptor from his planned advance up the board to go back and deal with them.

In this game I put my Headhunter Kill Team in some central ruins on his side of the board, and they ended up getting wiped out without doing too much for the cause but being targets.

My Contemptor did do well though, killing the deep striking Terminators.

My veterans also did pretty well, getting a Rhino kill on one hand and later a Spartan on the other.

Phospshex from the enemy Leviathan dreadnought.

Spartan vs Spartan showdown.

He had some infantry in the Rhino carrier there that got out to fight my Veterans.

The Rhino was a wreck at this point, with his guys climbing over it.

All the while my Kratos kind of languished in the middle of the board, unable to get many notable targets. Eventually his Spartan blew it up with a lucky Lascannon shot.

Almost don't even bother trying to fight a Contemptor with Terminators. You'll likely lose pretty decisively.

Terminators on Terminators however, is very winnable.

The Veterans with my Praetor and Contemptor maneuvering around another wrecked Rhino to finish off a Scout squad.

My Cataphractii Terminators walking into battle against his Indomitus Terminators, with some Phosphex going off on my unit of Veterans.

A well-place Melta bomb did for the Iron Hands Spartan. Hydra Dominatus!

The endgame Terminator scrum.

As you can tell, my memory of this game is patchy after two and a half months. It was a win, though. Not bad for a first outing with a new army. Hopefully the first of many to come.