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.