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.

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.

Horus Heresy: Age of Darkness Thoughts

This weekend I attended a small tournament for the new edition of Horus Heresy, also known as 30K. It was held at 2,500 points for the maximum army size, with lists limited to a single Primary Detachment from the Crusade Force Organisation Chart. No Primarchs, Lords of War, or Allied Detachments of any sort were allowed. This kept the lists within the realm of approximiately balanced and simple enough to comprehend. Most of the attendees seemed to know the rules well enough, but none of us were dyed in the wool experts, so the simpler the lists and rules interactions, the better.

As it happened, in three games I never had one go into the fourth battle round (game turn, if you prefer) in the 2.5 hours set aside for them. Had the lists been set to 1500 points I think we may have finished more games. All of mine had to be settled by less than optimal haphazard points allocating, once even after my opponent had gotten two turns and I had had only one.

I brought a 2,500 point list of White Scars to the event comprising:

Praetor on Legion Spatha bike

Stormseer Consul

Champion Consul

2 Tactical squads of 10 models, one with dedicated Rhino transport

1 Scout squad of 5 models 

2 Indomitus Terminator squads of 5 models

1 Indomitus Terminator squad of 10 models

1 Veteran squad with dedicated Rhino transport (Champion joined)

1 White Scars Dark Sons of Death squad of 5 models (Stormseer joined)

1 Outrider squad of 10 models (Praetor joined)

I ran this list using the Sagyar Mazan Rite of War, which gave me some respectable buffs while only placing limits on me that were all too easy to abide by, given what I had available and painted to choose from during list construction.

I played against Word Bearers, Emperor's Children, and Iron Hands. Also present were second armies of the Word Bearers and Emperor's Children, and an Imperial Fists army. There was another person who registered who probably would have had Space Wolves, but who was a no-show.

My record, as such, was 1-2 on the day, with the win against Iron Hands. Both losses, I will say, were decided by a single point of Attrition (I had lost one more unit than my opponent had when the game was called). I think this was a respectable showing for the list above.

I came to this list by a process of testing and rebuilding my prospective tournament list over a week and a half leading up to the tournament, playing out solo games against a cobbled together Opposing Force of Word Bearers from my other various collections of painted sci-fi soldiers.

Originally I had thought not to run any Rite of War, and had included a Predator, Vindicator, and Land Raider Explorator in the list. Running it with a couple of Tactical squads required me to paint up a couple of guys holding bolters (as this is a 40K army, my Tactical squads for that system include heavy and special weapons not permitted in this one). I also decided to knock out another guy with bolt pistol, chainsword, and jump pack, so that all of my Dark Sons of Death could be WYSIWYG. That unit didn't end up being used to much benefit, but I'll get to that.

Testing against my hard-as-nails Word Bearers OpFor list, which for brevity's sake I'll suffice it to say had two Contemptors and a unit of Gal Vorbak led by Argel Tal, revealed both of those to be major weakness of the army. But, I had noticed that my unit of Veterans (which I did not mix in among the Tacticals due to their black Ebon Keshig-style armor) were much better in game than I had expected, having a better WS, more wounds, and more attacks than the Tactical squads.

So, I decided to lean into them and re-tooled the list into one using the Pride of the Legion Rite of War, which then limited me to only a single Fast Attack choice and Heavy Support choice. This meant first combining my two units of 5 Outrider bikers into one unit of 10, then dropping my Attack Bikes and Land Speeder, as well as the Predator and Vindicator. I kept the Land Raider Explorator in this version.

That list still could not effectively deal with the Contemptor problem. They would get to the Land Raider before it could kill them with its Lascannons. My solution to that was to not give any opposing Dreadnoughts any juicy targets--I would remove the Land Raider which wasn't getting the job done, and instead bring in a squad of Terminators with Thunder hammers as my anti-vehicle and anti-dreadnought tool. I have 6 models with hammers and shields, so I added to them 4 with dual lightning claws, mostly as ablative wounds, and redid the list again.

By now I had finished painting the models I needed to run two 10-man Tactical Squads. This new list, above, seemed to really lend itself to the Sagyar Mazan Rite, which grants all infantry a 5+ Feel No Pain, and Fearless on the turn they charge. Couple that with the Heroes Never Die warlord trait that is exclusive to the White Scars, and you may have an entire army that is flat out Fearless (and thus auto-passes all Morale and Pinning tests) for most of the game, should the warlord be killed early and in line of sight of the rest of your models on the table. This exact thing happened to me up against the Emperor's Children. Which brings me to my next topic--the utility of certain units.

Even in a big 10-model block (11 with the Praetor), Outriders just melt under any amount of pressure. Coming to this game from 40K, I'm used to my bikers being tougher than infantry, with triple the amount of wounds, to boot. No, these guys have the same 4 Toughness as anyone else, and only a single wound. They also shoot half the shots, but that's another subject. This is how my Warlord died in the first round one game, granting the entire army Fearless for the rest of that game. I have learned that they can put out a decent amount of bolter fire, but that they shouldn't really commit to combat with anything more numerous than them and definitely not anything with a higher weapon skill, like say a unit of Veterans. When and if I get around to painting a unit of actual Heresy-era units for White Scars, I don't know if I'll use these guys much, when there will be jetbikes to choose over them.

I was also kind of let down by the Stormseer and the Dark Sons of Death I had accompanying him, though that's probably mostly due to the former's Psychic Weapon. See, it's both Heavy and Barrage, which effectively means he has to stand still in order to fire it. I kept trying to get it to do any good, and so kept leaving the whole unit just sat where they deployed all game. The idea is that the Stormseer is calling down lightning to zap entire areas of the battlefield. It's a 5" large blast, so it scatters, of course. That I can live with. It starts out as S4, though, which is really not great. You can buff it to S8, which is a lot better, but even if you do so, it's still AP 4, which I have to say, sucks. It's also got the Force and Shock Pulse special rules, which can be pretty good against Corrupted (Gal Vorbak et al) and Dreadnoughts, but good luck getting your single hit on a Dreadnought through it's 2+ armor save! The possibility to Instant Death daemonic units aside, I can only imagine the power would be at all dependable against massed Imperial Army-level mortal opposition. Against single-wound marines it could maybe get a couple of kills, but you couldn't rely on it. Anyway, you could fairly say my Stormseer and Dark Sons were both wasted on trying to get any utility out of this power that I had give me Perils I think three times over three games. At least the Dark Sons saw use as ablative wounds for that, I suppose.

Now for the bright spots. The Legion Champion consul is awesome. You can use him to call out and kill pretty much any character on the other side, including enemy Praetors. Veterans are really good, as I mentioned above. Terminators, also good. Thunder Hammers are your only hope as far as melee weapons for infantry trying to take down a Dreadnought. Aside from Melta bombs, maybe. The humble Tactical Squad, very very good! Fury of the Legion combined with the Return Fire or Overwatch reactions. Very enjoyable. The scouts were able to Concuss enemy units  (with Astartes Shotguns), and thus make them fight at -1 WS during the next Assault phase. This is immensely good, if you can pull it off.

The event was a ton of fun. All the guys I met were just happy to be there playing this cool new game. 

Going forward, I'm hoping to hobby up my Alpha Legion to the point where I can take them as my main Horus Heresy force. I'll keep the Scars on the back burner as far as 30K goes. I've got more Word Bearers already painted for this system than anything, but already seeing two guys playing them at an 8-person event? I'll focus on my Alpha Legion, which I've been wanting to do for a long while, awaiting the release of this game. I have Headhunters on the painting desk right this moment, and Tactical Squads and Contemptors and Terminators and tanks galore to do later, too.