Astra Militarum vs Adeptus Custodes, 04.05.2022

During their last battle against the necrons, the nuns had suffered so many losses that Inquisitor Clotilde sanctioned the summoning and conscription of daemons into the army. The Adeptus Custodes obviously could not let this stand.

Welcome to our first endeavor into playing Tempest of War!

Deployment

I set up my Basilisk and Manticore proxies in the far left corner, well hidden. The white Deathstrike just waits to be fired. 2 Tank Commanders and Pask hide behind ruins, with 2x20 daemon conscripts up front.

Battle round 1

The Custodes force advanced, with some shots fired destroying one Chimera.

I pulled Overwhelming Firepower with a sigh of relief. Then my turn went by and I killed 0 units. I killed some models, but nothing to stand out. So I applied daemon tactics and built a wall of conscripts.

Battle round 2

The Custodes closed in.

Some charges were made but some failed. The lone Guardian easily cut down one Ogryn.

Both squads of Conscripts were whittled down to a few models.

At least this turn, I could inflict some damage. After most of my attacks bouncing off turn 1 (including 7 demolisher shots that were all saved on 4+), here I successfully pound to dust the lone Guardian, the sword Dreadnought and the Blade Champion (scoring both Assassinate and Overwhelming Firepower).

To my greatest surprise, the far left Tank Commander (who had done nothing the first turn) gunned down all 3 jetbikes.

I sent in Inquisitor Clotilde with her poisoned Daemon Hammer... she did 3 wounds, all of which were saved. And then she died. This is a pattern, unfortunately.

However, the Guardians then piled into my nun squad, who inflicted two wounds on them. We laughed, hard.

Battle round 3

The last of the Custodes committed to the battle, with Alarus Terminators landing to deal with the artillery park.

The Sagittarum charged in, sealing the fate of the nun squad.

I retaliated to the best of my abilities, and it went... pretty good. Check out this large Trajan Valoris shaped hole.

The Astropaths, both already in combat, did Smite, dealing a combined 3 mortal wounds. Yes, on 5 and then a 6. Then they died.

Much of the artillery park was spent on Trajan, but the Terminators also got some love.

Battle rounds 4-5

The terminators shot and charged, effectively silencing the artillery. However, the Hour was Nigh! I fired my Deathstrike to inflict 4 mortal wounds on the Captain and 1 on the Terminators. Best 130 points I ever spent. Not. With some auxiliary shots, the Captain died, denying the Custodes an objective.

With concentrated firepower, the spear squad died. I had the surviving nuns Move! Move! Move! on to the middle objective.

In the final round, both the Sisters of Silence and the nuns in the middle did actions for additional points.

Scoring

We both did a good number of secondary objectives, and although it seemed that I did a lot more, it was just one extra in the end. We both pulled impossible ones like Teleport Homers and Behind Enemy Lines, and ones that could be achieved only across two turns like Overwhelming Firepower. Denying enemy secondaries is not that of a big deal in this format, although I did manage to do that once by hiding Pask against Bring It Down.

We also scored many points for primaries, with the Custodes score varying from turn to turn (especially later as their units dwindled) while I scored a consistent 10 almost every turn. In the end I had 3 extra points.

Thus, the nuns take the win with a difference of 8 points, in a very, very hard fought win.

Aftermath

Custodes are tough, no point in beating the dead horse. I want to talk more about the Guard.

After the latest balance sheet buffs, I decided on ditching the painted army with assassins and stuff in favor of a pure Guard list to take advantage of the autowounds. Especially with the Punisher/Heavy Bolters tank commander. Boy, did that come into effect a lot. It probably was the winning factor against the Custodes that ignored the -1 on all my heavy bolters/punisher.

The Deathstrike is a joke, but I expected nothing less. 

Conscripts are fine now that they have a reason to be included. But I need more than 40 to effectively screen more than 1 turn.

Infantry squads are a trap, they are NOT worth their kitted out points. Maybe if I focused more on orders and kept them bunched together... but that defeats the purpose of Tempest of War.

Astropaths did a combined 3 mortal wounds and that's it. The Inquisitor did nothing, again. It hurts me to say this, but I might ditch them next time.

And it blows my mind that you need 3 of any unit for any consistent results. 3 Tank Commanders. 3 Basilisks. Everything else was, almost completely, dead weight.

Expect to see more grey Rhinos with heavy weapons teams on top!