New Year, new army, right? Not quite, but I do have some new support tanks for my Guard. They aren't even finished, but I just couldn't shake the itch to try them out. I used them all here: Hydra, Deathstrike, Basilisk, 2x Manticores.
Battle round 1
Custodes went first, although I would have loved to shell them first thing. But they formed their tank column up in the central shooting lane, and I obliged by moving out whatever I could to fire at the lead Calladius. I brought it down to 4 wounds. Sigh.
I placed my Deathstrike marker in the backline, but everything moved away the next turn. Sigh.
Battle round 2
Kool aid man! But the dreadnought gloriously failed to kill my 26 strong blob for Cull the Horde.
At least the Custodes shooting was also ineffective. My Leman Russ resisted with no wounds taken (and 2CP wasted for Armored Might), and the Hydra also survived the other Calladius.
I moved out to engage multiple targets, and managed to kill the 4 wound Calladius. In a surprising move, the two meltas on my Cadians did melta things and one-shot a dreadnought.
The large Warden squad in the middle survived with 4+ FnP. So did the Galatus engaging my Exterminator. Sigh.
And the jetbikes Rapid Ingress'd in.
Battle round 3
We were quite close on points (with the Custodes always in the lead by just a bit - better on primary but worse on secondary). I had also killed a lot more. However, I was getting my comeuppance and I picked a secret mission.
With the jetbikes in action, they killed my Basilisk and Deathstrike in one go. The Calladius cleaned up my Hydra. My Bullgryns, having charged in last turn, were holding on heroically against the Wardens.
I did some cleaning up of my own. The Bullgryn sergeant retreated, and my Leman Russ shot and charged the Wardens, killing them with Tank Shock. With some support, obviously. I also managed to clean up the Galatus.
And dropped in two squads of Scions (We dive so humanity survives!) to clear the Custodes' backfield objective.
Battle round 4
Their forces severely depleated, the Custodes held back to do actions and slaughter my backline. I, on the other hand, now controlled large swathes of the battlefield, and reaped as many points as possible.
With my nuns dying (but both characters surviving), I brought them back in as Reinforcements! This completed my secret mission (have a battleline in the enemy deployment zone) and their meltas contributed to killing the Rhino, for more Bring it Down points along with the central kill of the Calladius.
Battle round 5
Another laid back round with no action, we scored our final points.
Result
Imperial Guard Victory!
Looking back, things looked bleak turn 3 but I recovered well, and I could have easily scored points for primary instead of going secret mission. Oh well. I handily beat the Custodes on secondary points though, thanks to my array of disposable units (such as two Cyclops) and let's face it, good draws.
I enjoyed the artillery build for the flexibility of allocating fire wherever needed, although all tanks are swingy and sometimes annihilate while other turns they literally do nothing.
The current detachment did nothing for my artillery in the first 3-4 battle rounds until the Custodes got into my face, and against a shootier opponent they might have gotten no benefits. Curious to see what future detachments hold.
Ursula Creed (or my own variant, Ursula Wayne, the Batnun) is heavily nerfed with several conditions to her CP cost reducing ability. She's still worth it, babysitting the home objective with an infantry squad and shooting ineffective mortar shells for Fields of Fire.
Finally, the Deathstrike seems like a meme unit. Against a competent opponent (or perhaps an elite army with fewer units) I'll probably never get to fire it, as the enemy always moves out of blast range. I will try to use it rather to determine interdiction zones - e.g. don't come here. I would hate to sacrifice this shooting just to clear a small unit off an objective, but that would have been worth it here, to force a stronger unit to babysit the home front.
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