So after the huge brutal but fun game of Apocalypse on Sunday, Andrew, who'd been unable to play challanged me to a game the following night against his Death Guard. This mean I'd be facing lots of toughenss 5, a maulerfiend, and the Defiler he'd been ovingly painting up over the last month or so! With the new Codex, I fancied trying a different Chapter Tactics, so while looking at my models and seeing my bikes, I plumped for the White Scars. The benefits of this is Hammer of Wrath attacks are ST 5 from bikers, Hit and Run and auto-passing difficult terrain tests. 1500 points each, and this was my rough list.
Captain, bike, artificer armour, storm shield, power axe.
Chaplain, bike
Bike squad, 5 bikers with meltagun, flamer, attack bike with multimelta
5 man tactical squad with lascannon
10 man tactical squad with vet sarge, powerfist and a meltagun in a rhino
10 man assault squad
5 vanguard with powerfist
predator with lascannons
dreadnought with plasma cannon
5 devastators with missile launchers
Legion of the damned with power axe and multimelta.
Deployment!
Mission was capture the relic, and we had the narrow deployment type. This basically turned the 6x4 table into a 4x4 which meant death guard would be more concentrated... ouch! I won the roll off to go first... so deployed as seen as above. As you can see on the image at the bottom underneath Andrews army is a dice roll of a six. Yes, Initiative seized!
Andrew pushed forward with most of his units, large unit of cultists with sorceror, maulerfiend, decimator and some of the death guard. Shooting casualties were light although I'd left my lascannon as the nearest model in the 5 man squad so he died.
I sent all units forward, bikes shot at the cultists ripping many apart but failed the charge. Assault squad moved into the centre ready to get stuck into the centre and the vanguard swung across to the left flank to charge the maulerfiend and try to cripple it with kraks and a powerfist.
The missiles and pred failed to do much, and this was followed by the Vanguard unable to damage the maulerfiend but only lost one of their number.
Andrews death guard advance once more, my bikers get charged but my assault squad move into the cultists. I lose the challange between the sorceror and my sarge as expected but kill off the cultists to gain first blood. I destroy a weapon and immobilse the decimator, but andrew claims he'll roll for both to be fixed in his next turn due to its ability.
He rolls the dice, and gets the results he needs! Decimator mobile again and now storms in to finish off my vanguard. The bikers and captain have trouble wounding the death guard, T5 proving hard to break especially with FNP, but andrews plague knives are poisoned and he does whittle my bikers down... then I remember hit and run! Typical ha! Meanwhile my tactical squad jump out of the rhino and get into contact with the relic.
The decimator finally meets its end, and I take off the last hull point. The Legion of the Damned lower their multi melta at the maulerfiend and take that out too, which is a huge help as we both desperately fight for the Relic! He takes out my tactical squad with the Relic by shooting them with heavy bolter toting havocs and plasma guns, but I'm able to get the last four of my 5 man squad onto it.
This is what was left at the end of turn 6, which was the end of the game. Andrews unharmed Havocs were also left, as was 4 missile launcher devs and predator in my deployment game... but this had been intensely brutal! Legion of the damned had got stuck in to try and tip the balance but were too late to save my chaplain, and while my captain didn't suffer a wound he didn't kill an awful lot either as Andrews rolls to save for armour or FNP were amazing! So the game finished... who won?
Well we'd both got into contact with the relic, so no points for anyone there. No Linebreaker, and no Warlord... so it was down to the First Blood point I had earned by killing the cultists that won me the game. I do however use the term 'won' very loosely, it was that close! It was also incredibly fun, Andrew is always a great opponent and its great to play him after such a long time.
So what do I think of the new codex?
Well, when I remembered hit and run it helped a lot, if you can get some good resilient units into combat, then hit and run you can pour firepower into the enemy unit before getting stuck back in and stopping them returning fire. If I'd have remembered I could have had another turn to shoot the maulerfiend which would have helped a lot. I also forgot Hammer of Wrath quite often, so this had very little effect. Auto passing terrain checks was good though when I did remember hit and run as I could rush back into cover and then leap back out without worrying about armour saves.
It'll be interesting to try some of the other chapter tactics too, Iron Hands and Imperial Fists tactics seemingly pretty useful, as is the Ultramarines one. I've got another game or two on friday so I'll see what lists I come up with.
How are you guys finding the new Codex?
Did you feel like you got much use out of the White Scars tactics?
ReplyDeleteIt looks like you just slapped the scars tactics onto the list you wanted to run and - is that a fair assumption? Either way, it doesn't seem like you got a lot of benefit from them.
To me your list looks like it might benefit most from the Iron Hands tactics.
Partially, if I'd have remembered about hit and run from the start thought it would have meant a few extra dice for attacking and more rerolls for hatred on the chaplain, as well as causing more casualties by shooting into the unit again. I think I need to start remembering the special rules and making the most of them! The Ironhands tactics I don't think would have helped that much, my ability to roll a six is incredibly poor!
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