Well, my army of Space Marines got their asses handed to them for breakfast – twice. Once by the Ultra Marines and once by the Imperial Guard.
The first game was against Trev and his Ultramarines, tooled up with a Land Raider, a Predator and a Whirlwind. Throw in some scouts with sniper rifles, a few Space Marine troop choices (one with a Razor Back Rhino), jump troops, close combat terminators and a jump packing Chaplain. My God, what a ton of stuff for 1700 points.
Mine looked piddly compared with his – and as ever numbers can be the real key. The more bodies on the ground the more shots you can fire off.
The scenario was Take and Hold, where the table was quartered and to capture the quarter you had to have a scoring unit in the quarter without any opposing units contesting it.
Unfortunately, I became so engrossed with the game I did not take notes. However, some of the highlights were the vindication of blowing the hell out of his whirlwind, predator and razorback with a few well placed lazcannon and krak missile shots – but alas these small victories came too late in the day with his tanks leaving my lot in a devastating mess. His termies were just shit hot but I took him down from 5 to 2 with an immobilised dreadnought and a couple of ordinary troop space marines – very pleasing indeed. I just imagined the space marine carrying the lazcannon bashing out the brains of one unlucky terminator with lightening claws.
My Command squad could have done better but in the end held their own for 3 turns with the Chaplain, Master and Champion still alive at the end. They did well but still not sure if they are worth the points. That said I really enjoyed the way they were hard enough to take one 4 units at once, including the assault marines with the Chaplain.
My two dreads were both immobilised but kept fighting and shooting as much as they could and the Land Raider went out of action around turn 3 or 4. My Terminators were knocked off early and thus I lost my ‘Assault cannons of Death’. Though I was stupid in setting them up in full view of his shooters. Ah well. In the end I think it would have been a narrow solid victory as it would only have taken another round to finish me off and he had two quarters to my one. The last quarter being contested.
I have to say though over all I loved the game. Nail biting for me at times but fun. One of the main things I learnt was watch were your opponent sets up, use cover and take out as many light to medium tanks before the bigger ones. I spent two much time trying desperately to blow the hell out of his Land Raider. I glanced it and penetrated that sucker nearly every turn and all I could roll on damage was ones or twos. I had my assault troops attack it as my sergeant had a power fist. I hit, I penetrated and ……. I destroyed an armament. Ended up being a bloody pintle mounted storm bolter. AAAaaaahhhhhh. His termies launched out of the Land Raider on one side and a group of six space marines dumped out the back of their razorback on the other side. I was still scraping my assault troop’s sorry asses off the table when the game ended.
The next game was against the Imperial Guard. They ended up being hard as ….. well, as hard as a really hard thing. I committed the cardinal sin of underestimating the imperial guard and how they can be upgraded – carapace armour and plasma guns. My friend had a great time ripping the marines to shreds.
I stupidly fell for a ‘come and get me if you think you’re hard enough’ trick when he placed a full squad of guards close to the front of my Land Raider in which I had my Command Squad. My idiocy knew no bounds when my Command Squad leapt out and had fun decimating them only to have hordes of the bloody imperial guard spend the next few turns turn my Command Squad, slowly but surely, into plasmatic gloop. Never, ever, ever underestimate Imperial Guard, their cheapness and the number of plasma guns they can bring to bear. Tank Shock, damn it, tank shock!!!! His command squad was right behind.
Leman Russ Tanks are a real bastard to kill. As hard as a Land Raider on the front they were nigh on indestrucable to my firing as I kept up my luck from the last game – rolling ones and twos on the damage charts.
Mind you in the very first round of shooting I took out his Hellhound and in retaliation he blew up one of my dreadnoughts. He also fired his nice battle cannon at one of my squads and took them out to a man. Wow, blatant weapon of mass destruction.
He essentially wiped out my assault squad and command squad with cheap troops tooled up with plasma guns.
Ah well, back to the drawing board.
I may have lost both battles but I was still happy with the moments of small victories and good dice rolling. The command squad was expensive but I loved them to bits.
I will upload the list I used in the next post – hopefully – and then tweak. I like the army but I need to just get a bit more out of them.
