Rules

IG vs Kingbreakers, 2000 pts, Capture and Control

PAGE Sunday Night Fights game against Matt G and his tank-heavy Imperial Guard. I rolled for first go and deployed simply my Devastators and two Rhinos of Tactical Squads. Matt deployed a Company Command Squad, Infantry Platoon, a squadron of Sentinels, and three or four Leman Russes.

Battle

Turn One, I dropped a Drop Pod with Librarian and Sternguard directly in front of the Command Squad. The other Drop Pod came down between two Leman Russes. Sternguard blew the Command Squad off the board, but the Dreadnought had little effect. Devastators chipped away at the Infantry Platoon while the Tac Squads moved up.

That was pretty much the defining move of the game. As I hoped, Matt’s focus was instantly turned inward by the Sternguard rampaging through his backguard, and the threat of the Dreadnought amidst his tank squadron. Instead of rolling forward on my objective, the tanks’ forward progress was turned around to deal with the threat, as well as being significantly physically blocked in by the Pods. Although the Dreadnought did not last long, my Landspeeder and Terminators eventually come down and tore through the bulk of the tanks, including the second squadron that came on from reserves and a squadron of Sentinels, with some help from a Tactical Squad’s missile launcher. At a crucial moment, Sternguard Combi-Meltas obliterated an incoming Leman Russ Punisher as it came on and worked its way through terrain to engage them. Although the Sternguard did not last the game, they managed to mostly eliminate an Infantry Platoon coming on from reserves so that Tac 1 could drop in cleanly and hold Matt’s objective.

Lessons

Long story short, this was a fun game. The Drop Pod Assault had a devastating effect, both damage-wise and emotionally. Matt was basically thrown on the defensive from there, and never encroached on my objective. I lost more men than I should have due to some poor use of terrain to block fire from the Leman Russes, but otherwise it went smoothly. In particular, there seemed to be enough anti-tank in the list to deal with the lumbering behemoths, and enough anti-infantry to deal with the Platoons.

The big question is, would this tactic work against armies better suited to close combat? That seems unlikely; the Sternguard had enough trouble as-is standing on their own before more reinforcements managed to come up and support them. On the other hand, it could be worthwhile to drop in a similar fashion and sacrifice a unit in order to turn the opponent’s focus back into his rearguard, and buy more time for the Kingbreakers’ shooting units to pick apart the enemy at range.