Company CommanderZvezdarov watched through his scanner as the incoming blips moved ever closer. Turning to Al’rahem,Zvezdarov gave the nod and off 1st Platoon went, engines roaring along a wide sweeping arc around the field ahead…
Kiril and I got in two 1500 pt games pts at PAGE the other night. Most notably, he decided it would be a good time to experiment with Al’rahem. For those unfamiliar with the IG codex, Al’rahem is an upgrade character that takes the role of a Platoon Command Squad officer. He has some interesting things, like a Power Weapon that inflicts Instant Death regardless of toughness (if only Librarians’ Force Weapons were that useful!) and the ability to give two orders, but his big effect is that the whole Platoon must then Outflank, so he grants a flanking move to potentially dozens and dozens of Guardsmen, Weapons Teams, Chimeras, and so on. Kiril doesn’t sound too sold on it, but personally I thought the results were very interesting and favorable.
Game 1
Sgt Scolirus directs his battle brothers from a rearguard position.
We roll for Pitched Battle and Seize Ground, though we made a minor mistake and played it D3+3 objectives. Rolling a big 3, we wound up with a hefty 6 objectives on the table. I put mine fairly tightly packed into one corner and Kiril spread his out along a much longer diagonal in the opposite corner. I wound up going first. He put everything into Reserve and I deployed pretty much everything, with one squad strung out between two of the objectives I placed and the others shifted over a little to go grab the objectives Kiril placed.
Rushing forward in the first two turns, I quickly camped out on 4 objectives and had units near all 6. Then almost everything of Kiril’s came in on Turn 2. Al’rahem and his Platoon Outflanked almost directly on top of my original corner objective, completely neglecting the objectives he had placed and the tempting center cluster of objectives. The Leman Russ, Colossus, and various Heavy Weapons teams walked or rolled on alongside the same table edge as Al’rahem, camping out in terrain close to their long table edge.
Al'rahem changes the dynamics of the battle entirely, outflanking the Kingbreakers and rotating the axis of combat.
The Guard heavy elements bunker down in terrain and prepare fire lanes.
The effect of this was to basically rotate the table. My one squad was very close to the incoming Platoon, but everyone else faced a long slog to get over to Kiril’s forces. It seemed unlikely he’d be able to challenge two of my captured objectives, but it left my nearer two unsupported, with a lot of ground to cover by the ‘Speeders and Dreads, getting shot up the whole time. I had assumed he was going to try and Outflank directly on top of the objectives he’d placed close to the board edge, and it sounded afterward like that was his plan, but my big push up into there made that pretty risky so given the choice he came on the other side, completely opposite the bulk of my forces.
At this point I probably made a mistake. My Tactical Squad holding my two starting objectives started retreating. As strung out as they were, if they assaulted or were assaulted by the Platoon, only a few were going to be able to use the reaction move to get into the combat. I was worried that being under strength in combat would then start the unit getting chewed up piecemeal, swarmed by overwhelming numbers. In reality I should have sacrificed the unit in order to tie up as much of that Platoon as possible. In the event, after running away from that objective, Marbo came down next to the same squad and I was faced with a tough choice between trying to take him out or keeping on shooting and trying to take down as many Guardsmen as possible. I chose the latter, and Marbo started finishing off the two squads in that quarter as the Colossus pummeled them. As Marbo advanced forward the Platoon behind crept along and eventually by the very end of Turn 5, various squads had made their way onto the three objectives I had placed.
Guardsman Marbo arrives in the middle of the battle and singlehandedly leads the push to roll back the Kingbreakers' right flank.
Battle brothers steel their nerves and continue firing away to the last from their position on an objective, all the time listening to the casualty reports tracking Marbo's steady advance, hordes of Guardsmen hot on his heels.
Guardsmen prepare to advance onto the newly cleared objective atop an abandoned bunker.
Meanwhile, along the other long table edge, I was left relatively powerless. The Sternguard came down aggressively, but there were just too many Guardsmen around to make much dent in the horde, and too many of them making a buffer around the Leman Russ and Colossus for the Sternguard to dispatch either. Having advanced all my units forward and out to grab objectives, they faced a long slog to wheel around and get into position to really hurt the IG line. In addition, the Tactical Squads couldn’t really do much without vacating their objectives. A lot of my forces were therefore left either quietly sitting on objectives for the battle, or running toward the IG gunline. Also in the last turn, as the IG ran for the objectives I had placed, Tactical 2’s remaining Combat Squad decamped from its Razorback hideout and strung out between two fortuitously placed objectives to claim both. The hold was tenuous, several were killed by the pounding they of course took in Kiril’s last round of shooting, but the game ended at the bottom of 5 before they were forced to abandon an objective to move back into cohesion.
By the end not a lot of Guardsmen died, had but they also hadn’t really been in a position to hurt much more than my two post-rotation leading Tactical Squads, and most of the damage inflicted on them came from the Colossus.
Sgt Titus and his men make a desperate, overextended move to hold two critical objectives.
A squad of Cadians defend their rear objective.
Recap
The general flow of the battle, or close enough; the pictures roughly but not quite correspond to turns (some things have shifted up or down to ease narrative), and I might be off on the countless numbers of Guard foot squads:
The board after deployment.
Kingbreakers rush forward to (over-)extend onto four objectives, threatening two more. Ratlings make lewd gestures at Marines.
Kingbreakers wheel about toward the newly arrived Guardsmen. Cpt Angholan and his Sternguard break a squad of special weapons.
Dreadnoughts keep moving toward the Guard. Marbo shows up. Kingbreakers are pushed off their weakest objective. Angholan and Sternguard, severely weakened by heavy fire, annihilate a heavy weapons team.
Angholan and Sternguard do more damage, but are consequently destroyed under even more heavy fire. Marbo eliminates the Kingbreakers point squad and presses the Marines' frontier inward.
The Colossus prepares the way for Al'rahem's vanguard squads to dash onto the blood drenched objectives. Squad Titus takes a perilous extended line to claim a new objective, and barely holds on to claim the draw.
Results
Draw, 3 objectives each.
Thoughts
Marbo is a pain in the ass. Not a game breaker, but definitely annoying. You have to shoot him or he’ll just whittle away your guys, but he’s also not really worth shooting at when you have juicier targets around. Personally from a design standpoint I think that’s a good unit, with interesting tradeoffs imposed on the opposing player and has good utility to the Guard player. Either he does a fair bit of damage, or he rather cheaply takes up some decent amount of shooting if he can get some cover.
Once the IG rotated the table, I should have vacated the leftmost objectives I had taken and come to those in the center of the table. This would have exposed my guys to more attacks, but if they survived they would have potentially prevented the Guard from moving forward toward and onto those objectives.
The Outflank could have gone quite worse. If Kiril had rolled to come on via the short edge directly by my guys, things could have gone pretty bad pretty fast for that Platoon. That is a big risk at these point levels and how Kiril was playing it, where that Platoon was the bulk of his army. However, I thought it was a pretty good tactic. Outflanking units have a 2/3 chance of coming in on the table edge you desire, even without taking an Astropath and getting a re-roll on that. At this point level, Al’rahem’s one Platoon could make up a substantial part of your army. This potentially lets you set up all those forces far away from the opposing player, giving plenty of time for you to shoot them up.
Where I think that move might suffer is on boards with a fair amount of high terrain that blocks LOS. In some ways that will work well, as the IG has a number of effective indirect fire weapons like the Colossus that will ignore the blockages, while many army builds will be stymied (how often do you see a Whirlwind out there?), yielding the perfect mix of cover for your own guys but still plenty of shooting opportunities. On the other hand, most of the Heavy Weapons teams and so on will also be blocked in their shooting by the terrain. It could also be problematic if the opponent stays castled up near the center then moves to attack after the Guard arrive, rather than trying to camp out objectives early like I did here. Probably worse, that Outflank move seems vulnerable to highly mobile units. Fast BA Rhinos, Dark Eldar Raiders, and so on could all deliver their units pretty quickly directly on top of the gunline. But, that’s maybe not really any different than usual.
Also, I made a mistake in putting the Rhino with full Tactical Squad on the left edge. With the way things turned out, it would have been better suited than the Razorback with Combat Squad to string out and claim the two center objectives as happened in the end game. However, I was concerned about the whole platoon coming down on that one left objective, so I wanted a whole squad in that Rhino ready to pop out and wreak havoc.
Game 2
The Kingbreakers roll out for war.
The second game proceeded similarly, although we rolled for Annihilation instead. Expecting and receiving mostly the same tactic, I moved most of the Kingbreakers up close to the centerline of the table. A few Ratlings and a small squad tried to create a distraction in the far corner, but they were quickly dispatched. The rest of the Guard bunkered down, tucked tightly into a far edge. From there I had to rush across 3–4 feet of pretty open ground, with a large number of Autocannons and Lascannons working on my vehicles while the Colossus went to town on my footslogging troops.
Guardsmen engage in their favority activity: Bunkering down well away from the enemy...
Results
Kiril won by one or two Kill Points, basically an extra popped Rhino and Landspeeder in the final round of shooting.
Lessons
This is exactly the kind of game where you really really want a Whirlwind, with a ton of closely bunched Guard Infantry. It’s just a shame they’re probably not the most cost effective unit against other armies and situations.
More Lascannons in my army would be useful. It’s just too difficult to cross that much ground without giving away too many models in order to swoop in for the Melta kills. I’m starting to believe that 1) Meltas have been over-emphasized in the metagame, and 2) my early learning experiences have bent me to worrying more about hordes than I should. Either way, I should start fielding more Lascannons, though I unfortunately don’t particularly like the model. The range is just so short on Meltas that it can be pretty hard for many armies to deliver them reliably.
Importantly, the Kingbreakers wound up just a bit too far to the left after the first couple moves. I shifted them off center a little in order to tuck in behind some terrain in case some of Kiril’s units came in directly in front of them. However, I should have just risked absorbing that shooting in favor of coming in right on top of the centerline and being able to rush either way more quickly. I also popped smoke too early, defending against that straight ahead shooting that didn’t come. That cover should have been reserved for the charge across open ground to whichever table edge the Guard did come in on.
The Colossus is a real threat. Wounds on 2s on most things, indirect fire, pins, and ignores Marine armor and cover saves. It did the bulk of the killing in both games. Notably, Kiril did a good job tucking it away. Not only was it as far as possible from anything I had that could hurt it, but there was also a pretty good wall of troops around it preventing units, such as the Drop Podding Sternguard, from getting too close. Hence the need for Lascannons.
Conclusion
All in all a good time, and two interesting and close games. More and higher res photos are available in the Flickr gallery. I’ll have to think more about how to do better against this approach.