Jason and I got in a 2500 pt ‘Ard Boyz practice game on Wednesday, pitting his Deathwing against my Kingbreakers in Scenario 1. He pulled out a victory by tieing on objectives but having more kill points than I. One of my Tactical Squads almost contested his second objective in the very last assault phase of the game to swing it to a victory for me, but they got bounced off by his Terminators.

Lessons

His Deathwing really doesn’t offer up many kill points, and Terminators are hard as nails. Having them as Troops sitting on an objective is huge. However, I made things worse for myself but getting stuck into a drawn out battle trying to eliminate his commander and friends. I should have perhaps ignored them, but I was trying to keep them from rushing my main group and two home objectives. There also wasn’t much space to come down any closer to his home objectives. I’m not too sold on the usefulness of my Librarian. On the one hand, he did effectively counter Jason’s Librarian. But he’s weak in close combat and doesn’t bring home many points.

Rules

Brett’s Orks vs Kingbreakers, 2500 pts, ‘Ard Boyz 2009 Scenario 2.

The second ‘Ard Boyz scenario is a variation on Dawn of War and on Annihilation. The big difference is that the Kill Points are modified, making Troops one point, HQs two points, and all others two points. To win, a player needs to beat their opponent by at least four points.

I deployed first and put out two troops units, a Lascannon Combat Squad on top of a hill, a Razorback with the second part of the Combat Squad, and another troop hidden within a copse of trees. Brett deployed some sort of ugly lookin’ Orks in the mid-field, and some mega-nobs behind them (allowed as one of his Boss’ made them troops or something like that).

Battle

Turn one I brought the Sternguard and Tac Squad down in the center of the field, hoping to eliminate the leading Orks and Nobs. That mostly worked out, though the Meganobs skulked around for a while until my Terminators could come in and take them out in a brutal close combat. Unfortunately, my Librarian was basically traded for Brett’s Warphead, trading 5 kill points each. A few more units were taken out by collective shooting between the Devastators, Landspeeders, and Tactical Squads. Brett’s thick green line slowly advanced on my units, but their sheer bulk kept many units from deploying in the best positions.

Lessons

There seems to be some confusion about whether or not units can deploy inside dedicated transports at the start of a Dawn of War mission. I’m not sure why there is any confusion about this, as the example within the Dawn of War rules makes it very clear that they can.

The game played out well, but I’m still not totally sure what I’m doing against Orks, and am potentially not using Tactical Squads well. I have to say that I think two of my troops were wasted. One did some damage with its missile launcher, but otherwise didn’t bring enough shots into play. The other took some potshots with its lascannon, but not enough, and the combat squad in the Razorback had no clear role without an objective to contest.

In some ways, Brett made a mistake by deploying his lead units up on the midline. On the one hand that enabled them to get into close combat earlier, but it enabled my forces to concentrate on them and wipe them out before the long wave of his reinforcements hit.

I managed to focus my forces well, and took out a fair number of units. My Terminators were mostly given away though by over-extending them into an assault they could not support. I also failed badly by shooting too hard at a group of Orks such that Brett was able to remove some models and put them just out of reach of an assault that turned a probable close combat win into essentially a loss next round as the Orks in turn got the charge bonus. Finally, I got over zealous with my Dreadnought, dropping it deep in enemy lines to try and assassinate Brett’s remaining HQ model, but instead the HQ destroyed the Dreadnought in close combat.

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.