Kiril and I got in a 1500pt game of 40k on Sunday, his Imperial Guard versus my Kingbreakers Space Marines. The game was pretty taut, well balanced until the very end. As Colin noted, this matchup between us is definitely becoming on ongoing grudge match.

Lists & Mission

I believe Kiril brought something like:

• Company command squad w/ Astropath
• Platoon w/ 20 man blob, 10 man squads?,Flamer squad,two Lascannon squads
• Platoon w/ 20 man squad, 10 man squads?,Melta squad,Al’rahem
• Veterans
• Two Leman Russes w/ Battle Cannon, Lascannons
• Primaris Psyker
• Marbo

I brought:

• Captain Angholan (as Vulkan)
• Sternguard x5 in Drop Pod w/ Combi-Meltas
• Dreadnought in Drop Pod w/ Assault Cannon, Heavy Flamer, CCW
• Dreadnought in Drop Pod w/ Multi-Melta, Heavy Flamer, CCW
• Tactical Squad in Razorback w/ PF, Flamer, Lascannon
• Tactical Squad in Rhino w/ Meltagun, Missile Launcher
• Tactical Squad in Rhino w/ Flamer, Lascannon
• Squadron of two Landspeeders w/ Multi-Meltas and Heavy Flamers

We rolled for Seize Ground with five objectives (!), and Dawn of War.

Lascannon teams set up a position overlooking the battle.

Battle!

Four of the objectives wound up being deployed in a fairly tight quadrilateral on a half of the board splitting the long edge. The other was fairly removed, off on the other side of the board along the main axis. Kiril took first and deployed simply a Lascannon squad, in cover on top of the abandoned bunker overlooking the objectives. I deployed a Tactical Squad in their Rhino, hugged tightly behind a wall near one of the objectives. They wouldn’t be well placed for much shooting, but neither would they be able to get shot at much.

In the first turn, about half of Kiril’s Guardsmen came on, with most near the objectives quadrilateral and a small detachment moving toward the remote one. Kingbreakers’ Dreadnought Drop Pods came down right on top of the abandoned bunker and one of the objectives while Landspeeders and the Razorback came forward in the cover provided by that wall of Pods. Between the Heavy Flamers on the Dreadnoughts, Assault Cannon, and Razorback Heavy Bolter, the Guard’s initial Lascannon team was eliminated, probably an important result for keeping my vehicles moving.

The table at the end of Turn 1.

The more or less primary area of the battle, along one of the short edges.

In the following turn, Al’rahem’s squads come on along the short edge near the objectives quadrilateral. This was risky for both sides—it exposed the bulk of the Kingbreakers’ vehicles to Melta fire, but also put those squads very close to an awful lot of firepower and assault capability. One of the Leman Russes entered on the remote edge, supporting the detachment heading for the far objective. Sternguard attempted to drop on top of the Russ and take it out, but a system glitch scattered them far toward the interior of the battle, well out of Melta bonus range.

The Kingbreakers weathered Al’rahem’s arrival reasonably well, losing a Landspeeder, a mission killed Dreadnought (immobilized with basically no line of sight possible), and Captain Angholan’s Razorback transport. While the remaining Landspeeder’s shaken crew ran for cover, Dreadnought Slayer wheeled from his protected place amid the Drop Pods and righteously flamed the Guardsmen before barreling into them for the assault. Angholan and Squad Scolirus ignored Marbo and charged the small squad protecting the Primaris Psyker, flaming heavily in the process and obliterating it.

Dreadnought Slayer wades into combat with hordes of Guardsmen.

The Guard advance into the center of the table.

Meanwhile the Guard advanced into the lightly defended table center. Kingbreakers’ Sternguard were wiped out under heavy fire from the Leman Russes, both having now entered, and much small arms fire from the nearby infantry squads. Angholan and his men charged into combat alongside Dreadnought Slayer, with the two of them together now carving wholesale through the ranks of the Guard. The remaining Landspeeder, crew now recovered, moved valiantly to stem the tide of Guardsmen encroaching on the center objective, making good use of its Heavy Flamer.

Generally speaking, this is not a good position for a Guardsman to find himself in.

The table around Turn 3.

With the end of the battle nearing, Squad Titus broke from cover in its Rhino and started moving toward the center objective. This began one of the more dynamic portions of an already fairly active match. The Rhino moved just short of the objective, while a large blob of Guardsmen sat on it on the other side, a heathen monument and crashed Landspeeder between them. On Turn 5, the “safe” move was maybe to move the Rhino onto the objective with Titus inside, contest it, and hope that the game would end that turn with the Kingbreakers holding two other objectives and the Guard just out of place, only holding one. Instead, Titus disembarked and ran around the monument to shoot and assault the Guard while the Rhino nosed onto the objective to contest. With supporting fire from the Drop Pods and Dreadnought Slayer, the entire Guard blob was eliminated—the Kingbreakers actually had to hold of shooting a bit to ensure it remained in assault range.

Titus’s whole squad still intact, it consolidated on top of the objective. Unable to get into cover fromthe assured return Russ Battle Cannon bombardments, the squad clustered tightly around the objective and prayed to their power armor to keep at least some alive and on the marker. The game did in fact go on for another turn, and only two Marines survived the heavy shelling they received. Both tried to clamber over the wrecked Landspeeder, but one got snagged and injured in the burning wreckage—a 1/6 fail on the difficult terrain check!—so only the meltagunner made it over, diving into the waiting Rhino for some much needed cover while holding the objective.

Potentially devastatingly, the game then went on to Turn 7! The meltagunner’s Rhino was promptly smashed by sniping Lascannon teams and a Leman Russ, exploding in a shower of plasteel and electronics! The rattled meltagunner inside survived purely by the Emperor’s mercy, tried to get as small as he could inside the resultant crater to stay out of sight from the remaining Russ. His position in the crater then just barely managed to put him out of assault range from oncoming Guard flamers—the team rolling a 4 for difficult terrain, short by ~1 inch—to hold the objective for the final, dramatically arrived end of the game.

In sum, over the last three turns, that meltagunner had survived an assault on a 20 man squad, shelling by two Leman Russes, scrambling over a burning Landspeeder that claimed his only remaining buddy, the annihilation and explosion of the transport he was embarked in, and more shelling by Leman Russes, as well as flaming and near assault by a nearby Guard contingent. All in all, definitely MVP of the Kingbreakers’ force in this match.

The meltagunner from Squad Titus faces down on-rushing Guardsmen.

The meltagunner dives into nearby wreckage, looking for any scrap of cover to hold onto the position.

Meanwhile, in mopping up operations, Angholan and Slayer flushed the Guard’s Company command squad from its objective, while the remaining Tactical Marine squads moved to cement their positions on objectives.

Angholan and Slayer contest the Guard's original objective.

The Hive Lords' detachment holds onto an objective after bunkering down nearby most of the game.

The remnants of Squad Scolirus, having moved across a good portion of the board, shelter on an objective in the cover of a dead forest and Dreadnought Slayer's Drop Pod.

Outcome

Kingbreakers win, three objectives to one, with one contested. Both sides had plenty of units left; casualties were very light for the game, though a good number of Guardsmen had of course gone to meet the Emperor. Life is cheap in the service of the Imperium.

Notes

One rules question we had was whether or not an Independent Character, such as the Primaris Psyker, can Outflank with the Platoon if he joins Al’rahem’s unit. Notably, Al’rahem does not have Scout, which would be lost if an IC without Scout joins. Instead, he simply forces his unit to go into reserve and Outflank. We’ll have to look into this more, but we played it as the Psyker could join a squad in the platoon and Outflank.

Another rules note that came up is that unexploded, destroyed vehicles become wrecks, which count as difficult and dangerous terrain (main rulebook, page 62). I don’t think most people realize you can move over wrecked vehicles, though I’d definitely try to be reasonable about putting models on somebody’s painted vehicle. In this game it was important because I placed one of the Landspeeder wrecks to block one of the Guard platoons a bit, but that came back to haunt me later when Titus’ remaining guys wanted to run back to their Rhino. Going around the ‘Speeder was too far, but fortunately they were able to use that rule to move over top of it, though one of them—amazingly and almost calamitously—failed the dangerous terrain check and bought the farm.

There were several times when I had to hold back shooting in order to leave enough enemy models to ensure an assault. In a couple cases though the overkill couldn’t be easily avoided, leaving my guys out in the open rather than able to assault. I would have had to not shoot with every model in the unit, let alone not shooting with other units. That’s something I’ll have to get a better handle on and try to think about more in the future.

Another interesting point is that one critical move occurred early in the game. Dreadnought Slayer was facing a small squad of meltagunners in front of him, and a 20 man squad with a couple meltagunners behind them. I needed to remove some of the front meltagunners, but really wanted to get into assault with the large blob behind and tie it up. Fortunately, I was able to shoot the squad behind, placing the flamer template over much of the small front unit and hitting a cluster in the rear unit. That removed a bunch of the front meltagunners, and left room for Slayer to assault the large blob, which he could do because that was the unit he declared shooting at. I’m not sure it’s totally obvious to all players that you don’t have to choose to flame the unit directly in front of you in that situation.

In general I was happy with my loadout. This game saw intense use of all the Kingbreakers’ flamers. Kiril runs a troop heavy list, and with the Outflanking Al’rahem, occasionally winds up in pretty close contact. The Heavy Flamer upgrades on the Dreadnoughts are definitely worth the 10 points. Vulkan’s Heavy Flamer gauntlet also seems to come in handy much more often than I thought it would. In general I’ve been pretty happy with Vulkan. A little vulnerable in close combat against some units, but in general he’s pretty versatile at both close combat and shooting, and obviously his army-wide twin linked buff is huge. The Assault Cannon on the one Dread is expensive, but its four shots paid off in this game against the hordes of Guard models. Sternguard were basically a waste this time, but they rolled a ridiculous 11 for scatter on their Pod. If they’d come down closer to the Leman Russ on the board at that point, things could have gone a fair bit differently. Really my biggest disappointment was the Lascannons in the Tactical squads. One spent the bulk of the game too hidden to shoot anything, and the other moving too much. When they did get to shoot they invariably whiffed. That said though, they’re pretty cheap in the Tac Squads, and would be more useful if there hadn’t been as much terrain between them and the Russes. Their squads did also hold two objectives and that’s what wins games, so the squads as a whole did fine.

I think one of the big problems for Kiril in this game was that his Russes wound up without a ton of shooting opportunities. They found things to shoot at every turn, but a lot of it wasn’t super critical. Between the terrain and my Pods, there was just too much intervening material from where he brought them on. Outflanking right onto my guys was also super gutsy, for which I give him credit. In the end a lot of those units got rolled by just the one Dreadnought, Drop Pods, and Angholan’s squad, but if he hadn’t come on there I would have been left largely to my own devices on top of most of the objectives.

One other thought is that I was very satisfied to win the game after the extensive late-game action around Titus’ squad in the center. I figured staying in the Rhino was a safer move but was basically playing for a draw, hoping to bunker down and contest the center objective. By hopping out and attacking the oncoming large blob it was risking a lot more with the potential ruination of the squad under return fire, but it was playing more aggressively for a decisive win by clearing the center objective. In the end it maybe didn’t matter as Slayer and Angholan were also able to contest the Guard’s home objective, but without Titus absorbing massive firepower in the last two turns it’s possible one or another of my other squads would have been wiped out and lost their objectives.

All around a solid game—pretty even for most of it, then up in Kiril’s favor, and then decisively for the Kingbreakers. A few more photos are available in the Flickr gallery.