<-- Wayne's army in a different game
I know, another IG right? This Mission was DoW Kill Points, Objectives and Table Quarters against Wayne. Annoying match-up here as IG obviously has a lot more ability to pop tanks of mine than I of his and he has the ant-infantry to deal with my 40+ MEQs. What I need to be able to do then is tie on KP or if I get good rolls against his tanks, clean up his infantry quickly for cheap KPs. Unlikely compared to what he can do to me so board control is more important. I cannot recall his list (Dennis, help? :P) but it went something like:
CCS w/melta, plasma in Chimera
PCS w/special weapons in Chimera
3x Infantry Platoon w/special weapons in Chimeras
2x10x Penal Legion
Banewolf
Scout Sent w/HF, HKM
10x Rough Riders
Pask Vanquisher
LRBT + LRDemolisher
2x Hydra
My list can be seen here as per usual. Some pictures from late game have gone missing again so you'll have to bear with me in later turns but I'll try and use text in the pictures as well. Wayne won the roll-off and decided to go first. I must say quickly, again, I didn't like the board. Dennis laughed at me when I said this but the hill blocks a lot of LoS. I'm all for not having gunline armies being able to sit back and gunline (hi Jason) but it covered nearly half the board and things could get a bit hard to see. Regardless, continuing on.
Deployment and Turn 1:
Wayne pushed a Chimera with guys inside it forward on the hill so I couldn't deploy anything sneakily behind there. I ended up deploying my Razorback with a Searchlight on the far right behind some buildings in an effort to searchlight anything Wayne brought in on that side which would be in the open (such as his LRBT or Hydras). I didn't bother to seize and Wayne moved everything on in a big line across his whole board. The Hydras were indeed setup in the open whilst each Chimera was put in a place of cover with the Banewolf ready to supported the Chimera which had deployed early. The LRBT+Demo were setup right where the main corridor was to be able to shoot down any of my guys which went that way (and it was the easiest way to access him). His shooting did nothing to me so it was my turn to move on.
I moved the bulk of my army (Purifier RBack, 2 Rhino GKSS and Chimera) on through the middle where the Russes were. Using movement and smoke I was still going to get cover and had a direct line for the majority of his battleline. The two Dreads deployed on the side with the pushed forward RBack which moved up where most of Wayne's army couldn't see it whilst being able to searchlight the Hydras. The remaining two Razorbacks deployed behind the hill to hold the objective there and engage the pushed forward Chimera.
My shooting did little damage, knocking off the multi-laser of the Chimera and shaking it. My searchlight failed (snake eyes) and I didn't run my Dreads away from the board edge which resulted in a penal legion tying one up :(. Le sigh.
Imperial Guard Turn 2
Nothing dead yet...boring. The stunned Chimera on the left doesn't move but the Banewolf moves up to join it. This was really a move that had no purpose as it brought me closer to the Banewolf, didn't get me within 2D6" range of the hull MM and therefore made it less of a threat to me later in the game by hanging back. Threat ranges! The other Chimera on the left also trundled up a bit. Everything else in the Guard army trundled up 6"and got ready to shoot whilst one penal legion squad came in a tied up one of my Psyfledreads. Woopsie. They would stay in combat for the rest of the game.
Wayne's shooting wrecked the pushed forward Razorback on the right whilst immobilising the Purifier Razorback in the backfield. A couple of shaken and stunneds were applied to my Razorbacks and remaining Psyfledread but they were all ignored with Fortitude on my turn.
Grey Knights Turn 2
I moved up again whilst maintaining cover as much as possible. My Rhinos swapped positions so the leader could use smoke and the rearguard could fire (having only moved 6") whilst the Chimera drove up onto the ledge behind the building to provide 3+ cover bubble to as many people as possible. The Purifiers hopped out of the Immobilised Razorback and moved behind the Rhinos so they had fields of fire between them. The Razorbacks on the left moved up 6" whilst the Purifier squad there stayed still.
My shooting did diddly. On the right I was able to blow off the main gun of Banewolf (too aggressive with it) and shake it whilst the Dread on the right caused two weapon destroyed and one shaken result on the Hydras. Silly Psycannons and Psybacks!
Imperial Guard Turn 3
I haven't killed anything yet and have barely been able to shake anything. Alas. Wayne does the intelligent thing and moves a fair amount of his stuff in the middle backwards. He outranges me so it means I have to spend longer getting to him and since Table Quarters are the last mission parameter, he can afford to. He his sacrificing the middle objective though. His Rough Riders and Penal Legion squads come in, both in the bottom left hand corner to add more weight to that flank. The Chimera on that side stays put whilst the damaged Chimera and Banewolf in the middle move backwards.
With his shooting Wayne is able to wreck the GKSS Razorback on the left and explode the leading Rhino in the middle. Followed up with a couple of templates and the GKSS squad is reduced to four and flees like a whipped dog. A couple more shaken/stunned results were handed out but again ignored by Fortitude. The GKSS squad on the left ends up being pinned as well.
Grey Knights Turn 3
Bloody multi-lasers. Ah well, time to move forward. I'm having a hard time killing things with my poor psycannon rolls, let alone shaking things atm so I need to get him into combat and force some Guardsmen into the open. My falling back GKSS rally and move so their Psycannons have a clear field of fire down the middle with the Purifiers whilst the remaining Rhino moves up to threaten an assault next turn (moved 6"). I really should have moved the Chimera up with it to provide AV12 + smoke but for some odd reason left it where it was. My remaining Razorback on the left moved to protect the GKSS that was pinned whilst the Purifiers also moved up as well.
My shooting caused a single shaken on the Russes and on the Hydras but that's it.
Imperial Guard Turn 4
Still losing pretty badly at this stage due to my inability to kill things. Most of Wayne's line moves backwards again though the Rough Riders on the left move up to try and assault the pinned GKSS. Wayne then opened fire and was able to bring the remaining Rhino down in a haze of fire and was able to kill three GKSS with his remaining firepower. He was unable to do anymore damage thankfully and the Rough Riders failed their DT to get into combat. There was an issue with this though so I'm going to cover some combat rules.
1st move is closest to closest in a straight line. This was fine as there was no terrain in the way. You ignore the 1" rule so you can move close to enemy models. You then have to move each model so it gets into base to base if possible. You can of course move these models in a long line around terrain to do this but if a model can get into base to base, it must. If that means a 12" straight line through terrain (over the wall in this case) you must roll a terrain test. Wayne finally did this but wasn't happy about it thinking he could get his lead guy into combat and then move everyone in with supporting attacks rather than going over the wall. He failed his test so they didn't get into combat. More to follow
Grey Knights Turn 4
I then moved this Strike Squad laterally so it didn't go over the wall and therefore didn't go through terrain (we hadn't called the hill terrain at any point up until now) and Wayne wasn't happy about this because I didn't take a Terrain test. I pointed out I had moved laterally away from the wall rather than over it but he still wasn't happy. I offered to get Dennis over in regards to what I said above but he was adamant about me taking a DT. I took a DT, got a poor roll so didn't bother with the Rough Riders and instead moved the GKSS more to midfield.
My disembarked GKSS in the centre moved forwards to engage some tanks in combat (with Might cast on them) whilst the Purifiers on the left moved up again. The GKSS and Purifiers in the central corridor stayed put. In shooting I once again did diddly though I was able to shake the damaged Chimera on the left and both of the Russes. In combat I was able to get the Strike squad in combat with both the Russ Squadron and the CCS Chimera (using proper assault rules) and destroyed the Chimera + 1 Russ. Finally some KP!
Imperial Guard Turn 5
I've run out of pictures sorry guys :( and we were told this was the last turn.. Kill Points as they stand are 4-2 Wayne's way. His Scout Sent finally came in and was able to pop my Dreadnought with his HKM (ouch) whilst he moved the damaged Chimera in midfield and got out the Infantry Platoon there to double tap my GKSS. This was silly as there was a Purifier squad right there and moved the Chimera into their charge range easily. His Rough Riders on the left moved around to try and assault the Strike Squad from a different angle whilst the rest of his tanks moved 6". The remaining Russ moved 12" backwards and the Chimera on the right moved onto the objective on his right. The Banewolf attempted to tank shock my Strike Squad on the left but failed.
His Rough Riders failed their difficult terrain again so my Strike Squad was safe. His shooting was able to bring the GKSS down to a single Psycannon and the Hammer Justicar left leaving Wayne on 5 KP meaning I needed 1 KP this turn to push the game to a different tier.
Grey Knights Turn 5
I moved my Strike Squad in the left back onto the objective and the damaged Strike Squad in the middle onto the objective with the Libby. The Strike Squad on the right ran towards the objective there and were able to reach it easily. The Purifiers in the centre moved up to engaged both the Chimera and disembarked Platoon whilst the two guys left of the large GKSS squad moved up to multi-assault the CCS and Platoon. My Razorback on the left tank shocked the Rough Riders who failed and fled (dice don't lie!) but wasn't able to contest the objective in that area.
In shooting I wasn't able to do much but I finally killed something with psycannons (the Banewolf on the left flank) with the Scout Sent being knocked senseless and having no weapons or ability to move left. The Purifiers were able to immobilised the Chimera before they charged meaning free hits. In combat the Purifiers were able to wreck the Chimera with some nicely placed Kraks and between them, the Strike squad and Cleansing Flame, wiped out the CCS and Platoon bringing the KP back to 5-all.
It would go to objectives then since I had pushed Wayne back into his half and we tied 2-2 because I fucked up and didn't move the Strike Squad on the left back enough (they were less than half an inch out). Oh well, we gave Wayne the win of VP as it was very unlikely I was even close considering how damaged my army was and how unable I had been to kill his army.
Conclusion
Sometimes the dice don't like you and this was one of those times. I was barely able to get off shaken results with most of my guns. Combine this with Wayne's multi-lasers dropping five of my tanks and being able to reliably damage them and I was on the back foot. Further combine this with some silly mistakes on my part (Dreadnought being tied up, not moving Strike squad enough) it cost me the game. Considering I was on the back foot the whole game I was happy the way I was able to dictate Wayne's movement quite a bit and kept him hemmed in. He really should have won on KP but by getting his guys out it allowed me to kill a lot of stuff in the closing stages of the game.
In the end I wasn't that upset about losing due to not nudging my guys as I got into Day2. If I hadn't though...wow! lol
Sorry for the lack of pictures and blurriness in the last ones. Hope the text helped.
