The Neotian Saints

A new gaming cafe, GamesHub, has opened in St Neots. It’s a super place, and I’m taking part in a 1000 point Warhammer 40,000 tournament they’re running and so the 267th Neotian Saints are marching to war again. I have a moment to write down some thoughts. I’m doing this after my round 5 match, so there’s more detail as I remember more of the more recent games!

Round 1 – Steve’s Tyranids

Leman Russ Tank Commanders are great. They’re tough, have a lot of wounds, and can kick out an awful lot of damage. However, they’re also expensive and a massive target. When one is destroyed before it’s even fired a shot, you’ve essentially lost a quarter of your thousand point army from the start, and it’s an uphill battle from there. Fortunately, I still had another one with a ‘nid-munching Punisher Gatling Gun, but it was only lucky rolls that kept me alive.

I’ve ended up trying two regular Leman Russes. For another seventy points, you get twice as many wounds on the same chassis, and in different places on the board. You lose the orders, but you are firing twice as much.

Round 2 – Stephen’s Blood Angels

I lost this game, as I recall, because Stephen was able to get some a couple of units in my lines on deployment, take out my Manticore and one of my transports, and generally cause havoc. My list was a battalion of Scions and a patrol of guard, with the Scions starting in Taurox Primes. At some point, I need to trying using the Taurox Primes just as a weapons platform; I put Scions in them, which there’s no need for on the smaller board and you essentially lose a round of shooting. I only had one squad of Guard, meaning that I was struggling to just cover objectives.

Round 3 – Gary’s Drukhari

Drukhari are a strong faction and Gary’s a strong player, so this was always going to be a tough game. The Dark Lances made short work of my armour, and the Raiders and Reavers dropped enough troops to, well, completely destroy me.

Round 4 – Chris H’s Chaos Marines

Vengeance for Cadia on a Leman Russ Demolisher is really good against Chaos. Add in Hail of Fire for max shots, and – admittedly at the cost of three CP – you’re suddenly kicking out an enormous amount of damage. I won the roll to go first and, especially as the shorter board meant that I could get in range on the first turn, I kicked out a lot of damage. The Demolisher promptly became target #1, but I had another Leman Russ with a battle cannon. And a Basilisk. And a Manticore.

Round 6 – Jim’s Tyranids

Jim brought a real monster mash list, using Crusher Stampede. With a few things in deep strike, he started with six models on the table. I started with sixty infantry, two indirect fire weapons, and two tanks. I was able to screen Jim out from deep striking in my lines, and essentially shot him off the board. Despite that, the match was very close on points – I didn’t move out of my half of the board because I was worried about gribblies appearing in my lines and then I had a wall of Tyranids in my way. Meanwhile, Jim had been racking up points. Jim also failed a charge roll that he really needed to make, and my Demolisher lasted for two rounds on one wound thanks to the 2+ save. It was only some judicious Move! Move! Move! orders that let me get into table quarters and score objectives that gave me the win. Based on that, I made some changes for my next match. Although it had been useful for making sure of my screening, I had one or two squads of guard essentially not doing anything. The Basilisk had also been underwhelming, so I rejigged the list. The basilisk went, two squads of guard were replaced by two squads of Scions, the company commanders were demoted to platoon commanders, and Yarrick and a Tempestor Prime joined the force.

Round 5 – Matt’s Necrons

I actually played this after the round 6 game because of scheduling. The first round was us doing a little bit of a dance around each other, keeping things out of line of sight. However, as I had more troops on the board, I was able to raise banners and be in three quarters of the table for secondaries, and then drop in Scions on turn 2 (although right in one corner, as one solitary Necron Warrior survived my first round attack’s and. The Manticore earned its points back again, particularly with Yarrick nearby as a way of re-rolling 1s. Yarrick is an expensive way of doing this, but he’s useful in case anything does get into the back lines, and the Master of Ordnance’s similar ability doesn’t apply to Leman Russ tanks and has to be on targets over 36″ away, which is essentially nothing on the smaller, 1000 point boards.

Matt brought the C’Tan Shard of the Nightbringer. I popped the occasional shot at it, generally when I had nothing else to shoot at. Realistically, I wasn’t going to be able to destroy it, and it was only some lucky morale rolls that kept me holding a key objective. However, much as with my Leman Russ Tank Commanders, the Nightbringer is an amazing model with amazing rules, but costs a lot of points. A third of Jim’s army was taken up in that one model, and it meant that I could focus down some of the other threats. I had two Leman Russes and the Manticore in Yarrick’s Aura for most of the battle. Combined with Direct Onslaught, the Manticore was able to take out almost all the main melee threat – a big squad of Skorpekh Destroyers – in one volley before they could close to range, and I’d taken out the other worry – a pair of Lokhust Heavy Destroyers – that were a threat to my tanks.

We wrapped at the end of round three and quickly played out the rest of the game as Matt was left with the Nightbringer and a couple of bits I would easily deal with. I wouldn’t have been able to touch the Nightbringer, who would have been scoring primaries and secondaries, but not at fast enough a rate as I only had to sit on two objectives to score fifteen points in each of the last rounds.

The arrival of the blessings of Papa Nurgle mean that I’ve not played in person for over a year, but I have been playing a bit on Tabletop Simulator. It’s not the same, but it does mean you can try various lists before buying and painting the models.

The list I’ve run a few times lately is 2 company commanders, a tank commander with demolisher cannon, 6 infantry squads, 3 squads of seven bullgryns with slabshields, 2 Ministorum priests, 2 full payload Manticores, 2 Chimeras, and a Vindicare assassin.

I think the core of the list – lots of squads, lots of bullgryns, lots of Manticores – works. I do quite well on primary objectives, and can effectively prevent deepstrikes, by virtue of just having so many bodies. The Manticores provide somewhat unpredictable amounts of damage, but at effectively unlimited range and without needing line of sight.

The issue I’ve had is with secondary objectives. I’m generally going for engage on all fronts and raise the banners high, and then picking another one. The assassin is there to try, obviously, to get the assassinate secondary objective. I suspect I’m not playing the assassin effectively, but combined with another problem with the list, it leads me to rethink things a little. The tank commander is generally destroyed on turn one or two. That in and of itself isn’t a bad thing – it’s soaking up an awful lot of damage – but it does mean that it’s not worth investing points in sponson weapons or, indeed, making it a tank commander instead of a regular Leman Russ. I’m thinking I might be better off ditching the tank commander and the assassin, and running two Leman Russes instead. That would provide more high toughness wounds, and hopefully divert attention away from everything else.

An alternative variation is to drop the tanks altogether along with two of the squads and have Scions and Valkyries flying around.

I’m going to keep playing around with different lists and I don’t want to buy loads of models yet, but it does seem that I’m going to be running 60+ infantry, a lot of bullgryns, and a couple of Manticores as the core of my army.

A teacher of mine at junior school told me once of the 6P principle – proper planning prevents pathetically poor performances. Unfortunately, the officer commanding the Neotian Saints did not prepare well and the performance was, well, predictable.

My first big mistake was putting my Tank Commander – a Leman Russ with the Hammer of Sunderance – front and centre. It was destroyed immediately by a charging Helbrute. Until the Greater Good came out, I was in the habit of running a Tank Commander with a Punisher gatling gun, which has a ran of 24″ and so it would generally sit there to deal with any infantry rushing up the board (or, frankly, with forty gatling gun shots and nine heavy bolter rounds, anything at all rushing up the board). As currently equipped with the Hammer of Sunderance, though, it has a range of 72″. It can reach across most of the battlefield and blow stuff up from a great distance. Given the investment in points and that I was planning to pour command points in to make maximum use of the big gun on top, losing it first turn was a big blow.

That leads me on to the second and third points. One is that I didn’t have a backup plan for losing such a bit asset. There’s no good way or time to lose something so valuable, but it’s likely to happen. The other is that I really didn’t think in advance how I could spend my big stack of command points. Part of that is that I forgot to bring my reference cards – it sounds stupid, but having a stack of cards is a big help and rushing around to get ready to head out meant that I forgot to bring them. Even so, I should have had an idea of what I was going to be spending them on and, indeed, what I could spend them on. Normally, I wouldn’t use the stratagem to automatically pass morale tests as it wasn’t worth the CP, but it changes when you’re halfway through a battle and you still have eight left.

My opponent did well, aside from some confusion with the rules, and both made the opening and then took advantage of it. The Armoured Sentinels performed well again. I needed to move them and a line of infantry forward more aggressively; I lost the match 13-4 because I wasn’t taking the objective markers (obviously). I’m going to need to rethink how I’m deploying at the start of the game. All the above said, my troops held on pretty well. The Scions didn’t last that long – I may actually start with them on the board and see how they do instead of dropping them in from orbit.

I have a friendly game before round 2 of the tournament, so I’ll try tweaking a few things.

My local 40k group is starting a league and I’m taking part. Over recent weeks, I’ve been running variations on a minimal guard battalion with an assortment of tanks, artillery, Scions, bullgryns, and Starstriders added on, and I’ve come up with some thoughts on what my list will be.

Whenever I’m working out whether the points cost of a unit is worth it, my question has become if I’d rather have the equivalent points value of standard infantry. Particularly as I’m usually running three artillery pieces, I need plenty of infantry to screen them before I even think about taking objectives. More than once, I’ve had to do a hurried redeployment as something gribbly starts coming towards one of those big hitters and, even if it works, it’s inefficient. Bullgryns are great, but three isn’t enough and, at 40 points a model, they start becoming expensive. The Elucidian Starstrides are a huge amount of fun, and potentially work as a sort of distraction carnifex because no-one’s seen them, but their best use is sitting on an objective and being really difficult to shift. The Valkyrie isn’t worth the points cost unless you’re doing an alpha strike; it doesn’t put out enough damage to warrant its inclusion, and it doesn’t add anything to the Scions’ deep strike ability except arriving on turn one.

Given the above, I’ve decided to run a brigade formation. Between the points spent on the extra troops and the fast attack choices needed to run a brigade, it means that I have to take one less ‘fun’ thing – the Valkyrie, bullgryns, Starstriders, etc. – but it means that I have a more coherent force and, crucially, lots of command points to spend each match.

The fast attack option I’m taking is three Armoured Sentinels. I ran them as a single unit in a battalion in my last game and, well, they’re tough little buggers. There’s a stratagem from Greater Good that allows particularly accurate shooting in the first round, allowing them to run up the battlefield and pop off a few shots, that was particularly good. However, it only applies to a single unit, and I’m having to run three units of one Sentinel. The ideal would be to have them in a single unit to maximise the effectiveness of the stratagem, perhaps with Rough Riders taking up the other two fast attack slots. However, I don’t have the Rough Riders built and I do have a second Leman Russ tank built.

That stratagem comes from the new Greater Good book. There’s another stratagem in there that, along with the Hammer of Sunderance from Vigilus Defiant, makes for a Leman Russ that kick out an enormous amount of damage – 6 shots instead of D6, and 3 damage instead of D3 damage. If the tank it’s on moves less than half speed, it fires twice, so that’s a potential thirty-six wounds flying out of the barrel. It does require a couple of CP a turn to use the stratagem, hence the attraction of the 12CP from the brigade detachment.

The other big change from Greater Good is custom regiments; instead of choosing a regiment that gives you a couple of bonuses, you can choose two bonuses from a list. Taking a custom regiment instead of one of the standard regiments isn’t a no-brainer; there are some really good options amongst the standard regiments that aren’t available from the custom list, and they also bring some unique stratagems and characters. However, the combination of longer rapid fire range for the infantry and healing wounds for the vehicles seems too good a combination to pass up for a mixed infantry and artillery brigade. There are also new regimental doctrines available for Scions.

The ‘fun’ bit I am including is a battalion of Scions. They don’t last long, but they provide mobility to what can be quite a static army and they can deliver a real punch when needed. I do just love the models and the flavour of them. I’ve reconfigured the squads a bit, and they’re not getting any vehicles. I hope it all works. The doctrine I’m taking gives them an extra six inches of range, and so an extra three inches of rapid fire range. That means they can deep strike and immediately be in rapid fire range.

Here is the list for what I’ve named Task Force Carabid. The Carabidae are the ground beetles, which includes bombardier beetles; it felt appropriate for the amount of artillery.

Task Force Carabid – Order of Battle

• 267th Neotian Saints Brigade
  • Regimental Doctrine
    • Disciplined Shooters (Rapid fire within 18”)
    • Jury-rigged Repairs (Vehicles repair each turn)
  • HQ [248pts]
    • Tank Commander [188pts]: Battle Cannon [22pts], Emperor’s Fist, Heavy Bolter [8pts], Heavy Bolters [16pts], Relic (Emperor’s Fist): Hammer of Sunderance, Up-armoured, Warlord
    • Company Commander [30pts]: Chainsword, Laspistol
    • Company Commander [30pts]: Chainsword, Laspistol
  • Troops [240pts]
    • Infantry Squad [40pts]. 9x Guardsman [36pts]. Sergeant [4pts]: Laspistol
    • Infantry Squad [40pts]. 9x Guardsman [36pts]. Sergeant [4pts]: Laspistol
    • Infantry Squad [40pts]. 9x Guardsman [36pts]. Sergeant [4pts]: Laspistol
    • Infantry Squad [40pts]. 9x Guardsman [36pts]. Sergeant [4pts]: Laspistol
    • Infantry Squad [40pts]. 9x Guardsman [36pts]. Sergeant [4pts]: Laspistol
    • Infantry Squad [40pts]. 9x Guardsman [36pts]. Sergeant [4pts]: Laspistol
  • Elites [67pts]
    • Astropath [21pts]: Telepathica Stave [6pts]
    • Commissar [16pts]: Bolt pistol [1pts]
    • Master of Ordnance [30pts]: Relic: Kurov’s Aquila
  • Fast Attack [9 PL, 120pts]
    • Armoured Sentinel [40pts]: Plasma Cannon [10pts]
    • Armoured Sentinel [40pts]: Plasma Cannon [10pts]
    • Armoured Sentinel [40pts]: Plasma Cannon [10pts]
  • Heavy Support [491pts]
    • Basilisk [108pts]: Heavy Bolter [8pts]
    • Leman Russ Battle Tank [10 PL, 137pts]: Battle Cannon [22pts], Heavy Bolter [8pts]
    • Manticore [8 PL, 133pts]: Heavy Bolter [8pts]
    • Wyvern [6 PL, 113pts]: Heavy Bolter [8pts]
• 43rd Iotan Dragons Battalion
  • Regimental doctrine
    • 43 Iotan Dragons: +6” to range of rapid fire weapons
  • HQ
    • Tempestor Prime [35pts]: Hot-shot Laspistol
    • Tempestor Prime [35pts]: Hot-shot Laspistol
  • Troops
    • Militarum Tempestus Scions [114pts]. 5x Scion with Hot-shot lasgun [35pts]. 4x Scion with Plasma gun [72pts]. Tempestor [7pts]: Chainsword, Hot-shot Laspistol
    • Militarum Tempestus Scions [114pts]. 5x Scion with Hot-shot lasgun [35pts]. 4x Scion with Plasma gun [72pts]. Tempestor [7pts]: Chainsword, Hot-shot Laspistol
    • Militarum Tempestus Scions [3 PL, 35pts]. 4x Scion [28pts]. Tempestor [7pts]: Chainsword, Hot-shot Laspistol

1499 points

Command points
Battle-forged +3
Brigade +12
Battalion +5
Emperor’s Fist Tank Company -1
Tank Ace -1
Imperial Commander’s Armoury -1
Total 17

I’ve still not had time for playing or for the hobby, but I’ve been thinking about lists. In the last game I played, against Colin’s Genestealer Cults, I ran a mixed Imperial Guard/Adeptus Mechanicus army with my Elucidean Starstriders. Running three factions was just too much. The Elucidean Starstriders are effectively one super-squad, so didn’t cause that much of a problem, but I’m not familiar enough with either the Guard or the AdMech to run the lists quickly or effectively. In the end, the game was a narrow loss because of a tactical mistake on my part, but I’m sure I’d have been in a better position if I hadn’t been desperately trying to remember everything.

The other realisation from that game was that Leman Russ tanks aren’t all that. For the points, they just don’t last long enough. The Punisher variant is genuinely good against light infantry, but I seem to end up relying on bolters on the hull and sponson mounts to damage anything with any armour instead of the big weapon on top.

So, I’ve come up with a pretty simple artillery brigade.

• HQ
  • 3x Company Commanders
• Troops
  • 6x Infantry Squad (9 Guards and 1 Sergeant)
• Elites
  • 2x Bullgryn Squad (2 Bullgryns and 1 Bullgryn Bone ‘ead all with slab shields and Bullgryn mauls)
  • Ministorum Priest
  • 2x Master of Ordnance
• Fast Attack
  • Armoured Sentinel (Lascannon, chainsaw, hunter-killer missile)
  • Armoured Sentinel (Heavy flamer, chainsaw, hunter-killer missile)
  • Armoured Sentinel (Plasma cannon, chainsaw, hunter-killer missile)
• Heavy Support
  • 3x Basilisks
  • 2x Wyverns
  • 1x Manticore

The original idea was to have three Basilisks and three Wyverns. In the end, though, I thought I was better off spending the extra points elsewhere – going from a squad of 5 Bullgryns to two squads of three, an extra Master of Ordnance, and putting more weapons than just the stock multi-laser on the Sentinels.

Combined with what I already have, it would offer me quite a lot of flexibility, and I think it would work reasonably well as a defensive army. Where it might struggle is seizing and holding objectives. It would be fun, though.

Taking it as an Emperor’s Wrath Artillery Company might be effective – for 2CP, one of the artillery pieces can shoot twice. With the warlord trait, 6s to hit gain -1 AP, while the heirloom ignores cover. The Masters of Ordnance allow re-rolls to hit. The Catachan doctrine allows rerolling to determine the number of hit dice.

In terms of playing the army, I see all the artillery in one or two blobs, with extensive bubble wrapping from the infantry. The Sentinels and Bullgryns will be at the front to deal with whatever comes forward, with a couple of infantry squads and a commander moving forward to help out as needed.

I’ve been getting back into 40k lately. The past few months haven’t given me much time to play, but I have been thinking about how I want to develop my army from its current, small beginnings. I’ve rather fallen for the Militarum Tempestus Scions. I have a couple of squads that I would use with my Imperial Guard, and frankly had more fun and use out of them than regular guardsmen. That may well be lack of experience and skill on my part rather than anything else, but I started to want more Scions to put on the field when Vigilus Defiant came out and I could use the drop squad specialist detachment.

The big issues with the Militarum Tempestus is their very limited unit choice. They only have three distinct units from which to choose – a squad of five Scions, a command squad of four Scions, and the Tempestor Prime. They do have access to other units, but they’re shared with the rest of the Astra Militarum and, indeed, Imperium in different ways. Assuming you stick with Scions, it’s only possible to field a battalion, as there just aren’t the units to fill out other detachments. I also want my Scions to benefit from the Militarum Tempestus doctrine, which they can only really get if they’re in a detachment by themselves.

However, I also like the idea of fielding a brigade, both from a flavour point of view – a combined arms unit that isn’t just squads and squads of soldiers – and because it builds in flexibility that is useful in the game. It would look pretty amazing, too. So, the plan is to build a brigade in terms of units, even if it doesn’t give me the nine extra command points.

A brigade requires 3 to 5 HQ choices, 6 to 12 troops, 3 to 8 elites, 3 to 5 fast attack, 3 to 5 heavy support, and up to two flyers. For each unit choice, there is a detachment that specialises in them – battalion for troops, vanguard for elites, outrider for fast attack, and spearhead for heavy support.

Dealing with the troops is straightforward. In a battalion detachment, there will be three Tempestor Primes (Tempestors Prime?) and six squads of Scions. The Primes will have command rods, so an order is possible to each squad.

The elites are a bit more complicated. Ideally, I’d have three Scions command squads in a vanguard detachment; however, you have to have a Tempestor Prime for each Command Squad, and a vanguard only allows two HQ choices. I could put the Command Squads in the battalion, but then I’m losing out on orders from the Tempestor Primes. I think I’m going to go, then, for two Tempestor Primes, two Militarum Tempestus Command Squads, and another elite. I’m sure Commissar Severina Raine would happily deploy with the Scions.

Onto the heavy support. While the Leman Russ in all its forms is loved for good reason, I don’t think it fits an army based on mobility and the look just isn’t right. Instead, I want to go for the faster, lighter Carnodon (which also has gold bits, which the Scions will love). The big loss is Grinding Advance. To make up for this somewhat, I’m going to make the detachment Tallarn, allowing them to move and fire heavy weapons from vehicles without penalty. Loaded up with volkite weaponry, they should be able to move forward and still deal out damage. The HQ would be a Lord Commissar.

Next up is the fast attack. The plan is to kitbash together some Scions with some of the Genestealer Cults’ Atalan Jackals motorcyclists to count as Rough Riders. I’m hoping that I’ll just have to use the heads and torsos from the Scions, but we’ll see. I’ve seen similar ideas using Space Marine bikes, and regular Astra Militarum with Atalan Jackals, but not Scions and Jackals, so it might be a bit unusual. The HQ would be a Primaris Psyker.

The last bit is some transport. Depending on points and budget, I’ll put in a couple of Valkyries (to drop people from) and Taurox Primes. Both are great for mobility, soak up and dish out a surprising amount of damage, and, in the case of the Valkyries, do some wonderful things with the Drop Force rules.

The army would look something like

• Battalion
  • HQ
    • 2x Tempestor Prime
  • Troops
    • 6x Scions (4 Scions and 1 Tempestor)
• Vanguard
  • HQ
    • 2x Tempestor Prime
  • Elites
    • 2x MT Command Squad
    • Commissar Severina Raine
• Spearhead
  • HQ
    • Lord Commissar
  • Heavy Support
    • 3x Carnodon
• Outrider
  • HQ
    • Primaris Psyker
  • Fast Attack
    • 3x Rough Riders (4 Rough Riders and a Rough Rider sergeant)
• Flyer
  • 2x Valkyire

That comes in somewhere around 1400 points, so I have plenty of room with which to play.

The List

This evening’s game saw my Imperial Guard, with a little AdMech salt, doing their best to make their way back to the (relative) safety of a hivesprawl while being pursued by the vicious hordes of Adam’s Tyranids.

We move onto the second round of Colin’s Vigilus Defiant campaign. I’ve been really looking forward to this round as it has two particular missions that I find interesting – Convoy and this evening’s game, Running Battle.

In Running Battle, the defender deploys everything in a stripe widthways across the middle of the battlefield. The attacker then deploys as much as they want in a stripe across the western (short) edge of the battlefield. They can bring on anything they want on a 4+ from reserves on either of the long edges of the battlefield. To simulate the running nature of the battle, at the start of each round after the first, everything on the board moves six inches towards the western edge; anything in the six inches closest to that edge is destroyed. To make this easier, I’d nipped round to B&Q and had a 6′ by 4′ board sawn into 6″ by 4′ strips so we could just take away the westernmost board, shuffle all the others down, and add the board back to eastern end. As defender, my aim was to keep as much of my army by power level alive as possible, while Adam had to destroy as much of mine as possible.

12″ by 4′, with a couple of bits of scenery thrown in, isn’t a huge amount of room to deploy 1500 points worth, as it turns out.

I went into this battle with a relatively clear strategy. My intention was to deploy my infantry in a line to slow the oncoming horde while all my vehicles turned around and scarpered. I took Tallarn specifically so Guard vehicles could move and fire their heavy weapons without penalty. The AdMech vehicles could all move 8″ (though the Dunecrawlers can only advance an extra 1D3″), and the Techpriest had a handy-dandy teleporter in the form of the Solar Flare archaeotech relic available to Lucius. The tanks, both commanders, could have used the ‘Full Throttle!’ order to advance backwards instead of shooting.

Adam advanced his Tyranids towards me on his first round and didn’t have much luck with his shooting; I think he only inflicted a couple of wounds on a Leman Russ. At that point, I should have either moved my screening infantry forward, or moved my armour back, or both. Instead, I was tempted by this swarm that had just moved into easy shooting range and I wanted to try to thin it out. That mistake should have, and almost did, cost me the match.

I used the Manticore, Master of Ordnance, and Leman Russ Battle Tank to try to take out the Tyrannofex lurking on Adam’s back line. Despite excellent shooting, I couldn’t wound it for toffee. At the start of round 2, the armies were essentially the same as after round 1, except much closer together.

Adam started bringing on his few reinforcements, and I was at risk of being outflanked. Well, out-tunnelled. The rest of the battle was largely me doing, all things considered, a pretty good job of holding back a close-combat Tyranid army. As I found out, the Dunecrawlers are pretty tough nuts to crack; if you’re finding that out in close combat, though, something’s gone horribly wrong. My Scions dropped in from their Valkyrie and took on a Trygon that had appeared out of the ground. The Trygon had a -1 to hit, meaning my plasma-wielding Command Squad was at real risk of blowing itself up and, indeed, three of the squad promptly did so, but not before turning the xeno into a smear on the ground.

On turn three, I did what I should have done right at the start: I turned and ran made a tactical withdrawal. However, I had to make a load of stuff fall back, so I lost a round’s shooting. The Manticore was destroyed by a Hive Tyrant, and exploded, throwing shrapnel around the area. I used the ‘Fire on my Position’ stratagem for three costly command points when one of infantry squads fell to the oncoming brood, and proceeded not to do any damage. Those three points would have been really useful later, not least to change the protocol of my Kastelans. They did the best they could, stuck in Aegis, but, if I’d been able to put them into Conqueror, they would have finished of a squad of Hormagaunts and given me more space for manoeuvre.

We ran out of time and, per the rules, I won a minor victory as I had lost more than a third but less than a half of my army. If we’d been able to keep going, I suspect Adam wouldn’t have had much difficulty in taking out the rest that he needed to.

I felt slightly limited by the models I have available, but it’s still a fun list to play. When I have time and money, I have some ideas for where I want to take the army, but that’s for another day.

I’d like to give this mission another go as defender, but stick to my tactics. I think I’ve made that mistake – changing plans on the fly – before, and it didn’t end well then, either. The mission is really interesting, though.

All in all, it was a fun match and very much welcome after the day I’d had.

The List

This week, I took on Colin’s new Genestealer Cults army. The army is still being put together and the Codex isn’t out yet, so I think Colin was at a bit of a disadvantage going in. The mission was Data Recovery, as last week, except that I would be the attacker.

I couldn’t make a 1300 point list work with the AdMech – the models I have built are expensive, points-wise – so I went with a pure Guard list basically consisting of all the models I have. My initial deployment would be the three the company commander within vox-caster range of the three infantry squads, which I deployed as far forward as possible, along with the Manticore and Master of Ordnance hiding in the back corner. Aside from a few craters dotted around, we both had some buildings in our respective corners, and a massive piece of terrain across the middle of the board.

Colin deployed some infantry on top of something I’d not seen before – fortifications, sporting enough weaponry to want me to keep well back from them.

The Manticore did sterling work blowing up the fortifications, helped on round 1 by the Master of Ordnance’s artillery barrage. I’d not run the Manticore for a little while, but I think it works better than, say, a lone Leman Russ.

I did a bit better in bringing the infantry forward than previously. I’m starting to regard them as a tax for the battalion detachment; they’d probably work better with a heavy mortar team in each. They did end up moving up to engage with some hybrids, a primus, and a patriarch, though that was largely because it took until round 4 to bring on the anti-infantry tank.

The Taurox took a few potshots, but was otherwise unable to do much for most of the battle as the battle tank had come on ahead of it but was effectively stopped by the appearance of the above-mentioned hybrids, primus, and patriarch. A gap between the large scenery piece in the middle of the board and another building was thus effectively blocked by the Leman Russ. It made a dash for one of the data canisters that fell on the large scenery piece, but its cargo of Crusaders (and helpers) never left the safety of their APC.

After pulling back to allow the infantry to deal with some of the Genestealers, the Leman Russ ended up dashing forward to grab a marker where three data canisters had fallen. The Valkyrie had been trying to take out the remaining bastion, but had flown over to allow the Scions to grav-chute out onto those canisters and deal with the xenos on there. A charge by the Genestealers allowed me to use a stratagem to have the Valkyrie help out the Scions in overwatch. By now, the Valkyrie was barely flying, with one hitpoint left, but the strategem meant it could hit on a 4+. That left the Genestealers able to deal with either the remaining Scions or the tank, but not both.

With those three canisters contested, and so not scoring, I was able to manoeuvre enough units – the punisher tank, which had come on late and had a go at taking out the neophytes in the fortifications, and an infantry squad – into places that controlled the other canisters to secure a victory.

All in all, a fun game.

A few more general thoughts before I forget them: I need to come up with a more convenient way that BattleScribe printouts for reference during the game. I felt I was spending a lot of time leafing through papers. I also need something similar for stratagems, doctrines, and orders. I’ve got to know the orders and most of the stratagems, but I do forget the bonuses from doctrines and have to look them up. The same goes but double for when I bring the AdMech along.

The second match of the Vigilus campaign for me was against Richard’s Raven Guard. Evidently, another communications SNAFU has led the Imperium to attack itself again. The mission was Data Recovery; there are nine locations on the map on which data canisters can randomly land. Whoever controls the most canisters wins.

I ran basically the same list as against Adam’s Tyranids the previous week. I lost, but not by much, and it was a fun game.

The game turned on action right at the end, with two markers on one place. Whoever controlled those would win. I had a bit of difficulty getting my army onto the board – only a third by power level starts on the board – but ended up having a rush at the last minute that meant I was in contention for the central location that would decide the battle. In the end, my Crusaders were picked off so they couldn’t even attempt an Act of Faith, and we wrapped up the game when it became obvious that what I had left to contest the data canisters in the middle was about to become so much wreckage.

The deployment rules also showed up how slow much of my army is. That would be a recurring problem.

My Onager Dunecrawlers did excellent work again, picking things off from the safety of the back row – once they got on the board. I used an eradication beamer on one and the neutron laser/cognis heavy stubber combo on the other. The Icarus array could have been useful as there were a few flyers around, but I didn’t particularly feel I was doing badly because I hadn’t taken it. I’d taken it as a sort of default last time in case there were any flyers; I probably won’t make that choice again going forward, as the Icarus array doesn’t and didn’t go as well against ground-based targets.

The Kastelans came on in round three, and so it took them a while to get into combat. Not having a Cybernetica Datasmith wasn’t a huge problem again. Mostly, though, I think I want/need more of them to put in the squad.

The unusual deployment rules meant I went for Mars again as the Forge World. Ideally, I think I’d go for Lucius or Stygies VIII. Either one would allow the Kastelans to quickly get into combat or sit on an objective. I was leaning towards Lucius, to be able to teleport to pretty much anywhere, but Stygies VIII’s dogma, Shroud Protocols, puts your opponent at a -1 to hit from more than 12″ away. As I found out when I tried to shoot the Raven Guard, that’s very useful. As I understand the rules for Clandestine Infiltration, it gives you a free 9″ move after both armies are set up; it’s not as good as Legio Teleportarium, but it’s still pretty useful.

On the Imperial Guard side, I only had one tank, and it was pretty soon a smoking hulk, as last time. Except in very small games, taking one just doesn’t work. The Valkyrie took a huge amount of shots before it finally went, and the Taurox hung in right to the end.

I ran ten Crusaders, again in the Taurox, with the intention of using the Valkyrie to drop in their supporting Ministorum Priest and Astropath. Long story short: it didn’t work. I needed the Crusaders in one part of the board, and the Valkyrie and its cargo of Scions in another. I’m better off putting eight Crusaders and their supporting cast in a Taurox than trying to bring the Astropath and Priest in on a different vehicle.

All in all, though, a good game that remained competitive until the last round.

The list

In the end, Adam’s Hive Fleet Kraken Tyranids won a minor victory. Particularly as I was playing AdMech for the first time, I was pleased with how it all went.

The mission was Storm the Lines from Vigilus Defiant. Essentially, Adam’s aim was to have at least one model in my back line at the end of the game. I had to stop him; however, his destroyed units could come back at his edge of the table.

In retrospect, my list wasn’t great. I hadn’t looked at the missions, and built something to use my new toys (AdMech, plus the Tempestus Drop Force specialist detachment from Vigilus) and ended up with a list that would have been better playing as the attacker with its good mobility. It would have worked for one of the traditional missions with objectives to be captured, I think When I realised what we were playing, I had to redo my tactics on the fly. As I wouldn’t need to send my Kastelans forward, I changed the Forge World to Mars instead of Stygies VIII.

The original version of this list had two tanks without sponsons. I decided to scrap one of them, and use the extra points to pile extra weapons on the first Leman Russ and give my Scion Command Squad plasma guns. In retrospect, that was a mistake; more of that later. While fun, I’m not sure how much use the Valkyrie was.

The company commander and troops basically stopped Adam from being able to deepstrike into my end zone. That alone probably stopped him scoring a major victory. One squad never got close enough to the enemy for First Rank Fire! Second Rank Fire!. The other two did solid work slowing down the oncoming Tyranids. I think I’m going to outfit each squad with a heavy mortar, rather than just one, and take sniper rifles for the special weapons for their range as much as anything else.

The tank commander didn’t work very well. It put out a prodigious amount of damage, what with a Punisher gatling gun, lascannon, two plasma sponsons, and heavy stubber. However, that made it a huge target, and Adam made short work of it at the start of his second round once he’d seen what it could do. Basically, there aren’t enough wounds on the Russ to justify taking all that kit and, with Grinding Advance, the turret weapon is just vastly better for the points.

The Scions ended up getting dropped on top of a building. Safely out of melee, they were pretty handy at weakening some of the big gribblies that came towards them. I’m not sure the plasma weapons on the Command squad were worthwhile; I think I’d have preferred the extra shots, even at 9″, from FRF!SRF!.

The Valkyrie dropped the Scions off on their perch atop the battlefield, and then delivered the Astropath and Ministorum Priest to support the Crusaders that held the middle of my end of the table. It provided some useful shooting, but the mobility was wasted as I was essentially static. The Taurox again proved very useful both as a battlefield taxi and then being surprisingly durable and putting out decent damage.

The Crusaders lasted a couple of rounds. The Astropath’s attempts to support them with Psychic Barrier failed, and the beta Acts of Faith rules mean that instead of fighting twice on a 2+, they fight twice on a 5+. Without any Devotions from Sister of Battle, the Crusaders are much less useful than they used to be. I may end up going for Bullgryns, even though I much prefer the flavour of the Crusaders, because they are just not as good as they were. That said, the AdMech probably object to Bullgryns less than other parts of the Imperium, so maybe they do fit.

The AdMech were a lot of fun to play with. The long range attacks from the Dunecrawlers at the back did plenty of damage. I had expected them to take a lot of fire, so I sat my Tech-Priest Dominus between them. As it happened, there wasn’t a single shot against them, while my Kastelans were taking a beating from a Trygon, some Venomthropes, and, iirc, some Tyrant Guard. I ended up moving the Tech-Priest forward to repair the Kastelans, and should probably have done so earlier. Having a Cybernetica Datasmith would have been useful to change protocols, but spending a CP to change and lock them worked perfectly well. Nevertheless, I felt the Kastelans gave a good account of themselves. I might try using them with Phosphor Blasters instead of Kastelan Fists next time, and I’ll certainly take a Phosphor Blaster on the shoulder instead of the Incendine Combustor. I’m tempted, at some point, to pick up some more Kastelans for a larger squad.

I’m very much not up to speed on the AdMech stratagems (and forgot that I could have spent 1CP to repair a Kastelan twice) or dogmas, and went for Mars instead of Stygies VIII at the last minute (as rolling twice for canticles seemed like a solid choice). Together, that meant I was less effective than I could have been.

Adam ended up winning a minor victory based on having a higher power level in my forward deployment zone than I did. That was a bit of a screw-up on my part; I could have moved both the Taurox and the Valkyrie into that area, but didn’t think about it as I was focused on taking out the Trygon. Nevertheless, he did play well, particularly taking out my main source of anti-infantry fire in the Leman Russ so early in the game and keeping me on the back foot throughout. We both enjoyed the game, though, and I do like the flavour of having AdMech alongside Guard.

Next up in the Vigilus campaign will be Colin’s Genestealer Cults. I’ll revise the Astra Militarum part of my list and hopefully have some AdMech troops to bring, too.