Balrog The Buff's First Battle (Pic Heavy)

My Ice Guard IG vs my wife as a Striking Scorpion Eldar team. We played a Defend the find. You will have to pretend that the Cadians are Ice Guard and the Catachan are Eldar.

Exarch Sword and S Pistol
Striking Scorpion Armor and Helmet, Sword and S Pistol
Aspirant 1 Extra Knife and Catapult
Aspirant 2 Extra Knife and Catapult
Warlock Catapult and Extra Knife
Guardian x4 with Catapults

Captain Las Pistol, Power Sword, Flak and Helmet
Lt Extra Knife, Autogun
Lt Extra Knife, Autogun
Sgt Extra Knife, Autogun
Sgt Extra Knife, Autogun
Hvy Heavy Stubber
Hvy Heavy Stubber
Medicae Slugger
Gdm Autogun
After two weeks of shelling the city of Dungaven a an odd set of xenos ruins were discovered. The Adeptus Mechanicus requested a team be sent to secure the site and recover any xenos artifacts for study and purification. As the team of Imperial Guardsmen were walking back from the ruins through the artillery shelled city suddenly odd high pitched whines filled the air and ferrocrete began to chip and fly.
"Eldar! Get in to that building! Get on the horn for some back up!"
Yelled the Captain as the men ran and set up to hold out until reinforcements could arrive. Out of the morning fog lithe shadowy figures appeared and began their charge...

Initial set-up:



Turn 1
The Eldar moved quickly towards the Guardsmen and opened fire with their shuriken catapults. Their faith in the Emperor held them fast as a Sergeant and a Lieutenant were winged by incoming fire, but hit the ground for cover with only minor cuts.



The brave Guardsmen returned fire chanting the Litany of Perforation. One of the Heavy Stubbers roared and spewed hot death upon a group of three foul Xenos. One Eldar was seriously injured and the Warlock was knocked to the ground by the fusillade. The remaining Alien in the group cowardly hid behind a wall and remained unhurt. The Eldar's Striking Scorpion Aspect Warrior was taken out by a head shot from an Imperial Guard Lieutenant setting a good example to his men.

Turn 2

The Eldar moved in again on the Mon-keigh filth who were running off with the Wraithbone devices they had located in the Eldar ruins. Determined to recover the artifacts the Eldar pressed on despite two of their number being wounded already. They moved in again and opened fire with their catapults, gravely wounding a Guardsmen and one of the Lieutenants, and stunning a Sergeant. The brutish Imperials returned fire with great effect. Injuring the Warlock and knocking a guardian to the ground. Another young guardian suffered minor injuries. Due to being unaccustomed to combat the guardian fled several meters and dove to the ground before coming to his senses.



Turn 3
The Xenos leader charged the downed sergeant and dispatched him with contempt.

The remaining Eldar ran up to the building and kept up their suppressive fire. The brave men of the Emperor fought back heedless of the danger to their own lives. Taking up firing positions they continued firing at their attackers. The remaining Sergeant ran out of cover in order to draw fire away from his men. The Lieutenant shot a guardian in the leg knocking him to the ground while the Captain jumped out of cover into melee combat with a Fighter Aspirant. No serious blows were dealt by either side.

Turn 4
Desperate to recover the artifacts and avenge their fallen brethren the Eldar surged forwards. The Exarch ran into the ruins and was unable to charge the Lieutenant, but shot him with his pistol. The Lieutenant shook off the pain and remained standing. One Guardian ran to help out the Fighter Aspirant and the other bravely charged the Sergeant. The IG Captain managed to stun the Aspirant despite the assistance, while the sergeant and the guardian made no progress in their combat.



The IG returned fire and took out a guardian and one of the Aspirants. The Captain put a las-shot into the Guardians head at point blank that ricocheted into the fallen Aspirant taken both out of the fight. The Sergeant did not fare as well against the incredible speed and agility of the guardian he was fighting and was stunned by a sharp blow to the head.



Turn 5
The Xenos fled back into the fog taking their wounded with them. Which was fine with the Captain as he had several wounded as well, and all were tired from the all-night march they had been through. Three of the Alien artifacts remained intact and would be useful to the Adeptus Mechanics. The Medicae began patching the wounds they suffered. The Lieutenant suffered a minor injury to his lower back that caused his nerves to pinch slowing his reflexes. The poor Guardsmen who went down would have died but for the Medicae's timely intervention.

Well... the rules are not too tricky it seems as long as you know Mordheim and 40K. My poor Wife rolled so bad and I rolled critical hits for half of the shots that hit... If that ricochet didn't kill that last guardian the SIX on his power sword's critical hit sure would have.

In the end the Guard did very well at hunkering down and shooting the enemy moving towards them. If the Eldar would have been defenders I think this would have easily gone in their favor as Rapid Fire and Heavy Weapons are much less effective on the move. I think if she would have came from another side and went into hiding more she could have gotten more into close combat. But the fact I got to start with Heavy Stubbers in the upper floor windows really helped. That Eldar force got so chewed up it but still found 4 ER so it probably does not need to start over. Their Exarch got -1 M and an Aspirant got -1 T. PLus all 5 of their heroes went OOA. Her armor never helped her since all the hits on her Exarch and Aspect Warrior were critical hits that ignored at least some of her armor...

Looks like you guys had a great game. Trick with the Eldar is not to go for a full frontal assault. They have the speed and agility to get around the flanks of a squad and to pick them apart one at a time. Eldar can really exceed at moving and shooting, and should only be charging when the time is ABSOLUTELY right.

Something else to note that there was a mistake on the no rarity listing on the Heavy Stubber, as to start with that much firepower is pretty huge.

Great report and nice pictures!

Great pics and nice report.

Great battle report and cool pics - really got a sense of the flow of the battle.

Just like I did when I played my first game, the board is a little light on scenery - pack it and the game gets very interesting. Check out toposolitario for free printable terrain to fill and battlefield.

Are you playing a campaign? - if so, no catapults for the guardians (no rare items for recruits vol 3 page 6).

Look forward to the next one...
Cheers Laney

What is the Rarity of heavy stubbers supposed to be? The lack of Heavy Stubbers would have completely changed that game. Although Flamers would have been fun, I am not sure if I would take more than one as I would want the other 'slot' to be a heavy stubber. The Catapults being replaced by Lasguns would not have hurt her too much.

So I will rebuild the Squads based on the rules I learned via playing, and after. But I am surprised at some of the changes, in a GOOD way. I really like the idea that an Officer can still find loot as long as he was not too badly hurt. That really helps campaigns and promotes fights to the death.

Laney wrote:

Just like I did when I played my first game, the board is a little light on scenery - pack it and the game gets very interesting. Check out toposolitario for free printable terrain to fill and battlefield.

We went to an electronics store locally and bought cables, wire, resistors and some other parts to use as terrain. She likes building terrain more than playing or modeling. So hopefully by tuesday I will have 2-3 more pieces of terrain.

Ha! Wives rock. Mine did scenery pieces as well. Very cool.

What you really want is... levels! You'd be surprised how much the game dynamics change with some tall buildings. You can put someone with a rifle in a building and EVERYONE will fear him. Fun, fun.

Cool report man. Keep 'em coming!

Balrogthebuff wrote:

What is the Rarity of heavy stubbers supposed to be? The lack of Heavy Stubbers would have completely changed that game. Although Flamers would have been fun, I am not sure if I would take more than one as I would want the other 'slot' to be a heavy stubber. The Catapults being replaced by Lasguns would not have hurt her too much.

So I will rebuild the Squads based on the rules I learned via playing, and after. But I am surprised at some of the changes, in a GOOD way. I really like the idea that an Officer can still find loot as long as he was not too badly hurt. That really helps campaigns and promotes fights to the death.

I am glad you liked the changes with officers and income. The reason we changed was in Mirdheim people felt they needed to protect their Heroes too much as they were afraid of potentially losing money.

When you play DS it will play similiarly to other games but will have differences.

Did you notice the changes to declaring charges, movement of charges and shooting?

If you an on making some terrain then try some foamcore.

Yeah She tried to to do the whole shoot at the model and have the other charge, but due to the -1 penalty after getting up the Guardian missed. I really like the shoot them then charge thing. Much more Ruthless. But at the same time the other rules make it much more forgiving. So overall the feel was less 'power-gamey' and more 'For The Emperor!'

The real difference I was got unaware by was the terrain being a bit simpler. We had lots of craters on the field as you could see. But best we could tell they should be 'Area Terrain'. I think that meant no movement penalties, but a 6+ if you are in them and a 5+ if they are obstructing your view. I'll need to reread terrain rules and cover saves.

Heavy stubbers have been fixed to Rare 7 40 credits. If you want to build the squad you could start with grenade launchers 15 credits is pretty good and ditch them later for heavy stubbers. That way you get HWS with the heavy weapons skill.

On scenery - I tend to just end up with boxes! However, this summer... maybe...

Laney

Balrogthebuff wrote:

Yeah She tried to to do the whole shoot at the model and have the other charge, but due to the -1 penalty after getting up the Guardian missed. I really like the shoot them then charge thing. Much more Ruthless. But at the same time the other rules make it much more forgiving. So overall the feel was less 'power-gamey' and more 'For The Emperor!'

That's what we like to hear!

Balrogthebuff wrote:

The real difference I was got unaware by was the terrain being a bit simpler. We had lots of craters on the field as you could see. But best we could tell they should be 'Area Terrain'. I think that meant no movement penalties, but a 6+ if you are in them and a 5+ if they are obstructing your view. I'll need to reread terrain rules and cover saves.

Terrain is always a vague department, if you ask me. My friends and I usually just go over the table beforehand and assign values to each piece (craters have a 4+ coversave in 40k btw, but that is a bit much if you ask me). I like how you solved the ambiguous shapes of the craters by assigning two different saves.

Yeah I found a shallow crater should count as area terrain and give some bonus. But if you are actually hidden by the dirt it should count as more. And the crater did stop an autogun shot or two.