Solbond Gardhird versus Custodes

Mission - Preserve the Archeotech

Custodes win the battle, 60-30 (Votann were Defender, went 2nd). Complete Central Positions Agenda x 4, completed Prospecting Agenda x1. Gain 4 Blackstone from Central Positions. 

Gain the following Resources - 50 Raw Minerals from battle

 

Farstryd Expedition ends, gain 3XP for Skeldr and 1 Mining Outpost Asset. Spend 50 Raw Minerals, 50 Galactic Intel, and 50 Biomatter for 1 Pioneer Fleet Asset. Start new Expedition- Farstryd again, but Balanced Stakes (cost 30 Resources, will take 10 from each aside from Biomatter) for the expedition to last 6 battles. Will take Guild Contract Mining requiring to get either 60 Raw Minerals or 60 Energy Sources.

 

Spend 1RP for Increase Supply Limit (up to 1800), add 1 Kapricus Defender, add Brohkyr Iron-Master, add Kahl

 

No Battle Scars suffered

 

Units upgraded 

The Sol-Hammer  gain Raiders (Re-roll to Hit rolls of 1 if target is on an objective.)
Chisel-Point One gains Tank Hunter (Re-roll to Wound rolls of 1 vs Vehicle/Monster units.)
Varrik of Ruunes gains Horror-Hardened (Unit can be targeted with Strategems even if Battle-Shocked.)

 

Overall- 

Victory - Custodes 

Resources - 10 Biomatter, 20 Raw Minerals, 20 Galactic Intel, 20 Energy Sources

RP - gain 1, spend 1. Total is 0 

Supply limit - 1800 (using 1750)

Crusade points - Goes from 4 to 7

 

Battle Report (1250 points)

Enemy army - Shield captain on bike (not attached to the 2 bikers), 2 bikers, 3man jumppack squad, 5man Guardian squad w/shields, 5man Guardian squad with spears, 4man Warden squad w/axes and attached Blade Champion

Mission rules - Basically this was a very simple mission, the Defender had to protect three objectives spaced out in the center of the board that had 4 HP. If the attacker had a unit on the objective it could do an action, roll a d6 for each model in the unit and on a 4+ remove an HP from the objective. At the end of the game destroyed objectives gave the Attacker 30VP and intact objectives gave the Defender 30VP. 

**Caveat - I had this game only three days before the next one and don't really remember it too well, so I may get things wrong. The overall effect of this game is pretty clear, I ran my head into a 2+ wall of saves and got blasted. **

 

Round 1

Custodes Turn 1 - Custodies have to have 1st turn per mission rules. Custodes has the shield Guardian squad in Reserve, Votann have Hearthguard and melee Steeljacks (Elder gives them the ability to Deepstrike). Custodes do some good shooting and take the Kapricus off the board quickly and damage the upper Sagitaur, leaving it on one Wound. Pioneers leave the table and stay off until round 5 to complete the Prospecting Agenda, Jumppack Custodes fly off the table to Reserves.

Votann Turn 1 - Gain a Central Position point for the Memnyr on the middle objective. Votann shooting does little, but a sacrificial Tank Shock by the damaged Sagitaur kills off one of the spear Guardians. 

 

Round 2

Custodes Turn 2 - Weird mission effect (custom) manages to remove the Warden squad from the battlefield and place them in Reserves (just makes their charge slightly longer against the Volkanite Steeljacks as they deepstrike near their earlier position). Shooting hurts the remaining Sagitaur but doesn't kill it, while the Volkanite Steeljacks and Hearthguard on the top objective take a couple of wounds. 

Votann Turn 2 - Hearthguard drop onto the lower objective to back up Thunderkyn. 2 Central Position points earned from Memnyr and Trokk. Again, very little shooting works, but another sacrificial Tank Shock removes the second and third spearman. 

 

Round 3

Custodes Turn 3 - Melee Steeljacks Rapid Ingress into the center of the board to try to stem the bleeding. Custodes are fully on board and start to swarm the center. Volkanite Steeljacks start streaming models and die in melee. Trokk loses his Hearthkyn squad but manages to stay alive. Hearthguard get charged from the shield squad while the Thunderkyn die to shooting. Final spear Guardian takes a single HP off the top objective.

Votann Turn 3 - Trokk gains the last Central Position point before dying in melee. Shooting/Charging from the melee Steeljacks does nothing to the Wardens but kills off the jumpy Custodes, in turn get decimated with only Elder Skeldr left.

 

Round 4

Custodes Turn 4 - Custodes start trying the mission actions and take three HP off the top objective (destroying it) and none off the bottom. Skeldr gets charged but lives.

Votann Turn 4 - Skeldr dies in melee while the four remaining Hearthkyn on the top objective try to tie up the bikers (to hopefully remove them from doing mission action) and fall in melee.

 

 

Round 5 - No pic, nothing left but to roll for the mission actions/pioneers coming back on.

Custodes Turn 5 - Custodes fail to destroy the middle objective but manage to destroy the bottom one, squeaking out a win on the last dice roll.

Votann Turn 5 - Pioneers come back on the board and score Prospecting to finish the game.

 

Thoughts

Oof, this was a rough one. I was unable to really do anything to the Custodes, they were just so tough. I went into the fight knowing that it would be difficult but didn't expect it to be as difficult as it turned out. Nothing I did seemed to work and I think I killed a total of 8 models on his side for an almost-complete wipe on mine. Really rough. I think if the points were higher I could have done a bit better, or at least stretched out the game more, but a combination of really hard-to-kill units and subpar rolling from me sealed the deal. 

 

Anyway, the outcome wasn't the best but I managed to finish off my first Expedition and get a couple of Votann Crusade Assets, which should really help. The first, the Mining Outpost, just gives me 10 extra Raw Minerals whenever I gain Raw Minerals so it is nice but not super great. The second is really good, as the Pioneer Fleet asset gives me a second way to gain resources from a battle; normally I just get resources after a battle regardless of what I do (just get more depending on the size of battle), but with the Pioneer Fleet I get more resources (and possibly different ones if I roll differently) from having Yield Points at the end of the battle. Since I pretty much don't use much YP aside from a strat boost or two and I gain one for each unit I kill, by then end of most battles I have a lot of YP. Getting rewarded for them is just a super great way to eventually get more Assets and boost my army even more. Another good thing is that I didn't actually get any Battle Scars from this battle, which made it so much better than the first three!

 

As I said earlier, I had two games in fairly close order this week, so another report will be up soon, but as both our FLGS are shutting down for repairs in early April I probably won't have another report after the next until after the 12th/13th.