The Dogma Wars: Aznable's Battle Reports 12/27

[Warsmith Aznable]

Had my first game in a while last night, a 2000 point slug fest.

 

The Forces of Everything Righteous and Holy (me)

Hidden Content

CAD 1

Celestine

BSS x5, x1 Meltagun, Rhino

BSS x5, x1 Meltagun, Rhino

Seraphim x5, x2 Dual Inferno Pistols

Seraphim x5, x2 Dual Inferno Pistols

Aegis Line with Quad Cannon

 

CAD 2

Canoness

BSS x5, x2 Flamers, Immolator w/TL Multimelta

BSS x5, x2 Flamers, Immolator w/TL Multimelta

Dominions x5, x4 Meltaguns

Dominions x5, x4 Meltaguns

 

Flesh Tearers Strike Force (BA codex, Lamenters paint scheme)

Techmarine, Jump Pack, x2 Grav Pistols

x5 Scouts, x5 Sniper Rifles

x2 Drop Pods

 

Assinorum Detachment

Vindicare

 

Knight Detachment

Knight Errant, Thermal Cannon, Big Chainsword

 

Deluded Heretics (him)

 

Hidden Content

Nemesis Strike Force Detachment

Kaldor Draigo

Paladins (x7) with Psycannons, Psybolt Ammunition, Apothecary w/Warding Staff

Storm Raven, Multimelta, TL Lascannons

Nemesis Dread Knight, Psyflamer, Psycannon, Big Nemesis Dread Sword

Terminators or maybe Paladins x5 with x2 Psycannons

 

Librarius Conclave

x5 Librarians in Terminator Armour with Psycannons

 

We set the table up in a narratively pleasing way. One half of the table had six ruined buildings forming a little street with some trees, the other half of the table was more open with some desert style post-apocalyptic stuff that included one piece with a witch burning pole and another with a skeleton chained to the ground and some signs about heresy. The two halves were separated by a couple of pieces of LOS blocking rocky terrain that had trails cut into it. I was going for an "edge of civilization" type thing.

 

Our mission was the Maelstrom mission where you start off with 6 TO and every round you get a hand of 1 less than the turn before. My warlord trait was Tactical and let me start off with one more than normally allowed. I don't remember what his warlord trait was. Deployment was the diagonal kind.

 

I went first and chose the half of the table with that was mostly village. I set my snipers up in the middle rear building, and because I didn't really know what I was doing with the Assassin she went on the top floor of the same building. My Rhinos full of BSS were at my flanks, one on an objective and the other poised to get another. My Knight Errant was in the middle of the village street. My Dominions started on the Lamenters battlebarge getting briefed on the use of Drop Pods. My BSS in Immolators I Just now realized were not able to Outflank but did anyway (I'm used to Dominions being in the Immolators.) One Seraphim squad had Celestine, the other had the Jump pack Techmarine, and both of those deployed in the fat end of my slice scattered about to lessen enemy deepstrike options and to respond to threats or run after objectives on the other side of the table. I had forgot to bring my Aegis and Quadcannon and then forgot to set up the proxies I pulled out of the terrain storage.

 

He went second and failed to steal Initiative. His only unit starting on the table was the NKD, creeping over on the thin slice of his area to get close to my units.

 

My first turn I podded the melta Dominions right behind his KND but failed to kill it, forcing the Knight Errant to give it a go. The Knight Errant and the KND killed each other.

 

His first turn he had some thing let his warlord come in on the first turn and then deepstrike without error, so Kaldor Draigo, 6 or 7 Paladins, and 5 Librarians in Terminator armour all came down in one big blob right in the middle of the village street, and the first thing they did was psyker to death my 150 point Vindicare who had yet to do anything. Then they shot up one of my Rhinos, forcing the BSS to disembark right near the table edge to remain in cover. His Terminators/Paladins (I can't remember which they were) teleported near the middle of the table on the wasteland side of the hills, and took a potshot at my empty drop pod.

 

Mid Game Summary : My Immolators came in on the wasteland side  and had they come in from Reserves normally rather than illegally Outflank it wouldn't have made any real difference because they didn't end up doing jack anyway. The Kaldor Blob used Gate of Infinity to teleport over toward them since he knew my Canoness was in one of them. One of my Seraphim squads had gone over that direction and had a pretty even firefight with the Terminators/Paladins that left one Seraphim alive and two of his TDA clad whatevers still kicking. My second pod had come down to support the Seraphim, but some kind of psychic BS wiped them out before they could do much.

 

End Game Summary : His gambit was that his deathstar would be able to teleport anywhere it wanted and kill everything it wanted, so he was playing for the table. My gambit had been to alpha strike his support units and then outrun his deathstar to play for objectives. His Storm Raven came on late, which helped me out a lot. I forgot to man the quad cannon proxy (which kept getting moved around because we kept forgetting it was a proxy and not a dice cube) so I had nothing to hurt the Storm Raven. Too late he realized that I had a mountain of Tactical Objectives, and his hand had mostly been challenged based and I kept refusing to fight in challenges (I didn't know that's what he was doing, I was just trying to hang on to my girls and praying those Invulns would see at least one through a single round of melee.)

 

The game went 6 rounds, and the last turn everything I still had except for my Scout snipers was running like hell trying to avoid getting shot at so I could still be alive to count TO cards. My last two Dominions tried to run for the wastelands but got shot by the Paladin/Terminators pair that had finally managed to hammer my last drop pod to death the previous round, and my last remaining squad of BSS tried to hide out of LOS around a building but he Levitated his Librarians to a clear firing angle. Saint Celestine got shot in the back by a Lascannon from the Storm Raven as she tried to run to the wasteland side of the table.

 

But my Scout snipers couldn't be dug out of their house since they survived the psychic phase and he didn't have any units that could shot at them that round. It would have been better for my last surviving unit to be Sisters of Battle, but you take any wins you can get. Most of his points came from Slay the Warlord, Line Breaker, and First Blood, and all of my points came from TO cards (I would have got Line Breaker but Celestine was taking that last minute nap.)

 

I swear that 7th edition is Psyker edition, making it Running Shoes edition for my armies. It's like having to sit through two enemy shooting phases. It totally sucks that the anti-witch army has an anti-witch rule that needs psychic dice to work. I really need to figure out how to use the psychic phase, which is something I haven't really done since 5th edition with my CSM, and even then it was only to use a Lash Prince.

[grendal1989]

I definitely enjoyed this read. Psykers can be hard depending on how they are used. they definitely require you to dedicate to making it work, which is easy with the libby conclave. 

 

I've only really used inquisitor psykers(Hector Rex usually since he has named powers and hammerhand makes cc work for humans) and the psyker henchmen (10 pts a warp charge I think is a pretty good deal if it is sitting in a Box in cover). I've Also used a Culuxes in a pod to shut down a jetbike seer-star for a turn so I could lay into it with great hate...and I've also flown it around in an inquisitoral Valkyrie (the ones you can buy in squadrons from one of the Imperial Armor books - not as protected as a storm raven but much cheaper) 

 

So it can be mitigated, it just requires some investment...I think its a little over 200pts for a Culuxes in a Pod as the cheapest version I see viable (YMMV).  Also, I really dig the Culuxes model that came in the Execution Force box (they are ostensibly going to sell the assassins separately very soon) but I had a Friend who made me one out of a modified blood angel Chaplin that had a bat with "HATE" free handed on....so you've got options

[tomsev]

How is he getting à Libby conclave with psycannons?? You cant do that...

Also Grey KNIGHTS cant take psybolt ammunition...

[Warsmith Aznable]

That's mistake on my part. I'm so used to getting hit by them from TDA I automatically wrote it down. I'm not super familiar with his codex or unit types.

[Warsmith Aznable]

I had another edition of the Dogma Wars (Ecclesiarchy vs Cult Mechanicus) this past Saturday night.

 

We played at 1750, suburbs around a medium sized hill, long table deployment, escalating TO scenario.

 

My last list was still packed up from my last game, so I did a rare thing for me and just dropped the Aegis and the Vindicare and carried on. I did do some transport rearranging, though:

 

Drop Pod 1: Dominions x4 melta (to alpha strike the enemy Knight)

Drop Pod 2: BSS x1 melta (to disrupt as needed)

Immolator 1: Dominions x4 melta and the Canoness (Outflanking)

Immolator 2: BSS x1 melta (to run up the side of the table and hook inward)

Rhinos 1&2 : BSS x2 flamers (to sit on rear area objectives and defend them with promethium)

 

My Knight Errant was deployed front and center. His job was to be big and scary to draw fire from my transports, and also to run head first at the enemy Knight (it was the kind with the thermal cannon and the gatling cannon.)

 

My Scouts Infiltrated into a ruin overlooking the middle of the table.

 

My two Seraphim squads and their support characters went into DS Reserve, which normally I am too nervous to commit them both to.

 

So of course the Ad Mech stole the Initiative, and immediately two of the fast walker things ran down the table edge across from my Immolator and immobilized it with lascannons. The enemy Knight would not be intimidated into shooting at my Knight and tried to knock out a Rhino, but then flubbed every necessary roll pretty hard. He had these Martian Infilitrator things that were his game MVPs, and they were all up on my Scouts before I could do anything clever about it.

 

My Pod Dominions dropped right into the middle of his army and formed a short but deadly gunline exactly an inch from his Knight's rear base. My own Knight ran forward and positioned itself to both shot at and charge his Knight, so I had his shield split between two threats. He surprised me by being more concerned by my Knight's thermal cannon, so the Dominions put some melta right up his pipe, though the resultant catastrophic explosion took them and their pod with it.

 

His squadron of Dune Walkers ran around the other side of the hill from the Knight, determined to finish off the Immolator. Which they did. Fortunately the women inside were able to hug a piece of terrain and stay safe while holding an objective for the rest of the game. He moved up his Magos and his two squadrons of destroyer things (like Necron destroyers but on tracks.) Fortunately they failed to do more than strip a couple of hull points off a Rhino. Meanwhile, his Rust Stalkers and Infiltrator things were causing mayhem, making me pretty nervous I might get my flank turned.

 

My second Immolator came on scene, and popped out right behind his Dune Striders. I moved my Knight over the hill to block the advance of his Dune Stalker squadron and offer fire support to the Dominions. The Dominions vaporized the Dune Striders, leaving the Knight to charge into the Dune Stalkers, which proved to be much tougher than I thought they would be thanks to their invuln saves.

 

Over on my threatened flank his melee units crushed one of my flamer BSS and took HP off their transport, but made the mistake of trying to consolidate their position instead of pressing the advantage. His destroyer things and magos moved out to position themselves to support his forward melee units. His backfield troops mercilessly gunned down my second group of melta Dominions, which is why I left the Canoness (my warlord) inside the Immolator when the Dominions disembarked.

 

My second Drop Pod came down right behind his destroyer things and magos in an attempt to distract them. Celestine dropped with her Seraphim close to where the Dominions had been. The Lamenter and his Seraphim friends mishapped and got the old "baby in the corner" treatment.

 

His destroyer things rearranged themselves to dump plasma all over my second drop pod group, pretty much ruining their day. His forward melee units unsuccessfully assaulted a Rhino, which was blessed by the Emperor that day. The Knight was slowly grinding through the Dune Stalkers in melee. Celestine and her Seraphim friends were gunned down just as mercilessly as the Dominions had been.

 

Celestine popped up from her dirt nap and hosed the squad that had killed her with her pidgeon template, assaulted the survivers, then consolidated around a corner so the other infantry squad couldn't permanently put her down. The Immolator with my Canoness in it drove 12" in reverse toward the BSS huddled around the wrecked Immolator, putting some the hill between itself and the enemy destroyers.

 

My Knight noticed that when the destroyers had rearranged themselves to destroy my second drop pod group, the magos had inexplicably been left out of his sandwich formation (3 in front of him and 3 behind him.) and having recently finished off the last Dune Walker the Knight popped over the hill, dropped a thermal blast on the far group of destroyers, then stepped on the magos.

 

Over in the danger zone, the Lamenter and Seraphim ranged out at maximum dispersion to hedge in the infiltrators, the remaining BSS with flamers group drove over and unassed to point nozzles at the bunched up Rust Stalkers, and the 1 HP left Rhino from the destroyed BSS drove right through the pocket formed by my other two squads and the terrain to run over an infiltrator that tried to DoG it and force the last remaining one back up the board where the Seraphim shot it to death while the BSS bathed the Rust Stalkers in promethium.

 

So now it's the end of Round 4 and I'm sitting on over 10 TO points and all the cool stuff in his army is on fire, cratered, run over, or stepped on. He's got a couple destroyers left and one infantry squad of Skitarii, and I think Celestine coming back to life and my Knight still being alive convinced him that in at least this one instance that the Ecclesiarchy had one over on the Mechanicus, so he conceded.

 

I very much like this list. It's flexible, packs punch, and can take punishment and still operate.

 

His forward melee units were very nearly the death of me, and I can't stress enough how lucky I was with some of my SoF saves, not to mention another very good run of TO cards. Those Dune Walkers were, again, much harder than such a funny little model has a right to be.

 

My scouts could be more useful. I've yet to have them do anything worthwhile (except provide me with drop pod access.)

 

Celestine the Living Dead Girl is always fun when she pops back up and gets stuck in.

[grendal1989]

 

My scouts could be more useful. I've yet to have them do anything worthwhile (except provide me with drop pod access.)

 

Yeah, BA scouts are especially depressing. At least they do ok cover camping and can infiltrate on top of objectives.

[Warsmith Aznable]

I played my first game of Planetstrike today. A friend of mine requested this expansion and scenario specifically, with him defending and me attacking. He was trying out a new list and I think wanting to get used to Planetstrike for his league night or summat. I'm not sure, but I was happy to play a game.

It was set up more or less like this:

2000 points, Planetstrike expansion, Planet Fall scenario, medium to high level of suburban ruins with a couple of hills and odd structures thrown in, two aegis lines and a bastion with two icarus lascannons (fortifications are free for defenders in this particular scenario, just sort of a "set up as much as you'd like" thing.

I got a terrible warlord trait that I promptly forgot about, something about rerolling to charge fortifications.

For my strategem I wanted to keep it simple and spent all my points to upgrade my Firestorm bombardment.

The tweak I made to my list was to drop the aegis and quad cannon (which I had to do because of the scenario rules) and I dropped my Vindicare because I'm not confident in using one, and added an Icarus autocannon to my Knight (which I didn't even use because it turned out he didn't bring his Stormraven this time) and gave a Rosarius to my Canoness in case she ever had to get out of her metal box.

He played something I'd never faced before, and I don't know enough about the Inquisition to do more than describe it generally. He had three Inquisitors: Coteaz, Karamazov, and a generic OM in TDA. He had four large blobs of Henchmen. He had a squad of Combat Servitors with various heavy weapons. He had two or three Jokaero. And he had a squad that I never did find out what it was (three to five guys, unusual models in white metal I'd never seen before.) Also he had servoskulls all over the place. Also, of course, he had an Iron Hands Librarius Conclave with all four guys wearing TDA and carrying Storm Shields. I would complain, but I enjoy my Flesh Tearers Drop Pod Rentals™ formation too much.

We were talking before the game, and he said that Planetstrike games were quick and brutal and all about who gets momentum first. This made me decide that picking one of his units and doing everything I could to remove it in Turn 1 would be a good idea. I had four Firestorm shots that were enhanced to S10 AP2, so I figured that Coteaz would be a good place to start. I hate that bastard with his "I've been expecting you" nonsense.

And so it was that before the game even started, Coteaz and the majority of his Henchmen were atomized by nuclear hatred from beyond the clouds.

In this scenario everything in my army had to start in Reserves, but I got to begin rolling for Reserves in Turn 1. This would be key to everything that followed, and that momentum we discussed earlier.

My 1st Drop Pod plopped down right behind Karamazov and my melta Dominions unassed to form a gunline right behind the Throne of Judgment (that was proxied by a Dreadnought, which I had forgot was the case by then.) They didn't kill him, amazingly, but they did put the hurt on him.

Then I made every single Reserves roll except my second BSS/Immolator combo. So instead of coming in piecemeal, pretty much the whole party showed up. That small Inquisition squad that I didn't know what it was never got a chance to do anything before they were mugged for their objective marker by Seraphim squad 2. The Knight walked on and accidentally thermal cannoned the Dominions behind Karamazov. My Canoness and BSS in their Immolator drove on and finished Karamazov with the big melta. Celestine and Seraphim squad 1 bounced on and wiped out the large Henchman blob dominating the central area on my side of the table. My Storm Raven with Scouts flew on and did some unexciting kills on the Servitor squad.

Halfway through Turn 1 and a third of my opponents points are liquidated, and I've got 1st Blood and Slay the Warlord and am controlling 2 Obectives. Not a bad start.

His Librarius Conclave teleports from Reserves and begins bothering my Flying Tech Marine/Seraphim squad 2 unit. They're Invisible and he's got a bucket of psyhic dice, and I just sort of tune out the psychic phase because generally there's nothing for me to do but remove dead models while it's going on. He manages to shoot down my Storm Raven with concentrated, Prescient fire, but the pilot wasn't decent enough to crash on top of any of his units. Celestine was targeted by everything else in his army, and a million saves later and her hair isn't even out of place. I love Living Dead Girl!

In retaliation for daring to shoot at a Living Saint, I had BSS 2 drench a ruined building full of Henchmen with copious amounts of promethium. The whole game I would nickle and dime that unit, but never did manage to eliminate it, though. My Knight ran over and charged into the Librarius Conclave. I thought I would get a better result, go more than 1 round and get some delicious Stomps in, but they had purchased meltabombs and I flubbed my rolls on the D weapon chart gaining him "miraculous escapes," so he got to use those bombs. Unfortunately the Catastrophic Explosion only killed one of his three Librarians, which was suboptimal. Not a good trade of points, put I had to try and knock out those guys sooner rather than later, and the Knight was my best bet.

Mid game he's walking his Librarians from one corner of my control zone to the other, chasing down my Tech Marine/Seraphim squad. I was more concerned about the Immolator with my Canoness in it, so I started throwing other things between it and those Librarians while she made her getaway. He didn't realise that there was anybody in there, let alone my Warlord, which worked out in my favour later on, because he never did catch that Immolator. My sceond Drop Pod came down and caught his generic Inquisitor out by himself. They hosed the Inquisitor, then his Combat Servitors hosed them. Which is fine, because that's the life and times of a Dominion squad.

Celestine took a hard earned dirt nap, having her Seraphim shot out from around her in the process. The next turn she jumped straight up and hosed a second Henchman blob with her pigeon, then ran in to clean up with assault. This cleared off an objective and stopped an Icarus cannon from shooting at me.

End game in the fifth round. He's finally managed to knock out my first Drop Pod, but exposed his last Jokaero to danger in the process getting it fried by an Immolator's multimelta. In a panic because I found myself not sitting on any objectives (Celestine had by then died a final time when she failed a charge distance against the Combat Servitors and got plasma in the face for it) I sent Immolator 2 hauling ass across the battlefied to park on an objective, only to have it glanced to death by automated fire from the bastion heavy bolters. I've backed my Immolator 1 around a large monument thing, but still within 3" of an objective. Rhino 2 is forming a wall between that objective and his two remaining Henchmen from the ruins and the three Librarians who have finally slogged over to this area. Between the rhino and the objective I've got five BSS w/x2 flamers forming a "you can't get to that objective without dealing with us first" line. He blows up the Rhino with Librarian punches, which was expected, but he's still too far away to contest that objective. Another nail biter, because he's positioned to deny that objective if he gets another turn to move.

Game ends at the end of 5 with a die roll.

He's got his three Librarians left, two Henchman from 1 blob squad, two Henchman from another blob squad, and three Combat Servitors left. He is sitting on a single objective in his backfield with two of the Henchman left from Coteaz's squad.

I've got an Immolator, x2 BSS, Canoness. But I'm sitting on 1 objective, and clinched First Blood, and Slay the Warlord.

5 - 3 to the glorious and most holy Ecclesiarchy!

A spiritu dominatus! Ave Imperator!

[grendal1989]

Wow, that was an interesting one. Also, got to give your opponent props for using so much inquisition.

[grendal1989]

Also, how do you like using the tech marine? At first I thought it was an odd choice for blood angels, but then I started to think that it actually makes a lot of sense given that you are using that detachment as a force multiplier and he can boost the cover save of a terrain feature your retributors/anyone can sit in.

[Warsmith Aznable]

Mostly he's just there for a cheap jump pack HQ with a 2+ save to tank wounds for the Seraphim. He's been rather underwhelming individually because I don't put any wargear beyond the jump pack on him.

[Warsmith Aznable]

I played another installment of the Dogma Wars yesterday. Let us see what all I can remember about it.

1500 points

Maelstrom mission, the escalating TO one

lengthwise table deployment

more or less urban landscape, plenty of tall buildings

The Cult of the God Emperor versus the Cult of the Machine

The Best Imperial Religion

Hidden Content

CAD 1

Canoness with Rosarius and Mantle of Ophelia

BSS (5) x1 Meltagun, Rhino

BSS (5) x1 Meltagun, Rhino

Dominions (5) x4 Meltaguns, Immolator

Dominions (5) x4 Meltaguns, Immolator

Retributors (6) x4 Heavy Bolters, Saint-on-a-stick

Retributors (6) x4 Heavy Bolters, Saint-on-a-stick

CAD 2

Saint Celestine

BSS (5) x2 Flamer, Rhino

BSS (5) x2 Flamer, Rhino

Seraphim (5) x2 Inferno Pistols

Seraphim (5) x2 Hand Flamers

The Other Imperial Religion

Hidden Content

I think the formation was the "battle maniple" or something like that.

Knight Errant - Thermal Cannon and big Chainsword

Knight Errant - Thermal Cannon and big Chainsword

Knight Baron(?) - Rapid-fire Battle Cannon and the scary gatling gun cannon

Skitarii Vanguard (10) they had those Assault 3 guns that did extra wounds on 6s.

Skitarii Vanguard (10) same as the other one, I think.

First Act: Establishing the setting

I was a bit dismayed that I had put so much into my Retributors, and he only brought two squads of viable targets for them. I wasn't really certain what to do with them, since the urban landscape meant that they couldn't get a clear line of fire across the table. I put one of them on an objective in a burned out office building, placing the girls on multiple levels to confound blast attacks. The other Retributor squad I put on my right flank, standing on the street to the right of the office building, with a clear lane of fire toward another objective.

I placed a flamer BSS Rhino forward of the street Retributors with the idea of moving forward toward the objective the Rets were covering, and also to maybe use their Rhino to provide the Rets mobile cover if necessary. I placed the other flamer BSS Rhino on my far left flank, with the idea that they would run up the board and maybe flame some Skitarii off an objective if they could, but I didn't tell them that they were really a speed bump for the enemy Knight Baron.

The melta BSS Rhinos were centrally located in cover, ready to drive left or right to counter-attack the Knight's inevitable advance.

Celestine and the Seraphim were in DS Reserve, and the Dominions were Outflanking.

The enemy deployed with their Knight Baron forward on my far left flank, a Knight Errant forward-center, and the other Knight Errant forward on my far right flank. The two Skitarii squads were spread out on his back field to camp objectives, and were never in danger of being anywhere near where my Heavy Bolters could see them

The game opened predictably, with his Knight Baron scoring First Blood by walking his Knight Baron out from behind a building and shooting up the Flamer BSS Rhino on my far right flank. Should have started them in cover, I guess. I got lucky when his flank Knight Errant dropped a Thermal Cannon shot on my other Flamer BSS Rhino but only burnt the storm bolter off.

I ran my disembarked flamer girls behind some small ruins for cover, took pointless shots at the Knights with my Retributors, and prayed to the immortal God-Emperor that my Reserves came in soon.

Second Act: Introducing the problem

The filthy machine-fetishists walked their Knight Errant further into my right flank to contest an objective, but Holy Smoke obscured his shooting and kept the super-scoring Rhino alive. The flamer girl occupants bravely sacrificed themselves to keep the Rhino alive, throwing themselves before the Knight Errant to shield it from assault. Their Knight Baron held his ground to claim an objective, giving the flamer girls a chance to keep hoofing it. His middle Knight Errant didn't seem certain where it should go, and milled around the center of the table.

The God-Emperor heard our prayers and guided my Outflanking Immolators right where I wanted them to be. One Immolator popped out behind the Knight Baron and disembarked its meltagunners, and the other Immolator popped out in front of the Knight Baron and disembarked its meltagunners. Its shield was as effectively split as I have ever managed, and the resulting explosion was the least concerning kind, only killing one of my melta-girls. Slay the Warlord to the Ecclesiarchy!

Celestine and her hand flamer Seraphim jumped out of the sky and hosed one of his Skitarii squads, killing most of them but failing to run them off their objective. The other Seraphim squad began a series of DS Mishaps that would see them delayed until the Third Act.

I've made my mark, but there are still two superheavies with D weapons stomping around, and they're already doing it on my side of the table. My Melta BSS in the center did their best to counter-attack, acting in concert to put two meltaguns on either side of a Knight Errant to split its shield, but got shot up so bad that the one surviving BSS is sprinting toward my back table edge.

Third Act: Resolving the conflict

We've both been racking up TO cards, but his Knights are all up in my AO and most of my melta troops are out of position to do anything about it. The situation is grim, but I have the benefit of having the right Imperial religion on my side.

His Knight Errant on my right flank finally kicks over that stubborn Rhino and claims that objective. My Retributors have already used their Act of Faiths, and out of 48 HB shots have only managed to do a single hull point of damage. By this point they've been spectators for a long time, but his other Knight Errant has some ideas about that.

I had managed to strip all but a single HP off his middle Knight Errant by ramming one of my Dominion squads and the Immolator through an old, ruined factory and getting some lucky shots at range in. Now, though, the Knight saw the end game and wanted to run up more points. It used its superior speed and the fact that the pursuing Dominions were slowed by terrain to circle into my middle backfield and assault the Retributors in the ruined office building, pulling them off the objective and making the two survivors run. They joined the sole survivor from the melta BSS and ran off the table.

Celestine had earlier been stripped of all but one of her Seraphim by the massive shooting attacks of the Vanguard. Unfortunately for them, Celestine is a monster. She used hit and run to break off from an assault by the first Vanguard squad, hosed the second Vanguard squad with help from the passing Dominions on their way to chase Knights, and ran back to the first Vanguard squad to smash their sole survivor and steal his objective. Now she split from her Seraphim friend and they were both camping different objectives for TO cards. All that was catch-up from earlier. Now she was faced with what to do in the end game.

Celestine jumped over near the far right Knight Errant to perform her martyrdom duty as a "distraction saint." Everyone always assumes she's the Warlord and wants to kill her, and this Knight Errant did too. He left my AO to chase her down and step on her. Martyrdom accomplished.

Those Seraphim that had been bouncing around the aether because of DS mishaps finally came in, scattering into most effective range for their Inferno Pistols in the rear arc of the Knight Errant that was going for Linebreaker! Truly the God-Emperor was with them, delaying their entrance until this exact, right moment. He called them home in the resultant explosion that was the end of both that Knight Errant and Turn 5.

Turn 5 the game ended on a die roll.

The final situation was thus: a single enemy Knight Errant in No Man's Land. One more turn and I believe I would have maneuvered my Dominions into position to knock it out, but the die roll had us counting TO cards. Surviving for Our Martyred Lady were two Dominions squads with their Immolators, a BSS Flamer squad on foot, and... the Canoness hiding in the Immolator. I think that was it for my forces.

TO Card count: 10 for the Cult Mechanicum, 12 for the Ecclesiarchy. Victory for the most correct religion!

And the Dogma Wars rage on!