What have your Raven Guard done lately?

[Nusquam]

Primaris Ancient: The Honor Vehement

 

Why not the relic banner for fearless and 9"?

[thewarriorhunter]

I'm thinking I'll get stuck into combat at some point, and if I can use terrain and drag out the fight I'd rather have the extra attack for the duration of the engagement. I'm open to other models taking relics, that just seemed like the one that made sense based on our last couple games. None of my squads are 10 man so passing morale is probably likely... I think.

[thewarriorhunter]

We march off to battle, hoping for a good game a bat rep in the next couple days!

 

[thewarriorhunter]

My game Monday was... good. Long... but good. My opponent is a great guy but if he's going to play the green tide he needs to move much faster. Three turns over five hours was not was I was expecting. Had we played those three turns in three hours it would have been a much better game. Don't get me wrong, I had fun, but when I realized how long we were into it at the end my enjoyment was soured slightly. If we play again I'm not letting him go over 1000 points because I can't handle that long of a game.

 

Hidden Content

 

We played Supply Drop from Chapter Approved 2018. We felt that was fitting to finish our little mini narrative off. My Marines were rallying back to the LZ in the city ruins after they were crushed on the outskirts of the city. The orks were in pursuit as they were still after the glitzy bitz from our first game.

 

I deployed first and tried to take advantage of terrain and high ground to limit how much could get into CC and to maximize our CT.

 

 

Kept everything that could deep strike off the board except my assault squad, I wanted to to screen my backfield for a turn or two before they moved up.

 

 

 

 

 

The view from his side:

 

 

 

Turn one my scouts dropped his pain boy, I was very happy about that. My Phobos Libby then failed to cast Tenebrous Curse on a blob of 30 boys so that flank was immediately under pressure. Here that mob has moved up since they didn't have to worry about slowing down. You can also see a mob of 30 that he Da Jumped into the center of the board near the crater:

 

 

 

The mob that wasn't slowed got off an 11 inch charge. Here my scouts were caught sleeping on the job. He was able to get into combat with my scouts, my intecessors, and my Phobos Libby.

 

 

 

The combat was not pretty. My Intercessors were wiped and I lost a couple scouts. My Libby managed to survive so I got another round of casting off.

 

Turn 2 he left a gap in his backfield which I quickly took advantage of. My Cataphractii dropped in with the sole purpose of taking out his Weird Boy so he couldn't Da Jump the other mob of 30 he had waiting to go. They did their job and smoked him.

 

 

My Intercessors and LT dropped in behind his Warboss and did the same. That dark spot on the ground is where the warboss used to be:

 

 

Still stuck in combat, but that means that his mom couldn't move onto my objective in the backfield:

 

 

Scouts on the other side... the last two holding it down on the top of ruins. It was cheesy because they couldn't get charged, but they were also stuck and couldn't get out.

 

 

 

He started moving in on my Terminators to take back the objective:

 

 

Turn 3 my Drop Pod crashed down to provide some mid field support and attempt to get to an objective:

 

 

 

This was the objective that ultimately determined the outcome of the game. It was highly contested:

 

 

Poor use of HQs on my part. They help the objective but weren't the force multipliers they were meant to be. Admittedly I was hesitant to move them out because of the mob that just chewed up my left flank.

 

 

And then his turn three he popped his strat that brought a mob back on a board edge at full strength:

 

 

Assault squad being the chaff they're meant to be:

 

 

We were tied the whole game but in his turn 3 he killed my warlord and got a point so was ahead by one. I didn't see a way that I could overcome the 30 boys in my backfield and get another objective. We called it for that (and time). It was a good game and I learned more, which I always try and do.

 

I did forget about Shock Assault for the whole game I don't think it would have changed the outcome but I might have made him bleed a little more, especially with my terminators. I took the las cannons on my contemptor but auto cannons or the Kheres assault gun would have been better options but 1) I didn't know if he'd have any vehicles and 2) other weapon options aren't painted up.

 

I lost site of the midfield objective. If I'd moved my intercessors over there I probably would have scored better because neither of us scored off that one the entire game.

 

[duz_]

Looks like a great game with some well painted armies! :tu:

 

Bugger for forgetting shock assault did the doctrines help? Especially the Tactical Doctrine?

 

5hrs is way too long for a game for me (3 hrs max before I've had enough of a game)

Especially if your opponent is using movement trays

Maybe a chess clock or some other form of time keeping to keep things moving in future?

[thewarriorhunter]

The doctrines did help a little but I don't think they were game breaking. Against orks they were great because it meant CC and bolters that hit were auto-kills since orks have a 6+ save. A lot of my shooting was already AP-1/2 so it wasn't a huge change in damage output for my list.

 

I agree on time, 3 hours is where I try to end up. I'll 3.5 since terrain setup and mission generation take a little time. I thought about a chess clock but I don't know how that would go over. Next time we play I'll suggest 1k points and see how it goes. If that is still a long game then I might talk to him about it. We're still only in acquaintance level so I'm not sure if it would go over well if I told him that he needs to play faster.

[Claws and Effect]

My last game my opponent agreed to let me test the rules that Warhammer Community previewed.

 

Much to my surprise, I nearly tabled him.

 

He made the crucial error of not closing the distance to get rid of my Chapter Tactic. He also made no attempt to tie my grav flux Leviathan up in melee.

[Sciox]

I played a game on the weekend, my first in many years and several editions, and I got creamed. My army consisted of shadowpear units holding a building at the back of my deployment zone, two teams of tac marines and two of devastators in drop pods and Shrike with 10 vanguard veterans against a force of Khorne Beserkers, lead by Khârn himself, in rhinos, a defiler, a baneblade and a maulerfiend.

 

Turn one consisted of my opponent moving up the board and shooting with his long range weapons at my eliminators to no effect (-1 to hit and +2 cover saves for the win). My Eliminators knocked a few wounds of a Rhino but failed to kill it, which was a prelude to what happened next

 

You see I didn't realise just much tougher vehicles had gotten since the change from armour values to toughness and overestimated just how much -1 to hit could cause devastators to suffer, I read in the rules that you can fire heavy weapons on the move now and it went to my head a bit. The result was that on turn two my devastators and tactical marines drop podded in, didn't kill the vehicles I needed them to kill and because I was overly aggressive the vehicles turned around next turn and wiped out most of my marines. My Las Eliminators killed one the previously wounded Rhino and my jump packs deep striked in to wipe out the berserkers, Shrike got into combat with the but the vanguards failed their charge rolls, the Chapter Master sliced and diced a handful of traitors but the survivors pasted Shrike and next turn went on to wipe out the Vanguards.

 

On the next turn the other unit of bersekers with Khârn charged in and chopped up my infiltrators lieutenant and Captain, albiet at the cost of half the traitors to a spectacular bit of over watch shooting, and the baneblade made up for it's turn one failure by driving into heavy bolter range and mulching up my eliminators with sheer weight of fire. By turn's end I had some 3 marines left on the board and we called the game and went to get lunch.

 

The rematch is next week, this time with a better understanding of 8th edition, new models and the new supplement.

Edited September 20, 2019 by Sciox

[Dracos]

Welcome to the Ravenspire :D

 

You only get better after getting back into it. Those mistakes are your best teachers moving forward :) Dint forget play the mission not just kill points.

 

How do you feel the Angels of Death rules worked for you? Shock and the combat doctrines should be some of your best friends.

 

We look forward to hearing about the rematch ... and seeing any pics of the armies or battle board you might want to share too :)

[Sciox]

Welcome to the Ravenspire :D

You only get better after getting back into it. Those mistakes are your best teachers moving forward :) Dint forget play the mission not just kill points.

How do you feel the Angels of Death rules worked for you? Shock and the combat doctrines should be some of your best friends.

We look forward to hearing about the rematch ... and seeing any pics of the armies or battle board you might want to share too :)

Yeah, part of the reason we went in with so many models is that I'm a returning vet and he's long been into building and painting and just now getting into the wargame and we both wanted to get a feel for every type of unit we could, both of us made plenty of mistakes but I made the bigger ones and he made me pay for it. Fortunately we had a kind soul at GW that day who was hovering about giving us both pointers with regards to rules.

 

Combat doctrines didn't play a big part in my plan, partly because I forgot they existed until turn 2, at which point the game was already pretty much over. In the end tactical doctrine only helped my Phobos units kill some berserkers. In hindsight the -1 AP for heavy weapons probably wouldn't have done much, my main issue was missing shots and them rolling badly for damage even with multimeltas at point blank range. Shock assault was a big part of why I brought my vanguard vets with their lightning claws, 40 attacks hitting on 3+ with rerolls to wound and if they'd been with Shrike they'd have had full rerolls to hit, a scary thing. Unfortunately the berserkers were usually attacking first and they do their work very well.

 

Next game I think I'm going to abandon deep strike entirely, use the supplement abilities to dig in just outside the enemy deployment zone to take full advantage of the chapter traits and doctrines, hopefully I'll have my new invictor and primaris Shrike ready to go for some short range power, but my plan is to try and win in the shooting phase.

 

No pics of the last game, but I'll take some of the next one.

[Claws and Effect]

I have a game planned against an Ork horde in the next couple weeks sometime.

 

I'll post a batrep of it afterwards.

[thewarriorhunter]

I have a game planned against an Ork horde in the next couple weeks sometime.

 

I'll post a batrep of it afterwards.

 

I think you're a better player than me but a couple unsolicited bits of advice since my last three games were against orks, two of them against the green tide:

 

• Deploy as far away as you can
• Try really hard to screen out Da Jump, even better if you can knock out the psycher that's casting it
• Beware the strat that lets them bring a unit back at full strength. They can't use it unless a unit is under half strength though but in my experience it was always used on the 30 unit blob. They can also bring it in on a table edge so it can get into your backfield if you don't think about it
• My opponent was fast and I learned that sacrificing a couple units as speed bumps to limit their movement/charge range was worth it.
• They suck at shooting but hit hard in CC, the longer you keep them out of CC the better, and use terrain to your advantage to limit their number of attacks.

[WAR]

A majority 10th company  is still deployed on Khymara in the desert wastelands. They have been quietly observation and reporting on incidents involving all the other force on planet. These brave warriors are still waiting for reinforcements to allow the watchers to become the killers. Various "incidents"  have occurred in the enemy's base of operations that continue to show while not fully combat effective they can still slow the war. 

 

Mean while at Prime, a Primaris Vanguard force is preparing for deployment to Khymara to shortly be followed by a larger detachment of Primaris from various Battle companies to bring the fight to the enemy.

 

Soon Raptors will be fighting on Khymara once again. 

[Sciox]

My rematch with my friend's chaos army, including his dreaded Baneblade, has concluded and I have emerged victorious.

 

The game was 1500 points, I bought the following

 

Spearhead detachment.

 

Phobos Librarian as my warlord, with Master of Ambush as his trait and the Tome of Malcadore as his relic, for powers he brought Enveloping Darkness and Shadowstep from the Raven Guard Supplement and Hallucination from the Phobos abilities.

 

Kayvaan Shrike (New Shrike but portrayed by Old Shrike), not the warlord but still gave good service as a chaff shredder, close range sniper and class A+ shield for the librarian.

 

Eliminators with las fusils.

 

Eliminators with bolt snipers.

 

Devastator Squad with 2 lascannons, 2 missile launchers, a combi-flamer for the sergeant and 5 extra wounds with boltguns.

 

Battalion Detachment.

 

Phobos Captain, with Ex Tenebris

 

Phobos Lieutenant

 

10 man tactical squad with melta gun and a plasma cannon.

 

Another 10 man tactical squad with melta gun and a plasma cannon.

 

10 man Infiltrator squad, split into combat squads.

 

Venerable Dreadnought with twin lascannon and a missile launcher.

 

My opponent brought the following (apologies if I get some names wrong, I'm not up to date on my chaos daemonology)

 

The Baneblade, with 4 sponsons of hurt, ready to mess up my day.

 

Khârn the Betrayer, an Aspiring Champion and 8 Berzerkers in a rhino.

 

2 squads of cultists.

 

A skullmaster (portrayed by a chaos terminator because, like my Primaris Shrike, his bloodmaster was still in the process of painting and assembly), also his warlord.

 

A bloodmaster in reserve

 

3 squads of 10 bloodletters, two squads in reserve.

 

My friend won the role for deployment but decided to go second. We were playing for 4 objectives, one in each deployment zone and two in no man's land at the end of each round holding an objective would reward a point and an additional point would be gain for each kill.

 

I forgot to take a picture early on, this one is from the start of my friend's first shooting phase, but most units are still pretty close to where they were deployed.

 

I split my army into three group. The Dreadnought, Shrike and the two tactical squads went in my deployment zone, one squad holding down an objective while the dreadnought marched up to lay the smackdown on the vehicles and the other squad went to seize the other objective, unfortunately poor advance rolls then a sudden demonic summoning would keep them from objective 1 before we called the game.

 

In the black and gold building on the left went my two eliminator squads with 5 infiltrators on the ground to keep the bloodletters away.

 

In the white and gold building on the left went my other infiltrators by the door (again to screen the bloodletters but they ended up screening another servant of Khorne) my Captain and Lieutenent in the back and on the roof went my devastators using the Strike from the Shadows stratagem.

 

My Librarian, the cornerstone of my plan, went behind the big mechanicus chimney until I put Phase 1 of my plan to knock out the Baneblade into action.

 

My friend deployed his units across his zone, with the Rhino with Berzerkers and the Baneblade on the right and the two units of cultists, one squad of bloodthirsters and his warlord on the left to go after my eliminators. In reserve he had two units of bloodletters and his bloodmaster

 

Once deployment was complete I activated Master of Ambush to redeploy my Librarian and Shrike in front of the Baneblade, and when the first psychic phase rolled around I activated Enveloping Darkness and Hallucination, combined they inflicted a -2 to hit on the Baneblade which, combined with its BS of 4+, made it unlikely to hit anything. But I unloaded my devastators, dreadnought and las-eliminators into it I and inflicted enough wounds to knock it down into its second damage bracket, giving it a BS of 5+ and making it impossible to hit anything, the big threat was neutralised. Meanwhile Shrike went to town on a unit of cultists, easily chewing them up but credit where credit is due they inflicted a single wound of the Chapter Master before disintegrating due to moral issues. Meanwhile the bolt snipers tried to take out the enemy warlord, knocking him down to one wound, and the infiltrators popped out of hiding to take some pot shots at the bloodletters.

 

When my friend's first turn began he moved all his infantry to engage Shrike, fumed at the impotency of his baneblade and moved his rhino bound berzerkers up the board to take out my devastator firebase.

 

 

Come the assault phase the bloodletters, skullmaster and cultists moved in and with sheer number of attacks brought down the Chapter Master, but with Only In Death Does Duty End, Shrike dragged his foes down with him, wiping out the entire unit of bloodletters and the skullmaster, with the warlord dead I activated Decapitating Blow, inflicting a -1 to all enemy moral that would prove quite useful in killing off the rest of the bloodthirsters.

 

On my turn 2 most units remained where they were to get the most out of shooting, I shifted to tactical doctrine figuring that the extra -1 on heavy weapons wouldn't do much compared to the bonus for rapid fire and assault guns I, correctly, guessed was about to get quite a bit of use. The forward tactical squad moved up to seize the unclaimed objective but a roll of 1 to advance kept it out of reach while the Librarian, who moved behind some terrain to stay a bit safer, only managed to inflict Hallucination on the Baneblade, Enveloping Darkness was denied by a Khonate Stratagem, fortunately it didn't matter as my devastators, dreadnought and las-eliminators knocked the Baneblade down to it's final wound tier, 3 wounds short of destroying the behemoth, and 6+ ballistic skill. The bolt sniper eliminators wiped out most of the cultists with hyper frag rounds and morale wiped out the rest.

 

On my friend's turn he dropped in his reserves, a unit of bloodthirsters and the bloodtaker in the right hand corner, near my tactical squad and dreadnought. And the other squad of bloodthirsters dropped in on the left side to attack my eliminators. Fortunately in both cases terrain would make it difficult to get into range and none would make their charges this turn but overwatch would claim a few.

 

Meanwhile the World Eaters got out of the Rhino and did what they did best, Khan and the Champion went low after my infiltrators and easily chewed them up and dealt a wound to my lieutenent but he dealt a wound to Khan and fell back. While the Berzerkers went high after my devastators, they wiped out the unit but a good round of overwatch shooting (helped by rerolls on 1s and the Sergeant's flamer) killed 4 of the eight Berzerkers and a poor morale test wiped the rest of the unit. The same fate befell the bloodletters that arrived in the right hand corner, they failed the charge but overwatch killed 4 and morale wiped the rest.

 

My turn 3 and the final turn of the game, my left side infiltrators and forward tactical squad moved into range of the bloodletters, easily mowing them down with massed bolt gun fire, while the Venerable Dreadnought killed the bloodtaker with a well placed lascannon shot. My captain and lieutenant moved as far as they could to the edge of the board then the Captain unloaded into Khan with Ex Tenebris, with tactical doctrine active, blowing away the Betrayer in a quick minute of dice rolls, the lieutenant had fallen back and therefor could not shoot. At this point my friend was down to his Champion, his Rhino and the Baneblade, still alive but on death's door and unable to hit anything in cover. So we decided to call the game rather then watch my snipers shoot his units to death as they ran across the open board.

 

The board in the final turn of the game, in the background you can see a glimpse of a titanic clash between the Black Legion with chaos knight support and the Thousand Sons led by their Primarch.

 

All in all a great triumph for the Raven Guard, the supplement abilities definitely helped, the MVP was of course my Librarian (who my friend dubbed Nightcrawler when I explained his capability for disorientation and teleportation) and I was able to easily pressure my friend from turn 1 of the game with the various mobility abilities I had acess to. But of course there wasn't much shooting in my friend's army once I neutralised the Baneblade, so a true test would be against a shooting army like Tau or other marines. Also the effect the morale malus had has definitely convinced me to get my hands on some reivers after my next payday.

Edited September 27, 2019 by Sciox

[duz_]

Primed and based my Shrike and Elimators today.

Was running out of black and almost blasted half of Shrike with metallic black by accident :huh:

 

Of to the hobby shop tomorrow for more black airbrush paint to get the warsuit and Executioner done :tu:

[SkimaskMohawk]

I played my first game with the new supplement lost. But I expected that one way or another; it's too easy to make the wrong decision on strike from the shadows vs. Master of ambush. My list was also very gimmicky, and they didn't really go off.

 

But some cool things still happened, despite all that. Stranglehold cost my opponent 3cp, which is a pretty good first go with it. Shrike killed fuegan (but was already dead himself). My ex tenebris primaris lt one shot illic, easily being my favorite moment of the game. And my oppressors end captain, while stuck in my zone due to shadowstep failing constantly, still killed 10 fire dragons and 5 avengers and made his points back.

[WAR]

Primed Librarian (for the Corax Command  2019 painting event) and 5 infiltrators.....

[MajorNese]

Since there was a general interest in how RG and IH work against each other - just finished the game against IH, 1500p.

 

And it was brutally one-sided. Granted, the IH player is not the most experienced guy, but IH are not that tricksy that you have to know every bit...

 

My list:

-Shrike (WL)

-primaris Lt, Ex Tenebris

-2x 5 Intercessor (bolt rifle)

-5x Infiltrator

-3x 3 Eliminators

-1x6 Inceptors

-2x 3 Tarantulas (2x HB, 1x TLLC each)

-LandRaider

 

His stuff (roughly):

-Feirros

-Phobos Lt

-captain (SS, combi grav)

-3x 5 Intercessors

-5 grav devs

-drop pod

-contemptor mortis (TLLC, typhoon)

-Repulsor Executioner

-Invictor

-3 Inceptors

-3 suppressors

 

2 Eliminator squads + Lt in one ruin, Shrike with LandRaider and one Tarantula unit nearby. One Eliminator squad in the other corner, Infiltrators in the center, one Intercessor squad near midfield and one used SftS to deep strike. Inceptors deep strike too.

He deployed his Invictor right in front of my line, so the Tarantulas stood ready as buffers. Otherwise he was in range anyways, so it just deployed where the characters were out of LoS.

 

I had first round...the Invictor took quite a bit of fire to take out entirely, but still doable in turn 1. Infiltrators jumped into a ruin and popped smoke - that prevented any losses for the entire turn, so that's something to keep in mind. LandRaider with Shrike all but killed the Contemptor, but a unit of Eliminators finished off the last 3W.

 

He drop podded his captain and grav devs, and with the new strat reduced the LR to 2W - that's quite an effective combo. Other fire took off a single wound of each Eliminator unit, nothing serious.

 

My return fire shredded captain, dev and pod and Repulsor. When his remaining reserves came on turn 2, they were too isolated to do anything. We called it after my round 3, since he was down to Feirros, Lieutenant, 5 Intercessors and 2 Inceptors. I lost 2 Intercessors, 1 Infiltrator and the LR was down to 2W, everything else was unscratched.

 

 

 

Some takeaways:

-Eliminators - hooooooooo boy. Forget the runaway carbine. Forget the las version. These guys can damage any unit rather reliably with Guided Aim, and generating multi damage, MW and having an AP of -2 or -3. T8 vehicles with invul? No problem. Single infantry hanging out behind a wall? Not any more. S5 and AP reliably wound most infantry even without Guided Aim. 3x3 seems auto include for me, though I might consider Korvidari bolts for a sarge. Having cover everywhere (including tanks) pretty much counters the doctrine bonus of Heavy doctrine, otherwise a lot of models would have died. With LandRaider going up to 1+ save, it has the same result as having an invul.

 

-RG doctrine part 2 - having -1 when in cover, not limited to being >12", is definitely useful. My Infiltrators used smoke and terrain for a -2 to hit, spending a CP to get it to -3 seemed overkill

 

-SftS - deep striking some Intercessors is a nice distraction, or option to claim objectives far away. I'll build 2 squads with autobolt rifles, those will work better when these guys are intended for the midfield anyway

 

-Inceptors were brutal. Landed turn 2, where their guns are AP-2. With 6 models and Shrike nearby, their amount of firepower was borderline ridiculous. Killed almost half of the Repulsor in a turn. +1W made them a lot more resilient than they were with the V1 codex.

 

-Shrike seems worth it, used like the Doctrines could be. First turn he buffed the largest part of the gunline, second part he joined the deep striking Inceptors, third turn he went on a killing spee in the backfield. Advancing and still being able to charge for 1CP is useful, especially as you only have to decide during charge phase. No overwatch also means being able to try any charges, because why not. No risk involved...

 

-Shrike pistol/Ex Tenebris: A bit situational at S4, but when they wound, they get through. Targeting characters would have been interesting, but those all hid behind ruins.

 

So yeah...the components don't seem too bad, though it may turn out quite differently with a less favorable setup.

[SanguinaryGuardsman]

 

I have a game planned against an Ork horde in the next couple weeks sometime.

 

I'll post a batrep of it afterwards.

 

I think you're a better player than me but a couple unsolicited bits of advice since my last three games were against orks, two of them against the green tide:

 

• Deploy as far away as you can
• Try really hard to screen out Da Jump, even better if you can knock out the psycher that's casting it
• Beware the strat that lets them bring a unit back at full strength. They can't use it unless a unit is under half strength though but in my experience it was always used on the 30 unit blob. They can also bring it in on a table edge so it can get into your backfield if you don't think about it
• My opponent was fast and I learned that sacrificing a couple units as speed bumps to limit their movement/charge range was worth it.
• They suck at shooting but hit hard in CC, the longer you keep them out of CC the better, and use terrain to your advantage to limit their number of attacks.

 

Things you should use or try to do vs orks.

 

1. Set a trap for Auspex Scan.  Maybe leave a nice juicy opening for Da Jump near some aggressors with a chapter master aura.  

 

2.  Infiltrators really hurt ork hords a lot.  2 min squads can totally shut down any deepstrike nonsense.

 

3.  Artificer armour and the armour indomidus are useful relics if you expect to face lots of str 4 ap - spam.

 

4.  The Teeth of Terra

[chapter master 454]

Not sure if I count for you lot because I use any chapter I like at any given time, really more building lists and the like is what I enjoy and I enjoy testing them. I have various lists for Ultramarines, Iron Hands and as I allude to being here, Raven Guard.

But hey ho, enjoy this simple excursion of my Ambush Centurions.

 

Game is simple, I have my 12 devastator Centurions (Grav-cannons because sod you imperial fist boys, grav is the way forward...until your dex comes out and gives me something I can use to throw EVEN MORE DICE with) and 3 assault centurions form the core of the army. They are supported by the "deployment zone is a suggestion" elements, 4 scout squads, 2 infiltrators, phobos captain and phobos lieutenant along with a captain (warlord and chapter master for this game. Ambush trait) and Lieutenant "Addidas" (because all he did was run around securing objectives in my deployment zone...he was the only one left IN my deployment zone after we began the game proper) and a phobos librarian (spectral blade and enveloping darkness). Oh and an eliminator squad.

 

The game was fairly quick to be decided due to two things: Hero Scout Sergeant and the assault centurions crushing what was the core of his shooting. He was playing Iron Hands and was really just testing a bunch of stuff out that sadly never got truly tested. I stole turn 1 which would be the pace maker of the game. So of the 3 things to deploy in my deployment zone (no seriously...only the assault centurions, captain and lieutenant deployed there, the 2 dev centurions were in ambush) the captain quickly called a time-out, got his hi-vis jacket on and escorted the waddling centurions across the board to 9" away from the enemy lines. Lieutenant Addidas got left with objective 1...he called it Wilson.

 

So the target of the assault centurion was his repulsor executioner because its big, scary and shoots more than centurions and I don't like competition! Next to this was some grav-turions of his own. All of that was backed by Feirros and a whole host of HQ choices galore (including a Gravis Captain with a 5+++ trait and the Ironstone). So first things first was getting some positions sorted due to counter-deployment from his own scouts and eliminators! (Rude...I was supposed to be the sneaky one). Followed by the Psychic phase where I enveloped his repulsor in darkness to deny overwatch from it. From here there is incidental shooting phase where I just unload the flamers and a bunch of bolt guns into various targets...feirros however felt a koridari bolt to the dome, apparently it hurts a little.

 

The Charge phase is where we see the Hero Sergeant appear. Having only lost 1 centurion to shooting, he still had 2 gravturions ready to go for overwatch and while I wanted to charge them with my assault centurions, Grav-cannons tend to mess with centurions fairly well so i wanted to attempt to shut them down so here goes a 5 man squad of scouts...into 2 gravturions...who hit on 4s with overwatch due to stratagem...re-rolling 1s regardless from captain. It speaks volumes to his rolling quality and mine (his bad, mine good) that a lone sergeant of the squad remains and makes the charge which then results in the assault centurions getting a free charge on both the repulsor and centurions. Some melee later, an honouring of chapter later, the executioner is dead and the enemy centurions are gone (impressive really, I managed to kill the repulsor through the ironstone with on 2 assault centurions attacking twice).

 

At that point, the game was done. I basically had with little resources gutted his main gun platform and his back-up guns. While still retaining a multitude of other units...I removed his biggest power houses and I still had 840 points of devastator centurions waiting to come in. We did continue the game but it was largely a gun show of the devastator centurions doing what they do and just removing targets (though his redemptor dreadnought got revenge, exploding and in the process killed my librarian from full wounds and NEARLY got my chapter master).

 

Now the main question I have...how does one sneak centurions onto the battlefield? (We both agreed they just taped a branch of a tree to the front of their armour for camo).

[superwill]

Since there was a general interest in how RG and IH work against each other - just finished the game against IH, 1500p.

 

And it was brutally one-sided. Granted, the IH player is not the most experienced guy, but IH are not that tricksy that you have to know every bit...

Thanks for sharing the thoughts on different units - particularly the inceptors going to AP2 makes a big difference I hadn’t necessarily weighed up. Sounds like the eliminators still did work despite your opponent hiding his characters. That’s been my main experience too - I think our opportunities to snipe characters are going to be very rare, but if they’re hiding their characters and the elims can still get some work done then that’s a decent result.

 

My assumption would be that in a typical RG matchup with IH, whoever gets first turn will often be the deciding factor unless specific measures are taken, though having said that your opponent doesn’t seem to be running the really scary Iron Hands stuff or have many epic combos, so I imagine you would’ve beat him easy regardless.

 

-RG doctrine part 2 - having -1 when in cover, not limited to being >12", is definitely useful. My Infiltrators used smoke and terrain for a -2 to hit, spending a CP to get it to -3 seemed overkill

I’m not quite sure what you mean ‘not limited to being >12”’? I might be misunderstanding, but you only get the -1 if you are 12” away and on/in terrain, yeah?

[MajorNese]

Yeah, Inceptors are brutal. Way more resilient with 3W, and a unit of 6 is 36 shots. With Shrike nearby (who can keep up, and is in turn protected by them) that's 32 hits, so enough to wound even T6+. And with AP-2, they're in the perfect position to both blend infantry and take armour saves down to the typical 5+ invul.

 

I'd bet they become a staple of my lists going forward. Mobility in a primaris army is rather hard to come by, and this one combines it with resilience and firepower. Shrike may synergize well - beyond the hit roll, Shrike is shielded by the squad. But he can charge into stuff over his bodyguard, who can in turn charge afterwards without suffering overwatch. And everyone can fall back and shoot.

 

-RG doctrine part 2 - having -1 when in cover, not limited to being >12", is definitely useful. My Infiltrators used smoke and terrain for a -2 to hit, spending a CP to get it to -3 seemed overkill

I’m not quite sure what you mean ‘not limited to being >12”’? I might be misunderstanding, but you only get the -1 if you are 12” away and on/in terrain, yeah?

Yeah, you're right I guess - I thought it was just a secondary effect for a unit, not depending on the requirements of the first part. But the wording for entirely separate effects is different, so it probably does depend on the restrictions of the first part. GW and their wording...

[thewarriorhunter]

Yup, I love my 3 inceptors. I'm planning on painting up some in my new colors. Dropping T2 they do work. STR5 AP-2 is amazing, and if you find a hole and can go for a character you're hitting and wounding on 2's.

[Dracos]

With all these new Doctrine buffs bumping all the Bolter type weapons AP, I think it’s time Hellblasters and Plasma-ceptors get a 2 point drop per model :)

[Nusquam]

Had my third practice game with my Raptors. Second game against orks. ITC championship missions. We called it bottom of 4, 18-14 me. We had gutted each other and I could hide out of LoS of his remaining mek guns and it we would have been stuck getting 1 point each the rest of the game.

 

The take aways:

 

Two 5man infiltrators and a phobos captain screened the gaps my zone from da jump perfectly.

 

Korvidari bolts on the phobos captain were swingy.

 

Ex Tenebris did well as always.

 

I deployed too aggressively with my eliminators and scouts. Next time I think I'll do Lord of Deciet and/or Master of Ambush to reposition them better. Feign aggressiveness to make my opponent counter deploy and over commit to ghosts.

 

Spectral blade phobos libby did intervene on a boss on a wartime and cut him down with ease.