Fury of the Firstborn!

[Iron Father Ferrum]

I'm officially undefeated in 9th edition!  Got my first game in this past Saturday, and boy did it feel good to roll dice.  Still lots of rules to get used to and I realized just this evening that I completely forgot to use the +1 to hit ability on the Techmarine...but still.

 

The army I took was:

 

 

Terminator Captain with thunder hammer & storm shield, Warlord (All Flesh is Weakness), Automedicae Bionics

Librarian with force sword, Tome of Malcador, Reforge, Psysteel, Psychic Fortress

Techmarine with the Ironstone

 

10x Tacticals with chainsword, combi-grav, gravgun, grav cannon

10x Tacticals with chainsword, combi-grav, gravgun, grav cannon

5x Tacticals with chainsword, combi-grav, gravgun

 

Ironclad Dreadnought with chainfist, heavy flamer, hurricane bolter

Ironclad Dreadnought with seimic hammer, DCCW, 2x heavy flamers

Venerable Dreadnought with twin lascannon, DCCW, heavy flamer

 

Land Raider Redeemer with stormbolter

Vindicator with stormboler

Stalker

 

Rhino

Razorback with twin lascannon

 

 

I played against a Death Guard army with approximately the following:

 

2x Lords of Contagion

Malignant Plaguecaster

Foul Blightspawn

 

10x Plague Marines

5x Plague Marines

5x Plague Marines

20x Poxwalkers

 

5x Blightlord Terminators

 

2x Chaos Spawn

 

Rhino

 

3x Blighthaulers

1x Plaguedrone

 

 

 

We played on a pretty decent urban map -- I prefer my cityfights to be really close-quarters, but we went easy to keep long-range firing lanes open a little.  My opponent was ready to concede after my first turn as I did a number on army (and his dice weren't helping him at all -- I killed the Rhino and three of the Plague Marines inside died in the explosion, for example).  However, since the LGS is using a 4-hour limited reservation time, we didn't really have the time to reset and start over.

 

In any case, from my left to right were an Ironclad, the Razorback with Libby & Tacticals, Land Raider with captain and Tacticals, the Techmarine, the Vindicator, the Venerable Dread, the Stalker, the other Ironclad, and the Rhino with Tacticals.  He placed an LoC, the terminators, and one small unit of PMs in reserve; the rest were deployed (again, my left to right) a unit of two drones, a unit of two blighthaulers, the two spawn, the Rhino with ten PMs, five PMs on foot, the third blighthauler, then the last three HQs and the Poxwalkers on the far side.

 

I won't give a play-by-play, especially without pictures (I went into it planning to take photos, but the time limit we were operating under convinced me not to kill more time than we should0, but suffice to say that the combination of my lascannons and Vindicator laid out some hurt.  I killed the Rhino and popped a few of its riders to boot, plus one blighthauler, a few more PMs, and some Poxwalkers.  My Vindicator and Land Raider, supported by the Ironstone Techmarine and Psychich Fortress/Psysteel Librarian, took up position in the center of the table and mercilessly annihilated any infantry that got within reach.  In the end, the Death Guard didn't do a lot of damage.  When we had to call it due to time, I was convincingly ahead.  My captain and 15x Tacticals were in the act of dragging down the LoC and Blightlords that had the temerity to deep strike in my backfield, while I had completely cleared the right flank and had an Ironclad sitting on an objective in enemy territory.  We played through three turns but discussed how Turn 4 would most likely go and settled on an Iron Hands victory of 80-35.

 

I would eventually lose the Rhino, an Ironclad (to a mulitmelta on overwatch from a blighthauler!), and one big squad of Tactical Marines, but I was giving my opponent fits with all of the saves and Flesh is Weak rolls I was making.  Several times, my Tacticals rolled two sixes out of three to avoid losing a model to a 3-damage weapon and boy was I a grinning fool.

 

I invested a lot of points and positioning into protecting my two big tanks; my opponent simply chose to ignore them and try to punch into my flanks instead.  This strategy failed on my right, where my chainfist/hurricane bolter Ironclad was running roughshod (MVP right there -- he killed about ten poxwalkers, a blight hauler, the Plague Caster, and the Blight Bringer and ended up sitting on an objective), but succeeded on my left where he had five PMs, a blight hauler, and a drone against just a Razorback.  I had cleared the center except for three PMs and one spawn (which was tying up my Vindicator until the Techmarine cut it apart).

 

It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, though.  I had a few bad misplays, including striding the Venerable off an objective that he was supposed to by camping (cost me some points on Primary); throwing away my last CP on a reroll in the Shooting Phase when I was saving it for the Fight Phase; and moving my Rhino-mounted Tacticals too far forward and getting them charged by an LoC who proceeded to cut them apart across two turns.

 

All in all, it was a fun game and I can't wait to take the Firstborn back into battle!

[Daimyo-Phaeron Lenoch]

Several times, my Tacticals rolled two sixes out of three to avoid losing a model to a 3-damage weapon and boy was I a grinning fool.

You love to see it. You really do love to see it.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Nice to see Ironclads in the thick of it. I run one with chainfist/hurricane bolter/heavy flamer/2x HKM... it really tends to catch opponents of guard.

 

Congrats on your win !

Edited April 23, 2021 by Black Blow Fly

[quasistellar]

Love Ironclads.  I think they'll be great going forward armed with hurricane bolters against what looks like could be an influx of decent 1W T3-4 infantry in the future.