catalyst2 | Battle #20

Tonight was 2000 points vs Sean's Imperial Guard with Annihilation mission from Dawn of War deployment. I hate Dawn of War deployment but realised tonight that going second can be a great advantage for this - and here's how and why.

Turn 1 and he goes first - he's playing the new Codex for the first time so his two troop choices are two entire platoons - about 40 figures and a large Command squad (10 -12 figures?). I'm on with chaplain and 5 assault marines, one combat squad in a Razorback and one tactical squad in my new Rhino. I deployed as far back as possible while he deployed about 18-20 inches in. Here's where it gets interesting because when he brings the rest of his stuff and tries to fire, night fighting rules apply and all of his stuff misses. Now when my stuff comes on, moves and fires, the night fighting rules have almost no effect because everything is so close. The result was that the first round was a disaster for him with two squads virtually eliminated, two of his three autocannon heavy support squads gone, one squad of stormtroopers pinned and one of his Leman Russ tanks immobilised by my much-loved Drop Pod Dreadnought.

Turn 2 is much the same although the order that gives the extra round of firing (can't remember what it's called) could have done damage to the Chaplain and 5 assault marines had I not rolled a perfect fistful of saves. He also hadn't noticed that in moving another squad around to shoot at the same squad, he had left it in range of the Vindicator. All 3 Leman Russ' did turn on the Dreadnought, killing it but the resulting explosion also killed off his last autocannon squad so that was a nice present. My shooting basically eliminated almost everything else - the Speeders killed off the main command squad, the Vindicator killed that squad of Guardsman, the snipers finished off his heavy bolters, the Whirlwind killed off his stormtroopers and the 2 combat squads/1 tactical squad/two storm bolter Rhino killed off another squad in the centre. The Predator failed miserably (as it did all night) so there were two Russ', two platoon command squads and the tattered remnants of two other squads left.

Turn 3 - he had little left and both Russ' scattered very wide. The chaplain's squad took a few hits on the way in but got to the first platoon command squad and utterly obliterated it. The second platoon command squad got obliterated by the 2 combat squads/1 tactical squad/two storm bolter Rhino combination again. The two tanks were still left at the end of the turn because the Predator again failed to roll a single hit, even twin-linked!

Turn 4 - the tanks got the Chaplain's squad, killing all but the chaplain but that was his sole succes as everything else of his on the board died.

Turn 5 - My two tank-hunting combat squads (one lascannon/meltagun, the other one multimelta/meltagun) got both tanks' main weapons (and a sponson on one of them, I think) whilst he got nothing. We rolled for another turn but got a 1 which meant we stopped here.

Result - win to me by 7KP to 3.

What I learned tonight:
1) I must remember to try to go second when it is Dawn of War deployment, if I get the choice. The effect of the night fighting rule is minimal by the second player's turn so even though seeing his 50+ figures on the board compared to my 21 was unnerving, it actually worked to my advantage.
2) They may have a new Codex and an effective new order system but Guard still run and die like they used to.
3) I made sure that I considered my assault marines' targets much more carefully this time. Admittedly, I still decided to shoot before assaulting but at least that was not an automatic thing this week.

My W-L-D record is now 15-5-0.