Hey Everyone Alex here,
I just played my first battle with the guard codex at my local GW in Springfield, VA. it was 1000pts of seize ground (capture the flag essentially) with Dawn of war deployment.
Setup:
My opponent who also plays guard set up his death korp consisting with 40 men in a squaded-platoon accompanied by their command squad and a commissar. on the edge of his deployment zone towards the middle of the board. His auto-cannons HW teams were in a far corner of the board and his HQ command squad in was in some ruins.
I set up with my command squad cowering behind ruins and my chimera full of veterans by the tables edge...
Turn1(me): stole the initiative, moved my leam russ and two sentinels out from the boards edge and pounded away at his charging infantry horde despite the dark of night.
Turn 1 (him): On his turn out from reserves comes his valkyrie and a hell hound, they go flatout.
Turn 2 (me): I keep pounding away at his incoming infantry horde this turn killing quite a few (battle cannon, multi-laser, shotguns from chimera hatch, sentinel auto cannons, usw...). My reserves (Al'rahrem's entire platoon) cannot make it on to the board this turn.
Turn 2 (him): His infantry horde of now 20 something move up flame and rapid fire my command suqd into oblivion using their officers "First rank, Fire! Second Rank, Fire!" command. Along with this his valkyrie turbo boosts and drops off its vets and they blow up my chimera.
Turn 3 (me): My flanking platoon comes on the board from the perfect edge and then continues to decimate all but 2 of the gaurdsmen from the massive squad using "first rank, second rank": they proceed to fall back. My pinned veterans from their chimera stay still, as my leam russ pastes half of his veteran squad and my sentinel's autcannons kill another 3.
Turn 3 (him): My opponent takes his valkyrie, picks up his Vets (all three of them, bastone and two vets) and skirts them off towards his objective. his two fleeing guards men flee even further but just far enough to be rallied by their CO using the "Get back in the Fight" order. During the last turn his hellhound had gone flat out and snuck up upon me. This turn it drives up twelve inches over some terrain and engulfs 9 guardsmen in flames. His master of the ordnance drops a shell and immobilizes my leman russ. His valkyrie unloads with an incredible 3 multilaser and two rocket pod attacks. They all miss...
Turn 4 (me): Sensing imminent danger from the hellhound and feeling reassured now with my superior points, numbers, and armour advantage, I advance on the hellhound with everything I have. All my shooting is only effective enough to cause the hellhound to be shaken (my outfalnking autcannons only hit once out of six shots). My leman russ targets the Valkyrie completely missing with both its las-cannon and battle cannon. My mortars fire on his command squad, causeing 4 wounds, only to cry as they are all saved! (a lot of 5+'s).
Turn 4 (him): My opponent moves his valkyrie closer to my objective as his reamaing two guardsmen and the CO take cover next to his objective. He drops his vets out of the Valk and they take cover behind some ruins near my objective. His valkyrie targets my autocannon teams and elminate them all. His master of the ordnance stuns my leam russ as it scatters, his mortar from that same squad pin one of my squads, and his hellhound moves backwards retreating from my advancing horde gushing flames that immolate another 8 guarsmen...
Turn 5 (me): I move all my troops forward and my sentinels too as my mortar batteries and autocannon teams stay still on the table edge. All my shooting is completely innefective against the hell hound (two crack grenades and 2 autocannons...) and of the two guardsmen at his objective one his squished by a mortar shell and the other is pinned. My sentinels charge the hellhound, miss with 3 attacks, and fail to dent its armour... (dissapointing). The leman russ cannot shoot.
Turn 5 (him): He keeps his Valkyrie still, his veterans move onto my objective (which is currently contested by my sentinel), and his CO moves closer to his objective. His master of the ordnance kills a sentinel with a glancing hit (NO!!!!) and his Valkyrie lights up too many guardsmen to count. His hellhound immolates 10 more guardsmen.
At this point I have about 15 infantry left, my mortars, Al'rahem, my leman russ and a sentinel. He has 3 veterans contesting an objective, one gaurdsmen holding his objective, a autocannon heavy weapon team that so no action the entire game, and his command squad. The game ends as my opponent rolls a 1.
This game I learned much about the new codex.
>Keep my commander alive: his orders are really useful and necessary
>HW teams that are not mortars suck: they miss too often and cannot have Vox's. With their pitiful leadership of 7 they often fail their order test when it is needed
>Gaurdsmen are surprisingly agile with their new orders
>"First rank, fire! Second rank, fire!" is devestating
>Chimeras are cheap and useful (get many more of them!)
>Al'Rahem is only great in larger pointed games.
From my opponents playing I learned that:
>Valkyries must die: they are extremely dangerous with their multilasers and 2 large blast rocket pods
>Autocannon Squads are useless (same reasons as above)
>Bastone is useful
>Master of ordnance has his place in larger point games
>Kill hellhounds ASAP.
Thanks everyone, if you have questions or comments please leave them and I will respond!
-Alex (Dictator)
8 comments:
I wouldn't walk out the door with a banewolf personally. Sure it is S 1, BUT it always wounds on a 2+ and has AP 3, so space marines DIE. Did I mention the S1. That means it is a defensive weapon so you can shoot it AND the heavy flamer on the hull as the offensive weapon even when moving 12". This negates the fact that the Banewolf does not have teh range of the hellhound, though the 12" the hellhound has isn't too impressive IMOHO.
Cool battle report, with some interesting things to consider for the new 'dex. What were the army lists by the way?
This is a great preview of the coming codex! Thanks for posting!
Thanks. Very useful stuff indeed!
I wonder how different your conclusions might have been if you weren't playing guard-on-guard?
I'm surprised that you found the MoO useful. For me his autoscatter feature kept him from being useful at all, even in games of 2k. Granted I only used him once, but he failed to hit a single thing all game.
I would agree that mortars are probably the only good HWs to put in squads outside of infantry; in infantry HWs can be quite awesome. Having 7 ablative wounds per HW in a bunched squad really goes a long way to making them survive; in the last game I played I lost somewhere on the order fo 20 guardsmen, but since I had bunched 3 squads together and had a commissar my lascannons and grenade launchers were firing nonstop all game.
Thanks for all the comments everyone.
I agree with a lot of what is said here. HW teams are great in squads, sort of crappy on their on. (Excluding mortars, which do not need to be seen to do damage).
Concerning the MoO, I think he is possible better when he does have line of sight and the army has recently deployed (or the mission is spearhead). In these missions the enemy is bunched up and it is easy to catch stuff with the thing. I did not use it, my opponent did, and for thirty points it was pretty good at hurting my horde of troops.
In objective based games you should try and put all the objectives your enemy would really want within 12 inches of each other. This way, his troops must be there and the scatters become all the more powerful for the MoO.
Had I not played guard I think I would have found relatively the same conclusions. If I am having trouble keeping things alive/killing things v. guard. A space marine would have been all the same. Especially with hVY weapon squads that require line of sight (everything but the mortar).
Alright, forgot to mention its Kishvier on the last post. I'll be using this against you now! ;)
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