I was playing my friends Emperor's Children, who I hadn't played yet this edition and he had some new Forge World Sonic Dreadnoughts to try as well.
We were playing The Scouring with Spearhead Assault.
The Lists
Cadians
Company Commander with Boltgun, Chainsword, Grand Strategist and Kurov's Aquila
Lord Commissar with Plasma Pistol and Power Sword
Infantry Squad with Plasma Gun, Vox and Laspistol and Chainsword
Infantry Squad with Plasma Gun, Vox and Laspistol and Chainsword
Infantry Squad with Grenade Launcher, Vox and Laspistol and Chainsword
Infantry Squad with Grenade Launcher, Vox and Laspistol and Chainsword
Scout Sentinel with Heavy Flamer and Sentinel Chainsaw
Leman Russ Battle Tank with Lascannon and 2x Heavy Bolters
Leman Russ Battle Tank with Lascannon and 2x Heavy Bolters
Company Commander with Plasma Pistol and Power Sword
3 Bullgryns with Bullgryn Mauls and Slabshields
Command Squad with 2x Sniper Rifles and Autocannon
Tech-Priest Enginseer
Chimera with Heavy Bolter and Multi-Laser
Shadowsword with Twin Heavy Bolter and 2x Lascannon & Twin Heavy Bolter Sponsons
Emperor's Children
Daemon Prince with Wings, Flames of Spite, Intoxicating Elixir, Warp Bolter and Diabolic Strength
Sorcerer on Bike with Combi-Bolter, Combi-Flamer, Force Sword, Mark of Slaanesh, Prescience and Warptime
10 Noise Marines with 2x Blastmasters, 7x Sonic Bolters, Combi-Bolter and Sonic Blaster
5 Noise Marines with Blastmaster, 3x Sonic Bolters, Combi-Bolter and Sonic Blaster
5 Noise Marines with Blastmaster, 3x Sonic Bolters, Combi-Bolter and Sonic Blaster
7 Noise Marines with Icon of Excess, 6x Chainsword, Doom Siren and a Pair of Lightning Claws
Chaos Lord with Combi-Bolter, Mark of Slaanesh and Power Sword
Chaos Terminators with Icon of Excess, Mark of Slaanesh and 5x Pairs of Lightning Claws
Sonic Dreadnought with Missile Launcher and Twin Blastmasters
Sonic Dreadnought with Missile Launcher and Twin Blastmasters
As you can see my list is a little odd because I had to just make it from what I already had and I normally wouldn't bring a superheavy in 1500 points but I had to in order to reach 1500 points. I had warned my opponant before the battle I'd be bring it so he could bring enough anti-tank to deal with it, but lets face it you should always be bringing anti-tank against Guard.
Deployment
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| Deployment |
The Emperor's Children were set up defensively as well. On the nearside ruin you had the large Noise Marine Squad, Chaos Lord and Sonic Dreadnought with the Sorcerer on Bike just behind the ruin. In the middle behind a wall you had one of the 5 man Noise Marine squads, the Daemon Prince and the other Sonic Dreadnought and on the far ruin were the other two Noise Marine squads, the smaller squad with blastmasters on the 1st floor and the larger squad without on the ground floor. The Terminators were in deep strike.
The objectives are the dice on black markers. The Superior Objective was objective 4 (top of the large ruin near the centre with the black dice on it) and the Inferior Objective was objective 6 (on the ruin on the far side just outside my deployment with the white dice on it). The other objectives all had green dice on them.
The Game
The game started with Emperor's Children getting the first turn. Their game plan was simple and close to how they had played when I have played them in previous editions, sit back and use noise weapons to kill my army without allowing cover saves.
Before the game started I decided to use a preliminary bombardment and try and do some moral wounds to stuff before we started. I managed to do one mortal wound to the Sonic Dread in the centre and kill one Noise Marine on each of the squads in the ruin on the far side of the board. We had a bit of a rules question here as well, the Chaos player wanted to pull a blastmaster off as a casualty and use "music of the apocalypse" to shoot my warlord with it. We agreed that he was able to use music of the apocalypse but weren't sure about his target selection, my warlord had less than 10 wounds and wasn't the closest target so normally couldn't be targeted. His argument was that it didn't say "shoot as if it was the shooting phase" that most rules like that have and it wasn't the shooting phase so the shooting phase target selection didn't apply. I argued that the wording of music of the apocalypse did say "viable target" and that under the rules he wasn't a viable target. We decided to not allow the attack so he didn't take the blastmaster off as a casualty and then sent an email to Games Workshop FAQ email address asking them. If anyone that reads this (other than my opponent) knows the answer please let us know in the comments.
Movement started and the Sorcerer moved forwards with the Daemon Prince. On the far side the unit of Noise Marines without noise weapons moved forwards as well. I knew what the Daemon Prince was planning, he was going to try and get into my lines 1st turn to try and kill some of my tanks and tie them up in combat to stop my shooting on my turn.
In the psychic phase the Daemon Prince failed to give himself diabolic strength and the Sorcerer failed to cased prescience on the large Noise Marine squad. The Sorcerer did manage to get warptime off on the Daemon Prince to allow him to move up further and closer to my lines, he was now just in front of my Sentinel.
In the shooting phase all the blastmasters and the missile launchers went into the Shadowsword. Only a few other guns were in range and they went into the front unit of Guardsmen and managed to kill 2 of them. The blastmasters did their job and managed to drop the Shadowsword down to just 10 wounds left which also put it in a lower efficiency bracket.
Then the charge phase and the Daemon Prince did what I had expected, he charged my Sentinel (because it would be hard for him to fail the charge so could get into combat without any problems) and one of my Leman Russes. Personally I might have charged more units, I know it would be more overwatch but he could have positioned himself to tie up both Russes and the Sentinel and even possibly an Infantry Squad, he wouldn't have been able to kill all of it but it would have meant I couldn't shoot him with as much fire power after falling out of combat.
In combat the Prince put some of it's attacks on the Sentinel and the rest of them on the Russ, the attacks on the Sentinel were just there to try and kill it and score 1st Blood because he wasn't 100% sure he would kill a Russ in one turn. He was able to kill the Sentinel and score 1st Blood and drop the Russ to 9 wounds remaining. Fighting back the Russ couldn't hit the Daemon so that was the end of the turn.
Starting my turn I knew I had to deal with the Prince and a few of those blastmasters, if I didn't I would be losing tanks next turn, either my Shadowsword to blastmasters or Russes to the Daemon.
I started by pulling my Russ out of combat so I could shoot the Daemon Prince with the rest of my army. I also moved my Infantry Squads up to start taking and holding objectives. I also started moving he Bullgryn's transport forwards. My Tech-Priest healed a couple of wounds on the Shadowsword to try and keep him alive another few turns as well.
In shooting I had a real problem, I didn't want to waste too much shooting the Daemon Prince that could be used to try and kill the Sonic Dreads because I wanted blastmasters off the table but at the same time I needed the Prince dead so had to put enough fire into it. I started by using the two Infantry units that didn't have another target shooting the Daemon prince, I wasn't expecting much but hopefully the grenade launcher or plasma gun might do enough damage to drop a few wounds. The Infantry actually did OK, as few wound but mostly from lasguns instead of the special weapons. Next I decided fire the Shadowsword, I put his main gun into the wounded Sonic Dread and the lascannons and heavy bolters into the Daemon Prince. I thought this should kill both allowing my Russ to fire everything at other Sonic Dread, I wasn't so lucky and the Sonic Dread survived with 2 wounds left. The lascannons were enough to finish off the Daemon Prince so I had achieved one of my objectives.
My Russ then fired his main gun at the wounded Sonic Dread, it's lascannon at the full strength Sonic Dread and it's heavy bolters at the Sorcerer who was now my closest target. I did 1 wound to the Sorcerer but was luckier with the other guns, I killed the wounded Dread and dropped the other to just 2 wounds left. Finally my Infantry Squad that had push furthest forward was able to do enough wounds to the Sorcerer using First Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire to drop him to just two wounds left.
With no charges that was the end of my first turn playing Astra Militarum and I think I had done quite well. I had taken out a Sonic Dread and a Daemon Prince and seriously injured a Dread and Sorcerer. Hopefully the remaining blastmasters weren't going to be enough to finish me off on their next turn.
At the start of the Emperor's Children turn the Sorcerer ran away and hide behind the ruin with the Sonic Dread, Lord and Noise Marines in it, it made sense since the reason he had moved forwards was to cast warptime on the Daemon Prince, now he was there to cast prescience on the Noise Marines so didn't need to be as far forward and in the line of fire for my Guard.
The Noise Marines that were advancing moved forwards more and got into the ruin in front of them and everything else basically stood still. My Opponent actually admitted later he forgot about his Terminators so they didn't come on this turn.
In the psychic phase the Sorcerer again failed to get prescience off the Noise Marines and in fact he rolled perils so needed to use a command point to avoid being killed.
The Noise Marines and Sonic Dread continued their firepower into the Shadowsword after knocking it down to two wounds left I started to get lucky with my saving throws so he couldn't take off those last few wounds. In a final attempt to finish it off the Emperor's Children used a strat to fire again with the Sonic Dread and he missed completely with all the shots, my Shadowsword was surviving again but was now only hitting on 6's so was basically crippled at this point.
The rest of the Noise Marines fired at my Infantry Squad that was at the front of my army if they were in range and managed to kill a couple more of the squad.
That was the end of the turn, if it was me once the Shadowsword was in its final bracket I would have changed my target to the damaged Russ. With both Leman Russes still alive and in the highest wound bracket they were now my biggest threat on the board but I think pride had taken over the Emperor's Children and they wanted to finish the superheavy that was still crawling along.
With my turn starting I moved onto the Objectives to take and told them. My Infantry squads just moved to the objectives they had been going to so they held the Superior, Inferior and a normal objective. My Commissar and Bullgryn got out the transport and moved forwards toward the Noise Marines in the small ruin while their transport moved round and parked on an objective giving me 4 of 6 objectives.
My shooting was a mixed bag. My Leman Russ managed to kill the remaining Sonic Dread but then not much else was killed. My other Russ managed to do a couple of wound to the big unit of Noise Marines at the back and combined fire from anything else in range managed to do a couple of causalities to the Noise Marines in the centre.
My wounded Shadowsword couldn't hit or wound anything so was basically just a bullet magnet at this point but any shots fired at that were shots not fired at the rest of my army that could still do damage to the heretics.
I charged my Bullgryn into the Noise Marines in front of them and followed up with my Commissar. The unit killed all but one of the Noise Marines on the charge but lost a few wounds to overwatch. My Commissar then attacked and finished off the Noise Marines, however the last Noise Marine to die used his final attack to take a wounded Bullgryn with him.
With my turn over I was in a much better position I think. I had killed both Dreads now and basically taken out two units of Noise Marines, although the bigger units with blastmasters were still there.
Turn 3 for the Emperor's Children started and the Chaos army stayed still basically except for dropping the Terminators in in my back corner. I had moved my Infantry Squad just far enough forward to get onto the objective that I had opened up space for them to drop in at the back which was a mistake, I should have spread them out back a little to hold the objective and block deep striking.
The shooting phase was uneventful really. The Emperor's children carried on firing their blastmasters at the Shadowsword and again weren't quite able to kill it even though the Sorcerer had finally managed to get Prescience off on the big unit of Noise Marines. The smaller noise weapons had more luck and were able to kill the unit holding the objective at the top of the central ruin and my Lord Commissar.
The Terminators failed their charge into my Company Commander and Command Squad and so the Emperor's Children's turn 3 finished.
Due to real life we had to call the game there and the Emperor's Children conceded. As the game stood I had 8 points for holding Objectives and Slay the Warlord while the Emperor's Children had 6 points from Objectives and 1st Blood and Linebreaker so it was 9-8 to me.
Post Game
I was disappointed that the game couldn't carry on but my opponent had to leave earlier than expected so had to concede. I do think the game was going my way having taken out a couple of the biggest threats on the board but it was still close enough that it could go either way. I had planned to start moving the Leman Russes forward to bring their heavy bolters into range of the Noise Marines and hopefully start to take numbers off them while Bullgyn dealt with the unit on the other side of the board. I was worried about the Terminators but hopefully with enough fire I could take them down on my turn or if they charged my Shadowsword to use "Defensive Gunners" (which would make the tank more effective in overwatch than it was in the shooting phase) or charge them with the Shadowsword and us "Grind them to Dust" to hit them on twos with high strength attacks.
Equally it was possible that the Noise Marines could deal with the Leman Russes before I could get rid of them and then it would be a simple task to kill my Infantry Squads to get me off objectives. The Terminators could start to move through my back lines and start taking out my units and tanks.
I think it was a mistake for the Noise Marines to keep trying to kill the Shadowsword after it was hitting on 6's. By wasting shots on a crippled tank they weren't dealing with my other threats that could carry on shooting them and doing more damage.
Overall it was a fun game, I'm actually not sure I like the Cadian Doctrine since it encourages you to just stand still and shoot but I did enjoy playing Guard and look forward to finishing my army and playing a full game. Hopefully I will get some more games with them soon and I might try a few different regiments to see what I like using more.
The Game
The game started with Emperor's Children getting the first turn. Their game plan was simple and close to how they had played when I have played them in previous editions, sit back and use noise weapons to kill my army without allowing cover saves.
Before the game started I decided to use a preliminary bombardment and try and do some moral wounds to stuff before we started. I managed to do one mortal wound to the Sonic Dread in the centre and kill one Noise Marine on each of the squads in the ruin on the far side of the board. We had a bit of a rules question here as well, the Chaos player wanted to pull a blastmaster off as a casualty and use "music of the apocalypse" to shoot my warlord with it. We agreed that he was able to use music of the apocalypse but weren't sure about his target selection, my warlord had less than 10 wounds and wasn't the closest target so normally couldn't be targeted. His argument was that it didn't say "shoot as if it was the shooting phase" that most rules like that have and it wasn't the shooting phase so the shooting phase target selection didn't apply. I argued that the wording of music of the apocalypse did say "viable target" and that under the rules he wasn't a viable target. We decided to not allow the attack so he didn't take the blastmaster off as a casualty and then sent an email to Games Workshop FAQ email address asking them. If anyone that reads this (other than my opponent) knows the answer please let us know in the comments.
Movement started and the Sorcerer moved forwards with the Daemon Prince. On the far side the unit of Noise Marines without noise weapons moved forwards as well. I knew what the Daemon Prince was planning, he was going to try and get into my lines 1st turn to try and kill some of my tanks and tie them up in combat to stop my shooting on my turn.
In the psychic phase the Daemon Prince failed to give himself diabolic strength and the Sorcerer failed to cased prescience on the large Noise Marine squad. The Sorcerer did manage to get warptime off on the Daemon Prince to allow him to move up further and closer to my lines, he was now just in front of my Sentinel.
In the shooting phase all the blastmasters and the missile launchers went into the Shadowsword. Only a few other guns were in range and they went into the front unit of Guardsmen and managed to kill 2 of them. The blastmasters did their job and managed to drop the Shadowsword down to just 10 wounds left which also put it in a lower efficiency bracket.
Then the charge phase and the Daemon Prince did what I had expected, he charged my Sentinel (because it would be hard for him to fail the charge so could get into combat without any problems) and one of my Leman Russes. Personally I might have charged more units, I know it would be more overwatch but he could have positioned himself to tie up both Russes and the Sentinel and even possibly an Infantry Squad, he wouldn't have been able to kill all of it but it would have meant I couldn't shoot him with as much fire power after falling out of combat.
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| End of Emperor's Children turn 1 |
In combat the Prince put some of it's attacks on the Sentinel and the rest of them on the Russ, the attacks on the Sentinel were just there to try and kill it and score 1st Blood because he wasn't 100% sure he would kill a Russ in one turn. He was able to kill the Sentinel and score 1st Blood and drop the Russ to 9 wounds remaining. Fighting back the Russ couldn't hit the Daemon so that was the end of the turn.
Starting my turn I knew I had to deal with the Prince and a few of those blastmasters, if I didn't I would be losing tanks next turn, either my Shadowsword to blastmasters or Russes to the Daemon.
I started by pulling my Russ out of combat so I could shoot the Daemon Prince with the rest of my army. I also moved my Infantry Squads up to start taking and holding objectives. I also started moving he Bullgryn's transport forwards. My Tech-Priest healed a couple of wounds on the Shadowsword to try and keep him alive another few turns as well.
In shooting I had a real problem, I didn't want to waste too much shooting the Daemon Prince that could be used to try and kill the Sonic Dreads because I wanted blastmasters off the table but at the same time I needed the Prince dead so had to put enough fire into it. I started by using the two Infantry units that didn't have another target shooting the Daemon prince, I wasn't expecting much but hopefully the grenade launcher or plasma gun might do enough damage to drop a few wounds. The Infantry actually did OK, as few wound but mostly from lasguns instead of the special weapons. Next I decided fire the Shadowsword, I put his main gun into the wounded Sonic Dread and the lascannons and heavy bolters into the Daemon Prince. I thought this should kill both allowing my Russ to fire everything at other Sonic Dread, I wasn't so lucky and the Sonic Dread survived with 2 wounds left. The lascannons were enough to finish off the Daemon Prince so I had achieved one of my objectives.
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| End of Cadian turn 1 |
With no charges that was the end of my first turn playing Astra Militarum and I think I had done quite well. I had taken out a Sonic Dread and a Daemon Prince and seriously injured a Dread and Sorcerer. Hopefully the remaining blastmasters weren't going to be enough to finish me off on their next turn.
At the start of the Emperor's Children turn the Sorcerer ran away and hide behind the ruin with the Sonic Dread, Lord and Noise Marines in it, it made sense since the reason he had moved forwards was to cast warptime on the Daemon Prince, now he was there to cast prescience on the Noise Marines so didn't need to be as far forward and in the line of fire for my Guard.
The Noise Marines that were advancing moved forwards more and got into the ruin in front of them and everything else basically stood still. My Opponent actually admitted later he forgot about his Terminators so they didn't come on this turn.
In the psychic phase the Sorcerer again failed to get prescience off the Noise Marines and in fact he rolled perils so needed to use a command point to avoid being killed.
The Noise Marines and Sonic Dread continued their firepower into the Shadowsword after knocking it down to two wounds left I started to get lucky with my saving throws so he couldn't take off those last few wounds. In a final attempt to finish it off the Emperor's Children used a strat to fire again with the Sonic Dread and he missed completely with all the shots, my Shadowsword was surviving again but was now only hitting on 6's so was basically crippled at this point.
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| End of Emperor's Children turn 2 |
That was the end of the turn, if it was me once the Shadowsword was in its final bracket I would have changed my target to the damaged Russ. With both Leman Russes still alive and in the highest wound bracket they were now my biggest threat on the board but I think pride had taken over the Emperor's Children and they wanted to finish the superheavy that was still crawling along.
With my turn starting I moved onto the Objectives to take and told them. My Infantry squads just moved to the objectives they had been going to so they held the Superior, Inferior and a normal objective. My Commissar and Bullgryn got out the transport and moved forwards toward the Noise Marines in the small ruin while their transport moved round and parked on an objective giving me 4 of 6 objectives.
My shooting was a mixed bag. My Leman Russ managed to kill the remaining Sonic Dread but then not much else was killed. My other Russ managed to do a couple of wound to the big unit of Noise Marines at the back and combined fire from anything else in range managed to do a couple of causalities to the Noise Marines in the centre.
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| End of Cadian turn 2 |
I charged my Bullgryn into the Noise Marines in front of them and followed up with my Commissar. The unit killed all but one of the Noise Marines on the charge but lost a few wounds to overwatch. My Commissar then attacked and finished off the Noise Marines, however the last Noise Marine to die used his final attack to take a wounded Bullgryn with him.
With my turn over I was in a much better position I think. I had killed both Dreads now and basically taken out two units of Noise Marines, although the bigger units with blastmasters were still there.
Turn 3 for the Emperor's Children started and the Chaos army stayed still basically except for dropping the Terminators in in my back corner. I had moved my Infantry Squad just far enough forward to get onto the objective that I had opened up space for them to drop in at the back which was a mistake, I should have spread them out back a little to hold the objective and block deep striking.
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| End of Emperor's Children turn 3 |
The Terminators failed their charge into my Company Commander and Command Squad and so the Emperor's Children's turn 3 finished.
Due to real life we had to call the game there and the Emperor's Children conceded. As the game stood I had 8 points for holding Objectives and Slay the Warlord while the Emperor's Children had 6 points from Objectives and 1st Blood and Linebreaker so it was 9-8 to me.
Post Game
I was disappointed that the game couldn't carry on but my opponent had to leave earlier than expected so had to concede. I do think the game was going my way having taken out a couple of the biggest threats on the board but it was still close enough that it could go either way. I had planned to start moving the Leman Russes forward to bring their heavy bolters into range of the Noise Marines and hopefully start to take numbers off them while Bullgyn dealt with the unit on the other side of the board. I was worried about the Terminators but hopefully with enough fire I could take them down on my turn or if they charged my Shadowsword to use "Defensive Gunners" (which would make the tank more effective in overwatch than it was in the shooting phase) or charge them with the Shadowsword and us "Grind them to Dust" to hit them on twos with high strength attacks.
Equally it was possible that the Noise Marines could deal with the Leman Russes before I could get rid of them and then it would be a simple task to kill my Infantry Squads to get me off objectives. The Terminators could start to move through my back lines and start taking out my units and tanks.
I think it was a mistake for the Noise Marines to keep trying to kill the Shadowsword after it was hitting on 6's. By wasting shots on a crippled tank they weren't dealing with my other threats that could carry on shooting them and doing more damage.
Overall it was a fun game, I'm actually not sure I like the Cadian Doctrine since it encourages you to just stand still and shoot but I did enjoy playing Guard and look forward to finishing my army and playing a full game. Hopefully I will get some more games with them soon and I might try a few different regiments to see what I like using more.
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