Turn Three
Black Legion win initiative.
The Land Raiders rumbled forward, doubling and moving into close range of the Regimental HQ, opening fire and destroying a hellhound the hydra and a stand of guardsmen.
The Shadowswords opened fire, rather ineffectively, on the Land Raiders, destroying a single tank and placing two blast markers.
The warlord and his raptors then swept forward to assault the guardsmen, confident that the support fire from the land raiders and nearby foot retinue would overcome the imperial numbers?but it was not to be, as he forgot to tell his men to turn their chainswords on. All six stands were killed by the guardsmen, including the warlord and two other stands in hand to hand combat. The Imperial Commissar killed the Warlord himself, although he was mortally wounded in return. With the raptors wiped out, the assault stalled and the support fire didn?t come in, and the IG, who had lost four stands and a chimera, were left with a lot of blast markers but unbroken.
And thus ended the life of one of the most incompetent of Abaddon?s generals, and this battle report ? we ran out of time at this stage, and had to debate as to what the result would be. There was a chance the Black Legion could have got both their objectives and the blitz this turn, but it was more likely that they would have failed this and all things being equal, would have thus been ground down in turn four by the imperial armour.
Tie break points would have been: IG 1460, Chaos 850 (although I was 1 kill off getting the Reg HQ to half strength I think!). Either way, a close game, with the balance tipping to the IG.
Comments:
The Black Legion Army seemed very tough in this game. Big units of 4+ save infantry can take a lot of pounding. But the effect of BM?s is quite brutal on these high cost units, they can be quite brittle morale wise if not deployed in numbers (as a first impression).
Unit by unit, I was impressed with the chaos marine retinues, they seem value for money, and not useless at all ? in fact without the snake eyes on turn two I would have been singing their praises!
The Raptors seemed quite good for their points, they got abysmal rolls and yet still did well. Certainly were as good as the mounted retinue yet many less points. This just further supports previous play testing.
The Decimators and feral were rubbish, but I think that was due to facing shadowswords, they were either picked off before getting a chance to do anything, or before getting a chance to have their bad rolls made up later.
I was impressed with the land raiders, they had a lot of firepower for their points. They didn?t take much fire though, and I don?t know if 8 would be too much of a points sink at 600. Undecided
The terminators ? I gambled and I lost. If they had won they would have broken twice their points in a single combat ? I would expect there to be a reasonable chance of it all going tits up so no complaints here.
The Hell Talons only made 1 sortie, which is somewhat disappointing. Their firepower seemed about right, they attacked infantry in the open and I was aware that if they were raiding dug in infantry their results wouldn?t have been much worse, and would have been better if attacking mechanised infantry. I felt they were about right but too little to go on really.
The Imperial Guard certainly seem to be a balanced force. Nothing seemed hugely overpowered ? other than I hate shadowswords! They have to be dealt with correctly, certainly.
_________________ They are free, yes, but not entirely free; for they have a master, and that master is Law.
|