Time for me to brace myself again. The Manticores sustained and fired all 6BP at the Skitarii. Thank the Emperor for those 5+ saves. Three Skitarii were hit and all survived! Mind you, the barrage still left 5 blast markers, though it caused no damage.
Things had been somewhat static so far, as we traded massive firepower from the back lines. But still it was too early to send the heavy hitters forward. I activated the sentinels on the left and they doubled up behind a building, trying to hug the cover to keep themselves alive for as long as possible. The only purpose of this activation really was to delay committing the bug guys, in the hope that some more tempting targets might emerge.
The Steel Legion scorned my pathetic sentinels; Mephiston activated his Thunderbolts and killed them all (Thunderbolts are awesome against light vehicles!). Foolishly, I had taken no flak cover and so could not retaliate.
I decided to move the battered Warhounds forward next. Unfortunately, they couldn?t move as aggressively as I would have liked, as in their current state they would have been ripped apart by the Shadowswords if they showed themselves. So they took an advance action up behind a building, from where they could return fire sideways at the Vultures who had moved up on the right. I agonised over how many blastgun shots to use and eventually plumped for two, along with all the megabolter rounds.
4 AT hits, 1 macro hit. 3 dead vultures. Formation broken, but the commissar survives (curses!). He doesn?t retreat much, just slinks behind a hill wide on the right flank.
A shadowsword activates. There aren?t too many targets for him, so he doubles behind the hill in the centre of the table and shoots at the Skitarii. He misses.
My volcano minoris on the left flank is on a hill but has no good targets at all, and none are likely to emerge if I wait longer. He can only shoot the mech company opposite him. Killing one infantry unit (albeit with a massive explosion) is not very exciting. Also, shortly a mech company and the HQ will be sweeping towards him and he will be swamped. So he decides to march diagonally forward and towards the centre of the table (behind the central hill), so that future turns might prove more fruitful.
The second shadowsword fails to activate and removes the resulting blast marker.
Next it was time for the Skitarii to get themselves going. What they really wanted to do was race forward and get stuck in, but with 6 blast markers and a tank company opposite yet to move, they thought better of it. They marshalled, removing all blast markers, and advanced forward towards the hill in front of them, to harass the broken vulture hovering on the other side of it and make it harder for him to rally.
At last it was time for the Leman Russ company to rumble into action. They doubled, swept down the right flank to the right of some buildings and suddenly could bring their guns to bear on the cowering, unshielded Warhounds.
4 hits. Sandor saves again and remains unhurt, but Gregor takes another wound.
It?s a critical! And as he?s standing right next to a building, things look dicey. But luckily he only staggers 1 cm into his brother and survives.
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