As I’m the new army champion for the Scions of Iron I felt obliged to bring them to the tournament we played this weekend in Stockholm, Sweden. I’m missing some models in my collection to have full flexibility when designing my army (Landing Craft, Thunderhawk Transporters, etc), but finally I went with the following:
TACTICAL [475] - 4 Tactical units plus transport, Supreme Commander in Prometheus, 2 Predator Destructor
TACTICAL [325] - 4 Tactical units plus transport, 2 Predator Destructor, Razorback (twin heavy bolter)
HEAVY TACTICAL [375] - 4 Tactical units, 2 Land Raider, Chaplain
PREDATOR [325] - 4 Predators (Annihilator or Destructor), Hunter
SCOUT [175] - 4 Scout units plus transport, Razorback (twin lascannon)
SCOUT [175] - 4 Scout units plus transport, Razorback (twin lascannon)
SCOUT [150] - 4 Scout units plus transport
WHIRLWIND [300] - 4 Whirlwinds
THUNDERHAWK CAS [250] - Thunderhawk (Close Air Support configuration)
FIGHTER SQUADRON [175] - 2 Thunderbolt Fighters
WARHOUND [275] - 1 Warhound Class Titan
First game vs. NetEA KnightsBad matchup for all of my AP shooting formations, and a bad start when I lost my Thunderhawk CAS to some heavy AA guns on one of my first activations. Things improved from there, and I broke several Knight formations by moving Tacticals into support positions and clipping one of the knights with Scouts. After the first turn I had broken threw on the right flank, while holding my left. The Knights had bad luck with rallies and a lot of the formations stayed broken. Turn two also started off bad when my Warhound failed to break a formation of Custodians in an engage. Even worse, the engage went to a second turn and the supporting tactical formation got dragged in and took some heavy casualties. Only a single Razorback got away. By the end of turn two my Annihilators managed to break the Custodians on my right flank and on my left the Heavy Tacticals and Scouts managed to break the Lancers. In turn three I made a push for the Blitz, by killing the rallied Baron with plasma from the Warhound and engaging the remains of a badly damaged second Knight Household with some Scouts. On my left flank a Household finally killed my defenders and denied me the T&H on my left flank. At this point I had a massive activation advantage, and all of my efforts went into breaking the Infantry Platoon which was the final formation defending the Knights Blitz. They were unfortunately dug in to a ruin which was conveniently positioned just in front of the Blitz. I finally got some good use for all of my AP shooting, and in a joint effort between my BTS, Whirlwinds, Thunderbolts and my lone Razorback, I managed to break the formation. 4-0 in turn three for the Scions, only failing to claim TSNP.
Second game vs. NetEA Biel-Tan EldarFor the second time this year we used an alternative scenario for the second tournament game (rules described here:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=32822). I was paired up against a Biel-Tan Eldar list with a Warlock titan. The Eldar player is a regular opponent of mine and, as we discussed before the tournament, I didn’t really have anything in my list to counter his Warlock. On the positive side, I had plenty of soft Eldars to target with my AP formations. Turn one was very successful for the Scions. I started by breaking one Ranger formation with my Warhound, and retaining I killed two Night Spinners with my Thunderhawk CAS breaking the formation. The second Ranger formation was broken by my Tacticals, Fire Prisms were broken by my Whirlwinds, and the Storm Serpent was broken by a joint effort from the Thunderbolts and Annihilators where the Hunter put in the final BM from 60 cm away. This also put my Annihilators in a position to sustain fire on the Warlock in turn two. In return Guardians and Warp Spiders assaulted from the warp and wiped out one Scout formation each. Again, I was lucky in the end phase and a lot of the broken Eldar formations failed to rally. Turn two, and Eldar won the initiative. Loosing initiative against a Warlock titan in turn two is not a good idea… The Avatar, who had appeared on my left flank, engaged and broke my Tacticals, Warp Spiders wiped out my Annihilators and finally the Warlock engaged my BTS. I was lucky with my saves and about half of the formation got away from the fight alive but broken. In the end the Eldar were advancing on my Blitz with Guardians and a formation of Falcons who had made a run on my Whirlwinds (failing to do any damage). On my right, the Warhoud was holding one of my T&H objectives and the Warlock one of the Eldar T&H. Turn three, and I won initiative. Whirlwinds managed to catch both the Guardians and the Falcons under their templates, breaking both formations! In return, the Warlock wiped out my Heavy Tacticals. A lot of formations was broken at this point, but in the end my Air formations managed to break the Night Spinners defending the Eldar Blitz and the Warhound marched across the board to secure the Eldar Blitz. The game ended with the Scions of Iron two point ahead of the Eldar.
Final game vs. EpicUK Dark EldarMy first time against Dark Eldar ever, and I was very cautious about the air/warp assaults. I put Scout screens in front of army and started by putting my Whirlwinds on overwatch, as they were positioned in the middle of my army with good firing lanes. The Dark Eldar had activation advantage and very patiently forced me to activate most of my army before finally putting down the air assault, wiping one of my Scout formations with the Haemonculi. They also deployed the portable webway from where the Wych Cult could engage and kill my Warhound. Turn two and the init roll was a draw, but thanks to the Dark Eldar winning initiative turn one this time I could go first. I engaged and killed all but one Haemonculi with my Heavy Tacticals. Retaining I advanced on the Wyches with my BTS, which unfortunately failed to do much damage. The rest of the turn the Dark Eldar played very carefully, killing formations which went a bit too far ahead of the army but generally staying away from the Marines. My Annihilators made a heroic effort when they doubled on the Kabal Coterie taking out both fields and doing two wounds on the Barge with all the infantry inside. Seeing an opportunity the Whirlwinds sustained on the Barge, killing it and all the infantry inside (not a single successful save) and BTS was secured for the Marines! I lost most of my Heavy Tacticals to a Vessel of Pain and my Scouts to the Dark Eldar Air formations. In turn three I lost my Annihilators to the other Vessel of Pain and I was starting to get seriously low on ground activations. I saw a slim chance of winning by claiming Defend the Flag, but I had forgot about the Dark Eldar fleet of foot. A Warrior formation marched across the board into support range of the Whirlwinds guarding the Blitz, and the Slavebringer initiated the assault. The Whirlwinds fought valiantly, scoring three hits on the Slavebringer. With some luck the game could have ended here, with me killing the Slavebringer before the Warriors could wipe out the Whirlwinds, but it was not to be. Turn four and we both tried to find openings to win the game. In the end my Tacticals did a desperate march move to stop the Dark Eldar from claiming Blitz and thereby also T&H. In the final Dark Eldar activation of turn four, a full formation of Warriors engaged the Tacticals to win the game. 5 hits for the Marines, three on Raiders who all made their saves, and three on the Marines (only one save). DE was up by one (outnumber) but this time the dice were on my side and the Tacticals won the engagement. The game ended a draw in turn four.
My initial thought on the Scions of IronI have played a few Vassal/Tabletop Simulator games, and now three games in a Tournament with the Scions of Iron. Even thou I finished second in the tournament I can’t help but feel like I could have done better with an Imperial Fist or an Astartes list. I really like the theme of the SoI list and I will be looking to further emphasize the mechanized infantry with combined arms theme. The list in general and especially what I view as the core units (Tacticals and Heavy tacticals) might need a bit of a boost thou… Further discussions on how to develop the SoI to come in the SM dev forum.
Over and out!
