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Hi!
I had another go with the Gue'senshi last night in the Dublin Games Guild, against the same opponent from last time. He had more or less the same army as before, but this time we played 3500 points and I jigged around with the army list I took.
I had:
1 Kleistian Regimental HQ + Fire Support Platoon (Devilfish included),
1 Kleistian Grenadier Company (no transport),
1 Kleistian Tank Company (Railgun Hammerhead included),
1 Kleistian Airborne Grenadier Company (+Valkyries),
1 Kleistian Vulture Squadron,
1 Baneblade,
1 Tau Pathfinder Tetra Contingent (+ Piranhas),
1 Tau Stingray Contingent
and
1 Tau Assault Ship Squadron (of 2 Morays, Ion cannon variant).
He took an extra Scorpion and fleshed out another formation of Guardians with support weapons.
The terrain was similar to those seen in the last game, but more densely placed.
This game had one major difference to the last one - we used the experimental rules from the vault, including the new skimmer pop-up. With this, the nature of the game changed considerably!
He deployed similarly to last time around, I grouped my army into two or three loose groups, with the Stingrays sitting on my home objective in the left corner, the Tetras and Piranhas just in front of them. Going left to right, I placed my Russes (with Baneblade in close support) and my HQ in the centre, spaced roughly 30-40cm from each other. Next across were my Morays, then my Valkyries and Vultures. I garrisoned the foot Grenadiers near the objective on the right side of the table in my half.
He had no garrisoned formations.
My plan was to sit the foot Grenadiers on their objective, keeping the Valks+Vultures on standby to pounce should any of those pesky Falcon troupes get close. I would move the Tetras and Piranhas up on their flank to guide the Stingrays' deadly guided payload. The Russes and Baneblade would rumble over to secure the third objective marker on my table side, with the HQ on standby to march over to wherever they may be needed. The Morays were to command the heights from a suitable hill and rain ionized death upon any Eldar formation trying to get too cozy to my right or centre. I wouldn't risk having my formations destroyed piecemeal by trying to grab his objectives, until I had had a chance to take the wind out of his force's sails when he sent his forces to try and take my objectives away from me.
(I should note that I totally forgot the Support Craft rule with the Morays, and when looking for targets I treated them as skimmers! Oh well, they still did well enough for me, although there were a couple of Falcon troupes which I could have dealt pain and suffering to had I remembered that they weren't able to hide behind a hill...)
The first turn was relatively slow, as we both got to grips with the limitations that skimmers faced regarding popping up. (My Valks had to wait before using their Hellstrikes, and his Scorpions couldn't snipe my Russes with quite so much impunity...) I did break a couple of his Falcon troupes when I got to mark them up and send in the Stingray's seekers (Stingrays on Sustained Fire with a marked target are just the job!) and by shooting up another troupe with the Russes, plus the recon team broke and I lost a Russ or two, but as of yet not too much damage. I moved the Valks and Vultures close to the garrisoned Grenadier formation and the Morays failed their init, so they just floated where they were - they didn't have far to move, anyway.
In the end phase, we both rallied our beroken formations and shedded some blast markers.
In the second turn, he won the initiative again (Haven't won the initiative yet against Eldar with the Gue'senshi) and things started to get more interesting. On the left flank, the Russes moved to a hill near the objective, allowing them to see - and shoot - the Eldar tanks in hiding on the other side of the hill. The Baneblade made its way over to the same hill later in the turn. traded some fire and I broke a couple more of his Falcon formations, but the Russes eventually broke themselves after his Scorpion showed up to play. (It was foolish to reveal its left flank though, as my Vultures Hellstriked it to death from the other side of the table!) I got the other Scorpion with Baneblade fire - it had moved to secure the hill from which the Russes had fled - only to soak up Eldar fire and eventually brak in turn.
By this stage he had used up most of his activations on that flank (and his Guardian formations were still too far away to worry much about - except for the warhost which emerged from the Wraithgate and D-cannoned their way through a few of my Baneblade's structure points... or did they kill a few Russes? I can't recall for certain. Not like it happened only yesterday, eh?)
so I was able to march my HQ formation, dismount my infantry and fire support stands over the objective and wait for trouble!
Also, the recon team moved to allow my Stingrays to dish out more hits, though I missed out of toasting one of his larger warhosts by not pre-measuring and failing to move the tanks a few centimetres forward...
On the right flank, he moved a Falcon troupe behind a rocky terrain piece near the hill the Morays had moved up to, and since I forgot that they were support craft I turned my attention to blasting a reinflrced Guardian warhost sitting on one of his objectives. I killed about 4 stands, not enough to make him break. Meanwhile, a Falcon troupe had positioned themselves on the other end of the terrain piece facing my garrison Grenadiers, so I used the Airborne Grenadiers to FF them to death, losing only 1 stand in the assault! (I consolidated back behind cover, too)
At this stage, my opponent had marched the formation guarding his home objective towards me - though still too far away to do that much - leaving his home objective unguarded. Not that I could reach it anyway, but as it turned out is was a deciding factor.
At turn's end, we each rallied our respective broken formations and were set for a truly serious scrap!
Sadly, he had to call it time, as he couldn't stay around any longer. The VP tally was 1-0 to me after 2 turns(I had Defend to Flag, he didn't after leaving his home objective). It would have likely been a much more interesting result had we been able to fight out that third turn, but hey, 1-0 is 1-0, my first Epic victory!
I was feeling much more comfortable with my forces this time around! I could rely on their firepower and durability in the face of his reduced sniping ability. I was able to rely on the terrain to a much greater extent. I could get more out of the Stingrays, by leaving them on my home objective and using the T+Ps to pick out suitable targets in its fire range. Overall, I was confident going into the third turn that I could handle what he could throw at me at that stage - something I haven't felt in an Epic game before.
Thoughts?
Gary
_________________  Gue'senshi: The 1st Kleistian Grenadiers v7.3 pdfHuman armed forces for the greater good.
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