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OK,
The first game was last Monday at a (fairly) new games club, against Graham Bailey (former manager in GW Dublin, who has made a few contributions to SG and the Studio in his time!), a 3000pt game pitting the Grenadiers against Ultramar's blue-armoured overlords - a likely opponent for the Gue'senshi out on the Eastern Fringe! It was my first game against Marines with the Gue'senshi, after many games against Eldar (who I would play against once again on Wednesday)
We used the main rules from E:A, save for the new ER for skimmers - although it didn't make that much impact in this game.
My list comprised of:
1 Regimental HQ (300)
+ Zashi suits + Piranhas + Water Caste Envoy (150+100+50)
= 600
1 Tank Company (650)
1 Grenadier Company (200)
+ Chimerae (100)
= 300
1 Airborne Grenadier Company (200)
+ Valkyries (150)
= 350
1 Vulture Squadron (300)
2 Ion Morays (600)
Graham took a drop-heavy list to the table, with
1 Librarian,
2 Tactical Detachments,
1 Terminator Detachment,
1 Scout Detachment,
1 Assault Detachment,
1 Devastator Detachment,
1 Whirlwind Detachment,
1 Land Raider Detachment,
1 Landing Craft,
1 Thunderhawk Gunship and
1 Strike Cruiser.
My formations all started on the table, while Graham kept the bulk of his formations off-table (the Terminators were to teleport in, while the rest were kept aboard the Thunderhawk and Landing Craft for planetfall from the Strike Cruiser)
I deployed my forces in fairly close formation on the right-hand side of my side of the table (near my home objective), with the Valks and Vultures on the right, the Chimera Grenadiers on the left flank, with the tanks, the HQ and the Morays in the centre.
Graham left his Land Raiders, his Scouts and Whirlwinds on the table, mostly on the opposite table corner to my forces.
He marked down his drop and bomabrdment locations on a piece of paper, and set his CS to appear on turn 2.
Turn 1 - the Calm
Unsurprisingly, Graham won the initiative, so rolled his Land Raiders closer to my position. I had a go at them with my Morays, doing enough to kill a couple of them, breaking the formation.
He moved his Whirlwinds towards the far end of my table edge from my army, so I marched the Chimera Grenadiers close to his position, where (I hoped) to engage the arty tanks before he used them against my infantry.
I advanced the rest of my army, keeping them in the same formation, hoping to be able to support each other in case his Marines had a go at me.
Little did I suspect...
Turn 2 - the Storm
Once again, Graham won the initiative, and promptly dropped his T-hawk, Landing Craft and associated formations 30cm in front of my army - after having placed the Strike Cruiser's bombardment right over where my force had trundled into...
The bombardment took out a few stands, I think it was a couple of Piranhas and one or two of the Zashi stands (a bit fuzzy there)
Of course, the bombardment was a secondary consideration compared to the immense sense of impendng doom at having a large cluster of blue set to assault my army to shreds. At the time, I thought that he had a character with the Commander ability, so was expacting to be jumped by several of his formations at once.
So, I figured that if I was going down, I may as well try out my new Gue'senshi'o in close combat - as well as the Water Caste's 10cm activation ability - while I was at it!
I assaulted his force with the HQ, drawing the Russes and Airborne Grenadiers into the fray. Most of the force got into FF range, while I got the HQ into base-to-base combat (also forgetting that I had only given the Zashi teams 5+ in CC...)
...and you can guess what happened next.
After that d?bacle, I was left with the Chimera-Grenadiers, who had failed to attack the Whirlwinds without first getting bombarded by said formation, losing a few stands in the process.
My return fire didn't do very much to them, either.
The Morays had a go at the Landing Craft, while the Vultures' Hellstrikes tore apart the T-hawk, but it was scant conslation.
His Terminators teleported on and minced my Vultures, for good measure.
We called it at the end of that turn, as it was pretty much over at that point.
Well, I have to say that logically I can't fault either the use of Marines as a drop force, with such effect (though I would have taken a Captain instead of a Commander), as that is part of the essence of how Marines should operate on this scale. That said, I felt pretty crappy afterwards, to be honest. While it has taken a while for me to develop some level of play in the game (for a game which is supposed to be fun, it can be quite unenjoyable) it felt crushing to be so helpless against this. And yes, it was stupid of me to launch the assault, but at the time I thought I had no choice. Had I realised he didn't have a Captain, I would have done things differently, but still...
Sometimes Epic is no fun at all.
Gary
_________________  Gue'senshi: The 1st Kleistian Grenadiers v7.3 pdfHuman armed forces for the greater good.
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