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Damn Scouts, Damn titans, damn termiantors that couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag and a BTS formation that decided to get lasgun in the face instead of gunning down some guardsmen!
My list was actually,
The Strike Crusier Xenophobe.
2 dev formations in pods.
Terminators with Chaplain (teleporting)
Tactical Detachment with Libarian and Dreadnought - 400
Thunderhawk (Tiberius IV) - 200
Assault Detachment with Chaplain - 225
Assault Detachment - 175
Thunderhawk (Ross' Revenge)- 200
Terminators
Thunderhawk (Somerled)
5 Land speeder Tornados.
Since I don't like fielding titans in marine armies (its a marine army, its supposed to have marines in) the options remaining is air-cav or lose.. so air cav it is.
The IG deploy all over the shop, my army is is space apart from the speeders which garrison behind a hill on the right flank. The strike cruiser turns up turn one and bombards an empty field failing to harm the one sentinel it hits. Both pods down down centally and have to mostly sit outside the ruins they aimed at since theres a sentinel sitting in the middle of them, both the infantry companies trigger their overwatch onto the devestators taking a stand out of each one. At this point I notice that Ryan's infantry company is a just far enough forward that a thunderhawk could land out of range of the hydra battery behind it and be able to engage, so I drop in the flying terminators who administer the infantry company a beating thans to the blast markers laid by the drop pods. They even break the nearby sentinels due to them being in support range.. excelent damage although at a high price at two stands of terminators are killed in the process.
In responce the guard set a formation of thunderhawks on cap and pop up the Vultures onto overwatch to attempt to discouage futher air assaults. On my turn I have a formation of devestators sustain at the Hydra battery killing two and the last one scurries away, I then double the speeders and they cruise up taking position behind a building for fear of vulture related death and taking an objective.. in order to be team players they take some cheeky shots at the other infantry company's hydra and actually kill it. Without any operational AA tanks it looks like the fight for the ground is now to be fought in the air!
The shadowsword drops the ball instead of blasting the landed thunderhawk to bits, and turn one peters out of intresting action as I crusie a the other thunderhawks around the sky wiping out the broken sentinels and finishing off the last Hydra from the air instead of landing, the Thunderbolts try their luck but only put a point of damage on each and losing two of their number to AA fire from various thunderhawks on approach and leaving moves. The titans effectively mop up the devestator units. The landed thunderhawk stays in place, with the terminators touching it for cover.
Turn two and the terminators teleport in and get first action to assault the Vultures, they lose one to the overwatch fire from the vulturs surprisingly deadly autocannon fire and then top it all lose combat pathetically losing another stand of terminators, looking around its blatent they've nowhere to go thats going to put them out of sight of the shadowsword. In order to cheer myself up after this piss poor effort I have the land speeders sustain fire on the infantry company in the open in front of them, gleefully machine gunning 8 stands and breaking them.
The Shadowsword predictable blasts a unit of terminators into ash the chaplian whos obviously not as brave as a commissar flees for his life and thats that for the first company... the rough riders assault the last devestator stand killing him off and redistribute themselves around so their scouts blocks everything up again. I don't like things that scout, espesially when they stand in the way of BTS formations and have the terminators hanging around near the landed thunderhawk spray them with assault cannon fire breaking them, my effort to retain with the assault marine filled hawk to open a can of kick ass onto the IG mechanised infantry company fails to attend.
The mechanised company doubles to roll forward and attempt to fill the terminators with holes but do nothing. The intact thunderbolt squadron goes onto CAP. With only the tactical loaded thunderhawk ready to go I bring it in attempting to clip the infantry formation that was assaulted the previous turn and had run into some buildings on the left flank to hide and ended up intermingled with the mechanised company, admittedly starding combats at -3 isn't a great plan but the theory was to win on kills and feel lucky - they lost on kills and lost combat by like 5... (really dumb move in retrospect.. nevermind).
The landed thunderhawk sustains fire on the broken rough riders as wiping them out, both Warhounds blow holes in landspeeders but fairly ineffectually so three live to irritate for another day. The landed hawk hoovers up the terminators in base contact and takes off.
Turn three already, the guard a bruised but not broken and unusually there are two air assaults ready to come although as ever the marines are on the wire for remaining manpower. Marines loving first turn again the libarian and some of his remaining tactical marines throw a few missiles at the mechanised platoon and before the thunderbolts can set up a CAP a thunderhawk arrives, piling into the formation and dropping assault marines all over it. Two assaultmarines die and only the commissar gets to run away gleefully giggling about how I won't get the BTS until hes killed to death personally. The vultures cruise forwards to defend the flag, meanwhile a warhound assaults the speeders taking a point of damage from one suicidal ram attempt and driving the other two off who back away a suitably small distance. The thunderhawk loaded with terminators makes a sneaky effort to take the blitz with an air assault on the other infantry company (the one that got a speeder related machine gunning earlier) which they did admirably well, unfortunatly the second warhound was having none of it and blasted them to bits with his plasmagun.
End of turn three and it was no unbroken formation in my table half verus the IG having defend the flag.
Turn 4 the unit of two assault marines attempt a death or glory assault on the lone commissar in an effort to secure break the spirit but instead are lame and fail their test. The last infantry company and the baneblade shoots at the libarian killing his dreadnought and causing him to scurry away into nearby woods and try to hide better. A warhound triples away to steal my blitz while the other doubles to an object in mt table half and finally puts paid to the troublesome land speeders. The chaplian and his assault marines triple across the table to contest two objectives with the vultures, the vultures clearly still enjoying the heady combat success against the terminators try to assault to drive them out but the assault marines casually bolt pistol them out the sky for one loss - true heros that they are!
The last thunderbolts tried to assassinate the libarian casually ignoring the one battered thunderhawk attempting to assassinate the regiment's commissar. No-one got killed by planes though and it was all over. The guard only had titans and superheavies left in a meaningfully operational capacity but the Marines had nothing more to give... next time Gaget! Next time!
Marines - Take and Hold (verus) Guard - Blitz & Take and hold.
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"A good orbital insertion is one you walk away from, a great one is where they can use the Thunderhawk again." Roboute Guilliman.
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