So here's a battle report from August, imperial Fist 1.3 ( played by me) vs black legion (played by Chris C) at Rogue Traders Wargames club in Rubery.
I had recently had a game where two formations of devastator centurions in land raiders had torn up several mixed Inf/armour formations against an unsuspecting tau player, so I wanted to try them out again to see if they were as powerful as they seemed.
Here are the lists:
4000 POINTS
Imperial Fists (NetEA V1.3 - Developmental)
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CENTURION [550]
4 Devastator Centurion, 4 Land Raiders
CENTURION [550]
4 Devastator Centurion, 4 Land Raiders
LAND SPEEDERS [200]
5 Land speeder
SCOUTS [200]
4 Scout units, 2 Bunkers + Minefields, Snipers
SCOUTS [200]
4 Scout units, 2 Bunkers + Trenches, Snipers
TACTICAL [375]
6 Tactical units, 2 Bunkers + Trenches, 4 Rapier
TACTICAL [275]
6 Tactical units, Rhino
TACTICAL [575]
6 Tactical units, Supreme Commander, 3 Land Raiders
THUNDERFIRE BATTERY [250]
4 Thunderfire Cannons
BASTION [225]
1 Bastion, Techmarine
TARANTULA SENTRY GUNS [100]
4 Tarantulas, 4 Emplacements
VINDICATOR [300]
2 Vindicators
LAND SPEEDERS [200]
5 Land speeder
Here is the Black legion army (not 100% sure on if I've listed all the upgrades correctly)
Incompertus, 3985 POINTS
13TH BLACK CRUSADE BLACK LEGION (2014 Armybook Edition)
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ARMOURED COMPANY [405]
(Chaos Undivided), 6 Chaos Predator, 3 Chaos Vindicator
ARMOURED COMPANY [555]
(Chaos Undivided), 6 Chaos Land Raider, 3 Chaos Vindicator
RETINUE [505]
8 Chaos Space Marines, (Chaos Undivided), Chaos Lord, Chaos Champion, 4 Havocs, Daemonic Pact, Dreadclaw Drop Pod
RETINUE [275]
8 Chaos Space Marines, (Chaos Undivided), Chaos Lord
RETINUE [430]
8 Chaos Space Marines, (Chaos Undivided), Chaos Lord, 4 Havocs, Dreadclaw Drop Pod
CHAOS TERMINATORS [445]
(Chaos Undivided), Chaos Lord, 6 Chaos Terminator, Icon Bearer, Daemonic Pact
CHAOS TERMINATORS [495]
(Chaos Undivided), Chaos Lord, 6 Chaos Terminator, Icon Bearer, Chaos Champion, Daemonic Pact
DECIMATORS [450]
(Chaos Undivided), 2 Decimator
DEFILER ASSAULT PACK [275]
4 Defilers, (Chaos Undivided)
DAEMON POOL [0]
(Chaos Undivided)
DEVASTATION CLASS CRUISER [150]
(Chaos Undivided)
Deployment:
(Objectives are the pinkish squares, mostly concentrated on the IF right half of the board.)
[ IF terminators count as devastator centurions, and the bunker with two tarantulas counts as Bastion]
From the Black legion side the deployment looked like this:
[ the two lords of battle count as decimators, and the 4 daemon engines count as defilers]
Turn 1.
IF: Land speeders 1 double
BL: Warband 1 Advance shoot at land speeder 1 kill 2.
IF: Tacticals in rhinos double, shoot at Warband 1 kill 1.
BL: Armoured (land raider) double shoot at tactical in rhinos kill 1 rhino,1 tac.
IF: Devastator centurions 1 in landraiders double, shoot at armoured ( landraiders) kill two chaos vindicators.
BL: Decimators double, shoot at Devastator centurions ( 2BMs only).
IF: Vindicators double (1 vindicator fails terrain check!)
BL: Armoured (predators) advance shoot at vindicators, kill 1.
IF: scouts triple ( Why did I do this? Seems really stupid now, but at the time it seemed really clever to move the scouts out of their bunkers and to use the scout zoc to block the black legion dread claw drop locations- it turned out I had fallen for some very well judged misdirection from my opponent about the probable location of his orbital bombardment and drop pod coordinates.)
BL: defilers double shoot at Devastator centurions 1. Kill 1 land raider.
IF: Devastator centurions 2 March
IF land speeders move around supreme commander formation as bubble wrap.
Here how it looked at the end of turn1:
Start of turn two,
Terminators teleport in, Daemon's are summoned
BL: spacecraft bombards tactical 2 (no casualties thanks to bunkers) and dread claws drop in two Warbands. Here you can see where they arrived:
View from the imperial fist left. The advance groups of the Tacticals in Rhinos and Devastator centurions are now surrounded by the teleporting terminators.
IF: Devastator Centurions 1 double, moving away from the trap they are in, and shoot at the black legion terminators2. (1 BM only)
IF: Retain vindicators double shoot at Warband 3 and cause 1 BM
BL: Terminators1 engage Tacticals with rhinos. 1 daemon dies and the Tacticals are wiped out.
BL retain to Warband 3 engage thunderfire cannons. Overwatch fire from thunder fires, Tacticals in the trenches, tarantulas and scout 2, kill three and break the warband before the engagement can take place.
IF: Devastator centurions 2 double and target the decimators, score 8 hits, but the RA of the decimators save them all. This was a tactical error on my part as if I had targeted the predator detachment, the centurins would have been more effective.
BL: Warband 2 sustain on the Tacticals with supreme commander ( 1BM only)
IF: scout 1 sustain on Warband 2 causing 1BM.
BL: armoured predators target Devastator centurions 1, kill 1 landraiders and 2 centurion stands.
IF: land speeders1 advance target terminators1 ( 1BM).
BL: Warband 1 sustain on land speeders 1, an wipe them out.
IF: land speeders 2 advance and shoot Warband 2 kill 1
BL: Decimators advance shoot Devastator centurions2 kill 2 land raiders which breaks them.
IF: tacticals with supreme commander HOLDs and shoots at Warband 2 (1BM)
BL: armoured land raiders advance shoot at Devastator centurions1 kill 1 centurion and 1 landraider.
BL: defilers double shoot at Devastator centurions1 kill 1 centurion.
BL: terminators2 engage Devastator centurions1 one daemon dies, centurions wiped out. Here is the gap they left behind:
Start of turn three, (all broken units rallied)
IF fist right flank, Devastator centurions, face the armour of the black legion:
On the imperial fist blitz, the rallied black Legion prepares to assault imperial positions again:
On the imperial fist left, the imperial fist commander is left in a bad situation, the centre has collapsed, and a chaos Warband has control of the bunkers guarding the T&H objective:
BL: Warband 3 (on the blitz) engage and destroy the thunderfires and the intermingled bastion
IF: Landspeeder2 engage Warband 2 (in the bunkers) the landspeeders kill 4 and break the Warband,
IF retain: vindicators advance and shoot at the defilers, killing 1.
BL: decimators sustain and shoot Devastator centurions2 killing 1 and breaking them.(again)
IF: scout2 sustain on Warband 3 (1BM)
IF retain tarantulas sustain on Warband 3 (1BM)
BL: engage tactical in the trenches, the first strike ability helps and the defilers lose the combat, with three casualties.
IF: Tacticals with supreme commander double and shoot Warband 3 killing 1.
IF: retain to scout1 who march into black legion half to deny TSNP.
BL: armoured predators double shoot tarantulas killing two.
IF: tactical is trenches sustain fire on armoured (predators) killing 2.
BL: terminators1 hold and remove BMs.
BL: Warband 1 advance and shoot scout 1 killing 1.
BL: armoured landraider double and shoot at Tacticals with supreme commander, killing 1 tactical and 1 land raider.
So end of turn 3 we have Black legion:1 (BLitz) and Imperial fists 0.
How it looks at the end of turn 3 start of turn 4:
The imperial fist blitz:
The imperial fist right flank
The imperial fist left flank:
.So hanging on by the skin of their teeth, the imperials lose initiative roll again, and the fourth turn starts:
BL: Terminators and Daemon's engage Tacticals in the trenches and wipe them out.
BL retain: armoured land raiders sustain on the Tacticals with supreme commander, the format is broken with only one land raid surviving.
At this point the IF concedes the game.
Thoughts on the game, I think as the IF commander I was too aggressive at the start. Devastator centurions in land raiders are pretty good but need supporting units.
First strike ability for imperial fists in trenches seemed to work nicely, but not too powerful. I Might want to try devastators or centurions in trenches to try an get the most from this ability. I think the problem I find is that static defences are (obviously) inflexible, and it's hard to just sit and wait while the opponent manoeuvres around you. This probably led to a few errors on my part.
The bastion didn't get a chance to do much. Maybe I should deploy multiple bastions, or put formations inside them.
especially at 4k