A first against this force and the player for me, so I have no idea what to expect and how the opponent "plays", but I did take the opportunity to bring along some units I never used before.
This with the eye on the clubleague coming in 2019, in order to get at least some feel for some units, and as such I took along a daemon detachment after seeing them ripping my force to pieces months ago in a game to teach Noshi...
But all in all, I went for a pretty "light" list, fielding 5 Troop selections because it would be my opponents third game ever. So a warlord, a sorcerer and a dark prophet filled my HQ slots of the Heretic Astartes section. The Chosen came along for the very first time, while backed by tzo regular squads of marines and one squad of Noise Marines. The only heavy support I took along was a single Rapier Quad Bolter. On the demonic side, the force consisted of a Herald, backed by two units of deamonettes and a squad of Seekers.
Boy, what was I in trouble when I saw his force... Led by a Captain, no less then 6 characters where opposing me, the others being a standard bearer, a techmarine, and a trio of Assassins from the Eversor, Vindicare and Culexus temples. His big hitters came in the form of a Primaris dreadnought (also dubbed the omg that thing has more shots then a land raider for half the points), a regular dreadnought, jump pack Primaris troops and the heavy support Primaris troops (who shoot like a gazillion times when not moving). Rounding his force out where a squad of Assault Marines and two tactical squads, while some scouts deployed further up.
I didn`t look to happy in the prospect of moving forward into that gunline... especially considering that rocksolid Salamanders trait.
I deployed as deep as possible in the Cloak and Daggers scenario, where darkness might be my friend in that race to the other side. Getting the first turn, the Seekers raced off and charged the Scouts, who had already been depleted a bit by sonic shots. To that end, they quickly took the infiltrators down in combat and grabbing me the first blood point.
But the Salamanders slowly moved forward a little, and the fire and combat onslaught made short work of the deamonic cavalry, while on the other flank a unit of daemonettes was shot to pieces before the last one ran off.
Yet still we marched forward, and then the assassins appeared. The Culexus came behind my line, and would be an annoyance for the psyker, the Vindicare failed to snipe the Herald leaving her on one wound, while the Eversor appeared behind the Chosen together with the flying Primaris. The combat between the heavy overwatch wounded Eversor and the Chosen was bloody, but the Assassin went down (and gave me the Assassinate victory point) but the Chosen where severly depleted. Tonny scored the Control 3 objectives and the Secure Objective 3, and came to a 4-2 lead.
My forces now started spilling into his deployment zone in turn 3, and I needed to get points fast. I managed to take down two of his units in the shooting phase, gaining me 1 point for Overwhelming Firepower. The dreadnoughts and captain charged my Marines squad, stomping them to a bloody pulp though, but the Chosen had removed the Intercessors on the flank.
With the last turn now on the board, I was trailing behind 5 - 3 but I had some good objectives in hand: the Long War if I would be able to take down 3 units, and the Rise to Glory if a character would be able to inflict the last wound on a character or vehicle of his. My final objective was secure objective 2. Let's do this...
The Long war was actually achieved this turn, as his Assault Marines where gunned down, and my Lord slayed his tactical marines (after my deamonettes failed their 7 inch charge. They get +1 and can re-roll...). The Sorcerer then luckily knocked off the final wound of the Primaris shooty-can and the points where hauled in. I scored another one for the Chosen haven run back and grab objective 2, so now I was suddenly 5 - 8 in the lead.
Tonny went all in for his final turn, as he needed objective 4 and to that end killed off the last few Heretic marines around it by tossing all his characters and his dread on them. He grabbed another point from an objective whose name I had forgotten, but where he needed to move out of his deplyment zone, but he stranded on 7 points.
All that was left to do was add the Linebreaker point to my total, and the game ended at 7-9 score in the end. Victory to the forces of Fulgrim!
It was a rock hard battle, and those Primaris units are so damn hard, we don`t have anything even remotely in the vicinity of sheer firepower. In the end, experience really did pull me through as I was "out qualitied" in troops for this game, with nearly no armour busting firepower around (a single melta and a single plasma gun where about my heaviest weapons).
So how did the try out units do? Well, the Herald had her use, bringing the daemonettes to s4 in combat vs the Vindicare. Now daemonettes tout court weren`t bad, even though they failed their charge, while the second never gotten half across the field. But once in combat, wether mounted or on foot, their claws are savage. To that end, the Seekers are really great, and I`m considering boosting the unit, or taking two small ones, to quickly cause some rampage in turn one charges with their large range, they seem a better option then bikes. And the Chosen? Well even though they grabbed 2 of my 9 points with the Assassinate and the Secure objectives, they left an underwhelming taste in my mouth. I guess they will be relegated to Kill team duty for now...
And I really liked that electronic scoreboard play, great touch Tonny!
But it will be the last time I will take an "easy" army to play the new guys ;-)
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