Emperor's Children vs Valhallan Astra Militarum League Battle Report

Back to the battlefield in our TSA League, as past friday I faced the Astra Militarum forces of Peter, a person I hadn't played before in the club.

Doling around in the middle of table currently, this battle might get me back in the race for the podium, but then of course it are the Guard, with all their massed tanks and infantry troops, while I will be trying out the reinvigorated Havocs this battle.

My force, fielded with the 2.0 codex, was build around a heap of troops legging it to the other side in order to start slaughtering guardsmen (or at least, that is the plan), and Lucius will be joining as such a large mob of chainsword armed Marines.
Supporting them will be another Marine squad as well as my beloved Noise Marines.  A firebase, gathered around my Warlord for those precious re-rolls consists of two Quad Bolter rapiers, a Hellbrute and said Havocs with two heavy bolters and two chaincannons.  My Sorcerer will be lurking nearby for those important Prescience spells, while a squad of Raptors will be landing behind his lines either to occupy objectives, but more importantly to blast at tanks with their meltagun and plasma pistols.

On the Guard side, the Valhallans brought along his warlord supported by 2 platoon commanders, a commissar, Ordnance officer and psyker.  Three squads of troops where joined by two squads of deep striking Scions, a bunch of ratlings and a mortar squad on the infantry level.  Armoured support was provided with two basilisks, two Leman Russ and a command Russ, a Taurox and a scout sentinel.

Rolling for the scenario we got contact lost, so the forces where set up and blood could be shed...

Turn 1

Going first, the Emperor's Children decided to storm forward with their close combat marines and Lucius (though due to the scenario the latter one will camp on an objective for the whole battle to generate tactical objectives), joined by the Helbrute.

The Initial firing was devastating to the Guard, scraping of their Ratlings, Scout sentinel and one infantry squad.

The guard returned fire, but was largely ineffective, the first casualty being one of the close combat marines.... and trash the Noise Marines, who needed insane bravery to remain in the fight.

And so the first round ended on 1 - 1

Turn 2

The Raptors appeared in order to try and damage the Russ'es before them... to little effect.

On the other flank, the close combat marines charged into a squad of Valhallans, ripping them apart and consolidating into the next unit that contained his warlord.

Those guard consequently fell back, while the Raptors where decimated after failing to charge and forced to be Insanely Brave once again.

The score at the end had pulled to 1 - 3 for the pinkies as a result.

Turn 3

Those Earthshakers needed to die, and I managed to take down at last.  The Valhallans special rule made that they didn`t really suffer any penalties while being shot at until the end, forcing me to commit a lot of fire into them.

The lone Raptor did some melta damage on the command tank however, and on the other side the close combat marines totally shot up the Valhallan infantry squad.

The Helbrute found itself in combat with the platoon commander, but only managed to cause one wound.

Out to assassinate my sorcerer, the guard actually came forward with the platoon commander... and was joined by the scions.

In the meantime, my Havocs where finally wiped out, but those chaincannons and the no move and shoot penalty is great.  Add to that Prescience and the warlord aura, and you get a seriously insane firing base against low armour low toughness units.

The table was now starting to look empty as forces got seriously hit, but I managed to pull away to a rather safe 3 - 7 lead now.  This should be managable to keep under control if I don`t get to crazy.

Turn 4

The sorcerer cast Diabolic Strength on himself to bridge the 3 inch gap and massacre the scions in close combat next.  Of course, later on he would roll a snake eyes, and be shot to pieces as a result...

But as the battle started to dwindle down, and some lucky objectives on my side now two turns in a row, meant it came to 4 - 10 in the score.

Turn 5

This might turn out to be the final round, as I rolled a 2 to continue onwards at the end, so all I had to do was hold to the lead.  Luckily for me, Peter didn`t get any decent objectives, so the game would be in the bag if I didn`t get tabled, and managed to end the game to be certain.

Not that much happened, as the close combat marines finally fell to the last man, as did both the Rapiers guns, while only a Valhallan squad was ended...

And thus the game ended, with a 4 - 14 victory for the Emperor's Children due to some "secure" objectives that where in my deployment zone (throughout the battle, I basically camped on 3 to 4 objectives just for those points, and generate more cards then him due to the scenario, then played "to them").

Adding in Linebreaker due to the still rampaging Helbrute behind his lines, and the final tally clocked off on 4 - 15 points, and now it`s time to add a Valhallan relic to my altar of Slaanesh.

A great battle against a new opponent, and I loved the way he played and build his guard army.  With being a 20+ year veteran as well, the table had a LOT of old metal models in both forces, and even though the result told otherwise, in pure mumbers I wouldn`t be so sure I was the winning force... I was left with a full Heretic squad, a wounded warlord, Lucius, the Raier crew and a wounded Helbrute.  He still had his warlord and a Platoon commander, his Master of Ordenance, 2 more or less intact scion units, a wounded Leman Russ and a Basilisk...

Those guard armies certainly are hard to crack, and I got the lucky break in turn three with the The Long War objective and then taking out three of their softer units, to make a gap he couldn`t catch up to anymore in all honesty... so I just needed to prevent to be tabled as a result from then on.