The Krablokistan 47th Strikes Again!

More Carnage

My enthusiasm for 40K continues apace (but Necromunda is looming on the horizon so who knows) so I'm trying to maintain momentum by playing as much as possible. This week was Aaron's turn to feel the sting of lasgun fire upon his armoured Tau warriors. My first game of the new 40K was against Aaron and that went pretty well so I was hoping for more of the same. We've both had a couple more games and presumably as the games didn't kill us, they made us stronger.

The Big Guns Never Tire - Or Do They?

We rolled  for a scenario and got Big Guns Never Tire  as I hadn't played it I was eager to have a lash. For the uninitiated this scenario has 4 objectives that are worth 1 VP for the most models nearest to them at the end of the game. A heavy support unit trumps any other unit so 3 mortar weapons teams would gain 1 VP even if there was 35 Ork boyz. Extra VPs were for first blood, killing the general, linebreaking and addition enemy heavy support units destroyed. A nice simple mission for my old brain.
Set up was pretty unimaginative for me. I clumped all my infantry around the left hand side of the table with only the Hellhound & Leman Russ over on the right. A unit of infantry were ensconced in the inn named Ye Olde Shielde although I may be giving it the unofficial moniker The Lazy Guardsman. I used a unit of Scions this game and they began the game up in the atmosphere of this planet. My mortar teams were in their usual place, hidden behind a hill. Aaron placed a couple of units of  battlesuits also in the skies but luckily neither unit met up there as it would be a nightmare to work out charge distances. His boots on the ground consisted of 2 units of Fire Warriors, a battlesuited Tau, Also my ratlings bundled in around the three unfinished craters near the centre of the table where an objective lay. My plan (if such could be said about the vague idea behind deployment) was advance on the left secure two objectives there. Using extreme prejudice destroy any xenos that got in the way. Minimising my own losses was if anything going against the plan.

The table before any turns were taken just after the ratlings appear (as if by magic) in front of the Tau soldiers (if you can call them that).

The Armies

The Krablokistan 47th

HQ;Commander Farg Woolstrop
(sub)Commander Bolshoy Bartlet
Troops: 3x Infantry Squads, 10 Man Scion squad with 3 plasmaguns and a Hot Shot Volley Gun.
Elites; 10 x Ratlings, 2 x Special Weapons Squads (Meltaguns & Grenade Launchers).
Heavy Support; 2 x Heavy weapons Squads (Mortars & Autocannons), Leman Russ with Plasma Cannons, Battle Cannon, Lascannon & Stormbolter).
Fast Attack; Hellhound, Heavy Flamer, Inferno Cannon.
Dedicated Transport; Chimera with 2 heavy bolters and a stormbolter.

The Space Jehovah's

HQ: 2 x Commanders  (Fusion Blaster & Plasma Rifle plus drones coming out of their wazoos)

Troops: A Breacher Team,2 x  Strike Team.

Elites; 3 x XV8 Crisis Battlesuits

Heavy Support; TX7 Hammerhead

Dedicated Transport; Devilfish (transport for the Breacher Team)

The list seems quite small but there is lots of shootiness there.

The Game

The game started well when I stole initiative from Aaron again. That makes it 2-0 in the queue jumping stakes. A pained expression from my opponent was reward enough (almost), but there was the added bonus of giving the foul aliens a good dose of Astra Militarum firepower. The Chimera advanced with it's special weapon troopers on board. the Hellhound moved forward and the Scions deployed behind enemy lines just behind the Fire Warriors on the left. They would have deployed as close to the Tau Ethereal as possible but he wasn't there so they had to make do. I hadn't taken a Psyker this game as fitting a unit of 10 Scions with a Hotshot Hellblaster gun thing and 3 Plasma guns eat into your frivolous spending budget. So no Psychic phase then. Shooting went well. The mortars fired first killing the five Fire Warriors next to the Scions. First blood to me then. The Leman Russ opened up on the Hammerhead as did the autocannons, they didn't wreck it totally, but took a goodly amount of wounds from it reducing it's BS*. The Scions opened up on the battlesuit wearing Tau dropping him down to 3 or 4 wounds. They would regret not killing him (her, it). It had also shot some wounds off the Devilfish with the plasma cannon sponsons as the Hammerhead was 2" out of range of that.

  

Dodgy close up shot of my now painted up for about 24 years Catachan Squad, who, incidentally are from the Krablokistan 47th.

A tranquil looking table. 

Sneaky Scions couldn't kill the Ethereal (didn't bother to show up) so they vented their righteous alien hating fury on the Fire Warriors, scoring me the first blood victory point. Had they survived to the end of the game, (SPOILER ALERT - they didn't) they would have tried to grab that objective.

Aaron insisted on having a turn next (very inconsiderate of him I thought). This is where many guardsmen started regretting life in the military. Firstly both his commander and battlesuits arrived, the commander landed next to the Hammerhead, the battlesuits to the left of the big hill on my left. Either by luck or judgement I had advanced my Chimera just enough to mean the battlesuits couldn't deploy where he wanted and I hadn't left any room for a sneaky back door invasion type situation. His shooting was effective 4 or 5 Scions removed, a similar amount of ratlings and a wrecked Chimera. Only one guardsman out of the dozen failed to leave the flaming pile of scrap. The Hammerhead started dueling with the Leman Russ but thankfully my initial salvo had done just enough to affect its shooting ability. The Tau commander that had been shot up by the Scions then assaulted them (no overwatch hits, grrrrrr) and battered them like lumps of cod. The morale phase made both Ratlings and Scions depart.

The end of turn one. Two special weapons squads jump out of a now expired Chimera. Their mission, should they accept it is to kill the battlesuits to the left while at the same time grab objective 1 to their right. 

I was fairly hopeful of wiping out the Battlesuits but there were a lot of annoying Drones to get through as well.

In my turn there was a rather alarming threat next to my left flank, the battlesuits. As luck would have it the weapons most suited to taking them out were in range. I moved the Hellhound round to toast some fire Warriors as I reasoned that the now damaged Hammerhead would die to autocannon/missile launcher fire so the Leman Russ could concentrate on the Devilfish. the two infantry squads would move into firing positions to hopefully help kill off the Battlesuits. That was my plan for turn two, and I thought rather snazzy.

The Hellhound and the Devilfish play peek-a-boo. 

It didn't happen exactly like that. The mortars, infantry and special weapons poured fire into the Battlesuits leaving all but one dead. My shooting further damaged the Hammerhead but not enough to destroy it. The Hellhound spewed flame all over the Fire warriors WITHOUT KILLING A SINGLE ONE! So at the end of my turn three meltagun operators were standing perilously close to an angry alien with many horrible weapons.

Two Battlesuits and their annoying drones are gone. All I need now is the last Tau to cock up his shooting and he gets meltaed to death! 

Aaron's force advanced, the fire warriors moved to shoot at the 6 guardsmen huddled in a crater. The Crisis Battlesuit shot up the special weapons squad, leaving a solitary meltagun technician there. Aaron's luck was pretty poor in the shooting department all game. What he did hit he failed to wound so his luck was severely hampering him. He shot then assaulted the special weapons troops in the crater and assaulted my last remaining meltangun with the Crisis Suit. In a game defining roll for overwatch the proud guardsman hit and killed the big asexual alien killing him and subsequently ran off following the morale **roll. The Tau Fire Warriors assaulted the Guardsmen and it quickly became apparent why neither troop types are renowned for their combat prowess around the galaxy. Lots of ineffectual striking left no one even a bit injured in the Crater of Effort. The turn ended with Aaron's forces largely neutralised by his own dice.

Part of my static defense line. The guardsmen in the pub do not really contribute to the war effort except by holding the objective 3. The autocannons and Leman Russ keep shooting the Hammerhead & Devilfish.

I like to think the last thought of the battlesuit wearing Tau that died to an overwatching meltagun to the face was "Greater good, my arse!". By the way the smoke isn't photoshopped.

The final turn of the game saw the demise of both Tau Battlesuit commanders and the Hammerhead.  In my enthusiasm for shooting I completely forgot to assault the Fire Warriors in the crater with the Cadian squad that had advanced up for that very purpose. Luckily both groups of protagonists were actually terrible at hand to hand fighting and no one ***died. Aaron only had a damaged Devilfish with a unit of breachers in it left and four Fire Warriors so called it. A solid victory for the Imperium. Mainly due to some crucially good rolls at inopertune times (for Aaron).

How many humanoids can you fit in one crater? Well seven it seems. The guardsmen adjacent to the melee in the crater were so mesmerised/repulsed by the goings on that they completely forgot to assault them in the assault phase. Crom only knows what would have happened had it been followers of Slaanesh in there with them!

All that remains of Aarons army is the Devilfish filled with a Breacher Team and 4 fire warriors slapping (and being slapped) in the crater. With my Leman Russ undamaged ready to unleash hell,  and another unit of infantry readying their Tau slapping equipement he conceded.

This squad got the best mission in any squaddies book. Hold the drinking establishment, wait for further orders. Those orders never came and they say sometimes in the dead of night you can still hear them singing "She was only the Devilfishmongers Daughter".

Conclusion

That was a fun game (hopefully for my opponent too). I have found that Astra Militarum armies need the first turn to get an extra round of shooting in, rolling a 6 to seize initiative from Aaron two games in a now is a trend I really enjoy. Had he got the first turn, I'm sure I'd be writing up a very different battle report. I was fairly happy with my use of the Scions, the put a big dent in one of the commanders with a Battlesuit, so much so that he had to move away from my battle line to deal with them. Again the Ratlings failed to see turn two, but they seem to be a good cheap distraction unit as well. Thank Ganesha that the internet said they're the best sniper units, every game so far seems to attract so much firepower that could be used somewhere I'd like even less. Once again the Leman Russ kicked arse! My meltagun overwatch shot that killed the last Crisis Battlesuit was pretty well planned as well, I thought. Must do that again. Very annoyed that I forgot to assault the crater Tau with a fresh unit of  Guardsmen. Still, the game was great fun and Aaron took his appalling luck with good grace. Next battle has been fought and it's a humdinger between Krablokistan's Mediocrity against Ultramarines in an open play type deal. SPOILER ALERT; Roubotte Guilliman and Marneus Calgar make a bloody appearance!

*Hammerheads are renowned for their bullshit stories about how they went round to the Imperium and kicked the shit out of it. The stories aren't always factual.
** I like to think he made it off the battlefield safely and after a series of dangerous events made it back to his planet of origin to find and meet the gal who promised to wait for him, settled down and raised a large family. What probably happened was he was executed by the first Commissar he got within 100 metres of.
***Except one.

Thanks For Reading.