League Game #3 - vs. Astra Militarum

Hello, and welcome to another Friday on The Art of Caesura! 

Wait a minute, wasn't my last league game against Astra Militarum? It sure was, I think we have 17 people in the league and there are 3 Astra Militarum, 2 Black Templars(!!), and only one generic Space Marines! Anyway, this game came hot on the heels of my second league game (where I had taken a big loss to a similar list) so I really wanted to improve. 

As I detailed last week, my focus for improvement came in the form of deployment. I printed off the map and terrain layout in advance, and plotted and planned all of the elements that I discussed last week: where is safe to deploy without getting shot turn one, where are good staging areas etc. 

Another element regarding deployment and gameplan that I studied was the idea of "flipping the board". Rather than throwing all your pieces to the floor in a huff, flipping the board refers to the idea of recognizing that the terrain layout is not optimal for your army's playstyle in its original configuration. This is the case with map 3 - the terrain layout we played on - it favours shooting armies with hardly anywhere for more melee focused armies (like my Black Templars) to hide. BUT if you were to rotate the board 90 degrees counter-clockwise, actually you have loads of great cover and staging places to pressure the middle of the board while remaining fairly safe. 

So this is what I did. But I didn't want Fintan to know that that's what I was doing because then he could put more effort into defending the side of his deployment zone that I was trying to rotate into (the western flank in the two images above). So, in an effort to not make my plans too obvious, I began by deploying my Heavy Intercessors on the opposite side of the board (the eastern side in the images above) to make it look like I was distributing my army equally. 

As you may be able to see, moving from right to left in the deployment images above, I have my Heavy Intercessors, my Crusader Squad with Grimaldus and friends and Repulsor Executioner with Marshal Castellan and Sword Bros in the central ruin and then, on the western flank, my other RepEx (with Emp Champ and Assault Intercessors) and Impulsor with Helbrecht and Sword Bros, and the regular intercessors in the ruins. I believe my Scouts are in the western central ruin with one of them touching the central objective through the wall. 

My biggest blunder of deployment (and one of my biggest blunders of the game) was that I still can't get my head around the tournament terrain rules: whether terrain is obscuring and when things are visible. I thought my Impulsor was totally concealed by the footprint of the terrain feature, but actually it is the physical wall which would have obscured it. This meant that Helbrechts limo got targeted by one of the Leman Russes and obliterated first turn (but at least both of my RepExes survived beyond turn one (a first for the league!)

As you can see, my plan had been to zip Helbrecht and his wrecking crew in the Impulsor up the western flank to work on flipping the board that way. Once a beachhead had been established (or at least some of the Leman Russ battle tanks had either been destroyed or tied up in combat, I would move my western-most RepEx (with Emperor's Champion and Assault Intercessors) up to join Helbrecht. I even had a Techmarine INSIDE the Emperor's Champion's RepEx to be a support piece and lone op in my opponent's deployment zone when I got there. 

With the untimely death of my Impulsor, Helbrecht and his squad (as well as the nearby Bladeguard Veterans led by the Judiciar and then a squad of Assault Intercessors) were foot-slogging it up the board and arrived a turn or two later than anticipated, which meant I couldn't bring the heat and pressure his deployment flank with the RepEx as I had hoped to. 

We were each playing fairly cagey with our tanks, he was really protecting his Rogal Dorns (which I hadn't realized that my RepExes out-ranged) but over the course of the first few turns I managed to get a few shots off at the Leman Russes on the Western Flanks and destroy them. 

In the middle of the board there was a showdown between Fintan's chimera (which had disgorged the Kasrkin first turn) and my only remaining scout. My scout was actually able to whittle away a few wounds each turn because of my army rule of improving the To Wound roll in melee when his toughness outstrips my strength. But Fintan had masterfully positioned it to be out Objective Controlling my scout, meaning that the central objective belonged to him. 

Over on the Eastern flank there was a surprisingly critical combat going on between said Kasrkin and my Heavy Intercessors on the eastern objective. This was my feigned flank and I was kind of just going to leave the Heavy Intercessors to their fate, but I think what I did right with them was that I didn't even try to shoot with them. Although their guns - at damage 2 - are decent enough this would have opened them up to fire from TWO Rogal Dorn battle tanks; so instead, they hunkered down and did a surprisingly good job of holding the objective.

Following the mission rules (Supply Drop), this objective was the Alpha Objective, and would disappear at the start of the fourth battle round so I only had to hold it until then...

...Which I just managed to do!

On the Western flank, Helbrecht and friends (although not too many friends had survived the long slog up the board) finally made it into his units and proceeded to blend everything they touched even heading over to pressure Ursula Creed's big unit. 

Just before the final turn that we had time to play, the RepEx that had remained near my home objective got blown up and out popped my murder squad (Marshal, Castellan and 5 Sword Brethren). They, with Grimaldus and the 10-man Crusader Squad (who had been holding back, waiting to see where his Rough Riders would emerge from Strategic Reserves) all charged into the centre, they finally killed the Chimera and also killed one of the Rogal Dorns in one round of combat!

This massive assault, which gained me control of the central objective (worth a whopping 15 points in the last turn), along with the fact that the Omega objective - worth 8 points - was also under my control, spelled victory for the Black Templars!!

I had a great time playing with Fintan, there were some very tense moments, some laugh-out-loud parts and times when our big fun models really got to do their thing. A great game all around. 

I have my next league game (game 4 against Adeptus Sororitas - Sisters of Battle) in exactly one week and apparently the list is one to be feared. 

I'll see you next week right here on The Art of Caesura!

Reading: Never Let Me Go

Watching: Celebrity Traitors UK

Next Week:

Autumn Reading list...