League Game #4 - Vs. Adeptus Sororitas

Hello friends of the Caesura, and welcome back to another post on The Art of Caesura!

Our Warhammer league is still in full swing - we're in the fifth round now - I'm playing my fifth game this weekend. There are already a few heavy hitters who are currently standing at 5-0! (I'm at 2 wins, 2 losses - hey 50% win rate isn't bad for a noob). 

This time I was up against the Adepta Sororitas - the Sisters of Battle! I don't think I'd ever played them before and I was kind of nervous going into this match-up. My opponent, Kim, did a great job of psyching me out before the match, by explaining all the (massive) threat ranges of his gals. Plus, the whole concept of "Miracle Dice" - the army rule for the Sisters - seemed extremely strong. Basically, at the beginning of each round or whenever one of his units died, Kim could roll a die and add it to a Miracle Dice pool which he could draw from for almost any roll once per phase. He also had certain models which manipulated this pool (automatically changing his Miracle roll to a six, for example). This meant that if he really needed something to happen in a phase (that unit to really make its charge, that model to pass its invulnerable save, that tank to really spike its damage) then he could probably make it happen. 

We were playing Take and Hold which was the most straightforward primary mission that we've had yet in the league - you just need to hold more objectives than your opponent. That's it. 

I was really happy with my deployment. I had printed out the map and drawn in all the sight-lines. I got the first turn and just nudged my two big RepEx battle tanks into positions where, between the two of them, they could pressure the whole middle of the board - and both long edges too! I kept the bulk of my army behind the central ruin to pressure the centre of the board or be able to head towards either side objective. 

We both played VERY cagey - doing a little bit of trading here and there (mostly in front of his natural expansion). But, and I realize now, I was playing far too defensively. I was so worried about his Paragon Warsuits counter charging me, that I never really charged in the first place. 

This was my big learning point from this game: Tempo. Kim did a masterful job of controlling the tempo of the game - he would feed me a little unit here and there, and I would kill it, but I wouldn't commit enough models to take the fight to him and really get into his lines. Grimaldus, his 10-man Assault Intercessor squad and another Sword Brethren Squad spent much of the battle sitting in the central ruin. Yes they were threatening him from totally taking the centre - but they actually didn't even achieve this because he managed to claim the central objective with a rhino (even after a RepEx shot everything at it!) 

In order to gain better control over the tempo of the game (and that is supposed to be what my army - a "melee pressure" army - specializes in) I need to get better at using a few key stratagems: namely Heroic Intervention (which allows a nearby unit to charge one of his units that has just charged). This would have allowed me to bait out his Paragon Warsuits and then counter-charge them. Counter Offensive is also useful here because it would let one of my units fight during the "Fights First" step of the fight phase (interjecting in between his charging units, for example). I have read about a lot of high-level players making great use of Rapid Ingress (having your dudes arrive from reserves during your opponent's turn as opposed to your own turn) but I still have to figure out ways in which that would be useful. 

So while my main lesson from my game with Kim is around tempo, I do specifically want to make better use of at least the first two stratagems above.

 The final things that I need to work on, coming off the back of this game are some of my new tech pieces. I changed my list around quite a bit between league games 3 and 4 (with permission from the League Organizer) - more on that next week - and I introduced 2 units (Lieutenant with Combi-weapon and Callidus Assassin) which are both unanimously lauded as some of the strongest units available to the Adeptus Astartes, but I need to learn to utilize them better. They are both quite tricksy, and while I got a lot of mileage out of the Assassin, I really under-utilized the Lieutenant. 

It's great to see ways in which we can improve!

Anyway, we had a really great game; my Emperor's Champion lopped off a bunch of Sacrosanct heads which is always fun. I also feel that some aspects of my gameplay are getting tighter, I just need to continue to fine-tune things. 

So, the final score was 79 - 70 for Kim - a well deserved victory for him!

Thank you for tuning into The Art of Caesura! I'll see you next Friday. 

Reading: Fourth Wing - Rebecca Yarros

Watching: The Celebrity Traitors UK (finale)!

Next Week: 

Meta-gaming...