And so the time has come! Finally my imperial guard army was in a state to be brought out onto the battlefield. My nemesis Rik would be my opponent and we agreed. This would be a Guard on Guard showdown.
I brought along a varied army. Two basilisks, a 25 man platoon, plasma veterans in a chimera along with a tank commander and two extra leman russ tanks. I flung in an aegis.
Rik brought along an infantry horde of epic proportions. I can't even remember how many but a lot! Autocannons, missile launchers, special weapons squads, even scions.
We rolled for the battle and it was Emperor's Will. One base in each deployment. The mission? Take the enemy base or die trying!
I deployed conservatively and bunkered up. I had tanks and pie plates, he had a horde. The only way to survive was to force him to footslog at me, I just had to hope I could hold out against the swarm.
I opened fire with three tanks, 2 baslisks and a whole pile of autocannons. My first turn went well, scatter dice hitting and vapourising men by the droves. My mortars failed to hit anything.
Rik ponders on the battlefield. This would inevitable be a stalemate. I failed to get first blood in my first turn despite killing 25-30 men. It would be unlikely that one us would be able to take the enemy objective so it would come down to linebreaker, firstblood, and slay the warlord.
My shooting opened up a huge gap in his lines. Rik returned fire with missiles, lascannon shots and autocannons. Unfortunately armour on my tanks held true. Bullets and missiles pinged off the tough front armour.
My turn two resulted in more heavy fire. My ordnance wasn't quite as effective this time around. Only around 8-10 men were killed. Rik's men were flanking around both sides getting dangerously close with specialised weaponry like meltas and demolition charges. I did however, manage to kill the last man of one of Rik's squads earning First Blood!
Rik's turn two started. His men moved up closer and piled into the crater for cover. A team of Scions/Stormtroopers dropped from the sky in reinforcement. His two other squads miss - happed and were delayed. Again Rik's fire rained down. Rik concentrated on my Leman Russ squadron and Chimera only managing to remove 1 hull point from my command Russ.
My 3rd turn was effective. Concentrated fire on my left flank removed a heroic but ill-fated stormtrooper squad. A melta squad moving forward towards my lines was decimated by my entire line. First Rank fire! Second Rank Fire! along with autocannons, multilasers, bolters and stubbers. The ten man squad was ripped apart as they charged towards my lines.
The leman russes were proving to be a wall of armour 14. Rik's remaining Stormtroopers arrived and took and Rik opened up his turn with a Lascannon shot that vapourised on of the Leman Russ tanks, he also removed a hull point from the commanders tank. A torrent of autocannons shots wrecked a chimera on Rik's left flank. Finally headway was being made.
Turn four started and my shooting severely reduced Rik's deepstriking Scions. A Basilisk shot landed squarely amongs Rik's Command Squad vapourising the command of the army. Slay the Warlord! At this point, with the command wiped about the army leaderless, they scattered! Victory to the Hydrobian 8th! In reality, at this point, we symbolically called it a day. Rik's brave assault had floundered in front of a solid line of fire. We quickly worked out that he had no real chance to kill my warlord as it was shielded by a friendly tank. Linebreaker was also out of reach. Rik conceded the game. The score at the end was 5 to 3 in my favour.
Conclusion
This battle was fun, brutal and educational. It was a very tough scenario for Rik's list. He simply had no mobility and my tanks drew the majority of fire. He also simply didn't have the firepower to deal with three 14 armour tanks. My Warlord in the Russ was simply too tasty a target (slay the warlord) for Rik to ignore given that the extra objectives would be the decider. We quickly found out that armour 14 is insane in 7th.
My tactic of bunkering up and using my tanks to push forward simply forced Rik to deal with them whilst the rest of my army was essentially given free reign to target and react to Rik's deep striking scions. Rik's army simply didn't have enough guns to take on the armour.
