Warhammer 40'000 - Red Scorpions Vs. Black Templars

It's time for me to make an attempt at writing a battle report. Keeping track of what happens in a battle is not always an easy thing to do, because it takes away from the immersion and forces you to spend energy and focus into taking notes and pictures, so I don't do it often and only if my opponent is willing to go along with it.

Mission and Setup

My opponent and I have decided to play a small Eternal War game of about 1160 points, and rolled on the tables to determine the type of mission and deployment we would get.

Mission: Secure and Control

Deployment: Frontline Assault

I won the roll-off so I chose on which side of the table to deploy and set up the first objective marker, then we moved on to deploying our armies after my opponent had set up his marker.

Army Lists
Black Templars
Captain in Gravis Armor
Lieutenant with bolt pistol and power sword
Lieutenant with bolt pistol and auto bolt rifle
Primaris Ancient
Intercessor Squad (5) with bolt pistol and bolt rifle
Intercessor Squad (5) with bolt pistol and bolt rifle
Inceptor Squad (3) with assault bolters
Hellblaster Squad (5) with plasma incinerators
Repulsor with heavy onlsaught gatling, onslaught gatling, icarus stubber, ironhail stubber options

Red Scorpions
Captain with boltgun, relic blade and plasma pistol
Dreadnought with twin lascannon option
Terminator Squad (5) with assault cannon
Tactical Squad (10) with missile launcher, plasma gun, sgt w/ combi plasma
Tactical Squad (5) with plasma gun, sgt w/ plasma pistol/chainsword
Intercessor Squad (5) with bolt rifles
Intercessor Squad (5) with bolt rifles
Vindicator with storm bolter and hunter-killer missile
Rhino with hunter-killer missile

Deployment

My opponent begins setting up far back along the long edge of his deployment zone, placing a squad of Hellblasters on top of a ruin, backed by a Primaris Lieutenant. He then embarks a squad of Intercessors into his Repulsor, and spearheads with a castle composed of his Captain in Gravis Armour, his second Lieutenant, a second squad of Intercessors and a Primaris Ancient. His squad of Inceptors is kept in Reserve.

I want a more aggressive approach and deploy my army closer to the front edge of the deployment zone, splitting my 10-man tactical squad into two combat squads, with the long range missile launcher staying in the back while the rest stays near my objective to prevent a potential turn 1 incursion by the enemy's Inceptors. My Terminators are kept in reserve, and my Captain and the 5-man Tactical Squad geared towards close combat are embarked in the Rhino.

Black Templars finish their deployment first and have first turn.

Red Scorpions attempt to seize the initiative but fail.

Turn 1
Black Templars
Skip their movement phase entirely, nothing budges.

Hellblasters attempt to fire at the Tactical squad defending my objective, the only target in sight and range, but cause no harm. Inceptors stay in Reserve.

Red Scorpions

Everything advances. Leftmost intercessor squad climbs the hill, the Tactical squad in the center abandons the objective, which is taken by the Intercessors, and move towards the tower at the center of the map. Vindicator, Dreadnought and Rhino push forward, Tactical squad on the right side climbs the ruin to get into firing position. Terminators stay in Reserve.

Most of the arm takes shots at targets they can see and are in range, but fail to cause any damage. Only exception is the Vindicator, which fires into the Hellblasters and causes enough damage to kill 2 and leave one wounded.

Turn 2

Black Templars

This time the Templars take the Badab War veterans more seriously, and advance to meet the enemy. Primaris Ancient walks all the way to the base of the tower to provide bonus, one Lieutenant follows close behind the Hellblasters, the other next to the Intercessors near the tower. Inceptors stay in Reserve.

The Repulsor fires everything into the Red Scorpions Intercessors on the hill, but causes enough damage to only kill one of them. The Intercessors squad near the tower and the Hellblasters fire everything into the Vindicator, but the shots bounce off the dozer blade.

Red Scorpions

Captain and his Tactical disembark from the Rhino, which rumbles into position in front of the Repulsor, ready for a charge. Dreadnought follows close by. Vindicator rolls forward to cover both the infantry and the Repulsor in his arc of fire, and be in range for a charge. Tactical squad follows suit. Intercessors on the left advance towards the edge of the hill, the other squad keeps my objective secure from Inceptor incursion.

Storm Bolters from Dreadnought, Rhino and the Bolt Rifle fire from the Intercessors on the hill go into the Ancient, but only cause 1 wound. Dreadnought's twin lascannons and hunter-killer missiles from Rhino and Vindicator fly into the Repulsor, knocking 10 hull points off the hovertank. Tactical squad by the tower fires into the Intercessor squad, causing enough damage to kill one and wound another. Charge time!

Rhino charges into the Repulsor, absorbing all the overwatch fire and taking only 1 damage. Dreadnought seemed too far away to be able to make the charge distance, but I roll boxcars and he just flies in. Vindicator charges into the Intercessors, absorbing all the overwatch fire and taking no damage, followed by the Tactical squad.

In the melee that ensues, the Dreadnought destroys the Repulsor and earns First Blood for the Red Scorpions. No casualties or wounds are inflicted in the second combat.

Turn 3
Black Templars

Having lost a significant portion of their army, Templars are now facing an uphill battle with little to no anti-tank weaponry. Ancient and Lieutenants head towards the melee with the Vindicator, while the Captain stays near the Hellblasters to provide moral support. Finally, Inceptors are called down but are placed close to the Templar deployment zone.

Little happens in terms of shooting, the weak firepower against the few available targets causes no damage. Inceptors forget to fire at all. Charge time!

In the ensuing melee, Templars cause some damage to the Vindicator. The Scorpions' Tactical squad kills the already wounded Templar Intercessor.

Red Scorpions

With the threat of an Inceptor incursion now gone, there is no reason for me to keep the objective until later in the game, so my infantry moves forward. Rhino and Dreadnought bring themselves closer to the infantry around the enemy Captain, while the leftmost Intercessor squad finally climbs down the hill and begins crossing open field. My Terminators come in from reserves teleport down near the Hellblasters.

In the shooting phase, Terminators manage to kill the wounded Hellblaster, while the Intercessors on the field and the Tactical squad accompanying their Captain manage to kill one of the Inceptors. Rhino and Dreadnought then charge into the Intercessor squad near the enemy Captain, killing 3 of them but they manage to inflict 1 damage to the Dreadnought in return. In the other melee, the Vindicator and Tactical squad kill one more Intercessor, but lose 2 Tactical marines in the process.

Turn 4
Black Templars

Movement phase brings the Templar Captain closer to the Dreadnought while keeping the melee around the Vindicator in range of his aura bonus, Hellblasters climb back up to the top of the ruin, the rest pile in.

Hellblaters exact their revenge upon the Terminators in the shooting phase and manage to kill one, while the Inceptors kill one of the Intercessors in the open.

Captain then charges into the Dreadnought and inflicts 2 points of damage, but takes a slap in return for the Dreadnought for 3 damage. In the melee around the Vindicator, 2 wounds are inflicted against the Ancient.

At this point the Black Templars see their uphill battle as hopeless and decide to concede the game. To quote one of my favorite Youtubers: this is how the world ends.

Warhammer 40'000 - First 8th game played! Also a rant

It was last Friday afternoon when I took the opportunity to face off against Black Templars in a small game of Warhammer 40k. My first 8th Edition game to be honest. How well or bad it went is something you will see in an upcoming battle report, but while I feel like it was a good battle, my overall game experience was mixed.

To be fair, it wasn't entirely the game's fault, and more that of my opponent, which brings me to the rant part of this post: preparation, or rather, my opponent's lack thereof. I can understand a first game not running perfectly smooth, but I do expect a player to at least know what miniatures they brought along and their army list composition. Nobody will be rock solid on the rules and the turn sequence just yet, but being able to tell your miniatures apart is not an unrealistic expectation.

Or is it? Are my standards too high?

I usually make myself a small quick reference sheet, so all the information I need is at hand and can be accessed fast without having to browse through pages and pages in those heavy books. But maybe I've just been spoiled by the unit cards from Warmachine, so I try to look for the same thing and feel in my normal games. There should be a minimal level of organisation regardless of your previous gaming background, and my opponent wasn't a first time tabletop player, which made it all the more annoying.

What do you think?

Red Scorpions Primaris Intercessors

Can't believe it's been such a long time since I last posted something here!
I am ashamed of myself for this lack of activity, made all the worse by the fact that I have not been idle, quite the opposite: I have continued to assemble and paint little plastic and pewter soldiers, so that I may send them onto a tabletop battlefield and roll dice.

I will have to do better, probably put it onto my list of good intentions for 2018 😉

Slowly getting back into Warhammer 40k after the release of some of the new models, which also means I have to take a break from other things, such as Warmachine, but I really like how the new Space Marine models look and couldn't resist buying the new Dark Imperium box along with a box of Intercessors. Luckily the shoulder pads are of compatible size, so I was able to just dust off all the old Forge World Red Scorpions bits and slap them right onto the new arrivals.

This was also the first batch of miniatures I completed using a mixed technique of airbrush and detail brushwork. It appears as though all that time watching Kenny Boucher ramble on his Next Level Painting YouTube channel paid off 😄

Anyway, here's the result. Do enjoy 😊

You can find a bigger version of this picture on my DeviantArt gallery.