Monday, December 2, 2013

Battle Report: Inquisition and White Scars


The other night I had the chance to try out something I have been wanting to for some time. That is a 50 man IG squad with a White Scars Chaplin, and a Xenos Inqusitor.

So I was playing against a Black Legion army at 2500pts with Abbadon sitting across the way, a Chaos Sorceror, and Lord. There were several squads of Chosen loaded with plasma, two standard CSM squads, and of course 3 havocs. Did I mention there were two helldrakes?

Sitting on my side was an IG list with a 50 man platoon squad decked out and sitting around 480pts before Khan and the Xenos Inquisitor. Something I did that was different than normal. was take Creed as well in this, just to give the entire blob squad scout along with the chaplin and the Inquisitor.

Also in my list of note was a Bastion and Aegis Defense line, simply because Stronghold Assault is coming out and I wanted for some Fortifications in my list. My White Scars tacticals manned the Bastion with missile launchers and flakk.

Since I am really here just to talk about the Blob Squad, lets get down to its statistics. The unit had scout, which meant 6" of a jump for the unit at deployment. This helped, but really was probably not necessary. What was nice about it, is it allowed me to set up in ruins, (or even behind an aegis defense line), and then jump out ahead of it with a scout move, as deploying 50 guardsmen can sometimes be a pain.

So with the Inquisitor, I did not put a plasma syphon in the list, but it could of came in handy. So what happened?

Round one which I had first, my guardsmen moved up to the center of the board, and with prescience on was able to unload with a first rank second rank hail of lasgun fire. That was a dead havoc squad that they shot at with 80 or so twin linked shots. Granted we were playing mission 5 with bases, so the guardsmen where headed directly straight at the enemy base of operations behind an Aegis Defense Line.

Round 2 I pulled off an assault into a 10 man Chaos Marine Squad, which i won and chased them the survivors.

Bottom of two A helldrake unleashed into the squad killing like 11 guardsmen, while bolter fire and plasma guns ripped into a good percentage of them. With that said, 2 chosen squads assaulted. Of those that assaulted one from each chosen squad survived the assault, one broke and the other made his leadership test. So of course it was time for the hit and run maneuver.

The Blob squads hit and run maneuver ran past the single Chosen Marine, and directly into the backfield held by chosen and a Sorceror, which I immediately assaulted at the top of 3. With the psyk out grenades, rad and of course psychotrope grenades, the chosen died to a man, and the Sorceror who had a 4+invul, made his saves in a challenge against a sergeant. He did fail his leadership though, and ran off the board.

Now with re-rolls from prescience, furious charge (for the honor of Cadia), this squad dominated the game. We called it after 3 rounds, even though I think he would of killed off most if not all of the rest of the squad during his turn. The damage had been done though, and Abbadon just could not get through the difficult terrain he was stuck in. (bad rolls moving 2" a turn and rolls of a 1 for running). We called the game.

Of course Abbadon with another Lord and if that second Hell turkey could of gotten in, would of stopped this squad much sooner, but the power of the squad was fun to see. I wish Abaddon and his 35 cultists would of been able to get off an assault during the melee.

All in all the one unit took out 1 havoc squad with lascannons, 3 Chosen squads with plasma, 1 10 man CSM squad, and a level 3 Sorceror. The battle had certainly not been won solely with that squad, a pair of Collossus were sitting in the backfield, and with prescience were creating tons of havoc with precision barrages (with well positioned servo skulls).

Of special note on the Black Legions turn round 1, the 75pts artifact that brings a large maelstorm blast down, flattened my Bastion and everyone inside in a single blast and one of the Collossus that sitting behind it. It was quite devastating for a single use weapon. The tactical squad atop was largely lucky enough to leap off the top and survive.

So we sat back and talked shop for a couple hours and downloaded the new Be'Lakor dataslate that night.