Pop Goes the Rhino

Farmpunk and I had our rematch this week: Seize Ground with a Dawn of War deployment.

No pictures unfortunately. We both forgot to bring a camera. And my camera phone is evidently too old (4 years) to send a flippen' email anymore. Damned Verizon.

If you were to ask Farmpunk about the game, he'd probably describe it along the lines of a lascannon up the rear access point. But despite the utter massacre his forces endured, he still would have won had the game ended on turn 5. Or pulled a draw had the game ended on turn 6. That's the thing about Sisters of Battle. You have to kill every stinking last one of them. Because they're the most dangerous when their squads have been reduced to 2-3 models.

Turn seven began with a lone Sister Superior surrendering to my troops in the middle of the field. While his Inquisa-Lootas(tm) and Exorcist looked on from the corner of the board. In all, I lost 3 troop squads, a Chimera, 5 Stormies, and one Sentinel. In KP, it would have been something like to 9 to 5 in my favor.

Random Lessons/Observations from this game vs. our game from last week:

1) You may be tempted to put meltas or flamers in your command squads and hide them in the rear so they can counter-fire enemy troops that reach your lines. But honestly, just put a lascannon in the squad and stick them up front. It's far more important to stop the enemy BEFORE they reach your lines. 'Cause if they get to you you're dead anyhow. I did the former last game and the latter this game. The latter worked out much better.

2) There is absolutely no point in using a squad of scout Sentinels as outflanking tank hunters if you take autocannons instead of lascannons. So just suck it up and pay the extra 30 pts.

3) Sentinels are often used as tar pits to tie up enemy squads. But this was the first time I've ever seen stormtroopers (=I= version) used as a tar pit to tie up an outflanking Sentinel squad. And they did, for 3 turns after my Sentinels came on and popped an Exorcist with their lascannons! HAHA!!! Farmpunk was cursing the whole time that he didn't buy krak grenades for them. The Sentinels finally won the combat (1 wound to zero) and destroyed the stormies. After which they sniped the last two sisters off of an objective. :)

4) Think long and hard about putting sponsons of any kind on a Russ. They're way too expensive for what you get. Lumbering Behemoth means that you get a much better value out of moving your Russes and firing your hull weapon in addition to your main gun. I pulled the sponsons off of the Demolisher this game. I will very likely pull them off the Exterminator for the next game.

5) I've been on the fence for a while about taking my Leman Russ Exterminator (H4-TL Autocannons) vs. a standard Russ. But I really fell in love with the Exterminator this game. "Pop Goes the Rhino!" Plus, sometimes you need to lay down some heavy dakka without the risk of hitting your own troops.

6) Never, ever run a lone character towards a line of Imperial Guard and expect to live through their shooting phase. I don't care if you're a 10-foot tall Ork Warboss in Mega Armor or a Cannoness with a 3+ Inv save. Just don't do it. Given 20+ save rolls, you WILL roll enough ones to die.

7) I've said some really, really unkind things about the new 16-pt. Stormtroopers lately. But when I costed up a squad of five for this game and compared it to the old codex with identical equipment + deepStrike/infiltrate, the difference in cost between the two was only 11 measly pts. And for that 11 pts. I not only get AP3 lasguns, but I can also choose my insertion type (Deep Strike w/Re-roll, Outflank w/Pinning, Scout w/Move through Cover) at deployment instead of when the list is built!

So I hereby apologize to GW for badmouthing the new Stormies. They rock as an insertion unit. Don't go crazy and buy too many or use them as line troops. But, much like Marbo, they are an excellent knife that you can place wherever you need one. Hell, if I had dropped the melta from the squad (Because they have AP3 lasguns and kraks as standard now.), I would have paid just ONE extra point for them in comparison.

8) Sheila the Callidus Assassin's single most important asset these last two games has been her ability to automatically stun/shake tanks with her neural shredder.

9) Sheila can jump out of close combat at the beginning of the phase. Sly Marbo can jump out of close combat at the end of the phase. Guess who ends up chasing who around the board? It reminded me of Brock Samson and Molitov Cocktease from the Venture Brothers series on Adult Swim. It finally ended when Sheila took a lascannon to the face from my command squad. :)