Alright! The time have arrived and my fledling guard army has now passed their baptism of fire. My son have been so anxious to finally have a battle Guards vs. Guards and now he got it.
Most of his force is painted and mine have not gotten that far yet. His is slightly stronger in armour, with a Demolisher, two normal Russes and a 1/35 Stug model operating as a Medusa.
After some purchases at Tradera (a swedish ebay) I had two normal Russes, a Chimera and a Devil Dog (a converted 1/35 scale kit of an M8 Greyhound). But my strength rests in infantry. I fielded Platoon Delta X-Ray (the callsign of my own Homeguard platoon) with three squads, one an attached squad from a second platoon I will make coming from a different world (catachan dudes).
The infantry squads were armed with grenade launchers and heavy bolters (to match our RL weaponry as close as I can) while the third squad (the catachan minis) had a sniper rifle and a newly purchased classic Catachan lascannon.
The rest of the platoon was a special weapon squad and a Heavy weapon squad with missile launchers (to represent our Carl-Gustavs, we are supposed to have four, yes four of these babies, one per squad. Insanity, as we are also supposed to have one machinegun per squad! A swedish National protection forces rifle platoon will pack one hell of a punch, if we can just get all the darn weaponry and ammo with us!).
To back up the Infantry platoon I have at the moment three veteran squad, one for demolition, one who are grenadiers (packing maximum plasma and lascannon goodness) and a Forward Observer squad (all Tanith minis!
).
I plan to get more catachans and make a second platoon with catachans replacing the Demolition veteran squad over time.
My son had among other things two infantry platoons supported by his evil autocannon Hw-squad (which my orkz hate with a gusto) a Special weapon sniper squad, a veteran squad and a Stormtrooper squad that had infiltrate (I HATE his Stormtroopers, regardless of what they do or how they arrive they do it at the worst possible moment...).
Anyway, both our Company HQ:s have Master of Ordnance fellows, because we like big guns.
We played our first Battle mission, playing the Prepared assault with my son playing as the "Guard" player in the scenario, and I as defender. He had set up a nice field with the mandatory objectives represented by AA-positions that I had to defend and he had to take out.
He had also set up a decent defensive line for me to anchor my defence upon, since after all, he was assaulting and it would be a bit silly to make a prepared assault against an unprepared enemy! My son loves a good and realistic looking battlefield more than terrain arrayed to give your own side maximum advantage.
He won the starting roll and began his bombardment. My lads were rather well entrenched behind Aegis lines, sandbag positions and in ruined buidlings but it sure felt as if I would not have much left. Worst of all, his darn Stormtroopers found out that a corner behind my line was infact 18" away from my closest unit so could deploy in the open and move in to blast one of my Russes from the rear, making it explode and kill three taniths aswell.
It felt really bad as he pummelled my lines with a barrage of firepower, but in the end he did not manage to totally wipe out anything and my lads held their nerve. Besides the crew of the Chimera who got stuned by a round from a Demolisher cannon. What a bunch of sissies!
I belived I would be losing my second Russ aswell as his Medusa proved to pack Siegebreaker shells and took aim upon it. But luck smiled at me and it survived.
The strayrounds went wide, as they kept on doing thereafter, and I was now able to retaliate. The boys form Tanith, packing two plasmas, decided to bring it to the pesky stormtroopers and layed down the law for them at rapid fire range with accurate Tanith lasfire and plasmablasts. And then my Devil Dog had also moved into position and racked the stormtroopers with bolter fire and followed up with perfect shot from the Meltacannon capturing the last four stormtroopers under the template!
My Master of Ordnance called in some fire and got some results, but it was the lascannons in my third rifle squad and the one in my Grenadier vets that did the real awesomeness.
I had taken the opportunity to place them on roofs, and so my Company commander could reach both with his orders. He first gave the order Bring it Down! to the third squads lascannon who got a perfect flankshot on a Russ on the other half of the table (interlacing fields of fire, yay!) while the Grenadiers las got the order Fire on my target! since the Medusa/Stug was in cover. Both guns hit their marks penetrated and destroyed their targets. And my Missile launcher squad showed the dreaded autocannons what frag rounds can do and sent the last one running for home.
Having a tall building for the missile launcher was a hit, to say the least.
However, my small arms was boosted by some really good rolls through the game, and a First rank fire lasrifle volley made my son give in, having lost so much of his supporting infantry and two of his heavy armour. It was his first defeat with his Imperial Guard, and it really made me get a good appetite for Guardsman action.
I think my Orkz will take a short break. Not a big one, but a short one at least. I might even redo the army somewhat, make it more about ladz and less about vehicles, bar my two "Russian" battlewagons (two 1/35 scale models of a JSU-152 and a T-34). I think I will do more wacky with them and try to get more Big guns and maybe some Killakanz. And lotsa boyz.
But that will mature with time, now it is time to finally decide on paint schemes, plan to get some Sentinels and more catachans so I can get that second rifle platoon.
We will try and do a second game between the same armies this week, a Cities of Death game most likely.
