Battle Report: Merkan 76th vs. Marines

Another game vs. Josh's marines on Tuesday, this time with the Merkan Imperial Guard.  Three objective Seize Ground, Pitched Battle deployement.  1850pts.

Ultramarine deployment

When there's not enough area terrain, designate a few squads to stand in front.

The Merkans brought:

HQ
Company Command Squad
Officer: PW
Regimental Standard
Heavy Bolter team
Master or Ordnance
115

Troops
Inf Platoon
Cmd Sqd
Officer: PW
2xGL
50
Inf Sqd: Plasmagun
65
Inf Sqd: Plasmagun
65
Inf Sqd: Plasmagun
65
HW sqd: 3xML
90
HW sqd: 3xML
90
HW sqd: 3xLC
105
HW sqd: 3xmortars
60

HW sqd: 3xHB

75

Troops
Inf platoon
Cmd Squad
Officer: PW
2xGL
50
Inf sqd: Plasmagun
65
Inf sqd: Plasmagun
65
Inf sqd: Plasmagun
65

Troops
Vets - 3xPlasmaguns, Sgt w/PF
130

Fast Attack
Hellhound
130

Heavy
LR Eradicator - lascannon hull
175

Heavy
LRuss - lascannon hull, HB sponsons, dozer blade
195

Heavy
LRuss - lascannon hull, HB sponsons, dozer blade
195

The marines had:
Captain, artificer armor, power weapon
Chaplain

8xSternguard, Heavy Flamer, Rhino
7?xVanguard, misc choppy stuff, Land Raider Crusader (with characters attached)
2xTac squads, Rhinos
Scout squad, ML
Speeder HB/ML
Thunderfire cannon
Predator autocannon/lascannons


The marines pick sides and go first.  The plodding guard fail to seize.  I spread out to try to get some fire lanes and have a platoon able to move up towards two of the objectives (third one you can't see below; is in the bunker in front of the land raider).  Vets are in Reserve to punish any marines that get up into my lines.

Marines move up towards the thin green line

Thunderfire opens up on a squad on my right.  The squad desperately goes to ground for a 6+ cover save, and the sergeant manages to survive and even passes his morale test.

A krak missile in the side wrecks the Hellhound.  Not looking too good on that side of the board!

Of course I neglected to remember to bring my fancy new wreck markers.  Oh well.

The guard move up to claim the objective while taking shots at the marines.

In one of the few bright spots of early shooting by the guard, the Land Raider is knocked out by lascannons.

Marines advance while the Thunderfire continues to punish guard squads.  The predator spends all day bouncing lascannon shots off of Russ hulls.

Josh plays the mech game well; he's patient, and is good at leapfrogging tanks making use of the smoke launcher shuffle.

Aside from providing cover for each other, he's good at using the tanks to block shots at his troopers.  Here the sternguard vape a guard squad in the ruins.  Heavy flamer and magic bullets ftw!

The vanguard (shown with jump packs, but non-functional today) and ICs have been shot up, but being Fearless due to the chaplain continue to advance and get into a scrum, with predictable results.

With their foes dead or fleeing, the marines are left sitting in front of the gunline.  Uh-oh.

A bunch of shots later, just smoking ceramite boots left.  I finished off the last guy (the captain) with the last shot available, from the mortars.  Though they died, the assault threat did its job, sucking a lot of firepower and slowing down my moving up towards the objective.

Fire for effect!

Both sides move towards the objective, while the IG starts to shoot up squads in the backfield.

The right side is looking much more sparse.  Lurking at the corner of the ruins is the sgt who survived the thunderfire bombardment earlier.  I thought the TF would be a quick victim like it normally is when I play against one, like taking it out with big shootas from my Orks, but this game it was blessed - shots against it missed wildly, most hits rolled to get allocated to the Techmarine who made his saves, etc.  I guess that the IG just can't match Ork shooting!

Lurk, lurk, lurk.  The sgt later moves up to contest the objective on turn five.  The game continued, and he didn't last long in turn six.

Guard moving up to try to root the marines off of the objective on the left.

Rhino shown here got immobilized early, squad inside finally decided to get out.  Of course, as soon as they left, it finally repaired itself.

I hear you knocking, but you can't come in!


I forgot to take more shots of the last turn, the guard wiped out the marines and scouts here.  The marines zipped up the speeder and a rhino to contest - guard blew up the Rhino but the speeder managed to survive, contesting here.

Middle objective, lots of shots at marines, who held on with one marine.  On the right, more shots but not enough to dislodge the marines there either.  Marines win 2-0.



I also later got a 500pt league game in with the Scythiak versus Eddie's Ed-dar, winding up with a tie.

Oh, and apparently this is my 250th post.  OK, back to work...