Merkan 76th Imperial Guard vs. Sisters of Battle

The Thin Green Line

Got a game in with Doug's Sisters of Battle, 1850pts, Maelstrom of War mission.  Not a terribly tactical game, me shooting, moving up a bit towards some middle objectives but trying not to do so too early and get massacred, him moving units up to get his flamers and meltas into range while trying to knock out anti-air guns with his exorcists.  The mission we played had you start out with six cards and the max you could have went down one each turn.  In theory this would have you be very aggressive early, in practice it meant I scored a couple points for objectives I was on initially, then was stuck with cards for objectives across the table with no real prospect for changing them out.  Yay, Maelstrom.  This was certainly not the army build for a Maestrom game, especially when it ended up as hammer and anvil deployment.  Still had a fun time and had some good moments in-game, but after the first turn and seeing the cards we both had I was not expecting to do well.  Tels sont les jeux.

 

I set up first, and spread bodies along the flanks to keep outflanking immolators coming up on the sides of my tanks.

First blood, IG firepower takes out an immolator.  With my board edge shennanigans, he opted to just scout the immolators.

I also knocked out a Rhino, and the sisters spilling out failed their pinning check.

Wounded immolator charges the IG lines.

Immolator wrecked, and passengers mostly shot up with one survivor gone to ground.

Guard moving up on the left.

Sabotage!  Both objectives on my end were bombs, and blew up a few times.

Shootout!

Finish off last dominion in the middle, with bomb-depleted squad.

Air cav arrives!  Formation with Storm Raven and two Storm Talons.  Raven carrying Celestine and squad of Repentia of all things.

But before they can do anything, the quad gun gets a string of good hits and takes the Storm Raven down!  It crashes into a wounded tank, finishing it off and killing a number of its own passengers.

Celestine and fellow survivors carve their way out of the wreckage.

Wiped out regular sisters on the right flank except for two falling back.

Gunships swoop in and take out lascannons and quad gun.  Hydra had also been blasted apart.

View on approach

Celestine moves in to wreak some havoc.

Left flank shootout as I moved up towards objective 5.  I was already way behind, but may as well.

Sister charges into platoon commander.  I love bits like this late game, with remnants duking it out.  Sister won by the way.

The lone sister did better than Celestine, who died from overwatch autocannon fire.  The game ended before she could get back up.

Solid win for the sisters after quite a bloodbath.  

I also pre-ordered the Khorne Daemonkin book while I was at the store.  We'll see how that is next week.

Cheers!