Warhammer 40K: Three Games, Two Draws, One Loss

Saturday's 1500 point battle between the Ultramarines (Zack Johnson) and Witch Hunters (myself) resulted in a draw. Novachi was an uncontrolled hive world that the Witch Hunters were trying to claim.

The map was built around interesting terrain pieces already at the club. Igor's dark age keep had Zack's electric fencepost barrier fortifying the keep's roof. The enceinte was surrounded on three sides by Igor's matching walls and towers, and the club's single-piece, curvy desert castle wall with catwalk took up the fourth. On the opposite side of the battlefield, a tall, rectangular guard tower faced off against the castle behind hills and trees.

The Ultramarines defended the castle as one battlefield objective, while the Witch Hunters defended the guard tower as the second. The boys in blue had three named baddies fighting on their side - the great general Caligar, the Chief Librarian Tigurius, and the Scout Sergeant Telion - and an additional librarian to boot. Luckily, the nuns with guns were led by an Inquisitor Lord with a psychic hood - an item that could potentially nullify the librarians’ abilities. The nuns also had the advantage of higher numbers - a trade-off to being unmechanized infantry.

With much less mobility than the marines, the Sisters of Battle were quickly surrounded and outflanked before they could move and run to attack the castle’s gatehouse. Fortunately, they were not overcome despite being outmaneuvered. With close range targets available, they dealt out strong volleys of fire before getting assaulted. The center of the battle remained stuck in the area between the two structures. While a Imperial Culexus assassin managed to strike at Tigurius at the castle’s top floor, wounding him, and circling Ultramarine Landspeeders fired on the guard tower, slowly killing the Inquisitor Lord guarding it, this was not sufficient for either side to conclusively claim both structures. The battle, bloody as it was, resulted in a draw.

Novachi would fall to Witch Hunter control in two weeks, if no other battles shift them out.

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Sunday had two battles. Alex, as the Imperial Guard, was testing a 1750 point list for an upcoming tournament. He would be fielding the same forces for both battles. The Imperial Guard's currently in the lead in the campaign. In response, the Witch Hunters attacked the Imperial Guard's fortified forge world of Cartagena as its first battle - Alex's starting planet.

Going by 40k’s lingo for these things, the victory condition was going to be ‘annihilation,’ the deployment was going to be ‘spearhead.’ Annihilation's bad for the unit-heavy Imperial Guard. This victory condition means the side which destroys the most complete units will win. Organized like a regular military force, each individual company of guardmen has three to five platoons within it. Each platoon, rather than the company as a whole, counts as the destroyable unit. Typically, at the same strength level, the Imperial Guard could lose something like 20-30 units, while other forces could lose no more than 8-15. On the other hand, a spearhead initial deployment meant that forces would start on opposite corners, the furthest deployment possible in a standard game. This is bad for my short-range, slow-moving Witch Hunter forces - still dominated by unmechanized infantry.

After deployment, the battle began. Imperial Guard artillery and armor shelled the heck out of my forces, dealing continued and high casualties from the get-go. Yet when they got to shorter range, one volley of fire from a Sisters of Battle squad - even at 10-20% manpower - proved capable of destroying entire Imperial Guard platoons at a time. As a result by turn 5, following some truly heinous numbers of casualties to artillery and tank fire, there remained an outside chance for the Witch Hunters to claim a victory. They'd paid their casualties to move to a position to hit hard. Alas, it was not to be, as the bit of luck needed for that circumstance never materialized - the Imperial Guard won the day decisively.

Cartagena remains in the hands of the Imperial Guard; following the campaign rules, the Imperial Guard gains 1 VP for successfully defending a fortified planet.

For the second battle, the Imperial Guard attacked the Witch Hunter's planet of Ubusi, a civilized world. The mission gave four objectives, and what's usually considered 'standard' deployment - opposite sides on the battlefield’s long edge, nothing within 12" of the center line. My second army of the day had more models in it, balanced by less anti-tank capability. Fortunately, on this battlefield, three of the four objectives within walking distance of the Witch Hunters.

This gave the Witch Hunters an early advantage in claiming objectives, which the Imperial Guard whittled down as time went on - it was their turn to press forward, and mine to hold the line. By the end of turn 6, it was a nail biter of a tie, with each side solidly holding one objective, and the other two objectives under very strong pressure by the Guard (almost completely lost to me but not yet gained by the Guard). Fortunately, this planet was already under Witch Hunter control - the end of the battle at turn 6 meant this battle would end a draw.

Ubusi remains in the hands of the Witch Hunters, with fortifications completely in three weeks, if no other battles shift them out.

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While I think I know the tricky rules of the Witch Hunters fairly well, I'm still learning 'generalship' - the tactical and strategic side to playing a game. And the painting. Fun games with folks like Zack and Alex help a lot!