Hagvarian betrayal day two pt.1- Or how we managed to wrestle defeat from the jaws of victory

So the second day of the Hagvarian betrayal kicked off with us facing of against an empty table. I jokingly asked the TO if that meant we won by Walk-over (eagerly licking my lips looking for any actual win) whereupon he said that he had just talked to the guys we were facing and they were heading in.

So unbeknownst to me and my team-mate we were facing one half of the duo from the Horus heresy podcast- "don't loose your head"  really cool guys. Our opponents were running Iron hands and loyalist Death guard. And were running company of bitter iron and a standard list. Albeit with THREE leviathan dreadnoughts. Neither i nor my opponent had ever faced one, and now we were to throw down with three. I was actually kind of excited

The company of bitter iron is a pretty cool and narrative RoW which is to represent the tactiturn nature of the IRon hands after the bitter defeat at Istvaan V and the death of their Primarch. Whereupon they are driven to the very edge of desperation and more flock to join the "disgraced" part of their army known as the immortals. Basically the player can take immortals as troops (souped up Breachers with FnP and can't sweeping advance, but get to snapshoot you as you flee)

The iron hands player had around four Land raiders.

i've actually got a pretty good picture of both below

So many landraiders 

Apparently none of the leviathans had ever seen a turn three until our game

The DG player had the rest of his units (a unit of deathshroud and grave wardens) on foot, and he ran crysos morturg, a loyalist DG praetor from book 1 and gave three units infiltrate. Which syngergized well with his army.

Now, a NOTE of interest. Apparently, until our game that i will go into soon, all other players had identified the fukken threat of three leviathans and tried to kill them turn one. So usually the DG player got to hang back and watch his IH team mate try to save the game.

The special mission perquisites for this round was that we got kill points at the end of the game, but each turn we ended in our opponents deployment zone we got one point a turn PER scoring unit. Which was powerfull. Having read the rules repeatedly and hearing my opponents discuss outflanking landraiders (no gooby no) i asked if they had read the mission? they said yes, they had, but no outflanking landraiders. whew!

SO we roll off, and Alpha legion and Iron warriors get to set up second.

our opponents fortfiy each flank with land raiders, and prepare to have a strong breakthough with two land raiders in the middle. And place the Leviathans to the right, and a frigging malcador in the middle

Getting some rudimentary cover he places the leviathans behind a rock formation.

So this is the end deployment just before start. Hoping to seize the initiative i intend to Speed all predators their FULL speed ahead, and try to snatch as many early objectives as possible, and standing in ther deployment and making them destroy me.

I also hid all my tanks, but since they were fast and the enemy lacked templetes we were not ALL that afraid of being shot to bits completely.

One of the other players went to the bathroom and said, "cover for me" when he came back he saw this

how sweet it is 

He looked at the DG player and said "you had one fucking job mate"

Still, no harm no foul. then the shooting. ALL THE SHOOTING

FEUER FREI!

Somehow my Rapiers instantly killed a land raider turn one. Then my buddies tanks blew up another, and my last predator managed to rend a last one to death

with three sixes chasing three more sixes.

My predators RUSHED forward, and my buddies tactical seized another objective, so by the end of turn one we were in the lead for about 8-0 or something.

We shot all that we had at all those scary Land raiders, but the death guard were more or less left unmolested, laughing at mortar fire, tank fire and artillery fire.

So on their turn two they moved forward, the leviathans raked my predators, and a tactical squad bith it pretty early.

They then flipped their objective counter, and managed to destroy the fourth landraider.Ouch.

Now, at this point the Ih player apologized for his behaviour and said that he was sorry that he was so salty. I thought he took it on the chin with aplomb and said that nothing of the sort was necessary, and we joked that he was just roleplaying his row

Our turn two and both of my Veterans show up, The sniper with HB in the corner by his remaining terminators and immortals, and the Melta ones around the leviathans. I shoot out a group of terminators, blow up a rhino, manage to hurt a leviathan that gets destroyed later.

My praetor jumps out and assaults a tactical squad of DG

My scorpius shoots at some other tacticals to deny them scoring units.

My veterans enter his deployment zone and snipes out some terminators

But overall we feel pretty good about stuff.

Which changes. And this is a good lesson for me and everyone who underestimates Terminators.

Conventional wisdom states that Terminators that footslogg are a points sink that are more or less better left ignored. The problem was that by single mindedly trying to wipe out the Iron hands, we had the death guard stoically advancing into our gunzone. The VERY THING they are famous for. 

So in their turn two they advance into our end zone, ten strong deathshroud and cut down iron warriors like something wheatlike in front of something scythe like. There is an opportunity missed here by me, but fine. 

Eager to prove the mettle of my praetor Votan i slam into the densely packed lines of deathguard. I win the combat by around 12 wounds and his single hope is a double one. He breaks and flees.

Alongside my landraider the indomitable iron warriors march to victory.

The field of battle at the end of turn two

After another turn of insane shooting and levelling our artillery to shoot over the barrells a lá some napoleonic desperation technique we manage to destroy one leviathan, whittle down the deathshroud and the graveguard, and at the onset of their turn three they wipe out my friends mortars

the Iron warriors take a stand and form a fucking battle line (!) and show their disdain for the death guard by rapid firing bolters into them.

No fear here

But the fact of the matter is that they are scoring two points per turn (deathshroud and graveguard have indomitable advance) and they have gorgons in a corner that are moving into our zone. So the points are evening out. Then, screaming into battlespace their kraken penetrator zooms in, fires missiles and wipes out another tank. 

On our turn three My avenger joins the fray

In the pipe, five-by-five, target aquired

Knowing full well it will be shot down by the ace fighter that is an avenger i shoot at the death shroud, managing a paltry six wounds, and kill two of the two wound terminators


We also manage to blow up their malcador, so i get the genius idea of charging his grave guard. And promptly lose thee men to charging into a biohazard wall of flame, only to emerge into a battle i lose.


We play two more turns and it comes down to the wire.

We tally up the points and it turns out that since my veteran broke, we lose by one points.

Had they not fled we would have won by one points.

So SHIT-HOT intense game, and great fun