Back to War Part 2

As I left you last time, I had just deployed. When I saw Imperial Guard, I knew tanks would be an issue, but I hadn't reckoned on a large blob squad of standard guardsmen. I hadn't rolled an Eldritch Storm for Eldrad and he was pretty much a support Farseer this game (damn you random tables), but I reckoned seeing as I had first turn I'd be able to do some damage to start with, I used Eldrads Redirection power to move the Wraithknight closer to the large scary missile on the right corner of the table and he would be going right for it....

Only for something like the third consecutive game, the initiative was stolen from me and I lost first turn again. This turned out bad, as my Guardians being in the open and without the benefit of a Stealth or Shrouded got ripped apart, I was hoping to have them move up the table and wreck face as the high scoring objectives were on my opponents side and if we just held our own I would have lost there and then.

On the plus side, nothing else got hurt, then I started, proceeding to cast Conceal on my two Guardian squads, where one was cast, and the other Warlock lost himself to Perils of the Warp. Well, my Guardians just weren't meant to live were they? Eldrad did Eldrad things, casting Fortune on the Wraithknight along with Guide and Doomed the blob squad, managing to regain a few warp charge points along the way. The Wraithknight took aim at the Hellstrike missile, hit and penetrated on a 5 and 6 and it obliterated itself, happy days. The Wave Serpent moved up and shot at the blob squad, rolling really poorly with the Twin linked Scatter Lasers then only managing to roll 3 hits with the serpent sheild, but at least they were pinned (I thought).

That was until I ended my turn and the Imperial Guard issued an order to get them back up without penalty (WTF?) and the Wave Serpent was obliterated. Although the following 66 shots into the Wraithguard only lead to one of them dying (3+ just isn't my friend ), it struck me that they weren't that invincible and I was only shooting at them 4 times a turn now, I'd basically hamstrung myself by deploying them there, if they were D-Scythes that would be a different matter. Marbo deep striked into the building that I was in with my Guardians and dropped a template to kill them, but ended up slinging it half way across the board.

As the game progressed, I took out Marbo with the Guardians, and used the remaining number to hold my objectives. The Wraithknight took out the artillery tank at the other corner and took no wounds thanks to the Fortune armour save rerolls, Eldrad managed to cast every spell he had and regained every warp charge (on a 5+ I could use that rolling for armour saves), but whenever he went for a Mind War he rolled a 1 and instantly lost, probably balancing the force or something.

I ended up losing this game because I couldn't deny the high scoring objectives that stacked on the other side of the board, and a Guard player playing defensive is hard to shift. But saying that, it was obvious I had nothing to deal with large blob units, with that in mind I'm making a few changes to the list for the next game.

Eldrad will be dropped, it pains me to do it, but I'll replace him with a Spiritseer that gives the bonus of making the Wraithguard troops for more scoring and also taking a Fire Prism with Spirit Stones to give me the much needed blast template and the spirit stones will hopefully protect my ability to fire the weapon if it gets targeted.

Maybe one day I'll get that elusive victory, but until then I've still got a lot to paint.