Battle Report, Slow Grow League Week 9: 1,000 pts vs Space Marines

I've decided to take a break from the Dark Sphere slow grow league - I was definitely having fun, but a weekly game commitment can be exhausting on top of a busy job. Thank you to everyone I've played, and a massive thank you to the Commissar for organising it.

My opponent was the nice chap from "Dakka on Bakka" who played Space Marines, and had provided my only victory. So he was certainly keen for his Marines to redeem their honour. With the smaller game, he was still running scouts, Tigurius, an Aegis line and a Thunderfire Cannon. The flyers (which I hadn't actually faced in person anyway) were out, and a small squad of Legion of the Damned were in.

We rolled lengthways deployment and Purge the Alien (AKA Kill Points). I lost and had to deploy first, deploying pretty conservatively to protect against scores of scouts ending up behind me and murdering me to death, and deep striking Legion with a multi melta.

I decided after deployment I should rush the Chimera up the field, then failed to get the screening unit out the way, and thought it would be a bright idea to rush through the woods. This was, in fact, a terrible plan, because it got stuck there. Meanwhile, the Thunderfire Cannon was blowing massive holes out of my infantry.

Tigurius fried his own brain two turns in a row, passing a leadership test to avoid being dragged into the warp one turn, and forgetting one of his powers the next.

Some scouts outflanked and blew the immobilised Chimera to pieces.

The Legion of the Damned tried to turn up here and botched, entering ongoing reserves.

The command squad scrambled into the ruins away from their wrecked Chimera.

The psyker successfully cast the brutal telekinetic death storm, taking a wound in the process from the Perils of the Warp. The Scouts failed to deny the witch, and then the psyker missed and the brutal death storm deviated off the table.

The Commissar Lord, down to a single wound, had tried to make a break for the safety of the fortification, but hadn't quite managed to reach the door when the Legion of the Damned arrived to punish him for his cowardice.

The start of the Marine shooting phase...

The end of the Marine shooting phase...

The conscripts, perhaps unsurprisingly, decide enough is enough and make a break for it.

The regular troops, however, are made of sterner stuff and make a concerted effort to murder some Marine Scouts.

The Legion, having killed the cowardly Commissar Lord, demolished the bunker he'd sought to take shelter in, showing that there was no hiding from the vengeance of the Emperor.

The veterans climbed onto the wrecked battlements and hurled a demolition charge and unleashed hell, but only a single Legionnaire was felled. Clearly some sort of supernatural force was protecting these ghostly warriors.

With so many Guardsmen dead, some of the Scouts decided to go for a gentle amble out from behind their wall to try and get a few more guns into range.

A battle cannon shell from across the field reminded the scouts why sitting about in the open, even against a mostly destroyed Guard force, is a daft idea.

Eventually, a single Scout was left, and he made a break for the ruins.

The Legion of the Damned tried to take out the only survivor of the Guard - the Leman Russ battle tank, but to no avail! It's armour held true.

I failed to rack up a single kill point as the Scout in the ruins passed his cover save. I was incredibly amused when I then took a closer look at him after the battle...