Club Night 3rd July

Friday saw me playing another 40k, this time pitting my Eldar against Rick and Mike with a force of Imperial Guard.

With a Dawn of War deployment rolled, I placed a Storm Guardian squad and an Dire Avenger unit supported by a Farseer. Against this I found myself facing Commissar Yarrick, a veteran section in a Chimera and a platoon consisting of 5 squads and 3 heavy weapon squads. Already very out gunned!

Taking the first turn I immediately attempted to take the fight to the guard by running most of force on to the board and closing the range, relying on the cover of night to protect me. In response the Guard reinforced their positions with a Basilisk, Manticore and Leman Russ tank squadron. As my Scorpions infiltrated in to one flank, and the Jetbikes tried to gun down the heavy weapon squads on the other flank, my Wraithguard and Wraithlord fearlessly advanced toward the guns of the Imperial tanks.

But everything was going according to plan, assisted by lucky dice rolling, and the most appalling luck for my opponents I turned the flanks, used deep striking Warp Spiders with their S6 weaponry to fire into the flanks of the support vehicles and assaulted the command squad with my Storm Guardian squad, enhanced by a Warlock at the earliest opportunity to deny the enemy their orders.

A retaliatory deep strike by Imperial Storm troopers destroyed my Fire Dragons and my most potent anti tank weaponry, they paid dearly as the Avatar avenged the Aspect Warriors. However by now the supporting heavy weapons teams and artillery had been destroyed or driven back, the guard where being attacked by Dark reapers and the Avatar to their front and Swooping Hawks to the rear and my opponents could still only roil buckets of misses, so we called it an evening.

Despite their despondence, I still think the Guard have the potential to be a devastating force. I personally would not have taken Yarrick, but taken a Command squad and split my platoon in two. I probably also would not have bothered with the artillery against Eldar, there is too few of them and they are too spread out to hit them regularly enough to be worth while. However they think in defences they should be safe so a planet strike beckons!