Game 4 White Scars vs. Imperial Fists

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White Scars Army Version 2.0

Since the Space Marine White Scars release I have played plenty of games with the new rules, but with the new new Space Marine meta, most match ups have been against my fellow Marines…from a different brother. Many competitive players point out that White Scars are uniquely capable of dealing with other Space Marines, while this is true if you can get to turn 3, surviving until then is often a different matter. 

So with that in mind, I got a chance play my friend Adrian, with his new favorite army of the moment, Imperial Fists. Imperial Fists are one of the more shooty armies, so seeing if I could make it to the magical turn 3 with my Assault doctrine I felt would tell the tale of the game.

Adrian Michael Charles

Imperial Fists Supplement Army

TACTICALLY— As I said above, surviving to turn 3 was going to prove decisive, but what I could do to keep Adrian away from deployment zone would also be just as critical. Adrian list had sprinkle of everything good about Space Marines; Centurions, Eliminators, Dreadnoughts, Thunderfire Cannons. and he even has a baby Smash Captain thrown in for good measure. My hopes would come down to the mission forcing Adrian not to castle; if he has to spread out I might have chance to isolate portions of his army stay, and out of line of sight from others. Uncomfortably, half of Adrian’s army has ways of getting around line of sight…

PRE-GAME — I decided to return to my standard set up with, with units that can’t Deep Strike hiding in buildings and my Scout Bikers Outflanking. I planned to use my Snare Captain and Speeders to flank Adrian’s units, while waiting for reinforcements in the later turns to support. Since we were playing ITC Missions 5: Precious Cargo we didn’t know who was going first until the roll off, but luckily I had the fewer units so I would at least get the +1 to the roll off. More importantly, we got Dawn of War Deployment, thus forcing Adrian to spread out his forces. 

Turn 1 had me winning the roll off and Adrian unable to seize. I quickly moved up my Speeders as I knew I only had 1 turn to play with them; once Adrian decided to unload on them, with his Imperial Fist killing super doctrine. I hoped to tri-point his large Stalker Bolt rifle unit, I also sent in the Snare Captain who would tie up his Dreads (God willing) if I rolled 4+ the following player turn. I got off my charges with minimal damage, but my consolidations were a bit off with my Speeders and Adrian was able to free his Intercessors in his turn. The Snare Captain got Adrian’s Dreds, but only was able to keep one trapped for Adrian’s turn. Adrian in kind killed off the Speeders as expected and sent in Tor Garadon to kill the Snare Captain, but not before he was able to bring Garadon down to 2 wounds left. Adrian also sent his Smash Captain to take care of a Scout Squad sneakily camped on one of his deployment zone objectives.  

Turn 2 had me bringing in most of my fire power with the Scout Bikers and Bolter Inceptors. Unfortunately for Adrian he exposed Smash Captain and Tor, so I was able to Bolter both down and the Stalker Intercessors. Conversely, Adrian had me tied up in the center of the board as my Phobos Librarian and Intercessor Squad couldn’t handle his Infiltrators in Assault. On Adrian’s turn he took his time eliminating my Inceptors and the rest of my Scout Squads and I was able to whittle his Infiltrator Squad down, but still created an annoying bubble protecting the center of the board from my 3rd wave units. 

Turn 3 started out good for me as I was able to drop down my Plasma Interceptors and remove his Centurions from the board. My Intercessors were also proved their mettle by clearing Adrian’s remaining screens. Unfortunately my Assault phase didn’t prove very fruitful, while I was able to make my charges, I didn’t do much damage to the Adrian’s remaining Dreadnoughts. Adrian’s turn was starting to show real fruits of his repeated bombardments as his Eliminators and Thunderfire Cannons were really grinding down my army. I was pretty much left with only Characters and my Intercessors, and one lone MVP Plasma Inceptor. 

Turn 4 I brought my Characters to Adrian’s castle, along with my Intercessors, I was able to kill a few of his Eliminators and snipe out his Librarian with my lone Plasma Inceptor. In Assault my Chapter Master and Intercessors cleared out most of his remaining screen, but was left mightily exposed. Adrian fire power was still potent, killing my Intercessors and Chapter Master, leaving me with half my Characters and half my Scout Bikers. 

Turn 5 I brought the last of my Characters to his castle and my Scout bikers to tie up the Dreadnoughts. My Teeth of Terra Lieutenant went crazy and killed both Techmarine Gunners. My Chaplain couldn’t finish off Adrian remaining Intercessor Squad in kind was pummeled to death. On Adrian’s turn he did what would expect, by finished off my remaining characters and continued to whittled down my Scout bikers.

Turn 6 went fast as I had nothing to do, but to Hail Mary my Scout Bikers into a Dreadnought, which only ended up with them getting killed on my turn. This though proved oddly decisive to who won or loss the game. I still had one unit left camped on my objective to at least give me a point. 

When we finally added up the points I had a feeling I lost by a few, but as it turns out since my Scout Bikers died on my turn, Adrian was unable to get 1 point on his turn because of how ITC missions work. This lead us to a 26 to 26 tie! It was a great game where, in retrospect I should have held a few things back, and one where Adrian didn’t commit enough force when he had the chance in earlier rounds. The amount of grinding firepower Adrian’s list has was really demonstrated as the game went on, but I was amazed I was able to hold my own even though I was almost tabled!