Warhammer 30k Test Game - 2k IW vs EC

Did a quick game to see how things flow in vassal and make sure I have a handle on 30k rules!

Step 1: Choose Armies

2k Emperors Children Legiones Hereticus List

Centurion Esoterist
Centurion Champion with jump pack, warp scream
7 Palatine Blades with Phoenix Sabers, warp scream
Dreadnought with multi melta, hand-mounted flamer
Dreadnought with multi melta, hand-mounted bolter
15 man tactical squad with chainswords, vexilla, and serge with artificer armour and phoenix spear
10 man assault squad with 2 power axes and serge with artificer armour, phoenix spear, and warp scream
10 man scout squad with 1 shotgun, 9 BP/CCW, serge with phoenix spear and sublingual glands
20 man lesser daemon squad
1 Javelin Land Speeder with lascannons and multi melta
2 pod Deathstorm Rocket Pod squadron

2k Iron Warriors 'Recon' List

Warsmith with combi melta, grav mace, and charnabal blade
+Retinue: 5 tartaros terminators with 3 power fists, 2 double claw, grenade harness
+Transport: Land Raider Proteus with hull mounted heavy flamer
Techmarine Covenant: one with signum, one barebones
10 man tactical squad with vox and vexilla, and serge with combi flamer
+Transport: Rhino with searchlight, shrapnel cannon, dozer blade
10 man tactical squad with vox and vexilla, and serge with power fist and hand flamer
+Transport: Rhino with searchlight, shrapnel cannon, dozer blade
10 man recon with scanner, vox, and vexilla, 5 snipers and 5 shrapnel bolters
+Transport: Rhino with searchlight, shrapnel cannon, dozer blade
10 man recon squad with shotguns, and serge with power sword
+Transport: Rhino with searchlight, shrapnel cannon, dozer blade
Squad of 2 vindicators with dozer blades
Oldschool whirlwind with dozer blade

Step 2: Select mission and deployment map

Mission: 1d6 roll = 5 = Take and Hold (Each player places 1 objective in opponents half)

Map: 1d6 roll = 2 = Hammer and Anvil (Long table)

Terrain - picked first then placed 
2 10x10 non-los blocking: Pond + Rubble

2 6x6 'specific' area terrain: Craters + Trees

6 4x4 buildings/ruins terrain: 1x impassible big rock formations, 2x ruins, 3x impassible big buildings

Iron Warriors win roll to place first piece.  They end up moving a building out of the centre of the table, and then the EC move another building back in its place.  In the end the table looks like this:

Before the mission starts, EC declare they are going to keep the daemons and deathstorm pods in reserve.  IW keep nothing in reserves.

Strategic Advantage: Playing this as if Recon Company RoW gives IW a reroll here.  IW win even without the reroll and elect to go first and have night fighting on the first turn.  Objectives are placed, armies are deployed, and EC don't steal the initiative. 
Note - Augury Scanners are actually really nice to stop the scouts from infiltrating near the bulk of IW forces.

Iron Warriors Turn 1
Initial focus is on taking care of the scouts before they are a problem for the tactical squad!  Luckily, no vehicles are immobilized moving into the pond.  Combined fire from several units brings the scout unit down to one model, with the recon snipers taking out the sergeant but a big boost in survivability due to the EC's faction reaction.  IW also pushed up and took out 4 assault squad marines, but failed to wound either dreadnought.  One Dread returns fire but doesn't scratch the land raider.  The scout and assault marines are now stupefied, and as such do not need to take leadership or pinning tests.  Iron Warriors score 1 point with their objective.

Highlights -- Wow that new Emperor's Children reaction is effective.  The scouts took a tonne of fire.  Being able to snipe out the sergeant with the recon squad was also cool.

Emperor's Children Turn 1
The Emperor's Children fight back, taking some hull points off the land raider and a vindicator with their shooting.  The shotgun squad retreated to their rhino, so the assault marines charged it and wrecked it.  Unfortunately, the land speeder, both dreadnaughts, and palatine blades didn't land their charges, and the lone scout died to an overwatch reaction.  The deamonettes were summoned in and wrecked a second rhino, getting ready to charge into the wall of tactical marines.  Due to the penetrating hits, both the Retinue and the Shotgun Recon squad failed their morale checks and can only snapfire next turn.  The Emperor's Children score one point at the end of the turn, and night fight ends.
Highlights -- Using the movement reaction to pile into a rhino feels pretty nice, but if the enemy charges and destroys the rhino then it really only saves you one turn.  Nice for a good shooting unit but it turns out not to have mattered too much with the shotguns.  Also, the demon summoning psychic power has good reach.  Getting them out on the first turn for a charge is ideal.

Iron Warriors Turn 2

The iron warriors unleash fire upon the deamonettes, killing most of them.  The rhino manages to do a wound to the palatine blades, stupefying them.  The land raider manages to take a wound off the closer contemptor and two off the landspeeder, and the retinue surges out to fight the dreadnought.  The vindicators and snipers work together to finish off the land speeder.  The whirlwind also tried to contribute, but tragically scattered the shot onto the retinue, dealing 3 wounds to them!  The shotguns repositioned and fired ineffectually at the assault marines.  The Retinue barely made their charge into the dreadnought.  They lost one member but managed to reduce it to a single remaining wound.  The Iron Warriors score 1 point.
Highlights -- I can't believe the whirlwind killed a terminator and a half!  The first scatter roll was bad and the reroll from the vox was even worse.  It was nice to see that my anti-dreadnought HQ squad does the trick though. Deamons were pretty easy to kill despite their toughness 5 on early turns, it's a good thing the Iron Warriors have a lot of anti-infantry fire on that side of the board.

Emperor's Children Turn 2

I didn't realize deathstorm rocketpods come in on turn 1?!?  So they come in now and plink away at stuff.  The snipers get a lucky weapon destroyed on one of them with their free interceptor reaction, but the survivor pins that squad in return.  A contemptor also wrecks the wounded vindicator with shooting, then it is time for charges.  The deamonettes are shredded by overwatch, leaving only one survivor who failed its charge.  The palatine blades destroyed a tactical squad, the retinue finished off their dreadnought, the other dread rolled bad and only did 1 hull point to Crew Stun the remaining vindicator, and the assault squad destroyed the shotgun recon marines.  The Emperors Children get 3 points, as the deamonette's failed charge brought it just into range of the objective!

Highlights -- Deathstorm rockets are cool, interceptor reactions are a bit lame.  Palatine Blades are absurdly strong with warp scream, getting 14 auto-hit strength 5 rending 5+ rolls at ini10 pretty much won the combat before it started.  The assault marines were also quite strong, with their phoenix spear holding sergeant handily winning a dual against a non-2+ opposing sergeant.  The contemptor bouncing off a vindicator was pretty funny.

Iron Warriors Turn 3

It's bad.  The land raider and vindicator fail to wound the remaining dreadnought.  Even with its reroll the whirlwind misses the bunched up assault marines.  The retinue loses all its terminators due to overwatch, so the Warsmith only kills 2 marines before dying in combat.  At least the rhinos killed the remaining demonette.
Highlights -- Not much!  That overwatch reaction from the tactical squad into the Retinue was brutal, leaving only the Warsmith with a single wound.  The fact that the whirlwind did 3 wounds to the terminators earlier pretty much sealed the game at this point, as the Iron Warriors needed to be able to score both objectives to catch up.

Emperor's Children Turn 3

Combat is very successful.  All that is left is the stunned land raider and a tactical squad.  The deathwind pod once again pinned the recon marines.  They used the iron warriors special reaction to shoot back, killing the one drop pod but losing enough models to the 'gets hot' rule that they had to flee.  EC score another point.

Highlights -- Wow, the deathstorm pinning the recon squad twice in a row was pretty brutal.  Iron Warriors had really bad leadership rolls in this game, only passing 1 of the 5 tests they needed.  Having units in transports means you need a lot of extra psuedo-pinning tests when those transports get targeted.

Iron Warriors Turn 4

Tactical squad moves a little so it can technically score, then opens up with a desperate fury of the legion on the palatine blades.  The blades evade just in case, but still take a wound and are stupefied.  The land raider fires at the librarian and the dreadnought, missing the former and doing 1 wound to the latter.  That's the turn.

Highlights -- That stupefied rule really takes the sting out of all of the pinning/leadership tests this Iron Warriors army wants to force.  Being forced to snapfire is pretty rough, but can be balanced out without too much issue by smart list building choices.

Emperor's Children Turn 4 is not needed, they just take the 1VP for their objective.

Final Score:

Iron Warriors held for 2 turns, and get First Blood due to the scout dying during EC turn 1 for a total of 3VP.

Emperor's Children held one objective for 3 turns and both objectives on 1turn, and they Slayed the Warlord and had Last Man Standing, for a total of 8VP.

Takeaways: Not sure on the amount of terrain, but deploying on the short edge is a bit odd so that might just be how it goes.  Iron Warriors list had a bit of bad luck at some critical points, and deathstorm drop pods are as cool as I thought they would be.  Palatine Blades with warp scream are also hilarious, and the scouts did a good job of soaking up fire on turn 1.