Warhammer 30k 3e - Iron Warriors vs Blood Angels

 

The Lists

The newest incarnation of my Iron Warriors army list features the inductii as a much more reasonably priced way for me to get a squad of shotguns on the table.  Aside from that, the other main difference from the list featured previously is that I'm up to 4 rhinos and one of the tactical squads was replaced with a small melta support squad.

Pitted against the Iron Warriors today is my 'war crimes from the skies' Blood Angels list.  These guys take advantage of the master of descent's ability to guarantee a first turn deep strike, letting the inferno pistol squads get in reliably on the back armour of vehicles.

Deployment

This battle is my first time trying the Take and Hold mission.  This mission features two objectives that start the game worth 3 points each, but their value goes down each time they are scored.  Placing these objectives in the center of the board seemed necessary to keep the game from being super swingy with the Hammer and Anvil deployment zones.  Iron Warriors lost the roll, so they deployed first and will be taking the first turn.  Blood Angels have the following units in reserves:

- Veteran Assault Squad with Master of Descent

- Veteran Assault Squad #2

- Veteran Heavy Support Squad in Drop Pod

- Xiphon Interceptor

Blood Angels have deployed their larger tactical squad and the big assault squad with the praetor to go for the top objective.  In the center they have the vindicators, the rapier squads, and the leviathan.  The bottom of the board has the smaller tactical squad in a rhino alongside the veteran tactical squad.  

Iron Warriors have their sniper recon squad deployed in front of the inductii rhino.  Dreads, vindicators, and the retinue in the landraider hold the center of the board, with the melta squad and a tactical squad with a centurion in rhinos behind them.  The whirlwind is sitting at the back of the board.  The bottom ruins have the augur command and control squad joined by the vigilator, with the other tactical squad and librarian in a rhino behind them.

Blood Angels fail to seize the initiative, so Iron Warriors start turn 1.

Iron Warriors Turn 1

This was a fairly ineffectual first turn.  The smoke launchers on the vindicator and leviathan worked very well and kept either of them from taking any damage.  The large tactical squad did get pinned, and two of the heavy bolter rapiers were killed a scattering demolisher cannon shell, stunning the rest of the unit.  The other demolisher shell scattered off to the rhino, taking 3 hull points off it.

The Iron Warriors did manage to score both objectives, getting a cool 9 points to start the game.

Blood Angels Turn 1

The Blood Angels strike back hard!  The big assault squad chased the inductii back into their rhino and then charged it and blew it up.  I didn't catch this until after I took the screenshot, but the pinned tactical squad were able to use their vox to shake the pinned status and rush onto that objective.

The Vindicators were able to kill the land raider and pin the warsmith's retinue.  Statuses from the rapiers and leviathan made it so they iron warriors couldn't contest the bottom objective, letting the tactical squad score on it. 

The reserve units were not that effective.  The xiphon did a single wound to the deredeo, and the first deep striking veteran squad managed a penetrating hit, a stun, and a pin on the whirlwind.  Luckily, both were able to deploy in such a way that the deredeo couldn't shoot them on arrival. 

With two 4 point objectives and the two points from First Strike, the Blood Angels take the lead with 10 points.  (This is marked as 12 points on the scoreboard below because I gave some extra points before catching this later.)

Iron Warriors Turn 2

Things got a bit scrappy on this turn.  At the top of the board, the inductii swung around to shoot and charge the tactical squad.  The Blood Angels tacticals did have an opportunity to exchange fire with the recon snipers, wiping them out before getting pinned and stunned by all the incoming fire.  The Blood Angels didn't do as well in combat, with no models dying and both squads getting locked in combat.  Also luckily, the vigilator made an across-the-table sniper shot to pin the large assault squad.

In the backline, the melta squad disembarked and shot down all of the inferno pistol veterans, leaving the master of descent alive.  In front of them, the vindicators were able to take out the quad-mortar rapiers and one of the heavy bolter rapiers.  

At the bottom of the table, the librarian's telepathy abilities pushed the enemy tactical squad off the objective.  The rest of the units split fire between the tacticals and the veterans.  The contemptor's gravis plasma cannon shot clipped the rhino, finishing it off.  

The tactical squad with the librarian were not able to shake their status at the end of the turn, so the Iron Warriors only got a single victory point there due to the dreadnought.  This ties the game up at 10 points a piece.

Blood Angels Turn 2

With the large assault squad pinned at the top of the table, there was only the one combat left to resolve up there.  The inductii won the battle, which surprisingly caused the tactical squad to fall back all the way off the table.

In the centre of the board, the Blood Angels vindicators managed to take out one of the Iron Warriors vindicators but the other was saved by smoke launchers.  The leviathan and heavy bolter rapier both pushed up, getting some more damage on the enemy infantry.  This ended up stunning pinning one tactical squad and causing the other to route off the objective.  

The tactical squad regrouped with their vox and charged the enemy rhino, pinning it with a glancing it.  The veteran tactical squad have also continued to shoot, but their disintegrator rifles haven't really done much worth writing about.  Since it couldn't move, the rhino died to the Blood Angels tactical squad in the second round of combat.

Behind enemy lines, the xiphon came in but was shot down by the deredeo.  The second veteran squad came on automatically because the master of descent was still alive, but their shooting really didn't do much to the terminator squad.  The master of descent looped around the whirlwind before charging it, but his krak grenade didn't get the job done.

The assault squad managed to shake their pinned status, scoring the final objective point of the game.  The Blood Angels now have a one point lead with their 11 victory points.

Iron Warriors Turn 3

At this point of the game the priority has fully shifted to winning the secondary objectives.  The warsmith's unit is finally able to move, and when they pushed up the center of the table the large assault squad reacted to move away.  A decent amount of fire was focused into that assault squad, killing nearly half of them.  The surviving vindicator swung back to try to take out the veteran assault squad but missed his shot.  The melta squad had some bad rolls and only killed one of them.  Then the tactical squad behind the deredeo shot them, triggering the Blood Angels advanced reaction.  This let the still mostly unharmed unit fly down towards the bottom of the board, threating some nasty repercussions for the next turn.

In the centre of the board, the warsmith's unit attempted a charge on the leviathan that did not go very well.  Three terminators were killed between the volley fire and the close combat damage, and only two wounds were dealt to the leviathan.  Luckily the warsmith passed his leadership check so that combat will continue next turn.

At the bottom of the board, concentrated fire and a contemptor charge finished off the veteran squad.  The Blood Angels tactical squad was pinned by shrapnel cannon fire.  The librarian and tactical squad sergeant did manage to regroup at the end of the turn.

No points were scored this turn.

Blood Angels Turn 3

The final reserves unit automatically came in due to the master of descent still being alive.  The heavy flamer squad reduced the inductii to 3 men, causing them to route.  In the backline, the master of descent continued to ineffectually try to beat up tanks with his faulty krak grenades.  The surviving veteran assault squad attempted a charge on the tactical squad but lost the combat and were routed.

Back to the center of the board, the vindicators took out the deredeo and have now established complete dominance.  The rapier heavy bolter fired at the augury c&c squad, but the return fire from the vigilator sniped the big gun.  The other rapier crew has hidden behind the ruins to try to preserve units for Last Man Standing.  The Assault Squad charged in to help the leviathan out, but that combat didn't go very well for the Blood Angels.  The praetor lost the challenge to the warsmith, and not much else died.  The leviathan broke and routed, but the assault squad stayed to fight.

No points were scored this turn.

Iron Warriors Turn 4

At the top of the board, the vindicator turned his gun on the veteran heavy support squad and killed three of them.  The inductii fell back and regrouped at the end of the turn.  The melta squad and rhino weren't able to kill the master of descent.  The Whirlwind tried to lob a shot at the enemy vindicator, but missed.  

The warsmith's unit routed the assault squad in the middle of the table, pursuing them to continue the combat.

At the bottom of the board, the Iron Warriors tried to finish off the blood angels tactical squad but one of them survived.

No points were scored this turn.

Blood Angels Turn 4

The Blood Angels needed to get Last Man Standing to win the game, but weren't able to get there.  The heavy flamer veteran wasn't quite able to finish off the inductii.  The master of descent got a charge off against the melta squad and caused them to route.  The assault squad lost another round of combat and continued routing, but were able to regroup at the end of the turn.  The vindicators and the large rapier crew focused fire on the augur c&c squad, killing them all and routing the vigilator.  Finally, at the bottom of the board the leviathan charged the contemptor.  It wasn't able to prevent the death of the final tactical marine, and didn't quite manage to finish off the enemy dreadnought.

With that, Iron Warriors are able to get the bonus points for Last Man Standing, with 13 units to the Blood Angels' 9.  Iron Warriors then win the game with 16 victory points!

Conclusions

This was another dramatic and fun game.  I quite liked the mission, having the objectives in the center of the board gave a great reason for the armies to push towards each other and it was cool how the game changed once the objectives went away.  I do worry that if the objectives were placed back in the deployment zones it would make for a much more static battle.

The Blood Angels list mostly worked ok, but there were a couple of units that were underwhelming.  The disintegrator rifles were fairly useless, and I think that veteran squad would have been much more effective as a different unit.  The inferno pistols being damage 1 was also fairly limiting.  Having small squads meant they were able to drop in behind terrain and avoid reaction fire, but it did limit their effectiveness quite a bit.  They might be better as a single 10 man unit instead of two 5 man units.  On the plus side, the leviathan with assault cannons was very nasty.  It's shooting was very effective, and the extra toughness and wounds over a contemptor made it very survivable.  The rapiers and vindicators were also a very effective fire base.

I think the Blood Angels had a real shot at winning this game if their rolls had went slightly better in turn 3.  The warsmith was a single invulnerable save away from death in the challenge against the praetor, and the veteran assault squad losing combat to a tactical squad (with a centurion) was fairly unlucky.  

One thing that surprised me about the Iron Warriors list is how nice it is to have the techmarines tanking wounds with their 2+ armour saves.  I didn't point it out much in the report above, but having techmarines or characters in three of my squads meant that they were surprisingly resilient to shooting.

Overall, this was a great game.  With this, I've now done solo runs of each of the three missions from the main rule book, each with a different deployment style.  I'm now quite convinced that the terrain and objectives should be set up to match the deployment zones, but aside from that I think the missions are very good.  Four turns continues to feel like a very good spot for mission length.

Warhammer 30k 3e - Sons of Horus vs Iron Warriors

With the dawn of a new edition it's time for some more practice games on Vassal!  Today's matchup is actually the second practice game after a one sided stomp with these same deployment and mission but a slightly different list for the Iron Warriors.

The Lists

The Sons of Horus army list was taken from this Bearfoot Miniatures battle report - (Link to Video)

The Iron Warriors list is my 2nd attempt to figure out how to convert my army to third edition.  This battle is my first time trying the Deredeo Dreadnought and I was excited to see how it would fare against the Fire Raptor Gunship.

Deployment

I did want to run back the previous test battle I did but with more terrain this time, so the map was set up already knowing that it would be Dawn of War deployment and the Crucible of War mission with 4 objectives.  Iron warriors won the roll and placed the first objective, so Sons of Horus got to make a cluster of objectives on the left hand side that their massive combat units would hopefully be able to control.

The Sons of Horus set up wide firing lines with their Laser Destroyer Vindicators, but the Iron Warriors were able to deploy fairly safely and minimize the amount of exposure.  
In case it isn't clear, the Demon Prince is subbing in for Horus Luprecal here, the inflitrated squad on the right hand side is a squad of recon marines with shotguns and a melta bomb, and any iron warriors with autocannons actually have sniper rifles.
The Sons of Horus Centurion is with a tactical squad in their Rhino on the left side, and the Optae is with an identical tactical squad in the Rhino on the right of the Javelins.

The Iron Warriors Librarian is in the Rhino at the bottom left with the a tactical squad, the Praetor is in the Land Raider with the retinue, the Vigilator is with the Augur CNC squad, and the Centurion is in the Rhino on the right hand side with the prime tactical squad.  The central Rhino contains the melta Support squad.

The Iron Warriors failed to Seize the Initiative, so it's on to Turn 1.

Sons of Horus Turn 1

With Reserves now coming in on a 3+ on Turn 1, the Fire Raptor (represented here by a Helldrake) is able to join in right away!  The Deredeo's got a free intercept reaction from the Augury CNC squad but failed to stop the plane, so it was able to suppress and kill some tactical marines with its Avenger Boltgun battery.  The rest of the marines advanced forward, taking advantage of the extra 1" of movement given by Horus on the first turn of the game.  The Land Raider popped smoke and was ok getting shot by the left-flank laser destroyer, and the central laser destroyer managed to take 3 wounds off the Deredeo.  On the right hand side the tactical marines and Javelins wiped out the infiltrated Expendable recon squad.  The laser destroyer on the right hand side didn't move, as it seemed better to keep it back as a counter punch once the transports moved up.

The Sons of Horus were able to claim 3 objectives, getting four points from each of them thanks to the tactical squads having Line(2).  They also achieved First Strike by killing the recon squad, but that was reduced to 3 victory points due to The Unfavoured giving the recon marines Expendable(1).

As per the new flier rules, the Fire Raptor gunship flew away as the turn ended.

Iron Warriors Turn 1

The Iron Warriors struck back with a vengeance!  The first order of business was to shake of the Suppressed status on the tactical squad using their vox.  In the movement phase all four transports were able to unload their cargo, with the Javelins spending a reaction to back away and avoid the melta squad.  Shooting went fairly well, getting the left-most tactical squad down to two models, pinning the central squad (via Vigilator sniping), and stunning the rightmost squad (due to the Centurion's shotgun).  In another bit of luck, the Fear from the Librarian meant that the Vindicator was able to stun the Leviathan.  Finally, the Land Raider getting to split fire worked out fairly nicely, stunning a rhino with its left lascannons and taking a wound off a Javelin with its right ones.

In combat the Praetor handily destroyed the Leviathan with his Graviton Crusher.  The resulting explosion killed the last two tactical marines, which meant the squad was able to consolidate forward and claim the objective.  The tactical marines on the right made a disordered charge after disembarking from their landraider. Their Centurion easily defeated the Optae in a duel, but the half of the Sons of Horus tactical squad survived and were able to safely withdraw from combat.  

Withdraw seems like a very powerful option now.  The tactical squad couldn't really pursue as it would risk giving up the objective, but that left them open to be shot at next turn.

The Iron Warriors able to claim three objectives, and two of those were claimed with line units.  They also got the full 4 points for First Strike.  I had initially only counted 1 victory point for the Retinue claiming their objective, but they don't have Vanguard so they get the full allotment of 2 points.

Sons of Horus Turn 2

The right hand tactical squad shook off the Stun status with their vox.  The difficulty of the Flier's reserves roll goes up by one every turn that it tries to come back, but this time it was successful and came in outside of the Deredeo's range.  I had it do a Strafing mission instead of a Strike mission, and the autocannon sponsons each managed to damage and pin a separate Rhino while the Avenger battery shot up the tactical squad.  With the whole flank collapsing on them, the tactical squad was eventually killed giving the Sons of Horus another objective with a Line squadron. 

Horus split off from his slow moving retinue to try to secure the left flank, gunning down several of the tactical marines that were behind the Land raider.  The Iron Warriors Retinue used a movement reaction to run away from the Primarch.  The Laser Destroyers also had an effective turn, weakening the Land Raider and taking out the central Vindicator.  The finishing blow to the Land Raider was actually done by the multi-melta rhino, which tried to run over some terminators and then succesfully landed a snapshot to take off 6 hull points.

The Sons of Horus were able to claim 3 objectives, getting four points for the side objectives but only one point for the central objective since their tactical squad was pinned and the Justaerins are a Vanguard unit.  That tactical squad then passed its leadership test to fix its pinned Status, and the Rhino passed its repair roll to remove its Suppressed status.

Iron Warriors Turn 2

On the left flank, the Praetor left his retinue to go deal with a Vindicator, killing it in combat and consolidating back over.  Shooting got the Sons of Horus squad on the left objective to break and flee, and the Retinue was able to charge them and finish them off.  The Contemptor avenged the land raider by crushing the Rhino with its fist.  The central Sons of Horus tactical squad was also very weakened by the Iron Warriors' gunfire, getting pinned and breaking.  Note that units fleeing due to shooting actually only move in their own movement phase, so he's still sitting on the objective there.  Finally, the melta guns and Rhinos were able to finish off the tactical squad on the right flank, and the Deredeo took the first wound off of Horus.

The Iron Warriors the bottom objective with a lone Tactical marine and the top objective with the Retinue for an additional 6 victory points this turn.  Once again I had forgot to give the Retinue their full score, but this is corrected in the screenshot above.

Sons of Horus Turn 3

The Gunship now needs a 5+ to come in from Aerial Reserves and isn't able to make it in for the rest of the game.  Horus needs to stop the Iron Warriors from scoring, so he advances down the left flank and guns down the lone tactical marine before charging into the 10 man tactical squad.  He destroys the Librarian in a gruesome duel, but stays a bit more central rather than fully perusing the squad.  The surviving tank hunters get the Augury CNC squad and the Whirlwind to pop smoke but are unable to kill them.  The Justaerin however were able to destroy the melta gunners and fully win the right flank for the Sons of Horus.  Finally, the lone central tactical marine passed his test to rally but failed to shake his Pinned status.

The Justaerin were the only unit to score this turn, bringing the Sons of Horus up to 25VP.

Iron Warriors Turn 3

This turn all of the effort goes into killing Horus.  Shooting brings him down to one wound, but disaster strikes and the Contemptor gets a double 1 on his charge distance.  Horus is able to kill the Praetor and most of the Retinue after using the Sons of Horus reaction to reject an opportunity to duel a lesser opponent.  The retinue broke but Horus was able to pursue them.  On the bright side, the fleeing tactical marines were able to rally at the end of the turn.

Oh, also the Scorpius nuked the last surviving Sons of Horus tactical marine.

The Iron Warriors weren't able to score any points here, but the Sons of Horus get 2 for Slaying the Warlord.  (I originally had this as 4 points, so now both scorecards in the screenshot have corrected values).

Sons of Horus Turn 4

In their final turn the Sons of Horus were not able to finish off the tactical squad.  Horus did kill the last retinue model and stay on the objective, so the Sons of Horus scored three more points.

Iron Warriors Turn 4

In a hilarious turn of events, the Rhino on the left flank ran Horus over and hilled him.  This meant the last surviving tactical marine could rush on to the objective, and the Contemptor could rush up the claim one as well.  So with 6 points from objectives, 2 points from Giant Killer, and 2 from Last Man Standing the Iron Warriors are able to tie the game.

Conclusions

That was a really fun game!  Horus was really scary, but the fact that the tactical squad was pinned on turn two meant his MV6 Heavy Justaerin bodyguard couldn't follow him and were relegated to being a fairly over-costed unit to sit on that objective.  The Deredeo's autocannons also seemed quite strong and presented a real threat to the Fire Raptor Gunship.  

Having enough terrain and a good plan to exploit the 36" range of the laser destroyers was also key, as their impact on the first turn was quite minimal in this game.  

Calculating the Victory Points was a surprisingly error prone-process.  It might just be because it's new, but the fact that there are so many modifiers definitely caught me off guard.  I didn't realize the game was a tie until I finished writing this battle report and recalculated everything on a turn by turn basis.

Finally, the widespread access to statuses really made a difference for the Iron Warriors even though the Sons of Horus had boosted leadership across the board due to Horus giving all the tactical marines Prime and taking the Combat Veterans advantage.  Having snipers to remove Vox Operators seems like a solid plan for armies attempting to play the Status game.