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.
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.
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.
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.
