Over the weekend I attended another 40k event, this one was a smaller one, playing combat patrols at 650 points. My list was pretty simple, seeing as I wasn’t really sure if we were going to be using the new space marine rules or not.
HQ
Astorath
Lemartes
Troops
Intercessor Squad
Elites
Sanguinary Guard x7
Sanguinary Ancient, Warlord, Artisan of War and Standard of Sacrifice.
Pretty straight forward list, I had opportunities to be plenty aggressive but for this event I really wanted to work on counter attacking with the sanguinary guard, since being hyper aggressive is good but you don’t have anything left to hold objectives in the late game.
Round 1, the mirror match, Blood Angels. This was a really good opportunity to put the plan of counter attacking into play. My opponent’s list was even more straight forward than mine with a Smash Captain, Intercessor Squad, 5 Sanguinary Guard and 8 or 9 Death Company marines. I deployed Sanguinary Guard and Characters all around on the left flank and had my intercessors on the back objective. I deployed Lemartes to where he could be picked out and too close to my front line, giving him the ability to turn one assault with his death company. Lemartes was picked off and a couple sanguinary guard went down too, standard of sacrifice was really clutch in these moments, however it does not improve Lemartes’ FNP. I cleaned up the squad, but saw his sanguinary guard and captain looking to sweep in a finish up the job. On my turn I just sat back a little bit more and prepared for his units coming in, luckily for me his captain did not make the charge and I cleaned up the sanguinary guard. From there it became an uphill battle for me as his Captain had the speed of the primarch, so I would have to have something to tank the hits, but I just couldn’t get through. In hindsight I think I should have charged him with everything I had, to force him to split up attacks. I think if I had done this I would have walked away with the win, but it was a very close game and I would love to play it again.
Round 2, Sisters of Battle. I have never played against the sisters since they received a new updated codex and models, and this was my opponent's first tournament. I deployed aggressively because I had to take out the Exorcist or it would have made quick work of my army. Luckily I got to go first and have Astorath and Lemartes run up and hide behind the cover, and on turn two I got Lemartes in a sister squad and Astorath made the charge into the Exorcist. Sanguinary guard advanced up the board and went into the other sister squad that was being babysat by Celestine, Greyfax and a Standard Bearer. At the end of the round all that remained was Celestine, because she just never goes away, I scored big on this round.
Round 3, Iron Warriors. This was a really fun and quick match, his list had a Master of Possession, Greater possessed, 10 Cultist, and two squads of 2 Obliterators. It was a really funky deployment where there is a little layover of the deployment zone to be right across from your opponent. I lost the roll to go first and it was an up-hill battle from there on out, obliterators with the Master of Possession is no joke. Spending command points to re-roll the stats on the Obliterator’s weapons is really strong, and adding +1 to the invulnerable save made them more of a pain to remove. However I didn’t lose too much from the first volley of shots, and I got a great counter punch with basically everything I had, Lemartes got Mantra of Strength off and wiped an obliterator squad, and the sanguinary guard, ancient and Astorath tied up the greater possessed, master of possession and another obliterator squad. However in the end there was just too much damage coming in to save the day, I really think this was a close match and was dependent on who goes first.
Which really brings up something that I have been wondering with all the games I play, going first is really strong especially if your army can hold the midfield for at least a turn or two. It forces your opponent to decide if they want to get some shots off and get behind in the primaries or are they going to head charge you in the middle, which some armies want. It’s a lot to consider when you are deploying, repositioning units are going to be really strong as you can deploy aggressively, then if you lose the roll to go first you can just deploy into a defensive position.
All in all I learned alot, and combat-patrol is a blast to play, the matches go by quicker and it still feels like you are playing a full game of 40k. I will be attending their next event in December this time it will be 2,000 points. Look forward to my new list being posted soon!
