Victory Pointless

A 40k Campaign Diary

Boarding Actions: Space Marines vs Leagues of Votann

Written by:

PJ
+++997.M41
+++The space hulk 'Tide of Heresy' has emerged from the warp in the Koruxis system.
+++Blood Angels strike frigate Mercy of Hate intercepting.
+++Squad Trevore of the 1st Company assigned to board and purge the vessel.  Chaplain Casto in command.  Librarian Avelli advising.
"Brother Chaplain, I sense we are not alone here.  Xenos... no, abhumans.  I feel their greed and averice.  They seek to plunder this cursed wreck."
"I do not trust your witch-sense, Avelli.  But if there are indeed scavengers on board we shall cleanse this ship of their folly.  Squad - advance!"

Forces

Space Marines – Shield of the Void: Chaplain in Terminator Armour, Librarian in Terminator Armour, 10 Terminators

Leagues of Votann – Void Salvagers: Kahl, 10 Hearthkyn Warriors, 3 Brokhyr Thunderkin, 5 Cthonian Berserks, 5 Einhyr Hearthguard

Mission

Power Struggle

Battle

Round 1
The marines push forwards slowly and cautiously, as do the Votann.  No contact yet.
Squad Franco moves forwards to take the closest objective.
The Kahl and his friends do similarly on the other side of the board.
Round 2
Squad Trevore teleports in behind enemy lines, but does negligible initial damage and fail to charge the Kahl.
The deep-striking terminators quickly find themselves greatly outnumbered and facing an angry squad of Hearthguard.
Round 3
The trap is sprung.  Squad Franco used an Overcharged Breach to blast a door off its hinges and take the Berserkers by surprise, gunning down four of them and surrounding the last one to pummel him to death with power fists before he could get a swing in.
Squad Trevore and the Hearthguard stalemate, reducing each other to three members each.
The marine push keeps the Votann tied up in their side of the board, while Librarian Avelli captures (and stickies) the centre objective.
The Thunderkin gun down two terminators.
The Kahl charges the remains of squad Trevore and kills two, but is himself cut down by the single remaining terminator, earning the name Brother Artorius.
Rounds 4 + 5
Chaplain Casto joins the battle but manages to strike down only a single Hearthkyn.  Meanwhile Brother Artorius continues his rampage, killing another Hearthguard before he is finally brought down.
Squad Franco brutally slaughter the other half of the Hearthkyn squad, seizing the objective.
Both forces are starting to look a little thin on the ground.
The Thunderkyn gun down two more terminators and charge in to attempt to finish off the last one in melee, however over the next two turns that single Terminator manages to fight back and wipe the squad.  His earned name: Brother Polus.
Meanwhile, Chaplain Casto and Librarian Avelli manage to kill three more Hearthkyn and one more Hearthguard, but are themselves both then taken down by the survivors, leaving brother Polus as the only marine on the board at the end of the game.

Final Result: Space Marine victory, 65 to 40

Post-mortem

  • This was my first game playing Space Marines since about 1997.  I feel distinctly more beige now, but rest assured I’m still a totally rad and cool xenos player at heart.
  • This was also my first ever game against Votann.  My opponent had to use the old index rules for them since GW never bothered to update their Boarding Actions detachments to work with the codex army rules.  I’m not sure how the new rules compare but I can’t say I’m sad to see grudge tokens replaced! 
  • We made a slight error during board set-up and missed out a door because the red line indicating a door overlayed the red square indicating a deployment zone and was therefore impossible to see.  Fantastic graphic design from GW there.  Fortunately we realised at the end of turn one that the layout should probably be symmetrical and were able to swap the wall out, but this is a note to myself to check this carefully next time.
  • My list was originally built for the Terminator Assault detachment, but I then realised that the same list was compatible with the brand new Shield of the Void detachment and switched to that instead at the last minute.  This detachment allows for a lot more flexibility, so probably this isn’t the list I’d have taken if I was starting from that point.
  • The detachment rule (overwatch on 5+, -1 to hit when Set to Defend) didn’t really come into play at all.  I was constantly on the offensive and had no time for defensive tactical maneuvers.  However, the stratagems proved very useful – in particular the one which granted fall back, shoot and charge, which gave me a significant advantage in the ongoing combats.
  • The other stratagem which proved key was Overcharged Breach, which allowed me to open a door at a distance, thereby being able to shoot and charge the Berserkers behind it rather than falling into engagement range with them (and likely getting clobbered with 3 damage axes).  With the chief melee threat of the Berserkers gone I was able to play more aggressively and keep the Votann bottled up on their side of the table.
  • My Librarian scored me a lot of points thanks to his enhancement allowing him to run around and sticky objectives, freeing up the two terminator squads to go fight stuff rather than sit on points.  However besides this neither of my characters really did that much.  This is perhaps predictable given the main point of each one is the unit buffs they bring and those don’t really work in Boarding Actions.  (Even the 6″ stratagem version wasn’t really an option since with only four units I needed to spread out as much as possible.)
  • I was expecting Oath of Moment to be quite overbearing in Boarding Actions, given the small unit count.  But in practice it’s fairly self-limiting since there’s not much opportunity to focus down one target.

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