Battle Report: Astra Militarum vs Chaos Space Marines 2000pts

Got a game in today with my Imperial Guard, used an updated version of my old list to see how it would work with some of the new options.  Overall I was happy, definitely getting used to the new orders and going to a little while before I am making better decisions.  And having some more prescience would be nice, as I only brought one primaris psyker.  On to the report

We played 2000pts double force org.  I brought 5 vet squads, 4 with plasma and lascannons, one melta and heavy flamer squad in a valkyrie, and a 30 man blob platoon with command squad and demo special weapon squad in a vendetta.  I had creed with the full battle staff including the astropath and another command squad with master of ordnance.  I had a priest and a commissar as well to tag along.  I rolled draconian disciplinarian and the 18" order range for my warlord traits. 

He brought a nurgle army, with a single cultist squad and 5 Plague marine squads, a forge fiend with the big machine guns, three hell brute, two with autocannons and one with lascannon.  He had two predators with lascannons and heavy bolters and his lord had the burning brand and other usual cc gear(power axe).  He rolled fearless for his warlord, it was the command table out of BRB.  We got crusade for the mission and placed on in our deployment zones and then one just outside of our areas, he had one on the left and I had one on the right.  He won the roll off and deployed first, I failed to seize. 

First turn he moved his marines in rhinos up, his forge fiend and vehicles fired, only killed  a few guardsmen.  His cultists hid in a ruin near his objective.  Other than that it was a quite first turn, he went flat out with most of his rhinos to get them farther up.  My turn was equally minimal.  I shifted my platoon around their ruin to get some shots off.  Rest of my line held to receive the charge.  I ignored cover to kill his left most rhino, and then my platoon opened up and combined with some indirect shooting, I killed all but two of the plague marines.  Other than that though I knocked a hull point off of two rhinos.  My lascannons don't like glancing or penning.

Second turn he moves up to the aegis and disembarks two of his squads including the one with his warlord.  The 3rd squad disembarks to make its way around the ruin with the two survivors from the first plague marine squad to go after my blob. 

Here he does some damage, his commander with the burning brand and the rest of the plague marines kill my center veteran squad, his other knocks out about half of my right one.  Combined fire from his vehicles kill about four of my other center squad.  I have a nice pile of guardsmen stacking up. 

My turn my vendetta fails to come on, but my valkyrie comes in.  I move my platoon around to get some shots at his disembarked marines.  I try and shore up my line.  I unfortunately missed the other flamer in his squad near my blob which I pay for next turn as I had stacked them up quite nicely.  Always pay attention to what your opponent has and don't assume!  With my combined shooting I knock his right plague squad down to four and put a wound on his commander and knock the other squad down to 3.  His left most squad is peppered and I am able to kill 4 of them.  Luckily my masters of ordnance did well this game, though I did kill a couple of my own guys with scatter, hey it was danger close.   Valkyrie shoots at the cultists and forces them to ground, but they survive with  2+ cover save.

Turn 3 he moves into my lines to go after Creed, with his lord breaking off to go after him.  His lone flamer moves around and with some bolter fire he kills 12 of my blob, I really need to pay attention to that, thats what laziness costs me :p.  His vehicles focus on my valkyrie and he knocks two hull points off of it and locks its velocity.  He pot shots at my mortar squads and kills one team.  Next comes the inevitable charge.  His lord killed most of the command squad with his burning brand and rushes in to finish the job, Creed with his tactical genius has the astropath distract him by crying when the lord challenges him, then creed kicks him in the dick and shoots him back of the head while he is vomiting on the ground.  Yes Creed beat a chaos lord in CC :).  With his fists.  On his own.  Yeah.

The vet squad is charged by the plague squad that had been escorting the lord and manages to kill the final marine leaving only the champion.  He kills a few but not enough and the squad remains locked, draconian discipline is the shit!  The blob squad is charged, they each kill a few of each other, I knock them down to 4 marines total between two squads and he kills 4 of my guardsmen.

My turn, my vendetta fails to come on again, I like ones.  I kill two rhinos, and focus on trying to do damage on the forge fiend, but of course fail, tank hunters being no help.  I move around what I can.  My valkyrie just stays on the board, but my vet squad decides to jump right onto the cultists and die a horrible death.  The priest joins the combat with the blob and I prescience them as well, and with combined rerolls the plague marines are finished off.  The lone champion kills the last few vets and runs behind the aegis.  At this point things could go either way, he has killed quite a bit but is running low, both of us have had bad luck and it really hurt losing my vet squad to a bad drop.  On the bright side he only has 2 troops left and its up to his vehicles to carry the day, which have the fire power to do it if I don't get lucky. 

Turn 4 he moves his fiend up as well as his hell brutes in a bid to try and contest my objective.  His last plague marine squad hides inside some containers just close enough to an objective and his cultists remain in place.  His lone champion is left in the breeze, I think he forgot about him.  He shoots at my vet squads, but I go to ground and all saves are made.  Other than that his vehicles move around and his plan is to hold on to his objectives for a few more turns and try and contest my objective. 

My vendetta comes on and it does something useful in destroying the fiend, which my vets continue to fail with their lascannons, they need some serious retraining.  All the rhinos are killed and I destroy a lascannon on a predator.  My leftover blob moves around to be a speed bump for the hell brutes to keep my command squad on the objective.  Creed does something useful with his hot shot pistols and kills the lone champion.  At this point I am hoping to shift his cultists and keep his hell brutes away from my objective.  I can't hurt his plague squad hiding in the container, and do not have enough troops nearby to contest it.  Here's hoping I can drive his cultists off and get over the top with first blood and warlord.

Turn 5 he moves his helbrutes up to charge my blob, his predators try to line up more shots, and succeed in taking two hull points off my vendetta and locking its velocity as well.  He had not trouble rolling 6s to hit all game.  His hell brutes attempt to charge and thankfully one fails.  I knock one hull point off with krak grenades, and he kills two, but priest makes fearless so no one goes anywhere.

My valkyrie comes back on.  My vendetta moves straight forward and is luckily still in front of his predator.  Some of his cultists had moved out of cover to his objective and my valkyrie peppers them, kill 6 and they fail morale and run away!  I knock another hull point off the hell brute and he kills one guardsman.  At this point I still have one objective and he has one.  I have first blood and slay the warlord.  We roll to see if the games continues, nope its a 1.  victory to the Imperial Guard!

the marines are dead

So bad dice rolls all around!  But I still pulled out a win despite my useless lascannons.  I learned a lot more about the new army and need to work a lot more on using my new orders.  Tank hunters is nice, I read the rule wrong so wasn't using it right, but based on my rolling it wouldn't have done much.  I need more prescience, another psyker or two will help out a lot.  I am still a fan of valkyries and they get the job done, though I will have to be more careful when dropping troops.  Other wise my blob squad did very well and what I expected, it held its part of the line and bogged his assault down.

I am def going to try out some other armies, and my wyvern is waiting to get a battle in.  Other wise though the new guard is better than the old and a lot of fun to play with.  If I can only find a way to roll better, that would help out a lot.

GG