IG vs Salamanders - 1750pt list trial run

+++ TRANSMISSION BEGINS +++ 

--- INITIATING BATTLE PROTOCOLS ---

++ Acting officer Sgt. Naxos, in place of Lt. Proctus field report ++

Mission: Annihalation, Deployment: Dawn of War

Imperial guard force (slightly changed from my tourney force...):

Company Command Squad with 2x plasmagun, plasma pistol, power sword, vox and medipack

Veterans 3x melta gun, demolitions, chimera

Veterans 3x plasma gun and power sword, grenadiers, chimera

PCS with 3x flamer, officer with plasma pistol, power weapon and meltabombs, + 1 normal guardsman (ride in vendetta)

IS with autocannon, nade launcher vox and commissar with power sword and plasma pistol

IS with autocannon, nade launcher vox

IS with autocannon, nade launcher vox

Heavy weapon squad with missile launchers

Vendetta

Hellhound

Leman Russ Vanquisher with lascannon

Leman Russ Executioner with plasma sponsons 

Leman Russ Eradicator

Salamanders (with BA + ultra reinforcements ;)) :

Captain with power sword and storm bolter

Honour guard (3) with power weapons, and boltguns and a champion thrown in I think

Terminators (5) with assault cannon

Terminators (5) with assault cannon

Dreadnought with twin las and heavy flamer

Tactical Squad with missile launcher, meltagun and power fist in drop pod

Tactical Squad with missile launcher, meltagun in drop pod

Scout squad (8) 4 with snipers, 3 with boltguns and 1 with missile launcher

Land speeder with multimelta and typhoon missile

Land speeder with heavy bolter and typhoon missile

Land speeder with multi-melta and heavy bolter

We originally rolled for capture and control, spearhead but then decided to roll again cos we couldn't come to an agreement about another mission... Plan? He had rolled for turn 1 and to pick his side, and having deployed his scouts as far forward as possible (after some belated repositioning) and his command squad with captain in the corner, so I was left with 2 choices.

Choice 1: Refuse flank - probably in the bigger bunker on my half with my platoon starting in there... the problems with this were that he had deployed so far forward that I wouldn't have enough space to deploy my whole blob... and also most of his army was deepstriking so it would be kind of useless...

So I went with choice 2, deploying centrally with lots of avenues of fire, out in the open and with some space for tanks to rumble on behind, with CCS nearby and HWS in the smaller bunker. Vendetta with pcs inside outflanked and the rest would come in turn 1.



Turn 1

First drop pod comes down, close to my lines - blob starts getting shot up...  Ilya rolls well on his nightfight..

Enemy tacticals are deployed out of a borrowed Blood Angels drop pod that Paul is currently working on. Dreadnought strolls on from his half of the board. 

Imperial Armour rumbles on in response

Veterans enter on the left flank

Heavy fire reduces the scout squad to three men and the tacticals + drop pod also take light casualties

Score Tracker: IG 0 - 0 Salamanders

Turn 2

Salamanders advance once more with covering fire, destroying the eradicator nova and stunning the hellhound - more small arms fire eats into the blob

The close combat threat just before being shot at by the whole imperial line

Multiple rolls later and...

And one combat squad is completely wiped out, while the other is down to the sergeant... Scouts are shot out of their cover and the meltavets make short work of the drop pod :)

 Score Tracker: IG 3 - 1 Salamanders

Turn 3

More Salamanders drop down from the sky, an (allied ;) hehe) landspeeder drops down using the locator beacon - this time Ilya does not make the mistake (?) of combat squadding them 

The hellhound gets shaken again and the blob draws more fire

and the inevitable becomes inevitable - however surprisingly the sergeant whiffs and the heavy weapon teams somehow manage to steal his helmet, the bewilderment at this action was evidently enough for the sergeant to magically crumble to dust and disappear... (apologies for the vague and long winded explanation) 

(see he's not there anymore!) Ah yeah the meltavets' ride gets knocked out by the lascannon dread and they pile out.

Guard turn and theres a slight reshuffling of the lines. Vendetta comes on from the left flank just behind the dreadnought. Shooting lightly damages the drop pod, explodes the dreadnought and takes out a whole load'a marines

closer look at the action 

same here...

 Score Tracker: IG 4 - 2 Salamanders

Turn 4

And it's crunching time as the termies drop in... and decide to multi-assault and after some shooting manage to snare the pitiful remains of the blob, the hellhound and the CCS! Also this turn, another land speeder typhoon shows up and rakes through the meltavets leaving only the man with the demo-charge alive, severely turning the tables at this late stage...

With the hellhound seriously damaged, the vanquisher destroyed and the blob heavily depleted - things begin to look a little worrying

My turn and to make matters worse the demo-charge vet runs away... I advance a little and fry the remaining marines with combined melta fire, destroy the drop pod and do insignificant damage on the ultramarine typhoon, while the vendetta moves over and takes a pot shot at another land speeder - destroying it (note this picture is taken partly throught the movement phase of next turn)

Score Tracker: IG 7 - 6 Salamanders

 Turn 5

More termies and another lanspeeder touch down... a heavy weapons team dies and so does the executioner from a charge of termies if I remember correctly... hellhound gets destroyed at roughly this point

I plasma 3 termies to death but am denied a land speeder kill from the  vendetta

 We roll and the game continues... Score tracker: IG 7 - 8 Salamanders

Turn 6

I already know I'm defeated, he shakes around the chimera, blows up the vendetta. He finally decides to run his command squad and captain out of los blocking cover... My turn and the guys inside come out, shoot, and charge ... unsuccessfully and die, heavy weapons don't do much to the red land speeder...

Roll for the game to end and it does with a 1

End score:

IG 7 - 10 Salamanders

Finishing thoughts? I really like my army list - not sure if I could deal with a list that has massed termies though... even though my luck was pretty bad towards the end. Not sure whether it was a good idea to deploy the blob out in the open, but hey, I'm learning. Tank positioning was really dodgy - first time I've felt that I wasted the points on the executioner. Vendetta positioning needs work. Might try putting something else in it cos that didnt work at all.
Overall a good close game, where cockiness at being in the lead initially may have cost me.