Here's the battlefield with initial deployment, Space Marines on the right and Squats on the left.
I placed a SM formation in Garrison on one of the objectives on the SM left flank.
Adrian similarly garrisoned an objective on the same flank, and also this one in the centre. In the background.. gulp, you guys may be short, but you certainly have some very big guns!!
Deployed in the Squat centre was an airship, and a unit of tunnellers... oooo darn, where are they going to come up? Blitzkrieg perhaps, taking the SM baseline objective? Surely not...
Andrew pushed a tactical formation forward on the SM left.
They took fire from the squat formation garrisoning a town close by, and in overwatch.
That formation however took a lot of fire, even though it was supported by one of those REALLY BIG Squat guns!!!
Adrian brought his second really big gun across in support and it put down a lot of fire on a supporting unit of Landraiders on the SM left - this many hits, but Andrew managed to save them all.
We were pretty determined to make our play on our left flank, and moved a unit of Devastators (mounted in Landraiders) across to provide even more fire support.
That's a lot of blast markers for one little formation, and the Squat formation that was the centre if attention broke.
However fire then came down on the Devastator formation from the other BIG GUN (you can see it in the background)!!
In the meantime a Black Templar detachment had pushed ahead and grabed another objective in the centre.
On the SM right flank, a second unit of Devastators had pushed across and caused some anxiety for the unit of Sqaut bikers by firing into their flank, but was then itself hit by a unit of Squat Trikers (well I suppose when you are that little...) ... all very confusing!!
The Trikers were accompanied by a Gyrocopter.
The result was that one unit of devastators remained from the formation, seen here broken and having pulled back!! Yep, we know that when they break you remove the blast markers, but we left them there for effect..
The Trikers were however then hit in the flank by the SM's Blood Angels flank guard. I don't think the Blood Angels were that happy about having been left out to guard the right flank, and when they hit the Trikers they tore them apart.. ouch, that hurt if you are a Squat!!
Adrian started to make his play for the centre objective, and began to move forward to menace the Templars.
On the left Andrew pushed forward aggressively against the Squats. His flanking tactical formation got around their flank and lay down some pretty heavy fire in preparation for an assault.
Finally Adrian had one of those 'moments in the sun'. The Tunellers came up next to the SM baseline objective.
The Tunnellers assaulted the Whirlwinds sitting on the baseline in their firebase.
Result: four dead Whirlwinds., and the baseline objective at least contested. The last remaining Devastator unit from the earlier assault had rallied, and pulled back into the trees to be close to the objective just in case this happened..
We had managed to play two full turns this time, so the game was still incomplete when we had to call time, but we are getting noticeable faster at the whole thing. We remain fascinated by the interplay created by the alternating unit activation within each turn, and anyway.. this one was all about the Squats. Hopefuly someone will enjoy the photos of some great figures and Adrian's wonderful paint jobs.
There were unpainted Space Marine models on the table (not something I'd normally do), but they won't remain unpainted for long. There's a wee list of equipment that is being based and painted over the next few weeks, and I am looking forward to fielding a more balanced force with air and AA assets as well.
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