Blink and you'd miss it ...

Blink .. no reference Dr Who' weeping angels, but definitely some weeping as I suffer what may be the fastest defeat I've ever been handed in 40K. Adrian and I met for our 4th game of Warhammer 4th Edition in a row .. our way of learning the rules. We each used a different army this time: for me Space Marines, and for Adrian Sisters of Battle. The game was a 1500 point match, playing the 'Recon' scenario from the 4th Edition rule book.

My SM army was a little unbalanced as I used what I had available:

1 x Space Marine Captain
1 x Space Marine Chaplain
2 x 9 SMs with Sergeant
1 x 6 SMs with Sergeant
1 x 10 Assault Marines
1 x 10 Vanguard in drop pod
1 x 5 Devastators with 2 x Plasma cannon and 1 x Lascannon, mounted in Razorback with T/L Lascannon
1 x 5 Devastators with 3 x M/Ls and 1 x Heavy Bolter

So, being a little light in the flexible heavy support, we went at it.

Initial deployment with Space Marines on the left, and Sisters on the right

I just live those penitent engines, here backed up with 8 Seraphim

St Celestine.. she turned out to be one tough ......

Space Marine anti tank support

Assault Marines ready to go .. I planned to hold them back ready to race into Adrian's set up zone . but ...

Devastator Squad in position in some ruins

Opening move ..

 Adrian one first move and managed to destroy the Razorback before it managed to fire a single shot .. ouch

The Librarian used psychic powers to take a SM tactical squad deep into the enemy lines

The drop pod is deployed first turn as it is required to do.

Here's where it starts to go wrong ..

 I decided to move the assault marines forward in support of the Vanguard veterans . This wasn't the original plan, and brought them close to the advancing penitent engines .. in hindsight this was never going to end well, but .. sigh...

In the first turn I managed to destroy the Sisters heavy support, and bring down some fearsome fire on this squad positioned in some ruins.

 After an initial successful turn, the rest of the game went very sour from the SM point of view. St Celestine and a squad of seraphim assaulted the Librarian and his tactical squad... result? massacre .. oh my G*** ...

The penitent engines charged the assault marines and .. again, pretty much a massacre ..

The Vanguard veterans having emerged from their drop pod were assaulted by seraphim and... yep .. massacre .

The smaller tactical squad advanced and assaulted a unit of sisters and.. not enough to win the assault.

 By the start of turn 3 there wasn't  a lot left. The penitent engines shifted their focus to the left flank devastator squad. Aha, I thought .. eat my shorts, here come two plasma cannons and a lascannon. Net result? NOTHING.. not a single wound. OOooo this is going to hurt again ..

The cannoness destroys the drop pod with her inferno pistol

The devastators have missed and are now open to assault ...

St Celestine in her glory.

So we called it after turn 3.. I simply had no way of scoring enough victory points in terms of the scenario conditions to come even close.

Now that was a real 'thumping. Looks like I have a little to learn about how to use Space Marines then, but the game looked great. Again a lot of fun pushing beautiful miniatures around on the table.