Batrep: GK & SM vs IG - Team Event

This was our (Crimthaan & hyv3mynd) second game of our local Adepticon team primer.  Game #1 and our lists can be found here.  After a major victory, we moved on to face a double guard team.  The same team that Grubnards and Sinistermind battled last round.  Their lists were approximately:

List 1:
CCS

20 man platoon

Chimera with 10 men

10 man squad in Vendetta

3 Heavy weapon teams – LasCannons

Leman Russ Executioner

Manticore

List 2

Lord Commissar

10 Man Platoon

10 Man Platoon in Chimera

10 man squad in Vendetta

Leman Russ Demolisher

Aegis Defense Line w/quad gun

Those lists are pretty inaccurate, but I've never opened a guard codex so the platoon breakdown thing boggles me.  I think some were vets and some were regular joes.  It felt like every squad had plasma and there was one quad-plas special weapons team.

Game #2 featured hammer/anvil deployment.  The primary scoring objective was the emperor's will, secondary was the scouring with 4 equal objectives.  The twists of fate were usable to grant outflanking to a unit.  We used one to make Crimthaan's rhino squad outflanking and escorted them with the stormtalon.  Our opponents didn't use their twists.  They also won the roll-off and elected to go second.  The gravity of this choice can't be understated as their flyers would come in after ours and they would also have the last scoring move.

We deploy in our half.  The red objective is for the emperor's will, blue objectives are the scouring.  I make my dread (top center) and purifiers (combat squadded on the stormraven) scoring with the grand strategy.  The big center unit is the plasma tac squad with the TDA libby/warlord who rolled up endurance.  Bottom right are my razorback squad and the TFC. 

Here is our opponents' deployment.  Starting bottom left and going to top right are:  Manticore, executioner, plasma special weapon team, lascannon teams, quad gun, 10 vets w/ commissar/warlord, 10 guardsmen on foot, CCS in the grey chimera, 10 guardsmen on foot, 10 guardsmen in the white chimera, demolisher up top.  We placed one of the scouring objectives on the second level of the bottom ruin in hopes that one of our flyers could score it.

My razorback immobilized itself with the first roll.  My dread backs out of demolisher range.  Our blob gets endurance.  Our ironclad drops in and wiffs its melta shot.  Their quad gun fails to damage the dread.  The TFC and dread combine fire and kill 2 of the lascannon bases.  The third goes to ground and passes morale.

Their executioner pulls back and the plasma spec team steps up.  On the far side, the demolisher and white chimera advance.  They put a metric ton of hot plasma into the ironclad.  Two of the plasma spec team and one of the middle squad go down to plasma burns.  After the guardsmen and executioner finish, the ironclad has 1 hull point left and the plasma spec team is running. 

All of our reserves arrive at the top of 2.  On the far side, the outflanking rhino unit comes on and roadblocks the demolisher.  The escorting stormtalon flies up for side shots on the manticore.  My stormraven zooms up from our edge and stops directly over the rhino.  The ironclad moves up to 1" from the executioner. 

Our shooting and assault phases go pretty well.  My dread opens up the white chimera up top for first blood.  The explosion and combined fire from the stormraven leave only 1 guardsman left.  The stormtalon strips a hull point from the manticore.  The ironclad wiffs his melta shot, but explodes the executioner in assault.

One of their vendettas arrives and it angles for my stormraven.  The remaining plasma gunners finish the ironclad.  My stormraven loses a hull point.  Their manticore continues to pound our backfield, but it's also scattering greatly.

My stomraven goes into hover mode and drops off the grand master and one purifier combat squad.  They're separate and behind that huge tree.  The rhino pulls forward and hugs the tree.  The stormtalon does a hover-strike on the vendetta and wiffs.  The TFC continues to knock down backfield scorers, but consistently scatters throughout the game.  My purifiers roast a bunch of guardsmen and then multi-assault.  The knight blows his head off with perils, I largely wiff the assault, and the units lock.  My grand master assaults the demolisher and explodes it.

Their second vendetta arrives and also heads for my stormraven.  The first vendetta noses up to my dread.   I lose my dread to lascannon fire and my stormraven loses another hull point.  The commissar on the quad gun downs the stormtalon.

We're running out of time and turns so we make a final push.  The rhino cruises across the table and flat-outs towards the objective on the close edge.  My stormraven zooms towards their red objective.  My purifiers continue to wiff against guardsmen and get whittled down.  The grand master assaults and wrecks the grey chimera.

 
One of their vendettas hovers over for shots on my stormraven.  The other splits the distance between two objectives.  The combined fire claims the last hull point on my flyer and I lose the last 5 purifiers in the crash.  In assault, I lose another purifier.

We only have time for 1 more turn.  We wrap the plasma tac squad around our red objective.  My strike squad has been running to score, but I left them in the immobile razorback too long and they won't be able to contribute.  The rhino squad disembarks to claim a blue objective.  My grand master assaults the hovering vendetta and explodes it, killing 7 guardsmen and pinning the survivors.

Our opponents disembark their last vendetta and claim one blue objective.  The surviving vostroyans run back onto their red objective.  The pinned 3 man squad gets ordered back into the fight and successfully run onto another blue objective.  With that, the game ends.

Both teams hold their red objectives for a primary draw.  Our opponents held 2 blue objectives to our 1 so they take the secondary.  We scored first blood and linebreaker with my grand master.  The final score was 13-19 in favor of our opponents after bonus points and twists of fate.

This was a pretty close game.  We made more mistakes and our opponents outplayed us enough to get the job done.  If I would have disembarked my strike squad earlier, we could have potentially tied the secondary, but they had so much firepower it could have gone either way.  The biggest factor in this game was who went second.  We both had flying transports with scoring units so there was a distinct advantage in going second.  However, going second could have cost us first blood as well.  It felt like an uphill battle all game, but we were happy to walk away with some points hoping a strong round #3 and painting score would catapult us.