Pride before the fall

I played a game of Kill Team today against Richards Astral Claws. I used the Fire Hawks team I had painted recently.

We played 125 points so there was room to add in some elites. So I got to use my terminator and jump pack model.




















I had a terminator sergeant with powerfist and storm bolter as my combat specialist.
A Tactical Marine gunner with plasma gun, sniper specialist
A Sternguard Veteran Sergeant with special issue bolter and Asupex as my leader
A Vanguard Veteran Sergeant with Relic Blade and bolt pistol as a zealot specialist
A Sernguard with special issue bolter and two tactical marines

I decided to use the Black Templars chapter tactic so I can reroll charges.

The Fire Hawks had history with the Astral Claws apparently Huron had beaten the Fire Hawks chapter master for a job so naturally the Fire Hawks had to hate the Astral Claws and be consumed by jealousy. This made the Fire Hawks easy to manipulate by the Karthage Sector lords who also wanted to censure the Astral Claws.

Thus armed with a causus beli or letters of marque the Fire Hawks began aggressive patrolling of the region. They quickly ran afoul of the Mantis Warriors and then the Astral Claws.

Richard had an idea for a cool narrative mission. His Apothecary was being escorted in no mans land to recover the gene seed of the fallen. The Astral Claws were never particular where they got gene seed from. This is seen as a sin by other marine chapters, so a good reason to hate them. Later in the Badab War this practice would cause the Executioners to turn against the Astral Claws, massacre a ship full of them and eventually leave the war entirely.

Right enough babbling on to the game.

On My left flank I deployed the two tactical marines behind a statue.

 On my right flank, I had everyone else, the terminator I kept in Reserve.

 Richard massed his corpse collection party on my left flank. He had a terminator gunner with assault cannon and chainfist, a number of tactical marines and some scouts.

 Richard moved first and I moved all my marines out of LOS

 Richard advanced towards some corpse tokens, realising he could get a terminator sized enema, some scouts were detailed to perform Operation Transhuman Shield.

 My Marines advanced down the right side, ensuring they stayed out of LOS of the terminator.

 The action got going in turn 2, the Fire Hawks won initiative, the vanguard ignited hi jump pack and pounced on one of the scouts. The scout tried to fall back but didn't get far enough. 4 attacks with a relic blade later and the scout was out of action.

 The Astral Claws advanced towards another cache of gene seed.

 It's clobbering time, my terminator arrived from reserve and charged into one of the scouts.

 Four attacks with a powerfist and the scout is converted back to component parts

 My Zealot marine consolidated into the base of the wall after dealing with the scout.

 Richard won initiative and his terminator charged my terminator. Richards leader tried to charge my Zealot but failed even with a reroll. Richards Corpse Taker and tactical marines advanced to the middle of the table, covered by one of my tactical marines.

 My plasma gunner lines up for another shot, supported by the leader. The Plasma gunner is sporting a flesh wound from the assault cannon.

 The Terminators face off. Even with heavy duty combat weapons the terminators are hard to kill. We both played decisive strike and Richard won the roll off. So got to pound on me first.

With Richards leader failing a charge he had to sacrifice one of his tactical marines to hold back my assault marine. He didn't hold me back for long.

I must have gotten distracted because quite a bit happened in this picture. My assault marine charged Richard's plasma gunner on the roof and made short work of him.

Richard's leader charged my terminator, we both played decisive strike, Richard again won the roll off and my terminator managed to save the chainfist hit with his refractor field. I then pounded the sergeant to paste before he could swing.

Richard's Apothecary had lost his escort to the bolter and plasma fire of my marines and is hiding in the gap between ruined buildings on the left of this picture.

As the final act of the game, my assault marine charged the terminator, Richard's terminator managed to kill my terminator before being cut down in return.

At this point Richard's apothecary failed his morale test and legged it off the table. We thought he would report back to base with the gene seed he recovered and knowledge of where more could be found. Knowledge of any escort squad would be strenuously denied.

This game was loads of fun and really could have gone either way, especially in the early stages.