Fighting Angron

In my practice game yesterday I played against a CSM 30K list featuring Angron and 4 tactical squads. Each tactical squad has an apothecary - that's something unique to Heresy Era World Eaters. It's kind of cool in that it let's chaos play the way Games Workshop seems to think they should - as a horde of infantry running at the enemy lines. No tanks, no support planes, just bodies. The apothecaries mean all the tactical marines are 3+/5+FNP, which is pretty tough. Angron is a total beast. I7, STR9 on the charge, AP2, fleet, 6 attacks plus rage or something like that, eternal warrior, 5 wounds. His only weakness if that he's 3+/4++, so he needs some ablative wounds about the place.

For my part, I brought a toned down army. The 'example' lists from the TOs came out last week and you are strongly encourage to bring something middling. My three bike two tactical squad list would have scored a 2 on comp, which means it only gets 85% of battle points. Not a total kick in the nuts, but I'm more interested in fitting in with the flavour of the tournament rather than crushing all before me. It seems hard to score high on comp (you'd need to take plasma pistols and possessed I imagine), but I would like to be somewhere between 2.5-3.

So I changed things around a bit. Mainly, I swapped the bike chapter master for one in terminator armour. He can still orbital effectively because he is relentless, and he tanks wounds for terminators nicely with his shield, which makes them much more durable. I cut down on the bike/tactical squads to take said terminators, and added a scout squad for a bit more ob-sec and because I liked having three different troops choices. Bit of synergy with the thunderfire is nice too, and with the fact that pretty much everything in this list can deploy to the mid-field turn 1 if it wants. I've got a homing beacon on the pod so it can drop deep and be reinforced by the terminators for fluffy shenanigans. I love terminators. He hurts me how much they suck these days - so much AP2 everywhere. But they will always have a special place in my heart. I own nearly 30, including the absolutely gorgeous space hulk ones. I've taken imperial fists tactics to let them re-roll ones with storm bolters, and the scouts and tacticals benefit as well.

My list

Primary detachment: White Scars                 Secondary Detachment: Imperial Fists

(WS) Khan w/bike
(IF) Chapter Master w/ Terminator armour, power fist, shield eternal

(IF) Tactical Squad w/drop pod, plasma gun, combi-plasma
(IF) Scouts w/boltguns and camo cloaks
(WS) 4 bikes with 2 grav guns and a combi grav, attack bike with multi-melta
(WS) 4 bikes with 2 grav guns and a combi grav, attack bike with multi-melta

(WS) Storm talon with skyhammer missile launcher

(IF) Thunderfire Cannon

(IF) 6 terminators with assault cannon

I find this a lot of fun to play. You start the cannon and the bikes on the board. The bikes scout, the scouts infiltrate onto an objective or into backfield cover where they can hang out with the cannon's bolstered cover for a 3+ (maybe 2+ if it's a ruin). The pod comes in, then the plane and the terminators. So pretty much everything is in your opponent's face, but you still have a unit or two to take home base objectives. It doesn't have a whole lot of staying power, but the terminators bring a bit of that.

Not much to say about the game itself. I made the mistake of reserving the terminators - they should have started on the board and shot at his infantry while they came at me. I may have been able to dictate a charge a bit better that way. As it happened they scattered right into the path of Angron. Did two wounds to him, killed four tactical marines he was with, held him up for two turns then died. Not the best use of 450 odd points, but my opponent did mention that it was the first time Angron had ever been road blocked, so that's something.

Similarly, I think I should have started the tactical squad on the board and just dropped an empty pod onto an objective that I needed. It was my first time playing the list and so I played it by design rather than adapting to my opponent. If your opponent really wants to run at you oblige them. The bike aspect of my plan worked well - deploying in the middle and then scouting horizontally to knock over the weakest wing. The plan was only derailed by an invincible apothecary - more on him in a moment. But I could have used my other units better by footslogging them. I do need to remember that you can drop empty scoring pods after pulling objective cards for the first turn, which is pretty useful against things like Orks and Tyranid rush. The scouts can also sacrifice themselves to grab a deep field objective or linebreaker if they infiltrated.

I lost by 1 VP because a single artificer armour wearing apothecary skilled Khan and an attack bike, survived at least 20 wounds in close combat (I failed two hit and run checks which would have allowed me to grav-gun his lame 2+ ass) and then, once I'd finally hit and run away to try and grab an objective on the last turn, killed my stormtalon while it was in hover mode by first throwing a krak grenade at it and then getting another one on it in assault. Sick burns. If that guy hadn't survived for 2 or maybe even 2.5 turns my talon could have zoomed over to a distant objective to score it before my opponent arrived with his foot men, my bikes could have wiped another squad and then maybe taken down Angron by encircling him or at least captured another objective without risking death.

Come at me bro!

All in all though, a fun game and I liked how the list played. It has the tools to take most things provided you play it well, which I inevitably don't. It will lose to really powerful stuff, like a centurion death star with Draigo or a full eldar list but it's fun, reasonably competitive, fluffy and should comp well. Now to get to painting!