ETC Battle Report Round 1: Finland

Posers.

So I'm thrown up early as an answer to the Finnish Guard played by Aleksi Meuronen who has the coolest 'tache I've ever seen. I've had a fair bit of practice against this list (with match-ups for Round 1 released early) so I reckon I can take it but I'm worried about how much I'll bleed: 8 Razorbacks at the start tends to become 3 or 4 by the end while my Grey Hunter squads are beefy enough to mangle 10 Guardsmen but not enough to stand up to sustained fire from a gunline. Plus my Scouts are quite squishy and will take on a solitary Guard squad but not 2 or 3 at once.

It was definitely going to be an interesting game but I was feeling quietly confident going into it. Then we had our team talk where I was told that I was expected to get a win and loads of points. Basically: Nuke Finland.

No pressure so then.


I deployed my stuff all hunkered up so that I could get my Meltas into midfield quickly and punish him with twin-linked Lascannons. I remember during the team talk Floody (our captain) told me not to let him bunker up, but that's what I wanted him to do so the Scouts could multi-charge so I pushed him right back into the corner.

Can you say bunker?

The Scouts OBEL'ed, I reserved one GH squad and deployed. He deployed everything, scouted his Vendettas and failed to seize so off we went.

Turn 1

Both Alexei and his moustache are saddened by my shooting.

I rushed into midfield and smoked 3 Razors while the rest moved to get into position and allow the Long Fangs firelines. I pulled down 2 Vendettas and stunned the other before moving onto Chimeras.

I was going to leave the Hydras and Manticores until later because against my Razors and Fangs they were overkill. The Manticore would have to die early though - that could potentially take out lots of my stuff in one go.

He manages to immobilise one of my Razors and do some light damage to my Razors, tearing off a gun. I've escaped relatively unscathed.

Turn 2

A unit of Scouts shows up on my left and does dick all to a Chimera (Immobilise and Stunned I think). I move more Razors in near the centre and spread the love by stunning some more tanks but not killing anything. The Scouts are mangled by return fire and there's one survivor who goes to ground and passes his 6+ save from a meltagun. :D Crucially, he's also got a meltagun so Alexei can't leave him wandering about and has to deal with him.

He manages to stun/shake a pile of Razors but does nothing major with his shooting. Again. Class.

Turn 3
The other scouts arrive and make their presence felt: After a Long Fang squad cracks a Chimera the Scouts are able to charge into two squads (one is the bubblewrap screen of grunts and the other the former occupants of the tank) and in a typical Wolfy act of biting off more than they can chew tear into both squads, winning combat and forcing one of them off the board while remaining in combat with the bubblewrap. Savage.

Note: the bubblewrap was stretched so far that when I charged I made contact with only one end so he could only bring 5 or 6 Guardsmen to bear with that unit this limiting his attacks despite his 6 inch pile-in, making it more likely that I wouldn't win combat by a large margin and trapping his grunts in combat where I couldn't be shot.

I continue to wail on Chimeras and crack open another and stunlock a few more. Crucially one of these belongs to his Company Command squad which I all but annihilate with Frags leaving a solo flag carrier to run away. I also destroy a Hydra to boot. I've cut Alexei's mobility so that he's left with a conundrum and in typical cartoon villain fashion he starts to fiddle with his moustache. Classic.

Here are the world's worst Grey Hunters. They shoot meltas and miss, and then their grenades do nothing to the tank before they all fall over to return fire. Idiots.

On the right, Guardsmen get out to throw their weight into the fight and bring down the Scouts that are causing trouble in their lines while the Flagwaver from the CCS keeps running. I start to lose some Razors and have weapons torn off others but I still have 4 to shoot back, and plenty of missiles in the Long Fang units so I'm still good to go. Then Alexei does something unexpected - he moves one of his Chimeras with its back armour facing me so that he can roast the last scout. AV10 exposed upon a hill? Yes please.


Turns 4 to 6

The Scouts run amok.

MOAR Guard for the grinder.

That's the 4th squad of Guardsmen that have tried to get stuck into the Scouts now.

I'm beginning to pull way ahead on KP so I try to keep the pressure up by popping more Chimeras, taking out 2 Hydras (one to kill off a squad and other from the squad on my left) while Guardsmen continue to die in droves to my Scouts who are now reduced to 3 guys after fighting off 4 units. Now that's MVP material.

My GH in reserve show up on my objective only to get battered by Hydras for 2 turns but thankfully I make enough saves to avoid a Morale test while Alexei desperately throws 10 Guardsmen onto his objective and fires smoke where he can to keep his stuff alive. He bags another 2 Razors before his Manticore runs out of missiles but he again shows AV10 (side) trying to get his Troops into position and I take out another Chimera.

The Scouts wrap around a Chimera out of LOS while my Razors keep hammering away trying to silence Hydras and buy time for other units to hide so they can't get shot giving away valuable VPs.

The game ends and we shake before totting up points. It quickly became clear that I was way out in front on both KP and VP and with a Hydra, a squad and a damaged Manticore left, the Guard had taken a pasting.

I'd done enough to get a win and so did the other lads so we had avenged the team's loss from last year. And I'd have lots of Guard-losing porn just for Donal.

Round 2 would bring us face-to-face with Belgium. Havuja Perkele!