Forays into Footslogging: No Forgiveness

The picture should give you an idea of how the second march of the Green Knights went. The answer is 'not very well.'

Talking about it after the action, my opponent mentioned that playing a footslogging army can be a huge learning experience in terms of planning, and an appreciation for what mobility gives you.

I think he's right.

Background

My army? The Black Templar Termy Army + GKT friends.

He rolled with Chaos that looked like:

Winged Nurgle DP

Nurgle Lord w/ Daemon Weapon

2 Dreadnoughts w/ Missile Launchers

Plague Marine squad w/ fist champ, 2x plasma in Rhino

2 CSM squads w/ Chaos Glory, fist, 2x flamers in Rhinos

small squad of summoned lesser daemons.

Defiler

3x Oblits

3x Oblits

Scenario: 4 objectives, Pitched Battle

Things Fall Apart

So, he let me go first. This is not generosity on his part.

This is him letting me spread myself out, while he can then concentrate his forces. I have to basically take half my DZ to give guys cover, and then place the Terminators across the front. It's a matter of cover, since there are a crap-ton of plasma weapons and a battle cannon out there. I am not surprised when a Defiler gets crammed into a corner, and his Rhinos go across from my objectives.

Target Priority, what?

My gut tells me that I hate Obliterators, so instead of shooting at his Rhinos, I drop a full squad of Oblits s he is unable to make a cover save against lascannons. My Grey Knights pop the Plague Marine/Lord rhino.

This is, honestly, where the game goes way downhill for me. On the bright side, he's down three oblits, and his plague marines are walking.

On the other hand? ALL his marines should be walking, or at least another squad should be. A couple turns later, I've shot down the plague marine squad, but his lord, two CSM squads, and the Daemon Prince are in my lines. It goes downhill from here.

By 'downhill' I mean that after five turns, the remains are:

Him:

1 beat-up CSM squad in a rhino on one of my objectives.

1 squad of Oblits

Defiler

Lesser Daemons on an objective in his DZ

1 Rhino minus its pintle combi-blter

Me:

Brother-Captain

Castellan w/ some of his squad

one Elite terminator squad

one initiatate (one GUY, not one squad)

The Lessons here...

As we can see, his target priority was killing my troops. Between my error in target priority and his exploitation of them, well, that was pretty much game. I did not take away his mobility advantage, and that cost me. Instead of having another couple turns to shoot at his troops (and maybe nuke a second squad) I ended up having to try to crack the transports, and then deal with his troops. Better target priority would probably have let me KO another rhino or two, then feed the Oblits lascannon death while hitting his troops with small arms fire.

Deployment is Bloody Important

In terms of movement, well, obviously I have to kind of figure out where I want my guys to go pretty much from the time I set them on the table. On the other hand, it's hard to NOT cluster up in deployment. This is painful because it'll let the enemy multi-assault, and/or abuse you with blast weapons. I'm not sure I have an answer to this, especially if there's a Battle Cannon or three in the other side's back field. On the other hand, spreading out too much means I'm not going to reinforce my line, and I'm subject to having a flank targeted and consumed.

I'm much more used to being on the other side of this kind of tactic. It hurts, I'll tell you that much from being on the recieving end. It hurts because it works; you take that much longer to respond to any development that requires repositioning forces. On the other hand, I think this is a huge lesson to pick up from this army.

Holy Stupidity and Assault

Holy Rage is really cool until someone WANTS to be in assault with you. Then, they'll abuse it. That also cost me some shooting, as my guys got indignant when shot at, then rushed into assault range, and...yeah. Another turn of shooting, lost. Holy Rage is neat against shooty armies, but painful against someone who is trying to draw you in.

And when you get down to it, a 10-man squad is a decent enough match for terminators, for the most part. If they can get the charge off, they might drop one with shooting, might drop another with assault at initiative, then it's down to three, and they might manage to make a trade of it after another phase.

Speed Kills

It also hurts when, y'know, they have higher-initative power weapons. Nurgle daemon weapons are basically +d6 attack lightning claws, and can also butcher monstrous creatures. So, of course, the Lord rolled a '6' when he got into assault, and wiped the squad. The Emperor's champion managed to shank him back (two failed saves combined with a wound from the shooting), and then he got drug down by the squad. Similarly, 5+ invulnerable saves will not actually protect Grey Knights from a Daemon Prince.

Forgiveness

Simply put, a foot-based list does not offer a lot in the way of forgiveness. You do it right and kill the enemy's mobility really quick, or, he schools you hard. With this army, there's also the risk that the enemy will pop troop units, which means you're stuck trading lascannon fire for movement. Given Holy Stupidity, you might be moving them back into cover/on objectives anyway. That aside, this list is an interesting one, just with some idiosyncracies I'm not used to. Maybe it was not the army to take to the table after a month-long game, yes? Oh well.

Obligatory Tyranid Comment

I am really not looking forward to what a Mawloc or two would do to this army. I think the answer is 'wreck it hardcore.'

Highlights

And, of course, I choose to laugh at the funny stuff and learn from mistakes, rather than cry over the pretty comprehensive beating I got. The highlights include:

-the Brother-Captain managed to put the killing wound into the Daemon Prince, avenging his squad

-the Emperor's Champion managed to get two hits and two wounds into the Chaos Lord, who promptly failed both saves

-the surviving Obliterator squad kicked out a lot of plasma cannon fire, only to see a '1' half the time, and scatter off target later on. Unsurprisingly, they switched to lascannons by the end for anti-personnel work

-One Dread fire-frenzied into the back of a Rhino, immobilizing it. It later repaired itself, though.

-Another dread charged into the squad consisting of the Castellan, 2 powerfist termies, and the brother captain. He missed all four attacks, and promptly lost his CCW. We played this out all the way, and by the end of the game he missed a total of EIGHT attacks, and ended up immobilized and weapon-destroyed.

-the Defiler survived 24 assault cannon shots (insult to injury: no damage results were worse than shaken/stunned) though had found cover.