A couple of weekends ago, Prince’s Dawn Host took to the surface of Bucephela IV (near Hull as it turns out) to attempt to secure the planet for the loyalist cause.

It went… characterfully

The List

So another narrative event! This time at 3,000pts, rather than the Greetings doubles at 1750, so pre-event the biggest thing was expanding the list out.

I wanted to still keep the Dawn Host in their grim, destroyer style, narrative and play style. So the core of the list much remains the same. But here’s what I took:

Rite of War: Day of Sorrows

HQ

• Praetor with Master Crafter Paragon Blade and jump pack.
  • 5 Ofanim Court with Jump Packs
• Biomancy Librarian with Jump Pack, Blade of Perdition, and Plasma Pistol.
• Moritat with twin Inferno Pistols

Elites

• 10 Angels Tears with Serpentas, Sgt with an Axe of Perdition and Artificer Armour
• 5 Angels Tears with Illiastus Assault Cannons, Sgt with an Axe of Perdition and Artificer Armour
• Castraferrum Talon:
  • Boxnaught with Lascannons, Fist, and Havoc Launcher
  • Boxnaught with Flamestorm Cannon and Fist

Troops

• 10 Breachers with all Volkite, 2 flamers, vexilla, Sgt with Power Axe and Artificer Armour
  • Land Raider
• 10 Breachers, 2 flamers, vexilla, Sgt with Power Maul and Artificer Armour
  • Land Raider
• 10 Breachers, 2 Volkite chargers, vexilla, Sgt with Power Fist and Artificer Armour

Heavy Support

• Sicaran Omega with heavy flamers

• Sicaran Arcus with heavy bolters and helical targeting array

  Total Points: 2998pts

As you can see, the core of the list is still the big block of breachers, now with added transports. An extra boxnaught, and a second sicaran add a lot more firepower to the list, whilst the Angel’s Tears with assault cannons bring some rough mid range anti=infantry firepower.

The most entertaining part of the list by far is the HQ bomb. The Ofanim, Praetor, Librarian, and Moritat, all run together. Cast the Biomancy Strength/Toughness buff, then charge into combat to benefit from the Moritat’s rad grenades. There isn’t much that unit won’t be wounding on 2s! (When it works…)

The Games

4 Games were played in total over the 2 days, 3 with random opponents, one grudge match against a friend I haven’t played againt in years. All were excellent games that saw the Dawn Gost take to the field gloriously.

And lose each and every game…

So lets talk about that.

My opponents were, in order:

• Game 1 - Emperor’s Children, Pride of the Legion, a Leviathan, two contemptors, 10 Palatines, 2 units of veterans, 10 terminators in a Spartan, and some destroyers. [Game objective was to capture two key nodes, and kill units]
• Game 2 - Sons of Horus, Riteless, two contemptors and a Leviathan, supported by two sicarans, a Kratos, Terminators with a Herald, a Xiphon, and some tacticals. (Note, I would be this player’s first victory in nearly 2 years!!) [Game objective was to seize objectives, more points for seizing your opponents objective]
• Game 3 - Alpha Legion, riteless, a Fellblade and Kratos, supported by 2 units of despoilers in Land Raiders, Tacticals in a rhino, Firedrakes and a herald in a spartan, and two sabres. [Game had 3 objectives in centre of table. Each gave points, plus 1 at random game an extra D3 per turn]
• Game 4 (Grudge Match) - Word Bearers, The Dark Brethren, a Praetor and Dark Diabolist led 10 Gal Vorbak, two Mhara Ghal, 2 units of 20 Assault Marines, a tactical squad, a Kratos, and a Greater Brass Scorpion. [Game was killpoints, with respawning units]

There were also extra VPs granted for killing independent HQs, as the narrative would be shaped by this.

Now, first thing to note is the two super-heavies were not in fact the bane of my life. I brought the fellblade to 1HP in Game 3, and outright destroyed the Brass Scorpion in Game 4. In fact outside of a few notable errors (like failing to kill the EC Spartan in Game 1) my Anti-Armour was pretty successful!

My three biggest weaknesses were:

1 - Dreadnoughts. I just could not kill them! In both Game 1 and 2 my HQ bomb went straight into the enemy Leviathans, aiming to use the Biomancy buffs to make the combats nice and straightfoward. Except in Game 1, both my psychic tests (spell and weapon) failed, and in Game 2 the spell test also failed. In both games my HQs were wiped out entirely by either the Leviathan, or a Leviathan/Contempter sandwich. In game 4 the Mhara Ghal proved equally as much a nightmare, running pretty unchecked across my lines as I chose to try and focus fire on units I could kill. My castraferrum did put up an attempt at fighting them, but Initiative 2 really does not serve them well here!

2 - Agressive Play. In several games I played agressively into combat focussed armies. Historically I used to play very reactionary, and when I began collecting my Sons of Horus I retaught myself into trying to take the initiative in games, and get into the opponent’s lines/head. Unfortunately where most of this army is mid ranged firepower focussed, this is not very effective. It also meant whilst I grabbed early objectives, my opponent had the ability to remove my controlling units, and then score more in the long run. This was also especially damaging when my opponents gained extra VPs per independent HQ killed… and I had 3 in one unit.

3 - Breachers. I love breachers. I do. They’re such a fun and thematic unit to play with. And visually incredibly evocative! The issue is though, in comparison to every other troops choice, they are lacking. Yes, they do get that very handy 5++ save vs anything that is AP3, and rerolling vs blast and template can be incredibly handy! (It certainly was vs the Fellblade and Scorpion). However vs other ‘boots on the ground’ units such as tacticals, despoilers, or assaults, they suffer. The shields confer no advantage vs bolter fire or chainswords anymore (missing that ’no charge bonus’ badly), and in return you can’t fury, you can’t get extra attacks other than when charging, you can’t use perdition weapons etc. The addition of the special weapons is nice, but when the unit is already at base more costly than a tactical squad, it adds up quickly (with all 3 of my squads averaging at around 200pts per unit).

So, lessons learnt! Be a bit more held back with this army, shoot the goddamnn dreadnoughts before charging them, and stop using Breachers as a close combat unit! I may paint up some plasma guns for them, and turn the flamers into a small tac support squad. We’ll see…

The Results

Overall the loyalists won 3 rounds! But the final mission saw the traitors push them back, denying an outright victory. The number of loyalist commanders killed was also extortionate, and will likely have an impact on the next event (yes a good number of them were mine…)

So with 4 losses, you’d think I’d be pretty bummed out right? Well no.

One, because I thoroughly enjoyed all 4 of my games, even with losses. Yes I’m just that type of player.

An two… because I somehow won the best painted award! Which was, humbling, to say the least.

Conclusions

I had a really good time at this one, especially considering the fact this is the first event run by the Garage Gaming crew. I have absolutely no qualms about attending another one in the future either!

Mayve I’ll win a game next time…