The 210th Cadian

[Maugan Ra]

Right then. This here will be the chronicles of my own personal Imperial Guard force, the 210th Cadian, and the various battles I fight with them (primarily up here in GW Aberdeen). Because I've been meaning to get some 40k done for a while, so why not now?

I might even make some battle reports with maps, like I did a while back, depending on how clear my memory ends up. Anyway, here's the list as it currently stands.

Cadian 210th Regiment Expeditionary force
2,008pts

HQ

Company Command Squad - 260pts
Ursarker E. Creed
Colour Sergeant Kell
Voxcaster
2 Veterans with Grenade Launchers
All have Carapace Armour

Commissar Yarrick - 185pts

Elites

Storm Trooper Squad - 133pts
One Sergeant
Seven Stormtroopers

Troops

Platoon Alpha - 360pts
Platoon Command Squad
Platoon Standard, Vox caster, 2 Flamers

Infantry Squad One
Vox caster, Grenade Launcher

Infantry Squad Two
Vox Caster, Grenade Launcher

Heavy Weapons Squad One
3 Teams with Missile Launchers

Heavy Weapons Squad Two
3 Teams with Missile Launchers

Platoon Beta 305pts
Platoon Command Squad
Commander with Power Fist
Voxcaster, Melta Gun, Plasma Gun, Grenade Launcher

Infantry Squad Three
Vox caster, Grenade Launcher

Infantry Squad Four
Vox Caster, Grenade Launcher

Heavy Weapons Squad Three
Three Teams with Lascannons

Heavy Support

Leman Russ Battle Tank - 185pts
Lascannon, Sponson Heavy Bolters

Leman Russ Battle Tank - 150pts

Leman Russ Executioner - 230pts
Sponson Plasma Cannons

Leman Russ Demolisher - 200pts
Lascannon, Sponson Heavy Bolters

[shadowhawk2008]

If you have a digital camera you could use that to take pictures Mostly when your opponent is moving his stuff or when you particularly annihilate squads with awesome dice rolls

[Maugan Ra]

Well, not an amazing way to start my 40k gaming back up...

Played a 1,500pts game against another Imperial Guard force (I dropped Yarrick, the Stormtroopers and the Executioner). A mechanised one, to be specific, over a small ruined town somewhere in a desert region. An elegant summary of the battle would be: I got my arse kicked.

The large numbers of ruins pretty much assured cover saves against pretty much any particular shot, which saved his vehicles from explosive death more times than I'm entirely happy with. I generally advanced my men forwards into the town, with cover fire from my tanks and heavy weapons in an attempt to secure the enemy objective, and ran head first into one of 40k's golden rules.

Do not engage Hellhounds in urban terrain.

I shall spare the details, for my own pride, and simply note that by the end of turn four I had precisely seven infantry remaining on the board. My tanks were fine, but as it was an objective-based game, I felt it prudent to concede there.

On the upside, I'm now contemplating adding some Hellhounds of my own into the list

[Colonel Mustard]

Do not engage Hellhounds in urban terrain.

Fool, fool boy.

On the upside, I'm now contemplating adding some Hellhounds of my own into the list

Much cleverer. My own Hellhound/Banewolf (thank Nurgle for gribbly mutations that allow me to pick according to my foe...) has done me proud in many a game. My tyranid playing friend is positively terrified of it, now.

Also, I recommend using Creed's Tactical Genius rule on that squadron of tanks, if you haven't already. While you will lack some fire support in the early stages of the game, your heavy weapons teams should keep you covered, and three heavily armoured tanks rolling in from your enemy's flank or rear will really ruin their day.

Finally, if you're upsizing to 2500 points ever, I recommend you invest in some heavy bolter and mortar teams; you're a bit light on the anti-infantry front, and those should probably cover that base quite nicely, not to mention that mortar teams are great for sitting on home objectives and pounding the enemy from afar, thanks to their long range and indirect fire ability.

[Maugan Ra]

Fought a new battle today, with the entire list, against the Space Wolves belonging to one of the staff members down here in GW Uxbridge. This battle went much better for me... for one thing, I actually won!

I won rather strongly, as well. Lost two infantry squads and the Demolisher, but in return I took out the Long Fangs, a unit of Bikers, a unit of Wolf Guard Terminators, a Wolf Priest, a Land Raider and Logan Grimnar himself (who I shot in the face with a lascannon at pretty much point blank range). Turns out, throwing ludicrous numbers of high-strength templates around the board is hilariously fun, especially against Marine armies.

[Maugan Ra]

And that's another victory, this time in a 3,000pts game against a Chaos and Marine army. I had some Space Wolves on my side to make up the points, but they left after the second turn, which was irritating. Still, I was judged victorious when we had to end the game, even without my ally, so that was fun.

Highlight of the game would be when Abaddon led a large unit of Terminators between a pair of buildings on a direct course for the centre of my lines. I was feeling rather concerned, until I realised that my Executioner was within range and had an unobstructed line of fire, and could thus dispense five plasma cannon templates into the middle of some wonderfully bunched up elite troops.

I might have cackled a bit there.

[Maugan Ra]

Right. Bought a whole load of Heavy Weapon teams today, got them assembled and organised (painting will come when I get around to it). My Guard army, with a bit of tweaking, can now reach 2,500pts in size, as was demonstrated when I took to the field again against the Space Wolves.

Unfortunately, this time I lost. My opponent spent the extra points mainly on adding a load of Swiftclaw bikers to his list, and as it turns out they can all be given Meltabombs. Throw in turboboosts to grant cover saves, along with a Wolf Priest to make them Fearless, and my tanks were suddenly finding themselves getting ruthlessly slaughtered.

More specifically, I will tip my hat to my opponent here - he managed to coordinate his advance rather well. The bikers meltabombed my two standard Russ varients just before his main advance crossed the No Man's Land of relatively open terrain between our respective clusters of buildings. One was Wrecked, and whilst the other was only shaken, it took the Battlecannon out of the game long enough for his troops to get up close.

Didn't hurt that he also took a Land Raider Redeemer, which pretty much bullied it's way into the centre of my force (spearhead deployment, which with 2.5k of Guard leads to some rather cramped table quarters) and laid inferno templates all around. The stupid thing just would not die...

Anyway. I'll try to get some photos of my army up on here soonish... they're not amazingly well painted (I can never get faces right), but it suffices for the most part.

[The Hillock]

Sounding good man. I'm actually picking up tips from reading this on how to approach fighting guard, as I got hammered last week against my friend's very well rounded 1500pts force. If you can think of any tactics that CSM (or marine-equivalent) armies use on you that really hurt, be a gent and post them up!! (Do it, betray the emperor, he doesn't love you anyway!)

[Maugan Ra]

My record with this army now stands at: W:3 D:0 L:2, as I scored a victory against a 1,500pts Blood Angels force today in an objective-based pitched battle.

My opponent only started with a Rhino full of Death Company and a single Tactical squad on the table (split into two combat squads, one led by Chapter Master Seth). The Rhino hid behind a building so as to be out of the line of sight of my men for the first turn, but I used Creed's Tactical Genius rule to move the Executioner up into a position where it could target it. Annoyingly, a triple-1 on the Armour Penetration rolls meant that I didn't harm it in the first turn, but I made up for that on turn 2 by absolutely melting the Death Company before they could do anything more than look surprised.

On the other side of the table, Garbriel Seth lost his unit to a constant hail of fire, and managed to charge in against my Platoon Command Squad. He wiped them out (making his save against a power-fist attack I managed to land), and then found himself exposed in the open. Creed bellowed out a few orders, and I directed the sum total of..
- 36 lasgun shots
- Two krak grenades
- Six autocannon shells
- Three krak missiles
... at him. He was smeared across the landscape in a rather satisfactory manner, and I added another notch to my list of "slain Chapter Masters".

A Dreadnought disembarked from its Drop Pod off on the left flank, and promptly got immobilised by a krak missile into its rear armour. The jubilent weapons team finished the job next turn, just before Dante arrived with his Sanguinary Guard. Unfortunately, the game had to end there as the store was closing (my last shot was a Demolisher shell at the shiny bastards, which unfortunately scattered just off target). End result: I held three objectives, he held none. So, a satisfactory win for me.

[The Hillock]

I added another notch to my list of "slain Chapter Masters".

Like

[Falkenhayn]

I added another notch to my list of "slain Chapter Masters".

Like

I liked it later, but I liked it more.

[Maugan Ra]

Right. Well, I have gone and added the next purchase to this army. I thought about it for a while, turning over a couple of different options in my head, before I eventually came to a decision. And that is...

A Stormlord Super-Heavy tank.

Because, well, I wanted a super-heavy in there somewhere. So, having had a look through various different options, I settled on the Stormlord for a few reasons. Those being...

- It has a Vulcan gatling cannon. 15 shots at S6, AP3, which will make a mess of just about anything I care to point it at. If I don't move, I'm allowed to fire it twice, for extra dakka.

- Sponsoon heavy flamers. After a painful encounter with a Land Raider Redeemer, I've come to the conclusion that I want a large vehicle to bulldoze my way into the centre of the enemy lines and lay around with the flame templates. This thing can carry four of them, along with four lascannons.

- Transport capacity. The Stormlord can carry 40 models, and 20 of them can fire out of it at any one time. That's enough to carry the majority of my Heavy Weapon teams, plus Creed. It will essentially be a mobile death machine, dispensing an absurd amount of firepower each turn.

[Maugan Ra]

OK, and here's my new list that I've been using.

210th Cadian Imperial Guard - 2,500pts

HQ

Company Command Squad - 240pts
- Lord Castellan Creed
- Colour Sergeant Kell
- Veteran with Voxcaster
- Two Veterans with Grenade Launchers

Troops

Infantry Platoon Alpha - 475pts

Platoon Command Squad
- Grenade Launcher, Meltagun, Plasma gun
- Vox-caster

Infantry Squad One
- Grenade Launcher, Vox-caster

Infantry Squad Two
- Grenade Launcher, Vox-caster

Heavy Weapons Squad A1
- Three Lascannon teams

Heavy Weapons Squad A2
- Three Missile Launcher teams

Heavy Weapons Squad A3
- Three Missile Launcher teams

Infantry Platoon Beta - 390pts

Platoon Command Squad
- Two Flamers
- Vox-caster

Infantry Squad Three
- Grenade Launcher, Vox-caster

Infantry Squad Four
- Grenade Launcher, Vox-caster

Heavy Weapons Squad B1
- Three Autocannon Teams

Heavy Weapons Squad B2
- Three Autocannon Teams

Heavy Weapons Squad B3
- Three Heavy Bolter teams

Heavy Support

Leman Russ Squadron One - 350pts
- Two Leman Russ Battletanks
- Both have Hull mounted lascannons
- One has Sponson Heavy Bolters

Leman Russ Squadron Two - 445pts
- Demolisher with hull mounted lascannon and sponson Heavy Bolters
- Executioner with sponson Plasma cannons

Stormlord Super-Heavy Tank - 600pts
- Turret mounted Vulcan gatling cannon
- 2 sets of Sponson Heavy Flamers (4 total)
- 2 sets of Sponson Lascannons (4 total)
- Hull mounted twin-linked Heavy Bolters

Total = 2,500pts

[Maugan Ra]

Record now stands at:
Wins: 4
Draws: 1
Losses: 2

Got two games in today. A 1,600pts game against Tyranids, which I won, and a 1,750pts game against Eldar, which ended in a draw (both in terms of kill points and victory points).

That second game held a wonderful example of why I love using Castellan Creed in my army. I had a combined squad of 20 Infantry in my deployment zone, when my opponent placed down a full squad of infiltrating Striking Scorpions 12" away. He had the first turn as well.

Creed invoked Tactical Genius to grant my men the Scouts rule, and I moved them 6" back. The Scorpions were denied their first turn charge, and pretty much stood around looking slightly silly in the ruins (they could theoretically have reached me, but my opponent didn't trust his luck with the required roll of 6 for a Fleet move). My first turn came around, and the combined squad marched back forwards to within rapid fire range of their foes, where Creed proceeded to issue the "First rank Fire! Second rank Fire!" order to them.

54 lasgun shots later, all that was left of the Striking Scorpion squad were eight gently smoking sets of boots

[Falkenhayn]

How did the Stormlord perform?

[Colonel Mustard]

I second Falk's question. Also, I dare you to Tactical Genius the Stormlord. Go on...

[Gaius Marius]

I second Falk's question. Also, I dare you to Tactical Genius the Stormlord. Go on...

*Cough* *Cough* CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Maugan Ra]

Heh. Unfortunately, the Stormlord has yet to take to the field, as all of my games have been too small to properly include it. Still, there's a proper Apocolypse game tomorrow, where I intend to field the full army, which is now almost entirely painted (just got to add a bit of gunmetal to my various tanks). My local GW runs Apocolypse games every Sunday, but it's usually just the situation where everyone present adds a few units to the requisite side and we all play at once. I haven't taken part in one recently, mainly because the majority of the players end up being young kids who put down about three units apiece and have a shaky grasp on the rules at best.

However, the one tomorrow is actually going to be a proper game, apparently, with everyone participating being required to contribute at least 2000pts, which should exclude the majority of the children, and making full use of Stratagems etc. I'm looking forwards to it.

In other news, there was a 1k tournament on today, which I entered. I used my two basic platoons, with 2 autocannon teams and 2 missile launcher teams, backed up by the Executioner. I had to play Creed and Kell as a standard Company Command Squad, as they're too expensive to really properly justify in such a small game.

There were three games, but the second counted as two for the purposes of points scoring, as it was a 4-way free for all battle.

My first game was an Annihilation game against a Blood Angels army, which I won 3-0 on kill points. My opponent deployed his assault squads and Death Company strangely far away from the bulk of my army, and as a result they got gunned down before they got anywhere (the Death Company die as easily as anyone else when targetted by an Executioner). He included a Vindicator, which started hidden behind a building as he knew I had the first turn. Unfortunately for him, I still managed to thread a missile shot into its flank from across the board, which immobilised it and left it facing a brick wall for the rest of the game.

The Tactical Squad with a Sanguinary Priest did surprisingly well - I repeated the 20-strong First Rank Fire trick on them, but they took absolutely no casualties from it, with was aggravating. Still, though they murdered a fair few of my infantry, they eventually succumbed to sheer weight of fire.

The second game was the aforementioned 4-way game, a Capture and Control mission where the only terrain on the board were 4 Bastions, each of which functioned as an objective for a side. The other four teams were Blood Angels, Chaos Space Marines and a Thunder Lions army owned by one of the Staff (chap called Joe) which used the Space Wolves rules. The game ended in a draw between me and Joe.

Incidently, I will take this moment to state two things. Firstly, the Thunder Lions commander (using the Wolf Lords stats) had truly magnificent hair, sculpted from greenstuff into a long flowing golden mane. Looked very pretty, and is apparently proof against plasma cannons. Secondly, I still despise Land Raider Redeemers.

Anyway. Neither the Chaos list or the Blood Angels made much effort to capture objectives (in fact, the Blood Angels had mainly Death Company and so couldn't actually capture anything), mainly chosing to knock the stuffing out of each other. My Executioner spent the game spewing plasma death across the board in all directions, which was fun, but in the final turn got Shaken before it could bake the Grey Hunters squad holding the Lion's objective. Thus, draw.

The third game was against Dark Eldar, which were fantastically well painted. I regret that I didn't have any way to take pictures, but the owner managed to achieve a sort of... well, almost like an iridisent shine to them (which I probably spelt wrong, but oh well). Viewing from one angle, they were dull purple, but viewed from another they were a metallic green. It was really goddam awesome.

Anyway, it was a Seize Ground mission, which for a bit of variety ended up as four objectives evenly spread across the centre line. I pretty much sprinted my men across the board towards various pieces of cover relatively near to each objective, with the idea that I'd leap out again in the last turn to grab the objective. My Heavy Weapons pretty much sat still and strafed fire across the board to keep the skies clear of various skimmers and the Void Ravens.

In the end, I won, with three objectives to none. My Command Squad turned out to actually be capable in combat, curb-stomping that DE character on a skyboard that my mind refuses to provide a name for other than "Baron Samedi", and then the sergeant of squad A2 proceeded to single handedly best five Dark Eldar warriors in close combat around a different objective.

It turns out that Void Ravens are very nasty. I lost the entirety of Squad A1 when they were caught out in the open when a Raven arrived from reserve and stafed them with four monoscythe missiles, and the second one shredded half of Squad B1 and the Command Squad even though they were in cover. And then I put missiles into both of them and brought them down in flames, so it worked out OK - the Raiders were reluctant to advance out from behind cover when it meant bringing them into line of sight of six autocannons that could be twin-linked by my Company Commander.

So yeah, all in all a good day. Overall record now stands at:
Wins: 6
Draws: 2
Losses: 2

[Maugan Ra]

More games played, including the aforementioned Apocalypse game. Overall record now stands at:
Wins: 9
Draws: 3
Losses: 2

Battle 11

First, the Apocolypse game. There were, I believe, ten players involved and they'd all brought 2k or more points of Imperial races. So we split into teams of five, and promptly came to the conclusion that we were fighting a battle from the Horus Heresy (with Grey Knights as well, somehow... eh, don't ask me). The game ended as a victory for my side, which felt nice - we were fighting over five objectives spread fairly evenly over a 16' by 4' board, and initially the odds looked distinctly in favour of our opponents. They visibly outnumbered us, and in addition had three superheavy vehicles to our solitary one (my Stormlord).

Then the reinforcements arrived. An entire Space Wolves company slammed down out of the skies in their drop-pods and formed a cordon of sorts, trapping the enemy in one quarter of the battlefield and keeping them pinned there. Not that the enemy couldn't have escaped, bear in mind - that was certainly possible, and indeed several units managed it - but they were penned it, and often ended up getting in each other's way. Literally, they were unable to fit their men in the available space to escape the trap, even placing them with bases touching. There was something in the region of eighty Astartes, over a hundred guardsmen and about a dozen different vehicles caught in the area, and whilst it lead to an unholy brawl with the Space Wolves, it did prevent them getting out and claiming any other objectives before the game ended.

Oh, and I lost the Stormlord on turn two, to an incredibly jammy shot from a Conversion Beamer that scored three Chain Reaction results in a row.

Battle Twelve

Next game was against another staffmember, Sam and his Astral Claws. He was using a list that I believe comes from an Imperial Armour book, and we played 2,000pts (which was basically my entire army sans Stormlord). His list revolves around a tactic he calls "Pouring lava on a kitten", which involves a large unit led by a special character, all packing some varient of power weapon and storm shields. It shredded its way straight through squad A1, before I surrounded it with thirty guardsmen and an Executioner, with support fire from two autocannon teams and the heavy bolters. It still took two turns to kill them all, and the last member died about three inches short of Creed himself, which is the closest anyone has ever come to taking his head.

The game was "Vanguard", the Space Marine mission from the Battle Missions book, which involves the Marines seizing ground inside the enemy deployment zone. I won this one, holding all three of the objectives, even despite the lava-kitten unit. The turning point was, I think, turn two, when I managed to immobilise both the Land Raider Redeemer and the Ironclad dreadnaught before they reached my lines (both with glancing hits as well), which reinforces the benefit of just chucking unholy amounts of firepower at your target until it is neutralised. I watched four seperate battlecannon rounds score direct hits on that Land Raider and do absolutely nothing, before a lascannon managed to take out its tracks. Both units survived the battle, but were unable to actually provide the game-winning edge to my opponent.

I feel that I must here mention the heroics of my Platoon Commander of Platoon Beta. He lost his entire command squad in the first turn to an assault cannon volley, but held his ground. He then proceeded to sprint across 20" of battlefield, directly between the Land Raider Redeemer and my army, which was naturally doing its best to kill the great tin can. Not only did he survive the crossfire, he survived a Predator's twin-linked lascannon that attempted to put him down, and proceeded to charge into combat with three traitorous Tactical marines, one of which had a power fist.

None of them landed a single blow upon the Lieutenant, who then proceeded to kill them all over the course of two turns with his own power fist. He then ran another 18" and assaulted the Predator that failed to kill him earlier, stunning it in the last turn. For this, he was named Lieutenant Fury, and Sam did him tribute by freehand painting his name on his base and showing me how to do a much better skin tone than I have previously been able to achieve, which was used to make him look suitably dashing and heroic.

Battle Thirteen

This was another mission from the Battle Missions book, this time "Pillage". It was a 1,200pts game against a force of Nurgle-themed Chaos Marines. I won this mission 10-3, and afterwards advised my opponent (young kid, about 11, but surprisingly good at painting his army - they looked properly disgusting, and he is much better at Green stuff than I am) that he should have kept his attack together in a solid wave. He kept his Daemon Prince back, holding an objective, and sent a single Plague Marine unit towards my battleline while a second one struck out for a seperate objective. As it was, the first unit proved irritatingly resilient (power armour, T5 and Feel No Pain, and the scenario rules meant my Executioner didn't show up until turn 3), and almost made it to my lines.

Still, I was able to take him out piecemeal, especially once my Executioner arrived, and thus ended up crushing him.

Battle Fourteen

This game was fought against a 1,750pts strong force of Blood Angels under the command of a guy called Matt, who is apparently some variety of teacher. It was a Capture and Control mission (the one where we both have an objective in our deployment zones), and his force was a very offensively themed one. It was based around a total of three assault squads, which were split into combat squads, supported by a pair of Librarians, a pair of Sanguinary priests, and three Baal Predators with ludicrously oversized flame weapons.

The game ended in a draw, with Platoon Command Squad A holding my objective and a scouts squad holding his. I managed to destroy the predators by strafing them one at a time with my excessive number of heavy weapons and ordnance, but they still cost me several infantry squads. The Assault Marines were equally nasty, and after the fate of the Predators my opponent kept himself either in combat with me or very close to my men, so as to stop me using ordnance.

This game was the first time I have had to be truly callous with the lives of my soldiers. I had my Executioner fire on the squad of assault marines that were lurking next to an ongoing combat, despite the Missile team that were desperately fighting for their lives barely a few metres away. Sure enough, two of the plasma cannon templates scattered, and I ended up murdering my own soldiers in a hail of burning plasma. However, with their deaths the remaining Blood Angels were no longer locked in combat, and thus I targetted both Leman Russ tanks at them and slaughtered them all in a blaze of high explosive (the other squad died to the attentions of the Executioner alongside my brave soldiers).

[Gaius Marius]

Damn Maugan, you've been on a Space Marine kill frenzy lately.