Barbed Wire, Razorwire, Devil's Rope, Satan's Hedge, so many names, all given to one thing, and it's been relatively left out of warhammer. The rule's that are scattered about the books state that it acts as both difficult and dangerous terrain. Big whoop, one in six men should die, who cares? Well, I do.
For starters, how do you make it? Well, hopefully before noon tomorrow (Sunday), I can put a video up and instruct you guys how to make it, it's ridiculously easy, and undeniably useful.
Now, how do we use it? For defenders there is one concept I want you to grasp: Barbed wire is a tool to control your opponent with. Use it to effect his decisions, like where to assault, where to manoeuvre, and most importantly, where to avoid. People are just damn reluctant to trudge into barbed wire. Place barbed wire where you are weak, and if you did it right, and your opponent doesn't always think things through, he will either put too much, or too little pressure on that spot, either way, you win. In short, while it won't kill a lot of guys, it will affect your opponent's decisions, in a positive way for you. For example, if you place your trenches forward and center, and place a forest of razorwire in front of it, spread your line a little thinner than you would normally, but spread them out so they look bigger, your opponent will concentrate on this area with most of his forces. Leaving the rest of his forces spread thin, and unable to cope with the firepower of your remaining units. However, doing this will leave your center broken, plan for this, and you should make it out ok, just make your opponent split his forces again, each half going after the half of your army, and again, due to the way your forces will split, you will have the upperhand, and in the end, victory. The other option your opponent has, is to avoid the center all together, in which case, just sit tight in the trenches, and pour your forces to the weaker side of your opponent's battleline. At this point you control most of the board, if its annihilation though, your going to have to kill the rest, but life in the Guard isn't supposed to be easy.
Well, that's all nice, but what if I find myself heading into the hornets nest? Well, to be entirely honest, just keep on running in, razorwire will slow you down a little, but in the end it won't change the outcome of a battle, so if you're going through Hell, keep going!
Showing posts with label wake 325th. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wake 325th. Show all posts
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
A Guided Tour Through an Imperial Guard Rifle Platoon
Some of you may notice the Tom Clancy book reference there, if not, check out his book "Marine" it's a fantastic read for military buffs, or proud Americans. Now I am going to take you through the backbone of my Imperial Guard army, the infantry platoon.
For starters, we have the Lieutenant and his bunch, consisting of five lads, we have the Lieutenant himself, who only carries a chainsword and bolt pistol into battle. Next we have his adjutant, a young chap, who has earned the right to carry the platoon standard, which has my trademark, Aquila-planet-anchor (note another Marine reference) symbol as well as a platoon designation. Then we have two Grenadiers and a flamer or a meltagun, depending on how many points I have left. There we have our platoon command squad, perfect for hanging tough with the guys, and there to lead a charge or smash a light tank. The focus of this unit is to stay with the rest of the squads, and make sure they get the job done, no matter the cost, mission first, then troop welfare, then your own welfare, that's how we do it in the 325th.
Next in line are the poor dogfaced soldiers themselves, military men have never been pretty, but by God, we are dependable. Consisting of ten men, a Sergeant armed with a boltpistol, chainsword, and meltabombs, 8 men with lasguns, bayonets, and a whole lotta guts, and lastly a lone man with a grenade launcher. Now, you may be wondering, where in the galaxy are the heavy weapons? Well, they wouldn't be mobile infantry if they were afraid to move up, now would they? Guard are some of the fastest footsloggers in the game, with Move, Move, Move! they easily get the most out of their running. That all being the case, I take advantage of that, and don't bog my lads down with heavy weapons. It's easy to meld the two units together, but they are more effective separate, and prevents that static gunline that looks so good on paper, but in practice, not so great. I usually take three squads of Guardsmen, that gives me a large amount of men, but not necessarily overkill.
Special weapons squads are an often avoided choice by guard players. Most opt for a unit of veterans instead, favoring their higher ballistic skill. Well, when it comes to flamethrowers, ballistic skill doesn't mean shit. For more on my special weapons, search for my combat engineers, they are the subject of another article.
Lastly we have the heavy weapons teams, these are wonderful given the right circumstance, used improperly, and you've wasted your points, and more importantly, your money. Now, I prefer to take different heavy weapons per platoon, but there is one mainstay through out all of my platoons, and that's the autocannon, I field six of them for every platoon, that's two units of three for you numbnuts out there. The autocannon is my absolute workhorse, when I point them at you, you die, plain and simple, and with range 48, I can point them very far indeed. Now for one of my platoons I take a team of mortars, this provides the barrage, and pinning power my lads need to make sure they wipe the table with the softer units. For the rest of my platoons, it's lascannons I bring, they give my men the firepower to crack the toughest nuts.
Best of all, a platoon built in this way is almost exactly 500 points (508 to be exact), so it's easy to build lists. Now how do I use my platoons? Well, in the beginning of the game, I give each platoon a reasonable objective, such as securing a table quarter, or parking in the middle of the board making it difficult for the enemy to move around. Occasionally platoons will need support from other platoons, like in the event of an officer dying, or needing a few extra lascannon shots. Generally, I don't combine squads, unless it's annihilation, or I will be doing a lot of running, in which case one order gives you more bang for your buck when it covers thirty men, instead of ten. I don't combine my squads because I like the autonomy of a squad, if it needs more men, then they are there, if it doesn't, then they can go their separate ways. Multiple squads are also better on defense, where one can go to ground and survive that extra turn of shooting, or one can make a sacrificial charge to cover the retreat.
In the end, I like platoons because I like the men, and never forget the tired, aching, bloody infantry.
For starters, we have the Lieutenant and his bunch, consisting of five lads, we have the Lieutenant himself, who only carries a chainsword and bolt pistol into battle. Next we have his adjutant, a young chap, who has earned the right to carry the platoon standard, which has my trademark, Aquila-planet-anchor (note another Marine reference) symbol as well as a platoon designation. Then we have two Grenadiers and a flamer or a meltagun, depending on how many points I have left. There we have our platoon command squad, perfect for hanging tough with the guys, and there to lead a charge or smash a light tank. The focus of this unit is to stay with the rest of the squads, and make sure they get the job done, no matter the cost, mission first, then troop welfare, then your own welfare, that's how we do it in the 325th.
Next in line are the poor dogfaced soldiers themselves, military men have never been pretty, but by God, we are dependable. Consisting of ten men, a Sergeant armed with a boltpistol, chainsword, and meltabombs, 8 men with lasguns, bayonets, and a whole lotta guts, and lastly a lone man with a grenade launcher. Now, you may be wondering, where in the galaxy are the heavy weapons? Well, they wouldn't be mobile infantry if they were afraid to move up, now would they? Guard are some of the fastest footsloggers in the game, with Move, Move, Move! they easily get the most out of their running. That all being the case, I take advantage of that, and don't bog my lads down with heavy weapons. It's easy to meld the two units together, but they are more effective separate, and prevents that static gunline that looks so good on paper, but in practice, not so great. I usually take three squads of Guardsmen, that gives me a large amount of men, but not necessarily overkill.
Special weapons squads are an often avoided choice by guard players. Most opt for a unit of veterans instead, favoring their higher ballistic skill. Well, when it comes to flamethrowers, ballistic skill doesn't mean shit. For more on my special weapons, search for my combat engineers, they are the subject of another article.
Lastly we have the heavy weapons teams, these are wonderful given the right circumstance, used improperly, and you've wasted your points, and more importantly, your money. Now, I prefer to take different heavy weapons per platoon, but there is one mainstay through out all of my platoons, and that's the autocannon, I field six of them for every platoon, that's two units of three for you numbnuts out there. The autocannon is my absolute workhorse, when I point them at you, you die, plain and simple, and with range 48, I can point them very far indeed. Now for one of my platoons I take a team of mortars, this provides the barrage, and pinning power my lads need to make sure they wipe the table with the softer units. For the rest of my platoons, it's lascannons I bring, they give my men the firepower to crack the toughest nuts.
Best of all, a platoon built in this way is almost exactly 500 points (508 to be exact), so it's easy to build lists. Now how do I use my platoons? Well, in the beginning of the game, I give each platoon a reasonable objective, such as securing a table quarter, or parking in the middle of the board making it difficult for the enemy to move around. Occasionally platoons will need support from other platoons, like in the event of an officer dying, or needing a few extra lascannon shots. Generally, I don't combine squads, unless it's annihilation, or I will be doing a lot of running, in which case one order gives you more bang for your buck when it covers thirty men, instead of ten. I don't combine my squads because I like the autonomy of a squad, if it needs more men, then they are there, if it doesn't, then they can go their separate ways. Multiple squads are also better on defense, where one can go to ground and survive that extra turn of shooting, or one can make a sacrificial charge to cover the retreat.
In the end, I like platoons because I like the men, and never forget the tired, aching, bloody infantry.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Battle Report: Breaking The Terminus Line
Background: Due to heavy shelling and rain, a marshy pocket opened up in the Terminus line, the final defense of the chaos bastion. However a full scale assault wouldn't work, the rest of the line is still to heavily defended, and the pocket is fairly small. So a single platoon was sent in to breach the new found pocket in the line.
Battlefield: Smack in the center of the 5X4 table was a large marsh, with a single duckboard bridge leading across it. On the attackers edge I placed a small forest that was clearly heavily shelled (i.e. no leaves, broken trunks, and craters). Two craters were also placed at random, I represent that by using a scatter die. And that's all the cover the attackers got. Defenders got plenty of cover: a watchtower, over 5 sandbagged positions, and a small generator next to command post at the very edge of the board.
Forces:
attackers:
Captain Colt (colonel straken)
special weapons squad w/ three flamers and a democharge
veteran squad w/ three snipers and an autocannon
Lieutenant Wal (chenkov)
and two squads of basic guardsmen with boltpistol sergeants and grenade launchers
Defenders:
Lieutenant w/ bolt pistol
5 squads of blank guardsmen
autcannon squad
mortar squad
stormtrooper squad
leman russ
Deployment:
Defenders deployed first, placing the Lieutenant in the watchtower, along with three of the squads
at the base of it deployed in sandbags. Then smack at the end of the bridge were the autocannons, and the tank. Over on the right side, were two more squads behind sandbags, and the mortars were hidden behind the generator, touching the edge of the table.
The attackers then deployed with their two squads and Lieutenant wall in the craters facing the majority of the enemy at the lip of the marsh. Special weapons squad, along with the command squad were placed as close as possible to the duckboard bridge. Lastly the veterans were placed in the bombed out forest, across from the two squads and mortars.
First Turn:
My plan here was to use my veterans to pin the .50 cal autocannons, who would simply pulp my men crossing the bridge. Well, instead of pinning the autocannon squad, they killed them all, which was unexpected, but certainly not unwelcome. The two squads with the Lieutenant moved up, and fired upon the defending platoon, and rolled terribly only causing three enemy casualties. At the end of the turn I used scatter die to represent where shells would fall, these shells however weren't explosives, but smoke canisters, representing the support a unit would get in this position. I rolled a 3 sided die, and rolled a two, so I got two smoke shells. Then I rolled a die for each, which represented the size of the smoke, one was a large, the other small. Then I rolled a scatter for each. Now the large one landed smack where I wanted it to, right next to the duckboard bridge, provided a nice coversave to my men who were marching in a single file clusterfuck. The other I tried to use to support them as well, but rolled off to the right, and in front of the forest.
So now the defenders opened up, and the two squads and Lieutenant took a heavy beating, losing all but three men in a squad, and the Lieutenant missing all of his men, save a standard bearer. Other than that, they didn't manage to kill anyone.
Turn Two:
The Imperial Guard side managed to get revenge on their fallen comrades, and then some. The passing special weapons squad, and the Command squad burnt the living bejesus out of the entire platoon. The attack was punctuated by the demolition charge blowing up the watchtower and causing it to collapse, killing the Lieutenant as well. The remaining few chaos worshipers ran off praying to their new found gods for deliverance. Which unfortunately was answered.
It was answered in the form of stormtroopers raining from the blood red dawn, just as the sun came up they landed right at the head of the duckboard bridge, and fired everything they had at full auto on to the men. Them accompanied by the coaxial bolter killed the entire special weapons squad. But again, the mortars and the other two squads failed to do anything.
Turn Three:
The captain and his retinue charged the stormtroopers, in an attempt to save themselves from the tank's cannon, which barely missed last turn. However the heavy flamer wiped out all but one of the stormtroopers, and the other fled, leaving my Captain totally exposed to a finishing shot from the battle cannon.
The Leman Russ fired its cannon with a thunderous roar, only to have the shell splat harmlessly in the mud. Again, the other squads and mortar, did NOTHING, honestly it was getting embarrassing, but against a 3+ coversave, and armed only with lasguns, and firing at range, there wasn't a whole lot they could do.
Turn Four:
The Captain and his unit assaulted the Leman Russ, ending up with two penetrating hits, and rolling a 2 and a 5, leaving the tank destroyed.
At this point the battle was simply mopping up, which was rather easy, which just proves, that though outnumbered, the forces of the Imperium were not outclassed, and won the day.
I purposefully massively outclassed my forces, I mean really, 60+ against 30+ and the 60+ had a tank to boot. The big turning point was certainly when all the flamers opened up, and the democharge went off. To lose 35 men in a single turn was a death knell for them. However any awards I would give my special weapons unit, would be awarded posthumously. Other than the Flamers, MVU would probably go to my veteran snipers, who failed to kill anything after turn one, but turn one, they certainly saved the day. I know that my men wouldn't have stood a chance of getting across that swamp had those autcannons been able to fire.
Battlefield: Smack in the center of the 5X4 table was a large marsh, with a single duckboard bridge leading across it. On the attackers edge I placed a small forest that was clearly heavily shelled (i.e. no leaves, broken trunks, and craters). Two craters were also placed at random, I represent that by using a scatter die. And that's all the cover the attackers got. Defenders got plenty of cover: a watchtower, over 5 sandbagged positions, and a small generator next to command post at the very edge of the board.
Forces:
attackers:
Captain Colt (colonel straken)
special weapons squad w/ three flamers and a democharge
veteran squad w/ three snipers and an autocannon
Lieutenant Wal (chenkov)
and two squads of basic guardsmen with boltpistol sergeants and grenade launchers
Defenders:
Lieutenant w/ bolt pistol
5 squads of blank guardsmen
autcannon squad
mortar squad
stormtrooper squad
leman russ
Deployment:
Defenders deployed first, placing the Lieutenant in the watchtower, along with three of the squads
at the base of it deployed in sandbags. Then smack at the end of the bridge were the autocannons, and the tank. Over on the right side, were two more squads behind sandbags, and the mortars were hidden behind the generator, touching the edge of the table.
The attackers then deployed with their two squads and Lieutenant wall in the craters facing the majority of the enemy at the lip of the marsh. Special weapons squad, along with the command squad were placed as close as possible to the duckboard bridge. Lastly the veterans were placed in the bombed out forest, across from the two squads and mortars.
First Turn:
My plan here was to use my veterans to pin the .50 cal autocannons, who would simply pulp my men crossing the bridge. Well, instead of pinning the autocannon squad, they killed them all, which was unexpected, but certainly not unwelcome. The two squads with the Lieutenant moved up, and fired upon the defending platoon, and rolled terribly only causing three enemy casualties. At the end of the turn I used scatter die to represent where shells would fall, these shells however weren't explosives, but smoke canisters, representing the support a unit would get in this position. I rolled a 3 sided die, and rolled a two, so I got two smoke shells. Then I rolled a die for each, which represented the size of the smoke, one was a large, the other small. Then I rolled a scatter for each. Now the large one landed smack where I wanted it to, right next to the duckboard bridge, provided a nice coversave to my men who were marching in a single file clusterfuck. The other I tried to use to support them as well, but rolled off to the right, and in front of the forest.
So now the defenders opened up, and the two squads and Lieutenant took a heavy beating, losing all but three men in a squad, and the Lieutenant missing all of his men, save a standard bearer. Other than that, they didn't manage to kill anyone.
Turn Two:
The Imperial Guard side managed to get revenge on their fallen comrades, and then some. The passing special weapons squad, and the Command squad burnt the living bejesus out of the entire platoon. The attack was punctuated by the demolition charge blowing up the watchtower and causing it to collapse, killing the Lieutenant as well. The remaining few chaos worshipers ran off praying to their new found gods for deliverance. Which unfortunately was answered.
It was answered in the form of stormtroopers raining from the blood red dawn, just as the sun came up they landed right at the head of the duckboard bridge, and fired everything they had at full auto on to the men. Them accompanied by the coaxial bolter killed the entire special weapons squad. But again, the mortars and the other two squads failed to do anything.
Turn Three:
The captain and his retinue charged the stormtroopers, in an attempt to save themselves from the tank's cannon, which barely missed last turn. However the heavy flamer wiped out all but one of the stormtroopers, and the other fled, leaving my Captain totally exposed to a finishing shot from the battle cannon.
The Leman Russ fired its cannon with a thunderous roar, only to have the shell splat harmlessly in the mud. Again, the other squads and mortar, did NOTHING, honestly it was getting embarrassing, but against a 3+ coversave, and armed only with lasguns, and firing at range, there wasn't a whole lot they could do.
Turn Four:
The Captain and his unit assaulted the Leman Russ, ending up with two penetrating hits, and rolling a 2 and a 5, leaving the tank destroyed.
At this point the battle was simply mopping up, which was rather easy, which just proves, that though outnumbered, the forces of the Imperium were not outclassed, and won the day.
I purposefully massively outclassed my forces, I mean really, 60+ against 30+ and the 60+ had a tank to boot. The big turning point was certainly when all the flamers opened up, and the democharge went off. To lose 35 men in a single turn was a death knell for them. However any awards I would give my special weapons unit, would be awarded posthumously. Other than the Flamers, MVU would probably go to my veteran snipers, who failed to kill anything after turn one, but turn one, they certainly saved the day. I know that my men wouldn't have stood a chance of getting across that swamp had those autcannons been able to fire.
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