Today I went basic for this battle, Cadians vs Iron Hands, no Lord Solar and no orders for my 6th game of Warhammer 40K 10th Edition.

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This game was at Boards and Swords in Derby.

Cadians 2,000 Points List

You are reading this correctly, no Lord Solar, no Tank Commanders and one infantry squad with access to one order from one Platoon Commander. This order I used zero times during the game. Making for a grand total of zero orders used in the game. The Regimental Attaches I took because I had 40 points left over and I like the models.

• Infantry Squad with Platoon Command Squad, Regimental Attaches and a Primaris Pskyer
• 2x Leman Russ Executioners with HKMs, Lascannons and Multi Meltas
• 3x Leman Russ Battle Tanks with HKMs, Lascannons and Multi Meltas
• 1x Leman Russ Exterminator with HKM and Heavy Bolters
• 3x Enginseers
• A unit of 3 Armoured Sentinels with HKMs and Lascannons
• 3 units of 5 Ratlings
• 3 units of 5 Scions with Power Fist, Plasma Pistol, Melta Gun and Plasma Gun

No Lord Solar

These are my reasons for not taking the auto-include Lord Solar;

• I have mainly used his 3 Orders at 24″ for Take Aim, but that +1 to Hit. But, 3 Leman Russ with Take Aim have the same damage output over the course of a game than 4 Leman Russ without Take Aim. See this Google Sheet I made.
• The cost of Lord Solar + Infantry Squad + Command Squad is the same as a whole new Leman Russ. The Leman Russ is T11 with 13 Wounds – a lot of staying power, a lot more than Lord Solar’s unit.
• His 24″ order range artificially constrains the movement of your army to 24″ from Lord Solar. Given that Lord Solar and his unit are not durable they tend to be at the very back the battlefield, out of line of sight. Thus, that 24″ limit does not give you any freedom to move your very useful Leman Russ around.

I do understand that he is not there to just use Take Aim, he has other uses; like other Orders, redeploy and CP generation. The redeploy is pretty useless because you do not know who is going first at the point those redeploys take place. The other Orders are useful too I am sure, but again I think that 24″ order range is still limiting.

The CP generation you cannot really get anywhere else. But playing Tactical Cards, does mean that dicarding one at the end of your turn results in a welcome CP gain.

Iron Hands

I forget the name of the Detachment used, but its not the one on the score card below. It was the one that gives Stealth to units.

• Iron Father Feirros Tech Marine
• A Tech Marine
• 3x Gladiator Lancers
• 3 units of 5 Terminators
• 3 units of 5 Intercessors
• 2 units of 3 Inceptors
• A unit of 3 Eradicators
• A unit of 6 Eradicators

The Mission

It seems that in this mission;

• The number of Tactical Cards available would be greater
• The battle will tend towards one final objective

I opted for Tactical, while the Iron Hands went for Fixed.

The Alphga objective was top left from my point of view, and the Omega was bottom right.

Iron Hands Fixed Objectives

• Behind Enemy Lines
• Bring It Down

Deployment

I put my rather useless infantry unit at the back, out of the way to deep strike deny adn scattered by armour upfront.

The Ratlings turned out to be really useful during this mission to Infiltrate deploy and get close to objectives right away.

Turn 1 – Astra Militarum

During this turn I attempted to gain a CP from my Astropath. Upon reading the rules, this rule was from the last edition and in fact he gave me a 12″ Reinforcements denial bubble. This would make it nearly impossible for the enemy Terminators and Inceptors to come down in my Deployment Zone! This was pure luck, both in terms of model choice and placement. I brought the Regimental Attaches because I had 40 points left.

I could not see a lot to shoot this turn. Some Ratlings killed maybe one Intercessors.

All the Ratlings were able to get in cover and onto an objective though ready for scoring in round 2.

Turn 1 – Iron Hands

Again, not much shooting. I Russ went down to five wounds.

I lost all the Ratlings in the centre and 3 on the rgith flank. The left side were out of sight and survived.

Turn 2 – Astra Militarum

The Ratlings on the right failed their Battleshock test, which gave them an OC of zero and lost me an objective for scoring.

The Sentinels launched themselves around that right flank to get onto the objective and I placed a Leman Russ in the middle to hold the centre objective.

I did not kill much this turn again. A Lancer was halved in wounds and a few Intercessors were killed. But no whole units.

Ignore the Iron Hands’ Eradicators in the top left, they were placed right after the end of my turn, when I took this photo.

Turn 2 – Iron Hands

I lost my first Leman Russ this turn, a Plasma Executioner. We were both shooting poorly. At one point I made four 5+ Inv Saves against Lancer shots, which would have easily wiped another Leman Russ out.

A unit of five Thunder Hammer Termintors only killed one Sentinel and took another down to one wound. This armour is tough!

The unit of 3 Eradicators on the left failed their charge, as well as the unit of Terminators in the centre. The Inceptors came in, inside my Deployment Zone, their smaller footprint meant they could fit in despite the 12″ denial.

Turn 3 – Astra Militarum

The Senitnels stayed in combat, to tire down the Terminators and also just sit in the way of the Eradicators.

My Scions came in and Deployed Teleport Homers and the other unit nearly sniped a Tech Marine.

I was holding on, the Astropath’s denial was doing wonders. My armour was not dying as quickly as I had expected.

The Inceptors were quickly dealt with using Guardsman Lascannons, Leman Russ Multi Meltas and a Psychic attack.

I shot the Execturion Autocannons at the Lancer on nine wounds in this turn. I just wanted a hit, to get that extra AP on future attacks. But to our surprise it whiffed its saves and three shots went through, at 3 Damage each the Lancer was dead – and exploded!

Turn 3 – Iron Hands

I lost a second Leman Russ this turn, in the centre. But again, only one Sentinel to the ongoing combat with ther Terminators. Lightning Claw Terminators came in on the left flank and made their charge. The Exterminator survived!

Turn 4 – Astra Militarum

With objectives now starting to disappear it was time to rush to the Omega objective, in the bottom right corner. Alpha has gone at the start of this turn. My last unit of Scions came in down their to sure up that corner and a Executioner came around the bend to help out.

A Battle Cannon Leman Russ managed to kill 5 Terminators, not from it Lascannon, not from its Multi Meltas, but just from the Battle Cannon. This was truly amazing. That freed the centre up completely.

Cadians vs Iron Hands Summary

The left side of the game faded away a bit. The focus was now onto the final Omega objective in the bottom left. I lost more more Leman Russ, giving the enemy Bring It Down points. But I had managed to take the Omega back at the start of my turn 5. The Scions had come in shot and charged. They killed just enough and survived just enough to give me 4OC and the enemy 2OC.

This would flip around by the end of turn 5 as the enemy kiled me off and regained it, also for 15 VP.

This was really close and all came down to the last two turns and that last Omega objective.

List Summary

This list worked really well. The gameble of not taking Lord Solar paid off.

I could move my tanks around freely; to the centre, to the left flank to see down to the enemy’s deployment zone, and around to the right flank to pressue the Omega objective.

Take Aim, would have given me more firepower, but a whole extra Leman Russ felt like a big deal. They were hard to shift, even with Eradicators and Lancers, having an extra one felt like it made life much harder for the enemy.

The CP generation I did not miss; I used Overwatch a few times, Command Re-Roll a couple fo times, Smoke once and Reinforcements once on my Scions (the Sentinels never died).

Final Score

Astra Militarum – 66
Iron Hands – 50

Astra Militarum Victory