So today I got to test out my Iron Warriors against the orks in a three thousand point battle. My mate decided he wanted to get some more use out of his stompa which he is intending to be using in a highlander tournament soon (only one of each unit per army) and he really wanted to get some more practice in and I needed to try out the various iron warrior units which are going to be fielded in the apocalypse battle.
Here are some pictures of the models after we pulled them out
As the more eagle eyed might have noticed I brought Perturabo to this battle and he proved to be extremely effective.
I do not have any pictures from during the battle as I did not want to disrupt the flow of the game but it is quite information although one sided, the luck during the battle generally favoured me especially with my saving throws.
I won all of the dice rolls in the build up to the game and for the first time in something like six battles my opponent did not sieze on me allowing me to unleash the power of the iron warriors.
Iron warrior turn one - Perturabo's tactical genius kicks in and all of my terminators including Perturabo all deepstrike with perfect accuracy on to the battlefield, the combination of Perturabo and Damocles paying off straight away. I dropped them in to get the accuracy from the Damocle and to go with a previously conceived plan of trying to wipe out an enemy flank. My shooting was savage beyond belief due to the power of the ironfire rite of war preventing my barrage attacks from missing. When the dust had cleared I had removed 5 ten man squads of ork infantry and blown a battlewagon to pieces.
Ork turn one - the warboss who had been in the battlewagon lead his mega-nobz in the charge against my siege breaker and tyrant siege terminators while the remains of the ork host advanced as best they could. Massed fire power downed eight tactical marines who ignored the carnage due to being iron warriors, the supa gatling cannon on the stompa ran out of ammo on its second shot just like it always does for my mate and even worse he only managed to fire off 6 shots in total from the 4d6 potential. I lost a contemptor to combined stompa and loota fire but got off very lightly. Close combat saw my terminators exploit their 4+ invulnerables to withstand a lot of incoming damage and while I lost four of them to power claws my return power fist and chainfist attacks insta-gibbed 4 of the nobz to give me the win in the fight, the warboss suffered a wound while my siege breaker survived due to passing two invulnerable saves.
Iron warrior turn two - feeling pretty solid at this point I went about trying to deal with some of the more pressing threats, my iron havocs and Perturabo's siege terminators combined to take 5 hull points off the stompa, it would have been a lot more but my opponent had a mech inside with a force field to give it a 4+ invulnerable and he made a few saves. I then managed to use the damocles' orbital barrage, the remaining contemptor and the scorpius to wreck all three of the ork trucks and leaving his guys footslogging which certainly helped me a bit. Close combat saw the centurion die but take another wound off the warboss and then the last siege terminator (the champion) dish out two wounds to kill off the last nob and take the final wound off the warlord to win that mini-fight.
Ork turn two - the stompa moved up, hammered the tactical marines a lot more removing about half what remained and also managed to drop a huge template on the iron havocs killing a couple more of them. The stompa then charged the remaining contemptor - the contemptor struck first and somehow managed to kick a hull point off the stompa before being hit twice by the massive close combat weapon, one of the hits rolled a one ont eh destroyer table and did nothing, the other was going to cause d3+3 hull points damage but I managed to roll a 6 for the axiomatic shielding and somehow the contemptor survived, at least until the stompa booted it in the face obliterating it with it's stomp attack. The grot riggers then repaired one of the hull points.
Iron warrior turn 3 - the remaining siege terminator advanced on the grots holding the ork objective and with a couple of frag missiles and a combi-bolter butchered enough of them to send them fleeing from the battlefield. The sicaran butchered almost all of the tankbusta's and I managed to dish out a little bit of damage elsewhere, I rolled poorly though and only too one hull point off the stompa, with the objective now looking secure Perturabo took his men stompa hunting.
Ork turn 3 - The stompa set up to try and charge Perturabo whilethe bikes charged my sicaran and the stormboyz charged the few remaining tactical marines. The sicaran was wrecked by the power claw of the biker nob, the tactical marines not only held their own against the stormboyz but actually beat them but they were too close to the stompa to flee. The stompa sadly failed it charge against Perturabo despite only needing a seven.
Iron warrior turn 4 - Perturabo and his men dashed forward to ready their own charge, I brought the damocles full of tactical support marines with flamers forword to try and finish off the bikers. Concerted fire including five flamers managed to just kill off all of the bikes and then Perturabo charged in to the stompa, he swung five attacks with forgebreaker, hit five times, after tank hunter rerolls managed to get 5 penetrating hits and due to the AP 1 then managed to roll 3 explodes results meaning he was dishing out a minimum of 8 hull points which was more than the stompa had left so i did not even need the two chainfists and three power fists from his unit. The stompa got to attack back since everything was at init 1, it's massive blade carved up one terminator and then its stomping kill another before the final blow from Perturabo sent wreckage flying 11 inches on to my remaining tactical marines who just survived the explosion. The big mek somehow survived the explosion.
At this stage we pretty much called it, my opponent had something like 20 models left so i now outnumbered him and while I probably could not table him it was going to be pretty close all things considered
Not the best battle since the luck did seem to favour me a bit, not excessively but enough to through the balance out of the game.
I had a game plan to ignore the stompa for a couple of turns and focusing on removing a flank of the ork force, I knew I could not kill the stompa in a turn so I felt I have to wreck the first wave of ork attackers to avoid being swamped, locked in combat and helpless and to be honest it worked better than I could have expected.
The ironfire formation was good for turn one, after that it did nothing since I did not have that much artillery in the force - I definitely feel the need for a unit of thud guns, 12 barrage shots firs this set up perfectly.
The tyrant siege terminators were awesome, the option to fire a load of frag missiles when faced with hordes is sick and they are surprisingly durable. Despite lacking mobility after the initial teleport Perturabo is an absolute moster, his orbital barrage is sick, his regular shooting attack is solid, his option to use a cognis-signum to boost his unit by +1BS instead of him shooting is very solid and his close combat attacks at strength 10 and AP1 are terrifying, I can see why he is one of the most expensive primarchs, he is a massive enabler of strategy and a hell of a lot more flexible than Curze.
