Steel Legion Assault Corps - Test game one

Right,

so, now that my army is largely built, I played my first test game.

The drop on Tau Sept World "Cemia"



I trotted down to GW Kingston, and looked for a game - a charming Tau player offered his army up to be the first game I played.If I'm honest, this isn't going to be much of a battle report - it wasn't much of a battle, as my opponent conceded at the start of his third turn.

What happened was I deployed first, and got the first turn. My opponent deployed his army - a hammerhead, a squad of broadsides, two squads of crisis suits, two units of fire warriors and a squad of pathfinders - in a ruin opposite me. He left 20 kroot and 3 crisis suits off the board.

I used my 24" scout move to move straight ahead, closing on him. He didn't manage to steal the initiative. I then moved everything forward, deployed 50 odd guardsmen at point blank range, and let fly with an army-wide, four orders barrage.

This killed most of the army - the broadsides, most of the crisis suits, all of the infantry, both of the tanks. After that it was just mopping up, really.

It taught me a few things though:

1.) Valkyries are big. Not just big, HUGE. It was a struggle to deploy six on a 6"x4" board. It was a struggle to keep them squadroned near terrain. You can probably exploit this with terrain if you're playing against a Valkyrie army.

2.) The guard are horribly vulnerable once out the Valks. I mean, I knew this anyway, but it's still shocking to see 130 pts squads all die to one flamer shot.

3.) If your opponent starts with units off the board he's making a mistake. If you're using reserves, go all or nothing. All off board denies the valk player the alpha strike; nothing off board gives you the forces to counterpunch. The way the Valkyrie army wins is by isolating parts of the enemy and destroying them in detail.

Next week: More soldiers.