Iron Warriors VS Deathwing

I took my Iron Warriors for a spin against James' Deathwing in a 1750pts game this weekend.

James had his usual Belial Command Squad with Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield all round, Deathwing Banner, Apothecary and Ezekiel. Plus 5 Terminator squads with storm bolters and Cyclone Missile Launchers.

Meanwhile I took the first 1750pts of my 2000pts Chaos Space Marines list (link), led by the ruthlessly cunning Techno-Sorcerer Manneus Drath ('Manny' for short).

We rolled for mission and set up, getting Secure & Control (1 objective each) with a Dawn of War deployment.

I won the roll off and opted to go first and placed my objective (a spare Pink Horror from James' Thousand Sons army) just to the left of the centre. James placed his objective in the top right hand corner -oh yawn!

PS: James lent me a Whirlwind as I was 1 Rhino short.

THE GAME
James rolled to seize the initiative...and failed! Meanwhile the Iron Warriors mechanised company rolled on from the board edge while the Obliterators waited in reserve to teleport in.

Sudden the Chaos Space Marine army converged in the centre, Chosen led by Manny disembarked from their Rhino APC and brought 5 plasma guns to bear, alongside 3 twin linked plasma guns from the nearby obliterators and opened fire -annihilating a Deathwing Terminator squad while losing one of the Chosen to an overheating plasma gun in the process *evil cackle*.

On the left flank the other Obliterator Cult and the Havocs with melta guns made short work of another Deathwing Squad, but lost half of their number in the close combat that ensued with the squad's remaining member, before they cut him down.

Belial and his Command Squad advanced towards the centre to find themselves surrounded with Chaos Marines, plasma guns, melta guns, combi meltas and countless bolters.

The first round of fire did very little while Manny's attempts to 'Lash' the unit resulted in them moving only 3". Curses!

I fed a Chaos Marine squad to them to keep them occupied for the turn. The squad was wiped out -just as planned. Manny's evil minions had done his bidding perfectly!

The Chaos Hord advanced as one, and fired once more, gunning down a handful of Deathwing Assault Terminators, before Manny 'Lashed' them apart to create a more favourable alignment of targets to charge.

Despite heavy casualties, the Deathwing Command Squad was wiped out, leaving the Iron Warriors to fall back to claim their objective.

Meanwhile the Obliterators advanced, gunning down 3 of the Deathwing Terminators close to James' objective. Then to add insult to injury Manny 'Lashed' them away 9".

In James' turn he moved and then ran them back towards the objective.

We rolled to see if the game ended -and it did.

I felt that James had been a little generous with his movement and his measuring to the objective. But what the heck, it had been a close game, so I didn't argue.

CONCLUSION
Could I have played better? Definitely! But as a first outing it wasn't a bad game.

James remarked that I had played like I didn't care. Well, that's not entirely true. I'd crafted an army to go forward and get stuck in with their special weapons -and that's precisely what I did.

Putting one Cult of Obliterators down on the flank had seemed like a great idea at the time. Committing the Melta Gun Havocs had felt equally brilliant. But then they struggled to get back into the game from that point onwards. So it feels as though the army really has to move together as one in order to be effective.

Just imagine the carnage had another Cult of Obliterators and 4 Melta Guns been blasting down the centre into the Deathwing Command Squad!

In the meantime, I'm looking forward to playing more games with my Iron Warriors special weapons fest while I'm working on my new Space Wolves.