Imperial Guard vs Imperial Guard (Vassal Battle Report)

Well, the Vassal40k league is carrying on with my list testing continuing. My next opponent is playing Imperial Guard.We roll up three objectives with a Dawn of War deployment, and he gets to pick sides. Here's what he brought:

HQ:
Company Command Squad, Regimental Standard, 2 Meltaguns, 1 Flamer, Chimera, (Hull Heavy Bolter)-145

Troops:
Platoon Command Squad, 2 Meltaguns, 2 Flamers, Chimera, (Hull Heavy Bolter)-115
-Infantry Squad, Sergeants Powersword, Commisar, Commisars Powersword-105
-Infantry Squad, Sergeants Powersword-60
-Infantry Squad, Sergeants Powersword-60
-Infantry Squad, Sergeants Powersword-60
-Heavy Weapons Squad, 3 Autocannon Teams-75
-Heavy Weapons Squad, 3 Autocannon Teams-75

10 Veterans, (6 Shotguns)2 Meltaguns, 1 Flamer, Chimera, (Hull Heavy Flamer)Dozer Blade-160
10 Veterans, (6 Shotguns)2 Meltaguns, 1 Flamer, Chimera, (Hull Heavy Flamer)Dozer Blade-160
10 Veterans, (6 Shotguns)2 Meltaguns, 1 Flamer, Chimera, (Hull Heavy Flamer)Dozer Blade-160

Fast Attack:
Devil Dog, (Hull Heavy Flamer)Extra Armor, Dozer Blade, Smoke Launchers-150
Devil Dog, (Hull Heavy Flamer)Extra Armor, Dozer Blade, Smoke Launchers-150

Heavy Support:
2 Hydra Flak Tanks, (Hull Heavy Bolters)-150
2 Hydra Flak Tanks, (Hull Heavy Bolters)-150
3 Griffon Heavy Mortars, (Hull Heavy Flamers)-225
Total: 2000 pts

Initial Thoughts:
This army is really scattered and hasn't decided what it is trying to accomplish. I notice the Squads have no Meltas, so they can literally be ignored for the whole game unless he starts aggressively moving them in (in which case they will have to deal with Heavy Flamers). The Griffons are of little concern to my vehicles, leaving very few sources of damage that will legitimately scare me. So few Heavy Weapons Teams mean it will be a simple task to remove this threat through Multi-Laser fire (which instant kills). His Veterans all opted to lose a Meltagun for a Flamer, which does allow them to be more of a dual threat, but I tend to think that the vehicle Heavy Flamers are plenty, lending the embarked unit better anti-tank reliability. Well, time to play on and see what I can learn from this.

Deployment

For this game, we elected to play the central building as Impassable Terrain that completely blocked LOS. I was immediately shocked that he chose the bottom side of the table, considering the placement of the objectives. This would make a game really hard to take away from an opponent deciding to bunker up. He deployed his combined squad of Infantry, a Heavy Weapons Squad and his HQ Chimera (with the unit inside, which is technically not allowed but I didn't notice until later). For simplicity's sake, I kept my army off the table to come on turn one, along with the Stormtroopers using their Deep Strike mission.

His Turn 1

 At this point, I elect not to try to seize. He moves on all his units and that's that.

My Turn 1

I move my army on in a split, popping smoke where it is relevant (no night fight next turn). I bring my Hydras in on the right side planning to bring in the Stormtroopers to deal with his, giving me distinct shooting superiority on that side of the board. On the left, I bring in my Sentinels hoping to lock the giant Squad into combat for the entire game. If that doesn't work, my vehicle Flamers should be able to break through.

His Turn 2

Not too much going on over here, I lose a Sentinel to some shooting, along with the Platoon Command Squad Chimera on the right, with his Griffons clearing out the troops. Not too shabby. He leaves his large Squad in place to guard against Stormtroopers getting to his vehicles.

My Turn 2

My Stormtroopers get a unit in and wreck one of the two Hydras on the bottom right. My focus on the right is to take out those Meltas as soon as I can, and I manage to wreck his Veteran's ride, forcing them out. On the left side, I am determined to place my units on the Objective and behind the partial cover of the fence so that even if I am Immobilized, I can guard the Objective. The others only advance 6" so that they can put their Multi-lasers onto the Heavy Weapons teams, getting a wound on each, with one leaving the table.

His Turn 3

Well, he pays me back a bit, but already he is running out of steam. The forward Chimera takes all the shooting leaving a pile of blood in it's wake (this will be a pattern, anything that disembarks immediately dies). On the right, he moves a Devil Dog that lost it's weapon last turn onto the Objective to try to block it off, but forgot to smoke it.

My Turn 3

I keep my aggressive advance forward, and am going to depend on holding the centre of the table to be my path to victory. In the top right, one of my Chimeras immobilizes itself on terrain. I keep the squad in for later, knowing that if it disembarks, it will die. On the right I do one of my favourite moves with a Chimera, an under 6" ram to his Chimera. What this does is, while I lose the ability to shoot with my vehicle, I get to block them into place quite well along with still being able to shoot with my Meltagun payload. I destroy his Platoon Command Vehicle and wreck the blocking Devil Dog. On the left, I do nothing basically, as all the Multi-Lasers bounce off the cover saves of the Heavy Weapons Squad.

His Turn 4

This is where my opponent stated later that he began to see the issues with picking the side he did on deployment. He tries to move in as best he can to take down my army with Meltas, but achieves nothing but some Immobilized results (the big Hexagons on the backs of some of my vehicles). On the left, his Chimera rams forward 5" and the squad inside gets some Meltas in. I see he likes my manoeuvre and is already incorporating it into his play. In the top left, the second Sentinel finally dies.

My Turn 4

Nothing more to do than to continue my push forward. A couple vehicles die as I take more aggressive positions in the front. I know that I have that rear objective locked down, so worst case, all I need to do is contest the other two to get the win. A left Chimera dies to superior Melta fire (I had three compared to his two), and I finally get his Heavy Weapons Squad to fail some saves. He now only has two units that can threaten my vehicles on that side (Meltas in the Chimera and the Hydras), very much limiting his options to push me back. The Stormtroopers finally arrive and manage to knock a weapon off the Hydra, which is good enough.
I realize from my notes that the front Chimera I smoked on the right had already done it previously and turn it off before his shooting starts, but at this point he has lost a lot of his ability to really do any damage whatsoever.

His Turn 5

Well, it's turn 5 and the game can end. He finally starts aggressively pushing forward with his troops on the left to take the objective. He shakes the closest Chimera, meaning it is going to push forward. In the worst case, I would have sacrificed a unit just to contest this. On the right he moves up to cover the objective with his Devil Dog, and gets the Vets just barely able to take it. I lose four of my Stormtroopers and choose to keep the Sergeant alive, hoping he has the best chance to not break, and hoping he will be in range of the Veterans to possibly force them off the objective through an assault.

My Turn 5

On the left, I simply get two vehicles in to make it extremely hard to remove them from play, on the right, I am able to ram into and destroy the Devil Dog with my Vets, and everyone's shooting nearly wipes out the Veterans. He elects to take the ones from those models out of cover meaning I now control the objective.

He rolls to continue and the game ends with me controlling two Objectives to his zero.

Concluding Thoughts
Well... it was not exactly a stressful game, but I was able to pull some good lessons out of this. Clearly choosing to be away from the objectives was a blunder, especially against an army that can bunker down if it needs to. I see my own list's ability to really dig in and hold things also. On the flip side of this, were he playing an extremely aggressive army instead of a gun, he would have picked the correct side as the majority of his units would be near to my deployment zone.

On the deployment front, I think the split he did was a bad idea, and he could have instead spread the Infantry Squad out more so that more than half were still in cover but all his vehicles would be behind them. If all his Chimeras came in near to that big pile or centrally (denying me a flank), I would have had to have responded in turn with many of my units on that side. He could then have made a break behind the building with all of his Chimeras, coming around the right side in force and possibly flanking me.

I am getting more comfortable constantly going second in these games, and am seeing this list's ability to deploy everything and still take that first turn's beating in exchange for being able to react to a deployment, and am going to keep that in mind for Dawn of War and Pitched Battle deployments in the future.