30k Ultramarines vs Imperial Fists

Met up with my buddy Joe who brought his latest Heresy army the Ultramarines which do look truely stunning, they have been getting quite a lot of well deserved attention at events and online, rightfully so.

It really is a pleasure to play against an amazingly well painted army! 

Hobby Workshop once again hosted us for the day and they always make us feel so welcome. It was our last game of Heresy 2.0 and our last in the current store for Hobby Workshop as they are moving on to bigger and better things.

Joe has wrote up a killer bat rep for me as his memory is soooooo much better than mine!!

As promised, here is a write up of our game:

Imperial fists vs Ultramarines, the age old battle of the bean counters some would say. Adie and I each took a fairly spicy 3k list with an additional free Leviathan and Kratos each. We desided to play a modified version of The Crucible of War mission from the Siege of Cthonia suppliment, adding a kill point secondary for a bit of added danger and fun.

The Ultras won the roll for strategic advantage so deployed and went first, Adie’s rolling turning up as usual with a ‘1’ to sieze the initiative…

I deployed the 3 Recon teams in my army forward onto objectives to start taking early points. My turn 1 shooting was lackluster. I took hull points here and there but didn’t open any of the safety boxes open other than the Rhino but then wiffed the Scorpius rolls for the contents.

Adie pressed forward in turn 1 but stayed in his transports. His shooting was similar to mine with a few men lost, cover saving several others, and a few Dreads taking some wounds. However, he completely wrecked my Locutarus, killing 7 of them with melta/las Predators!

Turn 2 i continued to score objectives which was useful and took more wounds off things and managed to knock out a Predator and a Contemptor. The remaining Locutarus cleared the Iliastus Assault Cannon squad but were then left rather exposed… Overall though, another lacklustre turn for me. Adie then upped the ante turn 2. The Templars charged out of their Land Raiders and he opened up a devestating salvo that neutered the 2 small Recon squads, killed 75% of my Assault Marines (the first time this unit has failed me). His Predator and Scorpius then wrecked the remaining Locutarus, killing them and my warlord leaving just the Herald on a single wound remaining!Then pounded a Contemptor and Javelin into the dirt with templars in combat. Rage (2) out of transports in Templar Assault Rite Of War is no joke!

Turn 3 for me was really damage limitation. I managed to kill the remaining Predator and the Leviathan but other than plinking some Templars and a few hull point here and there that was the sum total of my wins that turn! With the smaller Recon teams off objectives, i could only score 1 i objective this turn as i slowly had to start castling in a corner around it!

Turn 3 for Adie saw his reserves arrive. The Despoilers ran onto an objective, freeing the Templars there to act as linebackers and go hunt some Ultramarines! The Assault Marines dropped onto my remaining objective but failed to pin. Then took a beating from the Punisher coming in but still cleared up the remaining Recons in combat.

Turn 4 saw me clear the Assault Marines with the Punisher and Tacticals, with the tacs claiming the objective. My remaining Recons and Assault tried to blow up a couple of tanks, failing manfully while the Kratos killed a Land Raider Proteus.

The Imperial Fists then went about their business clearing up the smaller squads to claim the points, gaining 3 more points from these.

Overall, a 19-17 win for the Imperial Fists. A really fun and close game. Hobby Workshop were great hosts and i’m looking forward to playing Adie there at their new venue.

Adie played his list very well and was clever with his reserves, stopping me targetting these squishy units early doors.

I learnt some lessons with the list too. I was not aggressive enough with the tanks which i’ll learn from but most of all, i’ll remember that i paid for meltabombs on the recon marines! If i’d remembered i could have charged several of the scary tanks early doors!

A snap shot of my Imperial Fists as they stood yesterday! I started them in the final quarter of 2023 and had 7 months off painting last year so at times when it feels I've not been very productive that I need to remember that I've done a chunk of hobby since summer 2022 when HH 2.0 dropped. 

I did my 3k Dark Angels, a handful of my 3k Night Lords, a handful of Imperial Knights, a Warlord Titan (for Warhammer Fest 2023) and Warhound Titan too. Onwards and upwards for the Fists I'm really loving painting this legion and have BIG plans still to expand it further with another large Lord Of War and some fast Attack choices. 

Thanks to @esoteric_path for setting these up for me! Killer eye for it!

Really wanted to just thank Joe for an awesome day, perfect end to a pretty fun edition, we've done a lot over the last 3 years! Thanks for all the help you do, building, helping with list hammering and all the rules. It's been some of the best fun I've had in my just under 40 years in the hobby! 

Let's see what edition 3.0 brings.