A Fool’s Adventures with Crucible Guard

Thanks Juris and Havock for the reminder (as obvious as it probably seems to you) about Purification. For some reason it just didn't occur to me at all in the Gorten game.

Game 3 – Recon 2 (scenario 6) vs Joe’s Mercenaries

Joe and I continued to flail uselessly at each other. We played this game a while ago, but I just never got round to writing it up.

My list
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Crucible Guard Army - 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Magnum Opus
[Syvestro 1] Aurum Adeptus Syvestro [+28]
- Retaliator [9]
- Suppressor [13]
- Vindicator [15]
- Aurum Ominus Alyce Marc [0(5)]
Hutchuk, Ogrun Bounty Hunter [0(6)]
Combat Alchemists [7]
Crucible Guard Infantry (max) [15]
- Crucible Guard Infantry Officer & Standard [4]
Crucible Guard Rocketmen (max) [15]
- Crucible Guard Rocketman Captain [4]
- Rocketman Gunner (3) [6]
Dragon's Breath Rocket [0(5)]
Steelhead Halberdiers (max) [11]
- Doctor Alejandro Mosby [4]
I wanted to try out the extra jamming potential of Steelhead Halberdiers plus Mosby to tie up one flank while I rammed Rocketmen up the other side. I'd also read good things about the combination of the Retaliator and the Crucible Guard Infantry so it was due time to put them on the table together.

Joe’s list
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Mercenary Army - 72 / 75 points
[Theme] The Irregulars
[Crosse 2] Lieutenant Crosse, Resistance Fighter [+29]
- Nomad [11]
- Nomad [11]
- Nomad [11]
- Toro [13]
Alten Ashley [0(6)]
Eilish Garrity, the Occultist [0(5)]
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios [0(7)]
Ragman [4]
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt [8]
Sea Dog Deck Gun [3]
Steelhead Halberdiers (max) [11]
Steelhead Halberdiers (max) [11]
Steelhead Heavy Cavalry (max) [18]
Joe had a Gaston Crosse list that he wanted to try out. It looks like I must be missing a solo somewhere but I can't work out from my notes who it was.

Scenery
We ave a wall and a couple of trenches in the left zone, and pair of forests in the middle (one large one covering part of the right zone) and a pair of hills over on the right side, just edging into the right zone.

Deployment
I set up with the Steelheads on the left, then the Crucible Guard Infantry, the Rocket and then Battlegroup more or less in the centre. My Rocketmen take up station for Operation: Jam The Hell Out Of The Right Zone.
Joe puts Crosse in the middle with the Warjacks evenly spread across the AD line. The Cavalry are on my right and there is a unit of Halberdiers on each flank. Solos are smattered around with Eiryss and Alten Ashley on my left and Eilish and Ragman on my right. The Deck Gun and Aiyana and Holt take up station with the left Halberdiers.

Turn 1: Crucible Guard
As usual, we all run forward. Transmutation goes on the Rocketmen and Admonition to the Vindicator. Mosby gives the Steelheads Tough.

Turn 1: Mercenaries
Things also run forward. Alten Ashley kills one of my Steelheads. Crosse puts Dauntless Resolve on the Cavalry, Ghost Walk on the left Halberdiers and Lifebound on the right Halberdiers.

Turn 2: Crucible Guard
Syvestro drops all upkeeps and doesn’t allocate. In a shocking move I actually remember to bring Hutchuk on; he throws a grenade into Eiryss’s back and knocks her down to a single HP. He also kills the Cannon. We were not sure how Take Down and Take Up interacted so in the interests of time we ruled that the Cannon could not be recovered by one of the surviving crew. Syvestro remembers to use his Feat, casts Purification to remove all three of Crosse’s upkeeps and recasts Transmutation on the Rocketmen. The Vindicator hurts the Toro and Alten Ashley and the Combat Alchemists huck grenades around to kill or Corrode a variety of Joe’s Halberdiers. My own Halberdiers flood the left zone and look to get in the way as much as possible. The Retaliator Oils up the Toro and the Crucible Guard Infantry blow it away; I have to admit that was much more effective than I had expected. The Dragon’s Breath Rocket polishes off Alten Ashley and finally the Rocketmen kill a few Halberdiers, hurt the Nomad on the right and generally jam up as hard as I can manage. Hopefully I’ve done enough to stay up on attrition.

Turn 2: Mercenaries
Crosse Feats and then shoots my Combat Alchemists into an early grave. Eilish sticks Puppet Master on the right Nomad which smashes the Rocketmen Captain. Aiyana put Kiss of Lyliss on the Suppressor and the centre Nomad smashes it to scrap. We both score our flags; 1 – 1.

Turn 3: Crucible Guard
Syvestro upkeeps Transmutation and Allocates one Focus to the Vindicator. Alice tops it up and repositions back to the flag. The Vindicator bounces ineffectually off the Nomad in the middle. The Steelheads push forward and take out Aiyana with a CMA. The Retaliator kills Eilish and the Rocketmen continue to jam the right; they even manage to kill one of the Cavalry. I score my own flag; 2 – 1.

Turn 3: Mercenaries
Crosse allocates two Focus to the central Nomad. After some weighing up of options, Eiryss elects to risk the free strike from Hutchuk so she can shoot the big chap; it doesn’t pay off and she goes down to a mace in the back. The Cavalry continue to chew through the Rocketmen and Holt hurts Hutchuk with a Gunfighter charge. The Nomad leaves the Vindicator on a single box in Cortex. Neither of us score so we’re locked at 2 – 1.

Turn 4: Crucible Guard
Syvestro again Upkeeps Transmutation on the dwindling Rocketmen unit and Allocates a single Focus to the remnants of the Vindicator. My Objective heals the Vindicator back into fighting shape and Alice uses Empower. It spends another turn smacking the central Nomad and eventually the Rocketmen are able to finish it off along with the last Halberdier on their side and another Cavalry. My Halberdiers put a big dent in the Nomad on the left. The Crucible Guard Infantry put a huge CRA into Joe’s Objective, destroying it. The flags and zones are still very contested; 3 – 1.

Turn 4: Mercentaries
Crosse guns down two Rocketmen and casts Ghost Walk on Ragman. The Cavalry kill off a few more Rocketmen and Ragman personally drops my Vindiator. No scoring again; 3 – 1.

Turn 5: Crucible Guard
I drop Transmutation from the last couple of Rocketmen and Syvestro spends his activation looking for somewhere safe to hide in a cloud. My forces on the right continue to bounce off the Nomad and get the Cavalry down to a single model on a couple of wounds. Unfortunately, it’s the one contesting my flag. Hutchuk and Mosby combine to kill Holt and the Crucible Guard Infantry put a tasty chunk of damage into Crosse with another CRA. My Halberdiers finish Joe’s Halberdiers on the left but are making heavy work of the Nomad on that side. Once again neither of us can score; 3 – 1.

Turn 5: Mercenaries
Joe is running out of options on attrition now and I’m going to start picking up a good number of scenario points from next turn so he decides it is time for an assassination. Crosse drops a couple of Rocketmen just for the target practice then casts Ghost Walk on Ragman and the last Steelhead Cavalry. Ragman gets up to Syvestro and activates Death Field and the Cavalry piles into my Warcaster but can’t quite rack up enough damage to kill him. With Crosse now sitting in the open facing an almost untouched unit of Crucible Guard Infantry and with me having a bit attrition advantage, we call the game here. Crucible Guard win.

That was another very fun game against Joe. Crosse looked like a lot of fun to use with good personal output from his guns. I think that Joe gave up on using his spells very easily; he could have forced me to make some hard decisions about when to use Purification and what to do with my own upkeeps had he continued to put one or two of them out. From my side, I like the combination of the Crucible Guard Infantry and the Retaliator but otherwise the whole list felt rather lacking in ways to punch through even the modest armour on the Nomads. I will have to think of how to cover that weakness; perhaps going back to the heavy infantry options will help. On the other hand, the jamming potential of Steelhead Halberdiers plus Mosby on one flank and Rocketmen on the other was certainly quite entertaining.