The guardsmen fanned out into the ruins as Captain Vorel surveyed the streets. Fragmented reports had come in over the vox-caster all morning, screams chopped about and cut short by the bad signal in the hive, descriptions of white flashes that left soldiers torn apart in their wake. The mood had become tense in the platoon, the guardsmen had huddled closer to the hellhound and sentinels as they worked their way through the city.
Hive Ophisto had not been a beautiful place before the offensive, and after two weeks of orbital bombardment, there was little left to admire about the place.
There. There it was. Vorel saw a flash behind the ruins of the Ecclesiarchical Temple on the other side of the boulevard. A flash. But not just that. He could have sworn he saw figures within.
The club over here opened back up recently and I took my chance to get my first game of 9th edition in. Played small, 500 points, my Imperial Guard vs. the Eldar of one of those from the club. Great game. Very bloody. Definitely still a learning experience for me, there were a number of times when I forgot or didn't realise something that could have made an impact on the game.
My list was predominantly infantry, with a Hellhound and a Sentinel to pack the punch. The Hellhound did not last very long, being charged by Asurmen, a farseer, and a squad of guardians. I forgot to use a command point to fire overwatch which could have helped, and the Hellhound was destroyed on the first turn, although as a small consolation it took out 3 guardians and put wounds on to Asurmen. Following on from that, my whole right flank got dragged into a melee with the survivors, which ended up costing me 25 troops, including a command squad and a squad of veterans, and the hellhound. Very expensive! I just couldn't seem to do the damage back to the eldar characters.
On the left flank things went a bit better at first. The sentinel moved up and provided a gun platform to let my two squads attempt to cross the open ground towards the eldar rangers and a d-platform. Almost managed to wipe the eldar on this flank out before the two characters from the right flank came around after beating the snot out of the rest of my army and finished them off.
All in all, a great game. Great learning experience, it's good to suffer to learn the lessons you should have remembered. The new club is looking incredibly tasty, there's an insane amount of space and a large group of people actively looking for games.