There's nuthin' like a good ol' fashioned blood bath!

o/

This past Saturday I played  1500 point game of 30k with Bob. As my forces are a bit thin in the ranks, especially following the departure of the Alpha Legionnaires, Bob offered to lend me up to 30 bolters grunts. I used most of em, and at the start it looked more like a shattered legion than the Salamanders. However Bob turned on the hurt quickly, and the loaners were the first to go! We opted for a simple kill point game with 2VPs for destroyed units plus the usual secondaries.

What follow's is my usual photo dump/pseudo battle report.

My multi-colored left flank.

...and my right. The rhino contained my Praetor, Apothecary and a tactical support squad equipped with meltaguns and a Sgt. with a Powerfist.

Luckily I only had 1 landraider full of Cataphractii termies to deal with this time. A 20 strong tac squad filled out Bob's right flank. A rhino full of Autocannon equipped Devastators, a praetor with accompanying command squad and 10 breachers held the middle, and...

another 20 strong tac squad and the very scary Sicarian whirlwind was on his left. 

The lines draw closer...the Sicarian already gutted my tac squad on the right in the first turn, whereas Bob's other tac squad (not pictured) suffered almost as heavily on the other side due to massed bolter fire and flamers (over the course of 2 turns). 

My rhino sped forward, bypassed the breachers on turn two, and deployed my melta marines for a decapitation strike on the Iron Warrior praetor and command squad. 

The fearsome Devastators disembark in the center, ready to reinforce...well, prettymuch everyone.

The Covenant of Fire rights of war makes all Salamander melta weapons master-crafted. The problem of course comes when you roll three 1's to wound. Bob's Praetor took a wound, but had eternal warrior, leaving him singed but alive. 

Well this is going to suck! And boy did it! Overwatch did nothing and despite taking down 2 Iron Warrior cataphractii in close combat, the Salamanders lost at least 3-times that number and fled. They rallied shortly thereafter but the cataphractii and landraider simply blew the survivors off of the board. 

A second round of meltaguns finished off the command squad and after the charge & challenge, both Praetors broke out the recaff to BS whilst doing absolutely NOTHING to one another over the course of several rounds of close combat. 

Likewise, massed fire reduced the Iron warrior Termies to just the sgt., and once again the charge & challenge resulted in the two sgt.'s flailing about fruitlessly with AP 3 weaponry for a few turns.

What was left of my Flamer squad finally charged what was left of Bob's one tac squad...

Luckily I was rolling good, and the lightning claw equipped Sgt. sent em running!

The breachers wade in and my Sgt. with powerfist called his out for a challenge and summarily died! 

Finally! I got lucky and Bob rolled a snake eyes on armor saves and his warlord was killed!

Bored waiting for the pointless termie close combat to end, the devs pivot and slaughter my last few flamer marines whom had just done the same to the tac squad they had been fighting. 

Despite losing my last 2 melta grunts, the breachers fall back from my Praetor and Apothecary. 

My termie sgt. finally killed his opponent, and the termies avenged the flamers by bathing the devastators in fire and then charging, wiping out the survivors!

On the other end of the table, lots of shooting resulted in little aside from the loss of my predator and several Iron Warrior tac marines. . The two depleted squads, would remain locked in combat for the remainder of the game...

My ragged survivors out of close to 60 marines!

At the end of 6 turns we tallied it up, almost as an afterthought as I had killed more units plus had all 3 secondaries, though I don't recall the exact number of VPs. It was a bloody game and out of Bob's force, whilst all 3 of his vehicles survived, his infantry horde was reduced to just 5 tac. marines, vs. my lone rhino and about a dozen marines. Yup, attrition warfare at its finest! The game was a lot of fun and I look forward to more games of 30k in the future.