War of the Relics; Exit the Ultramarines, enter the Ultramarines

 "Guard the objective" snarled Gunvor. Still smarting from the loss of 60% of his command, he was chafing to get into combat and the never-ending task of guarding an objective whose value he did not know was only exacerbating the situation.

Unfortunately, the only target in sight was the hapless remainders of the Ultramarine tactical unit. Gunvor and his men fired away but their fire was ineffective. For the moment he would have to satisfy with himself with the knowledge he was accomplishing his mission all but uncontested.

I considered bringing in 2-3 units from each army, but the purpose of this game is to get used to moving, shooting, learning rules like pinning, morale, and seeing how effective...or ineffective...any given weapon is so I elected to just keep doing it the way I have been. On the bright side, it keeps the turns quick and easily managed...on the dark side, the Space Wolves are dominating.

Doggedly the Ultramarines advanced to seize the objective, with the Plasma Gun moving to a better firing position. His movement jostled his aim and he missed, as did the captain, but the missile Launcher hit the stealth unit hard. Only one drone was knocked out of commission, however...

Casualties had taken away their holding the objective and taken them out of squad coherency. I found that by moving the captain forward and shifting the Plasma Gun I could fire the missile launcher Frag grenade and still snap shot with the Plasma. 

The Grenade did 4 wounds due to how crowded the Tau Stealth team was, but only one was not saved.  In a way it was a glorious last stand...they had done nothing of note since wiping out the Hammerhead, though they had held the objective for quite some time.

"I saw your pathetic shooting, Gunvor" radioed Ingvar. "A shiny new Storm Bolter on whether my boys can outshoot you?"

Gunvor accepted the bet and started laughing as the two missiles sailed way over their targets and one Lascannon buried in the crumbling walls of the ruins sheltering the Ultramarines. His laughter stopped as Stumpy fired and took out the Ultramarine captain. The damage proved too much for the beleagured Ultramarines and they turned and fled.

The Long Fangs are sitting alone on a hill with good line of sight to virtually the entire field. With nobody threatening them they are able to plink away. Having their Frag Grenades scatter 10 and 11 inches limits the damage they do, and the ruins gave cover from the Lascannon, but they still have been the MVP so far, blowing up Land Raiders, running off the rugged, stubborn Ultramarines...I am learning the power of the Long Fangs.

Commander Tai chuckled gleefully as the blue-clad Ultramarines took to their heels. "We have company, boys, and they did part of our work for us. Lets go find some enemies."

Waving his arm, he led his men running through the ruins that hid them from view of whoever had fired on the Ultramarines.

"Ovidius reporting for duty". Captain Ovidius of the Ultramarines had heard the distress calls from Captain Aelius and his long-time friend Decimus as well as a third unidentified man, someone who was leading a unit of tacticals to recover some bit of tech. He had thundered his Land Raider toward the field of battle as quickly as possible, yet now that he should be in radio range, all he heard was silence over the com.

It seemed likely the targets he was picking up on the instruments had something to do with the radio silence. He did not know who they were but it mattered not. He would wreak a terrible vengeance on them.

VP
Tau 3 objective x 3
Space Wolves 12 First Blood, kill points x5, objectives x4, Overwhelming Firepower x2
Ultramarines 8;  kill points x2, objective x6
Dark Angels: 0
Chaos Space Marines: 0