Fall From Grace II: "Poseur Army" Battle Summaries
Fall From Grace II, the follow-up to Fall From Grace and Spring Offensive, was an informal gathering of 40K gamers from around the United States, held at the Borderlands store in Greenville, South Carolina, on August 31-September 2, 2001. 

For this event I created six "poseur armies": lists based on the fighting styles of other Space Marine Chapters. I'd still be using the "vanilla" Marine rules from Codex: Space Marines, of course, just changing how I usually play. 

So how did the “Poseur Armies” fare at Fall From Grace II? Not well, but that had more to do with wretched dice rolls and my tactical errors, not so much with the lists themselves. So let me briefly analyze each list’s performance and spare you the tedious details of how each battle went, because each could be summarized thusly:

• My opponent and I deploy
• We begin our turns
• Dice completely fail me (Difficult terrain check: move a whopping 2")
• I make bonehead tactical error (usually just one, but that’s all it usually took)
• Dice completely fail me (“This squad charges. Rolling to hit: 2 hits out of 15 dice. Rolling to wound: no wounds.”)
• Dice completely fail me (“Need to make three armor saves, needing 3’s or higher: 2, 2, and 2!”)
• Dice completely fail me (“Morale check: need 9 or lower on two dice: 12! Fall back: 11"!”)
• Opponent’s army jumps up and down all over mine

Strikeforce: Tiger-Wolves
The first game I played with a “Poseur Army” was a 1500 point "Cleanse" against Thomas Prince’s Space Wolves. You might know Thomas from his Phoenix Marines Themed Army Idea or you might have “met” him online as “Fenrir Sureblade” at the Millenium Gate forum or the Bolter and Chainsword. 

I’ve fought against Space Wolves many times before, and my first inclination was to use either the Dark Tiger list or the Flame Tiger list instead of my ersatz Wolves—I don’t believe in “fighting fire with fire,” thank you. The easiest way for “vanilla” Marines to beat Space Wolves is blast the Hel (pun intended) out of them with heavy weaponry and avoid close combat. But Thomas really wanted to play against Raja Khandar Madu (“the Redhead”), who was leading Strikeforce: Tiger Wolves, so I gave the list a try.

Space Wolf poseurs are no match for the real thing in close combat, however, and I spent a lot of time maneuvering away from his Bloodclaws and Gray Hunters. With the limited firepower of the Tiger-Wolves list, I had no real hope against him, and the game ended with the real Wolves holding one quarter and the other three contested. Ah, well.

Strikeforce: Blood Tigers
The second game with a “Poseur Army” was another 1500 point “Cleanse” mission, this time against David Sharp’s Craftworld Mor-Seth. My plan was to ram my “assault” troops into the Eldar and tear their pointy little ears off. Unfortunately, my attack was not direct enough (I should have charged straight into them, not taken the longer, safer route behind some intervening terrain) and my dice rolls were at their absolute worse. If there was an attack roll to be made, it failed. If there was a save I had to make, it failed (“Need to save three times: 2, 2, and 2!”). If there was a Leadership check to be made, it failed. Very frustrating. I conceded after 5 turns, when I had hardly any figures left on the board.

Strikeforce: Flame Tigers 
My playing started to improve with this battle, a 1500 point "Cleanse" mission against Mike Somerville’s Thousand Sons army. I had fought against this army before and was relying on the Flame Tigers’ heavy weaponry to come through for me. As Mike uses lots of Thousand Sons, I didn’t have enough big guns to wipe them out, but I did have enough to pull off a tie, with each of us owning one quarter and the other two contested. 

In contrast to the first games, it was a fun, even contest. The highlight was when my Dreadnought, Shrendi Vashtar, charged one of his Thousand Son squads in h-t-h and they spent several turns duking it out. The Sons eventually got lucky with a glancing blow from behind, but by that time, Shrendi had killed seven of them and they could no longer hold that quarter. 

Strikeforce: Tiger Knights 
My luck was firmly on the rebound with a 1500 point "Cleanse" mission against Dwayne Powell and his Oktober Guard Space Marines. I managed to get a lucky hit that shut down his Land Raider; when the rest of his army poured my way, I managed an effective counterattack, with Rama, the Emperor’s Champion, defeating the Oktober Guard Chaplain in hand-to-hand combat. The Vedic Siege Gun tipped the battle my way; without it, I’m certain I would have lost.

Strikeforce: Dark Tigers
The last “Poseur Army” I used was against Paul Hill’s Hentai Cult of Slaanesh in a 1500 point “Night Fight.” The darkness hampered my shooting and I made a couple boneheaded moves, including sending my Dreadnought and two Land Speeders off to deal with 69 (yes, that’s deliberate) Cultists. I should have sent the Dread and the Speeders after the Chaos Space Marines chewing my Tactical Squads to pieces and sent the Vindicator after the Cultists. Dumb, dumb, dumb. 

The dice were not as bad as they had been earlier, but they still were not good. The play of the game came when a 6-strong squad of Slaaneshi Marines assaulted my Terminator Squad, including Talwar Chakram, my Chaplain in Termie armor. Talwar had the jump on Paul’s Aspiring Champion, but I managed only one hit, which of course, did not wound. The Slaaneshi squad obliterated my Termies, then went merrily about the field, doing all kinds of vile things to my Marines and summoning Daemons for additional fun and games. So it goes….

Strikeforce: Tiger Claws
I didn’t get a chance to use them. Maybe some other time.

So in conclusion….
Not a very impressive outing for the “Poseur Armies,” but they were interesting to play and I’ll definitely try them again. At the very least, it was fun to write up the lists and experiment, and the lists forced me to rely more on tactics than unit selection. My poor showing just means it’s time for more practice, practice, practice on the battlefield.
 

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© Copyright Kenton Kilgore, September 2001
 

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