A battle report! Part 1

With work having finished for Christmas I was looking forward to lots of time to make some progress. Well that was the plan and unfortunately I've only really had today and part of yesterday to do anything. Nonetheless I have finished the 1st Infantry Platoon so that is 25 Guardsmen, and their 3 Chimera all fully decked out with battle damage and insignia. No photos today I'm afraid as I haven't had a chance but in the next post I promise lots of photos!
So this evening the Praetorian Mechanised 4th got their first taste of battle since their temporary retirement all those years ago. Unfortunately I forgot to take any photos, but I will try to be as descriptive as possible to compensate!

The battle was 1000pts a side played on a martian red 4by4 table. There were a few ruined buildings, some of three stories, in each quarter, and a few craters towards the centre of the battledfield. My opponent commanded an Imperial Fists army and we played a simple game where there was one objective in each of our deployment zone, whoever held the most at the end would be the winner.

Here are the army lists

Imperial Fists -
Lysander
6 Assault Terminators 2 lightening claws 4 thunder hammer
Landspeeder storm
6 scouts with shotguns and a heavy bolter
6 scouts with sniper rifles and a missile launcher
Landspeeder with multi melta and heavy flamer
Vindicator
Drop pod dreadnought with plasma cannon and power fist

Preatorian Imperial Guard
Command HQ - bodyguard, officer of the fleet, reg standard
Infantry Platoon -
Command squad - melta gun, standard, bolt pistol
Squad 2 Heavy Bolter plasma gun
Squad 1 Autocannon flamer
x3 chimera
Veteran Squad Sgt Bastone, Grenade launcher, Missile Launcher
Leman Russ with Lascannon
5 Rough Riders with plasma gun and melta gun
6 Rough Riders
Priest with eviscerator

My army largely consisted of what I have been working on and what was finished. I do dislike fielding unpainted models but as it was my first game back I let it slide (only the Vets and HQ were unpainted so only 14 models). I had been expecting to face orks so a specialised marine army was a surprise particularly when it came to deployment and only a landspeeder, vindicator and sniper squad set up. The thought of the rest landing in the middle of my army wasn't comforting.

Lysander, due to his siege speciality had fortified a building. In this building in the heart of the his deployment zone next to his objective he deployed the snipers, behind it the land speeder and to one side the vindicator.

My objective was placed in a clearing in my deployment zone, a killing zone of sorts . The vet squad with the priest and Bastone took position in one building while the autocannon squad deployed in a neighbouring building. The Command HQ tried to take shelter in the shadow of the building, out of site of the snipers.

Apologies for the poor quality maps but I think it shows what was going on pretty well. The black lines represent the ruined building. The circles in the middle craters and the grey in the bottom left is a landing pad. Finally the purple stars are the objectives.

My roughriders were busy outflanking and the rest of the Imperial Fists were in reserve or outflanking. The first turn was to be my opponents as I failed to sieze the initiative...

Now that the scene is set I will have to leave it there for the time being. I will post again in the next two days with the outcome of the battle and also some photos of the newly painted troops.