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I would point out there are (or were) 10th edition armies that did lean on their Battleline units.  Necron players even at the tournament level made use of Immortals and Cryptek buffing characters.  As a reward for having a good Battleline unit with character synergy, Immortals and Crypteks caught a points increase.  It's hard to listen to GW bemoan how nobody takes Battleline when they make sure to nerf good Battleline.

Remember in 5th where only troops could score objectives and 6th where only troops could score and contest? And it was end game scoring, so they had to stick around until then?    The compulsory troops/battleline felt like they were more necessary in that style than in the version where every unit can score or contest, you can points that can't be lost every turn, and you dont always need to be on an objective to score (either through secondaries or sticky abilities).    But hey, unrestricting every interaction and mechanic has only lead to a better game, right?

This battle report is being presented as a continuation of my prior reports.     Having penetrated the Davidian Line, the Iron Hands column from Clan Haarmek thrust itself deep behind enemy lines.  Their goal was to push to the Traitor-held capitol hive cluster before the enemies holding the Davidian defenses could fall back into them.  Reports from orbital reconnaissance showed that the Guard's attritional assault was pinning some of the Arch-Enemy troops in place, but in other sectors they were effectively withdrawing towards the capitol.  Worse, word reached them of the disaster at Rorke's Ford -- not only had an entire Guard brigade been shattered, but the Alpha Legion was now known to be active in the Iron Hands' sector.   Unbeknownst to Iron Captain Hastiim Haarmek, loyal forces from the Ultramarines had also exploited the hole that he ripped in the southern end of the Davidian Line.  While the Iron Hands were slowed by deep forests, an armored column of Ultramar's finest led by Marneus Calgar himself had found an easier path and pushed faster than the Medusans.  The two pincers met on the outskirts of Marburg, the outer-most suburb of the capitol hives.  Despite assurances of their identity passed over vox, the Iron Captain's suspicions that these friendly Astartes were actually Alpha Legionnaires waiting to stab the Iron Hands in the back refused to die.  Rather than cooperate, Haarmek turned his spearhead and established a defensive cordon directly in their path.    When Calgar refused to halt or turn back in the face of the stubborn Iron Captain's demands, the die was cast for him.     STRIKE FORCE HAMMER (Ironstorm)   Gravis Captain with the Flesh is Weak Apothecary Biologis with Master of Machine War Iron Father Feirros Techmarine with Adept of the Omnissiah   5x Heavy Intercessors (x3) 6x Aggressors 3x Aggressors Brutalis Dreadnought Land Raider Land Raider Redeemer Gladiator Lancer x2     THE ULTRAMARINES? (Vanguard)   Marneus Calgar Uriel Ventris Apothecary Biologis with The Blade Driven Deep Lieutenant with Combi-weapon with Shadow War Veteran Lieutenant   Company Heroes 6x Inceptors 6x Aggressors 5x Infiltrators 10x Hellblasters Land Raider 2x Gladiator Lancers     GAME SETUP   My opponent is a regular for me; I've crossed blades with his Ultramarines many times.  We're both attending a tournament at the LGS this upcoming weekend but neither of us has played in a few weeks so we wanted to shake a little rust off first.  We randomly rolled out which mission set to play, and ended up with Mission D -- Deploy Servo Skulls, Chilling Rain, and Search & Destroy.  This was my first time playing Deploy Servo Skulls so I had to read the mission card like five times to get a grip of how to actually run it.  My opponent won the first roll-off and elected to be the attacker.  Our deployments were thus.  I placed Feirros with the big Aggressor squad in the Redeemer, Captain & Apothecary with small Aggressor squad in the Phobos Land Raider.  Ventris and the Company Heroes went into their Land Raider; Calgar and the AB joined the Aggressors and infiltrated (kinda, since they were scared of being blazed & charged by the Redeemer & cargo); the Lieutenant joined the Hellblasters; and the big unit of Inceptors went into deep strike reserve.     With that, the stage was set -- and I won the roll off for first turn.  A quick note on terrain: for the purpose of this report, the first-floor windows of anything that's a ruin was considered to block LOS in, out, and through, so turn one shooting targets were few for me.   TURN 1    My first draw was Cleanse & Extend Battle Lines -- too easy!  The LRR moved up to the corner of the ruin to its direct front.  The two Lancers & Techmarine repositioned to juggle some LOS across the center of the board.  The Brutalis and one HINT squad moved onto the center objective, while the second HINT squad and the LR Phobos moved "north" towards an objective and the Infiltrator squad sitting on it.  The third HINT unit can be seen sitting in the tower as a deep strike deterrent which I later realized was dumb.   Shooting killed the enemy Lancer trying to shelter behind the container stack and picked off one Infiltrator, while the central & northern HINTs performed Cleanse on their respective objectives.  The Captain and his team disembarked from the Phobos, charged, and killed the rest of the Infiltrators.  At the end of my turn, I pushed both objectives I held six inches towards the enemy DZ.   The Ultramarine response was probably less focused than it should have been.  He drew Bring It Down & No Prisoners.  The Hellblasters moved westward and knocked some wounds off the Phobos.  The enemy Land Raider put a couple large holes in the Brutalis before it could do anything of substance, while the remaining enemy Lancer knocked my forward-most Lancer down to half-wounds.  Calgar and his giant bodyguard fully occupied the green building they had deployed behind, keeping buttoned up to avoid shooting attacks but ready to receive a charge.  Killing the Brutalis scored him both secondaries.  The combi-LT was hiding in the ruins near the Redeemer and started pushing that objective towards my DZ.   TURN 2     Now the time had come for the main event.  My oath target was his Aggressors, the Techmarine healed the wounded Lancer from 6 wounds to 9, and I drew Bring It Down & Deploy Teleport Homers.  The Aggressors disembarked from the Redeemer and moved up to make the ensuring charge inevitable (this moment convinced me to change the army's need in the list-builder to "Fists First Philosophy").  The Redeemer itself redeployed northward to bring the Hellblasters into flame range.  The Lancers remained stationary, though I moved the tower-squad of HINTs down to the ground because there were not very useful up top.  The Captain's squad re-embarked, and the Phobos moved up the road.  The northern HINTs went up the street to get back onto the moving objective, as did the central HINTs.   The central squad deployed the teleport homers while everyone else went on the offensive.  My forward Lancer killed the enemy Lancer, while the Redeemer killed all of the Hellblasters (though they did leave the Lieutenant alive on a single wound -- to be killed by a HINT bolt rifle).  I couldn't kill his Land Raider with mine, which made me sad but such is life.  Feirros and his bodyguard launched a monster charge into Calgar and his bodyguard; the enemy Aggressors rolled absolutely terribly on their armor saves and all of them died, leaving just Calgar and the Apothecary.  Calgar's return swings killed a single Aggressor (I rolled like a boss on my FNPs), and I piled in.  I pushed the two servo skulls I controlled further in to the enemy DZ and scored on primary and both secondaries.   My opponent drew Defend Stronghold & Deploy Teleport Homers.  Uriel Ventris and has bodyguard disembarked and moved south to try to dig Calgar out of the mess he was in (my Aggressors being his oath target).  The Land Raider moved westward to get better lines of fire, and the combi-LT repositioned to stay in that objective zone.  The Inceptors dropped in my backfield, hoping to peel away some of my home units.  The Land Raider slapped more wounds off my Land Raider, and I tried to use Power of the Machine Spirit to slap back but my dice also were unkind.  It also directed some fire into my wounded Lancer, but only one wounding hit penetrated the armor and I used the Techmarine to zero it out.  The Techmarine then succumbed to plasma fire (an order of operations error by my opponent, who wanted to kill the Techmarine first to prevent him from using his enhancement), and some poor dice on his part saw only a few wounds stripped off the wounded Lancer.  The hazardous checks on the other hand killed literally half the squad.  Ouch.    Ventris and friends went into my Aggressors.  The Champion plinked a wound off Feirros and the rest of the unit got just a piece of an Aggressor.  I put everything into Calgar. . . and left him on one wound due to his damage reduction.  He in turn got to use the Precision stratagem and killed Feirros.   The Ultramarines moved their one servo skull, scored Defend Stronghold, and passed the turn knowing we were just about finished.   TURN 3 & 4 (ish)     I drew Area Denial & Tempting Target, though we dropped into more of a banter mode than anything else because at this point the results are a foregone conclusion.  My Land Raider Phobos and its cargo shot down the Inceptors in my backfield.  The Aggressors backed out of combat, and the Redeemer roasted the Company Heroes then Tank Shocked the survivors, leaving just Ventris alive.  I was also able to kill the Apothecary with rifle fire.  The wounded Lancer moved onto the objective that the combi-LT had been shifting towards me so I could start shifting it back; I also got to snipe him out with the laser destroyers.  Calgar charged the Aggressors and killed all but two; in return, they were able to lift that last wound off of him.  Ventris would go in and kill those guys as the last dice rolls of the game in Turn 4.   Some highlights:   The Iron Hands begin pushing up the main street:   Feirros and Calgar spar as the black Aggressors overwhelm the blue:   The Inceptors learn how fickle plasma can be:     Final score after four turns:       Overall it was a fun game with some wacky dice rolls on both sides, but the first two turns belonged to me and the casualty discrepancy could not be overcome.  I'm pretty sure my opponent is going to switch back to Gladius after this; he didn't feel he played to its strengths, and doesn't have enough Phobos Primaris to really lean into it.  I'd really like to land a nice big charge with the Brutalis to see how it does, but honestly it's acting unintentionally as a Distraction Carnifex and that's keep some guns off my tanks so . . . I guess I can't complain too much?  But yeah, the army continues to perform at a good level and I'm excited to try it out this weekend against a variety of opponents.     The Ultramarines rapidly withdrew from the Marburg region, having not expected the Iron Hands to respond to their presence with such vitriol and violence.  Counter attacks by actual Traitor forces behind them were rapidly cutting off the Iron Hands' lines of communication back to Loyalist positions, but they had essentially seized Marburg and were, in effect, on the doorstep of the capitol hives.  All it would take is one more aggressive push, and the Medusans could smash the Traitors' entire command & logistical infrastructure.  While a retrograde might soon be impossible, it was also unthinkable when ultimate victory was almost in their grasp.  If that assault failed, their only hope for survival may very well be those battered Ultramarines stuck behind enemy lines with them...

This is a very good point and is something that I think I'm going to look to try out on the next batch I do - they'll be skitarii so it doesn't matter too much if I mess up slightly! I feel I've got the reflected glow about how I want it now, but yeah the actual source could benefit from a bit more light/dark contrast.    These are all excellent points. I will endeavour to stay strong!

Absolutely love your work! Only thing I would note is that on your blue OSL effects, you could add a bit of highlights back into the light source to give it the plasma glow. A few bright and dark highlights would really make the light source POP.   If you aren't sure about the Imperialis Models, don't buy them. Especially if work is up in the air and you've got another baby on the way, seems like the last time you'd want to be spending cash on a new project! You've only painted the one

Thanks