TL:DR at bottom.

Just wanted to share the results of the first game I played with the clown car meme build I posted the other day. Neither of us were really playing meta lists, but mine was super cheesy.

Basic list overview - Astra Militarum 2k points

Lord Solar 10 man infantry, mortar, and command squad

Ursula 10 man infantry and mortar

2x Leman Russ exterminator

2 groups of 2x armored sentinels (2x plasma, 2x lazorcanz)

x2 scout sentinels (flamers)

Vindicare assassin

And the clown car: One doomhammer w/ embarked 6 ogryn and 2 unattached primaris psykers

One very stressed techpriest engineseer.

I only remembered to take one picture near the very end, unfortunately. But here it is: The clown car sitting comfortably mid-field with nothing around it.

My opponent was playing 2k dark angel flavored codex-compliant marines. He had lion el johnson, a squad of 6 terminators on the board, a squad of 5 more terminators in deep strike (some of them were special, I think. All terminators look the same to me), a unit of infiltrators, a whirlwind, a land raider with embarked 3x devastators and 10x hellblaster squad w/ attached lieutenant and Azrael, and a callidus assassin. We had a sweeping engagement layout, which I think really helped me because it let my doomhammer ram itself into the midfield super quick despite conservative deployments.

Opponent turn 1 - moved up and secured his close no-man's land objective with lion and termies, moved infiltrators into the corner to score secondary, put four lascannons and a hunter-killer into the clown car for a total of four damage from 2 wounds (boxcar saves). Most of my other vehicles were either hidden behind ruins or out of range. His whirlwind stripped several models off Lord Solar. Bonus kitbashed lord solar/tempestor pic. Hunter killers went into one of my leman russ exterminators

My turn 1 - Take aim on leman russ & clown car, plus one squad of armored sentinels. Engineseer repairs 2 wounds on the clown car. Clown car and leman russ move up for visibility on the termies. Ursula fields of fire termies. He counters with armor of contempt. Leman russ autocannons termies (lascannon and hunter killer whiff on the land raider), Kill 1 termie and debuff with withering hail.

Doomhammer puts everything into the remaining termies. Just out of 9 inch range for rapid fire. Magma cannon kills 2, bolters reduce another to 1 wound, 18 shots from embarked ogryns kill the wounded plus 2 more, and the double psykers focused witchfire to kill the remaining termie. Lascannons don't get to fire. Lion El Johnson poops his power armor. Vindicare takes a shot at him dreaming of glory, but it whiffs.

Sentinels and other leman russ split everything between landraider and whirlwind. Most of it whiffs, but a couple lucky hunter-killers strip the landraider down to 6 wounds.

His turn 2 - Moves lion towards my DZ objective, killing my scout sentinel on that side. Disembarks all units from the land raide . Moves the infiltrators up to sneakily capture his close NML objective. Hides whirlwind. He manages to kill 1 squad of armored sentinels (which I use reinforcements on) and take one of my leman russes down to 4 wounds. Strips more wounds off Lord Solar's squad with the whirlwind, but I get a couple lucky FNPs and the infantry squad survives with the mortar squad remaining.

My turn 2 - He rapid ingresses termies to give lion back lone operative. vindicare snipes the lieutenant out of the hellblasters. both leman russes put everything into the termies and takes them down (thanks to take aim, born soldiers, rapid fire, and some very nice rolls on the closer stationary one.) Engineseer heals clown car to full.

Clown car moves up to get line of sight on his infantry and whirlwind. I bring the reinforced sentinels down down next to the other two, and all four armored sentinels shoot everything at the landraider. Mostly whiffs, but another pair of hunter killers from the reinforced unit bring it down with two unsaved wounds. The clown car puts its magma cannon into the whirlwind, killing it with 2 successful shots (d6 6 damage vs vehicles), then kills the devastators with the two flamers and shots from the heavy bolters, and then the ogryns put 36 shots (hitting and wounding on 3's) into the hellblasters, stripping the squad off Azrael. Hellblasters shooting on death finish off the wounded leman russ. Then the clown car psykers put twelve shots into Azreal (hitting on 2s, wounding on 3's). One devastating wound and 8 regular wounds later, he makes a valiant effort on his saves, but still drops.

His turn 3: moves up Lion to my DZ objective and kills lord solar and his retinue for lulls, then concedes the game since he's got 3 remaining units spread across 3 board corners (even if one is Lion) and zero presence midfield, while I still have the clown car, a full-health leman russ, ursula, the vindicare, 1 scout sentinel, and 4 armored sentinels.

TL:DR Overall, he wasn't able to leverage his terminators or the lion because the clown car was such a daunting presence in the midfield starting from my first turn. It might have been different if he could have gotten his termies in LOS of the clown car on his first turn and gotten into melee to give it -1 to hit and avoid the blast from the main cannon, but he didn't have much other than terminators and the land raider that could threaten it and I really wanted them close anyway to leverage melta and rapid fire. I made good use of fields of fire and withering hail to maximize AP values wherever possible, and got lucky just barely taking out his second blob of terminators. By the end of my second turn, the clown car had returned to full wounds, evaporated everything it looked at (termies, devastators, hellblasters, the whirlwind, and Azrael), and nothing he had could contest the midfield. If you made it this far, bonus clown car picture, still in its ultimately disappointing banesword configuration.

Basically, it turns out having 6 ogryn and 2 primaris psykers able to operate with a 9 inch move, bane-blade sized footprint, both buffed by 1 order on the doomhammer, and a 24 wound 13 toughness body separating them from enemy fire is a little nuts. And the doomhammer is no slouch, either! Any vehicle it gets within 24 inches of is almost certainly dead. The clown car throws ~60 dice on average when it's within 9 inches of an enemy.

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