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Fodabett on the forums and I decided to enjoy the break from school (he as a student, and I as a teacher - had just settled down for a ...I don't know what rhymes with teacher and is themed with 40k, but that had kind of a "night before christmas" tune to it...), and what better way to celebrate than an enormous game of 40k?!

16,500 points per side. Pretty much my entire collection barring one heavy bolter havoc squad that's never used anymore, a chaos lord, and several plasma pistol-carrying models that I suppose could be a chosen squad, but meh. I even borrowed a few of my daemonette models from fantasy for the game, since after the new Warriors of Chaos book came out, I have little use for them!

My army:

Reaver battle titan, possession
Zarakynel
Baneblade, extra sponsons
Shadowsword, extra sponsons
Subjugator of Slaanesh (used as a counts-as Klawstompa, which is like the Subjugator but better in every way and 50 points cheaper, go figure)

18 Noisemarines
40 havocs
50 chaos marines
20 chosen
31 chaos terminators
5 chaos lords
3 sorcerers
2 daemon princes
20 converted assault marines from the Blood Angel's codex
2 "Emperor's Children apothecaries" (Sanguinary priests)
The Avatar of Slaanesh (Sanguinor)
Astorath the Grim (no conversion needed, have you SEEN this model?)
5 converted Sanguinary guard
Librarian furioso dreadnought (corrupted wraithlord)
2 Keepers of Secrets
16 Seekers of Slaanesh
10 fiends of slaanesh
60 daemonettes
soulgrinder
defiler
vindicator
Lucius the Eternal
11x rhinos with combi-weapons
2x counts-as landraider redeemers [landraiders with mega doomsirens/flamestorm cannons]
2 chaos dreadnoughts

Formations:
Emperor's Children Warband x2
Chaos Conclave x1

Assets:
Careful Planning
Flank March
Replacements
Hold at All Costs
Chaos Altar


Fodabett had:
60 tactical marines
30 assault marines
30 devastator marines
7 dreadnoughts with techmarine
lots of drop pods
Banehammer superheavy tank
30 Honour guard
Masters of the Chapter
2x Landraider crusaders
1x Landraider
20x sentinels
25 terminators
Lysander
Calgar
Cassius
Vulkan
Straken
Dante
Bjorn the Fellhanded
Mephiston
Sanguinor
Ragnar Blackmane
6 Eversor assassins
3 valkyries
36 stormtroopers
10 veterans in chimera
command platoon in chimera
Manticore
Damocles Rhino
6 Medusas
20 Legion of the Damned

Formations: WAY WAY TOO MANY

Assets: Bur? I don't remember. The 5 he chose were drowned. Read on...

And I believe that's it. He also took a LOT of formations, giving him TWENTY extra free assets to use in the game. It was pretty ridiculous. Added to the 5 we chose to use for the game, that's a total of 25 assets. Ouch.


The armies:




The tables - we used three 4x6, against my better judgment. I thought two was fine, but he claimed we were cramped on 2 tables last time at 12,000 points. Maybe HE was, because he took like 200 guardsmen and 100 marines but hey whatever.





I lost the bid for deployment - most people say won, but I was trying to go second. My plan was to go second so that I could leave the reaver off the board while he set up ready to destroy it with whatever he had, then bring it on turn 1. Alas it didn't happen that way, so I deployed almost everything, leaving mostly daemons, a few obliterators, and the reaver in reserves.








Lo and behold the jerk reveals that he's not only using Careful Planning and Flank March (just like me, except I'm not cheesy....just because), but that just about everything is deepstriking. Not only that, but his eversor assassins give him a total of SEVEN Surgical Raids assets, so before the game begins everything that's a single model takes 7 AP2 sniper hits. A few rhinos get immobilized, a prince is wounded, all three obliterators I'd deployed (lesson learned, deploy in squads in apocalupse) and Astorath all bite the dust. Then I get to go. Nothing is deployed of his really, so turn 1 comes and then goes, with me wandering around wondering where he's coming in. The only tactical thing I can do is head towards objectives and spread out my conclave to mess with his reinforcements. I summon Zarakynel and drop down a greater daemon, so that when he arrives I can assault right off the bat. Oh, and a lone obliterator walks on from the back of the board to snipe his Manticore sitting back there. His turn 1 arrives and he attempts to send at me the eversor assassins, dreadnoughts, medusas, and some guardsmen along with Dante. The conclave speaks, and the dreads, Dante, and half the medusas get repositioned. Guard come in and pop my only vindicator, the eversor assassins appear and assault my chosen from a landraider that's been blown up by medusae, and the dreadnoughts trundle forward. His Banehammer also came on, taking potshots at the Obliterator that sat next to it, but only wounded it. Its main cannons fell upon daemonettes in the center of the board, killing many. One unit of Legion of the Damned arrived in my backfield, but did little.







Turn 2:

Finally, targets! The guardsmen are set upon by the baneblade and some other gunfire. The dreadnoughts are targetted by some terminators that walk onto the field. The lone obliterator walks away from the Banehammer and instant-kills Dante with a meltagun. The eversor assassins are set upon by the Avatar of Slaanesh (Sanguinor) while everything else repositions. The reaver arrives and directs its apocalyptic barrage at the dreadnoughts, doing little. With no other worthwhile targets, it turns all its laser blasters on the Banehammer, blowing it apart. Some marines, dreadnoughts, and terminators piled into his legion of the damned, killing nearly all of them. My entire army is now on the board, waiting for....


Ahh, here it is. Ouch. Things that went well for him: Several terminator squads landed successfully and threw their vortex grenades, which went spinning around my backfield. He also dumped a bunch of honour guard on my flank and pretty much wiped out everything there. His mega wolf lord with Legion Relic blade came on next to the reaver, and decided it was time to slaughter some marines. But unfortunately, that's about it...

My Chaos Conclave was determined to screw with him. His StompaHunters sentinel formation was repositioned into a corner, as was the Sanguinor, his Valkyrie formation filled with stormtroopers [that can disembark, shoot, run, and shoot again - what the hell?!], and HIS ENTIRE BATTLE COMPANY of marines. Ouch. Some....90 to 120 marines, all sent to the edge of the board. Undaunted, they deployed diligently and began to advance on the objectives.

Of note in this turn was the slaying of one of my sorcerers, the near destruction of the Shadowsword, and the loss of my right flank. The honor guard accounted for some chosen, Lucius the Eternal, 10 terminators, a sorcerer, 10 havocs, and sadly only two rhinos - he was unable to destroy said rhinos before the assault phase, so the mighty charge of the honourguard somewhat faltered. One honour guard also met with an untimely end when they assaulted Lucius the Eternal - his daemon armour rebounded and killed seven of the honour guard, taking the sting out of the squad.















Turn 3 - Everybody's here? LET'S PARTY!

My army finally has things to kill, but it's horribly out of position. My assault squads are in the center of the board, a couple of my tactical squads are already dead, my rhinos are getting in the way of each other, my noisemarines are staring at 2+ armour feel no pain honour guard with landraiders, my left flank is being BUTCHERED by a wolflord that now has 18 attacks and counting, Vortex grenades are spinning everywhere and I've got 20 thunderhammer terminators in my backline.

Never felt better. The vortex sitting on top of the Shadowsword disappeared.....only to reappear a few feet to the left - which in shadowsword language means "still inside, eh? d'oh!" and the shadowsword promptly left the table. In response, I lashed a squad of terminators into a vortex, waving a fond goodbye. I wished I had more lashes over there, but my sorcerers were far out of position [24" doesn't seem like too short a range in NORMAL 40k games...]. Two dreadnoughts and a Slaanesh chaos lord threw themselves at his berserk wolflord. He killed ALL of them, but one of the dreadnoughts managed to land a hit, instakilling him despite his Thunderwolf mount. Thank GW for the Emperor's Children formation and initiative 5 dreadnoughts.

The baneblade saw a light shine from the heavens as he saw he had a nearly clean shot at a landraider surrounded by honour guard. It turned slightly and opened up with everything. When the dust cleared, not a single honour guard lay dead.

Wait....wait what? Not a....NONE?! That's right. Despite dead on hit with Demolisher cannon, baneblade cannon, and most heavy bolters, the honour guard made 11 cover saves and the Masters of the Chapter each blocked the shot with a stormshield, and the demolisher cannon and baneblade cannon both failed to destroy the landraider.

Stricken with annoyance at this cover save BS, the reaver opened up. When the dust cleared THIS time, there was nothing. No landraider, no honour guard, no masters, and hell not many honour guard from the NEXT unit over either, nor THEIR landraider. Reaver say NO! The apocalypse launcher rained death on the newly arrived battle company. Zarakynel charged into Marneus Calgar and tore him to shreds, savoring the look of surprise on his face when she tore his forcefield open with her talons and skewered him on her soulstealing blade. The Subjugator made short work of the third landraider while the Sanguinor and some fiends of Slaanesh took care of the last honour guard.








His turn three, he worked the backline. Between some guard that had appeared and the terminators, he was kicking my units to the curb. I had plenty of forces - but nothing back there. Unfortunately for me there was an objective there, Bjorn the Fellhanded had died there [another objective], he had chosen that objective as a VITAL objective unbeknownst to me, and my sorcerer was also targetted as an objective. This was all in about a 12" by 12" square, all firmly in his control. He had little else that could cause me damage this turn, so little else happened.

Turn 4, the end.
If I thought my army was out of position before, now it just looked lonely. With the threat of the honour guard gone, there were just two more battle lines - the one way in the distance far away from objectives, and the one far away from ME, but quite near a great many objectives. I sent what I could their way, but my lash was cancelled by mephiston and my firepower was ineffective. Speaking of Mephiston, the sucker was standing in the open by the baneblade - a foolish move. The baneblade put a wound on him with its heavy bolters, a wound with the demolisher cannon, a wound from the baneblade cannon, and......all four lascannons missed, leaving him alive. A nearby obliterator levelled a lascannon at him for wound number 4, and Mephiston fell to the ground........for a moment. As he started to get back up, the crew of the baneblade looked at each other. The Obliterator muttered in his daemonic tongue to the defiler next to him, and it responded by landing a battlecannon shell dead on his head. Climbing out of the crater, the librarian began to summon psychic energies, ethereal wings sprouting from his back. The crew of the baneblade shouted at the gunners of several rhino transports nearby, who began pumping bolter rounds into him. The bolts melted in-flight, metal joining with Mephiston's sword to make it glow brighter, stronger. He seemed to grow, gaining power, fuelled by hate. With a glare at the heathen chaos forces in front of him and leap into the air.......

The horizon glowed and for a moment a small sun seemed to rise from the ground at Mephiston's feet. Two more sprouted next to it, blinding all who were moments before staring incredulously at where the terrifying visage stood moments before. Shaking off their shock, they turned to look, eyeing the smoking barrels of the Laser Blaster attached to the Reaver titan across the battlefield. When they looked back, Mephiston was no more.

[yes, 1200 points of firepower left Mephiston with 1 wound, and no other guns could be found to shoot him. In range to contest an objective if he lived, he HAD to die. The reaver took care of his final wound with a ridiculously overkill salvo from its Laser Blaster. I don't regret using the reaver - I just wish I'd done it FIRST so that the BANEBLADE could have shot all the TERMINATORS but whatever]

Daemonic forces scratched at terminator armour, keeping them from reaching an objective nearby as mounted daemonettes gutted two squads of imperial stormtroopers across the field. My turn ended.

Fodabett's turn began with a vortex grenade sucking Lysander into the warp! d'oh! This was pretty much game. Terminators spread out to try taking two objectives, Straken walked over to guard Bjorn the Fellhanded's sarcophagus, and the last remaining valkyrie [dammit!] flew to the top floor of a building, just barely within range to contest that objective. The game was over.


Results: There were 6 objectives on the board, as per normal Apocalypse rules. In addition, Bjorn the Fellhanded's body and the body of one of my sorcerers counted as additional objectives. My furthest away objective was apparently important to the Ultramarines, and counted as two while the sad loss of the Ultramarines' Legion Relic meant he would count as holding one less than normal.

It was at THIS point we realized we had no idea what ruleset we were using to claim objectives. Was it standard game? 3", presence of troops contests period? Or was it Apocalypse, victory points of models within 6"? Let's look at both:


Objectives: Bjorn, sorcerer, Vital objective: DE skiff slave on base


Objective: Backline, securely held


Objective: Central


Another backline objective:


Objective: Daemonettes play with their new toy


Objective: Contested, his Valkyrie landed on the top floor, though it wouldn't balance there



No objective here, this is just what was on the way to continue the fight. John's already removed the drop pods.



Standard missions: John controls Bjorn, controls the vital, contests my sorcerer, contests the furthest objective. Leaves him with two, due to Legion Relic. I control four throughout the map, contest the sorcerer, and contest the furthest one leaving me with four.

Apocalypse style: John controls Bjorn and the vital, but I end up controlling five this way because a unit of terminators sits in a landraider by the objective with the valkyrie sitting on top, along with 16 seekers of Slaanesh.

If I remember correctly, we actually went with a compromise [victory points of models within 3"] which left it as still my victory, but with only a 1 objective difference between us. Close game!


Afterthoughts:

I was actually hoping for a more traditional tussle than the droppey flankey sneaky stabby shooty wahey thing that happened. I took Flank March mostly to say "hey I have Flank March" and cause him to deploy accordingly, then not use it at all and laugh maniacally as his force tried to reposition [only to then come on behind him turn 2 - AHA!]. With SUCH a large board, drop troops can land so far away that your central forces literally will have nothing to do. My blood angel assault contingent basically flew around, waiting for orbital bombardments to fall on their heads [which they did]. I'll take note of this in the future, and deploy heavy weapon teams in the central locations, and assault elements on the sides. While the assault elements won't be able to assist each OTHER like I'd like, hopefully they'll at least be able to get to grips with their own respective enemies. A concentrated force on one side or the other will steamroller said assault forces, but with objectives on either side of the board he wouldn't be able to send EVERYTHING to ONE side and expect to win the game. That or just put my assault elements in reserves to see where he ends up - probably a smarter move.

I'm looking forward to doing this again sometime! I liked the way my list shaped up, and I will eventually have a larger force of counts-as blood angels to add a very pretty, fast-moving part to my army. I'm also collecting some Imperial Guard infantry for the sole purpose of guarding objectives. Numbers matter a lot in apocalypse, and it'll be nice to know I can count on some 500 points of T3 troopers to stand their ground and hold objectives while my expensive elite troops take the fight to the enemy rather than play babysitter.

Star of the match was the Chaos Conclave, far far more than the reaver. Repositioning the majority of the models in his army was HUGE, and one of the things repositioned was the thing designed to KILL the reaver, so getting them out of the picture was very necessary to allow it to destroy the honour guard and other targets. Next game, John promises to bring his four Warhound titans, so the reaver probably had the best day today that it's ever going to have.

Sounds like a lot of fun. I need a reaver.

I do, however, have the 4 Daemonlords in my Apoc chaos army....and a lot of Daemon Princes.

Amazing game, nice pictures, and you did a FANTASTIC job on describing to us the battle.

A lot better than the people who just stick a ton of pictures with nothing backing them up, or fail to explain the game play by play.

That battle seemed like alot of fun, how long did it take? I'd really like to play an apocalypse game... but i suppose since i just starteded playing this year I should get a firmer grasp on the more basic games first haha

That game looks like it was a logistical nightmare. I am impressed that it got played, well done!

Great write-up and pictures.

Flank March pretty much ruins most Apocalypse Games unless there's a specific set of scenario rules to control it.

Any time there's an option (like flank march) that looks like a "no-brainer" choice every time you look at selecting assets, then it's probably overpowered.

My group normally disallows it in order to prevent both sides from taking it and making board edges and table sides irrellevant.

The hodge-podge of asset granting formations that exist for Imperial Forces also can make things silly.

Strategic assets should add spice to the game, not overwhelm it.

AWESOME

Pretty Epic Report. I commend you for playing such a huge game and making a report out of it. I hope to do the same one day.

very cool looking battle. out of curiosity, are the drop pods resin models or converted out of cups? if the latter, its the only drop pod cup army that i'd have zero qualms about playing with. either way, they're unique and cool looking.

Both actually. They're resin molds made from plastic cups. And yeah, they look just fine once they're painted up. Another guy around here did the same thing with plaster, just filling the cups with plaster, letting it dry, then turning them out. His are HEAVY, though, and can chip easily.

The game went from 11 AM [arrived 11 AM, so that included all unpacking, organizing, grabbing lunch before the first turn, deployment and everything] to about 7 PM. We honestly could have done more turns. Most apocalypse games do start to wind down towards the end, and turns get faster and faster. It's the first couple turns that are the worst, and in this case the first couple turns went off very very quickly!


The argument against Flank March is that it's overpowered, which really on a large enough board it's not. If you play apocalypse on a small board, then it's like a normal game of 40k - heavy weapons in the back, assault elements up front, yadda yadda. In this setup, flank march is pretty broken. Elite assault troops charge directly into poorly defended shooty troops and roll them up. On a larger table and in an apocalypse setting [where you have the points to take redundancies in heavy weapon teams AND can afford to have some assault elements guarding your rearline] it's not so much. Not only can you prepare for and defend against it better, but you can also put heavy weapons teams further forward - indeed you probably SHOULD, because otherwise they'll be out of range of most things.

Look at our board, for instance. Flank March allowed me to send a unit of terminators to slow down his dreadnought force, to keep it from doing a full move + run towards my lines. If he'd done that, he'd have seven dreadnoughts pumping assault cannon rounds into the lone unit of daemonettes guarding the central objective, and I'd have lost it.

Flank March allowed me to bring the titan onto a part of the board where it had range to all targets. It also gave him the chance to bring reserves on nearby to take it out - without flank march, it would sit at the furthest back corner, completely out of range of any sort of counterattack, and simply blow things away. Flank March provides an opportunity, a CHANCE, to take out big targets like titans with 100" range guns that would otherwise be deadly and invincible.

It also changes tactics. Knowing the enemy has flank march makes you deploy differently, ready to counter it, nullify it, or at the very least minimize its damage. Knowing he was flank marching, I tried to move things away from the edge of the board. He used an initial ploy of eversor assassins to try to blow out some rhinos and pin some units in place so his real flanking force could do more damage, and it almost worked. He came in, he did his damage, and then I retaliated. Zarakynel was on that side waiting for the inevitable to come out, which it did, and she took care of it with help from the reaver.

Think of the opposite scenario. WITHOUT flank march, armies would just line up. Assault troops 12" apart from each other, heavy weapons just barely in range of the front line, and whoever went first would just smash into the enemy. Keeping in mind flank march would be used, people have to use tactics to try to prevent it from coming on, and even take assets like Ambush or Disruptor Beacon [both work great on flank march] to try to screw them up.

In my opinion, the apocalypse ruleset should just allow units to come on from any board edge they like to begin with, without taking an asset for it. Then, if something wants to come on from the enemy deployment zone that doesn't have the scout or infiltrate special rule, you roll a die. 4-6, the unit comes on normally. 1-3 work like the mishap table where on a 3, they are delayed, 2 they arrive but can't shoot or assault, and 1 they're dead, representing the difficulty in getting behind enemy lines when there's, well, ENEMIES back there preventing you from doing that. This also makes infiltrating units shine in that they can come on without making the roll.

This would make people think twice about making their entire army come on flank marching, and especially make them reconsider sending things like a bloodthirster, 10-man terminator assault squad with attached characters, or titans in on the enemy's side.

in the 4th and 11th pictures- reserves arrive- the chaos mobile phone!!!
points- 30pts a month
AV 12/12/12
wargear
apps, internet, bluetooth
special rules:
ATSKNF
immobile

This battle made me realize how much I still have unpainted... and how much I wish blastmasters were still worth taking in actual noisemarine squads. The Emperor's Children formation does what the CSM codex should have done - any AC or character can take a doomsiren for 10 points, and autocannons can become blastmasters for no additional points. Vehicles upgrade heavy flamers to doomsirens for 5. That's Doomsiren dreads [initiative 5, too], doomsirens in squads that can still take meltaguns, and slaanesh lords that can actually hurt things at range. Oh, and blastmaster havocs.

And it makes I5 marines with sonic blasters for only 20 points, as opposed to 25 it costs now. And terminators upgrade combi-bolters to sonic blasters for free! That's what it SHOULD have been. grrr.

jy2 wrote:Sounds like a lot of fun. I need a reaver.

I do, however, have the 4 Daemonlords in my Apoc chaos army....and a lot of Daemon Princes.

I would have the four daemonlords.....if they were all Slaanesh!!!

I like that, though. A multi-god Apoc army needs to have all of those. They really look great on the field. It's a shame about the Tzeentch lord's rules though.....

And you don't NEED a reaver. A warhound can actually give the same satisfaction - tough to kill, and good at hunting tanks. If you use it well it can do lots of damage in assault too. Move, shoot two solid targets with turbolasers, then assault a squad and stomp on it for some serious damage. Just avoid dreadnoughts and such, they'll mess you up.

Yet another victory to Chaos.....Die Imperial Scum!

Really awesome man! I love seeing infantry heavy Apoc games. It's usually just "land raider x13" and "baneblade x4" The runinous powers prevail!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Spellbound wrote:This battle made me realize how much I still have unpainted... and how much I wish blastmasters were still worth taking in actual noisemarine squads. The Emperor's Children formation does what the CSM codex should have done - any AC or character can take a doomsiren for 10 points, and autocannons can become blastmasters for no additional points. Vehicles upgrade heavy flamers to doomsirens for 5. That's Doomsiren dreads [initiative 5, too], doomsirens in squads that can still take meltaguns, and slaanesh lords that can actually hurt things at range. Oh, and blastmaster havocs.

And it makes I5 marines with sonic blasters for only 20 points, as opposed to 25 it costs now. And terminators upgrade combi-bolters to sonic blasters for free! That's what it SHOULD have been. grrr.

woah, really? Yeah, that's really what the chaos codex should do =/ That's amazing.

Well I just spent the last few hours typing up our notes...
Well its time for another giant apocalypse game batrep!
This time it was my 16,500 points of combined marines and Imperial guard versus 16,500 points of Spellbound’s combined chaos space marines and chaos demons. We arrived at the store at 11am, set up started at 11:30 and the game started at 12:30. We ended on turn 4 at 8:30pm.

Here’s my full army picture







And I would be facing





First up we set up the board. We used three 4’x6’ tables set up in to a 6’x12’ table






I won the bidding and went second and forced him to deploy his wall of battle



With the following reserves



Then I deployed the damocles and manticore


With the following reserves


Turn 0:
Now its time for the assets that happen before the first turn and I get 7 surgical raids.
I kill 3 Oblits, Astorath, stun 3 Rhinos, and my opponent.

Turn 1:
He rolls for his demons and gets the side he didn’t want, and puts down 2 units of daemonettes, 2 units of fiends, into my deployment zone. Big Z, a keeper of secrets, 1 oblit, a vindicator, and a soul grinder into his line of battle, and finally one oblit in my field. He moves his wall up (popping smoke on his back units) and then his oblit that deepstruck into my “lines” pops the manticore before it can use it’s IA missiles.

Turn 1.5:
I bring in and get redirected into my empty back field Ancients assault force, stormhammer, dante, and 3 medusas. Not repositioned is Bjorn, assassins force, legion w/ flamers, a vet squad with plasma, and 3 more medusas. Stormhammer fires at daemonettes (only thing it can see) and kills 22 of them. It put it’s right sponsons into the oblit but didn’t kill it.
The models that were on target kill 2 terminators the vindicator.
Medusas popped Lucius’ Land raider, a rhino, and 7 daemonettes. Assassins assault Lucius and body guard and kill 8. I loose 3 eversors, 2 to wounds and 1 to an exploding eversor.


Turn 2:
The reaver, subjugator, termis and another oblit show up. The oblit follows Bjorn, the termis go dread hunting, and the subjugator goes medusa hunting.

Shooting sees the reaver toast the stormhammer and 2 dreads. Oribal bombardment finishes off another dread and an oblit kills dante. His wall kills the vets, 4 medusas, stuns 2 dreads, blows the weapons off the vet’s chimera. He lashes the legion into a line and kills all but 4. Next he assaults the subjugator and kills a medusa, the legion get charged by the lash prince and termis and die to a man who stays in assault (important). Assassins kill some more body guard but don’t die in return. Oblit assault ccw-less bjorn.

Fiends assault and destroy damocles

Turn 2.5:
The rest of my reserves show up and the chaos conclave proves why it’s too good as it redirects the Skyhammer, stormtrooper strikeforce, Mephiston (who goes into his back corner to keep him out of combat), and the stompa hunters. Arriving on target are the Wolf Lord, straken, the Ultramarines Honor guard, the titan hunters, and the other legion.
Ultramarines honor guard proceed to GUT nearly his entire right flank. They kill lucius, his last body guard, 4 squads of marines and some rhinos. Titan hammers kill a prince, a rhino, and damage shadowsword with their grenades. Skyhammer’s assault marines + dreads finish off the termis. Wolf lord charges in to help lone legion of the damned and kills 17 models (one of which is a trophy kill)… 27 attacks next round against 1 surviving chaos lord, but the damned marine died in the process.

Turn 3.0
Vortexes eat a prince and finish off the shadowsword.

Princes lash the sanguinary priest and a titan hammer squad into a vortex, and lash 2 more termis from another squad into a different one.
Baneblade turns its attention on an honor guard squad and causes 11 cover saves. The honor guard pass all of them or feel no pain them away. Reaver sees this happening and turns its turbo lasers on the left and right squads and destroys them and their transports. After all the shooting only calgar, vulkan, 2 honor guard, a chapter champion, and the ministorium priest remain.

Big Z charges calgar and kills him, and the rest of the honorguard.

Wolf lord is killed by I5 dreads but kills both of them and the lone chaos lord. Bjorn dies to the oblit.


Turn 3.5
Stormtroopers scream towards objective as fast as possible.

Mephiston realizes he can contest and objective and hoofs it towards it.
Straken advances and takes revenge for Bjorn. Titanhammers spread out and move away from vortexes. One of them assaults the daemonettes. Skyhammer takes up positions.

Turn 4.0
We realized this would be the last turn so we started wrapping it up.
Mephiston takes the baneblade to the face and survives with 1 wound left, then eats a turbo laser from the reaver. Reaver fires other turbo laser at stormtrooper valkyries to deny them the objective. Between the Reaver and the last few havocs he manages to down 2 of the valkyries. The fiends assault and slaughter the stormtroopers. He tries to kill straken and the last titan hammer squad but can’t. Keeper assaults front rank of skyhammer.

Turn4.5
Straken claims my vital objective and Bjorn’s body. Titan hammer claims trophy kill. Stormtroopers are able to contest the objective they were going for.

In the end it turned into a victory for him by 1 objective point since I had negative one for loosing the legion relic.

All and all this game was a blast. Playing the all outflanking army was a real change.
Things I learned:
Finish your warhounds: I need some D weapons badly
The board is covered in disruptor beacons: The last game we played I figured that out the hard way and I did it again this time. Since I had more units getting a few redeployed wasn’t so bad, but it still hurt.
Don’t count on one unit to do its job: The stompa hunters + precision strike would have toppled the Reaver without breaking a sweat. However since they got disrupted I couldn’t do that with them. The other legion of the damned squad was supposed to do that but they went and played with the stompa hunters in my back field.
Place your objective where you can reach it: I had originally planned to roll up the left and right flanks. The left was rolled by the honor guard, but the units that were supposed to go right went to the middle of no where. If I place an objective I need to have ways of getting to it no matter what. If it wasn’t for those storm troopers speeding towards it in the final turn I wouldn’t have even been able to contest it.
Don’t ever take titan hammer against chaos again: Ok I had to use it since I’d finally finished painting all those terminators, but it was pretty terrible. I lost a 5 man squad and a sanguinary priest to one vortex, and 2 terminators to another. If I hadn’t have gotten into assault or WAY away from the other vortex I would have lost them all.
Stupid lash.
Take more pictures: Our last batrep had tons of pictures, but this one ended up being more fun and demanded a lot more attention if we were going to finish in time, so I didn’t turn my phone into a camera as much as I would have liked.
Spend less points on stupid amounts of special characters: I had Calgar, Vulkan, Pedro, Sanguinor, Bjorn, Mephiston, Dante, Cassius, Ragnar, and Straken. I could have done without a few of those I think.

That is an incredible amount of stuff! I havent played very many games, but even 1500 point battles last me about 2 hours, cant imagine the length of this game. I think I have seen that Chaos army though up at Lone Star Comics about 2-3 weeks ago. Maybe im wrong, but it looks really similar to what I saw up there.

Foda_Bett wrote:Straken advances and takes revenge for Bjorn.
He tries to kill straken but can’t.
Straken claims my vital objective and Bjorn’s body.
Spend less points on stupid amounts of special characters: I had Calgar, Vulkan, Pedro, Sanguinor, Bjorn, Mephiston, Dante, Cassius, Ragnar, and Straken. I could have done without a few of those I think.

I would have ditched pedro, snguinor, Bjorn, Dante, Cassius and Ragnar. Pedro would die too easily, same with Bjorn, sanguinor wouldn't get to kill any HQ's coz' he'd get shot, Cassius just wouldn't cut it against chaos, Dante would die (no EW), Ragnar I don't know the rules for. Straken is easily underestimated, as you proved. Calgar is useful for his bonuses, but I think you should've taken lysander instead. He eats titans. Vulkan can really help your TH termies and he has some sweet rules.
Next time get a shadowsword, or, even better, the 10" vortex grenade datasheet.

shrike wrote:
I would have ditched pedro, snguinor, Bjorn, Dante, Cassius and Ragnar. Pedro would die too easily, same with Bjorn, sanguinor wouldn't get to kill any HQ's coz' he'd get shot, Cassius just wouldn't cut it against chaos, Dante would die (no EW), Ragnar I don't know the rules for. Straken is easily underestimated, as you proved. Calgar is useful for his bonuses, but I think you should've taken lysander instead. He eats titans. Vulkan can really help your TH termies and he has some sweet rules.

Next time get a shadowsword, or, even better, the 10" vortex grenade datasheet.

Dante was armed with a vortex grenade and was supposed to suicide run on a super heavy (no scatter is nice).
Pedro and Ragnar were in the gigantic beat face that was the Honor guard and helped a lot, if sanguinor would have been nice enough to join them I would have appreciated it.
Cassius will probably get dropped for a priest (when I get another model).
Straken's job (for the most part) could have been done by a normal company command squad with plasma. Although the 1 time he was needed to kill a few chaos marines in combat was handy.
Lysander was in my titan hammer formation, and as Brian pointed out he was eaten by a grenade
I think I may drop vulkan however, because I never remember to use his ability.
What bonus does Calgar give? Pass/Fail morale? That's not useful to an imperial player in apoc, I've got so many free assets that I can afford to take general staff "All LD tests on 3d6 pick which 2 I want" I didn't fail an LD test I wanted to pass all game. I mainly include him for theme, not because he's ever paid for himself.

I tried the 10" vortex in another game I played that week and it was rather enjoyable

yeah- "I have all of the 2nd company, with 2 dreads, 6 tac. squads, sicarius, 2 devastator squads and 2 assault squads with calgar and honour guard over there."
"boom- uber-killy pie plate"
"...*packs up remaining models*"
After my...chapterhouse models...and tac. squad...and 2 rhinos...and debt payed off...and engineer squad...and commissar...and hades breaching drill...and cadian battleforce...I'm definitely gonna get the deathstrike just for that!

I finally found my list!
Well I'm tired of losing so I figured I'd post this to get some advice.

Ancients assault force –
- Techmarine:Servo harness, power weapon
- 6x Venerable dread: Assault cannon, heavy flamer extra armor
- Dread: Multi-melta, Extra armor

Ultramarines Honor Guard - grants 2 assets I took Hold at All Costs and Legion Relic 2850pts
- 2x Land Raider Crusaders
- 1x Land Raider
- Marenus calgar in termi armor
- 9x Honor Guard: 1 Chapter Standard, 9x Relic blades, 1x Champ: Combat blade, digital weapons
- 9x Honor Guard:9x Relic blades, 1x Champ: Thunder Hammer
- 9x Honor Guard: 9x Relic blades, 1x Champ: Thunder Hammer

Officio Assassinorum Execution force - grants 6x surgical raids 670pts
- 6x Eversors

Damocles Rhino - Grants Orbital bombardment

Masters of the chapter - Grants Surgical raid, orbital bombardment, percision strike, and Ambush
- Pero Cantor
- 4x Captains: Relic blades, storm shields, artificer armor

Terminator Titan hammer squads - grants 4x vortex grenades
- Lysander
- 4x 5man hammer/shield termis

Skyhammer orbital strike force - grants careful planning, trophy kill
- Captain: artificer armor, plasma pistol, power sword
- Command squad: Banner, apothecary, 3 meltaguns, champ w/ stormshield, power weapon; drop pod
- 6x Tac squad: 10men melta lascannon; drop pod
- 3x assault squad: 10 men, sarge with fist

Storm trooper strike force - grants vital objective and shoot run shoot to stormies
- 2x Stormtroopers: 2x Meltagun; valyrie
- Stormtroopers: 2x Plasmagun; valkyrie

Armageddon stompa hunters –
- 10x Armored Sentinel: Lascannon

Vulkan Hestan

Ragnar Blackmane

Sanguinary priest in termi armor

Wolf lord: runic armor, wolf tail talisman, wolftooth necklace, thunderwolf, storm shield, saga of warrior born; he takes the legion relic - doubles attacks and makes s10 ignore armor

Legion of the Damned: 10men, meltagun multi-melta, sarge with plasma pistol, power weapon

Legion of the Damned: 10men, flamer heavy flamer, sarge with power weapon

Mephiston

Sanguinor

Chaplain Cassus

Chaplain

Termi Chaplain

6x Medusa

Manticore

Bjorn

Commander Dante

Company Command Squad: Straken, 3 plasma guns, 2 bodyguards and a medic; chimera

ministorum priest: Eviscerator

IG Vet squad - demolition charge, 3 melta guns; chimera

Stormhammer – Baneblade Armor, 2 sets of baneblade sponsons, 2 twinlinked 7” Blast battle cannons, +1 On it’s super heavy damage table

16,500pts

nice games guys. Really love infantry heavy games. Really liked what you guys did.

Damn it was funny when you fired everything on the baneblade at the landraider/chapter masters/honour guard and did nothing, and your reaction with the Reaver, awesome battle report, seemed liek it would of been a hell of a lotta fun

Foda the main thing with apoc is troops troops troops. And I don't necessarily mean troops choices, but those fit the bill. Name of the game is models. The amount and scale of weaponry available kills EVERYTHING, and there's weapons that will do the same thing to 20 guardsmen or termagaunts that they'll do to 20 terminators or 4 side-by-side Masters of the Chapter formations. Characters need to be spread throughout the army so that D weapons and the like can't take too much sting out of the army in one solid go, and there needs to be riff-raff. When the enemy has to choose between the 5 terminators approaching his objective or the 15 guardsmen across the field doing nothing but holding the enemy's objective, that's when things get difficult.

Or the 50-strong blob of guardsmen that's strung out between three objectives, with a couple terminator squads nearby. If you try to assault the guardsmen, the terminators will kill you. If you try to take the objectives, the terminators will kill you. If you shoot your D weapons and vortex missles at the terminators, the guardsmen will assuredly claim at least one of those objectives even if you assault. If you clear out the guardsmen, the terminators advance and cause more damage. Choices choices. Why do you think I want to get traitor guard for apoc games? My army suffers from trying to use expensive chaos marines to both advance and hold the back line, and both need support from firepower and assault elements. With a mass of traitor guard infantry, I can have some stay behind to hold objectives, a few marines back there for damage dealing, and the bulk of my army can advance to do damage - with guard alongside as "you're shooting the marines, we're taking the objectives!" fodder.


That many special characters isn't bad per se. Just spread them out. Facing chaos you know you'll face the conclave. Deal with it this way:

A) Don't take so many special formations. Stompahunters is nice, but why not just take 20 sentinels? 10 get repositioned, Secret Data gets used, 10 Sentinels fire lascannons and heavily damage the reaver. Add in fire from elsewhere and you'll be fine. If you take just regular units and throw them in there, you can still get a lot of troops.

B) Position objectives closer to edges. Easier to defend, easier to take.

C) Deploy more of your army, leave reserves for a specific purpose.

D) Don't use careful planning, or opt to deploy no reserves first turn. Turn your guns on the members of the conclave and try to open up holes.

Asherian Command wrote:nice games guys. Really love infantry heavy games. Really liked what you guys did.

I'm actually itching to get more infantry. I'd like some squads of CSM dedicated to sitting back and shooting/guarding, I'm building a counts-as Blood Angels army so that'll be lots of infantry and cool characters with jump packs [including Slaanesh pleasure cult/Death Company], and as I mentioned in the other post I plan to make lots and lots of basic units of traitor guard, mostly to block charges, crowd objectives, grant cover saves, and just generally be a nuisance.