With the release of 5th edition, there came a slight disturbance in my gaming group: many different levels experience, play time and desire to study rules have left some of us still catching on to 4th edition. Add in that Boss Salvage is about to leave for grad school some distance away and the completion of my Battle Basement, and it was time to have a team game to learn the new rules, share some expertise, and have a good time throwing dice and talking trash!
With that in mind, we set up the teams.
Team Chaos:
Salvage and Dan, ready to crush the weaklings crying for the "Greater good"! (Dan, however, was no quite ready for the picture it seems.)
Dan just started his Khorne themed army, while Salvage has been playing his spikey boys for a good long time.
They faced off against:
Team Tau!
Evan and Brian, who are FAR too cheerful for the Greater Good! Come to think of it, you rarely see pictures of sad communists, so I suppose it is some sort of propaganda shot.
Evan has been playing Tau and making
MEQs cry for eons it seems. Brian has been playing a good long time too (as his old school stealth suits attest) but due to the duties of a family man has played about 5 games in the past few years, all against me. It was time to let his Shas'ui cut their teeth on something other than space nuns.
Each player got 1500 points to work with, for a total
fo 3k per side. Here is a rough approximation of the lists, since I didn't think to ask for them.
Dan's Khorny Chaos:
1 Chaos Lord Lumberjack: Mark of K, Daemon Weapon,... something else.
1 Daemon Prince (Lord Pink Sock): Mark of Chaos Glory, Doombolt
3 Chaos Termis:
IoCG, Heavy flamer, combiflamer/chainfist, combibolter
14 Berserkers, powerfist champ.
9 berserkers, power weapon champ
10 lesser daemons
6 Havoks, 2
ML 1
LC
Landraider, possessed (the ride for the 9 'zerkers and lumberjack)
Salvage's brown eyes:
Sorc with mark of Tiz and death screamer
3 Terminators w/combi-plasma
Noise Marines with blaster and ... the big gun of Slanesh
1ksons, sorc with doombolt
chaos marines with
PW and
LC
Havoks with 3
ML
10 lesser daemons
Obliterator
(I don't remember his list well... they were on the far side of the table, and the black and brown really camoflages them well)
Brian's Camo Tau:
Crisis suit
HQ w/retinue (plasma weapons)
Crisis team with twin linked missiles, BS4, proto-type stealth (you can only see their torsos)
10 pretty Firewarriors
10 almost as pretty firewarriors in a devil fish
2x Rail head
1 Broad side, slow and purposeful, and some plasma
2x 8 Frisbees of Doom (aka. Roomba o' Death, aka. drones)
Evans Blue Tau:
Crisis suits with meltas
Crisis suits with plasma
2x 10 Firewarriors (not as pretty) in Devil Fish
Ion head
Rail head
3x sniper teams
I think that is everything. I don't know Tau well. That and just hosting and looking up rules while taking pictures doesn't make for accurate weapons load outs.
Set up: Mission was Control (the one with 2 objectives, one in each deployment zone), set up was Dawn of War (split the table in half, up to 1
HQ and 2 troops choices can be anywhere on your half.) Team chaos won the One Roll, which was sad for Tau, almost as sad as the set up and mission results. The Chaos objective was set up in a building to the far right corner of their deployment zone. The Tau objective was set up in the little ruins in the middle of their zone.
Chaos dropped 14 Berserkers, the daemon prince and the Sorceror lord with Robot 1k sons right on the starting line. The heavy weapon bearing noise Marines sat on their objective.
The Tau, for their part, left their
HQs in reserve, and dropped devil fish and firewarriors on their objective to attempt to blast the traitors off the table.
Grainy picture of set up:
The tau failed to sieze the initiative, and braced for battle as the Berzerkers' cries for blood echoed across the cityscape!
Turn 1
Chaos: Chain axes held high, the minions of Khorne surged across the open ground. The Sorceror and friends marched stoicly beside them laying down a hail of withering fire onto the tau crouched in the ruins, as the noise marines opened up their sonic weaponry, and blasted a huge chunk of the fire warriors. Meanwhile, Dan's landraider and havoks raced onto the board, the latter running to take up a position in the tower. Salvage's other marines dashed into cover from the table edge as well, while his obliterator walked on and casually failed to shoot anything.
After weathering a brutal torrent of fire, seeing the Berzerkers and Daemon prince sprinting at them was too much for the pretty firewarriors, who decided to leg it for the greater good.
Tau: After seeing their brave Shas'ui smashed off the table, the Tau struck back in force. The air was filled wtih the sounds of hovering tanks and frisbees, while the ground shook beneath the hooves of a mighty broad side and 30 firewarriors leaping from their transports.
Shortly there after, the air was filled with the sharp crack of plasma fire, while the earth was stained with the blood of the fallen.
Dan, being the worst at rolling power armor saves EVER, got to see 11 berserkers cut down by the fury of Evan's fish. Dan then had his time to laugh as his daemon prince apparently caught a rail slug from Brian's hammer head, completely unscathed by Brian's roll of 1 to wound. The daemon prince took a roomba laser in the eye shortly there after, however.
Evan, after butchering Dan's Berzerkers, proceeded to one shot his landraider, killing another berserker in the process. Evan was a good sport and let Dan take the cover save for smoke that the poor guy forgot to fire off the previous turn, but since Dan couldn't roll better than a 2 all turn, it was to no avail.
Turn 2:
Chaos: Rather saddened by his losses, Dan was quite eager to roll up some reinforcement lovin'. His eagerness was met with 1 unit of terminators out of all the chaos forces. I smelt the fickle hand of Tzeentch at play.
Fortunately for Dan, his aspiring champion still had his icon, and the terminators dropped right where they were needed: in front of the fishy firewarriors.
Cue firey death:
After the heavy flamer opened up, there was one firewarrior left standing. He died to the flamer or combi-bolter, or possibly just horror at seeing his sqad mates become their names.
The three remaining berserkers charged the other squad of fire warriors, to amusing results. In what almost became another "Great Moment In Tau Close Combat" the two 'zerkers managed to kill exactly nothing. Fortunately for the somewhat bashful berserkers, neither did the tau. It was left to the Aspiring champ to pull the squad's weight, and that was exactly what he did, killing two tau, causing the rest to run away and get slaughtered in the process. If he hadn't gotten vaporized the next turn, I would have made him a medal...
The daemon prince, not to be left out, decided he needed revenge on the prickly frisbees. Predictably, he smashed them like a 3 year old given cymbals, and they were no more.
In the backfield, the suddenly pedestrian berserkers ran forward, and Dan's havoks managed to stun the ionhead. Salvage, demonstrating that he needs new dice, failed to damage a single vehicle with his piles of heavy weapons. He might have killed something else, but it was so irrelevant I didn't take a picture.
Tau 2: The tau achieved similar reserve results, getting an
HQ crisis suit team. Said team lands right between the berserkers and the daemon prince.
Team tau, suddenly realizing they had exactly 1 scoring unit left, piled them back into their devil fish and ran them away from Lord Pinksock the Angry. The now riderless devilfish slam into reverse and scoot away.
The crisis suits mop up the squad of berserkers, while the terminators and pedestrian berserkers are both culled slightly. The sniper teams plink at the havoks killing two, but failing to pin. The remaining roombas scoot forward to stall the advance of the terminators and berserkers.
Turn 3:
Chaos: Dan's girls take to the field, summoning off the terminator's icon. Salvage's terminators likewas appear, popping up in front of a very unhappy broadside. The terminators turn to destroy the broadsides with the help of the daemon prince's doom bolts, while the backfield continues to disappoint, Dan managing only to rip the gun off of the hammerhead. Salvage kept better track than I, but I think he had rolled his 6th or 7th 1 or 2 for hitting and penetration with his heavy weapons at this point.
Salvage's terminators, however, have the best volley of their 10,000 year lives, reducing the broadside to a fine mist with 6 plasma wounds.
The girls take the field!
Then promptly butcher a sniper team, consolidating towards the objective.
Not to be outdone, the Lumberjack and his friends charge the gun drones, but despite having some 11 attacks, the lord only kills 2. Good enough to wipe the death frisbees off the board, but rather disappointing for the fellow's first day out.
Tau: Evan's crisis suits dropped right when needed, both coming on simultaneously to crush the terminators and reduce the remaining servants of Khorne to the Lord and the Aspiring Champion.
The daemonettes were also whittled down, as were some of the marines by the chaos objective. (In fact, there was a fair amount of shooting on that side of the board, but not enough to be really exciting. All the action was in the center.)
The Man Cave is officially annointed with tau blood, I says.
) 1500 list is ...
Suffused with the dying memories of Sanguinus, the warriors of the Death Company seek only one thing: death in battle fighting against the enemies of the Emperor.