Abhorrent Grotesque Aberration
Hopping on the pain wagon
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Wow. The Las Vegas GT was last weekend and my brain is still a bit of a mush pool so apologies if this is a bit incoherent. Pictures are forthcoming. My wife was in a car accident on the Thursday before (pretty minor, everyone okay) but the car had to be towed and she forgot to get the camera out of it so I had to borrow my friend's digital camera. Anyway, that is why there are no pictures yet, but there will be some at some point for the GT proper, but not the doubles tourney - we forgot!
A little background - I decided a couple of weeks ago to change which army I was going to take - from Black Templars to Daemons. The Templars were done so I had them as a fall back if necessary. It turned out that I got everything done - but just. It will all take a few levels of highlighting to look really good, but it was decent - good enough for me to not be embarassed to have it on the table.
So, Shawn picked me up at my house in LA at about 7:00 in the morning on Friday and we hit the road. Our plan was to play in the doubles tourney if we got there in time to register, and if not just finish up painting. We made it there just in time and were the last team to register. We also ended up being the team that made for an odd number of players which means we ended up playing against a ringer army and that takes us to the battle report area proper.
For simplicity's sake it this and all of my battlereports, my opponent's long table edge will be north, mine south and then the short edges are west and east respectively.
Brother-Captain Dacius knelt before the great stone sarcophagi in prayer. Lying before him were almost a hundred of his battle brothers. They had been entrusted to Dacius by the Chapter masters as he set out pursuing rumors of a Fallen named Logithar Starkiller. It was his leadership which had led them to this sector, this system, this world. These graves.
The Starkiller had anticipated their arrival and set upon them a series of terrible traps and ambushes. All that remained were his veterans, armored as Dacius himself in ancient tactical dreadnought - terminator - armor. Dacius no longer felt a desire to allow the Fallen to repent. He wanted to watch him bleed. He wanted to watch him die and, at that very last moment, to take his head.
Unbeknownst to Dacius, the eddies of the warp gathered around him, bringing a dark answer to his prayers for vengeance.
We built the lists according to the rules on the site governing the doubles tourney which basically allowed each player to bring half an army. 750 points with 0-1 elite, fast, heavy and hq (though there had to be at least one hq on the team) and 1-3 troops. It seemed like there might be some neat synergy if we both started off the table using deathwing assault with the standard daemonic assault.
The missions for the tourney were the 3 standard missions from the 5th edition book in order.
My half was all Khorne Daemons:
The Warbringer (Bloodthirster)
Fury (4 Bloodcrushers, 1 rending)
Ire (10 Bloodletters, 1 rending)
Scyal (Soulgrinder, phlegm upgrade)
Shawn had his Emperor's Judgment (Dark Angels successors):
Belial
5 Deathwing Terminators (1 assault cannon, apothecary)
5 Deathwing Terminators (1 assault cannon)
Predator annhilator
Game 1
Game 1 - vs Clay playing Dave Taylor's Ultramarines (using new SM codex)
As you can imagine, it was a beautiful army and both Shawn and I were quite curious how the new old kid on the block would play. The list looked a bit something like:
Epistolary librarian (the 2 powers are chosen at the start of the game, like way old Black Templars vows were chosen - he went with null zone and void blast)
2 Squads of 10 with missile launcher flamer
10 sniper scouts with cameleoline cloaks and a missile launcher (or whatever they are called +1 save)
5 Terminators (1 assault cannon)
Dreadnought
Land Raider
Vindicator
uhhh I think that is it but there might have also been some devastators
Setup and early game:
The Land Raider hung out right in the middle of the table along the north table edge, the dreadnought was just west of it. Further west in some ruins were a combat squad with missile launcher(?) and the Vindicator. The librarian and his unit started inside of the Land Raider. The scouts took up position in a small forest almost dead center of the table.
My preferred wave for this game was the bloodthirster and the soulgrinder. Shawn put Belial in the unit with the Apothecary and kept the predator in reserve along with the second unit of terminators.
Khorne was pleased with my choice of units and allowed them to come on. The bloodthirster landed on a hill to the west of the forest, drifting slightly but not too bad. The soulgrinder ended up just to the east of the forest with the scouts and the Deathwing terminators with Belial came on just south of the soulgrinder. Both the soulgrinder and terminators tried to fire up the scouts (to remove a "soft" scoring unit). They were just too well concealed and so they didn't really suffer any casualties.
The bloodthirster ran a bit towards the vindicator and that about wrapped it up. Responding to a distress call the Ultramarine terminators appeared in close support thanks to the scouts teleport homer. The Ultramarines shot the daemonic engine again and again until it was both immobilized and with its ranged weapons destroyed. The vindicator moved forward through the ruins ignoring the dangerous terrain test thanks to its siege modifications (cool new upgrade lets them ignore all dangerous terrain checks.) The Deathwing took a wound which the apothecary was able to field dress to keep the veteran in action.
It pleased Khorne to watch the Marines kill each other and nothing else arrived from the daemons both both the predator and other terminators appeared. The bloodthirster leapt forward with his sights set on the combat squad covering the flank of the vindicator. Both units of Deathwing fired upon their blue armored brethren, killing 2. Seeing the bloodlust in the lightning clawed commander the Terminators used their combat tactics to fall back out of charge range.
The bloodthirster charged in and killed 3 for no loss in return. The surviving marines tried to use combat tactics to disengage but the bloodthirster was too quick and kept them locked in combat.
Mid game - end game:
The vindicator lined up a shot on the terminators sent several of them to the Emperor's side (I don't remember the total killed right now.) The librarian led his escort out of the land raider and tried to summon the void against Belial's squad. The rest of the marines also fired on the Deathwing and as a result they lost a couple of the veterans.
The Bloodthirster wiped out the remaining marines and bellowed over their corpses (with a 1" massacre move, he wasn't doing much else.) The bloodcrushers arrived south of the forest and moved toward the scouts. The bloodthirster set up a charge on the terminators and the librarians squad (it seemed like a legit charge to both sides, though looking at the rules later it probably wasn't.) The bloodthirster wiped out the terminators on the charge and maybe took a wound in return. The librarian tried to pull his men out of combat but the bloodthirster wasn't having it and kept them locked in. The other Deathwing terminators showed up and tried to catch the side armor of the vindicator but, unfortunately, couldn't get through the armor.
The bloodcrushers and bloodletters also decided to show up and both ended up near the center of the table, south of the forest. Both moved towards the scouts, the bloodcrushers spacing their juggernauts out to provide cover for the bloodletters on foot.
The bloodthirster slew a couple of the librarians squad and wounded the librarian but didn't kill him, allowing his null field to go off again. I thought that would go badly for my bloodletters and it did - when the marine shooting was over there were only a couple of bloodletters left. Having to reroll successful invulnerable saves is really harsh to the daemon army. Fortunately, the range is limited and the librarian isn't too difficult to kill - he just becomes a very high priority. The Deathwing also took a beating from the vindicator cannon and having to reroll thier successful invulnerable saves.
The scouts saw the armored behemoths bearing down on them but they were unable to find any weak points in the juggernaut's armored forms. The earth shook as the juggers crashed into the scouts, killing several. The scouts tried to fall back but the bloodcrushers' frenzy was up and they tore apart another couple of the lightly armored marines. The bloodletters took up position around the object and the final surviving member of the Deathwing claimed a second objective. The marines decided that the situation was untenenable and they fell back to determine an effective strategy to retake the objectives.
After action review:
Whew. It was a very tight game - the new marines are crazy shooty and the ability to fall back out of combat to shoot even more is awesome. Clay played the combat tactics well. I must admit, when I first read about that rule, I horribly misjudged it. Combined with ATSKNF autorally, it is really really cool. A bit risky, as it should be, but really cool. Other cool things were the scouts with +1 cover save (which can be combined with techmarine shenanigans for a 2+ cover without going to ground!) and the free teleport homer. Strangely, they actually felt like they had a scouting role... If the game hadn't ended on turn 5 it would have ended a draw as I am pretty sure that between the vindicator, dreadnought and land raider the 3 remaining scoring models we had wouldn't have stood a chance.
Eternal Praise:
The bloodthirster did everything he was supposed to do and more! He was an unstoppable killing machine and really, the only model I needed this game (at least it felt like that at times).
Prized skull:
The Librarian, definitely. Null zone is no joke for daemon players.
Eternal Damnation:
No one really, all of my units performed like they were supposed to.
Dacias ripped the helmet off of the "Ultramarines". He knew them for liars from the moment they arrived on the field. Logithar would be here, somewhere amongst the dead. Dacias would return to the Rock and throw the traitor's head on the ground at Azrael's feet.
I will try and get games 2 and 3 up today.
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