Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So, this is going to be a quick little battle report from me, rather than my usual narrative style. I just wanted to put something up in honor of my first game playing with CSM.

Just today, I got a pair of packages from eBay, which over doubled the number of CSM models that I'd had. A friend of mine wanted a game, and so I cobbled together what few painted units I had with the various some-primed, some-horribly-plastic-glued new models I'd gotten a couple of hours before. I also threw together a chaos list built around working with the models I had, and a bit of guesswork.

My opponent, on the other hand, had a Mordrak list he's been playing with as of late. The gist is that you've got a bunch of stuff that can shunt, scout, and deepstrike turns 1 and 2. Basically, it's 1850 points of in-your-face GK. Unlike my guard army, close is exactly where I want to be. Anyways, the lists were as such:

Huron
Chaos Lord - MoK, sigil, axe of blind fury, veterans, gift of mutation

10x terminators - MoK, IoW, champ with fist and combi-melta, 5x combi-meltas, 2x combi-plasmas, 2x autocannons, 2x chainfists

20x khorne berzerkers - champ with fist, IoW
20x khorne berzerkers - champ with fist, IoW

7x havocs - 4x lascannons


And my opponent ran...

Coteaz
Mordrak - 4x ghost knights - 2x swords, 2x hammers

Vindicare assassin

5x grey knight terminators - psycannon, Thawn
Henchmen - 3x melta, mystic, chimera
Henchmen - 3x plasma, mystic, chimera
Henchmen - 2x DCAs, 6x warriors, everyone had a power axe, rhino

10x interceptors - 2x incinerators
Dreadknight - heavy incinerator


We played this at 1850 points. Some of the people at the store are going to Adepticon this year, so the game was an Adepticon 40k one. There were two primary missions - in this case, kill points, and crusade. As such, there were two missions to "win" - whoever won a primary mission got a point, and if both players each won one of them (say, my opponent got more obejctives, and won crusade, but I got more KP), then it would count as a tie and the winner of the game would be determined by secondaries (which are the usual ones).

In pre-game rolling, we got 5 objectives, and my opponent won the roll to place them first. I tried to crowd the objectives in a bit, rather than just hiding them on my side of the board. I don't have any units to spare to sit around and babysit objectives, so I want them at hand wherever I wind up at the end of the game. Coteaz got the 4++ power and prescience. Mordrak rolled only 1 ability, and he chose to make the dreadknight scoring, rather than scouting something. My gift of mutation on the khorne lord gave me witch eater, which would be rather pointless this game.

I then roll for the big one. How many units do I get to infiltrate thanks to Huron? On a 5+, it's all of them but the havocs. To make up for mordrak, I only get one myself. I decide to give it to the terminators.

The two of us deploy centrally, and my termies decide to infiltrate over to my left. Night fight is off. My opponent wins the roll to go first. I naturally fail to seize against coteaz.

At the beginning of the game, things looked like this:



My objective on this game is actually pretty simple. I don't need to get more objectives than my opponent if I beat him on kill points (which I will), and then force the win on secondaries. This will come (hopefully) from the fact that, except the havocs, my army is comprised of three practically invincible units that stand basically zero chance of giving up first blood. To note, this was the one little bit of planning that went into this list - the idea that, whatever the mission, I was going to build a list that did well on the secondaries.

As such, all I really needed was first blood, and to charge straight forwards (to get linebreaker), and I'd win on one primary, and hopefully dislodge my opponent from enough objectives to possibly force a draw on that as well.

In any case, the game began.



1.) My opponent begins the game by bringing Mordrak in. He decides to bring them in over on the right side near my exposed berzerker flank. Everything else is rather conservative. The special weapon henchmen and the dreadknight form up into a defensive position, and the DCA blob gets out of their vehicle in preparation for a turn 2 charge. The only other action is the interceptors jumping forwards to get some guys into storm bolter range of my havocs.

In shooting, my opponent doesn't do much of anything except against the havocs. They take a half dozen storm bolters, a couple of multilasers, and a handful of snapfired heavy bolters. The end result is 6 armor saves. But I'm playing marines, now, I've got this! I then fail 4 of them, seeing me down to just 3 lascannon dudes... and a morale check on the one squad in my army that wasn't fearless (note to self, put huron there to begin with next time...)

In the end, though, they stay on the board.

Turn 1 for me sees my colossal pile of anger move up the board...



Things start with the havocs trying to redeem themselves. 3 lascannons shoot at the rhino to fish for first blood. All three shots miss.

Meanwhile, the middle pile of berzerkers run while the termies on the left and the berzerkers on the right bear down on their targets. I'd infiltrated my termies, but I'd also not gotten the top of turn 1, and my opponent brought something to within 18". To 14" to be precise. Normally this would be only a moderately risky move, but I've got icons of wrath on everything.

The termies start by rolling into close combat.



The terminator champion challenges and the justicar accepts but then, realizing what he's up against, decides to end it all on his own terms by perilsing himself to death casting hammerhand. Then it gets down to I5... which is where the axe of blind fury strikes. I roll a 3. The khorne lord, in conjunction with hatred, manages to nearly single-handedly butcher the interceptors. The remaining ones were offed by power axes.

On the right, the berzerkers have to charge through cover, but I only need a 4" charge which I get thanks to the icon. I don't manage to get all of my berzerkers in, but still, I throw down over 50 WS5 S5 attacks. My opponent is able to get away with only 3 of the ghost knights dying, but then it goes down to the challenge. Mordrak has a hammer. My champion has a S9 power fist. Mordrak horribly pastes the champion, but the champion puts down two wounds, one of which makes it through the 4++, and Mordrak doesn't have eternal warrior. With him gone, the remaining ghost knight poofs away in a cloud of incongruity.



This gives me first blood, but the warlord was coteaz, who now has a desperate situation on this hand.



2.) At the top of turn 2, his Thawn + GKT squad arrives from reserves and decides to attack over on the right, but to play it a little more conservative this time, keeping things a little further back in preparation to charge on turn 3.

Meanwhile, everything else bears down on my terminators. The dreadknight manages to kill two terminators with a half dozen armor saves, and nearby plasma and melta also dings the squad further, but that's all a distraction to the main show. Coteaz passes out prescience to the DCA blob to which he had been joined and then charges in against the terminators along with the dreadknight.

I fail countercharge with my terminators, and the end result is no damage from a lackluster handful of power maul attacks. My opponent then GOES TO DOWN with rerollable power axes. My own axes fight back, but are up against stormshields. The terminators are wiped out. I only kill two dudes with stormshields (one of them in overwatch, actually).

Meanwhile, my khorne lord was in a challenge with the dreadknight (if my opponent had accepted with coteaz, it would have ended in a warlord point for me). I get my axe of blind fury, ready to viciously hack the dreadknight to pieces... and roll a 1. Despite only being WS1, the hating khorne lord does manage a wound on the dreadknight before being unceremoniously splashed into gore by some nemesis doom fists.

And there we have it. Both of us have played our expensive terminator-based opening hand, only to see it flop. But I have an ace up my sleeve. A second wave!

On my turn 2, my havoks try to redeem themselves by shooting at the dreadknight. After 6 shots, I finally get a hit, but it's blocked by the invul save. Meanwhile, on the right, the berzerkers run forward as fast as they can to try and get anywhere, while the berzerkers on the left charge straight into coteaz and his buddies.

Close combat sees my berzerkers make an easy 3" charge, even with them technically charging through cover. The DCAs kill off a pair of berzerkers before the entire squad is washed out in a pyroclastic blast of over 60 S5 WS5 hatred attacks. Of note, the berzerker champion issues the challenge to coteaz (whose hammerhand allows him to ID Huron). Coteaz easily handles the champion, and the powerfisted champion easily handles coteaz. I consolidate forwards...



Right into my opponent's soft underbelly. He's running out of options, and fast.



3.) My opponent starts turn 3 by moving forward his terminators on the right, trying to bring Thawn into play.



They make it into close combat. My squad is somewhat spread out, so I don't get as many attacks as I'd like, and my opponent rolls well for his terminators, seeing only a single wound lost, which he throws on Thawn.



The two sides would spend the rest of the game slugging it out to a more or less draw. My opponent eviscerated my berzerkers, but he eventually failed enough armor saves under the still rather substantial number of attacks I was throwing at him.

Eventually, Thawn got back up and charged back into the berzerkers on turn 5.



But the more interesting show was on the left. I'd wiped out his interceptors. He wiped out my terminators. I wiped out coteaz and his henchmen. Starting at the top of turn 3, the seesaw continued. Nearby transports tank shocked my berzerkers to get them into a better place to be hit by the heavy incinerator. I get my armor saves, though, and this time they work. My opponent doesn't have much to do but to charge in with his W3 dreadknight.



A massive pile of overwatch naturally does nothing to the monstrous creature, and when he arrives I have no one left in the squad to issue a challenge, except my warlord. Huron threw down the gauntlet, and the dreadknight is forced to accept. The tyrant's claw would be useless here, and so the battle devolved to an I1 fight. His attacks yielded a respectable 3 wounds. I pick up the dice for my invul saves and shockingly, I pass all three (on 6s none the less). I then get three swings in which, thanks to hatred, I hit with all 3. I roll to wound, and only snag one, but then I get to reroll the other two, thanks to the massive pile of khorne berzerkers in the squad shouting BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!! in unison, and the end result is that all three wound. My opponent rolls invul, and fails them all. My poor khorne lord is avenged. Huron gains hammer of wrath.

And now, at the mid-point of turn 3, the game is all but done. On the right, the berzerkers and the GKTs are futilely hacking at each other, while on the left, my opponent has a vindicare assassin (which has been rolling just about as terribly as my havocs - most notably failing twice to strip the khrone lord and then Huron of their invul saves), a chimera with a plasma gunner and a mystic (the others had burned themselves), a chimera with three meltagunners and a mystic, and an empty rhino. Against Huron and at least 15 khorne berzerkers.

At the bottom of 3, I charge everything.



I get ready to prime krak grenades, but then decide against it. I've got more attacks with S5 chainswords than S6 krak grenades. The rhino sees Huron charge into it whose lightning claw that things its an eviscerator horribly flubs it, three hits yielding a single glance. The several guys nearby help him finish it off by an extra pair of glances. Meanwhile, the further away chimera had seen it loose a hull point thanks to the havocs (who after 4 turns of firing, finally manage to do any damage at all - a weapon destroyed result on that chimera). With only two hull points needing stripping, the berzerkers manage it. Meanwhile, the right-side chimera didn't move the turn before, and it's got the most berzerkers on it. It easily wrecks.

The end result is a mystic, a vindicare assassin, and 4 lonely, dismounted henchmen.

Turn 4 sees the battle on the right grind on and the mystic desperately trying for an objective on the right while the henchmen scramble towards one on the left. The mystic only rolls a 1 for a run roll, which just barely keeps it in LOS of the havocs. In my turn, I spread my huge pile of berzerkers out into a conga line, looking to assault both the runaway mystic and the remainder of the henchmen. The havocs then do their one thing right this game, and manage to kill off the lonely mystic, leaving the berzerkers to easily finish off the henchmen.

Turn 5 sees Thawn get back up and assault the berzerkers on the objective on the right, and the vindicare assaulting my khorne berzerkers off of their objective on the left (taking a wound from a bolt pistol in the process). Thawn passes 4 armor saves and kills a few berzerkers. The vindicare and Huron both manage to do nothing to each other. At the bottom of 5, Thawn passes another 4 armor saves and kills another berzerker. The vindicare and Huron continue their pointless slap-fight. At the top of turn 6, the tyrant's claw finally does its damn job and peels the other wound off the vindicare. Thawn whiffs against the berzerkers, who cause another pair of armor saves.

At this point, with only Thawn left on the table, my opponent concedes.

In the end, I collected 86 skulls for the skull throne - a victory for Khorne!

On an unrelated note, I also won on kill points (2 to 11). I also won the other primary with huron and some berzerkers holding an objective, and thawn and some other berzerkers contesting another. Not that it mattered, but I also swept the secondaries as well.

- Probably the biggest problem for my opponent this game was the list matchup. Bringing 46 wounds worth of power armor isn't exactly a foot horde, but it IS a fair amount. Much more importantly, though, my opponent's serious anti-MEq only came in the form of close combat attacks, and close combat was exactly where I was strongest. Mordrak, for example, had the option to either do nothing, or to be in close combat with berzerkers. Neither of which were appealing options.

My opponent did note after the game that he could have played things more conservatively, spending a turn or two falling back and using what shooting he had and then done things to ensure that HE got the charge, rather than my army. The -1A would have been useful for him, but, more importantly, I wouldn't have the +1S for all my khorne units.

In the end, though, there was no way he was going to win this game on KP, which meant the best he was going to do was to tie up primaries on objectives. Assuming I charged forwards, it meant my opponent NEEDED linebreaker, but really, it was going to devolve to first blood. Something which my army was designed to exploit.

I hate to say it, but the longer I go in 6th ed, the more it's starting to feel like "first blood: the game".

- Those khrone berzerkers, to me at least, were awe-inspiring. I think both of us grossly underestimated what they could do. It's not just that they get a maximum of 80 attacks on the charge (indeed, due to the sheer, unwieldy size of the squad and casualties, I never really made it above 65, but it was more usually down in the upper 40's or 50's). In fact, I got a LOT of mileage out of the fact that they were berzerkers, not MoK CSM.

Having WS5 meant I hit basically everything on 3's. The icon made it so that I wounded basically everything on 3's. There was only one close combat that really lasted past the first turn, and it was berzerkers against GKTs. In that, I didn't win a single round of combat and, in fact, lost most of them. But they were fearless.

In the case of this game, taking actual berzerkers was much better, and definitely worth losing a couple of meltaguns over.

- Also, contrary to the universe, I decided to take powerfists on my berzerker champs, and not only because I have the models for them. The idea is that virtually everything that doesn't have a power weapon is going to have a bit of a tough time landing a sticking wound on T4 3++, and most things that do have power weapons have axes, or are power fists, or thunderhammers, or whatever. Said models also tend to have 2+ Svs.

In this case, having the powerfists was game-changing. It was the difference between Mordrak eating a squad of berzerkers by himself, and a Mordrak that only killed a single berzerker before getting one-shotted. Likewise, coteaz was killed with a single shot from a powerfist, whereas he likely would have survived against anything else. It's not just the Ap, it's also the ID abilities.

As such, even though the skull champion died in both cases, I still DEFINITELY won both challenges they participated in. I'd trade 50 points of fists for coteaz, mordrak, and a ghost knight any day. More importantly, as mentioned, the strategic impact was pretty big. Berzerkers alone are good at a lot of things, but are vulnerable without at least a little bit of heavy-hitting capabilities.

- I'd also like to say a few things about Huron. With his warlord trait, he set up a first-turn charge with a big pile of MoK terminators with an axe of blind fury. With his power axe, he killed off a dreadknight. With his tyrant claw, he got into close combat with a vehicle. Likewise, he killed off my opponent's last scoring unit by himself, and finished off the last model in his deployment zone, clearing the way for a squad of berzerkers to hold an objective.

This is insane. It's crazy beyond measure. It's also way, way better than my guard senior officer...

And all of this despite the fact that I only once remembered to roll for his psychic power, and completely forgot that he has a combat familiar. If I decide to continue with Huron (which I likely will), then I should make a familiar model so that I remember to use it.

- Also, veterans of the long war was silly good. As if hitting on 3's wasn't enough, yes, I'll also take a reroll on the first turn. In this case, hatred was what let enough hits land from the berzerkers to glance all those vehicles to death, and its what meant I got a chance to wound the dreadknight three times. It was also helpful in my powerfist challenge.

That said, I'm also glad I didn't pay for it. Well, as a squad upgrade. Huron and my lord both had it, and that was enough. Plus, in worst case scenarios, I can always move the veterans ability from one squad to another, as they're on ICs.

- It felt very good to be able to finally run a proper close combat army again, even if I had to do it in the silliest way possible. None of this gunline nonsense, or carefully dancing around and taking potshots. No, this time I'm going to run over there, and I'm going to beat you in the face. Nice to have a glimmer of power blob goodness.

And there were a lot of things that were needed to make it work. Before the game I was seriously considering running everything as slaanesh (berzerkers as no-sonic-weapons noise marines), but this game showed just how useful the Icon of Wrath is. In the end, there is no substitute for making it into the charge, which the IoW is very, very useful for, especially when attempting a charge where there is cover involved. It's sort of the difference between making it, or not.

That and, as mentioned, WS5+, hatred from vets, FC, and fearless all played their part, as did T4, for that matter. Against literally any other army, their Sv3+ would have made a big difference as well.

That said, the army, as built, has several hard counters, and several more uphill battles. The combination of infiltrating and playing to the mission I think would do me well enough against high-mobility armies (though I guess we'll have to see), but at some point I'm going to have to deal with armies that have the ability to back up and keep shooting AP3+ or volume of fire weapons at me. Either I've got to add in more specific counters (more havocs to shoot down helldrakes), or I've got to dilute the berzerkers to CSM so that I can get more of them, or I've got to swing points more in favor of terminators.

Or make them all slaanesh and get FNP. It certainly would have seen my terminators last longer.

Slayers of the Game: This award goes to those who beat the most ridiculous amount of face. It's going to the left-side berzerker squad with Huron who went through my opponent's army like a freight train. Eight kill points, a warlord, a monstrous creature, and an assassin. With more than half their number still left. Sheesh.

Most Aspiring Champion: This award goes to those who please the gods of chaos (and myself) the most. The shoo-in candidate here is Huron. SO much utility to be wrung from this guy, and that's ignoring the fact that I forgot some of his rules, and only infiltrated a single unit, rather than my entire army...

Anyways, hope you liked the report. Blood for the Blood God, and all that.

I always enjoy your battle points...this one takes the cake so far though because I can hear your excitement on the marine stat line in your battle report...I also play my guard alot and their dismal stat line is very unbecoming of greatness...thanks for the report, as always...BLOOD for the BLOOD GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great report and an intresting build considering close combat has faded from popularity in 6th. Can't wait to see where you go with these guys as I'm sure you'll do a story base for them just like your IG .

Noc

I've been trying to convince my locality that infiltrating a huge mob of Terminators is a great thing for CSM, as it puts something really tough right up in your opponents grill and masks everything else.

You had me at:

Turn 1 for me sees my colossal pile of anger move up the board...

Welcome to power armor sir!

My Black Legion foot horde has been doing good simply by denying First Blood like you said. Have you considered a Sorcerer instead of the Lord, the Telepathy powers could really help.

EDIT: Oblits over Havocs or no?

DarknessEternal wrote:I've been trying to convince my locality that infiltrating a huge mob of Terminators is a great thing for CSM, as it puts something really tough right up in your opponents grill and masks everything else.

And I think, with a little fanagling, that I might be able to scrounge the models (read: use my ogryn) to get two squads of terminators in there. A potential first turn charge (if my opponent is thus compliant), with 800 points of terminators with MoK. Zesty.

Widowsbane wrote: I can hear your excitement on the marine stat line in your battle report.

BladeWalker wrote:Welcome to power armor sir!

And I'm sure it will take me a bit of time to get used to. As you can see from some of the pictures, I still have a bit of a skittish guardsman mentality. For example, you can see on this picture how I was trying to avoid taking casualties from the dreadknight's heavy incinerator:



Putting things into a doughnut shape is instinctive for me... but kind of silly. Let's take a really bad case scenario and say that his heavy incinerator hit 9 guys. Well, there's a half chance that it only ends up with 2 dead berzerkers, rather than 8.

Of course, those foot horde survival skills I'm sure will help me in the future, but for most situations it's just not needed. Plus, this game felt like I was right at the limit of force concentration with my foot horde. I was never able to get all of my berzerkers into a close combat all at once, for example. Spreading out less will definitely help with this problem.

In any case, yeah, it was pretty great to treat marines with the same "I like 3's" contempt that marines treat guardsmen...

BladeWalker wrote:Have you considered a Sorcerer instead of the Lord, the Telepathy powers could really help.

Very seriously.

The problem is that I really want Huron, and I need a lord to make the berzerkers troops.

Of course, I could scale down the berzerkers to marked CSM which, along with reducing the fury axe khorne lord down to a sorcerer would free up more points for more support units.

I'd be losing the berzerkers, though...

BladeWalker wrote:Oblits over Havocs or no?

At first glance, no. 4 lascannons is better than 3 lascannons, and the reason this unit exists at all is to fish for first blood and be annoying to fliers. Neither of which the obliterators do better. That's not an unequivocal no, though, and I'm sure I can think of a use for them in this kind of a list, but until then, I think I'd rather take something else.

15 MoK raptors with IoW and an axe of BF lord infiltrating could be funny too.

Makes me smile that I own 48 painstakingly painted Berzerkers, but then I remember my current meta and why they are spending so much time in their case. Still nothing compares to Highland charging a serious red wake at your enemy.

Bravo good sir and welcome to the Void I call chaos. You can spend years building and modeling and you'll never run out of tings to try, some times the limitlessness can be daunting

Seems like your are having fun with taking your skulls. Glad to see an Ailros batrep. Have you thought about using Huron's ability to infiltrate 3 man oblit units close to your opponents important bits. Oblits can kill most things within ~12"; 3x multimelta or 3x HF is usually enough to get first blood and they can even charge if you go second. Additionally if you decide not to use the infiltrate on them they are still 3x lascannons.

I actually think the zerkers may be a great match for you. I got the feeling that you like closing with the opponent often and with gusto. With your old power blobbs lists this was the goal and it did this well now with zerkers this is the goal and with fearless/infiltrate you have a decent chance of getting something there.

Ahahaha, great to see that you can finally get into melee range again! Great batrep as always.

Ever consider mixing your armies and taking IG allies?

Nice report. Very glad to see you didn't give up on 40K altogether. Hopefully, a new army with a completely different play style will keep it fresh for you.

Great! Another awesome battle report from Ailaros!

Unconventional army lists for the win!

That was a good read! Thanks

Due to infiltrating, the terminators could not have made the charge on the first turn.

I think your oppenent played into your hands. He needed to spread the objectives out and stay spread out. You only have 3 units and only two are scoring. Other than the lascannons and the autocannons you don't have things that are long range. The winning move for him would have been to turn the game into a boring movement match.

Great win though. Being a fellow CSM assault player, it is nice to see an all CSM army do well. I sold out and got Daemon allies.

You lose the benfits of FC and rage if you perform a disordered charge (multi-assault). So should have been krak-grenading with the beserkers at the end.

Also doesnt coteaz lose hammerhand because he took book powers?

Otherwise a very enjoyable report, i feel you'll struggle against anything with large ap 2/3 blasts (tau, IG, etc) or particularly shooty armies. Or is that the main appeal of huron? To infiltrate/minimize the number of turns before you charge.

Red Corsair wrote:15 MoK raptors with IoW and an axe of BF lord infiltrating could be funny too.

Yes, yes it could be.

That said, one of the ways to take a list like this is to drop the havocs and add in raptors or bikes or spawn. That way, D3 of the slow units does a turn 1 or 2 charge, and the support units, because they're fast, also make a charge in the same time. I mean, in this particular situation, for example, it would have been the termiantors and the raptors charging turn 1, and then the left-side berzerkers charging turn 2. Or the terminators charging and then both the berzerkers and the raptors countercharging.

The question is if I could get away with that. We DO have a person at my FLGS who is now running a necron/CSM list that's 2 helldrakes and 3 nightscythes. The combination of Ap3 and flying transports is going to be tricky...

Red Corsair wrote:Makes me smile that I own 48 painstakingly painted Berzerkers, but then I remember my current meta and why they are spending so much time in their case. Still nothing compares to Highland charging a serious red wake at your enemy.

Interestingly enough, seeing my miniatures in pictures like this is actually putting me off of the red scheme. I've been trying to get around the idea of chaos units looking like they're wearing red pajamas (or blue, in the case of night lords, or whatever), and this kind of confirms my fears.

My favorite looking model from this all is my all-brass terminators, actually. I suppose there's a difference between models that are designed to look good by themselves, and models that are designed to look good in a giant pile of them viewed from further away on t a table top.

Red Corsair wrote: You can spend years building and modeling and you'll never run out of tings to try, some times the limitlessness can be daunting

lol, yeah. I like to think at the moment that what I'm running is a khorne list, but I can already tell that it's going to end in me owning three of everything at some point...

ansacs wrote:Have you thought about using Huron's ability to infiltrate 3 man oblit units close to your opponents important bits.

I suppose the problem here is one of limited resources. I can only infiltrate 3 units, regardless of size. Infiltrating small units, then just doesn't quite make as much sense, especially when I could infiltrate 1500 points of berzerkers and terminators. Now, if I were using him to be tricksy, rather than to infiltrate my whole army, I'd definitely more seriously consider it, but at the moment it seems like I'd be giving up too much just to get a couple of turn 1 melta hits in place.

Talore wrote:Ever consider mixing your armies and taking IG allies?

What would IG add?

The usual thesis of "a cheap scoring unit to camp at home" isn't something that I'm looking for in this kind of a list, as its force multiplier is offensive units. Plus, I can always take a big pile of fearless cultists (or CSM for that matter) from my own codex.

I guess I could consider them for the purpose of bringing a 3x hydra squad. 365 points is a little heavy, though (I'm currently only spending half that for havocs), and it would rather only do anti-air...

bogalubov wrote:Due to infiltrating, the terminators could not have made the charge on the first turn.

They can if I don't get first turn. Page 9 says "turn" means "player turn" unless explicitly stated otherwise. Page 38 says they may not assault the first turn, which, as per above means not during the first player turn. As I wasn't first player, the rule doesn't apply to me.

The way we understand it RAI is that the game is designed so that you get at least 1 turn to shoot at stuff (or run away, or in some other way react) before your opponent can get into close combat with you, which, in this case, is exactly what happened.

bogalubov wrote:The winning move for him would have been to turn the game into a boring movement match.

Yes... but.

Even if I'd just let him HAVE the objectives, we still would have tied because I would have won KP. With first blood, I'd have won the game on secondaries, especially since I was guaranteed linebreaker, and I had an advantage on the warlord point.

He would have done better running away (probably - there's no guarantee I wouldn't have just assaulted him off the objectives), but it was going to be tough in any case. Really, the only way he could try and stop me from applying my killing power was to do so in such a way that denied him the ability to put much of any down either.

In this case, my opponent's best bet was to use the fact that he was a better shooter than I was, but putting down a red tide with a few meltaguns and flamers seems tough, especially since there was no real way he could deny me getting a charge in on him by mid-game without sacrificing all the objectives.

CaptainJay wrote:You lose the benfits of FC and rage if you perform a disordered charge (multi-assault). So should have been krak-grenading with the beserkers at the end.

Oh, you're right about that.

Thankfully that error was unlikely to change all that much, as rerolling krak grenades would have stripped the weakened vehicle as well.

CaptainJay wrote:Also doesnt coteaz lose hammerhand because he took book powers?

Does he?

CaptainJay wrote:Otherwise a very enjoyable report, i feel you'll struggle against anything with large ap 2/3 blasts (tau, IG, etc) or particularly shooty armies. Or is that the main appeal of huron? To infiltrate/minimize the number of turns before you charge.

Both of those statements are correct. Good shooting, specifically anti-MEq shooting is my biggest concern at the moment.

The question is what to do about it? I feel like I've got three options. The first is to get more of my own alpha-strike abilities into the list to try and shut down those Ap3 units (which is what the havocs were for this game). The second is to take less Sv3 and more Sv2+. There isn't THAT much Ap2+ large blasts out there, after all. The third is to double down. As you note, that's what huron is for - the idea that I can just put too many Sv3+ bodies too close too fast. The way to continue with the theme would be to either add more speed to get more in the fact (raptors, etc.), or to get more Sv3+ bodies (diluting the berzerkers to CSM and taking more of them). Well, the fourth option is to buy everyone a land raider, but I don't have the cash nor models to be able to do that for now.

The question, then, is which is the best way to go, and the answer to me isn't immediately obvious.

 Ailaros wrote:

CaptainJay wrote:Also doesnt coteaz lose hammerhand because he took book powers?

Does he?

Yep, he's even referenced by name in the faq, GK librarians get to generate powers = to ML and get to keep Hammerhand, but it explicitly says that Coteaz doesn't.

 Ailaros wrote:

Red Corsair wrote:15 MoK raptors with IoW and an axe of BF lord infiltrating could be funny too.

Yes, yes it could be.

That said, one of the ways to take a list like this is to drop the havocs and add in raptors or bikes or spawn. That way, D3 of the slow units does a turn 1 or 2 charge, and the support units, because they're fast, also make a charge in the same time. I mean, in this particular situation, for example, it would have been the termiantors and the raptors charging turn 1, and then the left-side berzerkers charging turn 2. Or the terminators charging and then both the berzerkers and the raptors countercharging.

The question is if I could get away with that. We DO have a person at my FLGS who is now running a necron/CSM list that's 2 helldrakes and 3 nightscythes. The combination of Ap3 and flying transports is going to be tricky...

Red Corsair wrote:Makes me smile that I own 48 painstakingly painted Berzerkers, but then I remember my current meta and why they are spending so much time in their case. Still nothing compares to Highland charging a serious red wake at your enemy.

Interestingly enough, seeing my miniatures in pictures like this is actually putting me off of the red scheme. I've been trying to get around the idea of chaos units looking like they're wearing red pajamas (or blue, in the case of night lords, or whatever), and this kind of confirms my fears.

My favorite looking model from this all is my all-brass terminators, actually. I suppose there's a difference between models that are designed to look good by themselves, and models that are designed to look good in a giant pile of them viewed from further away on t a table top.

I was in the same boat when I painted all my KB a consistent blood red.....all over black primer.... Ugh....

Only to look back and realize I hated it, they were a red-orange lump, so when I had the flu last spring I caught a buzz of some medicine and washed them all heavily with black wash then I edge highlighted in a box manner inside their trimming.... this is why i said it was painstaking, I used a zero brush and didn't slack on one in 48 ha ha. They look great now despite not having all their gear finished but I don't recommend this technique to anyone without a sick week to kill.

nice fights here. I've always liked the berzerkers but never really got them to do much lol.

Awesome game! There was just so much going on!

Interesting army too! Huron works very well with this theme. If you get to infiltrate three units... Slaughter!

I think you read the rules right. If you go second you may charge on the first turn. It also makes sense, as going first your opponent has the opportunity to prevent the charge by moving away.

A question for you list: Where will you put your characters if you infiltrate all three big units?

I think deploying the lord with the infiltrating termies as you did is illegal (last paragraph of the Infiltrate entry in the rulebook).

Excellent as always, nice to know you're still reporting! Perhaps we should ask a mod to give you the custom title of 'Senior War Correspondent'?

Red Corsair wrote:They look great now despite not having all their gear finished but I don't recommend this technique to anyone without a sick week to kill.

Lol, this is a khorne army, not a nurgle army.

I am thinking of going in and sprucing up my berzerkers a bit with washes, but I think it will only help SO much. It's the reason I'm going for the brass look with the rest of the terminators. It's too easy for chaos minis to look comically unrealistic - something which I've been wracking my brain to try and fix.

I've finally gotten it down to the point where I'm stuck deciding whether I want the checkers or not as my army's new paint scheme (cf. that one terminator with them that I brought) or not. Once I finally break out of this painting paralysis I've had over the last weeks, I'll finally be able to get a move on other parts of this project as well.

zoat wrote:A question for you list: Where will you put your characters if you infiltrate all three big units?

I think deploying the lord with the infiltrating termies as you did is illegal (last paragraph of the Infiltrate entry in the rulebook).

Oh, you're right.

Hmm...

I suppose in this game it would have been all right, as I would have put the khorne lord way over to the left with the berzerkers, and he would have just hopped in with the termies turn 1, but that does present a rather serious problem. Either I'm going to have to have squads without HQs, or fewer infiltrating units, because I'm going to have to waste one of my D3 on also giving the HQ infiltration.

That or bring along an extra unit (like the havocs in this case) to house the ICs so that if everything else infiltrates, they can still at least deploy on the table in a squad.

Hmm, this is actually a rather tricky problem, though...

Hedgehog wrote:Excellent as always, nice to know you're still reporting! Perhaps we should ask a mod to give you the custom title of 'Senior War Correspondent'?

That or I should do what I'm SUPPOSED to do and be a DCM.

The question is if I should do that or take as a title "resident ethicist". I guess it depends on where I think my biggest contribution to dakka lies, in the battle report section, or the 40k tactics and 40k general section.

Well to be fair anything involving 8' tall meat wagons in archaic suits of armor is going to scream comic but I know where your coming from. It really does help to tone the red down a lot except for the highest areas or edges and to find an alternate to the bright brass color. With mine the trim is painted in a parchment color and then inked in chestnut and highlighted in a bone color. It really goes well i think, off white and dried blood that is. I find that doing their trim in steel looks better too. Something too snazy and blingy about bright blood red and bronze for me.

Alternatively you could paint them all in white and blue spattered in blood like they are still sporting their heresy era armor, this would give an excellent excuse top crop the "rabbit ears off as well if you don't care for them. Heck, then you can play 30K if you ever felt the urge.

In regards to the infiltrating with characters dilemma, I may have a solution. Where your units are so big all you need do is leave a guy within 2" of your deployment zone at the back of the infiltrating unit and have your character already deployed at the zones edge. Technically I don't think they can start within 2" of him, only he can be deployed within 2" (the order is specific) but turn 1 you can simply move him that hair to with that unit, just be sure he is behind terrain if you are going second (or 1st in case of seizing).

Yeah, GW is in a trend right now of painting their minis darker and less candy-coated. I think it's because 'eavy metal has actually been using these washes that GW has come out with over the past few years. I've noticed that you can kind of get away with an awful lot more with CSM if you just make it darker.

I mean, case in point, look at alpha legion. Blue and green eyesores have been calmed down to navy with a hint of green. Same colors, but much better looking in darker hues.

As for the infiltrators, yeah, I could do that. Also, I suppose I could swap out the havocs for a fast unit that I could attach a lord to (like raptors, or whatever) so he'd be able to get into close combat turn 2 without requiring infiltration.

That or I could just drop the lord altogether. Seems like a khorne lord has an awful lot to offer with the axe of blind fury for only 140 points, but, then, one could make the argument that the axe of blind fury only gives me more of what I already have a LOT of, and so isn't really that necessary.

Kind of hard to tell, and I AM a little loathe to drop a second HQ as they're so good in this codex...

Anyways, I made this thread to try and hash things out.

If I dropped the havocs, the khorne lord, and downgraded the berzerkers to MoK CSM, and lightened the termies a little, I'd save 500 points. The problem is one of what would I spend them on? I need a thesis...

You should tell your friend that putting so many points in character models is a waste.

For a fluff list that's fine but his list is probably as unorganised as it gets.

There is no point me telling him what's a competitive list but he should try to improve his list

Great report!

 Ailaros wrote:
The tyrant's claw would be useless here, and so the battle devolved to an I1 fight

I'm not sure if this was a typo or what...but the DKnight goes at I4. It's pretty unlikely (0.4% chance) that'd you make all three 6++, so the DK will pretty much always smush Huron.

 Elric Greywolf wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
The tyrant's claw would be useless here, and so the battle devolved to an I1 fight

I'm not sure if this was a typo or what...but the DKnight goes at I4. It's pretty unlikely (0.4% chance) that'd you make all three 6++, so the DK will pretty much always smush Huron.

The DK goes first, but then Huron has a 5++ and the option of re-rolls from the massive squad of berzerkers, so its not that unlikely for Huron to survive.

Huron has a 4++. A rerollable 4++ saves 75% of the time. You pass 3 of those 42% of the time. Not exactly long odds.

Plus, there was only a 16% chance that my khorne lord would have rolled a 1 and failed to brutally hack apart the dreadknight...

This was a great read, amazing to see someone manage Bezerkers, I have my BL maniacs gathering dust. Might be time to let them off the leash! One minor point however

- Also, veterans of the long war was silly good. As if hitting on 3's wasn't enough, yes, I'll also take a reroll on the first turn. In this case, hatred was what let enough hits land from the berzerkers to glance all those vehicles to death, and its what meant I got a chance to wound the dreadknight three times. It was also helpful in my powerfist challenge.

That said, I'm also glad I didn't pay for it. Well, as a squad upgrade. Huron and my lord both had it, and that was enough. Plus, in worst case scenarios, I can always move the veterans ability from one squad to another, as they're on ICs.

VotLW only counts by model, IC's do not share it with units they join. Not sure if I read this correctly but it seemed you were applying VotLW to the Bezerkers as well.

I too feel like 6th edition comes down to first blood, and I really hate that.

I think first blood should go to the one that destroys a unit but doesn't lose a unit to the enemy on the following player turn. This way, both armies have a chance to kill something but until someone actually gets an upper hand tactically, no reward is given.

It may mean that first blood is not granted until the end of the game, but at least then both players can strive to do damage whenever possible and only when someone actually gains the upper hand (via doing damage and avoiding return damage, not a frickin' die roll) do they get rewarded for it.

It would also eliminate tricksy "I'm gonna seize initiative and blow you away!" lists that plan around always getting first blood.