The Chapter Master of the Iron Hands stood at the edge of a smoking city, laid waste by the ruinous powers of chaos. The stench of burnt flesh and corruption was everywhere. Even the sophisticated filter system built into his armor wasn't able to remove it all. The people of the city were gone. There were no refugees, no one to save... it was if they had never existed at all. They had made their way to the city center looking for clues, survivors, someone to fight... but had found nothing.
"Sir!" said a lieutenant, "Movement directly to the west."
It looked more like heat waves emanating from the baking pavement... but as the moments passed, it was clear a mass of bodies were heading their way. As they watched, a growling, gibbering, misshapen hoard of abominations approached. Worse yet, as the creatures drew nearer... the city itself seemed to move. The bodies of it's citizenry reanimated by some horrific power beyond reckoning began to crawl and ooze from every crack and crevice. Some were recognizable, other's had the flesh stripped completely from their bones. It looked like something out of a child's nightmare. Yet all joined the mass of death that approached them. A formless cacophony of corruption that stretched across their lines and beyond. From the mass, a winged creature arose and flew towards them. It settled in no-mans land between the forces. It was once a man, more so... it was once a space marine. He could see the scratched and debased insignia of the noble Blood Angels around it's midriff. Any humanity it may have once had was gone however. It soared on giant bat-like wings and huge canines sprouted from it's mouth. The creature challenged them, cursed them, insulted them as if by it's very bearing it could cause the Iron Hands to run. Once the creature ceased it's exposition, a hush fell over the area. Even within the echoing, plasteel and concrete structures of the ruined city around them... all waited the Chapter Master's response. The Chapter Master of the Iron Hands slowly raised his right hand, palm out, fingers straight. The ancient symbol of the chapter he now guided, held defiantly before his enemies.
"Talk to the hand." was all he said.
Monster Mash Halloween-themed chaos force: Please keep in mind this army was designed to be cool & thematic... not necessarily good. It was also built and painted in 1 month.
Chaos Space Marines
CAD:
HQ: (Dracula) -
GW Astorath body w/ chaos bat-winged jump pack - Chaos Champion w/ jump pack & power axe
EL: (Frankenstein's Monster) -
FW Contemptor Dread - contemptor dread with 2x
CC arms
TP: (Zombies) - 20x zombicide zombies - chaos cultists
TP: (Skeletons) - 30x Wargames Factory skeleton warriors - chaos cultists
FA: (Hell Hounds/The Thing) - 3x chaos beasts modified with spawn tentacles - chaos spawn
Chaos Demons
CAD:
HQ: (Wolf Man) -
FW skin wolf - Karanak
HQ: (Witch) -
GW Lilith modified to ride a broom - herald of tzeench on flying disk
TP: (Goblins) - 3x bases of multiple
GW snotlings - nurglings
TP: (Goblins) - 3x bases of multiple
GW snotlings - nurglings
TP: (Goblins) - 3x bases of multiple
GW snotlings - nurglings
FA: (wolves) - 10x
GW Fenris wolves - flesh hounds
FA: (bats) - 10x Bones and
GW giant bat combined - furies
Chaos Demons
CAD:
HQ: (Thanatos/Grim Reaper) -
GW changeling figure with staff converted to scythe & painted appropriately - the changeling
HQ: (Demon) -
GW Khornate Demon Prince - demon prince
EL: (Ghosts) - 6x
GW flamers of tzeench painted ghostly colors - flamers of tzeench
TP: (Mummies) - 10x Reaper mummies - plague bearers
TP: (Devils) - 10x
GW bloodletters - bloodletters
Luke's beautiful Iron Hands army. Unlike mine, this is intended to be a competitive list.
Iron Hands:
HQ: chapter master
HQ: librarian
EL: Iron Clad in drop pod
EL: Iron Clad
EL: dreadnought w/ dual auto-cannons
TP: 5 marines in drop pod
TP: 5 marines in razorback
HV: 3 grav centurions in pod
HV: deredeo dreadnought (autocannons &
ML)
Battle: 1850 points, maelstrom mission (where you have the number of cards equal to the turn number), hammer and anvil deployment, no night fight. Chaos (the Halloween themed army) wins the roll to select sides. The Iron Hands wins the next roll and elects to deploy first, then go first.
Deployment
"The gates of hell opened up and out poured all that is unseemly and corrupt. The undead and the demonic stretched across the entirety of the battlefield, howling and gibbering creatures from the black pit, hungry for blood"
A stalwart few looked on at the horror that unfolded before them. Grim determination and resolve solidified their intent and sharpened their enhanced senses. These foul creatures would taste their own blood 'er the day had ended!
Here is a look at the whole table at the time of deployment. The blue arrows mark the locations of the objectives. I would like to note from the outset that while my friend is playing a competitive army and I am not, a major point of this game was to gain insight and advice from him as we play, for he is a long time chaos player. So please don't judge either of us harshly, we both knew what we were getting into.
The Iron Hands snag the two objectives in their deployment zone.
While the Monster Mash does the same with it's goblins (nurglings).
Turn 1
Surprising the Iron Hands, the demons move first, rushing to close the distance as quickly as possible.
Noting the gap behind the advancing demon lines, the chapter master calls for the first reserves to drop there, catching the demons in a crossfire. The centurions and an Iron Clad would give them something to think about.
The grav centurions train their guns on the monstrous metal construct that resembled a corrupted dreadnought. While it is not destroyed by the volley, the servo motors in it's legs are, immobilizing it.
In their rush to engage... the demon wolves came too close to the other Iron Clad, and were engaged in hand-to-hand combat by it. While the dreadnought was impervious to their attacks, the tainted hounds were much more resilient than one would expect.
By the end of the turn... here's how the battlefield looked.
Turn 2
A horde of zombies reversed direction and shambled back toward the centurions. The rest of the army pressed recklessly forward, heedless of the incoming fire. A group of bloodletters materialized on the Iron Hands right center and a unit of plague bearers appeared near the centurions. The swarm of giant bats and the bat-winged leader moved forward to assault a small tactical marine squad that was setting up position in a central building. Lastly the demon prince tried to deep strike onto the table but mishapped back into reserve.
The zombies (cultists) and a group of mutated dog-like creatures (spawn) charged the centurions and the chapter master, while Count Dracula and his bat swarm (chaos lord & furies) charged the tactical squad. None of the melees were the least bit definitive, with minor casualties spread around (mainly to chaos).
The marines respond by bringing in another drop pod, this one carrying marines, drop into their center-rear to support their lines. The forward Iron Clad focused on the newly arrived mummies. "Purge with flame." came the order. The dry, cloth wrapped horrors were engulfed in flame. The few that weren't were smashed to pieces in assault.
I
The other Iron Clad killed yet another wolf or two in the large pack, but they were undaunted and continued that attack in spite of being hopelessly outmatched. Little happened in the vampire assault, with perhaps each side take a casualty. The centurians however, put the zombies to flight... leaving only the badly wounded "things" to deal with.
Turn 3
The zombies rally and mull around for the turn. The Spirit Host (ghosts, Thanatos, witch) arrive via deep strike but unfortunately the demon prince once again mishaps into ongoing reserve. A small group of goblins (nurglings) deep strikes well into the marine deployment zone near the deredeo. The assaults continue with me slowly losing bodies while not doing much or any damage. The ghosts (flamers of Tzeench) shoot at some marines on top of a building and only manage to improve their
FNP test... stupid flamers. Psychic support does nothing (tries but fails).
On my left flank where the Spirits dropped in, the skeletons (cultists) and bloodletters push forward under a hail of withering bolter fire, trying to get to the building with an objective on it guarded by 5 tactical marines. Here's the way things looked at the end of my Turn 3.
The Iron Hands start to sense the relative impotence of most of the demon army. They continue to shoot my unengaged squads up with bolter fire and shots from the deredeo. At the end of the shooting phase, I've got three skeletons and two bloodletters left. The Spirits have been wiped out completely. His autocannon dread and a
tac squad pile into Dracula's unit and the bats (furies) take a pounding. There are only 4 of 11 left at this point. The wolves get whittled down to the wolf man (Karanak) and a single wolf (beast of Khorne). The "Things" (spawn) fighting the centurions are finally wiped out by the centurions and the chapter master.
Turn 4
The demon prince decides to walk on, and hides behind a building in hopes of surviving until he can actually do something. The re-grouped zombies are hungry for more brains and realign themselves for another assault of the centurions & the skeletons and bloodletters position themselves for an assault.
The zombies assault the chapter master... are are again rebuffed, failing morale & fleeing yet again.
The bloodletters fail their assault move into the marines. The skeletons make it but only two survive the overwatch. Those two are trimmed down to one after combat.
In the other assaults, Dracula's unit is wiped, giving him STW, and the werewolf unit is wiped. I can not begin to tell you how badly Dracula sucked. If my math is right... he took 21 swings in the 5 combat phases he participated in
with his power axe and only managed to kill
two joe-blow tactical marines.
The Iron Hands get their last reserve, a storm talon which proceeds to mop up my three nurglings in his backfield. The forward Iron Clad assaults and mops up a unit of objective sitting nurglings in my backfield, some marines gun down my last two bloodletters and the
tac squad in the building takes out my last skeleton. Here's a pic of the scene as Luke was finishing up his movement phase.
At this point I had 3 nurglings and a half-dozen zombies that were about to run off the table... so we called it. Final score was... 11-2? 13-2? Something like that.
Post Game Thoughts:
In spite of the butt-whooping I got, I really had a good time. Luke is a great guy and really knows both
40k and chaos demons... so we spent most of the talking about my army and it's capabilities & he's going to mentor me a bit in refining the list into something that still looks the same but is much more competitive. He also gave me a ton of ideas on how the various units can be played. So no hard feeling on my part... it was a delightful evening as far as I'm concerned & I'd love to play him again.
In essence, what I've got is a giant tar-pit, but I have no hammers to break things with. Lots of characters, but none really maximized for efficacy and at least a couple were nearly useless. The fact that it wasn't actually possible for me to hurt most of his army with anything except my demon prince (which never showed up) and my dread (which was immediately immobilized) was sobering.
- The army looks fantastic on the battlefield and is just fun to play. So glad I added the skeletons as they're really great looking en' masse. Well worth the monumental PITA that it was to assemble them.
- Karanak (the werewolf) isn't necessarily bad... but he costs at least 40 pts more than he's actually worth. He's more of a Khorne Hound support character, but you pay the points for much more than that.
- Furies are bad. However in small groups as jump-packed objective grabbers that can easy sneak around terrain (because of the small number of bases) or deep strike, they may still have value.
Luke wrote up a new variant of the army using a single dex and single
FOC (this is motivated by an upcoming tournament with these restrictions). The army still has nearly everything in it... it just makes much more sense tactically. I'm very excited to try it out and hope I can get at least one practice in before the tournament itself.
Thanks for reading!
(although would've liked a showdown with Frankendread!). Looking forward to seeing the updated list here, too!
At War With Fate? Maybe I am and maybe I'm not...