It's been a long time since I'd played a real game of 4th edition. The last real game I played was well over a year ago... as the one Apocalypse game I played did away with most of the standard mission rule sets.
Before Stelek jumps in here and admonishes for running a Chaos list with a lot of terrible choices - three things need to be taken into account. The guys here mostly play for fun, and don't run the most cut throat lists. I wanted to run a themed list. And most importantly - I didn't have time to completely rebuild my army for the 4th ed codex, especially with 5th so close by...
My list:
Chaos Sorcerer w/ Warptime, Bike, personal icon.
10xCSM w/ 2x plasma, fist champion, icon, rhino, extra armor
10xCSM w/ 2x plasma, fist champion, icon, rhino
4xTerminators w/ 3x combi-plasma, power fist
6xChosen w/ meltagun and heavy bolter, icon
6xChosen w/ meltagun and heavy bolter, icon
3xObliterators
8xHavocs w/ 4x Heavy Bolters
Chaos Vindicator w/ Posession
Game 1 - vs Dark Eldar - Dawn Raid (all
USRs in effect)
Due to escalation, pretty much everything was forced off the table on both sides. My opponent, Mike craftily gave me the first turn so that he'd be able to gut whatever I brought in from reserves on his turn 2.
Here's what the table looked like in turn 1.
Turn 1 was completely inconsequential. My commander and a rhino came in for me on turn 2. 2x ravagers and a raider arrived for him. He killed some chosen who had walked into his deployment zone. He rolled pretty terrible - not enough to knock below scoring though. My sorcerer ate a darklance shot and died. No 3+ turbo boost save for you!
Turn 3. Obliterators, Terminators and Vindicator arrived for me. His Ravagers died. I tried to shoot his Raider which arrived on turn 2 (I thought it had wyches, but it didn't). Nightshield squashed my shooting attempt. Epic fail.
His starting Haemonculus popped his portal. His raider immobilized my Vindicator. He made me eat a grotesque assault... only to have all his guys die in
HTH by the end of my next turn 4... the rest of my reserves came out - I hid my second rhino. They popped smoke... The damage was done though. I tried to mitigate damage by blocking part of the portal frontage with an empty rhino.
I didn't get a picutre of the tons of stuff that came out. Needless to say, I took a major kick in the nards from all that stuff. A squad of warriors, a jetbike squad, a raider with warriors, a squad of Wyches and a haemonclus and a Talos jumped out of the portal... I had around 18 power armored bodies. I was down to 6 at the end of the assault phase. My two rhinos were wrecked as well.
My return fire was pretty effective though. Almost everything that wasn't in assault died. My vindicator squished the warriors that came out of the portal ate a scattering vindicator shell. The terminators walking around in his deployment zone shot some warriors, and the heavy bolter havocs killed all the bikes in one volley, in what was their ONLY shooting that game... in the end, the guys I deepstriked into his deployment won me the game handily as they were a lot of points.
Here's the end of the carnage:
Crushing victory.
Game 2 vs Tyranids - 2x
VPs one chosen unit
Kellie had a bit of a non-standard build as she had a unit of biovores and a ton of genestealers. Two fexes, one
HTH and one mixed. Not a very optimized list, though the three units of genestealers had savaged another player earlier. She also had 3 lictors.
I set up first, and also the first turn. She picked my boss for
VPs and I picked a unit of genestealers. I turboed my sorcerer towards the biovores. And drove a rhino in the same direction. Token shooting from me kills a few genestealers. I was mostly trying to improve fire lanes. She responds by smiting my lord into the next world with a boosted zoeanthrope shot. That guy just can't be relied upon to make those 3+I saves. :( My flanking chosen squad was pinned by a spore mine.
Now that my boys were in shooting position, things began to go bad for her almost right away. The heavy bolters wiped out the 2x scoring unit of genestealers and my terminators dropped in near her elite fex. They lit him up with combi-plasmas and killed him in one volley. One terminator fried himself though. The obliterators put some wounds on the other fex. A rhino squad kills a zoanthrope (centre of the battle) with plasma shots. The vindicator fails to do anything. The flanking rhino drives past the sorcerer's corpse and kills the biovores.
She retaliates by warp blasting those same marines with the sorceror killing zoeanthrope. A lictor shows up to harass the pinned squad. A lictor shows up and tears the main gun off my vindicator... Yay! Some spore mines drop in to no real effect.
More shooting from me obliterates most of her center. She's down to a few warriors on one flank. The biovore killing marines return fire on the zoanthrope, killing it. Her lictor continues to kill my chosen. Token shooting on the last few turns. End of game - She had her warriors left - I had most of my army.
Massacre.
Game 3 - Kill the
HQ.
Steve had 2x 3 man
Fireknife squads, 2x 6 man stealth teams, a broadside team, an ionhead and a boat load of fire warriors. He hid all that move shoot hide stuff behind a big building in the center of his deployment zone. I gambled and put stuff as close to him as possible - as cover was negligible on my side. I won the roll to go first. I surged ahead and did some wounds to a stealth team and killed firewarriors in a few squads.
His return fire killed tons of my stuff.
I moved up and killed a few models.
His return fire killed tons of my stuff.
I didn't take any pictures, but every turn I lost tons of stuff. The turning point was when my sorcerer finally made some turbo saves and got into melee with his firewarriors. A lone surviving champ with a fist single handedly killed a damaged stealth team, some fire warriors and a whole crisis team by hopping from combat to combat... The turns of shooting and running finally ended as I closed in with my badly depleted boys.
In the end, had lost everything other than 1/2 rhino squad, a damaged lord, oblits and havocs. His army was obliterated in return. My shooting casualties were ridiculous, and the fact that all his firewarriors had 4+ saves were killing my shooting potency.
Overall, I killed his
HQ and mine was alive - so the bonus points were enough to barely give me another Crushing Victory.
-----
Final thoughts - it was a pretty good time all round. It was rewarding to play a bunch of good guys who weren't so concerned about the power builds. A few thoughts on my army build. I eked out best overall, as nobody else had managed three victories - though one other guy had 2 wins and a draw. The tournament had a good mix of power armor and non power armor, and it was cool to see under represented armies like
DE were present.
1. Extra armor on rhinos is a waste of points. My men shouldn't be riding in them past turn 1, or turn 2 at the latest .
2. Icons are gold for non-scatter Terminator and Obliterator drops.
3. As I suspected, the Chaos vindicator is poo, now that you can't mutate its hull anymore.
4. Combi-plasmas on chaos terminators are gold.
5. My bike leader is terrible. I need to replace him with a daemon prince. He looks cool though.
A bit surprised at the lack of terrain on those tables, I can sense my own spikey boys twitching in their transport back home at the lack of cover saves to be had 
Bretonnians 
