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Ahoy folks, I've just had my proverbial 40k cherry popped (cue yarfing at the nasty metaphor). Just played my first match ever at Game Empire in Pasadena CA. (Friendly Chaps they are indeed. )

We played a 1000 point game, Chaos versus my Legion of the Damned Space Marines. We deployed Dawn of War Style, Killpoint Objective Mission, with Deep Striking units starting in reserve.

My army consisted of the Following:

HQ - 1 Terminator Captain with Power Sword and Combi-Melta

Elites - 9 Terminators with Cyclone Missile Launcher and Assault Cannon
1 Sergeant with Power Sword and Storm Bolter - Started the Game in Reserve

Troops - 2 Squads of Tactical Marines

1st Squad - Serg w/ Term Honors Powerfist and Plasma Pistol
Flamer and Plasma Rifle

2nd Squad - Standard Serg w/ Bolt Pistol/CCW
Rocket Launcher and Plasma Rifle

1 Squad of Scouts
5 Sniper Rifles, 1 Heavy Bolter, 1 Serg w/ Bolter/CCW


His army consisted of the following:

HQ - Champion of Khorne with some kind of 2h Axe, Bloodletter or something (sorry!) It basically allowed him an extra 2d6 attacks or something to that effect.
Demon Prince with Mark of Slannesh and Lash of Submission and Wings


Elites - 10 Man Squad of Khorne Beserkers

2 Obliterators - Started Game in Reserve

20 Man Group of Chaos Space Marines with Mark of Khorne on them.
Had two meltas between them and one of the sergeants had a plasma pistol/powerfist, whilst the other had a Power Weapon/Plasma Pistol


Anyhow, this report will be a bit disjointed as I was focusing so hard on making sure I got the rules right. I do apologize for not remembering the name of the chap who I played, but he does work there, so I should be seeing him again hopefully!


Turn 1 -

I won the roll for first turn and deployment, so I decided to place my scouts on an open topped bunker at the southernmost edge of the table that allowed the heavy bolter and snipers a good vantage point.

My 2nd tactical squad I decided to place in area terrain dead in the center of my half, with my 1st tactical squad sandwiched between the scouts and the other tac squad.

His Khorne Beserkers and Khorne Champ also hid in area terrain in the center with his 20 normal marines bringing up the rear behind them out in the open.

My scouts decided to open up with a salvo of Heavy Bolter and Sniper fire, but they were mostly ineffective, all wounds were negated, my other tactical squads were out of range so I moved tac squad 1 up a bit to get some range for my bolters and plasma rifle. Tac squad 2 remained where he was. And that ended my turn.

My opponent opened with moving up his Khorne marines closer towards my scouts and tac marines. He also brought in his demon prince and using it's wings, flew it in range of my scouts. He successfully used lash on them and yanked them out of the bunker right in front of his Khorne Marines.....uh oh....

Yeah it was messy, I lost three snipers and due to losing more than 25% of my squad, I lost the leadership roll and fled back towards the bunker. Since nothing else was in range, we ended turn one.

Turn 2 -

I decided to try and roll to see if my deepstrike termies could come in. Thankfully my roll was solid and in the came, conveniently located in decent range of his Khorne Beserkers. I unfortunately lost one Termie as he splatted into difficult terrain so I guess that was the only blemish on the entry. I opened up with my bolters and missile launchers and autocannons. The opening salvo shredded about 3 of them. Not a bad start!

My 1st tac squad decided to open up with their bolters and plasma guns on the Khorne Marines to soften them up a bit. I scored a few hits but didn't do too much. My other tac squad let loose bolter rocket and plasma fire into the Beserkers wiping out 1 more.

I managed to get my remaining scouts back into the bunker where they remained for the rest of the game taking a few potshots out of the viewing slit. They essentially did no further damage for the rest of the game. :(

His turn! Oh god here it got really really messy. He decided to move his Demon Prince, Khorne Zerkers and their champion and plow them all into my Termie captain and termies. The initial charge caused my capt to suffer 3 wounds, somehow still survive, but I lost two termies in the charge. Since we both had the same initiative, we traded blows and I managed to slaughter a couple of his guys in the counter charge. His champion and Prince got two wounds apiece as well.

His marines started opening fire on my 1st squad, thankfully I only lost one. My 2nd squad was still chilling out in area terrain and did not move.

3rd Turn -

My 1st tac squad opened up with a flamer template but only killed one Khorne Marine (I swear to god the dice hated me on this game), bolter fire brought down a few more, but I knew they would be in CC soon and I was woe-fully un-equipped to handle Khorne Marked Marines with 3 CC attacks each. My 2nd squad shifted their fire towards the Khorne Marines as the Beserkers and Prince had moved out of range and were now locked in assault with my termies at this point. Plasma, bolter and rocket fire managed to knock out about 4 more marines, but I wasn't able to do much more that turn.

My termies and the Beserkers and Prince continued duking it out in the middle of the map. My Capt finally succumbed to his Champion, but I took it down with me. After all the blows landed, I was down to 3 termies and his prince. Yeeech, I now have a much healthier respect for Melee Chaos troops and elites!! Holy bajeesus!

His turn just continued more of the slaughter, thankfully he was really nice about it and kept giving me pointers on how to handle various tactical situations. His Prince obliterated the last of my termies and his deepstriking oblits landed right in front of my 2nd squad of tac marines....uh oh....

His remaining khorne marines continued to chip away at tact squad 1 and whittled them down to about 4 marines. Another leadership test failed and ended up running back towards the edge of the table....yeeeeup you can see where this is going....

Similar thing happened to my other tac squad, between trading fire between the oblits and my tac squad, I managed to kill one but I took heavy damage, and his prince lashed my 1st tac squad right in front of the remaining oblit where they took pretty heavy damage. Another failed leadership test and the last 5 marines ended up at the edge of the table as well.

At this point we more or less decided to call it, I was more or less going to get run off the table and my scouts were pretty much useless holed up in the bunker.

Even with the loss, it was a very educating experience, since I've built my army on a SAFH platform, I need to figure out how to field my assault marines and termies to better fend off those Khorne chaps. Good lordy, I'm terrified of Khorne ANYTHING at this point.

I also was disappointed with my performance of my sniper scouts. I was really counting on them pinnng and denying forward motion to the enemy but they certainly acted very un-sniperish, I don't think they even scored more than one kill the whole game.

Ah well, I definitely am eager to play again and learn some more tactics, hell I can't wait to field my land raiders and whirlwinds as well.

thegreatcow wrote:
I also was disappointed with my performance of my sniper scouts. I was really counting on them pinnng and denying forward motion to the enemy but they certainly acted very un-sniperish, I don't think they even scored more than one kill the whole game.

Welcome to 40K. . .a place where snipers don't behave like they do in real life.

Although there are rules for pinning, I think the games designers figure that most people don't enjoy not being able to move/shoot their units too often so they've gone and made most armies on the table fairly immune to morale and pinning.

There are a few exceptions, Tau being one and once the new SM codex rolls out Space Marines will actually generally be back down to a Ld8/9 most of the time so they'll actually be potential 'pinners'.


But Necrons have a Ld10, Tyranids have Synapse, Orks have the Mob Rule, IG have standards and Officers (although they still are fairly susceptible to pinning), Chaos Daemons are all Fearless, Black Templars, Blood Angels and Dark Angels all have 'rights of battle' (Ld 9 or 10 for their whole army), Grey Knights (Daemonhunters) are all Fearless, Chaos Space Marines either have a solid Ld9 or are Fearless and Sisters of Battle (Witch Hunters) have a pretty good Ld plus abilities that allow them to ignore morale when needed.


So you'll find when you actually pin a unit, it's kind of a pleasant surprise but you never can really count on it. Snipers are instead useful for taking out high Toughness targets that don't have a superb armor save, like Necron C'Tan for example.


Oh, and let me know if you want to play some time, I'll meet you down there.

Awesome stuff yak, I had no idea you were in the area too. Looking forward to a match.


And yeah definitely spot on with the sniper scout analysis, the few times they did hit the marines just shrugged off the ld test and kept trukking, definitely something to tweak with my list.

The main thing I can't wait to field are my vindies and land raiders, I've got some fun ideas that I would just love to field out.

Thanks again for the tips and advice!

To me it also sounds like the one who you played against brought something halfway optimised, whereas you brought a starting army (everything a kid needs to play marines, termies, scouts, and 2 squads of marines... This is not saying you are a kid, just that it is a pretty basic list..) He had 2 HQ, 1 of which is pretty cheesy (the prince with lash). I think if you play somebody new give them a less optimised army and have a fun game teaching them stuff.

I would say 2 10 man chaosmarine squads with flamer and sarge, 8 zerkers (magic number and very good close assault) and then maybe a prince with wings (no lash...) then some filler to make it a nice list.

That way there should be more tactics needed for both players to win and more diverse situations should develop.

Then again, if you had fun then that is the most important thing...!!!

yakface wrote:

thegreatcow wrote:
I also was disappointed with my performance of my sniper scouts. I was really counting on them pinnng and denying forward motion to the enemy but they certainly acted very un-sniperish, I don't think they even scored more than one kill the whole game.

Welcome to 40K. . .a place where snipers don't behave like they do in real life.

Not true i have seen a squad of 10 eldar pathfinders bring down a 5 man terminator squad, in one round of shooting, pin gazkull and a squad of nobz. and alot more. I love them!!!

LordRavurion wrote:To me it also sounds like the one who you played against brought something halfway optimised, whereas you brought a starting army (everything a kid needs to play marines, termies, scouts, and 2 squads of marines... This is not saying you are a kid, just that it is a pretty basic list..) He had 2 HQ, 1 of which is pretty cheesy (the prince with lash). I think if you play somebody new give them a less optimised army and have a fun game teaching them stuff.

I would say 2 10 man chaosmarine squads with flamer and sarge, 8 zerkers (magic number and very good close assault) and then maybe a prince with wings (no lash...) then some filler to make it a nice list.

That way there should be more tactics needed for both players to win and more diverse situations should develop.

Then again, if you had fun then that is the most important thing...!!!

Aye it certainly was a fun game even with the loss, definitely got very satisfying when the dice did actually go my way. (I had really bad rolling luck this game, yeesh). If anything this game taught me to focus more on the ICs of an army especially when it has some pretty heinous powers like the demon prince. Ah well, I really can't wait to field more heavy support units like some Land Raider Crusaders, Nothing like 15 shots slamming into the side of an enemy unit to soften things up.

Nice Report. Chaos ICs are dangerous (exspecially DP). Also, Bezerkers are actually troops. His army was pretty cutthroat to use against a beginner. You did well considering what you were facing.

Since you are playing shooty, when fighting a Close combat army, try to get as much distance from them as you can. You might start off not it range, but the Choppy enemy will move towards you anyway. Also, it might have better to start your Terminators on the board (exspecially for a small game). You wish to get as much shooting as you can before he can get into close combat to whittle them down. Terminators (because of their special rules) will allow you move away (or charge them to deny them the +1 attack bonus) while keeping up a good amount of firepower.

Next time place you snipers as far back as possible and use them to shoot the daemon prince. That or a costly charge by the terminators are your best bet at killing it.

Don't worry, you will get better with time and experience