Here we are in round 4 of the ongoing "Tale of Many Gamers" at Aero Hobbies in Santa Monica. For this round, we'd be playing forces valued at 1250 points, and I drew Antman677 as my opponent. Looks like we were due for some sexy Nurgle on Nurgle action! Though my Slaanesh, Khorne and Tzeentch daemons would have something to say about that...
As our
FLGS had a preview copy of the Battle Missions book, we decided to try one of the new missions available. Antman won the roll to see who picked the mission, and we ended up with the Chaos Space Marines' "Black Crusade." It's essentially a kill points Annihilation game, but any destroyed units come back on as reserves. There were a couple of other special rules for the battle, but they only applied to non-fearless units...and all of
both of our armies were fearless! It will be interesting to see how this particular mission would play out against another army...but that will be for another day to find out.
Antman's Deathguard
Daemon Prince with Warptime
Daemon Prince with Warptime
Squad of 5 plague marines w/ rhino
Squad of 5 plague marines w/rhino
Squad of 5 plague marines w/rhino
2 Obliterators
2 Obliterators
Coprophagus' Tetragon
Skulltaker on Juggernaut
3 Flamers of Tzeentch
2 Bloodcrushers
4 Fiends
10 Bloodletters
7 Plaguebearers
7 Plaguebearers
5 Pink Horrors including Changeling
Daemon Prince of Nurgle, Iron Hide, Cloud of Flies, Noxious Touch
Soulgrinder with Phlegm
Here's what the battleground looked like before deployment:
As per the rules of the mission, Antman would deploy first(and of course, the daemons skip deployment) and take the first turn. Antman decides to leave nothing in reserve and deploys the entire army, with the plaguebearers riding in their rhinos.
Turn One
Having nothing else to do, Antman moves a bit, primarily bringing the two teams of obliterators up through an area terrain piece so they can see to shoot...unfortunately for them, there's nothing to shoot at. Don't worry, boys...that will change shortly. Here's his deployment:
In a grim omen from the chaos gods, I fail to get my preferred wave for my daemonic assault. So instead, I'd be bringing on Skulltaker attached to the bloodcrushers, a squad of plaguebearers, a squad of flamers, the fiends, and the daemon prince. In a further bad sign of dice rolls to come, my plaguebearers scatter
11 inches, and deepstrike in with the rightmost model literally touching the table edge, but not going over. My daemon prince also scatters 11 inches (!), unfortunately in the direction immediately opposite all of Antman's forces. It's going to take him quite awhile to hoof it across the board and do anything...I might have to rethink getting him wings. My fiends and skulltaker are both in cover, but my flamers have scattered to a very vulnerable spot on top of a hill. All of my units do a bit of running except for the flamers, who warpfire at the closest daemon prince. They cause two wounds, but both are saved...and my poor flamers are looking awfully vulnerable up on that hill. Here's a view of the plaguebearers and fiends, after they've run:
Turn Two
The Plaguemarine squad closest to the flamers exit their rhino, and one of the daemon princes flies over to say hello to the little guys. That squad fires at the flamers, but does nothing. Nor does the twin-linked bolter on the rhino. Nor does one of the other rhino squads, which shoots ineffectively at the plaguebearers. Both squads of Obliterators shoot at the Fiends, causing 4 wounds which I thankfully all save. Lastly, the final rhino squad shoots at the fiends, and actually places an unsaved wound on them!
Speaking of wounds...the daemon prince assaults the flamers. I think you can guess the results.
Bottom of two: My soulgrinder and my horrors come in:
The horrors scatter away from the action, again by
11 inches!!! What's up with that? Ah, well, at least they didn't have a mishap...but it sucks they're not in range to shoot anything. My soulgrinder comes in just about exactly where I want him, though. He targets those plague marines that have exited their rhino and hawks up a big ball of phlegm and lobs it over...a dead hit. I wipe out four of the marines, but that still leaves the pesky one with the melta. My fiends run and charge one of the other rhinos, doing a massive 24 attacks, resulting in...one glance. The rhino can't shoot the next turn.
Turn Three
Just about everything of Antman's moves towards my Fiends. The marines end up killing two in shooting. The obliterators all shoot their lascannons at the soulgrinder, but the chaos gods are smiling at me and they fail to do anything noteworthy. The two daemon princes that charge the fiends, however, wipe them out--though not before I cause a wound on one of the princes.
Bottom of three: my bloodletters come in from reserves, as well as the flamers and fiends squads that were wiped out. My plaguebearers decide to sit things out as I rolled a two for their reserve roll. All my units on the left side of the board continue to hoof it towards all the action on the right.
My soulgrinder opens up on another squad of plaguebearers that were out of their rhino, and the phlegm once again hits dead on, resulting in three dead plague marines. The flamers shoot at a daemon prince, but fail to wound. And in the assault phase, my plaguebearers on the right flank, with nothing better to do and a good slow and purposeful roll, assault the rhino that is still carrying a full squad. Unsurprisingly, they fail to achieve anything.
Turn Four
The daemon princes head for the bloodletters, while the two rhinos and their marines head for the flamers. Combined shooting whittles the flamers squad down to one. The obliterators again take aim at the soulgrinder, and are slightly more successful this time, immobilizing it.
The daemon princes crash into the bloodletters, killing 5. I lose another three thanks to wounds suffered because of their fearless rule, leaving the princes locked in combat with my last two bloodletters:
Bottom of Four: after rolling a two for my 2nd plaguebearer squad last turn, what do you think I rolled this time? If you said, "a one!" you'd be correct. Guess they were just shy.
My flamer jumped over to the back squad of obliterators and opened up with breath of chaos, putting one wound on an obliterator. The soulgrinder, angry at being immobilized, decided to return the favor and landed yet another gob of phlegm dead on target, immobilizing one of the rhinos. During the assault phase, I ran my fiends to get into the combat with the daemon princes and bloodletters. The last two bloodletters were wiped out, and three fiends were killed, but two wounds were put on one of the daemon princes. The plaguebearers assault one of the obliterator squads, losing a couple of guys in the process.
Turn Five
The plague marines jump out of their immobilized rhino and move towards the plaguebearers. Another squad of marines kills the sole flamer. In the assault phase, the last fiend is wiped out, and I lose three more plaguebearers.
Bottom of five: everything comes back in, and my other squad of plaguebearers finally makes an appearance! The flamers kill one obliterator, and my soulgrinder, despite landing another shot perfectly on target, fails to wound anything. In the assault phase, my daemon prince rolled a six for difficult terrain and was able to make his charge against a rhino:
And this is what it looked like after rolling a six on a penetrating hit:
I then rolled a three, so we'd be playing at least one more turn.
Turn Six
Antman moves his rhino towards the soulgrinder on the other side of the water...and rolls a one for dangerous terrain. That rhino's not going anywhere. And then, with more bad luck, he falls just short of the distance needed to charge one of his daemon princes into mine.
On my turn, I shoot at the obliterators, but roll a one. Assault is more successful...I wipe out a squad of obliterators with my daemon prince, one of Antman's daemon princes with my bloodcrushers, kill a rhino with my bloodletters, and wipe out the remnants of one of the squads with my fiends. And I lock down the other daemon prince with one squad of plaguebearers, just in case we go another turn.
Unfortunately, the game ends here...Antman has six killpoints, and I have five. Here's how the board looks at the end:
Ignore the models at the far long table edge...they are "off the board."
Wrapup
There were a few bad signs for me right at the start of this game. An arm fell off a flamer, and an arm fell off of a fiend just taking them out of their foam. This would certainly set the tone for the first half of the game. Things started to turn around about halfway through the battle, as I was able to get more units on(especially my soulgrinder) and the units I had on the left side of the board were able to make their way over to the right, where all the action was. In hindsight, I could have/should have done one or both of these things: consolidate my units more closely together to take on Antman's tough nurgle marines, and/or stayed safely away until I had more units in from reserves, to help lend synergy and strength to attacks.
If I was to choose an MVP for me for the game, it's easy...my soulgrinder. How satisfying that, after my last game where I lost him at the top of the match, I should not only have him survive the whole time, but have him perform so well. As luck would have it,
every single shot he took hit dead center. I hope I shoot that well once I add a second soulgrinder! And those lascannons just seemed to bounce off his armor...truly, he was the favored of chaos in this battle!
I'll let Antman choose his own MVP, but I'm guessing it's those daemon princes. They're tough SOBs, and those wings really help get them where they need to be...and then warptime makes sure they do some damage. Brutal.
As we only played one of the many battle missions in the book, I can't really comment too much on their overall quality...but this was a fun mission with a couple of twists, and I think it will be enjoyable to give some of the other ones in the book a go.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading!
