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Battlereport 400 points, Chaos against Imperial Guard combat patrol.

So I played a game of combat patrol today. Not a really spectacular match, because our forces weren’t really balanced.
We played at the Lab: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/527541.page

My list:
Platoon command squad: 52
Autocannon, meltagun, bolt pistol.

Infantry squad: 72
Autocannon, meltagun, bolt pistol.

Infantry squad: 72
Autocannon, meltagun, bolt pistol.

Infantry squad: 72
Autocannon, meltagun, bolt pistol.

Infantry squad: 72
Autocannon, meltagun, bolt pistol.

Heavy weapon squad: 60
Mortar x 3.

My enemy his force was something like this:
10 Chaos marines: 195(?)
2 meltaguns and a rhino with havoc launcher

20 Cultists: 100(?)
8 autoguns, a flamer, heavy stubber and a shotgun

18 Cultists: 82 (?)
Some autoguns

“’Go on patrol,’ they said. ‘Use stealth,’ they said. I believe that sending 51 soldiers on patrol, including a mortar squad, hardly represents a stealthy patrol, but that is just my opinion and my opinion is irrelevant. So after we had landed on Vault 1, we were immediately sent out to scout the surrounding area, while the rest of our regiment was being unloaded. We had heard from Intel that there might be heretics and even Red Corsairs in the area so we had to be careful.”

Pre-battle:
We didn’t use any warlord traits, this is a patrol after all.
My opponent deployed first and had the first turn. He deploys one squad of cultists near one corner, the other squad near the other. The rhino with chaos marines deploys in the middle.

I string out my Infantry squads, deploying most on the left corner, while I keep the mortars in the backfield. I failed to seize.

“Silence in the ranks,” I shouted as we went through the ruins. For a moment I felt like one of those teachers in elementary school, trying to keep control over a horde of screaming, overly enthusiastic children. I saw signs of former Imperial presence, but it seemed like these people had turned their back on the Emperor a long time ago. We were here to bring his justice. Suddenly one of my troops shouted out a warning.”



1st Turn:
“The heretics must have heard us and as we were marching, they came crawling out of their stinking holes. They even had a transport vehicle that came driving out of hiding. Screaming and tittering they came at us.”

My opponent moves his cultists forward, running with them. The Rhino turbo boosts forward. Nothing else happens.


“We were surprised for a moment, but rapidly recovered. They had a Rhino and there were some thirty heretics. The mortars were firing almost immediately. My compliments to corporal Alwin Schulze for keeping his squad well prepared. It was only a delight to see the shells raining down on those heretics. As expected, these cowards immediately went into hiding. I turned to the left and was surprised by the speed of their Rhino, but as expected, it wasn’t fast enough for an Imperial autocannon.”

I don’t move and decide to drop the mortars in the middle of his group of cultists, with devastating results. Without the champion, the group gets pinned and goes to ground. I also manage to destroy his Rhino, giving me first blood.


2nd Turn:
“From amongst the wreckage, several chaos marines appeared, some of them dead, most of them still alive. The survivors rounded up and charge forward, unleashing a torrent of fire on my squads. A couple of my soldiers got hit, but I saw commissar Toland von Heydte jumping forward to fight against the chaos champion. They started circling around each other, striking, but failing to land a hit.”

My opponent moves his other group of cultists forward and decides to multi assault two of my infantry squads with his chaos marines. With his bolt pistols, he manages to kill two and then finish another one in close combat. I retaliate and kill two of his marines in close combat. He also issues a challenge to one of my sergeants, which I accept. He gets to strike first and misses. I strike back and land a hit, but fail to wound. The marines keep on fighting.
[IMG=http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/3717/battlereportchaos13.jpg][/IMG]


“Alwin Schulze happily let the mortar rounds drop amongst these heretics. He had already calculated the distance and adjusted the bipod to engage the other group. These shells hit the heretics as they were running towards us. At the same time, Toland von Heydte was still fighting with the chaos marine. The champion screamed in his anger, swinging his chainsword. The commissar stepped aside, narrowly avoiding the grinding teeth. The chaos marine screamed ferociously and slashed again. Toland stepped back and immediately brought up his bolt pistol. At point-blank, he pulled the trigger, hitting the traitor in his chest. With a groan he slumped to the ground, where the commissar planted a chainsword in his neck. As soon as the heretics saw that their leader had died, their forces scattered and broke.”

I drop a couple of mortar rounds on the other group of cultists, taking out their leader and causing them to run away. I manage to pick off two more from the other group of cultists with autocannons. I move one of my squads away in case things do go wrong. The marines and guardsmen keep fighting. His chaos champion tries to beat up my sergeant, but fails to do so. My sergeant has more luck and manages to kill his champion.
We agree to end the game here.



Victory!
To be honest, this combat patrol was a bit extremely unbalanced. It was quickly obvious that I held a huge advantage and during the game, it only went better. If I hadn’t pinned a third of my opponent his force on turn one or caused the other third to flee on the second turn or had killed off almost his entire marine squad, it would probably have gone a lot different.

Man of the match:
Well, I guess this one goes to the sergeant that managed to survive 6 attacks from a chaos champion and then managed to kill him in return. Not that extremely wonderful, but I thought that it was at least worth sharing.

“We consolidate our gains, learning many valuable things about our enemies. This is a good start of the campaign and if they all fight like this, it might be over within a couple of months. I’d like to mention that commissar Toland von Heydte has caused the heretics their forces to break. While you can say a lot about these commissars, there is no denying in their fighting skill.

May the Emperor smile upon you,
197th Bataviran/222nd Catachan ‘Iron Wolves’, third company, second platoon, platoon command squad, platoon commander, lieutenant second class Arntsz ‘Suv’ Suberiv.”

That was pretty cool, nice little bits of narrative as well. From looking at the lists initially, I would have to agree with you, I too would be surprised if the chaos could pull a victory off. The only thing I would take differently on the IG is change the bolt pistols for a special on the PCS. Maybe you were doing WYSIWYG though.
Bit of a shame some pics are a bit blurry, but hey what can you do after the event? From the look of the board terrain might of been a bit sparse, the cultists had quite an open gauntlet to run before getting into range. Nice annotations on the pics though. Also thats so unlikely for a sergeant to knock out that champion... definitely most impressive player, but the most valuable would probably have been the mortars I think.

Neat.

I've always gone back and forth about photoshopping over my pictures (for the fluff shots, at least), because I always wonder if I'm being cheesy or not. Which is strange because I always think it's fun when other people do it.

I especially like the commissar shooting the dude.

I usually take the pictures with my phone, so they aren't the best quality, but it works for me.

I appriciate your replies and I like it when people leave comments.

As for Ailaros, you helped me a lot, both with Guard advice as well as with the battle reports. That you like them now, I find it quite funny.

Great Batrep, and though I have found several effective uses for my sergeants, I cannot say that the death of a chaos champion is in their resume. Definitely an MVP in my book!

also like the narrative and the kewl fluff shot of that rhino getting what was coming to him

As a Chaos fan this is just embarrasing hehe Couldn't someone soon post a battle report where Chaos Space Marines wins just slightly?

Thanks for sharing and putting so much time into this little report!

I'll be playing the same opponent later today. Maybe tomorrow I will be able to post the report.
As for your request, who knows what will happen...

A new report is up!
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/534105.page