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First game into 8th on a local group, running a weekly league. As I am new to space Marines, they did pair me with a guy running a varied list of Chaos that seemed out of another edition. Pretty old mismatched models, but then again I had a couple of almost unpainted models, (mainly the Razorback and the Knight, barely matching the three colors rule).

Polemarchs, Raven Guard successor Chapter


Slannesh Chaos Warband


We rolled the Retrieval Mission, and placed Objectives. I placed two too far from each other and was almost forced to pick Dawn of War as deployment, something I know see as a mistake, and realize the game would had been eaiser for me with any other kind of deployment. Then again, choosing Dawn of war also forced my opponent to separate his own units. I kept Shrike with all my Assault units in reserve while he only kept his terminator unit.

DEPLOYMENT PHASE
Deployment

Here is how the deployment looked before the first turn. Given that he started placing units, he finished first and got first turn. I think the game would had went to another direction had I got the first turn. I tried to seize but failed, and opted not to spend a Command Point given the fact that my opponent had 2 more CPs than me. His units are the pink ones, (CL means Chaos Lord and DP Daemon Prince. The big green base is my Knight, the small green circles my devastators with my Captain, and the square is my Razorback with my Honor Guard and Characters inside, he placed his bikes and one Rhino to one side, and the preds and the other two rhinos to the other). Blue dots are the objective markers.

I did setup my scouts on the roof of a building to give them line of sight on a rather clogged and small battlefield. My opponent went to form a motorpool on a corner opposite my gunline, but was forced to leave his Chaos Lord relatively alone. My Honor Guard alongside the Champion and the Apothecary went inside the Razorback to avoid getting shot to bits on the first turn, (little I know).

CHAOS TURN 1

This is a rough sketch of how my opponent moved on the first turn.

Chaos Movement 1

He pretty much move/advanced with everything, his bikes and Rhinos at least. He did not move his predators so he could fire at full BS. We did realize later that he forgot to advance his Lord on Steed.

And fired he did. He removed 9 wounds off my Razorback with his Predators, and the Rhinos managed to deliver the coup de grace with their meltas when I thought I was going to survive the turn, so my Razorback ended just being FIRST BLOOD to my opponent without even firing a shot, but at least I was really lucky that it did not explode, and I did not lose any of the expensive models inside. On the other flank, to add insult to injury, the melta bikers took off 4 wounds off my Knight, (could had been more), and scored two wounds on my Heavy bolter devastators. I killed the Sergeant and the Cherub. On hindsight, killing just a HB would had been a better idea.
Chaos shooting 1


RAVEN GUARD TURN 1

I decided to counterattack and noticed he had maybe come too fast at me. I decided to deploy my entire reserves before my Devastators were charged. (White border are Assault Squads, Turquoise border Vanguard Veterans, and then Shrike with them).

Raven Guard Movement 1

I tried to hit that sweet spot of being inside pistol range (12) yet comply with DS rules, (away from 9). It proved more challenging than I thought, and took a careful measuring, but I ended trying to deploy into the place that was giving me the most options.

With that done, I decided to open up on his army. Las Devs, thanks to a combination of the Signum, the captain rerolls and burning the Cherub, scored 5 hits, 4 wounds and finally 14 damage on the Rhino, killing it and 4 of the heretic marines inside went with it. Scouts scored two mortal wounds on the Chaos Lord, and the 8 plasma pistols finished the job, (I overcharged 3 of those, and would had lost two guys if not by the rerolls from Shrike). that way I tied the game with SLAY THE WARLORD

With the Chaos Lord done for, my Vets were able to focus their Graviton pistols on the nearby Pred, (I had positioned them in range of both the Lord, the Rhino and the Pred in case anything went awry), and took two wounds off it, then the Knight fired first, which was important (5 or more models in the bike unit), 5 thermal shots, 3 wounds, and I used my first CP of the game to reroll a 1 and make sure I killed three bikers, and then rounding up to 4 with the Storm Spear Missiles. Heavy Bolter Devs followed into the remaining Biker, but failed to kill it, although they wounded it once. Killing it was important as it would open me a charge lane into the Daemon Prince, but the MBs kind of failed me there. Finally the Captain scored two wounds on the remaining Rhino with his combiplasma.

Raven Guard Shooting 1

Time for some charges, so I went in with the Knight on the Rhino, (engaging the biker at the same time), the Honor Guard into the Chaos Marines (one squad failed the charge), the Champion into the Rhino, and the Vanguard vets on the Predator at the corner. Both my Assault Squads were stranded in the open without proper targets, so there was nothing else I could do with them. My main objectives was to tie down as many Chaos units as I could as to avoid shooting.

The Knight went on to slap the Rhino for 12 damage, taking 3 of the passengers out, and not suffering damage from the Biker next to it. The Champion swung his hammer hard and left the Rhino limping on one wound after three hammer wounds, while the Vanguard Sarge after surviving both an Autocannon and a Lascannon hits to the chest on Overwatch (May the Emperor bless Storm Shields), also took 3 wounds off the Predator. Honor Guard took two Marines with them, and the Apothecary another one leaving the unit greatly diminished.

With that we went into Turn 2, with me having a comfortable lead. Oh, yes, the Chaos Marine unit that was mauled losing 7 guys on this turn lost a guy due to Morale at the end of the turn.

Raven Guard Assault 1

CHAOS TURN 2

Chaos Movement 2

With clear intent my opponent decided to focus on two targets. On one flank, he moved his Daemon Prince supported by his infantry to take on my knight, while his tanks and infantry took positions to tackle my Chapter Champion with them. He also Deep Struck Terminators on that flank hoping to get some impact on my advancing melee units.

Things started on the back foot with my Knight taking a wound from the flimsy Bolt pistols of his Marines, and being forced to use a CP to reroll a failed save on the Chapter Champion from the Predator Autocannon. Without any CPs left for a turn, the Champion took 4 wounds from a Lascannon shot, but luckily the Honor Guard was nearby, and took two mortal wounds to save their paragon, who also withstood a fusillade of fire from the pistols of the nearby Marines. Nothing else was allowed to shoot at me this turn as had previously fallen back.


Chaos Shooting 2

Then into the Assault Phase, the Chaos Marines charged the Knight, quickly followed by the Daemon Prince, not before one of them fell with a missile to the head in overwatch. The Terminators on their side charged the unengaged Honor Guard unit, and the Chaos Marines completely surrounded the Chapter Champion.

The Daemon Prince took advantage of his Death to the False Emperor rule to deal a whipping 8 damage to the Knight, forcing it to suffer penalties due to wounds when less than 13 remaining, only to suffer another wound from the Champion's Power axe, yet the Knight returned the blow and sent the Prince into the warp as his prayers to Slaanesh went unanswered with 12 damage (My opponent wasted a CP trying to save the DP). In the other combats, the Honor Guard took out a Chaos Marine and resisted the Champion Power Axe, (the apothecary failed to do anything). The Chapter Champion tanked the 18 attacks from the marines charging him, and managed to dodge the Champion's Power axe with the help of a Command Point, while returned the favor by turning three enemies into paste with his hammer. Finally, the Terminators easily slaughtered the Honor Guard Unit in a flurry of claws and chainfists.

Chaos Assault 2


RAVEN GUARD TURN 2

With the entire forces deployed on the table, and the game only slightly on my favor, I decided to go full HAM on the Chaos band. The Knight limped back as to be able to fire, while the Assault contingent moved forward tried to engage targets. The apothecary pretty much paid for himself by reviving the fallen Honor Guard engaged on the center.

Raven Guard Movement 2

The Devastators fired their lascannons upon the unharmed Predator in the middle of the street, hitting four times thanks to the Captain reroll, wounding 3 and dealing a whooping 11 damage to the tank, killing it in one swoop. The Vanguards plinked another wound off the Predator with their Grav Pistols, and the Heavy Bolter Devastators finished the retreating wounded Biker champion. The Knight was free to open on the infantry facing it, but all its weapons only took out two marines. On the other side of the table, the Captain overcharged his combiplasma and dropped Two terminators by double tapping them, (overcharged plasma on a 2+ rerolling ones, wounding on +2 and 2 damage platform is a beast). The Scouts dealt another mortal wound to them but were unable to pierce the armor further, and a fusillade of plasma pistols finished the crippled Rhino.


Raven Guard Shooting 2

With the targets softened, I tried to get as many charges as possible. The Knight made it in, as did the Vanguard Veterans into the surviving Predator, but even with rerolls the Assault Squads failed to reach their targets, with only Shrike being able to get in. The Vanguard Sergeant shook the tank with 3 more wounds, and his buddies chopped 2 more with their axes after it whiffed its overwatch. the Knight stomped on the remaining infantry and flattened them, while the Champion only killed one of his opponents, but Shrike helped him shredding 3 more. I did spend another CP to save the Champion from the Chaos Champion's axe, while the Honor Guard ended finishing their last rival.


Raven Guard Assault 2


CHAOS TURN 3

Given my success last turn, my opponent was just trying to avoid getting tabled and score as many points as possible. All he had at the table at this point was a crippled Predator and a trio of Terminators, which he moved hoping to score Slay the Warlord on Shrike.

Chaos Movement 3

With only a flunk plasma pistol shot during the shooting phase, (the Predator had fallen back and my opponent forgot about the Combi flamer on his Termie Champ), we skipped to assault phase. Terminators crashed into Shrike for the final fight of the match. Thanks to my last CP I evaded the one Chainfist wound that went through, so Shrike managed to survive the charge with just suffering a wound from a Lightning claw. He returned the favor by slaying two of the termies due to his magnificent 6 attacks (+1 due to Warlord's trait) hitting on rerollable 2+, re roll to wound and -2 save and 1d3 damage. The Chapter Champion took a dangerous wound taking him down to 1 before he swung his hammer and splattered the remaining 3 marines.

RAVEN GUARD TURN 3

There is not a lot to say about my final turn, with just the apothecary healing two wounds from the Chapter Champion, the last terminator getting drowned in a flurry of attacks from all my melee heavy hitters, and the last Predator disappearing by a volley of Plasma and Grav pistols.

POST GAME CONCLUSIONS

I managed to table my opponent with relative minimum losses. (Only lost the Razorback and a Honour Guard unit), but to be honest, his list was some sort of underpowered "blast from the past", but as he told me, he tried to assemble an Chaos assault list because someone said it was going to be very powerful this edition, but all he had was mostly old models. It was both our second game in 8th, so we made a lot of mistakes, perhaps more from his part than mine. (Forgetting his combiflamer, and an entire psychic phase with the Daemon Prince). I also rolled consistently well, pretty much on statistical average all game, not having extraordinary luck but suffering no hard whiffs, while my opponent did fail important rolls several times.

Regarding my units, and knowing beforehand my list is kind of weak due to the same restrictions my opponent had (not enough model collection of this faction), I must say that I was impressed with the performance of the Chapter Champion as a very powerful character for a very competitive price. Vanguard Veterans with Pistols and a melee weapon, while pricey, can pull their weight just fine. The Knight of course was a centerpiece, with his kit perfectly suited by the kind of list it faced. I think the Assault Squads are better than they seemed this game (they did not much), but then again I think I rather underused them by deploying them too far from the main action. While it was worth it, (I did kill his Warlord during that deployment), it left me without nothing to do with them the rest of the game. So it is not that they are bad, but that I did not get the best of them. They never reached melee until the very end. Yet, units able to disengage and fusillade with plasma every turn are very powerful.

I love this edition thanks to the game being faster and dynamic, although I do not like that plenty of tactical edges are replaced by simple random luck on the dice. Too many things are directly influenced by the dice now, but then again I guess that is the price paid for a simplified, less complex and actually funnier game.

That said, I have another appointment for next Sunday against another Chaos Army.