The Harrowed vs. Mason’s Black Legion
At the Eagles Hall, September 17, 2009
Wherein our villains impinge on the plunder of rivals,
Are mocked by perverse misfortune,
And so stumble their way into a new chapter in the Saga of the Harrowed.
“Tell,” rasped Adramelechk, Daemon Prince and Black Legion Field Marshal. “Tell the spoils, in souls and slaughter. Tell the butcher’s bill.”
The command came out in guttural growl, more spewed than spoken. It was becoming increasingly difficult to verbalize. Harder to shape speech with this twining nest of new tongues. Harder to work words through the rows of teeth and tusk that were sprouting in his maw.
His soldiers, Adramelechk saw, recoiled involuntarily at the sound of his voice. Even among his own men, veterans hardened in a hundred hundred battles of long crusade, their commander was becoming an object of terror.
The reaction stirred hot, hungery pride inside the creature. As a mortal he had been formidable. Ascension to daemonhood made him utterly fearsome. The raw stuff of chaos coursed through him now, swelling him to grotesque proportions, roiling in inky eddies along his exoskeleton. Adramelechk radiated ruin. Only the bravest of the company, only those aspirants vying to be annointed the Legion’s next champion, dared approach him.
As Sonneillon did now, eyes averted, nerves twitching.
“The enemy?” growled Adramelechk.
“Broken and scattered, Lord,” Sonneillon replied. “The loyalists managed only pathetic resistance. Civilian soldiers mustered from the hives, most of whom fled at the first sniff of battle. Even now our men are rounding up bands of deserters begging to surrender.”
“Give those to Belephegore’s band,” Adramelchk ordered. Let the Berzerkers have their blood quota. The beasts would need sating, to calm them for re-embarkation.
“Aye, Lord.”
“And the populace?”
“The slavers have begun their cull,” Sonneillon reported, indicating a mass of huddled men, woman, and children filing into the ruined plaza in the near distance.
Adramelechk nodded. “Show me,” he commanded.
Concealing his surprise (Adramalechk rarely bothered himself with such mundane matters), Sonneillon bowed low. The Daemon Prince ignored him, loping toward the gathering.
Sanity shattered and panic spread at the creature’s approach. In its immediate path, refugees simply fell to their knees, weeping, pissing, whimpering uncontrollably. Others further off screamed, clawed at their yoke irons, scrambled to escape, ignoring the brutal efforts of the Legion’s herders to keep them in line.
The sensation was intoxicating. Adramalechk reveled in the slosh of dread and despair he stirred as he stalked across the plaza. Here was one mortal wearing the garb of a medicae, shrieking and scraping at his eyes. Here another wearing aristocratic finery, babbling incoherently and choking her own young by their twinned yoke in her frantic effort to flee. Here another, this one a priest prostrate in fetal prayer, no doubt begging his false god for merciful death.
Adramalechk paused. Eyes squeezed shut, the wretch whispered on. He was praying, was beseeching blindly. But not for death. This was something different.
Warily the daemon prince sniffed, his etheric senses prickling.
And awareness dawned. This was not prayer after all. Or rather, it was prayer, but of a very specific sort. This was incantation.
Adramalechk reared to full height. “Legionnaires, form up!” he bellowed.
It seemed this day held a real battle for them after all.
With some trepidation, I'm going to begin posting battle reports here chronicling the glories and nightmares of my daemon host, the Harrowed.
I say trepidation because my style of play is not exactly Dakka-esque. Me and the folks I game with tend to play fun, casual games, avoiding
WAAC lists and trying in general to fight battles that tell stories. The style of play here is not hardcore.
This battle (actually fought several months ago, and so sporting a not entirely painted version of my army -- it takes me a looong time to write these things up), was the first in a series of League games hosted by our local club, DorkaMorka. Jack, the League administrator, decreed a mission of Capture and Control for this game, with spearhead deployments.
In the service of the Despoiler the Black Legion mustered:
Adramelechk: Demon Prince, Warptime
Squad Pruflas: 10x Chaos Space Marines, with Champion, Power Weapon, Chaos Glory Icon, Lascannon, Plasmagun
Squad Sonneillon: 10x Chaos Space Marines, with Chaos Glory Icon, 2x Meltas, Aspiring Champion, Power Fist, Rhino, Extra Armor
Squad Belphegore: 8x Chaos Berzerkers, with Champion, Power Weapon
Squad Nysrogh: 6x Terminators, with 3x Powerfist, 2x Chainfist, Terminator Champion, Lightning Claw pair, Icon of Chaos Glory, Reaper Autocannon
Squad Thamuz: 10xHavocs, with Chaos Glory Icon, 4xMissle Launchers
Geryon: Defiler
The Ornias: 14x Lesser Demons
In the service of their own chaotic covenant, the Harrowed summoned:
M’Bashaar the Unbroken, Bloodthirster, Unholy Might
3 Flamers
6 Fiends, 1 with unholy might
8 bloodletters
14 plaguebearers, icon
7 plaguebearers
9 horrors, bolt of Tz
6 horrors, bolt of Tz
A’aglala, Demon Prince, Mk of Tz, Bolt of Tz, D. Gaze
Sulsk, Demon Prince, Mk of Nurgle, Iron Hide, Cloud of Flies, Unholy Might
Mason won the roll to determine turn order and, shrewdly, chose to go second.
He then deployed his forces, adopting a fairly tight formation that stationed his havocs in building ruins right beside his objective, his las-
plas tactical squad alongside in open ground, his daemon prince between these two units, the berserkers and defiler just behind, and another tactical squad mounted in a rhino on his left flank.
The Black Legion’s terminators waited in reserve, as of course did those lesser daemons pacted to the service of the Dark Astartes.
After he had set up, I assessed my opponent’s deployment. The rhino, the squad it contained, and possibly the terminators waiting in reserve looked to be the Black Legion’s most mobile elements. These were the forces Mason would have at his disposal to mount a move on my objective. And then of course Mason had his daemons, able (depending on the timing of their arrival and the position of the Legion’s icons at that point in the game) to reinforce either a potential assault on my objective or defense of Mason’s. Looking things over, I decided to devote my primary wave to applying maximum pressure on the Black Legion objective, in an effort to force Mason to commit as much of his army as possible to defense.
The prophets of the Harrowed, hidden in the city ruins, implored the Ruinous Powers to send in as the daemonic vanguard: M’Bashaar the Bloodthirster, the Flamers, the Fiends, my larger pack of plaguebearers, and Sulsk the daemon prince. The Powers saw fit to grant the prophets’ supplications, delivering my preferred wave.
The initial summoning was not without incident, however. The Flamers, attempting to enter the battle on the edge of the Black Legion ranks, entangled themselves in swirling warp currents, delaying their arrival.
More ominously, Sulsk, the Nurgle Prince, steered disastrously into the battle as he searched for a vessel to possess. Attempting to claim the shell of a ruined sentinel located in the building ruins, Sulk drew the attention of the havocs nearby. Recognizing the nature of the dark energies awakening in their midst, the Black Legionaires whirled and destroyed the remains of the vehicle, squelching Sulk mid-materialization. (Meaning, the Daemon Prince scattered into the havocs as he summoned, forcing a role on the mishap table that destroyed the unit.)
That was a setback! I count on Sulsk to absorb the burnt the firepower that my first wave typically has to weather – indeed to survive and wade through that firepower to punch stuff in the mouth. Not this time.
Other daemon manifestations went more happily, delivering the Fiends, Plaguebearers, and Bloodthirster on Mason’s right flank – plague soldiers in front, cavalry and greater daemon positioned behind for countercharges.
Black Legion, Turn 1
As the occult energies darting through the Imperial ruins reached a feverish boil, the warriors of the Black Legion marshaled and maneuvered to meet the threat.
The Legion’s Daemon Prince leapt forward, bellowing at the tactical squad behind him to open fire on the corpses of the fallen Guard now rising from the field. Further back, the looming Defiler wrenched around and readied its mighty battlecannon, also targeting the Plaguebearers. In the ruins, the Havocs trained their heavier weaponry on the slathering, clawed beasts taking form behind (the Fiends).
Sheets of bolter-, plasma- and las-cannon fire raked the plaguebearers, dropping many of the creatures. But most picked themselves back up, dragging or simply leaving behind ruined limbs (after
FNP rolls, only 2 plaguebearers dropped -- a light tally, thanks to lucky rolling). The Havocs wreaked more damage, dealing 3 wounds to the Fiends and sending one of the beasts howling back to the Warp.
With a feral snarl that lit his blade-claws with shimmering power (Warptime) the Legion’s Daemon Prince then hurtled into the Plaguebearers, dispatching 2 and taking a wound in return. (Again a fairly light tally. Evidently the daemonic incursion had caught the Astartes by surprise.)
Daemons, Turn 2
Reserve rolls coaxed the Bloodletters and one of the Horror packs to the battle. I decided to deploy both near the Black Legion ranks, amid my coalescing front line, in an effort to intensify the pressure on Mason’s side of the board. The icon borne by the Plaguebearers drew both packs into the thick of the action without scatter.
Thus, even as the first daemonic wave began to reach the Black Legion’s lines, more daemon slave-soldiers arrived, finding host vessels among the wreckage that littered the battlefield. Bloodletters took shape, drawn by the potent thirst of their overlord, M’Bashaar. So too did a cohort of Tzeentchian minions, Horrors, pouring eldritch essence into a nearby pile of corpses.
Emboldened by the swelling of his army, M’Bashaar leapt an intervening building to land closer to the enemy (though not yet close enough to assault – having scattered well back the turn before). The Fiends scuttled forward to, reaching the edge of the building containing the Havocs.
Now I had the Fiends, Thirster, and Bloodletters all pressing on Mason’s flank. He was going to be able to take some of this threat down with shooting, but (I hoped) not all of it. And to respond, I reckoned he’d need to commit the bulk of his army -- the Terminators (if they arrived next turn), perhaps too the squad of marines embarked in the rhino.
The Horrors poured Warpfire and a Bolt of Tzeentch into the side of that rhino. The former, of course, was too weak to affect the vehicle, but the latter did hit and penetrate the vehicle, excoriating its storm bolter in a blaze of ice-blue energy. (A vehicle destroyed or immobilized result would have been more welcome, of course, but it was not to be.)
After some hesitation I decided I needed to send the Fiends into the ruins to assault the Havocs. Not an ideal development (since the Fiends would lose their initiative advantage), but probably a necessary one, as I needed to squelch the Havoc’s firepower. And the Fiends, of course, would be safer in combat than out of it.
So the savage creatures came slithering and sliding over the shattered walls. The Havocs managed to fell one before, in a frenzy of talons, the Fiends sliced two of the marines to shreds (a somewhat disappointing result, given that 4 of the creatures had survived long enough to strike back).
Just outside the ruins, meanwhile, the Black Legion Prince pulverized another pair of Plaguebearers, taking a second wound from the creatures’ poisoned blades in the process.
Black Legion Turn 2
Mason rolled for his reserve units. The Lesser Daemons held back, thrashing in the currents and cross-currents created by the two armies’ competing summoning sorceries. But the Terminators did descend to battle.
A moment of truth (the first of several): would Mason assign the Terminators to offense or defense? Assessing the situation, he opted for the latter, drawing the Terminators (via a chaos icon) into ground that blocked my Bloodthirster and created a clear line of rapid fire on my Bloodletters.
Mason also diverted Squad Sonneillon (the rhino-mounted marines) to defense (at least temporarily), dismounting them before swinging the vehicle around to roar to the center of the table.
Then the Black Legion unleashed a thunderous volley of firepower. Unholstering their bolt pistols and meltaguns as they emerged from the rhino, Squad Sonneillon lined up the Horrors and snapped off a preliminary volley before revving up their chainswords and preparing to charge. Further back, Squad Pruflas leveled boltguns, a plasma gun, and a las-cannon on the Bloodthirster, dealing the towering daemon a wound. The Defiler’s battlecannon targeted the newly-summoned Bloodletters with a blast that drifted off course a bit but that still managed to blast 2 of the daemons into mists of ichor. Even as the massive aftershock from that blast rocked, Squad Nysrogh, the Terminators, followed on with a salvo of (rapid-firing) storm bolters and reaper autocannon that wiped out the surviving Bloodletters.
The Legionaires’ battlelust was rising. Sensing blood, the Berzerker Squad Belphegore slammed into the Plaguebearers locked in combat with their Prince. Together, the two forces slaughtered the last of the Harrowed’s plague-slaves.
Similar results met Squad Sonneillon when it waded into the Horrors and dispatched that pack.
Only in the ruins by the Legion objective did the Harrowed incursion hold up. There the fiends slew 7 of the Havocs and broke the survivors, slashing the marines to ribbons as they tried to retreat through the ruins.
Damons, Turn 3
Turn 3. It was time to assess my offensive and defensive positions. Mason’s counterstrike had blunted, if not quite gutted, my thrust on his objective. I still had M’Bashaar, more-or-less intact, along with 4 of the Fiends, to press the attack. Along with any other summonings I chose to commit on that side of the table, of course. Not much to work with there.
On defense, things looked more secure. Mason was devoting nearly all of his army thus far to defending his objective. He still had the rhino, with its tactical squad nearby, to swing to offense. The Terminators he had committed back in his own lines, however. And now it looked as though the Lesser Daemons too would have to be played on Mason’s half of the table (unless they held off for yet another turn—unlikely, but possible). Of course, I had not yet stationed any units at all back by my objective. But then, being a daemon player, I hadn’t needed to, to this point. I had more waiting in the Warp, waiting to see where they might be needed.
In sum it looked to me as though I could commit minimal forces to claiming my objective. If I managed to take control of the middle of the table (and specifically, took out the rhino and/or
tac squad), my own objective looked secure. Meaning I would be able to devote the rest of my summoning efforts to trying to keep something alive on Mason’s end of the table, in position to contest over there in the late turns.
That last part of the strategy looked a bit dicey by now, though. Anything I could feed into that quarter would be helpful.
What, then, would arrive to bolster the daemonic incursion? The prophets of the Harrowed droned on, beseeching the Ruinous Powers for succor. In response, the Flamers, my second pack of Plaguebearers, and A’aglala, the Tzeentch Prince, all wound their way on Warp currents into the battle.
The plague-slaves M’Bashaar contemptuously consigned to the back lines of the field, to watch over the objective there.
The Flamers… Ah, the Flamers. Hoping to line up Breaths of Chaos that would wither the Legion’s Berzerkers, the emissaries of Change aimed boldly… and missed badly. A wild scatter and a roll on the mishap table put the Flamers’ placement in my opponent’s hands. Mason, quite sensibly, consigned them to a distant corner of the battlefield.
That setback was going to make it much more difficult to sustain my assault on the Black Legion objective. Sobered by shift in Warp currents, M’Bashaar ordered A’aglala to shore up the defense of the Harrowed objective. Searching for a suitable host, the Tzeentch prince found and filled the wreckage of a sentinel near my back lines. I was now effectively playing for a draw.
Still, it was not in the Bloodthirster’s nature to concede the initiative. With a mighty roar the greater daemon descended on the Black Legion Squad Sonneillon, mowing them down in swathes and slaying them to a man as they tried to pull back.
Farther forward, the Fiends emerged from the ruins and struck at the Legion prince and his Berzerkers, slaying 5 Marines at the cost of 2 of the daemon beasts.
From a few dozen yards off, M’Bashaar bayed in bloody approval. His purchase on material form was weakening, the ‘Thirster sensed. Soon he would be forced from the field. But the Legion’s half-breed, Adramelechk, was faltering too. Perhaps his Host would at least drag the half-breed with them all, back to the Immaterium.
.
Black Legion, Turn 3
The daemons’ onslaught was beginning to ebb. Rallying their ranks, the Black Legion’s aspiring champions pressed the Astartes back into the fray. The Lesser Daemons joined the field, arriving near the Bloodthirster. Plasma fire dealt the monstrosity a new wound, driving him to the brink of banishment.
The Fiends fought on, oblivious, enveloping and shredding the Legion Prince Adramelechk just moments before the Berzerkers, in turn, dispatched the last of the daemon beasts.
A bloody reckoning. And from the daemons’ point of view, too little too late. Even as the Harrowed beasts dispatched the Black Legions’ most savage warriors, the Terminators, joined by the newly arrived lessor daemons (those pacted to Adramelechk and his Legion) fell upon the Bloodthirster, burying him in blows and driving him, too, back to the Warp. So M’Bashaar, Adramelechk, and their most savage shock soldiers all drove each other from the field in an orgy of blood and black ichor.
My offensive thrust was now spent. My defensive position, on the other hand, appeared secure. The Plaguebearer rear guard (which had scattered well off in their summoning) began making their way back toward the daemon objective. A’Aglala, meanwhile, strode out to meet the oncoming (empty) Black Legion rhino, searing it with a Bolt of Tzeentch that immobilized the vehicle. Screeching triumphantly, the Daemon Prince charged in and finished the job with his talons, ripping the rhino apart.
Battered but not yet beaten, the remnants of the Harrowed looked to have locked down at least the original daemonic foothold (that is, my objective). Mason had nothing mobile enough to cross the table in time to contest. The battle had been fought to a standoff.
Or so it seemed. Only in what proved to be the game’s fateful, final turn did the daemons’ hubris make itself known. On turn 5, the Plaguebearers managed a miserable double-1s for their slow and purposeful movement as they shambled back toward their objective. Evidently their purchase on material form was weakening as the ever-inconstant Warptides receded. Awakening abruptly to the Host’s faltering hold on material form, A’Aglala shrieked at the wretches to hurry. Futilely, though: the Plaguebearers then rolled yet another 1 on their “run” dice. And then a third roll of the dice, this one deciding whether or not the game would continue, again fell short. Taking out my measuring tape, I confirmed that my troops were stranded about a half an inch out of range of the objective. I had lost.
Debriefing:
Ouch. I thought I had been managing this battle pretty well, coordinating a credible assault on my opponent’s objective while keeping just enough of my army in reserve position to claim a draw if that assault lost momentum. But a devastating set of dice rolls denied me even the dignity of a stalemate.
Which was really my own fault. On the fourth turn, I had forgotten to “run” the Plaguebearers back toward my objective. At the time the oversight had seemed inconsequential. But it had proven a costly one.
Ah well. Such are the fickle fates of playing daemons.
Mason’s defensive maneuvering, meanwhile, had been masterful. He had, for the most part, managed to align his resources so as to apply just what he wanted where he wanted, meeting and answering my massed threats. So, grudging respect to the Black Legion. The Harrowed will be back to repay the insult of defeat.
“You came,” gasped a weak voice from the rubble at A’Aglala’s feet. The daemon prince paused at the sound, bending its iron frame to peer at the source.
Half buried in the rubble, bleeding and gasping, a mortal stared back with wide eyes. “You came,” it repeated, awe and terror mingling in the exclamation. “When the Emperor deserted us and the Archenemy descended upon our hives, we abandoned our idolatry and prayed as the prophets urged us to do. Prayed to the New Gods, to the Rising Powers, for deliverance. And you came.”
The wretch was dying, its back broken and its lungs leaking brackish blood.
The daemon turned his attention back to the battle. In the near distance, a clamor bespoke the approach of the Black Legion’s surviving soldiers. The Dark Astartes had regrouped in force, A’Aglala perceived. Soon they would find the Host’s summoning circle. And when they did, the Astartes would either destroy it or reverse its gating energies to follow their fallen prince into the Immaterium.
A'Aglala scanned the vicinity, opening his daemon senses. A few plague slaves remained on this side of the Membrane, making their way in confusion back to the circle, their pace slowing perceptibly as their grip on the corpses they animated slackened. The Warp currents here were weakening. In a few more moments, manifestation would be rendered entirely untenable.
The daemon chirruped absently at the thought, unconcerned. This feint had been checked, but in the larger scheme the setback would be of little consequence. The depredations of the Despoiler’s armies had ripped scores of holes in the Membrane here. Hundreds of battlefields littered this and neighboring star systems, leaving ample material for possession. Any number of potential vessels waited for the Host.
Again the mortal at its feet bleated. Briefly A’Aglala considered replying. It would be diverting, amusing, to torment the thing. Fixing it with dozens of eyes, the daemon studied its agony. The sacred sigils decorating its robes and scarring its flesh had been hurriedly etched, hastily daubed. It wore only the thinnest veneer of faith. Shabby stuff. This creature reeked not of devotion, but of despair.
Time to go, then.
The blue flames that had been illuminating the ruined sentinel and filling it with malevolent presence guttered and died as A’Aglala slipped back into the Warp.
Orks, 4175 points
Daemons: 5000+ points
CSM/Black Legion: 5000+ points
Deathwatch/Knights: 5000 points
meat grinder style fights i like most