Marcos stood with his platoon in the eerie evacuated streets of this small industrial town. He was new to the world, but all reports suggested that the rebellion that had begun on a nearby hiveworld had spread to the workers on this world. Marcos had faced down a variety of xenos in the last seven years since he had shipped out, and the idea of fighting humans seemed odd to him. Still, they had revolted against the Emperor’s chosen governor, so there was no questioning that they must be put down.
Dust rose beyond the last buildings of the town. Clearly the enemy approached. They were smarter than the greenskin xenos, keeping themselves out of the open streets and keeping out of sight. Marcos flicked the safety off his lasgun and lifted it, preparing to fire on the rebels as they appeared.
Silence hung over the city as the dust clouds drifted. Then, a massive uproar erupted at the far end of the block, flashes of fire and explosions bursting from the corner of the building. Marcos knew it was time.
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A few mates decided it was about time for a bigger team game. We each made a battle forged list, and we decided to take a warlord each. We changed First Blood to First Strike (Destroy a unit in your first turn for 1
VP). We used a mission that
MarsNZ had played at a tournament recently. Each side placed one Obj in their deployment. This was worth 1
VP for themselves, and 5
VP for the enemy. We also placed 2 Obj in no-man’s-land, roughly symmetrical, worth 3
VP each. As you got such a reward for breaking into the enemy lines, we skipped Linebreaker.
I was teamed up with my mate Q and his Nurgle forces. My veteran mate
MarsNZ used his Imperial Guard alongside our relative newcomer Gav’s Blood Angels.
Here are the armies:
Chaos Army of the Quick and the Dead,
Slaanesh
Slaaneshi Chaos Lord - Steed of Slaanesh, Powrfist, Lightning Claw, Sigil of Corruption, Veteran.
Warlord Trait - Reroll 1s to hit in combat for friendly units within 12”.
10 Chaos Marines in a Rhino. Melta, Plasma.
10 Noisemarines in a Rhino. 2 Blastmasters.
10 Bikers. Melta, Plasma, Power Lance.
Maulerfiend.
3 Obliterators.
Allied Herald of Slaanesh. Beguilement, Lesser: AP2, Greater: +1 W, It Will Not Die.
15 Allied Daemonettes. Alluress, Rapturous Standard.
Nurgle
Nurglitch Chaos Lord - Bike, Powerfist, Lightning Claw, Veteran.
Warlord Trait - Reroll 1s to hit in combat for friendly units within 12”.
5 Nurglitch Chosen in a Rhino. 4 Plasmaguns.
9 Plaguemarines in a Rhino. Combiflamer, 2 Plasma.
8 Plaguemarines in a Rhino. Combimelta, 2 Plasma.
1 Nurglitch Obliterator.
1 Nurglitch Obliterator.
Allied Great Unclean One. Sacrifice, Summoning.
10 Allied Plaguebearers.
Plague Hulk.
Defenders of the Imperial Line.
Imperial Guard.
Command Squad. Master of Ordnance, Comlink, Camo Cloaks, Astropath: Psychic Shriek, Hallucinate.
Allied Inquisitor: Scrier’s Gaze, Prescience, 3 Servo Skulls.
Allied Callidus Assassin.
Platoon Command Squad.
3 Platoon Squads. Grenade Launcher, Autocannon each. Commissar.
Platoon Command Squad.
3 Platoon Squads. Flamer, Lascannon each. Commissar.
30 Conscripts. Priest.
Veteran Squad in Chimera. 3 Meltas.
Armoured Sentinal with Lascannon.
Armoured Sentinal with Lascannon.
Armoured Sentinal with Lascannon.
Wyvern.
Wyvern.
Blood Angels.
Sanguinary Priest.
Command Squad.
5 Tactical Marines in Razorback.
5 Tactical Marines in Razorback.
Furioso Dreadnought.
Landspeeder Typhoon with Multimelta.
Landspeeder with 2 Heavy Flamers.
Predator with Heavy Flamers and Flamestorm.
Predator with Heavy Flamers and Flamestorm.
Stormraven.
Deployment:
We rolled between Hammer and Anvil and Dawn Raid, ending up deploying Hammer and Anvil. One end had a few large
LOS blockers, but was broadly open, while the other had a lot of low lying obstacles. The Imperium won the roll offs and so Chaos had to deploy first in the
LOS blocking end. We tried to keep everything out of sight as best we could, and placed the Unclean One square on top of our objective, planning to summon some Objective Secured onto it to really seal the deal.
Then the Imperium set up amongst the obstacles.
They placed the Callidus right next to a squad of three Obliterators and failed to seize the initiative.
Turn One:
Chaos-
First things first, we had to get rid of that assassin. Between some mounted Plaguemarines, the Plasma Chosen, the Nurgle Lord and the three Obliterators, we just barely managed to kill her. This would have been a massive distraction from causing damage to the bulk of the Imperial force, but we had actually planned on waiting a turn, wary of assaulting in too early and ending up thinned out and exposed when the end of the game rolled around. It also gave us First Strike, which was excellent! The Plague Hulk’s first shot at an Imperial Guard Blob wreaked a shockingly huge gap in the line. Clearly this was going to be a valuable unit! The Great Unclean One summoned a unit of Plaguebearers, but the scattered and mishap-ed and rolled ongoing reserves.
Imperium-
One of the Razorbacks sitting in the back line managed to kill an Obliterator with one shot. My friends told me I should have marked them Nurgle, but I just can’t bring myself to betray the Dark Prince like that! Of course, my luck is always entertaining, so the unit broke and ran away from the battle. Other than that, the Imperial infantry all moved up, using orders to get closer to the vital objectives in the middle of the board. The Fearless, Hateful Conscripts were bearing down on the same objective as both our Plaguemarines, and I pulled Q aside to point out we stood a better chance of killing them all off via shooting, rather than getting stuck into a both side Fearless tarpit. As we had mounted pretty much all our infantry,
MarsNZ was frustrated in his use of the deadly Wyverns.
Turn Two:
Chaos-
I managed to rally my Obliterators, thankfully. We placed the Plaguebearers who had gone into Ongoing Reserves right down at the back of the enemy lines, hoping to use their touch of rust on the Wyverns. My Outflanking Bikes arrived and joined the Plaguebearers on that flank. My Daemonettes and the Plaguebearers from Q’s list both mishap-ed, luckily going into ongoing reserves again. The individual Nurgle Obliterators deep struck in on either flank. The Maulerfiend burst through the wall of the
LOS blocking building and attacked the Baal Predator’s, only to whiff badly. Other than that, we just moved units closer and tried to pick off the threats of the Sentinals and tanks. The Melta from my bikes retained his outstanding record of rolling one’s and managed to do this again. As
MarsNZ said “What forgeworld do you get your Meltas from bro, because I need to avoid that place!” Luckily for me, the Plasmagun did better, blowing up the tank.
---
Marcos tried to fire carefully into the shadowy figures moving across the streets. They were keeping their distance. Clearly these rebels were more prepared than he had anticipated, but his training kept him confident.
Then, the wall of a nearby building exploded, bricks and chunks of concrete flying as a massive beast clawed its way through the rubble. The thing scrambled across the street before Marcos could react, leaping onto one of the Astartes flame tanks that was supporting Marcos’ platoon and using gigantic claws to ravage its armour plating.
The tank began to rumble backwards, tumbling the beast off. Marcos stared as it stood, unnatural fires glowing in its eyes. It turned towards the Guards and roared, its throat glimmering with metal.
---
Imperium-
The Stormraven arrived, dropping the Furioso very close to the Maulerfiend.
Both Landspeeder’s dropped in, hoping to disrupt the chaos line. The Flamer Speeder landed near my Obliterators, and the Typhoon dropped right behind the Plaguehulk. The Baal Predator’s hit reverse hard, putting some distance between themselves and the tank hunting daemon engine. The other Blood Angel units began to move up behind the Guard infantry that was swarming ahead. The Inquisitor blessed the Platoon with Prescience, then the Colonel gave the the order that provides ignore cover. Then their three heavy weapons teams opened up with Lascannons on the Plaguehulk. Nerves were tense, but the Hulk shrugged off the incoming fire. The Platoon command on the Imperial right killed off half the Plaguebearers in short order.
Turn Three:
Chaos-
The Daemons from Ongoing Reserve arrive again, Daemonettes to the Imperial Left Flank where they can threaten the second Wyvern, and some infantry squads; the Bearers to provide some bubble wrap for the Hulk.
With one of the Wyvern’s out of action, and the second unlikely to survive long, we moved up and dismounted our transports, then opened fire with a lot of Bolters. This turn saw a LOT of Guard casualties. The Chosen, who had been waiting at our home objective, slipped forward and unloaded plasma into the Typhoon, managing to blow it up, but also immolating one of their number in the process. The Obliterators brought down the other. The Plaguemarines just managed to get into half range of the Furioso with their Melta, managing to take it out in one go. In Assault, my massive unit of bikers shot then assaulted
MarsNZ’s warlord squad. They laid down a brutal assault, then broke and swept the squad. That’s one Kill The Warlord for Chaos!
---
Explosions began to echo from far behind Marcos’ position. Heavy weapons fire traced across his position and he found himself crouching down for shelter more often than he was taking a shot at the foe. What was going on? The telltale whistle of the heavy mortars ceased and Marcos grew worried. Would he make it out of this battle?
Above the din of the battle came the shrieking whine of engines and Marcos looked down the line to see a huge Astartes craft drop a mighty armoured dreadnought into the crossroads, shimmering claws flexing as it stumbled on the ground and began to move towards the terrifying monster that had attacked the tank. From the shadows beyond, green armoured giants moved forward, shooting into the rear of the dreadnought and forcing a massive explosion that clearly disabled the fighting machine. Marcos’ heart sank as the enemy’s monstrosity looked around for prey, its great metallic tail whipping back and forth.
The conscripts of this world, led by a fervent preacher of the Ecclesiarchy, howled and ran towards the green armoured enemy, occasionally focusing enough to fire as they came on. However, the enemy turned from the wreckage of the dreadnought and began firing on the lightly armoured devotees. Marcos heard the telltale crump of bolter fire and watched as men began to explode, torn apart from the inside by the mass-reactive shells.
---
Imperium-
The Chimera deep in the Imperial lines roared forward and a squad of Veterans jumped out to face down the Maulerfiend with their Meltas. Come the shooting phase, the beast was dead.
Various Imperial units whittled the Plaguebearers behind their lines down to one remaining model. The Conscripts and Marines kept moving onto the side objective that they were fighting over with our Plaguemarines. The Stormraven moved into Hover, so it could disgorge the Blood Angel Command, as well as angle its firepower in the most useful way.
---
A Chimera thundered past Marcos and his squadmates, the ramp slamming open as a small squad of skilled veterans ran down it. The quickly formed up in front of the monstrous beast, leveling their more powerful weaponry at its weak points and quickly decimating it. Marcos led the cheers as the beast fell, explosions bubbling through its metal skin.
The cheers died as something even larger stepped forward and over the remains of the previous beast. The new monster walked on girder-like spider legs and shifted a massive putrid mound of flesh at his top. The thing held out a dripping arm that gushed foul torrents over the veteran squad. Ther screams of those men as their skin bubbled and tore would haunt Marcos’ dreams for the rest of his life.
The veterans turned and ran, leaving Marcos and his squadmates standing alone before the thing.
---
Turn Four:
Chaos-
The Plague Hulk moved up to the side objective and fired on the Veterans, killing half of them and breaking the squad. The Daemonettes charged the remaining Wyvern. They managed to blow it up, but it took all their 45-odd attacks to do it! The explosion killed five of the daemons.The Biker squad charged a platoon that was trying to move back and claim their home objective. They killed most of the platoon, but the Stubborn
Ld 9 of their Commissar meant MarsNZ was confident they would stay. Then he rolled a 10, forcing an execution of another guardsman!
The single Plaguebearer moved to claim that objective. The second squad was trying to move up and help claim the side objective that was covered in a sea of bodies by now. The Plaguemarines blinded one of the tactical squads they were facing with their Blight Grenades, and then managed to kill them in the assault.
Unfortunately, at this point I had to call time, as the game had taken longer than I expected and I had places to go. We gave the Imperium one more turn to see what they could do!
Imperium-
This turn saw a few long shots in motion, as
MarsNZ and Gav realised that the side objectives were likely contested, but the end objectives were largely under our control. Also, we had First Strike and one Warlord
VP, so those were a bonus on top of what they had. The Veterans failed to rally and kept fleeing the field. Their Chimera attempted to launch forward in the hopes of boosting onto the objective behind the Plague Hulk and using its Objective Secured status to steal the objective from us. Unfortunately, Gav has a set of lovely Blood Angel dice that enjoy displaying the symbol of his army, despite that symbol being on the 1… The Chimera immobilised on some ruins before reaching the objective.
Gav sent one of his Razorbacks up through the Plaguemarines and Plaguebearers, using the tank shock to force the units back and then parking on top of the objective to force them too far away. (In the image there is an Obliterator, but it was on the terrain level above which we removed for convenience.)
The Stormraven fired at the Nurgle Lord who was hanging back on our objective with the Unclean One, and managed to finish it off. A Platoon command squad flamed the solo Plaguebearer, clearing the Imperial home objective. However,
MarsNZ forgot that he was intending to charge the Plaguebearer, thus moving his guardsmen onto the objective. So, while he had cleared it, he had not claimed it.
Results:
Chaos - First Strike, Slay the Warlord, Home Objective, Side Objective = 6
VP
Imperium - Slay the Warlord, Side Objective = 4
VP
