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Howdy. I've always enjoyed reading battle reports and always wanted to try to make one myself. My buddy and I played a lot of 40k back in 5th ed, and haven't really played since, so we decided to try our hand at learning to play 7th ed, and I took the opportunity to try my first battle report. He played Chaos Space Marines, and I played Grey Knights.

I would ask that if you see anything wrong with how we played the game/phase/special rule, please PLEASE point it out. This was as much a lesson in learning the rules as it was a match.

Since we were learning the rules, we went with as simple of a set up as we could: No terrain, first one to table the opponent wins. Also, we decided to place dead models on their side, to show where they fell. Did it make the table to hard to follow? Please let me know.

The Forces of Chaos


Chaos Lord with Mark of Nurgle and 2 Chain Fists

5man Plague Marines 2 Plasma Guns
5man Plague Marines, 1 Plasma Gun

2man Obliterator Squad, Mark of Nurgle
2man Obliterator Squad, Mark of Nurgle
2man Obliterator Squad, Mark of Nurgle

2man Mutilator Squad, Mark of Nurgle

Grey Knights


Librarian, Mastery Level 3, Domina Liber Daemonica, Cuirass of Sacrifice, Warding Staff

5man Terminator Squad, 2 Halberds, 3 Swords, 1 Psycanon
5man Terminator Squad, 2 Halberds, 2 Swords, 1 Deamon Hammer, 1 Incinerator

9man Purifiers. 6 Halberds, 1 Deamon Hammer, 2 Incinerators
Rhino Transport

Dreadnought with Twin linked Auto Cannon, and Assault Cannon. (Nicknamed Derpy)


Pregame:
We rolled our warlord traits (GK Counter attack, Chaos Infiltrate 1d3) And I rolled my psychic powers (4 for a level 3 mastery and the Daemonica, plus the primus) My librarian would get Banishment, Gate of Infinity, Purge Soul, Cleansing Flame, and Vortex of Doom. Grey Knights won the deployment roll and deployed first



Purifiers ride in the Rhino, Librarian attaches to a terminator squad and hides behind Dreadnought Derpy. Chaos lines their board edge, Oblitorators in the center and each corner, Plague Marines between them, with the Mutilators and Chaos Lord in the center up front. No one stole initiative and First turn begins.

Turn 1



Grey Knights move up. Rhino moves 12, screens for the Knights, and pops smoke. Derpy casts Sanctuary on himself and fires at Plague Marines without causing wounds. Chaos moves the Chaos Lord and Mutilators up, and fires Las Cannons and Plasma Cannons from the Oblits, Stunning both Derpy and the Rhino.

Turn 2



The Purifies disembark from a stunned rhino (by placing all model in contact with the rhino and moving (2d6, take the highest?)) and got into range to use Cleansing Flame (Question: do I roll 2d6 for shots and then fire that many shots, or roll 2d6 and roll to wound?) At the same time, the librarian decides to cast Gate and move himself and the terminators up the right side. At least that squad of Oblits already used their Plasma Cannon last turn. Cleasing Flame scores 9 wounds on the Chaos Lord's squad, and the Lord fails 3 armor saves and goes down to the purifies for the first kill of the game. The Librarian's squad opens up shooting and takes out a few Plague Marines, taking out the only plasma gun on the squad. Derpy fires off ineffective snap shots and the other terminator squad fails to wound with their shooting.



Chaos responds by firing las cannons point blank into the librarian's squad, along with Plague Marine bolters, killing off two terminators and putting a wound on the Librarian. Some plasma from the Plague Marines on the left soften up the Purifiers before the mutilators charge in. The oblitirators decide to charge the weakened terminators infront of them hoping to with them out with power fists quickly. Both combats continue on into the next round. Both of us forgot overwatch shots, which is a shame. I had a flamer in that squad.

Turn 3



Grey Knights move up the backline terminators, but doesn't shoot anything hoping to be in range for a charge. The Terminators cast Hamerhand and roll double 6's. A roll on the perils chart and a leadership roll has a random terminator getting Warp Supercharged (6!) I get hammerhand cast on my purifiers as well, but I fail to activate force on both units (1 bad rolls, 1 denied the witch). Derpy moves to the board edge and opens up the Assault Cannon onto the Oblits in the left corner and manage to kill 1 with rends. The melee fights goes on, and thanks to the Warp Charged Terminator's 3++, I hold strong and take out an Oblit. My Purifiers manage to kill a Mutilator with the Hammer.

Chaos responds by opening all shots into my backline terminators, killing them all in one volley. The fights get kind of pathetic, as no one ends up killing each other.

Turn 4 With everyone locked in combat, Derpy was the only shooting model, and shot up the Oblit again, scoring another wound. Grey Knights get Force Weapons on both squads. Wounds are traded, but no squads are broken.

Chaos takes their turn firing at Derpy, but score no solid hits. Disaster stikes for chaos as the force weapons finally manage to instant death the last Mutilator and Oblit in the same turn, freeing up a single purifier grey knight, and 3 terminators (one of which is the librarian.) At the end of the turn, The Librarian heals his wound with IWND from his armor.

Turn 5



The Purifier is able to hit both squads of Plague Marines and the Oblits in the center from that spot. A single model ended up dealing a lot of pain. The Librarian also fired off Cleansing Flame, and between the two, only 5 plague marines remained, with a wound being taken off the oblit.

After shooting and psychic is done, the Librarian and squad roll up on the oblit squad... and fail to wound them. The Purifier charges the plague marine squad by himself and kills the Plague champion in a challenge combat.



Chaos again doesn't have much to do. The Oblit and Derpy continue their epic gunfight, with a Multi Melta shot immobalizing poor Derpy and taking out the 2nd hull point.



The Plague Marines gang up and take out the last purifier, and the Obliterator in melee with the librarian's squad does score one for the team when he wipes out 1 of the remaining 2 terminators in the Librarian's squad, wins the combat and forces the 2 Grey Knights to fall back! If only it wasn't for...



Turn 6

ATSKNF. They regroup and the librarian casts Purge Soul for the final wound on the oblit, and then turn and assault the Plague marine Squad with Hammerhand active.



Derpy manages to win the duel in the end, rending the last wound off of the final Obliterator. The next round has the final Plague Marine being chased down and slain. Victory for

Grey Knights

Only 4 models left on my side, but the Librarian lasted for the whole fight.



After the game (and during it) we had a ton of questions, but didn't write them down. I have a lot of research on how and who allocates wounds in melee combats, and we both need to remember overwatch (and I forgot my counterattack special, among other things). After the fight, we both agreed the only reason I won by 4 models was my army was fully painted, and his wasn't. The dice know.

Where's the terrain???? Look up the rule "look out sir" for future mate. Welcome to 7th ed. good first attempt

Agreed with MSRC27 - you need at LEAST one big piece of terrain in the middle that you can dance around; even on this small of a table. Two smaller pieces of terrain is also pretty good.

A note on the lists; the Chaos Lord doesn't need to have 2 Chainfists. In close combat, you choose which weapon you're striking with. As a Specialist Weapon, you do need a second Specialist Weapon to gain the +1 Attack bonus in close combat, but it doesn't need to be the same as the first weapon. Having a Chainfist and a Power Claw would save points for the Chaos force, and give the Chaos Lord more options in close combat (could choose either to use the Chainfist to strike at I1 with double Strength, AP2, and Armourbane, or strike at Initiative with regular strength, AP3, and reroll failed to-wound rolls) - making him better for less!

MSRC27 wrote:
Where's the terrain????

We didn't have anything at hand, so we just went with an open killing field. Our next game will add some bits to fight around/in.

MSRC27 wrote:
Look up the rule "look out sir" for future mate. Welcome to 7th ed. good first attempt

Oh... so it looks like the attacking player gets to allocate wounds to anyone in base contact? And I can move them to a non-character with a roll of 4+ for each wound allocated to that character? Am I reading that right? And thanks. Complicated but we'll get it.

 Yarium wrote:

A note on the lists; the Chaos Lord doesn't need to have 2 Chainfists. In close combat, you choose which weapon you're striking with. As a Specialist Weapon, you do need a second Specialist Weapon to gain the +1 Attack bonus in close combat, but it doesn't need to be the same as the first weapon.

You see, I keep telling him it's too expensive, but neither of us knew about the Lightning Claw thing, so when I tell him that, I bet he changes it. It will be even MORE killy for less points, which is what he wants. Unless he just really wants to have a model with 2 chain fists, I guess. But thanks for that heads up. Major rule thing I didn't know!

Just a few tidbits since I don't want you to get the wrong idea;

#1 - Shots are resolved closest-to-closest, which is pretty easy to determine for shooting. In close combat though, models are equidistant (they're mostly all within base-to-base contact), so the defender gets to assign the wounds. Carefully moving your models is important to avoid having the wrong things die at the wrong times, while you can also take advantage of this to try and "snipe" out special models too!

The exception to this is "Look Out Sir!". Characters and Independent Characters can make this save if ever a wound would be assigned to them. They are allow to try to make this save to pass it on to the next closest model in the unit. This way these Characters can be at the front lines, but still avoid damage that would come their way.

So, for example, say you have your Grey Knights shooting into a squad of Plague Marines. There's a basic Plague Marine closest to your Grey Knights, then the Plague Champion (a character), then a Plague Marine with a Plasma Gun, then 2 more basic Plague Marines. They all have the same saves and stats, so no need to roll individually. If you killed just 1 Plague Marine, then the closest Plague Marine dies, and your Chaos friend is happy that the Champion and Plasma Gunner are still alive. If you killed 2 Plague Marines, then he'd have a decision to make; he can attempt a 4+ Look Out Sir! which, if passed, would require he remove the Plasma Gunner as a casualty, or he can choose not to take it, in which case he removes the Plague Champion as a casualty. In theory, unless you score enough kills to take out the whole squad, there's a chance that they could pass all the Look Out Sir saves required to keep their characters alive.

In Close Combat, if all the Plague Marines were in base contact, then the Chaos player could remove them in whatever order they wished.

Note though, Chaos Space Marine characters must issue and accept challenges if possible. Wounds from challenges can't be "Look Out Sir!"'d away, they always go through the challengers first.

#2 - When attacking in close combat, you only use 1 weapon, so you don't get the effects of both. If your Chaos friend takes a Power Claw and Chainfist, he'll get the option of which weapon to use - but he still can't use both!

That's a cool rule, now that I understand it. Looks like we did play the melee fights correctly. I was worried that the power fist wounds were supposed to go to the Libby, but he was never isolated in combat. We did the 'shooting closest model' thing correctly, so there's at least that. If I'm understanding correctly, it looks like you fail the saves, and then Look out, Sir! to try to move the wounds to the next closest, correct?

Thanks for taking the time to explain all this. Will make the next game that much better.

 Sentai_Sage wrote:
That's a cool rule, now that I understand it. Looks like we did play the melee fights correctly. I was worried that the power fist wounds were supposed to go to the Libby, but he was never isolated in combat. We did the 'shooting closest model' thing correctly, so there's at least that. If I'm understanding correctly, it looks like you fail the saves, and then Look out, Sir! to try to move the wounds to the next closest, correct?

Thanks for taking the time to explain all this. Will make the next game that much better.

Only if all the models in the unit have the same saves. In the example I listed they do. Otherwise, if they're different saves, then after you roll to wound your opponent will make saves one at a time. In this case, they have to make the Look Out Sir! decision and save before making the armour save. After all, it's not Librarian Hulksalot's terminator armour (2+) that's stopping the bullet, it's his buddy Brother Bodyguard-o's power armour (3+) that's getting in the way.


So, going back to my example, let's pretend that it's not a Plague Champion, but instead a Nurgle Chaos Lord in Terminator Armour. In this case, he'd make saves (one at a time) for the Plague Marine up front. Then, once that models dies, for each shot coming his way that Nurgle Chaos Lord would decide whether to try and "tank" the damage, or make Look Out Sir saves. If he makes 4 Look Out Sir Saves, then those 4 saves are resolved on the next closest members of the squad instead (on their 3+ armour, plus FNP). Any failed Look Out Sir saves (or wounds that he just wants to take on the Lord) he rolls one at a time on the Lord's 2+ armour.

Awesome. I think I got it now. Thanks for all the clarifications <3

For quick terrain plop down a big rock or two or cut out a random shape from card stock or paper and colour it green. BAM! forest.

I have a pair of LOTR bookends that I use as terrain.

We would have probably grabbed something to use as terrain, as we had lots of junk laying around. Neither of us really wanted to worry about cover saves from terrain or declaring stuff for a beginner game. I have some cool ruins around the house that we used to use. Next game will have a much nicer look, and the board won't be half covered with a laptop and spare models

Not bad first attempt, hope you enjoy further games!