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Pics of an Apocalypse Game

From a game between Kenzilla and General Simpson.

Epic Chaos Space Marines Battle

My friend Charles and I got through 3 turns of our epic battle yesterday before having to call it quits. We both brought 2,500 points and Chaos Space Marines. He brought a Khorne list with Oblits and a Defiler in the heavy support slots, a Land Raider and 3 Rhino's with Dirge Casters on them - that he used to great affect.

It was a Big Guns Never Tire mission with 5 objectives and Hammer and Anvil deployment. A TON of terrain as you can see in the above picture - with no less than 20 pieces of terrain (17 total but a couple were putting smaller pieces together, just 1 shy of the maxium amount of terrain on a board in 6th edition).

I brought along:

HQ:	Huron Blackheart	1	160
	Typhus	1	230
	Chaos Lord	1	65
	Mark of Slaanesh		15
	Burning Brand		30
Troops:	Chaos Cultist Zombies	20	90
	Chaos Cultist Zombies	20	90
	Plague Marines	5	120
	Plasma Gun (2)		30
	Combi-plasma		10
	Chaos Rhino	1	35
	Havoc Launcher		12
	Combi-melta		10
	Warpflame Gargoyles		5
	Plague Marines	5	120
	Plasma Gun (2)		30
	Combi-plasma		10
	Chaos Rhino	1	35
	Havoc Launcher		12
	Combi-melta		10
	Warpflame Gargoyles		5
	Chaos Space Marines	10	140
	CCW (7)		14
	Plasma Gun		15
	Missile Launcher		15
	Combi-melta		10
	Veterans of the Long War		10
	Noise Marines	10	180
	Veterans of the long war		10
	sonic blaster (5)		15
	Blast master		30
	Doom Siren		15
	Icon of Excess		30
Heavy Support:	Havocs	5	75
	Lascannons (3)		60
	Chaos Rhino	1	35
	Havoc Launcher		12
	Combi-bolter		5
	Warpflame Gargoyles		5
	Havocs	5	75
	Missile Launchers (4)		60
	Chaos Rhino	1	35
	Havoc Launcher		12
	Combi-bolter		5
	Warpflame Gargoyles		5
	Chaos Predator		75
	Sid Sponsoons w/Hvy Bolters		20
	Havoc Launcher		12
	Warpflame Gargoyles		5
	Havocs	5	75
	Autocannons (4)		40
Fast Attack:	Heldrake	1	170
	Baleflamer		0
	Chaos Bikers	3	70
	Meltaguns (2) on bike		20
	Mark of Nurgle		18
	Veterans of the long War		3

Deployment went fairly straightforward with no disappointments, and I kept Huron and his 20 zombies and Typhus and his 20 zombies and my bikers and Heldrake in reserves. First round for both of us was pretty bleh. We pockmarked each other (he barely touched me at all) but nothing significant. At first because I'm such an excitable newb, I shot at his Landraider before moving. He allowed me to do my movement phase and I gave him back his Landraider I had popped in one turn. I would later in turn 2 immobilize it, but all I managed in the re-start of turn 1 was to take out one of it's twin-linked lascannons.

Round 2 got a little more serious but still no major losses on either side - he did manage to take out a Havoc squad (the one that immobilized his Land Raider) and got first blood though. He experienced the terror of Soulblaze with no less than 5 markers on a unit and made all 5 "saves" so didn't have to take anymore wounds. Everything in reserve except my bikers came in on this turn.

Round 3 started getting really serious for both of us, as I took out Kharn the Betrayer, brought in my bikers (thanks to Huron's warlord trait) in his backyard and started getting the attention of his Defiler, and pushing forward with my forces, taking out the rest of his transports. He also got to strike back pretty hard though as his units finally gotten into assault.

It is debatable on how it would of went if we had gone the whole nine yards. He had me pretty solid in the assaults on my table half and only Huron and his zombies really stood in his way - easy targets for him. However, I was getting into his backyard with scoring units and I believe we would of ended up trading objectives.

We ended the game though as I said before at the end of round 3 and the score was 9-9, tied game.
I personally thoroughly enjoyed this game. We had a lot of stops and starts, ruling questions form the big bad book and our new codex and no doubt about it - slow played like hell. Yet was one of the few games we've played (at least my behalf) that it felt like everything was coming together - the rules, the strategy, the lists, all the components of a game was finally coming together and at a pace I could "grasp" what the heck was going on and at a level I didn't feel like a baby seal, nor did I feel like I was a demi-god striding forth across the game table. In a phrase - it was a great balanced gaming experience, with the only thing lacking was our (mine actually as I had company to go home to) inability to finish the game.

I was really impressed with my Havoc squads. They reached out and tagged stuff left and right. My Heldrake was beast and I also really like the combination of Havoc Launchers and Warpflame Gargoyles on the Rhinos. The combi-meltas on the Rhinos fizzled this game, but I will definitely take them again.

Anyways, looking forward to the next game with Chaos Space Marines, though at this point since I borrowed so many models to do this game and my last game, will be scaled down until I get the chance to build up my own Chaos Space marines army more.

Until later!

1st game with Chaos Space Marines ends in Disaster

Played my first game with Chaos Space Marines on Saturday against Matt up at Excelsior's in Hoover. First off, let me say I enjoyed myself and learned a lot despite the very sound trouncing I received and the game ending in Turn 3. I can officially say this was my worst loss to date yet. My opponent was awesome, showed excellent generalship that he shared with me afterwards along with some list help as well. Definitely learned a lot from him despite the sting of defeat.

Not much of a battle report. He played smart and took out both of my Rhino's, half of Noise Marines, most of 1 unit of cultist and a couple other individual units in turn 1. My response was to take out a few guardsmen and put a dent into one of his tanks (and by dent I mean I scored a single Hull Point on a glance). Turn 2 saw both of us able to bring in our fliers. I managed to take out a few more guardsmen and scored a Immobilized hit on one of his fliers (Vendetta or Valkyrie?). He took out both Havoc squads, the rest of my noise marines, my chaos bikers and the other unit of Cultist by the end of his turn 3. This left me with half a unit of regular Chaos Space Marines, 2 Thousand Sons and a Sorcerer along with 2 cultist. We called game.

There is no doubt I had a weak list - I was bringing a lot of things to try out on the table at once. I did have a couple of things for anti-air and anti-tank. However, with positioning and deployment, I only managed to get off snap shots during the first round and he was in assault by turn 3 with those same units taking them out. This was a major blunder on my part as I didn't have anything to prevent this nor was I in any kind of offensive position to strike from.

So amongst the many things I did learn from this game the things that stood out most that I learned (in no particular order):

- Work on Deployment strategies. I've been losing badly right from the get go in games lately where I go second. I am really suspecting this has to do with poor deployments.

- Bring more anti-tank to the table and protect it. Using this game as an example, I wasted first round of shooting by moving into position instead of already being in position. While I did get a second round of shooting in, it was ineffective due to lack of it nor did I have it protected. This allowed Matt to just drive up his Rhinos and unload his Grey Hunters in easy assault range for round 3.

- OK, yes I'm learning about units but I need to try out 1 or 2 per game not an entire list. My list was gimped from the start and I knew that, but I since I'm still a weak player, I don't need to handicap myself more by playing a list "I" know is weak to begin with.

- Chaos Cultist. Cheap. Numerous. A squad of 10 disappears in a single round very easily. Keep in reserve for as long as possible or at least out of sight. In kill point missions, they are worthless.

- Use LoS against your opponent. Matt was awesome at keeping his big tanks in the back edge of his table side and using lighter tanks and transports as cover from my side of the table. I never had a direct shot at his big guns.

My next game is a 2,500 point, 2 FoC game against Charles up at Bud's Place on Thursday. I took Matt's advice on some of finer points of list building (not taking certain upgrades if other upgrades like icons were in play for example) and think I have a solid list - and I only have 1 unit that is a "let's see how and if this works" in the entire list.

I would list it, but another lesson learned:

Never show your list on the Internet before a game. Poor Matt got the stink eye for awhile because he told me he read my list on the blog here and I didn't know he normally ran a mechanized guard list and assumed the worst, which was not fair to him. I will say though it was a pleasant surprise to see and meet someone who actually reads the blog here - even if I got the wrong idea at the beginning LOL. Turns out Matt is a great guy, an excellent opponent and I hope to play him again in the near future. maybe even offer him a bit more of a challenge next time!

First Chaos Space Marines Battle: Incoming!

Tomorrow is the day. I face 40K combat for the first time as a... Chaos Space Marine player. What a turn around. For months I've been defending the Imperium (well trying to anyway) with my Grey Knights and now I'll be playing for the other team...

So it will be a 2,000 point battle and I know I will probably be facing IG - though no idea what type of IG list. My opponent knows I'll be using Chaos Space Marines, so I can expect some plasma, melta and probably some psychic defense.

What I'll be bringing to the table is listed below. This is not an ideal list, but does have a sampling of a lot of things I'm liking in the new Codex and so I'm looking to learn some things about how these units actually work in-game. As such, while I'm not going to try to lose, I'm also not expecting to win. I do expect however I'll have fun and figure some things out for my own on what I like and don't like about the units in this list and move on from there. I'll report on the battle tomorrow night or Sunday.

Here's the list:

Chaos Lord (hikes w/Noise Marines, is the Warlord)

Veterans of the long war

Mark of Slaanesh

Burning Brand

Sorcerer (rides w/Thousand Sons)

Veterans of the long war

Mark of Tzeentch

Mastery Level 3

Noise Marines

Veterans of the long war

CCW (10)

Sonic Blaster (5)

Blastmaster

Doom Siren

Icon of Excess

Chaos Space Marines

Veterans of the long war

CCW (10)

Plasma Gun

Autocannon

Combi-melta

Icon of Vengeance

Chaos Cultist

Autoguns (10)

Heavy Stubber

Chaos Cultist

Autoguns (10)

Flamer

Thousand Sons

Icon of the Flame

Chaos Rhino

Havoc Launcher

Warpflamce Gargoyles

Plague Marines

Veterans of the long war

Flamer (2)

Combi-flamer

Icon of Despair

Chaos Rhino

Havoc Launcher

Warpflame Gargoyles

Heldrake

Baleflamer

Chaos Bikers

Flamers (2)

Combi-Flamer

Mark of Nurgle

Veterans of the long war

Icon of Despair

Havocs

Missile Launcher (2)

Flakk missiles (2)

Lascannon

Autocannon

Havocs

Missile Launcher (1)

Flakk missile

Autocannons (2)

This is my first list from the codex that I put a lot of thought behind. My goals were this:

- An 'all comer' style list.
- Competitive but not uber, I'm not taking this to a tournament, but I don't want to be beat down everytime I play based on bad unit choices either.
- A bunch of options to have fun and start really exploring what CSM's can do.
- Incorporate allies.

So here we go, weighing in at 1,999 points and 59 models.

HQ:

Winged Daemon Prince of Tzeentch, Mastery level 2 in Power Armor and carrying the Scrolls of Magnus. Probably way too much in points, but I have a winged flying monstrous creature (Daemon), who can get a random psychic power every round for the rest of the game and will onlytake a wound on a roll of a 6 (and then I can take an invulnerable save at 4+ so I like my chances)

Sorcerer in Terminator Armor, Force Weapon, combi-bolter, Mastery Level 3.

My HQ is sporting a lot of pskyery around the field. If I ever up this list to 2,500 then I can add a 5 man unit of Thousand Sons as Troops.

Elites:

5 Chaos Terminators with Marks of Khorne and Veterans of the long war. Equiped with Reaper Autocannon, 2 combi-flamers and a power fist riding in a Chaos Land Raider with Destroyer Blades and a Havoc Launcher.

I am considering dropping the Terminators, moving the Chaos Land Raider to my third Heav Support Option and putting in a squad of Thousand Sons here to give me more troops, since I am light on troops with this army list, which I consider it's major weakness.

Fast Attack:

Heldrake. Along with the Vendetta below, this gives me 3 fliers in my army list and c'mon it's sex-say!

Heavy Support:

5 Havocs, 4 with Missile Launchers, all equiped with Flakk missiles. This will be my main anti-flyer, with the Vendetta as backup or a second line of anti-flyer defense.

2 Obliterators with the mark of Tzeentch. 2+ Armor Saves, 4+ Invulnerable Saves. While not untouchable, they are fairly cheap and with 2 wounds, I think they'll put out some hurt before they're taken down.

Troops:

5 Chaos Space marines with close combat weapons and veterans of the long war. Equiped with a flamer and a combi-melta and riding in a Chaos Rhino with Havoc Launcher and Warpflame Gargoyles.

20 Chaos Cultist with autoguns, a heavy stubber and a flamer.

Allies:

HQ:

5 man Company Command Squad plus Master of the Ordance and an Autocannon.

Troops:

10 man Veteran Squad with Heavy Flamer, rides around in Valyrie until final turn and then attempts to clear or contest objective.

Fast Attack:

Valkyrie Assault Carrier



The only thing I don't like about my list is the lack of troops, though an easy fix would be to change out the Terminators with Thousand Sons. This would leave me 8 points to spend elsewhere, perhaps Warpflame Gargoyles on the Chaos Land Raider or something.

So whatcha think? Did I hit my mark? What changes would you suggest? Should I scrap this and go back to the blackboard? Should I dump the Allies all together and 280ish points elsewhere - perhaps more troops as Cultist and Thousand Sons or?