A coalition of Chaos forces invade another Imperial world. In the Emporers name, we shall send them packing!
Myself and Bam teamed up to play Louis and Chris, Space Marines vs Chaos Space Marines. 1500 points each, so a decent game size too. Unsure of exact forces... so heres a quick rundown
Myself and Bam: 2 Land Raiders with termies, I had a chaplain, and Bam used Lysander. 5 tactical squads in total, vindicator, 2 storm talons.
Louis and Chris: Typhus, 70 plague zombies (yikes) chaos lord in termie armour and termie retinue in a land raider, daemon prince, khorne bezerkers, another 10 termies in two squads, maulerfiend and forgefiend, couple of obliterators and chaos lord on juggernaut. Mission? Scouring!
We set the game up, and placed objectives. We then deployed and revealed. We had a 4,3, and a 2 in our half, so that went into the plan of letting the Chaos forces come to us and try to whittle them down and then lay a smackdown on anything that comes close.
First of all, the dice gods were with us. Bam shot his land raider at the chaos counterpart, one lascannon, six for penetration, and then a 5 resulting in an explosion. No cover save possible. Boom!!!! Took out 4 zombies from the two squads either side too and a termie from within! I whittled more of the zombies down with plasma cannon and heavy bolter fire, and that was pretty much our first turn. The Chaos team did little, advancing and getting into position the main objective for them thus far.
I knew I'd roll good dice too when every single unit I had in reserve came into play.... including both... yes BOTH, storm talons. I positioned one on the right flank to threaten the fiends combo, and the other zoomed towards the Daemon Prince in the middle of the Chaos forces. We pretty much stayed put, just little adjustments here and there for line of sight. My first storm talon did nothing bar a hull point on the maulerfiend. Shame, they were ready to threaten a couple of Bams units. The other Storm Talon? Well, thats another story.... It opened fire on the Daemon Prince, two assault cannon shots wounded the creature and Chris failed both armour saves. Good start! I fired the krak missiles in tandem, and chris rolled for its invulnerables. Another two fails! Daemon Prince DEAD! Ha take that Chaos filth! More whittling of the zombies, with one unit down to 14 by this point.
The Chaos forces struck on our right flank, blowing a rhino up and exposing one of Bams tactical squads. Nearby Chaos marines took a couple of that squad out, and it looked like Bam was in trouble.
During movement however, Lou brought down his two Terminator units. The first came down, scattered onto to some terrain and the result on the mishap table was that Bam could put them down. Furthest corner! The other Termie squad came down almost on target, and gave us a new threat as they tore open the vindicator with combi meltas.
We now made small advances, getting ready to be in position to punish any more advances the chaos forces made. My Storm Talons danced in the air, immobilising the Maulerfiend and the other taking out another 8 zombies. Still they came! The centre of our deployment was looking dangerous, so a combination of 2 tactical squads took out a few of the terminators and bezerkers that were upon us.
Below, the zombies come with Typhus in support. This could be trouble!
Turn four, and it turns out its the last as closing time is encroaching. Bam rushes headlong into the zombies, Lysander challenging Typhus to a duel. The Maulerfiend is finished off, and the threat in our centre is dealt with. Chris' termies are also destroyed including his Chaos Lord, not giving my now disembarked termies and chaplain a chance to get stuck in. Just as lysander and the termies hurl themselves at the zombies, my storm talon unleashes another payload and kills another 8 of their number, assault cannon rounds ripping zombies apart and frag missiles exploding amongst them. The Terminators then kill another handful, as Lysander and Typhus come toe to toe. Typhus scores 4 out of eight hits, Bam rolls and equals with four out of four. One wound gets through on Lysander, but Typhus is crushed by the First of Dorn.
The end of the game comes prematurely, and points wise we're level pegging. However, had another turn been played, we almost certainly would have jumped into a lead. My Chaplain was a scoring unit thanks to his Warlord trait and just one movement phase from a 3pt objective, a tactical squad near a 4pt objective, and lysander and his unit almost overrunning into the Chaos deployment for another bonus point. We had killed the two Warlords, and while our right flank was up in the air the left was incredibly well secured.
In all a great game, we had some amazing dice rolls, even me(!) but it was still close up until the fourth turn where we surely would have won the battle in the name of the Emperor. We had great fun and we're hoping to do a lot more doubles games, even toying with the idea of a one day tourney at club in a doubles format. Should be fun.
In other news, I picked up something new today... a camcorder! Its a nice little cam, easy to move around, unlike filming on my DSLR, and doesnt need to be focussed manually! Can't wait to start doing some video battle reports and general updates and posts with videos. Til then!
