Friday, December 7, 2018

Holiday Chaos

Last weekend I played my 4th ever (in ~30yrs of this hobby) 40k match.  What made it great was that it was with a long time friend Jack who mostly plays Warhammer: Age of Sigmar.  While he is fairly inexperienced with 40k, he had a lot of experience with his Chaos Daemons and table top games in general and it became evident fairly early into our match.  Nevertheless, the Legiones Astartes (sorry RT term - Adeptus Astartes as they are known now) of the Imperium of Man did not back down and stood to the last man...

Battleforged Armies:
This was my first match trying to add in Command Points.  This was also my first match playing at about 2k points.  Unfortunately, it was a bit much to keep track of especially since neither of us were well versed in the rules.

Jack's Chaos Daemons:

++ Supreme Command Detachment +1CP (Chaos - Daemons) ++
Chaos Allegiance: Chaos Undivided

+ HQ +
  • Keeper of Secrets: Smite, Snapping claws, Witstealer sword
  • Skarbrand: Bellow of endless fury, Slaughter and Carnage
  • Wrath of Khorne Bloodthirster: Axe of Khorne, Bloodflail, Hellfire, Rage Incarnate, Warlord

++ Battalion Detachment +5CP (Chaos - Daemons) ++
Chaos Allegiance: Chaos Undivided

+ HQ +
  • Daemon Prince of Chaos: Hellforged sword, Khorne, Malefic talon
  • Kairos Fateweaver: Bolt of Change, Boon of Change, Flickering Flames, Gaze of Fate, Infernal Gateway, Smite, Staff of Tomorrow, Treason of Tzeentch
  • Keeper of Secrets: Smite, Snapping claws, Witstealer sword
+ Troops +
  • Bloodletters - . 9x Bloodletter: 9x Hellblade, Bloodreaper: Hellblade
  • Daemonettes: Daemonic Icon, Instrument of Chaos - 10x Daemonette: 10x Piercing claws
  • Horrors: Daemonic Icon, Instrument of Chaos, Smite - 10x Pink Horror: 10x Coruscating flames

My Forces:
++ Battalion Detachment +5CP (Imperium - Space Marines) ++
**Chapter Selection**: Ultramarines

+ HQ +
  • Primus Leo Exevio Faustus - Captain in Terminator Armor: Adept of the Codex, Power fist, Storm bolter, The Armour Indomitus, Warlord, Wrist-mounted Grenade Launcher
  • Epistolary Cain - Librarian: 4) Fury of the Ancients, 5) Psychic Fortress, Force Sword, Bolter
  • Lieutenant Aurelius - Lieutenant: Power fist, Storm bolter
+ Troops +
  • Cornelius -  5 man Tactical Squad - Plasma pistol, Power fist, Flamer
  • Kaiel - 5 man Tactical Squad - Plasma pistol, Chainsword, Lascannon
  • Nero - 5 man Tactical Squad - Plasma pistol, Power sword, Meltagun
  • Vitus - 5 man Tactical Squad - Bolt pistol, Chainsword, Missile Launcher
  • Veteran Leonard -  5 man Tactical Squad - Bolt pistol, Power Axe, Plasma Cannon
  • Nathaniel - 5 man Tactical Squad - Heavy Bolter
+ Elites +
  • Terminator Squad - 5 man - Power sword, Assault Cannon, 3x Chainfists
  • Terminator Squad - 5 man - Power sword, Heavy Flamer, 2x Chainfists
+ Fast Attack +
  • Land Speeders 2x: 2x Multi-melta, 2x Multi-melta
+ Heavy Support +
  • Land Raider: Twin heavy bolter, 2x Twin lascannon

Only War - Domination -   When we placed the objective markers, I was a bit bold placing mine further north in the middle of my deployment zone while Jack placed his both in the rear of his to the east and west.  I figured this was a bit risky but wanted to add some asymmetry.  Because it was domination, we would both scoring 2 point each turn from the initial setup.  Jack deployed his Chaos hordes aggressively, no doubt looking to charge.  I placed my units holding objectives and getting heavy weapons into long sight lines covering them.  I sat my HQs on the southern central objective and placed the Land Raider to the rear to support.  I was a bit aggressive with my placement of the Speeders thinking I could fly over to snag Jack's far west objective.


 Jack elected to take the first turn.

Battle-round 1:
Jack moved up his Daemons but they were unlucky with their advances.  His psykers smited a brother from Nero's unit to draw first blood.  He fell while holding the line on the northern objective.  The Bloodthirster was able to charge into the Speeders and eat one.  So much for the idea of flying by... 2 VP and First Blood?  (I am not seeing anything about first blood in the 8th edition rules though)



During my turn I shot at things.  Did some damage but nothing lethal.  I basically had that one chance.  If I had made full use of my Land Raider's weapons (see analysis below) I might have taked off those last 5 wounds on his big bad.  2 VP

Battle-round 2:
Jack's Daemons took us apart at the north objective.  He also finished off the Speeders, but in so doing he had moved one of his HQs off of the northeastern objective and so only scored 1 VP

During my phase the Terminators beamed down to contest both of his objectives, one directly on top of the abandoned one.  I was able to score 2 VP and splat some pink horrors.





Battle-round 3:
Jack turned his slow moving Bloodletters back up to the northwestern objectives as his HQs had eaten my central objective and were moving to take the southwestern one.  The northeastern Terminators fell pretty easily to his Keeper of Secrets who took the objective back.  I feel like they should have held up a bit better.  The big bads charged into the Land Raider and knocked it out.   His Big Psyker ate some perils of the Warp though which was pretty fun. 2 VP

During my turn I was able to charge in and take the northwestern objective.  Somehow, despite losing over half of my army at that point, still hold onto the west side of the board and get 2 VP.

Battle-round 4: 
At this point we called the game since we had run out of time.  I think up to this point I had held on, but I'm pretty sure he would have cleaned up my remaining forces and out scored me.  He probably would have scored 3 VP  this turn and 4 VP on the final turn.  Still, if my rolls had gone a bit better and I hadn't been making so many mistakes I might have had a chance.



Takeaways and Analysis:
  1. I made a lot of mistakes around not being familiar with the rules.  The main one was that I was not firing all of my Lascannon shots on the Land Raider due to misreading of the rules.
  2. I probably could have made better use of the Land Raider for holding the objective and moved up infantry to stall his advances more to buy time to score VPs.
  3. I was a bit too bold and should have placed that central objective marker back in the corner to mirror the markers to the north.
  4. I was trying to use random Psyker abilities just as Jack did, but really I should have taken Null Zone.
  5. I kept holding onto my CPs either in waiting for something else to re-roll or just forgetting to use them entirely.  Meanwhile, Jack seemed to use his often and at the right time.  I think this will improve with practice.
  6. Likewise I was always forgetting about special abilities and auras etc.
  7. Finishing my Assault Terminators will be very important for fighting against this melee heavy army.

I think next time I'd like to play a smaller game so that we can focus on getting the rules down and smooth gameplay.  Also I found a post here that might be relevant: Tactics for Space Marine Gunlines

Jack's thoughts:
This was my first game since the month 8th edition came out and that game was a demo. I was really nervous about getting rules wrong or making an illegal list. I'm a big fan of AoS and have a YouTube channel called Rerolling Ones so I have a reputation to uphold 😉. I have a lot of Daemons which you can use in both 40k and AoS so the only thing I had to purchase was the Daemon codes. [2k points were chosen] as our point value which surprised me at first but I thought why not and I made my list. In hindsight it may have been a bit much. I learned Skarbrand and Kairos Faitweaver are nastier in 40k then AoS but I had fun reconnecting with an old friend and killing blueberries.

++++Tra-smiss--n: Adeptus Ast----s Ultra++++
Battle Report from ------ A----s
Date: ???

Location: Agro Worl- --------
Sub Sector: ??
FW: *V#*8d0----

Heavy Casualties reported
Faustus: WOUNDED
Aurelius: WOUNDED
Epistolary Cain: DECEASED

Kaiel: DECEASED
Leonard: DECEASED
Nathaniel: DECEASED
Nero: ---$
d.
v.f...dd---

REF: 8VM/50604-38666-545565022192
THOUGHT: Every man is spark in the darkness.  By the time he is noticed he is gone forever.  RT 93
MESSAGE QUALITY DEGRADED BY WARP ACTIVITY

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