Night Lords Vs Chaos Space Marines

[Da Once & Future Git]

Looking of doing a bit of a log on my Games...

 

Last months one... came up against another Chaos list so was good for giving a good rundown of the book!

 

My list:

Me

HQ

Draichmaster Tumultuosum Somnium

Lord: Twin Claws, Jump pack, Sigil of Terror (Corruption!), Veterans of the Long War (VotLW) – 140

 

Elites

the Sententia Nox - Sentinals of the Night

5 Terminators: Champion & 1 peon with Combi-bolter & Power axe, 2 with combi-meltas & Power axes, 1 with Heavy flamer & Chainfist, VotLW – 207

 

Troops

the Unguis Nox - Claws of the Night

3rd Claw

10 Chaos Marines: Bolter, Bolt pistol, 9 extra CCW, 2 Flamers, Champion with Power fist, VotLW – 203

Rhino – 35

 

4th Claw

10 Chaos Marines: Bolter, Bolt pistol, 9 extra CCW, 2 Flamers, Champion with Power Fist, VotLW – 203

Rhino – 35

 

7th Claw

10 Chaos Marines: Bolter, Bolt pistol, 2 Plasmaguns, Champion with Extra ccw, VotLW – 180

 

Fast Attack

the Coma Nox - Stalkers of the Night

8 Raptors: 2 with flamers, Champion with twin claws, VotLW – 202

5 Raptors: 2 with meltaguns, Champion with Powerfist, VotLW – 150

 

Heavy Support

 

Obliterator Class Gunships

Obliterator: +1T Mark, – 76

Obliterator: +1T Mark, – 76

 

Total – 1500

Abouts...

 

His list:

1 DP - Power armour

10 Possessed - Champ with 2 boons

10 Plague Marines - 2 plasmaguns, Champ with boon, Rhino

1 Helbrute - Twin Lascannon

10 Cultists - Flamer, Champ

10 Cultists - Auto guns, Heavy stubber, Champ

5 Warptalons - Champ with 2 boons

3 Spawn

1 Forgefiend

 

 

Diagnal deployment, The Emperor's Will (one each, we forgot to roll for mysteriouness!)

 

First up, the Warlord Traits were obviously unimportant (in other words, I forget!).

 

Deployment (scale is a bit off but gives an idea…

 

http://i419.photobucket.com/albums/pp271/Da_Git/My%20NL/Map1.jpg

 

His Turn 1.

Moves front line up to behind the baricades, Possessed steal PM’s Rhino & Flatout’s to the right of the building on my side. Forgefiend moves up shoots my right rhino but it is too well hidden (cover saved the pen!)

 

Mine:

Decide to ram his possessed Rhino, (shoulda disembarked but didn’t want to risk the Fiend not a biggie anyways!). I do no damage & suffer a HP in return (he rolled the 6!), oh well, it was fun! Front line moves up aggressively but try to stay out of his charge ranges. Oblits move North up the flank.

Shooting: First Oblit goes lascannon at the Fiend & blows it up in a cracking shot! Second plasma cannons 1-2 PM. the plasma squad does 2 wounds on the spawn & the melta raptors embarrassingly forget that they have meltaguns!!

Combat, Melta raptors compound the problems by failing to charge the PM’s only to lose one to overwatch (I think I needed a 6 or so through cover…)

 

His Turn 2:

Moves up DP & Spawn to attack my big Raptors. Possessed disembark. Warp talons come in dropping behind 7th Claw (plasma) & fails to blind them. Everything else stays where they are abouts.

Shooting, the PM’s take out Fiend killing Oblit 2 (the PC from last turn) in a storm of plasma, dread pens & Shakes the Eastern Rhino. Cultists kill the Melta Raptor champ (ouch!)

Combat, He makes the charge with the DP & Spawn against my Lord’s squad (DP in b-b with the Lord (ouch!) & Challenges, cutting the poor lord in half (failed 3 out of the 5 invuls… dang!). After a good overwatch (2 wounds) the Raptors finish off the spawn!

 

My turn 2:

Movement, Terminators continue their picnic. Melta Raptors go after the Cultists, 3rd & 4th Claw disembark, 4rd going back after the Warp Talons & 4th into the river to shoot the Possessed & take the charge (I keep hearing how bad they are, so we shall see!). Oblits keep flanking.

Shooting, Between 3rd & 7th claw, I kill all the Raptors, 4th kills 2 Possessed. Oblit Plasmas some more PMs.

Combat: I remove the Raptor champion from play (don’t bother rolling!). Melta Raptors continue to be useless, losing another to the cultist shooting the last makes combat, kills 2 before being taken out!! (fail!!)

 

His Turn 3:

Movement, His possessed move up to ensure they can charge, Rhino moves back to pick up the PM’s

Shooting, Dread wrecks 4th Claw’s Rhino.

Combat, Possessed charge 4th Claw, lose one to overwatch then another to my initial strikes (no grenades!). In return, he kills 2 with +1I&A! My champion (who was out of range for a challenge, fails with his fist!) Only lose 2 Raptors to the DP (lucky!) for nothing in return.

 

My turn 3

Movement, Termies decide to grace us with their presence, I drop them close to the cultists to burn them out! (also it suits that the Night Lord elite would pick on someone as pitiful as cultists!!). 3rd Claw jumps back into the Rhino & heads towards the Cultists, 7th Claw moves up to rapid fire the PM Rhino.

Shooting, 7th Claw take the rhino down to it’s last HP, the Oblit misses with a Lascannon , the Rhino flat out’s. The termies burn most of the cultists, gunning down the rest!

Combat, lose another 3 Raptors & the DP remains untouched! The Possessed roll up AP3, killing another 3 of 4th Claw, while my champ is butchered by his in the inevitable challenge (stupid fist stiking last!).

 

His turn 4

Movement, PM’s move after the termies in their Rhino, the copy cultist move away from the termies (obviously not wanting to suffer the same as their friends!).

Shooting, PM’s kill the heavy Flamer termy & a combi bolter to plasma fire. Dread takes my Rhino down to its last HP.

Combat, DP kills the rest of the poor Raptors (they did well to hold him up for so long, really…) & consolidates towards7th Claw. Possessed cut down 4th Claw to the 2 flamers (shred attacks). My Marines break, & get away, but thankfully not fleeing off the board.

 

My turn 4

Movement, 4th Claw rally!! (Snake eyes!), 7th claw backs away from the DP & 3rd (go 3rd!) claw continues for my opponent’s objective over the barricade & pop smoke (all the while blocking loS to my oblit for his dread & making it hard for his PM’s. Oblits moves up.

Shooting, 7th fail against the DP (even lost one to overheat!), 4th snap shot their pistols for no effect on the possessed (stupid can’t shoot templates when rallying!). Critically Termies melt the PM’s Rhino, they jump out on the other side so I can’t charge them. Then my oblit plasma cannons them, killing 3, including the plasmas! (only 2 to go!).

 

His turn 5

Movement, DP stalks after 7th, Possessed after 4th, MP’s after Rhino.

Shooting: Dread & cultists fail against termies.

Combat, Possessed kill 4th, DP makes his Charge against 7th (needed about a 8 through terrain!) killing a few. PM’s charge the Rhino, killing it.

 

My turn 5

Things are looking a bit grim to say the least…

Movement, 3rd moves to claim the Objective, while the termies make a shield around them to black off the Dread. Oblit moves towards PM.

Shooting, Oblit can’t go Plasma again, so tries out the new assault cannon, killing the last 2 PM’s (finally, the amount of firepower these guys took was amazing!). Termies killed some of the cultist & the rest fled the board!

Combat, DP kills some more of 7th.

 

Game Ends,

VP:

Objectives: 3 to me, 0 to him

First Blood: Me (forgefiend)

Kill the Warlord: Him

Breakthrough: Both

Total: 5-2 to Night Lords!!

 

Overall a very fun game, which came right down to the wire. In the end, turned out to be a real blood bath, with the only models left being:

Me: 3 termies, all of 3rd Claw, a few of 7th (but they were not long for this world!)

Him: Unstoppable DP, Some possessed & a Dread

I think in the end, my overall 40k experience, allowed me to do some better tactical moves to prevent him stopping 3rd claw. Luck swang back & forth as well.

 

Key points

Oblit killing Forge fiend & then being a master shot!

Daemon Prince making all his charges & being a beast in combat!

My fairly tactical use of 3rd Claws Rhino at the end to deny LoS & Charges

Warp Talons failing to blind 7th Claw (&probably a bad part on his behalf to put them there in the first place, too isolated…

 

Learning points.

Lose all fists on squad champs (dang have to challenge),

Positioning models in the unit is key this edition (closest die to shooting),

Charging through cover is hard… Overwatch can be brutal

Need more practice (first game of 6th & haven’t used my NL’s for over 2 years!

Get a Heldrake!

 

Thanks for reading (if you made it this far!!), If people are interested, I'll keep going with more games (although can only play once a month!)

Also any tips on tactics, list, writing style, etc would be gratefully appreciated (note: I know Bikes are better than Raptors, but I have the models & am not forking out the $$ to swap!)

[spafe]

Thanks for the read, was quite useful perspective for seeing two takes of the new chaos book.

 

With regards to the report, I think having a couple more images showing say game turns movement would be very useful for people to follow what your saying although wasnt impossible.

 

Your list, personally i'd look to reducing the fists to either claws or swords on the champions with our new challenge crap, and then try and mark the raptors with slanesh (someones got a nice tactica thread in the chaos forum atm about how to play raptors strengths over bikers and this was one of them). I'd also swap an axe to a mace on the termies for some Int hitting ness, and possibly give the champ a sword or claw to give him more of a shot in challenge.

 

Overall though, I like the list, its nice to see a good range of units being used. How would you rate the cultists on the other side? i'm trying to work out how to use some in a mixed list (as my only expereince is using a tally list for them, but my mixed army is crying for some too)

[Brother Ambroz]

In addition to what Spafe said, I'd switch out the flamers for plasma if I were you. You can probably keep the heavy flamer but I'd change the others to plasma. They would've been really helpful to you I think, especially against that prince. Just be glad the prince didn't have wings or a black mace....you would've been finished then.

[Da Once & Future Git]

Thanks for the replies, I will try to do some more piccies... may be hard as my memory fades fast & they're a little tricky to do! Anyone know a good program?

 

@ Spafe: up that was my first game of sixth & will be the last I use fist champs of any sort!!

I'm trying to avoid marks for fluff purposes, but yes I can deffinately see the benefit in them & the temptation to fall to the dark gods is growing (MoK Lord & Axe looks mighty sweet!)

As for the Cultists, he had a little bit of luck with the shooty squad (my raptors failed far more saves than they should have), so they went rather well for a 60pt unit! Although when anything solid sets their sights on them they'll vanish pretty quick (a heavy flamer Termie squad will do that!)

If you take them, I'd keep them nude & hide as much as possible or go full on Zombie horde or Dark Apostle (if multiples) or Lord (if singular, the aforementioned axe Lord is good for this as he can do lots of killing, but the unit can get unweildy). Could also make a bunker for a sorcerer.

 

@ Tanith Ghoast: Flamerrs are a bit of a personal thing, I love them template weapons! (had a game where the IG player went parade ground formation (7x3) & they disappeared real quick! Ignoring cover is good for me too! If I took plasma's then I can't shoot & charge (& they're 3x the pts!)

[spafe]

Theres a program i've seen used on some other forums called battle chronicler which is available for free download, a quick google search should find you it. Very easy to read, and looks similar to how some of the old school white dwarves did their reports. not sure how easy it is to use though.

 

cheers for the advice on the cultists, will try those ideas out. never really considered a dark apostle....

 

The reason to keep flamers based on preference is fine (One of my 3 units in the renegades list uses them), but tbh I dont think you'll be likely to find another player who will do that guard sucide set up. If the cost of plasma puts you off, 2 melta in a rhino can work for drive bys on tanks etc. possibly with a single claw/combi flamer set up for the champ to keep a template option if you do get into a sweet spot?