One last hurrah...

[GlauG]

Having sold off all my other "completed" armies over a year ago when I went on an extended break from 40k, my Dark Angels have been used for all but one of my 6E games so far. Last night I had a 1500pt game against one of those things I've heard about online, but had never played before; a Nurgle CSM/Daemon "Tally" list.

 

Dark Angels:

 

Sammael on Landspeeder (Warlord)

Belial (Lightning Claws)

Deathwing "Command" Squad (Banner, Apothecary, TH/SS, LC, Cyclone)

Deathwing Squad x2 (TH/SS, LC, Cyclone)

Ravenwing Squadron x2 (Power Sword Sgt, Melta, Flamer, MM Attack Bike)

 

Chaos:

 

Epidimus + 6 Plaguebearers (Daemon Allies)

Nurgle Biker Lord (Brand of Skalthrax, Power Axe)

5 Nurgle Spawn x2

4 Nurgle Spawn

7-man Havoks (4 Autocannons)

7-man Havoks (4 Missile Launchers)

7-man CSM Squads x2 (or maybe x3)

 

Game was "Crusade", Deployment was the diagonal one, and the board was 4'x4', and was, appropriately enough, the entrance of a chaos-corrupted DA-themed Imperial building. Half the board (to my left) was buildings, half (to my right) was sparse trees. My opponent won deployment, and took the corner full of buildings, naturally, deploying all his CSM in them, as well as putting his Havoks up high for a clear view of much of the board. I deployed everything but Belial and his DW squad, hugging the outside of the fort due to not having much else to do. The objectives had been placed mostly on my side of the board.

 

Turn 1, Epidimus managed to deep strike into the middle of a fountain, but they saved the only wound caused by the dangerous terrain check. The Lord and Spawn advanced, and a single DW Terminator was killed (annoyingly, one of the Cyclone Launchers) by massed fire, a Ravenwing Biker died to a lucky shot, while one Attack Bike took a wound. In response, Belial and co deepstruck in the path of the oncoming Spawn, and my entire army's shooting managed to cause two wounds on a single spawn. Not our finest hour.

 

Turn 2, the Lord and his pack of 4 Spawn smashed into a Terminator squad, rolling well for their random combat power (IIRC they got to roll twice for their amount of attacks, and choose the highest), while a pack of 5 assaulted Belial's Deathwing Meat Grinder, the other pack of 5 taking on a Ravenwing squad. The sheer weight of attacks from the Lord's pack brought down the depleted DW squad (who had lost their CML Terminator already), as well as taking down my two Ravenwing bikers, but Belial's squad held firm, killing a number of spawn but losing two men in the process. In response, the Lord's Spawn unit lost two of its number to the remnants of my army, before an Attack Bike, the other Bike squad, and the unengaged Deathwing squad assaulted them. At this point, my opponent remembered that he had forgotten to roll on the Boon table for killing my DW Sgt in a challenge last turn; he rolled Dark Apotheosis, naturally. Still, the assault went as well as could be hoped, for me; the Deathwing stood mostly firm, the Spawn all died to massed Ravenwing pummeling before they could even strike, and the newly-minted Daemon Prince was brought down to a single wound! However in return, he chewed through three Terminators.

 

Turn 3, the Havoks fired at Sammael in vain as my opponent realised that most of his army were mostly meat on the table due to how the game had gone; Epidimus and his Plaguebearers slithered down to an objective, however. Belial's squad were assaulted by the 5-man Spawn squad, who managed to roll maximum attacks (something which happened a lot!) and due to the Tally were wounding on 2+, with poisoned attacks for rerolls... The turnabout came when Belial tanked all 36 wounds caused, not taking a single one (he failed two saves, but FNP saved him both times!). In response, another two Spawn were killed, but on the other side of the building, the Daemon Prince slew the remaining Deathwing, and took no wounds from the Ravenwing desperately trying to drag him down.

 

Sadly we had to call the game an amicable draw at that point, on the basis that Belial and his DW squad would probably survive and either claim an objective or contest Epidimus's due to how bunched up the swirling melee had become, while Sammael was untouchable as long as he could stay out of the Havok's LOS and enter the enemy deployment zone (both very possible due to the terrain) to claim Linebreaker. All in all, a very enjoyable game, and an interesting experience to play against an army significantly more tough than T5 Bikes/2+ Terminators! I look forward to the new 'dex, but this is a fond memory of the last one.