2000 point Bat-Rep! Templars vs Chaos

[Brother Darklight]

Greetings Brothers!

Last few weeks have been a headache for me so I got the chance to relax last night and have a good ol' fashion 1v1 2000 point game with my Chaos buddy. Here's the scoop for your reading pleasure.

Amythestus Crusade: 
Castellan Carver (Captain): Teeth of Terra, Artificer, Storm Shield
Castellan Stabber (Captain): Burning Blade, Artificer, Storm Shield
Techmarine: Power Sword, Combi-plas

Crusader Knight squad: Sword Bro w/ Power Sword, 9 Initiates (power sword), 5 Neos.   LRC w/ Melta as Dedicated Transport
Crusader Archer squad: 5 Initiates, LasPlas
Crusader Archer squad: 5 Initiates, LasPlas

Vindicator
Legion Sicaran Battle Tank w/ Las Sponsons, (the Legacy that gives 1 turn Skyfire/Tank Hunter, etc) Ceremite plating

Storm Talon
Land Speeder Typhoon w/ multimelta

Ironclad w/ Heavy Flamer in a drop pod
Dread with TL Lascannons and ML in a drop pod

Heretic Strikeforce:
Sorcerer Sindri

10 man Nurgle Marines
10 man Nurgle Marines
15 man Khorne Cultists
15 man Khorne Raptors

10 Nurgle Chosen w/ Heavy Bolter, Combi-Bolters in a Rhino (This unit was hilarious)

Vindicator
Helbrute
Forgefiend? (autocannon one)
LasPredator

2x Helturkeys with Marine BBQ cannons

I feel like I'm forgetting a lot of units there... and as always I can't remember the upgrades that the heretics have.

For those that catch the Sindri reference, here's why we used it: We know Chaos units with different marks can't join units. However we weren't sure about a Character with no mark joining a Marked unit... especially when it was a sorcerer joining a Khornate Raptor unit since that makes absolutely no sense fluff-wise. I personally didn't care so I said "If you refer to him as Sindri, I'll allow it". So the Sorcerer rolled with the Raptors.

Since 7th hit, all we play is Maelstrom in our local group, so we rolled with that.

Mission Type: Maelstrom 1 (3 cards each per turn, corner deployments)

I deployed first, he stole initiative. Sneaky Heretic!

First turn was largely boring. Everyone fluffed everything on both sides. He scored a weapon destroyed on my Sicaran (taking out the heavy bolter) and I glanced his Predator once and the Vindicator once. My Anti-tank Dread landed on with PERFECT side-angle shots on the Vindi and the Predator and failed to pen when I fired at the Vindi. Great...

Second turn got bloody, quick. Both Helturkeys arrived and wiped the Techmarine and all but the lascannon in one Crusader unit and wiped the other ranged Crusaders leaving Castellan Stabby on his own. (He was with a ranged unit because I planned for deep striking Chaos terminators, but I was wrong.) His Predator nuked the Sicaran, and his Bolter Chosen glanced the rear armour of my Dread to death...

This was not looking good..

I dropped my Ironclad in the spot between a Nurgle Marine blob, his Cultist blob and the Helbrute (who was facing the opposite direction). I penned with the melta on the Ironclad, and glanced the rear armour with the heavy flamer, but that only pissed it off.

My Storm Talon swooped in and attempted to wrest control of the skies. Out gunned and outnumbered for the occasion he only managed to glance one of the Drakes (damn that 5+ invulnerable save!).

The Vindicator decided to get into the action and fired at the enemy Predator, leaving a great big smouldering crater in it's stead. Kaboom!

From the shock of what had occured, the lone Crusader-Archer with his Lascannon decided to fire freely at the enemy fliers! His first shot missed, but he vowed to avenge his brothers in an act of Righteous Zeal.

Nearby, my LRC delivered its payload of Zeal into the blob of Raptors. Oh, the Castellan in this particular blob was Warlord and thus scored me a sweet Furious Charge bonus that turn. Yes the raptors got their Counter Attack, but hey, I shot into it with the Land Raider and killed 4-5 to soften it up! Castellan Carver went toe to toe with the Psyker Witch and thanks to both 7th Editions Updates and the power of the Teeth of Terra, slaughtered the Evil Psyker Witch! Moral victory to the Templars! The Crusaders were lucky and scored a bunch of wounds, while the Raptors couldn't roll 4s to wound to save their lives and lost combat. Chapter Tactics Black Templars and the Crusader USR ended up wiping the abominations from the Emperor's realm once and for all in a beautiful Sweeping Advance (rolled a 6 on the D6 and a 5 on the D3, giving me +9 for my Sweeping Advance. They were meant to die )

Turn 3, Instead of turning to fight the Ironclad with the Helbrute, he opted to charge the remaining Crusaders and Castellan Carver! The Heldrakes were too cowardly to switch to Hover mode, and as such couldn't get an angle to toast the Crusaders (Thank the Emperor for removing the Turret Baleflamer in the FAQ). They opted to Vector strike the Vindicator and my Typhoon, who up to this point hasn't been able to even glance the enemy armour due to terrible luck. Somehow, the Drakes failed this task on both accounts.

The Helbrute and the Cultists charge in to claim victory over my Crusaders. The Cultists only found death as the Teeth of Terra scored the Castellan an extra 3 hits (Woohoo! Rampage!) and the Crusaders focused their efforts on killing the masses. The Helbrute dealt his damage and the Crusaders fell to only 1 Initiate, the Sword Brother and the Castellan. What was left of the Cultists ran in fear of the Emperor's might leaving the 3 Knights to deal with the monstrosity on the following Assault...

The Ironclad, instead of following the Helbrute into combat, left his faith in his stalwart Castellan and decided to remove a few more Heretics who wouldn't be able to defend themselves from his wrath. A full squad of Nurgle Marines were in reach, so he thundered his way over to them and began his zealous cleansing. The Chaos Marines couldn't harm the Venerable Ironclad and fell back. I feel like I'm probably missing something with this bit, but as it turns out Dreadnaughts can Sweeping Advance and Matched the Heretics Initiative test, resulting in the whole unit being destroyed! He then turned his sights on the Forgefiend who'd been nesting nearby taking (terrible) potshots at whatever was around.

The Vindicator saw the remaining Cultists withdrawing and decided some insurance of their demise was needed. As were the dice that game, he hit and killed only 1 with the demolisher cannon. Grr!!

The Lone Archer tried again. His shot hit! A glance on one of the flying monstrosities that had claimed his Brothers. But this would not be enough...

The Storm Talon saw this oppertunity to support his Brother on the ground and also fired at the now wounded Heldrake. The Assault Cannon pummelled the flier and brought it down! One bogey down, one to go.

The Land Raider was getting bored, so it rolled over to the Vindicator (the only thing left on the board with a weapon scary enough to punch through it's holy armour) and fired a melta shot right through the siege shield and detonated the Heretical vehicle. Things were turning around!

The Castellan took his attacks on the Helbrute to no avail, leaving the Sword Brother and the Initiate to take a single krak-grenade shot each at the beast while it attacked back. In an act of unrivalled faith, the Sword Brother crammed the Krak grenade down the beast's throat just before he met his end. Only the Castellan was left standing.

Turn 4. The Other Drake thought it best to flee and regroup at a better angle! Into Ongoing reserves with him!

The Bolter Chosen and the other Nurgle marine unit positioned themselves to flank Castellan Carver and pummelled him with bolter rounds! Like a true Knight of the Emperor, he shrugged off ALL of the abuse barring 2 wounds, leaving him hurt but very much alive!

The Forgefiend was getting worried with that Ironclad being so close and scored a solid 2 glances! Impressive, given how badly the daemon engine had been aiming all day...

The Ironclad could have toppled the beast in an act of vengeance, but he had something more fun in mind. He charged the other Nurgle marine squad and decided to go for another full squad wipe. He stormed his way into combat and tore 3 heretics apart before they knew what hit them! However they escaped the combat (Why, oh why can't Dreadnaughts have Chapter Tactics?) and headed for their table edge at full tilt.

Castellan Carver, in a last ditch effort threw himself at the Bolter Chosen. A whopping 10 inch charge distance (not through cover, so unmodified). He rolled an 11!! However the unholy bolter squad summoned the favours of the dark gods and felled the mighty Knight in overwatch. (about half of the overwatch shots hit... it was incredible)

Turn 5 the remaining Drake swept across the table at full speed and vectored the Storm Talon. Sustaining only a glance, the Storm Talon was dazed by the blitzkrieg, but he was far from finished...

The Forgefiend finally did something useful and took down the Ironclad as he pursued the fleeing Chaos marines. Oh no

The Chosen also boltered the Typhoon to death. The Land Speeder had yielded me literally nothing that game so it wasn't a huge loss, but it added to the ever escalating body count of the unorthodox Heretic squad.

He saw his chance. The Lone Archer saw the Heldrake return and fired! Blast it, he missed again!

The Storm Talon decided on something daring... He halted and switched to hover mode, swung around to face the remaining air threat and fire into the rear armour for one last attempt. The Assault Cannon was blessed that day for it both scored a single hit and a single Rending penetrating hit that detonated the dragon-like daemon! The Talon earned his keep, twofold!

The Vindicator and the Land Raider were torn... get vengeance on the Forgefiend? Or smite the Chosen for their sins? Well both had destroyed a Dreadnaught in this battle, but the Chosen had killed the commander! Both focused their weapons on the Chosen killing half of the Heretics...

But they were far from safe... Remember who survived the initial Drake strike earlier on? Castellan Stabber! As if from nowhere, he fell upon the Chosen warriors of Chaos like a hammer to the anvil!

Standing over his freshly earned kills, the Knight-commander looked around at the ruins and destruction around him. Barring the two tanks, the Drake-hunter above and one other Battle-brother were the only remaining brothers on the field. The Heretics still had a squad of Chaos Marines marked with Nurgle, even though they were running in fear, a Forgefiend and-- a Rhino? he thought to himself... How long had that been there? (For whatever reason, once one of the Nurgle squads got out, both my opponent and I had treated that rhino as wrecked! We'd forgotten about it completely! Whoops!)

But how did we fare?

The Heretics had First Blood, and both sides had Slay the Warlord.

We counted the objective cards.. Including the Secondary Objectives, we had reached a tie!

However we both had a Card worth D3. Mine for Slaying the Warlord and his for having several units near his table edge.


We rolled:
Chaos's D3: 2
Templar's D3: 3


Minor Victory to the Black Templars!!

Ultimately a really close game and a lot of dice rolls were getting stupid. The first turn was full of shots fired that scored both sides basically nothing (It wasn't even night fighting!)

Hope you guys enjoy this read!

(I know my last Batrep I said images would start to appear in my posts, but my phone was dead and I was playing this game with the hopes of just relaxing after a rough Exam week... It never occurred to me to take pictures... Won't happen again!)

[Sete]

Very enjoyable read. Congrats on the victory brother!

[Beor]

An entertaining read, and congratulations on your victory! Another score for the holiest of templars!

Maybe promote that lone lascannon initate to stalker/hunter duty and give him a real chance to gun down some of those nasty drakes ;) 

[Marshal Zaccheus]

Great battle report Brother Darklight. Congrats on the victory!

[ThatOneMarshal]

I enjoyed the battle report, Congrats with the win hope to see more!

[SCOTT_FRANCIS]

Holy poop, that got brutal, real quick.

 

Glorious sacrifices, amazing last stands, zealous revenge and a battlefield full of dead bodies and wrecked vehicles. Best of all, A DEAD WITCH.

 

Well fought Brother, a hard won victory. 

[Marshal Mattias]

Good job, glad to see that when the odds shifted against you, still you suffered not the unclean to live. Pictures aren't everything - so often they seem great when I take them, then I realise that even with my notes it is impossible to tell exactly what is happening there. Also, don't underestimate how much longer the game takes if you're trying to get nice shots!

[Honda]

Well done brother on a hard earned victory. Do make sure that you add your tally to the Abhor the Witch thread.

[hart3856]

What a great read!! Sounds like an amazing battle!!

[incinerator950]

With a list like yours, I'd find ot difficult for him to secure a win regardless.

[Brother Darklight]

Seems this went over well! haha.  Thanks brothers!

 

@Beor:  I do have a freshly assembled Storm Talon... might have to move him up into the skies as part of Drake Hunter squadron :P

 

@Marshal Mattias:  We never cared to share images of our stuff initially because we play on a 4x6 piece of bare plywood, and use game cases n such as terrain.  I recently acquired a set of Spartan Games' modular base terrain, though. Also we're looking at getting some green felt or something to put over the plywood. Soon our gaming table will be at least halfway presentable. lol

 

@Honda: Not a bad plan :P

@Incinerator: yeah, my list was pretty powerhousey, but he usually brings a lot more shenanigans to the table.  Not to mention, I didn't want to load up the board with more Crusaders because I knew those Heldrakes would be there.  We're not competitive, per se, but we tend to lean towards putting things on the table that annoys one another.  (We're all close friends so it's all in good sport)