Redtoof's Chaos Battles

[Redtoof]

Edit: many of my images were infected with scrap code and were exterminated. I resolved to create a blog and continue to fight the long war from there. https://redtoof.blogspot.co.uk/

 

Hello

 

Since I've been playing 8th I've been doing battle reports for most of my games in order to relive the glory/learn from my mistakes (usually the later). Hopefully they are also in some way entertaining.

 

I've not done one for my Alpha Legion yet, though I did do a mini report for a campaign say at warhammer world (http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/336949-fate-of-konor-week-6-death-of-a-world/?p=4838882), but I finally got a game in with the new codex last week, so here it is. Word of warning first though, I'm using an iPad for my pics, so they are not great. It was a very dark afternoon as well so low light didn't help. Anyway...

 

I played a 2000 point game, maelstrom mission Spoils of War against regular opponent John who is currently in a Necron mood. His list was a Battalion plus Spearhead, with, and I might have got some of these names wrong; Necron Lord, Cryptek, Cryptek dude with spider legs, the Nightbringer, 2*20 warriors, tomb spyder, 2*3 scarab swarms, Annihilation barge, gun croissant, forge world pylon, forge world tomb centipede.

 

My army was a double Battalion with 2 lords, 2 sorcerers, 6*10 cultists, 2 rhinos (with combi weapons), 2 predators (1 auto and las, 1 all las), 5 Terminators with combi plas and a reaper, 3*5 special weapon havocs with mostly plasma, 5 havocs with autocannon. All the havocs are Slaanesh, the rest are Tzeentch.

 

 

Deployment. I have a line of cultists and all my characters plus some havocs shoved in the rhinos, ready to advance to protect nearby objectives. I also used Forward Operatives to 'infiltrate' a havoc squad. John had a big line of necrons on one flank, with the Nightbringer hanging on the other with some scarabs. I finish deploying first and go first.

 

 

Havocs sneak up to an objective to shoot up some warriors.

 

 

I draw objectives, among them is a priority order for my warlord (Chaos Lord with the Black Mace) to go claim objective 6, which is where the Nightbringer is. I had planned to shove him and his havoc buddies into the warriors to try and overwhelm one squad on turn 2, but since this was worth 4 points, he had to get out and commandeer the other rhino to get to his destination.

 

The other Lord also got out to babysit the preds and auto havocs. They did their job, removing the Pylon on turn one before I had to find out what it does, and damaging the croissant. In other news I used Veterans of the Long War and Endless Cacophony on the advanced Havocs, after dice happened this resulted in a warrior unit losing not many models.

 

 

The havoc's armour saves were about as good as their shooting, and the necrons killed them off with ease. In hindsight not a wise use of a command point. Elsewhere the Nightbringer moved forward and killed some cultists on the objective. The croissant and tesla gun barge shot one of my rhinos with little effect. I think I might have stolen an objective thanks to the Mission special rule as well.

 

 

My turn 2. The Nightbringer has a scarab sheild in front of him, but nothing behind, leaving my Terminators free to teleport in. I draw an objective from the chaos codex where one of my characters has to kill an enemy character, I wonder if there will be much of the Nightbringer left for my warlord to get that one. I disembark havocs and sorcerers, while the warlord in the rhino rushes towards objective 6. Sorcerer casts Death Hex on the Nightbringer, and the Terminators, using VotLW stratagem, supercharge their plasma...

 

 

Note: the 6 was another 1 before a command point was used. Two Terminators die in exchange for two hits. Luckily the one with the Reaper knows what he's doing, and the Nightbringer is reduced to 2 wounds. In other shooting my big guns take out the flyer. It crashes, wounding the Tomb Spyder and the Annihilation Barge. I use Endless Cacophony on the auto havocs to finish off the Spyder.

 

 

Cultists charge scarabs to clear the way (they don't.)

 

 

Rhino and cultists (that order, naturally) charge a warrior squad to hold it up and stop shooting. Just for a little bonus the Sorcerer gave them a 5+ invulnerable for that.

 

 

Nope nope nope!

 

 

Necrons move around to take shots at cultists and havocs. John thinks the yellow squad can target the Sorcerer by the havoc unit, until I point out he cultists behind them. Good job Cultists!

 

The Centipede's shooting is disappointing, only killing one havoc (the champion, as is tradition). Lots of cultists die however. The Nightbringer also kills two more Terminators.

 

 

This turn I have the assassinate card, so I will get 2 points if a character kills an enemy character, and I will get 4 points if my warlord is holding objective 6. Warlord and Sorcerer charge the Death Hexed Nightbringer. The warlord nearly dies to overwatch, but gets lucky with invulnerable saves.

 

 

I use Warptime to suicide charge the other Sorcerer into a cryptek to cover myself if my other character fail. Luckily they do not, and I claim all 6 points this turn, putting me handily in the lead. I also kill the centipede, who suffered from severe new model syndrome.

 

 

At this point John pretty much just has warriors and the barge left. However there are a lot of warriors, and they are killing all my infantry that get anywhere near them. He draws some defend objective cards that his warriors can stand on, and works towards closing the gap.

 

 

Over the last few turns I draw cards to kill a unit, kill a unit, and kill a flyer. The barge must die! John hides it away, forcing my to move my predators around to try and hit it. Due to quantum shielding it escapes my lascannons and goes to hide out of line of sight.

 

 

The Auto preds cannot make its armour saves, and the warriors start stripping away it's wounds. The necrons march to cover the flank, hovering up objectives.

 

 

In the closing moments of the game I shove a rhino and my warlord into a Necron unit to stop them killing my cultists on objectives. Both eventually die (causing the Lord by the havocs/preds to suddenly remember he was the Warlord all along) but it works as my cultists steal another objective from John's hand.

 

Final score was 1 point in my favour (14-13). Close one! John bemoans the lack of killing power on most of his units, but the warriors have really carried him close on this one. Great first game with he codex. Hydra Dominatus!

 

Edit: swapped a couple of pics and score amended.

[Azekai]

Glad to see the sons of the Hydra pull off a win! I enjoyed reading your nid and ork reports, and I am glad to see the AL cook some C'tan.  Keep 'em coming!

[hushrong]

That was a good read and I enjoyed the battle report.

 

I also like the paint job you have for your army.

[Redtoof]

I'm back with another Alpha Legion Bat Rep. This time taking on our misguided brothers who believe the lies about their own perfection; the Emperor's Children.

 

Regular opponent John took a tasty list featuring 2 lords on steeds, a Sorcerer with Jump pack (wings), 2x10 noise marines, 2x10 cultists, 2x las/Missile dreads, double butcher Leviathan and a renegade knight with twin thermal cannons. 7 command points I believe.

 

My list was a brigade. Lord with the black mace, 2 sorcerers, 6x10 cultists (3 melee/flamed, 3 guns/stubber), 3x1 chaos spawn, 2x helbrutes with multimeltas, 2x contemptors with multimeltas, 2x9 havocs with 4 plasma guns, 5 havocs with 4 autocannons, Heldrake. 12 Lovely command points.

 

We played Contact Lost (I think) - where you generate cards equal to the number of objectives you hold.

 

 

Deployment. Obviously I finished deploying last. Two units of plasma havocs and the lord used Forward Operatives to deploy just out of 12 inches from the closest noise marines. John's dreads and Leviathan are hiding behind crates and a building deep into his deployment zone.

 

 

Seize the Initiative roll! Aw yis!

 

 

First turn I advance and move up with a lot of stuff. My single first turn card draw is the objective that the Heldrake ends up sitting on, which is nice.

 

 

Between the havocs and melta from the dreads the first noise marines squad is melted into goo. First Blood. The drake and a prescienced plasma squad having another go (Slaanesh on all the havocs of course) put a dent in the second squad.

 

 

John gets moving on his first turn (though mostly shuffling around on the back lines.) As you can see, he is a true servant of chaos.

 

 

Thermal cannons down the drake, while the dreads whiff somewhat. Leviathan and remaining noise marines take a chunk out of the havocs. In return I move up some more. Meltas and Autocannons on the two helbrutes reduce them to 1 and 2 wounds but I am unable to finish them off this turn. Also failed to remove the remaining noise marines squad in spite of Endless Cacophony on a Prescienced havoc squad again. We both score a few points but not much at this stage.

 

 

Return fire removes two of my walkers and cripples a third, though it would have been so much worse without that -1. John tries to Warptime the cultists onto the objective but fails.

 

 

My objective draw on turn 3 is very favourable. All three objectives in or near my deployment zone, currently swarming with cultists.

 

 

My shooting removes the noise marines and the two helbrutes, but the knight barely has a scratch on him and the Leviathan has not been touched. I did have a plan to Warptime the brute up into combat with the Leviathan, but I failed the psychic test (in fact I failed 3 out of 4 powers this turn). I get some cultists up into the deployment zone but, as you can see, the Knight steps up to give them a good kicking.

 

 

The Knight absolutely obliterates the helbrute, while the Leviathan blasts the damaged Contemptor. I use a command point to reroll one of his saves, but fail, and he promptly explodes, hitting a total of 9 units, 8 of them mine, including 2 psykers. Somehow I don't lose any units, (John's 2 man cultist squad are evaporated) but the spawn and characters are living dangerously now.

 

 

The Knight charges some cultists, and stands on a good chunk of them. However, these cultists are actually highly trained anti-armour specialists, as evidenced by their wound rolls on the Knight here. 3 wounds go through.

 

 

In my turn I've still got plenty of cultists, but not a whole lot else. I pick up the Slay the Witch card, and use Warptime on my current warlord to get him up to the Sorcerer. I tried to give him a 3+ invulnerable as well with Weaver of Fates, but failed. (Poor psychic phases were a consistent theme in this game.) In shooting my two remaining plasma gunners overheated and killed themselves trying to put some wounds on the knight, though the Autocannons did good, though not quite enough to degrade it. In assault I killed two spawn charging the Leviathan to try and tie it up, (I forgot it also have flamers) but the lord kills the Sorcerer, and a cheeky Spawn who charged in with him manages to pile in onto the contemptor anyway.

 

 

One embarrassed Knight with a tide of cultists laughing at him.

 

 

In revenge the Knight melts some autocannon havocs, after morale leaving one alive. Pink cultists kill my brave Operatives. The Knight charges a havoc champion and a Sorcerer, splitting his attacks. The champion falls but the wounded Sorcerer survives on 1 wound! The other wounded Sorcerer, who had backed off to cast Prescience on the havocs, suddenly remembers that he is actually in charge as the Lord falls to the opposing Warlord.

 

 

In my turn I get priority orders for my warlord to get into the Emperor's Children deployment zone. Disappointingly I had just made the furthest away Sorcerer the warlord, so he goes running back towards the enemy. He makes it just outside of the deployment zone, so I use the other Sorcerer to cast Warptime on him. Naturally I fail, and at this point have no command points left. However the two sorcerers partially redeem themselves by casting Smite on the knight and taking off a massive 8 wounds (I think) reducing it to 2. My lone surviving Havoc takes aim, and fells the mighty machine! I score the big game hunter card.

 

In response, the remaining Emperor's Children kill the sorcerers, removing my last units from their side of the board, and scoring slay the warlord as well as other points, including secure objective 3 that had been right in front of him the whole time.

 

 

The game continues on to turn 7, with the Emperor's Children finally breaking into my deployment zone. The butcher cannons on the Leviathan do horrible, horrible things to cultist squads, but I have too many for him to table me at this stage. I only have cultists and a single heroic havoc left at the end. They try valiantly to score Assassinate on the lord, reducing him to 2 wounds, but it's not quite enough. In the last turn John decides against charging the Knight-slayer in case overwatch denies him linebreaker and earns me assassinate.

 

We count the cards, and John is very surprised that, thanks to some good rolls on D3 objective cards, he takes the game 17-15. Very close, and could have swung either way on many many key moments. I had some great luck but also had some failures on key rolls. Quite the epic!

 

I was fairly impressed with all my -1 to hits, and cultists are always handy. I liked the dreads, but the knight and the Leviathan were monsters when it came to killing them. Still not sure if I prefer Dreads or Preds. I think the Heldrake was nice though. Died first turn but it forced the issue. If it hadn't died it would be charging the Leviathan and being a real pain. All in all, feeling fairly good about the Alpha Legion.

[Mekhitar]

I love the rep - which I am sure took ages to write! - and the many images. Thank you!

 

I do feel obligated to point out that since the heldrake is a flyer (per force org), it cannot capture objectives. :( I’d love for someone to point out I am wrong on this though...

[Brother Clavero]

Love these   !!!

[Redtoof]

I love the rep - which I am sure took ages to write! - and the many images. Thank you!

I do feel obligated to point out that since the heldrake is a flyer (per force org), it cannot capture objectives. :( I’d love for someone to point out I am wrong on this though...

Thanks :)

 

At first we thought the Heldrake couldn't capture, but couldn't find a rule to that effect, chalking it up to 'it was like that in the last edition'. We don't tend to use flyers much so I didn't know for sure. All I know is if you've only got flyers left, you lose.

[Mekhitar]

I did find it - it’s not in the released FAQ, but was previewed as a change in Chapter Approved called “Boots on the Ground”. I suppose it is not technically in effect yet for matched play (?) but is in the same boat as “+1 to first turn roll for deploying first”.

 

It’s all a bit confusing as there are the actual FAQ documents and then chapter approved, not even really out yet, too...

 

Anyway! I hope you share future games with us, and I am inspired to perhaps document some of my own, though the time I did so in the past... th writeup takes forever! I appreciate the effort you put into this :) and the completeness of your battlefield...

[Redtoof]

Hello again. Got the Alpha Legion out of the shadows for a cool all chaos doubles game recently. I teamed up with regular opponent John's Emperor's Children to face irregular opponents Colin and Ken with Word Bearers and Night Lords respectively. It was 1000 points each, max of 2 detachments per person, though in practice we each took one.

 

My list was a Battalion featuring Lord and Sorcerer, both in Terminator armour, 3*10 cultists, 2 Contemptor dreads with multi meltas, 2 plasma havoc squads. Everything was Tzeentch apart from the havocs, who were Slaanesh, obviously.

 

John took a Vanguard with a jump pack lord, 3 Decimators with storm lasers and soul burners and 2 plasma havoc squads in a dreadclaw.

 

Colin took a Spearhead. He had a Khorne prince, a cultist unit and 6 havoc squads. One full melta, one full plasma and the rest a mix of autocannon, heavy bolters and missile launchers.

 

Ken took a Vanguard detachment. He had a prince, 2 units of cultists and 3 units of Terminators with assorted weapons. (Each had at least a melta, flamer and reaper.) I think they were all Slaanesh.

 

We played one of the chapter approved eternal war missions: Resupply Drop - where on turn 3, 6 objectives become 2.

 

 

Colin and Ken finished deployment slightly ahead of us, though we had plenty of off board units, including my two havocs who would 'infiltrate' to the central building for cover and good firing positions. They got first turn.

 

 

Turn one, princes swing round to a flank ready to cause mayhem later. Plas and melta havocs advance up and Terminators drop in all over the board. Some cultists die on our flank, and a couple of my havocs are killed. The word Bearers unleash hell on the Decimators, killing off one and perhaps unlucky to only wound a second.

 

 

Return fire! My havocs move up into rapid fire range, Contemptors rush to engage Terminators. Thanks to their spread of troops there isn't a good spot for the dreadclaw so John's Havocs stay off the board for now. My characters drop down to buff my havocs. I cast prescience on the full plas havoc squad and overcharge against Terminators. Ken drops In Midnight Clad so I'm back to 3+ with a chance of hot plasma death on my guys. As luck would have it my havocs all live and the Terminators are dropped to one man. My lord opens up with his combi melta on the last one. Hit, wound, failed save. Rolled 1 for damage. Second havoc squad and the Decimators kill off the plasma havocs and all but one of the melta guys and another terminator squad. Contemptors charge and kill more Terminators.

 

 

Turn two and the Khorne prince piles in. Shooting drops another Decimator but my Contemptors get away without damage. Prince kills off my full havoc squad (though takes some damage from overwatch) and the last terminator by the building charges my other havocs, reducing them to 2 models. In response our shooting is pretty bad. We kill off a few havocs but the lone melta survives a hail of autogun fire and a multimelta, continuing to get in the way of our preferred drop point for the dreadclaw, which will need to come in next turn.

 

 

We fail to kill the Khorne prince with shooting, so charge it with both lords. The Sorcerer charges into the one terminator, killing him off. We reduce the Word Bearer prince to 1 wound, but he survives!

 

 

Turn three and objectives start disappearing. The one at the far end of the board near havocs in the building remains. Khorne prince tags out and Night Lords one takes over, charging into my Sorcerer. Shooting fails to kill off the Decimator, who is left on one wound. Somehow my Sorcerer survives.

 

 

Thanks to some cultists moving/being killed by a Contemptor, we have a spot for our dreadclaw by the havocs in the building. Plasma gets out and melts one of the squads. We finally kill off that one melta gunner. Decimator whiffs and suffers damage from it's soul burner, reducing it to one wound (after it regenerated one).

 

 

My Lord charges the prince, while the Slaanesh lord jumps over to assassinate the one wound Khorne prince. One down, one to go. In other news, a bunch of cultists die.

 

In response the Prince kills off my lord, while the last Decimator is shot to death.

 

 

Getting to the end game. Contemptor and Dreadclaw jump on objective, while my cultists get to the other one. We kill off a bunch more havocs, leaving the heavy Bolter/auto guys and a single missile launcher. Elsewhere my other Contemptor whiffs with the multi melta on the remaining prince.

 

 

At the end the one missile launcher kills off the entire cultist squad, and the other havocs finish my Sorcerer. The prince kills the Slaanesh lord. The claw flies back to cover the objective and our havocs finish off their havocs. My Contemptor fails to hit the prince again, but kills off the last cultists and charges in. Prince ends up surviving, last model on their side. We roll for it and get another turn. Prince polishes off the Contemptor, and in our last turn my last Contemptor lines up to fire his multi melta at the last Night Lord. Unlike his fallen brother he hits, but then fails to wound.

 

In the end, one enemy model survives. We're heavily depleted but have enough to cover the objectives and grab linebreaker. Great game. A couple of dodgy shooting phases in the middle on both sides meant the game could have gone either way.

[Clingy]

I do enjoy your batreps. Cheers for posting. Played any Admech recently?

[Redtoof]

I did a chaos Bat Rep again. It's here: https://redtoof.blogspot.co.uk/2018/05/battle-report-chaos-marines-vs-space.html