A trip down memory lane

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I recently played a couple of games against this army, with another good longtime and mutual friend at the helm and thought I would share that here.  He hasn't really played 40K since 4th edition - which, combined with me being unfamiliar with the space marine rules, led for some, well, very loose games.  Still, they were a lot of fun for both of us.

 

I apologize that these reports are from the chaos player's (my) point of view rather than that of the featured army.

 

For my list, we took turns choosing units off of my shelf until we had the required number of points - I did this because I didn't want a too powerful list (which might happen if I chose all of what I thought were the best units) but also wanted a workable list (which might not work if he chose all the units without any knowledge of list synergies).  Both lists are 1500 points.

 

Anyway, here's a picture of my army:

 

 

It was:

 

Lucius (my choice - wanted to try him out)

Dark Apostle (his choice)

10x traitor guardsman squad with flamer and grenade laucher (his choice, these used to be cultists before cultists lost their non-CCW options)

2x 10 man cultist squads (both my choice)

10x noise marines with sonic blasters and blastmaster (my choice)

10x legionaires with pistols and swords, with heavy melee weapon and plasma pistol (my choice)

10x Possessed (his choice and the last choice, otherwise I would have taken a MoP to lead them)

Hellbrute with power fist, heavy flamer and scourge (his choice, and how I'm fielding my 2x scourge model so that its legal)

Forgefiend (his choice, though I swapped its autocannons for ectoplasms)

Defiler (I think this was my choice, but he would have chosen it if I hadn't)

Venomcrawler (his choice)

 

I used the renegade raiders detachment.

 

Here is his army, which hasn't seen the table since 4th edition:

 

 

To my recollection (I'm not familiar with the space marine codex) it was:

 

Captain with master crafted bolt rifle and power weapon (the tallarn guy in the front - my late friend's on table avatar)

Librarian Tiburius (the guy with the sword in the front)

4x 10 man tactical squads, with the following squad weapons: a) flamer and missile, b) gravgun and multimelta, c) plasma and gravcannon and d) plasma and missile.

10 man assault squad

5 man terminator squad with heavy flamer

Autocannon predator with 2x lascannons and stormbolter

Whirlwind

Dreadnought with assault cannon - not sure what his weapon on his fist was, I think we mostly forgot about it.

 

HIs detachment was the one from the Index that gave the choice of doctrines which let you do 2 things you couldn't otherwise (run and shoot, run and charge, fall back and shoot).

 

Both games were generated using the Leviathan cards, with its secondary scoring system.

 

First game was a weird one, where only the no mans land objectives were scoring but were movable - and scored based on how close they were (within 12", within 6" and within) to your opponent's deployment zone.  Deployment was in the two opposite table quarters.  Here is a picture of deployment - the central terrain is LOS blocking.

 

 

I got first turn and was able to dominate the game, in part by getting a 6" run with my venowcrawler with denied him use of his teleport homer.  As such, I was in first contact with all three objectives and was able to move them to score.

 

Some pictures of memorable moments:

 

 

First turn, through use of the run-and-charge raiders stratagem, my helbrute got in with the one tactical squad and ate most of it first turn.  In response, his various tac squads blew it off the table on his turn.

 

 

Second turn, my defiler was down to 4 wounds remaining from my enemy's shooting, but finished off the whirlwind (which it, the forgefiend, the venowcrawler and the noise marine blastmaster had been shooting at for both turns),  got in with his dreadnought and munched it, but....

 

 

Was in turn taken down by Librarian not-Tigirius after having been reduced to 2 wounds by my opponent's shooting.  I think the predator also killed the venowcrawler that round.

 

On (my) left flank, my possesseds dominated, largely eating a squad of tactical marines (which they finished off turn two with the help of my legionaires), then largely wiping out the assault marines turn 2 despite being charged by same and reduced to 1/2 size.  My forgefiend inflicted 8 wounds on itself in 2 rounds of shooting between a failed dark pacts test and hazardous rolls, before being taken off the table by my opponent's tac squad doing a further 6 wounds, of which only 3 were needed to finish it off.  My friend deepstruck his terminators, wiping out my cultist squad, but it was too little too late.  Here's a picture of that part of the table at the end of turn 2.

 

 

We called it at the end of turn 2, as my friend felt he didn't have enough left to turn things around (based on the photo, I seem to have killed his predator as well, though I don't recall exactly how).  The score was 44 to 10 in my favour.

 

Second Game was the same lists, but my friend swapped out one of his missile launchers for a lascannon, which was a good choice.  Mission was that characters on objectives in no mans land scored an extra 3 points per objective.  I let my friend have first turn.  Here's initial deployment from his side of the board.

 

 

In this game, while I was able to dominate the game tactically, he was able to put the hurt on me and the game went all the way to end by which point I had only a couple of units left.

 

Here's a picture at the end of the first turn:

 

 

As it shows, I shoved everything up the board - my venomcrawler is already dead by this point, but I already control 3 of the 5 objectives through the "sticky objective" ability of the cultists (that's what the scales token next to the objective in my deployment indicates) - didn't quite make it to the central objective on the hill, and my character wasn't in range yet of the objective at the bottom of the photo.  Note the assault troops deepstruck in the back - they lost 1/2 their numbers to the noise marines, who were the only ones who could see them and were within range.

 

Here's the end of the second turn:

 

 

I am now on top of the mountain, and hold both that objective and the one to its right (in the photo) with my two characters (Lucius on the hill, Dark Apostle on the one below). 

 

On the right, you can see my hellbrute has made its charge into the woods (again thanks to the run-and-charge stratagem) with my possesseds right behind. 

 

On the other side of the hill, however, I basically only have a few cultists left, who between the terminators coming down there, the assault squad, some tac marines with not-Tigirius and other assorted shooting have all been wiped out.  My defiler appears to be allergic to librarians (or not-Tigirus in particular) as that's what again killed it, though this time in shooting. 

 

Following my opponent's shooting, Lucius and his squad takes fearsome casualties and are down to 4 noise marines.  My opponent has now learned that the whirlwind is optimally designed for killing marines and is no longer shooting it at cultists and possesseds, like he did in the previous game and the first turn.  Here they are looking very lonely and exposed.

 

 

Here's a picture of the end of turn 3:

 

 

On my opponent's turn, he shifts much of his fire into the possesseds and helbrute, killing the helbrute and taking out some of the possesseds.  This reduces the fine on my central noise marines, which combined with some poor rolling by my opponent, sees them surviving with only 2 casualties.  Here's a picture of them still feeling very lonely in face of the amassed forces - in the back you can see the cultist champion still somehow alive against the assault marine sergeant.  The last cultist would then  finally die in my melee phase.

 

 

We then had a short pause as the table was visited by the local furry monster Grace.  Fortunately, there were no casualties, but she does seem to be admiring my dead pile.

 

 

On the next turn, my opponent finally wipes out Lucius and friends, but only after a ridiculous amount of matrix-style dodges from Lucius - I swear, he soaked up about half my enemy's firepower before finally being felled by the tac squad by my possesseds, who then lost a few marines to Lucius' "mortals on death" ability - I was actually hoping to be killed by the whirlwind, as the mortals might have killed it (which would have brought Lucius back - his rules are weird) but that was not to be.  My possesseds would munch his tac squad, and then in my enemy's melee phase my opponent's Captain.

 

Here's a picture at the end of the game showing my 2 surviving units:

 

 

Final score was a closer 63 to 40 in my favour, though I think I missed counting my sticky objective for a turn or 2 - my opponent's score was largely from secondaries, though he did hold his deployment objective for about half the game.

 

All in all, some fun games with a good long time friend against an army that might not be the best this edition but has a load of sentimental value.

Edited August 9 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Firedrake Cordova]

Nice battle report and armies - the Space Marine force is certainly a trip down memory lane.

 

That Greater Fur Daemon which appears to have been manifested is truly terrifying, though