Iron Warriors Iron Warrior league list and questions

[Galron]

Got a new league with my first game tomorrow. I keep changing my armies. Literally on a daily basis. I dont apologize. Except to the TO who has to keep changing the spreadsheet. Once I get a game in then the army will be set.

Here is the list I am planning on using at 500 points

priest dude with MoS, Bastion, illusionary supplication

cultists x10 (couldnt afford points for any of my 100+ legionaires and a spell book :(  )

Terminators x5, Rune(duh), reaper, chainfist, MoS

Vindicator with siege shield. Totally for the LoLs

My IW are based on being a siege breaching battalion in 30k so I am carrying that over to 40k despite being short on marine troops. The fluff idea is to breach holes in walls and storm it with heavy troops, think Star Wars episode 4 when the storm troopers breach the corvette at the beginning of the movie.

Any way, if I go with this army, what secondaries should I be looking at under the new rules? I have heard the IW secondary is a trap overall. 

[Squike]

I would say mark of Slaanesh is wasted on the termi's, chances are at this low points, they aren't going to get multi charged and you are always gonna be fighting second if the one unit charges you. I think you would be better served with Tzeentch or Khorne. 

 

I would also maybe change the WLT for ARCHITECT OF DESTRUCTION, means you can always be getting bonus's for 6's to hit with the vindicator. Or UNYIELDING METTLE to make him a tough little B***ard.

probably worth changing his Mark as well, Khorne could be good again especially if pared with Unyielding Mettle.

Cultists I guess you cant do much with other than make sure you have the most you can have with the left over points... they are a good home objective camper if nothing else.

[Galron]

I have changed my list a bit and dropped the Vindi at 500. Bringing a legionaire squad with reaper cannon and warp book with mark of slaanesh for delightful agonies.

This is long term why I had the MoS previously, but not paying attention that I didnt have anything that keyed off it. Now I do. 

My reasoning for Bastion was he was going to go hang with the terminators and sit on the middle objective and make them Objective secured. Also more useful when I bump up their numbers to 10 but as I see 500 point games as practice for bigger games, I went ahead and equipped them like I would later. 

I am actually considering making this an almost pure infantry list. Should be fun and the whole idea is to make units survivable and aggravating to kill. Not going to go so far as to bring two priests though. Might be a bit overkill.

[Galron]

The Iron Warriors heavy patrol wandered through the wastes. A terminator unit clomped down the dusty road with Iron Chaplain Kharax just behind him. Off to their right was a squad of power armored marines moving through the ruins.

To their right was a squad of their trained guardsmen serfs. No mere cannon fodder, these. They were trained in siege warfare and equipped with basic flak armor and rebreathers as well as better quality weapons than the actual cultist and slave trash. This squad was currently setting up a comm relay in a taller building so they could communicate with the Siege Breaker to the rear.

Their mission was to investigate some machinery that was putting out odd signals and see who might be interested in it.

"I still dont see why they sent us. Terminators suit arent designed for patrolling." Oxide said turning his tusked helm to look at his squad leader.

"Can it, Ox. Herculon said he wasnt this place checked out in a hurry so we are checking out in a hurry." Their long time sergeant Foehammer replied. No one knew his real name, he had used this name since the Heresy and was a lone survivor of his squad at Istvaan.

"If it was such a hurry, they could have at least given us a Land Raider." Oxide responded, "'Ey! Since when are you on a first name basis with the Siege Breaker?"

"Since I pulled his ass from the wreck of a Knight that fell on him, four hundred years or so ago."

"As to your other question, Oxide," The Iron Chaplain cut in on their comm channel, " Why we are humping our gear across this hell hole is above all of our pay grades."

From the second floor of the building their right, a legionnaire commed,"Sir, ahead, necro---"

His warning was cut off as a "fuzzy" green beam of light from the other side of the large building at the head of the street streaked out and removed the marine's upper torso. 

"Guess we found somthing!" Oxide said happily. He hefted his huge autocannon to point in the general direction where a floating necron destroyer with a massive gun floated above some rust covered wreckage. 'Lets rock!"

He fired a volley of the high caliber rounds putting a large smoking hole in the half humanoid metal creature's shoulder, the other sparking off its head. 

So I faced off against a troop heavy necron force. Both of our forces were lacking on ranged fire, he had a single heavy destroyer while I had a terminator with an autocannon. His force was simply an overlord, 10 warriors, 5 immortals, 3 scarabs and 3 wraiths.

Mine was priest with Bastion, 6 marines one with reaper chain cannon, one with the tome and delightful Agonies, 5 terminators with MoS with a chainfist on the sgt and a reaper chain cannon, and 10 cultists. 

Mission was recon which uses the weird diagonal end of the board deployment which takes a bit of math of figure out what the dimensions are on the small board size. He took 2 necron secondaries and the mission secondary. I took Engage(meh), The Long War(even more meh) and raise the banners high(ok).

My T1: I got first turn and moved my terminators over to the left center objective and moved my marines forward along the left side. I left the cultists on the home objective in a building and had them raise banners. I put Illusionary Supplication on the terms and the Tome dude cast Delightful Agonies on them as well. Terminator with AC was the only dude in range of the heavy destroyer and he did 2 damage. Necron T1: He moved up to both his objectives and one did ancient machineries and the other reconned. There was a large building in the center blocking a lot of LOS so I honestly dont know where most of his guys were. The wraiths stayed behind the wall looking for a T2 charge. His heavy destroyer popped a marine. 

My T2: My terminators moved onto the left objective and used the strat that lets me shoot and do actions and raised banners on the left objective. Both buff powers were enacted on terms. marines moved forward in the building they were in to get some necrons in range. Terms only had the single destroyer in  LOS so they shot it down in a blaze of bolt fire. The marines in the building killed a scarab and damaged a second scarab(not that it matters with living metal), Necron T2: He moved his warriors up to get them all in LOS of the terminators. Wraiths moved up to get a 6" charge on the terminators. immortals did recon. Scarabs and the lord stayed behind the building. Warrior shooting actually killed a lone terminator thanks to -4 AP reapers. Wraiths however wiffed pretty bad on their assault and only almost killed a terminator. The priest heroically intervened and in addition to the terminator's stand firm killed a wraith. 

My T3: marines moved forward and shot into the warriors. Both powers landed on the terminators. Inflicted a couple wounds on the warriors. Terms and priest thanks to Attack First killed the wraiths and consolidated forward a bit. Marines charged the warriors and lost 2.5 marines to overwatch leaving the reaper on one wound, the sgt, and the tome guy. Necron T3: He moved his lord and remaining scarabs up while remaining in cover. Immortals due to terrain only had a shot on the cultists and killed one, just out of rapid fire range :) .I have no idea how many warriors died in close combat with the marines and I think I successfully used a reroll on an armor save. 

My T4: Terminators and priest moved over for a multi-charge and the cultists managed to shoot and kill an immortal. Charge was successful and I put the sergeant onthe lord, a termy on the scarabs, two and the priest on the immortal. Wiffed on the scarabs, killed 4 immortals and did a single damage to the lord who failed to retaliate. Also killed a warrior or two with no reply. His T4: His entire army was engaged so we went straight to the fight phase where all my Slaanesh units went first. So immortal died and priest moved forward. Scarabs went down, and warriors went down.

My T5: Marines ran back into their corner. Priest moved onto an objective. Terminators killed the lord and consolidated over to the priest.

End score was 59-26(I think). Go Silver. So raise banners was my best secondary. 500 points is tough to do a list taking advantage of secondaries with. I did max my primaries, mostly because I sat on an objective all game with my cultists, my terms had Objective secure thanks to Bastion and my opponent kept pushing units forward off his own objectives.

The 5++ only really helped me once. I am thinking I should add a havoc squad with chaincannons to my next 500 points instead and have them accompany the terminators as mass fire support. His list would have been much better served with a technomancer instead of a lord at 500 points where every model is needed but that might just be my bias towards technomancers.

Next up vs Night Lords.

Edited August 19, 2022 by Galron

[Galron]

"Our objective is to recover a relic." The Iron Chaplain briefed the former Dominator squad. "We will approach the objective and then disembark the Spartan with an Iron Havok squad and a militia squad backing us up. Then on foot we will walk in and retrieve the relic and then return to base. Should be easy, but as we know it never is. We are aware that knowledge of this relic has reached the scum of the Night Lords."

"Sweet!" Oxide said out loud, "Emo blue boys with daddy issues!"

The chaplain rolled his eyes, "Any questions?"

Oxide raised his gauntleted hand, "Me! Me! Pick Me!"

"Anyone besides someone who should have been weeded out during the decimation?"

No other members of the squad answered. "Fine, Oxide."

"Why are we walking? Why not just take a Storm Bird and get it?"

"For some reason things do not fly well near the objective. ANything else?"

"So why not teleport us in and have the Spartan pick us up? We would get there before the edge lords."

"For the same reason that things dont fly there."

"How about our dread claw? Its not stopping gravity. Then we could bring some death storms for fire support."

"Doesnt work and the artifact isnt worth the expenditure of valuable legion resources like Death Storms."

"But its worth risking a 10 thousand year old terminator squad?" Oxide replied and followed with,"Can we just drive the Spartan to the target, drop the ramp, pick it up and away home we go?"

"You are in the squad so yes its worth the risk. No on the Spartan, its too valuable to lose in a firefight." Oxide was about to reply and the chaplain beat him to it. "Enough, we leave in ten." He hefted his oversized black mace of doom onto his shoulder and put his helm on with his other hand.

"Do you have to aggravate him every time?" Foehammer asked.

"Ten thousand years and going." Oxide smiled. "OK, I have a bet with the havoks that we will stack more bodies than them."

"Who do you know in the havok squad?" Foehammer asked.

"Oh, Jacobaddon."

"Who?"

"Jacobaddon," he said motioning over to the Havoc squad who was gearing up. Legion serfs were loading chain linked rounds of ammo into their bulky back packs in hundred round belts. "Silver armor, black shoulders, horns on his head."

"That  describes the entire legion, you moron."

"Oh yeah.," He said and looked over at the havocs, "Yo, Jacobaddon!"

A trooper with a chain cannon with tarnished silver armor and two large horns on his head looked up and waved. "There he is. You think they ever have problems getting through doorways with those horny helms?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So yeah, we played ascension at 500 points. My opponent was Night Lords and the scenario kind of screwed him over since he had planned on Deep Striking turn one. But he could see the scenario ahead of time the same as I did. He had a master of possession, completely bare terminators, warp talons, and bolter and chainsword marines. No upgrades, warlord traits, or anything. I dropped the tac squad and brought a squad of havocs with reaper chain cannons. I also added the Black mace to the priest so I started with no CP. The only secondary I remember him taking was Psychic Interrogation.

His Turn1: He deployed his marines on his rear objective, his terms and talons + MoP were in ruins near the left objective just outside of his deployment zone. I had havocs on home objective behind a soft cover wall. Cultists in the center, my terms and chaplain on my left on the opposite corner from his objective. He jumped his talons onto the center objective to get Ascension points and moved his terms up to his left objective. His shooting peppered the havocs but with a 2+ thanks to terrain, he did no wounds. His MOP was out of range of anything. My Turn 1: I moved my cultists over to the havoc objective and raised banners. Terms moved up to my left objective and did the strat that lets them shoot and do an action and raised a banner. Havoks killed 4 talons. Terms finished off the last one. Yay Long War and Ascension points.

His Turn2: He moved his terms onto the center objective and got his MoP close enough to do Pyschic interrogation and succeeded. Shooting once again did not a single wound. My Turn 2: Terms moved up, cultists ran to my left objective. Shooting killed two terminators. My terms charged his and killed all but one and weirdly, he did 2 damage to one of mine. My terms took the center since they had Objective secured thanks to Bastion from the priest.

His Turn 3: His Mop moved forward and casted flesh pact on his terminator and rolled a 4. He rerolled and rolled a 4. He then tried to smite and rolled a 4. He charged only needing a three and rolled snake eyes. Rerolled and made it and killed one terminator. Mine finished of his last one and did two damage to the MoP. He tried charging his marines and failed the 8" charge. My Turn 3: We killed off the Mop and consolidated into a wall in front of the priest. He charged and lost.

So the remaining turns were me getting engage, maxing out my primaries, raising a banner. I won 87 to 27. Was a fun game and even he had to laugh at his horrible rolls. I only detailed the MoPs but his shooting and combat all around was just BAD.

[Galron]

"OK, who goes raiding with a Vindicator and a foot slogging terminator squad?" Oxide asked as they walked through the ubiquitous ruins of a fallen civilization towards a tall former multi-story building.

"Can it, Oxide." Sergeant Herculon replied

"I mean really, if we were in a hurry for a raid, couldnt they have skipped the Vindicator and given us a Land Raider?"

"Its not for us to ask why." the sergeant said. After a thousand years, he was starting to get exasperated by the "new" guy.

"Isnt the whole purpose of a raid to get in fast and then get out? What are we going to do, strap stuff on our backs?"

"I know." He said just agreeing with him to hopefully shut him up. He was pretty sure the rest of the squad had put him on ignore.

"Jacobaddon said they didnt even give them a rhino. He says those chain cannons and the thousands of rounds they carry are fairly heavy to lug around."

"I know."

"Hell, even the poor militia over there are being forced to keep up with us." He said looking over at the blue and grey armored militia troops moving from cover to cover. It appeared their sergeant was running drills and maneuvers as they moved.

"Does he always complain this much?" The Iron Chaplain who strolled casually behind the Dominator squad asked. He own attendants were wheezing as they struggled to keep up, one with an over sized brazier and one bent over with a giant book on his back. 

A trailing terminator reached over and picked the loaded down book bearer up with one hand by the book stand, "Here, let me help you with that." He growled as the emaciated man's legs dangled in the air.

"Pretty much." the sergeant answered the Chaplain.

"And you havent shot him yet?" The commander asked incredulously."My finger is itching on my bolt pistol every time I hear him."

"You get used to him." 

"Aww thanks, sarge." Oxide said happily.

"Besides, if we shot him then we would have to teach someone else to use that reaper autocannon and then they would have to lug it around. Its a net negative.''

The clanking Vindicator next to them suddenly stopped and a huge boom erupted from its huge bored demolisher cannon. From behind a nearby building a large explosion erupted sending parts of Tau battlesuits flying through the air. A devilfish transport was visible as it nosed around a building behind the suits. "Look, Sir!" Oxide yelled excitedly, "Smurfs!"

He let rip with his autocannon and sparks spanged off the armored prow of the hovertank.

"What the hell is a smurf?"

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Third game of the league, got my last one of this round tonight.

We are at 1k points and played Desperate Raid vs a tau army. This mission allows you to control objectives even after you leave them. He was relatively new. I had 7 Rune terminators with AC and a chainfist, my reaper chaincannon havoks, 10 cultists(militia), 5 legionaires with book and missile launcher plus a priest. with Bastion and Black Mace. I took Long War, engage and raise banners.

Opponent had Farsight, a coldstar commander, a close range crisis suit team and a CIB crisis team, plus kroot, 10 breachers and a devilfish. He took a tau secondary, engage and banners.

I won the roll off and started with Havoks and legionaires on my two home objectives(right and left sides) and the cultists on right near the havoks. My Vindicator was on the left in front of legionaires at the deployment line and the terminators and chaplain were beside it. He deployed the kroot in the far right, firewarriors on the far left behind a building, both on home objectives. The devilfish was near the FW(they might have been in it and disembarked). Farsight  and coldstar was behind a middishfield building and the close ranger crisis suits were in front of him, but due to size reasons were visible to my Vindicator and terminators as was the nose of the DF. My raptors and his CIB crisis were in reserve.

T1: Vindicator and termies moved forward towards the left center objective. Priest spell went off. Havoks with nothing to shoot and legionaires did raise banners. Vindicator fired off a blast at the crisis, rolled 5 shots and had three 6s giving me 7 hits. Wiped the crisis squad. Terminator fired on the devilfish and failed to wound, nothing else was in range or in LOS. His T1: He did banners with FW and kroot. His DF moved forward and nosed the left center objective(I didnt think he had the movement but I let him have it), Farsight moved behind the DF, and the cold star moved up to shoot and charge the Vindicator. He failed to score a single wound on either the Vindy or the terminators. He charged the Vindicator...who overwatched... and rolled 3 sixes to hit and took 15 damage.

 

T2: Vindicator moved up onto the objective. Terminators slogged forward. Raptors dropped on the right center objective within range of the DF or FS. I fired the raptors and legionaries at the DF and inflicted 8 damage. I popped Tank Destroyers on my terminators and did enough damage to destroy it leaving Farsight directly in front of the Vindicator who promptly fired and got just enough damage through thanks to a CP reroll to kill FS. HIS T2: He brings his breachers and kroot forward and lands his crisis team just behind the kroot on the "far" side of the board to threaten the raptors. His shooting his breachers at the termies does 2 damage actually. The crisis wipe the raptors after the kroot did a little damage to them. 

 

T3: Moved termies onto the objective and raised banners(used strat to allow them to shoot and do action). Legionaries and havoks moved forward. Cultists moved onto the center right objective and made rude gestures to the battle chickens. Havoks were still out of sight from the crisis so they shot and wiped the kroot. Terminators and vindicators tried to shoot the crisis but only killed one + shield drone and did 3 damage to an irridium suit. Missile launcher fragged the breachers and killed 2. HIS T3: He moved his crisis forward towards the cultists and tried to shoot them off and after a dismal round of shooting only killed 4. He moved his breachers back to a building for some reason and tried shooting the termies. Crisis charged the cultists hoping to take the objective from me but failed to kill anyone, cultists then failed to do anything back either.

T4: I rolled the Vindicator to his left objective. Terminators trudged forward. Cultists after miraculously passing a morale check(ok I exaggerate) fall back but stay on the objective. Havoks and legionaries shoot and wipe out the crisis. Terminators shoot and wipe the breachers. 

T5: raise banners on the center right objective and advance my vindy to his home right objective and advance my termies to his home left. 

Game ended with me maxing primaries and scoring eh on secondaries. Engage was difficult to get and long war was rough as well. I hate secondaries at these low points. I scored 83 and he scored 16 mostly due to banners and me not being able to take down his banners. 

Tonight I play against an unknown quality Black Templar player using the same list so I will have another write up tomorrow.  

 

[Galron]

The nonstop "Brrrrrrt" from the advancing havocs with their chain cannons finally ended with a barely heard jingle of the final rounds' spent brass hitting the ground. There were four trails of brass leading back to the ruins they started the battle in. In the distance a squad of raptors screeched in victory with the melted forms of two assault intercessors on the ground in front of them. The wounded but still in the battle vindicator, its frontal armor and siege shield partially melted from the intense plasma fire it had endured over the course of the battle, parked next to a section of the crashed ship they were sent to salvage.

In the center of the field, two terminators stood while several legionaires picked through not only the Black Templar leadership's bodies but also the shattered body of their own Iron Chaplain.

One terminator seemed to dance in his suit and looked over at his companion, "We came, we saw, we kicked their ass!" He threw his hand up for a high five. His companion slowly swiveled his head to look at his jubilant trooper. "Oh come on, dont leave me hanging." Oxide pleaded.

Herculon slowly raised his free hand, which Oxide quickly slapped with his heavy gauntlet. "Oh yeah!" The "new" guy exclaimed. A burning redemptor dreadnought stood behind them. Not far away, a team of militia were working on some electronics that survived the space craft's crash landing. 

"Wasnt this guy some great big hero?" Oxide asked, "Hell Brick or something like that? Thats a pretty cool name, you would think with a name like that he would be on our side."

"Yeah, and Grim Waldo."

"Found him!"

"What?"

"Grim Waldo, I found him."

"What are you talking about? He has been right here, we killed him two minutes ago."

"Never mind." Oxide said and nudged the helm of the Iron Chaplain with the toe of his boot. "Guess we are going to need another priest guy."

"Yep."

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

So I played Black Templars in the Rise of the Machines mission. I played the same list as before. He had Grimaldus, Helbrecht, bolt sniper Eliminators, a redemptor, 6 vanguard vets, 5 assault intercessors, 5 incursors. He took the BT secondary, RND, and Grind

T1: I missed a point by not understanding the primary tertiary points and made the mistake of doing that first when I moved my cultists onto the 4oclock quarter. Havocs and tacticals having no targets moved slightly in the 8 oclock(home quarter). Terms moved towards the middle. Vindicator fired into the ruins in the 2oclock quarter(his home) and took out 3 assault intercessors. The terms unintentionally realized they now had LOS to the eliminators and I had three guys in range and killed one of those.  HIS T1: Weirdly he moved a large chunk of his force into the 11oclock quarter. He brought his redemptor into the open, did RND with his vanguard in the 2oclock ruins. Brought his eliminators into LOS in the ruins of 11oclock. He did three damage to my Vindicator, tried to shoot my tacticals and failed to damage them. He moved his incursors forward. 

T2: Moved my terms onto the center objective in ruins. Failed and rolled a perils of the warp on my Delightful Agony and did a wound to my book bearer(whew). Vindicator fired on the Vanguard and killed two and wounded a third. I Tank Destroyered with my terms and despite peppering the heck out of the redemptor, I did 2 damage. Havoks shot up and killed 4 of the incursors. HIS T2: He moved his VV towards my terms in the center, moved up Hell Brick, passed around various buffs. Hellbrick killed a termy with his meltagun. Redemptor did 3 more damage to the vindy. Eliminators failed to wound the havocs. VV charged the termies and killed 4 with their thunderhammers and I didnt have 2 CP to do dour duty. Termies retaliated by killing two of them and passed their leadership. 

T3: Raptors came in in the middle of the right side of the board behind some sand bags. Vindy moved up behind them. Delightful agony goes up on the termies again. Shooting drops the redemptor to 4 wounds. Havoks killed an eliminator but split fire to try and kill the last incursor who had one wound but managed 5 armor saves in the open. In CC the three termies kill off the VV and stand firm. HIS T3: Hellbrick moves forward. Redemptor moves closer to termies with Grim Waldo right behind him. His eliminator manages to kill the havok champion. Redmeptor dumps all its fire into the raptor and fails to do anything. It charges the termies and HellBrick charges the Dark Apostle. The redemptor went first and killed a terminator, hard to FNP 6 damage, thankfully I did save with 2 invul saves. Apostle does 3 damage to Hellbrick who returns the favor. Terms do 2 damage to the redemptor.

T4: I try to fall back with apostle but he uses his strat to prevent it. Terms fall back from combat. Raptors jump onto his home objective, vindy moves up. Havoks moves forward guns blazing. This time havoks split fire and kill both the last incursor and the eliminator, both of whom are on an objective giving me a couple points for Long War. Vindy kills the redemptor who doesnt explode. Raptors wiff on their shooting of the chaplain. The legionaires charge Hellbrick. I fight first with Apostle and did 2 or three damage,(he had 1 left however much I did). He interrupts and splits his attacks and does the big shots on the apostle and the sweep attacks on the legionaires. He fails to kill the apostle and kills the book bearer thanks to already having taken a mortal. They then get a damage through and kill Hellbrick. Go Team! Team work makes the Long War work! HIS T5: He is running out of options. Moves his remaining intercessors out towards raptors and chappie towards the priest. intercessors fail their charge and Grim Waldo gets his charge at the priest and kills him and consolidates into the legionaires who fail to do anything.

T5: Raptors jump over to the 11oclock objective. Vindy rolls up to his home objective. Legionaires try to fall back but he used that strat again to prevent it. Raptors kill the assault intercessors with their melta guns. Terms charge the  chappie and bring him down. 

I win 76 to 30 something.

Once again Vindy more than killed its points in enemy units and could have killed the assault intercessors at the end if the raptors would have failed.  Nephilim secondaries are so hard to score at this points level. 

Next up 1500. Thinking about adding a Deredeo Dread, filling out the termies to full 10, adding the master of possessions and a rhino. Guess I need to put together my MoP

 

[Galron]

The noise of stormbirds warming up their engines drowned almost all other noises out. Serfs with ear protection moved rapidly on their various assignments weaving amongst the looming forms of the Iron Warriors in their terminator and power armor who themselves were performing last minute checks on their equipment. A group of terminators stood near some ammo crates loading large caliber bolter rounds into the feeds of their weapons. An island of calm in the chaos of the airfield. 

"So I tell the swamp donkey to suck it, before I give him a trunk in the tradesman's entrance and 'ave him lick me yarbles!" Shouted almost unintelligibly from a grinning ancient warrior missing a few teeth to the "younger" warrior beside him. The extra warriors were added from another terminator unit to bring them up to 10. This unit of cataphractii was from another battalion and they only just became the ad hoc unit. They were from a heavy assault formation and were fielding melta weapons in addition to their bolters

"Hey Herculon, get a load of these guys. They have been out in the field so long they almost speak a different dialect." Oxide said to his 10,000 year old squad leader. "I am pretty sure he was swearing but on a different level."

"Yup."

"Where did they dredge them up from?"

"You know you can ask them, that guy is sitting right next to you."

"Yeah I could but I can barely understand a third of what comes out of their mouth."

"Deal with it, Oxide. They are our allies on this one." Herculon replied going back to mindlessly buffing the silver etching on his gauntlet.

"Ya, allies!" The bald grimming terminator next to him said cheerfully.

"So whats the poop on this raid? So far this campaign we have just kind of been randomly running into opponents and killing them. Is there some kind of grand scheme we have been working up to. Do we get to besiege a fortress finally? We havent done a good one of those in decades."

The exasperated sergeant stopped buffing his ceramite armor to look up at the autocannon operator. "Can I not just buff my armor in peace?" 

"You can after you tell me what we are doing, this is a big gathering of units for a simple random moment to contact."

"Fine, supposedly we are going after some artifact thats a mcguffin that some higher up wants to use to do something with. Thats all I know. Now shut it." Herculon finished, although in his heart, after 10000 years of having Oxide in his squad, he knew there was no way to shut the kid up. 

"Great, another Mcguffin to retrieve....Yawn" he said,"been there, done that." Then something caught his attention.

A large marine with mechanical tentacles on his back pointing here and there stalked across the runway towards a large crate. Several serfs were trying to explain something to him as he walked over gesticulating wildly with their hands. One tentacle lanced out and picked one serf up by the claw-like end by the neck and lifted the human over to be face to face with him. They were obviously having a deep conversation.

Oxide nudged the squad leader with his elbow, "Hey look, we have a tech weenie!"

Herculon looked up at the warpsmith and then slowly turned his head to his trooper. "You mean Lord Warpsmith Kharos the DDOS Incarnate? The lord in command of this operation?"

"Yeah, that guy." Oxide said rolling his eyes. "You know, the long these silly titles get, the shorter their lifespan on the battlefield. There's a reason we just have one name."

"Yeah, that reason is I have been stuck with you for the last 10000 years. Heraculon the Eternal Babysitter, Warden of Oxide, just doesnt have much of a kick now does it?"

"Meh, we have done ok for ourselves once Perty decided he didnt want us as bodyguards anymore and replaced us with those hammer wielding tin cans."

"He didnt want to listen to you any more. More than one of those "tin cans"," Herculon said, complete with air quotes, "have become daemon princes in their own right somehow." 

"You dont want to become a daemon prince, you get silly wings and spikes, cant walk down normal sized hallways. Always have to pretty much bend over every time you walk through a door. The Impies always seem to go out of their way to target you. You only get picked for teams because you are big and dangerous, not because you are actually any good. Everyone is always groveling. No thanks, a line trooper is where we belong, old chum."

"Chums! Ya!" said the terminator next to him.

"See even the new guys get it." Oxide said, "Oh look, they are opening the crate! Whats in the box?!?"

The warpsmith dramatically sliced through the lock  holding the side of the large metal crate in place and the heavy door flew down crushing one of the over dramatic serfs beneath it.

Out stepped a massive dreadnought with a duckbilled torso and a pair of huge autocannons in place of arms. The silver hull had plenty of the ubiquitous hazard stripes that decorate every piece of armor in the legion. "I HAVE AWAKENED!" A deep robotic voice boomed. "TIME TO ROCK AND ROLL!"

"Tom?" Oxide asked fairly loudly, "from the office down the hall?" referring to their old battle barge, the Redundancy of Iron Angels.

The large Deredeo dreadnought's tiny head turned to face the terminator. "OXIDE?" 

"Heya, buddy! How ya been?"

"OK. BUT I AM A CORPSE BEING KEPT ALIVE IN A DREADNOUGHT, SO THERE THAT." He loudly rumbled.

"Dude, thats hella' awesome!" Oxide said excitedly walking up to the two story walker. "What happened?"

"BATTLE OF TERRA HAPPENED."

"Oh well, at least you got this badass machine out of it."

"YEAH, IT IS PRETTY COOL I GUESS."

Heraculon shook his head, "My chaos god, there's two of them...."

*****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

So points have gone up to 1500. My round 5 guy with the hurricane and all has been delaying our game, but my round 6 guy who is #1 in the league and I are getting a game in on saturday. He is fielding grey knights and is the guy I played in my Tau game a few months back. Should be a fun game. Ill edit this and add the write up once the game happens. 

My force consists of

Priest guy with WLT Bastion

Warpsmith with WLT Hatred Incarnate and mecha-tendrils. I saw this build on the unit of the week post and figured I would give him a go.

5 legionnaires

5 legionnaires with missile launcher(maybe a heavy bolter, its inconsequential in the big scheme of things)

10 terminators, rune, 2 chainfists, 4 combi-meltas, 1 combi-plasma(I had the points and a model) 2 autocannons

Deredeo with the autocannons and heavy flamers

raptors x5 with 2 melta guns and powersword

Havoks with 4 chain cannons

Vindicator

Rhino

 

Edited October 5, 2022 by Galron

[Galron]

Smoke pillared up from the wreck of the Vindicator nearby.

"LET ME AT THEM! LET ME AT THEM!" Yelled a charred Deredeo dreadnought missing one of its arms and lying on its back, legs flailing and kicking air.

The four terminators walked out of the ruins in the center of the field only to find their silver armored warlock opponents were gone. "You would think at some time in the last 10000 years, someone would point out to the tech weenies that itty bitty design flaw in dreadnoughts." Oxide said helpfully. He and his companions limped clear and observed the surrounding field. Their armor was battered and pocked with craters from the Grey Knight's bolt guns.

"ble mae'r offeiriad technoleg?" The other autocannon terminator asked.

"Bloody hell, where do we get these guys?" He looked over at the millennia old terminator. "Do you understand the words coming out of my mouth?"

"Aye."

"I think he asked where the warpsmith is."

"Yeh ya fookin' swamp donkey." the almost incomprehensible terminator said.

"Oh, I think that smoking pile of ceramite over there is him."

"Ahh, well he started strong, Figured he had some good momentum there."

A squad of power armored marines joined them from a nearby wood(?) of giant mushrooms.

"Herc, I think you are in charge now by default." Can I put in a request for leave now?"

**************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

So I played the number 1 guy in the league who was running his tournament list vs my "this looks cool" list. Final score was 81-74 so it was a much closer game than I expected. I made a major mistake in turn 3 which cost me my priest as I didnt realize how badass just his normal troop guys with swords were.

So he had 3 dreadknights, one dreadmaster dude, a librarian with the shoot him and he ports when shot at relic. Then 4 squads of power armored dudes, I think 2 with jump packs, and a squad of terminators with thunderhammers.

This was the artifact retreival mission where you have diagonal corner deployment, if you control your home objective you get 3 tertiary VP. He got first turn and was spread out in his deployment zone. I had a unit in a rhino just short of the top left objective, the terms and priest in the middle to walk to the middle(because its almost a meme at this point) havocs in a building on the bottom edge near the middle of the long edge. Deredeo, warpsmith, and the vindicator below my rhino squad. My other marine squad was on the home objective. He took purify, banners, and teleport strike. I took long war, banners, and whore the witch.

His T1: He shunted a dreadknight up to my upper left corner in front of the warpsmith and friends. Everything else moved forward. Two of his PA squads moved into some ruins on the bottom right corner and one purified and the other raised a banner. Ditto for his two squads at home. Terms and another dreadkinght moved towards my bottom edge bringing the havocs into range and sight. I dont remember anything notable happening in his psychic phase. Most of his stuff was out of range, His shooting killed three havocs. My T1: Everyone either raised banners or moved forward. My shooting did a few to the dreadknight in my face. Killed a couple PA guys in the bottom left, did a couple damage to his chapter master and made him burn his 3++ relic and did 2 damage to the other DK that shot up my havocs. Warpsmith charged his DK and did 8 mortal wounds killing it.

His T2: He moved dudes closer, GoI'd his librarian close to my firepower and got some spell off and damaged the Vindy. Moved his 2 man PA unit closer to my termies. The termiators and DK in the bottom right moved closer to the terminators. His shooting killed a terminator. He smited a bit, the Black rune managed to do 6 MW to his master since he was rolling 3 dice. You discard after you roll thus the Rune works. He failed some charges. My T2: I move my termies further toward the bottom of the board and 1" from the PA guys there. My shooting knocks the bottom DK down to 5 wounds. The Vindy does a whopping 4 damage to the grandmaster. Assault has my warpsmith charge his librarian doing 8 MW and him FNP 2 of them killing him. My termies kill the 2 PA guys.

And now the game goes sideways for me. His T3: He jumps his remaining undamaged DK up next to the warpsmith. He jumps one of his PA guys over tot he termies. I forget how the psychic phase went, might have lost a couple terminators. Shooting took 3 wounds off my warpsmith. He also shunted his master over to the far end of the board, 9" from the guys holding my home objective. His assault went into the smith and vindy by the DK and the PA squad into the termies when his own termies failed their charge.  Here is where I screwed up and didnt realize his PA guys were so insanely bad ass. I heroically intervened with my priest..... so he fought first with the PA guys and did 4 mortal wounds and 6 regular 2D wounds with 3 guys to the priest. The Warpsmith does 8 damage to the DK but then dies. Terms take down the PA guys pretty easily. My T3: Terms move onto the center objective. Vindy stays in combat, Deredeo moves towards his master. Raptors land 9" from hi s master. In the most excellent example of horrible shooting, 2 marine squads, 5 raptors, 2 heavy flamers and the big autocannon all fail to do any damage. But my rhino combi-bolter does 1 damage lol. Terms fair a bit better and drop the other DK down to one 1. The Vindy pops the IW strat that lets him fire his demolisher in close combat. Hits and wounds twice and the dude makes both invul saves. Terms charge his terms and kill 3 of them and lose no one in return. His other DK kills the vindy in close combat.

His T4: His master moves towards the marines on my objective. The other DK moves to charge my Deredeo. The 1 wound DK moves to the center objective since I lost my guy who was on there at some point. My terms kill his terminators. Deredeo takes some damage. Master charges and kills the guys on my objective. Somehow my deredeo drops the DK he is fighting down to 1 wound.

Its cleanup at this point. My remainign terms retake the center and kill that DK. The other DK kills the Deredeo. My other marine squad had jumped in the Rhino and advnced towards my home objective. The master killed the rhino and the guys got out. He tried to charge them but failed the charge. They then on the next turn advanced and retook the home objective while the terms raised a banner on the center.

It was a close game as I said 81-74. Deredeo actually did pretty well. I am going to try the two heavy lascannon version next. Man those suits are insane. They dont even lose much when you bracket them and the master kept repairing himself every round.

[Tallarn Commander]

Thanks for the batrep and the humorous story at the beginning.

 

Yes, the GK strat that allows them to do mortal wounds in melee on 6's is brutal indeed. I lost my Helbrute Harry to it last month.

[Galron]

So I am changing up my list a little for my next game. He knows what I am playing so i dont feel too bad. 

Swapping out my priest for a Master of Possession since I think a 5++ and the ability to rez guys back is more important than 1-3s are misses against an army that most hits on 4+ anyway. 

After their poor showing in my latest game of my havocs have me dropping them and bringing a second Vindicator. They will interact better with the warpsmith anyway. Swapping Eternal Hatred with Siege master for the bonus damage versus enemy vehicles. 

Also going to try out the Heavy lascannons on the Deredeo just to see how they perform. 

Maybe this time I will remember the Wanton thing which I 100% forgot about in the last game and only remembered as I was typing this 3 days later.

[Galron]

Boom!

Black clouds of smoke and fragments of rubble flew through the air.  As the air cleared, the ancient terminator squad shook itself off and continued their advance. "Oh nuts, they killed Kenny! NOOOO!" Oxide cried through the squad vox.

 

"Who?" Herculon asked, "We get so many replacements I am not keeping track any more."

 

"No worries, young Oxide, I can fix this." The creepy Master of Possession who followed them into the ruined building the opposing Guard forces seemed fixated on. The distant Leman Russ tank stopped and started rotating its turret. Las fire flickered and pocked the ancient stone building. Another Leman Russ pulled forward and blasted a Vindicator off to their right ending its part in this fight.

 

The creepy psyker suddenly stabbed a nearby terminator who then crumpled to the ground. "Ooops, maybe a  little too deep." He said but a weird flash occurred just in front of them and Kenny was standing there. 

 

":cuss: man?" Herculon asked looking at the attached Master of Possession on the verge of aiming his combi melta at him.

 

"Oh quit complaining, I'll bring him back next time."

 

To their right the Vindicator fired and avenged its sister and destroyed the enemy tank in one blast followed by the heavy staccato fire of the looming Deredeo. "Yeah, pour it on Tommy!"

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Final game of this league. I played against the Number #2 guy in the league who was fielding a Guard force. So glad he didnt field a tank list and only had two Tank commanders and a Basilisk. He had 6 infantry squads with plasma and lascannon, gatekeep Leman russ, a demolisher, tank acebasilisk, an inquisitor, primaris psyker, astropath, weirdvaynes, a few platoon commanders, company commander and a couple mortar squads.

 

I of course took Assassinate since he had 6 characters, banners and long war. He took Psychic interrogation, and two Guard secondaries. I started with a dismounted marine squad in a building on my home objective. The terminators were in a crescent formation on the 9" from the center line with the 2 Vindies, Warp Smith and Deredeo on their right. Terrain was a ruined building in each corner and a large one in the center with light cover scatter terrain between the buildings. He piled most of his stuff behind his corner building.

 

His T1. He moved everyone forward, his Gatekeeper killed a terminator, his demolisher killed one of my Vindies. He managed with his mortars to do 3 damage to my marines in the building. His Psyker phase was mostly defensive buffs as I was out of range for most things. My Turn 1: Terms moved forward. Marines in the rhino disembarked and were able to make a toe hold on the top left corner objective. Both squads raised banners. Remaining vindy and dread moved into some scatter terrain. The MoP did the sacrifice thing and killed a terminator and brought back the dead one onto the center objective. The enemy denied his other power. Terms cleared an infantry squad that ventured after my top left objective. Vindy killed the enemy Leman Russ with a demolisher cannon. Deredeo does 3 points of damage to a sentinel because only 1 out of 8 shots got through. His missile launcher however killed 8 of an infantry squad.

 

His T2:  He started moving several squads with support characters towards my bottom right objective. His RUss held still. His Psychic killed 2 terminators but primaris suffered three wounds to Black Rune. His Russ killed two terminators. He fired stuff at the vindy and Deredeo but failed to do anything of note the Smith didnt repair. I think the Bassie killed another marine. My T2: Terms moved further onto the ojective. Vindy killed a sentinel. Deredeo killed a squad that had move move moved into terrain onto an obective and then blasted a few wounds off the  Bassie which was in sight and missiled another infantry squad. Terms shot something but nothing of note. Oh and a terminator died and one came back.

 

T3: I dont remember what all happened this round. He killed the Deredeo and got into close combat with my Vindy. He also charged my Smith who killed the impertinent platoon commander. My Raptors landed and killed a sentinel. I think my terms killed one of his sentinels also. My Psyker for once didnt kill one of my terminators and brought one back but his Deny was on point this game. I think he was down to two at this point. Warsmith charged and killed another infantry squad on my bottom right objective but left him in the open.

 

T4: He was worried about my melta toting Raptors and fired mortars at them and did nothing. His Bassie however did three wounds and I rolled three ones when I needed a 2+. I had killed the guy fighting my Vindy leaving it open. He then killed it with a lot of fire and killed the warsmith with a massive amoutn of lasfire.  My T4: Passed morale on my raptors and they jumped forward. Got my Delightful Agonies off for the first time and then sacrificed for another Pact who FNP'd the MW. This time it worked as well, so only three termies waitng on the sideline. Shooting this time killed the wyrdvaynes, most of another infantry squad. Raptors managed to kill the Leman Russ with gatekeeper, who promptly exploded, killing a mortar squad, both raptors, and did two more wounds on the Bassie.

 

Turn 5 wrap up. He Bassied one of my marine squads and dropped them to one dude who did pass morale maintaining control of the objective. He moved a four man squad up onto the center objective since the terminators headed off towards and onto his home objective.  The rhino drove onto the center objective and opened up on the squad next to it killing one of four. The terms shot up the remaining three and charged the mortar units holding his home objective killing all 5 stands.

 

So I won. with painted scored 92 to 55 ending the league. I am at least 2nd place. I drug the #1 player to a close 81-74 last game and I know his game with this opponent was much lower scoring and close.

[Galron]

Everyone who took part in this league led by Herculon and Oxide, coincidentally the only two guys who didnt die once.

Edited October 16, 2022 by Galron

[Galron]

Thinking about if we have a tournament for this league, because I dont know at this point, I will continue with this force and add to it.

So all three characters, prist dude, the janitor, and a Warpsmith

Traitor guard no upgrades

2 legionaires(I think one might have a heavy weapon in my written down list)

 

10 terms, rune, 2 chainfists, 2 reapers(who do a lot of work actually) and 4 combi-meltas

Deredeo with Heavy flamers, auto cannon array, the 3d3 missile launcher

Hellbrute with twin lascannon, heavy flamer and fist

 

5 raptors with two meltas

2 Vindicator with siege shield,havok launcher, combi-bolter

1 Predator with all lascannon and a hunter killer missile(whatever the chaos version is called)

 

rhino with combi-bolter

 

It will be a little short boots on the ground but will blast the opponents boots off the ground I have noticed, It has 4 fairly resilient units all of which who can be either repaired or raised from the dead and all put out a hefty amount of fire. I went with the hellbrute over a contemptor because its the same loadout but I want to actually start the game with a CP since I usually use 2 CP every opponent's turn. 

[Tallarn Commander]

This looks like a fun list. You ate a bit light on "boots on the ground" as you note but I think it will be enough ahainst most non-horde opponents.

 

You might already know this but all Traitor Guard squad upgrades are free. So if you have the models, it can't hurt to give them melta, plasma, and another special weapon. 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Who is "the janitor"?  I'm trying to envision which character has a mop and a push broom.

[Galron]

1 hour ago, Dr_Ruminahui said:

Who is "the janitor"?  I'm trying to envision which character has a mop and a push broom.

The Master of Possession the MoP I dont know, it just came to me as I was typing. He has one job. Sweeping up dead terminators and bringing them back.

 

8 hours ago, Tallarn Commander said:

You might already know this but all Traitor Guard squad upgrades are free. So if you have the models, it can't hurt to give them melta, plasma, and another special weapon. 

I was not aware of this actually. Cool and thanks. I am using my Elysians as both cultists and now traitor guard. Need to paint up some special weapons I guess. I literally had just stripped a fully painted ELysian army to paint them back in their original WD paint scheme and rebuild my airborne army.... had the first squad just about finished and GW decides to limit aircraft :( so I never finished painting the rest

[Tallarn Commander]

Galron, Elysians make excellent Renegades & Heretics Traitor Guard troopers. Here is a link to my blog from when I painted up some Elysians as Traitor Guard back in 2019:  

https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/321042-tallarn-commanders-chaos-7-csm-with-differing-livery-completed/?do=findComment&comment=5349015