Night Lords 2nd Armored Battalion

[Galron]

Could have sworn I had posted my Night lords here previously. I guess not. I'll take some further pics since these are older. I dont play tournaments typically so I dont have any hang-ups on using Legends. I also have a HH Armored Spear of Night Lords I treat as loyalists fluffwise but I bounce back and forth as need arises. My head canon here and I do have a story I am working on about them is a lost warfleet that jumped with its escorts before they could be turned on rather than fire on them when the legion betrayed its imperial army/navy allies. So it still has a full complement of heresy era tanks and the means to get them there. I think chaos still suits them better and I can play off the warp pact abilities as veteran skills and the occasional mortal wound as equipment break down over time.  

My list can be played as either Raiders or Seige Host with a simple change of enhancements. Not sure which version I like better. I mostly just enjoy tossing interesting vehicles on the board so people go "WTH is that?"

Current 2k using Siege Host

Chaos Lord - bastion plate (goes with chosen in spartan)

Terminator sorceror with warp tracer

Master of executions- iron artifice (goes with legionaries in Spartan)

 

 

5 legionaries meltagun melee build (rides in spartan)

 

5 chosen full loadout

5 havoc 4 autocannons- I am aware they would be better with lascannons but in Raiders they are pretty good with ACs

10 man Nemesis claw full loadout 

5 Warp Talons

 

Hellbrute with missile launcher and twin lascannon (stands next to Kratos)

Kratos HK, 2 volkite calvers, 2vulkite culverins, volkite cardanelle, multi-melta, autocannon

Sicaran Punisher HK, 3 Heavy bolters, Punisher rotary cannon, storm bolter(? really editors?)

Spartan- twin heavy bolter, multi-melta pintle, two quad lascannons

Scorpius- HK- storm bolter

 

 

I really want to bring my Leviathan but the only one I would want to bring would be the dual Grav version. Its cool but if I go against big bugs its worthless. Hopefully one change they make next edition is anti-vehicle works for monsters too. Kind of silly that it doesnt and an entire army is immune despite being the equivalent except with chitin instead of steel.  

 

I have a different version that drops the lord, MoE, chosen and nemesis claw and replaces them with a term lord and 10 man terminator squad and a cultist squad. and for siege comes in at exactly 2k.

[Galron]

[Valkyrion]

I could've sworn I've seen your El Jimador before because I remember thinking about the tequila, only to learn it means 'the reapers of tequila' or something, but I only learned that because I saw your dreadnought, but I knew that info before I saw your dreadnought apparently for the first time today. 

Is it a simulation, or is Mandela still in prison or what?! 

[Galron]

I could have sworn I posted them before too. But oh well. I have the Spartan, Kratos, contekar, + the terminator praetor, and Sevie on the bench right now. Sevie is 95%, contekars are 75% and the two vehicles are about 50%. Gotta finish the lightning bolts on the vehicles and decals then some varnish before I start weathering them. Terminators have all their base colors done as well as shading, they just need highlighting. Sevie, I really dont know what more he needs but I am not happy with him yet.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I looked back in the chaos forum to when you stated you had first joined back in 2022 (oddly different from your currently displayed start date, but same name and avatar) and couldn't find it - you do have some old Iron Warriors threads, so I suppose they could be hidden in those, but nothing labelled Night Lords in the thread title.  So maybe it was in the WIP or Honour subforums?

 

Really like your nigh lords - I think your use of larger groups of lightning than is the norm is really effective.

[Galron]

No biggie. I in theory will have the pre-weathering stages done on the two vehicles mentioned above maybe even tonight and more done on the terminators. I tool an admin day off yesterday(because theres a real fear they are going to yank them from us) and I was planning on just hitting the gym and painting all day, my version of a mental health day I guess lol. Didnt work out so well when I woke up to intense pain from one of my kidneys. Go go kidney stone! Needless to say, I got a little done last night after the ER trip before the pain meds wore off. Feeling much better this morning.

[Galron]

My latest additions. I have a dreadnought/hellbrute for fire support sitting on my desk right now. I am going to get him, a punisher sicarian, a rhino, a land raider and a scorpius to the  matt varnish point before weathering them all at one time for uniformity.

[Pearson73]

Really liking the pink volkite, it complements the main colours of the scheme well.

[Galron]

2nd Armored had a rough start on its first combined operation. They went against a nemesis of mine, nidzilla and the hive mind was blessing his dice rolls. We played the odd shaped end to end deployment, purge the foe mission, with a mission rule that was pretty useless and neither of us used it. 

My force was: 

2k raiders

Chaos lord

Master of executions

Sorcerer in terminator armor

 

2 legionnaire squads

10 man chosen squad

Havocs  with autocannons(MVPs)

Raptors

 

Hellbrute with lascannon and missiles

Spartan

Scorpius

Kratos choom wagon

Sicarian punisher

 

Most of the infantry rode in the spartan. Knowing how my opponent normally plays i expected him to rush the NML objectives so I planned on a counter charge combined with a massive alpha strike with all the guns. As you will see it didn't work out so well.

 

He fielded his usual invasion fleet. 

Hive tyrant all melee(mostly to give everything around it advance and shoot)

Three of the big brain bugs(don't know the names, d6+6 blast strength 8 -2ap 3dam 18" and -1 to hit inside 6")

Three big gun bugs 36" strength 8 -3 ap 3dam and anything it hits, other bugs reroll ones to hit)

One giant flamethrower bug

2 pryrovores

1 bio ore

10 gargoyles

6 zoanthropes

1 giant zoanthrope whatever it's called.

2 ridiculously under pointed lictors.

 

I went first. I tried long distance blasting and inflicted heavy damage on the bug flamethrower bug, killed one big gun bug, did chip damage on some brain bugs and hive tyrant. On his T1 he advanced everything. Took two of the three NML objectives but held the center with a lictor on the other side of terrain. Tried to contest the left side NML objective with another lictor but sicarian for some reason has 4 OC. His first shot of the game was 5 of the 6 zoanthropes nuking the spartan. Thankfully, out of the 22 guys on board, only 3 mortal wounds were inflicted and they were able to get out mostly out of range or behind terrain. The left lictor managed to do 6 damage to my sicarian in close combat. 

 

My turn 2 didn't go much better. I assaulted the lictor in combat with the sicarian with a legionnaire squad with MoE. Lictor 1st strikes the MOE and dies to the squad. The punisher was able to drop the giant flame thrower bug to 1 wound. I got both engage and  whatever my other secondary was. I killed a second brain bug with the autocannon havocs. He made every other save. This started a trend that lasted until turn 4, he could not roll less than a 5 on anything it seemed.

 

Rest of the game highlights:

The Sorcerer dropped in the back corner and took on a pyrovore and the ten gargoyles and took a wound a turn but managed to survive but did not end up taking the objective in the end. He did kill the Pyro and half the gargoyles. 

 

Raptors died to the giant flamer thrower bug in one shot.

 

Chosen and lord managed a charge through cover to kill 4 of the zoos. He then backed everyone out and shot almost everything at them. Even with armor of contempt, all but the lord died and he died to a  overwatch from the giant flamer bug the next turn.

 

The four legionnaires with power fists(heavy melee weapons) that remained after shooting and failed warp pacts killed a big bug gun on the left objective on turn 4. 

 

Autocannon squad went on to kill the hive tyrant, and the zoanthropes and a big gun bug all on the center objective.

 

Kratos helped and took the center objective on turn 5 and killed a brain bug engaged with the lord in close combat and the final wound on the giant flame thrower bug.

 

Scorpius died but killed the lictor.

 

Final score was 40-40. He did well on primaries until t4 but didn't score crap on secondaries. I made 4 points a turn on Objective primaries but killed more units than him every round and maxed most of my secondaries. 

 

Overwatch is OP. Needs to be limited to just the unit being charged. These left field overwatches you can't do anything about are ridiculous. It's fine vs marine s4 flamers but when you are dealing with d6+x strength alot damage 2 -2ap and 18" range weapons that automatically  hit then there are problems. 

 

Lictors. So a lone op, strikes first, t6, 5 wound, s7, -2 ap,  2 damage, bucket of precision attacks, infiltrating and rapid ingressing model is only 60 points? WTH is GW thinking that this is somehow balanced? I want something this good. Heck I will trade marine guns for nid guns. We don't have anything remotely this good and points efficient. I don't have  anything this good in any of my many armies.

 

Grrr. I might swap out the Scorpius for a predator. I think the spartan thing was just unlucky. 

 

Edit: I added the pics during his first turn from my deployment zone. Weirdly enough my other pics were 4.88mg + in size and won't load. Not sure why they took at different sizes since I didn't adjust zooms or anything. Oh well. For reference the havocs are in the building to the right next to the Kratos above the dreadnought.

 

Edited March 4 by Galron

[Tallarn Commander]

Sounds like it was a fun, close game.

 

Yes, it seems like bug torrent weapons are a wee too efficient so that the current overwatch rules are a bit too powerful for them. 

 

Which of your units did you enjoy using the most? 

[Galron]

The autocannon havocs, especially when they had a hellbrute supporting them still. Didnt fail their warp pact until the very last turn and their squad leader took 2 for the team. Losing my Spartan turn 1 to the very first volley from him was very demoralizing. I expected some damage but wow.

 

I am still shocked by how ridiculously good lictors are for how few points they cost. I would never not have three if I had the option. Theres very few un-named characters in the game that can stand up to one in a duel and none that are anywhere near as cheap and thats before you start adding in special rules like sustained vs infantry or any strats they may have.

Edited March 3 by Galron

[Galron]

The Hell on Wheels battalion rode again over the weekend. I visited an old friend up in GA and we got a game in. I told him in advance to be prepared for vehicles. I supposed he thought that meant I would be bringing a bunch of single shot main gun type weapons so he brought Orks. It was a borrowed army though because he was tired of playing thousand sons and he didnt know guard well enough to play a borrowed guard army and he knew I was tired of playing nids all the time.  For the record, he set the terrain and had the mission and such rolled up before I got there. I agree there is a lack of terrain in the middle.

 

He had a lot of boyz on the board turn one with 3 squads of 20, a squad of 20 beast snaggas, 2x10 Lootas, 2x2 ork artillery bubble chukkas(I think they were called), a beast snagga war boss, a regular warboss, and Ghazkul, Makari, and 6 meganobz, 6 of the squig riders and the named shark riding dude and he played bully boys.

I played the same list as before as it was in my truck and I was too lazy to change things. Worked out because that Scorpius was deadly this game while the Kratos took its turn to flop. 

in short:

Chaos lord(had the reroll hits and wounds within 12" of his deployment zone enhancement), Executioner, Sorceror in termy armor, Spartan, kratos in Choom wagon config, Scorpius, 10 chosen, 2x5 Legionnaires(one with a meltagun, the other with a chain cannon), Sicarian Punisher, Hellbrute with lascannon and missile launcher, havoc squad with autocannons. Played reavers. 

 

We played Lynchpin with Raise banners on hammer and anvil deployment. He got first turn.

His T1: He Waaghed! He got a troop unit on each objective in the center and left one on his home objective. Lootas were mostly up high. Shark guys stayed behind buildngs. Ghaz and his guys also took the center. He got lucky on the bubble chukkas and got the AT version on both squads but I popped smoke and he failed to either hit or wound the Kratos and the Spartan. My T1: I drove the Spartan forward to meet Ghaz and disembarked the chosen and the one legionnaire squad with MoE. Shooting was brutal by everything except the Kratos but even it did some damage. I had the boyz on my right down to less than 8 or so, Ghaz lost his entire bodyguard 4+++ and all, beast snaggas were down to 6 guys and I knocked the left boyz down to 14. On the right side the charge worked well, MoE took out his warboss with precision and dropped the squad down to 3 total guys. In the center however, Makari took roughly 24 saves from the chosen(I was rolling hot with lethals and wounds) before he finally rolled a 1 on his save. Ghaz went down to the chaos lord.  They then consolidated into the beast snaggas.

 

His T2: Shark guys moved up in an advance. He should have had them forward already so they couldnt charge this round. His shooting was meh. Beast snaggas died in melee as did the boyz on the right. My T2: We shot up the shark guys to just the named guy. pushed everything forward. Dropped the left squad down to only a couple guys. Killed one of the bubblechukka units. The writing was on the wall. Got the shark dude down to 1 wound, he killed a couple chosen. 

 

His T3: Not much accopled. Lost the shark dude in melee. My T3: I cleared the board.  

Last we checked points was turn 2 and I was leading 30 something to 20 something and I accomplished all my secondaries and primaries on T3 when we called it. 

<pictures will follow when I upload them, despite copious drinking, i remembered to get a decent number this time> it's only letting me add these two pics telling me any more exceed the maximum allowed size. Is this a new policy?

Edited March 31 by Galron

[Galron]

His turn 1. This is stupid. Why do i have to make a new reply just to add pictures?

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Nice to see two nicely painted armies on the table - thanks for sharing!

 

You don't need to add a new post to add photos, unless something has gone wrong with the B&C interface.  Instead, click on the 3 dots on the upper right of your post, chose Edit from the list that appears and click that.  Your post will appear in its own box, and then you can paste your photos into that and change the text as your heart desires.

 

If you do that and amalgmate your post above, message me to let me know and I can hide the now double (or empty post).

[Galron]

I havent posted about this particular force in a awhile. I had a game vs Grey Knights not too long ago.

Kheron Ophion left most of his armored forces behind and brought a vanguard on his hunt following the rumor that the Grimoire Nostromo was located here at this Grey Knight outpost. He brought his entire command staff and his fast moving raptor forces hoping to strike quickly before the grey knights had a chance to ready a defense. 

 

I brought- Renegade raiders

Chaos Lord Kheron Ophion(scout enhancement)

Chaos Lord with Jump Pack with twin lightning claws

Haarkon World Claimer

Daemon Prince with wings(jump pack)

Terminator Sorceror

Executioner

(Yes I brought a buttload of characters, I dont know why, its very out of character for me)

Chaos Legionairies with a chain cannon (that I forgot was a chain cannon and used as a heavy bolter the entire game. )

Cultists

 

5 terminators with a reaper autocannon

Noise Marine allies(I just wanted to try them out, had them painted for almost 6 years and never used them)

Nemesis Claw- Twilight Claw -Kheron's special forces team

10 Raptors plasma pistols

5 raptors 2 melta guns

5 warp raptors

5 warp raptors

 

Predator Destructor or annihilator(the one with turret lascannon)

Rhino

 

He had

Two squads of the jumpy guys in transports with lascannons

one dreadknight

one dreadnought

one techmarine

one terminator librarian

a Named dude with ten power armored guys

ten more power armored guys

5 different power armored guys they stickied objectives

5 terminators and a named character(Valdor?)

Sorry, I dont know Grey Knights very well. for reference I asked him if he was playing the detachment that teleports all over the place and my opponent looked at me confused, "all grey knights teleport around." Well thats kind of broken but oh well. 

 

Side note: I still do not believe Grey Knights should be a full in game army. They should be an allied squad option only if the opponent is playing daemons since fluffwise they literally have no business or interest in fighting anyone else nor the weapons to do so and they will teleport out as soon as the daemons are gone, regardless if the fight is over or not. Further if the allied option to take a grey knight squad is taken, the daemon player gets the old rule of endless tide for battle line daemons on the same note though, grey knight weapons get their old anti-daemon weapons back.   

 

Primary was the take and hold mission where each objective was 5vp. Twist was rapid something or other where you get to bring in reserves on turn one(neither of us used it). Deployment was the diagonal board ends. We rarely use set piece terrain at my store. Screw that boring unimaginative nonsense.

 

He got first turn, I had most units hidden where I could. I tried for an aggressive deployment. The only two things in the open were the rhino with lord and nemesis claw which scouted I thought into a safe spot behind the center terrain. The cultists and the legionnaires were on my home objective with the marines in terrain and the cultists forward so they could run to the center, glad I doubled up. Noise marines were behind the tight angle corner terrain and were going to move onto the expansion objective. Daemon prince and a squad of warp raptors were behind some terrain in the forward angle. My predator was behind a piece of terrain in the far backfield. Everything else was in deep strike.  His deployment overall didnt matter as it usually doesnt for GK. His razorbacks were on either end of his zone. His terminators were near the center. Dreadnought and techmoron were in his backfield and something that stickied objectives was on his home. Dreadknight was on the line in the center. He had the two ten mans in deep strike. 

 

T1: He pushed forward with almost everything with the two razorbacks moving up and dudes jumping out, one of which getting onto his expansion objective. His Knight moved up and got behind the center terrain with a bead on my cultists. Terms moved up. He blew up my rhino with a variety of shots. Knight killed the cultists. Had angles on the DP and pred but failed to wound either. All the guys jump back into their transports after shooting. My T1: Right side DP and warp raptors jump forward to his expansion objective and I discover once again why I absolutely hate overwatch as he kills three warp raptors with his dreadknight. Such a gotcha rule. I at least warn people when I remember. Nemesis Claw moves into the center objective and gets ready to charge the knight. Noise Marines move forward as do the legionaries. Predator has the razorback on the right in LOS and manages to kill it dumping the dudes out. I want to say Nemesis claw manages to shoot a terminator to death. They charge and kill the knight and consolidate back onto the objective. DP and remaining warp raptors charge and kill the power armor dudes on his expansion objective and they jump out. 

 

T2: At some point he pulls his terminators out. A 5 man and the ten man drop on my expansion objective. The Named character and the other 10 man unit drops just outside my home objective. The term librarian lands in the terrain next to them. Razorback squad gets out and bounces over to the middle supported by their transport. I rapid Ingress Haarkon's 10 man Raptor squad safetly behind a building on the left side where I can get the jump on the 15 guys on my expansion. I dont remember all the details but his shooting and assaults manage to wipe all of Nemesis Claw leaving the Executioner and Lord and only kill 3 in return. I have three legionaries, and one Noise Marine left from those squads. My T2: I move the big raptor squad up behind the expansion objective. Lord steps out of combat with the razorback. Daemon Prince moves next to the terminator Libby. My 2 man warp raptors land on his home objective. My Jump lord and five man raptors land right in the middle between my expansion objective and his character +10 man squad. Predator shoots and kills his razorback. I forget what my other shooting does but nothing of too much note besides softening up charge targets. Haarkon and the boys go bashing into the two squads on my expansion, and I think he had like 1 or 2 guys left of the bigger squad at the end. The Jump Lord and his guys go jumping on to the named character and his entourage and they do...ok. I think I had 1 raptor left and my lord was left with 2 wounds because the named dude had precision. The Daemon Prince annihilates the terminator librarian like it was nothing. Oddly enough, the two dude left in combat with the executioner wiff their attacks and only get two wounds through and I roll box cars for my armor saves. He fights back and gets rolls two sixes to wound. Go Go Gadget Executioner!

 

T3: He knows he is on the back foot now. He brings his terminators and Valdor down in the location where my Noise Marines started behind a building. He was hoping to get some shots on the Predator. He moved the dread up to his expansion objective and actually got a few wounds on the DP from shooting. His techmoron moved over to the 2 warp raptors and well, shot them and retook the objective. His termies failed in their shooting. My expansion objective fight ended with his guys dying. The fight in my deployment zone with my JP lord ended with my guys going down pretty hard. My T3: My terminators drop on my home objective next to my legionaries. My remaining Warp Raptor squad drop 9" from the tech marine. Haarkon and the boys excited about their win bounce forward to get as close as they can to the terminators. The Kheron(the lord)moves the short distance over to the named character and the remains of his 10 man. The DP bounces over to the dreadnought. Lots of shooting, nothing too exciting. Dreadnought overwatches the DP and I think actually hits and drops the DP down to one wound. Kheron and the terminators/sorcerer charge the remaining power armor dudes and wipe them out. Gotta love Death Hex. DP and dread duke it out and DP just barely kills the dread and thankfully it doesnt blow up. Warp raptors make the charge and easily wipe the techmoron. The big fight though was Haarkon and the boys who charge the terminators. They actually killed 2.66 terminators on the charge with impact hits, Haarkon precisioned out Valdor and did all but 1 damage to him and the squad did the rest. 

 

Kheron and his troops stormed the outpost. The remaining serfs falling easy prey to the Night Lord troops as the bulk of the fleet's troops descended from orbit to take charge of the facility to salvage what they could while the apothecaries rescued patched up injured battle brothers and ripped out progenoid glands from the dead from both sides. Their own astropathic psyker choir had attempted to jam that of the grey knights but with such a powerful psyker force it is unknown if they were able to get a call for help out so time was of the essence. Twilight Claw's injured ventrilokar was carried into the outpost's main cogitator room and he hacked into it looking for their prize with a cable from under his hood. The long dead head mounted on the powerpack turned to face Kheron, its eyes black and empty, in a slow, weak cracking voice showing the strain from his injuries, "I'm sorry, my lord, the Grimoire has been moved, recently in fact. Some place called Vault Trinity Prime. Knowing you would ask, there is no further information on this except several relics from here have been moved there including one of the Widowmakers." 

 

"Take everything not nailed down and set the reactor for overload. We virus bomb the planet with their own weapons so there are no witnesses." He ordered as he spun and stalked angrily from the room, his patched skin cloak flowing behind him. 

 

Kheron's return continues

 

Edited November 26 by Dr_Ruminahui
Removed swear dodge

[Tallarn Commander]

Thanks for the fun batrep! It's too bad about the gotcha overwatch. Someday I need to model up a Raptor with a spear as Haarken. He looks like he's lots of fun. And I loved the conclusion fluff at the end, "Virus bomb the planet with their own weapons!"

[Galron]

 

Nordeburg 3

Imperial Armory World

The Night Lord flotilla came out of the warp in scintillating 2 dimensional gates of light with expert timing. Kheron’s navigators had perfected the practice of close orbit emergence and he made sure they were rewarded for it.

 

Another standard practice was always emerging with guns fully powered up and ready to fire. The gun batteries on the Shroud of Eventide, Desolation of Light, and Widowmaker as well as the two ancient Assault Cruisers and sundry other escorts opened fire before the warp portals had fully closed behind them. “Lord, cogitators are having trouble identifying the enemy ships.”

 

Kheron sat in his command throne watching the battle unfold in the central holo-tank. “Have they reacted yet?”

 

“Negative, m’lord.” The human deck officer looked back with a predatory grin, “We caught them with their pants down whoever they are. We are already at point blank. They are down two cruiser analogues and the Shroud and Desolation are putting a beating on their one battleship analogue.”

 

“Shields are reported at maximum around the fleet!” Another deck serf yelled to the deck officer.

 

He watched as several torpedoes launched from their mixed origin destroyer escorts homed in on the large odd looking battleship analogue.  Two made it past before a blue shield appeared and stopped the remainder of the torpedoes. They detonated amidships cracking the enemy ship almost in two.

 

“Signal all squadron commanders, you are free to independently maneuver and destroy the enemy.”

 

“Message from the Black Lightning,” a communications officer announced.

 

 “On screen.”

 

The image of a scarred human, formerly a pirate, now sworn to Kheron’s cause appeared on the side of the holo tank. The much more crowded bridge of his small destroyer was visible behind him. There was a cheer in the background as an enemy escort ship was destroyed.

 

“Congratulations on a successful engagement, m’lord.” He greeted the Night Lord Praetor with a deferential bow.

 

“Save the pleasantries, Captain, these xenos were sheep not even expecting their slaughter. All we did was burn ordinance we didn’t need to burn. Is there a reason for your call?”

 

“Yes, m’lord.” He said,”Its about these very Xenos in fact. I heard a call go out that your more… umm venerable cogitators had not encountered them before. My ship and I have in fact met them. We will forward you all the files we have on them. Long story short, they are an expansionist race known as the Tau. They have pretty advanced technology, although why they are here is anyone’s guess.”

 

“Thank you for the information captain.”

 

He cut the connection and began reading the incoming files as the space battle wound down around him, his ship’s commanding officer running the fight in his place as the final xenos ships were hunted down or escaped.  

 

While their naval forces did not impress him in the least, their ground forces appeared formidable. They also appeared to be a very synergistic force that did not like to operate singly.

While he wouldn’t normally waste resources on these Tau, he needed what was stored on this world. Further it appeared that these Tau were already in the process of assaulting the world which would tie up the PDF and the Imperial Guard regiments guarding it. The problem is they had already probably called for aid which could literally arrive at any time.

 

“Assault cruisers and mass conveyers, prepare for ground assault. Plans are incoming. “

 

So over the weekend I played a 2k game vs Tau. I haven’t played Tau since Riptides were new and crisis teams were taken in 1 - 3s and had cool names like Deathrain teams and such depending on what you armed them with and all tau players knew what you were talking about. Oh and back in my day(yeah I went there) the best BS in the entire army was a 3+ which might or might not have been rerollable if it was twin linked and that was on the commander suits. You couldn’t get better than that.

 

Apparently what I knew about Tau is so out of date it wasn’t funny. Didn’t help that according to the people at the two tables next to me, my opponent was playing them very cheesed up, one even said he felt sorry for me having to play against it with my force. I disagree and would have played that very differently if it was me given the rules but I will take their word for it.

 

So this time I thought I would give Veterans of the Long War a spin, never actually used this detachment. Was really thinking of playing Fellhammer and on afterthought maybe I should have.

Kheron Ophion- hammer, warmasters gift

Terminator sorcerer

10 cultists

2x5 legionnaires

10 legionnaires with heavy bolter(JB) meltagun plasma pistol, 2 heavy melee

 

5 chaos terminators- autocannon

5 havocs with autocannons

5 raptors 2 meltas

5 warp talons

3 chaos bikers

 

1 land raider

1 hellbrute

Kratos- choom wagon

Land Raider Achilles

 

He had Tau Experimental Weapons cadre

Shadowsun

Coldstar with 4 fusion guns one was the enhanced one

Etherial with some sort of gets a cp on a 4+

Whatever the firewarrior character is called

 

1 strike team

1 breacher team

1 kroot gorilla thing team x3

2 x5 stealth teams

1 hammerhead

2 x1 broadsides

1 Stormsurge(?)

2 riptides

1 Devilfish

 

We played Burden of Trust on a Hammer and anvil deployment, twist was the extra objective in the middle.

I’ll show a pic of the deployment but essentially I had Kheron and legionnaires in the Achilles, terms in the LR, and the Kratos between them, all on the line. Havocs on the line on the right next to a hellbrute. Bikers and a legionnaire squad “behind” terrain on the left. Cultists on home objective and another 5 man legionnaires in back corner, their job was to screen out deep strikers. Sorc and jump pack units in DS.

He deployed the hammerhead in left corner, stormsurge back left, strike and etherial on his home, 1 broadside in back right, 1 broadside on the line right behind terrain, both riptides behind the center blocking terrain on either side of it, stealth team 1 on the center objective, stealth team 2 on the left with shadowsun and gorrillas on the left line. Deviflish in strat reserves and coldstar in DS.

 

The majority of the 2^nd armored was making a flanking manuever to draw off tau forces. Kheron led a small armored fist force at breakneck speed across the still smoking ruins of an imperial city heading towards a large storage depot hidden in a mountain on the other side. His sources indicated that there were many dark age relics hidden here and effectively forgotten about by all but the mechanicum, items that his force both needed and he would find useful.

 

“Raider Actual, Raider Three, I’m seeing some kind of activity in this last group of buildings.”

 

“Roger, rhinos, drop ramps, deploy your troops, heavy units, lets press forward at combat speed.”

 

Through the commander’s cupola he saw marines moving from cover to cover on either side of his main line of advance. A large ruin was about to split his force to go around it and he was about to order the split when…

 

“Contact Left!” One of his jet bikes, themselves relics of the dark age, yelled, followed by the sounds of combi-bolter fire.

 

“They are like ghosts!” someone yelled over the vox.

 

He looked in that direction and with his enhanced senses granted by his helm he saw some sort of infrared laser coming from thin air out of the ruin of a former shop. There was nothing he could see shooting the laser. The laser however was hitting the side of Raider Three. “Targeting laser, three, reverse now!”

 

Before the lumbering machine could respond, a silver streak came from across the field and entered the front left motive tread of the Land Raider and came out the engine block in the rear. He was in shock for a second, not even a lascannon could do that. It was followed by multiple massive blasts across the front of the machine. He saw the crew evacuating and the terminators climbing out the side. Looking further over he saw some sort of short power armored humanoids appearing out of thin air and charging into his legionnaires.

 

His bikers attempted to counter charge and were swatted down by some sort of pulsing beam of light and the third biker just simply exploded and was thrown from his bike from the familiar blast of some version of a melta gun. Again though, from an unseen assailant standing in a blur.

 

Caradoc, the dreadnought, fell to the ground in a crunch of metal and popped welds and rivots as two smaller silver beams intersected and removed his torso at the hip. His heavy weapons team took a blast of fire from behind a building leaving two of them on the ground. A giant humanoid battlesuit robot thing stepped out from around a building and immediately fired its big arm mounted gun at his own land raider rocking it but leaving it intact as it charged forward, the driver already knowing his intent after years of working with him.

 

The legionnaires in the ruined shop quickly gained the upper hand in the melee despite losing two of their men, quickly reducing the suit team down to two enemies. His terminators quickly recovering from their disembarkation and joining the fray. The ancient Kratos lined up a bead on one of the two giant robot suits that dared to fire at it and unleashed a hail of “CHOOM!” fire and apparently microwaved the pilot of the suit in its cockpit as it collapsed to the ground in a heap of metal.

 

The Achilles tore forward around the other side and dropped its assault ramp while the gunners opened fire with all of the vehicle’s extensive weapons arsenal. Kheron and his retinue pounded down the ramp but remembered to duck as the quad launcher just above the ramp started belching rounds at the tau troopers huddled around a floating tau in robes. Most were smart enough to hit the ground and avoid being hit.

 

Another giant robot thing was now visible directly in front of the ancient land raider and took the full brunt of the massive sponson mounted multi-meltas and pintle mounted multi-melta manned by the vehicle commander himself. The marvel of tau ingenuity melted into slag before the things generator finally exploded.

 

With shrapnel from the exploding Riptide pinging off his armor Kheros charged into the shifting blur that materialized into five more of the humanoid suits who vainly attempted to shoot them as they charged in but either missed or their weapons were no match for astartes power armor. Blue blood flew as Kheron vented his rage on the destruction of one of his prized land raiders and shortly there were no further of the Tau suits left standing.

His adjutant looked over at him, “You know, you could have left one or two for us.”

 

T1: He got the roll off. He moved his left stealth team up and along with shadowsun and marked the land raider with the stealth team and the bikes with  Shadowsun. He marked my hellbrute which was just in range thanks to the experimental cadre +6” thing.

Here was my first what the hell" moment. His Hammerhead has a Strength 20, ap-4 or 5 weapon damage d6+6 devastating, reroll 1s to hit versus vehicles, reroll a roll of hit or wound, heavy so its hitting on a 3+, marker lighted so its hitting on a 2+, no cover. So he Devastating 12’d my landraider and then finished it with the overcharged riptide. When did Tau get 2+ to hit anything, especially with rerolls? Thankfully no one on board died. The stormsurge killed two of the bikes and Shadowsun killed the third one and one of the legionnaires. For some reason he charged those guys with his stealth team and lost three guys and I lost one wound.  

On the right side, his two broadsides, the stormsurge, the riptide managed to kill the hellbrute, 2 havoks and like 2 damage to the Achilles.

My T1: Terminators swing to the left going into the stormsurge’s LOS to gamble on a charge. Achilles pulls max forward to get the riptide and strike team in LOS. I want to kill his marker lights. The boys jump out and charge the stealths on the center objective. My remaining three havoks manage to take out the right broadside while moving up. Achilles kills the riptide and one strike team guy who I guess didn’t hit the ground fast enough. I rolled 9 hits but only 3 wounds. The Kratos manages to not get a single dark pact sustained but rocks it on the Devastating and kills the other Riptide. Terminators do a single shooting damage on Shadowsun but manage to charge and wipe the left stealth team.

The commander of the Achilles looks past the smoking wreckage of the tau robot and sees and even bigger robot thing with even bigger guns that swivel in his direction. He hears a whooshing noise to his right above the din of battle and sees a smaller sleek looking suit land next to his tank aiming four guns at him. In front of him, before the massive blast doors to the storage bunker a lone bulky battlesuit stood with a giant gun held in two hands with missile racks on each shoulder. “Bloody hell, why are they all aiming at me?”

 

T2: I shocked him a little with my counter attack but he was a long way from done. He moved shadowsun on top of the terrain she was near and marked the Kratos. The hammerhead moved forward to get the Kratos in LOS. The strike team stayed on the home objective and marked the Achilles. The Cold Star landed next to it and the Devilfish came in near the left side objective while the apes ran up on the terminators.

He fired his hammerhead and hit the Kratos, rolled a 2 for damage. He decided to reroll and rolled a 1. He does also manage 1 damage with the smart missiles as well on a random fluke shot. Shadowsun goes all death blossom and shoots all over the place and kills a couple cultists, fails to wound retinue, and fails to wound the Kratos.

Coldstar fires first and hits with everything and promptly fails to wound with everything.  

Here is the next round of garbage. He pops some kind of super strat on the Storm Surge giving it Sustain and lethal hits on all of its weapons. Here is also where I get lucky, but I want to know what kind of crack the designers were smoking when they wrote this stuff. Storm Surge has S24 weapon 2 shots, Ap-5, 12 damage! Not sure if it has dev wounds. That’s just one of its 5 really big guns. So he fires 3 out of 5 guns at the Achilles and the indirect weapon at the Lord and his squad in the middle of the board, that one wiffs completely. So the S24 weapon fires, again hits on a 2+ ignores ALL modifiers, sustains and lethals one of them. Rolls to wound and gets both through. Roll the three invul saves(Achilles land raiders have a 4++) pass one, fail two. CP reroll, pass. Still take 12 damage. I pass all the rest of the saves although I am down to 3 wounds after the broadside botches its shots.

His apes charge and kill a terminator with impacts. I in turn kill two of them.

 

My T2: I actually remembered my secondaries and had storm hostile objective and marked for death(he chose storm surge, hammerhead and devilfish). Gotta capitalize on his horrible round. Lord moves towards his strike team. Achilles moves in between the two center buildings to get out of LOS of the giant murder death robot with 54” range. Kratos moves forward to get the devilfish and Shadowsun in close range. Havoks continue to plod up the board. Term sorcerer and raptors land behind the broadside. Warp Raptors land 9” from the devilfish. Devilfish is the oath of hatred(I remembered this time) since it’s the easiest to kill for secondaries. The havoks open up on the coldstar and kill him. Sorcerer death hexes the broadside and he and the raptors drop him down to 2 wounds(raptors kill him on the charge). Achilles fires its sponson multi-meltas at the devilfish hit and wound with everything, damage rolls are 1,1,1,2. But then I fire the pintle mount MM and get two hits and wounds for a total of 11 more so boom then three breachers die in the explosion. Kratos knowing shadowsun is tricksy opens up on with everything and hits her with the autocannon first wounding with both shots. He fails both saves, CP rerolls and fails again. That’s all his shots. The three legionnaires who were going to charge her instead charge the breachers who just ejected from the burning devilfish and they fight the rest of the game usually winning although by the end there is only the squad leader left. The ape kills another terminator and they kill the ape. The warp raptors tried to charge the breachers but they were now 11” from them instead of 9” and are now standing in front of the hammerhead and within sight of the storm surge. Partially anyway. Lord and retinue charge the strike team and wipe them pretty easy.

 

 T3: My opponent doesn’t concede but agrees the game is effectively over. That really bad round of shooting hurt him and I have removed all of his tech pieces. At this point all he has left is a hammerhead and super mega death robot and the battle shocked breachers. So he death blossoms again with the mega robot and I don’t remember how it happened exactly but the Kratos goes down, all but one warp raptor die, 2 raptors die, two or three of lords retinue die, one havok dies although another havok gets hit with a destroyer missile that bounces off hit helm. Can you imagine being in the field and a tomahawk cruise missile hits you and just glances off your Kevlar?

 

My T3: We agree if I kill the storm surge I win(technically I win on points anyway but I quit counting). So the Achilles pulls forward again to get the hammerhead in LOS. Termies move forward ignoring the breachers and lone marine fighting them, “He’s got this.” Raptors and sorcerer move towards the Storm Surge along with the lord and retinue.

Achilles continues with its revenge tour and takes out the hammerhead although I don’t remember the details.

Forgot the overwatch again but at least this time it’s the unit I am charging doing it and it kills one guy.

Lord pops his chance for glory and pretty much kills the storm surge single handed. I think the power fists might have been involved, but it didn’t make it to the chain swords for sure.

 

The thirty-foot robot towering above him spewed fire and rockets at Kheron and his men as he charged at a speed only a transhuman physiology can provide. His ancient shield, made from the hull of his first ship, raised deflected the flames effortlessly not even heating metal designed for the rigors of space combat.

Fresh blue blood from the remains of the squad of troops he just hissed from his thunder hammer as it burned off. Small arcs of lightning arced from head to head as he leapt into the air bringing the hammer down into the knee of the huge machine guarding the entrance to his goal. His adjutant primed a melta bomb and threw it up into the “crotch” of the somewhat humanoid vehicle. The shaped charge detonated upward as the knee buckled under Kheron’s wrath.

With the sound of tearing metal the huge machine collapsed backwards hitting the ground with enough force to shake the earth. A pair of lightly armored tau pilots stunned from the crash attemped to escape from the open crew compartment on top. Kheron locked his hammer to his power pack and pulled his ancient Mars crafted plasma pistol and shot one. “Worm.” He said simply, “Take the other other one back to the ship, they like their little toys, lets see what makes these fish people tick.”

The smoking but still running form of his command Land Raider nosed out of the smoke from behind the wreckage of the enemy grav tank. He waved it over and walked to the ramp leading down to the ancient blast doors leading to the bunker.

“Remind me to pay our source a bonus if this works out. Aside from the xenos, this bunker is exactly where he said it would be.”

“Beg your pardon, Kheros, “his adjutant, a former legion Centurion, said, “You skinned him alive to get the information. I believe that’s his skin you tanned and are wearing on your face mask.”

“Oh well. Such is life.” Kheros lamented. “These blast doors appear to be armored ceramite, bring in the tech priest scum, lets get them to open it. There is a prize inside that I dearly want. Besides we need to get our tanks loaded up and back on the ship to be repaired.”

 

This game only was a win because he had a horrific turn 2 shooting phase and I passed my 4++s on the Achilles. He also was playing to beat me and not playing secondaries or primaries. I was playing the game while taking out his mobile pieces even though that meant leaving his stupid giant guns alone to pick off my tanks. I was hitting almost every secondary every round and had at least two mid board objectives every round. I never did the guard part of the primary, I was too busy fighting through the objectives and the follow on waves were jumping on to them. I do love Autocannons. The Kratos and Achilles overperformed. They don’t normally do that well. If I get a couple dev wounds in a game I get excited, here I was getting them all game that it was alive. Never got a single sustain on its guns though which was funny and the Achilles got hurt so bad after killing the riptide I never risked using pacts again. That said, I only failed two pacts all game which is a record for me although my trend of always rolling a three for mortals continues.

What idiot designer thought a multi-shot Str 24 weapon with sustain and lethal 12 damage -5 AP and 54” range, no to hit modifiers, hit on a 2+ was a grand idea?

I'll post pics in a bit if it works. I actually remembered to take them.

Initial deployment from my left

initial deployment from my right

End of my turn 1 in the middle. On his T2 the devilfish came on right where those blue and white apes are after he moved them. The Coldstar came down 9 inches to the Achille's two 0'clock. I guess he didnt know that outside of 9" meant 9.01" not 9" for use of melta weapons and such as we had to have an outside person rule in because he didnt believe me.

End of my turn 1 on the left. Note the Contekar commander leading the terminators, thats intentional for story although it didnt come up here.

End of my turn 2 with the Achilles cowering in the middle from the storm surge. Now that I am doing this edit and seeing the Hammerhead, he could not have fit the hammerhead in that narrow alley if it would have had its engines on it like its supposed to have. 

 

Chaos really did get the raw deal on the equipment side of things the last couple of editions, they neutered our once mighty Dreadnought for one. Sure with the firepower it was facing, even an Imperial redemptor and definitely a Ballistus which this is a poor man's(but paying the same points) would have gone down but for the points spent it has crap for guns. a twin linked lascannon and a one shot missile launcher. It doesnt even have fire frenzy any more. Where's my insane pilot looking for a way out? I wish we would ditch the dinobots or at least go back to being able to bring Huron and have access to the Imperial armory like the old days.

 

Speaking of the old days after the game I was talking to a couple guys at the next table over in the parking lot and found one of them lives in a town closer to me(this store is 45 minutes by fast toll roads from my house and its the closest popular game store) and he was talking about having been playing 40k a long time. I am told pretty often I dont look anywhere near my age and I certainly dont act it, and when he said that, I automatically go to "When did you start playing? I started my Night Lords back in 93." He looked at me funny and told me he was born in 94. Kids.... 

 

 

Edited December 2 by Galron
profanity removed