Double Trouble 4 Game 3 - Chaos Marines and Renegade Knights vs Astra Militarum

Hello!

This is the third of three battle reports of my games at Double Trouble 4, a fun and random doubles tournament for 40K held at Element games, run by Alex of the From The Fang blog. You can find all the rules and details here, but the jist of it is that each player took an 875 point list and played three games with random opponents and a random partner each time. Points were scored separately for holding objectives at the end of a turn and for destroying enemy units. First report can be found here, second one here.

I took my Alpha Legion to the event, and my list can be found here. In short, I took a battalion featuring 2 Chaos Lords, 3 Squads of 5 Chaos Marines, 1 Blob of 30 Cultists, 2 Rhinos and a Heldrake.

Final game, and it's Chaos vs Imperium again, with a familiar foe on my side - Regular Opponent John and his fabulously dirty Renegade Knights. He took a rather brutal combination of two fist/chainsword Knights and an Armiger Warglaive. Not much board coverage for him, but very, very stompy - in fact John had already dealt out two tablings at this stage. This didn't look like it would be a push over though, up against us were Rob's Catachan Spearhead with Yarrick, Harker, 30 Cultists Conscripts, 3 Basilisks, a Wyvern and a Manticore. And as if that wasn't enough guns, his partner was Greg with a Supreme Command Astra Militarum detachment with a Commisar, 2 Psykers, a unit of Bullgryns and a Baneblade. I played Greg at DT3 in game 3 and that time the Bullgryns gave me a significant spot of bother.

Technically the game was supposed to be Rob and myself vs John and Greg, but in true Double Trouble spirit, we decided to switch around for the classic battle of Imperial vs Chaos, Guns vs Swords, brown/camo vs pretty colours.

Unsurprisingly we set up first and ended up getting first turn. That was 3 out of 3 first turns for me, which was very helpful. We moved up aggressively, having spent a command point to put the Cultists infiltrating up the board to try and take out the opposing not-cultists. I disembarked both the melta Marine squads and ran them out onto the two objectives on our side of the board. A very lucky long range shot from the Armiger hit and wounded the Manticore three times, but with a command point reroll we turned a 2 into a 1 for damage leaving it on 2 wounds. The Heldrake failed to finish it off, but it was now very poorly. One of the Knights charged the Bullgryns, who were standing next to Yarrick and a Psyker, and stomp stomp stomped on them killing off only one and a bit. 

Between Veterans of the Long War, Endless Cacophony and charging, the Cultists reduced the not-cultists to about 10 models, and as a result managed to just about claim the objective they were standing on. This gave us 4 objectives on the first turn - a good effort, though we had yet to actually kill anything and we were about to be hit with all of the Guard's firepower.

My forces were largely ignored as the big guns focused on the Knight on the left. Artillery fire (aside from the Wyvern) and the Baneblade went into it, splitting off the heavy bolters to kill off the Cultists. Good shooting from the Basilisks was met with Rotated Ion Shields and some good saving throws from John. I think he had used all his bad luck on our game earlier in the week. The Knight just about dropped to half. In the charge phase the Baneblade looked to run over the Armiger and reduced it down to about 3 wounds, but crucially leaving the super heavy tank locked in combat and unable to overwatch. I understand Greg had tried this manoeuvre with more success earlier in the day.

In our turn 2 we continued to hold objectives. My plasma toting Marines and Lords jumped out to assist the top Knight against those troublesome Bullgryns. The damaged Knight went around the back to charge the Baneblade, leaving the Armiger in to keep it from shooting back. I spotted a golden opportunity with the Heldrake who had been having quite a successful day up until this point. We popped Daemonforge on him to ensure the Baleflamer could finish off the Manticore...

...before charging the heroic Heldrake into the Wyvern and two Basilisks, along with Harker. Harker survived with one wound, but that was one artillery piece destroyed and 3 unable to shoot next turn, which was absolutely massive. And speaking of massive, the Knight on the left charged into the Baneblade, using the Renegade Knight re-roll stratagem to get all hits and wounds with the Reaper chainsword, cleaving the steel behemoth in half! Elsewhere the other Knight charged in, killing the Psyker that was buffing the Bullgryns, as well as killing more of them.

This was a hugely decisive turn, where everything went right for us, and did not leave the Astra Militarum many options to respond. Rob shuffled his artillery to break them out of combat and fired the remaining basilisk, and that was pretty much it.

With the Bullgryns finally falling, the Knights marched on the Catachan artillery, while the Drake continued to harass and distract them. My two Lords charged in to finish off Yarrick, while the Drake ate a Commisar and eventually Harker. In the middle turns Rob and Greg resorted to firing the remaining guns at selective targets to try and reduce both Knights to half and score some blood points.

They eventually succeeded in bringing both Knights below half, along with the Drake (mainly through overwatch) but in turn 5 and 6 the game was really over and it was just about us maximizing points. At the end of turn 6 the Guard were removed from the table.

This was a crushing victory for the Chaos forces. 1750 Blood Points to 731 and 25 Objective points to 5. The game swung massively in our favour on turn 2 when the Heldrake shut down nearly all of Rob's shooting while the Knight killed off Greg's Baneblade, and they simply did not have enough resources left to recover. I have no doubt that in slightly different circumstances Greg and Rob may have blasted us off the board before we ever reached their lines, but getting first turn and having some strong dice early one definitely gave us the edge. Having said that I think John and I pretty much made all the correct moves in that game, and our two lists complimented each other nicely. Being the 'support' to a destructive list like John's was basically the original intention of this list, so it was nice to see it working as it's supposed to.

And with that, it was time for the results. I won't go into great detail about who won what and placed where - because you can find all that on Alex's From the Fang blog here. Unsurprisingly, with 3 tablings to his name, John picked up the Genocidal Maniac award. The Master Tactician award was much more hotly contested. I came in 3rd with a combined 59 points, only a point behind second place and a mere two points behind first! I'm pretty happy with that! In other news John also won the conversion competition...

(Pic stolen from here.)

It seems that a good day was had by all. Especially my Heldrake, who was an absolute hero and definitely my MVP. I think he deserves some kind of name (though I'm not really sure what kind of name a Heldrake would have? Suggestions below please!) The Cultists also did their job, successfully causing problems then being conveniently dead by turn 2, and the rest of the army performed admirably, if not spectacularly as well.

(Pic stolen from here.)

Sadly, as mentioned elsewhere, this was the last event run by Alex, but there is hope that someone else will pick up the torch and run more Double Trouble events in future. Whoever that is, I wish them the best of luck, as I think we will all have very high expectations for DT5!

Double Trouble 4 Game 2 - Chaos Marines and Death Guard vs Space Marines

Hello!

This is the second of three battle reports of my games at Double Trouble 4, a fun and random doubles tournament for 40K held at Element games, run by Alex of the From The Fang blog. You can find all the rules and details here, but the jist of it is that each player took an 875 point list and played three games with random opponents and a random partner each time. Points were scored separately for holding objectives at the end of a turn and for destroying enemy units. First report can be found here.

I took my Alpha Legion to the event, and my list can be found here. In short, I took a battalion featuring 2 Chaos Lords, 3 Squads of 5 Chaos Marines, 1 Blob of 30 Cultists, 2 Rhinos and a Heldrake.

In game two I had the good fortune of a narrative appropriate match up. My Alpha Legion partnered with Jonathon's Death Guard patrol, containing a Daemon Prince, a Malignant Plaguecaster, a Plague Marine squad, a big Cultist blob and two Bloat Drones. We had a big Chaos hug to celebrate our joint hatred of the false emperor. With almost 60 cultists between us plus plenty more objective secured I think we were pretty confident we could have the board control.

Our opponents were, appropriately, both playing Space Marines. David, who I played against in game 1 of DT3, brought a Spearhead of his Executioners (Crimson Fist rules) with Captain/Lieutenant combo, 2 Devastator squads, a Whirlwind and a Leviathan Dreadnought in a pod. By his side was Chris with an Ultramarines Vanguard full of Dreadnoughts. I think there were 2 regular ones, 1 Venerable, 1 Contemptor and a Chaplain Dreadnought to lead them. They had a lot of guns and some combat punch, as well as plenty of tough units, but aside from the Leviathan dropping in somewhere, they would be mainly fighting from their own deployment zone. With all those dreads I opted once again to spend a command point to juice up my power fist Lord with the Slaaneshi elixir.

During deployment we decided to overload one flank, with the Heldrake and the majority of the Death Guard on the right, while only the Plague Marines took the objective on the left. My Rhinos with Marines took the centre to push forward and claim ground/objectives. Our opponents set up the two devastator squads in the raised structures with objectives on the flanks and spread the dreads across the line. I used Forward Operatives once again to put Cultists in their faces and hopefully tie them up.

David and Chris won the roll for first turn, but this was all part of the plan as I proceeded to seize the initiative!

Turn one movement underway. We covered the objectives on our side of the board while the Cultists swarmed over their central one. The Heldrake decided one of the Devastator squads looked tasty/flammable and flew over to them, with the Nurgle force moving up slowly behind. Note the Contemptor hanging in the corner to the right of the Drake - at this stage the Daemon Prince called him out as a target, in 2 or 3 turns...

Cultists shot up two dreads, plinking off a few wounds, before charging in the tie them up. Sadly I forgot they were Ultramarines so they could just walk away and still shoot me. On the right the Drake dispatched the Devastators.

In return the loyalists dug their heels in and opened fire. The Alpha Legion cultists fell, largely due to a big roll from the Executioner's Whirlwind, while the Death Guard ones lost a few of their number. The Heldrake became a huge target, taking fire from many dreadnoughts. A Flak missile from the remaining Devastator squad, combined with the Armorium Cherub, hit for a whopping 6 mortal wounds, but when all the smoke cleared the Drake remained on 2 wounds. The heroic Captain and Lieutenant revved their chainswords and charged in, surviving the overwatch and dealing a single wound! Shades of the first game for the mighty Heldrake!

In our turn 2 we moved out further. I dropped my plasma squad onto our central objective, while the Plaguecaster hung back on the right flank. Over on the left the Plague Marines moved up slightly to get some shots at the Devastators. My melta toting marines got out to try and finish off the two damaged dreads, while the Drake and one of the Bloat Drones flew down to assist. Lots of fire and bile covered one of the armoured veterans, causing him to explode! Luckily the Drake only suffered one wound, knocking off the one he regenerated at the start of the turn. The Marines then charged the shooty dreadnought to tie it up (surrounding it this time!) and claim the objective.

It looked like we were all over the loyalists, but in their turn 2 a big scary Leviathan Dreadnought podded down into our deployment zone. We quickly decided to ignore it and run away, allowing it free reign to start clearing us off the back objectives. More firepower reduced the remaining Cultists and eventually brought the mighty Heldrake out of the sky, causing it to explode and put wounds on both Bloat Drones, but fail to kill the wounded Captain. My Marines finished off the surrounded Dreadnought in melee for minimal loses.

Rhinos shuffled, Lords got out, Drones flew up to face the characters. Not much luck with out remaining shooting, but a lot of charges happened. My remaining Marines got in to the Venerable dread armed with missiles and plasma to force him to hit at -2 next turn. My other squad surrounded the Whirlwind and spent the rest of the game chipping away at it. The two Lords charged the Chaplain Dread, while the Prince charged the Contemptor and the Bloat Drones went in on the Captain and his Lieutenant. Lots of saves came out on all sides, the Chaplain activating the Armour Indomitus relic to survive my fist Lord, before crushing him in return. Both Marine characters survived against the Drones, while the Contemptor and the Prince tore big chunks out of each other.

Over the last few turns we continued to score objectives while the Leviathan continued to clear out half of the board. My Marines took out the Devastators and held their objective while the Bloat Drones finally removed the characters, allowing the few remaining cultists to take their place. I think the Chaplain Dreadnought eventually fell, as did the Contemptor. I think it exploded and killed the Prince? Either that or the Prince died and killed it with mortal wounds from the suppurating plate. My Marines finally destroyed the Whirlwind, causing it to explode and leave only the champion, who decided he had done his job and fled the field. The end was a bit of a blur to get turn 5 in the time limit, but I remember lots of stuff exploded.

In the end the blood points were incredibly close - the snow now covered in loyalist and traitor blood alike. Jonathon and I picked up 1182 but David and Chris just pipped us with 1189. However our board presence paid off in a big way on the objective points, with the forces of Chaos trouncing the followers of the corpse god 21-8. Another fun and successful game for the Alpha Legion. Once again the Cultists and Heldrake gave us some invaluable early disruption while the Rhinos and Marines were able to cover the objectives all the way through the game - just as planned!

Double Trouble 4 Game 1 - Chaos Marines and Custodes vs Imperial Knights and Space Wolves

Hello!

This is the first of three battle reports of my games at Double Trouble 4, a fun and random doubles tournament for 40K held at Element games, run by Alex of the From The Fang blog. You can find all the rules and details here, but the jist of it is that each player took an 875 point list and played three games with random opponents and a random partner each time. Points were scored separately for holding objectives at the end of a turn and for destroying enemy units.

I took my Alpha Legion to the event, and my list can be found here. In short, I took a battalion featuring 2 Chaos Lords, 3 Squads of 5 Chaos Marines, 1 Blob of 30 Cultists, 2 Rhinos and a Heldrake.

In the first game I was teamed up with Callum and his Custodes supreme command detachment. He had 3 Shield Captains on jetbikes and 1 on foot, as well as 3 Allarus Terminators. (Apparently he wasn't sure if this was cheesy - I think we agreed that yes, it probably was.) Clearly my sneaky Alpha Legion had convinced them that they were totally loyalists, honest. On the other side of the board we faced Alex, the tournament organiser with his House Raven Knights - A Crusader and 2 Helverins. I absolutely appreciated the orange on these guys. Apparently the list was chosen not for the power of it's 3 models, but for the ease of simultaneously running a tournament while playing the game with them. Alongside the Knights were Matthew's Space Wolves, who were granted special allowance to use the new codex after the list submission deadline because Alex is a nice man, and his blog is literally called 'From The Fang'. I'm pretty sure I played either with or against Matthew in the first Double Trouble event when he was running Tau and I was running Ad Mech, so it was cool to clash once more/for the first time. His list included 3 Wolf Lords on Thunder Wolves, 5 Intercessors, 5 Grey Hunters, 5 Blood Claws, 5 Long Fangs and 5 Skyclaws.

We set up in the wedge shaped deployments for this one. Callum and I both spent command points to use bonus relics (taking the 'Slaaneshi Steroids' my warlord would now strike at strength 10 with his power fist), and I spent a command point to deploy the Cultists as Forward Operatives. The Terminators started in reserve, as did the Skyclaws. We won the roll off for first turn and we were off!

Our forces moved up the board to take objectives and cause problems. (Apart from the walking Shield Captain who stood behind a building on an objective for the entire game.) The Cultists managed to kill off 4 marines or so and then tie up two squads and 3 wolf lords, keeping them penned in for the first turn. On the other flank the Heldrake totally fluffed breathing on the Intercessors, via me rolling a 1 for the number of shots for the Baleflamer, after a command reroll! More importantly, the drake successfully charged one of the Helverins, keeping it from shooting next turn. 

After Alex and Matthew's first turn they were still mostly stuck in their deployment zone. They popped one of my Rhinos and obviously finished off the cultists, but failed to drag the drake out of the sky. The Helverin that could shoot blasted it for 4 wounds, each doing 3 damage, and I only passed one save after a command point was used, but after that it passed everything and stubbornly stayed up with 3 wounds left.

Our turn 2 and the Jetbikes moved up for charges. My Rhino deposited a squad to sit on the objective, before driving up with the Warlord on board and popping the smoke launchers. My other two squads spread out to cover the middle objectives. I debated leaving the Heldrake in combat with the Helverin and Intercessors to keep the tied up or jumping up to set fire to the Long Fangs. In hindsight the smarter move would have been to stay still, but I wanted to burn stuff so the drake jumped up and promptly got 1 or 2 shots with the Baleflamer for no damage. In other news, we forgot to bring the Terminators on. Not a very killy turn, but we did hold most of the objectives. 

The Skyclaws were not forgotten however, coming on in our rear to threaten an objective and the squad that was sitting on it - until the Crusader fired on them with the rapid fire battlecannon. Elsewhere the Helverins took out the Heldrake and all three Wolf Lords got into combat, eating one of my remaining squads and largely bouncing off Custodes invulnerable saves. The Intercessors also managed a charge onto one of my remaining units to take an objective from them.

Turn 3, and the Terminators finally arrived (Callum had placed the models in highly visible spots around the board so as not to miss them again), and started chopping their way through the Armigers on the flanks. The Shield Captains killed off the Intercessors and a Wolf Lord, while my warlord punched another one in the face with a power fist. The third Shield Captain on bike charged the Long Fangs but had a bit of a whiff. I didn't have much left on the board, but I spread out and managed to hold 3 objectives at the end of our turn.

In response, the Skyclaws charged the Rhino to take the objective (but failed to kill it), while the remaining Grey Hunters sneaked onto another objective while staying 3 inches away from my Lords to avoid Heroic Intervention. The Knight blasted the Long Fang hunting Shield Captain off the board. With time rapidly running out, in the final act of the game, the Allarus Terminators felled the second Helverin.

In the end while it was very close on blood points (we scored 846 to their 796), Callum and I were comfortably ahead on the objectives (we came out with 13 to 8). It was a little disappointing to only get to the end of turn 3, but this was mainly because we were having a good time chatting and drinking tea (thanks Alex!), so it wasn't really a problem. My army mostly got blown off the table, but it did score us a lot of points for objectives (which was my intent from the beginning this time), and both the Lords survived, so clearly the losses were acceptable, plus many loyalists fell this day, which is nice.

Double Trouble 4 Army List and Preview

Hello!

With Double Trouble 4 fast approaching, it's about time I decided on my list! I believe the deadline for both list submission and buying a ticket (hint hint) is Saturday the 18th at midnight, and I think I've just about come to a decision. Here is what I'm leaning towards:

The Fractured Truth - Alpha Legion Battalion - 875 points
(Everything marked Slaanesh for convenience)

Chaos Lord: power fist; bolt pistol; Warlord Trait: I Am Alpharius
Chaos Lord: Blade of the Hydra (chainsword); bolt pistol

29 Chaos Cultists: autoguns; + 1 Cultist Champion (shotgun)
4 Chaos Space Marines: bolters; meltagun; + 1 Aspiring Champion (bolt pistol; power sword)
4 Chaos Space Marines: bolters; meltagun; + 1 Aspiring Champion (bolt pistol; power axe)
4 Chaos Space Marines: bolters; plasma gun; + 1 Aspiring Champion (combi-plasma)

Chaos Rhino
Chaos Rhino

Heldrake: baleflamer

My thought process was as follows: Orks don't have a codex yet, I did Tyranids last time, I did Ad Mech the time before that, Knights will probably be everywhere. Haven't taken Chaos to an event for a while, so why not? My next thought was 'I've got a two headed Heldrake, that's kind of cool, I should take that. And I do like the Rhinos with the big transfers on them...'

So with that in mind I started putting the list together. I decided early on that I wasn't going to just focus on killing stuff like normal, and that I would actually try to take objectives and be useful this time. That meant troop choices, which meant a battalion and a nice number of command points. One of those choices would be a blob of cultists, for Forward Operative/Veterans of the Long War/Endless Cacophony/Tide of Traitors fun. After that I felt somewhat lacking in anti-tank so I grabbed a couple of meltaguns in marine squads, and a third squad with plasma/combi plasma to add some versatility. Two Lords filled the HQ slots for relatively cheap, able to provided the reroll 1s bubble in two separate locations. The Warlord will probably go up with the cultists to aid them and be aggressive - if he dies the other one will become the warlord anyway, and he will be hanging with the marines in their Rhinos. With the spare points I sprinkled some melee weapons on the champions, just in case.

I know this is not a very competitive list, but I think it should be fairly fun and has a reasonable amount of stuff in it for 875 points. Remember of course this will only be half an army, and I'm hoping my partners will be capable of doing the real damage while I cause problems with cunning and trickery - and if we lose, well, that's clearly what the Alpha Legion planned all along!

In other news, this time I will not be going alone, as Regular-Opponent-John will be coming along as well. I'm not entirely sure what he's bringing but I suspect I will involve at least 3 pink/purple robots and will be very killy. I would not be entirely surprised if he picked up the Genocidal Maniac award, as it is very much in line with his play style.

I also know Dave Weston of the Confessions of a 40k Addict blog is attending, and is planning on taking quite a scary large robot based list. I'm calling it here now, if John and Dave team up with their expected lists, someone is going to have a really bad day - hopefully not me!

Double Trouble 4 thoughts

Hello!

As you may remember, not too long ago I attended an unusual 40K tournament called Double Trouble 3, and that it was a blast. It was a 3 game doubles tournament where each round your partner was randomly selected, giving you 3 different partners and 6 different opponents, all things being well. (Reports from my battles can be found here, here and here.) Well, looks like I'm going to do it all again at Double Trouble 4!

If you haven't already heard or clicked the link above, the format and venue is exactly the same, 875 points per player, 3 games with random partner and opponents, at Element Games. The event will be held on Saturday the 1st of September - so it's getting pretty close! There are however still plenty of tickets available at the time of writing, hint hint. The event will be run by Alex Brown of the From the Fang blog, and if you follow that link, you will probably find out that it is likely to be the last event he runs, so if you think you might like the format and are available to attend, I strongly suggest getting your ticket and going before you lose the chance!

So obviously, with the event approaching, I've got the decide what to take. The recently painted Gorkanaut is making Orks a tempting choice, but I'm not sure about taking a non-codex army. Still an option, and there is an outside chance the Codex will drop in the next 3 weeks (he said unconvincingly). I took the Tyranids last time, I they did pretty well, but for sake of variety I think they will stay at home. This leaves 3 remaining options. Adeptus Mechanicus, Imperial Knights, or Chaos Space Marines.

This is the Ryza force I took to Double Trouble 1, way back in 7th edition. The fact that I have taken them before puts me off a bit, but it was about 2 years ago so it barely counts. I think if I were to take them, the force would look a bit different, probably a battalion with Dominus, Enginseer, 2 cheap units of Skitarii, some shooty robots and as many plasma toting Kataphron Destroyers as I could fit in. It would not be fast or particularly tough, but it would be brutal for exactly one shooting phase per game, when I spent 3 command points on Elimination Volley and Plasma Specialists, assuming they don't all die first. I'm not sold on the idea, but they are orange, which counts for something.

Option 2, the Knights of House Taranis. Not much variation possible in the build for this one - the army would look pretty much like this. I might be able to squeeze in a Crusader, but I've not done the maths on that. Obviously I love these guys, and I think they would do well, both in the games and possibly the painting competition (I think I'd enter the battle damaged Armiger, maybe?) However I suspect I'll see several pretty similar detachments cropping up for DT4, so it might not be a very original choice.

The final choice then is the Alpha Legion warband known as the Fractured Truth. Not my prettiest army, but still quite striking I think. I'm not quite sure what I'd take, but I think in the name of coolness I'd have to fit the two-headed Heldrake in there. It's fair to assume there would also be a sizable unit of Cultists and probably some plasma-toting marines in Rhinos. Throw in a couple of HQs and we're pretty much there. Another option would be to go heavy on dreads with the Helbrutes and/or Contemptors. I'm actually leaning towards this option for the ability to have a bit of variety in the force and take advantage of some actual mobility and play for objectives rather than just killing stuff.

Anyway, I'm undecided. Feel free to shout suggestions to me in the comments. Also, if you can, please consider heading over to Stockport on September the 1st for Double Trouble 4. It'll be really fun!