Battle Report - Genestealer Cult vs Chaos Space Marines

Hello!

It's been relatively quiet on the blog front recently (I've got a few things going on, but nothing that's ready to post as an article yet), but yesterday I got out to Grim Dice to play some 40k! I took the Genestealer Cult out for a spin as a bit of a learning experience. They are still a 'new' army for me (last game, and only previous game with the 8th edition codex with them was back in July against Stig) and my opponent John hasn't played against them with the 'new' codex either. He's practising for the Warhammer World GT soon, so he took a variant of the list he's looking at. My list is pretty much just all the GSC I have, so not really optimised, but I thought it would be a good information gathering experience for both of us.

We played the Eternal War mission Lockdown from Chapter Approved 2019, which features 6 objectives, 4 of which disappear over the course of the game. I like this mission because it forces you to play for the objectives early. We were also using the ruins rules they play at the Warhammer World GTs, which are 'ITC lite' - effectively the windows and doors on the ground floor block line of sight, but not sections that lack a wall entirely. We were playing at 2000 points.

My list was a double battalion (ah, buddalion), using the Cult of the Four Armed Emperor rules. I don't own the Psychic Awakening book for GSC, so didn't use any of the rules from that book. (Apparently it is underwhelming - which was good for my wallet). A large chunk of my list doesn't benefit from cult rules so the choice was as much about the stratagem and warlord trait as it was about the +1 to charge. I spent a CP at the start on Brood Coven to get a bonus couple of warlord traits, getting 2 back for the Cult one. I've also left the psychic powers off this list below, I took one of everything spread out through all the psykers.

HQ: Patriarch (Warlord: Shadow Stalker, Relic: Amulet of the Voidwyrm), Patriarch, Primus (Alien Majesty), Iconward, Magus (Familiar, Inscrutable Cunning), Magus (Familiar)

Troops: 10 Broodbrothers, 3x10 Neophytes (assorted guns), 10 Acolyte Hybrids (banner and 4 mining weapons), 10 Acolytes (4 demolition charges)

Elites: Kelermorph, 20 Purestrain Genestealers

Heavy Support: Leman Russ (battle cannon, heavy bolter), Leman Russ (exterminator autocannon, lascannon), Leman Russ (vanquisher cannon, lascannon, multimeltas)

Transport: Chimera


John's list was supposed to have 2 Deredeo dreadnoughts in it, but they somehow didn't make it into his case, so they were substituted out for a Knight with two thermal cannons (the melee weapons were proxies - it was better this than two coke-can dreads!) I think this left him with a double battalion and a super heavy auxiliary. He was using a bunch of stuff from Faith and Fury for his Emperor's Children, so forgive me, I don't remember what the relics and warlord traits were.

HQ: Daemon Prince, Sorcerer, Exalted Champion, 2x Dark Apostles

Troops: 4x10 Cultists, 2x18 Noise Marines (Sonic blasters and blast masters)

Heavy Support: Havocs (chaincannons)

Lord of War: Chaos Knight (2 Thermal cannons)

Transport (maybe): Termite drill.


I won the roll to choose to be the attacker, which was a tough choice because I didn't want to face two turns of noise marine fire before my heavy hitters turned up, but there is also a bonus point for holding the most objectives at the end of the battle round. In the end I opted to go first, and deployed a bunch of blip tokens. John hid some of his army behind ruins, but left a blob of noise marines out in the open. We both had a permanent objective in our corners, while the others were going to disappear on their numbered turn.

In turn one I plopped down the tanks, some characters and two neophyte units (I had one with shotguns still underground). The Chaos priests got chanting to give the noise marines +1 to hit and -1 to be hit in the shooting phase. As a result my fire was split between some shots at the Knight to no effect and some guns at a cultist unit to get first strike - which I just about managed after a failed morale test. 

I also pushed the Chimera full of brood brothers up onto the objective near the knight, as it was going to be removed on turn 2. Unsurprisingly the Knight wandered up to respond and try to take it.

Bit of shuffling and the shooting commenced. Only one unit of noise marines in range, but buffed up with stratagems they split fire and destroyed the Chimera and dropped the Battle cannon Leman Russ to 3 wounds in one volley. The Knight blasted the Vanquisher Russ into scrap, removing it's chance to prove why it's the worst main gun. John tried to play Endless Cacophony to finish my Russ and cut through the Brood Brothers on the objective by the Knight, but I used the Cult stratagem A Plan Generations in the Making to cancel it. The Knight then charged the Brood Brothers, but left a few of them alive, holding the objective and within 6 inches of a Patriarch so they couldn't fail morale. Thanks to that we both held 3 objectives and scored First Strike. Neck and neck!

Turn two was always going to be critical. The GSC sprung from their ambush positions, striking at key targets. Demo charge Acolytes used stratagems to pop up right next to the Knight and throw all their charges at it. Along with fire from the tanks and some cheeky wounds from autopistols, the Knight fell.

On the other side of the battlefield 20 Genestealers emerged from a Perfect Ambush, giving them a 6 inch charge on the Noise Marines. The warlord Patriarch popped up next to them to grant the +1 to hit buff and cast Mass Hypnosis on them to ignore overwatch. The Kelermorph appeared as well within 12 of one of the Dark Apostles and blasted him full of holes. The Genestealers went in and unsurprisingly murdered most of the unit (some kept alive by having toughness 5 from combat drugs), and causing the rest to flee. They did kill 8 of the Purestrains in return/as they died though. Overall a great turn, but one disappointment was a failed charge from the other Patriarch and the shotgun Neophytes into a cultist squad on objective 3. This meant I was holding 2 objectives now vs John's 3, which would be worth 4 points to him, putting him in the lead.

The second blob of Noise Marines emerged from the ruins, and speaking of hiding underground, the Termite drilled up behind my lines disgorging the chaincannon Havocs. To no one's surprise, both units polished off their primary targets - neophytes on my home objective, the Genestealers and the damaged Leman Russ. Endless Cacophony was played now the screen was dead to target my characters, killing the Kelermorph, but surprisingly only wounding the Warlord.

In my turn the last of the Acolytes and the Primus emerged. My remaining guns managed to crack the Termite (which had charged a Magus and succeeded in only killing the familiar) and kill a few of the Havocs, but two chaincannons were still going to cause problems! I tried to mind control one of them to kill his mates, but failed the leadership roll. I also failed to cast Mass Hypnosis, which was a problem because the Emperor's children can otherwise strike first, so my second Patriarch who had lined up a charge on the Daemon Prince was getting very nervous!

The Acolytes, Primus and Patriarch charged into the Noise Marines and the Cultists on objective 4, and thanks to numerous buffs, killed all of them (aside from a few noise marines who ran away). The Prince obviously fought second, smashing the Patriarch. This gave me objective 4, though not for long. In John's turn the Prince and characters squashed the warlord and Primus with ease. The remaining Havocs did some good work clearing out more of my backfield and charging the Iconward, who killed one of them in combat, but the last one contested my home objective, earning John the bonus point again.

In the last rounds of the game all of my units in John's half were cleaned up by his characters camping on his home objective, while I finished off his Havoc. The Prince Warptimed his way up to kill off my last Neophytes on objective 5 to grab it before it disappeared. The last Leman Russ turned it's turret and autocannoned the Prince to death, getting me warlord. At the end of turn 6 the dead pile was hilariously large, and we were both down the a few stragglers on our home objectives. The game ended, with John on 17 points to my 15.

Wow, that was intense. Playing Genestealer Cults requires a lot of thinking! That game was a proper punch, counter punch game, ending in a bloodbath. Valuable experience for both of us I think. Two points in it, ultimately down to going second really to push me off objectives and get the 'hold more' points. I'm not sure choosing to go second would have been a better move for me, though there are a fair few places where I think a bit of luck either way would have really swung it. I was quite pleased with how the army worked, given that a lot of the choices were probably not conventional GSC wisdom (e.g. Leman Russ tanks and Purestrain Genestealers), and I'll definitely look to get them on the table again, possibly as Tyranid allies, we'll see.

Grand Tournament Day 2

Hello!

Welcome back to the 40k Grand Tournament report, as we move onto day two. Day one is here, and my list is here. The Adeptus Mechanicus of Ryza and Taranis Imperial Knights continue on their quest to not be completely embarrassed in a relatively competitive setting, coming off two defeats and a victory in their recent encounters.

Game four was against Wayne with Chaos Knights. I forget most of the traitor names, but he had three 'crusaders', a 'preceptor' and one of each Armiger. They had a whole load of special rules that I largely forgot during the game, but there was a 4+ invulnerable one, one with a load of 'Freeblade' type rules and they all had +1 to hit in melee on the first round. The mission was Lockdown, and we had the corners deployment.

I took first turn, but Wayne was canny enough to deploy out of range of my Destroyers and the Valiant, so it was largely a turn of moving and some ineffectual fire from the Crusader. I did get my infantry out onto plenty of objectives which would put me ahead on points early on.

The Chaos Knights moved up to respond and opened fire. The Helverin and the big laser on the Desecrator (I think) melted most of the Destroyers, but the rest of the fire was fairly ineffectively poured into the Valiant. Lady Helena stood tall and her mount, The Defiant Flame, once again lived up to it's name. 

Speaking of flames, Helena charged forward and started spreading fire across the front rank of Traitor Knights, not killing any of them but reducing two below half wounds. Thanks to the Valiant soaking all the fire, I still had plenty of infantry to hold objectives and go further ahead on points.

In Wayne's turn, I got another stroke of luck as the Despoiler failed it's 'freeblade' leadership test (in spite of a CP reroll), forcing it to charge the closest target and be hitting on 6s with shooting. Elsewhere shooting did some damage but my knights were still standing. At the end of turn 2 the first full unit finally died as the Despoiler turbo-murdered a tech-priest Enginseer on an objective.

More Knight action in my turn, the Valiant and Crusader did some mopping up on the two damaged 'Crusaders', killing both (including one with the Thundercoil Harpoon!) My Armiger also did good, killing it's evil twin Warglaive. At this point I was way ahead on points so Wayne went for killing stuff...

The Armiger got sliced in half by the Despoiler (it did 30 wounds!), and some shooting did some serious damage to my big knights. I forget the exact details but I think the Valiant fell and got back up again, and then at some point there was a big explosion. As you can see there was a big pile of knights in the middle!

Eventually my forces cleared up the table, earning me a convincing win. This was a real fun, if short game. Wayne's big robots looked proper evil, and I enjoyed seeing some of their fun weird rules. Having infantry and loads of command points definitely gave me the edge in this scenario, but I also got a good chunk of luck with Helena's heroics. This also gave me two wins which means I was pretty satisfied no matter what happened next. (And I was even more satisfied after a cheeky carvery for lunch!)

Game 5 was against Andrew and more Knights! This time Imperial, using Hawkshroud, and bringing a Valiant! (#rightdominus). He took the Valiant, (with Ion Bulwark and the Traitor's Pyre, naturally), a Gallant, two Crusaders and Inquisitor Greyfax. Andrew was 'fresh' off the LVO the previous weekend, so he was bringing a jet lag friendly list. The mission was Crusade and we had the quartered deployment zone again.

Andrew was due to go first, and he told me he'd been seized on three times already. So of course I seized the initiative. This was really good for me because I had nowhere to hide my Destroyers and I was sure they weren't going to survive first turn. I immediately powered them up and knocked 18 wounds off a Crusader. Elsewhere my Knights did a chunk of damage off the Gallant. I think I got a little unlucky not to kill either of these targets. I chose not to shoot the Valiant, mainly because I thought it'd be really cool to have a Valiant fight! I also pushed out to grab several objectives for the next turn.

The Hawkshroud Knights did more or less as expected, and mostly deleted the Destroyers. I lost a fair few infantry but the Skitarii held firm on several objectives. Greyfax used a psychic power to give my Valiant -1 to hit for the turn. Then the charge phase, the fully operational Crusader charged the Armiger (finishing it off from shooting), and the Gallant used the large, line of sight blocking terrain piece in the center of the board to charge the Valiant without taking overwatch!

I believe Helena fell once again, but I played 'Our Darkest Hour' and she got back up. In my turn with Machine Spirit Resurgent she was fighting on the top profile, but at -1 from the pesky Inquisitor. My Knights killed off the Gallant and the wounded Crusader, but that left the other two knights largely untouched.

In Andrew's following turn Helena was finally brought down, and Camulus, in the Crusader, suffered damage. He also put a lot of fire into my infantry, blasting me off objectives and giving himself a probable lead at the start of his next turn. With my assets greatly diminished, I had to kill off at least one Knight in my turn to stand a chance. Camulus blasted the Crusader, damaging it significantly. Then I charged, but Andrew had saved enough CP to use the Hawkshroud stratagem and overwatch with the Valiant. The flamer reduced my Crusader to 10 wounds, then the Thundercoil Harpoon hit!

A wound and a failed save, and the Crusader was destroyed! I had two CP left and not much else, so I made it explode! With nothing really to speak of left, we talked out the last few turns, I had a chance to try and finish off the Crusader with my Tech-priests' Eradication rays, but it was not to be. Victory for Hawkshroud, a loss for the forces of the Omnissiah.

Another fun but quick game, played in absolutely the right spirit. Knights do tend to produce a lot of epic moments, but they are very swingy it seems. Andrew was convinced I'd take it after I seized, but I sure proved him wrong! I think if I'd been 4/0 at the start of this game I'd have prioritised killing the Gallant and then the Valiant, and probably held back a bit more with my Knights as well, but we both really wanted to see Valiants do cool stuff, and they did! I'd witnessed two knights killed by Thundercoil Harpoons in one day, so I was pretty happy with that! That said, with two short games on day 2 I did slightly regret taking a low model count army. With the three hour rounds I definitely could have played something with a lot more models and got more 40k for my money!

So in the end, 2 wins and 3 losses, I think is a respectable return. Fairly happy with how my army performed, most of it did more or less as expected. Overall I came somewhere in the 70s out of 91 players, which I was a little disappointed about, because I'd not picked up any favourite game votes. I think all my games were fun and my opponents all seemed to have a laugh, so I can only assume that it's an indication of the overall quality of games at the weekend that each of my opponents had other, even more fun games. I certainly didn't hear much of any of the sort of behaviour favourite game votes are supposed to stop, so I guess it did it's job even if I didn't directly benefit in the rankings.

More importantly of course I had a great time. It was a real fulfilling hobby experience, with five great opponents, lots of awesome armies on display, meeting up with some discord folks, chatting with other gamers and even an overall tournament victory for an Ork army! WAAAAGH! Even if you are only a tiny little bit competitive, like me, I definitely recommend the Warhammer World tournaments. Everyone I spoke to had a great time and it was just an awesome friendly atmosphere. It really felt like we were all there to have a good time, not just to win.

Mini Battle Reports - Element Games casual gaming

Hello!

Time for a special 'treat' to end the year - three mini, barely remembered battle reports in one blog entry! This is the three 'casual' games I had against regular-opponent-John at the Element Games Grand Slam that we attended in November, and the last bit of content I've got from that event.

The first two games were played on the night before the event. We both took an extra 1000 point list for casual games against randoms, but having both just come off night shifts we decided socialising was hard and just played against each other a couple of times. My list was detailed here, but in essence it was an Ork Warboss, a Weirdboy, 3 units of 20+ boyz and a Gorkanaut. This would be my first games with the new Ork book, so I was pretty excited to get use out of the new stratagems and stuff. John took a Chaos Lord, Sorcerer, 2 Helbrutes (I think they had autocannons and missile launchers), 2 Contemptors with butcher cannons and 2 decimators with storm lasers. Classic John.

Our first game was... something with objectives? Whatever it was, we lined up like this:

John went first and moved up to get shots off and cover some objectives. He killed some Orks and grabbed a central objective, in front of the Gorkanaut...

In my turn I played the ramming speed stratagem on the 'naut, and rolled that! Ugh! The boyz got in though.

They were unable to bring the dread down though, and in John's turn they were all but destroyed with his combined firepower. However, a few of them clung on...

Enough for the Green Tide stratagem! I also cast Da Jump on the Warboss, putting him in a position to charge the Lord.

The Gorkanaut waddled over to the other side of the board, looming over the dreads in that corner, while a few remaining shoota boyz held an objective.

Charges were made, but John's stompy robots made it our alive, disengaging away on their long legs. Return fire gutted the unit somewhat.

However the Gorkanaut eventually made it in, and made a right mess of one of the Helbrutes.

I remember there was an epic clash between the two warlords, both surviving the other's deadly claws against all odds. John later fell back and shot the Warboss, who managed to hang on on barely any wounds.

Eventually he charged back in to beat up the Contemptor that had escaped the Gorkanaut in turn one. I can't remember if he did kill it, but I'm pretty sure he died shortly after.

Meanwhile the Gorkanaut was very much enjoying his first outing, clearing everything for the right flank, including the other Contemptor. He is an absolute monster in melee! The game ended, with him pretty much my only model left. I'd lost on victory points, but I was happy with the carnage I'd inflicted!

Game two we set up the same armies, but using the same mission and deployment we would be using in game 1 the next morning.

We set up something like this, with me pushing forward in the centre and John's dreads spread out in a wide arc. John decided the Gorkanaut just had to die, and this time he put all of his firepower into it on turn one. It took a hell of a beating, but eventually it fell into a pile of bullet-ridden scrap.

I started moving up. I tried to use Green Tide and Da Jump to pop two units behind John's lines, but Da Jump failed. I them proceeded to fail the charge. Being unable to tie up any of the dreads, and with my hard hitting Gorkanaut dead, I conceded there and then. There was absolutely no question that unit would be destroyed in John's turn, which left me with only some shoota boyz who could either sit back and lose on objectives or charge forward/Da Jump in, and die. And actually, we were quite sleepy.

First two games with the Orks were a close loss, and a crushingly fast defeat, but I was getting a bit of a taste for how they are supposed to work and how with a few key rolls going my way I could have tied up more units, made more charges, cast more powers etc.


So, we jump ahead to the end of day 1 and we've got time for another game. We were going to play a practice game at some point with our two tournament armies, but never managed to schedule it ahead of the event, so we decided to play it halfway through, obviously. If you've been keeping track of things, you'll know that apparently this actually worked, because we both won our last two games.

I was of course running my Adeptus Mechanicus / Imperial Knight Imperium force, as seen here. Roughly speaking, it features A Ryza battalion with Tech Priest Dominus, Enginseer, 5 Rangers, 5 Vanguard, 5 Plasma Destroyers, 2 Fist Kastelans, 2 Blaster Kastelans and Datasmith, then the Knight detachment with 2 Warglaives and the Valiant.

John's list was a very tasty, very beautiful Chaos concoction. An Emperor's Children battalion with a Lord, Sorcerer, 2x10 Cultists and 18 Noise Marines, backed up by a Hellforged Spartan in a superheavy auxiliary and a Renegade Knight detachment with two 'Gallants' and a 'Warglaive'.

For context, in the final standings John and his list finished 12th (and picked up second best army) while I ended up at 45th (out of 86).

I forget what mission we played, but it was on a very pretty board! I think we both knew that, though there were objectives, this was going to be all about killing stuff.

John got first turn, moving his Knights up and targeting the Valiant with the Spartan, which in classic John style, whiffed and left the Knight largely undamaged.

My first turn, and the counter punch was brutal. The Kataphrons moved up and used the Elimination Volley/Plasma Specialists combo to supercharge their plasma culverins and blasted 21 wounds off one of the Gallants. Other shooting easily finished it off, and the Valiant combined with the Armigers critically damaged the other renegade Knight, though not quite finishing it off. This is exactly the situation the Kataphrons excel at, and they absolutely did. They subsequently bought it the next turn when the Noise Marines disembarked, but they had done their job! 

The remaining 'Gallant', the Armiger and the Spartan combined on turn two to kill off one of the Armigers (I think), and put some more wounds on the Valiant, but hilariously the big knight failed it's very short charge into the Valiant after John foolishly used his last command point to rotate ion shields in his charge phase to mitigate the punishing overwatch.

In my turn the Knights cleaned up the last of their former brothers, while the Phosphor blaster robots blasted the noise marines. I think the Valiant charged the last one to slingshot itself up the board.

At this point John pretty much just had the Spartan and cultists left. The Spartan whiffed again, the Valiant finished it off, and John called it there. A convincing victory for the Imperial forces! The servitors were absolutely savage in this game, and the Valiant did the business yet again. At this stage I'm head over heels for the thing, it's absolutely my favourite unit in this army, so it and the pilot need a name.

I've decided that she is named Lady Helena, and she rides The Defiant Flame.

EGGS Game 5 - Imperium vs Chaos

Hello!

Here's the fifth of my reports from the Element Games Grand Slam 2018 40k event that I attended with regular opponent John recently. I took this list. In case you don't want to follow the link, I took a mixed Imperium force with an Adeptus Mechanicus battalion and an Imperial Knight super heavy detachment.

Ryza:
HQ: Tech-priest Dominus, Tech-priest Enginseer
Troops: 5 Vanguard, 5 Rangers, 5 Plasma Destroyers
Elites: Cybernetica Datasmith
Heavy Support: 2 Phosphor blaster Kastelans, 2 Fist Kastelans

Taranis:
Lord of War: 2 Armiger Warglaives, Knight Valiant

I apologise for poor photos, lack of details and any mistakes that pop up over these reports. As usual I just took some pictures and am relying on my brain for the rest, and there was lots of stuff that went into my brain over the weekend.

Game 5, I came up against Guy and his cool purple nurgle themed Chaos force. When I brought my army over he sighed a bit at the thought of 'another gunline', to which I assured him this was at least a gunline that would run up and try and kick him in the face as well. His list was something like:

Death Guard
HQ: 2 Daemon Princes
Troops: 3x10 Cultists
Fast attack: 3 Bloat Drones with plague spitters (or 'bin juice guns' as Guy put it)
Heavy Support: 3 Plagueburst Crawlers with plague spitters

Daemons
HQ: Epidemius, Poxbringer
Troops: 2x3 Nurgling swarms

Renegade Knights
Lord of War: 2 Helverins

I think Guy was a bit up against it here. He told me his list was built with the assumption that there would be Orks everywhere so he didn't have as much anti-tank stuff as it turned out he'd need. His army looked pretty tough and had some good damage output but with little to really hurt my Knights or Robots. I definitely didn't think this would be an easy game, but I knew Guy would have some tough choices. The missions were Retrieval and Targets of Opportunity, so the Maelstrom could be especially erratic.

I got first turn, and as was becoming standard procedure the Valiant charged up the middle, and large chunks of the army moved up with it. I'd deliberately put the Kataphron Destroyers out of line of sight of the scary 3 damage autocannons of the Renegade Armigers. I think I drew the big game hunter card, so I pointed the Plasmas, Meltas and whatever else I could find at the bloat drones. One fell, and another was damaged, plus some of the screening cultists were killed. (Hilariously, Guy removed the whole squad out of habit, and had to place some back on the table after realising they could actually pass the leadership test at the end of the turn - which they did.)

First turn for the nurgle force, and the remaining drones and non-warlord Prince charge up the middle to get at my fist robots. Elsewhere the Armigers lined up shots on the shooty Kastelans, but thanks to Aegis Protocols and Shroudpsalm, only one hit actually did damage (which my Datasmith insultingly fixed in my turn). In the fight phase the drones and Prince smashed one of the robots, but one still survived to punch (fairly ineffectually) back. 

Time to go in for the kill on the drones/prince. I drew Area Denial and they were the only things standing there (once the remaining cultists had been removed). I sent one of the Armigers over to a corner to try and clear cultists off an objective they were defending, while the other teamed up with the Valiant to squash the stuff in the middle. The Destroyers overcharged and popped the Plasma Specialists stratagem to blast one of the crawlers to bits. Shooting killed one drone and nearly got the other. In the stompy phase, the Armiger failed to finish off the drone while the Valiant did a jig on the prince, but thanks to suppurating plate he survived. 

At the end of the turn I actually spent command points to keep Area Denial in my hand for more points. First time for everything!

Guy's turn 2, and the Helverins decided to pick on a softer target. One of them shot the Destroyers and killed off 3 of them, putting them out of sight from the other one, forcing it to shoot elsewhere. The Robots and Armigers took a bit of damage, but the prince stayed in combat with the Valiant. His talons tore some more wounds off it, and thanks to casting Miasma of Pestilence, and that suppurating plate again, he survived his kicking once again!

Turn 3. I threw a lot of firepower at the remaining drone, just about managing to finish it off. More shooting put some damage on the Armigers, but importantly the prince finally fell to the Conflagration cannon. The Valiant was now free to run over and mess with the nurgle castle.

Guy popped the nurglings down in the corners of my deployment zone to threaten the objectives, but I thoroughly scrubbed them off eventually with Radium carbines and Phosphor blasters. I also had an Armiger on the far corner objective in his deployment zone, so I was controlling three of the 4 eternal war objectives while still claiming Maelstrom points and blocking in his movement significantly.

Getting up close and personal, the Valiant starting shooting and kicking all over the place, splitting fire, taking hits, being awesome.

Eventually both Armigers fell, along with a crawler after a successful Harpooning. Guy was far behind on points but was going for glory, determined to kill the Valiant! He threw his warlord in, along with all the firepower he could muster. The Valiant stood defiant for a while, kicking the prince to death and surviving a hit from the Poxbringer's sword with a double six on the Taranis 'feel no pain' saves, before finally falling to a smite. Given that this was pretty much the end of the game and the event, and I was far ahead on points, and because it would be really cool, I spent the command points to get it to explode, doing loads of damage and killing the poor Enginseer once again. (I like to think the Knight just fell backwards and crushed him.)

We counted up points at the end but it was a crushing victory to me, 20-0 in tournament points. Not a forgone conclusion, but not a big surprise either, especially as I was rolling pretty hot and Guy's dice were only really interested in keeping that Daemon Prince alive. It was definitely a fun game for me, and I hope Guy had a laugh as well. In the end I put him down as my most sporting opponent. I think I could have justifiably made a case for any of my opponents, but I did especially like that he took the loss in his stride and just wanted to kill the big thing at the end.

Now that I had ended the event on a high note, I checked on John. Turns out he'd just tabled his last opponent, with Imperial soup. Once again his Noise Marines made short work of some flimsy humans. With our final results, we eagerly awaited the overall standings. I was pretty sure I'd got to roughly the middle, and it would be interesting to see just how high John had climbed after his round 1 mauling.

Battle Report - Adeptus Mechanicus and Imperial Knights vs Chaos Space Marines and Renegade Knights

Hello!

It's another Open War battle report. This time the Adeptus Mechanicus of Forge World Ryza and the Knights of House Taranis stand against the forces of Chaos - the Emperor's Children and their Renegade Knight allies. The mission was Invasion - there are two objectives, one in each deployment zone. If you control both of them at the end of your opponent's turn, you win. The deployment was short edges, but with deployment allowed right up to the middle line. The twist was Set Piece Battle - one side deploys everything first, then the other. The side that deployed first goes first on a 2+. We played at 2000 points, but due to power level being used to determine who got the Ruse card, it went to the forces of Chaos, since I had to pay for a number of modes that weren't in my list. Luckily it was something largely irrelevant and went unused.

My forces were a Ryza Battalion and a Taranis Super Heavy Detachment.

HQ: Tech Preist Dominus (warlord trait: Monitor Malevolus, relic: Weapon XCIX), Tech Priest Enginseer
Troops: 10 Vanguard, 10 Rangers (with arc rifles), 6 Kataphron Destroyers (with Plasma Culverins)
Elites: 7 Sicarian Ruststalkers
Heavy Support: 3 Kastelan Robots (7 Heavy phosphor blasters and 1 set of fists)
Lords of War: Knight Errant (with meltagun and Icarus autocannon), Armiger Warglaive (with meltagun), Armiger Warglaive (with meltagun)

Regular opponent John took a chaos force that I can only assume has just stepped off a daemonic forge world dedicated to Slaanesh. It featured an Emperor's Children Spearhead and a Renegade Knights Super Heavy detachment.

HQ: Daemon Prince
Troops: 16 Cultists (I think)
Heavy Support: Decimator (2 Soul Burners), Decimator (Soul Burner and Storm Laser), Decimator (Soul Burner and Storm Laser)
Lords of War: Renegade Knight (Reaper chainsword, Thunderstrike gauntlet, heavy stubber), Renegade Knight (Reaper chainsword, Thunderstrike gauntlet, heavy stubber), Renegade Knight Acheron

I felt like I was very much on the back foot, not helped by the fact that John won the roll off for first deployment, and then first turn. With most of his force on the centre line, apart from the Cultists on the objective, I felt the only option was to put almost all my force on the back line. I did brave the Skitarii units forward in elevated positions so the 'gallants' couldn't charge them, and if everything went really well they'd be forward enough to run for the objective from turn 2 onwards. I also spent a command point to give the Errant the Sanctuary relic for a 5+ invulnerable save in melee.

We started the game and predictably the Chaos forces moved deep into my deployment zone. Shooting from the Decimators killed off 3 of my Servitors, but there were no charges to be made so I got passed the first turn relatively unscathed.

The Knights moved into position as the guns of Ryza warmed up. Elsewhere the Ruststalkers, on the field for the first time, took the glorius duty of standing 2 inches away from the 'Gallant' on the flank to block it's movement. (They are behind the building.) A volley of fire from the Taranis lance forced the Acheron to rotate it's Ion shields, but did not do much significant damage. I dropped 4 command points into the Ad Mech to use Binharic Override, Eliminaton Volley and Plasma Specialists. The Servitors blasted the renegade 'Gallant', reducing it down to 6 wounds, while the robots plinked off some more wounds from the Acheron with a very strong set of wound rolls. The Errant declared a charge on the 'Gallant', but rolled disastrously and failed. Both Armigers went in to the Acheron, the first one in taking 6 wounds from the overwatch of it's enormous flamer. In melee they managed to put enough wounds on it to drop it to the middle damage bracket. In this turn I had severely wounded two of the three big Knights but I had hoped to kill at least one of them. I knew I was in for a tough time if I didn't get a strong turn 1.

The Chaos walkers swarm in around the brave Martians. In the shooting phase both Armigers fell to a combination of the Acheron's flamer (which rolled poorly) and the mortal wounds from the Decimators. The charge phase came about and John realised he had done a very silly thing - those Decimators had Siege claws on the models, but he had payed for Storm lasers instead (which he had not been shooting). I offered for him to revert to the list that he had set up the models for, but that meant removing the cultists and his ability to actually hold his own objective, so he declined. Instead he had a bunch of shooting units blocking the charge from his melee ones.

In the end only the badly damaged 'Gallant' was able and willing the charge in. The Sanctuary relic and the Taranis 6+ save did wonderful things and the Errant remained on it's full profile, and fought back to destroy the foul renegade! With that stroke of luck it was time to take the fight back to the Chaos filth!

My turn 2. The Errant moved in to the enemy Lords of War, while the Ruststalkers started advancing up the flank. Between the Thermal Cannon and the Plasma Servitors the Acheron fell. The Errant then charged the remaining Knight, damaging it enough to reduce it down to a lower damage bracket, which probably saved him from destruction in response.

John's turn involved the main force moving on my Ad Mech, while the 'Gallant' stepped back to allow the Soul Burners to fire in on the Errant. I played the Benevolence of the Omnissiah stratagem to give the Errant a 5+ save against the mortal wounds, and got really lucky, saving most of them. The renegade Knight was forced to charge back in to finally finish the job, but took damage from overwatch and as the Errant exploded! 

With only 3 wounds left on the last Knight standing, the Vanguard stepped up, used the Protector Doctrina Imperative and blasted it to bits. The Ruststalkers continued to advance to the Cultists and their objective.

Though all the Knights and one of the Decimators had fallen, John's Chaos forces were still pressuring my objective. Over the next couple of turns my two Tech Priests and remaining servitors fell, leaving my Skitarii making a mad dash back to help the immobile Robots clear them off.

At the end of my turn 4 the Sicarians were finally in range to charge the Cultists, which John had forgotten to move back. A big 11 inch charge got the Ruststalkers swinging in...

But their Transonic razors were not enough to clear all the Cultists, John's only Troop unit, off the objective...

And with a Decimator and a Daemon Prince controlling my objective, that signaled the end of the game.

I think I was definitely up against it in that game, John's list was much nastier than mine, and him getting first turn really gave me a tricky job to kill enough of his stuff before it came crashing into my castle on the objective. I think my forced fought hard and valiantly, and the Omnissiah was definitely watching over some of those dice rolls! I did however make an error in not putting my Kastellans on the objective - the whole point of having a set of fists in the unit was as a combat deterrent once they had become locked in place with the Protector protocols, but since they weren't actually on the objective John was able to just stand next to them and not charge at all. There is a good chance the Prince would have just killed them all anyway, but I could have gotten lucky (again) and it might have been enough to hold off for a turn so the Ruststalkers could kill all the cultists and force at least a draw for me.

Anyway, it was another fun game and another example of how surprisingly close the missions generated by the Open War deck can be.