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!

Wrath and Glory: Blessings Unheralded - 'Review'

Hello!

As you may have read here, I was planning on writing a bit of a report of my session running Blessings Unheralded, the Wrath and Glory introduction adventure. This was both my first go at Wrath and Glory (obviously, at the time of writing the full game isn't even out yet) and also my first go at running a pregenerated adventure module, rather than making up my own content. I'm going to split this into three parts. The first is what I and my players thought of the game itself. Secondly I will 'review' the module itself. Finally there will be a little write up of what happened in the session itself. Obviously this last section will contain spoilers, so if you are going to be playing in the module, don't read that bit!

The Game

The response to the Wrath and Glory system was largely positive. At the start two of the players had declared that they didn't like dice pool systems, and one had never played a pen and paper RPG, so I think we gave the game a fairly tough task to win the group over. I'm pretty sure I got a fair few things wrong, but the players still picked up the core mechanic pretty quickly and felt confident enough to make use of the titular Wrath and Glory resources during play without too much prompting from myself. Most of the group is used to D&D 5E so it felt complicated to begin with but I think we all thought by the end that it was actually quite straight forward.

The group consisted of 4 LARPers, which definitely helped given the narrative focus of the game. Everyone loved the character objectives, and by the end all of them had been achieved. The group also made good use of the ability to spend a Wrath point to make a narrative declaration, which to my mind made running the game more fun and cooperative. We also had an interesting use of the Inquisitorial Acolyte's ability to call in a favour from their Inquisitor and had the Guardsman use their ability to take a bullet for someone. It was nice to see this stuff coming into play rather than just being an optional, often sidelined bonus like the Inspiration mechanic in D&D.

In terms of balance, it did seem like the four characters the players chose were roughly even in terms of their abilities. The mob mechanic made mowing down chaff enemies simple enough for all the characters while the ability of named enemies to use Ruin to soak or perform special abilities makes them feel like a threat. The battles took a while to resolve but I'm pretty sure this would speed up with experience, and was still considerably quicker than the old Dark Heresy calculators at dawn style.

Of course, it's not perfect. If I have to pick the nits, there are some mechanics that are confusingly or just unimaginatively named. The Wrath dice, for instance, does not generate Wrath, while 'Soak' to turn wounds into shock feels a bit phoned in. There are a few things that are not entirely clear, and several rules are suspiciously missing from this version. Some of the mechanics do feel a bit too gamey - to go back to 'Soak', the option to turn wounds into shock is usually the correct one to take, but not always. It's hard to imagine what this represents in the game world - is the Guardsman taking a split second to decide if they should block the blast from the grenade or just take it on the chin? We also noticed that the players racked up a massive pile of Glory, ending the session with 5 or so still in the bank. I'm not sure if there is supposed to be a limit to how much they can accumulate, but I couldn't find it if there is. Having that much doesn't make the resource feel very special.

All things considered, we liked the system and all of the players said they'd play it again. Most of them agreed it was stronger than the Dark Heresy system and personally I'm pretty set on purchasing the book when it becomes available.

The Module

Though we all had fun with the system, I found the module a little difficult to follow. In my preparation I drew out a flow chart of probably events, but that largely went out of the window. The adventure starts with a nice little combat to show the players the ropes, with enemies hopelessly outclassed. Though it is a bit convenient that things kick off as soon as the players arrive, it does set the scene and immediately got the players' heresy senses tingling.

After the opening there is an investigation section. The players meet a number of NPCs, each with some information to help or hinder them. The named NPCs are quite interesting characters, and in spite of my fears the players picked up on several clues and were able to work out more or less what was going on without me just feeding them hints. This section ran quite well for us but I still feel it was the weakest section as written. We went off script a fair bit and missed some of the content, which is all fine, that's player agency at work. However I did find it quite hard to find relevant information sometimes, because either it wasn't there or it was given as information from specific NPCs that the players might never meet or think to talk to.

The final part features a race against time to stop the bad guy doing an evil thing. The module calls for a cool GM trick to be used here, which immediately put the players under pressure. The final battle is relatively forgiving for the players as written, but it is quite easy for the players to 'win' but get the 'bad ending'. The boss has some interesting abilities, but I did have a problem with his stat block - his Weapon Skill and Ballistic skill did not seem to be listed. As I understand it there is a 'default' stat to use for everything unlisted, but it feels like the ability to shoot and slice the players shouldn't be merely 'default'. I'm not entirely sure I understand how it's supposed to work, but I'm pretty sure I 'cheated' and made the boss a fair bit more skilled than as written, though in the end it provided some dramatic moments so I absolutely do not regret it.

As a little aside - it was noticed that the majority of the pregenerated characters are women. Neither I, nor my players, saw any problem with this. I'm sure there are some for whom this might be an issue, but aside from the Space Marine and the Sister of Battle, the gender identity of the characters is entirely irrelevant to the adventure so if a player really wanted to, they could easily just play the female characters as male or vice-versa. I've also heard a bit of criticism on the internet about the artwork for the game and how it looks a little more cartoony and less grim-dark than normal, and a slight fear that this would be continued in the actual content of the game being more 'sanitised' than the 40K universe is generally portrayed. This adventure definitely features a good chunk of grim darkness, so I think it's pretty safe to say those fears have not been realised.

Overall the adventure was ok. Some good bits, some not so good. As a way to learn the system it worked, but personally I think I will stick to homebrew content in the future.

The Session (SPOILERS!)

Our heroes, Sergeant Gael Harden, Battle Sister Henna Orten, Lady Yyrmalla Aleretta and Commissar Victoria Linn travelled to St Deploratus' Sanitarium on the world of Enoch to retrieve their injured colleague Adept Genevieve Parker. Upon arrival at the medical facility they were immediately set upon by a group of Poxwalkers!

Sister Henna Orten fired her bolter into the mob, praising the Emperor while destroying his enemies. The group made short work of the foe, Gael finishing the last one with a bayonet to the head just as the hospital security forces arrived. Lady Aleretta immediately flashed the badge of the Inquisition and took control, calling upon her Inquisitor to lock down the facility with a cordon of enforcers. (GM note: this already caused things to go 'off script'.) She also checked the security cogitators to find the Adept Parker had been moved to the Exotic Diseases ward.

Upon arriving at the ward, the group found the patients suffering from a mysterious disease, Abacys Syndrome, causing them to lay unresponsive while constantly chanting random numbers. Adept Parker had also contracted the disease. The group spoke with the medicae workers, as well as Tech Priest Philanon, to find out information about the disease; the first patient was an Astropath, around 20 patients have already died, and there is no obvious pattern to those infected. They quickly became suspicious of the head of department, Willem Konig, who was not yet at the hospital. (Given that the place was in lockdown it would be difficult for him to come back to work and get interrogated.) Aleretta suspected there was a pattern to the random numbers, and convinced the tech priest to help compile and crunch the numbers.


The group took a visit to the morgue where they would allegedly find the quarantined bodies of the deceased. While investigating bodies outside the quarantine zone Sergeant Harden managed to suffer a complication and lose a finger to the bonesaw of a mindless servitor. They found the quarantined bodies mysteriously missing. Aleretta noticed a security camera (using a Wrath point to make a narrative declaration) and hacked into the system, finding footage of the Poxwalkers walking out of the morgue, unnoticed by the servitors. Pushing further into the system (by shifting 6s) she found that the security forces did not have access to the footage, it was locked to heads of department, such as Konig.

After returning to the ward, the group consulted with the tech priest. Together they worked out that the numbers could be translated into Lingua-Technis. It corresponded to a high level security code - the kind that might be used by the nearby food processing and distribution plant. Suddenly all the chanting patients fell silent. The group rushed to the corridor, to find a number of patients getting up and walking to the entrance, including Adept Parker. The now mindless patients are gunned down, the group saving Parker with Gael Harden's field medical experience. (A couple of shifted sixes kept her alive and sedated, for now.)

Outside, unknown to the group, Konig had arrived and, finding an Inquisitorial cordon, he decided to move on his plan, heading to the food distribution facility. The clock was ticking. (Literally - at this point I put a 30 minute timer on the table as suggested in the module for the start of act 3.) The group quickly left the hospital on Konig's trail. Entering the facility, Harden used the auspex to quickly locate the foe, and battle was joined.

The sight of heavily corrupted Poxwalkers gripped the group with fear, but they fought on regardless, Commissar Linn barking threats of execution to any who faltered. Sister Henna blasted an explosive barrel to kill a number of the chaos creatures (narrative declaration at work.) Konig fired on Aleretta, but Harden took the bullet. Aleretta leaped over a fallen beam (another declaration) to reach Konig, but took a brutal blow from his filthy chainsword. Sister Henna moved in and distracted Konig, allowing Aleretta and Gael to rain blows down upon him and finally kill Konig with a bayonet in the gut, before he could infect the water supply.

With the day won, the group returned to the hospital, finding all the Abacys patients dead, including Adept Parker, who died clutching her silver Aquila.

Preparing Blessings Unheralded - Wrath and Glory Intro Adventure

Hello!

I don't think it's a surprise to anyone that I like a bit of 40K. I also play a lot of D&D. So when I heard about a new 40K based RPG with a focus on narrative and streamlined mechanics, I got all excited. I have played several previous 40K RPGs from Fantasy Flight Games, mostly Dark Heresy, and to be fair, had a lot of fun with them, but I always found the mechanics somewhat obtuse. When D&D 5E came into my life I pretty much abandoned the FFG games.

Wrath and Glory (by Ulisses), is something that looks much more to my liking. Having followed bits and pieces over the internet, including the rather spiffing comic features on the Warhammer Community, I find myself liking almost all of the design decisions made for this. I'm pretty much ready to love this game already, however RPG books are expensive and I've not gone full irrational fanboy just yet. What I really need is to try the game for a session or two first...

Enter Blessings Unheralded. An intro adventure that was until recently available to download for free. (It's now available for around 4 dollars from DriveThruRPG - other RPG PDF sites are available). I've managed to arrange to GM the adventure on Monday for a group including my wife and her LARPer buddies (NERDS!). So I've been spending a fair amount of time reading through the rules and the module and making notes, printing character sheets etc.

Most of the basics of the game rules seem to be in here, which seem quite nicely designed. Nice, simple, flexible core mechanics and enough complexity in options that I'm sure it'll cover most of the ideas the players have for creative ways to kill stuff. I personally am very interested in the character creation/tier system that seems exceptionally wide in scope, but none of that is in here yet so I'll have to trust that it will be good. The characters that are in here are rather well fleshed out though, with multiple special abilities and gear and a nice lump of background, including a really cool mechanic for objectives. Essentially the players roll a D6 at the start of the session, and consult the objective table for their specific character. The objectives are all narrative, for example Commissar Victoria Linn (who will be played by the wife - read into that what you will) has an objective that calls for her to threaten to execute someone for cowardice. Achieving the objective will grant an in game resource called Wrath that can be used for rerolls and other bonuses. It's a similar but more defined system to the Inspiration in D&D 5E.

(Image stolen from here)

The biggest issue for me will be running the adventure itself. I've never actually run a pregenerated adventure before, I've always made up my own stuff (with various degrees of success) so this is a little intimidating. I've read through it a couple of time and drawn myself a handy flow chart to get through it, so I'm doing my homework. I even found and listened to a recorded play through on Youtube - run by someone called ELH Mk 1 (who mostly seems to play Star Trek Adventures). Obviously if you are planning on playing the module, spoilers are found here!

My initial thoughts on the adventure is that it is quite well put together, with a nice investigative segment and some appropriately scaled fights, but does require a certain amount of 'bad stuff kicks off just as the PCs happen to turn up' which to me breaks the immersion a little - though perhaps it will be less noticeable to the players. As a pregen for a one shot it is naturally a bit railroady and most of the investigation just 'happens' when the players go to the right places, but I figure this will not be an issue if the players are proactive with their decisions, and if they are not then it's nice that they won't just be sitting around twiddling thumbs until things happen. I'm also happy to go off the rails if the players come up with some crazy ideas - which, let's face it, they probably will.

So I'm looking forward to Monday night. At this stage I'm nearly sold on the game, so I guess marketing works? I'll be back to post my 'review' of how the session goes sometime next week. Stay tuned!

The Fiery Fowlers’ First Foray onto the Field

Hello!

Just came back from a fun week visiting friends and family in sun-soaked south Devon. During this time I managed to fit in a game of Blood Bowl at a lovely new games shop that has popped up since I last visited - Taylored Games in Kingsbridge. On the off chance that anyone reading this is in the area but hasn't already been in the shop, I thoroughly recommend it. Staff and customers were very friendly and welcoming (to humans and dogs) and they have a good range of nerd stuff.

So back to the Blood Bowl. The Fiery Fowlers (Sponsored by Nan Doe's Spicy Chicken) took to the field for a 'friendly' against an as yet unnamed Dark Elf team, coached by George. Given their current unbranded grey kit and their palid grey skin, I shall refer to them as the Injection Molded Marauders. 

Apologies in advance for the extra poor camera work on this one. The goblin snapper had shaky hands.

The Injection Molded Marauders received first and set up very aggressively, moving quickly up the flank. Flawless passing and pick ups got the ball moving quickly across the field.

I think these two brave 'flings got the Fowler's first removal - KO-ing an elf trying to move up the other side.

However this couldn't be replicated on the ball carrier, who managed to break free of the Halflings nibbling at his knees to run in the first Touchdown.

Upon receiving the ball the Fiery Fowlers tried to get the ball protected and moving up the field, but they were soon overwhelmed by the elf Marauders who quickly relocated almost entirely into the Halfling side of the pitch. Without the room to amble slowly up the field, the Fowlers got the ball carrier up to one of the mighty Treemen and flung him deep down towards the end zone. Sadly he landed on his head, which quickly led to another Dark Elf Touchdown.  

At the end of the first half the Fowlers had another go, and so nearly made it. I failed the Go For It roll into the end zone for the thrown Halfling having already used my reroll to dodge the ball carrier away from some elves. I then remembered the Halflings have dodge so I could have used that and saved the reroll. Oops.

For the second half the goblin got distracted by the Halfling Chef and only took the one usable photo. The Fowlers finally got points on the board with a third thrown Halfling. This was followed up later in the half with a fourth and a second touchdown for the Fowlers, though the IMM scored another as well. I remembered the Dodge skill and made good use of it to move the 'flings around the place and out of the grasps of those naughty elves. George had his elves get all up in my little Halfling faces, causing several injuries, though one of the Trees punched back hard, grinding one of the Line-elves into the dirt.

In the last turns of the game the Elves broke into the Fowler half with the ball once more. A spirited defense put the runner under pressure and knocked the ball off the pitch, but the bounce was sadly not enough for the 'flings to recover and score, allowing the Dark Elves to pick up, blitz through the defenders and score again. The Final Score: 4-2 to the Injection Molded Marauders in both Touchdowns and Casualties. Handshakes all round, beer out of the chiller, chicken off the grill. A defeat, but a fighting one and all things considered not a bad start for the Fiery Fowlers!

Battle Report - Mechanicus and Knights vs Chaos Marines

Hello!

Another Admech/Knights vs Chaos Battle Report. This one was played a little while ago so I'm a little fuzzy on the details. It was 1750 points against John's 'current' tournament list (since then it has changed dramatically several times), playing Tactical Gambit with the short edge deployment.

My list was a Ryza Battalion and a Taranis Superheavy detachment.
HQ: Tech Priest Dominus (command point farm trait, Volkite blaster relic), Tech Priest Enginseer
Troops: 7 Rangers, 7 Vanguard, 6 Plasma Kataphron Destroyers
Heavy Support: 2 Shooty Kastelan Robots
Lords of War: Knight Crusader with thermal cannon and stormspear rockets (command point spent for Endless Fury relic), 2 Armiger Warglaives with meltaguns.

John took an Emperor's children Battalion and a Superheavy Auxilary
HQ: Daemon Prince (Elixer relic), Sorcerer on Steed (Warlord - bonus wound and feel no pain trait)
Troops: 2 units of Cultists (I think 12 per unit?), 18 Noise Marines
Heavy Support: 2 Deredeo Dreads with Butcher cannons, 1 with missiles, 1 with force field
Lord of War: Spartan

Deployment. I wedged my Destroyers behind a building and flanked with the Armigers, while John deployed mostly far back, with the Noise Marines in the Spartan. I kept the ranger unit at the back to cover a rear objective and protect against Tide of Traitors shinanigens. John got the first turn.

John kept his army back and his Noise Marines in their metal box. Some shuffling allowed targeting of an Armiger, which died. Some bonus firepower killed off the Vanguard. With a low gamble John took around 4 points with first blood. I realised I'd forgotten to use my Knight House trait (6+ FNP style save) and vowed to remember next time.

I gambled 2 and got the appropriate cards to get them. Knight and Robots moved up onto objectives, while the Destroyers had to slowly advance forward, being out of range of everything except cultists (which were mostly Phosphered to death). Armiger and Knight opened up on one of the Deredeos, aiming to reduce the firepower, while the Endless Fury split off to kill around 4 whole cultists.

Look at this. 7 wounds taken. Poor rolling from the Knight this turn! At this point I wish I'd taken the Taranis Thermal Canon relic instead of the Endless Fury. I did pick up enough points to meet my gambit and level the score.

John's turn 2 and the Noise Marines got out. Spartan ran off to backline while a single remaining cultist ran over to take an objective. I think John gambled and achieved 1 objective. Shooting took out the last Armiger and put some significant damage on the Knight, though most of it came from lucky shooting from the Noise Marines. After the shooting I realised I'd forgotten my 6+ Taranis saves. Never again, I told myself!

Due to decent table position I gambled for 3 objectives. Got an achievable draw with a requirement to kill a vehicle without it exploding, Hold the Line and Psychological Warfare. The characters wandered off backwards into the deployment zone while the Knight looked to secure the other parts by firing again everything at the Deredeo apart from the Endless Fury and the cultists it had previously failed to remove. I got 'lucky' and whiffed again with the gatling cannon, dropping the cultists enough to force a failed morale but not removing the unit. The anti tank shooting succeeded in taking the Deredeo down without it exploding. The Robots and Destroyers used the Elimination Volley stratagem to eliminate a truckload of Noise Marines. I think at this point I went into the lead on points.

John's turn and it was 'focus the Knight' time. He got cards to claim the objective in front of the Knight, which was precariously being claimed by one remaining cultist. John also needed to kill a character - in this case the Crusader!

Heavy fire from John's whole force killed off the Knight, but of course I pulled out Our Darkest Hour and he climbed back up to his feet on one wound at the end of the phase. This forced the Deredeo to fire elsewhere, killing off a few servitors. Needing to remove the Knight this turn to claim his gambit, John charged the remaining Noise Marines in, who died to overwatch, then failed to kill it with their shooting upon death. He then charged the Prince in, who survived the overwatch...

The Prince did enough to take him down! I played the Heroic Sacrifice stratagem to explode, killing that cultist and wounding the Prince. The Prince had just enough consolidation movement to stand on the objective and achieve John's gambit. As I removed my Knight I remembered that I had yet again forgotten my Taranis saves. Could have made a difference here, but wasn't to be.

My Turn 3 and suddenly looking in a bit of a weak position. Not much left, though the characters and Rangers were pretty far back and relatively safe, and the Robots were still in Aegis Protocols and therefore should be tough to shift.

Some shuffling got the Enginseer to claim an objective and enough shots on the Daemon Prince to comfortably remove him. Still got a few points but most of the hard hitters had already gone.

Johns turn. I forget the objectives he had but the Spartan and Sorcerer started to move up. The Lascannons made the Robots go away, while the Deredeo did likewise with the Destroyers. Ouch.

Moving into the later turns of the game, I was forced to gamble for 1 card, picking up a few points but giving some up as well. The warlord sacrificed himself to score the central objective, while the Rangers cowered, hoping for their objective to come up!

Newly painted Enginseer went into hide mode, trying to keep me from being tabled and hoping John didn't rack up a big score.

Another turn down the line and the Enginseer had resorted to examining this container.

The game went deep, turn 7 coming up and the Rangers had a mad dash to try and stay out of LoS of something while maybe hurting the Sorcerer.

Sadly they didn't achieve either. The game ended after the Sorcerer made a long charge into the Enginseer, who survived the combat on 1 wound. In my last turn he withdrew from combat into the back of the container, where the steed wouldn't be able to reach. So I avoided the tabling, and picked up a solid 20 points. However thanks to some strong, unopposed late turns John had piled on a massive 32 points!

I think this was a game where we both thought the other's army was stronger. John was quite scared of the Destroyers, but the deep deployment effectively delayed their shooting and allowed John to focus other targets. I also think I got pretty unlucky with the Knight's rolls this game (and it didn't help that I forgot half of them). In the end I think these were the factors that enabled John to come out comfortably ahead. 

Snakebite Gorkanaut Completed!

Hello!

You may remember that I was working on a Gorkanaut before the Knight codex came out and I got all excited about my Armigers. Well, now I have finished that big old, rusty, steam-powered killing machine!

So this post is basically just me dumping all the pictures for you to look at, enjoy!

Battle Report - Imperial Knights and Sisters of Battle vs Chaos Marines and Daemons

Hello!

So this is the final game from John's birthday weekend 40k-athon, this time a 'quick' 1500 point 2v2 game. In this one I teamed up with the wife (who also took some of the pictures - probably the good ones) against Jim and John. We played Deadlock (start with 6 objective cards, maximum drops by one each turn) with the quartered deployment zones.

Our list featured a Super Heavy Detachment with 2 Armiger Warglaives and a Knight Errant -Camulus the Warlord with Cunning Commander (+1 command point and bonus reroll) and the Armour of the Sainted Ion (2+ save). We also took a Battalion of Adepta Sororitas, including Saint Celestine (obviously), a Canoness with Eviscerator, 3 squads of 5 Battle Sisters (2 with storm bolter/heavy bolter, one with flamer/heavy flamer), a squad of 5 Dominions with all flamers, a Rhino and a flamer Immolator.

Jim took a Supreme Command detachment with 2 Bloodthirsters and a Khorne Herald. One of the 'thirsters was the Warlord with some kind of feel no pain ability and a 4+ invulnerable save - I'm not really familiar with the daemon rules at all. John took an Emperor's Children battalion of Lord and Sorcerer on Steeds, 2 units of Cultists and a big unit of Noise Marines loaded up with Sonic Weapons.

I was pretty scared of those 'thirsters getting at my Knights, and of the Noise Marines having free reign to blast the Sisters...

Deployment. Sisters are in cover or in tanks, Armigers holding the flank with Camulus free to go where required. The Chaos forces form a wedge with the Bloodthirsters ready to leap out and cause trouble. The Noise Marines are behind the tower ready to move into the area terrain behind the tank traps.

We rolled first turn, and the Chaos forces failed to seize the initiative.

We got a reasonable draw of cards, requiring use to defend the objective far in our corner (a unit of sisters sat on it all game) and claim the objective that was by the cultists. Thanks to the Immolator/Dominions 'scout' move, they were able to get right up to the objective and burn the cultists off it. They prepared to sell their lives dearly. On the other flank the Armigers shuffled and Celestine waited for her moment to strike. My first Armiger fired at a Bloodthirster, causing the Warp Surge stratagem to be played. Camulus and the other Armiger then fired at the other Bloodthirster, taking a chunk of wounds off him.

Unsurprisingly the Khorne Daemons make short work of the Dominions. Jim decided against sending either of them after the Knights as I had moved back far enough to make it a very difficult charge, instead opting for the insurance policy of overkilling the sisters. I got a bit of flak for this 'dishonourable' move, but it was the smart option and I was taking this game much more seriously than the previous one, as I obviously had to impress the wife!

On the Knight flank, the Noise Marines poured Prescience/Veterans of the Long War fire into one of the Armigers, dropping it down to two wounds under weight of dice. John and Jim debated long and hard about how to split the fire from the inevitable Endless Cacophony second round of shooting, eventually deciding to split between the two Armigers. Somewhat predictably I passed all my saves for the already injured one, leaving me with two to play with.

I think they got a point or two for the other squad of cultists running around by some objectives, but I think we were ahead, having defended an objective at the back.

In our turn 2, we had some more reasonable cards, including Ascendancy and Hold the Line (love isn't always on time) but more importantly we had to deal with the key enemy units. The Knights moved up to the Noise Marines, firing from the hip at the Bloodthirsters. Both Armigers made it in on the charge, the injured one under the effects of Machine Spirit Resurgent to make the most of his chain cleaver. Camulus failed the charge however, which was disappointing for a number of reasons, one of which was that he wasn't quite in range of that objective denying us Ascendancy.

The Armigers took a chunk out of the Noise Marines, who in turn took out one of the Sisters squads while they died. This was extra annoying because they were the third unit in our deployment zone for Hold the Line. The Lord intervened, and between the two units they killed off one Armiger but left the badly damaged one alive.

Elsewhere on the battlefield fire from the Knights and now disembarked Battle Sisters took out the warlord Bloodthirster, while Celestine and the Canoness moved up to take the other out in heroic combat. It was previously wounded from the Dominion's overwatch so Celestine fancied her chances.

The sisters went in to the Bloodthirster, who was clearly disrespecting the Sisters by turning his back on them. Choppy stuff happened and the daemon was felled, but not before the monster interrupted and targeted Celestine, dropping her to one wound.

Daemons mostly cleared, but we missed out on 2D3 points from the cards. John and Jim didn't have many options to respond, but the Khorne herald avenged his greater brothers by charging and killing Celestine (for the first time) and the Noise Marines finally brought down the damaged Armiger.

With most of the threat removed Our turn 3 consisted mostly of Camulus and the resurrected Celestine charging Emperor's Children. We also had a squad of Sisters use an act of faith to double move and advance onto an objective to try again at grabbing Ascendancy, while the Canoness finished off the last daemon.

Celestine flew into the Lord, but failed to kill him and suffered serious wounds from the Lightning Claws in return. Camulus stomped on the Noise Marines, and followed up with a Thunderstomp Stratagem, reducing them significantly, and annoyingly killing off that Sister squad on the objective with their shots upon dying.

The last couple of turns featured the Lord killing Celestine (for real this time) and the Canoness and Camulus killing basically everything else, including atomising the Sorcerer with the Thermal Cannon and blasting cultists with carapace weapon that I consistently failed to remember the name of - now known as the 'hat gun'. Thanks to his 2+ save the Knight barely took any damage and at the end of the game he was facing down against a wounded Chaos Lord. I think we were ahead on objectives, but it mattered little because the Lord was about to receive a Reaper Chainsword to the face. John Conceded.

This felt like a fairly one sided game, but by the end John and Jim had picked up a respectable number of objectives and had killed off a lot of our force. We were left with the Errant, a Rhino and a squad of Sisters hiding at the back. I think we did well controlling the board and putting our units into favourable match ups - Knights vs Noise Marines and Sisters vs Daemons. It also has to be said that we were also largely lucky with our rolls. Our little group has given me the nickname 'Above Average Dan', I lived up to it this game and quite frankly the wife was even luckier. Clearly the Emperor/Omnissiah was with us against these dirty heretics!