+ New Chaos Beatdowns Kontinue +

Only now preparing to paint the defiler and a new Tz lord (I caved and agreed that the kai gunner AC needed to be replaced with a proper deathscreamer killer) for a tournament 12/15, as grad school applications are looming. That said, death has been dealt in the meantime.

Undivided vs Eldar [1500] - What I thought would be a cheddarfest turned out not too bad for the boys in black & brown. Brand new pointy ears army was autarch (warp pack, fusion gun, pw, mandi) + full spiders + exarch, 6 harlies w/ seer, kisses; full scorpions + fist exarch; 2x 6 pathfinders; 3x prisms w/ full gear. Game was standard gamma anhilation.

Xenos went first, and chaos whined about invinco-prisms already going fast. Things turned quickly though, with the warp spiders + autarch caught in the open and hit hard by 1k Sons and other fire support, then engaged by the remnants of the shooty 10 CSM squad and pounded down for good. Scorpions infiltrated a little too close, and were jumped on by the fisty 10 CSM squad and flamed / rapid-fired to death. Dread had a rough time on the far right flank - fire frenzy with no targets, stunned a turn, etc - but eventually smashed through a building and killed 1 squad of pathfinders.

Harlies boosted into the fisty squad and ended up trashing them down to a handful, but a countercharge by the deathscreamer ripped 1/2 the squad apart. They hit-and-ran and smacked the noise marines, but were rebuffed for the loss of 1 clown and 1 noise boy. Hit-and-run sent them 11" away, close enough for the deathscreamer to slam in and gut them.

Meanwhile, the prisms had been linking up and shooting things, but not with great effect. Dread was shaken early and had its plasma taken off, the shooty 10 man lost a model or two and the defiler was mildly irritated. Over 5 turns of sporadic chaos fire the prisms were stripped of all weapons, immobilized and eventually destroyed. Cred goes to the dread for flaming the rear of a prism, dropping it to the ground and then chainsawing it open in combat.

The end game involved the final squad of pathfinders - who had accounted for several shooty CSM, some 1k Sons and the last wound on the deathscreamer - holding their building from the remaining ranged fire of the chaos army, but it was a foregone conclusion and the eldar folded.

Chaos Win

Undivided vs Tau Empire [1500] - Tau Lad brought a very different army to throw into my chaos, and he realized once it was down that he didn't have much chance. Tau was shas'o w/ crisis friends, anti-dread deep strike crisis team, 2x warfish of fury w/ 12 fw each, 5 pathfinders w/ warfish, kroot + lots of hounds, kroot + gnarloc. His plan was to rush the wooded center of the table with kroot squads and coordinate with a double fish o' fury assault.

First turn to Tau, and various things moved up. Maybe 1 CSM died, but in retaliation 1k Sons and fisty CSM moved up to meet the kroot swarm now in rapid-fire range, dropping most of the hounds from one squad and a couple goaders from the gnarloc's group. Dread, oblit and blastmaster fire trashed 1 furious fish, killing 1/2 of the fw inside and blunting the pulse pain to come.

And come it did. Other fury fish rushed up and hoped out, fragging the 1k Sons to a marine with the help of very bad saving rolls. Anti-dread team struck behind the dread and did it's fusiony thing. Kroot squads slammed the fisty CSM + deathscreamer lord, but the CSM were crafty and had hunkered down in some rocks to take the krooty charge. CSM went first and put the hurt on the chickens, doing 4 wounds to the gnarloc (1 short!) and clearing away a lot of kroot. Returns dragged down 2 CSM, but it wasn't enough and both kroot squads broke and both were caught. Note that the fist AC never swung!

Tau player saw the game was more or less lost, with his center shattered upon the rock of chaos marines. Retaliation in the chaos second turn saw the crisis team blastmastered and cleaned in assault by the oblit's powerfist, the 12 fire warriors deathscreamed and assaulted by the lord (would take 3 combat phases to finally kill and break the squad down), and the 6 fw over by their wrecked fish shot and assaulted by the fisty CSM (now 5 strong).

From here the warfish managed a wound on the oblit and with the help of the crisis HQ (who eventually lost their 3 shield drones to aggressive chaos fire) knocked the fisty CSM eventually down to only the fister himself. In a cute move he charged 2 fire warriors who had fallen back and regrouped near the edge, exploded their faces and massacred into the shas'o hiding nearby in area terrain. With his buddies blastmastered & kraked to small bits in the preceding shooting phase, the shas fluffed his attaks and was pulverized by the fist.

Mop up was trashing the remaining 2 warfish and then hammering on the pathfinders with the defiler and oblit. Turn 6 came and went, with 2 pathfinders high up in their tower of death.

Chaos Win

Building: 8 Possessed
Painting: Defiler, Screamer Lord