+ PA for Great Victory! +

Since I don't want to work any more tonight, you get to hear about my latest 40k rampage! I was back in PA this weekend and followed up a fantasy tagteam - 2250 vamps + my 2000 nurgley-eshin vs 4250 warriors of chaos (we won, fellblade exploded Archaon in the final turn >:D) - with a tasty rematch ...

Anarchonquistadores vs Blood Angels [2000] - This would be the second battle against these guys, the first having gone pretty horribly for my dudes as the dice completely abandoned us (and I didn't put enough pressure on the death co), so vengeance was on everybody's mind. He had tweaked things a bit: jump chappy + 10 jump death company, 2x 10 assaulters w/ combat shield fist, 5 tacticals w/ plasmagun + fist in rhino, 5 assault termies in crusader, 10 devastators w/ 3 missile launchers, baal pred.

Game was 4 objectives, pitched battle deployment, he won The Roll and took it. He deployed devs in the tallest building on the board, baal in a ruin my far right, crusader center, death co / assaulters / assaulters spread across his frontline, rhino hiding for late game objective grab. I countered with dreads to the faaaar flanks, everybody else packed in and around a ruin and hill, with the defiler snuggled behind it and troops in easy reach of the 2 objectives on my side.

Blood Angels 1
The jumppackers all rushed forward, as did the crusader. Devs, baal, roboto-crusader guns did nothing that mattered. Great run rolls (6,4,6) put the assaulty marines right in my grill!

Chaos 1
Left dread (plasma) fire frenzied ... with no targets at all. Right stomped towards the baal across from him, 1k Sons mobilized to stand in front of their assault marines, everybody else locked and loaded. Defiler led it off by killing 8(!) death co in one blast, the blastmaster pinned the central assault marines, my two lascannons immobilized the crusader, and the 1k Sons tzapped 7 of 10 assault marines. I think my shooty CSM + deathscreamer splashed off the remaining death co + chappy, and the havoks triple-kraked the baal, stunning it.

The 1k Sons shuffled into the assault marine remnants and did painfully nothing, saving the wound from the fist.

Blood Angels 2
Things weren't looking so hot any more for the Bloody Angels of Blood. The termies got out of their ride and ran into my guns, and the death co remnants hoped forward hoping to assault into the shooty bunker ... but would fall short of the 5-6" they needed to make it. Devs immobilized the defiler and the crusader's assault cannon blew off his bcannon, making for a very sad demon engine.

In combat the 1k Sons fluffed again, losing a robot to the fist.

Chaos 2
Right dread blood raged towards the 1k Son / assault marine combat, and meanwhile everybody came down to play: terminators icon'd in and lined up the assault termies, and the girls icon'd down to take on the pinned assault marines. The biker lord moved up to assist the girls. The fisty CSM squad moved up to cook the termies, and the left dread lined up a plasma cannon shot on the 2 death co + chappy, which scattered off to land on nobody. The blastmaster likewise scattered off harmlessly, in a pretty packed area too! But the deathscreamer & friends opened up and managed to cook the death co off, leaving the chappy to eat a triple-krak from the havoks and fail his rosarius - BOOM, UPPERBODY-SHOT! The assault termies felt some heat too, losing 2 to combi-plasma, but didn't care about 2x flamers + some pistols.

Happy time would prove to be over though. The dread charged in and killed 1 assault marine with his 4 S10 attaks, managed to negate the fist out of his base, the 1k Sons failed as they do and the combat continued. In the middle the biker lord hammered into the assault marines, rolled the absolute least attaks he can manage without hurting himself (2 = only 6 total), and failed to wound with S5 (1,1,2,2,1 out of 5 hits). The girls hammered in 24 attaks for a total 2 dead marines. In return the fist popped the biker lord's head (ANGER) and a couple girls died. 4 or so held on. The fisty CSM charged the 3 assault termies (2 claw, 1 hammer) and lost a few marines for 1-2 enemy termies.

Blood Angels 3
Feeling no need to move, the loyalists opened fire. The devs began picking on my noise marines, the baal did likewise (heavy bolters only), and the crusader no doubt shot a lot of guns at the shooty CSM.

Combat time again. My dread pasted the marines and freed the 1k Sons up (sorc + 3 robots) at last. Irritatingly 1 lived against the assault marines in the center, protecting them from AP3 vengeance in my turn. And the assault termies were cleaned out, leaving just 3 members of the fisty CSM squad to consolidate to the objective right nearby.

Chaos 3
Left dread stomped and drew a bead on the devs in their building, right dread stomped for the baal's side armor, the 1k Sons moved for the right objective on his side of the board, the deathscreamer thought about mobilizing to help the demonette but decided to keep the bunker intact, and my terminators saw their opening to eat a land raider ... Shooting was largely template fire into the devs, which scattered off or was largely cover-saved. The baal absorbed a bunch of kraks, from the dread over there as well.

The terminators charged his immobilized crusader and the chainfist detonated it with ease. Which left a big open space in the board now. Oh, the demonette died.

Blood Angels 4
The rhino squad finally mobilized, driving for the objective the Sons were shuffling toward, and popping smoke. The assault marines hoped over onto the right objective on my side, peppering the fisty CSM remnants and killing 1 of the 3. The devs continued kraking the noise marines, reducing them to just 2 models (blastmaster / sonic blaster). The baal tickled the 1k Sons, downing a bot.

The assault marines' charge easily saw off the fisty CSM squad, and the 5 marines consolidated into the trees right next to the objective.

Chaos 4
I had to agree, it would be time to grab some objectives. The shooty CSM squad mobilized out of their bunker for the left objective on my side, the deathscreamer broke off to deal with the assault marines, the Sons reached the objective on his side (in a half-ruined building) and the noise marines and termies moved to charge the assault marines if needed. A lot of fire later (Deathscreamer:6) and the assault marines were so many bits. The right dread also charged the stationary baal and wrecked its face in. Oh, and 3 krak + 1 lascannon did nothing to the smoked rhino.

Blood Angels 5
The rhino squad hoped out, ready to rapidfire the Sons off the objective ... and managed to knock them down to just 1 robot, the sorcerer catching a round in the chest. Devs shot something.

Chaos 5
Shooty CSM gained the left objective, noise marines held the right one, and the single automaton had his right one, though moved behind a wall so as not to be charged. The termies ran for the rhino squad if there was going to be another turn ... And fire rained into the devs, to limited effect.

Blood Angels 6!
Devs did something. My turns may have gotten mixed up somehow, cause the tactical squad didn't move or anything (he may have forgotten? Time was running out before he had to leave for a party).

Chaos 6!
The devs were torn into, burning them off the table. Just the tactical squad remained, but the spiky boys could only shrug and covet their 3 shiny objectives.

CHAOS WIN

Painting: NurgleySkaven 2000
Building: N/A

+ Back to the Future +

Grad school powers on, though while I've been able to get in a game every week or so and a tiny bit of modeling time, it's been 100% Fantasy. Besides the fluff 40k is really not doing anything for me, new SM codex or not (might be part of the problem in fact!). BUT I do love my spiky marines, and since I was back in PA a couple weeks back, it was time for a throwdown.

Anarchonquistadores vs PSU Space Marines [2000] - I took the standard 2k "Walkers & Biker" list. He had libby (terminator, fear, stormshield) w/ 7? terminators (2x asscans), jump chappy w/ 9-10 assault marines (fist, flamers), elite inquisitor w/ shooty retinue (plas, 2 heavy b's, sages), 5 tactical (las), 8 tactical (plas / plascan), 2 tornados, 2 dreads (1 las/ml, 1 asscan), 5 scouts (snipers, ml), 10 sisters.

Game rolled up as 2 Objectives, Quarters deployment. I won The Roll and took it, stranding him in a quarter with just a hill and a ruin (his objective there), while mine had a bigger ruin (my objective there) and a smattering of 5+ cover wrecked ship pieces. Shooty CSM + havoks bunkered down on my objective with the defiler hulking half behind the ruin, other stuff pushed as close to the center and left quarter as possible - apparently I thought I was going to walk over and take his objective? With so little terrain on his side his shooty INQ + las tacticals went in the objective bunker, the plasma tac on the hill, sisters to the front and assault marine / chappy deathstar behind the hill. Dreads flanking, termies striking, scouts infiltrated their krak near enough to make my defiler sweat.

I think I got first turn? Frankly things are pretty hazy with this game, so just the briefest of run downs. The scouts were hammered off the board by the shooty CSM + havoks (nothing much else to shoot when playing corner to corner), I lost the missile dread early to his twin-las dread, the girls came down turn 2 and assaulted his sisters, fluffing pretty badly. The biker lord had charged in to assist, rolled the 1 to punch himself in the face, and was eviscerated (S6+2 for that act of faith) for his troubles.

On the upside he had hoped his assault star behind the sisters and was praying on 4+ cover saves to save him, but no luck there. A blistering amount of fire from me left just the chappy standing, who would charge the remnants of the fisty CSM (punished by his plasma squad) and be fisted by the now-lone champ. In an epic throwdown his asscan dread was charged by my plasma dread, and drunkenly poor rolling by my evil dread resulted in him being pulped by the loyalist a couple rounds later. Then the big blue & white dread charged the noise marines ... only to have his combat arm krak'd off! 6 (to hit), 6 (to glance), 5 (to destroy a weapon) for the win! And with that he was good and stuck.

Special commendation here for the defiler, who hit 5 times in a row, relentlessly smashing the shooty elements on his objective across the table. This left him late game with the las dread angling for targets in my left quarter, 2 tactical marines claiming his objective and the INQ hiding underneath as well, the asscan dread locked in combat, and the terminators finally showing up automatically in Turn 5, dropping as near to my objective as they dared. The libby tried to fear of the darkness some spiky marines off the table, but IoCU kept everybody happy. Return fire cooked the terminator-star down to the libby + 4 termies? Which was then charged by the defiler who had fleeted over and the deathscreamer, resulting in dead terminators and the libby making a run for it. The defiler ran over and squished him in Turn 7.

End result went down to victory points, and I think I had pulled off a ...

CHAOS WIN

... though perhaps it was a draw after all?

All the same, was nice to get the boys out again, though 40k still isn't as exciting for me as fantasy right now. There's a 1500 40k tournament being hosted at my school in Nov and people expect me to show up (not too many 40kers in the area I suppose :P), so I just might, hardly-mobile CSM army and all.

Building: Nurgley Skaven 2250
Painting: Nurgley Skaven 2250?

+ Battlefield: Albany +

Last Thursday I moved to Albany, NY to attend grad school for the next five years. I can't say I'm too happy to be here yet, but now that classes are starting and I'll be cripplingly busy soon enough I'm sure I'll forget about the distance from here to my fiancee and gaming buds back in PA ... Anyway, killing definitely went down in the run up to my big move:

Anarchonquistadores & Khorney Chaos vs Tau & Tau [3000] - A friend of mine just finished painting most of the table in his Battle Basement and hosted a game between the four of us to break it in. By that I mean the Tau's fishy faces as well as the new table. Batrep (with pics!) is here on Dakka, definitely worth checking out. And no, I won't spoil it.

CHAOS ???

Violators vs Ork Fleet [1500] - Back to spaceship fighting, my Violators fleet (the one in the pics back when) took on a new and insane ork fleet. Big named battleship, 2 terror ships and an amazing number of brute ram ships (30). Judicious use of brace for impact and then carefully staying out of ramming lines kept the impact damage down, but I did end up losing a carnage and having the other crippled by the dozen brutes chasing it and just blazing away at it. In a decisive two turns the ork battleship was crippled and hulked, and likewise the terrors ended up crippled and about 20 brutes were dead by the time the greenskin fleet disengaged.

CHAOS WIN

Note on BFG, I have since painted a second Acheron to tentatively replace the Styx, as well as more Infidels to swell the escort ranks with the points saved. And I've also lost anybody to play against. Poop.

Anarchonquistadores vs Space Wolves [1500] - In what would be my final game in PA (for now!), the boys in black & brown took on some all infantry, fistageddon Space Pups. His list was something like Wolf Chappy, Wolf Librarian (5+ cover save power), 3x 15 blood claws (maximum fists, including fisty wolf guard leaders), 1x 15 blood claws w/ bolters (maximum fists, and the wolf guard fister too). The packs may have been bigger, but 15 seems pretty huge to me already.

His game plan was pretty attuned to 5th edition, or at least the way screening works - packs deploy in long lines across the board, stormcaller (5+ cover power) is cast on the front pack, and all the lines run across into your face. Front squad gets 5+ cover, ones behind get 4+ cover for being screened.

For our part, the spiky marines locked, loaded and prepared to shoot the hell out of those fist-spammin' dogs. Even with excellent run rolls - and those long chains were being pulled through difficult terrain for the most part too - I'd get solid rounds of blasting as they came in for the crumping.

This would be Kill Points, Pitched Battle. Delicious.

Wolves 1
Everything ran for me, with the Wolf Chappy in the front pack and the Wolf Libby somewhere around the second and third lines. The bolter squad started climbing into an elevated position in his deployment zone. Stormcaller went off on the front squad.

Chaos 1
Deathscreamer & 1k Sons shuffled around a bit, but otherwise it was right to killing. Really not too many died from the front pack considering, but the blastmaster scored two wounds and the Wolves failed the pin test @ -2. I was pretty surprised that the Wolf Chappy doesn't make his boys fearless ...

Wolves 2
Wolf Scouts appear behind the 1k Sons, downing one with a pistol, missing with their meltagun and then hoping into combat. The rest of the Wolves charged forward, but became a bit bunched up where the front squad had been pinned in place. Also, the bolter squad properly attained their perch and realized they had nothing remotely in range. Stormcaller I think failed to cast this turn ...

In combat the deathscreamer either rolled a 6 and fluffed 9 attaks down to 1 wound, or rolled a 1 and took a wound (both happened at some point). Anyway, the 1k Sons lost 2 robots and amazingly beat down 2 scouts by themselves (no need for lords or sorcerers).

Chaos 2
Unforunately the girls wanted to play already, so summoned in front of his pinned Chappy squad and prepared to be mauled. But first, shooting accounted for a bunch of the second line and knocked the chappy's squad down to the Chappy and a couple fists.

Which wasn't enough to save the chicks, who were mangled by the Chappy (3 dead), dragged down 1 fister, lost some more to the wolf guard fist and then popped a couple from the No Retreat! bunk. The last 4-5 girls made sad eyes as all those big viking marines licked their lips ... The deathscreamer either fluffed or hurt himself, but again the robots clubbed another scout to death leaving just 1 locking them up.

Wolves 3
Charging time?! A nice full strength pack lept to the front line (probably #3) and was stormcalled, and then pack #2 (old Wolf Sorcerer too) piled in with the remnants of #1 to beat up some chicks. Which they did.

Chaos 3
Annnd now the termies wanted to play, so they dropped to the rightmost end of the front, 5+ cover pack, with the intention of blitzing off a couple Pups and then punishing him for extending the line so far out - by charging the last man next turn he would only get 6" of counter-charge, only enough to bring 2 of 4 fists into play. Nobody else felt like moving, so unloaded into that front squad for a bit, opening a gap into the second squad which the blastmaster tapped and pinned! And the powerfist that was hanging out wiht the Chappy was knocked away, thothe big man having previously joined the now pinned squad.

Wolves 4
With the rear pack pinned (including Wolf Libby & Chappy), the front squad barreled into the terminators, though as predicted couldn't get all 4 fists swinging. For which they were punished, killing 0 terminators and losing a few more of their own, breaking and running for it. The terminators could only consolidate in response, making sure to move within 6" of the fleeing squad.

Chaos 4
The enemy had been reduced to the 15 bolter pups in the backfield, 2 running fister pups (so that broken squad was WAY shot up before, apparently), and about 10 pups with Chappy & Not-Libby. The obliterator and deathscreamer / sons moved to hammer the bolter hounds, though the oblit missed the plasma cannon shot and the S4 AP3 guns from the other squad went into the pinned unit. Eevil firepower ultimately knocked that one unit down to the characters + 2 powerfists, due to cover saves and more average rolling from me. Despite having seen the buffs that counter-attak + wolf pelt gives Wolf characters, my terminators charged in and were diced up, given the pups a heart consolidation towards my noise marines ...

Wolves 5
Which they clearly took advantage of, charging those 2 characters + 2 fists into the noise marines in difficult terrain. This actually resulted in the Faux-Libby not quite making it this round, which was unfortunate as the Chappy managed only 2 dead noisy boys with his 6 attaks, and in return the deaf marines hacked down the powerfisters before they could swing.

Chaos 5
The oblit and deathscreamer / sons advanced on the bolter marines, ripping them down to half strength or so. The fisty 10 CSM squad mobilized and jumped into the fight with the noise marines, and the elements of the chaos army that still felt like shooting riddled the rallied 2 marines from that broken pack with bullets and missiles.

The Wolf Chappy felt the wrath of S4 combat weapons, giving up the two wounds he had to give and finally going down. The Wolf Shaman beat upon the noise marines but with limited success.

Wolves 6
The bolters missed and the Shaman-dude fought, dropping a noise marine or so for a wound in return.

Chaos 6
The oblit + deathscreamer + sons smacked the bolter pack off the table, and the CSM fist bite down and crumped the old Wolf Wizard properly. Wolves, tabled.

CHAOS WIN

So a long, drawn out way to say: he ran, I shot, there was some fighting but evil triumphed in the end (because good is stupid and dumb). But I don't have class or work today so long and drawn out it is!

Painting: Ogres
Building: N/A

+ First 5E Throwdown +

Saturday night had my first foray into 5th edition, and gotta say the 5E part was overshadowed by the bad dice part ...

Anarchonquistadores vs Blood Angels [2000] - Game was annihilation (kill points) & table quarters, with chaos winning the One Roll and deciding to deploy and go first. The table was quite symmetrical, tall ruined building in each corner, craters between each building, woods in the center. The spiky boys created the trademark firebase in one of the ruins, as the 1k Sons, shooty CSM + deathscreamer and biker prepared to push into a large crater to create a mini-bunker of sorts. Dreads went far left and far right to do their thing. The blood angels brought -

Termi chappy + 5 assault termies (2 hammers, 3 claws) in crusader
Jump chappy + 10 death company with jump packs
2x 10 Assault marines w/ powerfist
2x 5 Tactical marines w/ meltagun + powerfist, in rhinos
Venerable Furioso

- and deployed largely shielded by the woods in the center but ready to rip my face off. The dread hid behind the land raider.

Chaos 1

Dreads kept their cool, with #2 stomping over to get LOS on a rhino and #1 scooting to smash some assault marines. Which he did fantastically, the plasma cannon vaporizing 4-5 and sending them running (though they stayed on the board, they were effectively out of the game, with 5' to get to me. Dread2 shook the rhino, and all my other fire managed to stun the other one as well ... Between the defiler and sundry other fire a couple assault marines fell and possibly 1 death company member, many saved by the 5+ cover the woods were providing in the center. My two lascannons did nothing to the crusader.

Kill Points: Chaos (0) vs Blood Angels (0)

Blood Angels 1

Crusader cruised forward, dread ran up and kept behind it, the mobile rhino overcharged and zipped towards the traitor marines and sundry assault marines hopped forward. The robot firing the crusader gun did nothing that mattered (assault cannon on Dread1) and the rhinos popped smoke.

Kill Points: Chaos (0) vs Blood Angels (0)

Chaos 2

No reserves wanted to play, though both dreads kept it in their pants for a second turn. Dread1 backed up to get away from the crusader but Dread2 mobilized to go beat up on the assault marines that had leapt perilously close. The bike lord also saw an opening and powered through the central woods, prepared to slam into the death company and take 4-5 of the killers down with him. Fire saw nothing done to the crusader, the rhinos' smoke save all the hits on them and the deathscreamer pop one of the assault marines Dread2 was staring at. Speaking of which, Dread2's heavy flamer and frag missile did nothing to the assault marines, their saves being impressively effective.

Tired of this shooting nonsense Dread2 charged the marines and beat two into submission, for no damage in return (the fist flopped), though the marines held. The biker lord charged up the demogauntlet and ... rolled that 1 you were all expecting. He didn't take a wound and the chappy couldn't make it past T5, but the death company did 3 wounds + 1 rend on the main man. Naturally he made the 5+ inv but failed the 3 3+ armor saves, giving the death company a hearty massacre move into the woods and towards my line.

Kill Points: Chaos (0) vs Blood Angels (1)

Blood Angels 2

Crusader tanked forward with the furioso sprinting behind, death company hopped out of the forest (1 hit a tree, but felt no pain) and onto the crater my shooty CSM + deathscreamer were in (1 broke his ankle, but felt no pain), and the marines in the rhino near Dread2's combat got out and readied their powerfist for some can opening. Shooting again did nothing (I don't think he shot his bolt pistols all game, now that I think about it).

Dread2 chainfisted a couple more assault marines, was immobilized by a very lucky krak grenade (6-6-6) and then detonated by the two powerfists. The explosion gleefully took the assault marines down to just the powerfist vet! In a less happy turn of events the death company slammed into the shooty CSM + deathscreamer, furious charge + frags gutting all 10 CSM before they could strike. The deathscreamer accounted for 1 death company marine (with a max 9 attaks!) and then was forced to take 9 No Retreat! saves. Of course he failed 3 exactly.

Kill Points: Chaos (0) vs Blood Angels (4)

Chaos 3

The demons became available, and unfortunately had no available charge target except for the death company, so they summoned and got psyched up for tarpit duty. The defiler saw the chappy's enticing T4 and mobilized for the charge and the 1k Sons scooted forward, having reread the SnP rules and thrilled at getting a charge bonus and not being I1 any longer. The firebase meanwhile braced for the terminator assault to come, as yet again both lascannons bounced off of the crusader. Dread1 was a little more on the ball, firing his plasma cannon across the board at the tactical marines that had crumped his brother. In 5E you no longer consolidate after killing any vehicle, WS value or not, which left the 5 marines in a tight ball ... of which 4 died to plasma, leaving 2 powerfist vets by their lonesome over in that quarter. Other fire did very little, with the death company having 5+ cover and their FNP after that.

Everybody that could pounced on the death company, girls into crazy marines and the chappy, defiler into the chappy and 1k Sons into some more crazy marines. The 1k Sons missed with everything, only 1 robot landing a hit which was saved, and lost two automatons for their troubles. The demons went last (no frags) and lost a couple, only to do nothing in return. The defiler slapped at the chappy but he never rolled less than 5 for his rosarius. No Retreat! wounds meant two more Sons died (3+ ha) but both girls saved (5+ ha).

Kill Points: Chaos (0) vs Blood Angels (4)

Blood Angels 3

The pain train arrived, the crusader vomiting forth the terminators right into the fisty CSM's face. The furioso scampered behind the crusader again, but the game was looking like it would end before he could become an issue. The crusader's robotic multi-melta killed Dread1, detonating him as well but not enough to tag the obliterator.

The fisty CSM disappeared under the rerolling onslaught, all 10 dying (and then some) and so taking the fist before he could strike. The termies consolidated a little and looked up at a four story ruin full of AP5 & 3 guns ... Over in the death company mosh the 1k Sons were wiped out, the demons taken down to 2 and all 3 wounds the defiler put on the chappy were saved 5-5-6.

Kill Points: Chaos (0) vs Blood Angels (6)

Chaos 4

At last the plasma termies became available, striking off the last icon (havoks) and pointing their guns at the enemy termies. The oblit plasma cannon led the charge, cooking the thunderhammers and a claw termi, the plasma trio managed a single dead blood angel and then a mountain of krak and bolt shells descended upon the chappy and his buddy. Which were all saved. It took the noise marines hitting with 11 S4 shots and wounding with all 11 to take the terminators done. Well done noisy boys.

Back against the death company the girls finally put some attaks on the non-FNP-ing chappy, causing 1 wound, but the defiler's attaks were yet again easily saved. The girls were cut down at last, leaving the defiler against a bunch of rending.

Kill Points: Chaos (2) vs Blood Angels (7)

Blood Angels 4

Nothing really happened. Crusader knocked down a havok or two, the melta didn't claim the oblit and the defiler's cuddling of the chappy continued with no result. The death company managed a rend against the spider tank but didn't roll high enough on the D3.

Kill Points: Chaos (2) vs Blood Angels (7)

And we called it game at that, we both had places to be and women to appease for the late-running game. Far behind on kill points, this was a solid ...

BLOOD ANGELS WIN

This felt much more like his hot dice (those armor saves!) vs my cold dice (those armor saves!) than anything else, though I did make a couple mistakes. I really should have devoted all the S8+ AP2- fire into the death company at all costs, 5+ cover saves be damned, and ignored the crusader. I wasted 6 lascannons shots and many bolters firing at the crusader, in addition to a salvo of havok kraks, when I only had a so-so chance of stopping it in the first place. Letting the termies eat a squad and then retaliating (as happened anyway) would have been a better way to go, and let my guns kill those FNP maniacs instead. Also the demons should have pilled as many attaks into the chaplain as possible and not trusted so much in the defiler. If the walker had been killing death co there would have been 6+ of them dead instead of 0 dead chaplains with the 5+ magic rosarius.

The biker lord doomcharge was reckless but not that stupid I think, had a good chance of depleting the squad and holding them for a turn. But the dice, they are bitches sometimes.

Not too much to say about 5E yet. I love no partial on blasts but hate the unlimited No Retreat! wounds, which makes no sense and is also really really painful for fearless characters.

Painting: Ogre Irongut
Building: N/A

+ Violators Fleet Action +

The full 1500 Violators fleet hit the board last night, teamed up with a 1500 plaguefleet (PLANETKILLER & friends) against an incredibly escort-heavy Imperial fleet led by an APOCALYPSE. Generic cruiser clash, with a whopping foud planets on the table for terrain :P

Violators & Plaguefleet vs Unknown Imperial Fleet [3000]

Chaos seized the initiative and began closing with the massive Imperial fleet, though due to the extreme ranges involved the majority of the Chaos fire was directed into the mines that the Imperials had deployed around the planets near the traitor fleet. Gaze of the Unclean, the nurgle planetkiller, however slammed its armageddon gun through two Imperial escorts, obliterating one and setting off the shield on the other. First blood!

The Imperial response was likewise minimal, as the fleet split to engage the two traitor fleets and the apocalypse steamed forward to take the planetkiller head on. Despite the small star blocking much of the Violators fleet from the Imperial guns Bass God took two direct hits from nova cannons! Judicious bracing resulted in only two hits being caused after shields, praise be to Slaanesh. Two squadrons of four cobras lined up the Gaze of the Unclean and launched torpedoes, as did the apocalypse and several other ships, filling that crowded area of space even more, though none made contact as of yet.

Now able to draw their guns into range the Chaos fleets prepared to turn the heat up. The Violators fleet consolidated to the port side of the cruisers jockeying around the star, but extreme range resulted in the weapon batteries of Cacophonic and Distortion putting just three hits onto the closest tyrant. The plaguefleet proved more ferocious, dropping all four shields on the apocalypse and accounting for four of its twelve hits. Both Chaos fleets dispatched fighters to take out the remaining mines and two of the torpedo salvos in coming on the planetkiller.

With the traitor vessels drawing close the Imperial fleet had to react. Against the Violators that arm of the fleet continued moving around the star, with the ships nearest the Chaos fleet firing broadsides into Cacophonic. The tainted ship braced for impact ... and needn't have, as shields absorbed the two hits that landed. Pleasure Throes, bringing up the tail of the Violators and visible around the other side of the star, took a couple shield hits but no cause for concern. The rest of the Imperials descended upon the plaguefleet, but all the fire, torpedoes and bombers resulted in a single hit on the planetkiller and several dropped shields.

Time to kill. The Violators swooped upon the squadron of tyrants, with Bass God going on lock on orders for supreme vengeance. Fire from throughout the fleet resulted in a hulked tyrant, three hits and a destroyed gun battery on another, and a massive bomber flight from Blistering Excess saw a third crippled. Bass God tagged a hit on the apocalypse as well, but the Nurgle warmaster protested loudly as he had moved his fleet in to deliver the killing blow to the battleship. Which they did with an impressive show of force, dropping all four shields and doing the seven hits (and three more!) needed to hulk the enormous flagship. As a parting shot plague bombers gutted two cobras and the nurgle acheron dropped a few shields.

Deeply demoralized but shouldering on, the Imperial fleet mobilized its masses of escorts against key Chaos targets, but it would prove for not. Eleven sword frigates fired upon the Blistering Excess but once again bracing resulted in just two hits getting past the shields. Likewise the Gaze of the Unclean absorbed the other firepower of the other half of the Imperial fleet, bracing and shields resulting in a solitary hit being caused. With that the heroes of the Imperium disengaged.

CHAOS WIN

That brutal third turn really did the lapdogs in, with Slaanesh ships up in his junks going crazy and the Nurgle fleet decapitating his force. There was still a lot of game to go - Chaos was still outnumbered 2:1 in pure ships on the table - but it was likely a foregone conclusion.

Closing Thought -> Wow, BFG is cool. Neat to see in action and a blast to play.

Painting: Ogre Irongut
Buidling: N/A

+ Violators Fleet 1500 +

Finished up the 500 point jump to 1500 today, pretty proud of the fleet. BFG is simple and fun to paint, this is probably the quickest 'army' I've gotten together for any game, ever. Fluff-wise it's a fleet under the command of the Violators traitor marines, Slaanesh-flavored CSM who seal their baby-blue armor and end up oozing, uh, gunk out of the seals (see the novel Daemon World for the source). Tried to carry it over to the ships, but admittedly my last ship, the Acheron, turned out waaay bright as I kept cleaning up the ink and not letting it pool or get oozy looking :P






Styx "Blistering Excess" - Lord Devour w/ MoS + reroll, CSM crew
Acheron "Bass God" - Lord Pharron w/ MoS + reroll, CSM crew
Carnage "Cacophonic"
Carnage "Distortion"
Devastation "Pleasure Throes"
Slaughter "Masochist"
2x Iconoclast + 1x Infidel "Slaves to Torment"
-----
1500

I suppose that when I do a battleship it'll be 100% icy blue ...

Painting: Demosaurus
Building: N/A

+ APOC IV +

Our fourth APOC game has come and gone, and a hot sweaty time was had by all. Nine dudes, one huge L-shaped table, four turns of carnage.

Tyranids & Tyranids & Tyranids & Chaos vs Black Templar & Black Templar & Dark Angels & Blood Angels & Witch Hunters [18000]

I ended up running 6500 points of Chaos - Death Guard, The Fallen, The Anarcho boys - that largely deployed on one 6x4 on the right arm of the L-table and smashed against the majority of both Templar armies. The objective on our side would end up with the last 3 of 42 plague marines standing on it but with BT characters surrounding it, so merely contested.

The left arm of the L-table saw the medium Nid swarm (a mere 3000) obliterated by the combined BA and WH armies, in what was largely due to him deploying too far away from the rest of our armies - if he had faced off across from just the Sisters he wouldn't have had to face the BA player for a turn or two, instead of the turn one assaults and short range rapid fire that he received by spreading in front of the two armies. Despite the appearance of 4 of my 8 Kharns (;D), a land raider and 3 Fallen obliterators (who nuked the WH fire support titan), the left objective was securely in the hands of the Imperium.

From the game's opening the center segment of the L was locked down by the largest of the bug swarms, including the heirophant and her little heirodule buddy. By Turn 4 the big girl had been wounded twice but with underlings swarming the objective at her feet that one easily went to the jaws of the Devourer (also Chaos). Otherwise that blue bug swarm spent much of the game slamming against the DA across from him and the smallest bug swarm to my evil lads' left, as well as sending out flank marchers (2 carnifex detonated the baneblade mere feet in front of the chaos firebase) and lictors (killed exorcists like it was going out of style).

So with 1 objective held per side and the other still contested, it came down to a ...

DRAW

Now a side note on how happy APOC:RELOAD makes me. My interest in APOC games has seriously wanned in the last months, but having gotten confirmed rumors on some of the race specific assets in RELOAD I'm totally back in for big games. There's just some crazy shit in that book that really brings in the highly specialized, oh so characterful, EPIC-scaled mayhem and feats that you can't get in a standard 40k game. For APOC IV we test ran a couple of the Chaos ones, so I ended up with three assets:

Shield Generator - An oldy but new to me. The 4+ save over my two defilers and noise marines insured their survival, over and over. It was quite impressive.

Demon Shell - Allows a chaos model with a bolt weapon to fire a demon shell instead of a normal round. 24" SD AP1 Assault 1 7" blast, if you roll a 1 to hit it causes a single SD hit to the firer! In this game I had a Fallen lord deep strike and shoot the mini-nuke right into a clump of Dark Angels, removing a huge number of the deluded fools. The Fallen lord would go on to fight Azrael in single combat, dying simultaneously with his former brother.

Major Possession - On a 3+ a greater demon possesses an enemy IC instead of a chaos champ (note that I think the enemy gets to pick which IC, but I didn't know this at the time). On Saturday my Great Generic One made the 3+ roll and erupted out of Samael, telefragging the über-jetbiker and then pouncing on a DA librarian and terminator retinue. His rampage was short-lived, as GK terminators waded over and cut him down, but the sheer brutality of possessing an enemy special character is amazing. Easily my favorite new Chaos asset!

For $25 APOC:RELOAD seems like a good buy, even just to check out all the other assets. A couple examples: "Holy Relic" jacks a chaplain's combat prowess through the roof but when he dies the relic drops and becomes another objective. "Rokk 'Em Lads" has the orks bombard the board with fist-shaped asteroids, causing 10" explosions that scatter D6 feet (only hit on a HIT + 1). "Fire on My Coordinates" brings an orbital barrage down upon a surrounded guardsmen with a vox. "Indiscriminate Bombardment" has a chaos player place one barrage template, the enemy a second one, and then the chaos player a third. And so on.

Painting: Dakka Painting Challenge entry
Building: N/A

+ Violators Fleet Action +

At the very end of June I decided to paint up 1000 points of BFG, and so dumped out the chaos fleet that's been manhandled around for the 9 years since I bought the boxed game. 2 days later (I had to go buy some icy blue and some chestnut ink) I had a tiny fleet of eevil ships fresh for some Spaaaaace Combaaaaat! I'll work on getting a shot of them, but suffice to say they're painted up (and slightly converted) to represent a fleet under the command of the Violators Chaos Space Marines - Slaaneshi marines sealed into their baby blue armor, which seeps greenish goo from the joints as it's never removed. Hot.

VIOLATORS FLEET 1000
Warmaster Devour (+2) - Mark of Slaanesh
Blissful Excess [Styx] - CSM Crew
Pleasure Throes [Devastation]
Unrepentant [Carnage]
Masochist [Slaughter]
Slave [Iconoclast]

Not 100% on such a huge warmaster in 1000 points, but Ld 10 on the Styx is very nice to have. Alternate version has just a +1 warmaster but 2 Infidels, but I have yet to paint more escorts up.

Violators vs Unknown Chaos Fleet [1000]
First game was a basic Cruiser Clash vs my friend's likewise newb chaos lads.

4 Murders
2x 3 Idolators

Things swiftly turned to my advantage as his escorts were hunted down and his cruisers hulked. The Violators' ordnance superiority shown, but special commendation goes to the Slave for hounding the enemy ships and keeping those little gun batteries blazing. He took down a couple times his points in enemy escorts and kept the shields down on the big guys.

Violators Win

Violators vs Plaguefleet [1000]
2 weeks later and my buddy was back for another Cruiser Clash, this time with his chaos fleet stripped, puttied and putrified properly.

Warmaster (+1) - Mark of Nurgle
Acheron
Carnage - CSM Crew, Mark of Nurgle
Carnage - CSM Crew, Mark of Nurgle
Slaughter - Demonvessel, Mark of Nurgle

A far sight tougher now! 9 hits for each ship, high Ld, and the fact that he took carnages over murders were all bonuses over his first escort-happy fleet.

The Fleets Engage
Early game saw the Violators move together and to the right to cluster their guns against a single carnage on the Plaguefleet's flank, however with judicious brace for impact use the cruiser survived the onslaught. Due to their proximity to each other all of the Violators' cruisers were affected by the -1 Ld from the lurking demonvessel, which proved deadly as the Plaguefleet focused all fire into the Masochist. Failing its brace check the cruiser was obliterated, resulting in a warpdrive implosion! With the fleet packed together the Unrepentant and Pleasure Throes suffered 8 lance shots each, thankfully escaping with minimal damage. Seeking vengeance, the Excess and Throes both slammed full bomber waves into the nearest carnage, managing to hulk the tainted cruiser.

Playing It Cagey
With some distance between the two fleets the clash moved to long range weaponry and ordnance. Though the demonvessel continued to haunt the Slaanesh marine cruisers, Warmaster Devour's solid command kept the Excess vomiting forth bombers to cross the roiling expanse of space to the plague ships. Continuous lance fire and bombing runs succeeded in crippling the other Plaguefleet carnage, though the last 3 hits proved to tough at this range.

When Demons Attak
The demonvessel finally translated fully into real space, but despite the Violators anticipating the ship's solidification the Unrepentant and Excess put a measly 1 hit onto the beast. In retaliation the demonic slaughter moved right under the nose of the Excess and let loose with a full broadside, doing a massive 7 hits of damage and smashing the command deck off of the Violators flagship with a sweep of its titanic claw. The Unrepentant sought vengeance and locked on, but again with a well-timed brace the demonvessel survived uncrippled. All the same, with one cruiser hulked, another with 3 hits remaining and the demonvessel hurting amidst the Violators fleet (and the flagship across the table behind a planet), the Plaguefleet chose to disengage.

Violators Win

Though definitely a hollow one for me, that warpdrive implosion when my ships were most packed together was potentially brutal, and the less said about the ghostship mauling my flagsip the better! Oh, as a side note the Slave was stupidly placed on the opposite side of the board from the rest of the fleet, with the intention of some rear-hunting action. Stupid because it meant all the starboard weapons of the Plaguefleet had only one target with the rest of my fleet going to their port ... Poor slavey :'(

Painting: Dread #2
Building: BFG Chaos 1500

+ July Happenings +

I like to make schedules for painting and such, to stay organized and hopefully push me to get things done. July is looking like a bit of a slacker month, like the last weeks of June were as well, but at least I know that the few things on the schedule will get done. What's really killing me right now is the humidity makes priming my newly built stuff ... highly undesirable :(

WEEK 6/29
[X] Paint 1000 point BFG chaos fleet
[X] First game of BFG in 9 years
[X] July 4th, etc.

WEEK 7/6
[X] Build 2 gorefiends & dread #2
[X] Prime dread #2
[_] Paint disruption beacon
[X] Fiancee's birthday celebrations

WEEK 7/13
[X] Build BFG fleet to 1500
[X] Prime BFG upgrade
[X] Paint some on dread
[X] Play more BFG
[X] Rampage Richmond

WEEK 7/20
[X] Paint dread
[_] Paint BFG boost
[X] APOC IV

WEEK 7/27
[_] Build, prime, paint Dakka Painting Challenge entry

WEEK ???
[_] Spray Khorne Demons brass

Not too rushed on the hobby side, but a couple personal events make gaming time tight. Then there's our fourth APOC game looming 7/26, need the dread and beacon done by then, and finally the DPC model at the end of the month where I get to see what my painting skills are actually up to.

Building: N/A
Painting: Disruption Beacon

+ Khorne Demons Mangle Marines +

Got in the third battle with the demons, this time against good old marines. My list was the 1500 one below, except with 5 flesh hounds + Keranak instead of the 2 fiends (also 4 less bloodletters). We decided to play pure 4th edition for this one, as pure 5th would have been preferrable but clearly neither of us has the rules yet (and didn't feel like mixing in rules here and there).

Khorne Demons vs Space Marines [1500] - He took:

Terminator librarian + 7 terminators (2 assault cannons, many powerfists)
Jump chaplain (lightning claws, furious charge)
Dread (assault cannon, heavy flamer)
Dread (lascannon, missile launcher)
6 Tactical (lascannon)
5 Scounts (snipers, missile launcher)
10 Assault Marines (furious charge, 2 flamers, fist veteran)
2 Tornados

Demons won the roll for side and gave the marines the side with just one huge ruined building (15" x 30") partially in it, along with a rocky hill to the left and a small wrecked shuttle part to the right. The dreads set up in the building, the tacticals a floor up and the scouts at the top level of the ruin. The terminators and assault marines deployed to the left of the building, and the tornados went down left and right flanks.

Marines won the roll for first and took it.

Marines 1
Speeders moved over 6" ... Everybody else kinda stood around waiting for the carnage.

Demons 1
After much deliberation, I went with the heavy first wave and got it. Skarbrand aimed for the corner of the big building farthest from the termies & assaulters, and scattered off it to the NW. A prince aimed for the same spot and scattered SW, and the other prince aimed for the same spot and again scattered, this time N. 12 bloodletters with icon finished up my drops, and managed to stick on that cursed spot. Skarbrand yelled at the scouts atop the building, killing 2, and the SW prince breathed on the tactical marines and melted 4 of them. Having a shooting phase = totally sweet.

Marines 2
Due to the wonders of area terrain, it looked like retaliation would be minimal this time around. The assault marines hoped the corner of the building and unloaded on the SW prince, getting 0 wounds past his T5. Likewise the dreads and most of the tornado shooting, which managed to put 1 wound on the beast. The lascannon tactical failed his target priority and blasted a bloodletter into atoms instead of hitting the prince, and a scout put a wound on Skarbrand with a krak rocket.

First assault of the game, the chappy and crew slammed into the prince standing in cover (frags meant we'd go simul). The prince slammed 3 wounds on the chappy but only 1 got through his 4+ inv, and in return the chappy gutted the big demon. Massacre moved the assault marines away from the bloodletters glaring at them ...

Demons 2
More demons! 9 bloodletters (render) and 12 bloodletters (icon) made it this time, both summoning off of the icon squad in the marines' general direction. Skarbrand pushed through the area terrain, fleeted a weak 2" and stopped near the dreads - without a 6" assault through difficult terrain he'd miss the terminators on the other side and just jump on a dread instead. The living prince hoped up on the building to play with the 2 tactical marines and the icon bloodletters headed for the chappy's squad. Unfortunately they were 9" away, and 2" out of difficult terrain meant they'd have to charge the land speeder precariously nearby ...

With no yelling this turn it was right to fighting. Skarbrand didn't roll high enough so charged 1" into the fisty dread, detonating it and racking up a few dead assault marines and 4 dead bloodletters in the 6" explosion! He consolidated into the shooty dread right next to him. The prince brutalized the tacticals (4 wounds) and massacred 3" up to stand on the level below the scouts. The icon bloodletters, short 1", charged the land speeder instead. With Skarbrand bellowing encouragement they managed many hits on the speeder, but only ended up trashing the assault cannon (and being nicely packed for the flamering to come).

Marines 3
Mobilize! Libby + terminator friends pushed up into the ruins to take on Skarbrand, and the chappy + assault friends moved over (1" with a flopped difficult terrain roll!) to cook the letters. Which they did, killing some. The wounded tornado flew clear and threw some heavy bolters in as well, killing them down to about 6 demons.

Assault time is the best time! The libby managed 1 wound on Skarry, but it was swatted away with his 4+ inv before he could try force weapon nonsense on him. The big guy responded by gutting 4 terminators, and then by saving all the powerfist wounds that came his way except for 1. The dreadnought kicked about but was largely ignored. Over in the other combat the chappy brutalized three bloodletters, enough to remove those in base contact with his slower assault marine retinue. Another bloodletter popped from No Retreat!, leaving 2 to hold the marines in place ...

Demons 3
The rest of the demons showed up, summoning another 9 bloodletters (render) nearby the terminator-Skarbrand fight and the 6 flesh hounds (Keranak) looking at the gimped speeder on the right. The prince climbed up to the top of the ruin, screamed at the scouts and exploded all of their heads. And 2 squads of bloodletters descended upon the chappy's squad ...

Shooting out of the way, Skarbrand weathered a round of the libby flailing against him (couldn't summon the 6+ to wound the main man) and gutted the rest of his terminator cadre. The libby held. 5 bloodletters (render) slammed into the assault marines accompanying the chaplain, leaving them in bloody bits with their WS5 (rerolled!), S5, I5, A15 charge. The other squad of demons all funneled their attaks into the chaplain, causing 14 wounds and misting the guy with ease. Though he did take down 1 bloodletter with his own I5 attaks, but whatev.

Marines 4
Speeders scooted around a bit, accounting for 1 bloodletter and 1 flesh hound. In the fun phase the librarian again couldn't wound Skarbrand, but summoned the inv saves to stay alive one more turn. Oh, and the dread kicked at the demon but couldn't manage a hit, despite Skarry yelling at him.

Demons 4
The flesh hounds zipped over to pounce on the hurt speeder, which they did, netting a fine number of hits (with no reroll, out of Skarry's ANGER range) and immobilizing the craft, pulling it down like the frisbee it is. Most of the bloodletters bunkered down in the main ruin to hang out until the end of the game, though the fresh render squad flooded into the librarian. Once again the ancient marine couldn't wound Skarbrand, but instead of dealing with the 'hero' Skarbrand smashed that annoying dread and let the bloodletters' 27 attaks obliterate the marine.

Marines 5
The last speeder put wound #3 on Skarbrand! But he called it a game at that, as he'd have a max of 1 turn to finish Skarry if the monster's fleet roll wasn't up to catching the speeder next turn.

DEMONS WIN

A deliciously brutal game for Khorne, marred by poor deployment on the marine player's part. As he noted, he should have deployed everything in his terrainless right corner and hammered my demons as they came in. Though admittedly with his small number of units I wonder if this would have been enough to stop the flood ... And in that event I wouldn't have put Skarbrand down first turn, but likely would have either gone pure bloodletters for the first drop or the big icon squads + the undivided princes.

MVP: Skarbrand!

Building: Dread #2?
Painting: Dread #2?

+ Chaotic Army Lists +

I feel like posting something, but have neither pics to show nor a battle to report on. Hence, you get a few armylists instead! Here we have the 1500 & 2000 point versions of my CSM army that see most of the action, as well as the 1500 Demons I'm burning to try out some more before I get started on painting it ...

UNDIVIDED CSM 1500

HQ
Chaos Lord - MoT, deathscreamer, icon, melta bombs

ELITES
3 Terminators - IoCU, 3 combi-plasmas, 2 powerfists, 1 chainfist

TROOPS
10 CSM - IoCU, lascannon, flamer, AC w/ powerfist, combi-flamer
10 CSM - IoCU, autocannon, plasma gun, AC w/ power weapon
6 1k Sons - AS w/ doombolt
6 Noise Marines - blastmaster, sonic blaster
12 Lesser Demonettes

HEAVY SUPPORT
6 Havoks - IoCU, 3 missile launchers
1 Obliterator

TOTAL
1496 points

---

UNDIVIDED CSM 2000

HQ
Chaos Lord - MoCU, demon weapon, bike, icon
Chaos Lord - MoT, deathscreamer, icon

ELITES
3 Terminators - IoCU, 3 combi-plasmas, 2 powerfists, 1 chainfist
Dreadnought - plasma cannon, heavy flamer, extra armor
Dreadnought - plasma cannon, extra armor

TROOPS
10 CSM - IoCU, lascannon, flamer, AC w/ powerfist, combi-flamer
10 CSM - IoCU, autocannon, plasma gun, AC w/ power weapon
6 1k Sons - AS w/ doombolt
6 Noise Marines - blastmaster, sonic blaster
8 Lesser Demonettes

HEAVY SUPPORT
6 Havoks - IoCU, 3 missile launchers
Defiler
1 Obliterator

TOTAL
1999 points

---

KHORNE DEMONS 1500

HQ
Skarbrand

ELITES
2 Gorefiends of Khorne

TROOPS
12 Bloodletters - icon, instrument
12 Bloodletters - icon, instrument
11 Bloodletters - fury
11 Bloodletters - fury

HEAVY SUPPORT
Demon Prince - iron hide, unholy might, breath of chaos
Demon Prince - iron hide, unholy might, breath of chaos

TOTAL
1496 points

Current Records
---------------
CSM Many:A Few:Not Many
DEMONS 1:1:0

Building: 2 Gorefiends
Painting: Ogre Ironguts?

+ Khorne Demons vs Tizz Milksops +

Last Friday was Game #2 with the bloody demons of blood, and this time in an entertaining matchup against the 1000 Sons! This one would be pure 4.0, as the changes we usually play for 4.5 weren't going to matter (deployment and LoS mostly).

Khorne Demons vs 1000 Sons [1500]

Skarbrand
1 'Fiend of Khorne'
12 Bloodletters - instrument, icon
12 Bloodletters - instrument, icon
12 Bloodletters - fury
12 Bloodletters - fury
Demon Prince - iron hide, unholy might, breath of chaos
Demon Prince - iron hide, unholy might, breath of chaos

vs

Sorcerer - MoT, wind of chaos, warptime, wings, icon
Lord of Genericocity
Dreadnought - lascannons, heavy flamer
7 1000 Sons - AS w/ doombolt, icon
7 1000 Sons - AS w/ doombolt, icon
7 1000 Sons - AS w/ doombolt, icon
10 Lesser Horrors
10 Lesser Horrors
Defiler - extra ccw

Deployment: Sons, sons, defiler, sons, dread (banished to the far right flank). Sorcerer, super chicken, quasi-horrors all in reserve.

He won the roll and made me go first ...

Demons 1
I went with the 'wave of flesh' drop, all the bloodletters first. Scatters took 3 squads closer to their automaton targets (but not dangerously so) and 1 squad a bit farther back but I knew he'd close the 12" gap for rapid fire anyway so no worries.

Sons 1
He shuffled that squad into rapid range, and the dread fire frenzied ... into my bloodletters (area terrain to its left blocked LoS to friendlies) and killed 2 to start it off. Defiler smashed 6 from one squad and fire from the sons managed to whip out one icon squad and strip a good amount of demons from other squads. But in short: not enough dead bloodletters.

Demons 2
No demonic reserves arrive, so the bloodletters line up each against a sons squad and prepare to do this themselves. Which they do, each combat exactly doing 7 wounds after inv saves, killing all 3 sorcerers along with their icons.

Sons 2
Just the sorcerer arrives, striking a good 20" away from my demonic shocktroops to insure some of his demons will see the table. The defiler smashes another 6 bloodletters off the table and the dread pops another one off with its lascannon.

Demons 3
Everybody shows up, summoning around the remaining bloodletter icon. 2 bloodletter squads move towards the sorcerer, keeping their distance with the knowledge that the generic demons can assault after summon UNLIKE themselves ... Skarbrand and the 2 princes bellow at the defiler, causing 1 glance that is ignored (shaken). The 3rd bloodletter mob (and the largest) charges the defiler to silence its cannon and hope the render can do his thing. He can't and a couple demons are crushed with Skarbrand's rerolled hits.

Sons 3
10 demons summon off of the sorcerer's icon, right before the sorcerer explodes into the super chicken, removing the last icon and leaving the other 10 demons to drift in the warp. The dreadnought blood rages into the area terrain ruins near it and while my render demon gets 2 rending penetrates on the defiler he also rolls double 1's ... and the defiler pulps a couple more with Skarbrand's reroll.

Demons 4
Not wanting to wait for his demons to leave their difficult terrain bunker, I move 8 bloodletters up within 12" of his demons. Then instead of being at least a little cautious I slam the fiend into the horrors, with the hope of killing something and holding them up. Sadly the fleet roll is 1" too short to make it into terrain, which means the fiend is assaulting into cover instead of from within it. With no offensive grenades the 'horrors' easily kill it with Skarbrand's reroll. Elsewhere Skarbrand saves the bloodletters' bacon by killing the defiler 5 times over (with no explosion).

Sons 4
The dread fire frenzies again, into my bloodletters killing 2. His horrors push through cover and assault my bloodletters, killing 7 for the loss of 3 with Skarbrand's reroll, and popping the last thanks to No Retreat. The greater demon moves to the left, away from my menacing princes.

Demons 5
Skarbrand started his sprint towards the super chicken, the twin princes move to deal with the horrors and the remaining bloodletters try to gain some cover to avoid losing any more models to the dread (3 in one squad and 6 in the other). The princes breath on the horrors, and despite him trying to pull models out of 6" one prince manages the charge, butchering the generic thingies with Skarbrand's reroll. Skarry himself fleets well and charges the super chicken, brutalizing it into small parts thanks to his own reroll.

Sons 5
The dreadnought keeps his cool and takes a potshot at Skarbrand, but the shot is saved by his 4+ inv.

Demons 6
Bloodletters gain some cover and everybody watches as the Main Man begins the long run into the dreadnought (about 24").

Sons 6
The dread fire frenzies a third time, into Skarbrand for 2 wounds.

Demons 7
With a strong fleet, Skarbrand hits the dread and frags him several times.

DEMONS WIN

This game was always going to be he shoots me back to the warp or I hellblade his face in, and the hellblades won. Wiping out all his squad icons and vessels in 1 round - without Skarbrand around for rerolls that mattered to me - was quite fortuitous, though the generic demons were as a pain against my bloodletters as I expected, with basically identical stats but cheaper. His walkers performed perfectly IMO, his defiler racking up 15-16 dead bloodletters (!!!) and his dread scoring 5 bloodletters or so and 2 wounds on Skarbrand with all those favorable fire frenzies.

Listwise, I still like the mathhammer behind taking 2 fiends vs 5 flesh hounds - better in soooo many ways really - but 1 fiend wasn't going to be as useful in this case, more of a tank hunter when you give it +1S as well. 40 points for a beast with 6 S6 rending attaks (and hit-and-run) is a good buy, and I've got some conversions in mind to make some proper "gorefiends." Skarbrand I like but his reroll causes me more anxiety than its worth - like against I5+ enemies and those in cover - and I think a 270 point bloodthirster w/ might is far better vs 300 point Skarry.

Building: Demon Prince #2
Painting: Ogre Ironguts

+ Sad Day In Chaos Land +

Played 4 games this weekend - 2 fantasy, 2 40k - with each of the 4 armies of mine that I care about. The final one was the most exhausting, but for the sake of completeness I'll toss it up here.

Undivided & Death Guard vs Black Templars [4000] - Chaos both fielded pure infantry forces and their 54 generic demon buddies: my 1500 with terminators not dreadnought, his 2500 with Typhus, 6x 7 plague marines, 6x 7 demons. The Templars on the other hand were mechanized: 4 rhinos, 4 tornados, 2 dreads, 2 preds, 1 vindi, and 1 crusader rounded out the motorpool alone (with rhino squads, 2 assault squads, massive HQ, 2x asscan terminator squad, assault terminator squad and a Grey Knight terminator squad). And me with a handful of heavy weapons. Blerg.

A lot of poor dice rolling on our part and excellent 3+ saves on his part later, and we had been pushed back into our deployment zone (embarassing!). That did mean our respawning demons could dump right back into combat (thanks GK), but then they didn't do too much that mattered anyway. Only the left flank, with 4 plague marine squads within 1 woods template, was holding strong, but then it didn't have all the assault might storming into it like my shooting bunkers.

With the shop closing and everybody pretty tired of throwing dice around, Chaos folded in Turn 5, with at least a few of my dark power armor on the table still.

BLACK TEMPLAR WIN

Building: Demon Prince #2
Painting: Ogre Ironguts

+ GAMES DAY 2008 CARNAGE +

Games Day Baltimore has come and gone, and was as usual good fun. Nice to see a few new things - Dark Elf hydra, direct only kroot shaper, FW plague ogryns - and met some online friends in person, but really it was the open gaming that made the day for me. I brought the Chaos boys along and threw down in a big game that lasted a good chunk of the event and then a smaller one to finish the day off (was there 'til they kicked us out).

Undivided & Iron Warriors & Death Guard vs Ultramarines & Tyranids & Ultramarines & Tyranids [7000] - All on a fairly terrain-light 6x4 table, delicious. I put down 3 zombies from my case and we called them objectives, 6 turns to hold more than the other team. The game I feel was still in the balance up until Turn 3 or 4, but after that things had tiped solidly to Chaos, and the other side was starting to get demoralized at the beating they were taking. Quick recap:

- Vast majority of early Chaos firepower went into stopping all the genestealers rushing our line, something like 70 with a broodlord in there. They lasted until Turn 6 amazingly, my 1k Sons creating a speedbump that force weaponed out the broodlord and let my fisty CSM deal with the stragglers.
- One Ultramarine player was stalled in the corner by combined fire from my Anarch boys and the Iron Warriors, and then locked down for 2 turns when a forward plague champion summoned 4x7 demons into all his infantry squads. Only a crusader with assault terminators punched through, assaulting my shooty CSM squad but eating 2 chaos lords with demon weapons the following turn. The crusader would survive to contest an objective.
- The other Ultra player spent the game being shelled by 2 defilers (who both survived) and learning how tough plague marines in 5+ cover are. Despite the rough game his troops would go on to contest another objective.
- That plague marine champ (with powerfist) who summoned down the demons collectively crumped 1 zoanthrope, finished off an Ultra tactical squad w/ fist, smashed an Ultra dread and insta-killed the Ultramarine commander, all with the support of just 2 plaguers to soak wounds. Go plague guy!
- Late game move of the IW vindicator and CSM squad captured the final objective, securing a ...

CHAOS WIN

Undivided & Iron Warriors vs Imperial Guard & Tau [3000] - With less than 2 hours left at the convention and needing something to do 'til the Costume Contest (gooooo titan!), I challenged out two dudes and nabbed the IW player to team up with me. This turned into a total bloodbath, helped along by our opponents' general inexperience and some really solid dice on my part. Recap:

- First Guard roll and Undivided rolls of the game were impressive. Demolisher shot 1 lascannon & 2 plasma cannons at my havoks in 5+ cover, hit with all of them, hit with all partials, wounded with all of them. In return I passed all 7-8 of my cover saves. Sweet. Then the demolisher died to an IW lascannon to the side.
- the Guard player forgot to shoot his basilisk the first couple turns, but I reminded him cause hey, it's killy. My plasma termies dropped back there and cooked the artillery off the following turn, lost a man to broadside fire, then next turn chainfisted the rear of the stationary ionhead, then assaulted a monat fusion suit but couldn't get through its 4+ inv.
- Both Tau fish of furies were stalled when their devilfishes were knocked down, with one group of fire warriors devoured by 12 lesser demonettes and the other shot up and then eaten by a Great Generic One. My girls would go on to eat some guard for good measure.
- The Tau player consistently did not jump his suits back behind terrain after moving out to shoot us up. Unlike the basilisk I didn't remind him, but instead shot a lot of AP2 and 3 at him ;D
- 1000 Sons not only survived the battle but killed stuff, including hurting the Tau HQ suit squad, killing the Guard HQ squad and, after many turns of them making their cover save, the platoon HQ as well. Waaaagh robots!
- We called the game at Turn 4.5 at 6:00, with just 1 Guard squad and the broadsides surrounded on a hill, and Games Day officially over and breaking up around us. A suiting end and another ...

CHAOS WIN

So I ended Games Day 2008 with 2 bloody wins, a Forge World rhinox thunderlord, a Chaos dread blastmaster arm and a sweet Ghazghkul shirt. I'll take it.

Painting: N/A
Building: 2 Demon Princes

+ Khorne Rebound & Revamp +

Having looked around at other khorne armies (there aren't many!), I've some things to think about and some things I'm already doing that seem to be good ideas. Here's where I'm headed for 2k Khorne demons at the moment:

HQ
Herald of Khorne - juggernought, unholy might, fury of khorne, icon
Herald of Khorne - juggernought, unholy might, fury of khorne
Herald of Khorne - juggernought, unholy might, fury of khorne
Herald of Khorne - juggernought, unholy might, fury of khorne

Troops
12 Bloodletters - icon
12 Bloodletters - icon
12 Bloodletters - fury of khorne, instrument
12 Bloodletters - fury of khorne, instrument

Fast Attak
6 Flesh Hounds - Keranak

Heavy Support
Demon Prince - MoK, iron hide, unholy might, instrument
Demon Prince - iron hide, unholy might, breath of chaos, instrument
Demon Prince - iron hide, unholy might, breath of chaos, instrument

Total
1998 points
61 models

Heralds all pair up with a nice big bloodletter squad for the drop, and first wave would ideally be 3 princes + 1 bloodletter / herald squad. Figure the heavy armor first wave might be better than going mix drop or "naked drop" with all the bloodletters (which is a possibility, all 48 at once then icon the princes down).

Painting: Nurgle bases
Building: N/A

+ Khorne Demons - Strike One +

Finally got the 5 models I needed built this weekend and got the first game in with my Khorne Demons with the new codex. Unfortunately it was against Sisters, which may be the perfect match up against demons, particularly ones with no shooting and with all power weapons. Brutal short range fire and the ability to pop inv saves if I ever hit combat is just very very hard to fight.

Khorne Demons vs Witch Hunters [1650]

I took:

Herald of Khorne - juggernought, unholy might, fury of khorne
Herald of Khorne - juggernought, unholy might, fury of khorne
Herald of Khorne - juggernought, unholy might, fury of khorne
Herald of Khorne - juggernought, unholy might, fury of khorne
8 Bloodletters - icon
8 Bloodletters - icon
8 Bloodletters - fury of khorne
8 Bloodletters - fury of khorne
8 Bloodletters - instrument
8 Bloodletters - instrument
6 Flesh Hounds - Karanak
Demon Prince - MoK, iron hide, unholy might, blessing of the blood god

He took:

Cannoness - jump pack, melta pistol, S5 power sword
Inquisitor - 2x heavy bolter servitors
Calidus
13 Sisters - 2x storm bolters, VSS
10 Sisters - melta, flamer, VSS w/ plasma pistol
10 Sisters - melta, flamer, VSS
7 Seraphim - 2x flamers, VSS w/ power weapon
6 Seraphim - 2x flamers, VSS w/ eviscerator
8 Retributers - 4x heavy bolters
Exorcist
Exorcist

Maybe something else and I'm sure more kit in there too. We played many 5th edition rules, including the One Roll to start, LoS + cover saves (no screening), run. He won the One Roll and let me choose side and go first. With nothing to set up he deployed everything but the Cali and waited ...

Deployment (L to R): Retributers in building, seraphim, exorcist, 10 sisters on rough hill, seraphim (cannoness nearby), exorcist, 10 sisters in bottom of building, 13 sisters over the next two floors, INQ team on top.

Demon Wave: I split my army in half, and got the wave I wanted first. 8 bloodletters (icon) + herald, 8 bloodletters (music) + herald, 8 bloodletters (fury), demon prince.

Demons 1
I needed to silence the heavy guns and figured I could slog across the two feet from the retributer bunker to the mass of bolters waiting in the taller building on the flank, so struck everything towards the table middle / left. All the bloodletter squads scattered back away from their original drops, but with run rolls (apparently you can run / fleet after striking in 5th, or we did here anyway) they repositioned fairly well. The prince plopped down between all the letters, rolling the only HIT.

Sisters 1
Time to kill some demons. 10 sister squad in the middle walked down their hill to line up shots, both seraphim squads jumped around to line up their flamers and exorcists scooted for LoS on the DP. Flamer templates splashed all over the squad with icon, destroying it and the herald and also wounding the DP a few times with overspray. DP died to exorcist and small arm potshots from the squads in the far building. Retributers said NO and obliterated the fury letters with the other seraphim's help and my last squad of demons was reduced to 4 demons + herald. Wow. Of note, my rolling for inv saves was about statistically average, with some good ones and some bad, but I failed nearly 90% of all the 3+ armor saves I took on the DP and heralds. His rolling was, as usual, amazing - the retributors missed I think 4 shots the entire game.

Demons 2
Everybody but the last 8 bloodletters (icon) w/ herald were ready to play. I decided to try to force the other flank and get some points, so dropped the flesh hounds and some bloodletters (music) w/ herald inside the building that all those infantry squads were in, and the other bloodletters (fury) out front of it. Run moves repositioned a bit.

And finally, combat! The 4 bloodletters + herald over by the retributers charged the seraphim right in front of them, and the girls popped 3+ inv saves as predicted. All the same, 12 WS5 S5 I5 and 5 WS6 S7 I6 (rending) attaks are hard to say no to, and 2-3 seraphim died. The rest failed their break and were caught.

Sisters 2
Time to kill some demons. Seraphim jump over and line up on the letters outside the building, hill squad moves back atop the hill and 1 exorcist lines up. Retributers destroy the bloodletters + herald near them, combined fire gut the letters in the open, 5 bloodletters die to 26 rapid firing bolter shots from 1 squad (O_O) thanks to good saves from me (saved 8 of 13 wounds), and the hounds go unscathed.

Upshot, the Inquisitor tried to cast Scourging but rolled 6-6, dying to a PotW test as Khorne ate her head ;D

Demons 3
The last herald + bloodletters (icon ha!) strike in, deviating near the hounds and losing a couple models in the process. Herald + letters inside the building push forward to hope for assault and the hounds push through cover to go for the seraphim in the open.

And finally, combat! The hounds easily charge the seraphim, who pop +2 init and kill 1 hound. They lose 0 in return and hit and run away, sealing the dogs' fate. My opponent lets me make base with the herald + 3 bloodletters in the building, though my difficult terrain roll might have been 1" short (hard to tell with multi-storey buildings). 11 sisters die, unit breaks and is caught, my squad consolidates off to the side of the building.

Sisters 3
Time to kill some demons. Cali comes in and lines up to blast the newest bloodletters (but does nothing against Ld10 & 5+ inv). Other sisters maneuver to put out the pain. Flesh hounds disappear, herald + letters alongside the building are hit and leave just the herald alive. In the building, herald + letters are reduced to herald + 3 demons. The seraphim and cali who flamed them BOTH fluff their difficult terrain rolls, falling short.

Demons 4
Herald inside the building breaks off from his unit and runs for the sisters who had walked off their hill last turn to cook the hounds, while his bloodletters move to smack some seraphim. The other herald walks the 1" to charge the sisters in front of her.

And finally, combat! The herald from the building kills a handful of girls, but they hold. The other herald manages to kill 1 girl(with 5 S7 WS6 attaks), pathetically taking a wound in return I think. The 3 bloodletters against invulnerable seraphim kill 0-1 (9 attaks should kill 1.67 inv girls, so not THAT bad a fluff), for no loses. Seraphim either don't care or hold.

Sisters 4
Exorcists back up 12", cali moves to assault the letters right next to her. And the cannoness made an appearance and charged the herald near the hill in the back!

In combat, the hill herald put all 4 attaks on the inv 2+ cannoness, punching 3 wounds through her save and instantly killing her. The other girls fluffed but held. The other herald kept smacking with little result, taking another wound. And the 3 bloodletters against inv seraphim did nothing, losing 1 to a seraphim, 1 to the callidus and 1 to No Retreat.

Demons 5
Still alive in Turn 5! The hill herald broke his sisters but didn't catch them (by 1), yet their low retreat put him 1" behind them and set to push them off the table next turn. The other herald may have died this turn, clubbed to death.

Sisters 5
The fleeing sisters were pushed off the table, no chance to rally with enemy too close. And then exorcists and retributers fired down the table and took out the last demonic herald.

SISTERS WIN

That was painful, and confirms most opinions that the Khorne demon army doesn't work well at all. Striking and then having nothing to do but die was rough, and the inv saves from the sisters made combat not even a sure proposition. I don't totally think I made a mistake in trying to overload the side with the heavy guns, but just lost models so much faster than I expected - the initial response from the sisters killed 20 bloodletters, 1 herald and 1 prince easily. If I had dropped in the cover of the other building and went from that flank over I would have avoided the first turn double seraphim response but would have been facing a 24" run into retributers and 2 exorcists, a real nightmare. My mistakes were more in consolidating into LoS of things and sticking heralds with squads with instruments (the least likely place to tie combat!), which were completely minimal.

So ... yuck. I want to play an army with heavy plasma & ant-tank weapons (read: almost all 40k armies), then see how I do. Flamers + heavy bolters were absolutely brutal, and I don't think too many armies besides Sisters take them in such numbers, cause they have other options!

Painting: Nurgle bases
Building: N/A

+ Nurgle Skaven +

Figured it would be worth posting a shot of what I spent all of May working on. These models make up the redux of my 2000 point Eshin Skaven army, counts as Nurgle as far as modeling goes. The old list wasn't doing it for me, so I retooled and added a load of models. Excited to see how the new army works on the table (hopefully it works at all!), but I've still got basing to do for these guys next week.

Painting: Nurgle bases
Building: Khorne heralds

+ MEGABASH +

Mmmm, the good old days of "Non-Apoc Apoc" Mega games, with way too many points crammed on one little 6x4 table. Saturday saw one of these gems crop up, after we got tired of playing Specialist Games and packing are 40k armies with us ...

Undivided & Death Guard & Undivided vs Tau & Ultramarines & Guard [6000] So it was chaos marines vs blue tau, blue marines and guard with their tanky friends. Distressing amount of open space between the chaos building bunkers and the Imperial line, but evil cared not.

Highlights from my standard 2000 pointer:

Biker Lord - Tagteamed with Typhus against Ultra assault termies gangbanging 1 demonette, and vaporized them (4 to the biker lord). Next up the two slammed into some ogryn, cleaning all but 1 (2 3-wound ogryn to the biker lord). After finishing the last space ogre, the lone biker of doom left Typhus to eat the IG high command, boosting off and slamming into a lone powerfist vet sarge. Naturally the biker rolled a 1, punched himself in the nuts and was fisted to death.

Deathscreamer Lord - Hung with the shooty CSM and pushed the left flank, accounting for 2-3 crisis suits and breaking the squad off the table. Otherwise not too exciting, peppered guardsmen in heavy cover to little effect.

Plasma Termies - With no targets that didn't involve risky deep striking (that basilisk looked tasty though!), the trio homered in hard left and escorted Typhus into the assault termies. The 2 survivors broke off and beat up a land raider crusader, losing 1 to the assault cannons and then the chainfist when the raider exploded next turn ;D

Dreadnought 'VORN' - Flipped out and killed 3 berzerkers with plasma, survived a railgun from a broadside and returned the favor with his plasma cannon, killing the suit's shield drone and breaking him off the table. Then the dread sucked a guard autocannon and died.

Deadnought 'THE LONER' - Cool headed as always, The Loner didn't flip out but also suffered from lack of targets. Tagged 1 devastator in 4+ cover and was scrapped in retaliation.

Shooty CSM - Escorted the deathscreamer, took many casaulties from the attentions of the tau hammerhead (as usual, the CSM's armor couldn't hold up to all the AP4). Killed next to nothing or nothing themselves, being on the move every turn.

Fisty CSM - Hung back and let the lascannon marine go to work on the IG tanks. Which he did a pretty poor job of, failing to pen the demolisher twice in a row. Once some Ultra assault marines deep struck near them they mobilized to destroy, though embarassingly it took 3 rounds of combat to finally kill the 5 jumpers, as the powerfist whiffed like a pro.

1k Sons - Spent the entire game shooting at 10 guardsmen in 4+ cover, taking a break to kill a tau commander and then (I think) getting taken out by small arms fire. The sorcerer may have lived to suck another game, though.

Noise Marines - It was all blastmaster this game (surprised? Nope, love me that gun), and he ended up trashing a hellhound and a leman russ. Not bad, 160 point dude!

Lesser Demonettes - With a lucky terrain roll they dropped and assaulted a fleeing stealth suit who was waaaay too close for comfort, killing him and locking in with a tau HQ suit. Counterattak by assault termies killed 7 of the 8, but with the help of a couple demon weapons the last girl climbed straight up and assaulted the guardsmen on top, killed a couple before being clubbed to death.

Havoks - Perched atop the highest point on the field, the havoks unfortunately didn't have LOS to the IG tanks on the left flank (due to 12" deployment zone and not wanting to move to the building's lip), leaving them blue marines to hammer. Krak bounced off the Ultra vindicator, just stunning it, then scragged the Ultra dread. The final 2 turns involved my havoks teaming up with the other missile launching chaos havoks and pounding the Ultra command squad. With krak missiles slamming into their building top from the surrounding high rises the squad was gutted down to the commander and his veteran sarge, who vacated the perch to get swarmed by plague marines.

Obliterator - Performed brilliantly, couldn't be happier. First turn tagged the demolisher but couldn't penetrate, but from that start he turned it up a notch. Turn 2, dead demolisher. Turn 3, dead chimera. Turn 4, dead hammerhead (stole the kill from the 3 allied obliterators who dropped right in front and couldn't take it with 3x twin meltas). Turn 5, dead Ultra apothecary across the board. Turn 6, no targets, called it a game.

Defiler - Landed a shot on some ogryn first turn, exploding one of them. Then took a basilisk shell on the head, instantly dying.

CHAOS WIN

The good side held up well, but once we had pushed across No Man's Land it was going to be tough to push chaos back again. The other side got a pretty harsh lesson on demon weapons, and at one point there was the bloodfeeder, the deathscreamer, Typhus' über-manreaper and the undivided demo-gauntlet all cooking within 18" of each other. A thing of beauty, and the bloodfeeder on jugger was indeed on crack, with 18-17-1-16 attaks rolled in all O_O

Painting: 1.7 Jezzails
Building: Khorne Heralds

+ Chaos Tagteam vs Sisters +

A break from the fantasy painting, and it would be a team up with my CSM's old friends, the Death Guard, against those damn Witch Hunters. Crashed shuttle in the center of the board, objective was to have a scoring unit (or the highest VP if no scorers nearby) on it at 9:30 when it was time to head home.

Undivided & Death Guard vs Witch Hunters [3000] - My army was standard 1500 but with terminators instead of a dread. Death Guard brought Typhus, 4x 7 plague marines (melta, plasma, fist) in rhinos, possessed vindicator. WH were a load of sisters, jump cannoness, big squad of repentia, 3 penitent engines, 2 exorcists, 2 seraphim squads, marine las squad, sniper / ml scout squad, 2 death cult assassins, callidus, combat INQ with big retinue in a land raider, terminator librarian with 5 terminator retinue (2 AC).

In an effort to speed the game up, we played with 5th edition set up / first turn. This meant both sides rolled 1 die, the winner got to choose side / set up everything / go first. The With Hunters won the roll and took it. Chaos set up as usual, with no vehicles really that needed tucking behind terrain. And anyway, we played with 5th edition true LoS, no area terrain height nonsense.

WH 0
My havoks, who had deployed in a perch at the 12" DZ line, were pulled 6" forward by the callidus. Guh.

WH 1
Land raider powered forward 12", dumped out it's INQ team 2" and they got ready to assault my anti-tank marines who had stumbled into range. Penitents also flew foward, just ending up short of the havoks, as did the DCA who just fell short trying to zip through some woods and get in on the action. Seraphim hoped about, and repentia moved toward the assault to come. When the shooting began it fantastically may have accounted for just 1 of my marines, with my ancient power armor standing up to the beating for once. 0-1 plague marine may have died in the opening volley, though 2 rhinos were blasted apart and their squads entangled.

Assault resulted in a couple dead havoks and maybe 1 dead henchman. I'll note here how confusing it is to fight a unit with 7 6+ saves, 2 4+ saves and 1 3+ save (with 3 wounds), took a good amount of time to puzzle through just how trickily he could allocate the wounds.

Chaos 1
The plague marines with mobile transports gunned it forward for maximum carnage, hoping out plaguers right in front of the penitent engines on the right flank and terminators on the left flank. My fisty CSM squad pushed forward to help the havoks out and the obliterator shuffled to tag the land raider, which it managed to only stun with a lascannon. The vindicator let rip on the repentia, but after scatter only nicked a sister or two in another squad. My shooty CSM + deathscreamer + 1k Sons hosed the repentia down to 3 chainsaw girls + mistress + priest, and the blastmaster vapped a seraphim in the squad dangerously close to the big assault in front of my deployment zone. The chicks passed their pin but failed their break, which sent them close to 18" back to their table edge! The plague marines right flank cooked 2 penitent engines, but the left plaguers I don't think had the same luck, as many terminators were still over there.

Time for fighting, and the melee got bigger with the inclusion of my fisty CSM. Another havok died and possibly a CSM, but I think all that happened on my part was possibly a wound on the INQ, or nothing at all. Very confusing, and I guess embarassing result for all my CSM attaks. My fist did nothing.

WH 2
Callidus appears near my shooty CSM squad, claiming 1 marine with her shredder. Broken seraphim rally and the other squad moves in on the plague marines far left by the terminators, who themselves stomp foward to deal with the smelly marines. The repentia hit turbo and go 12" towards the big melee, easily into assault range. Shooting accounted for possibly 1 1k Son, and then a lot of frustration on the Imperium's part as plague marines stubbornly refused to die. A small handful of the stinkers died to most all of the enemy's bolters, assault cannons, exorcists, etc.

Assault saw the penitent engine into the right plague marines (5 left), which ended with a dead marine and a fluffed fist. The seraphim and the terminators hit the left plague marines, splattering the plaguers and knocking off maybe 1/2 of the seraphim squad. The termies massacred half into 4+ cover. The callidus maybe killed 1 marine, but the rest pilled in to kill her next turn. The repentia and both DCA charged into the big beatfest, complicating things further! The priest and a DCA were killed, along with a bunch of henchmen (not the powerfist servitor though), for the loss of several marines.

Chaos 2
Typhus deep struck off a plague squad's homer, who moved around him to be his retinue. My terminator trio struck too, off another homer within rapid fire range of the loyalist terminators, and 12 demons summoned off the fist AC's icon, getting ready to jump on the repentia. But first the oblit pushed forward and multi-melta'd the land raider, which naturally went nuclear, catching all of the demons in it's explosion. Many died, I think 9 of them ... Other shooting was less fantastic after that big show. My plasma termies overheated 3 times (all saved), and accounted for 1 dead loyalist terminator. The 1k Sons maybe killed a couple sisters, and the blastmaster missed the tactical marines. Fire from the death guard messed up the marine scouts, breaking the surviving few out of their 4+ bunker. The vindi scattered off some sisters, and it was time to kill again.

Plague marines pattered off the penitent engine, losing another 1-2 plaguers, as the fist PC couldn't find the on switch to his loveglove. The callidus was indeed beaten to a pulp, leaving 6 CSM in the squad + the screamer. The remaining demons hit the repentia and killed them, the CSM pummeled the last DCA into submission and brutalized the INQ's team. The INQ on her part finished the havoks off, and then chose to pass her break test, sticking all that chaos in place.

WH 3
Seraphim flew around to closer to the action, but otherwise just the terminators moved up to engaged the plague marines + terminators bothering them. Shooting claimed the obliterator to an exocist launcher volley, 2 chaos terminators to divine guidanced bolters and a plague marine or two to assault cannons and bad luck.

At long last, the plague marine champ trashed the last penitent, losing his squad in the process. The CSM fist splattered the INQ finally, leaving 3 members of the fisty CSM (fist, lascannon, flamer) and 3 demons after all that. The librarian and retinue charged the plague marines, but general fluffing meant few losses for either side.

Chaos 3
Deathscreamer joins with the 1k Sons and they inch towards the objective right near them, demons move to threaten either some sisters in a ruins or the rallied seraphim (4 of 6 left). Fisty CSM do likewise, unsure where to commit. The lone plague champ runs for the building sheltering both the tactical marines on the top floors and the exorcist at the bottom. Typhus and friends move and open up on the scouts, finishing them off. The blastmaster explodes a couple tactical marines, but they pass both tests. Combined fire from the shooty CSM and the 1k Sons / deathscreamer cleans out the sisters in the ruins, leaving the fisty CSM to double-flame the seraphim, which results in 1 casualty.

Assault sees the demons into the seraphim, but both sides whiff and the seraphim hit-and-run over towards the 1k Sons. The chainfister chaos terminator charges the loyalist termies, but a lot of nothing happens, leaving the librarian + 2-3 terminators vs chainfist terminator + fist plague champ + a plague marine or so.

WH 4
Both seraphim squads (both at 3) hop over to the center, surrounding the 1k Sons and with the help of the exorcists killing them all off and leaving the deathscreamer all on his own with 2 wounds left. Tactical marines take some pot shots at the lone plague champ but can't get the lascannon into LoS from the top of the building.

The deathscreamer is killed in assault, as the seraphim all popped inv saves to negate the demon weapon. The plague marines are splattered by the terminators, but the chainfister lives on (and bounces off the inv saves of the loyalists).

Chaos 4
Both the shooty and fisty CSM squads converge on the center to hurt the seraphim squads, Typhus and friends push over to pound on the terminators, demons start walking around the back of the exorcist for the hell of it and the lone plague champ enters the building to the side of the exorcist. He levels his plasma pistol and trashes the vehicle! Totally pumped at this, the blastmaster explodes more tactical marines and breaks the squad down from their building. Other fire downs just 1 seraphim of the 6 remaining ...

... but they all die in assault, though the shooty CSM squad is reduced to just a few marines who can't quite make the 5+ cover of the center. The fisty CSM squad however massacre onto the objective. Typhus and crew slam into the terminators, and generally bad rolling all over the place leaves Typhus force weaponed back to hell, some plague marines dead and the librarian with just 1 buddy left, with the chainfister continuing to hack at him.

WH 5
Last turn is called, and there isn't much left for the Inquisition. Tactical marines can't rally with enemy so close, so run off the table. The exorcist starts moving for the middle, detonating the shooty CSM squad into small bits with some help with the last sister squad, over in a 4+ building to the left.

The librarian finally buys it to the chainfist terminator, whom himself sucks powerfist and dies, leaving the plague champ to clean out that last loyaist terminator. The cannoness with jump pack also makes an appearance at last, and charges the fisty CSM squad. Unfortunately she gets a powerfist to the face for her troubles and is removed.

Chaos 5
With nearly everything dead, the noise marines and plaguers take pot shots at the bunkered sister squad but with no luck. The fisty CSM squad on the objective, while no longer scoring, is the only unit within 6" at 9:30 so ...

Chaos Win

This game was mostly marked by those two big battles - one involving the INQ team + 2 DCA + repentia vs havoks + CSM squad + demons and the other with librarian + terminators vs plague marines + plague marines + terminator + typhus - and then a load of short range fire. Of note, this has to be the most turns that both exorcists have been able to fire without interruption, and also the longest string of horrible powerfist rolls I've seen in a long time.

Painting: Jezzails
Building: Khorne Heralds