+ CHAOS & MORE CHAOS: TRIPLE BATREPS +

Two more weeks means three more slaughterfests! Because last week's is getting fuzzy - and grad school means I've in fact got papers to grade - we'll be making these shorter and more brutal than usual ...

Anarchonquistadores vs Sisters [1850]

Chaos Space Marines
Lord - MoT, deathscreamer, melta bombs
Dreadnought - plasma cannon, extra armor
Dreadnought - plasma cannon, extra armor
Dreadnought - plasma cannon, extra armor
10 CSM - IoCU, 2 meltaguns, AC w/ powerfist; rhino w/ extra armor
9 CSM - IoCU, flamer, AC w/ powerfist, combi-flamer; rhino w/ extra armor
10 CSM - IoCU, autocannon, plasma gun, AC w/ power weapon
6 Noise Marines - blastmaster, icon
10 Demons
6 Havoks - IoCU, 3 missile launchers
Oblit
Oblit

Witch Hunters
Cannoness - MC blessed weapon, 2+ armor, 4+ inv, book of stubborn, paper of auto-pass faith
Cannoness - eviscerator, jump pack, mantle
8 Celestians - meltagun, heavy flamer, VSS; rhino w/ smoke
5 Dominions - 4 flamers, VSS w/ brazier; priest w/ brazier; immolator w/ MM + smoke
10 Sisters - meltagun, flamer, VSS; rhino w/ smoke
10 Sisters - meltagun, flamer, VSS; rhino w/ smoke
10 Sisters - meltagun, flamer, VSS; rhino w/ smoke
15 Sisters - meltagun, flamer, VSS
7? Seraphim - inferno pistol, hand-flamer, VSS w/ power weapon
Exorcist
Penitent
Penitent

Game: KP, Dawn of War

Highlights:
- Chaos steals initiative! And takes it (to get around first turn of night fight whilst heavy guns get in place)!
- All sisters save the exorcist are beaten to a pulp, through combination of CSM rampage + demon slaps.

Lowlights:
- Shooty CSM not deploying on the board in woodland cover, and spending 2 turns running back to where they should have been.
- All chaos firebase deploying in one corner, and completely running out of targets by turn 3/4.
- Deathscreamer rolling a 1 (no wound) for its first volley, another 1 in combat (wound), a 2 in combat, then a 6 in turn 6 to vaporize the last sisters squad, when a half dozen units were ready to assault them anyway.
- Seraphim + eviscerator canny absorbing an ENORMOUS amount of firepower before the blastmaster levels the squad, leaving the eviscerator to be finally punked by the deathscreamer.
- Dreadtasm (all 3 dreads marauding in posse) shenanigans: first turn, reserve on and keep it together; second turn, 2 fire frenzies & 1 sanity, resulting in 4 dead sisters from 1 plasma, a shaken dread with a trashed plasma from 2 PENETRATING plasma shots from his buddy, and another shaken dread from another sterling plasma pen. From here the dreads kept it in their pants more or less, with 1 patrolling the backfield, 1 dying to exorcist, and another ripping apart a pentitent, an immolator, and a sister squad before sheltering behind the immo hulk from the exorcist's rockets. He was, of course, the dread who double-penned the sane dread earlier ;D

CHAOS WIN

A fun game for sure, where victory was never assured, but the sisters lack of combat teeth meant that while he could button up and ride out my AP3 and power weapons with SotM, eventually he was losing the stat game and raw attaks were beating him apart. He's since upped all his VSS to eviscerators, which makes none of those squads quite the easy KP they used to be.

Also, while the dreadtasm I just have to distance myself from and learn to laugh a bit, the deathscreamer, particularly if I'm wanting to run him in a rhino instead of providing fire support, really is irking me. Great model + versatility means he's not leaving soon, but I have been doing a lot of thinking about alternative models. I really like the Huron model, and powerfist leaders seem to be a doable thing, so I was thinking about something like:

Chaos Lord - MoT, powerfist, combi-flamer/melta

Some possibility there, and cheaper than the deathscreamer currently - also, been thinking about counts-as-ing Huron himself, but while he does have 2 things I love (warptime + heavy flamer), I really want the 4+ inv and don't think he's totally worth dropping 20 points from somewhere in the list.

But back to the carnage! Now with 300% more demons!

Khorne Demons vs Sisters [1500]

Khorne
Skarbrand
Gorefiend - unholy might
16 Bloodletters - icon, render
16 Bloodletters - icon, render
8 Bloodletters
8 Bloodletters
Demon Prince - breath of chaos, unholy might, iron hide
Demon Prince - breath of chaos, unholy might, iron hide

Nuns
Cannoness - eviscerator, jump pack, stubborn book, autopass faith paper
10 Celestians - heavy flamer, meltagun, VSS w/ eviscerator
5 Dominions - 4 stormbolters, VSS w/ stormbolter; rhino w/ smoke
10 Sisters - heavy flamer, meltagun, VSS w/ eviscerator; rhino w/ smoke
10 Sisters - heavy flamer, meltagun, VSS w/ eviscerator; rhino w/ smoke
10 Sisters - heavy flamer, meltagun, VSS w/ eviscerator
8 Seraphim - hand-flamers, inferno pistols, VSS w/ eviscerator?
Exorcist

Game: 2 objectives, table quarters

Khorne's back for some rompin' & stompin', and the girls got in the way ... I feel like mech sisters are the perfect anti-demons (especially khorne demons) army, so this was gonna be a dicey affair ...

Turn 1
Khorne wins The Roll and makes the sisters go first, and so they faff about and wait for the demons to show up, whilst the seraphim chill in low orbit.

The chaos gods agree with my decision and send down the first wave: both big 'letter squads, a wee eighter squad and the gorefiend. Scatters are minimal, and the big 'letter blobs try to keep close to the sister's corner without drawing the fire of every sister next turn (just most of them). The fiend scatters unfortunately closer to the girls, right in the path of the exorcist, and the eighter plops down near my own objective in the opposite corner.

Turn 2
Girls start brutalizing them some demons, vapping the fiend with rockets and cooking the closest big squad down to 7 or so. The dominions tanked toward the khorne objective, and got some help when the seraphim + canny dropped back there and killed 4 of 8 bloodletters. With no backup really intended to save those 'letters I mostly complained about SotM and invincible seraphim ...

Skarbrand didn't feel like playing, though a demon prince and 8 more bloodletters did, crawling out of the blood-soaked ground near the closest icon to the sisters. The prince yelled at the foot sisters squad, exploding 5 heads and sending them fleeing (but not quite to the edge), whilst the 7-of-16 bloodletters charged the rhino that slewed to a halt in front of them (cooking them with flamer fire in the process). With all those attaks they could only manage to shake it. The 4 letters by the khorne objective charged the seraphim with no high hopes, but despite SotM loads of sisters died for 1 dead demon, leading to a failed -3 break test and a caught seraphim + canny squad! Result!

Turn 3
Fleeing girls rallied, girls in the shaken rhino hoped out and completely wiped the fresh 8-demon squad (heavy flamers bad!), a few bloodletters died from the other big squad, the DP took two wounds from the exorcist, and the dominions dismounted and started hammering the last 3 bloodletters on the khorne objective, killing 1.

Skarry B continued to forsake joining the battle, though the other prince joined his twin brother, dropping with a nice line to yell at the sisters who trashed the 8-demon squad last turn. Which he did, but only popped one. They were charged by the 7 demons from the original big squad, only to lock them down for minimal loses due to SotM love. The wounded DP yelled at the exorcist and blew its tracks off, then charged in and detonated it, with no wound caused to him or his brother. The other big bloodletter squad, still at 11 strong, charged the last loaded rhino and exploded it, killing a girl in the inferno for no demonic loss - AND pinning the squad in the burning crater. The 2 'letters down by the other objective cowered inside the building sheltering the objective ...

Turn 4
The girls were running low, and the greater demon had yet to show up ... The rallied squad from earlier advanced on the wounded DP but couldn't wound it, whilst the celestians continued raining fire down from their perch in a building near the objective, this time wounding the other DP once. The Dominions succeeded in dropping another bloodletter, while their rhino slammed through both walls of the infested building (because it could). Combat continued to lock the demons down, with some bloodletters dying from the larger squad and the other squad gutted entirely, leaving 4 girls free near the objective (and an angry DP).

Skarmaster continued to be a tool and not come play, as the number of models who could benefit from his reroll dwindled ... The DP with 2 wounds piled on the previously rallied squad (after yelling at 1-2 of them), managing to take a wound but not get through the SotM invulns. His brother climbed into the celestians' building and screamed 7 of them to puddles, then assaulted the other 3 and was locked down similarly. And the other bloodletter squad continued to smack the girls, with little result (but not too many dead demons).

Turn 5
- RECAP -
Objective 1: 1 bloodletter vs 5 dominions + 1 rhino
Objective 2: 2 bloodletters (fighting) + 1 DP (fighting nearby) + 1 DP (fighting farther away) vs few girls (fighting) + few more girls (fighting) few celestians (fighting) + 4 girls + 1 rhino

THIS COULD BE IT! So the girls continue along, with only the dominions being able to move, looking into the building's windows to bring the last bloodletter into their sights - they miss / fail to wound / hit the building. With faith severely drained, SotM only goes up on one of the DP fights, leaving the one sisters to die by bloodletter (leaving 2 free) and the other to be smacked by the other DP (leaving the eviscerator). The other DP can't quite stuff the celestians with their inv save.

With no choice, Skarbrand finally appears, off the icon held by 1 of only 3 remaining 'letters on the board. He yells at the 4 sisters sitting on their objective, rupturing 2 of their skulls, but they easily pass their break test. With faith running low, the demon princes are largely free to finish of the nuns and then stomp on their corpses out of sheer spite. And then the last bloodletter down on the khorne objective pounds through the objective 1 building and slams into the dominions, killed 2, taking no wounds back, breaking and catching them! Delicious.

Turn 6
The battle continues! Two sisters + 1 rhino hold the WH objective and a rhino contests the CD one, and after shooting the final bloodletter the rhino triumphantly does wheelies with that objective secure. The last two sisters shoot and assault the final two bloodletters, easily dispatching them and denying the demons any ability to score.

Skarbrand however is unimpressed and orders his demon princes to yell at the women, and the insolent whelps crumple unconscious.

DRAW

100% happy with a draw vs mech sisters, and it was a fun game to be sure. Khorne demons kind of drive me mad with how slow they are, but when you drop all up in the other dude's junk (o_O) I guess that's in fact kinda speedy. Skarry not showing until he had no choice was kinda irksome, and ultimately his rerolls mostly helped the eviscerator chicks hit the DPs more (hitting on 5+ vs WS7). Epic lumberjack action by that bloodletter vs dominions though, high five to that goaty demon.

Khorne Demons vs Tau [1500]

Tau
Shas'el - missiles, plasma, shield, multi, target, 2 shield drones
3 Crisis - twin missiles, target, 2 marker drones
12 Fire Warriors - uberwarfish (SMS, etc)
12 Fire Warriors - uberwarfish (SMS, etc)
Hammerhead - uber (SMS, etc)
Hammerhead - uber (SMS, etc)

Game: 2 objectives, pitched battle

Mech tau then? Yowza ... This could be very bad, with all those fast tanks loaded with a lot of high rate of fire or template guns. Ah well, don't think I've ever faced tau with kr0n, so here goes ...

Unit Breakdown:

Skarbrand - showed up turn 2 as planned, distributed rerolls like a champ, bellowed a fire warrior unit off the table (killed 3, they failed break and ran like fishmen), ran down the table and gutted the crisis team in one go, ran back the other way and tore the shas'el a new one, caught a railgun slug with his 4+ inv but then copped 2 wounds off 2 SMS wounds
Gorefiend - dropped with the first wave, absorbed an epic amount of firepower with his 5+ ward (seriously, so many 5's and 6's), lasered in and assaulted the crisis team before Skarry could get to them and killed 1 suit + 1 drone before being clubbed to death (should have gone for a hammerhead and trusted in Skarry's reroll power to hit it)
16 Bloodletters - dropped first wave, absorbed a DRUNK amount of fire (including 24 fire warriors) whilst keeping the icon waving for the big guys in coming turns, evaporated the other fire warrior squad in vengeance and would die when assaulting the shas'el after being reduced to just 3 models (hey, they killed his drones!)
16 Bloodletters - scattered on top of a hammerhead in the first wave and died :'(
8 Bloodletters - dropped first wave on the chaos objective, and spent 6 turns kissing the dirt and enjoying a 3+ cover save against the attention of the tau grav tanks, but holding it in the end
8 Bloodletters - kindly dropped turn 2 and shook a warfish before cowering on the tau objective for several turns, eventually holding it with 2 bloodletters
Demon Prince - dropped turn 3, chased devilfish around and succeeded in wrecking one by yelling it's engines off (immobilized) and eventually catching and destroying the other with its ten foot long brass sword
Demon Prince - dropped turn 4 with mostly just vehicles left, so followed Skarry around and managed to yell 1 wound off the shas'el before S-Brand tore its face off

CHAOS WIN

I was seriously worried about the battle, but the pressure I exerted so early in the game made him pop his fish-o-fury too soon, leaving his troops very vulnerable to a horrific death. Khorne obliged, and from that point it was a question of him trying to wipe bloodletters out and force a draw, while Skarbrand and his noisy friends chased them around. Frankly he might have tried to power some tanks in and contest an objective in Turn 5 or 6 and chance a draw that way, though I guess I did have a lot of MC waiting for him around the objectives. Entertaining game though, enjoyed.

Painting: Ogre Irongut
Building: N/A