+ Meatgrinder: The Legion Leads +

Had the makings of a big game last Saturday with 6 generals planned to bash heads in a 3 vs 3 bloodbath, but things looked rocky from the start as everyone would be arriving at different times. Brilliantly, the Death Guard player suggested we stagger when armies arrive, with an army entering each side every turn, with deepstrike allowed and such. My Legionnaires started on table, and faced off against the most drunkenly unbalanced World Eater force ...

Alpha Legion & Death Guard & Eldar vs. World Eaters & Necrons & Black Templars [4850] - Only terrain that really mattered was a high building far right in my deployment zone and a massive, tall ruin sucking up about 1/4 of the board, situated left-center between the 2 zones. World Eaters placed 8 berzerkers center and 16 berzerkers to my far left, to run down the 6-8 inches between the ruin and the table edge. My havoks nestled atop the tall building, with the dread, obliterator, 8-CSM squad and über-rhino all arranged to the left of them to add fire to the 8 berzerkers. The assassins were set to be pushed into the 16 berzerkers on the flank, with the speed lord and 10 CSM (hunkered in ruins for now) providing support. The scouts were held back near my center to give the ladies some versatility in summoning later.

Legion goes first, and throws a lot of pain on the 8 berzkers, killing 5-6. The 16 berzerkers lost 1-2, with the 10 CSM moving up to get bolters into range next turn. Berzerkers both rage next turn, getting descent distance but no charge. Death Guard move on in turn 2, parking a mutated pred & defiler in the corner near the havok's roost, a speed lord & wolf retinue near my dread and spreading 4x 7 plague marines across the deployment zone. Defiler hammers the '16' berzerkers with indirect while the cultists, speed lord and 6 daemonettes converge for a combined charge on the nutters. The other 6 girls were gifted an unfortunate scatter, so just wandered into the large ruin for a bit. The 8-CSM squad (who actually began mounted up for a change) were feeling like doing something though, so rode forward and hopped out, double flaming the last berzerkers - I could have easily used the havoks or oblit or etc to do this, but knowing that Necrons were coming next turn I wanted those CSM out of their coffin ...

Combined charge went beautifully, with girls lowering the berzerkers' initiative so they were killed without even attaking back. Cultists massacred forward, with ladies and lord dispersing behind them ... because I realized that with the way the game we were playing worked, any new army could just walked on the table and rapid fire my assassins, girls and lord to bitz. I prepared for gauss death ... and didn't need to worry, as the Necrons deployed in one solid mass - lord w/ orb & veil, 2x 3 destroyers, 3x 6 immortals, ?x 10 warriors - in the far half of the enemy deployment zone. The monolith hovered forward toward dead center, and the World Eater terminators finally deepstruck! Nasty lord + 7 twin lightning claw, mutated, feeling no pain, spiky & master-crafted terminators (101 points each) dropped right in front of the nurgle speed lord and my dread.

Necron shooting started with a particle whip on my 8 CSM, which deviated to cover only 2, but snake-eyes to wound left my boys a little freaked out but no worse for the flashy lights. Gauss fire was focused on my dreadnought - stripped off his CCW and stunning him - and the DG pred, which lost it's twin las. Turn 3, Eldar walk on, bringing banshees, avengers, rangers, wraithguard, 2 wraithlords, a fire prism and a doom/fortune farseer onto our side. The wraith constructs trundled up behind the speed lord & dread, with the other xenos spread across the zone.

Movement was scarce, with cultists moving into the enemy deployment while lord & ladies hid in the edge of the giant ruin. The 8 CSM held firm so the lascannon could aim at the looming 'lith, though the rhino scooted away from the whip-bait marines. Nurgle generally lurched forward. Nearly all shooting was on the ginormous WE HQ, who had been doomed by the farseer. Lots of fire later, only 3 terminators had been killed, leading to general nervousness on my side. Meanwhile the 8-CSM lascannon didn't pen the 'lith, but the obliterator immobilized the glowy brick, bringing it floating to the ground. The havoks kraked a couple destroyers, and a few immortals fell over. The DG lord slammed into the spiky red terminators, with another 7 DG (along with fist) backing him up. Load of manreaper attaks later and all 4 remaining chosen were dead, with the lord out of base contact and so not targetable by fisty love. Consolidation happens, which was probably good given all the Necron gauss directly across the table.

Finally the Black Templars show up, amidst much nashing of teeth on my part. Assault cannon dread and land raider crusader filled with assault terminators appear mere inches in front of my cultists, and a couple rhinos and more terminators move on behind the monolith mid-zone. After some Necrons got up, they unleashed green hell on the havoks, eventually wiping them out. The pred also was given some gauss, losing another lascannon, and the monolith made the CSM pay by sniping out the lascannon marine, along with 5 other CSM. The flamer and champ gritted their teeth in fury. Back on the flank, loads of fire later and 2 cultists remained, who stubborned passed their test and readied krak for the dread's charge ... The champ actually survived being crushed, but missed with his grenade and was caught and killed. In the Main Event, the DG & WE lords wounded each other, with the powerfist ending it by killing the berzerker. The WE general blamed the DG player for the stupid list he made for him and then went home.

Turn four: no new armies, but mounting carnage all the same. My speed lord slammed into the crusader but missed with his melta bomb, so I sighed and prepared for 12 twin-bolters, 4 twin-assault cannons & 1 MM next turn. The girls charged the dread and only managed to shake it, the 1 return attak doing nothing. Elsewhere fire was mostly focused on the shooty templar terminators & master, wraithlord starcannons doing the worst of it. My dread woke up and started on some revenge, plasma cannoning another destroyer down. The obliterator was likewise determined, destroying the monolith (!!) and opening up firelanes into the templars as it faded out. Some other Necrons fell over, and then the DG speed lord hit a squad of immortals, blitzing them with 10 attaks and consolidating into a warrior squad.

No one was surprised when the lord veiled the warriors bach behind the pred and defiler in the heavy support corner of the board, leaving the DG lord facing a lot of gauss fire. He died. The crusader on the other side of the board let out its 7 terminators, pivoted and let loose on my own speed lord. He also died. The terminators charged the daemonettes harassing the dreadnought and killed them all with lightning claws, losing 2 thunderhammers to rending. Mid-table, a templar rhino zoomed forward and dumped out its occupants: load of marines with the Emperor's Chump. They rapid fired 7 of my scout cultists to little beastmen parts, though Dorga held things together. The veiled warriors also did something bad to the defiler - destroyed cannon? - but not too bad as it lived on.

With such a tasty target, turn five mostly involved Chaos & their Eldar friends hammering the templar & the damned Empy Champ. After throwing everything in range and LOS into the squad - including every las & shuriken pistol available - the Champ stood defiant, ready to roll his rage-forward Ld check. He passed and slammed into the 3 remaining cultists, with my CSM fist AC and flamer charging him in response. Some other shooting happened - my dread continued punishing the Necrons for not taking the plasma cannon, killing another destroyer, and my 10 CSM on the flank did a lot of nothing to the looming terminators - and the defiler shot & then stomped on the offending Necrons in its corner. In assault, the Champ exploded the cultists, and my AC charged up his fist and readied to end this thing; he missed with all 4 hit rolls, and I wasn't too surpised. Also, an understrength plague marine squad had engaged the terminator master, fisting him for only one wound due to adamantine mantle and then being thunderhammered. The master set out for the wraithlords ...

At this point the Legionnaires checked the clock and realized it was time for evac! I pulled what was left so that the unholy Templar & Necron Alliance could have a cleaner go at it. I hear tell that Death Guard & Eldar cleared the table in the next turns. Go (slightly more) evil team!

I lost: Speed lord, 6 daemonettes, 30 cultists, 6 CSM, 6 Havoks, dread CCW. That's better than usual!

Painting: Still struggling to finish the last havok, as the building bug has got me. Need to kick this thing, got a deadline to make!

+ STATREP +

Despite the lack of updates, the Anarchonquistadores have been busy in the last 2 months, though they did get a bit of rest so my Khorne demonbomb could bust heads in a few mega-battles and Ogres could perform rather lacklusterly in Fantasy ... Battles of note:

Undivided vs. Tau Empire [1000] - Having last faced Tau only with my demonbomb, I had my panties in a bind and was generally ready for whatever nasty raildeath came my way. Thankfully my opponent was new to his new 'dex and wanted to try things out, and just generally hadn't played 40k very often. Great guy and made for a fun shorter game, with Chaos coming out on top by a massacre - I lost only my extremely budget Speed Lt and kept everything else above half strength or untouched. Highlights were failing 5 of 5 3+ saves against a submunition round in the first shooting phase; the Speed Lt launching into his HQ squad and cutting down the Shas'el, then catching and killing the squad; the Speed Lt being rapid fired into mist by 13 Kroot 5" in front of him; havoks getting to use frag to smash apart a deepstriking drone squad. In depth report can be found here on Dakka.

Alpha Legion vs. Carapace Guard [1500] - Day after Thanksgiving I played my brother's steel legion, which he's counting as having carapace. His list was roughly HSO w/ commisar (fist), plasmas, master vox; 2x 3 heavy bolters; 2x 3 mortars (yes, mortars); sentinel w/ lascannon & armored; 2x JO w/ lascannon; 4x 10 guard w/ grenade launchers & missile launchers; 2x demolishers. Vox casters and carapace everywhere.

The twin demolishers were giving me fits this time, and I set up outside of the 24" hemispheres of death in front of his tanks. Then I realized it was more like 30" with move-and-fire, cried a bunch first turn as he tore my 10-man down to 3, pinned my cultists with mortar fire and didn't do much with his demolishers. My first turn involved much grumbling, until I charged the Speed Lord into the fairly packed guard he had clustered in one quarter of the table. Started grinding away, pulling more squads in, including a squad of daemonettes and his HQ, and would eventually shut down much of his fire support later in the game.

Meanwhile my 20 assassins walked straight toward an infantry squad with JO and demolisher support, dying to a man without doing anything. However, I mounted up my 8-CSM squad in their über-rhino, peeled out toward the guard, popped smoke and said a prayer to the powers of chaos. A krak missile, lascannon and demolisher shot later, the rhino was only shaken! Dirge and his boys hopped out, flamed the guard and slammed in, whipping them in combat. The dread smashed into the front of demolisher #2, tearing it open with 7 blood raging attaks, and the oblit finally gutted demolisher #1. From here it became mop-up along his table edge and into his main corner. Win.

Paint Update: 10/10 CSM done, 8/8 CSM done, 6/6 daemonettes 1 done, 6/6 daemonettes 2 done, 1/1 Lord done, 5/6 Havoks done. I was shooting to get the army painted by my birthday early February, but with an oblit, a dread, a rhino & 30 cultists to go, I'll be totally happy if I just have 15-20 cultists left by then.