This has been a good couple of days for 40K.

Saturday

HQ
Daemon Prince – Wings, Mark of Tzeentch
Daemon Prince – Wings, Mark of Tzeentch
Summoned Greater Daemon

Elites
Dreadnought – DCCWx2
Dreadnought – DCCWx2
Dreadnought – DCCWx2

Troops
Chaos Space Marines x5 – Aspiring Champion, Combi-melta, Melta
– Rhino
Chaos Space Marines x5 – Aspiring Champion, Combi-melta, Melta
– Rhino

Heavy Support
Defiler
Defiler
Obliterators x2

After some brief discussion about what he was bringing and the two lists I’d been considering, we decided I should play the following (the list I’d been considering last week):

HQ
Bloodthirster – Unholy Might
Bloodthirster – Unholy Might

Troops
Bloodletters x8 – Fury
Bloodletters x8 – Fury

Fast Attack
Flesh Hounds x8 – Fury
Flesh Hounds x8 – Fury

Heavy Support
Daemon Prince – Daemonic Flight, Iron Hide, Mark of Khorne
Daemon Prince – Daemonic Flight, Iron Hide, Mark of Khorne

So, basically, we were a pair of jerks running seven monstrous creatures and five close-combat walkers in a combined 3,000 points.

Game 1

Our first game was against Kevin Comer and David Gonzales.  Kevin was running a sharp looking Vostroyan First-born Imperial Guard list that was, basically, a lot of chimeras and three Leman Russ Demolishers.  David was running Dark Angels: terminators, predators, a dreadnought and some mechanized tactical marines.

There were two scenarios in play.  The first was to capture the three objectives running down the center of the board; only Dameon and Kevin’s units were able to do that.  Meanwhile, five of my units (both Bloodletters, both Flesh Hounds and one of the Princes) and five of David’s units (both Terminators, both Predators and the Dreadnought) produced Kill Points.

I had some odd scatters, which meant the game was mostly Dameon’s 1,500 points doing kind of an unreasonably good job defeating their 3,000 points (while my daemons popped in on the other side of the table).

Mid-game, my guys started getting more involved, and the tide started to turn.  Ultimately, we ended up tabling them (Kevin’s Lord Commissar wasn’t quite able to survive a fistfight with Dameon’s Greater Daemon).

This was a well-fought game, and our opponents were really great guys.

Game 2 

The second game of the day was considerably more intimidating: we were matched up against Joe O’Malley and Mark Aksel: Joe was running, basically, nothing but Blood Angel Rhino chassis and Mark was running Space Wolves.

Two scenarios, again: The first scenario was a tough one: non-vehicle models could “plant a flag” on one of four hills.  They only got one flag to plant per unit, and started accruing points for each round they remained on this hill after planting the flag.  Killing a unit that had planted a flag would produce the number of points that unit had generated -1.  The second scenario was controlling an objective in the center of the table.

I’m not kidding when I say they had a lot of armor on the table: Joe had eight ten Rhino chassis (three Predators, three Baal Predators and four Rhinos) and Mark had three six (three Razorbacks and three Vindicators); armor’s something I have trouble with.  Monstrous Creatures wreck armor, but it’s a poverty when a WS 10 Bloodthirster is hitting on 4’s (or 6’s).  Then, Chaos was fickle and sent me the wrong wave to start with.

I ended up camping out the Bloodletters in the ruins (not bunkers) near the objective and sending the Flesh Hounds into the parking lot.  The Bloodthirsters and Daemon Princes trickled in.

One of the Flesh Hound units was obliterated on the first turn; the second unit went after the Baals; trashing one and putting a serious hurt on the others.  One of the Bloodthirsters chewed his way through the Wolf Lords.  The Bloodletters did nothing, except hide in cover and wait to claim the objective.

Mark sent his Lone Wolves to plant flags and Joe had a Rhino Immobilize itself on a hill early on, so the squad riding in it planted their flag, as well.  Because of the unfortunate Daemonic Assault roll, we were never in a position to really drop flags. Because of our low number of units (actually, I wouldn’t say it was all that low, but theirs was so high), we wouldn’t have been able to sit around on the flags even if we’d been able to… so we conceded that scenario early on.

It looked like we might be able to pull off a tie, holding down the center objective, but an overly aggressive move with the Chaos Marines and their Rhinos exposed it to our opponents.  Even after six turns of what was a knock-down, drag-out fight, they were able to get enough models onto the objective to contest it.

Again, our opponents were great guys and put up a very tough, fun game.

It was a long day, but it was absolutely a really good day of gaming.

(Pictures are MVB‘s)

Tuesday

I met up with Austin to take a run at his newly-completed 23rd Necromundan Ash Waste Guard.

I’d realized, while waiting around for him to show up, that I hadn’t actually written a list for the day.  I dug through my bag, found one, and tweaked it a bit with the results of some lessons learned.  I ran:

HQ
Bloodthirster
Bloodthirster

Elites
Bloodcrushers x4 – Fury, Icon, Instrument
Bloodcrushers x4 – Fury, Icon, Instrument

Troops
Bloodletters x8 – Fury
Bloodletters x8 – Fury

Fast Attack
Flesh Hounds x8 – Fury
Flesh Hounds x8 – Fury

Heavy Support
Daemon Prince – Daemonic Flight, Iron Hide, Mark of Khorne
Daemon Prince – Daemonic Flight, Iron Hide, Mark of Khorne
Daemon Prince – Daemonic Flight, Iron Hide, Mark of Khorne

He ran something like:

HQ
Company Command Squad – Plasmagun x2, Lascannon
– Chimera – Heavy Flamer
Company Command Squad – Meltagun x2, Lascannon

Elites
Psyker Battle Squad x10
– Chimera

Troops
Infantry Platoon
– Command Squad – Flamer x2, Meltagun x2
– Infantry Squads x40 – Commissar, Power Weapon x3, Lascannon x3
Veteran Squad – Plasmagun x3, Powerfist
– Chimera

Heavy Support
Leman Russ Squad – Exerminator x1, Vanquisher x1
Leman Russ Squad – Battle Tank x1, Executioner x1
Colossus x1

The above is certainly not accurate; I’m pretty sure he had more Chimerae, but it’s the gist.

We rolled up Seize Ground (3 objectives) with Spearhead Deployment.

Didn’t get the wave I wanted, but Austin insisted that I take it anyway.

Bloodthirsters came in first, followed by the Daemon Princes (hoping to get cover from the ‘Thirsters) and a unit of Bloodcrushers to provide an icon for the rest of the army.

By the end of the first turn, I’d lost a Bloothirster and, if I recall correctly, one of the Daemon Princes.  Then, the Flesh Hounds and one of the units of Bloodletters came in while the monstrous creatures that survived the initial salvo advanced and started slaughtering anything they could get their axes into.

The surviving Bloodthirster was a little too successful and too frightening in slaughtering Guardsmen: his opponents ran away, leaving him to suck up all the fire from the blob of infantry.  He didn’t last… the squad that ran away rallied, however.  I’d gotten down to one Daemon Prince, who started banging on tanks and then the Colossus.

The Flesh Hounds charged into the blob of infantry: miraculously, enough survived to kill a bunch of Guardsmen and win combat. Later, the surviving Daemon Prince, and a squad of Bloodletters joined them to wrap the squad up.  The first squad of Bloodcrushers was extremely intimidating… but fell in combat to a very tough squad of Vostroyans.

The game ended on Turn 5: just in time for my Bloodletters to kill the last of his Infantry Platoon and consolidate onto the objective (and behind the Daemon Prince for a bit of cover) while the late-arriving Bloodcrushers ran into range to contest one, maybe (but probably not) both of the other objectives (neither of which were actually held at the time).  Had the game pushed into Turn 6, it’s a tough call to say whether or not he’d have been able to eliminate my Bloodletters (my guess is yes) but it’s unlikely he’d have been able to push off my Bloodcrushers… so it would probably have been a draw.

As always, a great game with Austin.