Army of Khorne vs. Dark Angels

[Polythemus]

Da vs khorne army 1000pts

*HOLOMESSAGE*

SENDER: Grand Master Azreal

*Master belial, your presence is urgently needed on Talamuth, of the Aries system. Local militia have reported a battle group of space marines in heresy armour shelling their planets capital and report they are fast losing ground to the enemy. The current size and forces arrayed against you are unclear. Your battle group is being dispatched with immediate haste to counter this threat. Your group must retake the outer defenses of this city and provide the imperial guard and further astartes forces a safe landing site that is free of enemy fire. May the Emperor protect you!*

*Message ends*

Khorne army

1 demon prince

1 defiler

5 man heavy weapons squad 2 plasma 2 hvy bolter 1 boltgun

10 bezerkers

10 tactical maries in rhino with twin linked havoc launcher

5 man terminator squad four with lightning claws and one with heavy flamer and lighting claw.

Dark angels

Belial, thunderhammer and storm shield (TH/SS)

Deathwing alpha squad 3 lightning claws, 2 th/ss, 1 cyclone missle launcher (cml), apothecary, and deathwing banner

Deathwing gamma squad, 4 stormbolt/powerfist, 1 stormbolt/power weapon, 1 cml

Dreadnaught with assault cannon, and stormbolt/dreadcc weap

10 man tact squad with flamer and missle launcher

This wasn't a prearragned game so i had no idea i would be playing chaos or that i would be playing this type of army. We rolled for the mission (seize ground) but i think we just assumed we'd do a pitched battle. He rolled to go first and deploy first.

The plan was a bit limited in scope by what i knew about my opponents army. I knew he was playing a khorne army which meant he had bezerkers which i had heard were good in close combat. I knew he had a defiler which kinda terrified me cause i didnt know what it was capable of but looked huge and impressive. Had i known its armor value was only 12 i may have attempted more to stop it from pounding my troops. I knew he had a big nasty Demon hq which looked like it might be though to deal with in close combat. I did not know exactly what heavy weapons he had. I did know that it was an objective game. i did know was that if i kept my units in support of one another they would have a better chance of sucess. I would try to take him apart piecemeal. Therefore flank assault was the best option. I decided to go for the bezerker side cause i wanted to take away his strength. if i could suvive that i thought it would be easier to disable his other troop unit, the chaos marines. with a little luck and some armor saves i might be able to win.

As i write this up i will note critical decisions with the anagram (CD), critical decision for talking about in the analysis.

Khorne 1

The rhino moves up disembarks its troops and out come the plasma cannons and the heavy bolters. My first thought, crap, there goes my whole armor save idea. But they shoot the tactical squad as does the havoc launcher taking out 4 which was pretty luck for me. The defiler on the other hand lands a huge strength ten blast template on both terminator squads, thank goodness for thundersheilds, but one lightning claw guy (Orvis) from alpha squad goes down and Elijah, the dreadnaught is shaken.

DA 1

Time to return fire, and all the heavy squad has time to contemplate is whether they prefer closed casket or cremation as four go down to krak missles from the termies strike home. The tactical squad debates (CD) shooting at the remaining heavy bolter, but instead goes for the deamon prince to see what hes made of. Dreadnaught spends a turn running diagnostics on his software.

Khorne 2

Not a great turn for the glory of khorne. Deepstriking termies fail to come in. Defiler doesn't get its orders to fire (opponent forgets to fire). Bezerkers advance on termie squads but cant make it through difficult terrain and assault. Chaos marines try to fire on

Tactical sqaud but are just out of range. Demon advances

DA 2

Dread moves and lets the bezerkers taste asscan. Alpha moves between the barrier and the terrain to into assault range and fire some missles. gamma moves through difficult terrain to the other side of the building cutting their way through the walls with laz-torches, then opens up with storm bolters and missles. The 4 krak missles and ten bolter shots means the bezerkers are sacrificing their own blood to the blood god, and are down to 3 men. Alpha charges and the bezerkers start rolling. they end up causing one unsaved wound, but the apothecary seeing Ajax stumbling, shoots him up with fentanyl (feel no pain) and the bezerkers die to the sound of pulsing power weapons. The tactical squad fires on a missle on the heavy bolter but misses. ( i did the pic wrong, so sue me)

Khorne 3

Chaos termies teleport in form their battle barge, Crystal Fear, but the demon presence alters their landing site placing them 10" from the alpha and 8" from their planned drop zone.

Heavy bolter guns down another marine in the tactical squad, havoc launcher on the rhino fires at alpha causing an unsaved wound, but again the doc says, "take one of these son," and the effects go unnoticed.

Defiler tries to shoot gamma but misses.

DA 3

Alpha squad fire krak missles at the demon prince, causing one wound, then assault him killing easily. Gamma squad and the dreadnaught fire at the chaos marines killing five. Tactical marines try to fire at the heavy bolter but fail to wound.

Khorne 4

The defiler hits its mark and vaporizes gamma squad to a puddle of goo. Chaos marines rather than fight alpha try to run around them. Heavy bolter shoots tactical squad, killing one, and bringing them below 50%. Lc termies run to try and catch alpha squad.

DA 4

Dreadnaught kills remaining heavy bolter marine.

Tactical marines run to try and claim objective but the difficult terrain slows them and they cant get out of it. I forget to run afterward. Alpha squad fire krak missles at chaos marines killing two but in their arrogance (and my idiocy) dont assault them (DP). the chaos marines break but the rule book seems to say that they can run around the the terminators who are blocking them from a straight path to the table edge. So they escape into the structure near the board edge behind alpa squad.

Khorne 5

Havoc launcher misses. The chaos marines are still within 6" of alpha squad so they cant regroup and must countinue running back to their table edge. The chaos termies are still just out of flamer range of alpha squad. The defiler misses the dreadnaught.

DA 5

The tactical squad knowing they cant reach the nearby objective fire a krak missle at the rhino, blowing it sky high. Alpha squad try to fire krack missles at the chaos termies but cant see them so stay on the objective. Dread fires on the chaos termies but does no damage (dp).

Game continues

Khorne 6

Chaos marines regroup and run toward the nearest objective. One more turn and they will get there. Defiler unleashes its giant strength ten blast on alpha squad, killing one, thanks to storm shield saves. Chaos termie get close enough to flame one terminator from alpha, who fails to save, but again the apothecary is there with the meds, saving another deathwing terminator from death (three this game).

DA 6

Tactical squad and dread (dp) fire on chaos marines, doing no damage. Alpha squad has only three terminators plus belial, so if it loses another terminator will be below 50% strength and wont be able to score.

Does the game continue?

No, game ends

DA 1. Khorne army 0

Analysis

The flank attack plan was sound and it worked I won. Barely. The fact is i made so many mistakes in this game. Firstly the deployment of the tactical squad was poor. i should have combat squaded them and walked half of them up to engage the heavy weapon squad or take a second objective. Even if i had gotten no missle shots as a result this would have been a better plan. However i also should have asked more details about my opponents army, cause as i said earlier i know nothing about chaos, having never played them before. My opponent was unlucky in that his terminators scattered so far on deep strike. He did also forget to fire his defiler one turn which was lucky for me. Ok on to the critical decisions

Critical decisions.

Turn 1 not shooting the heavy squad. i really should have dealt with this guy right away, but i tried to spread the wounds to the demon but ended up getting nothing as a result except more causualties, lesson learned. this also may have enabled me to shoot the defiler which got ignored all game. More on that later.

Turn 4 not assaulting the marines, dont really know what i was thinking here just a complete brain meltdown. It could be argued i didnt want to get caught in close combat with the chaos terminators closing but really there was no good reason for this. Again lesson learned, when possible kill the troops.

Turn 5 dreadnaught choices. I should have moved the dreadnaught over the barricadeso it could have engaged the chaos terminators. This would have tarpitted them since they had no powerfists safeguarding them from assault.

All in all a fun game. I was not expecting to lose gamma squad all at once, that was pretty unlucky. Which brings me to my next point to be asked of chaos players, how exactly does the defiler battle cannon work? Is it strength ten at 48" or does strength change with range, i can’t really find a clear answer. also a squad under 50% cant score right? in addition how exactly does the trapped rule work i thought if you ran into a enemy on the retreat it meant you were killed, is this wrong?

I'll try to get out my next battle report a bit sooner, please comment with what you like and what you dont!

[TheDevourer]

The Battle Cannon is always S:8 Ap:3. Squads (Troop Choices) score unless they are running or dead :) The 50% thing was last edition. As for the running thing: If you are within 6" of an enemy unit you continue to run. Not sure about running through enemies I'll let someone else answer that or answer when i get back from work and can grab a rulebook.

 

The report was quite good in my opinion, some of the speech bubbles made me giggle, so I'm pretty entertained.

Some of the photos were a bit blurry, but all in all it was a pretty good battle rep.

Thank you for your efforts, look forward to reading more in the future.

 

Yours sincerely,

The Devourer

[Polythemus]

Hey thanks man glad you liked it. Ok so battle cannon strength never changes with range, it is only AP 3, so it wont negate termie armor (grumble gamma squad dead grumble). Your comment also suggests that my tactical squad couldhave scored, which is good to know for future games. One other thing i read in the rule book after finishing ths was that squads below 50% cant regroup unless they have the " they shall know no fear" special rule. I assume that this rule appliesto chaos marines is that true?

[Dam13n]

A couple of things I noticed (aside from the battle cannon stuff)

 

How did the Havoks move and shoot their Heavy Bolters and Plasma Guns, at that range. The Heavy Bolters can't move and fire (disembarking counts as moving) and rapid fire weapons can always shoot 2 shots up to 12" but can only shoot 1 shot up to 24" if the unit did not move, in the picture, they look clearly over 12". Also Chaos Havoks cannot take Plasma Cannons, so I would assume he actually had Plasma Guns (or he was cheating).

 

Also, when you stated that the defiler didn't get the order to fire, what did you mean?

 

With regards to moving through enemy units - you can never move to within 1" of an enemy model unless charging in the assault phase or performing a tank shock with a vehicle. That means that footslogging infantry CANNOT move or run through enemy units (jump infantry and skimmers can jump over them however, as they ignore intervening terrain and models)

 

In response to your question, Chaos do NOT have ATSKNF so cannot rally if below 50%, they can also be run down in combat if they lose and fail a morale test (unless they're fearless, like the Berserkers and the Daemon Prince)

 

Dam13n

[Polythemus]

Wow looks like a serious retread of the rules is in order for my opponent!

 

On heavy weapons (havocs) i assumed that firing after disembarking from a moving rhino was different than moving normally. Maybe my opponent did too? Also i beliveve he had plasma cannons not guns, but i guess im not sure on this point. Maybe he never fired them at all, my memory is a bit fuzzy. Just remeber him rolling alot of dice.

 

On the defiler. My opponent forgot to shoot, simply forgot. Will edit for clarity.

 

On atsknf. So that means those chaos marines shouldnt have regrouped, since they were below 50%. I knew they were sneaky!

 

Any ideas on the trapped rule as it applies to blocking the straight line of retreat?

 

Thanks again for reading, and your comments!

[Dam13n]

Well unless they are completely surrounded they can still retreat, they just have to move the full fall back

distance in any direction, so long as it is the shortest distance he would have to travel towards his

deployment table edge, without coming within 1" your models or moving through impassable terrain.

 

It does look as though your opponent needs to read his codex and the rulebook thoroughly, as he is using

illegal models and getting the rules wrong (havoks with Plasma Cannons, retreating and the Battle Cannon

ignoring Terminator armour saves).

 

I did read that this was an impromptu game for you, so little time to prepare, but it is always worth having a

working knowledge of as many codeces as possible. I personally own every single codex, so I have the option

of reading up on my opponent's army before a game. The other suggestion is to double check anything you're

not sure of. Your opponent should have his codex with him and one or both of you should have a copy of the

rules as well, it sounds like you're relatively new to gaming, so any fair-minded opponent should be considerate

and let you check things you're not sure of.

 

Dam13n

 

edit: with regards the havoks - did he use any templates? if not then he was using plasma guns (still illegally, but

that at least resolves one problem).

[TheDevourer]

Aye I can only say the same to you really. You will enjoy yourself alot more if you know about all rules within every codex... It is alot of hard work (At the moment i can t be bothered reading the necron one either) but it saves you being cheated upon. Regardless of whether your opponent is doing so on purpose or just made a mistake.

[Polythemus]

Cheers boys. Thanks for the tip.

 

So in the case of a fall back move if the straight line to his table edge takes him within 1" of my unit he dies right?

 

In addition i have acess to all codexes just not all the most recent ones!

[Dam13n]

edit: Stupid IE9...

[Dam13n]

So in the case of a fall back move if the straight line to his table edge takes him within 1" of my unit he dies right?

 

No, the unit falls back aiming to avoid your units. Unless there is no other path for him to take, his unit will flee around yours.

In this eventuality, it is unlikely that he will end up over 6" away from your unit so cannot rally (even if he did have ATSKNF)

 

If you were to try and charge his fleeing unit, then he automatically flees again (a further 2D6")

 

In other words, the only way to trap a fleeing unit is to completely surround it with either units or impassable terrain, as

any escape route (regardless of the direction he would move in) can be taken by a fleeing unit.

 

A quick diagram to explain:

 

http://i352.photobucket.com/albums/r358/MatthewDaunt/FleeingDiagram.png

 

Dam13n

[Polythemus]

Got it thanks, great diagrams! Thats a mistake i wont make again soon!

[Brother Ambroz]

Good read and it looks like you did well. Especially considering your opponent's lack of knowledge about his own codex.

[Polythemus]

Cheers Tanith, I always appreciate your comments. It doesn't help that i dont have all the appropriate pages in the main rule book memorized for quick reference yet, but i suppose these things take time.