Archive for December 29th, 2009

Has it been three weeks since my last update? I blame the amazingly busy holiday season, combined with a bout of upper respiratory crud that ran through everyone in our household. I haven’t gotten much painting done in the interim, although I’m still on target to have both Hammerheads done by year’s end. In the meantime, though, I did get in my first game with my Chaos Space Marines. I ran my 1500-point Khorne list against his Eldar army, which consisted of:

• Farseer on a Jetbike w/Fortune and Mind War, along with a Jetbike Seer Council
• Harlequin Troupe w/ Death Jester
• Howling Banshees w/ Jain Zar and an Exarch w/ Mirrorswords, all packed in a Wave Serpent w/ TL Bright Lances
• 2 squads of Jetbike Guardians w/ Warlocks and Shuriken Cannons

Our mission was Seize Ground, with 3 objectives, with a Spearhead deployment. Unfortunately, I don’t have a fully-detailed battle report to give – it’s been a week or so, and some of the specifics are fuzzy, but I can give you the highlights.

Eldar went first, and I was unable to seize initiative.

First turn, the Wave Serpent managed to immobilize my Land Raider, which slowed down my Terminators significantly. Fortunately, this still left my LR with clear lanes of fire for one TL Lascannon and the TL Heavy Bolters, so it wasn’t a total loss. On my first turn, that came into play, as the heavy bolters tore into the Harlequins, who had deployed just a bit far forward for their own good. The combi-flamer on one of my Rhinos did a bit more cleanup, and the Berserkers themselves finished them off on Turn 2.

By the end of Turn 2, I had Berzerkers on two objectives. This didn’t last; Turn 3 saw the Banshees near the objective, so I tried my luck at charging them with one squad of  Berzerkers. This was not a bright move, but I learned something very important – Banshees will beat Berzerkers every time thanks to acting at Initiative 10, and it’s doubly bad when Jain Zar is involved. The other squad of Berzerkers left its objective to charge at objective #3, held by a group of Jetbike Guardians. By turn 5, the objective was firmly in the hands of Chaos.

Turn 3 also saw my Raptors enter play from reserve, and I deep struck them right next to one squad of Guardians. They managed to get off a couple of melta shots, but they ended up getting caught between Shuriken Cannon fire and Destructor templates from the Seer Council. In the end, they only managed to be a fire magnet for one turn before being destroyed. However, they kept fire off of the Terminators, which gave them an extra turn to close in with the Eldar.

The Terminators held their own, a tribute to their survivability. The Chaos Lord lost a Mind War with the Farseer, but only took two wounds, leaving him injured but still able to fight. They managed to close ranks with the Seer Council, which tied up both squads for at least two turns. In the end, though, I brought my Berzerkers hooking around a wall and into the Council’s rear, and the pincer attack finished off the Council. I was able to consolidate back onto the objective at the end of turn 5, and the game was mine. The other unit of Guardians had been finished off by Defiler cannon fire.

Unfortunately for me, the game went 7 turns. On turn 6, the Banshees crashed into my 4 remaining Terminators, and they were locked in combat. However, on my half of the turn, my Chaos Lord was betrayed by his Blood Feeder (thanks to rolling a 1), which left him unable to drop any attacks on Jain Zar. Had he been able to swing, he probably would have finished her off. As is, she killed him, and the rest of her unit took care of the remaining Termies. On turn 7, they assaulted the Berzerkers, and I got a repeat of turn 3. At the end of 7, neither of us had any troops to hold objectives, so we fell back to kill points, and the Eldar came out slightly ahead.

I can’t say that I was unhappy with my army’s performance. Had the game only gone 5 or 6 turns, I would have won 1-0. Against anything but Banshees, my assault troops did very well, and my crippled Land Raider was still able to provide fire support. The Defiler wasn’t quite as great as I’d hoped, although the battle cannon was great against Jetbike Guardians – a unit with a large footprint like that means that even with some scatter, I was still landing direct hits, and the STR8 AP3 hits were deadly. Getting the Defiler into assault, though, proved trickier against a highly mobile army (and I got some terrible Run rolls as well, which kept its Fleetness from being a benefit). The Banshees were the bane of my army, though. When I’ve run my Tau against Dennis’s Eldar, I can deal with them at range. With Khorne CSMs, that’s not as much of an option. I’d hoped that I could kill the Wave Serpent early on (which I never managed to do), but once its passengers had disembarked, they just cut a swath of power weapon death across the board.

Would I change anything? Not yet. One battle against one opponent does not provide enough info one way or another. I need to run it against the other armies in our playgroup – Orks, Dark Angels, Salamanders, and even my own Tau (if someone doesn’t mind giving them a spin). I think I have a good start, though; I just need more data, and then I can start tweaking. In the meantime, I’m going to start working on CSM army #2, a Black Legion force with Abaddon at the lead.