Last weekend we played a game of 40k at the club, and I(we?)
had a blast. After our 2000 point grand mêlee of a few weeks ago we decided to
pick slightly smaller forces, so we could actually finish the game. Erik
fielded a small detachment of his guard army, and I took my revamped (thanks to
the new codex) Sons of Malice chaos space marine warband. We played 750 point
game, with The Relic as the mission (a important piece of equipment lies at
the centre of the field, the side that claims it at the end of the battle wins.
It can be moved, albeit rather slowly.
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| The Relic |
Erik fielded an infantry platoon, reinforced with a griffon
heavy mortar and hellhound flametank, and some rowdy penal legionairs. I had a
winged deamon prince, 3 chaos spawn, two small units of Raptors (jump-troops),
a 5 man squad of Chaos Marines and two units of chaos cultists.
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| The guard patrol returns in full force |
The table had an outpost of cargo containers in one corner,
with some barricades and barbed wire surrounding it. diagonally across the
table were a number of obviously eldar ruins, some of which infested with
strange green crystals (random archeotech). I won the roll for table halves and
picked the side with the outpost, mainly to deny it to Erik, and give my deamon
prince some cover. Obviously the guard had send out a patrol in force, looking
for the chaos marines preying on the eldar remains, only to return empty handed
and finding their left behind comrades turned traitor.
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| The Chaos warband emerges from the compound |
The First turn saw my forces attempt a heavy assault on the
left flank, with the deamon prince, spawn and a unit of raptors advancing
quickly. Seeing a large deamon prince land right before them Erik's guard opened up on it with all
available firepower. I thought my prince would be relatively save swooping
high in the sky, unfortunately there is a change that a flying creature hit by
fire while flying is brought crashing to the ground….The mighty prince of chaos
was brought low by a humble imperial guard flashlight lasgun, and
subsequently vaporised by close range firing of most guard units. So much for
the Might of Chaos and 2 vp’s for the Imperial guard (Kill the warlord and First
blood)… The Griffon meanwhile started pounding my cultists who were cautiously
advancing towards the objective.
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| 'Comrade, take that relic and let's split...' |
The rather early demise of my deamonprince coupled with a
few bad dice rolls on the charge saw my advance on the left flank falter. On the
right flank however my raptors charged the Hellhound, and the Aspiring champion
tore into it with his power maul, wrecking it. Subsequently they bounced over
intervening guard infantry squad and assaulted the platoon command. Another
round of appalling dice rolling saw my champion stranded in a challenge with the
guard lieutenant and my spawn stuck in a never ending battle with Erik's lone
armoured sentinel. In the mean time my troops did manage to reach the relic and
started carrying it of, all the while being pounded by the Griffon. With both flank
attacks grinding to a halt and casualties amongst my relic bearing cultists
mounting fast I needed a miracle to turn the tide.
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| The Eternal Struggle |
The next round Erik had his infantry squad come to the aid
of the beleaguered lieutenant,and saw his penal guard emerge from the flank. They took down the last remaining raptors on
my left flank and started to advance towards the relic toting cultists, who
quickly handed it over to the nearby chaos marines. Combat dice rolling was
abysmal, but my Champion managed to defeat the lieutenant, and was granted a
roll on the chaos boon table, and was promptly rewarded with deamon hood! The
defeated prince (minus the wings) returned to the battlefield, and promptly
slaughtered the entire squad, only to reap into the Griffon, flipping it over
with a single blow.
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| Apotheosis of the Prince |
The emergence of the prince completely turned the tables (and
than to think just moments before I was muttering that the table is nice, but
doesn’t really influence any games.. O how fickle the dice gods are…)
My prince and continue to destroy Erik’s units, the command
squad and sentinel dying in rapid succession. In the mean time the squad of
penal legionnaires chased down the Relic, destroying the remaining cultists and
forcing the last two marines to hide inside the compound.
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| The dirty half-a-dozen |
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| A Marine to far |
In the end it came
down to a few tense dice rolls. The penal legionnaires managed to shoot down the
chaos marine sergeant, but the last remaining marine refused to fall back. Before
they could launch a charge the spawn crashed into the penal legionnaires, whom
held the legionnaires long enough for the prince to arrive and slaughter the
remaining legionnaires to the last man…
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| The final verdict of the Legionnaires... |
That was a very exciting game, which I should have lost i
fit wasn’t for the return of the Prince…I’m not sure about the prince; the
grounded rule makes it a bit to vulnerable for my liking. The week before I tried
a similar list but with a Dark Apostle carrying Skalathrax instead. It was
vapourised by the necron army and the dark Apostle killed only a few skeleton
robots. There just isn’t enough speed and staying power in my list, maybe I
need bikes…..
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About the staying power, 1. facing a griffon and hellhound in 750pt when you have no vehicles/transports is very very rough for any army. 2. Guard as you know do really really well in low point games in general.
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