Game versus chaos

I had a game today against Horsepower's new Chaos list. He was running:

Lord
2 marine squads 1 in a rhino, 1 on foot w. las/plas
Forgefiend
2 Helbrutes
Small havoc squad w. 2 autocannons
3 cultist mobs
3 man termicide
possessed dakkapred w. havoc launcher

Me:

Libby
2 10 man squads in rhino
5 man squad in rhino with fist
2 dakkapreds
3 dreads
2 typhoons
2 attack bikes

I heard walkers sucked in 6th but you wouldn't know it from these lists. 6 in two 1500 point armies! Mark was a little light on anti-vehicle shooting which would prove problematic as the game went on. I brought 10 vehicle hulls to the table, although not all of them were super-tough. We rolled triangle deployment and 3 objectives. Objectives were more or less right down the middle of the board. Mark won the roll but made me go first. That suited me fine as I was able to roll up onto 2 of the objectives and plant my multi-meltas in the midfield. My shooting was meh. I glanced down his lord's rhino, securing the first blood vp. Mark's shooting was almost as bad as mine, he basically returned the favour killing one of my rhinos after shooting almost all of his army at it. Unfortunately the 5 dudes inside failed their pinning test.

Turn 2 stuff started to happen. I blew a hades cannon off the fiend, and immobilized a helbrute. I shot a lot at Mark's lord and his mates. But he made a ton of saves. I killed one guy a did one wound to his lord. Mark's three cultist units arrived from reserves and both of his marine units advanced. He moved 2 cultist units towards the unclaimed objective, and moved the others behind his havocs. His las/plas marines moved towards my pinned combat squad, and his lord's towards my attack bike that had taken a potshot at the forgefiend. His shooting was pretty ineffective. He took a hull point off a dread and maybe the dakkapred killed a tactical guy. BS3 dakkapred = not too scary. His las/plas guys won combat by one and I intentionally failed morale and got away. Bad news for those chaos marines. His lord easily dispatched my attack bike.

Turn 3 the entire left side of my board shot at his marine squad on foot. The sole survivor made his morale only to get assaulted by 2 dreadnoughts. I killed a marine or two out of his lord's squad as well. On the other side of the board my typhoons and dakkapreds lined up some fresh cultists. My shooting was extremely poor, but Mark was nice enough to fail a morale test for me and the unit fled off the board. Mark's turn he blew up a rhino, and his lord's squad assaulted a dreadnought. Unfortunately for him his fist guy whiffed and they remained locked in combat. His terminators deepstriked on next to a dakkapred but scattered just out of 6" melta range. They fired anyway but both shots bounced.

Turn 4 I counterassaulted his lord and the powerfist champion with another dreadnought. I immobilized the other helbrute with my remaining attack bike. My last tac squad deployed and double melta shot the forgefiend. It exploded, killing a havoc and one of my marines in the process. I blasted away at the other cultist squad, killing 8. The remaining two fled. My dreads mostly whiffed, but did kill the fist champ. Mark's lord was str6, but did not have meltabombs. Things were not looking good for him . On Mark's turn his terminators mopped up one of my small tactical squads that had been parked on an objective, and his havocs assaulted my tactical guys that just blasted his forgefiend. It was looking like too little, too late at this point.

Turn 5 My libby had the malediction power that makes a unit -1 str and -1 toughness. I cast this on the cultists, then assaulted them. This did not work out very well for the cultists. Pretty much everything else I had shot the termicide guys. I killed two with shooting and assaulted the survivor with a dreadnought, squishing him. My other two dreads finally squashed Mark's lord in the middle of the table. Mark's havoc champion did kill my veteran sergeant in a challenge and got himself a swanky 2+ armour save as a reward from his dark gods! He also managed to bring down a typhoon with his pred. We pretty much called the game at this point. Mark had 2 immobilized helbrutes, 3 havocs and a dakkapred with a single hull point remaining.

Conclusions: Walkers are fine, fielded in quantity. One isn't going to scare anyone, but not a lot of units like fighting two or three. They also make rhinos better, because it stretches out the opponent's firepower. Mark was just trying some things out, and his list clearly wasn't optimized. All characters must have meltabombs, especially WS6 ones. BS3 dakkapreds are pants. Forgefiend is meh. Although I think the 3 ecto one has some potential. Mark made a mistake in not using his forge-ability thingy on turn 1. Why wait? Turn 2 he lost a gun and it didn't do much after that. Cultists performed exactly as expected. Got shot, ran away. I would rather have another 10 chaos marines than 30 cultists.

*all characters must have meltabombs* It's like the new powerfist now. For 5 points, it can get you out of a lot of jams and give you some versatility. My Lord and Fist guy may well have killed both dreads if I had Melta bombs.

I forgot my Veterans of the Long War re-rolls... don't forget those (and the +1LD it gives)

Cultists are... eh -- I played them like 5th ed Tau fire warriors, but then they all came on on turn 2. I should've just deployed them, I might've gotten a couple more kills out of them.

Hellbrutes are... alright I guess? New crazed table is very interesting. Had I actually hit with my scatters more, interesting things would've happened. (We both rolled terribad for scatters all game)

Need more playtime with the forgefiends. I think I should've grabbed first turn and tried to use the fiend to snag first blood by using Daemon forge right away.

Boon table has some potential. I had a bare-bones champ win a challenge, he rolled +1 armour, suddenly he's got a 2+ save... seems good. There's a lot of "improvements" on that table.

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Mauler fiends might be amazing. Like... really amazing. 125-135 points of o_O I think Lasher Tendrils are the way to go, -2 attacks for everything in base really limits a lot of things.

Agree on the maulerfiends, although the aforementioned meltabombs are still the bugaboo. He'll generally get hit on a 3+ at initiative and bad things will result. They do have the speed to pick their first assault though, and that alone might make them worthwhile.

S10 AP2 on the charge, 5 attacks, if I remember correctly. (3, +1 for two p-fists, +1 for charge) Meltabomb hits on a three, pens on a 2d6 roll of 5+, Mauler gets a 5++ save.

Yeah, he'll kill 2 guys or so at initiative 3. Not great. If you slam two of them into a unit at once it's a bit better.

Slight nit-pick. Isn't first blood the first destroyed unit as well as an awesome movie? By your bat rep, tim didn't kill anything first turn, just took a hp, while mark blew up a rhino. I don't think it changed anything, just sayin'.

Never put 2 and 2 together about MBs and the daemonforge ability. Good to know.

Cultists seem like you HAVE to put someone with them to make them fearless or something.

Tim 3:16 says Tim just.... Nah:)

Yeah.. The daemonforge thing is something ive committed to use first or second turn for sure.

Im going to get my first kick at the can tonight with a new lord, bikes and a heldrake.. We'll see how it goes.

I ve been in the habit of taking melta bombs on my non fist champs for ten years. Those old rage rules had berserkers chasing and assaulting everything under the sun..

Good report though.. Thanks guys!

Roland wrote:Slight nit-pick. Isn't first blood the first destroyed unit as well as an awesome movie? By your bat rep, tim didn't kill anything first turn, just took a hp, while mark blew up a rhino. I don't think it changed anything, just sayin'.

Tim popped my Rhino on the first turn.

Ah, read that as 'glanced', not 'glanced down'.