Dice and Daggers, return of the OP barrage unit: 1850 Pts Chaos Vs Chaos

It has been a while since I have played on an actual table top as supposed to math hammer debating with people whats the best D weapon to put on your Forge World Vindicator or how many S8 shots does it take to kick some armour in the teeth. No! Today I went back to the terrifying place of actually putting my miniatures on a board and rolling dice.

My opponent today was a nice chap called Jack running a pure Chaos Marines list that had all things MoN in it. Jack was definitely a good sport and kept me on my toes with how to keep my damage dealing unit in the game and still doing some amount of damage. The mission we played was Crusade and set up 'Dawn of War' with Jack going first. Jacks list was as follows, if I remember rightly:

Chaos Sorcerer - Jump Pack, twin Claws, LVL3

5 Chaos Terminators - Mon, Reaper Auto, Chain Fist, Combi Melta, Power Maul, Power Axes
Helbrute - Missile Launcher, Heavy Flamer

10 CSM - MoN, 2 Plasma, Vets
10 CSM - MoN, 2 Plasma, Vets
10 CSM - MoN 2 Plasma, Vets
10 Cultists - MoN

15 Raptors - MoN, Melta Gun, Power sword
3 Bikes - MoN, Melta, Power Fist

5 Havocs - MoN, 4 Missile Launchers, Flakk
5 Havocs - MoN, 4 Missile Launchers, Flakk

Total 1851

So, that is 66 T5 wounds that all have either a 3+ or a 2+ and some cultists on top of that. The upside I saw with this army was that it didn't matter what mission we played, he would have the early game advantage of board control and it would be a question whether I could kill everything whilst holding him off killing off all the important things in my army.

My list is a previous list I believe I went into some depth about in this blog before, but I will recap it quickly:

Sorcerer - Warlord, Bike, Bale Star, Spell Fam, Lvl 3
Sorcerer - Bike, Spell Fam, Lvl 3

10 Cultists
10 Cultists

5 Spawn - MoN
5 Spawn - MoN

Maul Fiend - Tendrils
Maul Fiend - Tendrils
Fire Raptor Gunship - Maelstrom Raider, Incendiary Missiles, Quad Autocannons

Allies: Chaos Renegades

Witch

10 Company Command - Demagogue, command Vox, Militia Training
Chimera - Militia Training
10 Militia - Militia Training, Autocannon
Chimera - Militia Training
10 Militia - Militia Training, Autocannon
Chimera - Militia Training

Field artillery - 4 Quad Mortar Batteries, Militia Training.

Agus

Total 1850

Jack Rolled his sorcerers powers all on telepathy receiving dominate, shrouding, Terrify and Shriek. My Witch rolled Visage in the Renegade book, Bale sorcerer got Forewarning, Foreboding, Prescience and Misfortune, and my final sorcerer got Invisibility, Dominate, Hallucination and Shriek. My warlord trait was Strategic Genius and Jacks was the infiltration ability which he rolled a 1 for and chose to infiltrate his Terminator squad.

I won the roll of for who set up first and who goes first so I made Jack set up first. Jack set up from my left to right his Helbrute behind his unit of cultists in the top corner, his first unit of 10 Marines, 5 havocs, his bikes, 5 more havocs then his 2 last units of 10 marines crossing the entire board width.

I've decided to show the majority of what happened on the Vassal engine as I was totally pro in taking about four pictures for the entire game. Derp.

My set up was to castle up into one corner whist keeping my fastest units to the center of the board so I can push up left, right or swing back left to defend my quad mortar line. Jacks infiltrated Terminators began the game on the far left objective and his massive Raptor and sorcerer unit are in reserve Deep strike whilst my Fire Raptor (Subbed for a marine storm raven) beings in outflank reserve.

Halfway through set up the troops

My initial thoughts about the game was that he had so many bodies he could easily bog me down and stop my maneuverable units getting to the far objectives and with the raptors dropping with an Invis on them then I woudn't be able to target his biggest combat unit with my Barrage weapons my only hope of getting to grips with it would be either sacrificing half of my meat shields to hold them where they drop or deny his invis and crush them in combat, either way I would have to dedicate a lot to stopping him pulling off the charge. I wasn't too bothered about the terminators or bikes as my meat shields are stronger than both his units.

Turn 1:

Jack pushes up the the board with the majority of his force keeping his Havoc squads stationary so they could open up in the shooting phase, the terminators sat 6" away from my Spawn and hits bike squad took central field. With his Psyker off field he jumped straight into his shooting phase where his two havoc squads focused down the forward cultists, who were meat shielding the Mauler Fiend, with frag missiles. Striking several hits and wounds, I actually got to roll a 5+ armour save - first time for everything- and lost 6 guys and failed my moral check. I had places them right on the edge of my deployment zone so they would only run off board if I rolled a 10-12, luckily today I only rolled an 8 so they didn't give away first blood. The Terminators opened up into my Artillery crew slaying one of them with a crisp bullet to the face.

Taking a tickle from a missile... or 8...

It was a good idea for Jack to fire on the Cultists to achieve an easy first blood, and a bad idea on my part for putting them there. I was surprised at the time he didn't go for a tank as at AV12 VS 8 Missiles he has a god chance to take one out before I could do anything, however looking back I think he did take the easiest option, crush the weak ones, for first blood. Perhaps I shouldn't give him so many targets next time.

In my turn, I rolled to rally my Cultists and luckily they did regroup, so I moved them into the rocky cover and went to ground. I pushed up The center field with the right Maul Fiend, Telepathy Sorcerer and Spawn towards the Bike Squad and the Left Maul Fiend and Spawn dove in for the Terminators threatening my precious artillery line.

In my Psychic phase I managed to cast Invisibility on the Maul Fiend stood close to the Bikers and got a perils, which I rolled a 6 and passed my leadership test, few! I also cast Prescience and Misfortune on my Quad Mortars and Forewarning on the spawn close to the Terminators.

In my shooting phase, I opened up with my two Chimeras into one of his Havoc squads to slowly whittle them down but only managing to kill one of them. I fired the left Chimera into the Cultists in the far corner and managed to kill two of them. Finally I shot the closest Chaos Marines squad with my Quad Mortar artillery achieving 32 hits with 8 Rending wounds and 14 wounds saw the entire units demise achieving first blood.

A Shower of Artillery shells create a hole in the horde of marines

In the combat phase I charged both Jacks Terminators and Bike squad with both sets of Spawn and Mauler Fiends. I did forget to remove my Sorcerer from the Spawn in the movement phase so he was unfortunately forced in a one-on-one fight with a Power Fist Champion. Bugger!
In the combat phase the two free bikers at -2 attacks hit the spawn twice but failed to wound, in response the spawn hit back with 36 attacks and only took out 1 biker. In the stand off between the Champion hit once against the sorcerer and the sorcerer hit twice on the champion then both of them failed to wound each other.

It was terribly unlucky for Jack to not wound my sorcerer, and the luck didn't swing his way at a Ld9 test for losing combat he still failed and his bikes where ran down by the spawn and Fiend. Over on the other side of the field one terminator hit against my Fiend but the strike bounced off and the rest swung into the Spawn wounding them once.
In retaliation the maul Fiend crushed a single Terminator in it's grasp and the spawn slew two more of them. Once again the Ld test failed and the terminators and they were also run down.

Terminators Feeling it hard

Turn 2

Jack began his second turn with rolling for his Rators, which he got and positioned them right up in front of my Agus Defence line and my mortar team. His helbrute and cultists shifted closer towards the objective currently under the spawn control and moved his far right Marine squads to capture both objective on the far left field.
In his Psychic phase Jack threw all his dice into Invisibility on the raptor squad, knowing he needed to shut down my Barrage shots from devouring them. He passed and didn't perils rolling 7 dice into it and I failed to deny with all my dice. This was a big problem for me as now I had a major combat threat that I couldn't deal with. All my CC units are slower and worse off on WS value than they were and the raptors come with Krak grenades so even my Maulers where not safe, also if they got into my Barrages that would most likely be game within a few turns.

"Hey there, I hear you don't like Invisible combat units" Sorcerer Lord 2K15

Jack's shooting phase was extremely active and full of dice. First he shot his 15 raptor bolt pistols into my Artillery, claiming two Crewmen he also opened up with 30 bolter shots into my Chaos Spawn slaying one and putting two wounds on another in a shower of 6's. He also fired into my Right Maulerfiend with his Missile launchers, fortunately not rolling any 6's to hit ensuring it's survival. The cultists and the Helbrute opened up on the left hand spawn unit also causing 2 wounds against them.

Jack takes his revenge in a flurry of Bolter shots.

Beginning my turn 2, I failed to bring on my Fire Raptor from reserve and Jack seemed to rejoice at this as it meant I couldn't hurt his block of 20 Marines sat happily in the corner away from most of my weapons.
My movement phase hit me with some problems to solve, do I go back and save the mortars giving Jack access to the objectives and board control for the time being or do I bolt forward in attempt to slay his back line units and sacrifice my Mortars and possibly my Militia units. I decided to save my back line as I can still fight for the objectives with my other units but hold Jack off of killing my dominating shooting power. I moved both Fiends and the middle unit of spawn to intercept the Raptors and the left Spawn to remove the cultists from the field and away from the objective.
I tried to push up with all of my Chimera battle tanks but one of them crashed into the Agus and got 'stuck' which put a full squad out of the game for attempts on objectives. I also pushed the cultists up the right side of the field to fight the swarm of Marines massing over the two objectives.

In my Psychic phase I decided against boosting the Mortars and chose to try and even the odds against Jacks invisible horde of raptors. Casting Prescience on one Maul Fiend and Invisibility on the other to attempt to hold off the enemy blows for a few more turns when the tables where more in my favor. I also attempted to Psychic Shriek into the closest Chaos Marine unit on the right side of the field passed but then failed to hit.

Shooting saw my barrage effectiveness drop as I only managed to slay 2 Chaos Havocs hidden at the back of the field, my Chimeras also snapped fired into the Havocs, Marines and cultists respectively but each failed to make any impression. Wooop!

The only pain felt was a tickle

Combat saw me charge the Raptors and Cultists on the left side of the board edge. Up front the raptors hit first dedicating most of their attacks against my Spawn, showering them with many wounds and landing 8 wounds dropping three of them in one swoop, in return both the Maul Fiends swung back hitting once and swiping the invisible swine from the field. The last spawn was also in effective at doing anything.
Against the Cultists up field I rolled a 6 on my attacks, Jack said he would just remove the models to make it quicker (We were starting to run out of time) Some may of survived the hits however - 40 Attacks = 20 hits, 4+ re-role to wound - had the poison trait from the grubbily table - So 75% wounds, 15 5+ armour saves, 11 5+ saves to make, it is possible. However, I could of ran them down in the assault loss It's a variable to consider.

Carnage in the Assault phase!

Turn 3

Jack pushed his Helbrute to tickling distance to my Spawn and claimed the 2nd objective on the field and held tight with his Havocs steady to continue firing on their targets. He had clear control over all three objectives and seemed to be holding their importance in high regard, good idea I believe as I tend to get too much into blowing things up.... What???
Jack once again went into the Psychic phase with one intention, keeping the Raptors invisible and out of harm by throwing all his warpcharge into it once again, passing on two this time and once again with 11 warp charge I failed to deny his power meaning that we would have to be stuck there till turn 4 and I would have to take 2 more rounds of free hammering from Jacks Raptors and sorcerer, hold!

Jack opened up in the shooting phase with his Missiles into my Artillery team once again trying to weaken them down, fortunately they were largely ineffective as I made all my saving throws. Over on the far right of the field Jacks Marines fired into my Cultists at long range slaying three of them but I passed my Ld test. Jack also fired his helbrute into my spawn with the Heavy flamer hitting 4 and the missile missing laying 2 extra wounds onto the closest Spawn.

In a river of blood, the Helbrute teaches some manners

Jack charged his helbrute into the spawn and proceeded to crush the day lights out of the one with only one wound left, my spawn in retaliation stood their and wondered the possibilities of life, and what may happen in the future if they ever got out of this mess. Jack declared that he was attacking the spawn, that had 1 wound left, with his entire unit. I helped him out by just removing the spawn... Squash! The final Mauler fiend lashed back, hitting once and killing one more Raptor.


My turn 3 finally saw the arrival of the Fire Raptor Gunship on the right side of the field, which I did like as it put me in a prime position to rain hell onto the marines holding the objectives below. I pushed forward with all my 'working' Chimera's once again to get them within striking distance of the Objectives for last turn and pushed up with the Cultists and Telepathy sorcerer alongside them.

In my Psychic phase I completely forgot about... All of my powers and elected to just use Psychic shriek and miss again with it against the unit of marines. Prescience, Forewarning and Invis all forgotten... DERP!

In my shooting phase I decided to target the closest unit of Chaos Marines near the middle objective with my Artillery, scoring 30+ hits and well over average wounds and unlucky saving throws from Jack saw the entire 8 remaining models removed from play, even I have to admit I was not expecting that. I then elected the raptor to open up on the last 10 man marine squad holding Jacks back most objective and chose to fire the independent reaper turret into the three remaining Havocs close by. Due to Strifing run and twin-linked weapons I went through 5 of the Chaos Marines with my Avenger Bolt Cannon, Jack elected to 'go to ground' to get a 6+ save, and I fired 6 Incendiary missiles into them for the first time I have fielded the model and lucky me out of 13 hits I got 5 wounds, Go math hammer, and jack saved them all. Finally the reaper took out a single havoc marine.

Combat for me was a series of watching my tar pit units getting pasted, the helbrute smashed 2 more wounds onto a Spawn and the Raptors to single out a Maul Fiend and plant their grenades putting 4 HP's on it and I failed to make a single 5+ Daemon save so it went up in smoke leaving my final Maul Fiend to swing back one last time before bad things happened and he missed completely.


We ended the game there as we had ran out of time, with both of us holding an objective each and me holding First Blood to win by just 1 Point.

The Blood soaked Battle field looked a lot cleaner in real life. Great Game.

Me and Jack discussed what might of happened in later turns, if we had time to play them. I showed jack how he could hold the top right objective with the Havocs and Marines as I wouldn't have as much power shooting him if I hovered the Raptor. Also, he would of been able to attempt to stand close to the far left objective with his Raptors after they finished my Fiend and force me to bring my Renegades out of their safe Chimera to take the objective with obsec, obviously I couldn't shoot my own 'Really shitty leadership units' - my own personal descriptive term with my Artillery as it would be a bit of a mess if I messed up and he could charge me if we went into turn 6.

But what would of been might not have been and so forth, it's all in the dice and it was definitely a good game! GG Jack!