I had the pleasure the other day of finally having a great battle of 40k with my brother. We both have been playing Warhammer for quite some time but are still relatively new to the 40k universe, as such it does take us a little longer to play games. He came over around 10pm on a Sunday night, ready for a fight. Once our mission was selected, our armies chosen, and maybe a drink or two was had we began at once!… well, kind of. My brother and i don’t see each other much. This thing called “life” and my sheer laziness get in the way all to often. So, yes we started at 10, and yes most games are about 2 hours long, but it was no surprise to me that we were still at it until 6 the next morning! Most of the evening was just us immersed in conversations, some of it was Warhammer related, most of it was not though. But without further ado, here is a battle report from the night
Darryl’s Chaos Filth Josh’s Imperial Fists Space Marine forces
20 Bloodletters of Khorne 30 Tactical Space marines with flamers and missle launcher
10 Deamonettes of Slaanesh 5 Scouts with sniper rifles
10 Plaguebearers of Nurgle 5 Terminators
10 Horros of Tzeentch 1 Dreadnought
6 Fiends of Slaanesh 1 Venearble Dreadnought
3 Flamers of Tzeentch 1 Whirlwind tank
1 Soulgrinder 5 Space Marine veterans
1 Hareld of Slaanesh on chariot 1 Space Marine Captain
1 Daemon Prince of Khorne 1 Chaplain with Terminator armour
Skulltaker 5 Space marines Assualt Squad
Skarbrand
We decided to play a capture type scenario where there were three objectives of interest that needed to be captured. In order to win, you get 1 victory point per turn per each object under your control (opposing team couldn’t be within 8 inches of the object.) Darrly and i rolled off to see whom would start the battle, with a rather interesting result of 3 rolls before finally he won that (only brothers could roll each a 6 and a 1 in subsequent rolls at the same time!)
Chaos got to go first, as my rolling was bad (but maybe not as bad as it has been in the past). Knowing how fast Darryl’s army could be, i would have to do something to slow him down. After everything was deployed, i was able to put my snipers hidden behind one of the buildings (positioned perfectly to get a few shots off as well through the windows.) But would i be able to stop the Chaos Filth from conquering the battlefield, or will I be overrun by Daemons? Here is how it broke down
Turn 1-Chaos: Darryl’s forces sprang into action immediately. Most of my bro’s army can’t shot, so it was really in his best interest to move them up the table as quickly as possible. What could shot, however, was his Soulgrinder, and he set his sites on trying to take out the building my snipers were beside. Hoping against hope that a lucky shot would take the building out and cause some sort of damage to my troops below, Darryl fired everything he could. Didn’t work this turn, but you could tell he would not give up on it.
Turn 1- Imperial Fists: Knowing my range advantage i decided to only move a few choice troops, but held the bulk of my forces in the back to rain fiery death on the foe!..That is, if my rolling could come up with something over “4”. Snipers managed just 1 kill through the windows, and my whirlwind took out 2 wounds on his fiends. I will have to do better next turn if i want to win this.
Turn 2-Chaos: The Chaos gods are a fickle lot, and it seems they weren’t amused by Darryl’s first turn lack of success. Out of this, one of his daemons was swallowed up by the Warp. His forces manged to close even further up on me, as well as take hold of two objective points this turn, as well as come in hand-to-hand combat with one of my dreadnoughts taking a hull point off!
Turn 2-I.F: More rain of fire! Whirlwind scores a massive blow to his Horrors killing 7 of them! I feel invincible for a moment…then the assault phase starts, and my Dreadnought is destroyed!
Turn 3-Chaos: Major turning point for this game was at the end of my turn 2, cause after that it was all downhill for the emperors marines! The Warp was strong and thick in the air, as a nasty Demon Gate spawned on the field! Darryl was also able to finally take down the building in which my snipers were cowering behind, killing all but two of them in the wreckage.
Turn 3-I.F: Sensing impending doom, I fired in every direction blindly just hoping something good will happen…and it did. My remaining Dreadnought set fire to the Flamers killing all three of them. Then came the came the barrage of missiles from the Whirlwind, crashing into the Plaguebearers and destroying nine of them! A good start for a comeback, but this is when i noticed something odd about the battlefield…I haven’t moved my troops enough forward towards the objectives, so they were in control by the Daemons (insert sad trumpet sound here).
Turn 4-Chaos: more Plaguebearers poured out of the demon gate, so last turns small victory was all for not. The Hareld of Slaanesh crashed right through my assault squad, utterly destroying them and continued on into more space marines. The Venerable Dreadnought was trying to hold it’s own against the Fiends in melee, but was severely damaged. Hope was officially lost when my Chaplain was wiped out.
Turn4-I.F: With most of my forces dead on the field, and my Dreadnought unable to fire there wasn’t a lot i could do. My army was beaten and defeated…also, like i said it was 6 in the morning so we kind of just stopped.
In the end Darryl did have good rolls and was able to take out important pieces of my army, but it was mostly my own idiocy of not moving my troops up to capture the objectives that lead to my demise.
Next time i will perhaps change my force layout and use a more aggressive tactics to rule the day…maybe even just use my other 40k army the Dark Eldar.