Berks Spring Assault II - Dark Angels Battle Reports

Berks spring assault 2 reflections…

My thoughts about berks spring assault 2 as a tournament… first I will start off with a few battle overviews of my four rounds and then I’ll address the tournament overall. I of course brought my dark angels. My list looked something like..
Belial
deathwing squad + chainfist + apothecary
2x 5 man tacts with melta in rhinos with an extra stormbolter
2x speeders with multi-melta + typhoon
2x pred with heavy bolter sponsons
Honestly I did a bunch of play testing with this list and it is very strong indeed. Its a lot of fire power with mobility and a nice CC punch with that termie squad. I was ready.



Round 1. Vs Sister of Battle.
I got to play ‘Hugo’ from the berks club running his sisters. This was not a very fair fight right from the start. Hugo was having difficulty getting a list printed out and models ready for play. I kinda felt bad that he had to play me the first round. It was dawn of war deployment. He deployed 2x squads of sisters on the field as well as the cannoness + retinue. He had 2x sister squads in reserve as well as a heavy weapons team with heavy bolters and an exorcist. I deployed my terminators right in front of his squads and a tact squad in a rhino. He went first and couldn’t really see anything to hit me when he forces can on. My turn 1 saw my terminators wipe the near squad of sisters and throw some wounds on another from shooting. This game went pretty quick and I won’t bore the audience with the details. My terminators carved a bloody path straight through the sister’s lines. They took out a 10 man squad each turn and I believe on turn 3 the canoness assaulted them and belial took down 3 and the lightning claw term took down the canoness. Speeder was able to take down the exorcist with a side armor shot after making all his cover saves from a turbo boost. And.. the heavy weapon squad eventually ate too much pred fire and went down. Massacre victory for the DA.

Round 2. VS. Dragon Warriors (CSM)
I finally got to play my friend DJ’s brother-in-law ben with his CSMs. This match was going to be fun, I love playing with guys I know. Its why I love supporting the local tournament scene. The mission was here to bone me however. I played on a VERY urban board. I mean.. VERY. I think there was more BLOS terrain than flat ground. Not good for an army like mine that relies heavily on its ranged fire power.. than the bomb hit.. night fight rules would be in effect the entire game… wtf is that? Really? On this map? His list was nothing fancy, prince with wings, mark of slan. 1x defiler. 2x 10 Man CSM squads in rhinos and a 10 man zerker squad in rhino. Great.. a cc list on a night fight GAME. Ouch. I thought maybe I could punk his defiler and prince and then swing back across my lines and defend against the zerkers and CSMs. I castled up in the corner and rushed my termies out to meet the defiler and prince, it worked great.. save the prince kept making his invulns and the damn defiler took 8 penetrating shots from shooting and terminator hammers and was still standing… that was the game. Failing to take down that defiler meant the zerkers got the charge off on me and wiped my terminators. Just too many wounds even with the apothecary. I was able to take down the prince with melta guns and the defiler luckily got immobilized facing a wall. (lol, I gotta say that was pretty funny) so his battle cannon was meh which made me happy. I took down each squad to less than half but he got me to almost nothing.
Now.. I gotta say… ben was a great guy, really fun to play, we had a blast in round 2. But that night fight for the whole game has absolutely got to go. I don’t know why our local tournaments are so in love with this idea, it completely bones a non-assault based force. Here, I have an idea.. whynot make the entire board dangerous terrain. How would you assault-based armies like those apples? It’s the same thing. So stupid, should not be there. I played a decent round, but the scenario completely screwed my army. Time for lunch and I was 1 and 1.



Round 3 vs. eldar (john from turn 8 podcast)
john had a pretty decent eldar list, a little bit of everything here. An avatar, wraithlord, squad of war walkers, a far seer with a guardian squad, guard squad on bikes, 2x venoms, and a transport with dragons inside. (if I remember correctly). The mission was capture the flag, which I must say, was a really really good mission. Steel Mike made up for his blunder on the night fight game with this one. Basically you and your opponent deploy spearhead and there is a ‘flag’ in each opposite corner. The goal is to invade and capture the flag and bring it back to your deployment zone. Any model is a BS can carry the flag and you cannot put the flag in transports. I thought it was great. This is the kind of uniqueness I was hoping to see at this tournament. I was very afraid of the jet bikers picking up the flag and turboing around the map for the rest of the game. So… I deepstruck my termies on turn 1 (love deathwing assault) and scatterd 12” which honestly ended up being VERY close to the other objective. So on turn 1 I had one objective. And was already running it back to my side and.. there wasn’t really much he could have done about that considering he had to go through my terminator HQ squad to get that flag back. I sped both rhinos up 12” in a T, making sure not to waste my smoke where I didn’t have to. I secured the second objective as well on turn 2 and tried to create a wall of rhinos to escort it back to my side. No such luck. As I was running that flag back, the wraithlord was too much and eventually killed my little 5 man squad off. I had to break off belial from my terminators to join the second tact squad to carry it the rest of the way. The predators were my MVPs in this mission. Heavy bolters took down both venoms, a bunch of jet bikes and the war walkers once they came in. the speeders were decent as well, taking down the transport and a few war walkers. I felt bad about john taking the avatar. I focused fired it on my turn 1 and dropped it before it even got to move. That’s not right. My opponent ended up contesting my one flag with a late game jet bike boost luckily passing his dangerous terrain. And I failed to get his last one into my deployment zone. I forgot it was only 18” not 24” (bah humbug there). And with some secondary objectives I managed to get a pretty good victory. John was a great guy to play and hopefully he learned a lot and got some good stuff for his podcast.
Onto round 4.

Round 4 vs. IG.
Seriously… IG? I think what.. 3 players took IG to this tournament and I get to play one of them. And it was the cheese.. the hot stinky cheese. 3x hydras, 3x vets in chimeras, 1 3plasma, 1 3 flamer, 1 3melta, and a command squad with all melta and an empty vendetta. Ouch. It was going to be tough. I was ready. I hadn’t gotten much play testing versus this type of list but I had a lot of good fire power and my terminators would be a problem for him. Pitched battle deployment but objectives would be rolled for at the beginning of turn 5. Interesting.. it was either table quarters or annihilation.. well.. I was hoping for quarters. Haha. I wanted to go first and get an alpha strike on that gunline. Bring down my terminators.. 10 in scatter, just nicking the very corner of one of his chimeras.. roll on the deep strike mishap.. terrible accident.. destroyed.. great… well this game was over right then and there. No seriously, there really is no reason to even talk about the rest of this match. I lost 40% of my army on turn 1 to a BS scatter and result and now I just spent the rest of the match getting blown off the board. I did managed to take down a few chimeras, the vendetta and 2 vet squads but it was just too much fire power versus a wounded duck of a DA army. Sorry for the sad game. So I would up 2 and 2 for the day. Pretty upset that out of my last 3 tournaments, twice has my command squad been lost of deepstrike mishaps.. and both times was a scatter of 10” +. Ugh. Thems the breaks I guess.


Overall thoughts:
Really really fun tournament. There are many items I would like to address, but I’ll just name a few.
1. Love the fact that many of the young bloods (age 14 and younger) were playing each other the first few rounds. VERY good idea. I was worry about some of our new guys going up against some heavy hitters and really not enjoying themselves. Did not happen. Great great planning on that part guys.
2. Remove the night fight the entire game mission. Its completely stupid. End of story. Remove it.
3. Armies on parade was kind of lame.. I had my guys in the back and hardly anyone even came through the whole way to do it. Eh. The best person won, no doubt there, but I just don’t think it went as well as it could have.
4. Golden grot, I would think about losing this. Just too many events packed into one day. (unless event started earlier, see below)
5. SPACE – dear lord, for a couple of my matches I was little rubbing up against the person behind me and it was really difficult to move armies around and I can’t believe we didn’t have more display boards being turned over. There was plenty of room in the front of the garage if we didn’t have so much ‘extra stuff’ going on. Honestly we didn’t need that much more room, just a wee bit more to give ourselves some breathing room.
6. Free drinks. Love you guys. Thank you thank you thank you. Epic. Nuff said.
7. Raffles. Great. Hope you guys made a bunch of money for the club. This was a great idea and I think it worked very very well. We had guys in our club that knew they wouldn’t be winning a prize but still had the raffles, so they were waiting in anticipation like everyone else.
8. Time. Berks guys put on a great event, lots of things happening from all aspects of the hobby. Give yourselves more time. Start an hour earlier, that would give more cushion to the rest of the day. More time should have been spent explaining the events and what to do and where.
9. Sportsmanship. Yes yes, it is a ‘hobby style’ tournament but I hate sportsmanship. It doesn’t allow any room to maneuver. Say.. your opponent is doing something illegal in the game, and you call him on it and look up the rules and you are right. Bam, you just got NO sportsmanship score. I know that’s not how the system is supposed to work, but it’s the truth. Also, if you table your opponent, his way to ‘get back’ at you is to drop your sportsmanship. I’ve seen it done to me and to other people. Its also a way to gang up on someone who is doing well to try to boost your club mates in front.
10. Appearance scores from your opponent. See sportsmanship above.. why can’t appearance be done by a TO and its just an objective rubric. This way, your opponent doesn’t have the opportunity to get revenge upon you in the soft scores.

End rants.
This was a fantastic event. All of my club mates and I had a GREAT time. It was the first tournament for a lot of them and they had a blast. Everyone on the berks staff was very friendly and quick to get you whatever you needed. I loved being able to meet some of the berks guys I have only known through the forum. DJ and Ben and Hugo. And It was great getting to see the members I’ve already met. Aki, apoth, Archer, Charlie, etc. (sorry if I missed you). I will be going back next year, hopefully Lancashire can sponsor some tables.

-Brother C.

Daemons vs Grey Knights! Thoughts + Battle Report

Hey all Moros here!

I apologize for the lack of posting, hopefully I can get it back on track here! Even though I haven't been posting much, I have however been playing tons of 40k. I have to admit, as a Daemons player I was a bit put off at the prospect of my beloved codex being "phased out" in a way by a very powerful Grey Knight codex. However, after a few games and lots of brushing up on the details of GWs new fanboy dex I have to say its not nearly as bad as I first thought. Infact, the new book might just give daemons the upper hand in most cases.

HERESY you say? You're right, I must be crazy saying that the "Daemonhunters" are virtually hard-countered by Daemons. But, as you will see, I think I have a point.

Firstly, Lets get on with the battle report and then build from there. I've played about 20 games now vs GKs and this is the most recent. Now it must be said, that for my opponent this was his first game with the new GKs. Experience is definitely in my corner here.

Now for the lists, Even before the new GK codex dropped I've been partial to a Khorne themed list. To my great surprise, it is more valid than ever. I usually run variants of the same core list utilizing all Khorne units. A greater daemon, 2x heralds on chariots, a average of 4, 8 strong Bloodletter units, 3x Daemon Princes with the works, and as many MSU Bloodcrushers as I can fit in a list. (I really like running 3 strong Crusher units with 1 champion and 1 musician for wound allocation shenanigans)

For this particular battle I ran with my new varient list that can both deal with all comers and gives me the leg up vs Grey Knights

HQ -

BloodThirster - 275
+Blessing of the Blood GOd
+Unholy Might

Herald of Khorne - 130
+Chariot
+Blessing of the Blood God
+Unholy Might
+Icon

SkullTaker - 175
+Bloodcrusher

Elites -

7x Bloodcrushers - 280

Troops -

8x Bloodletters - 128

8x Bloodletters - 128

8x Bloodletters - 128

7x Bloodletters - 112

Heavy -

Deamon Prince - 210
+Flight
+Armor
+Unholy Might
+Mark of Khorne
+Blessing of the Blood God

Deamon Prince - 210
+Flight
+Armor
+Unholy Might
+Mark of Khorne
+Blessing of the Blood God

Deamon Prince - 210
+Flight
+Armor
+Unholy Might
+Mark of Khorne
+Blessing of the Blood God

My opponent was running a first pass test list of

Brother-Captain

5x Terminators

2x 10 man GKSSs with incinerators

2x DreadKnights

2x Stormravens

and a Landraider

Now, when playing the GK my goal was to get as many Blessing of the Blood God (BLOBG) units as possible into combat as quickly as possible. This isn't my dream list to face off against GKs, my dream list would include less bloodletters and lots and lots of fleshhounds for even more speed. However, I don't have the models as of now so this is what I'm rolling with.

The thinking behind this is pretty much bringing a glaring flaw with the Emprah's finest to the forefront, and shoving it down their throats. All GKs have force weapons... therefore, any unit with BLOBG gets a 2++ save vs them in combat. With their new nemesis weapons not even ignoring invulns OR eternal warrior, I am in a very very good position seeing as combat is where Khorne shines. If I can just weather the first turn of shooting, I can tie up his elite units for an entire game and even best them in combat easily. Or he could camp out in his vehicles and severely hamper his main shooting which comes from his infantry at 24".

He descended to the planet and prepared for the onslaught of daemons in our Seize Ground (5 Objectives) Dawn of War battle. I drew first turn, which I selected even though I hardly ever want to go first, but again. In this battle, I wanted to get the first moves off to dictate how the flow of the battle went. The GKs deployed in a gun wall attempting to bring as much ranged firepower to bear as possible. We both knew this match would come down to if he could shoot enough daemons before the skull-taking began. I deployed about 14" away with as much as I could, drawing my primary wave. I chose all the big daemons and crushers for the first wave attempting to get as much meat on the table to absorb shots as possible.

I used the massive Crusher squad with Skulltaker attached to draw as much fire as I could so that the bigger, faster deamons had a decent chance of making it to the field. The ploy worked as a crusher squad that large draws a lot of attention from the enemy. I had some decent cover to work with and utilized it well with no mishaps. (remember, the average deepstrike is 7", that can help you when placing things down) After some run moves to get in a bit closer the GKs unload into the Bloodcrushers with everything, killing off 3 of them and wounding another. Not too shabby.

Moving onto my next I had all but 1 of my remaining squads come in from reserve this turn, which was nice, but not really needed at this point. Bloodthirster and winged Prince put their speed to work and get into a turn 2 combat with his left GKSS unit killing all of them but the justicar at init 5. Their brave champion was then felled by fearless wounds after he tried to flee! As expected, the 2++ save held strong and my units received no damage. I did realize that doing this would put my 2 badass daemons in range of his DreadKnights assault in the next turn and they would receive heavy shooting, however, with the rest of the legion backing them up, if they did fall, I had enough to break that flank.


Moving into the bottom of turn 2 he unloads into the crushers and the Bloodthirster/Prince... killing off 2 more crushers and putting a wound on the Thirster. Then the moment we were all waiting for, how would the DreadKnights hold up in combat vs the Daemons? Oddly enough, not as well as one would think.


DreadKnights engage the monsters and unleash their Dark Excommunication psychic powers to nullify the Daemonic gifts of both my Thirster and Prince. Bye bye 2++ and extra strength! I was sweating at this point, however, with no psyk-out nades I was still going to be hitting first. Thirster strikes and takes off 2 wounds from the Knight and the battle between the prince and his foe ends up with the dreadknight wounding the prince twice. He ended up pulling in a bloodletter unit with my Thirster as well and he elected to attack them and go for fearless saves instead of attacking the Thirster. I still think he should have cast Dark Excommunication on the Bloodletters and attacked them, they would have lost their power weapons which ended up doing another wound to the Knight.

In the end, we weren't too impressed with the DreadKnights. They pretty much did exactly what they were supposed to do and just broke even, that was WITH their power removing much of the effectivness of my units.

In the subsequent turns my herald and Skulltaker moved in and finished off the DreadKnights. Skulltaker is truly the bane of DKs, with one chop he insta-killed one of them with 4 wounds. My herald on chariot moved in to help out and destroy the final DreadKnight.

With the DreadKnights slain, the remaining GKSS and Terminators shot and charged the Bloodcrushers with Skulltaker and killed off the crushers. Problem was, Skulltaker took out the 5 terminators! He's an absolute monster! And my opponents dice were obviously hexed. He did end up killing the Thirster who had 1 wound left with the deluge of fire from the Land Raider but it was to no avail. The rest of my force was encroaching and my herald and prince finished off the other GKSS and Skulltaker claimed the Brother-Captains Skull for the Skull Throne!

It was an epic game and tho my opponent did make a few minor mistakes we chalked it up to learning the new codex. I do think however, this still shows the power of the BLOBG themed Khorne army vs GK. Once I got into combat there was little he could do. 2++ is just too big of a hurdle to get over, especially when a 4 wound monstrous creature is up in your face.

It ended on turn 4 with only his Stormravens remaining, I had 3 objectives under my control and it was only a matter of time before I took the flyers down.

The Grey Knights are sorely, and oddly, lacking on anti-daemon abilities. Warpquake isn't much of a problem if you have a decently fast unit in your force. Nemesis weapons are actually a negative when facing Khorne. Overall, It is my opinion that this new Grey Knight codex actually aren't full of "Daemonhunters" at all they were designed from the ground up to be "Marinehunters". Almost everything in their codex is a hard counter to the tricks and advantages of space marines, not Daemons.

Odd, very odd...

For those Daemon players out there that think your time is up, perhaps it is, unless... you decide to offer your worship to Khorne! He alone offers deliverance from Mat Ward! Your GK opponents better pray to their emperor you don't get into CC.

Blood for the Blood God!

Battle Report Video!

Here is another video report of a really exciting battle we had this past Thursday. Ahriman's Renegades (CSM - Thousand Sons theme) caught The Disciples of Caliban (Dark Angels) by surprise with a flank attack!

It was a brutal and bloody battle. Using the battle mission book we got the Eldar - Flank Attack! mission. I gotta say, this is a really interesting mission, it stretched my strategic thinking and helped me to think outside of the box with my list. For this particualar mission we rolled off and Brother C. was the 'enemy'. This meant that I was pretty much going first and I got the extra cool option of being able to outflank anything that I left in reserve. This was huge! I was able to outflank my chaos dreadnoughts! And to top it all off I didn't have to roll for which side they came in on, it was my choice! The benefit for Brother C. in this mission was that there are only 3 objectives and 2 of them are in his deployment zone way on the other side of the board from me.

I really needed to think about how I was going to play this, I needed to basically control the one objective deep in my territory and do a feint move on one of his flanks to draw the majority of his army there, contest that objective then either capture or contest the other one. For the most part my plan worked out, but he was able to finish off my troops squad in his territory with some really lucky rolling! He also managed to stun my land raider and end the game on turn 5 when it was ready to just plop on his objective.

All in all it was a great game, but I did manage to do more damage to him than he did to me thanks to my terminators tar pitting his entire army. They really earned their armor this fight!

Check out the report!

Ahriman's Renegades vs Necrons! - Battle Report

Hey guys! Sorry I haven't posted in awhile, its been a crazy few weeks.

I did it! I finally broke my losing streak and got a full fledged win!

Forsaken put up a good fight, but in the end I was able to prevail by keeping the pressure on him hard and shutting down his advancing gunline!For the match we played a seize ground with 5 objectives with pitched battle deployment.

Forsaken won the dice roll and opted to go second. Which usually I would say is a great choice, but in this instance it might have cost him the game. The ability for me to place 3 objectives really helped me lay out the battle field for my advantage.

I spread out in my usual formation and began moving forward to claim the mid-field which was littered with 4 of the 5 objectives. He kept everything but his destroyers, monoliths, and Night Bringer in reserve. So I was relatively safe from shooting. He did manage to exploit my one weakness, my rhinos, and he exploded one of them and it actually managed to kill 2 of my thousand sons. But my Land Raider made it about halfway across the board and then on turn 2 I was able to move in and unload my terminators right into his destroyers that had taken cover in a ruined building. It worked out perfectly because my terminators failed to destroy or route the necrons in the assault so I was able to avoid being shot at for the next round. He wasn't even able to teleport them out to his monolith because he rolled for 2 warrior squads to come in from reserve.

At this point the Night Bringer was bearing down on my mid-field formation. Which is a huge problem for me because I really have no answer for that monster of a unit. I try my best to wound him with my twin-linked lascannons and bolts of change from my sorcerers, but his blasted invuln save kept him up. So I did what I could do, I kited him around the field as best I could.

Meanwhile on the left flank my dreadnoughts were doing their job, absorbing mass amounts of fire and keeping it off of my defilers. I have been honestly pretty pleased with their performance in most of my games. They really do offer up a nice distraction and are usually worth their price. I haven't even had a problem with fire frenzy believe it or not!

Over on the right flank my defiler moved into assault range on one of the teleported in warrior squads and engaged them. They were torn to pieces and forced to teleport out of combat in the next turn. But this really put my defiler in perfect range to assault his monolith. Liths are a beast to kill, but if anything in my army has a shot at it, its the defilers. I didn't manage to kill it, but I destroyed two weapons and forced it to keep falling back.

The Terminators continued their rampage through mid-field as I offered up my land raider to the night bringer and he took the bait, slowing him down for another turn. He did everything but kill it, with it down to only its heavy bolter. The Terminators managed to destroy two more warrior squads and absorb a HUGE amount of firepower. They more than payed for themselves this game.

The game ended with my remaining Thousand Sons squad charging the objective and actually holding off the Night Bringer! He was unable to even hurt the Thousand Sons in melee combat!

All in all it was a great game and I had a ton of fun!

--------

We forgot to take pictures of this particular round, But I do have some old pictures that I wanted to share, so here check them out of me fighting forsaken!

And yes, the first image really happened during the course of the game and we didn't set it up like that, the next round that warrior even managed to destroy the battle cannon!!!

Thousand Sons vs Dark Angels!

Bloodthirsty Thursday!

Another Thursday night match-up battle report here. This week I tried out a new list vs the DA who have been having quite the run on me lately. I've lost around 4 matches in a row vs them with my Tzeentch themed list. I gotta admit, at this point I'm getting rather frustrated with how terrible Tzeentch is, but I will stick with it! I will not abandon Tzeentch, the warp is fickle and power waxes and wanes.

Now, I do realize there are a lot of problems with a Tzeentch themed army codex wise, and they definitely need an overhaul as far as that is concerned but I am determined to make them at least semi-competitive. It just seems like there is no hope when I can't even come close to beating Dark Angels! (No offense Brother C!)

This week I ran an experimental list that I posted previously. My hope was to be able to get the land raider down field and drop the terms to cause some damage. But I quickly found out how overrated land raiders are. I attempted to move up the right flank and avoid some fire, but low and behold, a single multi-melta shot ended my plans. The land raider popped and I was left high and dry. In retrospect, I think I did misjudge distances, he barely got the extra penetration for the shot, so it might have been better if I was more careful.

However, I still feel like my list just can't field enough firepower to even crack his transports so I can eat the juicy things inside them! Maybe it's just that I need to learn how to play the list better, but I just feel like there is nothing I can do against mass mech with Tzeentch. Any tips would be appreciated!

Blood Thirsty Thursday! Bellean Sector Ambush!

When we last left Vedrix his small detachment of Rubric marines were attempting to secure ancient eldar artifacts that could help Ahriman gain access to a more vulnerable part of the eldar webway system.

Vedrix made contact with the Disciples of Caliban and in the ensuing skirmish the Thousand Sons renegades made off with the technology, prying it from the cold dead hands of the Dark Angels.

Now, days later as Vedrix and his fellowship are being pursued as they attempt to leave the Bellean moon and return the spoils of war to their master, Ahriman.

During the waning hours of the afternoon the column of Rhinos ground to a halt. The daemon Vedrix was as a stone statue in the withering heat. He sensed a ripple in the warp. Without uttering a word the sorcerers of his fellowship fanned out to take up defensive positions, their thoughts as one. The empty suits of armor that were the Rubric marines obeyed their masters without hesitation.

In the silence, Vedrix and his forces slowly crept into the center of the ruined town. Then, from above, a white hot ball of metal crashed down into the sands behind one of the massive defilers. In the blink of an eye, the arcane wardings upon the defilers crumbled and the crazed Defilers surged to life with violent roars and dark screams. Vedrix had unleashed them upon the form of a black and green dreadnought that emerged from the smoking drop pod. On its hull, the white lion, the Disciples of Caliban were upon them.

With unholy fury the defiler tore the mechanized arm from the hulking form, sparks and debris littering the air. Simultaneously another massive claw ripped a small, now gore soaked, corpse from the Dreadnought. It crashed down, a ruin. From the flanks the Rubric Marines engaged Ravenwing bikers as their Rhino transport was pelted by rays of intense heat. They fired their sorcererous shells into the warriors as their Sorcerer unsheathed his gleaming sword impaling one of the riders.

On the other side of the field, Terminators lead by Interrogator Chaplain William and Captain Adso appeared, but they misjudged the blood lust of the mighty defilers. Such is the arrogance of loyalist dogs. Distracted by a spray of bolter fire from the nearby ruins and shaken by their teleportation through the warp, the Terminators were too late to react to the thunderous charge of two Defilers. Razor sharp metal tore through their armor with bone crushing force. Adso and William narrowly avoided being instantly destroyed in the fury, dodging sweeps and high strikes. William's vision turned black, the shower of blood that covered him from the disemboweling of his brother terminator was all the Defilers needed to find their mark. Adso turned to see his Chaplain's head hurling threw the air. Adso faltered, and was instantly lifted into the air by one arm as another massive claw tore his body in two.

The Dark Angel Techmarines battled off crazed dreadnoughts as Tactical Marines lept from their Rhinos and fell upon Thousand Sons. The Sorcerer fought wildly and found his mark, taking down four of the emperor's pups with unearthly speed. The force staff hummed as it blasted their souls from their bodies, their armor collapsing with a clang. But there were too many, eventually they were overwhelmed with a withering barrage of bolter fire from advancing Rhinos.

The Dark Angels Techmarines had to slice the still grasping hands of the rubric marines from the eldar technology.

Another of the Sorcerers summoned his courage, another dreadnought emerged from a smouldering drop pod spewing blue bursts of plasma and fire plumes of flames immoliating his Rubric body guards. He heard the faint whisper as a green dust rose out of the charred blue and gold armor. The fool would pay for that. The earth shook before the towering dreadnought as it bore down on the sorcerer, he felt a cold chill as he was engulfed by its shadow. Stone and sand flew in all directions as a mammoth mechanized fist struck the ground where the sorcerer was standing. As if he had foreseen where the blow would land, the Sorcerer dove to the right and readied his melta bomb. A quick shoulder roll and he was primed and in position. The internal mechanisms of the dreadnought turned to a molten white hot mixture and poured like blood on the ground, with a slow creak the behemoth began to fall backwards. After the cloud of dust had cleared, there stood the venerable Sorcerer, "Where is your faith now, worm" he spat.

Vedrix fought valiantly but was wounded and was forced to fall back. The Disciples took the spoils of war, but at a great price.

The Bellean moon is starting to turn into more than an average recovery mission, The Disciples are planning something, and vengeance will be had here.

Dark Angels Vs Necrons Battle report

Amazing 40k, new players showed up and Brother Cornelius and I had our first match against each other. The game was fun and competitive. It was an Annihilation match with spearhead deployment, I won the roll and had Brother C. go first. Brother Cornelius has essentially perfected his alpha strike, and let me tell you as someone who has experienced it firsthand, it hurts! On turn one he used his scout move to get right into my front lines and killed my destroyer lord and the seven scarabs he was accompanying. He then had his terminator squads deep strike right into my defenses. during the game though I miss played the we'll be back rule with the monolith, so essentially I cheated albeit unintentionally. I reread my codex after the game and discovered my mistakes so I relinquish my victory to Brother Cornelius who likely would have won had I not had an unfair advantage.

40k Friday! Vengeance in the Encratis Sector - Ahriman's Renegades (Chaos Space Marines) vs Disciples of Caliban (Dark Angels)

In the previous engagment on the moon of Encratis IV the hated Disciples of Caliban stole ancient tomes from the clutches of Ahriman and his disciple, Lord Moros. It gave Moros great joy now that the forces of the Thousand Sons had finally caught up to the thieves as they attempted to board their Thunderhawks and make for their Cruisers in orbit.

Now was the time to retake what was rightfully his and take one step closer to understanding the webway. Ahriman could feel the power of the warp flowing through him. He grasped onto the strings of the future and foresaw victory. As the Land Raider and Rhinos of the Renegades approached the outskirts of the landing zone Ravenwing scanners alerted the Disciples of hostile forces. They deployed to ambush Ahriman and Lord Moros, but little did they know, that Ahriman could read their thoughts and see their plans, plans that would fail.

As the shining blue and gold vehicles drove confidently into the ruins of a long forgotten city, the Dark Angels attacked! The ravenwing burst from cover, dust and rocks spewing from their tires and firing bolters and meltas at Ahriman's Land Raider. Scouts squads bearing rocket launchers and Lascannon fire from concealed Predators streaked through the air. Inside the armored shell of the Land Raider Moros could see the calm in his master. The voice of Ahriman could be heard in the heads of the drivers, they avoided the fusillade of fire to the Disciples amazement. Ahriman could see where the shots would land before they were even fired, truly, this day the warp was strong with them!

Adso, commander of the deathwing terminators of the Disciples of Caliban teleported into the path of the land raider, taunting it. Ahriman obliged, the assault ramp lowered and Ahriman unleashed his powers. Moros and the Sekhmet terminators that accompanied them charged with all the strength they could muster to keep pace with their lord. Sorcerer Qoheleth and his rubric marines poured out of their Rhino forming a wall of sorcerous bolter fire. The ravenwing bikers fell to the withering barrage of inferno bolts and warp energy from Ahriman. Ahriman and his retinue charged the hill that Adso so boastfully held! Frag grenades exploded as Ahriman fell upon the terminator guard of Adso. Every swipe of their lightning claws was telegraphed and avoided as if Ahriman has fought this fight a thousand times already. They were no match for him as his force weapon melted through their armor as if it were made of wax. Moros locked weapons with Adso in defense of his lord. The power of the warp flowed through him, it seemed as if Adso was moving as slow as a training servitor. Moros parried his claws aside and finding a weak spot under his shoulder armor unloaded a bolter round deep into Adso. Their eyes met, an instant later the shell exploded along with Adso's left arm.

After the fall of their leader the remaining Space Marines lost their will to fight, it was clear there was some unseen force at play here. All of their shots failed to find their marks. Vailiantly they fought, but it was of no use. This day the forces of Ahriman were victorious! From the bloodstained corpse of Adso Ahriman secured the stolen texts. One would think he would be filled with pride at the glorious victory, but he was stoic, he had already foreseen this outcome.

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Awesome match Brother C. !

In this annihilation game, Brother C. went first, but from the very first turn we could all see how this was going to turn out. All his shots failed to even glace me. He did manage to knock out my Defiler in the first turn (but what else is new). I am considering getting rid of it in favor for something else. It just never performs well.

The dice really won this match for me, but the power of my hq squad really is something to be feared. He did manage to kill them off, but only because Ahriman failed 3..... 3! psychic tests in a row resulting in 2 wounds and his death. The rubric squads really held their ground, as they always do with their 4++ saves. I really need to take melta bombs on them.

I did learn a lot from this match and I realized a ton of things I can trim and change that will help me streamline my game.

It was a fun match tho! Good times!

40k Friday! Skirmish in the Bellean Sector - Ahrmian's Renegades (Chaos Space Marines) vs Disciples of Caliban (Dark Angels)

Following the battle of Encratis IV the renegade sorcerers following the exile Ahriman brought word to their master that they had divined the location of an ancient artifact of dark power. It was rumored to be a piece of a long destroyed Eldar webway that would bring Ahriman one step closer to locating the fabled Black Library.

Still reeling from their defeat at the hands of the vile Disciples of Caliban, Ahriman decided to dispatch one of his most secret and terrifying servants to recover the Eldar technology; the Daemon, Vedrix. It is widely known that Ahriman and his cabal have long been struggling to control the warp, which so easily corrupts those who seek to leash its power. The mutation caused by their unwilling master Tzeentch is something that Ahriman thought was behind him. Vedrix proved however that the dark god of fate is not to be trifled with. Vedrix served Ahriman since before the Horus heresy as his second in command. He was there when the rubric was cast and like the other sorcerers that follow Ahriman now, his powers were greatly increased. Vedrix seemed to be growing beyond the others, proving himself again and again as a most loyal disciple to Ahriman. However, Ahriman began to sense that Vedrix had the taint of mutation in him. Vedrix himself abhorred what he feared he was becoming, Tzeentch showed all that dare to oppose him, that he alone controls all destiny and none can escape his plans. The changer of ways gifted Vedrix with daemonhood against his will.

Ahriman refused to concede to Tzeentch, he defies him still. And so Vedrix remains, caged in service to Ahriman. No other is allowed the taint of mutation, for Vedrix has mastered his own will and his loyalty to Ahriman remains! The other sorcerers demanded that Vedrix be watched over, so that the taint would not spread amongst them. Master Drekav is charged with this task. Together they set course for the Bellean sector with a small force of Rubric Marines. The artifact will be claimed for Ahriman!

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**Incoming transmission from Master Drekav**
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My Lord,

Upon arriving in the Bellean sector our psykers pinpointed the Eldar artifacts on the 3rd moon of Bellean Prime. As we approached the ruins of an ancient Eldar complex scanners detected activity. The Disciples of Caliban had already deployed their scouting force. The cursed ravenwing bikers and their scouts took up defensive positions between the two artifacts, shielded by rubble and destroyed buildings. I ordered our sorcerers to move rubric marines in and secure the closest artifact. As they deployed with two of our mighty defilers supporting them they were ambushed by rocket fire and melta fire from the ravenwing.

Your hated nemesis Adso commanded them. He and his terminators teleported in and destroyed our scouting party of Chosen marines. We will have to recruit more champions to replace them, they were utterly destroyed by Adso's lightning claws. Hopefully the next group is not so weak.

It seemed the Lord of Fate was against us this day, but just then, Vedrix sensed his moment to strike and he was unleashed against Adso and his terminators as they decended upon our stalwart rubric marines. Just as they were about to be overwhelmed by the Dreadnought Cornelius and Adso, Vedrix crashed into their ranks impaling and dispatching Adso in a glorious shower of blood. Vedrix fell upon the remaining terminators who were no match for his power. The dreadnought was also destroyed as Vedrix tore the warmachine down, piece by piece. I landed on the far edge of the battlefield with my terminator champions. We destroyed the tactical marines guarding the Disciple's artifact and awaited the rubrics to arrive to make off with the webway technology.

While it was a brutal battle I believe you will be pleased with our victory!


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What a great 40k Friday Matchup! It ended in a tie, but it was a doosey. I really got hit hard by the dark angels alpha strike and lost both defilers. However, my daemon prince really saved the day instantly destroying a terminator squad lead by an hq unit.

That was the tide changer and it ended in a tie on turn 6 because of a technicallity. Brother C accidentally hit the objective marker when we were going to measure, knocking it into 3" of one of his few remaining terminators. Before he was moved, I woulda had the win controlling my objective and contesting his.

But to be gentlemen, we called it a tie. It was a great match and I learned a lot! Good game Brother C.! Hope to see your repsonse soon.

4.3.10 : Orks vs. Dark Angels : Battle Report

Battle Report:

Disciples of Caliban [dark angels] vs. Prophets of WAAAAGH! [orks]

mission: capture and control
game: pitched battle
army size : 2000 points

Prophets of WAAAAAGH! [henceforth referred to as PoW] took the field first. He placed his objective in his lower right corner and I did the same. Therefore the objectives were as far away from each other as I could get them. I knew I would have an advantage of mobility this day and did not want his ork hoard ganging up on any of my units.

Deployment:

He deployed everything. 2 trucks full of boys and a big gunz for defense and 4 trucks with boys, 2 big gunz and a copta squad to try to take my point. I left everything 2 term squads one with belial (brother adso), 2 ravenwing squads and a vernerable dred with drop pod in reserve. I also fielded 2 scout squads as infiltrating units. My deployed units were 2 preds with TL lascannon and 2x heavy bolters and a rhino with 5 man tact squad with plasma. All of which were on defense.

I infiltrated my 2 scouts squads in the middle of the board to distract and just be a nuisance as the ork sped across the map with his forces.

Turn 1.

Orks move out. completely annihilate one scout squad. However they forced 2 trucks to disembark, one less turn of sprinting across the map. without the use of camo cloaks (where's my 5th ed. codex?) I think they did a pretty decent job. Big guns unloaded on my preds, taking off one of the heavy bolters.My turn.

I deathwing assaulted Brother Adso and crew (5 terms, 3 claws, 2 TH + SS) just in front of the cover around the objective. He was not ready for this. fire from both my preds and rockets from the 2nd scout squad took down most of the copta squad in the middle and an assault by the scouts finished them off.

Turn 2.

orks continue to truck (literally) across the field. big guns take more shots at my preds, destroy another heavy bolter. Orcs on defense try assaulting my Adso squad, Nob with a powerclaw takes out my two TH+SS (gg invuln save rolling) but he loses quite a few boys in the process. my turn

Dreadnought deepstrikes just behind Adso's squad. Ravenwing squad 1 comes on the outflank behind his big gunz shooting at my defense. Take out the entire squad from shooting. Leaving his trucks in crossfire for the next round. preds drop a truck and boys get shot a bunch. Scouts still holding middle as a speed bump.

Turn 3.

orks rush my preds on defense. did not quite make it. shoot at my scouts in the middle after disembarking. (nice) and finish them off. They did their job well - will continue to use them in future games. big guns shoot at ravenwing but some bad rolling saved the bikers. warboss moved into assault the dread. between the pod and a wall of the terrain, the orcs were forced into a cattle chute to assault him, the warboss leading the charge. but Brother Cornelius in his dread was too fast, as soon as that adamantium skull came around the corner, he was grabbed by the neck and crushed to death. A nob with powerclaw managed to stun the giant for a round. Alex (the ork player) was not ready for his warboss to go down so easily. Adso's group killed more boys defending their HQ and nearly taking out Adso with a wrecking ball. (good rolling on his 5+ invuln.) My turn.

Adso's group continues to fight at their objective. Ravenwing 2 come on the outflank behind another big gunz. and take it out. ravenwing 1 goes after truck in the middle, blows it up, and shoots the boys in the crater. preds destroy another advancing truck and shoot up the boys in the crater just before they get to them. dread is stunned and deathwing squad 2 still in reserve (bad).

Turn 4.

Orcs try to assault preds on defense, no avail. missing with all powerclaw attacks. Assaulting the dread only results in another stun. boys continue to pour onto Adso's squad. wrecking ball misses. big gunz rolling fails again to damage ravenwing who now have complete control of the field. My turn.

Deathwing squad 2 come down prepare to assault the last big gunz. adso continues to fight toward the objective. predators finish off assaulting squad of orcs. rhino races to control my objective. ravenwing finish off another entire squad of boys in the middle.

Turn 5.

Orcs try to bring their last truck up for a final charge. hoping the game will not end on turn 5. big gunz try to shoot at terms, all saves made. dread is assaulted again, taking out the multi-melta. boys are being thrown at Adso, trying to stop his advanage. the claws are just tearing their fowl smelling flesh. My turn.

Adso finishes off the entire squad but 1 nob. deathwing squad 2 assaults big gunz and wipes them off the board, consolidating roll, puts them within range of the enemy HQ. preds explode last truck and ravenwing fire shots at whatever is still moving. dread uses heavy flamer on boys nearby.

Game ends on turn 5.

final score: ork objective: contested DA objective: controlled by DA

winner: DA

Commentary:

Alex, the ork player, is still very new to the warhammer community. I have had the benefit of seeing his develop as a player with absolutely no idea of what he is doing, to making very good decisions for his army. I have seen large leaps and bounds in his play style as well as the units he is fielding. I think his nobz with powerclaws really were his best unit. they were a threat in melee, and a threat to my armor. keeping my dread stunned a losing a weapon, just missing on my preds and putting the hurt on my termies. He had some real bad luck with his warboss. I felt bad taking it out in one turn, but I think he learned from the experience. The big guns did not serve alex well at all. managing just 2 destroyed weapons for the game. Some firepower from the back would have been good to defend against my ravenwing who ran circles around his units. playing a pitched battle, I think it would have been in his best interest to simply line up his attack force and send everything at my objective. I don't think I could have stopped that many orks without major losses. The scouts served very well as a deterrent for him. (oh look squishy units to kill) meanwhile not focusing on taking the objective and letting my ravenwing and preds shoot everything to death at range.

I think the most important lesson Alex learned was not to listen to his fear. He admitted he didn't rush all his boys into my objective because he was afraid of my defenses. But the truth is, I don't think I could have stopped him if he did. I had prepared for this, infiltrating my scouts, forcing him to make a decision, assault the scouts or the objective. This is the first time he experienced the mental battle side of the game and it was a great learning experience. I also strongly recommend nob bikers for him. to try to reign in some of my mobility and have a force to compete with my terms.

it was a great battle, both players had lots of fun.

comments, suggestions, questions, flames?

March 40k day Necron pov

Not much is more frustrating than having your monolith being one shotted on turn one. That being said the day did go pretty well otherwise. I learned a LOT this past weekend, mostly about vehicles. Previous to last weekend my only encounter with vehicles had been against an ork player in a very low points cost game. Due to my overconfidence in my destroyers ability to get glancing hits I chose to take no heavy destroyers. The teams ended up being the chaos space marines and the Dark Angels against Nids, Orks and my Crons. None of us were prepared for the huge amount of vehicle spam, or the amount of blast and ordnance templates being dropped on the board (By the way Brother Cornelius HACKS I have only once or twice seen him roll anything other than a direct hit on the scatter die).

The match was very fun but I felt kinda like an underdog considering the armor and vehicles so prevalent in both the armies we were playing against. None of the players on my team had a solid answer to either of these two very large threats. Once again I must state that I learned a lot, in the future I will be taking heavy destroyers. I even got to use my new found knowledge on Tuesday.

while were on the topic Tuesdays game was the real highlight of the week for me just a 2000 point game me vs Moros. The game ended in a tie but it could have gone either way. The main tactic I used was the destroyer lord with war-scythe and scarab swarms to soak up the wounds. This is such a good way to take out some vehicles I can't recommend it enough to Necron players. I also took a unit of heavy destroyers to help get through all that armor. These two simple tactics allowed me to play on par with Moros and his thousand suns. Can't wait to play another game. Next time you shall not be so fortunate Moros.

-Forsaken Name

Entry for Umbra Atrum

I was very proud of the showing by the Disciples of Caliban on 40k day. I was a little nervous about how well my squishy tacts would hold against the relentless ork hordes and the nidzilla steamroller. In fact, they did very well, outfitted with plasma guns, pistols and power weapons, they really held there own as the enemy time and time again through their waves of foolish oppressors against the wall of dark angel green. The Lion had bestowed much might on the few who still fought for righteousness.

The match really turned once all threats to armor where disposed of. (of which there were very few) The venerable dread carrying Brother Nicholas quickly took the field and assaulted the less than equipped necron forces. Even the great orb of resurrection was not match for where Nicholas sent those soulless automatons.

The whirlwind and predator continually reigned fury upon the unprotected armies of the orks, leaving nothing but craters of smoldering ash to fuel their fervor.

commentary:

I'm not sure what the point of the monolith for the necron forces was. It seemed misused and underutilized. Perhaps a different strategy for this unit would better suit the army the necron player fielded. As Moros has pointed out, time will tell, as it fell victim to the dice gods very early in the match. I feel that scarabs are really key to a necron force, especially in a 1000 point match. providing cover saves for destroyers and heavy destroyers would have proved challenging for our artillery to overcome.

The ork player is very new to warhammerdom and it showed. We are helping this apprentice along and he would have benefited from less troops but better equipped troops. Essentially no range, and no AV, is a recipe for disaster against 3 mechanized marines.

Now this is a debate I was having with my own forces, but Agni Prime's forces were very strong indeed. Having the benefit of a shiny new codex, is a double edged sword in my opinion. Everyone is awestruck by the uber units which are always released, and as such they sacrifice numbers for sheer power. Thus, his forces of 2 troop units + HQ with 2 heavy support, just was not enough diversity or plain numbers to contend with 3 balances marine armies. Having both heavies be burrowers also meant, for most of the game he would only have 2 troop squads on the field. its just not enough bodies to absorb range fire. You can't have your troops doing all the work for the entire army. Less your army is all troops (go Dark Angels!).

It was a fun match. the three opposing players definitely learned the value of having some AV in their armies. A new player was introduced to the game, and again, carnage is always a reward.

as for myself, I think I could have been a little more aggressive with my dread, especially once we knocked out their AV units. I still think I underestimate him. I think that is true for our entire side in the match. We should have really assaulted and tried to wipe them. I understand it was a friendly game, but against more serious players we need to exploit weaknesses a bit better.The whirlwind in a 2000 point game seems worthless, but in a 1000 point game, troops are on foot, and prime targets. It was definitely worth its pointage in this match.

of course I always think Moros needs to get his HQs more involved in the matches. He drops oodles of points on them and they usually barely get to see action. He just camps in his little tin cans in the back, shooting with lass's and the defiler cannon, and fends off enemies that approach, but with his HQ choices, I believe he should be getting in the enemies face much more than he is. Although, you really can't argue with victories now can you?

great fight guys, looking forward to next month's match. April 3rd. location to be determined.

Brother C.

40k Day Review!

Hey guys,

Thanks for coming out to another fun 40kday! Got to add a new person to the club, very exciting! I hope you had a good time.

I wanted to start reviewing the matches we play so that we can critique each other and improve our games! Knowledge is power! so in light of that, I propose that at the end of every 40k day we all post our feedback from the match or matches played from your own perspective. What was going through your head? What worked well for you? What didn't work so well? What did you learn? What really pissed you off? :P

We can all comment on each others posts and hopefully through constructive criticism we can all learn to play a lot better. That's what I really like about 40k, even though we are squaring off against each other we are all still on the same team. We are helping each other, even when it means beating ourselves sometimes!

So, Here is my opinion of the battle!

First of all, I felt like the dice picked pretty unfair teams experience wise. Now, even with that on our side, Brother C and I are by no means "good" at 40k yet. But I think the fact that we've played more games definately was a big factor right from the start.

We also won the dice roll and elected to go second, which was a HUGE help on the board we played on. Our ability to react to the other teams deployment really set the pace of the game right from the beginning. We were able to avoid the most dangerous side of the board, the ork horde, and just forget about that control point all together. This forced the orks to slug it all the way across the board.

Our second, and ultimately the biggest advantage that I saw was that we had a TON of vehicles and armor on our side and the opposing team didn't bring much anti-vehicle or blast weapons. Because of this we decided early on to castle up on the right corner and make a very solid fire base for our artillery.

The big thing I learned from this match was that genestealers are beastly! They are extremely deadly in close combat and wiped out one of my chaos marine squads instantly. I think they were used well, as well as they could be. Their lack of support was really what left them high and dry on the right flank. But they are most definitely something to be feared.

Also, the necron monolith that got destroyed in the first round of shooting. I was kinda sad about that. It really gave us an advantage when it went down. But I still think it was total luck that it was destroyed so easily. Time will tell however. I'd like to see it in action some more to get a better idea of how powerful it really is.

It was an awesome time! I thought everybody played well with all things considered! I felt that it was a really good learning match and hope that we can have some more in the future!