Happy Thanksgiving to all my remaining American readers!
Mrs Drax - being a good ol' Chicagoan - has spent the last two days rustling up some great-tasting victuals: not only for us and our guests but also a batch of pumpkin tartlets (for the kids at our daughter's pre-school to try) and even a spare pumpkin pie for me to take into work in the morning (in...er...five hours' time, actually!). Quite understandably, we Brits have no idea what the holiday involves at all.
She took the picture in our godawfully dimly-lit cottage, but please trust me when I say that they look FAR better in real life...
...and my wife is the best pastry cook on the planet.
Have a lovely holiday, everyone who can!
- Drax.
It's true! Against all the odds, three weeks ago I actually got a game in: 2000pts against a Chaos Space Marine army with allied Nurgle Daemons.
Sadly this is not really a battle report per se so much as some after-action thoughts with no real pictures. Annoyingly, I'm such a newb with my smartphone that I forgot it had a camera on it - even whilst bemoaning my lack of camera to my opponent. That said, for the purposes of illustration, I have taken pictures of the notes from my (thankfully rediscovered) Book of Arcane Scribblings, Vol 7), so if - like me - you're a sucker for such meticulous ramblings...well, it's all here.
My esteemed opponent, by the way, was the excellent Jay, whom I've now played more than anyone else in my adult life. Jay's a stalwart at our club and probably the most easy-going opponent you could ever possibly find. He never tailors an army in casual play - always just picks up his current favourite and brings the most gentlemanly hurt you could imagine.
Except this time, apparently.
I'll put the two forces at the end, but essentially, I brought my standard (resolutely 5th Ed) 2000pt pick-up 'fun' list (with some tweaks made either for 6th Ed or because I'd mistakenly assumed everything was still in my army case), and Jay brought a shamblingly tough pile of Nurglish infantry, with a dreadnought substituted in lieu of the evidently redundant Aegis Defence Line.
We rolled up Dawn of War and Crusade and my snipers advanced in skirmish order ahead of my right flank before Jay got first turn. Here's my sketchmap, for what it's worth:
Five turns later, Jay had only five Chaos Space Marines left clinging onto his left flank, no objectives and the ever-gracious wherewithal to concede. I end up winning the game
14 - 0
...with the astonishing loss of only five snipers and two Guardsmen.
Surprised? - I could scarcely believe it!
(below is the battle report details for posterity's sake - open separately for detailed view):
Essentially, the mission and deployment worked in my favour, my reserve rolls and shooting went well, and my artillery and flame weapons were brutal. For his part, Jay's reserve rolls really sucked, his saves were not great when he needed to make them, and he simply had almost no ranged weapons that could damage me. Jay is incredibly experienced with 40k, and I believe we both played well, but the odds were definitely with the forces of the God-Emperor that night.
What follows are my notes - not of the battle itself (that's dull reading with my boorishness and no photos) but of my thoughts afterwards, in addition to those above:
- The VPs I earned were awarded for 4 out of the 5 objectives, 'First Blood' and 'Warlord'.
- I completely forgot about the 6th Ed VP system - especially the two above and 'Linebreaker', which I could've gone for had I realised.
- The Manticore was fantastic. I rolled-up TEN templates, and they made a dent - even at only AP4.
- The Leman Russes also did very well - not least the Demolisher blowing Typhus sky-high. Uncharacteristically, they also managed to hit something with their hull lascannon!
- Marbo was a class act. Arrived late to the party but plopped his hurt right in the middle of a D/S mass of gribbly nurglings.
- I must remember that dismounted infantry are needed to claim objectives - I almost left it too late!
- The Hellhound contingent all made their presence felt in a big way. Arrived just in time, too. Pleasingly, for once I remembered to leave room for them to come on!
- My Company Commander's four veteran snipers(!) were still rubbish. They have always been rubbish except in but one game. That's not really enough to justify their continued employment. Any thoughts?
- I really miss the 5th Ed usefulness of my lovely lovely Penal Legion.
- I was 25pts over; 20 of which was because I took 10 snipers instead of 8 when I swapped the Penal Legion out. Two snipers fewer would not have made much difference.
- Although I did manoeuvre to take the fight to Jay an to take objectives, it really was a fairly traditional (and very squishy) IG gunline whichultimately prevailed.
- When played non-competitively, 6th Ed really has the potential to be a very enjoyable story-telling game.
- Lukily, Jay forgot to use Typhus's psychic powers. Phew! I didn't even think about psykers - the new rules scare me.
- Nurgle are hard buggers to kill.
Thanks for reading, if you've got this far. The army lists are in the post-script below.
Take care,
- Drax.
PS:
2/24th Cadian Expeditionary Detachment - 2000 pts (2025):
- HQ- B Coy Cmdr w. 4 snipers
- EL- Marbo
- EL- 10 snipers [should've been 8]
- TP- 1pl HQ w. 3 gren + flamer
- 1 sect w. plas
- 2 sect w. melta
- 3 sect w. gren
- Autocannon sect
- Missile Launcher sect
- Mortars sect
- TP- Veterans w. 3 gren + ML/HF Chimera
- TP- Veterans w. 3 melta + ML/HF Chimera
- FA- Hellhound w. HB
- FA- Hellhound w. HB
- FA- Bane Wolf w. HF
- HS- Griffon Bty (2 Griffons)
- HS- Manticore
- HS- Leman Russ Sqn: 1 MBT w. LC + 1 Demo w. LC.
Typhus's Shambling Force of Grottiness with Daemonic 'Allies' +/- 2000 pts:
[I should point out I have absolutely no idea what most of the wargear Jay's listed for his army means, so I'll give you the simple version, but I can find answers to any qustions that arise... ]
- Typhus (T), leading...
- Chaos Terminator Squad (5) w. Champion, Reaper AC, Mark of Nurgle and various Guard-killing combi-weapons (all D/S)
- Chaos Cultist Squad (20) w. Champion, Mark of Nurgle and assorted small arms + 1 heavy stubber.
- Plague Zombie Squad (20)
- Plague Marines Squad (14) w. Champion, Icon, flamer and plasma.
- Plague Marine Squad (10) w. Icon, metla and plasma
- Chaos Dreadnought w. multimelta
- Herald of Nurgle (Level 2) w. weird-sounding stuff, leading...
- Plaguebearers (20) w. plagueswords (all D/S)
- Nurglings (6 bases) (D/S).
(my lot)
- D.
