A story about an anniversary. And some pics

I've played 40k with varying levels of fanaticism since Rogue Trader. With the exception of Necrons and Sisters I have played every army at one point or another over the years, though my heart will always belong to chaos. You could say that Warhammer is a pretty big part of who I am, for better or worse. 

In 2003, I started having strange experiences with my body. My neck would tingle when I looked down, my balance got a bit wonky, parts of my body would sporadically go numb. I figured maybe I had a pinched nerve or something so I gave a chiropractor a ton of money to have him crack my back and ultimately fix nothing. After perhaps six months of that nonsense I caved and went to a real doctor, in this case a neurologist. Several MRIS, blood tests and a spinal tap later he told me I had Multiple Sclerosis. Not ideal. 

Right after this both my hands went numb. I'm talking trying to put on gloves and don't notice that two fingers are in one hole kind of numb. I had a hard time typing, playing guitar and painting. I figured that my days of using them for anything more intricate than punching a hanging bag -which I did a lot- were done, so I tossed my paints and sold my guitars. 

The doctor put me on some medication and after a couple months and a steroid infusion I got my hands back. I decided that to celebrate the triumph of modern medicine I would get back into 40k with the release of 4th edition, and with the customization available with the marine traits system I opted for a marine army. After perusing a lot of fluff and image galleries I settled on the Raptors chapter. The first model I bought for it was the missile launcher scout model and I've more or less steadily built on the army for ten years now. Here they be (at least the stuff that is done, I have several other units and vehicles in varying states of completion):

So happy anniversary to my own gang green. The moral of the story is when shit gets rough, just put your head down and bull through it. Adding varying amounts of hard liquor doesn't hurt either, but that's not for everybody. 

How to make Raven Guard useful AKA I DREAM OF DREADNAUGHTS...edit: this doesn't work, so just play Scars

I've been feeling like there has to be some way to make decent use of the Raven Guard chapter tactics seein' as how the Raptors are RG successors. Here is a quick review since I'm sure you (like me and everyone else) looked at their tactics when the book came out and said "blah!"




Strike from the Shadows: Models in this detachment have the Scout special rule. In addition, on the first game turn, models in this detachment have the Stealth special rule. Note that units with the Bulky or Very Bulky special rules do not benefit from either rule.
Winged Deliverance: Jump Infantry models in this detachment may use their jump packs in both the Movement and Assault phases of the same turn. Furthermore, they must re-roll failed To Wound rolls caused by their Hammer of Wrath hits.


So when you first read it with RG fluff in mind, you start out all excited- "Ah yeah, scouting stealthing jump packers!" only to have the hope dangled in front of you and snatched away ala this guy:
 




Since Assault Marines are out, you can also ignore the second part of their chapter tactics. No great loss here as it's pretty underwhelming as well, keeping with tradition of Assault Marines just being overly meh in just about every way (can't get OS or melta and aren't very good at assault against anyone).


I figure you need to look at the book and see what units that don't have Bulky/Very Bulky and would benefit from a free 6 or 12 inch move and Stealth on turn 1. The obvious choice would be Tactical Marines in Rhinos or Razorbacks- OS, combat squads and getting melta/plasma/flamer weapons into mid field quickly. Any scouting transport wants a dozer blade to keep it from getting stranded in the cover you will inevitably want to drive into over the course of the game.


Sternguard in a Rhino could also benefit from the Scout move, getting their combi weapons where they want to go.


Land Speeders can scoot forward to get in HF/MM range or redeploy for side shots with Typhoon launchers. Hovering them in cover/ruins would give them a hefty save with Scout on the first turn should they attract attention.


A Land Raider Crusader/Redeemer loaded with some Assault Terminators or Honor Guard sounds tasty. Even though you won't be able to charge turn 1, you'll definitely charge whatever you feel like turn 2. You may even be able to fire both Flamestorm cannons this way.


The less obvious choice would be walking Dreadnaughts. Basic shooty Dreads are cheap enough to spam and can deliver some reasonably accurate mobile heavy weapons fire while threatening just about everything else with DCCW.


Naturally this is all predicated on being able to Scout properly and enemy Scouts and Infiltrators could potentially ruin your day, so an Inquisitor with some Servo Skulls is a must. Adding in some blast weapons to benefit from the Skulls as well couldn't hurt either. Here is a list I cobbled together with some of these thoughts in mind:




Master of the Forge: Space Marine bike; conversion beamer 130

Dreadnought: twin-linked autocannon; twin-linked autocannon 120
Dreadnought: twin-linked autocannon; twin-linked autocannon 120
Ironclad Dreadnought: power fist (built-in heavy flamer); chainfist 145
• Drop Pod 35

10 Tactical Marines: meltagun; multi-melta 160
• Rhino: dozer blade 40
10 Tactical Marines: meltagun; multi-melta 160
• Rhino: dozer blade 40
5 Tactical Marines: flamer; Space Marine Sergeant (combi-flamer) 85
• Razorback: lascannon; twin-linked plasma gun; dozer blade 80

Lord of the Armoury Dreadnought: power fist (built-in heavy flamer); plasma cannon 120
Lord of the Armoury Dreadnought: power fist (built-in heavy flamer); plasma cannon 120
Thunderfire Cannon 100

Ordo Malleus Inquisitor: combi-flamer; 3× servo-skull 44

1,499 points




Here is a shot of the army before I played my constant enemy Clint. I had to borrow a pod from him for my Ironclad as I am still working on my pods.



Said Ironclad, Inquisitor with Skulls, Tactical Squad in LasPlas Razorback.



Close up of the Inquisitorial Gun Show. This guy cracks me up, SLEEVES ARE FOR COWARDS!



Flamey Tac squad.



Master of the Forge with his beamer.



Tactical Marines.



The game wound up tied (spoiler! lolz ...report coming soonish). I think the list has potential, I have a tweaked version giving the plasma cannon Dreads multimeltas instead and repurposing the Rhino squads to plasma/missile launcher. I'm on the fence about the Ironclad, I kinda think he needs twin hunter killer missiles to give him a bit more versatility, but I dunno where to scrounge up the points for them. He costs almost as much as another full Tactical Squad, but the idea of an av13 double heavy flamer monster rampaging in the enemy backfield delights me greatly.

A Knight's Tale, AKA Some days you eat the bear and some days the bear eats you

In my quest to be a somewhat well rounded 40k player (or I just like a challenge and/or am a masochist), I figured I should play a game against nothing but Knights. Luckily I have recently built several for my buddy Steven so I hit him up for a game. I wanted to try out 1500 points since I have pretty limited gaming time and my recent games have been taking a bit too long to play to completion. The local Feast of Blades tournament was also 1500 points and I contemplated trying to play in that, so this is the list I wound up bringing:

Chaos Lord: power fist; lightning claw; Chaos bike; sigil of corruption; Mark of Nurgle; The Slaughterer's Horns; Daemonheart; blight grenades 215

Sorcerer: Chaos bike; The Balestar of Mannon; Psyker (Mastery Level 3) 155

10 Chaos Cultists 50

10 Chaos Cultists 50

5 Chaos Spawn: Mark of Nurgle 180

2 Obliterators: Mark of Nurgle 152

1 Obliterator: Mark of Nurgle 76

1 Obliterator: Mark of Nurgle 76

Lord of Change: Psyker (Mastery Level 3); 2× Greater Reward 295

11 Pink Horrors of Tzeentch 99

6 Screamers of Tzeentch 150

1,498 points

man, this force looks puny...

The Lord is their for stone killin' and tanking wounds for the Spawn. The Sorcerer is there for Divination tricks and warp charges for Horror summoning. Everything else is pretty self explanatory. In hindsight I should have found points to give the LOC a staff for the buff against Knights, but I waffled and bumped the Horror unit up to 11 instead in the name of overall well roundedness.

Steven brought 4 battlecannon Knights.

big brawlers

My initial plan to handle those guys went something like this:

Gangbang the HQ knight with the LOC (who will challenge), Screamers and Lord in an attempt to get first blood and slay the warlord in one swoop while using terrain, Spawn and summoned lesser demons to hold up the other 3 and grab VP from objectives with my OS troops. I'll deep strike the Obliterators to try and surround another Knight and drop some sweet melta knowledge on its ass.

Pre game stuff:

The Lord gets Hatred for his warlord trait. Strong.

I opt for telepathy hoping for invisibility since I will be deep striking the Oblits. I get Shroud and two other useless powers.

The Horrors get Cursed Earth. I'll take it.

The LOC gets re-roll invulnerable saves and +1W/IWND from his gifts and Scrier's Gaze, Precognition and Perfect Timing. Just about as perfect as a thing could be (Armorbane instead of reroll saves and Misfortune instead of Perfect Timing would have been the perfect scenario, but I ain't greedy) . In hindsight, I should have realized this was a warning sign that the chaos gods are huge dicks.

We roll for mission and get Maelstrom: Cleanse and Control and I go first. I deploy the LOC and Screamers on my right flank with the Spawn/Lord/Sorcerer on the left while the Horrors are in the center with Cultists in the rear to claim objectives. The Obliterators are all in reserve. My cunning plan is to set up the warlord Gangbang (who is deployed in the center) while tarpitting the other center Knight with the Spawn. The LOC will Scrier's Gaze for the Oblits while the Horrors will summon Demonettes or Shrouding on the Sorcerer to take some heat off the Spawn.

we have denuded the forest, commence play

kaw kaw

He deploys all the Knights on the line and promptly seizes. Here is where the wheels begin to fall off.

set...HIKE

Now I complain about dice as much as the next guy -maybe even more, but I am old and crotchety so I can get away with it (also get off my lawn)- but this game really was one of those 'if it could go wrong for me it did, and if it could go right for him it did' games. Read on to see...IF YOU DARE!

Knights, turn 1.

The Knights trundle forward and open up with their big guns.

SALLY FORTH

These guys have the most accurate battlecannon gunners EVAR. Of the 8 shots fired, 6 are direct hits, one scatters 4 and one scatters totally off some Cultists. The Spawn take 6 wounds and the Lord's attempt to tank them leads him to taking 2 wounds despite his 2+ armor. I lose another Spawn from LOS from a different barrage. The Horrors are forced to GTG in the trees to avoid being wiped and manage to not all die. The Cultists behind valiantly GTG and pass their LD. My lads are reeling from the oh-so-rude surprise assault. My Lord at least regenerates one of his wounds with IWND, so that's somethin'.

Behold the carnage

The Knights score 1 VP from an objective card in the middle of the field.

Knights-1

Chaos-0

Chaos, turn 1.

Despite that fiasco, I still feel like I can salvage this game with some cagey play. Unfortunately my cunning plans were dashed by the seize, so now I have to change up. I now don't have a turn to spend summoning demons and setting up Scrier's, I have to put Operation: Knight warlord gangbang ASAP. I send the Spawn towards the Knight to the left of the warlord and send the LOC, Screamers and Lord at the warlord. The Sorcerer retreats to the Cultist unit and everyone else is pinned.

I obligingly roll a 1 for the psychic phase, leaving me with 8 dice. Delightful. I use 3 dice to get Precog on the bird successfully, and use 5 to try and Prescience the Screamers and roll this:

IMPRESSIVE, MOST IMPRESSIVE

Spectacular. The Lord throws a poo grenade at the warlord but it passes its I test. Everyone makes their charges, so there's that.

This is a terrible, terrible pic. Pro photo maker I am not

 Big Bird challenges and is forced to SMASH because I'm a genius and didn't give him the Staff. Lesson learned. He does manage to knock a HP off the warlord. In return the warlord hits 2 of his 3 attacks. Now the only thing that can really bone me here is if he rolls a 6 with his chainsaw arm of DOOM. Anything else and I am virtually guaranteed to survive with my re-rolled 5++ and 6 wounds. Naturally he rolls a 6, so I go from getting Slay the Warlord and First Blood to giving up First Blood and not Slaying the Warlord. Groan. The screamers manage to strip a couple more HP from the Knight while my Lord, apparently incensed at the ignominious demise of Big Bird manages to off the warlord. It does me the kindness of stumbling just far enough away from my Lord so he avoids the strD hit, but I lose several Screamers in the explosion.

The shattered remnants of my Operation:Gangbang

The Spawn manage to lose exactly enough wounds to a super efficient flurry chainsaw attacks and stomps to all die. Yay, strD!



I forgot to take a pic of the Spawn fight. Please enjoy this post-consolidate pic of the warlord fight

I do manage to score a couple VP from cards, both objective and killing the warlord.

Knights-2
Chaos-4


Knights, turn 2.

Two Knights continue their rampage into my half of the table and the other stays back to deal with the insolent Screamers and Lord.

These pics are seriously bad. Like cover-your-eyes-awful

The battlecannon beat down continues, leaving only a handful of Cultists and one Horror alive. They actually didn't roll hits a couple times, but still managed to murderize my poor lads. The stubbers also managed to wreak havoc on my infantry as well. How embarrassing, lol.


My Lord gets charged and dies unceremoniously to a giant chainsaw. 4++ will only take you so far I suppose. The Knights score a couple objectives and Slay the Warlord.


Knights- 5
Chaos- 4




Chaos, turn 2.


Both singleton Obliterators show up but the unit of 2 doesn't. They both DS around the loner Knight that just killed my Lord. One deviates out of double-dice meltagun range and one stays in.

JUDGE ME BY MY SIZE, DO YOU?

Dude, where is everyone?

I roll a 3 for the psychic phase. My attempt at summoning some demons fails with 0 successes on 7 dice. Solid.


My shooting follows the general downward trajectory of the game, the twin linked melta gun hits and pens but is saved by the ion shield while the multi melta just straight up misses.


I decide that at this point desperate times call for desperate measures, so I charge the Knight with my Screamers hoping for some craziness. They strip a couple hull points and then all die to the stomps.




FOR FRODO!

I score a couple more VP on cards.


Knights- 5
Chaos- 6




Knights, turn 3.


Feeling feisty after squashing 400ish points of guys, the lone Knight turns his sights on the Obliterator in the middle of the board....

I HAVE YOU NOW

While another sets his eyes on the poor Sorcerer...

Bad news, very bad news

And the last one directs his ire to the other Oblit.

The Oblit in question is out of frame to the left of the Knight. Toldja these pics were bad

The Sorcerer dies to shooting, as does the Oblit in the center. 2+ saves are clearly overrated.

Now you see Oblit, now you don't

The last one, however weathers a bunch of shooting wounds...

YEEAAAAH, BEOTCH! WHAT NOW!

Only to dishonor himself by rolling a 1 to the str10 Hammer of Wrath hit. Har!

The Knights fail to get any VP this turn, however.


Knights-5
Chaos- 6




Chaos, turn 3


At this point it's looking pretty grim for the forces of Chaos, but I figure that I can maybe try and force at least a draw if I can get some demons on the table and get lucky with the remaining Obliterators. Unsurprisingly, they do not come in from reserves. I get 6 dice to try and summon and fail that as well. At this point I concede the game, more out of aggravation at the vagaries of dice than the fact that I have a near-impossible path to victory.




THINGS I THINK I THINK:


Despite the colossal failure in this particular game, I think both the list and my tactics were actually fairly sound. Had I not been seized on, I would have had:


a) a psychic phase to set up my assault better, i.e. Scrier's Gaze, Summoning, Shroud, etc.
b) a better set up to weather the shooting.


Even after that with a little less ridiculous luck from the Knights (freakishly accurate battlecannons, need a 6? Get a 6!) I think I could have had a pretty good shot.


That's not to say I couldn't have done things better, I deployed a bit too aggressively, I should have anticipated the potential damage incurred from a seize. I definitely should have found the points for the Staff of Change, that is the biggest no brainer EVAR. I dunno how useful the Balestar is when I have very few actual targets for Prescience, he should probably just go with Telepathy and spend those points elsewhere (LIKE A FREAKIN' STAFF OF CHANGE).


I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that Knights are not good for the game. Even toned down I don't think that D weapons have any place in a regular game of 40k, and if they're gonna allow super heavies they need to at least give you extra VP for knocking off hull points like in Escalation.


Playing against 4 Knights was pretty terrifically boring. While I enjoyed the challenge it presented (coming up with a plan, executing it, adjusting yadda yadda), overall it was a pretty boring game. Had things gone my way it would have been equally boring with me spreading out to claim objectives and out score the knights on VP, essentially avoiding conflict. In other words, yaaawwwnnn.  This is what I imagine it must feel like to be at the helm of the all Knight list:






KUH KUH KUH

Ain't no school like the old school

I'm reasonably certain I painted this guy twenty years ago. With the release of the new Assassins, I think it may be time to strip him and modernize him. Stay tuned...

Avengers assemble!

Back from vacation and back in the painting saddle. Finished five Dire Avengers. I hate painting both white and orange but I gotta admit I'm real pleased with how these guys turned out. 

Who flung poo? I FLUNG POO! A Battle Report

 

 

Speedy Demons, v1

Great Unclean One, Greater Reward x2 (IWND/+1 w, armor/fleshbane), Endurance, Warlord (Instant Death)

Karanak

Herald of Slaanesh, Psyker level 1 (Shroud), Big Etherblade, Little Etherblade, Steed, Locus of Beguilement (beguiled me into not using it all game)

10 Demonettes, Alluress
10 Demonettes

6 Screamers
15 Flesh Hounds
17 Seekers, Heartseeker, Rapturous Standard

Soul Grinder, Slaanesh, Torrent
Demon Prince, Nurgle, Wings, Armor, Greater Reward x2 (Balesword, reroll invulnerable)
Demon Prince, Nurgle, Wings, Armor, Greater Reward x2 (FNP 4+, reroll invulnerable)

1999

Clint's list (from memory, he can correct me if I make any egregious errors)

Khorne Lord, juggernaut, axe of a zillion attacks, sigil

10 cultists

10 cultists

10 marines, double plasma, rhino w/ havoc launcher and destroyer blades

10 marines, double flamer, rhino w/havoc launcher and destroyer blades

4 spawn

Heldrake w/cannon

Maulerfiend w/magma thingies

Maulerfiend w/magma thingies

Defiler w/heavy flamers and a bunch of attacks

3 deep striking Helbrutes with various weapons

 My cunning plan was to try and envelop him by scouting the Hounds around one flank and using the freakish speed of the Seekers on the other while pushing the Princes, Grinder and GOO up the middle.  Oh and fling Nurgle poop (defensive grenades) at every available opportunity. Naturally, we roll this mission:

Which makes any kind of envelopment pretty well impossible with the long deployment. Objectives are sprinkled about the board and I win the roll to go first.

I decide to deep strike both Demonette squads.

 Everyone else lines up in what looks like a traditional NFL offensive line. I put the Seekers and Herald near the Hounds and Grinder thinking that shrouding affects units, not just models.

 Clint deploys pretty symmetrically with marines and cultists on either side with the Maulerfiends on point, Lord w/spawn on one side and the Defiler in ruins on the other.

 I scout the Hounds into the ruins. Clint fails to seize. Night fight turn one.

 Speedy Demons, turn 1:

Everyone moves forward except the Seekers who move backwards and the Hounds who pull back from the Maulerfiend. The Screamers take a wound moving into the building.

 I roll a 6 for the psychic phase. I throw 4 dice at shrouding and succeed (only to be depressed when I actually read the power). I toss 4 dice at endurance and don't get it after I read the power and find that it is warp charge 2. My failure in the psychic phase is now complete.

The warp storm also mocks me with -1 to invulnerable saves. Luckily night fighting is here to totally bail me out, lol. The Screamers turbo boost over the spawn and kill one while losing one of their number crashing into the ruins.

 The Seekers run backwards to act as a mobile reserve against the deep striking Helbrutes and claim whatever objectives may come up. Grinder runs forward.

 Chaos Engine Army of Doom, turn 1:

Maulerfiends run forward to assault the sword Prince.

 Cultists and the Defiler stay put while the marines in front of the Screamers hop out to shoot at them. The Lord and his spawn retinue turn around to help sort out the Screamers. The marines fail to do any wounds to the Screamers thanks to crappy rolling and night fighting saves. The Hounds also weather shooting from the Defiler and Havoc launcher.

 The Mauler on my left succeeds in charging the Prince while the one on my right whiffs it despite fleet. The Prince manages a glance while the Mauler can't overcome his awesome weapon skill.

 The Lord kills every Screamer dead with a ridiculous number of wounds from his axe of murderousness.

 And the consolidate back into the ruins. First blood to Clint.

 Speedy Demons, turn 2:

Both Demonette units arrive and deep strike into the open in Clint's backfield.

 The Grinder and Prince move to charge the unengaged Mauler while the GOO moves to bail out the other Prince. The hounds move forward to attempt an absurd 12 inch charge (which they fail and take a wound in overwatch for their trouble).

 I roll another 6 for the psychic phase. I get shroud off with 3 dice and a perils wound on the Herald. 5 dice gets endurance off on the Hounds, Clint fails to counter it.

 Shooting sees the Grinder's Harvester cannon knock 2 hull points off the Mauler (loler) while the Prince flings some poo that promptly deviates onto the Hounds. Luckily no wounds caused and they pass their I test. The Demonettes run to more defensible positions. Nurgle also hurls shit at Clint's guys thanks to the warp storm but nothing comes of it.

 The Mauler gets tag teamed and killed by the Grinder/Prince team while the other Mauler weathers the Prince only to take 4 penetrating hits from the GOO and his mighty armorbane. Clint saves 3 of the 4 only to have the GOO explode it with a 6 on the last pen. Teach him to roll so many saves. The GOO takes a wound from the explosion, embarrassingly enough. It does motivate him to make a 6 inch consolidate though, so there is that.

 Chaos Engine Army of Doom, turn 2:

All 3 Helbrutes come in but one mishaps onto my Seekers back into ongoing reserve. The other two drop into the ruins behind the GOO. The Heldrake also arrives.

 The Lord and spawn move up to tackle the GOO.

 The marines jump out of the Rhino to use their flamers on the Hounds while the Defiler moves up.

 The cultists clamber out of the ruins to use a flamer on the unsuspecting Demonettes.

 And between their shooting and the cultists in the neighboring building the girls take a real shellacking. Luckily 4 Demonettes should be able to sort out 10 cultists, so I'm not brokenhearted about it. The other unit of Demonettes get thumped by shooting from the Rhino's Havoc launcher and all but one die. The Heldrake and the marines from the building pour their fire into the GOO, but cover+shroud+demon save+FNP means nothing gets through. Clint's personal morale is shaken.

 The Hounds fare pretty well considering double flamers, Havoc launcher and a direct hit from the Defiler's battle cannon.

 The Defiler attempts to charge the Hounds and despite having to climb over a barricade succeeds its 9 inch charge. Ruh roh. I lose a couple Hounds but they hang around thanks to Karanak's beefy ld8. The demonettes charge the cultists and kill them but wind up with one girl remaining. She consolidates into the ruin to snag the objective.

 The Khorne Lord rashly charges the GOO with his spawn friends. He has to challenge and after doing a couple wounds to him the GOO splats him with his instant death/fleshbane/ap2 lovin'. The spawn hang around to be killed in the next turn.

Speedy Demon, turn 3:

The sword prince heads towards the marines and cultists in the building while the mask prince heads towards the other squad. Seekers fan out and head towards the Helbrutes and the objective in the ruins that I happen to have 2 tactical cards for.

The Grinder moves to bail out the Hounds.

 A not-so-mighty wind of psychic power gives me 4 dice for endurance which fails to go off. Slaanesh threatens to bomb people with the warp storm table and attacks no one.

 

Grinder does a hull point on the Defiler while the Defiler kills 2 Hounds. Again thanks to Karanak they stick around. The mask prince charges the marine squad (after flinging his poo, I test passed), taking 2 wounds from flamers (!) in overwatch but handily crushes the Aspiring champion and running down the rest of the squad. The GOO wipes the spawn and heads towards the Helbrutes.

.Chaos Engine Army of Doom, turn 3:

The wayward Helbrute arrives near an objective Clint happens to have a card for.

The Rhino tank shocks the lone Demonette with its Destroyer Blades, and holy crap t3 5++ models do NOT want to get hit by that. She takes a ton of wounds and dies.

The Helbrute brigade advances towards the Seekers and kill a couple with shooting. Heavy flamers are trouble.

The Heldrake flies over to shoot at the mask prince, but shroud+jink=practically invincible.

The cripple fight between the two giant walkers continues. The Grinder pretty consistently whiffs his attacks and the ones that do get through fail to pen. They trade hull points from glances. The GOO regenerates his wound.

Speedy Demon, turn 4:

The Seekers fan out to multi charge all 3 Helbrutes.

I get six dice and again fail to get endurance off. How embarrassing. The Seekers charge all the Brutes and take a monstrous amount of casualties from overwatch from the two heavy flamers. What was looking like a pretty decent shot of glancing a couple of them out is now looking spectacularly grim. The Seekers apparently were traumatized by the overwatch as they drop the ball against the Brutes, even with the assist from the Rapturous Standard. The Herald at least gives one of them the what for with her Etherblade and blows it up. This probably would have gone better had I remembered the exalted locus, durrrrr.

 

The sword Prince flings poo, doing a wound but they pass their I test. He accepts the challenge from the overly confident champion and runs down the entire squad. The champion did put a wound on him with his power fist.  The mask Prince joins the fight against the Defiler, stripping a couple hull points from it.

 

The GOO trundles towards the Seekers to bail them out with his armorbane, but he takes his sweet time with it (as GOOs are wont to do).

Chaos Engine Army of Doom, turn 4:

Most of Clint's stuff is engaged so it is a quick turn. The giant walker tickle fight continues, the Drake squeezes off a couple shots at the GOO, Clint scores a bunch of VP because Rhinos are scoring machines nowadays. The Seekers take some more whacks and are down to a handful of guys.

Speedy Demon, turn 5:

With their powers combined, the Grinder and Prince hull point down the Defiler. Grinder is down to his last hull point now. It consolidates toward the Rhino in the building, the Prince towards the other Rhino and the Hounds back into the ruins snag the objective (for which I have 2 cards, lol).

The Seekers are down to 2 guys plus the Herald. Trouble. The GOO better hurry up or they're DOOMED!

Grinder moves towards the Rhino but is unable to make the charge. This will prove to be BAD NEWS.

After missing with his poop, the sword Prince gobbles up the cultists in the building.

The mask prince charges the Destroyer Blade Rhino and leaves it with one hull point.

Chaos Engine Army of Doom, turn 5:

The Drake opts to hover to shoot at the ass of the Grinder-who-failed-the-charge. Destroyer Blade Rhino kills the mask prince with a fierce tank shock. Ignominy.

Grinder is gunned down by the Drake.

The Herald heroically passes her invulnerable saves leaving her and a lone Seeker to keep the Brutes at bay.

 If the game ends here I win by a pretty healthy margin. It doesn't.

Speedy Demons, turn 6:

"Here I come to save the day!"- GOO

"Tasty Helturkey? Don't mind if I do."- Hounds. They wreck the bird.

"PRINCE SMASH!"- Sword Prince. Only does 2 hull points.

Lasher Brute down. HQ high five.

Chaos Engine Army of Doom, turn 6:

Brute heads over to the objective that Clint has a card for.

 

Rhino refuses to die, giving Clint enough VP to tie it up.

GAME OVER, MAN...GAME OVER!

In hindsight I should have kept better track of what was going on with the objectives, lol.

Things I think I think:

-Shroud+jink is as absurd as I thought it would be.
-Scouting Hounds always backfires. Always.
-Heldrakes are as junky as I feared.
-Walkers are a lot better nowadays, esp av13 ones or ones with a ton of HP (or both).
-Chaos marines are wretched, wretched troops choices. Like horrid.
-GOOs should be deep struck. I only got mine into the game because Clint obligingly offered me opportunities to get free movement with him. They make beastly warlords too.
-Maelstrom missions are fun, but can create huge swings of luck. I like that you can win even if you're losing tons of models.
-OS transports are the bee's knees. I think this may well be the edition where the marine tactical squad finally shines.
-I totally squandered the Screamers, I should have held them back as a counter strike unit against the Maulers. Oops.
-I like the list pretty well, the deployment did me no favors but I think I weathered it about as well as I could given my screwed up deployment, lol. The Herald doesn't need the psyker level. I probably should swap Karanak out for a Khorne Herald on a juggernaut too.