The 9th edition Chaos codex has something that's taken me time to adjust to - a mix of annoyance at things gone, joy at things added, confusion as to why Mutilators didn't even get a legends dataslate and a annoyance that the book felt outdated even on release - has any other books got a pre-release FAQ to amend a chapter tactic that doesn't function? There was a great line by Art of War about the new Chaos book that's very apt - "it's not as powerful as the stuff thats just got nerfed, it's not as good as the new meta hotness so where is it?" Chaos Space Marines don't have the damage and/or speed of the current meta combat monsters like Sisters or Blood Angels, or the durability of something like Death Guard or Dark Angels to ensure they get to combat - combined with a pretty mediocre set of secondaries and what's been an underwhelming experience in the shooting phase creates a lot of problems with a book.
So after a paragraph of moaning - what does it do well? Well as the title suggests - I went with Creations of Bile. If I can't fight fair on damage/speed/durability with my combat army I need a hell of a angle of attack to even the odds and Creations of Bile had just that with a chapter tactic that gives +1 movement, strength and fight on death army wide (except Cultists but that's honestly not a loss.) Add in a advance and charge strat for core units and a decent secondary (kill a infantry in combat unit for 2 vp, kill a character in combat for 3vp) and there was a plan for a skew list that performed well into a lot of the top meta armies (Sisters,BA, Drukari - anyone that really wants to trade combat units on objectives) even if ranged armies like Tau, Craftworld or ultra durable armies like TS seemed bad.
So finally onto the tournament - it was a teams event with 3 players a side with highest score overall for the teams taking the win(as a nice aside, a team tournament meant I can go with a flash look how well I did title, but not spoil any of the results for those curious.) Firstly the players - we wanted a super powerful team filled with grizzled tournament veterans with after an extensive recruitment process ended up with:
Jack Armstrong - might not be a familiar name to 40k players, but AOS players might be familiar as captain of team England and winner of 2 masters tournaments (amongst other achievements that he did list but I lost track of.) Our team captain.
Myself - janky chaos fan, undefeated at last 2 super major events I've been 2 and last time at this venue had come second in the GT with my Lord of Skulls/Death Guard chaos soup list which went on to get top Chaos at LGT.
Nick Mawer - was prepared to help in car share with Jack. As a fun bonus, also plays 40k.
We were team Hyrda - named after the club we all play at (or played at in my case.)As a team we decided to lean into a vague - no big targets policy to ensure if anyone over attuned that way expecting knights/similar we could always give them a bad matchup. Jack and Nick ended up with Sisters (standard Bloody Rose list) and Harlequins respectively (Light with plenty of Haywire bikers) with the aim that either could act as our 'champion' pick and ensure a high score even in the event of a loss/bad match up whilst I could go all in counter pick to aggressive combat armies.
My list:
So as I mentioned above, I wasn't impressed by CSM shooting - so the simple solution was just don't take any and go all in on the combat. Whilst a late addition to the list - the Nurgle Daemon Prince was my solution to at least mitigate this, the worry being that only doing damage in combat would leave me unable to beat C'tan/Phoenix Lords/Ghaz/Abbadon/anyone else with phased locked wounds max however the Prince's Daemon weapon cares not for these, as a second very notable upside gives me a 'spare' caster to go for Warpcraft secondaries when required to go along with Bile's secondary/The Long War to ensure i'm not reliant on a good secondary to be available from my opponents.
Otherwise the list is filled with 'units that move quickly and hit stuff.' 3 minimum Warp Talon squads, 2 minimum possessed squads for trading being the most notable examples of this. I remain not a fan of basic legionaries (although I think if you want them to work, Bile is a great legion to do so and a valid choice in a marginally different build) so filled up my troops with Cultists. I always love these - they kill nothing but do all the dirty work/actions and the revamped tide of traitors allowing me to regen models in command phase is the sort of sneaky trick I love pulling off with Poxwalkers to steal mid table objectives (whilst it can't be used upfield unless near a edge, I'm not sure i've ever seen a Cultist alive in that area of the table.)
The terminators, chosen and Lord Discordant were a more durable side, either to go into wars of attrition or just tank damage as needed there was some debate about giving the Rune of Damnation to a 10 man terminator squad or Chosen but the marginally less durable chosen fit the bill well and allowed me to use terminators as isolated/potential deep striking threats which the chosen can't do in reverse. Master of Possession is an incredible buff piece and a Master of Executions as a final point filler (although he's more than that) rounded out the list. Those eagle eye among you may notice I start with 0 cp with this list - with essentially no need for strats that weren't for combat or re-rolls I wasn't dependant on CP and fight on death works as a alternative to interrupt to keep my combat units a threat against early charges so loading up on relics/WT traits felt ideal.
Round 1 v Team Space Docking.
Potential Matches - DG infantry heavy backed by 2 Contemptors, Black Legion Abbadon, combats threats and Forgefiends and Silent King custom Eternal Expansionist Necrons. The mission was Secure the Relics.
Team strategy - first off - this was the other team from the Hydra gaming group, so this was our local rivals match and clearly the most important to win for bragging rights. With the matches we were pretty confident both myself and Sisters were good at any of these, with Quins in DG being the one we wanted to avoid so we hid them during the pairings. I got Death Guard, Sisters went into Black Legion and Harlequins went into Necrons in a set of pairings we were very happy with.
Opponents list:
My Secondaries - Specimens of the Spider (Bile secondary), the Long war, Banners
Death Guard Secondaries - Engage on all fronts, Spread the Sickness, Physic Interrogation.
Pregame thoughts: So this was one I was broadly happy with although had some hefty challenges - the Contemptors would wrack up meaningful attrition damage and I didn't want to expose my Warp Raptors in particular to them at any time. Theres also a tough balanace that all my stuff hits harder, but all his stuff is tougher so working out who's winning indivual fights is tough even with fights on death. The Blightspawn is much less effective into my list as a result, but the potential mortals from the Plaguecaster are troublesome. Basic plan was to hit the two flanks hard and avoid a head on clash with the terminators that would likely set up midfield and potentially lock out the middle. The combination of Engage v Specimens/The Long war meant Death Guard had to proactivily the push the flanks and I could try and trade up into the Plague Marine units that came my way.
I lost the roll off for the first turn and Death Guard moved up - two Rhino's filled with Plague Marines taking a flank each and the terminators started trundling towards the centre supported by the characters. The Contemptors lined up the Possessed - I'd taken efforts to hide my 2 wound infantry and given Possesed 2 damage/Ap2 profile was going to be pretty lacklustre in Deathguard I decided to use them as my distraction carnifex equivalent to tank the Contemptors given there 3 wounds lined up as well as anything into the Volkite. One squad lost a couple of models and a cultist squad was nearly taken out by some Bolter fire but in the start of a welcome and key trend I managed to deny the Physic Interrogation attempt to keep DG scoring in check.
My turn back went very well, despite killing no models. I regenerated some Cultists and was able to move them into the centre to take the middle objective off the Blightlord with minimal effort. On both flanks a Warp Talon squad charged the Rhino and pinned it in place although both barely dented the tanks despite one unit being assisted by the Terminators. I was able to fully surround the one on my left and whilst I couldn't fully wrap the one on the right I could make it awkward and keep the Talons safe from shooting and took all the middle objectives.
On the right flank, Death Guard infantry prepared to charge into action - 2 Plague Marine squads disembarked from the trapped Rhino, just able to fit out and laid out an opening salvo into the Chosen whilst Blighlords moved in to take out the Warp Talons. The Warp Talons were taken out by the Blightlords with minimal damage back and the Chosen took a battering from one Plague Marine squad, before being able to retaliate well into the other destroying it before it could fight.
In the middle, Death Guard trivially took out the Cultist squad on the objective and parked there terminators and support onto the objective - they took the chance to throw the Plague Skull at my Possesed (I was trying to wait this out before committing my characters to the frey in the middle) who combined with another contemptor barrage took a battering. The Rhino on my left flank was destroyed in combat in a mixed blessing, my placement had forced an emergency disembark which ended up killing 5 of the Plague Marines inside, but it did mean they could sneak onto the objective and retake it. The Deathshroud also struck deep into my backfield, attempting a long charge into my Cultists to try and steal my objective which they thankfully failed.
Going into my turn I was in a bit of a pickle, it was easy enough to polish off the left flank but it was a bit of a jump to the Death Guard home objective and I'd have to leave the Talons in the open with two contemptors able to easily get LOS into them. Originally I had a planned to ignore the Blightlords in the middle - possibly tending the Lord Discordant into tie them up and use my Prince on the right to push the flank with the Chosen, but the DG obsec was proving hard to dislodge and it would be several turns at best to get any joy from it and going with that plan left the Deathshroud free to disrupt my home objective. With a heavy heart I changed my original plan and decided to go all in on the middle objective - even with a good turn I knew it wasn't going to be easy/likely to crack the castle this turn. My Discordant moved back to take care of the Deathshroud, my Warp Talons got into position to take out the remaining Plague Marines and my Terminators (one coming down from DS) Prince and what remained of my Possesed prepared to charge into the middle. My shooting was actually good enough to warrant a mention in a rare change - I had been avoiding shooting Poxwalkers until this point to play around, respawning in the middle and retaking the objective from my cultists but terminators managed to kill them all with their combined bolter fire.
Fights broke up all over the map - about 15 units in 5 combats, including the giant mess in the centre. My Lord Discordant managed to take out two Deathshroud and body block the way to my objective to alleviate the threat to my backfield and my two Warp Talon units finished off or trapped the Plague Marines to secure the left. On the right the Chosen couldn't quite manage to dislodge the last Plague Marine, which at least vindicated my plan to change focus away from the flank. In the middle the Blightlords took a big chunk out of my Possessed but took 3 losses of their own from the around 50ish attacks my various units were able to put out - I hadn't cracked the castle yet but I'd left an almighty dent in it.
At this stage the pressure was now on the Death Guard - they were ahead on primary but it was clear they were about to lose control of the scoring, whilst Engage had become near impossible for them with their losses on my left flank. Not helping was the fact that during their turn for the 3rd successive time I managed to deny Physic interrogation to keep them nilled on that - I had been tempted by the same secondary but went for Banners instead which was steadily starting to tick up after a slow start. The Blightlords fell back in the middle to ensure one last turn of obsec in the middle and the Contemptors shooting mostly whiffed to leave DG in a very awkward spot.
We were pressed heavily for time at this stage and the last few turns were played at double speed with both of us skipping trivial activations (like shooting Terminators into Contemptors) to focus on the important actions. I smashed my way through the last of the Blightlords in the middle to give me an unchallenged position in the centre, whilst the Chosen and last Blightlord unit battled out a draw on the right as DG held the position. Already in the ascendance I managed a fourth deny on Interrogation to confirm victory.
In the last turn my Prince made a bold attempt to crack the DG home objective but couldn't manage to get through and the contemptors blasted the Warp Talons which had attempted to get into position to do the same. In the end Chaos Space Marines claimed victory 90 -73. Elsewhere in the team Harlequins had managed to beat Necrons in a high scoring game whilst Sisters had beaten Black Legion to make it a clean sweep for Hydra - the team event scoring was on a 20-0 ETC differential system and all the games were close wins, 13-7 to me, 12-8 to Sisters, 11-9 to Harlequins.
Postgame thoughts: Well I had to abandon my plan midway through but broadly speaking the plan worked - if the second Blightlord unit had committed to the centre the Chosen would have taken the right objective and could have remained uncontested from that point onwards. As it was, this was one of the few times I've seen anyone manage to outgrind Death Guard in the mid board (even if their obsec meant we both ended up with max primary) which was a very encouraging sign for the list. Secondaries were the big difference between the two - Banners v Interrogations ended up 11-3 in my favour, mostly due to Death Guard having the poor misfortune of me denying the casting 4 times (might have used one re-roll otherwise just kept rolling high v medium casting rolls) and Engage was always going to be tough for Death Guard. On a personal level I was happy to get back into a heavy wrap and trap 8th edition style of play, causing lots of headaches for Death Guards shooting and keeping my Talons safe from the Contemptors until I was happy to risk them late game - it was a tactic I would repeat throughout the event.
Round 2 40k Super Best Friends
Potential matches - Sisters of Battle (Bloody Rose combat heavy) Thousand Sons (Duplicity double terminator brick) Craftworlds (hail of doom.) The mission was Recover the Relics.
Team strategy - One good matchup for me and two terrible so I was given free reign to be hidden and get matched into Sisters - we were confident if we put forward Sisters then TS would be hidden in return and we could get a good set of match ups and it ended up Craftworlds v our Sisters, CSM v there Sisters and Harlequins into TS - the last one we weren't sure about but thought in worse case scenario Quins could score highly and we could make up any difference with the other two games.
Opponents list:
My Secondaries - The Long War, Specimens of the Spider, Banners
Sisters Secondaries - Leap of Faith, Defend the Shrine, Sacred Grounds
Pregame thoughts - A bit of pressure here, this was the match up I had been built for and having got the pick there was an expectation to do well against what's arguably the meta leader in the game at the present. Still with only limited shooting going my way the trading game should be in my favour but there was a problem - on a 6 objective map with a decent distance between us and with the Sisters secondaries favouring a defensive position I was going to have to go all in on attack to disrupt and just risk over extending into the army that arguably punishes all in attacks more than any other in the game. What could go wrong?
I won the roll off for the first turn, I had rather wanted to go second to give myself a chance at late game scoring upswing and waste the first turn with the Sisters melta being out of range, but it did allow me to start taking position. An early disaster struck when my Master of Possession failed to give the chosen either a FNP or boosted toughness and left them standing in the open in front of a bunch of scary looking Sisters units. Annoyingly I could have Warptimed them back behind the wall with the Prince as I wanted the Chosen to be my bruiser unit, but I'd already wasted its cast and an inconsequential smite on the Rhino, a misplay that threatened to be decisive early on. Otherwise with no shooting or charges to declare I passed the turn to Sisters.
Sisters disembarked the Sacresants and smash Canoness from the Rhino and moved up towards my Chosen whilst a squad of Repentia prepared to make a medium-long charge into my possessed that were threatening their bottom home objective. Sisters melta managed to start well - taking out a Warp Talon squad and 3 Possesed despite the dense terrain and I prepared for what threatened to be a grim charge phase - however the Repentina failed there charge even with a re-roll into the Possessed and concerned my other weakened Possessed squad could charge onto there top objective (which was there Defend the Shrine pick) the Cannoness made last second decision to charge them instead of the vulnerable Chosen - she killed them both but got tore apart in return. The Sacresants did charge the Chosen and took a meaty chunk of flesh killing 5, but they were torn apart in return which also gave the Chosen a chance to advance upfield with their consolidation move.
Going into turn 2 there was a huge amount of relief around the Chosen's fate and I had an early chance to dent the Sisters scoring and score some Long War points whilst at it. Sisters had been careful to screen out their backfield and my held back Terminator units came on my top back objective - partly to pour some shots into a Retributor squad, but mostly to secure up my backfield. I decided at this stage I wanted to prioritise taking Sisters objectives over defending my own against the Seraphim/Zepharim that were in reserve but didn't want to totally abandon the objective - each had a Cultist unit on, with either a Character or recently arrived terminator unit there to protect them. As it turned out the terminators tore into the Retributors in an unexpected bonus - they failed a silly amount of 2+ saves against the Terminators bolters to leave only 1 multi-melta alive in one squad. Come the charge phase I unleashed a barrage of angry power armoured charges - my Chosen (buffed up now thanks to the Master of Possession) charged the Zepharim, the Lord Discordant charged a Rhino, a Warp Talon unit made a charge into Repentia, my remaining possesed charge a Sister of battle squad and a second Warp talon unit went into the full health Retributor squad and all of the above Sisters units were destroyed - the Repentia managed to take a chunk out of the Warp Talons (there fight on death strat is so powerful, can't believe a army would have access to an ability that crazy.) With 2 objectives flipped things were good, with the only frustration being that Valh managed to kill 4 Warp Talons and the last one ran just when it looked like it could tie Valh up for a turn (it did at least force the double fight.)
Sister had taken an early hit on primary, but there secondaries were online and score was roughly equal. They had taken a battering, but with Valh, Celestine, 2 beefy Repentia squads and both a Zeraphim and Seraphim unit to deploy had plenty of punch to go. All of these bar a Repentia and Seraphim squad came out to counter attack the Chaos push. The deaths of almost all the multi-meltas put me in the unique position that I actually outshot the Sisters at this stage, a state of affairs that did not repeat in the rest of the games! The Zeraphim deep struck at my middle back objective, miracle diced charged their way onto the objective, dispatched the Cultists (a set of poor rolls made it close but they had enough attacks to power through it) and surrounded the Master of Possession, trapping him. Valh fought the Chosen to a draw - their myranid of defensive buffs came in very strong here and whilst the Sisters were able to obsec there way to retake the objective they were losing control of the flank, especially with a Deamon Prince and Lord Discordant ready to pounc next turn. On the south flank, the battle between Repentia, Celestine and the Warp Talons and Possessed was won emphatically by the Sisters even with fights on death - I tried to get sneaky and remove the Battle Sisters obsec from the point that had chained there way just onto the objective with some pile ins from the Possessed making them an eligible target but couldn't manage to kill the last one and the greed meant the Repentia weren't entirely killed in return.
Going into my turn both sides were stretched hard - neither could really defend against each other's push so it was a question of trying to keep the pressure on - keep the Sisters battling for their home objectives and be prepared to accept the Seraphim would likely take another home objective if they chose to. I was tempted to send my Prince into the Battle sister unit on the middle Sister objective to deny any primary for them but ended up charging him into the weakened Valh and killing her - given the Chosen fought first it's entirely possible they could have destroyed her but I wanted to remove any possibility of failure and with 7 attacks it only took a mild spike for the battle Sisters to keep the objective. Elsewhere my terminator units were now forced into the fray - on the Sisters bottom objective they (combined with some Cultist fire) managed to clear the objective of Repentita/the last obsec Sister and charged into Celestine, briefly killing her before she resurrected. On my home objective I advanced + charged the terminators in my backfield into the Zepharim, thankfully making decent rolls for both the advance and charge and managed to retake the objective.
Sisters were only scoring a trickle on primary and whilst they had a decent score on secondaries there was a realisation that things were about to get very bleak very quickly. Seraphim came down and again miracle diced there way into a Cultist squad to take on one of my homefield objectives before Celestene moved over to kill my Daemon Prince but took 6 wounds in return. The last Repentia squad charged into a terminator squad - they didn't quite finish it off but dislodged them from the objective and survived the hit back surprisingly well.
Still it was clear this was the last play from Sisters, with all their units in danger close range. The final repentia squad required a decent charge from the master of Executions to be finished off, but otherwise the rest of the turn was mostly a formality as Chaos tabled the Sisters. Final score 91-48.
Team result - 18-2 win for Chaos v there Sisters. 13 - 7 for our Sisters v Craftworlds, 10-10 tie for Harlequins v Thousand Sons - win for Hydra again.
Postgame thoughts - Crazy fun game, absolutely brutal combat throughout and was delighted to crush the match up (at least on the scoreboard) that I'd aimed the list for. Fights on death availability on both sides meant both sides found it hard to trade but the sheer waves of aggression I could throw won the trading war - every now and again Sisters would bounce against one of my more durable units and they never had the same luxury. That said I had got 2 large bits of luck at the start - the Cannoness not going into the Chosen was big, the Possessed wouldn't have been able to tangle with Vahl later in the same way and there was a reasonable chance she would have killed the 5 remaining chosen if she'd charged them (we rolled after the game for fun with her kill 4 of them.) The terminators taking out most of the melta in shooting was another key moment, I'd have taken killing one melta, leaving them with 1 was huge and meant I could commit my Discordant/Daemon Prince with much more freedom after that.
Round 3 v Amherst Defenders 2
Potential matches - Tau (triple Riptide), Chaos Knights (3 big/5 Small) and Custodes (Dreads/Bikes/Guard.) Mission was Abandoned Sanctuaries
Team strategy - No good matches for me, no horrendous ones for Sisters - with Tau/Knights potentially good for Harlequins. As such the plan was just to use me as a sacrifice to get 2 decent match ups for the others - Harlequins managed to get Chaos Knights, Sisters got Custodes and I ended up with Tau - just about the complete antithesis of what my army wanted to do. Just to rub it in we ended up on the open table terrain for our game.
Opponents list:
Pregame thoughts - 5 super scary damage dealins in the Riptides and Sun Shark Bombers with a reasonable amount of light infantry chaff - I kept with my Specimens of Spider/Long War plan and wanted to bully any of the infantry that came up. I was very pessimistic about this - whilst the terrain wasn't bad by any stretch the lack of big ruins outside of one in each corner combined with Tau's mobility essentially meant if they wanted to shoot something they could. My aim was to lose by as little as possible here and just fill a role in the team - try and get as many long war/bile points at the start, complete a Warp Ritual by whatever means necessary, deny what I could and just act as a spoiler role as best as possible. I didn't end up trying it, but to show the state of mind I was in when I found out they had gone for no prisoners I legitimately considered trying to hide my entire army in the back left corner behind one ruin and just deny that at the cost of everything else. I didn't go for it (giving up 85-pitiful wasn't actually going to help) and even if it was Tau would have been able to start shooting them without too much difficulty.
My secondaries - The Long War, Specimens of the Spider, Warp Ritual
Tau Secondaries - Decisive Action, RND, No Prisoners
I won the roll off for the first turn, a mixed blessing as it allowed me to get into position early, but also meant I couldn't score any TLW/Bile/Mission terairty points. In a super exciting turn I moved everything forwards, tried to ensure I had multiple units on objectives to make life difficult for Tau, cast Warp Ritual, buff the Chosen and ended the turn without a shot fired.
Turns out, Tau didn't have the decency to make their shooting phase last the same length of time as mine. The two planes flew out and started bombing before shooting what I think was around 2 thousand high strength damage 2 shots into my list before the Riptides eached opened up with there 8 shot strength 8 AP4 damage 4 guns before they opened up with the missiles and Plasma that also accompanied them. With my stuff in the middle at least partly protected by dense most of the fury went on the flanks as 9 Warp Talons, 7 or 8 possessed, a chosen and above 20 cultists met a brutal fury at the hands of Tau firepower.
I was at least in a position to make some charges and I got a early 12 on the primary thanks to a couple of single possessed hanging about - I was pretty certain already I wasn't going to be able to kill any Riptide unless the Chosen squad managed a charge into one and that wasn't looking likely. The Warp Talons went after a plane, my reserved units of Terminators teleported into the middle to protect the Prince casting its Warp ritual and the rest of my army went off to try and smash any infantry it could. The charge phase went very well, with a couple of decent length charges ensuring my Chosen and Lord Disordant destroyed the two Firewarrior squad on/near the Tau home objective, some Possesed managed to take out an Etheral and pile into a Ripetide to limit its shooting chances but the Warp Talons didn't go great guns - a lone Talon mostly wiffed against some fire warriors (and to his great embaressment was wounded in return) and the others managed to hurt but not destroy one of the bombers.
Tau were a long way ahead in attrition but had been nilled on primary to give Chaos an early lead, however their shooting in the turn wasn't as violent as previous. The Warp Talons were finished off without much difficulty but the Possessed in combat with the Riptide tanked its shots without issue and the shots into the Chosen were essentially irrelevant - the Master of Executioners had a quietly brilliant turn without doing anything - it tanked a decent amount of the Tau commanders shots and the threat to heroic into anything that could get onto the objective keeping it clear to allow Chaos another 12 on primary.
So going into my turn 3 there was a sudden realisation that I could actually win this. I couldn't kill the Riptides/Planes without a horrendous misplay, but Tau were running out of infantry. Given Tau still had 2 RND's both on the left flank to complete and I could easily 0 them for a second turn on the primary my focus intensified on killing anything capable of RND and just surviving to try and hit the Tau primary at all costs on turn 4. I pulled my Chosen back from the Tau objective/Riptide towards the centre to ensure they were in the best position for the next turn. On the right flank similarly I retreated out of combat with my possessed that were battling the Riptide - they couldn't kill it and needed to be dealt with anyway so it freed them up to make a pain next turn if ignored. My Master of Executions went south on the right flank as the only other unit there and managed to charge the Vespid - a rather horrific wound roll meant he only killed 3 though. On my left I chucked some Cultists onto the objective - there crazed fanatical brains and blunt metal instruments easily taking the objective's control away from the 30 foot tall precision engineered robotic killing machine next to them. Meanwhile the lone possessed on the flank had a friend brought to life thanks to the Master of Possession and combined with the Lord Discordant annihilated a Kroot unit that had threatened to take the objective/RND next turn with the Lord Discordant consolidating into a pathfinder unit behind them to again deny RND chances.
Tau's turn started well enough - the Lord Discordant was removed by the Riptides but they again struggled to deal with the Chosen in the middle in an effective manner. The combination of spells/buffs meant that even there strength 8 guns were wounding on 4s and then getting 5+FNP to ensure it occasionally took 2 failed damage 4 saves to kill a model. Tau were able to take 3 objectives to ensure they got there decisive action and limit me to 8 on primary as the game entered a new phase - Tau were going to reduce me to a pulp and I couldn't stop them doing that now, it was a question of if they could do it in time to catch up.
Turns were pretty quick now. The Chosen moved up to retake Tau's home objective, my last Possessed squad on the left flank moved up to finish off the Pathfinders and ensure Tau couldn't RND either left quarter. The terminators in the middle advance and charged into the Tau fire warriors that had retaken the right objective. I could have potentially Warptimes over either the Demon Prince/Master of Possession to contest the left objective but forgot at the time - I was rather focused on just getting any infantry off the table.
Tau were limited to 4 points on primary - there first primary points for holding objectives of the game and again unleashed a withering barrage on the Chosen, combined with a commander's charge they were reduced to a solitary model but at this stage it didn't mean a lot and the damage on primaries was done. My daemon prince and MoP were destroyed as Tau took the middle for a late boost.
My last turn was super quick - a squad of terminators advanced in to retake the middle (I didn't risk taking the overwatch against the Riptides all game) for some last Long war/mission terairty points before Tau destroyed them. I was left with a lone terminator squad, injured Master of Executions and lone Chosen (who Tau could have destroyed without issue if they desired) against essentially the full starting array of Tau heavy weapons minus one bomber but had claimed a 85-64 win.
Team results - Chaos v Tau - 14-6 win for us, Chaos Knights v Harlequins - 17 -3 loss for us, Sisters v Custodes - 20-0 win to us.
Postgame thoughts - Ecstatic. I had no prior thoughts of winning this up until the mid game and went in with such a damage limitation mindset - not helped by a brutal opening from Tau. The game changed when Tau were forced to try and dislodge the Chosen resistance just long enough combined with random Chaos models coming back to life around the board to help sweep up Tau's infantry to stop them scoring.
We ended the day with unbeaten as a team, with myself and Jack both unbeaten as players and in top spot
Round 4 v Warmaster Absolute Kents
Potential Matches - TS (20 Scarabs but Time rather than duplicity,) Harlequins (light lots of Jetbikes) and Imperial Knights (army of renown 2 big/7 small.) Missions was the Scouring
Team Strategy - Again no good match for me, no bad one for Sisters (Harlequins possibly not ideal) and Harlequins for us having a decent/mirror/ok match up although Nick was worried about playing TS again. I didn't like any of my options but the mission was a real midfield brawl which levelled the playing field somewhat and at a guess they were all kinda equally unfavoured but with a favourable mission. I was put forward again as a sacrifice and ended up with Thousand Sons and again was put on the light terrain table.
Opponents list:
Pregame thoughts - A funny mix of advantages and disadvantages here. Let's start with the problems - they outrange me, i'm vulnerable to there castings and it opens up more secondaries to them and the majority of my combat attacks are either damage 1 or low ap meaning that for example my Warp Talons AP-2 is effective AP0 against the terminators - if I have to charge them and bounce then I risk getting smitten off with impunity or having problems on primary will all the TS obsec. On the upside, whilst Time and potential terminator resurrection was a nasty problem to deal with, it did mean I could worry less about screening compared to Duplicity. My combat units were also faster and much more deadly than the TS none terminator units - even if they charged me and I didn't have to fight on death , I wasn't worried about getting charged by Tzaangor or potentially even Spawn in my tough units. I was also somewhat bullish about my Chosen after the last game - if I get my buffs off they are the one unit that can shrug through a wave of TS smites. The missions is also key - they can't stay at the back and with 5 no-man's lands objectives the chance for multiple combats really helps. Finally I'm very familiar with the TS book, which really helps in what can be an overwhelming match up sometimes. The Game Plan was essentially the same as v Death Guard - pressure the flanks, although this time the aim was to force the large Scarab unit to commit at a point where my powerful characters could come in and take a large dent out of them.
My Secondaries - The Long War, Specimens of the Spider, Banners
Opponents Secondaries - Wrath of Magnus, Physic Interrogation, Sorcerers Prowess (if unfamiliar, all could be described as cast lots/varying stuff in the psychic phase.)
I won the roll off for first turn - bit of a shame as it again meant no early Specimens/Long war points but did give a chance to move upfield, get some buffs off and put 3 banners down as I tried to entrench myself in the midboard with Cultists up first to eat any smites that couldn't be targeted. As a surprise bonus the Lord Discordant and some random terminator bolter shots managed to take out a Scarab Terminator. Like the Sisters match up I didn't feel I could win playing defensive/playing around screening out my backfield (I'd rather have Cultists catching smites initially) although this time I left a terminator unit midfield at the back to go after any teleporting Scarabs.
TS responded by moving up Tzaangors and Rubrics into the middle there shooting softened up some Possessed but there Physic phase was a tad underwhelming - I managed to deny +1 to hit spell to limit there ranged damage and they failed to resurrect the dead Terminator being highlights from my point of view. The Tzaangor and Rubrics managed to deal with the Cultists easily enough - I almost managed to avoid the unit dying but the last one ran away to ruin my hope for some local obsec/screening potential but alas.)
With my flanking units of Warp talons all at full health I was in a position to cause a lot of problems for the TS. But first a shooting phase of note as somehow the Lord Discordant and 4 combi bolters managed to kill 2 Scarabs in cover (my opponent rolled very poorly on there saves.) Two units charged a flanking unit of Rubrics each - the Rubrics held firm in both cases (keeping TS on an objective in the process) but I managed to tripoint both units to give an additional challenge to them falling back on top of the Warp Talons natural ability to require a roll off. The last Warp Talon unit managed to take out a solo spawn on the objective and take out 2 in the other nearby squad to neuter them and leave both flanks in a perilous position. In the middle I was able to mostly keep the MoP out of all bar deny range to keep buffing chosen. The Tzaangor and Rubrics in the middle were swiftly dealt with and whilst the Demon Prince killing the Rhino allowed TS to disembark obsec onto the objective, they were swiftly wrapped by Possessed and Chosen to enact my third tri-point of the turn.
TS flanks were under severe pressure and the middle was going to fall - the large Scarab unit had to act now to prevent CSM running away with the score and they moved up into the centre. Of the other terminator squads - one stayed back to protect the casters, and the other, having been held in reserve, decided to deepstrike close to my top right objective and threaten it. The TS options were rather limited however - with most of their ideal shooting targets locked in combat they chipped away at a few backfield terminators of mine before experiencing another underwhelming casting round. As if sending a response was needed the Scarabs arriving from deepstrike made a 11 inch roll to charge the Cultists and take my objective, whilst in the middle not wanting to tangle with the Chosen yet (especially as it would allow the Lord Disdorcant to heroically intervene into the fray) they settled with killing the remaining Possesed. However, by the time the combat wasn't all one way - the 3 Rubrics marines squads locked in combat were killed, freeing me up and allowing one Warp Talon squad to consolidate back onto an objective to steal it for a cheeky 12 points primary to me.
I was edging the primary now (even after TS turn) with even secondaries and a lot of pressure I could keep throwing at TS. I was loosely aware at this stage that the Harlequin mirror was going very badly for us, whilst the Sisters v Knights game was going very well for us and it was looking like this game would be the decider for the round with the combat in the middle going to be the key deciding factor. In the TS backfield the Warp Talons took care of the last few spawn on either flank to limit TS primary again as my Chosen, Daemon Prince and Lord Discordant prepared to charge into the terminators and managed to exactly kill them all to my great relief. In the backfield, my two terminator squads and Master of exceptions started to chip away at the Scarabs on my back field objective although they managed to hold it without too much damage done to them.
TS were down, but not yet out - they still had a ball of very nasty casters and Scarab blob free - but they did need to break out of their position quickly. Things started well for them - the Lord Discordant was melted by mind bullets and the remnants of 2 battered Warp Talon squads were taken out shortly after but they chose to (wisely) remain in a defence position rather than take the fight to the Chosen
Chaos Marines confirmed their ascendancy next turn - the last Warp Talon squad flying deep into TS lines and assassinating Ahriman before piling into the last two casters to mess with their Casts as best as possible. The Daemon Prince charged into the Scarabs guarding the characters taking out 4 - whilst I was dangerously stretched to the extent I had to leave a Master of Possession unguarded on the centre objective by himself TS had way more threats than they could deal with.
The last few turns went quick with TS making one teleport + MW trick to kill the MoP for some extra points late on - secondaries were pretty even between the two lists but a 22 point lead on secondaries gave CSM a 85-67 win.
Team Result - Harlequins v Harlequins - 20-0 loss for us - speaking to Nick after confirming the long held belief that no one likes playing into Harlequins, even other Harlequin players. Counterbalancing that Sisters had won 20-0 v Knights and my 13-7 win gave us the win.
Postgame thoughts - Very happy with this win - last time I played against TS at a tournament (Prenerf Nids v them) I focused on whittling down the terminators with my big scary monsters as priority - here with a much lower damage potential into them I went the opposite route taking out all the support pieces that score points and focing a situation were the 3 terminator squads needed to somehow be on 3 objectives, clear mine and protect the casters at the same time whilst ideally avoiding a mass pile on. I wouldn't want to replay the match with a different mission (especially on a 6 objective map with a bigger gap.) On a nice note, it was fun playing an almost 8th edition combat style of game again, wrapping and trapping things and forcing tough choices from opponents as opposed to blowing them away in combat.
Round 5 v Deadfort.
Potential matches - Drukari (extreme MSU) Sisters (Bloody Rose with 2 large Battle Sisters Squads) Death Guard (combat heavy - similar list to my game 1 with Bloat-Drone instead of contemptors.) The mission was Death and Zeal.
Team Strategy - Similar to round one, no one was especially worried about any of these potential matches. We had a concern that Drukari might out-obsec Sisters so kept them back in what was the only time we were even slightly concerned about a Sisters match up and I got sent out first again - this time as I was confident into the field rather than having no good match ups! At this stage of the event we had already beaten 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th in our previous rounds so we ended up playing 6th placed team in the title match and went in as the only unbeaten team - a loss could lose us 1st place (although if you read the title to this you can guess about the outcome of that) but a high scoring loss or draw should secure the tournament win. I was chosen by Drukari as a match up and we matched Harlequins into their Sisters and Death Guard took on our Sisters.
Pregame thoughts - Jeez, that list just doesn't seem to end! So similar to the sisters game I was relatively confident about this - trade over the centre, Chosen buff hold it, trade on the flanks. The sheer volume of Drukari trading units with obsec was a worry, but none held a candle to say Warp Talons and believed they would struggle to trade even with 2 fights last units.
Or so I thought - there was a rules query/judges call from this game - it came up right at the start of the game around fight on death with a debate being put forward that it didn't allow pile in moves - I disagreed with this interpretation (to be fair I have a vested interest in the matter) but could at least see the argument in the rules and understood why the judge made the ruling (we had a good chat about it afterwards and there weren't any hard feelings around the subject.) I want to stress this isn't a complaint about the decision made but talking about the outcome of it compared to the other games - it meant that if a Drukari was over half an inch away from my model then only one model in the unit could fight on death as the rank behind couldn't fight. It didn't end up making a massive difference - most of the time against fragile Drukari units 1/2 fighting on death models was enough to make a sizable dent to either kill it or leave it in a state that it couldn't be used again meaningfully apart from an objective holder and the ruling did make a lot the fine model placement very interesting (really making sure to charge with everyone already in engagement range already for example rather than piling in and basing to stop shenanigans) but if you're reading this and wondering why in the next game I'm not trading as well as previous especially when charged that's why.
My secondaries - Specimens of the Spider, The Long War, Warp Ritual
Drukari secondaries - No Prisoners, Engage on all Front, RND
Drukari went first - I wasn't upset at this, the loss of position balanced out by an easier chance to score secondaries, especially the long war. Drukari's Dark lance fire turned out to be more effective than I'd hoped shooting at my terminator unit in cover with dense mostly in the way and they killed 4 of them with a jetbike unit killing 9 of a cultist unit (they wanted to try and get some EOF but ended up being blocked by the ruin although they did create a nice annoying bubble of engagement range to slow me down. A succubus YOLO charged my Possesed unit on the front line killing 2 (for a second I thought Possessed only had two wounds again and was briefly very salty that she killed the full unit before remembering that's not correct) I couldn't kill her back which was very frustrating as it blocked my Discolord in place.
I wanted to bully the middle - I was confident the Chosen could hold it and protect the Prince long enough to complete the ritual at worst case however I made a right balls up of the first turn although I managed to get myself out of it. The possessed fell back towards the middle and I put the last cultist on the middle to provide obsec in case I didn't kill them all off. I then got distracted by a high rolling Baleflamer shot that did 6 damage to a Raider and tried to finish it off with my bolters rather than kill the Wracks on the objective. Thankfully I managed to undo my mistake in combat and ended up being able to pile my Chosen forwards to ensure I had enough models to hold the middle as my Daemon Prince/Lord Discordant made short work of the Bikers/Succubus. On each flank a Warp Talon/possessed squad took out a small Drukari unit apiece on each objective to claim it to complete a nearly disastrous but ultimately fine first turn.
Drukari came out hard in turn 2 to retake the flanks - not yet interested in the middle as the Wracks I'd ignored took out the solitary Cultist to retake the objective easier that I'd have liked. With only one Warp Talon on my left flank two boats moved up to nab that off me and charges were made into my Possesed from Drazhar killing them all, and two identical charges from Incubi into Warp Talons - despite only one able to fight back the Warp Talons managed to take out one squad entirely and 3 from the other to limit their ability to strike in the middle. One bright spot was a squad of Wytches came in to my Cultist squad, trying to get sneaky and run onto my home objective after but got heroiced into despite taking a toll on the cultists were killed outright by the Master of Executions
My turn two I commited hard to middle and did my best to stop the bleeding on the flanks - I was able to regenerate cultists up to retake it whilst I did my best to surround the Raider with 2 more squads of obsec troops inside up top but the geometry of the skimmer made it harder than expected. I was able to destroy it and stop them disembarking onto the objective at least. In the middle the Chosen had a hilariously one sided fight with 5 wracks and it capped another fine if kind of mediocre turn.
The attrition war wasn't really going anyways yet but that was about to change one way or the other as Drukari prepared to go hard into the middle. The last Incubi squad moved up, supported by Drazhar, the Haemonculus, an Archon and a Succubus all ready to fight the chosen. A wrack squad easily retook the top left objective from the Cultists before the main event kicked off. Drazhar went first killing a couple of Chosen - but with fights last countered by fights first I was able to interrupt and kill both Drazhar and the Incubi to secure the middle - the remaining Drukari characters mostly bouncing off the buffed Chosen. Some scourges made a play for my home objective, deep striking in and making a long charge, but a couple remained to secure the objective for me.
My turn 3 I completed my ritual - and prepared to try and secure control of the middle and remove threats to my objective. The Chosen and Discordant killed all the Drukari presence in the middle, and I tried to do the same with my master of executioners but one Wrack clung to life to keep Drukari on the objective. The Daemon Prince managed a decent charge into the Scourges to remove the threat and along with the master of Possession got into place to stare down a unit of wracks in case of their next turn. I deep struck a unit of terminators I had kept back and certainly should have placed turn two (pretty much in the spot the scourges came in which would have secured my backfield and threatened the flank I couldn't touch) but they failed there charge but were in a position to threaten the Drukari home objective. Things were heating up when...
Time was called.
It was a shame to stop as it was a great game -I ended up with a massively overly flattering 69-54 win with secondaries stupidly in my favour given the situation. Thankfully we both agreed that from here Chaos were going to win (most likely controlling mine/Drukari/middle objective and finding it hard to close the flanks down easily) and it was just a case of a flattering margin rather than the wrong result.
Team Result - 12-8 win to Chaos v Drukari for us, 12-8 win for Harlequins v Sisters in our favour, 19 -1 win for Sisters v Death guard in our favour. Win for us and thankfully the margin in my game having to be called before time was up didn't impact the overall team result either.
With that we took home the first place trophy and a ginormous bar of chocolate each - the above picture does not credit to its true size that you could use to feed a starving Whale. We ended up as the only team with 5 wins with Amherst Defenders taking 2nd on 4 and Warmasters Absolute Kents taking 3rd on 3 wins, leading a contested middle pack. Both my Chaos list and Jack's Sisters list had gone through the event unbeaten and there were certainly no suggestions from the rest of Hydra discord members that Nick had been carried and it didn't get mentioned that if Nick had lost every game 20-0 on the score we would have only lost one round and at worst finished second. I don't know why you would even suggest such things. It was a great feeling to take the trophy home especially as we ended up playing some really strong teams and players on the way. If you'll permit me one last potential brag disguised as a fun fact - given there relatively new introduction to 40k as a faction (they aren't even on BCP yet) I was left wondering if this was the first time Creations of Bile had gone through a GT level event unbeaten or as a trophy winner, no idea if it's true but it seems like a reasonable shout given there previous lack of strength and recent rebirth, fun thing to ponder on personally and if you know anyone that has won/got unbeaten with Creations of Bile before at a GT please don't let me know and ruin the illusion.
Turning back to the list, whilst it probably ends up designed as a counter pick for a teams environment - it ended up being put forwards 4/5 times to let the opposition pick the match up into it and still ended up unbeaten. As such I don't see why in a true random single GT it wouldn't put up similar results - especially if Sisters/Blood Angels or other aggressive combat armies remain as meta leaders. If we go back to a Hail of Doom/Tau meta then other Chaos Legions/armies are probably a better pick but even then the extra speed from Bile was invaluable - advance and charge on core really helped a lot of the times and there was a lot of charges were a extra inch made a big difference (insert your own joke here) to the charge succeeding. There are plenty of thingsI would like to add most notably I played a test game against Michael Costello's Night lords and shameless want to rip of his Nurgle Chosen brick to add to the force and either transhuman/cloud of flies an additional blob of tough power armour - probably instead of the terminators. If I did keep the terminators I'd drop the chain/powerfist for melta to give myself at least a high rollers chance of popping some armour as the extra combat punch didn't feel like it made a difference.
As for MVP - any of Chosen, MOP or Warp Talons were incredible. No one managed to ever kill all the chosen technically (Tau could have, just no point killing them last one at end of game) whilst the Warp Talons i'm not sure survived any game but applied so much pressure and denied so many primary I couldn't go without them - there are alot of very good FA options for Bile and Venomcrawlers especially seem like a excellent choice (cheap, similarly quick, enjoy the +1 Strength buff enormously and add some shooting to the list) but fly and weight of attacks from the Talons were great.
The Prince I'm not sure ever got his points back - but he was often required to sit in the middle and cast Warp Ritual and won games as a result. It's a slightly odd situation where it might not be the best pick point for point, but he provides some answers to questions that the rest of the list struggles with and without him you'd need a different list (certainly some guns.) I mentioned at the start I don't like most of the Chaos shooting options - the best option they have is probably Autocannon Havocs which are legitimately good, but they fall into the issue of having a similar damage profile to a lot of your combat attacks (mid strength, good volume, not a lot of AP) so they don't really add a unique edge or take away the weakness as much as I'd like outside of destroying transports which I got around by trying to wrap and trap were possible and forcing additional CP/casualties when disembarking as result.
The Terminators were probably the weakest choice of the list - if I was playing again I'd probably drop them for chosen + additional points elsewhere. I certainly preferred 2 5's of them to act independently than one big squad with the buffs instead of the Chosen. There's a secondary reason why I prefer terminators as small rather than 10 man blobs - I've played giant chaos terminator blobs to death in DG/TS and I want to try something different. Chaos hasn't really had the damage in the past, eer, 5 editions to really make up for its lack of speed and has made it for it via chucking 800 buffs onto a mediocre unit - whether its Veterans of the long war, or some Soup jank to make Possesed stupidly hard to kill in 8thor even older stuff like Invisable units in 6th/7th edition and getting to play a MSU trading list with a tough element is a really, really nice change to play up.
Elsewhere the Cultists were great - they averaged maybe 10 points killed per game for all 3 squads combined but did all the dirty work and scored plenty of VP's. Absolute heroes the lot of them. The Lord Discordant is probably droppable - with the full wound re-rolls, decent speed and a actual gun he does provide some nice answers to problems like Knights with his combat power/the shooting helps against C'tan and the like if the Demon Prince is busy but dropping him for a Apostle + more chosen or even some Master of Executioners works as well. Speaking of the MoE he never really had a great game, it's probably the wrong style of list for him, but he had some decent moments and for the price I can't complain - very good unit that was never the star.
I never felt the lack of CP bite me at all - I always had one needed for advance + charge which was probably my most used strat, followed by command reroll and virtually nothing else. I only used Veterans once I think all weekend, which is faintly heretical even for a Chaos player and I'm delighted not to be held to ransom on it providing relevant damage. Dropping one of the relic/WT trait on Discordant or the unit entirely does free up some incase I need a reroll on a mission were you only regain CP whilst on the middle objective - this could have saved me from the awkward spot v Sisters when I failed both my buff powers with possed in the open, but I think the trade off is probably worth starting on 0 most of the time.
Finally given I had a few conversations about it - do I think Bile's fight on death should be nerfed in the same way Dark was for Harlequins? Whilst they have the same effect and it's very powerful I don't think it's a problem for Chaos/needs a nerf (huge bias ofc.) Chaos is a much slower army with much worse shooting and whilst unit on unit comparisons can be tough the damage in combat is pretty equivalent when weapon upgrades on Quins v say Possed are considered so it doesn't feel as powerful. Given its arguably within there design wheelhouse (frenzied zealots fighting on through hate) and Chaos have a lot of access to fights first via Slaanesh which is a similar effect with its own pro/cons it doesn't seem unreasonable to me especially as Chaos aren't smashing up tournaments the same as some of the recent new books, but maybe Harlequins fans disagree! If it does stay, it gives Chaos a nice counter meta option at least.