This was my fourth time at the LGT - the third time at the 40k event (the first was a narrative 30k event.) Going into the event I wanted to replicate and ideally my efforts from the last event - a respectable 3-1-1 with a Chaos Soup list filled with 3 Knights,3 Lord Discordants, 3 Chaos Spawn and Ahriman. 2 years later I was back with a new monsterous Chaos Murder machine and one of the Discordants:
My list:
++ Vanguard Detachment -3CP (Chaos - Death Guard) [41 PL, 835pts, -3CP] ++
Plague Company: The Harbingers
Malignant Plaguecaster [5 PL, 95pts]: 1. Miasma of Pestilence, 5. Curse of the Leper
18x Poxwalker: 18x Improvised weapon
20x Poxwalker: 20x Improvised weapon
20x Poxwalker: 20x Improvised weapon
Deathshroud Champion: Plaguespurt gauntlet
2x Deathshroud Terminator: 2x Manreaper, 2x Plaguespurt gauntlet
Deathshroud Champion: Plaguespurt gauntlet
2x Deathshroud Terminator: 2x Manreaper, 2x Plaguespurt gauntlet
Deathshroud Champion: Plaguespurt gauntlet
2x Deathshroud Terminator: 2x Manreaper, 2x Plaguespurt gauntlet
++ Super-Heavy Auxiliary Detachment -1CP (Chaos - Chaos Space Marines) [23 PL, 465pts, -1CP] ++
Legion: Iron Warriors
+ Lord of War +
Khorne Lord of Skulls [23 PL, 465pts]: Hades gatling cannon, Ichor cannon
++ Patrol Detachment 0CP (Chaos - Chaos Space Marines) [36 PL, 700pts, 12CP] ++
Legion: Iron Warriors
Lord Discordant on Helstalker [10 PL, 195pts]: Autocannon, Mark of Nurgle
. Helstalker: Techno-virus injector. Insidium Relic.
Master of Possession [5 PL, 95pts]: Cursed Earth, Infernal Power, Mark of Tzeentch, Warlord trait Deamonsmith
Chaos Cultists [3 PL, 50pts]: Mark of Slaanesh
9x Chaos Cultist w/ Autogun: 9x Autogun +. Cultist Champion: Autogun
Decimator [9 PL, 180pts]: Mark of Nurgle, 2x Soulburner petard
Decimator [9 PL, 180pts]: Mark of Nurgle, 2x Soulburner petard
I'd run the last at 2 GT's previously, going a combined total of 9-3 over the two events. No models in the list had changed since the events, although the Mark of Nurgle got added to the Decimators and Lord Discordant. Why? Well it's the only Chaos Mark that didn't have a downside (like Slaanesh giving Aeldari players the option to re-roll) and had a minor fringe upside against Nurgle daemons with the odd mortal wound ability potentially not working against them.
The basic gameplay of the list was simple enough - force the opponent into a mid board brawl and crush them there. The combination of a Lord of Skulls + Two Decimators when fully buffed could put out very hefty firepower (by Chaos standards at least.) Fully buffed by the Lord Discordant for +1 to hit aura and Master of possession providing re roll hits/wounds of 1 with Infernal Power, a 4+ Invul Aura with Cursed Earth and a WL trait of exploding 6's meant it was reasonably common to ask opponents to roll more saves than the various Daemon Engines had shots. The Lord of Skulls could typically kill anything without a damage reduction, and the Decimators would hopefully kill anything with a damage reduction. When close the combination of Mortal wounds via strats for the Poxwalkers, the general excellence of the Deathshroud in combat and the potential of Lord of Skulls/Lord Discordant provided a healthy melee counter punch at anything trying to get up close. As such, secondaries typically revolved around trying to force opponents to come to me where possible and not expecting to push out too far. In match ups where I felt I wasn't favoured the plan was to use the Lord of Skulls as a excellent panic button - swapping out a spell on the Master of Possession for Warptime and turbo charging him up the field.
Game 1 - Blood Angels.
List:
Mission: Scorched Earth
My Secondaries: Raise Banners, Grind them Down, Warp Ritual.
Opponents Secondaries: ROD, Stranglehold, Grind them Down.
Pregame thoughts: Somewhat bleary eyed from a 5:30 start, but rather confident about the match up - the Blood Angels didn't have a way to do any real damage to the Lord of Skulls at range and if I could clear the Assault bolter they could struggle to get past the Poxwalkers and allow me to trade up well. Secondaries was an easy pick - with no good mission/opponent giving up anything, Banners to force some engagements was easy enough, as was Grind given it was hard to clear full units of Poxwalkers quicker than the small Blood Angel squads. The Plaguecaster is a mostly spare option a lot of the time and casting Warp ritual goes well with the hold the centre line objective the army wants.
I lost the roll off to go first, which felt like a shame - one of the nice parts of the LGT terrain was the 2 big L blocks were large enough to hide the lord of skulls, but the 4 smaller ruins were not counted as obscuring and the Lord of Skulls often had enough height to peek over (especially from its Axe) and get shots people weren't expecting so he rarely didn't have a target. I ended up deploying the Lord of Skulls screened behind Poxwalker on one flank with the rest of the Demon engines on the other far away from the faster side of the Blood Angels which hugged the ruins.
Craig decided to play the game at turbo charged pace - the Death company moving all the way up to my lines as everything with a jump pack made its way up to midfield alongside the forward deployers. He started whittling down the Poxwalkers with his shooting and charged a Deathshroud squad on my left with the Death Company and destroyed them completely. Using the Whirlwind to suppress the other nearby Deathshroud meant I was reluctant to charge the Death Company, and left me in a bit of a pickle in regards to banners.
The Blood Angel advance gave me plenty of targets -too many targets but I managed a strong response in body count. On my right flank the two Decimators chewed through 4 of the Vanguard Veterans, whilst on the left the Lord of Skulls tore into the Interceptors annihilating the squad to minimise the already limited Blood Angel ranged threat before charging the Death Company squad and utterly destroying them. The Deathshroud and Poxwalkers both made charges onto the Incursion on the right, the Deathshroud destroying them to take the objective and the Poxwalkers consolidating into the last Vanguard Vet to try and protect the exposed Daemon Engines/Master of Possession from any cheeky charges. However, things started to go wrong when the Poxwalker squad on my left charged the Incursors on the left, intending to steal the objective but failing to play around the large number of 6 inch heroic interventions the Blood Angels could pull off. Despite going for their full combo of mortal wound strats they failed to do any damage of note to the Blood Angels who tore them apart and left the flank exposed.
Blood Angels again turbo charged forwards as fast as they could - everything bare the Insurors and Whirlwind on my left flank moving up, whilst the Assault interceptors moved up to challenge the right. Their shooting managed to clear a path to the Plaguecaster for the bikes to charge and kill, the Sanguinary guard moved over toward the right to take out a Decimator and along with the Biker Chaplain piled onto my right objective as they took my left objective through the weight of bodies. Dante charged the Deathshroud guarding the objective and ended up in a multi-turn combat with them - the Deathshroud tanking the blows well but really low rolled on their hits back. However whilst the assault interceptors managed to take out a good chunk of the Poxwalkers - they just managed to sneak control of the objective.
Going into my turn two I was losing ground, but the Blood Angels were fully committed and exposed. The Master of Possession fell back as the Lord Discordant moved back to help retake my objective. The Deathshroud on the right moved up to take out the Interseccords - staying as far back as they could in case of Bladeguard charging out. The Decimator Engine unloaded into the Bike Chaplain, leaving it on a wound, whilst the Lord of Skulls took out the Sanguinary guard at range, and charged the incursors, overrunning them as it tried to get in range to start threatening the Blood Angel characters. The Lord Discordant charged the Bike Chaplain, finishing it off but just as I started to feel like I was taking control the Chaplain swung out on death and some poor saves resulted in the Discordants death.
Blood Angels were ahead on primary at this stage - but secondaries were moving in my favour - whilst Warp Ritual was tricky from here and banners were barely ticking along, ROD was impossible for the Blood Angels to complete now and I was killing more units a turn for Grind. Blood Angels' momentum started to stall as their characters started to have to move around to hold objectives. The last two bikers moved across to the right flank and killed the master of Possession (stopping my ability to cast ritual) and threaten my right objective again - thankfully the objective secured cultists hiding away kept the point as they quietly kept me in the game.
I started being able to push back into the middle- the Lord of Skulls went up to midfield to contest the objective and damage the Whirlwind whilst the Deathshroud on the right took out the bikers to secure it whilst the Cultists moved up to get into range to put a banner down.
Blood Angels were pretty much out of steam again when it looked like it might be able to take control the Deathshroud on my left who had won their duel against Dante, died to the Sanguinary Ancient to once again cede control of my objective. However I had mostly stopped the bleeding on primary at this point, and whilst I couldn't disrupt Blood Angels primary the secondaries were vastly in my favour now, and with last turn I was turning the game around.
With little left the Lord of Skulls ended up on mop up duty on the right flank and I moved into position on the right to take one last Blood Angel charge to try and deny stranglehold. Out of units the Blood Angels charged up with the Bladeguard into the Cultists and last Decimator - however the combination of splitting attacks between the targets and a low-roll against the cultists (and natural 1 morale check) kept the point as mine and saved me an awkward decision on the last turn.
From there I could easily sit on 3 for 15 primary and finish the Whirlwind off with the Lord of Skulls for Grind. Totting up the score resulted in an 80-67 win for Chaos.
Postgame thoughts: I really had to work for this - going into the game it felt like a good match up and I guess the win helped prove it was - but being behind on primary until the very bottom of the last turn wasn't a good feeling! The obsec bodies, of primarily the cultists but also the poxwalkers were so key in keeping my in the game for long enough for the attrition from the Lord of Skull in particular to pay off, and it was the sort of game were a low roll here or there really could have swung the game far enough away at the start/middle to make coming back from impossible - on a less forgiving mission the primary would have likely completely swung away at the start especially as I couldn't contest Blood Angles objectives until right at the end when it was largely irrelevant. Still, despite feeling like I had largely been outplayed in a favourable match up it was a win.
Game Two - Drukari
List:
Mission: Vital Intelligence
My Secondaries: Warp Ritual, Grind them Down, Data Intercept
Opponents Secondaries: Data Intercept, Herd the Prey, ROD
Pregame thoughts - Well this was all kinds of brutal. Up against Ben Jones of Vanguard Tactics wasn't great, especially feeling a bit rushed charging around after getting held up in a lunch queue to get to my table on time. I'd played against one similar list at my club on my regular Tuesday game just gone - having deliberately picked the mission as the one my army struggled on the most, against the list it would struggle to play it against the most and lost that game very badly. My key takeaway from that formed the basis of my plan for this game - I had to be super aggressive with the Lord of Skulls to make the game a contest, if they could ignore it, I would be overwhelmed regardless of its damage output. Fair to say I didn't fancy my chances much going in.
Going along with my general gameplan, Lord of Skulls deployed front and centre with Decimators hiding in the back and Deathguard spread across the line with one Deathshroud unit in deep strike. Drukari hid behind the various ruins on their side and I won the roll off for the first turn.
Turn one was simple enough - move up with everything, although the Poxwalker/Deathshroud had a frustrating habit of rolling just 1 inch short of the advance required to get onto an objective whilst the Decimators remained hidden in the back, waiting to shoot anything later in the game rather than expose themself to the Raiders lances. The Plaguecaster and his escorting Poxwalker screen settled in the mid-table and started casting ritual whilst the Lord of Skulls was just able to peek over the back central (non-obscuring) ruin to see the spikes of some Cronos and managed to shoot down one and cripple another of them.
Drukari started moving up in response, the Raiders hiding behind one the central L's as the game started in a cagey fashion with only a few mostly incidental shots. One of the Hellion squads took out a Poxwalker squad in combat to take objectives as it went into my turn two with a measly trickle of secondary points to my name and no primary.
Turn two went surprisingly well for me despite an awkward position. The Lord of Skulls was expertly move blocked, but could still move just enough to line up shots on the Cronos and took out two more of them before making short work of the Hellions in combat on the right and the Lord Discordant took out the Reavers in the middle. On the left flank the Deathshroud managed to finish off the last Cronos.
I then started some speculative charges with the Deathshroud - who made a 10 inch charge on the left to Court of the Archon and a `11 inch charge from Deepstrike into a Raider on the right with the Poxwalkers also making a longish charge against the Mandrakes (who had been depleted by Deathshroud flamers.) Popping a cheeky CSM Veterans against the Deathshroud fighting the Court of the Archon (thanks to Heretic Astartes Keyword) they tore a bloody path through the majority of the unit and on the right they blew up the Raider, tagging another. I was very much all in - but I at least was forcing questions of the Drukari.
With Chaos forcing the pace the Drukari lined up their offensive - with three Incubi squads, Drazhar and the Archon with fights last lining up against the Lord of Skulls. The Cronos moved up to take the far right objective and the Hellions/remainder of the Court moved up to try and dislodge the Poxwalker from the left flank.
A Succubus charged into the Deathshroud which had destroyed the Raider and killed them, and the Hellions and Court of Achron failed to whip the Poxwalker squad - leaving me with the objective. Then to the main event - I had crucially got cursed off on the Lord of Skulls and he was in range of his full complement of buffs. Getting charge with half the units on the far side of the wall to avoid overwatch, the Incubi tore into the cursed machine to devastating effect - however despite Drazar rolling hot with his full complement of attacks the Lord of Skulls invuls against Drazhar proved even better (think it was 9/10 invuls passed after a CP re-roll against Drazhar) to let him cling to life with 3 wounds remaining after the dust settled. Enraged, the murder machine elected to split attacks into the 3 Incubi squads (with a mere 27 attacks before exploding 6's made that number higher) murdering them all in revenge. The Lord of Skulls' ability to essentially not degrade as it takes damage and gets bonus attacks is as valuable as it ever would.
Going into turn 3, I was behind on the primary, but starting to push strongly on with secondaries and the primary was swinging back quickly with the momentum strongly with Chaos. Given that Drukari had herd the Prey, I elected to keep the pressure on as much as I could, continuing to push up. The Lord of Skulls fell back (healing via strat/natural regeneration for 4 wounds) and shot off the last Cronos to deny Drukari the right objective, the Plaguecaster completed his ritual and his Poxwalker screen charged Drazhar to try and slow him down (the fight last Archon ensuring I couldn't keep the Lord of Skulls there to fight Drazhar.) On the left flank the Deathshroud finished off the remainder of the Drukari and started moving toward the middle.
Drukari wouldn't go down without a fight, Drazhar and a Raider charged a Lord of Skulls, who managed to cling to life against after the first round of attacks and hit back against Drazhar - this time it was Drazhars time to roll hot - passing 8/9 of the damage 6 attacks on his invul saves combing with his -1 damage to cling to life against the Chaos engine before finishing it off with his second activation. The Lord of Skulls wouldn't let Drazhar go that easily though - exploding to finish off the Drukari lord.
The score was still close, but with the left flank secured and the middle/right still contested I was well ahead on board. With Drukari running low on threats (they never seem to completely run out) I kept pushing up aggressively - the Decimators finally joining in the battle to take out a Raider, the Master of Possession swapped in Warptime to turbo charge the Lord Discordant up and around the building on my right, who combined with the plaguecaster's mortal wound spells managed to kill a squad of Witches on the objective.
Drukari kept coming retaking as many objectives as they could- but the writing was on the wall now and when the Succubus bounced off the Plaguecaster to deny further Herd the Prey points it confirmed the game was over as a contest.
The last turn was super quick - Chaos pushing up and Deathshroud making another long charge onto the Drukari home objective to avoid any last second swings in points as Drukari were almost tabled (believe it was a Archon and a couple of Wracks left) as Chaos triumphed 68-46.
Postgame thoughts - The scoreline might not have necessarily shown it, but this was on a knife edge - one more wound saved against Drazhar on the Lord of Skulls would have probably ended the game (he had 6+fnp active so might has still clinged to life) but hot rolls saved them (it didn't roll so hot against the Incubi to be fair.) This was very much a match where I needed to be aggressive and roll hot - both of which I did, so even taking into account there were several crucial moments of luck (long DS charges, LoS clinging to life on a couple of occasions) I was delighted at the win. I'm convinced that given the match up I had to play it the way I did - I almost certainly lose this match more often that not playing the way I did - but if I play another way I definitely lose the match up.
Sadly, in whats starting to be a running trend, whilst the Decimators didn't die in the game, a tiny fall crippled both of them, all both legs on each model broke (stupid fragile resin) and the Lord of Skulls was struggling as well with all the transport (although its equally possible it was Drazhars fault), thankfully the quick pace of the round gave me some time to get some running repairs on the Daemon engines before the next game. Sadly when the pairings went up it was against Drukari again.
Game 3 - Drukari
List -
Mission - Overrun
My secondaries: Banners, Grind them Down, Warp Ritual
Opponents Secondaries: Engage, RoD, TTL (2 large Wrack Squads + Trueborn)
Pregame thoughts - Another tough mission, another Drukari match up, however a few more things in my favour. With one objective on each side exposed, I felt better about my ability to deny the primary. Compared to previous match up To the last instead of Herd the Prey meant that I didn't have to press the accelerate button as quickly as I did last time as long as I could start getting into the Wracks (given their large numbers meant they couldn't realistically hide from the Lord of Skulls.) Otherwise I was reasonably happy that Drukari's efforts to go for Engage/RoD would play into me getting grind them down which had been effective in the last game.
Broadly speaking, the Death Guard and Iron Warriors took a flank each, waiting until the Raiders started dropping behind the solitary obscuring ruin before confirming the Decimators would hide on the opposite side to ensure their safety. Otherwise the Deathshroud spread out to ensure I had units to put down banners. Drukari hid boats as best they could at the back on each flank with the Wracks in the middle and some Mandrakes forward deploying for easy early RoD/engage points.
I lost the roll off for the first turn, which was a shame but not the end of the world. Drukari moved up, but didn't do a great deal on the first turn - the Dark Lances picked up two Deathshroud but the last one surviving ensured I had a chance to put down a banner.
My turn wasn't particularly exciting either as I started to move up in response - the Death Guard moving somewhat cautiously as they prepared to take Drukari charges on the right with Poxwalkers moving up further to screen the Plaugecaster who again settled into the mid-board and started casting his Ritual. Again eager to force the Drukari to engage with the Lord of Skulls, it moved up aggressively on the left flank and started to pour shots into the closest TTL Wrack squad to mediocre effect - the combination of -1 damage and FNP mitigated a lot of the damage. Poxwalkers and Lord of Skulls both charged the Mandrake squads, but somewhat surprisingly neither were fully slain although at least one Raider was tagged by the Lord of Skulls and they retreated to the webway.
Drukari now had full chance to unleash their mass variety of combat options into my lines and the real test of how resilient the army was begun. The Dark Lances were mostly ineffective this turn - a few wounds were blasted from the Lord of Skulls but otherwise had a negligible effect. All three Poxwalker squads took charges - one by Wracks, one by a Court of Archon and the last by Wytches and a Succubus, whilst another squad of Wytches charge my Deathshroud on the left flank. The Wytches went first against the Deathshroud, but didn't manage to kill the squad and I interrupted against the other Wytch squad on my right objective, unleashing the full mortal wound potential of the Poxwalkers slaying them outright and getting a couple of wounds against the Succubus, pinning her in place to ensure she couldn't resort to any trickey. The other Poxwalker squads took hefty blows - but none were wiped out entirely and whilst they didn't do any damage of note back going into turn 2 I was in a reasonable position.
The Lord of Skulls kept pushing up, this time going centrally into the Drukari backfield, popping Demonforge (which got Vected to ensure with my low CP it couldn't be used again after) and managed to destroy one of the Wrack squads with some aura assistance from the Lord Discordant who pushed up to midfield incase they were needed. With the both of our primary points limited, the Deathshroud set about pushing the Drukari back off my side of the table - the Wytches on the left were burned by the Plaguespewers on the Deathshroud whilst the Poxwalkers in combat with the Succubus managed to finish her off despite taking a large toll. The Deathshroud charged into the court of the Achron and started whittling away at them (again with help of CSM VOLTW)
The Drukari push on my left flank was spent, but they still had game on the right, the Raiders, Archon and Trueborn all coming up. The Mandrakes re-appeared to keep Engage/Rod ticking over but with the Wracks taking casualties Drukari were starting to fall back on the secondaries and having to commit TTL units to stay level on primary. The Raiders and transported Trueborn did manage to line up shots against the Plaguecaster in the middle who had fallen slightly too far behind the Poxwalker screen - thankfully the misplay wasn't punished as the various Blasters and Dark Lances whiffed in appalling fashion to wound the vile sourcer with some truly horrific rolls (and re-rolls.)
Going into my turn 3 I scored the full 15 on primary to take the lead, aware if I could repulse the Drukari push on the right the game was mine now. The Lord Discordant joined his fellow Lord (of Skulls) in chewing through the Wracks as the Deathshroud kept my objective cleared. The remnants of the Poxwalker squad the Wracks had charged engaged two Raiders and another squad repeated the trick on another Raider to limit the Dark Lances, with the Decimators finally coming out to play. The Plaguecaster finished his ritual off; the Master of Possession could have swooped in later to finish the Ritual, but was free to help boost the Decimator Engines to take out a Raider. When the various Chaos Lord's finished off the Wracks I was pulling away.
Running out of time, points and units, the Trueborn had to leave their cosy transport and, in combination with the Archon, took the objective to deny me some primary/banner. Various Raiders fell back to move block the Lord of Skulls and Drukari were able to keep scoring heavily on engage points and finished RoD.
Chaos moved up to finish the game. Poxwalkers got a nice advance to take the Drukari far-right objective and the Decimators chewed through the Trueborn to deny Drukari both any primary points or TTL. The Lord of Skulls continued its murderous rampage unopposed as a Decimator charged the last Raider to ensure it couldn't shoot. The final turn again was super quick, with Drukari moving around to get engage points, whilst Chaos sat on objectives and maxed out Grind. Final score - 86 - 49 to Chaos.
Postgame thoughts - Lord of Skulls again helped dicated the tempo of this game - without him the Wracks might have been able to sit on objectives well enough in combination to take a win, but the true hero's this game was the Poxwalkers. Interrupting against the Wytches and taking out a Succubus stalled the Drukari momentum and ensured they didn't end up nilling me on primary on turn 2 - not to mention the subsequent damage they could have done if unchecked. The other squads had their hero moments too - continually tagging Raiders to either deny shooting or force CP to fall back and shoot as they brunted the damage the Drukarki charges could inflict, allowing the Deathshroud to counter-attack. All in all a much more comfortable win over Drukari than the last one with a different, less aggressive gameplan.
Game four - GSC
List:
Mission: Priority Target
My Secondaries: Stranglehold, Priority Target, Grind them Down
Opponents Secondaries : ROD, Priority Target, TTL (3 Ridgerunner Squads)
Pregame thoughts: Day 2 and nice and refreshed after a gruelling day one with a fully repaired and spare Decimator now as part of the team. Had the nice bonus of having 2 GSC friends at the event, both wanting me to win to give themselves a better shot at best in faction. Otherwise the gameplay was mostly simple - go first! My quick maths had as a real 50/50 if the Lord of Skulls lived if I went second against the Heavy Mining Lasers. Plan B of trading on the objective seemed like a reasonable back up, if rather less than ideal given I would struggle to stop GSC secondaries at that point. Deployment was simple enough - the Lord of Skulls started on my South edge screen off against any potential advance + charge by Poxwalkers but far enough up it should be able to move up against the Ridgerunners. Otherwise the Deathguard prepared to gum up the midboard again and Decimators hid. GSC put down some blips behind the ruins and we rolled off for the first turn.
Thankfully I won the roll off for the first turn and immediately felt very confident. The Lord of Skulls pushed up hard, with the Master of Possession just behind in case Warptime was needed. The Deathguard advanced into the centre and the Decimators remained hidden, again waiting to counter any advances given they were unable to shoot anything. GSC deployed and thankfully the buggies were unable to hide from the Lord of Skulls (Swapping out to Warptime via Strat would have been countered by GSC Vect strat) and blew away one of the Ridgeridder units - causing two to explode as a nice bonus.
GSC's turn was all about the Lord of Skulls. All the Ridgerunners moved up to shoot it and two Acolytes squads moved up to charge either it or the Poxwalkers. The Lord of Skulls took a hefty chunk of damage from the shooting, as did the Poxwalkers that were semi-guarding its flank. When the charges came I elected to overwatch with the Lord of Skulls but it got denied and managed to tank the charge (and of course brutality annihilated the Acolytes back.) The smaller acolyte squad charged and softened up a poxwalker squad but with my army at virtually full efficiency I was in a strong spot.
The Deathguard poured forth into the middle, happy to sit there tanking blows and putting enough Obsec onto the central point to ensure its safety. The Lord of Skulls pulled back slightly and healed up - trying to stay away from the next wave of Acolytes but not at the expense of giving up shots against the Ridgerunners - managing to kill 2 more of them and injuring another. The Decimators started to wangle around to the left, but it was another relatively cagey turn from Chaos who were already taking control
GSC sent forth a second large squad of acolytes to charge the Deathshroud and nearly everything else lined up to shoot the Lord of Skulls again, managing to finish off with a combination of Smite and Mining Lasers. The Acolytes' charge against the Deathshroud went poorly - firstly the Plaguespewers taking out a few on overwatch, the rest managing to only kill one terminator getting butchered in response.
Already strongly ahead on both primary and secondary, Chaos moved up to end the what remained of the game as a contest, annihilating one of the trucks, burning the Neophytes on one objective and charging into the exposed Magus/Patriarch. However, some good allocation and a 'willing' sacrifice from an acolyte ensured both of the characters stayed alive on a wound, and the Patriarch destroyed the Deathshroud in response.
However it was too little too late. The last couple of turns involved the GSC using there danger close deepstrike to ensure ROD was maximised and hiding the Ridgerunners from the Decimators and Chaos destroyed anything that showed itself to take a commanding win 97-67
Postgame thoughts - A near perfect game, with only Deathshroud's unfortunate demise against the Patriarch stopping some grind points. First turn was key - given how much damage the Lord of Skulls v 6 Ridgerunners another 3 might have finished it off (although it would have been very tough to get the Acolytes to charge it as a counterpoint.) I think I had the ability to keep up with the GSC in a battle over the centre without the Lord of Skulls/with the Ridgerunners able to shoot the Deathshroud but it's hard to speculate - the secondaries certainly become a lot harder and I think those would have been the bigger different going second.
Game 5 - Emperors Children
Mission - Sweep and Clear
Opponents List -
My Secondaries - Direct Assault, Stranglehold, Warp Ritual
Opponents Secondaries - Engage on all Fronts, RoD, TTL (all 3 terminator units)
Pregame thoughts - An all Chaos game to close things out! Having messed around with Emporers Children a few times I was worried about the terminators with melta - but felt if I could screen them out they shouldn't be too bad to deal with. The Noise marines in drop pod were scary threats but I wasn't too worried about them (boy did I get that wrong even being aware of their combos beforehand) and the Volkite Contempors were going to be tough to deal with if they hung back. Emperor's Children certainly had more explosive damage output potential, but if they missed a punch then their mostly fragile units could be traded in a very positive way for me. Given their ability to almost-auto charge from DS + Melta threat, there was one key takeaway I kept reminding myself - keep anything valuable more than 12 inches from the frontline so it couldn't be charged/shot.
I deployed the Daemon engines heavily on my left flank, hiding behind obscuring behind the typical screen of Deathguard with the Deathshroud mostly on the line to try and push forward and get Stranglehold. If I could hold the middle at the end of my turns and kill one terminator unit I should be able to win a cagey game; a more explosive/faster game forces his terminator units up close where I can take them out. As per typical the opponent mostly hid behind the 3 bits of terrain in their deployment zone. Whilst neither of us started with Warptime, both of us had to be aware of the potential for any unit to double move - although my additional screening helped a lot with this. Whilst the first turn wasn't one I could especially capitalise on, I did want to go first and potentially get some shots in, but ended up going second.
As a Chaos player I was aware that Noise marines are glass cannons that can do large amounts of damage with layered buffs and double shooting. However even with that in mind I didn't really comprehend what was coming. After losing the roll-off the Dark Apostle re-deployed to the middle and moved up, popping the once per game wound reroll aura as the Noise Marines deep struck via drop pod turn one. Buffed, with +1 to hit, +1 strength and damage, +1 to wound, re-rolling failed wounds they unloaded into my Lord of Skulls, before double shooting into it at the end of phase - by the time they were done the Lord of Skulls had lost 25 wounds (after FNP saves) and had rolled exceptionally well 3+ saves to stay alive - I had expected to lose a Decimator to the onslaught, the Lord of Skulls I hadn't even considered a target (not that I could realistically screen the drop pod contents out.) The Volkite Compemtors, shooting through dense terrain, softened up a Poxwalker squad in the middle and to keep the damage going the Noise Marines charged into the Poxwalkers, killing 10-15 of them.
The damage output had been higher than expected - but cruically no unit had actually been removed and my enraged Lord of Skulls started to rip apart his Emperor's Children rivals. Poxwalkers moved up to screen out another terminator unit - the Lord of Skulls could hide behind the large L block to avoid further shooting from everything apart from any deep striking terminator bolters, whilst still being able to shoot the drop pod as I started healing it up. After a successful psychic phase (again the Plaguecaster starting to cast ritual) and with juicy targets in the open the Demon engines tore a terrible blow into the Emperor's Children - destroying the Dreadclaw drop and both cultist squads (with some assistance from morale/Deathshroud flamers.) Come the assault phase the Lord of Skulls/Discordant utterly annihilated the Noise Marines and Deathshroud charged and killed the Dark Apostle. Despite a hugely powerful salvo from the Emperor's Children, I was in a strong position already.
With the majority of the Emperor's Children throwaway units already destroyed - but the Death guard doing an excellent job of screening the daemon engines from anything but incidental shooting the Emperor's Children were in an awkward spot. The Bolter terminator unit came down and combined with the Melta unit that had started near the centre managed to blow away the Deathshroud unit on my right flank and the Volkite Contemeptors finished off the Poxwalkers in the middle. With the Plaguecaster now exposed, the terminators made the 11 or so inch charge with Honor the Prince (change a D6 to a 6) to kill him and tagged the remnants of some Poxwalkers. The Poxwalker piled around the side to get close to the objective, then in my command phase regenerated some additional bodies to take it back, and gave me the full 15 points on primary.
With two TTL units exposed, and already ahead on primary the gameplan was simple - don't do anything stupid, hold position and screen out the last terminator unit at all costs. The majority of movement was only slight adjustments to ensure the Volkite Contemptors couldn't shoot the Daemon Engines again whilst Deathshroud moved up on either flank to either secure the objective, or ensure they could next turn. Any remaining poxwalker again ensured no Daemon engine was within 12 of a potential deep strike. The turn was slightly disappointing in turns of damage, but still more than enough - The Decimators weren't able to chew threw the terminators quite as well as I'd hoped (thanks to Delightful agonises giving them a 5+ FNP) and I really wanted the Lord of Skulls to start to chew through the unbuffed terminator unit that was exposed, but had to settle for finishing off the close unit with its gun - not wanting to expose anything and just ensure I played it safe to ensure no way back for the Emperor's children.
The last wave of Emperors Children came up - but with all the important targets either screened or blocked by LoS they couldn't do anywhere close to enough to claw things back - perhaps their situation was best encapsulated when one of the 10 man terminator squads had to skip doing much of note to RoD a quarter for some points. The Contemptors came up (and into Decimator range) and the remaining reinforcement came down - the terminators charging and destroying a Deathshroud squad, piling into the wall to ensure they couldn't be shot by the Lord of Skulls, but close enough that they could be charged.
With the Lord of Skull back up to 11 wounds, I felt safe pushing him out again as my Daemon engines pushed out to finish off the Emperor's Children threat. The Decimators combined to blow up one Contemptor and the Lord of Skulls blew up the other before charging the terminators, killing around 5 of them with the FNP and some poor D3's on damage keeping the terminator squad in better shape than they could have been,
Still it wasn't relevant. Out of assets the Emperor's children pushed up units as best they could for engage points whilst the Lord of Skulls finished off the terminators to ensure a crushing win, the Master of Possession moving up to finish of the Ritual started by the Plaguecaster to ensure I got maximum points available - final score 97 - 53 to the Mixed Chaos.
So, 5/5 wins! Certainly better than expected, and finished 12 overall taking home an Unconquerable certificate and Chaos Best in Faction award plaque (As per ITC faction keyword, so Death Guard/Daemon etc players were in a different bracket.) It was certainly a better result than I'd hoped for, and beating two Drukari players in particular was a noticeable highlight. The Lord of Skulls can produce some swingy games depending on how well people can deal with it, but throughout the event it seemed to relish the big moments and come out the other side swinging at crucial times.
I've written before at other tournament reports with the same list on this site it's hard to change tweak the list without changing huge part of it - for example dropping a Deathshroud squad means I can't take a Poxwalker squad, without taking either a Possessed squad or Plague Marine squad - neither saves much points and is a serious downgrade in both offense and defence. On the Iron Warriors side any fewer Daemon engines makes the buffing units less valuable, but any more opens up alot of secondary options which the list otherwise doesn't give up. If someone forced me to change something, whilst still keeping the spirit of the list then swapping out the Death Guard for Thousands Sons was something I wanted to experiment with, giving me a more proactive set of options with the option of double moving Spawn/cheap engage units like Tzaangor Enlightened, and still having some durable bodies with Tzaangor but sadly I ran out of time to try this before LGT. To be honest, having a list that wasn't sending cheap units out for RoD/engage (comfortably the most taken options by other players) meant that Grind them Down was very easy as I didn't give up any easy targets to take out. That combined with the Plaguecaster often ended up 'spare' and free to take Warp Ritual with a back up if needed meant that the list didn't need to push up aggressively in most matchups and was free to take the halfway line with the slow Death Guard units rather than worry about pushing to the opponents. I loved how the two halves of the army supported each other - the Iron Warriors provided the firepower to force people in close, whilst the Death Guard provided enough protection to keep things away. The amount of obsec was unbelievably key in holding my own objectives - my opponents were on my home objectives far more often than I was on there's but I often kept pace on primary thanks to a few cheeky cultists or Poxwalkers ensuring the objective was mine and as such only typically needed to force one bad turn on either primary or secondary to put them into a position were they had to fully commit and get punished by the counter attack. Over the event I got a lot of nice comments from opponents/observers about seeing a off-meta list come in and do well. Indeed, relative unfamiliarity with the match up from opponents certainly helped and gave me a crucial edge in some games.
So after three tournaments the list is certainly getting retired whilst I go play with some Thousand Sons- its final record across 3 events was played 16, 13 wins and 3 loses - with two loses to pre-faq Ad Mech (with the Las-chickens losing core would have hurt their ability to take out the Lord of Skulls in particular noticeable if they played again) and a loss v Nassim's Iron Hands list it proved better than I expected it to! Given the list had started as a bit of a meme against a friend which went much better than planned it was certainly a unqualified success from my point of view, and it was really nice to pilot a Chaos list to some strong finishes.
Excellent read! As a IW player I approve of the tactics used