600pt CSM vs Tau, 2x Short Battles, (Narrative Report)

[Cammerz]

Lord Darius Kai, Dark Apostle of the Word Bearers 40th Grand Host, looked up at the Defiler. It was a magnificent construction, part icon to the glory of the Chaos pantheon, part mighty war machine. Lord Kai had kept its construction a secret to his peers in the rest of the legion, keeping the construction crew down to just a hundred cultists guarded by ten of his marines, and most of the cultists were killed off in the ritual which brought the Defiler to life.

Cultist Champion Artack Voss had always been a powerful man, a great servant of Chaos and leader of an influential cult, and then the Space Marines showed up and he was one of the lesser men, a pawn in a greater man

[BigToof]

I like this Cammerz!
I like it a lot!

As you've already put up plans for a second rep, I've taken much into consideration.

This rep has good fluff, a solid pic, and plans for more epic-ness.

Sounds like a Karma-quality post if there ever was one!

Best,
-BT

[Cammerz]

Fortunately, it took more than a few weak energy weapons to completely kill a Space Marine and within a day they were all fighting fit again, unfortunately the same could not be said for the daemonic construct and it required a large town to be sacrificed before it pulled itself back together and another few days before the captured Daemon finally stopped devouring sheep. The Dark Apostle bade the Aspiring Champion of his squad to instruct another small cult to locate the lost relic. But eventually, all was ready and the small force of Astartes, followed by the awe-struck cultists and the monstrous Defiler, set out on the trail of the elusive Tau.

As I mentioned earlier, we used the same table for the second game and the terrain remained in the same positions as it had all been set up by the gaming club itself and we felt it would be better not to rearrange it. However the change in mission and deployment meant that the game should be suitably different and we would get more experience using these lists.

Mission 2

[Arguleon-veq]

Great little reports and dont worry about these losses as at least the Tau will be on your side at the doubles!. I love termie lords with power mauls, they just look so cool and the maul is a decent choice with the amount of 4+ saves [necrons warriors] or flat invun saves [wraiths, daemons] around. I think your lists should work together fairly well, all I will suggest is that you lose some upgrades on the defiler to increase the cultist squad size, that should give you two units that you can realiably push towards objectives [as is the cultists are a little squishy] whilst the Tau cover you.

[Cammerz]

Well I failed to make proper notes (again) for the doubles tournament, but it was only yesterday so I should be able to remember the important bits, and I might as well put the details here.

Game 1 vs IG and IG
From what I recall, both Guard force had a Company Command Squad and an Infantry Platoon, they probably also each had a Veteran squad. Both CCSs had four meltaguns and there was certainly a melta special weapons squad hanging around too. The mission was Big Guns Never Tire and boy did they bring some big guns, a Hydra and two Colossus' (Colossi?, Colossuses?). The deployment was an old 5th edition setup where we set up in opposite table quarters with no models in the central 12" circle (I forget its name). There were two objectives in each deployment zone and a fifth in the dead centre of the board.
The Guard set up first with loads of men being put down behind walls in their corner with a Colossus on either side of a big ruin. One CCS (in a chimera) went on the left flank (they told me afterwards that they'd assumed my Marines would go down that side).

I set up my Marines with the Terminator Lord on our left flank so they could cut through forests and gain cover from the big guns whilst the Hammerhead sat on a hill at the back (on an objective), waiting to pop the artillery which would cause a lot of damage to my main squad. The cultists hid on the other objective and stayed out of sight for the whole game whilst the Tau Fire Warriors were dotted around in several places. The Defiler sat to the right of the Hammerhead ready to throw soul-blazing pie-plates at the hordes (although for both this game and the second one we completely forgot about the soul blaze). The Shas'O sat near the Hammerhead ready for anything coming to take our objectives whilst the Stealth team went into outflanking reserves.

It was night-fight for turn one and so the IG were unable to do anything more than drive their Chimera up the far long table edge, supported by melta-carrying special weaponists and maybe a veteran squad. I began by moving the Marines forward into the forests whilst the Hammerhead blew up the first Colossus (sadly not the one closest to my troops but it may not have mattered). In turn two the Colossus Siege Mortar blew a chunk out of my Marine squad, leaving the Terminator Lord at the front. For the rest of the battle, that squad marched forwards with lasbolts and autocannon rounds bouncing off his armour until they engaged the platoons in combat. I believe it was turn 2 when the Stealthsuits arrived directly behind the non-Chimera-mounted CCS, they shot a couple of the veterans but the commander passed his invulnerable save, the stealthsuits then hopped into a nearby set of ruins and subsequently failed a huge number of 2+ cover saves, dying completely to shooting in the IG turn three.
Two of the FW teams were in a ruin next to my Defiler and they spent a decent amount of time shooting melta-guardsmen in a nearby ruin before one squad was completely annihilated in a single shot by the Chimera's heavy flamer.
The Defiler fired off a few shots at the main bulk of the IG infantry, losing several hull points along the way, but then got bored and decided to go hunting for the Chimera. It charged in in combat and wrecked it immediately, it then managed to daemon-save away two would-be penetrating melta shots and took the CCS down to the commander and a single melta-vet who fled towards the nearby table edge, they then rolled a double 1 to stay on the table and when they were charged again the commander blew up the Defiler with a meltabomb which in reality should have struck last but we didn't check at the time.
The IG Hydra had been firing at the Defiler but when it wandered off it decided to drive forth and take the central objective. The Hammerhead flew around to try and destroy it but only succeeeded in removing a Hull Point. Some nearby FWs also took off a hull point but the Hydra had a 4+ cover save from them so it survived.
The Terminator Lord and his retinue engaged the massed Imperial infantry and sadly all but the Fearless Lord were slain, the game ended while he was still locked in combat with them.

The FWs near the central objective were about an inch away from contesting it, the Hammerheads had flown off its objective thinking there would be time to fly back later and the Hydra was still alive so in the end we had 1 primary objective and they had 3. I think they might also have slain the Shas'O gaing one Slay the Warlord whilst we had put my Lord in their deployment zone to take Linebreaker, adding that to First Blood for the Colossus.

So this was a close game which could have gone either way, if we'd had enough time to play an extra turn the Hammerhead could have returned to its objective whilst the Hydra would almost certainly have been destroyed, allowing us to take the central objective.
During the game, my CSMs took the brunt of the enemy shooting which allowed the Tau to do their thing. We also learned that Terminator armour is amazing at low points levels, my Lord just walked through at least two solid rounds of shooting from dozens of guardsmen including missile launchers and autocannons.

[Cammerz]

Game 2 vs Orks and Eldar

This game was against the tournament organiser and his wife, it was quite slow so we only managed to finish four turns each (there's an hour and a half per battle, once that's finished you make sure you've had equal turns and that's it).
The Orks included three trukks full of boyz (one with a warboss with a big choppa), they went on our opponent's right flank. Then there was a Looted Wagon with a Boomgun (a very cool model made from a Drop Pod on its side with tracks and a deffkopta pilot), this was in the middle. The Eldar had an Avatar with two war walkers to the left of the Looted Drop Pod, a large squad of Dire Avengers in ruins on their far left flank and finally a squad of Dark Reapers behind the Ork trukks. There was then a unit of three jetbikes in reserve.
Each team had a long table edge (standard deployment but I forget what it's called) and an objective in their own deployment zone. The Orks/Eldar put their objective in the ruins with the Dire Avengers and random objectives meant that they got +1 to their cover save, so 3+ ruins, 2+ when the Dire Avengers went to ground.
Our objective was in the middle of our deployment zone, also in a ruin. We had a team of FWs sitting in there with the cultists (who would aim to intercept anyone threatening the Tau). The Defiler went on our far-right flank, aiming to threaten the Dire Avengers and their objective, the Hammerhead and Shas'O were nearby with a second FW team. On the left-hand side of our objective we had the Marines with the final FW team behind them. The Stealthsuits began on the board this time, on our extreme left. Our plan was to have the heavy infantry lure the Orks away from the objectives whilst the Defiler would go after the Eldar objective and the Tau would take out the vehicles.

In turn one, all of our opponents moved forwards, except the Dire Avengers who stayed put. The trukks easily making the half-way point on the table. Our shooting was decidedly poor as we only immobilised one of the trukks. The Looted wagon managed to take out several marines in the first shot before the Hammerhead destroyed it in turn 2. The Defiler intiall struggled to get out of terrain, rolling no higher than a two with three dice. Every shot fired into the Dire Avengers was met by then going to ground and the battle cannon was only able to destroy about three of them in the whole game as the defiler marched across the board (in hindsight I should have run instead).
The stealthsuits were able to blow up one of the two mobile trukks and so two Ork units found themselves disembarking and charging the CSMs. My Lord challenged and defeated an Ork nob with a power klaw but sadly only gained Stubborn which is entirely negated by Fearless. Over the next few rounds, the cultists charged into the melee along with the Warboss' boyz mob and the cultists were slain in a single round, having removed a few Orks first. The basic Marines were all killed, along with one entire boyz mob and some of the other. The Lord tried challenging a couple of times more but the Orks declined so for two rounds the Warboss did nothing.

In the centre, one of the war walkers was destroyed and the other lost one of its guns (I can't remember exactly how they were armed but they each had two identical guns that fire four shots, so eight shots per round, for each walker, yeah that's nasty). The Avatar took a wound from somewhere but as it was terrified of the Defiler it kept mainly in cover as it moved towards our objective. Meanwhile on the far right, the Defiler continued its routine of walking forwards and dropping a pie-plate on the Dire Avengers but achieving very little.

As the battle headed towards its conclusion, I forget whether my Lord remained locked in combat or if the Orks eventually dragged him down but our objective was taken by the Avatar, the newly-arrived jetbikes and a mob of Ork boyz (probably from the third trukk) I think they'd also just beaten the stealthsuits in combat as well. The Defiler and Shas'O both ended up by the Eldar objective but the Defiler couldn't run far enough to engage the Dire Avengers in combat, the Shas'O at least did manage to use the 'Jetpack Phase' to contest it so our opponents only ended up with one objective. We'd slain one of their warlords but I don't recall whether or not they killed one of ours. In addition we both had Linebreaker and I believe they managed to secure first blood but I can't remember how, probably a FW team.

Yet again my Chaos Lord proved his worth as hits fell uselessly upon his Tactical Dreadnought shell. If the battle had been able to get into turn 5 then its quite likely the Defiler would have done something to those Dire Avengers but obviously it lacks the ability to actually take the objective so it wouldn't have achieved much in the long run. Really it was the speed of the Orks which had us on the back foot from the start and our opponents did take a while to agree on what to do, hence the game going a bit too slowly for our liking. But never mind, onto battle three.


Game 3 vs Space Marines and (new) Dark Angels

The two Loyalist forces each had a couple of five-man squads, these weren't combat squadded, just units in their own right. The Vanilla player had a Sniper Scout squad and a Vindicator whilst the Dark Angels had three Ravenwing bikers and a nice new unit of Deathwing Knights. The two Warlords were a Chapter Master (I presume Vanilla) and a Techmarine (which would make him DA). There was also a multi-melta wielding Attack Bike but I don't know who owned that one, I think it was vanilla.

The setup was the 6th edition diagonal deployment and the mission was Victory Points.

As there were so many small units I forget where they all were but there was one piece of large scenery which had the scouts perched on top of it and the Techmarine and Vindicator hiding behind it.
We went first this time and in a fantastic opening shot, the Defiler through a Battlecannon shell at the Chapter Master and his squad of five guys, killing all of them and gaining 'Slay the Warlord' and 'First Blood'. The Railgun then sent a submunition into the scouts, killing 4/6 of them, the other two dying to pulse rifle fire.

My memory of all that happened is failing as I write all of this up but I'll mention the important bits (in no particular order).
The vindicator eventually arrived, I don't remember if it fired but the Railgun exploded it in a single shot. The Defiler's Battlecannon continued to excel itself, removing numerous Marine units from the board although it did get immobilised at one point.

The main problem we had was obviously the deep-striking Deathwing Kinights who dropped in on turn 1. They were immediately surrounded and shots were poured into them, the Chaos Lord taking one out with a well-aimed melta shot from his combi-melta. The cultists went for the charge, hoping to lock them in combat for a short while but half of the squad was killed and the remainder fled, the champion losing his challenge in a gory, flaily end. The Deathwing Knights then assaulted the CSMs and turn out to get an extra point of AP from somewhere, possibly because I'm Chaos Space Marines. My Lord, having the highest initiative, struck first in his challenge and fortunately crushed the unit champion with his power maul (the Gods weren't watching at this point though). The regular CSMs were all wiped out but the Lord remained locked with the three surviving loyalists.
It took a while but they eventually killed him, which was a shame. the three survivors then made to assault the immobile Defiler (everyone in the competition seemed to see it as the greatest threat, which is probably why the Hammerhead was never even targetted.) Before they could get there however, the Shas'O killed another one, bringing them down to 2.

It was somewhere around here that the game ended and overall we'd managed to kill 7 units while they'd destroyed 5. In addition we had the two secondary objectives that I mentionned earlier but we didn't slay their second warlord or get linebreaker (the stealthsuits were going to but got killed by something). They killed my Lord and the Deathwing Knights were in our deployment zone. So we managed to win our final battle and out of 10 teams in the competition we came 7th (our first two opponents took the second and third spots whilst our final opponent came 10th).

So in every match, the Defiler was perceived as the main threat and was targetted by most things, although it was only killed in the first game and it shouldn't have been had we checked the meltabomb rules. It was saved a huge amount by the Daemon save but I am still notoriously bad at rolling for 'It will not die'.
My personal man-of-the-match was always the Lord and I realise just how great Terminator armour is at lower points levels. The Power Maul is also amazing, bringing him to S6 which cancels out the huge toughness on the Deathwing Knights (something made them get T5 in a certain formation).

[Arguleon-veq]

Nice reports and I agree on termie armour and that level, my lone wolf in it does wonders. The defiler is also a beast at that level as yours proved. So what position did you and your mate end up in?

[Cammerz]

Nice reports and I agree on termie armour and that level, my lone wolf in it does wonders. The defiler is also a beast at that level as yours proved. So what position did you and your mate end up in?

With two losses and a victory, we came 7th out of 10. It was quite close in the middle because of the scoring system (10 Tournament Points for a victory, 2 for a loss, any ties are worked out using Primary Objectives and if there's still a tie then it goes to Secondary Objectives). The team above us had one more Primary Objective, the team below had the same but one fewer Secondary Objective.