The Legion Wars continue as Magnus the Red leads his Thousand Sons against the Black Legion.
I, Stylus, will be taking the Daemon Primarch into battle - it had to happen eventually. My Thousand Sons collection was getting sufficiently large that I couldn't not get the Big Red One at some point. Fate is inexorable.
Our usual battle scale of 1500pts is a bit on the low side for a Lord of War, but Kraken has very sportingly agreed to take on the challenge (as well as my limited Black Legion).
Kraken is a glutton for punishment, is what Kraken is. But I need no Lord of War! The Black Legion are the galaxy's finest traitor legion, and we brook no taunts from a collection of gift-wrapped mummy dust!
We'll be playing a random Maelstrom match, to be determined right before we set up. Game On!
Magnus Did Nothing Right!
I'm taking Magnus! What else is there to say, other than I'm probably going to be okay for psychic and close-combat action. On the basis that he would probably attract a lot of fire, I decided to go for things that would race up the field and get stuck in while the enemy's attention was elsewhere.
The Daemon Prince stays at home (Magnus likes to be special), so I instead take a couple of Exalted Sorcerer: a disc rider with the Seer's Bane relic (I love this sword, despite it never doing very much) and the other on foot, because he's the latest one I've painted.
With Magnus taking up the Super-Heavy, all I can afford is a Battalion detachment, and I spend one of my precious command points on a second relic: the Dark Matter Crystal. In a piece of inspired genius, I'm using one of my wee Chaos Familiars to represent him on the table, so I don't forget about it for once.
A big squad of Rubrics for a change - I'd like to try them as putting our some serious hurt, rather than just minimum-size. A couple of Tzaangor herds for surprise attacks, with the ubiquitous Enlightened and Shaman. A Vortex Beast and a couple of Spawn, just for the craic.
And just enough reinforcement points for another Spawn. For no particular reason...
I wish I did have a Lord of War. Or rather, I wish the Lord of War for the Tyranids, my personal favourite army, wasn't a zillion-pound resin harvest spider. Ah well! You use what you've got. In this case, it's the latest updates to Stylus's Black Legion.
Black Legion are good at dashing towards the foe, fast raiders all. Dashing towards Magnus and his big red eye is probably a terrible idea, however, so I may be tactically raiding in other directions. Lacking a Khorne Lord of Skulls (now that's a Lord of War! It'd make mince out of Maggie), I'm going to invest in what my opponent will almost certainly be lacking - boots on the ground.
And also command points. Taking two CSM stratagems together can often net you a pretty mean cluster bomb of effectiveness, and I have a couple of potential ideas. So after filling the obligatory Battalion, I'm packing in a Vanguard and Outrider force.
There's a little of almost everything in here, except vehicles. Transport options were high on my list, but I couldn't quite squeeze them in. Or arm the Bikers and Raptors terribly well, they're both running a bit weak. In the end, I even managed troops for each of the gods.
Not least the psychic denial and bloodthirst of the World Eaters, who I decided needed to come along for the ride. They aren't really World Eaters, just Khorne-dedicated Black Legion, but the extra attacks from their Legion trait seemed too good to pass up on.
Maybe I have nothing here that can individually take out that monocular mage, but perhaps together...
We're back on the barren dust deserts of Hive Stylus, and we get a good old fashioned Dawn of War deployment, so a long table edge each. Most of the objectives are lurking in or around terrain, which means there's going to be some bunkering down going on.
Note: We decided ahead of the game that we were not going to allow the Command Point Reroll stratagem in this match! This is after seeing discussions online on how it can make the game less swingy and fun. Worth a try, and we'll analyse it later.
I favour the right flank (top-left on the map) with the Rubricae, Exalted Sorcerers, Shaman and Enlightened. Magnus is more central, but my flyers are so fast, they can get pretty much anywhere. The only isolated guys are the Chaos Spawn, camped out in the ruins, holding down the only objective in my reach.
My original plan was a cleverly layered castle, like something from the Shogunate era. But actually, castling up in a corner could easily cost me the match. I'm going to need board control in order to get objectives, so I decide to split my forces a bit more than I originally intended.
Raptors and Obliterators in the warp, ready to flank and grab later. And then a thin line of ablative cultists in each corner, hedging my bets a little until I know where Magnus might be, with a plan of setting most of my troops behind one of these screens. In the middle, I stick the Plague Marines to grab the objective in the archway, and the Bikers lurk in cover behind them.
By this point, I've lost all the roll-offs for objective placement, deploying and first turn. This is good news, it means all my bad luck has been used up for the evening.
The shooting phase isn't too bad either: the Mutalith and Enlightened manage to blast off (with arrows) six wounds from the Helbrute. He goes crazed, but fails his retaliatory shots. The small-arms from the Rubrics kill off all but three of the Cultists, and First Blood is looking likely, but Kraken wisely spends two CPs to keep them in the game (and on the objective).
Objectives Scored: none
All my dice rolling bad luck may have been used up, but I forgot about card drawing. My first objective out of the gate is to Defend Objective 1. This is just underneath Magnus, and anything landing there is probably going to be so much toast shortly afterwards. Should I spend command points for a redraw?
Probably, but I decide on the long bomb anyway. Partly because there's a tiny chance I could grab it, but also because it means Magnus will have to focus on the only unit who can get it, the Bikers. And it will pull him away from the rest of his army, not that he needs them. Might disrupt his aura support a bit, though.
So off the bikers go, advancing over to the middle of the board. Everyone else dives for the nearest cover, then I enjoy what may be my only good psychic phase while I'm out of Deny range. Nothing very fancy, and in the end I fail the one I really wanted, which was Warptime on the Beserkers.
Shooting sees very little happen. The Chaos Marines slam a Flakk missile into Magnus, who chokes down three mortal wounds despite all his fancy protections. Then the Helbrute and Plague Marines manage to wipe out the Tzaangor Enlightened with combined fire, but that's my lot. Reluctantly, I brace for impact.
My poor Enlightened. But at least everything else got off lightly, and now I get to claim two points for successfully defending Objective 3.
Objectives Scored: First Blood (1)
Objectives Scored: Defend Objective 3 (2)
I press on with my sweeping attack down Kraken's left flank.The Mutalith and Disc Sorcerer move against the Plague Marines. The Shaman moves towards the Helbrute and Cultists, with my first unit of Tzaangor leaping out of the warp behind them. Magnus jumps down to threaten the bikers (but keeps equidistant between them and the Plague Marines, to give himself a choice of Smite targets).
And in a rare move of remembering-my-rules, I activate the Dark Matter Crystal and teleport the big unit of Rubrics directly into Kraken's back lines, levelling their inferno boltguns at the Khorne Berserkers.
That, I did not see coming! Yikes.
But I still need to hold objectives, which is a problem when your army lacks cheap troops. The Spawn remain cowering on Objective 6, while the Exalted Sorcerer on foot is left to babysit Objective 3.
The Psychic phase is mostly taken up with buffing up Magnus once again, as well as healing him back to full health. Smites don't go so well, and I only kill one of the Plague Marines (this, as it turns out, was no bad thing), and a Cultist (Kraken nobly sacrificing his champion to make the Tzaangor's charge longer)
In shooting, the Mutalith randomises his powers and doesn't achieve much. The Rubrics open up on the Berserkers, killing four of them (and another flees in the Morale phase).
In combat, the Tzaangors make it in against both Cultists and Helbrute, with the Shaman going in against the Cultists only (the big chicken). The Mutalith and Disc Sorcerer double-team the Plague Marines. The Rubrics fail their charge (probably for the best) and Magnus steps up to the bikers.
The Chaos Bikers are easily dispatched - Magnus swats all four of them with his whack-a-mole staff. I play Veterans of the Long War on the Tzaangor, to be sure of the Helbrute kill, and they just about finish him off. I saved one Tzaangor for the Cultists and both of his attacks did for the last two.
It's an interesting match-up in the centre: because they're Black Legion, the Plague Marines are Ld9, which is exactly what I need to trigger my Seer's Bane sword. With it's high-strength, multiple-damage hits, it's tailor-made for killing Plague Marines - and so I go to work without thinking about it. Sure enough, my Sorcerer kills three of them (including the guy on the ground floor), but then we realise the Mutalith is stymied - he can't climb up a level, and he can't get within an inch of the surviving squad. So the three Plague Marines are now, technically, out of combat and that's that.
So no Arcane Rite for me (I ditch that - short of a tabling, I'm not getting it), but I do claim 2pts for Supremacy.
Objectives Scored: Supremacy (2)
This is looking ugly, but I can still turn it. I'm stuck with that ruddy objective, so I spend CPs to burn it. My redraw is even worse - Area Denial, which is to keep the Tzeentchians away from the middle of the field!
At least this makes my goal this turn very clear. Magnus must die.
Tall order, though, he's currently unhurt. All the Khorne marked stuff heads towards him as fast as they can, along with the Cultists. Then I drop the Obliterators in, with the Raptors coming up in the top corner to challenge those lurking Spawn.
The Pyschic Phase, now that I'm in Magnus's shadow, is going to be hard. But there's a ray of hope - if I can get Death Hex off on the big guy, I'm quietly confident that my guns can pull him apart. Alas, the requisite sorcerer is out of range for this.
No problem, I just need to Warptime him forward. Obviously I fail my first attempt at casting this. But with some clever stratagem use, the other Sorcerer can use a Chaos Familiar to swap out Daemonic Strength for Death Hex so I can still try!
And fail again, with a second roll of double two. Magnus then bats away a smite, and I fail to cast Prescience on the Obliterators.
Shooting - a hail of fire from the Chaos Space Marines knocks a couple of wounds off Big Red. Even the Cultists manage to chip a wound off him! Hurrah for useless mooks.
The Obliterators, who I give Veterans of the Long War, open up. It's a balanced roll for their random weapons, not much strength or AP, but three wounds a piece will help. Sadly, I get a pretty solid whiff with my rolls. Only one hit makes it through the various penalties and ward saves, and when I repeat this with the Slaaneshi Cacophony stratagem, it's not really any better. Then I pin him in place with a Chaos Spawn, so at least he's right where I want him.
Except none of the useful close combat guys make it in. Not one Khornate Beserker or Warlord. No, my combat backup is the Cultists, as it turns out. Woo.
Unsurprisingly, the combat that results is fairly one-sided. What is a surprise is that as the dust settles, I'm still there! The wounded Spawn clings on, as does a lone, brave Cultist. Magnus doubtless rolls his eye.
Yes, with no Overwatch and limited attacks (all right, he has 7 attacks, but even so), Magnus doesn't do so well against large numbers of single-wound troops. He only killed five Cultists (although, granted, he REALLY killed them) and caused four more to flee.
In the top corner, the Raptors wound one Spawn with shooting, then fail their charge (foolishly, I forget their Icon of Wrath here, but I doubt it would have helped me on tonight's rolls), so they're not really achieving much either.
The three Plague Marines decide to sidestep both the Tzaangors and Mutalith and just pick on the Exalted Swordsman hero. His invulnerable save (and Kraken's krappy rolling*) sees him right.
What kind of a Plague Marine fails to kill an enemy sorcerer with a double one for his Vast Bubotic Cleaver? Grind your rotting teeth, you failure.
Objectives Scored: none
But my first problem is Magus is still stuck fighting the remnants of the Spawn and lone Cultist. I can easily fly away from combat and Smite at will, but it means I won't be punching anything meaningful this turn. But if I keep him in place and clear away his opponents in the Psychic phase, I'll be back in the game!
So I move accordingly. Deciding that I don't need to camp on objectives any more, my foot Sorcerer moves into Smite range of the last Plague Marine. My Disc Sorcerer leaves combat with the Plague Marine to get into Smite range of the Spawn. The Shaman also moves to help Magnus and his herd tag along behind. The Rubrics walk into flamer range of the Chaos Lord, with the Mutalith in tow.
On my side of the table, the two Spawn move up against the Raptors, and I drop in my second unit of Tzaangors against the Obliterators.
And now the Psychic phase: it kicks off well with the foot Sorcerer Smiting off the last Plague Marine, but unfortunately the rest are now in denial range of Kraken's Sorcerers, and they've clearly saved their A-game for this moment. My Disc Sorcerer's Smite on the Spawn is denied. My Shaman's Smite on the Spawn is also denied. My Aspiring Sorcerer tries to reach the Spawn with a Tzeentch's Firestorm, but that fails. I'm starting to feel that I'm going to have one of those psychic phases again...
... but I rally. Spending a CP on the Chaos Familiar stratagem, I give my Foot Sorcerer Infernal Gaze, which manages to finally kill that Spawn. With a shrug of 'I have to do everything myself', Magnus Smites the last Cultist (doing something like six mortal wounds to him!), then heals some wounds back on himself and Warptimes over to the two Black Legion Sorcerers. For good measure, I spend my last CP on The Great Sorcerer so he can cast Glamour of Tzeentch on himself. Just about saved that. Phew!
Yes, phew. I thought for a moment you were going to run out of smites.
The Shooting Phase is more straightforward: the Rubrics douse the Chaos Lord in Warpflame, taking him down to a single wound, and pop off the remaining Berserkers with their Inferno Bolters.
In the Combat Phase, the Spawn charge into the Raptors, losing one to Overwatch and whiffing the subsequent combat. The newly-arrived Tzaangor get in on the Obliterators, causing five wounds and taking two casualties (and crucially, tying up the guns).
Magnus then steps forward between the two traitorous Sorcerers and whacks them left and right with his mighty beatstick. With no invulnerable save, they both died so quickly that I forgot I wanted to turn one of them into a Spawn.
That gives me Slay the Warlord and Kingslayer. I then chuck Psychic Supremacy, as it requires me to make a successful Deny the Witch test, and Magnus is currently scraping the only two enemy psykers from the end of his blade.
Objectives Scored: Slay the Warlord (1), Kingslayer (2)
Pride keeps me in the fight. I have no CPs left, so I'm stuck with trying to clean the centre of the board with the pitiful handful of troops left to me.
A concentrated hail of fire knocks a pretty decent amount of wounds of Magnus, this time. He's actually down a bracket on his damage table! Now my sorcerers can unleash a tide of no, wait, they're dead.
The Raptors struggle manfully with the last Spawn, which eats three of them before refusing to die. The Obliterators carry on punching beastmen, then the Dark Apostle leads a last valiant charge. Even here, the Black Legion doesn't die quietly.
Partly because the flurry of scratching knocks another two wounds off Magnus, but also because Magnus bashes the Dark Apostle over the head and transforms him into a wailing Spawn, who immediately darts off to claim the nearby objective for the enemy.
At this point, with the rest of the (unscathed) Thousand Sons closing in, we shall draw a discreet veil.
This being my first fight with Magnus, I did play him cautiously - buffing him defensively and picking my moment - but I sense that's how I want to run him. He's a good buffer for the rest of the army, a great distraction, and can be lethal against the right target. Given that even small-arms fire can chip away at him - and there really is nowhere to hide him - I don't think he can just hit and enemy line and tank everything.
I think Kraken started off with the right approach: a mass of bodies is probably the right way to deal with Magnus. Unfortunately the mission required board control and, the problem with putting everything on Magnus is that it gives free reign to the other two-thirds of my army.
Everything else seemed to come together as well. I like using the Tzaangor in multiple, small packs - despite the exorbitant CP cost - and they both made their charges to kill or tie up what they needed. The Rubric Marines also worked really well once the Dark Matter Crystal popped them into killing range. I'll have to remember that - it's an unexpected attack from a unit most people would assume to be slow.
And finally the Seer's Bane swordsman earned his stripes (sort of) with his single-handed takedown of the Plague Marines. This is one Sorcerer determined to move up the ranks.
Finally the Command Point re-roll experiment. Personally, I didn't mind it - at least it forced me to live with rolls like Perils and not dither over what to do about it. But it was probably a bad match-up to introduce the rule: I only had four CPs at the start of the battle and Kraken had ten. And he needed re-rolls more than I did throughout the battle. Going forward, I might keep it as a self-imposed restriction for myself, but not a hard rule for the game.
I feel like I should be less surprised by this result! On paper, I thought my army had way more of a fighting chance than it did. The random hand of fate slapped me pretty hard with dice rolls throughout, a standard loser's rallying cry I know. But without CP rerolls to help me through those dark dice, I couldn't really get myself back in the game.
Deployment was my great fail, I think. Castling up round my Warlord would have helped my dice rolls a lot. Even putting the Obliterators by him, in fact, instead of by themselves in a dust field. I was worried at the time that the Rubrics would shoot me up too much, but actually the Tzaangor ambush was just as bad.
And of course Stylus was playing extremely well. He remembered the Dark Matter Crystal, for starters! Seeing them gunning first the Hellbrute, then (unexpectedly) the Beserkers (and finishing them in close combat, no less) was very depressing. The lynchpin was definitely the round that saw the sorcerers smiting Magnus free of combat, then the big guy teleporting free to assault both renegade sorcerers.
Whelp, nothing for it. I shall have to buy Stylus a Khorne Lord of Skulls for Christmas, then avenge this slight. Or Abaddon, of course. I bet he has strong opinions about Magnus.
*Kraken's Krappy Rolling is a registered trademark. All patents pending.
I, Stylus, will be taking the Daemon Primarch into battle - it had to happen eventually. My Thousand Sons collection was getting sufficiently large that I couldn't not get the Big Red One at some point. Fate is inexorable.
Our usual battle scale of 1500pts is a bit on the low side for a Lord of War, but Kraken has very sportingly agreed to take on the challenge (as well as my limited Black Legion).
Kraken is a glutton for punishment, is what Kraken is. But I need no Lord of War! The Black Legion are the galaxy's finest traitor legion, and we brook no taunts from a collection of gift-wrapped mummy dust!
We'll be playing a random Maelstrom match, to be determined right before we set up. Game On!
Magnus Did Nothing Right!
It's All-Skype Fight Night!
The Court of Miracles: Thousand Sons
I'm taking Magnus! What else is there to say, other than I'm probably going to be okay for psychic and close-combat action. On the basis that he would probably attract a lot of fire, I decided to go for things that would race up the field and get stuck in while the enemy's attention was elsewhere.
The Daemon Prince stays at home (Magnus likes to be special), so I instead take a couple of Exalted Sorcerer: a disc rider with the Seer's Bane relic (I love this sword, despite it never doing very much) and the other on foot, because he's the latest one I've painted.
With Magnus taking up the Super-Heavy, all I can afford is a Battalion detachment, and I spend one of my precious command points on a second relic: the Dark Matter Crystal. In a piece of inspired genius, I'm using one of my wee Chaos Familiars to represent him on the table, so I don't forget about it for once.
A big squad of Rubrics for a change - I'd like to try them as putting our some serious hurt, rather than just minimum-size. A couple of Tzaangor herds for surprise attacks, with the ubiquitous Enlightened and Shaman. A Vortex Beast and a couple of Spawn, just for the craic.
And just enough reinforcement points for another Spawn. For no particular reason...
- Magnus the Red (LoW)
The Blade of Magnus
Warlord Trait: Lord of Forbidden Lore
Psychic powers: Glamour of Tzeentch, Temporal Manipulation, Weaver of Fates, Warptime. - Exalted Sorcerer on Disc (HQ)
Two Power Swords, Inferno Bolt Pistol
Relic: Seer's Bane
Psychic powers: Prescience, Warptime - Exalted Sorcerer (HQ)
Force Stave, Inferno Bolt Pistol
Relic: Dark Matter Crystal
Psychic powers: Death Hex, Diabolic Strength - 10 x Rubric Marines (Troops)
Force stave, Inferno Bolt Pistol, 2 x Warpflamer, Soulreaper Cannon
Psychic powers: Tzeentch's Firestorm - 10 x Tzaangors (Troops)
Brayhorn, Tzaangor Blades - 10 x Tzaangors (Troops)
Brayhorn, Tzaangor Blades - Tzaangor Shaman (Elite)
Force Stave
Psychic powers: Temporal Manipulation - 2 x Chaos Spawn (Fast)
- 3 x Tzaangor Enlightened (Fast)
Fatecaster greatbows - Mutalith Vortex Beast (Heavy)
- + 33 reinforcement points
Armies
The Fire-Hardened Log: Black Legion
I wish I did have a Lord of War. Or rather, I wish the Lord of War for the Tyranids, my personal favourite army, wasn't a zillion-pound resin harvest spider. Ah well! You use what you've got. In this case, it's the latest updates to Stylus's Black Legion.
Black Legion are good at dashing towards the foe, fast raiders all. Dashing towards Magnus and his big red eye is probably a terrible idea, however, so I may be tactically raiding in other directions. Lacking a Khorne Lord of Skulls (now that's a Lord of War! It'd make mince out of Maggie), I'm going to invest in what my opponent will almost certainly be lacking - boots on the ground.
And also command points. Taking two CSM stratagems together can often net you a pretty mean cluster bomb of effectiveness, and I have a couple of potential ideas. So after filling the obligatory Battalion, I'm packing in a Vanguard and Outrider force.
There's a little of almost everything in here, except vehicles. Transport options were high on my list, but I couldn't quite squeeze them in. Or arm the Bikers and Raptors terribly well, they're both running a bit weak. In the end, I even managed troops for each of the gods.
Not least the psychic denial and bloodthirst of the World Eaters, who I decided needed to come along for the ride. They aren't really World Eaters, just Khorne-dedicated Black Legion, but the extra attacks from their Legion trait seemed too good to pass up on.
Maybe I have nothing here that can individually take out that monocular mage, but perhaps together...
 |
| Pictured are two Thousand Sons sorcerers. Clearly turned renegade from the true Proserpines - Magnus will find them! |
Battalion - Black Legion
- Sorcerer (HQ) Force Sword, Plasma Pistol, Psychic powers: Diabolic Strength, Prescience
- Sorcerer (HQ) Force Stave, Bolt Pistol, Psychic powers: Death Hex, Warptime
- 10 x Chaos Cultists (Troops)
Brutal assault weapons and autopistols - 10 x Chaos Cultists (Troops)
Autoguns - 10 x Chaos Space Marines (Troops)
Icon of Vengeance, Combi-plasma (champion), 7 x Boltguns, Missile Launcher, Autocannon - 3 x Obliterators (Heavy)
Mark of Slaanesh, Fleshmetal guns
Vanguard - Black Legion
- Dark Apostle (HQ)
Bolt Pistol, Power Maul - Helbrute (Elite)
Helbrute plasma cannon, Power scourge - 7 x Khorne Berzerkers (Elite)
Chainsword, Power fist (champion), 6 x Chainsword and Chainaxe - 7 x Plague Marines (Elite)
Boltguns, Great plague cleaver, Melta gun
Outrider - World Eaters
- Chaos Lord (HQ)
Mark of Khorne, Bolt pistol, Power sword
Warlord Trait: Flames of Spite
Relic: Brass Collar of Borghaster - 4 x Chaos Bikers (Fast)
Mark of Khorne, Power sword (champion), 3 x Chainswords, Combi-bolters - 1 x Chaos Spawn (Fast)
Mark of Khorne, Hideous mutations - 5 x Raptors (Fast)
Mark of Khorne, Plasma pistol (champion), Plasma gun Bolt Pistols, Chainswords, Icon of Wrath
Mission and Battlefield
Rolling, we have Contact Lost as tonight's Maelstrom mission. Which means that you get tactical objectives by holding objectives on the board. Is this good news for me and my numerical superiority?
We're back on the barren dust deserts of Hive Stylus, and we get a good old fashioned Dawn of War deployment, so a long table edge each. Most of the objectives are lurking in or around terrain, which means there's going to be some bunkering down going on.
Note: We decided ahead of the game that we were not going to allow the Command Point Reroll stratagem in this match! This is after seeing discussions online on how it can make the game less swingy and fun. Worth a try, and we'll analyse it later.
Deployment
I kick off by spending another three CPs to put both units of Tzaangor into Webway Infiltration - I'm now down to four left!I favour the right flank (top-left on the map) with the Rubricae, Exalted Sorcerers, Shaman and Enlightened. Magnus is more central, but my flyers are so fast, they can get pretty much anywhere. The only isolated guys are the Chaos Spawn, camped out in the ruins, holding down the only objective in my reach.
My original plan was a cleverly layered castle, like something from the Shogunate era. But actually, castling up in a corner could easily cost me the match. I'm going to need board control in order to get objectives, so I decide to split my forces a bit more than I originally intended.
Raptors and Obliterators in the warp, ready to flank and grab later. And then a thin line of ablative cultists in each corner, hedging my bets a little until I know where Magnus might be, with a plan of setting most of my troops behind one of these screens. In the middle, I stick the Plague Marines to grab the objective in the archway, and the Bikers lurk in cover behind them.
By this point, I've lost all the roll-offs for objective placement, deploying and first turn. This is good news, it means all my bad luck has been used up for the evening.
Thousand Sons - Turn 1
Only one card to start with: Defend Objective 3. That's perfectly doable, and would be a good start.
First turn to me! I start by tucking the Spawn right into the building, so they can't be shot, and then move everything else forward. The Rubrics can get close enough to Objective 3 (in the rocks) and still shoot, backed up by the foot Exalted Sorcerer.
The Mutalith Vortex Beast advances forward, followed by the flying circus of Disc Sorcerer, Shaman and Enlightened. Magnus flies to the top of the central terrain piece - because who needs cover when you're FABULOUS!
I was expecting good things in the Psychic phase and, with both Kraken's Sorcerers out of Denial range, I'm not disappointed. Magnus gives himself some protection with Glamour of Tzeentch (-1 to hit) and Weaver of Fate (3++ save).
My third power was going to be a Smite on the Plague Marines, but Kraken reveals he does have an anti-psyker tool - the Brass Collar of Borghaster. It stops the power, and forces Magus to take a Perils test. The Daemon Primarch takes a wound from Perils, and then duly ignores it (oh, I already like Magnus).
I'm growing less enamoured by the second.
Bits and pieces elsewhere for the Psychic phase: the Mutalith is sent forward with Warptime, Magus is given Diabolic Strength (not sure he'd need it up there - maybe a Hive Tyrant is about to descend) and the rest is just some Smites on the Cultist screen. I do roll a Perils for my foot Sorcerer (and am freed from having to fret about a CP re-roll - I've got no choice) and he loses three wounds. But my Shaman immediately heals them all back again with Temporal Manipulation. It was a good phase!
The Mutalith Vortex Beast advances forward, followed by the flying circus of Disc Sorcerer, Shaman and Enlightened. Magnus flies to the top of the central terrain piece - because who needs cover when you're FABULOUS!
I was expecting good things in the Psychic phase and, with both Kraken's Sorcerers out of Denial range, I'm not disappointed. Magnus gives himself some protection with Glamour of Tzeentch (-1 to hit) and Weaver of Fate (3++ save).
My third power was going to be a Smite on the Plague Marines, but Kraken reveals he does have an anti-psyker tool - the Brass Collar of Borghaster. It stops the power, and forces Magus to take a Perils test. The Daemon Primarch takes a wound from Perils, and then duly ignores it (oh, I already like Magnus).
I'm growing less enamoured by the second.
Bits and pieces elsewhere for the Psychic phase: the Mutalith is sent forward with Warptime, Magus is given Diabolic Strength (not sure he'd need it up there - maybe a Hive Tyrant is about to descend) and the rest is just some Smites on the Cultist screen. I do roll a Perils for my foot Sorcerer (and am freed from having to fret about a CP re-roll - I've got no choice) and he loses three wounds. But my Shaman immediately heals them all back again with Temporal Manipulation. It was a good phase!
The shooting phase isn't too bad either: the Mutalith and Enlightened manage to blast off (with arrows) six wounds from the Helbrute. He goes crazed, but fails his retaliatory shots. The small-arms from the Rubrics kill off all but three of the Cultists, and First Blood is looking likely, but Kraken wisely spends two CPs to keep them in the game (and on the objective).
Objectives Scored: none
Black Legion - Turn 1
Probably, but I decide on the long bomb anyway. Partly because there's a tiny chance I could grab it, but also because it means Magnus will have to focus on the only unit who can get it, the Bikers. And it will pull him away from the rest of his army, not that he needs them. Might disrupt his aura support a bit, though.
So off the bikers go, advancing over to the middle of the board. Everyone else dives for the nearest cover, then I enjoy what may be my only good psychic phase while I'm out of Deny range. Nothing very fancy, and in the end I fail the one I really wanted, which was Warptime on the Beserkers.
Shooting sees very little happen. The Chaos Marines slam a Flakk missile into Magnus, who chokes down three mortal wounds despite all his fancy protections. Then the Helbrute and Plague Marines manage to wipe out the Tzaangor Enlightened with combined fire, but that's my lot. Reluctantly, I brace for impact.
My poor Enlightened. But at least everything else got off lightly, and now I get to claim two points for successfully defending Objective 3.
Objectives Scored: First Blood (1)
Objectives Scored: Defend Objective 3 (2)
Thousand Sons - Turn 2
I currently hold two objectives, so that's two fresh cards: Supremacy (hold three objectives) and Arcane Rite (control one objective and your opponent controls none - I'm guessing that's meant to be a late-game objective, because it's not happening now)
I press on with my sweeping attack down Kraken's left flank.The Mutalith and Disc Sorcerer move against the Plague Marines. The Shaman moves towards the Helbrute and Cultists, with my first unit of Tzaangor leaping out of the warp behind them. Magnus jumps down to threaten the bikers (but keeps equidistant between them and the Plague Marines, to give himself a choice of Smite targets).
And in a rare move of remembering-my-rules, I activate the Dark Matter Crystal and teleport the big unit of Rubrics directly into Kraken's back lines, levelling their inferno boltguns at the Khorne Berserkers.
That, I did not see coming! Yikes.
But I still need to hold objectives, which is a problem when your army lacks cheap troops. The Spawn remain cowering on Objective 6, while the Exalted Sorcerer on foot is left to babysit Objective 3.
The Psychic phase is mostly taken up with buffing up Magnus once again, as well as healing him back to full health. Smites don't go so well, and I only kill one of the Plague Marines (this, as it turns out, was no bad thing), and a Cultist (Kraken nobly sacrificing his champion to make the Tzaangor's charge longer)
In shooting, the Mutalith randomises his powers and doesn't achieve much. The Rubrics open up on the Berserkers, killing four of them (and another flees in the Morale phase).
In combat, the Tzaangors make it in against both Cultists and Helbrute, with the Shaman going in against the Cultists only (the big chicken). The Mutalith and Disc Sorcerer double-team the Plague Marines. The Rubrics fail their charge (probably for the best) and Magnus steps up to the bikers.
The Chaos Bikers are easily dispatched - Magnus swats all four of them with his whack-a-mole staff. I play Veterans of the Long War on the Tzaangor, to be sure of the Helbrute kill, and they just about finish him off. I saved one Tzaangor for the Cultists and both of his attacks did for the last two.
It's an interesting match-up in the centre: because they're Black Legion, the Plague Marines are Ld9, which is exactly what I need to trigger my Seer's Bane sword. With it's high-strength, multiple-damage hits, it's tailor-made for killing Plague Marines - and so I go to work without thinking about it. Sure enough, my Sorcerer kills three of them (including the guy on the ground floor), but then we realise the Mutalith is stymied - he can't climb up a level, and he can't get within an inch of the surviving squad. So the three Plague Marines are now, technically, out of combat and that's that.
So no Arcane Rite for me (I ditch that - short of a tabling, I'm not getting it), but I do claim 2pts for Supremacy.
Objectives Scored: Supremacy (2)
Black Legion - Turn 2
This is looking ugly, but I can still turn it. I'm stuck with that ruddy objective, so I spend CPs to burn it. My redraw is even worse - Area Denial, which is to keep the Tzeentchians away from the middle of the field!
At least this makes my goal this turn very clear. Magnus must die.
Tall order, though, he's currently unhurt. All the Khorne marked stuff heads towards him as fast as they can, along with the Cultists. Then I drop the Obliterators in, with the Raptors coming up in the top corner to challenge those lurking Spawn.
The Pyschic Phase, now that I'm in Magnus's shadow, is going to be hard. But there's a ray of hope - if I can get Death Hex off on the big guy, I'm quietly confident that my guns can pull him apart. Alas, the requisite sorcerer is out of range for this.
No problem, I just need to Warptime him forward. Obviously I fail my first attempt at casting this. But with some clever stratagem use, the other Sorcerer can use a Chaos Familiar to swap out Daemonic Strength for Death Hex so I can still try!
And fail again, with a second roll of double two. Magnus then bats away a smite, and I fail to cast Prescience on the Obliterators.
Shooting - a hail of fire from the Chaos Space Marines knocks a couple of wounds off Big Red. Even the Cultists manage to chip a wound off him! Hurrah for useless mooks.
The Obliterators, who I give Veterans of the Long War, open up. It's a balanced roll for their random weapons, not much strength or AP, but three wounds a piece will help. Sadly, I get a pretty solid whiff with my rolls. Only one hit makes it through the various penalties and ward saves, and when I repeat this with the Slaaneshi Cacophony stratagem, it's not really any better. Then I pin him in place with a Chaos Spawn, so at least he's right where I want him.
Except none of the useful close combat guys make it in. Not one Khornate Beserker or Warlord. No, my combat backup is the Cultists, as it turns out. Woo.
Unsurprisingly, the combat that results is fairly one-sided. What is a surprise is that as the dust settles, I'm still there! The wounded Spawn clings on, as does a lone, brave Cultist. Magnus doubtless rolls his eye.
 |
| It's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it pays off for them. |
Yes, with no Overwatch and limited attacks (all right, he has 7 attacks, but even so), Magnus doesn't do so well against large numbers of single-wound troops. He only killed five Cultists (although, granted, he REALLY killed them) and caused four more to flee.
In the top corner, the Raptors wound one Spawn with shooting, then fail their charge (foolishly, I forget their Icon of Wrath here, but I doubt it would have helped me on tonight's rolls), so they're not really achieving much either.
The three Plague Marines decide to sidestep both the Tzaangors and Mutalith and just pick on the Exalted Swordsman hero. His invulnerable save (and Kraken's krappy rolling*) sees him right.
What kind of a Plague Marine fails to kill an enemy sorcerer with a double one for his Vast Bubotic Cleaver? Grind your rotting teeth, you failure.
Objectives Scored: none
Thousand Sons - Turn 3
I now hold four objectives, so it's a big draw for me: Kingslayer, Domination, Hold the Line and Psychic Supremacy. Hmmm, not the worst cards I could get.
But my first problem is Magus is still stuck fighting the remnants of the Spawn and lone Cultist. I can easily fly away from combat and Smite at will, but it means I won't be punching anything meaningful this turn. But if I keep him in place and clear away his opponents in the Psychic phase, I'll be back in the game!
So I move accordingly. Deciding that I don't need to camp on objectives any more, my foot Sorcerer moves into Smite range of the last Plague Marine. My Disc Sorcerer leaves combat with the Plague Marine to get into Smite range of the Spawn. The Shaman also moves to help Magnus and his herd tag along behind. The Rubrics walk into flamer range of the Chaos Lord, with the Mutalith in tow.
On my side of the table, the two Spawn move up against the Raptors, and I drop in my second unit of Tzaangors against the Obliterators.
And now the Psychic phase: it kicks off well with the foot Sorcerer Smiting off the last Plague Marine, but unfortunately the rest are now in denial range of Kraken's Sorcerers, and they've clearly saved their A-game for this moment. My Disc Sorcerer's Smite on the Spawn is denied. My Shaman's Smite on the Spawn is also denied. My Aspiring Sorcerer tries to reach the Spawn with a Tzeentch's Firestorm, but that fails. I'm starting to feel that I'm going to have one of those psychic phases again...
Yes, phew. I thought for a moment you were going to run out of smites.
The Shooting Phase is more straightforward: the Rubrics douse the Chaos Lord in Warpflame, taking him down to a single wound, and pop off the remaining Berserkers with their Inferno Bolters.
In the Combat Phase, the Spawn charge into the Raptors, losing one to Overwatch and whiffing the subsequent combat. The newly-arrived Tzaangor get in on the Obliterators, causing five wounds and taking two casualties (and crucially, tying up the guns).
Magnus then steps forward between the two traitorous Sorcerers and whacks them left and right with his mighty beatstick. With no invulnerable save, they both died so quickly that I forgot I wanted to turn one of them into a Spawn.
That gives me Slay the Warlord and Kingslayer. I then chuck Psychic Supremacy, as it requires me to make a successful Deny the Witch test, and Magnus is currently scraping the only two enemy psykers from the end of his blade.
Objectives Scored: Slay the Warlord (1), Kingslayer (2)
Black Legion - Turn 3
Pride keeps me in the fight. I have no CPs left, so I'm stuck with trying to clean the centre of the board with the pitiful handful of troops left to me.
A concentrated hail of fire knocks a pretty decent amount of wounds of Magnus, this time. He's actually down a bracket on his damage table! Now my sorcerers can unleash a tide of no, wait, they're dead.
 |
| "Looks like a big fella. Better use my knife." |
The Raptors struggle manfully with the last Spawn, which eats three of them before refusing to die. The Obliterators carry on punching beastmen, then the Dark Apostle leads a last valiant charge. Even here, the Black Legion doesn't die quietly.
Partly because the flurry of scratching knocks another two wounds off Magnus, but also because Magnus bashes the Dark Apostle over the head and transforms him into a wailing Spawn, who immediately darts off to claim the nearby objective for the enemy.
At this point, with the rest of the (unscathed) Thousand Sons closing in, we shall draw a discreet veil.
Result: 7:1 plus a concession - Victory to the Thousand Sons!
Dark Locker Room of a Thousand Secrets
Oh my. I feel like I brought a machine-gun to a knife fight. In my defence, I think I had a solid plan and a good run of luck. Not everything that went my way was Magnus-based, but damn he's a useful guy to have around.This being my first fight with Magnus, I did play him cautiously - buffing him defensively and picking my moment - but I sense that's how I want to run him. He's a good buffer for the rest of the army, a great distraction, and can be lethal against the right target. Given that even small-arms fire can chip away at him - and there really is nowhere to hide him - I don't think he can just hit and enemy line and tank everything.
I think Kraken started off with the right approach: a mass of bodies is probably the right way to deal with Magnus. Unfortunately the mission required board control and, the problem with putting everything on Magnus is that it gives free reign to the other two-thirds of my army.
Everything else seemed to come together as well. I like using the Tzaangor in multiple, small packs - despite the exorbitant CP cost - and they both made their charges to kill or tie up what they needed. The Rubric Marines also worked really well once the Dark Matter Crystal popped them into killing range. I'll have to remember that - it's an unexpected attack from a unit most people would assume to be slow.
And finally the Seer's Bane swordsman earned his stripes (sort of) with his single-handed takedown of the Plague Marines. This is one Sorcerer determined to move up the ranks.
Finally the Command Point re-roll experiment. Personally, I didn't mind it - at least it forced me to live with rolls like Perils and not dither over what to do about it. But it was probably a bad match-up to introduce the rule: I only had four CPs at the start of the battle and Kraken had ten. And he needed re-rolls more than I did throughout the battle. Going forward, I might keep it as a self-imposed restriction for myself, but not a hard rule for the game.
I feel like I should be less surprised by this result! On paper, I thought my army had way more of a fighting chance than it did. The random hand of fate slapped me pretty hard with dice rolls throughout, a standard loser's rallying cry I know. But without CP rerolls to help me through those dark dice, I couldn't really get myself back in the game.
Deployment was my great fail, I think. Castling up round my Warlord would have helped my dice rolls a lot. Even putting the Obliterators by him, in fact, instead of by themselves in a dust field. I was worried at the time that the Rubrics would shoot me up too much, but actually the Tzaangor ambush was just as bad.
And of course Stylus was playing extremely well. He remembered the Dark Matter Crystal, for starters! Seeing them gunning first the Hellbrute, then (unexpectedly) the Beserkers (and finishing them in close combat, no less) was very depressing. The lynchpin was definitely the round that saw the sorcerers smiting Magnus free of combat, then the big guy teleporting free to assault both renegade sorcerers.
Whelp, nothing for it. I shall have to buy Stylus a Khorne Lord of Skulls for Christmas, then avenge this slight. Or Abaddon, of course. I bet he has strong opinions about Magnus.
*Kraken's Krappy Rolling is a registered trademark. All patents pending.
The no rerolls is an interesting one. Where have you seen that recommended?
ReplyDeleteThe 'no-reroll' rule is currently being used in a narrative campaign on the DZTV subscription channel, and I've talked about it on the related Discord chats. A number of narrative players seem to favour it.
DeleteFrom the perspective of a viewer, it can make for better entertainment - the drama of a '1' being rolled for a saving throw that results in a humble infantryman killing a Lord of War.
For a casual game, it's probably better to allow it (we're all here to have fun, and there's no point having your opponent stymied because they can't re-roll a critical charge), but I'm still going to try and limit my usage. If nothing else, it helps me get more familiar with stratagems.
I could definitely see it being more fun in Narrative play, yeah. And I certainly prefer spending my CPs on strategems instead of trying to use up the universe's endless supply of ones on my rolls!
DeleteFor standard games, though, I think that having it there to take the sting out of a bad turn is just too much to turn down. There's nothing gloomier than having a really bad string of rolls that shuts down your game! The reroll doesn't actually remove the chance of that still happening, just mitigates it, so I find it generally makes the game a lot more fun for me.
Good report, chaps. Thanks. Not really sure the result was ever in doubt with Magnus involved (Ouch!). Keep up the inspiring reports. You've got me started on Death Guard for 40k and Maggotkin for AoS as well as Frostgrave after years of just doing historical wargaming. Great fun.
ReplyDeleteThanks very much! That's true enough about the outcome - although I'd like to see how Magnus fares against Kraken's Tyranid army, as there are some brutal monsters in there.
DeleteAnd welcome to Warhammer! Those are some good choices - Death Guard are a lot of fun right now, and Chaos is a good faction to bridge 40k and AoS at the same time (my Thousand Sons have enabled me to collect a good Disciples of Tzeentch list). Hope it goes well for you.
We used to play some Frostgrave, and a little bit of historical (Dark Age Saga) - both of which have been pushed aside by the allure of the 41st Millennium, but everything comes around in cycles.
Frostgrave is great fun! Haven't played that for nearly two years, mind, but I liked it so much I themed most of my scenery around it.
DeleteIf that's a challenge to Hive Fleet Afanc, consider it accepted! Now wait while I borrow the giant spider crab exhibit from my local natural history museum to proxy a Heirophant.
Primarchs are hard to play against without some kind of Big Bad of your own. I often actually have better results just ignoring them and playing to the mission, but that's not always really an option.
ReplyDeleteI actually stopped using Command Re-rolls because I was failing almost all of them on the re-roll as well. We kept track for a while, and I think I was succeeding in about 1 in 5 of them, despite only really using them for things that needed a 2+ or 3+. So now I just save my CP for more reliable things.
Yes, the dice will have their way.
DeleteThere's a further split between stratagems that have an immediate benefit, and ones that require a dice roll to work. I've only thought about it abstractly, but there's probably a way to maximum value from your CPs if you focus on the right ones.