Weekend at Burnie's 2 - Round 1 - Chaos Space Marines vs Salamanders

The battle for Nayala starts here!

Come get some.

All back from my Weekend at Burnie's, I'll do my best to recount the tales. There were five battles in total, so hopefully my camera's memory and human memory will hold up.

This campaign began with a clash of warlords. As Warmaster, I was representing The Cabal. The Alliance were being led by my old foe, Chris aka Captain Smashypants. I’d fought his Salamanders in my very first tournament encounter, and manged to sneak a win. But in the intervening six month, the XIII Legion had acquired a new codex. And a Leviathan.

Adeptus Astartes - Salamanders

• Captain / Chapter Master (HQ) (Warlord)
  Plasma Pistol, Power fist,
  Relic: The Salamander's Mantle
• Lieutenant (HQ)
  Master-crafted boltgun, Power fist
• 5 x Tactical Squad (Troop)
  Sergeant: Power fist/Bolt pistol, 3 x Boltguns, Meltagun
• 5 x Tactical Squad (Troop)
  Sergeant: Boltgun/Bolt pistol, 3 x Boltguns, Meltagun
• 5 x Tactical Squad (Troop)
  Sergeant: Boltgun/Bolt pistol, 3 x Boltguns, Meltagun
• 5 x Terminator Assault Squad (Elite)
  Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield
• 3 x Centurion Devastator Squad (Heavy)
  Sergeant: Hurricane Bolter, 2 x Lascannons, 2 x Centurion Missile launcher & Heavy Bolters
• Relic Leviathan Dreadnought (Transport)
  Storm Bolter

Points: 1250 | Battle-forged + Battalion – Chapter Master: 9 CPs

Heretic Astartes - The Cabal

The Unkindest Cut - Black Legion Patrol

• Strato - Chaos Lord with Jump Pack (HQ) (Warlord)
  Chainsword, Combi-Bolter, Frag & Krak Grenades
  Warlord Trait: Black-clad BruteRelic: Ghorisvek’s Teeth
• 6 x Chaos Space Marines (Troop)
  Power Sword, 5 x Bolt Pistol & Chainswords, Icon of Excess, Mark of Slaanesh
• Greater Possessed (Elite)
  Daemonic Mutations

The Pestilent Congregation - The Purge Vanguard

• Decius - Sorcerer in Terminator Armour (HQ)
  Combi-melta, Force Sword, Frag & Krak Grenades, Mark of Nurgle
  Miasma of Pestilence, Warptime
• 5 x Chaos Chosen (Elite)
  4 x Combi-bolter, 4 x chainswords, Thunder Hammer, Reaper Chaincannon, Mark of Nurgle
• 5 x Plague Marines (Elite)
  Power fist, 2 x Flail of Contagion, 2 x 2nd Plague Knife, Blight & Krak Grenades
• Helbrute (Elite)
  Helbrute fist (combi-bolter), Power scourge, Mark of Nurgle
• Rhino (Elite)
  Combi-bolter), Mark of Nurgle

The Infinite Jest - The Scourged Vanguard

• Artemidorus - Sorcerer  (HQ)
  Bolt pistol, Force Stave, Frag & Krak Grenades, Mark of Tzeentch
  Prescience, Weaver of Fates
• 5 x Chaos Chosen (Elite)
  3 x Combi-bolter, 5 x chainswords, Combi-plasma, Missile Launcher, Mark of Tzeentch
• Helbrute (Elite)
  Twin Lascannon, Missile Launcher, Mark of Tzeentch
• Helbrute (Elite)
  Twin Lascannon, Missile Launcher, Mark of Tzeentch

Points: 1250 | Battle-forged + Patrol + Vanguard + Vanguard: 5 CPs

The first mission was Beachhead, appropriately enough, so there was a ‘home’ objective in each of our deployment zone (yours was worth 1VP per turn, the enemy’s was worth 3VP) and a central objective, worth 2VP.

So the imperative would be to move up quick and hold out – two things I wasn’t confident about doing against this army!

Deployment

In a stunning opening victory for The Cabal, I won the roll-off to pick the deployment zones.

Get in.

The Salamanders put the Terminators into deepstrike, along with the Drop-Pod carrying two of the Tactical Squads. What remained bunkered up in the centre: Centurions and Chapter Master in a building, third Tactical Squad behind the corner, and the Leviathan ready to steam up the middle.

My deployment was include to the right flank: two Shooty-Helbrutes, with the Sorcerer to buff them and the Chosen to screen then. Then the Rhino and Helbrute ready to make a dash for the cover of the buildings, the other characters behind them and the Black legion squad strung out to push out the deepstrike bubble.

Turn 1

The Salamanders began the battle with the thud of a Drop-Pod landing square on the centre objective and the two squads piling out. Not letting that go unanswered, I played the Prescience stratagem on my Scourged Chosen (basically Auspex Scan, but no penalties) to shoot away half of the first squad to pile out.

In response, the Centurions opened up on my lines, plinking off a Chosen, but failing to make much headway against the Scoured Helbrutes. As I was breathing a sigh of relief, the last shots took out my Purge Helbrute entirely, which promptly blew up to wound all my characters, Rhino and kill half the Black Legion squad.

My first move was a combination of aggression and cowardice: I raced forward the Rhino, aided by Warptime, to tuck it out of sight in the ruins. The Jump-Lord, Greater Possessed and what remained of the Chaos Space Marine followed suit.

The Helbrutes began bombarding the Centurions, but the cover save, combined with some good armour rolls, made them very hard to shift. I made myself feel better by gunning down most of the Drop-Pod’s Tactical Squads with combi-bolters.

Turn 2

In response, the Leviathan waddled down the alley, pointed at one of my Helbrutes, and removed it.
The Centurions were lacking things to see or shoot, so they just took out the Scourged Chosen, and a squad of Terminators landed on my left flank, but their Thunder Hammers were slowing them down, and they failed their charge.

This was my big push: I unloaded the Rhino, throwing the Purge Chosen against the third Tactical Squad, and the Plague Marines and Greater Possessed on the other side of the alley’s walls – ready to charge the Leviathan (but crucially, not get Overwatched by it). The Jump-Lord flew over the top of the Salamanders to threaten the Lieutenant who was skulking behind the Leviathan.

I put my Smites and remaining Helbrute’s Lascannons into the Terminators, taking out three of them. Then I hosed down the last Tactical Squad with the Reaper Chaincannon. It was charging time.

The charge phase came, and everything came off perfectly: Chosen into the Drop-Pod, Plague Marines, Greater Possessed and Jump Lord all multi-charged the Leviathan, Lieutenant, Drop-Pod and Tactical Squad without getting scratched. The Warlord’s ability even threw some mortal wounds on the Leviathan for good measure.

Brimming with overconfidence, I made my fatal error (or several of them). I’d been so intent on shutting down the Leviathan, I’d not considered trying to kill it. But now it was wounded, all the Plague Marines high-strength weapons would be rerolling hits, exploding on 6s, rerolling wounds of 1, causing multiple damage. Not to mention the Warlord (who could have had Veterans of the Long War on his multiple-damage relic chainsword that gave out mortal wounds).

Instead, I stuck with the (usually) safe bet of ‘attack what you can kill’ and wiped out the Lieutenant, the last few Tactical, and the Drop Pod (with ease, and many wounds to spare).

This was my second error – while my whole army was getting stuck into the Drop-Pod, I was safe from Centurion fire – I could have stayed there all game and scored 2VPs. Now I had just removed it, all my guys were looking very vulnerable to those Centurions.

My third error was not wrapping around the Leviathan so it couldn’t fall out of combat. I’m not sure I had enough bodies to do this (it’s mounted on a big damn base), but it managed to squeeze away.

Turn 3

Having survived my counter-punch, the Salamanders brought the hammer came down. Chapter Master Smashypants left the safety of the ruins to push for the middle objective, battering aside the squad of Purge Chosen on his way.

The Centurions blew away a couple of Plague Marines, and took the Rhino (who was sneaking around for Linebreaker, hoping not to be noticed) down to two wounds.

The last Terminators made their charge on the second attempt, smashing apart my last Helbrute and Terminator Sorcerer.

I responded by flying my Jump-Lord behind a wall (he’s brimming with confidence) and chasing the Leviathan with Plague Marines. The Greater Possessed and Chaos Space Marines went after Chapter Master Smashypants, while keeping the banner of The Cabal on the central objective. The Scourged Sorcerer managed to Smite away the last of the Terminators, which meant I was still clinging to my home objective with my fingernails.

There was nothing left to shoot, so I made another long charge from behind a wall (Captain Smashypants was not amused by these antics) and piled my Warlord and Plague Marines into the Leviathan for a second time without Overwatch. He responded by kicking two of the Plague Marines into touch, and so racking up more kills with his feet than with his grav-flux bombards.

The Greater Possessed did some fine work against the Chapter Master, leaving them both on a single wound that, sadly, I couldn’t finish off.

Turn 4

Once again, the Leviathan fell back out of combat (unfortunately, it kept falling out towards my home objective), so did the Chapter Master, and the Centurions mopped up what remained. When it came to my fourth turn, all I had left was my Warlord, a Greater Possessed, a Plague Marine and a Sorcerer (taking out the Rhino and the last Chaos Space Marine had spared my characters). So I was down on material, but we were level on points, so was hoping I could squeak a warlord kill point and an early finish.

Banner not quite big enough to block line-of-sight

My warlord found another wall to hide behind and attempt a long charge on the Leviathan. Sadly, the law of averages kicked in and he finally failed one. But that didn’t stop the last Plague Marine from taking on all that Leviathan Overwatch single-handedly – and surviving! He made it into combat!

The Greater Possessed wasn’t so fortunate when he made a charge against Chapter Master Smashypants and got felled by a pistol Overwatch.

Turn 5

The Salamanders' fifth turn was spent falling the Leviathan back onto my home objective and using the Centurions to kill the last Plague Marine. The wounded Chapter Master limped on towards my deployment zone.

There wasn’t much left for me to do but fly my warlord directly towards the Chapter Master and offer the challenge …

Turn 6

… which he accepted on the sixth turn! But not before the Leviathan had turned my Sorcerer to atoms.

In the clash of warlords, Chapter Master of The Alliance struck first, but failed to strike down the Warmaster of The Cabal – who responded by chopping him up with his chainsword.

I win! Except, not really, I was starting to haemorrhage Victory Points and was lucky the game ended there before I lost any more.

Result: Salamanders win 14 – 7

Locker Room

A fantastic game. As commanders of opposing factions, we’re meant to be bitter rivals, but Chris is great fun to play and voluntarily threw his single-wound warlord into the fray so we could end on an epic duel. We’re now at one game apiece for Weekend at Burnie’s battles, so there must surely be a decider next year…

In terms of how my army handled (this was my first time with it), I liked the abilities of the various factions, and was impressed by the amount of damage they can kick out, and the resilience of the Plague Marines. The poor showing of my lascannons against the Centurions hurt me (either with terrible wound rolls or great saving throws) and they hurt me more than the Leviathan (who I was able to keep busy).

But great fun, and lots to learn. And now I’ve suffered my first defeat, the only way is up!