Weekend at Burnie's 2 - Round 2 - Chaos Space Marines vs Raven Guard

Round 2 of the Battle for Nayala, and they've already sent the hit squad after me.

He got a real pretty mouth ain't he?

Something ominous from Deliverance is coming after me. I hope those aren't banjos I hear.

Another Astartes army to face, and this one has a new supplement (and lots of new toys!) to back it up. My opponent would be ErgonJon with an all-Primaris list of killers from the shadows.

The Wardens of the Claw - Raven Guard

• Captain in Phobos Armour (HQ) (Warlord)
  Camo Cloak, Master-crafted Instigator Bolt Carbine
  Ability: Master of Ambush
• Librarian in Phobos Armour (HQ)
  Camo Cloak, Force Sword
  Psychic: Shadowstep, The Abyss
• Lieutenant in Phobos Armour (HQ)
  Heavy Bolt Pistol, Combat Knife
  Relic: The Oppressor's End
• Primaris Lieutenant (HQ)
  Master-crafted Stalker Bolt-rifle
• 5 x Infiltrator Squad (Troop)
  Marksman bolt carbine, Smoke grenades, Omni-scramblers, Helix Adept
• 5 x Intercessor Squad (Troop)
  Bolt rifles, Auxiliary grenade launcher
• 5 x Intercessor Squad (Troop)
  Auto bolt rifles, Auxiliary grenade launcher
• 5 x Intercessor Squad (Troop)
  Stalker bolt rifles, Auxiliary grenade launcher
• Primaris Apothercary (Elite)
  Absolver Bolt Pistol, Reductor Pistol
• 3 x Aggressor Squad (Elite)
  Flamestorm Gauntlets
• Invictor Tactical Warsuit (Elite)
  Fragstorm Grenade Launcher, Heavy bolter, Incendium cannon, Ironhail Heavy Stubber
• 3 x Eliminator Squad (Heavy)
  Sergeant: Instigator Bolt Carbine, Bolt Sniper rifle
• 3 x Eliminator Squad (Heavy)
  Camo cloaks, Sergeant: Instigator Bolt Carbine, Bolt Sniper rifle
• 3 x Eliminator Squad (Heavy)
  Camo cloaks, Sergeant: Instigator Bolt Carbine, Bolt Sniper rifle
• 3 x Eliminator Squad (Heavy)
  Camo cloaks, Sergeant: Instigator Bolt Carbine, Bolt Sniper rifle

Points: 1242 | Battle-forged + Battalion + Spearhead: 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

A Raven Guard list filled with sneaky guys, snipers and a character-killing knife? That’s about as narrative as it gets.

Kill Confirmed is a great mission to play – incorporating maelstrom cards with killing stuff. I went into this game with a bit more confidence, partly because Jon’s army was mostly small units of T4 Primaris with S4 guns. How dangerous could that be?

Deployment

We had Spearhead Assault deployment. The battlefield was some lava hellscape that some real line-of-sight blocking pillars of rock and smoke, so it was going to take a bit of manoeuvre and position to draw a bead on each other.

Two squads of Raven Guard went into deepstrike. Three squads of Eliminators (three!) were planted around the back, with a unit of Intercessors escorting the Captain, Lieutenant and Apothecary; and Infiltrators looking after the Librarian and Lieutenant with the Oppressor’s End relic.

For heavy support, an Invictor Warsuit was bolstering the line, while a unit of Aggressors lurked at the back (but not for long!)

Knowing I would be second, I tried to build myself a little deepstrike castle, with the Scourged Chosen and Black Legion squad forming a perimeter around the shooty Helbrutes.

The Purge Chosen and Plague Marines went into the Rhino, the melee Helbrute took point and all the characters tried to look inconspicuous.

Turn 1

The Raven Guard went first, but before deployment had even finished, they used a warlord trait to jump the warlord and the Aggressor squad directly in front of me.

The warlord promptly got Shadowstepped back to safety, with his Librarian’s aid, but the Aggressors pushed on, flaming and charging my Helbrute. Unfortunately, they picked on the wrong war machine to mess with, and he survived the lot and murdered the whole squad in return.

Sorry boys, Mr Whippy is no soft-scoop.

More surprises in store on my left, when both squads of Intercessors jumped out to ambush me (on reflection, I think this should have been kept until Turn 2, since Strike From The Shadows still obeys the Matched Pay rules for deepstriking - but we can handwave it as a narrative twist. There were more surprises to come in this fight...)

Unfortunately for the ambush, the Scourged were guarding that flank, and their ability to see everything helps anticipate this sort of thing. I played the Prescience stratagem again and wiped out three Primaris before they could even say ‘gotcha!’. Their return fire picked off a few Chosen, but they failed the follow-up charge.

Who's ambushing who?

Before I started feeling too good about the turn, a squad of Eliminators assassinated my Warlord.

Headshot. Boom. Next time, wear a helmet, you daft bugger.

Ooops.

Which meant the first moves I made in the game was to hide my Sorcerer behind a huge cloud of smoke and tuck my Terminator Sorcerer beneath a massive rock outcrop. Neither one of them wanted to follow in the warlord’s footsteps.

My priority was to turn this ambush, before I got completely penned in. So the Helbrute dutifully ran forwards to take on the Infiltrators. It made the charge and, though it was down to its last wound, still wiped out all-but one of the squad (although that lone survivor cost me a valuable kill point).

Things went better on the other side of the field: the smaller Primaris squad was taken out with Smites and Chosen firepower, while the Plague Marines bundled out of the Rhino to murder the other squad.

They're not daisy-chaining into that Primaris - there used to be a squad there!

The Purge Chosen also came out of the Rhino to try their guns against the warlord-slaying Eliminators, but only felled one of them.

None of the Helbrute’s lascannons could see the Invictor, which was what I really wanted them to shoot out, so instead they put a few shots into the Eliminators upfield. It turns out, Raven Guard in camo cloaks are pretty impervious to heavy artillery, and the shots just smashed into bare rock as the snipers smirked from beneath cover and took aim at the fuel pipes.

Just as things were looking desperate, the Legion of the Damned arrived.

This was a mechanic of the narrative tournament, to represent the anarchy on the planet. At random times, random things would appear and attack the nearest enemy model. At this point, the nearest enemy model was the lone Infiltrator, who got murdered (that was my kill point!)

Turn 2

Ignoring all this, the Raven Guard pressed on, bringing the Invictor Warsuit to bear on the Plague Marines, taking out half of them, while sniper fire took out another couple, plus the rest of the Scourged Chosen and plinking a few wounds off the Helbrutes.

On my second turn, I started to catch up on the maelstrom cards (we’d both been getting a healthy supply of securing objectives and killing things) and made my move upfield.

The Purge Chosen and Greater Possessed jumped back into the Rhino, which sped up to the centre of the field. The Helbrutes took aim at the Invictor, but left it clinging onto one wound.

The Legion of the Damned squad moved onto their next target, which was the Raven Guard Lieutenant, who was nearly swarmed by them, but took them on single-handed.

Turn 3

The Raven Guard received orders for both area denial and to secure the centre objective, which meant clearing off the Rhino that was speeding across there. After a barrage of low-strength weapons, the machine finally cracked open. The passengers spilled out, still holding the centre, and there were no more shots left for them. The only other kill point gained was the badly-wounded Invictor taking out the last Plague Marine (every point counts!)

Having nothing left to shoot, the Intercessor squad and Lieutenant charged forward at the Purged Chosen and Greater Possessed. They killed three of the Chosen, but what was left wielded a Thunder Hammer, so between that and the Greater Possessed, the loyalists were wiped out to a man.

The centre of the field suddenly became important, as I also drew a card to secure it (as well as Supremacy, and Master the Warp – both D3 VPs if they are maximised). So my Terminator Sorcerer had to come out of hiding and run around the ragged rock to get in the centre.

I tried to ease my worries about snipers by focussing my remaining small-arms on the warlord-killing Eliminators and finally removing them. The Scourged Sorcerer already popped a Smite to deal with the Invictor.

The Greater Possessed stormed towards the Raven Guard Captain and Apothecary, but his charge fell short, and so ended my turn. As a consolation, I rolled maximum points for my objectives and leapt ahead in the race.

Turn 4

With assets dropping, and pressure to score objective and clear the centre of the board, the Raven Guard command got moving: the Captain and Apothecary moved up and took out the last of the Chosen, the Lieutenant with the Relic gets Shadowstepped out of the melee with the Damned Legionnaires.



He’d only be able to poke them his combat knife, but if he managed to get into combat with a character, Oppressor’s End would really hurt. So he charged my Terminator Sorcerer, who promptly Overwatched him with a melta to the face.

"Mwah-ha-ha!"

In response, I threw forward my last squad of Chaos Space Marines and – to show that the Raven Guard aren’t the only ones with magical movement, Warptimed them forward to charge the Apothecary, who fell under the standard of The Cabal.

The Terminator Sorcerer’s Smite and Melta shot had already killed the Raven Guard Captain, so he was having a great day.

The Legion of the Damned had moved on to envelop squad of Eliminators, which left the last sniper squad for my Helbrutes to – ineffectually – fire upon. It’s possible that I took one of them out – the lascannons were making heavy weather of it.

Turn 5

Just as I was getting comfortable in the end game, the Librarian pulled out a bit of classic Raven Guard sneakiness: he Shadowstepped himself into my back line, getting linebreaker, and was no in a position to Smite my Scourged Sorcerer to death.

That's so Raven.

One of my Helbrutes wasn’t so impressed with that play, and I put the Fire Frenzy stratagem on him to make sure he pounded the Librarian into the ground with his lascannons firing twice.

With the Legion of the Damned wiping out the Eliminator Squad, the field was mine. Only the brave Eliminator sergeant, who had been duelling all battle with the artillery Helbrutes, was left to slip back into the shadows.

Laters, 'taters.

It had been a close game up until the big swing in Turn 4, and with kill points and maelstrom cards to scoop up, it turned into something of an avalanche by the time we called it.

Result: Chaos Space Marines win 29 – 16

Locker Room

This is why I love playing narrative. A proper behind-the-lines Raven Guard army picking me off with tactical precision. Great fun to play against, and Jon was a brilliant opponent who handled his army and the new Codex well.

In terms of the battle, I got lucky with a few factors: first was facing such an small-unit army in a kill point game (although, damn they were hard to shift - but once I started whittling them down, I was racking up lots of points by taking out lone survivors).

I was fortunate that the Helbrute survived (and beat back) the initial Aggressor charge - that is a great warlord trait, and exactly the way to use it. If I'd lost the Helbrute, I'd have been pushed right back into my castle, with sniper fire raining down on me.

Killing the Lieutenant-assassin with overwatch was another big swing - we never got to see what he could do, but I'm informed it would have been curtains for my Sorcerer, and there were a lot of points tied up in keeping him alive.

I'm really impressed with the Raven Guard supplement. They seem to have been overlooked in favour of some of the more overtly-powerful chapters (always in the shadows, these guys), but they look like a lot of fun to play.

It was a good list too. I was surprised at the lack of high-strength weapons in there, but there are abilities to get around this (such as adding 1 to wound for Eliminators) and that really compensates. I thought my Rhino would untouchable, for example, but it was gunned down in a single round. Nicely narrative, and I hope for a rematch (although I'm keeping my warlord behind a big rock next time!)

And with that, I'm at one victory, one loss, and heading into my last battle of the day!