Always time for one more scrap before Christmas! Hotspur was almost off on his holiday travels, but dropped in for a quick thousand point battle against my Alpha Legion.
He brought the clowns. Why did it have to be Clowns?
Yeeha, Jester's Deadly!
They've been here before - Hotspur's finely painted and deeply lethal fusion gun drive-by specialists. Three small troupes of players, two with the finest death cannons money can buy and one bare-bones squad who clearly arrived late to the armoury.
Leading them, a pair of Troupe Masters, one of whom has been upgraded to Great Harlequin status, the terrifying lawnmower that is a Solitaire and Shadowseer to add trickery. They fly around together in a pair of Starweavers, accompanied by some Skyweaver jetbikes to add a swift kick in the pants where needed. That Great Harlequin warlord also has a free reroll per game, and earns back CPs spent on any strategem if you can roll the same as the cost - we weren't totally sure if this is covered by Tactical Restraint, but decided we wouldn't worry about that tonight!
This lot are from the Soaring Spite Masque, which means they can ignore the penalties for shooting assault weapons on the run, and count pistols as assault weapons when in a flying transport. Don't, basically, be in their personal space if you're a vehicle, and be aware that their personal space is the entire board.
Soaring Spite Harlequin Battalion Detachment
- HQ - Troupe Master with the Storied Sword, Fusion Pistol, Great Harlequin upgrade and Warlord Trait Player of the Twilight
- HQ - Troupe Master with Fusion Pistol and Harlequin's Caress
- HQ - Shadowseer with Twilight Pathways and Veil of Tears powers
- Troops - 5 x Players with 3 x Fusion Pistol, 3 x Embraces and 1 x Caress
- Troops -5 x Players with 4 x Fusion Pistol, 3 x Embraces and 1 x Caress
- Troops - 5 x Players with 3 x Embraces
- Elite - Solitaire
- Fast Attack - 2 x Skyweavers with Zephyrglaives and Haywire Cannons
- Dedicated Transports - 2 x Starweaver with Shuriken Cannon
Alpha-ind You. And I Will Kill You.
This is because the CA 2019 points drop has landed on Battlescribe, and it has certainly done these guys some favours! Not totally sure if replacing Bile and the Master with a Daemon Prince is totally worth it, but it makes for a mean sidegrade at the least.
Alpha Legion is a great trait against almost any army, but not these Harlequins. Most of them need to be within twelve inches to shoot me at all, so I can't really expect any protection from my minus 1 to hit. I'll be relying on strategems instead, and luckily they're all good.
To start with, We Are Alpharius! A 1 CP strat to let me pick a Warlord Trait for a second character. The Daemon Prince gets Clandestine, for a flat -1 to hit him on any attacks, and he gets the Mindveil relic as well, because it's cheaper than real wings.
The real Warlord has I Am Alpharius so I can throw him into combat with comparative abandon. If he dies, there's nothing I can find to say I can't nominate the Daemon Prince as the new one, but I suspect that's cheesy and so I won't. There are two perfectly good Greater Possessed to do that work!
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| The Cultists were too sneaky to make it into this shot - I was using Delaque gangers, you'll see them later. |
Alpha Legion Battalion
- HQ - Chaos Lord with Thunder Hammer and Plasma Pistol, Warlord with I Am Alpharius trait
- HQ - Daemon Prince with Mindveil, 2 x Talons, the Clandestine Trait
- Troops - 6 Chaos Space Marines, champ has a chainaxe and plasma pistol, plasma gun for the boys
- Troops - 6 Chaos Space Marines, champ has a combi-flamer and an autocannon for the boys
- Troops - 10 Chaos Cultists with autoguns and a lone heavy stubber
- Elites - 2 Greater Possessed
- Elite - 1 x Obliterator
- Elites - 10 Noise Marines, Champion has a Doom Siren and Sonic Blaster, 4 more Sonic Blasters, 4 with chainsword and pistol, a Blastmaster and the Icon of Excess
- Heavy Support - a Venomcrawler
Mission and Terrain
Jungle time! A large central jungle traversed with a bridge, building complexes on either side. The woods in the middle have the usual Woods rules, but we're also playing true line of sight with them so the middle ground is very well covered.
We pick Spoils of War as tonight's Maelstrom mission. Tweaked to my usual house rules (no Domination or Mission Critical Objective objectives, same deployment rules as CA 2018 missions, First Strike not First Blood), this means that Secure Objectives can't be discarded, and can be scored by either player regardless of who drew them. Grab them boxes!
Deployment
I win the roll-off, and pick the Search and Destroy map. Our objective placement puts two into Hotspur's corner, but I've got deployment shenanigans to grab the nearest ones fast.
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| Those footsloggers were left off the map for the first few turns - they head south then swing into the centre from nowhere about turn three. |
Sure enough, Hotspur (having the pick of first or second turn) hides behind the buildings on his back line with everyone. Only the Solitaire and Shadowseer risk being further forward, and they are very well hidden in the trees.
I go with my Obliterator in deep strike, the Venomcrawler and Autocannon squad holding back around objective 2, and everyone else forward and ready to rush. The Noise Marines spend a CP on Forward Operatives, and after I'm kindly given first turn, head out towards Objective 4.
And then off we go!
Turn 1
I'm up first, and as you'd expect, it's a fast and quiet turn. Nothing to see, nothing to shoot, so it's all about advancing on to objectives.
Speaking of which, my draw isn't at all bad - Scour the Skies (hello jetbikes), Assassinate and an Alpha Legion special, Cut off the Heads. These last two combine very well - they are both to kill characters, and the latter is worth d3 per character killed (to a max of 6). Last one on the Solitaire is a rotten egg!
Hotspur counters this with an equally cagey move. He's more than content for me to come to him, and stays lurking along the back line. His card draw is not as encouraging - Area Denial, for which he'd have to kill all the Cultists, Noise Marines and a Greater Possessed gets ditched in short order. He's also stuck with Secure Objective 2, which I'm sadly on and score immediately. His remaining card is at least Assassinate, but that has to wait until next time.
Harlequin Objectives Scored: None
Turn 2
Nothing much for me to do here except keep on rolling forwards. So I do, consolidating the Noise Marines slightly forward of Objective 4 and pouring the Lord and his entourage towards the hidden Harlequin characters.
Hotspur draws some new cards - now he's got Advance and Defend Objective 6. Not bad, and both doable, but he decides this is the time to start fighting. From nowhere, the empty jungle is suddenly filled with bikes and backflips as the Skyweavers zip forwards, backing the Solitaire up as she dances towards the Chaos Lord.
At the back, the Starweavers pop out of cover long enough to spray shuriken fire into the Cultists, then one of them uses a strategem (for free, thanks to that damn Warlord Trait!) to vanish back into cover again. As the Solitaire and Skyweavers join the shooting, the Shadowseer launches hallucination grenades as the Cultists too, and I'm quickly left with just one.
I could keep them in! Insane Bravery, then Tide of Traitors. But who's going to pay 5 CPs for that, especially when it might fund the enemy? So the Lord faces the Solitaire and the Bikes in combat, and let's just assume the cultist does nothing before running.
Hotspur is borrowing my dice, however. Despite popping an extra stratagem on the Solitaire (Torments of the Fiery Pit, to gain +2 S and Attacks*), he can't quite make it through the Lord's armour and my abruptly lucky saves. Even with a second round of combat thanks to War Dancers, the Lord lives on a single wound. So he's faced down 20 S5 attacks! And kills both bikes as well after they also rather whiff their combat.
Hotspur is not best pleased with this, as you might imagine - it doens't leave him in a good position for next turn. At least I don't score much yet.
Alpha Legion Objectives Scored: Scour the Skies (1)
Harlequin Objectives Scored: none
Harlequin Objectives Scored: none
Turn 3
Now that I can see them, maybe I can kill some. My new card is Behind Enemy Lines, which is going to take a while. Although I could sling the Obliterator down to do it, I decide to put him in where he won't get immediately overrun - near Objective 6, which I also know is on Hotspur's to-do list.
The Venomcrawler scuttles forward, the Noise Marines shift a few more guys into line of sight, then the Daemon Prince rolls poorly for his mindveil and doesn't get much further than the treeline. Everything else consolidates towards the Solitaire.
The DP tries a Death Hex on the Solitaire, but it's not to be. And then the lithe wardancer avoids everything I can try on it - plasma pistol shots, helpful charges from the Chainsaw Marines and a Greater Possessed, plus the Warlord's hammer. Hotspur then finally puts my Warlord down!
Only to discover it's not a warlord, it's three monkeys in a suit of armour. No, the real warlord is now the nearby Greater Possessed, who abruptly gains the rather vicious Flames of Spite trait.
Elsewhere, combined fire and a quick Endless Cacophony from Venomcrawler, Noise Marines and Obliterator tear the Starweaver to bits, but not fast enough for me to shoot the Players inside. One of them dies in the blast, at least, but they're already close enough for charging next turn...
And so they do. And so all of them do, from all over the board! From nowhere! The remaining Starweaver is catapulted by the Shadowseer straight from the backline to the Daemon Prince, and they promptly do their signature drive-by move.
Not much can resist five fusion pistols at close range, and wearing a fruity veil proves no protection. The Solitaire has buggered off to help in case this didn't do the trick, so is at least left with not much to do.
Hotspur hasn't fought Noise Marines before, and the Music of the Apocalypse proves a very nasty surprise - two more of his players go down to massive headbanging, but at a cost of half the Noiseys.
The rest perish when the Great Harlequin gets there, although he takes a couple of wounds from the Doom Siren on the way in. In the centre, the Shadowseer grapples with the non-warlord Possessed, tearing three wounds off him, but the Shadowseer has also wounded himself with a perils and ends up going down.
At the end of all this, Hotspur is now starting to defend objective 4, which is his new draw, and has also scored that Advance from earlier. But losing the Shadowseer has cost him a lot - I roll well for Strike Off the Head and take a tidy lead.
Harlequin Objectives Scored: Advance (1), Assassinate (1)
Turn 4
New cards for me - Blood and Guts (excellent), Witch Hunter (a turn late). I've still got plenty for a counter punch, but it's going to have to count. The Venomcrawler speeds in towards the Harlequins to the north, the Chaos Space Marines and Greater Possessed go south. The Obliterator holds fort on 6.
The Autocannon squad could lend some firepower to the Venomcrawler, but I have other plans! They use the Renascent Infiltration strat and vanish from the board.
Shooting is my friend right now. The Chainsaw marines in the centre manage to kill the last two Players with pistol fire, which deprives Hotspur of Objective 4 before he can score it. The Venomcrawler splashes out with my last CPs on Daemonforge, and then helps the Obliterator blow up the second Starweaver.
The Greater Possessed thunder down towards the southern edge, where I know more Players are hiding in the trees. Here, together with the charging Chaos Marines, they kill the Great Harlequin before he can lift a finger.
At the same time, the Venomcrawler lunges on to the reeling Players it's just revealed. This is a risky charge, against four fusion pistols! And sure enough, I lose three wounds going in. Then I do nothing at all back, the Troupe Master and Solitaire intervene, and I'm down a Venomcrawler.
But Kaboom!
For it explodes, killing the Solitaire and half the Players, as well as wounding the Master. I'll happily accept that as a job well done.
Hotspur takes this all on the chin, then lunges back at me. His card draw is more useless stuff - The Joy of Lament and Psychological Warfare - so he concentrates on just killing me off.
His last Player troupe is the footslogging lot with the weaker weapons, the Understudies as we take to calling them. They pounce through the jungle and start killing Legionnaires, but they find the armour harder to deal with and lose a couple themselves in the process.
The Troupe Master misses with his Fusion gun, charges the Obliterator and bounces off it a bit in combat, losing another pair of wounds to a revenge punch.
His companions make a daring rush from the north, finishing off the wounded Greater Possessed only to find that it, too, was little more than a decoy fashioned from chewing gum and paper cups. No, the real warlord is the final Greater Possessed, and he's also got Flames of Spite.
Turns out this is quite good at killing Harlequins, because it generates mortal wounds. Goodbye the last of the well-equipped Players, and hello a few more victory points.
Harlequin Objectives Scored: None
Turn 5
Despite a comfortable VP lead here, I'm actually suddenly nervous. There's not much army left out there! Luckily, I've got the Autocannon squad, who reappear in the Harlequins' rear, ready to fight. The Obliterator backs off, which means handing a victory points to Hotspur for Joy of Lament, but I'll take that hit for a chance to shoot the Troupe Master.
Not that I can hit him - no damage at all after a barrage of bolter and autocannon fire. Erp.
In the lower jungle, the last of my marines fall to an assortment of hugs and kisses (or whatever they're called), and my last Greater Possessed does his best, but can't kill a single clown. So I'm left facing three Harlequins with two wounded units and one pristine but incompetent one, and it's not at all out of the bounds of probability that he could kill the lot and table me at the last minute. Yikes.
Hotspur has had a tough night of it, mind, with poor cards and some dreadful rolls, so he's not feeling all that confident. But I know my dice and how much they hate me...
...most of the time.
It's just not to be - Troupe Master melts the Obliterator, which is a great start. But then he dies to overwatch from the Alpha marines, and the remaining two players fail to kill and then die to the Greater Possessed.
Game!
Harlequin Objectives Scored: Joy of Lament (1)
Result: 9:3 to the Alpha Legion!
Locker Room
Hats off to Hotspur, who took a damaging run of bad luck and still turned it into a bloody fist of a game. There were moments of luck there that helped me swing it (the Venomcrawler's death, the survival of my Warlord in that early rush), but his card draw just wasn't remotely helpful.
The Alpha Legion have certainly done well with the new points drops. This list felt like it had a lot of heavy stuff for a thousand points, whereas Hotspur's lot hadn't got any cheaper than last time, really. He was thinking he might drop the bikes next time, get a third Starweaver and arm the Understudies better. I could see that being worth doing, really, I'd far rather face the bikes than more angry actors.
Both of us felt our game plans had gone fairly smoothly! Hotspur was leaping about, murdering almost everything he chose to murder at the point he wanted it dead. But the low bodycount of his army was really his undoing - I was able to shrug off a couple of body blows, pick off his transports and then whittle the remainder away. I also got lucky on objectives, in fairness, but I don't think I made any of my usual poor choices.
The only one I'm not sure about is Renascent Infiltration - anyone know a FAQ for that? Can I really redeploy a squad later in the game, or does putting them back into reserves in turn four instantly kill them? We felt not, it's a stratagem after all, but I'd be interested in an official ruling. Seems like a very effective spend of points to me otherwise, a real must-use.
Hotspur will return - he's picking up a new army on his Christmas travels, so expect some fresh foes next year!
*Much later, I discover this can only be used on a wounded Harlequin character. But let's face it, he was soon exactly that!
That was exciting - I fully expected the dice to betray you at the end there! Really interesting to see the punch that a super-elite army has, but it does suffer on the body-count side.
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