Sunday, April 15, 2012

Battle Report: Black Templars vs. Chaos Space Marines

Looking to eliminate the threat of the Chaos Space Marines from the orbiting Moon of WASP-987c, the space marines of the Black Templars Chapter form a defensive ring around the Hive City of Shackleton's Landing, readying themselves for the inevitable onslaught.

Game: 4 objectives (capture and control); pitched battle deployment.
Having control of a manufactorum, the Black Templars have 50 extra points to spend on their forces compared to chaos.  Chaos controls a power generator, giving them +1 to first turn, reserves (etc.). 

Black Templars (1050 points):
HQ
Emperor's Champion; abhor the witch (110 points)

Elites
5 Sword Brethren Terminators; Power Fists, Storm Bolters, Tank Hunter, 2 Cyclone Missile Launchers (265 points)

Troops
5 Crusader Initiates; 1 power fist, 1 flamer (101 points)
5 Crusader Initiates; 1 Lascannon, 1 Plasma Gun (101 points)
5 Crusader Initiates; 1 Lascannon, 1 Plasma Gun (101 points)

Fast Attack
Land Speeder Typhoon; typhoon missile launcher (70 points)

Heavy Support
Predator Annihilator; Turret mounted twin linked lascannon, side mounted lascannons, Power of the Machine Spirit (175 points)

Dedicated Transports
Razorback; Twin Linked Lascannon, Power of the Machine Spirit (120 points)


Chaos (1000 points):
HQ:
Daemon Prince, Mark of Nurgle, Wings, Doombolt (160 points)
Daemon Prince, Wings (130 points)

Troops:
5 plague marines, 1 flamer, 1 melta, 1 plague champion with powerfist, 1 icon (175 points)
5 plague marines, 1 flamer, 1 melta, 1 plague champion with powerfist, 1 icon (175 points)
5 plague marines, 1 plasma gun (130 points)

Dedicated Transports:
1 Rhino with Havoc Launcher (50 points)
1 Rhino with Havoc Launcher (50 points)
1 Rhino with Havoc Launcher (50 points)

Heavy Support:
1 obliterator (75 points)

TURN 1.
The Black Templars deploy along a long line in their zone.  This is a tactic which the chaos marines hope to exploit: take them on one unit at a time.  In response, chaos deploys in two chunks: the plasma gunner plague marine squad and the Nurgle daemon prince holding an objective on one flank and tucked up in a building; and the rest on the opposite side.  The plan is straight forward: the plague marines that are with the prince will stay put to control the singular objective whilst the Nurgle daemon prince races to their back lines to destroy their predator and possibly their terminators.  The rest of the army will engage from the other flank, chewing through one unit at a time in close combat as needs be and largely ignoring any objectives until nearer the end of the game.  The first image shows the left flank with the Nurgle daemon prince and one of the plague marine squads near to the objective, looking down at the black templars fire base.

The black templars have a very bad opening turn: missing almost everything and only taking down one of my havoc launchers on a singular rhino.  In exchange, the chaos marines down the razor back, and inflict a few initial casualties on some of the squads.

TURN 2.
This is where it starts to get messy for the Black Templars.  They charge forward out of their wrecked vehicle and using their special rules for when they take casualties, generally come toward me.  But that is exactly what I wanted to happen.  The only real casualty for the chaos team is one rhino being wrecked.  In exchange, the daemon prince swiftly wrecks the predator (see image), the obliterator decimates the terminators with a solid plasma cannon shot, and two squads of plague marines that were in rhinos hop out to confront the Emperor's champion (and squad) on the other flank.

Although two plague marines die, a few well placed power fist attacks take care of the Emperor's Champion, whilst the rest of the plague marines give better than they got to the rest of the squad that the champion was with.

Meanwhile, the second winged daemon prince makes short work of another squad that was in cover, having avoided a tank shock in the movement phase: killing all but one of them from his horrendous defiler claw attack.

TURN 3.
The land speeder on the left flank gets shredded by rapid firing plague marines holding the objective (they were trying lots of frag missiles, but the feel no pain of the plague marines sees them through the incoming explosions).

Having mopped up the right flank, my remaining plague marines and the defiler clawed daemon prince take it easy and watch on as the obliterator takes another excellent plasma shot at the sole surviving terminators. With only one terminator left, the Nurgle daemon prince swoops in to finish the demolition job.

End Result: Massacre victory to chaos on turn 3.

I think I shall be taking the hive city of Shakleton's Landing in the expenditure section of round 1 of the Wasp campaign!
jabberjabber and coffee_samurai shake hands and go to get something to eat together whilst the rest of our group still seem stuck on turn 1 or 2. For fun, we switch armies when we get back and fight out a draw. Looking over to the other tables, those orks take ages to move: come on cosec and paladin84! Even Chuck Thunder vs Anthony's game is on turn 3 by now!  And we've had two games already!

2 comments:

John Lambshead said...

I recognise that warp portal.

jabberjabber said...

Yep -- you certainly should :)
I have a few of them now ... one having a tentacle coming out of it.

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