IRON GUTZ: GAME 1

I recently signed up for the Iron Gutz league at the local GW store.  The Iron Gutz is a competitive pyramid style league where you move up a level when you win, and down a level when you lose.

For my first game I played Kyle Plouffe and he brought out Tzeentch Daemon summoning.  He just so happens to be sitting in first place with his mean list that rocks a whopping 30ish psychic dice.  His list looks something like this:

Kairos Fateweaver (warlord)
Lord of Change
Nurgle Daemon Prince
Masque
Tzeentch Herald on Disc with Paradox level 3
Tzeentch Herald on Disc level 2
Tzeentch Herald level 2
Tzeentch Herald level 2
4 units of 11 pink horrors

There are some daemonic gifts and relics sprinkled around but I don't really remember, and they don't really come up in the game from what I can remember.  Kairos and the LoC are a formation and the Heralds are a formation.  Everything else is part of a CAD I believe.

I am playing a Night Lords Murder Talon that looks like this:

Core: Raptor Talon
Lord, jump pack, Claws of the Black Hunt, Sigil, Melta bombs (warlord - Hatred)
5 Raptors, 2 melta guns
5 Raptors, 2 melta guns
5 Warp talons

Core: Warband
Lord, power axe, Sigil
5 Chosen, 2 plasma guns, Rhino
3 Bikers, 2 plasma guns
Helbrute
5 CSM, flamer, Rhino
5 CMS, flamer, Rhino

Auxiliary: Lost and the Damned
Dark Apostle
10 Cultists, flamer
10 Cultists, flamer
10 Cultists, flamer
10 Cultists, flamer

Lord of the Legion
Nurgle Prince, level 3, Stormplate armour, spell familiar

We got Capture and Control with 4 objectives for our mission and Dawn of War for the deployment.  This is fine with me, I've been playing this mission for 15 years so I can focus on dealing with his army.  The objectives are deployed pretty much in a big square, one in each quarter of the table.  Kyle gets first turn and deploys his army fairly spread out across the table.  He puts a unit of horrors on each objective and one he puts deep in his back field.  Kairos goes on my left, the LoC on my right and the Nurgle Prince goes right in the middle.  The Heralds are each given to a squad of horrors, I choose not to seize and he takes the first turn.

Before I get into my deployment and the first turn, I've got a plan.  I know that Kairos and the LoC are most likely going to head for the skies, they have a load of offensive spells and Kairos is far too squishy to keep on the ground.  The Nurgle Prince is going to be scary as fuck and I'm best off to try and either tar pit him with cultists (who would be fearless if I can keep the Apostle near them) or just stay away as much as possible, though it's tough when he has wings.  I also know he is going to be summoning a shit load.  I'm not worried about anything that is just going to add to his dice so if he wastes any time on summoning more pinks all the better for me (he doesn't), but I'm pretty sure he is going to summon as many Burning Chariots as he can, I can see 5 of them sitting in a bin, and they will have to be dealt with as quickly as possible cause their AP3 torrent flamer is bad for me.

I deploy my Rhinos in the middle with the cultists as bubble wrap and on objectives.  The prince is behind a building in the middle, the bikes are off to my left and the Helbrute is off to my right.

Being an objective based mission, I decide I don't want to try to seize and Kyle begins his turn by jumping Kairos and the LoC into the skies right into my face, moves the 2 heralds on discs out of their unit and does some other shuffling before the psychic phase begins.  He uses the 2 flying dudes to nova the crap out of my cultists killing a few in each squad, and he summons a unit of Daemonettes and a Burning chariot.  No assaults.

My first turn I rush all my Rhinos forward.  All those vehicles and the units inside are Obsec, they will be a key target for Kyle and I want to try to keep him away from my objectives with anything really scary.  My bikes move up to hopefully charge some horrors on an objective but they end up failing even with the re-roll.  My Helbrute moves up the right side looking to disrupt more horrors over there on an objective, it will take him a couple more turns to get there though.  My one "big move" was to jump my prince in the air and vector strike his LoC, but I did nothing and now I'm in the sky useless.

This turn Kyle swaps places with Kairos and the LoC and does the same thing as last turn, tosses Novas about and kills a handful of cultists from each squad.  The Masque comes in and dances for one of the cultist units looking to move into mid table.  I believe he does some other summoning, bringing in at least one other Burning Chariot which kills my last biker.  He also manoeuvres his disc Heralds near my objectives to help with the cleansing of cultists and his Prince smashes one of my Rhinos.  Then the Warpstorm table turns my Prince into a Herald of Nurgle...well that fucking sucks.

I roll for my reserves and only get the Warptalons who have the Lord in.  I'm feeling ok with this as I still have a good number of units on the field and my cultists are still at half strength.  Kyle does something that surprises me, he tells me that because my Warptalons are Daemons, I will benefit from the several Cursed Earth's he has scattered around the table which I think is a pretty stand up move on his part.  So I bring in them in right where I want them and they are able to assault a disc Herald, a Chariot, AND the Masque all in one charge killing off the Masque and the Herald but leaving me in combat with the Chariot.  This saves me from some of the psychic powers and the other chariots that will inevitably show up.  The guys that were in the Rhino smashed by the Nurgle Prince high tail it toward the Horrors holding his objective to my left, and another unit in a Rhino get out to take out some Horrors near the middle of the table, I know that they are just going to generate some Blues, but I want to get rid of his Obsec, which only the Pink Horrors have.  My Helbrute continues his march and my cultists on my left objective assault his disc herald who got a little too close and is now stuck.

TURN 3

Kyle drops the LoC to the ground, I don't really have anything that can deal with him as he has typically had a 2++ most of the game thanks to that damn robe he has.  Fateweaver stays in the air keeping as close to the cultists as he can hoping to nova more off the table thanks to all the FNP he has been giving me it's not as many as he would like, but he does finish off the unit of cultists holding my objective, which enter ongoing reserve thanks to LatD.  This turn Kyles dice turn to absolute shit and I don't think he manages to get off a single psychic power.  Maybe Warp speed on the Nurgle Prince, but nothing of any real importance.  He still has a chariot free, and it moves up to flame one unit of marines, while his prince jumps over the rhino he killed to get to another unit of marines, and his Daemonettes move to assault my immobilised rhino that has my 3rd unit of marines in it.  The prince kills all, the Daemonettes wreck the ride, and the chariot kills a dude while my warp talons finish off the chariot they were in combat with.  Overall not a terrible turn for me, him failing all his powers has left a window open for me to capitalise and I have to make it count.

I bring my cultists in on my right side on his table edge, they are going to get me line breaker if they survive, they also shoot the Pinks holding his objective helping the Helbrute who is able to assault this turn and kill a couple.  The cultists in the middle move up and burn down a handful of pinks, and I think assault them.  My marines who were forced out by the Daemonettes prepare to shoot the sexy out of them and my warp talons jump over to mop up what's left and take out another Chariot.  My Raptors don't show up again and this time it's not ok.  I was really hoping they would make it in because I need to kill some fucking pink Horrors.  I'm not sure that there will be enough time to kill everything I need to and get the objective.  On the other hand, with the Prince and LoC running around, perhaps staying off the table another turn isn't a bad thing.

Turns 4 and 5 have gotten a little jumbled up in my head, so I'll run down a couple key factors and wrap up the end of the game.  First of all, one of the major factors was my Dark Apostle tanking 8 out of 8 saving throws against his Nurgle Prince.  This held the prince in place for 3 rounds of combat limiting his bloody rampage.  Next, my Helbrute was able to kill all the Pinks and hold that objective thanks to him having Obsec, which Kyle forgot about.  Third, my cultists who were moving up the middle of the table stop and come back, and after a run roll of 4" they are able to contest my right objective from Fateweaver.  Finally, my Raptors are able to kill off the last of the Pinks on his left objective giving me that objective, and even then only because he rolled high enough on his instability check.  Those last 2 things happened in turn 5, I know that for sure.

After all the dust settles, I control 2 objectives, 1 is contested, and Kyle controls one objective.  Kyle has First Blood, Slay the Warlord, and Linbreaker, and I have Linebreaker.  This means victory for me!

I had a great game vs Kyle and learned a lot about his summoning list and my Night Lords list.  Can't wait to get in game #2.

Until next time, keep them dice rollin.