ROAD TO SUCCESS 1.1

I got my first game in with my list and it worked pretty much how I expected.  I didn't have super high hopes for the Raptors or Landraider, but they actually did ok.  I had high hopes for the Bloat Drones but they underperformed, although this is definitely due to how I used them and what I needed them to do, but I guess I should go through the 2 armies before I talk about what did what and how.

My opponent, Chris, brought a Khorne/Nurgle Daemon army.  He had a battalion with Skarbrand, a Daemon Prince with wings and the super Khorne axe, 2 units of 10 Bloodletters with no upgrades and a unit of 25 Bloodletters with the special banner and a musician.  He has a second battalion with a Nurgle Prince, who was his warlord, a Sloppity Bilepiper, 2 big units of Plaguebearers (I can't remember the numbers exactly but they were both between 20 and 25), and 2 units of nurglings.  Last but not least, he had Mortarion.  He put all 3 units of Bloodletters and Skarbrand in reserve and got an extra relic, plus the Khorne banner he used 6 CP before the game started.

I had an Alpha legion battalion (to protect me from all that shooting...) with a Lord as my warlord, he had a combi-melta and I gave him the Axe of BF and the extra attack warlord trait.  I also had a Sorcerer in terminator armour with Prescience and Death Hex and a Warpsmith.  Backing them up was 2 units of 10 cultists with a heavy stubber and a unit of 20 with combat weapons, a unit of 5 Chosen with combi-bolters and chainswords, a Landraider, 2 Contemptor Dreads each with 2 butcher cannons and 2 units of Raptors with 2 plasma guns and a combi-plasma on the champ.  I then had a Death Guard Outrider detachment with a Daemon Prince with the Supporating plate and wings, 2 Bloat Drones with Plaguespitters, and 5 Spawn.

Now I'm not going to do a proper battle report, but I'll go through some of my mistakes and thoughts on each unit and some ideas I have for tweaking the list.  The mission we were playing was ITC mission 2, but I didn't want to focus too much on the secondary objectives so we talked about which ones I should choose and left it at that.  I decided on Kingslayer (Skarbrand), Marked for Death (Big Bloodletter unit, both Princes, Sloppity Bilepiper), and Reaper.  I probably could have taken Behind Enemy lines instead of Reaper as the Plaguebearers are pretty hard to kill.  But I really wanted to focus on scoring the primary objectives so I didn't really think too much on the secondaries until after the game.

My deployment was fairly obvious, use the cultists to screen my army from the deep striking Khorne daemons while the rest stays somewhat central to be able to react to where those daemons come in.  My Landraider had the Chosen, Lord, and Warpsmith in it and it were a little off to the right, while the Contemptors were to the left.  The spawn were holding down the midfield and the Bloat drones were on the front line, taunting Mortarion.

Now I put the big unit of cultists on my left side and one of the 10 man units in the front, but I think I should have switched them.  On turn 2 Morty hit the smaller 10 man unit and one Bloat Drone while a smaller bloodletter unit hit the 20 man cultist unit.  He double attacked to take the big unit down to 2 models forcing me to spend 2 CP to keep that unit from running so I could ToT them.  If they were in the middle, they would have been hit by Morty and I wouldn't have had to auto pass them.  Of course he would not have used 3CP to double attack, so maybe it turned out ok.  I'm considering if I want a bigger unit at all though.  With the Raptors dropping in and the Bloat Drones mobility, I don't know if I need to be able to sneak a bunch of cultists into the backfield, even if I am getting a unit refill.

The Raptors dropped in and were able to snipe the Sloppity Bilepiper despite their rolls, killing 3 of themselves.  They really need a Lord with them, so I will likely be upgrading the Lord to have a Jump pack to go along with them.  I did pick up the Haarken model, so he just might be the guy.  He even has a cool spear that would work as a Hydra Blade.  I'll consider giving him a combi-plasma so he can kill himself too...  Now I know that I may be beating a dead horse, and that Raptors are just not good, but I'm going to use them a couple more times...just because...I guess.

The Bloat Drones did not do as much as I thought they would, but to be fair, I sent them after Plaguebearers and the Nurgle Prince.  I think I will swap out the Spawn for another Drone, then go 2 with the Fleshmowers and one with a Plaguespitter.  I don't have a lot of anti-monster in this list and the Fleshmowers are a high enough S and D for it to make a difference.  In my next list I think I will also make the DG Prince my warlord and give him the Arc-contaminator trait for all the re-rolls on those Drones.

As an alternate idea, I could drop the Death Guard stuff altogether and get a Knight and swap the 2 Contemptors for a Leviathan.  If I got the Leviathan I could also drop the Landraider as the Leviathan pretty much makes up for both the Landraider and the 2 Contemptors.

All those ideas split my list into 2 threads, dropping the Death Guard for a Knight, or upgrading the Death Guard into a battalion for more CP and some Poxwalkers for fearless objective holders.

List 1
Alpha Legion Battalion
Chaos Lord with jump pack
Sorcerer
4 x 10 cultists
5 Chosen with combi-bolters
2 x 5 raptors with 2 plasma guns and a plasma pistol
Rhino (for the Chosen)
Leviathan with dual butcher cannons
2 x Scorpius tanks with havoc launchers

Super Heavy Auxiliary
Renegade Knight with dual battle cannons and iron storm missile launcher.

That's only 8 CP, but I'm less worried about saving the cultists and replenishing them so that saves me a bunch of CP there.

List 2
Alpha Legion Battalion
Chaos Lord with jump pack
Sorcerer
3 x 10 cultists
5 Chosen with combi-bolters
2 x 5 raptors with 2 plasma guns and a plasma pistol
Rhino (for the Chosen)
2 x Scorpius tanks

Death Guard Battalion
Chaos Lord
Daemon Prince - Warlord - Supporating Plate
3 x 10 Poxwalkers
2 Bloat Drones with Fleshmowers
Bloat Drone with Plaguespitter

That's 13 CP, but less long range firepower for more combat power.  I will need to count on my opponent coming to me, or being able to make it to my opponent.

Until next time, keep them dice rollin.

ROAD TO SUCCESS

There is a big ITC tournament coming up in February called the 40K Wheat City Open and I have decided that I want to do well at this event.  So that means practise.  Before we get to that though, lets take a look at a list I've started with, and some of the challenges I will have to face.

So I have decided to go mainly with Chaos Space Marines, and with a Death Guard for flavour.  Now I won't bore you with a detailed list, because I'm still testing out the list, but I will talk about what I want each unit to do.  I'll start off with a Lord, a Sorcerer, and a Warpsmith, follow that up with some small units of Cultists.  I'm thinking of marking the Lord Khorne and giving him "the Axe" and a combi-melta, this lets him attack twice if he really wants.  I know cultists went up in points, but 10 bodies for 50 points still isn't that bad, and I need some sort of bubble wrap and objective holders.  I have them backed up by Chosen with combi-bolters and 2 Contemptor Dreads with 2 butcher cannons.  The Chosen are only 80 points and can put out 7 S4 attacks each if they charge, and if I mark them Slaanesh I can shoot twice with them.  The Dreads put out 8 S8 D2 shots each that hit on 2's, 3's if they move, but there is a strat that lets them ignore that penalty.  If I mark them Nurgle I can get them an additional -1 to hit.  Here is where things get sketchy because I have a Landraider and 2 units of Raptors with 3 meltaguns (one is a combi-melta on the champ although I'm thinking of switching them all to plasma).  Each Raptor unit is only 113 points and the Landraider is now under 300.  Again I will likely mark the Raptors Slaanesh so they can shoot twice.  All that is using the Alpha Legion trait for the -1 to hit if more than 12" away.  I have a second detachment of Death Guard that consists of a Daemon Prince with 2 Bloat Drones with death spitters and a third with the flesh mower.

Since this will be one of the first big tournaments of the ITC season, potentially a Major, there will likely be some of the typical big lists there that I will have to deal with.  I expect to see some Ynnari with Shining Spears, or 2, moving twice and a big unit of Dark Reapers shooting twice.  Now this army is primarily focused on tearing me a new one so I expect it to move hard against me, maybe double moving one or both Spear units for a turn 1 charge.  Deployment is going to be important, and in this case I may not want to put the Raptors in reserves so I can use them to counter attack on turn 1 joined with the Bloat Drones and Prince.  Splitting up is not smart, but castling up isn't either.  That allows them to either pick me apart piecemeal or all at once.  Staying close together so I can support other aspects of my army and proper bubble wrap will be important.

Of course we have Knights, which I really don't like to think about.  I can handle a Knight or 2, I have enough S8 attacks that do multiple damage and I have fairly durable units.  The Raptors are more likely to go into reserve in this game as the range and size of the Knights will make it harder to hide them and the Cultists will pull move blocker duty.  I think I will want to spread out a little more in this game, many of the Knight Warlord traits are aura effects, which they can't get if they spread out to engage me.  Death Hex is going to be pretty damn critical here, which makes me think I need Arhiman for that +1 to cast.  I could make room for him in an Auxiliary support detachment, but then I think I need to figure out how to get a second battalion instead of an outrider.

Then there are Orks, easily over 150 bodies that need to be eliminated.  Some of them are jumping at me 30 at a time, others are shooting me with autocannons, others are running up the table at me.  There will be a handful of off the cuff stuff like Deffkoptas and mek guns that I will have to be aware of.  I'm not too terribly worried about the boys, I have the Chosen and the 2 Bloat Drones that can handle them as they come at me.  My biggest worry is the Lootas and all the Grots I have to get through to get to them.  I have a thought on this, there will likely be a unit of 15 and a unit of 10, which will allow them to Mob Up right away.  If I get the first turn, I need to bring both of those units down to under 10 models they won't be able to.  How I do that is to put some firepower into the smaller unit and let him play Grot Shields, there is a good chance I will get one Loota bringing the unit to 9.  Once I accomplish that I switch to the other unit and hit it with everything else until it's down to 9.  Now I don't have a lot of firepower to actually do this, so it might be a flawed plan, I will let you know after some practise.

Those are my initial thoughts, I will get in a couple games and do some thinking and see what comes of it.  If you have any advice, feel free to let me know.  Keep in mind though that I am a terribly slow painter and won't have time to paint a ton of models.  So drastically changing my list might not really be much of an option.

Until next time, keep them dice rollin.