Battle Report - Chaos Space Marines vs. Space Marines

Step right up ladies and germs, well...Probably just germs...Let's face it, this blog isn't exactly a hit with anyone, let alone the fairer sex...

I played a right great game of 40K the other day and thought I'd share. I joined a Warhammer 40K group on Meetup titled Warhammer 40K for Old Men and thought that was apropos of my current situation seeing as I'm over the hill.

So I met Joe down at Aero Hobbies in Santa Monica, a decent little store where I once saw the actress  who plays Aria from Games of Thrones. Yeah, that was a weird day. I popped in there for some paint and they were promoting the Game of Thrones board game or something and there was little Aria with a good sized crew around her. She's a weird looking little thing in the flesh, I'll say that. 

Aero Hobbies is a little ramshackle but has some great terrain and some quality neckbeards on the premises. The bathroom is something out of nightmare, owning the worst shit-smeared bowl I've ever seen...And that's saying something. Little Aria went in there for a piss and I silently wondered what was going through her mind while she hovered and tinkled. I mean, damn, Papa Nurgle himself would pause for a moment before setting his immense buttocks upon that throne...And speaking of Papa Nurgle...

I blew the dust off my Nurgle marines for this throw down. Just thought it might be cool to give them the light of day. The army was extremely compy, no allies, no repeats.

Here's the list:
FROMUNDA MAXIMUS
Chaos lord on bike with Burning Brand of Skalanthrax (Warlord)
Daemon Prince with all the bells and whistles including the Black Mace
Seven Plague Marines in a rhino with plasma and melta
Ten cultists with a flame thrower
Vanilla Helbrute
Five Nurgle Spawn
Four Bikers with plasma and melta
Nurgle Plague Hulk
Blight Drone
Maulerfiend
Two Nurgle Obliterators

1850

Yeah, pretty small list but a shit ton of toughness 6

 Joe brought his Salamanders, Here's the list from memory:
Vulkan
Command Squad in drop pod
10x marines in a rhino
10x marines on foot?
5x marines on foot.
10x Assault squad
Dreadnought in drop pod
Devastators?
Whirlwind
Predator
Vindicator

1850

Joe was using some type of formation that allowed him to use Salamanders chapter tactics along with the ultramarines type stuff as well.

We did a maelstrom mission.

 I won the roll-off and chose to deploy and go first. I put everything on the table.

 Joe spread himself out a little.

 Typical marine deployment here.

 This is Joe seizing the initiative on me...

 So Joe moves his stuff up.

 His dread comes down in an attempt to pop my Plague Hulk, but whiffs horribly.

 Here's a cool shot of my boys facing down the vindi. Somewhere along the line my lord took a wound...Can't remember how...

 His speeder knocks a hull point off my rhino and stuns it.

 And this is where Joe started rolling like he had made a pact with Satan. This roll is Joe denying my three successes with summoning some daemons.

My shooting phase in turn one was laughable, the Blight Drone may have killed an assault marine or two, but mostly I just came forward.

 I assault the dread, looking to smash it with my Plague Hulk. But wait a minute...My initiative is 2 and his is 4 and dreads now have 4 base attacks...

 I charge his rhino with my spawn.

 The spawn take two hull points and the lord finishes the job with his powerfist. Plus, the marines fail their pinning check. Just what Papa wanted...

This is Joe's dreadnaught celebrating after blowing up my Plague Hulk. Seriously, the thing hasn't died in maybe 20 games. Joe had the hot hand and my invul saves were total dogshit.

 Top of turn two, the Marines disembark and get ready to spray down my bikers.

 The vindi nails my maulerfiend but I shrug it off with an invul save, things are looking up.

 The predator puts a wound on my daemon prince. Yes, I failed a 2+...

 The dread pops the rhino. All plague marines survive.

 The cursed dread turns toward me...Luck is not with me...Fuck you pal...

 Shooting kills two of my bikers. I fail my leadership test and they run like cowardly school children.

Not pictured: The assault marines blow up my Blight Drone and it takes one of them to hell with it.

So, bottom of turn 1 and I'm already on the run a bit. I've lost a sizeable chunk of the army early in the game. It's time to rally.

 The Plague Marines head for cover and my meltagunner preps for a shot against the dreadnaught. If he whiffs...Well, let's just say it's six inches away and will punk my ass if it assaults...

 Here's some more of Joe's epic rolling. I can't remember what this was...Maybe a snapshot?

 Yes, the spawn took some fire coming into the assault. The maulerfiend goes for the vindi and whiffs hard...I also forget to use my extra melta shot with the maulerfiend...Come to think of it, I also forgot to use the Burning Brand all game...There's 30 points down the shitpipe...

My lord assaults the five man squad in the terrain and takes a wound...One left...

 The vindi retreats and down comes Vulkan and his friends. They whiff hard against the rear armor of the maulerfiend.

The assault between the spawn and marines continues to go nowhere.

 Yeah, so my daemon prince iron arms himself and assaults the marines. He manages to slay all but two, which is perfect, they stay in combat until the next turn.

The chaos lord finishes off the marines...

Things start to look down for Joe from here. 

I'll just go ahead and narrate everything else without going turn by turn.

Tasty assault marines out in the open. 

 A toughness 8, strength 9 daemon prince with one wound left is still efficient as hell.

 Plague Marines readying themselves to storm the objective.

 Maulerfiend polishes off the vindi. My oblits nuke the command squad with plasma cannons leaving Vulkan and the apothecary.

 The slog continues...

 Vulkan and the lord...Challenge! I've got one wound so I figure I'm dead, but what the hey. Hay?

 The jenkem is nearly ours boys!

 Vulkan puts two wounds on the lord and I make both invul saves.

 I strike back, putting two wounds on Vulky.

Tarpit...Tarpit...Tarpit...

 Vulkan fails his invul and his feel no pain roll. Nurgle Triumphant! The apothecary runs away and I can't catch him because I'm all slow and purposeful.

Yeah, you're next bitch.

 Slog...Slog...Slog...

 Hey there, how're doing? Nom, nom, nom...

 Joe decides to go for it with his apothecary. Bad move, I hammer his ass with my powerfist.

And that was the game. I sweated for the first two turns but once I got into assault it was all over. The Black Mace just wiped squad after squad, the maulerfiend laid waste to three tanks and the lord, well, he was the MVP. The beauty of this list was there was zero redundancy everything was just tough as hell. It was fun too, to put some plague marines on the table, they're a fucking blast. This was definitely a game of hot and cold rolling. Joe had the hot hand but got a little too close for comfort. I don't think he expected so much fast stuff coming his way. I think if he had stayed in one corner, picked me apart and gone for objectives a little more cautiously he would have easily whipped my ass. His deployment made it too easy for me to assault multiple targets all at once. If he had perhaps done the ol' castle up I think it would have been harder for me to assault him so quickly on turn 1.

At any rate, there it is. I just hammered this bitch out and will probably come back later to spice the text up a bit. For sure I missed a few important pictures but it's hard to remember to take a snap every two seconds. I'll improve in the future.