WARNING LONG BATTLE REPORT BELOW
Played my first test game with the list last night - Roxy and I teamed up with 1000 points each against Pauly's 2000 points blood angels list. It wasn't exactly what we would see at the team tournament, since Roxy wanted to bring mortarion in her list (in fact she needed to in order to bring it to 1000 points), but Pauly was gracious enough to let us bring 2 demon primarchs against his army and let it slide.
Her list was:
- Mortarion
- 20 poxwalkers
- 10 plague marines (2 plasma, 1 blightlauncher)
- the guy with the bell (blightbringer?)
- the psyker who's model is spitting flies (plaguecaster?).
Paulys list was:
- Chaplain Dreadnought warlord with lascannon
- Mephiston
- Slamguinius
- Lieutenant with jump pack and plasma pistol/thunderhammer
- Sanguinary ancient with jump pack and power fist/plasma pistol
- 10 Sanguinary guard, mix of relic blades, power fists, plasma gauntlets and bolt gauntlets
- 10 assault marines, sarge with power sword, couple of plasma pistols
- 6x 5 scouts, with various options - some had shottys, some had bolters, some had bp/close combat, some had heavy bolter, some had snipers
- contemptor mortis with 2x TL lascannon
- relic contemptor with kheres assault cannon and chain fist
We played one of the
example missions for the team tournament, specifically mission 1, the one where one team deploys centrally in a 16" radius and the other team deploys in the corners in a 16" radius. There were 5 objectives that were each worth 4 points at game end, 4 placed along the midline of the board and 1 placed dead center between the 2 split deployment zones. Secondary objectives were "Choose your own adventure" - there were 6 listed, and you got to pick which 3 you and your teammate wanted to play for (we made a mistake in this, I'll adress it later):
1.
Advance - have all of your units on the table (not in reserves) and all of them
outside your deployment zone
2.
Fire for effect - kill 3 enemy units in a single shooting phase
3.
Lead from the front - have your warlord within 3" of any objective outside your deployment zone
4.
Marked for death - choose 3 units, if they die before game end, you get this objective
5.
Vanguard - have at least 1 unit within your enemy deployment zone
6.
war to the knife - destroy 3 units in any fight phase
And then tertiary objectives were your usual slay the warlord, first blood, and linebreaker. We messed up with the secondary objectives - there is a 7th option that lets you score VP for every 100 points of models you kill during the game, which both teams took, but re-reading the mission rules its actually not one of the options for you to pick - only the other 6 listed above are allowed to be taken. We ended up tying on VPs from kill points anyway, so its a moot point, but worth noting.
Roxy and I chose to Lead from the Front (to get Magnus into range of an objective) and Vanguard (to have 1 unit in your enemy deployment zone) because we had some fast moving elements - Mortarion, Magnus, my DP, the disc riders, my shaman, etc. And then the illegal choice of VPS for kill points lol whoops. Pauly took Lead from the Front, Advance, and then also the VP for killpoints option.
In this mission, the team that deploys split has to alternate between zones to have an even amount of units in each zone, but they also get to go first automatically without any roll off (though the enemy can still sieze). Because we had 11 drops, we had 6 in one zone and 5 in the other. I deployed all of my tzeentch stuff in one corner, she deployed all her stuff in the other corner, both in the same way - demon primarch in the center, with concentric circles of units surrounding them to prevent deep strikers from getting in charges turn 1.
Paul deployed his sang guard, the ancient, the lieutenant, the assault marines, and slamguinius in reserve - then deployed the 3 dreads and mephiston on the edge of his deployment zone, and his scouts scattered around the board with their infiltrate ability to ensure that he had mid board control and to make his characters untargetable since a scout unit was always closer. He failed to sieze, so Roxy and I got turn 1.
Roxy/Nick turn 1:
I moved magnus up 16" towards his warlord dread, mephiston, and 2 contemptors, moved my cultist screen up and forgot to advance them, used the dark matter crystal to teleport my blob of tzaangor over by one of his scout units near an objective, moved the DP up to block deep strikers behind my cultist line, meneuvered my disks and shaman into position to fire on some of the scouts in a nearby ruin. Mortarion and his wing of the army moved up like 6" - Pauly's army was focused more towards my half of the army, so our plan early on was to have the thousand sons half try to do as much damage to high value targets as possible while she slowly footslogged up the board to clean up the remains and grab objectives since she was way more resilient than me, but also hit a lot softer.
Psychic phase - I spent 1 CP to swap out smite on my DP for prescience. Cast warptime on magnus to move him another 16", putting him 5" away from the enemy warlord. My shaman cast smite, killing a scout; demon prince cast flickering flames to give the enlightened +1 to wound, and he cast prescience to let them reroll 1s to hit. Magnus cast boosted smite, dealing 2d6 wounds on the warlord, then cast doombolt to do another d3, bringing him down to 1 wound, and then he cast infernal gateway to deal d3 mortal wounds on the warlord (killing him) and d3 mortal wounds on mephiston (doing 3), on the relic contemptor (doing 1) and on the other contemptor (doing 3). First blood, slay the warlord, and I got a unit in his deployment zone for the first of our secondary objectives.
Shooting phase, the enlightened killed the rest of the scout squad that the shaman smited earlier. Turns out prescience AND the shaman don't work well together - you add the +1 to hit from the shaman before rerolls, so every time i rolled a 1 it counted as a 2, meaning prescience was impossible to use since there were "no" 1s to reroll lol lesson learned, leave that at home.
Charge phase, my tzaangor miss their charge and are primed to be slaughtered by scouts (or so I thought). Magnus makes his charge against mephiston. My DP can't charge anything. Magnus kills mephiston, consolidates into the relic contemptor dreadnought.
Pauly turn 1: Pauly dropped in his slamguinius right behind magnus (well 9" away but you get the idea), then dropped down his sanguinary guard and assault marines in the mid board along with the lieutenant and banner bearer. He shuffled his scouts around to try to pick off my cultist screen, as well as to try to start picking off some of the poxwalker screen, and then arrayed 3 of his units 2" away from my murder of tzaangor to unload and charge in. He killed a lot of cultists, enough to cause the rest to die to morale, and 2 tzaangor (I made A MILLION invuln saves this game you guys). He killed 1-2 poxwalkers as well (disgustingly resilient is super good). He did his target priority a bit wrong, and targeted the cultists with the lascannon dread as well as some scouts, when he could have waited for them to die from bolter rounds and then shot the demon prince with lascannons.
He charged slamguinius and the lascannon dread into magnus, and his scouts into my tzaangor. His sang guard and assault marines missed their charge on the DP since he was just about 12" away at this point. Slamguinius caused 5 wounds, all of which were saved by magnus 4+ invuln (which is good because each one does 3 damage). The scouts killed 4 more tzaangor in combat. The lascannon and relic dread caused a total of 7 wounds, resulting in 3 total damage after invuln saves. Magnus made 10/12 invuln saves in combat, which was crazy nuts. Magnus turned around and killed slamguinius, the tzaangor killed the remaining scouts in combat/morale and themselves lost 6 to morale because I was doing it wrong (they should have lost 2).
Roxy/Nick turn 2/3 (its fuzzy when all this stuff happened but it was probably across two turns):Turn 2 roxy continued her slow plod across the board to grab objectives. Magnus stayed in combat with the dreads. My tzaangor moved upfield to try to go after another scout squad and position themselves in the midboard to act as a speed bump for the sanguinary guard as well. Enlightened and shaman moved back to my deployment zone to try to take pot shots at the sanguinary guard, my demon prince moved into range to charge the assault squad. They were going to be charging him next turn regardless, so at least this way I got to swing first.
I got off flickering flames again, no prescience, and my shaman smited a sanguinary guard. Magnus smited the lascannon dreadnought, bringing him down to 5 wounds, then cast doombolt on the relic to cause a couple more wounds, then cast infernal gateway against (risking damaging himself to deal more mortal wounds) but whiffed. My tzaangor charged and killed a scout squad, my enlightened caused another model to die in the sanguinary guard unit from shooting, my DP charged in and killed 3 assault marines (I think), Magnus killed the lascannon dreadnought and brought the relic to about half health.
Pauly turn 2/3 (same as above): Pauly brought his sanguinary guard into combat with magnus, pushed his ancient and his lieutenant into combat with the demon prince. His sanguinary guard brought magnus down to like 5 wounds, and his relic dreadnought finished him off with his chainfist. Assault squad ate the demon prince with the help of the lieutenant and ancient. Sanguinary guard and relic dread consolidated towards the midboard.
Roxy/Nick turn 4 ish:My tzaangor moved up to engage the sanguinary guard just to do what they could to kill some off and act as a speed bump. My enlightened backed away from the assault squad + lieutenant and banner that had consolidated towards them after killing the DP. Roxy moved her army further into the midboard where she was now in range of Smite and a few other powers. My enlightened killed off the rest of the assault squad with their bows, my tzaangor ate a sanguinary guard and then had half the unit die, roxy plinked some more wounds off the dread with smit IIRC.
Pauly turn 4 ish:Sanguinary guard ate the tzaangors, consolidated into the midboard in charge range of the poxwalkers/mortarion. lieutenant and banner bearer charged into the enlightened, killed 2 and the shaman.
Roxy/Nick turn 5:My enlightened flee from combat and unload their bows into the two characters, leaving each with 1 wound. Roxy kills the dreadnought with smite, kills a couple sanguinary guard with plague wind. She moves up but fails her charges into the sang guard.
Pauly turn 5: Charges his sanguinary guard into morty, charges my enlightened with his 2 characters, mills his scouts around to hold objectives where they can. Takes Mortarion down to 5 wounds, kills my enlightened. I am now tabled.
Game continues on a 3+ - Roxy/Nick turn 6: Roxy moves mortarion out of combat and onto an objective, smites and lanterns the 2 characters that killed my enlightened, killing the banner bearer. Plageucaster kills off a sanguinary guard with plaguewind, then the poxwalkers charge into the sanguinary guard to hold them still. Maybe one dies, a bunch of poxwalkers die. They're fearless so they hold.
Pauly turn 6:Disengages the sanguinary guard, they rush out to contest an objective, and get in combat with the plague caster. The lietuenant charges mortarion, killing him, but also dies from mortarions explode rule. Assisted suicide! Pauly rolls off, rolls a 3, game ends.
We each killed 1500 points of units, so we each get 15 VPs for that. We each hold 1 objective outright and have a contested objective, so we each get 4 points + 2 points (you split the points for a contested objective). We each got 1 of our secondary objectives, in addition to slay the warlord. Neither of us have linebreaker.
In the end, Roxy and I won by 1 point - first blood. What a game!
Lessons learned:
- Magnus rules, but a 4+ invuln means he WILL die to lots of attacks with power weapons/fists etc.
- DP needs support or he will die when left to his own devices
- Prescience is useless when the enlightened stack with a shaman
- I totally forgot to recoup command points for the helm of the 3rd eye on my shaman
- I have a stratagem that lets me swap out a power each turn on any of my psykers for 1 CP. I also have a power that lets the psyker regain wounds. I should have swapped one of Magnus powers for the healing power after he was stuck in so he could have lasted longer - I will be doing that EVERY game now.
- Tzaangor are filthy good. My only regret is that I only have room for 18 of them unless I swap stuff around with my enlightened (which I could drop to 6 instead of 7 and round out the tzaangor to 20 at least)
- cultists are useless unless you bring 40 of them. Which I wont ever do. I'm never painting 40 of the same model again (except maybe tzaangor *swoon*)
