30k and the Horus Heresy Pt. 1

I want to give my money to Forgeworld

I´ve fallen in love. The new Horus Heresy book from Forgeworld along side the awesome pre heresy minis has blown me away.
So I decided to hold all my other army projects to make a 30K army to use in narrative, fluffy and campaign games.
Well not entirely true. Im still gonna build on my CSM and allied forces for them. But my Grey Knights, Space marines, Tau and Daemons have been put on indefinate hold.

So do I have a deadline?


Not really. Im aiming at having the first 1500 points bought and painted no later than early summer 2013.
This post contains the ideas and thoughts behind my choices in regards to planning the 30K army I did. 

Loyalist og rebel scum?

World Eaters loyalists. Which side is not really important though, since I can use them either way.

Theres several reasons for me choosing World Eaters. Some a grounded in fluff, others in paintschemes and finally the combat doctrine of the army.

Paintschemes
I have a CSM Black Legion army (Sons of Horus), I also have a Crimson fists army and a pre heresy Thousand Sons count as Grey Knights army. So I want something different from the black of the legion, the blue of the fists and the golden red of the 1K Sons.

That leaves only a few armies that are not too similar to what I already got. As paintschemes go I went for the white, metal and blue of the world eaters. Its an entirely different paintscheme to my other armies.
So the paintschemes of the Thousand Sons, Ravenguard, Luna wolves, Dark angels, Ultramarines, Iron hands, Crimson fists, Nightlords, Blood angels, Alpha legion, Emperors children are either to similar or so not to my liking (/cough Alpha legion).

That leaves the Iron warriors, World Eaters, White scars, Space wolves, Deathguards, Salamanders and Word bearers.

Fluff
I really do´nt like the Deathguards. Magnus and the 1K sons have always been my one true love and Mortarion speaking out against Magnus at the council of Nikaea. So the Deathguard is out.

The Space wolves sacked, pillaged and burned Prospero and therefor I will never play them as either a primary or allied force. I hate them bastards for what they did to the Thousand Sons.

The Wordbearers are religious and fanatics. Awesome adversaries in the fluff for the empire but my personal dislike for fanaticism and extemists, makes me not want to play a so fanatical legion.

The leaves the Iron warriors, World Eaters, White Scars and Salamanders.

Combat doctrine
White scars play too much like my CSM bikers, the Salamanders are heavy on flame. Again much like my CSM. Iron warriors and their siege doctrine which is good and interesting never did appeal to me. That leaves the World Eaters and their "in you face" tactics.

Centerpieces

I plan on having three centerpieces for my army. These are both what holds the army together on the battlefield, but also what centers it on display.

Spartan Assault Tank

This badass will bring my angry angry marines to the enemy. While it does that it will also supply anti tank firepower with its quad lascannon sponsons.
Twenty angry marines being brought into the face of the enemy is awesome.

Storm Eagle Assault Gunship

Transport and gunship all in one. This flying gunship will bring another complement of PMS´ing marines forward to the enemy, It will also be able to lay down some serious anti infantry firepower.

Fellblade Super Heavy Tank

The Fellblade will be my tank killer.
With its accelerator cannon, demolisher cannon and quad lascannon sponsons combined with machine spirit, it will outright kill one, maybe two enemy hulls every turn.

 

Chaos showdown, Daemons vs. Marines

So now im two for two. My final opponent in the preliminary round is a daemon player. He won against the Grey knights (?) and has still to play the imperial guard.
Since I won my two first games I do´nt need to win this one. But I need it to secure first place in my group and ensure that im not matched up against group winner, but a group runner up.
If my opponent Magnus need to win this one or his last match against the guard. Then he moves on too.

Deployment: dawn of war
Mission: 5 objectives which you scored 1 point from, for every turn you held them.

The Initial rounds

I deployed in cover behind a couple of ruins, but still spread out enough to deny his flamers any good targets. I set my sights on three objectives that were pretty close together in a triangle and decided to hunker down on them.

My first round brought me into possession of two of them and close enough to the third to ensure it would be mine or no ones in the third round.

My bikers moved up as they were also scoring in the mission.
The daemons chose to drop down alot of troops on the two far away objectives. Securing those for the forces from the warp, but also leaving several of the big critters in the second wave. Which should prove to be a problem.

A firefight of epic porpotions broke out as both the Lord of change and a daemon prince of Tzeentch dropped down almost ontop of the chaos forces.
It got so hectic I even forgot to take pictures so you will just have to imagine the entire chaos marine force unleashing everything on them. They were brought down to ground one after the other with bolter fire. Then the overwhelming plasma and autocannon firepower finished them off. The forces of the warp was severely crippled.

The middle rounds

 The one thing that could have turned the battle for the daemons decided that coffee break in the warp was more interesting. The bloodthirster didnt come in until turn four.

A long a protracted fight broke out between the fiends and the chaos lord with his biker buddies. Both side were grinding away at each other until the Forgefiend decided to join the fray which tipped the battle in the marines favor.

Flamers nearly wiped a chaos marine squad, but good placement ensured that three of them survived. Afterwards the flamers were gunned down by everything not stuck in combat with the fiends.

The final turns

The bloodthirster finally decided to enter the battle in turn four and killed a group of chosen in turn five. It was too little too late though. He was gunned down shortly after like a rabid dog.

The chaos marines swept out across the battlefield and started contesting the objectives held by the plaguebearers or pushing them of them.

We called the game in turn five when the Chaos marines had 11 victory points against the daemons 10. In turn 6 the chaos marine score would increase by three at least and deny any more for the daemons.

Final thoughts:
The game went as I hoped for the most part. The lord and his bikers had more trouble than i expected with the fiends. I calculated the gaining and denial of VP prefectly, so I would be ahead on turn five (not counting linebreak and slay the general which I had and first blood which went to the daemons).

Had the Bloodthirster entered on turn 2 or 3 the game could have been marginally different, but I believe that my firepower would have been enough to put him down too. It would have left some plaguebearers alive, but the objectives they had were still contested or not in contention till turn five  anyways.

A good and brutal game.

With this victory i take the first place in the initial group and im on to the quater finals.

/Jens

HelBURNBABYBURNdrakes

Heldrakes yay!

Although in my first game with them both of those lazy gits didnt come in till turn 4.

The wings are magnetized for easier transportation.

/Jens

Black vs. Grey

The Black Legion faced the Grey Knights of Nicolai Nygaard in a violent bout of marine on marine action.

The mission: in a hammer and anvil deployment the board was divided up in 4 zones of equal size. Our own deployment zone gave no points and the opponents the most.

The first turns

The Grey Knights deployed in force in the center as close to the center as possible. They had to considering that they were entirely on foot.

My forces of mayhem and destruction deployed entirely in cover and far enough back to avoid any shooting in turn one, except for the dreadnought. I made my center weak and my flanks strong to better suck him into the weakest spot of my army and allow flanking units to get past him and into the scoring zones.

The bikes went around or through the ruin to threathen the interceptors and strike marines trying to block the flank.

 

In a round of close combat where the lord was frowned upon by the chaos gods, the Grey Knights managed to hold and kill five bikers.

The midgame

Repeated fire from the predator, forgefiend, chosen and havocs managed to kill the dreadnought and put some serious dents in the DreadKnight.

The Grey knights were closing in though and casualties started piling up in the chaos ranks. Their transports were smoking hulls or craters in the ground. The Chaos marines were too numerous for the terminators sitting heavily in the center of the chaos deployment zone. The Dreadknight would have to help clear up the mess and give the Brotherhood from Titan the victory.
After a round of combat where a group of chaos marines broke and ran, just to regroup and snapfire on the Dreadknight and its one remaning wound. They failed to hit it and so did the predator at point blank range. Then the Dreadknight charged in again to clean up the mess just to be killed by an angry marine who pistolwhipped it to death in close combat.

The end game

On the right flank a rhino with marines in it, the lord and a single biker were deep in the Grey knight zones, with only a single Librarian able to threathen their hold on them.

The librarian did a splendid job first killing the khorne lord (Khorne was pleased either way), then grinding through the chaos marines. But little did it help. A single biker were hiding behind a ruin to score the zone.

The game ended as an overwhelming victory to the chaos forces eventhough they were wildly depleted by the end. One scoring 1-man unit in each of the zones on the Grey Knight table quarter and a single denial unit in the chaos deployment zone as all it took.

The Black Legion marches onwards victorious and undefeated!

The Black Legion marches on (vs. IG)

The first engagement of the Black Legion in the Feast of blades was against the Imperial guard.

A multitude of men, artillery, armor and cavalry were facing the chaos lord and his few and depraved chaos marines.

The mission: 5 objectives that gave 1 victory point for each turn it was held, and secondaries in a dawn of war deployment.

Deployment

I went first and deployed evenly over my entire line. I wanted to have clear firing lanes and with my long ranged fire spaced out there would be nowhere the imperial artillery could be safe.

My lord and his biker buddies were ready to punch forward and lay death and destruction upon the battlelines of the enemy.

Anders is looking pleased with himself. He is pretty sure the massed fire  of the Guard will stop me.

The first turns

I begin the game and my fire immediately whittels away the Hellhound which explodes and kills several horsies. They manage to hold steady and eventhough almost cut down by 50% they still wait for the right moment to countercharge.

  

The midgame

 

The lord and the bikes moved up right into the face of the guard and prepared to take
the punishing plasma and lasgun fire of over 20 guardsmen. After the shooting the lord and three out of eight bikers were still alive.

The lord moved in for the kill and with the remaining of his buddies defeated a blob squad and ran them down.

Meanwhile rhinos with marines in them and chosen on foot moved slowly into the midfield while grinding away at the guardsmen.

 

The lord were countercharged and killed by the remaining horsies which in turn were gunnned down. By now my chaos forces were pulling ahead, holding more objectives each round than the guard and pushing them back all over the place.

The vendetta came in with 10 veterans in it ready to turn the tide of the battle. A failed shooting from it left the predator shaken and 1 hull point short but otherwise unscathed. The next round a snapfire from the predator rolled a 6 to hit, a 6 to pen and a 5+1 for the result and send the vendetta hurtling towards the ground leaving only two veterans alive.

The end game

The dreadnought equipped with reaper autocannon and missile launcher decided to go Angron style on the two gryphons and wrecked them in melee. That sort of ended the entire fight. The guardsmen were still holding on to one objective and a ruin in the other end of the table. A scatted and beaten but still spoling for a fight chaos force, were holding three of the remaning four objectives.

Chaos went of the the engagement as the victor. Several points ahead of the guard.

Feast of blades 2 (league)

At my local club, Emperors Pride, we are running a league presently. The feast of blades 2. We got 17 players divided between 4 groups of four or five players.
Each person plays once against the other group members. A win is two points,a  draw one and a loss ofcourse nil.

The Black legion marches again .....

I decided to field my black Legion for the Feast. Our armies are comped, using an internal club system to balance out the armies to some degree .....

This is what Im fielding for the entire league. Its fixed lists.

Chaos lord
- mark of khorne, bike, axe of blind fury, sigil of corruption

Helbrute
- reaper autocannon, missile launcher
7 Chosen
- autocannon, 2 plasmaguns

10 CSM
- 2 plasmaguns, veterans of the long war, rhino
10 CSM
- 2 meltaguns, veterans of the long war, rhino
5 CSM
- plasmagun

Predator
- lascannon sponsons
Forgefiend
6 Havocs
- 4 autocannons

The matches

Over the last 3 weeks I been playing three games against the other players in my group.

Anders with his Imperial Guard
- 2 large blobs of guardsmen, a manticore, two gryphons, a vendetta, a leman russ and some horsies.

Nicolai with his Grey Knights
- all foot list with strike squads, terminators a dreadknight and a dreadnought.

Magnus with his Daemons
- a flying keeper of secrets, a blood thirster and a daemon prince, three groups of plaguebearers, a group of fiends, flamers and some khorne dogs with Kharnak.

In tomorrows update I will give a brief overview of how the matches went.

My lord and his biker buddies are deployed for fun times.

How to use Chaos Spawns

Been building my spawns, Amazing how the worst unit ever in the old codex can go to one of the most awesome units in the new codex.

I want five of them to run with one of my lords.

So which way to run them and what lords to bring?


Slaanesh marked spawns:
One higher initiative? not too bad but then again going from 3 to 4 isnt a world of difference. So I get to strike at the same time as marines. The lord running with them should either have dealt with those by initiative step three or at least have made the repraisal irrelevant. Maybe run these fellas with a slaanesh lord on a steed, for outflanking shenanigans.

Tzeentch marked spawns:
Erhmm. Say no to drugs, drunk driving and Tzeentch marked spawns. 6++ is irrelevant. Especially at that cost. Maybe a Tzeentch bike lord with sigil for 3+ invul save could be fun to roll with from time to time. But then I would run the spawns unmarked.

Khorne marked spawns:
Do´nt think so. Either they have enough attacks to do what they are meant to do or they dont. Being Khorne marked doesnt do any real difference. Besides if they were Khorne marked, so would the lord running with them also be. Which again would mean Axe of blind fury and more than plenty killyness.

Nurgle marked spawns:
These pussfilled babies are what we will see most often. T6 is nice on a three wound critter. Especially considering they dont have any save except for whichever cover they can get for themselves. They will be hard to kill and being beasts they will get to you pretty fast. With these little fat blobs of mutations I would run a Nurgle lord on a bike. Gear him up with sigil and a powerfist and you have one tough acne covered teenager on a nerdrage rampage.

Unmarked Spawns:
If I want to run a Khorne lord. Be it on bike or Juggernaut these will be the ones to go with him. 15 ablative wounds on T5 running towards you with their mutated penises hanging out, will make you have to deal with them. Especially considering the Axe of blind fury thats also sitting in the middle of the pack.

Spawn tactics:
I will have to use terrain to my advantage. As beasts the spawns ignore terrain for movement purposes. The lord with them will if he is one a bike has to take some dangerous terrain rolls, but being able to take armour saves against them thats ok. Terrain provides the spawns with a much needed cover save, to compensate for their lack of armour.

When the spawns are not being used as ablative wounds and delivery system for a mean old chaos lord they will act as counter assault and tar pit. Being T5 or 6 and having three wounds combined with fearless makes them annoyingly difficult to whack your way through, unless your a mean closecombat unit like thunderhammer terminators.

Lords and sorcerers

Having gotten myself into a few discussions lately about the merits of either Chaos Lords versus Chaos sorcerers I am gonna try to put my thoughts on those two HQ choices into writing. I will not talk about the other three HQ choices, the prince, the dark apostle and the warp smith. I do not use them in any of the lists I play presently.

The Chaos Lord

What he brings to the table:
 The lord has the standard statline for a marine lord. But he also brings fearless and the option to be customized to work almost any end of the tactical spectrum.

How to play him:
You either want to play him aggressively or defensively. Willynillying around somewhere inbetween will just get him killed and waste your points. Get him stuck into the enemy lines as fast as possible, using bikes or juggernauts to send him there by turn two. When your there, the enemy will either have to deal with him or watch him tear their lines apart.
For a defensive lord you stick him with a blob of something. Cheap ass chaos marines, with plasmaguns, would be my suggestion. That way he provides fearless for the blob to let it work its shooting, for however long you want to, as you move the blob into the midfield.

Builds and loadout:
Khorne juggernaut lord (170): juggernaut, mark of khorne, axe of blind fury, sigil of corruption
Nurgle bike lord (160): bike, mark of nurgle, powerfist, sigil of corruption
Unmarked foot lord (135): powersword, burning brand. sigil of corruption

The Sorcerer

What he brings to the table:
The sorcerer has taken a hit since 5th edition. But it also brought him in line librarians from other marine armies. He got quite a few customizable options and whatever you fancy you can more or less do with him. Also he is cheap as a hooker on the harboerfront, on a slow tueday noon.
He provides a quite nice selection of offensive and utility powers.

How to play him:
You can play him aggressively as yet another shooter unit. That is a waste of his powers if you ask me. The shooting powers in either Tzeentch or pyromancy are at best mediocre. Another aggressive way to use him is with biomancy and slaanesh powers. Blessings for himself and his unit or maldedictions for the opposition. If you do this, you could put him on a steed and stick him with spawns and outflank them.
The utility way is the obvious selection for my sorcerers.I choose telepathy and stick him with a large unit of marines. Then I hopefully get invisibility for a 2+ cover save in terrain. If not then the remaining powers are also good, maybe except for Mental fortitude.

Builds and loadout:
Slaanesh level 3 sorcerer: mark of slaanesh, sigil of corruption, steed of slaanesh, spell familiar
Unmarked level 3 sorcerer: sigil of corruption, spell familiar, burning brand

Finally some thoughts on warlord traits

Against almost any marine player I would roll on the chaos table. The chance of having preferred enemy against them is just to good to pass up. Also there are a few other results that are ok like master of deception and hatred incarnate. The remaining are quite useless though.

If I play a flyer/reserve heavy army I often consider rolling on the strategic table. Giving the opposition -1 on reserve rolls is golden. Also being able to pull down nightfightning over the battlefield is quite good. Especially if your going second and got vehicles with search lights such as rhinos.

A few times I rolled on the personal traits. Getting FNP when your within 3" of an objective is quite nice when you just blasted your lord and hangarounds into the enemy lines near his objective. One extra victory point for characters killed by the lord isnt the worst thing that can happen to you either.

Varberg day 3

A very late day three post.
I fell and sprained my wrist, so I have been incapacitated and not able to update with the final result.

But here goes. Some random pictures taken during the tournament.

My team ended up on the 5th place of 33 teams. A slight disappointment after being in lead after round three and on the second place after round four. But the opposition were just too good.