Drukhari - first battle report against Chaos!

Ave Dominus Nox!

First battle report with the new Druhkhari a couple of days ago against a Thousand Sons / Alpha Legion army, we played the scenario 4 of the new ITC rulepack.

My current army:

Battalion Black Heart: 2*Archon, 5 Kabalites, 9 kabalites, 10 Kabalites, 2*Ravager, 2*Raider, 1 Void Bomber

Outride detachment: 1 Succubus, 2*6 reavers, 1*5 Scourges, 2*Razorwing Jetfighter

My opponent army:

Battalion Alpha Legion: Lord with power fist, sorcerer, 3*10 cultists, 2*3 Obliterators 2*Scorpius relics whirlwind

Battalion Thousand Sons: Ahriman on disc, sorcerer, 10 cultists, 2*5 Rubrics

I gain initiative and my opponent select vanguard strike for deployment.

First turn:

Drukhari: I started playing by sending my flyer in position to fire against the Scorpius and Obliterators. As my opponent use a stratagem, I cannot shoot the obliterators and focus on damaging a Scorpius and killing one squad of cultists.

Chaos: He almost did not move, but he managed to destroy one flyer and cause some damage to the others.

Second turn:

Drukhari: I did a better turn by killing one Scorpius, one obliterator squad and removing from game 2 cultists squad. One reavers squad manage to do that by engaging in close combat with the cultists.

Chaos: Not a lot of move again, but during shooting phase, the second obliterator squad that arrive destroy my ravager and my flyers take lot of damage. The reaver squad in close combat died by the hand of the chaos lord.

Third turn:

Drukhari: without the ravager and as the plane are damage, I did not do a lot of thing, I kill a rubric squad and focus with the reavers to damage the remaining Scorpius as well as engaging him in close combat to lock him and prevent him from shooting.

Chaos: During the psychic phase, my Void Bomber and reavers died. My raiders follow them after the obliterator shoot at them.

End Game:

At this point, we do not have many units on the table anymore. I focus on scoring as much as I can as well as killing some units outside the enemy deployment area (one rubric squad, diminishing the number of obliterators…). My opponent move to take some objectives markers in order to score.

In the end: 22 victory points for me 29 for my opponent, victory for the Chaos!

Analysis:

I clearly made a mistake during first turn by forgetting to “Vect” his stratagem to protect the Obliterators. I miss an opportunity to destroy them and it costs me one razorwing as an immediate punishment.

Also, I should have send all the reavers in second turn to destroy the cultist/engineer squad. It gave 3 victory points to my opponent.

Conclusion, I need to play more with this army in order to remember all the rules.

Blood Pact: Testing my list in a tournament!

Ave Dominus Nox!

I was in a tournament in Belgium last weekend to test my list for the team tournament in less than a month. it was an interesting day despite the heat and the fact that some players were a bit nervous/sanguine when they miss something (it's quite hard to focus on your game when the player on your right in the next table start insulting his opponent).

As a reminder, I use this list [link to the list] and the tournament used the French Wargame scenario [link in french only here] with game length between 2h30 / 2h45 maximum. To be honest, after using them, I think they are interesting for a casual play as a way to change from the usual GW scenario. But for a tournament, they are time consuming and may advantage of disadvantage some army (for example, just by killing my scout sentinel you score 2 victory points, a leman russ: 4...), you need to specifically create an army to minimize the points you give to your opponent.
But as I was not in this tournament to win it, but to train myself (it was only my 7 to 9th game with Astra Militarum), my objectives were:
- Test the list against serious opponents
- Identify the strong and weak point I have to take into account to improve myself
- Not loosing a game with all my army wipe out

Blood Pact versus Thousand Sons

An ideal first game for my test: against a Thousand Sons army lead by Magnus in a table with two 17' length/ 12' width/10' height mountain in the middle of the table. So after the deployment, I was unable to see more than a quarter of the enemy army.

My opponent army:
Magnus
Sorcerer exalted
Sorcerer exalted on disk
Daemon Prince
Tzaangor shaman
2*27 Tzaangor
2*12 Cultists
1 forgefiend
3 Tzaangor on disk with bow

I managed to steal the first turn and that allow me to kill half a unit of tzaangor and the forgefiend. But I missed Magnus on an error on my side: I forgot that I hit him on a 3+ and not a 4+, resulting on asking my opponent to only have 3 save to do rather than 6. And he managed to save it all.
Most of my army did not shoot as I did not see or are too far away.

I did not make this error twice and killed Magnus in my second turn despite the fact that he boosted his save, thoughness and was harder to hit.
In the meantime, the rest of his army advance and try to block my units in close combat, but I managed to avoid this trap calmy destroying them one by one.

At the end of the game (turn 4), only the cultists, the two sorcerers and a dozen Tzaangors were still alive. On my side, the two Hellhounds, one Leman russ, shadowsword, 10 guards and 3 of my 5 characters were still able to fight.

I lose the game 16 victory points against 26 so a 6-14 defeat mostly due to the scenario of this tournament and the big mountain in the middle that only allow me to shoot with pask, lascanon and the shadowsword during my first turn.

Blood Pact versus Tyranids

A second game against a Tyranids, not my first one, but a new kind of list based on shooting rather than rushing in close combat.

His list:
Prince with wing
Swarmlord
Neurothrope
1*12 Hormagaunt
1*12 Termagaunt
5 Ripper swarm
1 Carnifex
2 Tyranofex
5 Hive guard (shooting weapons)
1 Harpy

I played second and take the blunt force of his attack during his first turn. In fact, this game proves the resistance of my list: I destroyed during the first two turns his close combat forces: Prince, Swarmlord, harpy, carnifex and hormagaunt. And I only started focusing his big monster and Hive guard at the third and fourth turn. 

Despite that, I take some damage, and during a quick moment, I fear for a wipe out of my forces. But in the end, only one hive guard and 12 termagaunt stayed on the table versus Pask, shadowsword, one hellhound, my lascanon and 10 guards. With a fifth turn, I am pretty sure I will have clean the table.

Using the tournament rules, my opponent won 12-8.

Blood Pact versus Orks

Last game against an opponent very nice, one of the orks player and counsellor of the Warhammer-forum : Nagz. It's not one of the army I think I will fight in the other tournament, but it still a possibility.

My opponent list:
Warboss bike
Bigmek bike
Weirboyz
30 stormboyz
6 warbikers
6 kommando
15 Tankbusta
6 nobz
1 lobba
1 battlewagon
1 Gorkanaut

About the game, I made an error just at the beginning of the game and it cost me the victory (we finish with a draw): I did not move my scout sentinel with the free movement. As a result, my opponent who had the first turn, warp jump and charged the sentinel and conscript with a pack of 30 stormboyz. And I could not fall back so these guys were a big problem for 3 turns. As long as they did not die, I cannot move as I want with my Hellhound and other tanks.

In particular because of that I had to move one psyker and some guards, creating an opportunity for my opponent to send Tankbusta and kommando in my line. I killed them, but it costed me Pask.

It did not stop me from killing the rest of the army, but with less movement, I could not advance and killed the little lobba who was the sole survivor of the game. It was hiding on the other side of the map behind some walls and a lot of sandbags.

On my side, the 3 hellhounds, a tank commander, shadowsword and some characters were still alive and rushing to kill the two gretchings.

Conclusion

Well, I did not manage to secure a win with the rule of the tournament, but I learn some valuable lessons during this tournament and test of my list.
We will start with the negative points:
- In two of the three games, I made errors that I have to avoid in the future: forgetting to move my scout sentinel and that I hit Magnus on a 3+ clearly impact the game in my disadvantage.
- I have a static army that doesn't move in the first and second turn. That means less victory points if the objectives are not in or near my deployment zone. For the tournament in three weeks, I have to take that into account for each scenario when defining if I will be the first or second defense. 

The positive points:
- I confirm that my list is solid and I was not in a position of been wiped out during these 3 games. As a defense for the tournament with my team, it's very important
- During the target tournament, the game will be played in 4 hours not 2h45 with possibility to go to 7 turns. That means I will have time to do more turn than during this tournament and as you had read previously, if we had played 5 and possibly 6 or 7 turn at least two of my opponent will have been wiped out so victory 20-0 for me.

I will play a game or two in the coming 2 weeks before the big day to learn how to use my army in the best possible way.

Battle report: Blood Pact vs Tyranids

Ave Dominus Nox!

My Blood Pact regiment continued his training with a fight against some Xenos: a splinter of Hive fleet Kraken. The foul xenos attack one of the planets under the dominion of the Gaur and we had to move swiftly to protect and kill them before they did some irreparable damage.

It was a game at 1700pts. I played the same list as in my first two games, you can find it here. My opponent list was:

Swarmlord
Broodlord
Neurothrope
2*14 Genestealers
1*27 Hormagaunts
1*3 Ripper swarms
1*10 gargoyles
1*3 Hive guards
1*4 Zoanthropes
1*3 venonthropes
1 Tyranofex (big guy with big canon/flamer)


We played using the scenario "Ascension" deployment "Vanguard strike" . I had the first turn, but my opponent took it from me with a beautiful (or horrible depending of the point of view) 6.

Turn 1

Tyranids: As you can imagine, the tyranids decided to advance right at me. They even run to be able to attack me as soon as possible. Psychics phase concentrated on doing a few smite in the conscripts and nothing was able to shoot my troopers. One unit of genestealers charged and annihilated the conscripts.

Blood Pact: Regarding the big wave of tyranids running to my line, I had to be efficient to manage each treats. First, I advance some of my troopers to be able to create some space to move my hellhounds and tanks. Second, I eliminated in order: the genestealers in the middle of my line, then the big guy (tyranofex?) with heavy flamer. I damaged the Hormagaunt with some of my flamers. Just before the end of my turn, I realized that the Broodlord was in a position of been shoot at with my lascanon and Pask. I did not miss the opportunity and destroyed him right away.

Victory points: tyranids= 2 Blood Pact= 1

Turn 2

Tyranids: All the different units continued their advance to my line. The gargoyles arrived from deep strike in my left flank. Psychic phase almost destroyed my sentinel and several of my troopers were affected by smite.
During the assault phase, the lord commissar and two squads of troopers were killed by the genestealers, hormagaunts and Swarmlord. The hormagaunts managed to impact two Hellhounds. Even if they did not any damage, the tanks would have to fall back to allow me to shoot them.

Blood Pact: My turn started with a lot of claws and fangs just near my surviving troopers. I decided to ignore the big guys of my opponent and focus my fire on the smaller xenos. At the end of the shooting phase, the hormagaunts and gargoyles were killed but one lonely genestealer survived against all odds. I decided to let my etogaur to charge and kill him in close combat. He did the job, but I had forgotten the swarmlord that decided to intervene in the combat and he killed the Etogaur. 

Victory points: tyranids= 5 Blood Pact= 1

Turn 3

Tyranids : With less and less troops, the tyranids continued to attack me. The zoanthropes destroyed my sentinel using smite. The Swarmlord charged my Shadowsword who took heavy damage during this attack (he attacked twice using a stratagem). This mighty tank was wounded and won't be able to do a lot of damage for the rest of the game.

Blood Pact: The swarmlord and his bodyguard were two targets of choice for this turn. The shadowsword fell back so Pask, the other tank commander and the lascanon could shoot and kill these guys. In the meantime, the Hellhound advanced and burned one of the zoanthrope. At the end of this turn, even If I was very far in term of victory points, I was sure of my capacity to kill all the remaining xenos.

Victory points: tyranids= 9 Blood Pact= 2

Turn 4

Tyranids: the last of the xenos started to retreat to score the maximum of victory points available for them. Some of them also tried to hide. During the psychic phase the remaining zoanthrope damaged the hellhounds.

Blood Pact: My troops finally started to advance and killed the remaining tyranids on their way: 3 venonthropes, the neurothrope and 3 zoanthropes. The table board was clear of any xenos, victory for Khrone!

Victory points: tyranids= 14 Blood Pact= 3

Conclusion

As I killed every tyranids, I obtained the victory. But again, I need to be careful. I only scored two victory points if one tyranids unit hid on the other side of the table: I would have been unable to go and kill her.

Next games end of June: 3 games in a row during a tournament in Belgium.

Battle report: Blood Pact versus Chaos Daemons

Ave Dominus Nox!

It was my second game with my Blood Pact and this time against Daemon. To be consistent, it was the same day as the battle report against the World Eater here.

We played the game at 1700pts and used the "Ascension" scenario of Chapter Approved with "vanguard strike" deployment.

My opponent played the following list, one battalion and 2 patrols:

Daemon prince (Nurgle)

Poxbringer

Bilepipper

Skullmaster (herald of Khorne on juggernaut)

Herald of Tzeentch

30 Plaguebearers

20 horrors

10 Bloodletter

9 Screamers

9 Flamers of Tzeentch

2*3 nurglings

1 beast of Nurgle

I played the same list as the first game:

bataillon

Tank commander

Company commander

3*10 infantery squad

20 conscripts

1 Astropath

1Platoon commander

3 Hellhound (inferno canon)

1 Scout sentinel

Heavy weapon squad 3 lascanon

Suprem command

Pask

Primaris Psyker

Lord Comissar

Shadowsword

We deployed our army as you can see in the pictures below. As you can see, I assumed a defensive position with my conscript and infantry squad in screen to protect the Hellhound and big guns. My opponent puts most of his troops in position to rush at my line. Note that the flamers, bloodletters and herald of Tzeentch were in the warp waiting for an opportunity to strike.

My opponent had the first turn. Blood Pact, resist for mighty Khorne!

Turn 1

Daemon: The first turn of the daemons was pretty fast: they advanced towards my position and the screamers moved in first line ready to hit my troopers wall. During the psychic phase, they send a few smites that killed some conscripts and buff the plaguebearers.

Blood Pact: After a quick scan of the advancing daemons, the Damagaur in charge of the Blood Pact decided to focus first on the screaners then on the plaguebearers that were the more important threats. After the shooting phase, all the screamers were killed and the plaguebearer despite their protection lost more than a third of their strength.

Turn 2

Daemon: The daemon did again a few smites during the psychic phase. Then they charged against my Blood Pact with everything they have. The daemon Prince charged one of the Hellhound and some guards, the plaguebearers, beast of Nurgle and skullmaster against the conscript. In result, one hellhound was damaged and most of the conscripts were killed.

Blood Pact: All units in close combat except the conscripts fell back. In result after a very short psychic phase, Pask, the other tank commander and the unengaged Hellhound killed the Daemon prince, one squad of nurgling, the beast of Nurgle and damaged a bit more the horrors.

During the following close combat phase, the last conscripts were killed.

Turn 3

Daemon: A deep strike of Bloodletter, herald of Tzeentch and flamers happened in the middle of the board. Also, the Plaguebearers moved to engage another squad of guards. During the shooting phase, the flamers heavily damaged one hellhound. Another one was a bit more damaged by a charge of the Bloodletters and one infantry squad of Blood Pact troopers was destroyed by the plaguebearers.

 

Blood Pact: Like the second turn, the surviving units in close combat fell back. During the shooting phase, the skullmaster, all the remaining bloodletters as well as heavy damage on the horrors. In the meantime, my scout sentinel continued to walk around the table to go in the deployment zone of the daemon. 

Turn 4

Daemon: Feeling that victory was not going to be easy for them, the daemons decided to attack a last time to inflict maximum damage on my troops before hiding. The flamers and bilepipper attack a unit of guards and a damaged Hellhound. They managed to destroy the hellhound and for the second time it exploded inflicting mortal wounds on Pask, Shadowsword, Primaris Psyker, Heavy weapon squad and Infantry squad. It also killed my astropath and the platoon commander.

Blood Pact: My line was shaken by the explosion of the Hellhound, but it still stands firm and manage to destroy the remaining horrors and plaguebearers as well as damage the flamers before they create any more damage to my line.

Turn 5

Daemon: The daemon rush a last time at my line, knowing that their only chance of victory was to oblige me to divide my forces and missed the opportunity to kill them all. They damaged a bit more some troopers squads and killed my etogaur (company commander).

 Blood Pact: feeling that victory was near, all my remaining troops attacked the last daemon. the gatling canon eviscerated the poxrbinger, an hellhound incinerated the herald of Tzeentch and the shadowsword transform the Bilepiper as nothing more than ashes. But it wasn't enough...

2 flamers survived at the end of the turn, I need a sixth turn to kill these survivors, we roll a dice and the result was a beautiful 4, my opponent conceded the victory.

 

Conclusion

In the end, the Blood Pact wins by killing all the daemons. Thanks Khorne for the 6th turn, otherwise I would have lost the game 3 victory points to 15 for my opponent despite the fact that only 2 flamers survived.

I have to be more cautious of victory conditions and may be more aggressive.

Let's see who I will fight against Friday 15th of June!

Battle report: World Eater versus Blood Pact

Ave Dominus Nox!

Last Saturday, I played two games with my Blood Pact: first against Chaos Space Marines (CSM) affiliate to the World Eater legion then against Daemon.

We played the game at 1700pts and used the "Dominate and Destroy" scenario of Chapter Approved with "dawn of war" deployment.

My first opponent played the following list, one battalion:

Kharn

Aspiring champion

Daemon prince

2*9 berserkers (chain axe/chain sword), champion with power fist each squad in a rhino

17 cultists

20 Bloodletters

HellBrute lascanon/power fist

Ferrocentaurus

3 obliterators

For both game I played the same list:

Battalion

Tank commander

Company commander

3*10 infantry squad

20 conscripts

1 Astropath

1Platoon commander

3 Hellhound (inferno canon)

1 Scout sentinel

Heavy weapon squad 3 lascanon

Supreme command

Pask

Primaris Psyker

Lord Commissar

Shadowsword

We deployed our army as you can see in the pictures below. My opponent chooses to avoid the Shadowsword and seems to prepare his troops to use the cover to attack my left flank. On my side, I prepare to defend on the left and advance in the middle/right to control the map and 4 of the 6 objectives.

My opponent had the first turn, but I managed to steal him the initiative. Blood Pact, advance!

Blood Pact in position

Here are the foe!

 Turn 1

Blood Pact: I did not make a big first turn, I mostly moved my infantry squads to advance my Hellhound and tank commander with gatling in a better firing position for the next turn. My sentinel scout and advance to take and hold an objective.

During the shooting phase, I destroyed a rhino and heavily damaged the cultists.

 

CSM: Following the damage taken by the cultists, my opponent used a stratagem to redeploy them full strength on the left side on the board. The rest of his army advanced to use cover before rushing to my left side and in the right side, the ferrocentaurus was ready to charge my sentinel.

During the shooting phase, the hellbrute damaged my Tank commander with gatling.

The ferrocentaurus successfully charged and destroyed my sentinel, but found himself in a middle of a no man's land after that.

 Turn 2

Blood Pact: I continued to advance on all fronts to obtain a better shooting position. During the shooting phase, my sentinel was avenged with the destruction of the ferrocentaurus. The cultists were also destroyed for good and I heavily damaged the first squad of berzerker.

Not a big turn again, but my troops were in position to inflict maximum damage next turn depending on the move of the CSM.

CSM: They decided to rush and charge at my position on the left under the cover fire of the Hellbrute. In result, one of my hellhound was charged and exploded during the attack, destroying the damaged Tank commander, hurting the Daemon prince and damaging both squads of Berzerkers. A flashy exit no more no less but one that left a hole in my left flank.

 Turn 3

Blood Pact: the destruction of the Hellhound left a hole that some guard and a second Hellhound decided to compensate. I even stop a bit my advance in the middle to avoid any bad surprise since the obliterators and Bloodletter have not come yet.

During the shooting phase, I killed the daemon prince and the remaining survivor of a Berzerker squad and heavily damage the last rhino.

Not a bad turn, but the movement to completely secure the left flank was still in progress.

 

CSM: Bloodletters and Obliterators deep strike, the daemons in the left to attack some guard units. Obliterators in front of my main line with the hope of destroying Pask. The shooting phase wasn't that great, Pask was damaged, but he survived.

The assault phase was less good; the bloodletters easily killed the retreating unit of guard and create a real treat for all remaining forces in the left.

 Turn 4 & 5

I decided to take a hard decision: I sacrificed my platoon commander and heavy weapon squad in order to buy some time. Meanwhile, I destroyed the Obliterators, heavily damaged the bloodletter and killed the remaining berzerkers.

 Conclusion

In the end, the Blood Pact wins 22 victory points (13 objectives + 7 kill points + first blood and Line breaker) versus 14 victory points (8 objectives and 6 kill points) for the World Eater. I control the center and all right side of the table, but Kharn, an aspiring champion; a Hellbrute plus damaged Rhino were hiding on the left side. I have the upper hand, but it would have been difficult to completely destroy the CSM in 6 or even 7th turn as they were hiding to avoid me.

Next week: battle report between Blood Pact against the Daemon, will the host manage to obtain a second victory?