[WH40K] Kill tally

There is not that much to say about the battle I mentioned in my previous post. Squad Taexali managed to secure the relic, and made a tactical retreat to keep out of range of the enemy's Scout snipers. A unit of Nobz had entered the battle from reserve, but they were butchered in one turn by the allied berzerkers. So it was pretty much a sweet victory for the Chaos side.

Yesterday I fought a battle against a Space Marine army led by Pedro Kantor. I knew that he wouldn't have many vehicles, and no flyers. So I could focus on a list that I really wanted to play.

Warlord Caratacos with twin lightning claws
Squad Taexali (7 berzerkers), champion with power sword
Rhino with dirge caster

Khârn the Betrayer
Squad Creones (7 berserkers), champion with power sword
Rhino with dirge caster

Squad Venicones (10 chaos space marines), Mark of Khorne, bolt pistols & chainswords, 2 meltas, champion with combi-melta and power fist.
Rhino with dirge caster

The Brazen Firm (10 cultists), autoguns, 1 flamer, champion with close combat weapon & autopistol

Decimator with Mark of Khorne, twin siege claws

Defilers (2) with extra close combat weapon & power scourge

Helbrutes (2) with extra powerfists

My opponent wasn't quite ready to face an army like this. Had it been a foot slogging army without vehicles he had had a better chance I guess. Now he faced a massacre.

Basically he had:
Kantor,
a chaplain
a sternguard unit,
three tactical units with a plasma gun each and power sword armed sergeant
a tech marine with heavy bolter servitors,
a missile launcher devastator squad,
a venerable dreadnought with assault cannon and power fist
and an empty landraider crusader.

We played a Dawn of war battlefield and the Emperor's will mission. He placed his base objective in the open, while I placed mine in a ruin, guarded by The Brazen Firm.

To my luck, we had night fighting the first turn. So I sent Khârn with Creones, the two defilers and the decimator towards his base objective. The objective was guarded by three tactical squads, the dreadnought and the Techmarine with crew. This was on my left flank-middle of the board.

Facing my base objective, on my right flank, was Kantor and the sternguards, the devastators and the landraider crusader. So I sent Caratacos, Taexali, Venicones and the two Helbrutes to take the fight to them.

Initially the devastator squad blew Venicones rhino apart. Then half the sternguard unit and pedro opened fire upon Venicones. The rest of them were behind a hill - later to be named "Hamburger Hill".

As the sternguards used Kraken bolts fully nine bolts wounded Chaos Space Marine Duer who was in the front. But Khorne had other plans for him, so he waded through the storm of bolts, and led the charge up "Hamburger Hill", where the devastators made their final stand. Champion Venicone challenged the Devastator Sergeant and slew him, while the rest of Venicones made short work of the other marines.  When time came for consolidation, they withdrew down from the hill.

In the mean-time Warlord Caratacos and Taexali had disembarked. The plan was to have Venicones run over the hill, and charge the sterguards behind. But to their amazement, the sternguards went up the hill and opened fire, killing Champion Venicone and an un-named chaos marine. The Crusader opened fire as well, but didn't manage to kill anything.

Now Taexali's rhino pushed through, and turned on the dirge casters, so that the Sternguards couldn't open fire upon Venicones and Taexali as they charged. At the same time, the two Helbrutes charged the crusader.

Unfortunately Kantor had left the Sternguards and called in an orbital bombardment upon Khârn and Creones, killing six berzerkers.

Warlord Caratacos challenged the Sternguard Sergeant, who accepted - and died. Khorne immediately rewarded Caratacos with daemonhood, turning him into a mighty Daemon Prince. Champion Taexali killed five Sternguards, while the rest of the squad slew the rest.

After that Taexali assaulted Pedro, who killed Champion Taexali in the challenge. But in the turn after that, the remaining berzerkers hacked Pedro to death.

Daemon Prince Caratacos set off towards the right flank.

In the meantime the two Helbrutes had cornered the Crusader, which couldn't drive away, and so they destroyed it.

In the area of the Space Marine base objective one of the Defilers was destroyed by a well-placed melta bomb. The other was immobilized by the venerable dreadnought. But the dreadnought was in turn destroyed by the Decimator. And finally the Decimator exploded after it was hit by a melta bomb.

Khârn and Champion Creones charged one of the tactical squads. Champion Creones challenged the Sergeant, and they were both killed in the duel. Khârn butchered six of the regular marines. In the subsequent turn he killed the rest of them.

After that, he charged the tactical squad led by the chaplain bellowing a challenge. The Chaplain accepted, and was instantly killed. In the next turn he challenged the Sergeant, who declined. In his place, the rest of the squad (5) was killed by Khârn. They had already taken some casualties while fighting the Decimator. And after that, Khârn killed the coward Sergeant.

While this was happening, Venicones had destroyed the Techmarine and his servitors, and now secured the Space Marine base objective.

But now the only major set-back happened. The remaining tactical squad stepped forward like a firing squad and killed Khârn. Or did they? Khorne probably has other plans for him.

Finally Daemon Prince Caratacos charged the tactical squad and killed them all.

The wipe was a fact in turn six.

I will add one or a few photos in a couple of days.

[WH40K] First Blood!

Today was the first blood for the Violent few. A small part of the warband (500 points) joined forces with an other equally small warband. Together they fought an unholy alliance between Orks and Ultramarines.

The game is not quite yet over, because we didn't have to time to finish it off. So it will continue tomorrow. And I won't tell you all about the battle until it's over. But I will tell you about how Lord Caratacos and Squad Taexali managed to claim skulls for Khorne.

Lord Caratacos rode together with Taexali in their rhino towards the center of the battlefield. The objective was to retrieve an unholy relic. The rhino stopped between a small wood and a cottage. Just as Caratacos and Taexali had disembarked, the rhino took a hit which immobilized it. They ran around the cottage, trying to close in with two Ultramarine combat squads and the enemy Warlord, an Ultramarine Captain. But a squad of allied Possessed beat them to it.

Just as they were about to charge in, a huge mob of Ork Boyz with shootas showed up and shot Champion Taexali and a Berzerker dead in their tracks. Lord Caratacos immediately ordered them to charge the Orks. And that they did.

Lord Caratacos led the charge as they smashed into the Orks. He fought with unmatched fury, and managed to disembowell no less than six orks during the first turn. Two berzerkers had been shot by the boyz as they charged in, but the remaining three managed to kill another six orks.

The remaining orks lost their guts to fight, and turned to run. Lord Caratacos saw this and urged his squad to finish them off. And chain axes and chain sword made a short but bloody work of the orks.

When they were done Lord Caratacos told one of the berzerkers to pick up the relic, and then they ran to help the possessed and an allied squad of berzerkers to kill the Ultramarines and their captain.

As they charged in, Lord Caratcos issued a challenge to the Captain, who couldn't decline. Caratacos decapitated the Captain, and was rewarded by Khorne with eternal life (Eternal warrior). The rest of the Ultramarines were butchered by the three remaining members of squad Taexali.

A fine start for Khorne's finest!