This time, because I was playing against a younger opponent who's just starting out, I decided to bring a less competitive army. I went full Thousand Sons today, disregarding my favorite Knights. Poor Knights have to stay at home today, which was fine because I prefer carrying out my Age of Darkness box because it's smaller and more compact. Not to mention lighter because I have less models in it. Yay.
I did a few adjustments to my friend's Blood Angels list because he remembered to bring his Spartan Assault Land Raider today. He forgot it 2 weeks ago, but now that he brought it, he could load his Terminators up in it! That's so cool! Anyway, his Blood Angels list looked something like this:
Zephon, Bringer of Sorrow
10 Cataphractii Terminators with 2 heavy flamers and Spartan Assault tank
5 Cataphractii Terminators with lightning claws
3 Contemptor Dreadnoughts, 2 with gravis lascannon and 1 with Kheres assault cannon. 1 has a havoc missile launcher, and all 3 had grav guns in their gravis power fists.
1 tactical squad in a Rhino
1 assault squad with 2 plasma pistols
Leviathan Dreadnought with 2 grav-flux bombards, iliastus assault cannons and phosphex charger
Predator with flamestorn cannon and 3 heavy flamers (sponson and pintle)
2 Predators with gravis lascannons and lascannon sponsons
I think that was about it? I think. I can't remember. Anyway, my Thousand Sons used the Achaean Configuration Rite of War because I love robots.
Praetor in Cataphractii Terminator armor
Librarian Consul
Praveian Consul
5 Cataphractii Terminators with volkite chargers and power swords (1 aetherfire blaster)
2 Contemptor-Osiron Dreadnoughts with gravis melta cannons and aetherfire blasters
Techmarine
Numerologist Cabal with volkite caliver
2 tactical squads
1 tactical support squad with aetherfire blasters
2 squads of 2 Castellax-Achea battle automata
1 squad of 3 Castellax battle automata with Darkfire cannons
2 Predators with plasma executioner destroyers and lascannon sponsons
The mission was Shatterstrike this time because we already played Blood Feud and I wanted a change for variety and to get him used to the rules. We did Dawn of War deployment because it was the easiest, and quite frankly, the other deployment zones look unnecessarily complex and annoying to set up. I allowed him to go first, but...I ended up seizing the Initiative. Whoops.
I had my Catellax-Achea and Castellax battle-automata and Predator tanks shoot the Contemptor Dreadnoughts and the Predators, and the Contemptor Dreadnoughts being Contemptor Dreadnoughts, they survived all the plasma and lascannons, and only had maybe a couple of wounds taken off them. The darkfire lances did destroy one Predator, though, and blew up the battle cannon (meaning gravis lascannons) on the second one, so there was some progress there. Oh, and they were hitting on 2s because of my Numerologist Cabal, and my Librarian Consul created a telekinetic forcefield to give them a 4++ invulnerable save. The Contemptor-Osiron Dreadnoughts were out of melta range and could do nothing against the Spartan, while the Cataphractii Terminators got off their Biomancy spell to give them an extra 3" movement. The same went for the tactical squads, who ran, and so they moved a total of 14". Incredible.
That was all the shooting I could do because I was out of range for my aetherfire blasters and other weapons, and I wasn't in charge range of anything either.
My opponent retaliated and I think he destroyed one of my Predators (also because of the Return Fire Reaction where he also did another hull point worth of damage to him). That hurt. He also did a couple points worth of damage to my Castellax-Achea battle automata, maybe about 2 or so wounds. He also took two wounds off one of my Contemptor-Osiron Dreadnoughts with the lascannons on his Spartan, while his Rhino swerved about and didn't do much with its two twin-linked bolters. I don't think there were any charges during his turn, so that ended there and then. But I faintly recall losing a Cataphractii Terminator to maybe shots from the Leviathan Dreadnought? Maybe? I did do a return fire reaction with my Contemptor-Osiron to take a hull point off the Spartan, so there was that.
In my turn, I continued moving all of my battle automata up the table while the Contemptor-Osiron Dreadnoughts shot the Spartan - it took both of them shooting, but my second gravis melta shot finally punched through its armor and blew it up, killing 3 of the Cataphractii Terminators inside from the explosion. They proceeded to disembark away from my Dreadnoughts (not that I could have charged them anyway). My tactical squads continued to run, while my Cataphractii Terminators shot the Rhino, maybe glancing it, and then charged and destroyed it, causing the dudes inside to spill out.
I shot both the Contemptor Dreadnoughts with my Castellax-Achea and Castellax and surviving Predator, while the other unit of Castellax-Achea fired at the Predator without a battle cannon. I only stripped a few wounds off here and there, but failed to do anything concrete. Ouch. I did charge my Castellax-Achea into the Predator and destroy it in combat, so yay. Unfortunately, I periled with my Numerologist Cabal this time, and 2 guys were dragged screaming to the warp. My second Contemptor-Osiron Dreadnought also periled and ate 1 wound worth of damage. That was unlucky.
My opponent brought in his Assault Marines from Deep Strike...only for them to mishap right into the tactical squad that had disembarked from the Rhino, and I placed them and Zephon next to my Terminators because I thought they had a better chance of surviving the shots and charge with their 2+ armor save. The Contemptor Dreadnoughts moved forward and shot my Predator, finally wrecking him, while the other Contemptor Dreadnought, combined with the Assault Marines, shot three more of my Cataphractii Terminators to death, leaving just the Praetor and one guy. Ouch. As the Contemptor Dreadnoughts shot my Predator, they couldn't charge my Castellax-Achea, and the Cataphractii Terminators also didn't manage to charge my support tactical squad - who were whiffing their shots and doing f all the entire game, having put their combi bolters into them. Oh, well. The Librarian took a wound because I rolled a 1 when he ate a shot from the Contemptor Dreadnought's havoc launcher. Yikes.
Zephon challenged my Praetor, who promptly used Biomancy to use his Strength 10 AP4 (4+ Rending) spell. Unfortunately, Zephon failed to wound my Praetor, who only did a single wound on a roll of a 2 and failed to Rend. On the other hand, my opponent rolled a 1 and Zephon was Instant Death-ed by the Strength 10 weapon. OUCH. The Terminator survived the weight of chainsword attacks from the Assault Marines, who lost a guy to a plasma pistol (he rolled a 1 or 2 for the Gets Hot! roll), and he killed maybe 1 more guy?
The tactical squad opened up on my tactical squad, who returned fire, and we killed like a bunch here and there. Oh, the Cataphractii Terminators with lightning claws were still out of range of everyone.
I continued to whittle down the Contemptor Dreadnoughts' wounds but failed to kill any of them. Sigh. On the other hand, my Contemptor-Osiron Dreadnoughts killed maybe 1 Terminator from 4 gravis melta shots. Damn it, those 4++ invulnerable saves were amazing. Anyway, they charged and finally killed a bunch with their brutal attacks, but my opponent made a few saves, so maybe 3 or so died as opposed to more. They really were resilient, and thanks to Instant Death (Contemptor-Osiron Dreadnoughts hit at Strength 9), I was able to take them out, but those wounds were brutal.
My Castellax-Achea battle automata desperately charged into the Contemptor Dreadnought with 1 wound remaining, and my friend basically rolled badly, only doing 1 wound. It was still Brutal (3), but I actually rolled 2 5++ saves and had one guy have one wound left. Unfortunately, while I managed to finally destroy the Contemptor Dreadnought under sheer weight of attacks, it blew up and killed my Castellax-Achea with 1 wound remaining, who in turn did maybe one wound to another of his friends. Ouch. On the bright side, my tactical squads shot up the opposing tactical squad, who had only the Sergeant left after that vicious volley of rounds, and he failed morale and began falling back. On the other side of the map, I lost a few Aetherfire blaster guys to heavy flamer and combibolter rounds from the Cataphractii Terminators who returned fire, and...yeah, they didn't do a single thing so basically those guys died for nothing, only to get shot down. The Praetor and Cataphractii Terminator continued killing another couple of guys in melee.
My friend rolled up the flamestorm Predator to roast a few of my Marines, killing almost 1 squad and taking out another chunk from the rest. The Lightning Claw Cataphractii Terminators were still too far away. On the other hand, the Leviathan Dreadnought and the Contemptor Dreadnought chewed up one of my tactical squads, wiping it out, and the second tactical squad had only 2 guys remaining. The Sergeant of the enemy tactical squad died to a flamer shot from his own Predator, the template hitting him as well. Yikes. Guess he was being punished for breaking morale and running away like a coward.
My Contemptor-Osiron Dreadnoughts wiped out the remaining Cataphractii Terminators - at last! - with their Brutal weapons, but the opposing Contemptor Dreadnought charged my Castellax-Achea battle-automata and killed them in combat. Both of them. Yikes. Well, just one unit. The other guy survived after his buddy blew up from the earlier battle, and he was all right, slowly moving away and toward my opponent's deployment zone. Meanwhile, my Praetor and sole surviving Cataphractii Terminator continued to carve through the Assault Marines, and they finally broke morale and fell back.
We were about to move to the top of turn 4 when we realized that we had no time left because the store was going to close and his aunt was going to pick him up at 8pm. So we decided to stop the game there and call it a draw. I did technically win because I had Slay the Warlord. Hah! That was great! Or maybe? It was certainly a close game, and while I could get my Castellax-Achea and Castellax battle-automata to my opponent's deployment zone and get myself more points, I suppose my opponent could do the same with his Predator and Assault Marines once they regrouped and began flying and running. Well, we'll never know. Still, it was a fun game and that is all that matters. I think my friend prefers Horus Heresy to 9th edition because Space Marines are a lot more resilient here. His Blood Angels died pretty quickly in 9th edition, with only Armor of Contempt helping him somewhat (Sanguinary Guard, especially), but he still had a lot of units on the table by turn 4. I only killed his Predators and 1 Contemptor Dreadnought (and technically 1 tactical squad), as well as 10 Cataphractii Terminators after 2 rounds of combat, and that was with Brutal weapons and melta from 2 Contemptor-Osiron Dreadnoughts. In return, he killed my Predators, a unit and a half of Castellax-Achea, almost wiped out my Cataphractii Terminators, slaughtered two tactical squads (with only 2 legionnaires surviving, and somehow they passed morale). So yeah. Oh, well.
I'm not sure what we'll be doing next week, but this was certainly a fun game! Till then!
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