Hive City Challenge

Hello :)

So this weekend we got together and got started on the campaign. We started by placing 5 flags and rolling for our Grand Warlord Traits - I can't tell you mine though cause we decided to keep them secret so that it would be more of a challenge ^^ The only ones that know are the GMs (me - mehehe, I know All the secrets, and the IG player) so that no one will cheat!

The chaos space marine player and I chose to take over as many Hive Cities as possible just cause we could - chaos chooses tiles first - and cause they have some nice bonuses in the campaign itself.  This is an initial picture from saturday - on sunday the Tyranids player came over and put his flags on the same planet as the DA player. I know it's hard to see - it'll be better when the tiles are actually painted. Sigh, I really need to get myself an airbrush...

Anyhow, the IG player also placed his flags onto the bigger planet and he rolled to go first so he challenged me for one of my Hive Cities. We decided on 1750p cause that's basically all the points I have for Daemons and he then allied the DA player with him to try and take me down...

Our units were:

Chaos Daemons 

Fateweaver as HQ

10 Plaugebearers with noxious touch and icon

10 Bloodletters  with mark of khorne and icon

5 Pink horrors with bolt of chaos and instrument

4 Pink horrors with bolt of chaos + the changeling

3 Nurglings

1 Pinky the Soul Grinder

1 Daemon Pince with mark of slaanesh, pavane of slaanesh, wings  and breath of chaos

1 Daemon prince with wings, mark of tzeench and breath of chaos

3 Screamers

3 Flamers

Imperial Guard

1 Company Command Squad with a master of ordnance, voxcaster, standard, laspistol and plasma gun

10 Veterans with 3 melta guns

1 Storm Trooper squad of 10 with 2 meltaguns

1 Storm Trooper squad of 10 with 2 plasma guns

1 Infantry Platoon with 3 Infantry Squads, 1 Heavy Weapons teams with 3 auto cannons and a Platoon Command Squad with standard, vox, plasma gun and a commander with power sword and laspistol.

1 Basilisk

Dark Angels allies: 

5 Space marines with bolt guns and 1 plasma cannon

4 Space marines with bolt guns, 1 plasma gun and 1 serg. with chainsword

5 Deathwing Knights

1 Librarian

total of 1750p. 

Since this was a City fight we just put out as much terrain as possible. Unfortunately I haven't assembled my Fortress of Redemption yet otherwise that would have been in there as well. The more terrain the better if you ask me - even though I hate deep striking into it, it looks awesome ^^

Anyways, since it was City fight the deep striking rule does not apply - I gave out one huge sigh of relief when I found out cause there was noooo way that I would have lived through deep striking on to that battle board. Instead I got to start with my entire army placed on the board - felt really weird and I kept wanting to reach for a dice and roll for reserves when new turns began. 

Here's the initial deployment: 

We deployed in a quadrant each. Also we chose 3 stratagems each - like for example when deployed in the Sky Shield Landing pad the IG player had one that made him reroll all failed to hits when shooting, and so did I, in the Bastion, though we forgot about them after the first turn! So much battle going on there was no time to remember advantages! ;) Though the IG player put out some barbed razor-wire that served as difficult terrain and of course he placed it around my stuff - smart move indeed ^^

The whole point of the game was to score points for the amount of buildings being held - aka objectives - they could only by held by ordinary scoring units and non of the new victory points, like slay the warlord, counted. We agreed that out of the terrain on the board 7 of them counted as buildings. 

The IG player took first turn - shot and mostly focused fire on my Soul Grinder, henceforth referred to as Pinky. He took a total of 2 hull points.

He moved towards the bastion with two infantry squads and the librarian that had joined one of the units. The space marines with the plasma cannon, on the top floor of the Shrine, moved to get in firing range of my daemons and to easily hold the building whilst  the other squad of 5 marines moved toward the yellow mansion to do the same.

In my turn I moved onward with almost all of my things except the pink horrors. Made some okayish shooting on the blob of 20 near the bastion after moving Pinky out of l.o.s from the Basilisk and one of my Daemons Princes, along side the Screamers, flew off to try and assault some stuff further in the back as well as flaming at some Veterans, killing almost half of them. Kairos stayed behind to help out with as many saving throws as possible. 

My other Daemon Prince, for the first time equipped with Pavane of Slannesh, made the Deathwing Knights dance out from cover and in range of all my flamers who otherwise would have missed so that was a stroke of luck! Both them and the Daemons Prince then fired with their Breaths of chaos but killed only two. 

In turn two the IG player shot and killed one of the Plaugebearers and also strategically took over the bastion as well as the house next to it with the Platoon Command Squad. He also deep stuck with Storm Trooper carrying melta guns next to Pinky and Storm Troopers with plasma guns next to my Nurglings, aiming for my Pink Horrors initially, to kill of as many troops as possible. He also shot two of my  Screamers to death as well as one Bloodletter. He shot Pinky who re-rolled his save, thanks to Kairos, and was lucked out with one less hp and immobilized.  

The Deathwing Knights then charged my Daemon Prince, who survived the first run of combat taking a total of two wounds.

In my turn the Flamers moved back and killed all the Storm Troopers next to Pinky and some guardsmen were put out by Pinkys blast - but the bastion gave them a 4+ cover save and so not as many died as I had hoped. The Screamer flew towards the Basilisk and the Daemon Prince of to the far right flew over to the Skyshield Landing Pad and killed two guys in the command squad with his template. The Plaugebearers made a nice assault range roll and charged into the Knights, holding them up in close combat so they were out of the picture until round 5. 

Third turn Pinky exploded, the Daemon Prince was killed by the Knights, 1 of the pink horror Groups were shot to pieces - but one pink horror made his save gloriously and so stood next to the IG to hold on to the objective. The remaining Daemon Prince took a wound but did not crash. The Basilisk and the Space Marines in the yellow mansion shot at the Bloodletters and wiped the entire unit.

In my round the Daemon Prince landed and flamed before assaulting into the Command Squad. Kairos also moved up,  seeing as it was no use for him to hang around the standstill close combat between the Plaugebearers and the Knights, and made a failed attempt at shooting. The last remaining Storm Troopers were first shot by the 4 remaining Pink Horror, then assaulted by the Nurglings and killed. The Screamer having avoided overwatch assaulted in to the Basilisk, made it explode and then consolidated away.

Turn 4 the Daemon Prince was shot at but survived, as did Kairos.

In my turn Kairos landed and used his Breath of chaos on some unfortunate guardsmen whilst the Daemon Prince killed the Company Commander and his squad by first shooting and then assaulting. 

I my turn the Flamers moved up to try and gets some shots on the Platoon Command Squad in the building but could only see two and so could not kill them all…

Round 5 the flamers were shot dead, as well as the last screamer, and the close combat ended as the Plaugebearers finally killed of the last remaining Knight and then consolidate towards the closest vacant building.
Karios then flew over to the Shrine, to try and take out the Space Marines, or at least contest it. The Daemon Prince killed of the remaining Heavy Weapons team. 

We then rolled for the game to end, and it did.
In the end the IG player still held the Bastion as well as two other building whilst I only had two so he won the game and took over my Hive City.

It was a fair fight and we were never really sure of us who was going to win. Had the game lasted another turn I probably have contested one other building as well but I was not so fortunate. Hence I lost my first flag to the Imperium (oh the shame!).

I'll post another battle report tomorrow for a game of Planet Strike :)

Have a nice day!
//Sara