vs Death Guard

Sometimes the dice just don't go your way. But even then this game is a blast, as long as you let it be.

I played against Death Guard last night. This friend of mine is a fairly new player and Death Guard is his fourth army. He bought into AdMech, Necrons, and then dipped into Black Legion before trying out the Death Guard and really resonated with them. I'm pretty sure he is drawn to their innate toughness and staying power, but he could also just be a disgusting person who likes disgusting things.

We each came to the table with 2000 points. We rolled up Vital Intelligence as our mission (the one that the Tabletop Tactics guys so affectionately refer to as 'Multiball'), and Hammer and Anvil for deployment. He chose sides, I deployed first.

For my forces, I brought along a Terminator battalion for the first time in many months. I've been really trying to play competitively at the club and Terminators just... don't quite do their jobs, most of the time. 205 points for a five-man unit that rarely lasts more than a round on the table. With the two HQs in there, the battalion comes in at 1000 points. Obviously this isn't the cheapest battalion that the Grey Knights can do, but as I've mentioned before I am just not a fan of Strike Squads. I'll go into why in a future post.

In addition I brought my 10-man Paladin squad to wreck some house, which means that with HQs I was fielding 28 dudes in TDA -- and I gotta say, they look pretty cool! If nothing else, this looks like a super elite force of psychic badasses. I also brought my Grand Master in Nemesis Dreadknight, a Grand Master on foot with a Daemon Hammer, the unpainted Brother-Captain, and 2 Ven Dreads. I know that Death Guard is a pretty in-your-face kind of army, so I planned on meeting him in melee and crushing him up close.

He brought 3 Plagueburst Crawlers and a spattering of troops, and also Mortarion.

3 PBCs? So much for close range.

I knew that the PBCs would be giving me trouble. They can hit anywhere they want without line of sight, and their mortars are S8 AP-2 Dd3, also known as the Perfect Terminator Killing Weapon. My initial assessment of his army was that he would have a load of long range firepower and then two big battering rams in the form of Typhus/Poxwalkers and Mortarion. I knew how to handle Typhus' whole mess (storm bolters), and I figured that I could keep Mortarion distracted and then eliminate him with lascannon fire. The PBCs felt like the biggest threat.

Here is where I made my biggest mistake of the match. I have been reading so much of the meta in my quest to become competitive with Grey Knights that I saw Mortarion and my mind immediately thought, "meh, that dude isn't competitive. All the best Chaos lists omit him entirely because he just gets shot off the board turn one." So I chose to focus instead on the PBCs, which the meta says are the best tanks the Death Guard can field. And, well... I chose to ignore Mortarion. Because he isn't a competitive threat, because he just gets shots off the board turn one. Only... I, uh, didn't. I didn't shoot him off the board turn one. I just left him alone.

Which wasn't, like, super tactical.

Here's me using Gate of Infinity to jump in behind one of the PBCs turn one. Yay Grey Knights.

My Dreadnoughts blasted apart a Rhino to get First Strike. My Terminators stayed back to hold objectives. I teleported behind a PBC to slice it down with my GMNDK. Strength 10 sword, swinging for d6 damage. I successfully charged it and sliced it up for 17 wounds, but he saved 7 of them with Disgustingly Resilient. On his turn the PBC pooted away 4 inches, giving Mortarion enough room to just plop down in front of my guy.

Oh hello. I hope you like my 3++ save.

I wasn't worried. The GMNDK can be pretty indestructible. I just spend CP to reroll the failed 3++ invuln saves. Mortarion comes swinging at my GMNDK. He has 6 attacks, which turns into 18 attacks when he uses his Reaping Scythe. Hearing that Mortarion was making 18 fucking attacks at S8 filled me with indeterminable dread. I suddenly realized that not lascannoning the bastard in the shooting phase was a huge mistake. My buddy went to roll the dice and I stopped him. I quietly told him that Mortarion has the new Hateful Assault rule, so he gets an additional 3 attacks with Reaping Scythe on the charge. He says, "oh! Rad, thanks," and rolls the dice. After rerolls, he got 21 hits. I stopped him again before he picked up the dice to roll for wounds. He looked at me a little confused, like I was about to say he'd made some mistake.

I stared at the seven 6s in his hit pool, and then whispered "death to the false Emperor" in a small voice.

His eyes go wide and he rolls 7 more dice, netting a total of 28 hits from a model with an attacks characteristic of 6.

My GMNDK was absolutely obliterated. No amount of invuln save could protect him from firepower of that magnitude.

Playing it safe and staying back now.

He held more points than me in the first round. On my next turn, I deep striked (deep stroke?) my Paladins into a ruin and threw my Grand Master and Banner Boy into the street to buff as many units as possible. I was gonna take out Typhus this turn, who was his Warlord. Somehow my mind still told me it was okay to ignore Mortarion at this point. I think I was subconsciously fearing about falling into a sunken cost trap, and I wanted to trust my earlier assessment that Mortarion was to be ignored. My real threats were the PBCs and Typhus and his bodyguard of Poxwalkers, I told myself. Don't get distracted by the loss of your beloved GMNDK. Stay focused, stay cagey. Grab points and slay his Warlord.

These Terminators landed here so that they could bolter some Plague Marines and smite the last wounds off of that PBC that fell back from my GMNDK. They succeeded in that second part, but the Plague Marines easily soaked all of the storm bolter shots.

But of course Mortarion was still over there, and decided that these guys should no longer exist. The Daemon Prince didn't even need to swing.

Mortarion moving on from one dead Terminator squad to reap the souls of another.

All my characters were across the board and Mortarion just swept through my lines, stealing one of the two points that I had in the back. My Terminators were absolutely powerless against him. No heavy weapons, and he denied all our smite attempts.

Fortunately we ruined this dude in melee, so not all was lost.

I dunked on Typhus with my Pallies (but not before he killed 4 of them), and then I moved in a squad of Terminators to snag the central objective. I had to get three of them. If I didn't, he was going to run away with the points. My Terminators are Troops, though, so if I killed enough Plague Marines our ObSec would trigger. I just needed to kill the Plague Marines and survive the Daemon Prince that was heading our way.

Pictured: Totally two inches and completely legal unit coherency.

My Termies survived the strikes from the Daemon Prince, miraculously, but then this single Plague Marine here. This single goddamn Plague Marine. In this fight phase, that idiot with the flail there took 3 wounds from a Nemesis Falchion. My buddy rolled two Disgustings, and then paused. He stared at that failed die roll and then snap-decided to spend a CP. He rolled, and got a 5. This one guy soaked 3 damage from a Force Sword.

For the record, it was totally clutch and both of us cheered when he rolled that final Disgustingly Resilient. This Plague Marine should not have survived, and the fact that he did was beautiful and the chorus of our combined exultant cries when he succeeded is exactly the kind of feeling that I play this game for. But then this Flail Dude slew all three Terminators and that was total bullshit.

Mortarion wiped out my last Terminator squad. I was down 9 points to 17. I decided screw it, I was going to at least kill Mortarion this game. I buried him in daemon-killing 3 damage smites and got him down to 3 wounds. All it would take is one successful charge and a few failed Disgustings and I'd do it. Me and my buddy both agreed that he had won this game, but I wanted to achieve some semblance of honor and glory in this battle. We were going to play out this fight phase. My fancy new unpainted Brother-Captain was 4 inches away after moving. Just had to get in and swing with 5 attacks, and I'm rerolling to wound because Mortarion is a daemon. Let's do it. I went to charge.

Goddammit. Well, okay. That's why we have First to the Fray. To reroll this shit.

vs Craftworlds Eldar

Just got back from a game against my buddy's Craftworlds Eldar. This guy has been pretty busy with life, so it's been a minute since we played. We went to our local club and had a few beers and threw dice at plastic dudes for a few hours and it was a great time.

Eldar.

Hoo, boy. There is an army that I constantly have trouble against. Before I go into this battle report I really want to stress that my buddy is not That Guy. He doesn't spam Crimson Hunters or Hemlocks or anything like that. He doesn't cover every roof with Wave Serpents full of Dark Reapers. He doesn't even run his elves as Alaitoc, so he is definitely not That Guy when he plays Eldar. He runs a lot of bikes, loves his Fire Prisms, and makes good use of Ranger positioning.

But I always struggle against Craftworlds.

They have such incredible mobility, firepower, and psychic powers that I always seem to fend up on the back foot. When I do get through his troops and bikes and into the meat of his characters and tanks my Force Swords have an absolute blast tearing all his T3 bodies apart, but before that point I always find myself taking gambles and jockeying for cover as a storm of silent jetbikes take objectives and murder my characters. Over the years I've learned what parts of his list are squishiest and what parts will make the entire thing fall apart, but getting at those juicy pieces is always so tough. He jealously guards the vulnerabilities in his army.

Tonight we played a fun narrative game. We did the mission Doomsday Device from Vigilus Ablaze. To spice it up, we threw in the Battlezone: Field of Nightmares rules from the same book. 2000 points with matched play rules is how we always roll, even in narrative games.

The Forge World where we clashed.

In essence, the mission is a defend/attack game where one player is trying to protect a Doomsday Device and the other player is trying to disable it. Every round the attacker has to deal at least 5 wounds to the Doomsday Device and the defender has to not let them do that. If the Doomsday Device has been dealt 5 wounds in at least 4 rounds by the end of the game, then the attacker wins. There are stratagems and sub rules for this mission, but that's the gist of it. The Battlezone rules simulate a world wracked with warp disturbances, and every round you roll a die to determine how the tormented spirits are fucking with you (example: on a 2, every unit that doesn't move this round suffers d3 mortal wounds as angry ghosts prey on the stragglers).

I decided that I would be the defender. This world is lost to Chaos, so the Grey Knights are setting up an exterminatus device that will both destroy this planet and seal the warp rifts that have opened in this sector. The Asuryani wish to stop the destruction of this world and, like typical Eldar, aren't telling us why.

That is a lot of models with the FLY keyword.

I guessed I would be facing his prized Windrider/Shining Spear flock, so I brought two Stormhawk Interceptors with the missiles and the cannons.

Otherwise I brought my fancy new Paladin mob, long range firepower in the form of Ven Dreads and a Razorback, and a small battalion of Deimos AdMech for the command points. Actually, that last part is not entirely true. I don't just bring the AdMech for CPs. The Deimos boys have really been pulling their weight lately so I'm rewarding them with another game on the table. You play well, you get to keep playing.

My buddy got the first turn by default, since he was the attacker. His first turn was surprisingly gentle. He sent his bikes up the field and poked my Razorback and blasted one of my Stormhawks into atoms. I'd used the Prepared Positions stratagem and most of my units are in TDA so they soaked a lot of damage, except for the aforementioned Stormhawk because flyers can't benefit from Prepared Positions -- which makes sense, I guess, but also sucks.

He sent a few shots at the Doomsday Device (it is treated like a unit in my army for all game purposes, except that it has no save characteristic and melee attacks automatically hit it), but because the Device is T20 he only wounded it once. I could see the gears turning in his head as he realized that none of his guns were big enough to even wound the Device on a 5+, and that this was going to be much harder than he anticipated. He passed to me and my turn proceeded swimmingly.

The Doomsday Device, with Deimos Skitarii tending to its preparations.

An apocalypse comet made of blades, sorcery, exploding lances, and bullshit.

My Stormhawk moving in and just ruining those Shining Spears. I don't care what anyone says, I love these little planes.

The one highlight during turn one is a quote from my buddy. I asked him for maybe the hundredth time over as many games if his bikes can fire and advance without penalty, and he responded with this gem:

 "That's kind of the thing with Eldar; you can just do whatever the fuck you want."

That's facts.

On turn two he had to adjust his strategy. Heavy weapons weren't going to do the trick because he was just going to fail his wound rolls against the Device. So he opted for massed fire, which was smart. His Windriders unloaded with their scatter lasers and wounded the Device a couple times, but not enough to score him the check mark for the round. In my last turn I had made it clear that I was going to be leveling a lot of fire at him in the form of autocannons, lascannons, and 24" smites. Reasonably, he opted to deal with them. But failing to deal 5 wounds to the Device in the second round meant he could only win if the game went into round 6 and he got 5 wounds on the Device in every single remaining turn.

Most armies have gunlines. Grey Knights have smitelines.

I blew up one of his strange little two-man brightlance bikes that I forget the name of, and then smote a bunch of Windriders to death. I could feel my inner machine grinding into position, just pushing until something breaks. I could see the shatterpoint of his army. The only way he was going to get enough attacks to make enough successful wounds was if he got his melee units up to the Device and started wailing on it in close combat. He had to come into my castle and let my Force Swords feast on his tender T3 bodies. I deepstriked (deepstruck? deepstroked?) my Paladins into the rear of the facility, ready for him to move in.

You can see the remaining Shining Spears in the upper middle. Soon they would become very intimate friends with 40 bolter rounds.

I was feeling pretty confident at this point, which all changed during his next turn when he realized he could cast Doom on the Device itself and then reroll every single wound roll that came its way. His infantry and bikes started tearing at the Device like crazy. Suddenly his most effective unit became his Rangers, who only wounded the Device on 6s which also generated mortal wounds. He'd roll all their shots and then reroll wounds, invariably finding a couple 6s in each volley. He took like 9 wounds off the Device in round three.

This Dire Avenger Exarch is dual wielding shuriken cannons. Those four dice there are his roll as he advanced across a gantry and fired at my entrenched AdMech. This dude was a fucking badass.

The next two rounds proceeded very similarly. I did my best to take out his heavy weapons (Fire Prisms and the Linked Fire stratagem are absolutely nuts) and also contend with his massed Ranger fire, but there was little I could do to stop it beyond putting bodies in front of the Device and preventing him from charging it. The one time he did was with Striking Scorpions, who were all slaughtered mercilessly, but not before getting off two successful mandiblaster shots onto the Device.

Castling as best as we can.

I didn't want to just hope the game ended on round 5, but I also didn't know what else I could do. I tried to deny Doom when I was in range, but the dice did not favor me. In a desperate gambit I Gated my Apothecary into his backline and tried to make a charge -- if not to kill a Fire Prism, then just to tie them up and force them to devote fire to taking out an 88 point unit instead of firing on the Device.

"Emperor, please, some day give me the 'reroll one or both dice when you charge' rule."

It didn't work. I failed the charge and his Skyrunner Autarch swooped in and obliterated my valiant Apothecary. 

At the end of turn 5 we rolled to see if the game would continue, and we got a 4. The game went into round 6 and he put 5 more wounds onto the Device, disabling it and denying my Grey Knights the opportunity to destroy this infested world and cleanse the space around it. No one knows why they sought to stay our hands, but they did it. Perhaps some day men and elves will reach a point where they can talk about their problems.

In the end it was a really fun game with a really good friend and I'm glad we played. The Eldar are so tricky to deal with! They have so many options available to them, and I feel like they always surprise me with something new and cunning. Honestly, I really enjoy that. Facing an army that feels complex and crunchy from my side of the table is a very satisfying experience.

Old Grey Knight and new Brother-Captain

I just received this ancient hunk of pewter in the mail today. I saw him on eBay for $10 and I couldn't pass him up. This is a Grey Knight from the Rogue Trader era. The little tab connected to his feet says 'GAMESWORKSHOP 1989."

"I am so psychic that I don't even need eyeslits in my helmet."

Look at how big his sword is! And that ridiculous shield on his shoulder! It is so big! Too big for a shoulder shield. So silly. All of my Grey Knights have shoulder shields. I just realized I don't know what those are called. I want to say "tilt shield," but a quick google tells me that that isn't a real thing.

...

Okay, looks like it is called an encranche, and it's a small shield made for jousting. My GKs don't do a ton of coordinated mounted combat, so I'm not sure why everyone has these. Probably just to proudly showcase their awesome heraldry. This pewter duder's encranche is huge so he's gonna have some beautiful heraldry on there.

I put together another Brother-Captain this afternoon. The internet tells me that BroCaps are essential for any Grey Knights list, and while I don't see their reasoning I do tend to believe everything they say. I don't so much love my previous model because of how I fucked up one of his arms, and I wondered if that's why I'm not running him as much. If a model of mine doesn't look good, I don't field it. That's just kind of my rule.

I picked up that Deathwing Terminators box I mentioned in a previous post. The bits in there are so rad, and I put together so many Terminators that I know I'll make good use out of it. The first thing I noticed was a big sword that is being held in non-combat stance, with the fingers resting on the grip. I thought having my BroCap standing stoic and calm would distinguish him from the troops around him. Unfortunately, after cutting that sword from the sprue I realized it has some significant Dark Angles symbols on it.

Also it looks kind of like a weird penis.

Replacing the tip of that sword felt like more work than I wanted to put into this conversion, and I knew I had a Dark Angels Primaris upgrade sprue somewhere in my hobby stuff that had a similar sword. I dug it out and decided it looked much better--however, it was made for a left hand.

This left me with two problems. First, the storm bolter covers the left wrist and would make fitting the left hand sword difficult. No big deal on that one. I just tested GK Termie arms until I found one that was angled appropriately.

The second problem is that there are exactly zero Terminator right hands that are not holding weapons. None. I challenge you to find one. They all have swords, or storm bolters, or anything like that. I have sprues and sprues of Power Armor hands but those are all too small. I could have cut the sword free from a Nemesis Force Sword hand, but that felt like a monstrous waste of a cool model bit. So instead I rummaged through my bin again to find an old Dreadknight sprue from my GMNDK conversion a while back. And behold! I discovered a Grey Knight right hand with no weapons.

Credit: random bitz site

I nabbed that and plucked the control thing from the fingers before gluing it to its new owner. Thus the BroCap has a neutral pose with no weapons in his right hand. Also a cool cape! Thanks Deathwing box.

vs Black Legion and Chaos Knights

My brother didn't used to hobby. When we first got into Warhammer a few years ago, he despised the idea of painting all of his little idiots. Said that it was a waste of time and he just wanted to play the game. Playing against a bunch of mono-color or grey plastic daemons wasn't super satisfying. Now he has two painted armies and he's kitbashing Knights, which just makes my heart warm. Honestly I thank Contrast.

Last night I once again faced off against his Chaos forces. My brother has been really enjoying the Daemonkin Ritualists specialist detachment from Vigilus Ablaze, mostly by throwing a handful of Possessed and their supporting characters into a Rhino and then just Warp Timing them across the field. They have some crazy combos.

I hadn't fought Black Legion with my Sons of Titan yet. I brought a list that had some competitive elements (the Paladin blob), and then some not-so competitive elements (literally everything else).

Also brought a small detachment of AdMech for CP

Those are Purifiers, Nemesis Dreadknights, and a Land Raider -- all models that everyone says to never bring. But I watched someone play Purifiers in a battle report the other day and it made me miss them, so I threw them into the Land Raider alongside the BroCap (to double their pitiful smite range), an Ancient, and a BroChamp so that they have beefy friends to beat up bullies.

I have no excuse for bringing the Dreadknights. I am just in the middle of painting them and I like how they look. Also I threw a hunter-killer missile on the Land Raider even though they have never done anything for me other than make me wish I had just left my list at 1994 points.

I've been really favoring my new mob of 10 Paladins lately. But as we sat down I looked over and saw this:

I think that's a Mutalith Vortex Beast head?

An Infernal Chaos Knight with two Rapid Fire Battle Cannons. RBFCs chew through Terminators. I knew that if my boys didn't make their charge out of deepstrike, they'd be facing 4d6 S8 AP-2 Dd3 shots every turn.

We were playing Scars of Battle from CA2018 on Front-Line Assault. He deployed first and got first turn, so I deployed super cagey. He'd cleverly placed an Armiger Helverin Wardog in each corner so there was nowhere I could entirely hide from him. I'm going to be honest, the special autocannons on the Armiger chassis knights terrify me. They have so many shots and do straight 3 damage, which could just annihilate my Paladins. I'm really worried about my Paladins!

I failed to seize, so I spent the 2 CP to give everyone cover and was immediately rewarded for it by having one of my Dreadknights roll three 2s to save against one of the Helverins filthy Chaos Wardog's attacks. Would've been sad to see that guy reduced to 3 wounds immediately.

The Knight is on the other side of that wall. I was going to make him have to work to crack my Land Raider.

He drew Defend Objective 2 and a couple others, and so rushed his Rhinos up into the center and popped smoke. Each rhino was filled with Possessed. He tossed a few shots at my entrenched armor but everything failed to penetrate.

On my turn I drew Blood and Guts with only my Dreadknight as a melee option on the field, Mission Critical 3, and Secure 2, which was now covered in Rhinos.

So I had to get through that. I threw the psilencer from my Dreadknight at it first, and immediately felt the shame of a Grey Knight hitting on 5s because his weapon is too heavy and the Rhino is kinda smoky. Quick aside, the lore says that psycannons and psilencers have anti-gravity devices in them so that the Grey Knights can carry them without impediment. Why do we still incur Heavy penalties when shooting them? Anyway, next I threw the hurricane bolters and the assault cannon from the Land Raider at it and, screw it, the hunter-killer missile as well. The assault cannon managed a few wounds, the hurricane bolters managed one, and the hunter-killer missile did six wounds to it, killing the Rhino in a burst of redemptive fire. I have never in all of my games ever hit anything with a HK missile, let alone destroy something! This one missile succeeded where all of its ancestors had failed, tenfold.

I was ecstatic. And then a ball of hate and spikes spilled out of the ruined Rhino onto the objective. I charged it with my Dreadknight, killing a Greater Possessed, and then got torn apart by Average Possessed. My brother's Daemonkin combo meant they were wounding my Dreadknight on 2s, rerolling fails, and dishing out mortal wounds on 6s. I was not prepared for that. Hateful Assault turns these guys into absolute blenders. Good bye, 200 points. Also 3 VP, because killing my DK gave him the The Long War objective.

"Die, foul daemons! Ooooooooooooof."

In turn two the Knight opened up with a salvo that took 10 wounds off of my Land Raider. 10 Entry Level Possessed scrambled out of the second Rhino and charged that same Land Raider, taking 0 of 40 shots in overwatch. They made it in and did the same thing to my big silver box that they had just done to my big silver boy. It took 10 mortal wounds before it even got to make its armor saves. 2 Purifiers died on the way out.

Those bastards on the left there (a Greater Possessed, a Master of Possessions, and a Khorne Psychopath of some sort) are giving the Middle Class Possessed ridiculous buffs.

I cannot stress how scary this unit of 10 Incredibly Potent But Still Not Quite Greater Possessed is. The mortal wound output alone was ridiculous, on top of something like 21 AP-2 hits that I would have had to save after taking them. Here's my brother's description of his tactics:

"My Exalted champion had two auras:

• Aspire to Glory: Legion allies w/ in 6” can reroll failed wound rolls in the fight phase. 

• Warlord Trait - First Among Traitors: 6” Black Legion aura, DttFE goes off on a 5+ instead of 6+.

Meanwhile my possessed were all in a Daemonkin ritualists specialist detachment along with a Master of Possessions.

That master of possessions had a Warlord trait (thanks to field commander) called Shepherd of the True Faith. That provides a 6” aura that enables Daemonkin Rituaist wound rolls of 6 in the fight phase to deal a MW in addition to the attack.

So each attack had:

• 6/9 chance to hit

• 2/9 chance to generate a second hit that also hit. Combined for 8/9 hits per attack.

• Each of those hits had a 1/6 chance to MW. 

• And a 8/9 chance to regular wound. 

• The wounds had a 2/3 chance to get through armor.

So each attack was: 0.52 wounds and .15 MW.

At 3 attacks by 10 models, that’s 15 wounds and 5 MW"

Scary stuff that absolutely did not give a damn about my Land Raider's admirable T8 and 2+ save.

So that was about a third of my total points killed before my second turn. It was feeling dark. I still had Secure Objective 2 on my side, though, and a squad of my Deimos AdMech (who I run as Graia) maybe 6" from the objective. They are Troops, so I knew if I could wiggle them around there in the fight phase then I'd be able to claim it  since Blue Collar Possessed are Elites.

The Possessed moved in on my AdMech. They mulched them. But with the way the Graia rules work, you roll a d6 when a model dies, not when it loses a wound. On a 6 it does not die and stays in play at 1 wound. So I rolled 3 dice despite the thousand wounds that went through--and none of them were 6s. Desperately, I spent a CP and rerolled into a 6.

The Alpha of the Skitarii squad held firm. He then piled-in to the Sorcerer that was on the objective, harmlessly slapped him across the stomach twice, and spun around him with a consolidate to get within 3" of the objective and claim it for himself. It felt really good and like I'd leveraged my few options in a real clutch way.

This dude knows he's about to die horribly, but he doesn't care because he just looked super rad while dancing around a Chaos Space Marine.

On my turn, I drew Teleport Strike (kill stuff with things that arrived on the battlefield this turn), Deeds of Legend (kill characters and monsters), and Master the Warp (cast spells), which is all stuff I was planning on doing anyway so I knew this turn was going to work out great. I maneuvered my Purifiers and accompanying HQs around the ruins to get them into position to roast characters and then deep striked my Paladins and Grand Master Simandus into cover.

Ready to rip this Khornate Weirdo a new one.

All safe and tucked away.

The Paladins wasted a unit of cultists with storm bolters, killed five Possessed, and then made their charge into an Armiger, but only succeeded in doing 5 wounds to it. My brother used a stratagem that made it so that any psychic tests within 12" of a Knight would automatically Perils, so I was hesitant to cast anything with either the Paladin squad or Simandus. Too hesitant, probably. They could've weathered a few mortal wounds to give themselves Hammerhand.

My Brother Captain embarrassed himself by rolling all 1s to try and kill the Khornate champion, and I ended up yelling at him and asking why he didn't feel like rerolling 1s like literally every other captain in every other Space Marine chapter. Oh well.

This Wardog and this Razorback both watched from the other side of the board, missing every shot they took at each other and just hanging out, I guess.

The Brotherhood Champion, on the other hand, killed the last six Possessed from that blob that killed my Land Raider. His Sword Strike Stance and Daemon Hunters ability made sure all the wounds got through.

The Brotherhood Champion is a weird unit for me. He can be a real beat stick when he's doing Sword Strike Stance and receiving Hammerhand (giving him a total of +2 to wound in the fight phase, which means he wounds literally anything in the game on 4s), but he only has 4 wounds and the nerfs he received in the Spring FAQ this year really discouraged me from playing him for the last six months. For the record, they said that Only In Death Does Duty End cannot be used on him (meaning you can't get two extra fights when he dies in combat), and that his Blade Shield Stance cannot give him +1 to his invuln. I don't really know who was abusing Brotherhood Champions that made them feel like they had to nerf that, but there it is. He also bizarrely doesn't have Teleport Strike or anything similar, unlike the vast majority of his brothers. So he's either footslogging or hopping in a transport.

That all being said, he really pulled his weight this game. He took out twice his points in Possessed over the course of a few turns. Maybe I'll bring him along more often.

We were tied at the end of turn two.

At the top of turn three, his Wardog finally obliterated my Razorback which had so far done nothing all game. Hitting on 4s with two lascannons is kind of a crapshoot.

In his shooting phase his giant Knight turned its two RFBCs towards my Paladins. This was it. The moment I had dreaded. They had moved out into the open to try and slay one of the Wardogs, and then the Wardog just fell back.

"It's been a pleasure serving with you, brothers."

To my extreme delight, the RBFC only killed two of my Paladins. Having 3 wounds is such a significant advantage over having only two. I couldn't believe how resilient they stood against such extreme fire. I removed two halberds and kept the warding staves.

My surviving Dreadknight then charged the Knight and took 7 wounds in overwatch, and dealt only two wounds in return. Oof.

At the end of turn three I was winning 11-10.

On turn four he moved in the Knight, his Raptors with their meltas, and his Wardogs to surround Grand Master Simandus, isolating him from his bodyguards. I was real worried at this and knew I just had to pray that Simandus' 3++ held firm.

The meltas whiffed (he advanced) and it turns out TDA still has a 2+ save against those nasty Helverin autocannons in cover, so that did nothing. Simandus stood defiant and furious in the face of all those traitors.

Thanks, trees.

In the meantime, a Greater Possessed took out my Purifiers and then chipped a few wounds away from my BroChamp.

"Nothing personnel, kid."

Primarily, however, my brother drew Area Denial, and I had one squad of Deimos Skitarii holding firm behind some cover and denying him those VP.

That Wardog failed all of its shots against these little dorks.

Grand Master Simandus took zero damage from all of the Knights shooting at him, and my Paladin squad took advantage of this moment and rolled in, slaying the Knight and allowing Simandus to kill himself a Wardog. This is when things really swung in my favor.

My brother didn't score any cards on his turn. My turn rolled around and I drew three fresh objectives. Every card was just free points because I'd already completed everything they wanted of me.

It's like High Command wasn't even watching the game.

I got five points at the end of the round without doing any work. He had one Wardog and a handful of cultists left. We called it then.

Glorious victory, in the name of the Emperor. These were my only surviving models after all was said and done.