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.