My Exorcists: A Side Project

Painting silver all the time can get monotonous. I've been building a force of Adeptus Astartes for the last year or so. Supposedly (maybe) they are a successor chapter of the Grey Knights (possibly), so this makes them relevant enough to talk about on my GK blog (more than likely).

From a recent game against Chaos Knights.

Running Grey Knights all the time can be exhausting. I love them so much, but their rules are undeniably dated and underpowered. It is a constant uphill battle playing with the Sons of Titan. Space Marines, however, are in a very powerful place right now. Every now and then it feels really good to break these boys out and win a game or two.

Company Champions are rad as hell.

The Exorcists are a Chapter that was created during the 13th Founding (also known as the Dark Founding, for reasons). They were created by the Ordo Malleus (probably) for the express purpose of combating daemons. It is rumored that they are a direct descendent of the Grey Knights, but obviously there is no way to confirm this since both the Grey Knights and the Inquisition seal all records referencing this kind of thing. SPOOKY SECRET PROJECTS.

Upon their induction into the Chapter, an Exorcists aspirant is forcibly possessed by a daemon. An Ordo Malleus Inquisitor then lets the Space Marine hopeful suffer and struggle for a minute before excising the neverborn from him. If he survives, he moves on to become a fully blooded battle-brother in the Exorcists. If he dies, well, sucks.

Their home world's name is Banish and they are essentially invisible to daemons because each Astartes has survived a direct intimate encounter with a rude denizen of the Warp. They cover themselves in scripture and occult symbols and 

I thought this was all super cool. A year or so back I'd decided I was going to start a Space Marines army and I thought the Exorcists seemed like the Real Deal. I have a force of Grey Knights and Ordo Malleus Inquisitorial units so this seemed like a natural extension.

A live feed from a battle against the Thousand Sons.

 I've loved painting them. The bright red is such a stark difference from the silver I am painting with my Grey Knights, and the focus on powerful ranged combat is a nice gameplay shift. I love setting up some tanks and dreadnoughts in the backfield supported by a Captain and a Lieutenant (ugh! Rerolling wounds is so nice! someday Grey Knights good rules maybe). A gunline castle is super fun to run when you're used to assaulting everything and praying for 9" charges.

Smashy Terminators.

Veteran Brother-Sergeant Khurshid of the First Company.

I have a lot more I'd like to say about my Exorcists, but I'm a little drunk at the moment and words escape me. I just wanted to share pictures and enthusiasm. Some day I will make a dedicated 20,000 word post about these boys.

Finished Brother-Captain

Finished up this Brother-Captain that I've been working on. It's been a little while since I've fully completed a miniature, so it's really nice to just be able to look at him and see that he's done. I'm hoping this will inspire me to paint more in the near future. I really like how this guy turned out.

The force sword turned out okay, I think. The transition of the blues isn't super smooth, but it could look worse. I'm very pleased with how the red and white of his encranche turned out. Much smoother than I usually do.

I should have thinned down the Guilliman glaze around his eyes a little more. The glowing effect is too strong, and actually makes the eyes themselves look darker somehow.

Cygor Brown was used in the recesses of the cape.

I tried using some Contrast paint to shade his cape and it came out way too dark. I cleaned it up significantly with more Screaming Skull, but it's still starker than I would like. From a distance it looks fine. Kind of like the shading in cartoons.

I'm excited to use this guy in a game now. Everyone on the internet claims that BroCaps are almost mandatory for a competitive Grey Knights list, which I don't understand. Doubling the ranges of our smites is nice, yes, but do I really want to hold a 205 point unit of Terminators in the backfield just so they can smite for 1 mortal wound and shit out a ton of storm bolter shots? I'm paying for their melee weapons so I want to use them.

Honestly, that might be a tactical failing on my part. Grey Knight midrange shooting is good and I should lean into that. That 205 point squad of Terminators fires 20 shots! Maybe they'd do better sitting in cover and trying to pick off assholes from a distance.

But also force swords are really cool and I want my guys to be up in melee.

vs Raven Guard

I hope they inscribe "He Just Had To Make a 2+ Save, Come On" onto my tombstone.

Last night I faced off against the Void Specters, a Raven Guard successor Primaris chapter. This was a matchup that I always stumble over. I have played my pal Derek dozens of times in the last two years, and I think I've won maybe once. His army is good, no doubt, but above that he is a phenomenal general with a water-tight understanding of his army's capabilities and their weaknesses. He used to play Tau, but has since transitioned to Primaris Space Marines and has taken all of his mastery of the backfield gunline with him. At its core, his army is nearly impervious to small arms fire (he's using the successor trait that gives him cover beyond 12") and dishes out literally hundreds of low strength, AP-1 to AP-2 shots every turn. Historically, if I can get a few of my Paladins into his lines then I can cause some havoc. But there are so many shots blocking my way, God damn. So much overwatch. Fucking Aggressors.

There are only so many Terminator saves that I can make.

I've watched Derek play at the club the last month or so with the new Marines Codex. Combat Doctrines just shred infantry at all levels. I've been keeping an especially close eye on him since the release of the Raven Guard 'dex, and what I have beheld is a thing of horror. I watched him cause our local Knights player to concede at the end of turn two. I watched him tactically out-maneuver Eldar Flyer Spam, for Christ's sake. He has a lot of scary toys in his toolbox, and he leverages them to brutal effect. The single scariest toy that he's had recently is the Repulsor Executioner.

And his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. Credit: Derek Lancashire

The Executioner just deletes units. Absolutely removes them from existence. If the Space Marines player goes first, just accept that you are about to lose your favorite vehicle and move forward. This thing fires four times at S10, AP -infinity, and d6 damage minimum 3. I knew I had to take care of this tank right out of the gate. If I wanted any of my dreadnoughts or planes to survive, I had to annihilate it. Behold my army:

Yes, this is 2000 points.

The first thing you will notice is the inclusion of the Stormhawk Interceptors, which are largely considered a "bad unit." But the Executioner has the FLY keyword, and Stormhawks get +2 to hit flying units with most of their weapons. These flying boys are Executioner executioners. The rest of the list is honestly probably as competitive as I could go with my Grey Knights. GMNDK in the back there, three Venerable Dreadnoughts (2 with lascannons, 1 with double twin-autocannons), a Razorback with lascannons, BroCap as my Warlord, Paladin Ancient with the Banner of Refining Flame, Squad Darius, and my somehow-still-unfinished Paladin Death Ball on the right there.

This list hits hard. The backline of VenDread heavy weapons shoots whatever it wants through Astral Aim while the nigh-unkillable Paladin mob takes objectives and holds them until the End of Days. The GMNDK does a fantastic job of deep striking turn one with Gate of Infinity and either messing up a gunline or serving as a beautiful distraction carnifex while the rest of my army moves in. The only oddball here is the 350 points of flyers, but that was unique to this game and I knew they'd serve me well.

This is what most armies consider 2000 points to look like.

... Except he didn't bring the Executioner.

Well then. The Stormhawks were prepared to receive no bonuses to their hit rolls, and instead receive penalties when shooting at non-flying units. Oof.

On the one hand, ouch. But on the other, he didn't bring the Executioner! He went over his list, and it turns out he didn't have much in the way of anti-armor. Just an ass-ton of heavy bolter equivalents. Maybe my dreads and planes would survive this.

The battlefield.

We played Visions of Victory, which I think is a really fun mission. Every turn you generate up to 4 tactical objectives, except for each tactical objective you draw two cards and your opponent chooses one for you to keep. The other one is discarded. There's a lot of mind games and thinking involved in this mission -- more so than other Maelstrom missions, which I am usually not a fan of.

Our deployment was Hammer and Anvil. He chose sides, I deployed first, and I had the option of going first. I watched as he deployed all of his units outside of my line of sight. I pondered their effective ranges, and the fact that my boys wouldn't be able to get at them while they were buried away. I gave him first turn. Which is a controversial move, but I think it was a good one! He spent the first turn lumbering all of his shockingly fast ultra-dreadnoughts out of their hiding places.

A perfect firing lane for all my lascannons.

I was feeling pretty good about how this turned out. I successfully denied all of his psychic powers. But then he shot one of my dreadnoughts off the table with bolter fire, which was sad.

A lot of his more potent stuff was still in deep strike (Hellblasters and Aggressors, because Raven Guard just puts whatever into deep strike), so he really only took out the one dreadnought. It was a lamentable loss, but not impossible to come back from. I very purposefully chose not to reroll the final save on this dread (which was a failed 3+), because I knew that if I did then I would certainly fail again and then immediately explode as punishment for my hubris, dealing mortal wounds to my entire backline. There was no scenario where that wasn't going to happen.

On my turn I moved my Stormhawks forward and teleported my GMNDK up with them. Two things got fucked up here, though. First, I failed Sanctuary, so my Grand Master was going to get torn apart by sneaky Hellblasters later. Second, those little green guys on the right are Infiltrators and not intercessors, so I couldn't Gate within 12" of them. The rest of the board was similarly screened (other Infiltrators and a Phobos Captain), so there was no where for me to really go. I elected to place my Grand Master up on this platform to discourage charges and give my Stormhawks rerolls. Maybe they'd do something! They didn't, but I thought hey, maybe.

My Stormhawks missed everything because they were hitting on 5s against ground targets. My Razorback whiffed because Derek's Redemptors had 5+ saves against lascannons from being more than 12" away. My autocannon dread killed I think 3 Infiltrators, but they had already done what they'd wanted to do. The thing about my dreadnought gunline is that when it misses you are just suddenly done, impotent, and your opponents' units are none the worse.

Classic boy vs the new kid.

I ran my dreadnought with the CCW up into one of his +++INVICTOR TACTICAL WARSUITS+++ and crushed it with classic Astartes rage. That felt cool. But... then this guy was just sitting here and ready to be shot off the board next turn. I think it was a worthy sacrifice, though, to keep the stealth dreadnoughts from breaking my lines.

Deep striking Hellblasters, accompanied by a deep striking captain and a deep striking lieutenant.

On his turn he switched to the Tactical Doctrine and deep stroked his heavy hitters. The Raven Guard have a special ability that gives all of their units +1 to hit and +1 to wound against characters while the Tactical Doctrine is active. What this means is that those Hellblasters are overcharging without the possibility to overheat, and wounding my GMNDK on 2s. They obliterated him. I have a note in my notebook that just says "hellblasters + raven guard = :( ".

Deep striking Aggressors.

His Aggressors landed on my right flank. With their auto boltstorm gauntlets they popped my Razorback.

Then they charged my last remaining dreadnought and tore him apart with 13 power fist attacks. Oof!

I want to pause and talk about Aggressors. Someone looked at the old Aggressors datasheet and thought, "man, these guys really need a buff." Out of everything in the Marines Codex, why the Aggressors? Now they have 3 wounds, 3 attacks (with an additional 1 on the charge), and they always fire overwatch twice. That is a lot of buffs to a unit that was already good! They have T5 and regularly fire 60+ shots for a three man unit! Also they are 4 points less expensive than my basic Terminators!

/end salt

Space Marines are good now and I think that is a good thing. They were garbage tier for far too long.

At this point I looked across my board.

This was everything that was left.

Okay. On the back foot, but I could recover from this. Despite his tremendous second turn, Derek was only 2 points ahead of me. My Paladins and their accompanying characters were dropping in on my next turn and they were primed to remove some of his guys and start scoring tactical objectives.

Then we both realized something dreadful at the same time. Derek opened up Chapter Approved to check the mission rules, and I looked at my planes and immediately felt black terror because in core book missions I would have just lost. If a unit with the Flyer battlefield role is the only unit left on the field, then you count as having been tabled. Fortunately this mission is from Chapter Approved 2018 and ignores that! "GOOD THING ACCEPTABLE CASUALTIES IS A THING," I shouted.

Yikes. 

Anyway, on my turn I dropped my silver boys in and blendered almost everything that he had dared to place in my deployment zone.

Astral Aim removed his Hellblasters, smiting killed all but one of the Suppressors, and then a 10" charge removed the last one from the point he was trying to defend.

The next round was a brutal close quarters scuffle. He very wisely picked out the Paladin unit back here that knew Gate of Infinity and focused all of his fire on them; shooting with Ex Tenebrous chich is an absolute monster of a relic and ultimately charging with his characters and dropping my Paladin Squad Darius to 1 guy.

That dude's pointer finger was just chopped off.

The Paladin swung back and mulched them, but Derek used his last 2 CP to activate Only In Death Does Duty End and destroy my Paladin with his dying Captain, thus robbing me of Gate of Infinity and any mobility I might have hoped to gain.

I think it was over at that point, but I pushed forward anyway. I had Hold the Line as a tactical objective, and I thought that maybe I could kill his Aggressors and claim it. I fired 40 storm bolter shots into the Aggressors and chipped 2 wounds off of one of them.

Oh, Aggressor. Two months ago you would've been dead from that.

We charged in, lost a Paladin in overwatch, and then ripped those Aggressors apart with Nemesis Force Halberds. As it should be!

But...  he had his sneaky Lieutenant sitting in my back corner, which both of us forgot about until I went to score Hold the Line. One dude. One dude was back there! That's all that stopped me from scoring it!

The curtains seemed to be falling. We moved to his turn and he charged my Paladins with his remaining +++INVICTOR TACTICAL WARSUIT+++ and mulched 4 of my boys. At the end of his turn he scored every objective he had.

We, uh, called it after that.

New Space Marines are absolutely brutal. Bonus AP on pretty much everything almost negates the benefits of Terminator armor entirely. Their basic weapons are AP-2 while the Tactical Doctrine is active. That's like Thousand Sons kind of shooting. That's better than Thousand Sons, actually, because Intercessor bolters have a 30" range! Making it so that my TDA fails 50% of the time rather than only 16.6% of the time is a tremendous advantage. Grey Knights just don't have a way to effectively deal with mass volume fire. Watching a Redemptor's storm bolters kill a 50 point Paladin because I rolled three 2s is painful.

But honestly, I did better facing him than I thought I would have. If I'd drawn some objectives that were easier to achieve or if I'd found a spot in his backline to slay his Warlord (Chapter Master Deckard Cassiter) I think I would have had a good chance of winning. As it was there was a round where the Void Specters controlled every single point on the board, which is very hard to come back from. But it was a great game! Derek is a tremendous player and also just a fun dude to be around. Our games are always super amicable and light-hearted, even when he's crushing my knuckles with a clawhammer. 

Added bonus, there was another Grey Knights player at the club tonight!

Battle-brother in the wild!

New Terrain!

Cool new desert buildings for my desert battlefield that I am working on! I really like MDF terrain. It's super versatile. Historically, though, it's not great to paint. The laser cut wood just absorbs paint. I'm gonna try a fancy plaster technique with these to make it look like worn stone.

#hobbystreak1

Musings on Snipers

I received a request after my last battle report asking me to elaborate on a statement I made. The statement was, "I am beginning to suspect that all snipers in any faction are just absolute garbage."

I am referring, obviously, to any unit that has the capability to ignore the character screening rule. So I'm talking Vindicares, Scouts, Eldar Rangers, etc. These units typically have Heavy weapons with a rule that is very close to "on a wound roll of 6+, the target suffers a mortal wound in addition to other damage." This right here is the trap, I think. Whenever we see something say it deals mortal wounds we picture our little sniper popping heads and executing HQs all over the place. It's a super appealing prospect! Taking out a force multiplier is a great strategy. The reason why it's a trap, though, is because those sniper units so rarely actually roll 6s, and even when they do it rarely changes anything.

Let's take Eldar Rangers, for instance. Let's say they're shooting a Primaris Lieutenant. Who wouldn't want to shoot a Primaris Lieutenant? The Rangers fire 5 shots and, assuming they didn't move, are getting ~3 hits. They are wounding the Lieutenant on 4s -- let's be generous and say they wounded twice. Then the Lieutenant makes two 3+ saves. Rough math tells me that on average the Lieutenant is going to take .5 wounds from being shot at by the Rangers, which he definitely won't give a shit about. With only 3 chances to make a 6+ to wound roll from that volley, the possibility of additional mortal wounds isn't even going to make me blink. Snipers may sound scary, but anyone who actually looks at their 0 AP weapons will see that they aren't going to make your average T4 character itch.

But all that is whatever. None of this is news, and these Troops snipers are usually pretty cheap. I think a Scout Squad with snipers is like 65 points. Generally you are taking these as your Troops choices for other reasons (forward deployment, ObSec, battalions), and the possibility to make an enemy HQ hurt is just a bonus. There's a reason we see Rangers in all the top Eldar lists.

It is my opinion that dedicated sniper characters are mostly trash, and should be judged harshly by anyone with discernible taste.

I love my Vindicare. She's unique and cool and adds a dramatic touch to my Grey Knights whenever she comes along.

She is always on her phone, though.

Theoretically, her big honking sniper rifle should threaten every Character on the board. If ever I see my opponent fielding a lot of juicy backfield HQs, I always bring her. I find her a nice perch, thank her for taking the time to be here today, and then wait for her to start popping skulls. But she almost never performs, and I am always disappointed. This is for a couple reasons, but the biggest of which is that her big honking sniper rifle only gets 5 shots per game (4 if I placed her in deep strike). Yes, there's a stratagem to make her shoot twice, but if I'm already spending 2 CP just to have her show up to work I am really not eager to pay more just so that she does her job right. The Grey Knights have a really hard time generating CP in the first place! I think I can count the number of characters she's killed on one finger. She damages people from time to time, yeah, but her actual bodycount is shockingly low.

All in all, she is a semi-expensive Elite choice that rarely ever makes her points back.

My buddy who plays Harlequins says a similar thing about his Death Jesters. They have some very cool ability that seem super intimidating! Leadership reducing, bonus mortal wounds when slaying a guy... If they start killing models in a unit, then that unit is probably fucked. The problem is he is paying 45 points for 1 shot per turn. And when that shot misses, or he fails a wound roll, or I make a 2+ save because my Grey Knights are in TDA and cover, it just feels bad. Death Jesters look so rad, but, oof. I don't think I've seen them ever do anything.

Such cool models.

I played against Raven Guard successors a couple weeks ago and my opponent fielded Eliminators. I was real scared of their horrendous bolt sniper rifles, but I actually can't remember if they killed anything. The squad had 2-3 shots per turn. The ace character-killers of his list were actually his Suppressors when they jumped in and slaughtered my GMNDK. The Eliminators were just kind of... there.

Now, I probably don't have the most accurate assessment of the quality of snipers because everything I run is wearing Terminator plate. That's fair. Most sniper shots just bounce off of my guys. But I rarely actually see snipers successfully sniping, even in games that I'm just observing. Thy look rad and they read really rad, but they are largely ineffectual. Even the dreaded Sanctus in the Genestealer Cults Codex has never really done much to my army which is made up entirely of psykers. One shot per round is really rough.

All that being said, snipers do have one extreme advantage, and that is controlling where your opponent places their characters. Even though my Vindicare never kills anything she still shifts games dramatically. I set her up in a spot that views most of the board and 90% of the time my opponent will then hide their precious characters behind buildings and rocks. She influences what my opponent does, which is super valuable by itself. She's closed off entire lanes of firing before because my enemies are afraid to place their commanders in a spot where I met get lucky and roll a 6+ to wound them.

It's possible that I am entirely off base here. I'm going to keep fielding my Vindicare because I think she is really cool, but I'm not expecting her to do much.

You know, the actual request was that I do some followup science behind my statement "all snipers in any faction are just absolute garbage." I think I will start monitoring her kills each match. See if she's making rent.

vs Harlequins

Nothing wrong with having a beer while you're waiting in deep strike.

Last night I faced off against Harlequins, also known as the Rillietann to those who care about clown elf culture.

The Harlequins are a weird army! I know I said the same thing about my game against Genestealer Cults last week, but that doesn't make this any less true. The Harlequins are so, so fast. I'm very used to facing Craftworlds Eldar, who are also fast, but the speed with which Harlequins can travel the entire length of the board is unreal to me. Here I am praying for 9" charges out of deep strike and debating if I want to advance my Terminators so they can maybe move the same speed as a Tac Marine at the cost of shooting, and then there are Harlequins who have put everyone into bright pink jet skis and decided that they would rather be in my deployment zone than their own. When I have faced this army in the past I have done one of two things: hide everyone away and wait for him to have to travel into my killbox, or take first turn and shred everything of his that I can before he even gets a chance to move.

In this game I had neither option. Lore time!

[In the interest of keeping battle reports focused on the game, I will write up any fluff and lore in a separate post. If that interests you, click the link above!]

The exiled Wraith Seer Kynerath the Wanderer is cursed with visions of doom. She has seen a violent future in which the Masque of Fates Fool is destroyed by the Slaaneshi daemon Scy'slith the Devourer. The Grey Knights defeated this daemon millennia ago and bound it into a sacred book so that it may never reform itself in the Warp or the material plane again. We stored this book in the sepulchers of the Dead Fields on Titan, amidst thousands of other tainted relics that are constantly guarded by the most pure and potent psykers that Mankind has to offer. But according to Kynerath the Pale Wraith, the Grey Knights will fail in their containment. The only recourse that she sees is to storm Titan itself and release Scy'slith from his prison and slay him once and for all.

Look at how absolutely gorgeous this model is. My buddy Matt is incredibly talented.

Obviously there are massive stupid problems with this plan, so Grand Master Simandus will do everything in his power to stop the Harlequins from breaching the Grey Knights line.

We prepared for a game of Stronghold Assault from the core rulebook. As the defender, I am afforded two Buildings (we used Imperial Bunkers) and I am tasked with defending them at all costs. The Harlequins seek to destroy these defenses and scatter my forces. At the end of the battle we each gain a point for every unit we kill. He gets 3 points for each bunker he destroys, and I get 3 points for each bunker that stands. Pretty straightforward!

The battlefield.

For my forces I chose fun options to defend the walls of the Dead Fields of Titan. I wanted to fill out a Stronghold Defender detachment so I brought two Terminator squads as well as Simandus and my unpainted, unnamed Brother-Captain. I almost brought my two Stormhawk Interceptors because they are exceptional against all units with FLY and that is pretty much everything in the Harlequin codex, but I opted against that because I thought a ground force would be more thematic. I brought two Dreadknights and a Land Raider because I think they look cool and I completely forgot that Haywire Cannons exist.

Lots of TDA, and requisite Deimos Rusty 17.

My opponent brought an absolute fuckton of bikes and Harlequin Venoms, which are actually not called that and in fact called Starweavers because why not. He had four squads of Players (which are Troops that are called Troupes, because theatre), each of which had four Fusion Pistols. He threw these Troupes into his Starweavers, which are open topped. So those were going to hurt a lot.

He also brought a very bothersome number of characters that really made my Grey Knights wish they had requisitioned a Vindicare Assassin, but she is still on time-out from last game. He had two Troupe Masters, two Shadowseers, two Death Jesters, and one great white nightmare known as a Solitaire. The Solitaire has 8 attacks base.

Very interestingly, he also brought a Craftworlds Wraith Seer and a Wraith Lord seen in the back there. The Wraith Seer is Kynerath the Wanderer, the one who received the grim portent about the Slaaneshi daemon breaking his containment. Alongside her is her lover Lord Kaldros, who was once a Howling Banshee Exarch and now lives (dies?) on as a Wraith Lord. [Aside: I didn't capture a pic of Lord Kaldros, but he is amazing. He is a Wraith Lord done up with Banshee dreadlocks and crouching atop a pillar. It is such a cool conversion and Matt is crazy talented, which you will hear me say a lot.]

We went over Warlord Traits and Relics and whatnot and then were ready to begin. I briefly toyed with the idea of giving Simandus a Warlord Trait other than First to the Fray since most of this battle was going to be very up close and I might not need to reroll charges, but all of the other Grey Knights Warlord Traits are so bad and I couldn't bring myself to do it. Seriously, "Friendly GREY KNIGHTS units that are within 6" of your Warlord automatically pass Moral tests." Why? Why does this exist?

Piling up around the defensive lines. That Dreadknight is pretty sure he is fucked, but maybe he will slow them down.

The first turn went pretty much like I should've expected it to, but I forgot about Haywire Cannons and also just how brutally fast Harlequins are. I lost my Land Raider and a Dreadknight during his first turn.

Whoops!

The Haywire Cannons are 1d6 shots per bike, which meant 6d6 shots coming at just my Land Raider. On wound rolls of 4+, the Haywire Cannon does a straight mortal wound, and on a 6+ it deals 1d3 mortal wounds. He rolled hot and dealt 17 mortal wounds to my Land Raider. I opted to use the Armor of Contempt stratagem on the LR (which lets me ignore mortal wounds on a 5+) and promptly failed all but one save. So the Land Raider took 16 wounds and died. I debated spending a CP to reroll one of them, but it was a 1/3rd chance to succeed and a LR on 1 wound wasn't going to do much anyway. The Dreadknight on the right died in a similar manner, and the Dreadknight on the left was reduced to 3 wounds by Fusion Pistols from that Starweaver there.

On my turn I maneuvered some of my guys around, but honestly there wasn't much for us to do. All of the Harlequins were already up in our range so we just needed to charge/smite/shoot them. I got off a few smites and Hammerhand on a squad of Terminators. The Banner of Refining Flame blasted apart one of the Starweavers and scattered its contents across the surface of Titan. He placed the disgorged Troupe Master and Players behind that Starweaver on the right in the picture above. I saw this as a prime opportunity; my surviving Dreadknight (the one on the left) knew Vortex of Doom, and Matt had just placed his Warlord and elite Fusion Pistol-sporting infantry within Vortex range.

The Dreadknight was in the range of the blast himself, though. But he had 3 wounds left and I figured it was worth the risk. Vortex went off. I rolled damage for his units first and got 1 for each of them. When I rolled for my Dreadknight, he took 3 damage and died in shame. So, yeah. Cool beans.

Then there was this squad of Terminators right here. I risked overwatch and charged both Starweavers, knowing that I had Hammerhand and would be wounding them with my halberds on 3s. My intent was to wrap and destroy the first, spill out its contents, and then spend 3 CP to fight again and kill the second one. But my boys failed to even damage the first one. 4++ invulns on vehicles! It's real annoying! In an act of brazen rage, I spent 3 CP to fight again anyway, and ended up killing the first Starweaver. This dropped me to 0 CP on turn one--which was not a strong strategic choice.

Ouch.

He spent his next turn mopping up my Terminators, Paladins, and a few characters. I had one Paladin in the center of the battlefield who tanked shuriken shots from almost his entire army, but other than that people started to drop like flies. And there aren't a whole lot of us!

Those wounds are not allocated to the Solitaire, but are left over from the bunker that he just hacked apart.

This Paladin challenged his Warlord to martial combat, but Cernunnos deemed him an unworthy foe and flipped away to kill my Brotherhood Champion.

I had a few choice plays and slew his Solitaire and ultimately his Warlord, but he left my backline in ruins. On my second turn I went to deep strike Grand Master Simandus and Paladin Squad Darius, but his complete occupation of my defenses meant there was no where for Simandus to insert himself. Instead the Grand Master teleported onto the bare plains of the Dead Fields. His rage was palpable, however, and both he and his guardians made 11" charges to engage and slaughter the Shadowseer that had been smiting my troops.

In this spot a moment ago there stood an Aeldari witch.

At this point I was pretty sure that everything was lost. This mission unfortunately doesn't offer much in the way of defensive options for the person who is trying to hold the line, so a few Bright Lances and a barrage of Fusion Pistols just annihilated my bunkers. This mission is from the core rules written all the way back at the beginning of 8th, so it might just be that it wasn't quite playtested properly since they couldn't predict how destructive future codices would be.

In any case, Simandus had failed to defend the walls to the sepulcher that held the contained daemon. Nothing he did now could stop the Harlequins from releasing the monster that so many of his brothers had died to imprison. If nothing else, he would make sure that the treacherous Wraith Seer Kynerath would pay for this trespass.

Kynerath found him on the battlefield, sensing some portent of doom surrounding the Grand Master. Her giant fuck-off glaive blasted one of squad Darius into elemental ash, but Simandus stood undeterred. He would make her suffer for all the damage that her predictions had inflicted upon his sacred world.

The two traded blows for a couple turns, but neither of them fell. T8 is really tough to crack when your weapons are S4, and Simandus was rocking a 3++ invuln. The two psykers dropped each other to 3 wounds. The battle ended there with my opponent running away with the victory. The daemon Scy'slith was about to be released, and Simandus had to return to the Citadel to defend his monastery from whatever horror was about to be unleashed upon it. But he made sure to leave the Pale Wraith with a scar across her impenetrable wraithbone frame, and he swore that some day he would return to her seeking vengeance.

The game was fun, but it was decided very quick. The Harlequins' speed and destructive capabilities more than made up for their squishy T3 elf bodies and their coin flip saves. I really do enjoy playing against Matt's Harlies. Both of our armies hit like trucks when we get them where they want to be, and both of them fall apart under the slightest opposition. Our matches are always decided in two or three big blows.

One last note: the Death Jesters are very cool, but Matt says that they rarely ever do anything. They fired a couple shots at some Terminators and then snuck off to hide in some ruins. I am beginning to suspect that all snipers in any faction are just absolute garbage.

Lore: A Blade in the Back

Simandus felt the unshakable vigilance of the two Paladins before he saw them. He felt their sternness, their devotion, and their cold readiness to kill. More than anything else, however, he sensed their rage. It burned within them, kept boiling through hate and faith, and yet never did it boil over. Their rage was a furnace that fueled their commitment to defending the Augurium from all comers at all hours of the day. Simandus knew that they could sense his approach, as well. If any other being—even a fully-blooded Grey Knight battle-brother—dared to push past the Paladins and enter the Augurium without express permission, they would be cut down with burning blades before they were even aware of their transgression.

But Simandus was the Grand Master of the Exactors. He was the greatest psyker and swordsman of the Seventh Brotherhood, with seven-hundred years of service to his Chapter displayed proudly in the heraldry on his encranche. The Paladins did not budge as he rounded the corner, and remained still and stalwart as he strode past the them and into the mirrored chamber beyond.

The old Astartes within the Augurium turned as Simandus thundered across the crystalline floor in his Terminator plate. The dweller within was ancient, his face carved from granite and his hair running in white but still thick strands across the back of his head and over the snaking cables that connected to the base of his skull. He wore no power armor, only a heavy white robe trimmed with red.

The Astartes nodded. “Grand Master Simandus. It pleases me to see you. You arrived with great haste.”

Simandus stopped a pace from the other Astartes. He briefly regarded the scrolls and chunks of runic stone that hovered in the air around the old Space Marine’s head.

“One does not drag one’s feet when one is directly summoned by a Prognosticar, Genzedes.”

Genzedes smiled, the corners of his mouth distorting his craggy features like tectonic movement.

“Even so, your attentiveness is much appreciated. Punctuality has always been one of your greatest strengths.”

“Prognosticar, I apologize for speaking out of turn, but the nature of your summons implied that we do not have time for cordial platitudes.”

“And there is your other strength—your eagerness to serve. You are quite correct, Simandus. There is no time to waste. Titan itself is under the threat of imminent attack.”

Simandus blinked. His first thought was to ask Genzedes if he was certain of this prediction, but to question the veracity of a Prognosticar’s warning was an unimaginable insult. Instead he breathed in once and clenched his fist.

“By whom?”

“The Rillietann. A strike force that will appear out of a webway portal in the Dead Fields.”

Simandus felt his denial coming as he asked it. He couldn’t help himself. “That cannot be. We have an armistice with the Aeldari.”

Genzedes seemed not to take offense, but Simandus could feel the red pulse of disappointment from the Prognosticar’s psyche.

“We have agreed to terms with the Craftworld of Slait’annan,” Genzedes said. “But the Aeldari are not united as Man is. They are fractured, splintered. Their goals overlap but their methods contradict. The Harlequins who prepare for an assault on our world are likely ignorant of your relationship with the crone-rider Achilraen.”

Simandus felt himself flare up at that. He knew that his brothers did not approve of the methods he had used to cleanse Amissa Gloria from the taint of Chaos, but an alliance with xenos was infinitely preferable to the loss of a hive world of such importance. His was not a ‘relationship’ with the Autarch of Slai’tannan—it was a temporary peace in pursuit of a greater good.

He pushed his thoughts aside. “Why do they come here?”

“The heart of the matter, that is. They seek to penetrate the tombs of the Dead Fields and release Scy’slith the Devourer from his millennia prison.”

“What?”

“They believe that our containment is fallible, that we are unfit to secure such a dangerous foe within our vaults.”

“That is absurd. The Aeldari know the horror of the Archenemy intimately, more so than any other people. They can’t truly believe that releasing a daemon of Slaanesh will—I don’t understand, what do they hope to achieve?”

“I do not know,” Genzedes said, shaking his head. “But they will arrive at dawn. The other Grand Masters are spread thin across the galaxy. You must stop them, Simandus. At all costs.”

Azure lightning crackled around Simandus’ gauntlets. “How dare they doubt us. We are unbreakable. They’re the ones who spawned the damned thing int he first place.”

“Control your rage, Simandus. Harness it. Wield it as your sword, but do not let it consume you. Fight them back with your hatred.”

Simandus stood tall. He breathed in once, thought of the Paladins and their flawless mastery of their anger.

“I will be the wall against which the Harlequins break. None shall breach our lines.”

“We are depending on you, Grand Master Simandus.”

“I will not fail. You have my word, Prognosticar.”