This week I brought my Exorcists to bear against a wicked (and I mean wicked) Night Lords warband.
Once again I played an outdoors game in the spirit of complying with social distancing and keeping my home plague-free. Another buddy of mine came by and we threw some dice, drank some beer, and explained confidently to passing pedestrians that we were indeed grown men playing with plastic army men.
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| My force. |
Last week I brought some tanks and my Xiphon, but I didn't get to see them do anything because Harlequins. So for this game I brought a similar list, with a few changes. My most contentious piece in this matchup was my Chaplain Venerable Dreadnought, but he was not equipped with lascannons and I had no intent to sit him in the backline and blow up tanks with impunity. He was equipped with two snippy hands and eager to rip some heretics apart. I made him my Warlord and gave him The Imperium's Sword. His name is Sanctiarch Esarhaddon.
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| Night Lords HQs. |
My opponent brought a whole cadre of Night Lords whose leader had succumbed to the temptations of Slaanesh. Every base was drenched in blood, and every character was adorned with skulls and skin. Needless to say, I was super excited to destroy them. It is so great to fight against genuine villains.
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| The battlefield. |
We elected to play an Eternal War mission, specifically the one where at the beginning of each battle round you remove the objective marker with the corresponding number. This meant the tide of the game would be predictable and we could plan in advance. Eternal war is nice sometimes! Taking away the randomness of Maelstrom can help with strategy.
The Night Lords had little in the way of long range fire (excepting the Hellforged Sicaran and the Deredeo, but even they had only 36" range) and I knew that he craved melee combat and was just going to rush up the board to grab the objective in the center, so I let him have first turn. The way I saw it, this would allow me to dictate when we engaged in hand-to-hand combat.
My Space Marines bunkered down in a blown out building, being careful to remain out of sight and in cover from the Night Lords' artillery. I placed an Infiltrator squad in two separate ruins to try and limit the space for my opponent's deep-striking Raptors.
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| Game time is great time. |
In classic CSM fashion, he ran his Heldrake up the board and spat fire on my guys. He cast Delightful Agonies on the Heldrake, giving it a 5+ FNP. To my surprise, though, he didn't charge. He didn't charge! I thought this was a mistake on his part, but then my first turn started and I realized that he had placed a dragon-shaped road bump in my path and I couldn't squeeze around it. If he had charged then my Dreadnoughts would have slaughtered his Heldrake before my turn even started, possibly even gaining some ground with consolidation moves. But by not charging he was forcing my hand on my turn. His Daemonettes had moved on to the center objective, and now I couldn't engage them. Canny!
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| A Dark Apostle and his Dark Disciples. |
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| A Heldrake breaching the fortress. |
I didn't want to spend all of my guns on the Heldrake, so I elected to shoot past it and destroy it in the fight phase, and just accept that I was slowed.
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| Xiphon moving out to hunt tanks. |
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| Night Lords line advancing. |
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| Hellblasters coming to blast at hell. |
My Xiphon, Predator, and Hellblasters took shots at his armor, succeeding in reducing both the Deredeo and Sicaran to 3 or 4 wounds but killing neither.
My Dreadnoughts, Intercessors, and Company Champion all charged the Heldrake, eager to bring it down.
Infuriatingly, it made a shocking number of FNPs and survived on one wound at the end of my fight phase. This is the first time I have ever seen a Heldrake survive an entire turn One. It fought back and reduced my Company Champ to 2 wounds.
The Night Lords had successfully kept me off the center objective, so they held more than me and scored more. Round One ended with the Night Lords in a significant lead.
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| Daemon Princess moving in. |
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| Deep striking Raptors. |
On his turn he made some exceptional charges utilizing Slaanesh psychic powers and abilities.
The Raptors can charge without provoking overwatch, and so tagged my Dreadnought Brother Serebot who had been eyeballing the Daemonettes with his triple heavy flamers. Once he was sufficiently distracted, the Daemonettes weaved through the ruined church and surrounded my Hellblasters, my Captain, and the remorseful Brother Serebot.
The fight phase was quick and brutal. All my Hellblasters and my Captain had once again been slain without doing much of anything!
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| On the plus side, we finally killed that goddamn Heldrake. |
With that obstacle out of the way, Sanctiarch Esarhaddon charged forward, screaming litanies and thirsty for heretic blood.
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| Esarhaddon and the Company Champion charge the Night Lords leadership. |
My Xiphon Interceptor paid for his points this game. In my second turn, he popped the Deredeo and the Sicaran, and both of them exploded. This was incredibly fortunate for me, and a severe blow to the heretics. If I remember correctly, a squad of Night Lords died to each explosion.
Going in to Round Three, I'd killed off a lot of his forces, and Iwas catching up on points fast.
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| Some more Space Marines trying and failing to tear the Daemonettes off of Brother Serebot. |
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| My Lieutenant charges Thavor the Soul Eater. |
Sanctiarch Esarhaddon managed to kill a squad of Chaos Space Marines and a Master of Executions, but was ultimately cut down by the Exalted Champion Malithos. However, in his dying rage (and utilizing Only In Death Does Duty End) Esarhaddon took Malithos screaming into the Warp with him. The Sanctiarch did his job, and died drenched in the blood of traitors.
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| "Fucking Wave Serpents." |
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| "Why does this one look familiar?" "It's Cultist-Chan." "Oh! From the memes?" "Yeah, from the memes." |
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| "Time to die, meme." |
In the end, I caught up on points and wiped out the majority of his forces, leaving him with nothing more than his Daemon Princess and a single squad of Night Lords. We called it after turn four knowing that there was no way for him to catch up once his psykers and troops had all died.
We had a great time. His warband was absolutely brutal in close combat, but ultimately they just didn't have the survivability needed to stand up to Primaris Marines. His 10-man Raptor squad tore through anything it touched. The Heldrake was probably one of his most clutch units, which I never thought I'd say, and his early success was definitely owed to it slowing down all my Dreadnoughts and troops.
I am enjoying playing outside, enjoying the sun and staying healthy. But, man, I am not liking cleanup afterwards. It's been two days since this game and my Space Marines are still sitting in the back of my car just because I don't want to go downstairs and get them.
Next week, I will be facing Thousand Sons once more, and taking my Grey Knights out for the first time since quarantine!
