Chaos vs Space Wolves, 2017.09.23

Lists:

Chaos Daemons: 

• Battalion Detachment +3 CP
• Daemon Prince of Nurgle (CD), wings, double malefic talons
• Be'lakor
• 30-man Plaguebearers, icon, instrument
• 3-man Nurglings
• 10-man Brimstone Horrors
• Supreme Command Detachment: Legion Word Bearers +1 CP
• Chaos Lord: jump pack, combi plasma, warlord: The voice of Lorgar
• Sorcerer: jump pack, force staff, combi plasma, Mark of Tzeentch, relic: Eye of Tzeentch
• Daemon Prince of Nurgle, wings, daemonic axe
• 8-man Chaos Terminators, combi plasmas, power fists, Mark of Slaanesh

Space Wolves: Patrol Detachment

• Wolf Lord in Terminator armor, Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield, warlord
• Njal in runic Terminator armor
• Lukas the Trickster
• 9-man Blood Claws, flamer, combi-flamer
• 12-man Skyclaws, 2 Thunder Hammers
• 5-man Grey Hunters
• 5-man Wulfen, 3 hammers, 2 claws
• Razorback, assault cannon
• Stormwolf
• Stormfang
• Drop Pod

Mission: 

We didn't have the ETC mission board on hand, so we rolled for regular maelstrom and got Spoils of War.



The Wulfen deployed inside the gunship and the Grey Hunters inside the Razorback (the card box), so I naturally went second. Everything else is in reserve, with Lukas and the Blood Claws in the Drop Pod.

Horrors intended to hold the objective, Daemon Princes bubblewrapped by Plaguebearers. Nurglings in the upper right ruin. Word Bearers in reserve.

Space Wolves, turn 1

Grey Hunters debark to defend the middle objective. Wulfen debark into the ruin with the turn counter. Wolf Lord and Njal land in between everybody to provide rerolls and psychic powers. Gunships do not move.

Everything unloaded into the Plaguebearers, killing 13. I autopassed morale.

Chaos, turn 1

I advanced my Nurgle blob, but the Princes couldn't get within reasonable charge range. 

Word Bearer contingent lands in the back of the conveniently not-hard-to-hit gunships.

I just Smited the Grey Hunters to pulp to deny the points. Too bad I did not give my guys warp bolters for extra shots.

I got off Warptime, but not Prescience due to Njal being an excellent denier of psychics. Nevertheless I did not relent, and supercharged my plasmas all the way. With Endless Cacophony, I managed to destroy one gunship and hurt the other. I then charged into the gunship and Njal, but failed to hurt them.

Space Wolves, turn 2

Gunship moves back to murder my characters. All the reinforcements come in.

We later realized the mistake. We measured carefully the 9 inches from the daemons, but not the Terminators. Of course this was after the shooting phase, so instead of redoing everything, we decided that the reinforcements were not allowed to charge the Terminators.

In the shooting phase, the reinforcements unloaded into the Terminators and Plaguebearers. Then they charged in. Luckily the drop pod-ed Blood Claws failed, but the Skyclaws, Lukas and the Wulfen got stuck in.

The gunship murdered my Sorcerer, but could not hurt the Lord due to positioning. As for the close combat, the Skyclaws killed the Plaguebearers, then consolidated into Be'lakor. The Wulfen layed in but I rolled saves well. Still, Be'lakor was down to 3 wounds. On the return strike, Be'lakor killed a lot of Skyclaws who then failed their morale miserably due to Be'lakor and Lukas and ran away. The other 2 Daemon Princes chopped the Wulfen, but again saves were made, and the both of them combined inflicted only 1 wound.

In the middle, the Wolf Lord charged the Terminators and left only the champion alive.

Chaos, turn 2

The Princes, being unable to move, summoned some Heralds in the ruins behind them for smiting purposes.

In a very successful psychic phase, I managed to smite the Wulfen to death. Lukas got away from Gift of Chaos, though. Then the Wulfen's death attacks managed to kill Be'lakor. I think the remaining Wulfen finally died in the combat phase.

The Chaos Lord summoned in 20 Bloodletters with Dark Pact.

I tried to get out of my deployment zone for the Advance objective, but the last Daemon Prince was locked in combat just a hair's breadth within.

Space Wolves, turn 3

The infantry turned their attention to the summoned Bloodletters, while the gunship zoomed ahead to kill some Daemon Princes.

This part of the shooting phase was very successful.

However, the gunship rolled miserably (and I made a ridiculous amount of saves), failing to even hurt the Daemon Prince. When I did a Heroic Intervention to the gunship, my opponent conceded.

I wasn't terribly convinced that I won - we were equal in points and both sustained heavy losses. However, if I did manage to kill the gunship in the fight phase, both Princes would have been free to assault the remaining infantry (with Bloodletter help if they did not all run away), the Chaos Lord could have summoned more, etc.

Aftermath

Not as crushing a victory as against the Blood Angels, but still a victory. It highlighted some of the ups and downs of my army.

Enhancing the Terminators with Mark of Slaanesh and getting out a double hail of plasma was a huge improvement. However, that shooting also highlighted just how dependent on psychics that part of the army is. Without Prescience, a Terminator died to supercharging and I did considerably less damage than expected.

Switching a Daemon Prince to Be'lakor was also huge, giving me the possibility to summon whatever I wanted in the backfield too, not just daemons of Nurgle.

Dropping the Herald and Cultists did not provide a huge benefit. The decreased number of drops did not help in this case - and again, I am prepared to go second each time. However, I had more points for summoning, and thus increased versatility.