Word Bearers vs Thousand Sons, 03.05.2023

The final training game before the Warhammer weekend, facing Magnus and a LOT of Rubric marines.

Battle round 1

I took first turn and surged forwards, taking the 3 middle objectives and putting up 3 banners. Yes, I completely gave on the Chaos Marines secondaries. They aren't worth the time I put in considering whether to take them.

Anyway, I shot at Magnus, did 7 wounds, end of turn.

For the Thousand Sons, two Helbrutes sneaked out from behind the big ruins and shot at my smokescreened Land Raider, doing 2 wounds.

The far better play was teleporting 10 Scarab Occult Terminators on the flank and shooting my Possessed. Thank the gods for Illusory Supplication.

Word Bearers, turn 2

Reshuffle the back ranks.

Tokyo drift the Rhino over, but miss the melta shot. I will never, ever replicate that moment again when the melta scored two hits and crippled an Armiger.

Line up the Possessed, Apostle and Daemon Prince on the Scarab Occult.

At least this went well, two termies survived due to expert casualty pulling.

Thousand Sons, turn 2

Moving things up the field.

Ganging stuff up on my melee conglomerate. Magnus went into the Land Raider and killed it in one swing. The termies teleported away from my apostle (boo! hiss!), and I instead got charged by a Daemon Prince and a Helbrute. All my CPs went into keeping the Apostle alive.

Oh and the other Helbrute charged and killed my Rhino. RIP.

Word Bearers, turn 3

Terminators came in from deep strike (I forgot about them last turn). They shot at Magnus, missing both meltas, then failed their charge. About what I expected.

Chosen and Master of Possession went into Magnus, but did far worse than expected.

Not to mention the complete whiff-fest here. I couldn't kill anything.

At least I smote down the Helbrute. Then nothing else. The flamers failed miserably against 3+ saves.

Just a couple of wounds off Magnus.

Thousand Sons, turn 3

I lost most of my stuff, including the Chosen, the Master of Possesssion, the Rubrics, and the Apostle.

Word Bearers, turn 4

The Terminators finally did something, by charging into Magnus and taking off his last wound. The Accursed Cultists, bless their hearts, also killed the last two Scarab Occult Terminators who had teleported in my back lines.

The Daemon Prince killed his counterpart, with the last surviving furry pulling up a banner on this objective.

I had the bikers shoot and charge this small unit of Rubrics, but 2+ saves.

Thousand Sons, turn 4

Good bye bikers and terminators.

Battle round 5

I looked over secondaries and decided there's nothing to loose, so I sent in the Daemon Prince to kill some more Rubrics for No Prisoners. The Thousand Sons did not even bother to kill him, instead backing off and doing their actions.

Aftermath

The glorious scoreboard is a bit wrong, the final score was actually 74-61 for the Thousand Sons (including painted bonus for me). That's only a 23 point difference discounting the painted bonus, which is I think the best loss I ever took with this list.

I've faced the Thousand Sons for the first time ever, and I like their style. Magnus does a lot, but I see him dying a lot faster against anything with actual shooting. He denied all my psychic powers for the entire game, except one single Pact of Flesh where I used the Malevolent Covenant.

Going forward, I think my list does great against melee armies, but flounders against anything else. At least I could play against the allegedly worst codex and not get tabled. Obviously the list is toned down with the Land Raider and Terminators, but such is life, event list restrictions, and cool factor. Secondaries are a big pain, and I don't understand why the rules writers hate the Chaos Marines so much. Let's not pick any of their crap anymore when fighting for... THE GLORY OF LORGAR!