Got together with a mate at club day last week for a bash with my Red Corsairs Vs Dan's LATD horde.
This is my Marine List
Incompertus, 3000 POINTS
Red Corsairs (3.4)
==================================================
RENEGADE WARBAND [375]
8 Chaos Space Marine units, Chaos Warlord, Chaos Hunter
RENEGADE WARBAND [325]
Chaos Lord, 4 Chaos Space Marine units, 4 Khorne Berzerker units
RENEGADE WARBAND [275]
8 Chaos Space Marine units, Sorceror Lord
TERMINATOR RETINUE [275]
Chaos Lord, 4 Terminator unit
CHAOS THUNDERHAWK [200]
1 Chaos Thunderhawk Gunship
CHAOS THUNDERHAWK [200]
1 Chaos Thunderhawk Gunship
BLOOD SLAUGHTERER PACK [225]
5 Blood Slaughterers
BLOOD SLAUGHTERER PACK [225]
5 Blood Slaughterers
CHOSEN [200]
6 Chaos Space Marine Units - all have the Scout ability
TWO HELL TALON FIGHTER-BOMBERS [225]
TWO HELL TALON FIGHTER-BOMBERS [225]
ARMOURED COMPANY [250]
4 Chaos Predator, Chaos Hunter
And Here's Dans LATD list (TBA)
First thoughts from my mind was how hard it was going to be to crack the LATD horde. My Marines rely a heap on solid engagements, I tend to either teleport termies in or put them in the Thunderhawk with the other filled by a marine unit with Khorne troopers. Given how much of a punch the Cultist units can pack given their size/numbers and a healthy dose of big mutants this was going to be tricky. There was also a decent amount of ground based AA, bombers in the sky and support from the titans.
My Chaos marine forces
Initial setup with chaos marines spread from one side to the other and a horde of cultists in 3 giant blocks of awesomeness.
Turn 1
Chaos termies stay in reserve but a plague zombie infestation pops up with 15 bases thanks to Dans roll of 11 on two dice! Bad start
Followed by another lot of 15 thanks to another roll of 11... Woot?
Luckily marines go first. Blood slaughterers are chomping for some zombie dinner.
Blood slaughters engage and kill 12 zombies.
Cultist doomwings fail to go on cap
Marine blood slaughters attempt to take out the other zombie unit but only kill 7 losing one in the process. Zombies fall back into the centre woods.
Cultist hellfires use the sup com to sustain on the marines who garrisoned killing 2
Marine scouts advance to chase down the zombies.
Cultist fire lords bomb the garrisoned marines but kill nothing
Garrisoned marines rally off the blasties.
Cultist subjugator titan advances and drops battle canon rounds on the scouts who shrug it off.
Marine bombers hit the coven on my left flank and kill some transports and cultists
Cultists Marshall the coven after summoning a keeper of secrets...
Marine predators double to shoot the subjugator titan but miss with everything.
Cultist bts coven doubles forward putting a blastie on the scouts
Marine bombers bomb bts coven killing a few
Cultist coven on my RHS summons daemons and advances on the double.
Marine bts warband doubles up and puts a blastie on the subjugator.
Marine thunderhawk breaks subjugator Titan with its battle cannon
Cultist questor titan advances and sprays the scouts. Killing 2 and breaking them
Marine thunderhawk drops berserkers into the face of the bts coven
Helltallon bomber get shot down by flak as it leaves as does a fire lord
Marine scouts rally as does the cultist bts and zombies in the middle and the subjugator
End of Turn 1 - the BTS cultist unit in the middle has taken a beating but the two flanks are still solid at this point. Marines in the middle are the unit that came out of the thunderhawk.
Turn 2
Chaos marines win initiative
Marine thunderhawk preps the coven on my RHS
Marine blood slaughters retain and engage the coven killing 8, losing 2 but winning combat and breaking them.
Cultist hellfire cannons advance and kill 1predator
Marine predators Marshall and put a blastie on the castigator
Cultist questor titan sustains on the berserker warband and kills 2
Marine berserker warband rallies off blasties (failed Marshall)
Cultist BTS coven summons 8 daemonettes and engages FF blood slaughterers killing 1 and breaking them
Marine scouts fail to activate and clear blasties
Cultist fighters go on cap
Marine helltallon bomber drops a bomb on the castigator shooting down an interceptor on the way in. Takes off two shields and breaks him
Cultist fire lord bomber fails to activate.
Marine blood slaughteres engage the plague zombies in the middle and break them, killing a few more
Cultist coven engages FF blood slaughters killing one and breaking them
Maine BTS doubles and shoots to put blasties on the left most coven
Marine warband on left (silver) engages same coven losing 4 marines but breaking the unit after 2 rounds. Only 1 marine walks away!
Marine bombers fail to activate
Marine thunderhawk attacks broken coven on my RHS killing two
All flyers leave safely. One blood slaugherers rally as does the lone marine
Everything cultist rallied except coven on my left and plague zombies.
Double thunderhawks have broken the cultist unit on the RHS after the blood slaughters did a chunk of damage, but were broken in the attempt from casualties. Doube marine formations on the left managed to beat up the other cultist coven but the engaging unit was reduced to a single base in the attempt despite support fire from a full unit of marines and a couple of predators. Scouts are sitting on the back edge scratching themselves... Only cultist units in one piece at this stage are the two titans and a unit of cannons up the back that were about to get terminated if we did turn 3.
Game called at end of turn 2 with an agreement of 2-1 to marines.
Overall that was a really close game. I felt that both sides were really balanced and every engagement was really close. Chaos marines came out ahead of all the major engagments but in every case it was a matter of timing and positioning. Those big mutants are a super awesome addition to the cultist units having a macro attack each and ultimately I had to prep every unit and try hard to take out those guys to open up a window to engage.
The unit that always gets the most attention when I bring out the corsairs is the blood slaughters. On paper they are fantastic value and they did pretty well in this game. I think this highlighted both their strengths and weaknesses. Both units slaughtered a unit of plague zombies which are so unbelievably annoying if you don’t have a unit to deal with them. The unit on my right managed to take a huge bite out of one of the covens but that was largely due to prep and positioning to make sure that the macro hits from the big mutants would kill me in return. By the same token them having zero FF capacity meant that unit in the middle was taken out of the game pretty easily with a clipping assault. Combined with 2+ activate and no leaders to clear that last blast marker they become a unit that will slaughter the unwary but struggle against someone who knows what they are doing.
My read on the LATD is similar. Big mutants would be the unit that drew most of my attention this game and being able to basically drop unlimited ogryns into a unit is really daunting when you’re army relies on engagement (ideally BC engage) like my marines did this game. That said I think they are a fair unit for the points and it comes down to prepping them suitably. I didn’t forget to drop my termies but I couldn’t find a spot that they would do much before being broken by shooting or just splattered by those macro hits.
I think this was a good example of a solid LATD list and I’m yet to see anyone abuse it.
