PLAYTEST NETEA EMPEROR’S CHILDREN 4.0X VS CODEX SM


Playtest 4 of the EC. I took the same list as previous

Emperor’s Children 4.0x, 2995 points:
1. Retinue, Warlord, Rhinos, Stalker, pact 380 pts.
2. Retinue, rhinos, stalker, pact, 330 pts
3. Retinue, rhinos, stalker, pact, 330 pts
4. Terminators x5, pact, 335 pts
5. Hell knights (6) 450 pts
6. Hell Talons 225 pts
7. Noise Marines x8 320
8. Chaos Thunderhawk 200
9. Retinue, rhinos, champion of Slaanesh, pact, 330
Daemon pool: 8 lesser daemons, 1 Keeper of Secrets

Dave took codex marines centered around a warlord.
Warlord Titan
Thunderhawk
Thunderhawk
Assault+chaplain
Tactical+dreadnought
Tactical+supreme commander+rhinos+hunter
Predators+2 vindicators
Devastators+rhinos
Scouts+rhinos
Dave priced the warlord at 850, so was 25pts short for the moral victory. Dave, could you post any corrections to that please?

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

Turn 1

Strategy: EC



Whoah!!! Dave took a Warlord?!? He never does that!



Heltalons ominously go on CAP (how’s that for foreshadowing?)


SM tactical doubles and takes out a stalker.



EC retinue doubles to lay a BM on the tactical



Predators double and take out a CSM stand on same retinue


Retinue doubles and takes out a pred


Devastators double and lays a BM on the newly arrived retinue


Retinue with a champion doubles and lays a BM on the devs


Big Blue an’ Nasty, concerned by the retinue’s lack of physical fitness, helpfully doubles and relieves them of their armored transport and stalker, and makes them run two moves by breaking them


On a retain, the SM bring in a T-hawk loaded with a tactical plus dreadnought to assault the retinue with the champion. The Heltalons CAP the T-hawk, dodge the hunter shot, and achieve two hits, one of which was not saved. Right after the EC player tenderly whispers to his dice “I love you”, he rolls a ‘6’ and the T-hawk crits. Heltalons earn a gold star in spectacular fashion



The EC warlord’s retinue doubles up and lays a BM, ignoring the blasted rhino carcasses belonging to the previous occupants


SM Scouts double and lay a BM


Snowflake delivers his payload of noise marines in an assault on the Devs (with Big Blue and Nasty around the SC tactical would have been too dangerous)


The devs are destroyed/hacked down for the loss of two noise marines


The other SM t-hawk with assault marines and a chaplain pick on the helpless broken retinue. Clipping a broken retinue… is there anything lower? I don’t think so.


…Poof! The results are predictable.


The knights double up and hide from Big Blue and Nasty


Aircraft leave the table with a BM. Snowflake loses a DC to a parting hunter shot



EC Terminators Teleport in to some woods in the SM rear.

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

Turn 2





Strategy: SM (EC rolls a 1 and loses 3 daemons. Points well spent, that’s what that was)

Warlord Big Blue an’ Nasty doubles again and unloads on another retinue, which makes all of its saves, suffering 1 BM


The SC must be a crazy man, because on a retain he takes his tactical into an oh-so-risky engagement on a retinue with only a battle titan in support. That took some balls, let me tell you


Results of this one also predictable. Retinue goes poof, inflicting three casualties on the tactical


Scared of the warlord titan (he can basically support every SM FM on the board at this point) the terminators sustain on the preds, getting a vindicator with their noisy crossfire


A retinue advances on a retain and takes out a scout


The preds fail to activate, but still manage to break the noise marines, even though all but one tank is suppressed and the EC were in cover. Too busy listening to their boom boxes and break dancing to make their saves I guess…


Heltalons take out an assault marine on a ground attack


Scouts double around the retinue and lay a BM


The knights, shy up until this point, advance and lay some MW goodness on the SC tactical. Relieved of their transport, the tactical breaks


The Assault marines move next to the scouts (forgot to take a pic). Presumably so they can both be picked up by the T-hawk

The Champion starts touching himself in an inappropriate manner and mumbling “I feel straaange…” Before the sorcerer lord can lodge a complaint with human resources, the champion is ripped apart in spectacular fashion. Standing in his place: Boobarella, Keeper of Secrets!


Summoned along with 2 infiltrating daemons, she leads the retinue in an assault on intermingled scouts and assault marines


The daemons die but who cares? Boobarella is victorious! I’m not sure she should get used to this plane of existence, however. There’s still a titan out there (see what I did there? more foreshadowing.)


T-hawk picks up remaining assault marines


Snowflake’s ground attack is ineffectual


…And I forgot to take end of turn pics for turn 2. Suffice it to say that there was some rallying, the aircraft and transports departed safely, etc.

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

Turn 3

Strategy: SM (photos get a little sketchy here. I forgot to take some at important junctures and my memory is fading. Dave, do you remember what happened to your remaining preds, or how you broke my SC retinue before the t-hawk shot at it?)


Big Blue an’ Nasty vaporizes Boobarella and breaks her retinue. She must’ve popped an implant, it was so ugly.


Vindicator is broken somehow


EC Warlord Retinue is broken somehow



Terminators engage the SC tactical and wipe it out for 1 loss. They claim Blitz. Knights have a T&H objective


Lone rhino is broken somehow


Suspecting the other t-hawk is going to come back, heltalons go on CAP


T-hawk lands on the EC blitz, CAP’d by the heltalons for no effect, and takes down everyone except for the warlord with shooting (yay! Re-roll still on the board!)




Noise marines double to deny T&H


END OF GAME
EC victory, 2-1 T&H, Blitz vs. Blitz

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

Post Game thoughts:

The T-hawk crit definitely changed the nature of the game. Things would have gone differently had that not happened.

Knights: These were underwhelming (or more accurately, not world-beating) again. Putting them in front of a warlord would have been ugly, so they were limited to 1 round of shooting and grabbing an objective. I plan on trying a mix of the types next time so that they’re not BTS. Perhaps a more reckless use may show them to be overpowered. They’ll stay in the WE section and at SR2.

Noise marines are turning out to be quite nice, maybe too nice. I think a price increase for additional units (e.g. 50 vice 35pts) may be in order. What did we discuss, Dave?

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

Nice read, thanks for posting. Going stir crazy in Texas with all this ice.

Good read, great armies.

Knights – at 6 for 450 I assume most of these are the weaker knight class. I'm not surprised they are not world beating, as they look far more balanced points wise. They also appear to have only shot once in the game and taken no incoming fire. It's the DC2 ones that are the problem.

*edit: i clearly can't maths.

Post-edit: I think my different opinion on the knights could be due to play style. Due to my perception of their power I see them as something that can be used very aggressively, fighting all the way (and at 30cm move walker they should be able to get into good positions). Even if they die, 12DC RA Inv Fearless requires a lot of attention to kill. Reckless use, as you say

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AFK with real life, still checking PMs

Thanks for the report, mine are coming..... promise! Just got sidetracked by prep for the xmas big game..... the EC are undercoated, just need a lick of paint

I think the knights were used very cautiously (with good reason when a warlord is stomping about!) although they did nab an objective so were effective in one way....

I think this really demonstrates the usefulness of batreps.... different playstyles mean people have different opinions of potent/weak

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Just some guy

My hobby/painting threads

Army Forge List Co-ordinator

That was my list. Ya, loosing the THawk with Tacticals was pretty much the game. If I hadn't taken the Warlord I might have managed something better but the lack of activations is what killed me in the end. Had the THawk survived I think I would have had 2 retinues broken instead of just the one by the end of turn 1, and been in a better position to deal with the slinking knights.

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Dave

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