Finally got an EC playtest in! 3k on vassal vs MikeT. I took Steel Legion and just copied the SL list Jimmy had used against me in our OGBM playtest game a couple of weeks back.

Steel Legion:
REGIMENTAL HQ Supreme Commander, 12 Infantry, 7 Chimera, Hydra
MECHANISED INFANTRY COMPANY Commander, 12 Infantry, 7 Chimera
TANK COMPANY 10 Leman Russ (inc vanq), Hydra
ARTILLERY BATTERY, 3 Manticores
SUPER-HEAVY TANK PLATOON, Shadowsword
VULTURE SQUADRON, 4 Vultures
SENTINEL SQUADRON, 4 Sentinels
DEATHSTRIKE MISSILE BATTERY, 2 Deathstrike Missile Launchers
FLAK BATTERY, 3 Hydra
THUNDERBOLT FIGHTERS 2 Thunderbolts


Mike took assaulty EC, with pact on everything and podding noise marines

Emperor's Children (4.0) 
RETINUE [330] – 6 Chaos Marine units, Daemonic Pact, Chaos Warlord (Supreme Commander), 3 Rhino
RETINUE [330] – 6 Chaos Marine units, Chaos Lord, Daemonic Pact, 3 Rhino, Stalker
RETINUE [330] – 6 Chaos Marine units, Chaos Lord, Replace 4 chaos marine units with 4 Noise Marine units, 6 Dreadclaws, Daemonic Pact
CHOSEN [170] – 4 Chaos Space Marine Chosen, Daemonic Pact, 2 Rhino
EMPEROR'S CHILDREN TERMINATORS [300] – Chaos Lord, 4 Terminator, Daemonic Pact
EMPEROR'S CHILDREN TERMINATORS [300] – Chaos Lord, 4 Terminator, Daemonic Pact
RAPTOR CULT [200] – Chaos Lord, 4 Raptor, Daemonic Pact
DEVASTATION CLASS CRUISER [150] 
CHAOS THUNDERHAWK [200] 
KNIGHT PACK (4 hell-scourge) [360] 
QUESTOR TITAN [300] 
+2 Lesser Daemon [30]

Deployment
EC place objectives as close to the SL blitz as possible in a 30cm triangle (top left), with SL placing on the mid-line. SL stack most of their deployment on the right to try to avoid the probable barrage location

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AFK with real life, still checking PMs

Turn 1
No teleports. EC win roll with a 6, +2 demons to EC pool, hand initiative to SL

>deathstrikes roll a 1 to activate, SC re-roll, nukes the questor (then 2 activations later I realised the knights were BTS )
>cruiser activates, barrage clips a sentinel and pops it, lance does 1 DC to the shadowsword, drop appears on to of blitz, sentinels cant overwatch as only 2 are in range and they have 2BM
>drop retinue summons 6 demons, engages mech inf. demonette first strike kills 4, another 4 guard die in the main round for only 1 demonette. EC win by 5, mech inf break, as do the sentinels with a 3rd BM from support range


>vultures unload all missiles on the knights for … 2 hits (1 damage done)
>chosen double and take a second DC off the shadowsword, breaking it
>manticores fail to activate and remove the BM
>raptors double to middle of table
>tbolts strafe chosen, 1 rhino pops
>knights fail to activate even with re-roll and remove BM
>RHQ doubles ato mid table and kills 1 raptor
>EC stalker ret doubles to middle of board right in front of RHQ and BM the RHQ

>Tank coy doubles and shoots the EC stalker ret, 1 rhino 2 marines killed
>SC ret doubles to middle of table and shoots RHQ, popping the hydra (chimeras were closer but hull down targets)
>EC retain with thunderhawk … and roll a 1
>hydras chaarrrge to middle of board and break the raptors


thunderbolts take 1 BM from flack on disengage

rally: mech inf, RHQ, sentinels, chosen, EC ret
fail rally: SS, raptors

Middle of the table is looking pretty busy at the end of T1, with lots of formations in range for assault and support in T2, and neither terminator formation on board yet.

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AFK with real life, still checking PMs

Turn 2
Terminators teleport in between RHQ and Tank coy, 0BM
SL win initiative

>tank coy sustains on terminators, 1 kill breaks then (extra BM from crossfire even though TRA stopped -1 on saves)
>RHQ retains on re-roll to engage EC hunter retinue before they can summon. RHQ win by 1
>EC SC retinue summons 2 fiends, engage hydra with re-roll, just in range to BM the tank coy for support fire from 1 LR (sneaky, also suppresses the tank coy hydra whihc was left at the back), it takes two rounds but hydras are wiped out for no losses.
>thawk ground attacks the tank coy with no flack and the above ret in support, EC take no losses and only 2 russ survive
>vultures sustain on chosen, 3 kills, breaks them
>tbolts retain to BM the knights (never know, they might fail to activate again )
>EC retinue on the blitz summon and assault the remains of the mech inf, cutting them down to just the commissar for no losses
>deathstrikes double up to a T&H and wipe out the broken raptor as they drive past (pewpew!)
>knights fail to activate and clear BMs
>manticores sustain (4bp) on central EC ret, killing 2 rhinos and leaving them on 5BM
>sentinels single back and kill the broken stalker with a BM



rally: knights, terminators (on re-roll), retinue, RHQ, ,
non rally: SS, tank coy, mech inf, chosen, SC retinue

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AFK with real life, still checking PMs

turn 3
Looking pretty good for EC, we agreed at this point it was probably 2–0 to EC, but played most of the turn out
EC initiative

>terminators summon and engage vultures, EC win, commissar vulture flees back onto its blitz
>terminators summon and engage the RHQ, RHQ loose 5 but win rolloff by 2
>manticores sustain (2bp) on SC retinue, breaking them
>RHQ marshals (3BM) and singles to over the mid-line
>EC drop retinue summons and engaged sentinels, wiping them
>thunderhawk lands in front of deathstrikes and BMs them
>tbolts strafe the EC ret that's on all the objectives for 1BM
>knights double (yay!) and pour shots into the RHQ, a withering hail of fire killing 1 unit

couple of activations left but we call it 2–0 here, blitz and T&H to EC


(RHQ is out of cohesion in end shot here as the stand the knights killed had been bridging the cohesion gap between chimeras and inf)

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AFK with real life, still checking PMs

Thanks for the report.

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Thanks guys. Any thoughts on the game from the IG perspective Apoc?

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Dave

Blog

NetEA Tournament Pack Website

Squats 2019-10-17

List:
Nothing revelatory really. Core of the list seems fine. I think the fearless thawk is still a bad idea (but that didn't come in to play here), especially as the list has access to cheap(er than marine or cult chaos) terminators. Mike remarked he thought the list let him use his favourite bits of chaos (demons) and his favourite bits of marines (thunderhawk terminators). Can't say much on knights from the game for obvious reasons! Fearless and DC2 and RA and invuln etc still bothers me a bit on them in general, but i'd want to use them more first.

In terms of my play:
Should have shepherded my flack more. Was thinking the RHQ hydra was fairly safe in the middle, but then it could be picked out due to hull downs and LOS. Russ coy hydra ended up at back trying to get nice angle to shoot with the tanks. Don't regret rushing the hydra battery down as breaking the raptors before they could assault was worth it, but I hadn't thought about an assault on the hydras BMing the tanks – had been thinking that if they hydras took an assault that just meant something else wasn't getting assaulted. Possibly should have manticored the drop ret in the blitz not the SC ret in turns 2 and 3.

We both had iffy rolls in places but I think it evened out and the scrum at the start of T2 was fun

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AFK with real life, still checking PMs

Thanks to you and MikeT for your report and input, Apoc. Any thoughts on "what ifs" had you decided to deathstrike the Knights instead?

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

That was silliness on my part, i'd even checked before the game how the hit allocation would work vs kngihts (not that I knew mike's list in advance, but why wouldn't you take knights?). When it came to it i was just on chaos autopilot where one of the retinues is typically the BTS

Depends how 'what if' you want to go:

In theory deathstrikes + vultures should would nobbled the knights down to broken and 1 or 2 DC left. With luck they could have been wiped …

But, with the roles I got it wouldn't have made much difference – 1 deathstrike was a 6 (so kills 1) one was a 1 (so probably not) and then only 2 vulture missiles hit. With the roles I got they'd have broken, and probably just gone and hid in wood – which is what they did anyway due to failing activations! With them hidden and keeping out of the way i'd have struggled to finnish them off – most of my stuff was in wrong part of table and had a big fight to get through in the middle, so i'd have been looking for lucky tbolt or manticore hits.

Even so, as they played effectively no part in the game anyway it would have led to maybe a 2–1 end of t3. I say maybe, because there would then have been a questor running about battlecannoning stuff

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AFK with real life, still checking PMs