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Story of my Slaanesh Black Legion
As this is more like tournament, not single battle report, I put it here, as there is generic notations toward tournament etc. So I entered Syksyn Sävelet tournament with Black Legion as Emperor's Children were not allowed (basically only those lists in Handbook). The minimal changes were in effect and thus the final list was like this:
Banelord (bts)  800
Devastation   150
Retinue in Dreadclaws   315
Retinue with Daemon Prince (SC), Obliterator and Defiler  485
Forlorn Hope with Rhinos  145
Forlorn Hope with Rhinos  145
Raptors (4)   160
Chosen (4)   260
Chosen (7) with Obliterator  540
First Battle - against asaura's Imperial Guard
Lots of scouts, lots of Vultures and mandatory Deathstrikes. Not that intimidating, but Asko surely knows how to play the game. For the setup, I put 2 objectives to my left flank so that I could watch them (and possibly claim) with my Banelord who would support SC Retinue next to blitz. Spacecraft was scheduled to arrive on first turn, with bombardment to forest next to blitz (obvious target, but most likely not avoided despite this as so much to deploy) and drop to far right, where IG cannot garrison as there were no objectives. As I expected, IG deployed to left flank, filling the entire board with scout ZOCs so that a drop would not have been possible to basically 1/4 of the board. Forest next to IG blitz had some basic infantry and sweetly some Vultures closeby, of which 2 would take hit from orbital barrage. And Deathstrikes were deployed in the middle of some other company, so my first barrage would take some extra stuff in addition to disabling Deathstrikes...
Well, my Slaanesh BL has always been cursed with bad luck, most definately because I should be playing EC instead. And thus the IG won the initiative - instead of losing lots of stuff on my initial barrage, they opened fire at Banelord with Vultures (which moved away from the blitz and upcoming orbital barrage) and then retained with Deathstrikes.. but some luck in all this misfortune, other Deathstrike missed and other caused just 2 damage (all shields were of course already stripped)
So not everything was lost. I marshalled with Banelord to make it survive to fight another day and rain some death to companies garrisoned in front of it... and rolled snake-eyes. So it hold ground and repaired like 2 void shields.
Swell. IG then advanced, kept on shooting on Banelord finally breaking it, and in general looked very menacing while Chaos did its best to slow them down a bit.
On the second turn I was forced to call for bigger Chosen formation which teleported close to other (fully loaded) Vulture squadron to prevent them from emptying their missiles to Banelord (which luckily rallied - something at least) and in general claiming the 2 objectives on my left flank and divide IG forces. This time I did won the initiative and Chosen destroyed Vultures, but as my other forces were not in that good shape, coordinated attacks from IG caused this Chosen formation to break later on. Still IG had not failed at anything..
On the third turn I called for another Chosen to assault IG blitz. The fighting on third turn was much more even and IG had lost its momentum and Banelord joined the battle, raining doom to other side. However, Chosen at enemy Blitz lost an engagement with that IG infantry company it had just shot at (!) and I was short of activations and IG managed to (with my one failed critical 4+ save) to claim 2-0 victory (defend the flag, take & hold) on the third turn. If I would have saved that, the situation would have looked quite different on fourth turn, with most IG formations in bad shape - most probably would have been a tie then at least.
So, things could have gone otherwise.. but then the Deathstrikes should have almost destroyed the Banelord and they did not, so there was some luck in all that bad luck, after all.. :]
Final results: 17-3 for IG.
Second fight - against Fysope's Space Marines
The ancient enemy... with a pair of Warhounds - somethign to shoot at with my Devastation! Thus I scheduled Devastation to arrive on second turn, with Retinue dropped so that it can claim enemy blitz with some movement. Placement of other objectives were in same pattern as earlier - two objectives on open so that Banelord could watch them bth, SC Retinue at my blitz, close to Banelord.
The Space Marines pushed hard trying to destroy my Banelord after they had destroyed my SC Retinue (except for SC and Defiler) with help of Warhounds and then Thunderhawk assault. The battle did not look that good for me and Warhounds survived everything I threw at them - hits were saved in assault against Retinue, Devastation missed its pin-point and Chosen teleported next to them on third turn lost the initiative. But Banelord surived with 1 damage point left and marshalled just before it felt down, getting back 6 shields. And all that hunting of Banelord had left the main battlefield quite empty and I won with Blitz and Take & Hold on turn 3 (2-0)
Final results: 17 - 3 for my Chaos
So there was some hope to achieve something else than last place...
Third fight - against Thepanu's Orks
Lots of Fighta Bombers and no WEs - yet again no pin-point targets. Big warbands (both as BTS) to be garrisoned closeby. Big Kult of Speeds to win almost any engagement. I scheduled drop to first turn and barrage close to other objective which I yet again positioned to standard pattern: 2 in front of Banelord, which was close to SC Retinue garrisoned to my blitz.
So the battle started with orbital barrage and the my retinue dropping close-by, ausing more adamg with Dreadclaws. I then assaulted the warband, clipped it - and lost. Too powerful clipping, and thus caused not enough casualties to be able to surprass Ork advantage in numbers! Luckily the Banelord later on fired such a salvo of carnage (13 BP) at that Warband after it had lost its overwatch that it as broken and retreated to ruins. On the second turn I then started with juiciest target ever: a ruin filled with BTS orks (now rallied), just in front of Banelord and its MW ignore cover -cannon! The entire building was practically annihilated and only a sole survivor emerged, running away. Then I had my bigger Chosen formation teleported down too which opened sustyained fire at other warband, causing lots of carnage with all its 15 attacks! There were some odd engagements and smaller Chaos formations were broken (nor never rallied), but the carnage caused tasted sweet...
On the third turn, other KoS tried to assault my SC retinue but failed and fell victim to Banelord support fire. I think almost all the other Ork formations were also broken and yet again enemy back was unprotected and my Chosen could double to Blitz and thus it was 3-0 for Chaos after 3 turns (Blitz, Defend the Flag, Break Their Spirit)
Final results: 20-0 for my Chaos ...
for the total of 40 (+4 for painting) which resulted in ...3rd place!
Not that bad, after all, considering the ill fate reserved for traitor of EC. Battles 2 and 3 once again showed that the game is about objectives, not destruction.
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