Black Legion "DP horde list"

2x Chosen Marines (4x units)        = 970
- updgrade 2x Oblits
- upgrade pact
- upgrade Daemon Prince

3x Retinue (9 units)                       = 1275
- upgrade 1x Oblit
- upgrade pact
- upgrade Daemon Prince

1x Assault company (2x Wheels) = 550 (BTS)

Daemon pool                                   = 200
  10x lesser daemons      
                                             total = 2995

Notes
The chosen are Slanesh and Khorne, the retinues are Nurgle, Tzeench and "undivided". The Daemon Prince in Retinue #2 is designated as the Supreme commander.

Marines "Drop army" list

Reaver      
Warhound      
Space cruiser
Tacticals (drop pods)
Tacticals + Supreme commander (drop pods)
Devs + Lib (drop pod)
Devs + Lib (drop pod)
Terminators + Chaplain
Thunderhawk

Objectives
Both Blitz were placed centrally, with the T&H objectives placed symetrically 30 cms from the blitz. (Marines considered this optimal for targeted drop zones).

Garrisons
Black legion garrisoned the three retinues forwards from the T&H objectives, occupying a wood and built-up area with the third in the open

Deployment
In an attempt to avoid the Marine barrage, the Death Wheels were deployed ~50cms west  of the BL Blitx, while the Reaver and Warhound were placed 7 cms apart by the Marine Blitz

Turn #1
Teleports:-
Marines give the option of teleporting to the BL (following the recent debate on this). Chosen #1 teleport into BuA 7cms to the side and slightly in front of the Warhound, getting 2x BMs. Terminators teleport into the open ~7 cms ahead of the Reaver and Warhound also getting 2x BMs. Chosen #2 teleport into the open on the opposite side of the marine WEs ~10 cms away from the Reaver, arriving without BMs!

Strategy rolls tied, so rerolled, and the Marines uncrossed their fingers (and other parts of their anatomy ) and the terminators launch a furious assault against Chosen #2 getting into CC with 3x chosen and an Oblit. 2x Chosen and an Oblit die along with 3x Terminators, so the Reaver provides a little supporting fire . . and the second Oblit also perishes. But this is not enough to win the assault, so the last Terminator is hacked-down while the broken Chosen retreat 17cms from the Reaver.

Marines retain, bringing in their planet-falling forces. The Barrage misses, and the two devastators arrive in woods 70cms East and West of the Blitz flanking the T&H objectives and placing a single BM on the BL Wheels. However, the Tacticals are targetted at the T&H objectives, so the Deathwinds from the pods catch part of Retinue #1 and #2 (all in the open), and completely cover retinue #3 (in the wood) . . . and despite something like 20 dice being rolled, the few hits that were scored were all saved (some by the Oblits and Daemon princes).

BL rouse themselves (but only after the SC reroll), and the Death Wheels roll forwards to assault Tactical #1 with the support of Retinue #1, killing all but 2x marines in the process, taking a single hit in return.

The Marines advanced Dev #2 from the Eastern table corner to fire on Retinue #3 in the woods, merely laying a single BM, and Retinue #2 doubled SE from the centre of the table the into the wood to return the favour (and thoroughly intermingling with Retinue #3), also laying just a single BM.

The Warhound sustained on Chosen #1 which was still lurking menacingly in the BuA scoring 4x normal and 1x MW hit - all of which were saved by the reinforced armour. Retinue #3 declared an assault on Dev #2, which was duely exterminated after the assault went into a second round and then the Chosen #1 raised 4x Daemons, declared an assault - and had to hold instead, removing all BMs.

To avenge the fallen Devs, Tactical #2 attempted a clipping assault on Retinue #2 which had been left a little dispersed in the wood by the departure of its friends. However 'luck was on the side of big battalions' and the single surviving tactical unit broke to join its colleagues in the BuA in front of the BL Blitz. With the Chosen now protected by Daemons, the Reaver decided to retain, doubling forwards to the centre of the table shooting at the wheels and scoring 6 hits - but due to shields and three saves, only a single point of damage on the second wheel which drunkenly rolled a little East when the hit went critical.

Retinue #1 summoned 3x Daemons which appeared inside 15cms from the Reaver, and declared a furious assault which stripped the shields and scored 3x normal and 1x MW hit resulting in 2x damage (and a critical). In return one retinue unit died, the other hits being saved on the Daemons and Oblit, resulting in the Reaver losing the assault - but the broken Reaver decided to stay put!

Finally, Dev #1 sneaked out of cover to shoot up the rear of the Wheels without effect, and the Thunderhawk came in to evacuate them also shooting without effect on the wheels.

End of Turn
The critical caused a third point of damage on the Reaver.

The Reaver and remnants of the tacticals rallied, Black legion rallied everything except Chosen #2, removing all BMS except three on the wheels and one on Retinue #1

Turn#2
Strategy roll :- Marines
The Warhound doubled forwards, shooting at Retinue #1 and breaking them. Retaining, the Reaver sustained on the Wheels, stripping the shields and scoring 2x hits (causing the wheel to roll a little further East) but leaving them unbroken. In reply, the Wheels decide to assault the remnants of the tacticals which are wiped out for no further loss.

We decided to call the game at that point as the Marines only had a Thunderhawk + Devs, which were unwilling to risk the Oblits AA, while the BL could catch the Reaver in the Centre with a massive assault and still have enough to claim all the objectives.

Result BL Win

===========================
Analysis:-
By garrisoning the BL retinues outside the deployment zone, the BL were able to dodge much of the Drop Pod threat, while the large, upgunned BL retinues are more than a match for the naked Marine formations, and were able to maintain a grip on the centre of the table despite the attentions of the majority of the marine forces.

The Death Wheels proved surprisingly resilient (I was off-form, saving more hits than perhaps was reasonable) and in general the BL survived well, though with all the RA units around it was to be expected. Across all the formations, the BL lost 9x Retinue, 2xChosen and 2x Obliterators.

I was able to keep the "hated" formations apart - though at one point this did cause a little concern.

We did discuss how the BL army would fare against other races / setups, and TRC felt it would not do as well, especially against larger armies and where the T&H objectives are spread to opposite table edges. He also felt that the "Flapping" DP placed centrally in the Retinues would be a nasty counter to any CC threats and also provide some much needed speed in the end-game, so I will try again with other forces.

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Sir Hemry Newbolt

Thanks for the battle report, it reads quite one sided.

Did you remember that Death Wheels are destroyed after randomly moving following a critical hit? You mention a critical in turn 1 and then later on mention wheels in the plural were shot at by the Devestators.

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Interesting report.

If you want to try against my guard or eldar at some point let me know.

Wonder how it would fair against a more traditional air assault marine force too.

OOps  - so it would have been a little less one-sided, as the Wheels would probably have been destroyed.

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Sir Hemry Newbolt

Unsure how air-drop Marines would do given there are 7x Oblits, each with 3x AA5+ at 45cms range (and even if they get down, the force size comparison is still true). However being infantry, cover is a must - so they will not do well on a "Billiard table"

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Sir Hemry Newbolt

A little one sided? Could I make an armour save? Nope!I'm to blame for the crit misreading, as I read the text and stopped at the wrong point clearly

Drop pod bombardment, despite rolling 2 dozen dice no hits.
Terminators and chaplain with the support of a reaver and warhound vs a 400 odd point chosen formation. Result broken prince and chosen and no terminators left.
Warhound on sustain. No kills.
A clipping assault with great local superiority and supporting fire, total failure.
A normal chaos unit got 8 hits on the reaver, which of course couldn't save much.
And so on Now I know what it feels like to be Gavin when his dice behave normally!

Still I should just have legged the Titans out of range of the Chosen formations, rather than risk an assault, even if it was in my favour (in my head at least) and/or gone and jumped the deathwheels with the terminators using the devs in support.

Moving the titans forward would have put a lot of pressure on the centre and not left the infantry so exposed (but to be honest with the dice rolls it would have made no difference!).

Also note the chaos chaps were doing so well it only occurred to us to use demons when I noticed them all sitting on the table edge towards the end of turn 1.

I really hate the free SC now, it always being there is really starting to grate (I had to pay 100 points for mine and he never got used!).

Despite all this though, if I had the army I would have changed as Gavin says 3 of the princes for flappy ones for the speed and counter-charge. Its also a very slow army, most forces I reckon could outmanoeuvre it/screen the chosen off and concentrate on the normal marines and deathwheels.

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Oh and it was a 6x4 table with 4 hills, 4 woods and 4 city sectors.

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I had a feeling deathwheels where a little more fragile than you described when we spoke last night. Proper warengines don't usually die from a single critcal eh?

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That seems like sort of an odd drop list to me.  Can you explain the thought process behind the choices, especially the Reaver.  If you're doing a first turn drop close enough to pound them with Deathwind barrages, the Reaver's a large chunk of points that's likely to be mostly out of the action.

I'm not understanding some of the tactical choices as well.  It seems to me that with the Strategy win  the Termies, a Reaver and a Warhound should have made short work of the Chosen formations.

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Neal

You can drop 20 units from a strike cruiser, so 2 tac and 2 dev. The Reaver and Warhound are supposed to be able to close up quite quickly (being able to move to the half way point almost at least), with the reaver also expected to take out enemy sht companies, skimmer tanks and other targets marine infantry can have problems with and the Warhound because they are rather good. The Terminators and thunderhawk are supposed to provide more flexibility.

The inablilty for a reaver, warhound and terminator+chaplain formation to deal with the chosen is simply perverse (what, 1325 points vs 970? with the initiative favouring the titans and the ability to clip etc?) and summed up the way the dice went!.

The army list was expanded from a 2700 point force and consisted of

650 Reaver
275 Warhound
350 Terminators
050 Chaplain
200 Thunderhawk
200 Strike Cruiser
300 Tacticals
100 SC
300 Tacticals
050 Chaplain
250 Devestators
250 Devestators

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Not if you use the suggested CSM changes :-)

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Umm, actually I was half expecting the Terminator assault to fizzle before the supports kicked in , bearing in mind that the Chosen formation also had 2x Oblits and a DP (admittedly, the Oblits should have been other Chosen, which would have made it worse for the marines):-

The BL Chosen had 1x 2+ attack, 5x 3+ attacks and 4x 3+ MW attacks. This boils down to an average of 4 normal and 2.6 MW hits, and assuming average saves, it is very close to 3 dead Terminators (which is what happened). Given the number of dice being thrown that could easily gone either way to 2, or 4 and a wipe-out. Equally, I expected the Termies to score 3x MW and 2x normal hits or ~2.0 dead Chosen (three died). I am less surprised that the War Engines failed to kill off the remains of the Chosen formation because, although they did score 5 hits from the 10 dice (exactly average), they were spread across the remaining units as follows; DP=2, Oblit=2, Chosen=1. Statistically, all three should have survived.

So, all the maths boils down to the point that assuming average dice, the Chosen should be 1 hit up, 4 units to 2 up and given that both sides had suffered a BM for teleporting and both had inspiring units, that means the Chosen should go into the roll off +2 ahead despite the apparent disparity in the total cost of the formations involved. And in theory at least, if it wins the Chosen should actually have remained un-broken and in position for a daemon assisted assault on the Reaver.

Leaving the Daemon pact to one side for a moment and assuming I had bought additional Chosen instead of Obliterators giving a total cost of 440 instead of 460, IMO the real question is whether this +2 advantage is worth the additional 40 points or if that is a bit cheap for the inspiring DP with better armour and assault capabilities??

Indeed, (and taking up TRC's point a second) if I had left off the DP, the formation would have cost 390 points but still had a leader with the additional MW CC attack, which would seem to outclass the termies (even with the TSKNF) because of the extra attacks provided by the additional units.

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Sir Hemry Newbolt

Well el dp was out of contact, as was one unit of chosen after the counter charges I believe. So 5 3+, 3 MW 3+, 2+ (honestly I calculate this on the fly ), thats 4 1/6 normal and 2MW.
Vs 10 3+, 3 4+, 5 MW3+, thats 8 1/6 and 3 1/3MW.

Fair snuff you had 3 units with invulnerable saves against my 1 but I reckon the odds were with me!

Oh and I've just noticed that the DP's get either the CC weapon or the FF weapon, not both!

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General Plumer, 191x

Firstly - full cudos for putting your money where your mouth is and testing!

I'll make a pdf of complete playtest changes soon - still pondering daemons - so everyone can be on the same page with regard to things like obliterators.

4 normal and 2.6 MW hits are actually an average of 2.3 kills vs 4+RA, just to nitpick.

And the DP is not Inspiring, a GD is.

Otherwise, as Lord I said, respect for following through with your assumption.

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