Irondeath and I just finished a game of Epic: Armageddon on Vassal. I used Black Legion (using v1.1 of the playtest changes), versus Steel Legion.

My army list:

Slaanesh Retinue 705
-> 8 Rhinos
-> Havocs
-> Noise Marines
-> Daemon Prince (supreme commander)

Khorne Retinue 710 (BTS. Note that the ancient enemies rule was removed)
-> 6 Rhinos
-> Bezerkers
-> 3x Defiler

Chaos Terminators 540
-> 2x Obliterators (note these cost 75 each)

Retinue 350 (garrison)
-> Desecrator

Feral 300

3x Hellblades 200

2x Hell Talons 200

Grand total = 3005 (Irondeath let me off the last 5 points - this time)

As vassal doesn't have a Chaos mod yet, I proxied. Tacticals = CSM, Assault Marines = Bezerkers, Scout Snipers = Noise Marines, Stompas = defilers, Supastompas = desecrators, Ork Dredd = daemon prince, SM dreads = obliterators. Vassal lets you label stuff, so it wasn't too hard to keep track.

In the meantime, lessons learnt:

Don't attempt to firefight against IG infantry in cover.

Don't attempt this again.

Running away and hiding - like wusses in the corner - from tank companies is a good idea.

Hell Talons seemed reasonable (first go with them, mind).

Hellblades were awesome, possibly over good for 200 points even with 15cm range (need more testing, this is only my 2nd or 3rd outing with them).

I reaaally need to pay more attention to where I'm placing characters and vehicles in formations.

Ferals without MW on the hellmouth are still pretty damn good for the points.

Bezerkers are rubbish compared with the other cults and could certainly do with a boost - I doubt I'd bother with them again.


Deployment
Imperial Guard essentially deploy in top right corner. CSMs are spread out along baseline, with Terminators in reserve.

Turn 1
I activate the Khorne formation (red bases, in the middle) and move up to pop a few shots off against the Infantry Co in the middle of the board. I retain and charge the small Retinue with the Desecrator. They get whooped, and all die but the Desecrator and the sorcerer. They retreat behind the wood in the middle right of the board (see Picture 1).

The vultures were deployed in the middle left of the board. They get shot at by my Hell Talons, killing two and breaking the formation. They withdraw to the back of the board. The thunderbolts come on to attack the Talons, killing both. The Hellblades come on and kill the Thunderbolts (the +1 to AA intercepts is pretty brutal!)

Other than that, the two forces move forward. Vultures fail to rally.

Turn 2
Start of turn 2 see picture 1 (below). Termiantors teleport in next to manticores in the top wood.

Terminators massacre manticores rather unreasonably. The Khorne formations (in the middle of Pic1) charge forward on foot (remind me why I bought rhinos? ) and Engage the same Infantry Co that trounced the previous formation. Two remaining defilers lope forward with their 40cm charge, smashing into the guard.

After a largely ineffective CSM attack and lots of brutal bayonetting, the combat is a draw, so we fight again! Afterwards Chaos win by a whisker, and the mauled (but very hardcore) Infantry co retreats.

The tank co manages to fail their activation (despite the sup comm re-roll on a 2+!) and puts a little more hurt on the Khorne formation (but blocks the advance of the superheavies). Then the 4 roughriders charge in, murder both defilers with their first strikes. 3 roughriders die in the return fire, but the remaining stand succeeds in routing the Khorne formation (and then promptly breaks and refuses to rally - back for well-earned tea and biccies no doubt for scaring off 30 Khornate marines!)

Between the infantry co and the roughriders, they held off over 1400 points of chaos marines!

The mechanised company gets roasted by the feral while they try to put some hurt on the Slaaneshi formation (bottom left of picture 1). The Slaanesh worshippers charge in as a response, and break the guard in a messy melee (the daemon prince wiffed horribly despite being in BTB contact, but the rhinos massacred the guard - that always seems to be the way!   ). See picture 2 for a shot just before the guard break.

Critically, all of the chaos formations rallied and none of the guard formations did, leaving the guard in a bad position with only two functioning fomations (tanks and more tanks!)

Turn 3
The tanks push forward but can't dislodge the Slaaneshi formation. The Superheavies turn around to try and put some hurt on the Terminators solidly holding the Blitz objective, killing a couple of stands.

Final outcome (picture 3) - 2-0 to chaos (Blitzkrieg & Take and Hold)

IG

550 reg hq + hydra
700 tank coy + hydra
350 inf coy + fire support + hydra
550 SHT coy, 2xbblade, 1xSsword + hydra
250 mantic bty
150 rriders

150 t-bolts
300 vultures

3050

The Inf Coy cost 400 and is 50 points over. Some guy walked into the game room while I was making my list and asked if I could show him how E:A works which I did, and promptly messed up my list...


Pics:


Early in the game BL garrioning Ret has just bounced of the entrenched IG



A Rough Rider suicide charge has driven off the Khorne Ret, towards the T-Junction, but it is only a momentary respite: The large CSM Rets rally, while the mauled IG formations don´t.



Many IG are broken and will not recover. Tanks and SHTs are too slow to plug all gaps and strike at the same time.

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Thoughts:

Those large Retinues were alarmingly resilient, I fielded a Ret with Havocs and extra tranports a couple of times, but those two just took whatever I threw at them. The Khorne Ret ground through the Inf Coy guarding the central ruins, taking losses, then was driven off by the RRiders, losing more units, but was still far from becoming combat ineffective.

Except for the Berzerkers, of course, they were just dead weight, you only get them into CC on a cold day in hell while the other cults are just all-around more useful.

Air combat was over pretty soon, the HellTalons broke the Vultures, the T-Bolts downed the HellTalons, the HellBlades crushed the T-Bolts, only placing BM thereafter.

Things went rapidly downhill in T2 when I won initiative with IG, and then promptly failed to activate the Tank Coy, with reroll, which then blocked the road to the SHTs.

I began to lose activations rapidly, and all hope to keep fighting when none of my formations would rally in T2´s end phase. (three "1"s in a row!).

Thanks again to Lord I for a good bash, I´ll avenge this defeat one day!
 

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You had some rotten luck with your activations/rallying, while I think I only failed a test once to activate/rally all game.

The only advantage Bezerkers seem to have to me is that they're Fearless, but this game that just meant that I couldn't remove the buggers when I took BM hits - losing far more useful CSMs instead!

I'm thinking to be attractive they should have 2 attacks each at CC4+ or even CC3+.