"Less obvious was the damage done by a string of attacks across the both imperial and xenos worlds spread across the entire sector. Led by Arch-Slayer Sukanter Netoroth, small units of Chaos Space Marines struck at seemingly random locations.

A common tactic was the infiltration of a small commando unit which carried out terror attacks at the a target site. Imperial reinforcements rushing to the scene were then struck by the guns of the Archenemy´s cruiser "Wargiver" suddenly appearing in orbit and attacked by aircraft launched from its bays.

This was soon followed by a massive air drop of Traitor Space Marines under the personal leadership of the Arch-Slayer, often descending right into the midst of the marching columns.

Despite years of trying to interrogate an eye witness to one of these raids, the author was unable to locate any. Written reports indicate that the foe made significant use of its unnatural allies.

Where succesful, the enemy erected vile monuments of unknown purpose and promptly withdrew thereafter, perhaps marking the locations for future events ... or to stain them?"



"Incursions of the Archenemy, Ixaniad Sector, Volume DCLCXXIV, M39.640-649
      - Inquisitor-Historicus Ira Nesirak Nellok



2990 Chaos Black Legion Raiding Force
"Rise of the Wolfhound" tournament, Wolfsburg, Germany, 14/15.3.09

150 Devastation Class Cruiser „Wargiver“
200 HellTalons (2)
200 HellBlades (3)

440 4xChaos Terminators, Daemon Prince (Warlord, winged),
   Chaos Icon,Daemonic Pact, Champion of Chaos, Faction: Khorne
505 5xChaos Terminators, Daemon Prince , Chaos Icon,
   Daemonic Pact, Champion of Chaos → Break Their Spirit
   Faction: Nurgle

390 Black Legion Retinue (8xCSM, 1xChaos Lord), Dreadclaws,
   Chaos Icon, Daemonic Pact, Faction: Nurgle
390 Black Legion Retinue (8xCSM, 1xChaos Lord), Dreadclaws,
   Chaos Icon, Daemonic Pact, Faction: Nurgle

170 Forlorn Hope (4xCSM w/ Scout), Daemonic Pact, Dreadclaws
   Faction: Nurgle
150 Forlorn Hope (4xCSM w/ Scout), Daemonic Pact,
   Faction: Nurgle

   Daemon Pool:
075 1x Greater Daemon
320 16x Lesser Daemons

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Well this was the winner of the "Rise of the Wolfhound" Tournament held in Wolfsburg/Germany this weeckend.

It is no fun to be on the receiving end of this army (i lost 0-5 with a Codex Space Marine Droparmy against him too)

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Let´s say the list can win crushingly if all goes well...


And then there was the small matter of your Landing Craft going down in flames fully loaded when my Hell Blades capped it.


Any way, short tournament summary: Only undeafeated player, four wins, 3-0 vs. IG, 5-0 vs. BL´s SM, 2-0 vs Eldar, 5-0 vs another SM army. I´ll add more comments tomorrow, it took me more than five hourse of driving to get home....

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Yea....3 failed saves with the Landing Craft and you rolled the critical 6...900+pts transforming into an expanding cloud of flame

But my list was similar. 2 crushing victories, one crushing defeat and one narrow defeat (even if i had only 2 units left).

Entire drop-lists are really a hit or miss army.

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Literally!  *laugh*

Looking forward to more reports!

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That really is a nasty list if things go off. Looking forward to hear more about the battles.

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Game 1 vs mshrak´s IG

Udo/mshrak (over at epic-battles.de) was the tournament organizer. He had done only a few battles using the E:A rules (four IIRC) but was sufficiently hooked to go for a tourney! He also owns a splendidly painted army which is on display here.

We played on Warpheads fantastic ruined city tiles, pics of which and more impressions from the Wolfsburg event can be seen here.

The battle was over quickly however as the Guard kinda disintegrated under the onslaught of Chaos Terminators and dreadclawing CSM. I took to warning opponents in the later battles against intermingling their formations...

IG was:

Reg HQ + Hellhounds + Hydra
Tank Coy + Hydra
Shadowsword
Inf Coy
Inf Coy
Manticore Bty
Basilisk Bty
Vultures

After four of my activations, the Tank Coy and Vultures were annihilated, the Reg HQ, one Inf Coy, Shadowsword, Basilisks and Manticores broken. We quit there, with me having T&H, Blitz and BTS.

Since the IG got utterly hammered here this raises the question whether there is anything that can be done to counter a BL army such as mine with IG, or more specifically, with this list:

IMO, better use of garrisons would have helped a lot: With the Inf Coys on OW and the Vultures deployed forward as well, my Terminators and drop units could have been met with fire as soon as they touched the ground, instead I lucked out with the Termies gaining no BM from teleporting and tieing the Tanks in the assault, to fight another round in which a summoned Bloodthirster tore the Commissar´s tank apart while the 2 surviving tanks were crushed by resolution.

The very fact that there was a tie between teleporting Terminators and Leman Russes all in CC highlights the need to place BM: I´d have lost the assault right there if the IG had placed a single BM before.

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The IG list needed a couple of light scout formations to push the drop pods and teleporters away from their battle line.
I didn't expect the Chaos list to have done as well as it did but it looks as though the opponents were not really prepared for that sort of army or style.

The pictures of the Tournament look great and it looks like it was fun. I especially liked the city terrain table

That city is indeed a blast!

On scouts, yes, and I told him just that, dropping the Hellhounds to get Rough Riders would have been a first step in that direction. That IG list is, in my view, typical for early/middle IG builds, some solid stuff but not equipped to deal with all comers, and in this form unable to avoid getting massacred by an alpha strike list such as mine.

Game 2, vs. Black Legion´s air-insertion Marines.

BL´s list was, at least in style, somwhat similiar to mine, and also fielded only a single formation at the start of the battle:

Strike Cruiser
2 x Tacticals + Dread in Droppods

Landing Craft
Devs, TL-RB, SC
Devs, Hunter
Assaults, Chaplain

Termies, Chaplain

Warhound

T-Bolts

The battlefield:


BL chose to have his Cruiser appear on T2, and after some thought I settled for a gamble and had mine turn up in T3. Only in the last game of the tournament I realized just how risky this was...

The first two turns were very tactical, and short, with most of both armies lurking off-board. The Warhound darted forward, harassed by my HellTalons, the Hell Blades on CAP waiting for the LC. Two turns of fire broke my Forlorn Hope, then the Cruiser bombed some empty ground and the Tacs descended, taking up positions around the cluttered T&Hs of both sides near the table centre.

In T3, loyalist Terminators appeared and took positions slightly away from the main action, and were duly followed by my Khorne Termie formation, and subsequently slaughtered. I got ahead on available activations and was able to force BL to activate the LC before I had to bring in the "Wargiver", my Devastation Class Cruiser, and of course promptly shot it down with my CAP, losing a single fighter to flak but scoring 4 hits with the remaining 2, of which 3 penetrated the LC´s armour and 1 going critical.

This, combined with the fact that the loyalist Tacs were more or less right where I wanted them for my own drops easily won me the game.

Apart from initiative, which I won in the all-important third turn, having a higher strategy rating worked consistently against the SM, forcing them to announce when their spacecraft would appear allowing me to plan accordingly as well as handing me the BTS-Terminators on a silver platter.

I much prefered the Handbook ruling where higher strat meant you could chose whether to go first or second, and would like to urge the ERC to look at this once more.

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Actually, I thought that had made it into the 2008 Errata/FAQ...

Yup, there it is:

1.4.2 Beginning of Turn
Q: With abilities that are used at the
start of the turn, who goes first?
A: The player with the higher strategy
rating has the option of acting first or
forcing the opponent to act first.

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Well, neither of us was aware of this despite both of us spending too much time on this board!

Hopefully a consolidated rulebook goes public soon, the Handbook did such a great job collecting all the errata in one place, I read the errata/FAQ twice before going to Wolfsburg looking for anything that seemed odd but still went right over that little gem.

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On to Game 3!

The table for this one, and my final battle as well, was Warphead´s TerrainMat stuff. I´ll link a pic when beelzemetz uploads the ones I took with his cam, might even show some action.

Basic features were a river seperating the flanks, with two fords and a central bridge, some fields (6+ save Scrub) and a few woods on what would be my right flank in both games.

Game 3 pitted me against an Eldar army played by no less than three guys. This slowed things down a bit, but since this was the last battle on Saturday I didn´t mind.

They had (from memory):

Avatar
Wraithgate

SSpear Warhost + Exarch + Autarch
SwHawks Warhost + 2x Exarch

Guardian Warhost, HWP + SWP, 2x Wraithguard
Guardian Warhost, HWP + SWP, 2x Wraithguard
Guardian Warhost, HWP + SWP, 2x Wraithguard, Wraithlords, BTS

Storm Serpent
Storm Serpent

4x Fire Prism, 1x FireStorm
4x Falcon, 1x FireStorm

They placed their Blitz far to my right side, and I put my T&H nearby in a triangle, their T&H going to the other flank, about 10cm away from the central line.

The bulk of their army was deployed far away from their BLitz on the other side of the river, which kinda ruined my bombardment and drop plans. Never mind that they had 5 infantry formations lurking off-board and 3 gates to bring them in...

I tried getting at their armour early, and teleported my Nurgle Terminators close to the Fire Prisms, promptly failed to activate them and had a summoned Great Unclean One unleash its Stream of Corruption on them instead, killing 2 and breaking them.

The Eldar advanced cautiously towards the T&Hs while I eventually dropped my main force at the objective triangle near the Eldar Blitz. A Storm Serpent went critical after a lucky hit by a Hell Talon.

In T2 the khornate Termies appeared to guard the T&Hs on my side, and ploughed into the BTS-Guardians, to great effect. Of course a few Wraithconstructs escaped and kept hiding for the rest of the game, so no BTS here. The Terminators would then thwart all attempts to shift them and double in T3 to contest my Blitz and a T&H, turning a looming 2-2 into a 2-0 win.

With my Retinues in place near the Wraithgate, the Eldar began hurling troops at them. I lost an entire formation of 8xCSM to assaulting Guardians after scoring only 2 hits, which the Wraithguard duly saved, but the 2nd Retinue launched a lucky counterattack with daemonic beasts and was able to clear the area once more.

T3 saw the Eldar try to break the khornate Terminators with a massive pile up of troops, with Guardians,the Hawks and Falcons supporting the Spears assaulting out of a Storm Serpent. Result was utter carnage with the Eldar wiped out at the loss of a single Terminator.

At the Eldar Blitz, the Avatar and the previously barely defeated Guardians tried to contest the Blitz and T&H, but air attacks broke the Avatar and more daemons slaughtered the infantry.

All said and done, the closest call of this tournament.

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Fourth and final battle was against Dirk´s ground-slogging SM:

Whirlwinds + Hunter 375
Tacs + Hunter + Laserback 400
Tacsa+ Librarian + Hunter + Laserback 450
Assault + Chap 225
Assault + Captain 225
Scouts + Laserback 175
Scouts + Laserback 175
Landspeeder 200
Landspeeder 200
Landraider + Hunter + 2 Vindicators 575 BTS


Table was once again the green TerrainMat thingie, contrasting nicely with my ashwastes basing. I´ll link a picture once beelzemetz provides me with a decent one, I took a number using his cam and am sure that there must be a decent one among them of the table I fought two battles on.

There is a pic in the link Warphead provided, but before the games a few million years must have passed and changed the landscape, as hills were levelled and forests sprang up...
 +

SM Blitz went opposite my left flank, behind a low hill ~ 25cm left of the river, SM T&H to a crossroads to the right and front of that near the bridge at the centre of the table, the other 30cm to the right of that to the edge of a forest stretching form near my blitz to there.

I put my T&Hs in front of his Blitz and 30cm to the right and centrewards, triangulating with his T&H at the crossroads, thinking that SM would move ahead of me and that I could not hammer him in his deployment zone.

The Wargiver was scheduled to arrive in T1.

SM spread out across the board, with the Scouts both holding the Blitz area, the Tacs to either side of the river, the WWinds touching the table edge on the right flank-centre, the LAnd Raiders next and the Assaults on the far right.

Feeling lucky, and wanting to get my SC on table early, I teleported the khornate Terminators next to the Land Raiders into a large field of Scrub.

I actually won first initiative, summoned a Bloodthirster with the Termies and tore the tanks apart, consolidating back into the Scrubs and laughing evilly. I then called in the Wargiver to unleash hordes of bloodthirsty CSM on an enemy that was right where I needed them, and failed despite using the reroll.

SM reaction was confused, with the WWinds shelling the Terminators for little effect, advancing the Speeders toward the SM T&H in the woods, where my aircraft began tearing into them.

The rest of the SM pretty much held back, unwilling to commit themselves without knowing where I would drop. The leftern Tacs advanced towards the objective triangle, moving from the dropzone of one retinue to that of another...

Turn 2 then saw the my big drop, with the BL Rets descending on the Scouts and the recently advanced Tac, which was devastated in the ensuing assault. Dirk now tried in vain to shift the Termies with fire and began marching the Assaults towards the threatened Blitz. The Terminators failed to engage an intermingled Assault and the rightmost Tacs, and only placed a BM with shooting.

The Speeders meanwhile made short wsm ork of the Forlorn Hope that had dropped between them, but again came under aerial attack. Near the SM blitz, my Retinue failed to engage the closer Scouts and settled on shooting them, killing a few. Both Scouts now bunched up, vowing to defend the Blitz against the heretics and their daemonic allies.

In T3 I won the initiative again, having teleported the Nurgle Terminators to defend my Blitz and T&H against the Speeders.

But first the Retinue at the Blitz would smash into the Scouts, needing the SC´s reroll to do so but winning crushingly, consolidating into a nice blocking position.

The Nurgle Terminators now failed to deal with the larger group of Speeders, and autocannoned them instead, to no effect.

The loyalists now launched an all-out attack on their Blitz and T&Hs, but could only secure one while losing all the Assaults in a fierce engagement at the second. Meanwhile, HellBlades pulverized the weaker Speeder formation, leaving the SM with few options on my side of the table.

In a desperate gamble, and running out of activations, the 2nd Speeders assaulted the intermingled Nurgle Termies and my Blitzguard Forlorn Hope, and were predictably crushed.


Final positions. Note the Hell Blades/Talons converging on the ford where the Speeders perished, and to the top/left the SM Blitz and my T&Hs...

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