League Battle Report: Silver Skulls + IG vs. CSM + IG

Got my last league battle in today.  I had my Space Sharks done, which was my goal for the league, so I decided to bring a different force today.  Still a core of Space Marines, but this time using my Silver Skulls drop pod force, with some Imperial Guard backup.

I brought (1500pts):

Librarian

3xtactical squads, various weapons, drop pods

Dreadnought with TL lascannon, heavy flamer, drop pod

IG command squad with officer of the fleet and autocannon

IG veteran squad with lascannon

Manticore

Bastion with quad gun

James brought his CSM, with:

Two winged slaaneshi daemon princes with lash

Two CSM squads, melta guns and icon of chaos glory

Defiler

Obliterator

3xTerminators with combi-plasma and power mauls

IG command squad

IG veteran squad

Leman Russ

Marbo

We rolled up the Relic mission with Hammer and Anvil deployment and set up, with the aid of the handy game-start reference page from Team Stormbolter.

The Traitor Marines and the turncoat guardsmen deploy.

Across from them, the loyalist remnants hunker down for a last stand.  Will help arrive in time?

The princes fly towards the enemy bastion while their troops follow in their wake, not so lucky as to be free of gravity's pull.

Meanwhile the Defiler and Russ turned their battlecannons on the loyalist quad gun to keep it from going to work on the flying princes.  Combined with their own quad gun, the traitors destroy the loyalist emplacement along with most of the squad manning it.  Before he died, the attached Fleet Officer was able to impart a message that help was indeed inbound!

The first wave of Silver Skulls drop pods thuds down behind the advancing Chaos force.  The traitor quad gun used its Interceptor ability to fire at the arriving dreadnought, and immobilized it but it was still able to fire.  The dreadnought blows off the Russ' turret and stuns the crew, as burning promethium from its heavy flamer fills the crew compartment with smoke.  Nearby, the melta, snap-firing multimelta and numerous bolter shots manage to disable the Defiler.  A good result, but too late to save the quad gun.

Overall battlefield shot end of turn one.

One of the crew helping to load missiles onto the Manticore reveals his true colors and heaves an IED at the vehicle.  His aim is true but the hull withstands the explosion.

Alerted to the presence of loyal marines, the Chaos reserve force of terminators teleports in and unleashes a fusilade of plasma shots at the Silver Skulls.

The remaining marines move to shoot at the terminators while trying to get concealment from the other Chaos forces.  Other Imperial reinforcements are delayed by diversionary attacks in orbit, so the forces on the ground must make do as best they can.

The prince vector strikes the Manticore, glancing it but failing to destroy it.

Interlude - other games going on - Landon's marines vs. Necrons.

Eldar vs. Eldar/DE.  Apparently Eldrad almost killed himself with Perils of the Warp results this game.

Almost.  Hellions helped finish the job.

Orks vs. Necrons.

Back to the main event!

Terminators and the obliterator move in on the marines and assault them.

The obliterator and terminators pull down most of the marines, but not before they take down one terminator.  Sgt. Ali stings like a bee and whomps the other two terminators, then floats like a butterfly away from the obliterator.

With the orbital spoiling attack dispersed, the Silver Skulls strike cruiser is clear to release more pods, and two more smack into the surface, disgorging two more tactical squads and a Librarian.

Ali continues his withdrawal, electing to try to stay alive and guarantee a Linebreaker point instead of risking himself against the oblit.

FOOM!  One of the powers the Librarian had was Sunburst, a Nova power (affects all enemies within 6").  Normally too short ranged to be too useful, but a wonderful power for someone arriving via drop pod.  Where he landed both CSM squads and the traitor IG squad were all in range, causing 20 hits combined and successfully blinding (lowering BS and WS to 1) two squads.  Combined with the fire from the tac squad, the CSM holding the relic take serious casualties.

Chaos retaliates and causes serious casualties to the Librarian's squad, which elects to fall back.  We had forgotten that the larger CSM squad was still blinded, which would have cut down on the damage they caused both from shooting and the subsequent assault.  Oh well, need to make and use more markers for that sort of thing!

On the other end, the obliterator multimelta's a drop pod, but with double 1's for penetration, doesn't even scratch it.  I guess there was still sufficient spare heat shielding from re-entry.  The pod's survival is short lived however, as the oblit soon tears it open with his powerfist.

More bad news for the loyalists, as the traitor Russ maneuvers behind the immobilized dreadnought and destroys it with heavy bolter fire through the rear armor.

The prince assaults the other tac squad, taking a few wounds from overwatch fire.  The librarian's battered squad flees from the Chaos Marines while some other CSM grab the relic again.

The prince kills some marines, but there are plenty of krak grenades to go around...

Back at the loyalist bastion, the prince has destroyed the Manticore, but not before it got its third shot off.  He also wrecks the bastion itself, causing the survivors to quickly escape and take up hasty positions.

The Librarian moved up in range to Sunburst a few squads again, but opened himself up to a little too much power from the warp and fell over dead.  At that point things really started to look grim for the loyalists.  Instead of dieing, the 2-man CSM squad with the relic manages to drag it into the bastion, which is basically impossible to crack for the loyalists with the weapons they have remaining.  A very slick move by James.  Other CSM move in to support the prince.

But not quite in time!  Sustained krak grenade attacks finally fell the foul prince of Chaos.

Back at the other bastion, the guard fail to slay the prince, who charges them and kills several.  They break, but only fall back 2" and stay on board!  Unfortunately they fail to rally next turn and end up fleeing off board after all.

With the relic untouchable in the chaos bastion and no way to kill the warlord prince, I concede.  If I could have killed warlord prince, I would only have lost 4-3 (he would have the 3pts for the relic and one for my warlord killing himself, I would have had all three secondaries).  As it was, with his warlord alive and in my DZ, he made it a 5-2 Chaos victory!

We ended the league today, with the top players separated by only one point!  Congrats to Landon for first place with his marines, Jim for second with his Eldar/DE combo and Steve for third with his own Eldar!  I'm not sure of full results, but given my recent spate of crushing losses I would not be surprised if  I ended up last out of the still active players.  Too bad there was no prize for having the only fully-painted WYSIWYG army! ;-)

We're going to take a little league break, and then start another 40K league up in about a month, details to be determined.  So if you'd like to get in on the ground floor of the next one, stop on over to Gaming Underground!  Depending on the book and the league format, I expect that I'll probably be taking Chaos Marines next time, but we shall see...