Battle Report: Endless Ones vs. Grey Knights

Endless Ones on Crusade

I got a test drive in with the Endless Ones yesterday, taking 1850pts against Josh, aka "Bean" and his Grey Knights.  This was my first game against Josh and I found him to be a fun, easygoing opponent who persevered even in the face of some atrocious rolls and my constantly having to look things up for the unfamiliar new Chaos book.  Just how does Gorechild work?  What counts as a daemon?  How do Beasts work?  By the end of the game I had a better handle on a lot, but I appreciate Josh putting up with me and the first time using the new Chaos Marines.  I'd faced them a few times, but using them yourself is a bit different.

We played Crusade with five objectives using Dawn of War (long edge) deployment.  As often happens, we forgot about the mysterious objectives.  Oh well, maybe my pistol-packing cultists could have gotten skyfire.  I won table edge, won the roll off for deployment and chose to go second, then made the roll to steal the initiative.  An auspicious debut for the Endless Ones!

I took:

Level Three Sorcerer with plasma pistol, spell familiar, sigil of corruption (took Telepathy, got Psychic Scream, rallying spell and Hallucination) (warlord) Forgot that I could roll on the table in the Chaos book, got one that gave me counterattack in my DZ.

Kharn plus nine Berzerkers in a Land Raider

2 squads of regular CSM (sorcerer with one)

2 squads of ten cultists

Predator (Autocannon/Lascannons)

Defiler

Spawn

6 Warp Talons with Mark of Tzeentch

He took:

Draigo, paladin squad, inquisitor in terminator armor

2 Strike squads

2 Dreadknights

Stormraven

Vindicaire assassin

My deployment in the first picture - Marines with sorcerer and spawn on my left, other marines, defiler and predator in middle, Land Raider with zerkers and warp talons on my right, cultists in reserve.

GK deployment, above.  Termies, Dreadknights, Strormraven in reserve.  Strike squad in upper floors of building nearest, other squad in lower ruin in the distance, both covering objectives.  Vindicaire infiltrated into the bell tower by the far edge of the table, ready to put a penetrator round into the Land Raider and then start sniping out champions.

But my seizing the initiative put a wrench in that plan.  The Chaos marines surged forward, and though the assassin avoided the defiler's battlecannon, a lascannon from the land raider blew him apart.

Sorcerer's squad and spawn secure one objective

Apologies for the lack of pictures for parts of the battle - my camera was being temperamental and I didn't want to slow the game down any more than I already was by fooling with it too much.  

Chaos forces move up, while the predator sits back and shoots up one of the strike squads.  The Grey Knights return fire, killing a chaos marine in the sorcerer's squad and scuffing the paint on the land raider with psycannon shots.

Call them expensive point sinks if you will, but there's nothing like charging out of a Land Raider.  The only way to travel.  Kharn and his lackeys hit the strike squad hard, though a number of their own number are cut down by incoming fire and force weapons.  Kharn himself killed the justicar in a challenge but didn't get any boon from the gods of Chaos.  He proceeded to finish off the rest of the squad in the following round.

My cultists didn't get the memo about chilling out until turn 4, and eagerly arrived on the battlefield turn 2 instead.  One moved up to secure the objective on my right, the other backs up the predator.

The battle starts to get a little more even as the termie mob and a dreadknight arrive.  The terminators almost mishap; a slightly different angle or another half inch would have seen them off the edge of the field.  The dreadknight did in fact mishap; it scattered into the Chaos Marines and I stuck it on the other side of the table. 

The terminators open up on the Chaos Marines in the open.  Rending hits take out two marines, then the champion proceeds to make ten armor saves.  Booyah!  

The stormraven also arrived and fired at the defiler and land raider, but failed to damage either one thanks to a low penetrate roll against the raider and a successful invulnerable save from the defiler.

The marines in the open move up into the ruins in front of them while the other squad and sorcerer move in on the terminators.  The sorcerer leads off with a psychic scream so loud he perils with double ones and blows out his warp-larynx.  The paladins don't care and casually make their leadership check on three dice with a six, taking no wounds.  Other fire pours into the terminators, killing several.  The defiler's battlecannon scatters off, killing a few cultists and destroying the predator's autocannon.  

The Spawn moves up and charges into the dreadknight, who tears it apart.  Probably did the spawn a favor.  Meanwhile Kharn and his buddies get back in their ride which takes shots at the stormraven to no effect.

The other dreadknight arrives (cleverly disguised as a spare flying base) to back up Draigo and the inquisitor.  If flames the marines on the second floor to no effect.  The stormraven turns and flies over, dumping mindstrike missiles into the sorcerer, finishing him off.  His squad breaks and flees but soon rallies.

In my turn the marines shoot up the dreadknight.  The champion who had survived so many wounds earlier falls prey to an overheating plasma pistol.  The gods are fickle indeed.  

The defiler charges the terminators and draws with them on the first round.  The dreadknight will help to finish him off soon, his explosion killing off most of the cultists.

Kharn and his buddies jump out again and take on the dreadknight.  Some invulnerable saves on both sides keep the fight going, but Kharn finishes the job next round.  Warp Talons move towards the remaining strike squad in the building on my left.  

The warp talons get shot up, but two survive to engage the strike squad and engage in a mutual wipeout.  The berzerkers move back to the objective in the ruins on the right.  

Elsewhere, the other dreadknight assaults and kills the Chaos marine unit in the middle, while the sorcerer's old unit hoofs it back to cover their old objective.  The land raider gets immobilized on the crater trying to reposition, but does manage to shoot down the stormraven that had dropped into hover mode to avoid flying off the table.  

At the end of turn five (I think?  Maybe six.) Josh concedes.  I had troops on three objectives to his zero, and though if we continued he probably could have cleared one of them there wasn't enough time to reach the others.  As for secondary objectives, I had first blood (the assassin), he had slay the warlord (sorcerer) and we both had linebreaker.  Victory to the Endless Ones in their inaugural battle!

I had a good time despite fumbling my way through the rules, and I hope that Josh did too!  

Takeaways:

The land raider did really well this fight.  It'll be a shame when it gets popped turn one in other games!

Kharn is a monster!

The warp talons did well once they made contact.  Will have to see them in action a few more times to decide how good they are.

The defiler, though it had a big price jump seems to be worth it, at least if I can keep rolling invulnerable saves for it.

While I love the Imperial Guard, it was nice getting a game in with a very different force after so many IG games in a row.  3+ armor and BS4 are awesome!