40K League Report: Space Sharks vs. Chaos Marines - Cum on Feel the Noize!

My latest league game was against James' Chaos Space Marines, featuring some lovely noise marine conversions as can be seen above.  Dark Vengeance chosen with some chopping, chaos marine parts, greenstuff (including some tentacles) and guitars from Studio 38 .  Tres bon.  

Blurry pic of some more.  

His 1500pt army for this match.  

Huron

Slaanesh Lord in Terminator armor

10 man noise marines, 12 man noise marines both with full sonic blasters/blastmasters

7 raptors (unmarked I believe) 2 meltas, champion power sword and gift of mutation

4 terminators (unmarked I believe) combi-meltas and power axes

3-man obliterators, 1-man obliterator all mark of nurgle

 

I took my standard Space Sharks, but switching out the Ironclad for a small devastator squad and small scout squad.

 

 

Devs transferred over from the Silver Skulls, yet to be repainted, scouts recently assembled (heads from Pig Iron ) yet to be painted.

Chapter Master on bike, bike squad

2xtac squads in rhinos

Assault squad

Whirlwind

Scouts

Devs (4xML)

Typhoon Speeder

We played a combo mission with Kill Points and Emperor's Will (one objective each DZ), Hammer and Anvil deployment.  I won the roll off for going first but let James set up and go first, partly to react to deployment and partly to get the last turn for the objectives.  Scouts in Reserve.  

Chaos deployment.  One oblit on table, with Raptors hiding behind him.  One noise marine squad with Huron on objective, second infiltrated up to firing positions.  Terminators with lord and three-model oblits deep striking in.

Chaos first turn they move up, and noise marines rip into the dev squad.

 

 

Two on target AP3 cover ignoring blasts later and it was scratch one dev squad, one KP and First Blood to Chaos!

Space Sharks rush forward towards the noise marine concert hall, preparing to attack them with the holy weapons of bolter, chainsword and negative reviews.  Bikers blast through other flank.

Hurrah for ignoring dangerous terrain!

Terminators stay on the teleport pad, but obliterators arrive behind the assault marines.  Raptors move up to attack a rhino, with Huron leaving the noise marines to join them.  Lone oblit moves over and flamers bikers, killing one.  Oblit lascannons and raptor meltaguns lash out at the rhino...and fail to scratch it through a combination of missing meltas and assault marine-provided cover saves.

 

 

Noise marines pepper the assault marines with fire, who withdraw back behind the ruins.  Raptors assault and Huron carves open the rhino, spilling the tactical marines out into the smoking crater.

Shark attack!  Bikers move in, tacticals prepare to rapidfire into the enemy, assault marines move up to assault into the noise marine concert hall.  Fire from tacticals and the speeder put two wounds on different oblits, bikers kill a few raptors.  Assault marines fail their charge, their advance stymied by trying to fit their jump-pack bulk through the turnstiles.  Bikers charge into the raptors.

Raptors wiped out, and Huron and Chapter Master Mako exchange wounds in their challenge.  Scouts have also arrived and walk onto my objective.  In the following chaos turn Huron is slain.

Terminators teleport into battle and combi-melta the speeder down.

Obliterators move to the side and plasma up the tactical squad before charging.  Sarge and multi-melta survive to hit and run away.

Scouts and whirlwind flee from the terminators.

Assault marines had been shot up and fled again, and combine with tac squad remnants against the obliterators.  Preparatory fire bounces off but both charges hit home.

Bikers, realizing they have no chance with the turnstiles, move around to the stage entrance and assault one noise marine squad.

Tacticals wiped out, but the two powerfists take the obliterators out as well.

Termie lord splits off and chases the whirlwind, but his combi-melta is foiled by smoke launchers.  Regular terminators mvoe in on the scouts but find themselves afflicted by Wobbly Model Syndrome.

Bikers tear up the noise marines below, while those above shoot at other targets.

Terminators tear up the scouts.  The veteran scout sgt survives another round, but is no match for the traitors.

Bikers hit and run away from lone noise marine.  He finds his career as a solo artist short-lived, as the surviving tactical squad moves in and assaults him, killing him before he could even put together a demo.  Bikers move over and fight the single obliterator.  Noise marines in the balconies finish off the assault marines.

At this point I neglected to continue to take pictures.  Tacticals lost a few guys but managed to cover the chaos objective, with the surviving rhino serving as a shield.  The game ended turn 5 with final score 10-8 in the Shark's favor.  Victory!  Had the game continued, it's entirely possible the noise marines could have killed another unit or two and even claimed their objective, swinging it James' way, so I was glad to see the game end when it did.  Some failed cover saves on my surviving vehicles could have made it a tie as well.

Always a pleasure playing James, and seeing his in-progress noise marines was a treat.  Afterwards chatting we discovered that some of his tournament opponents had been neglecting the finer points of some rules.  No, Split Fire does not let you fire all three of your Centurions' grav guns at one target and all three guys' missiles at a different target.  Bad astartes, no cookie.