Friday, December 21, 2012

Brass Templars (CSM) vs Tau/Eldar 2000


Late update! Last week Dank and I got a game in at our FLGS. This time I busted out my Brass Templars (A crusade of BT that have fallen to chaos) since his army matches up better with my foot horde of marines and I'm much less experienced playing MEQ than I am with 'nids.

I absolutely love the Black Templar, but the age on their codex is clearly visible. The idea of a tide of marines just storming across the field of battle massacring anything in their way is awesome. They're not far off of loyalist Khorne berserkers, and so I use the CSM book to let me play them the way I wish their codex did. This list has 90+ bodies on foot... it's not a competitive list at all, but it can simply overwhelm some opponents and is hilarious to play. The mass models isn't too hard for me to deal with, as Tyranids can easily have that many models on the table, split up among even more units. Without further ado, here's my list.

Chaos Lord on Juggernaut with mark of khorne, Axe of Immense Rape... errr, blind fury, sigil of corruption and gift of mutation




2x20 BP/CCW marines with icon of vengence, sgt with powerfist, 2 melta guns
15 bolter marines with 2 melta guns, icon of vengence
2x10 bolter marines with 2 plasma guns
2x7 havocs, 2 ml w/ flak, 2 lascannons

2 Chaos spawn

Some of my marines are out for painting, and you can tell by my heavy proxying that I was really scarping the bottom of the barrel for this list. The 15 bolter squad has a chaplain and a heavy bolter filling in for standard marines this round. Haha, I need to get more mans!

I roll up the reroll chaos boons warlord trait... followed by D3+1 more boons... which I roll a 6 for!

So, with all that I get..


Reroll armor saves, +1T, 5+ deny the witch and something else I don't really remember. Regardless, my lord has now become immune to ID from railguns, nigh impervious to small arms fire, and a decent save against any psychic shenanigans. Quite the results!

Dank modified his list a bit, trying out a standard farseer instead of Eldrad to get fortune/doom instead of book powers. Combined with his tank shas'el setup, he hopes to have a unit of dire avengers hold the center of the board and be almost impossible to remove.

His list, from memory looks something like this.

Shas'el - Blast weapon, burst cannon, 2 shield drones, 2+ armor, FNP
Shas'el - ASS, Hit and run, Plasma/missiles
Farseer - All the fixins

6 Stealth suits with 6 gun drones 1 marker drone
3 missile pod flamer suits

2x6 fire warriors
12 fire warriors with markerlight
2x10 Kroot
20 Kroot
10 Dire avengers, exarch with bladestorm, defend and double guns

3 Broadsides with plasma
2x1 Broadside





We roll Vanguard and Relic, he has first turn, no night fighting. I take a deep breath and get ready for the firestorm.
  Here's setup.


He deploys the avengers mid field with the drones and tank'el in the front. One unit of fire warriors far to the left in the building, one on top of the hill to try to lure shots and the big squad in the hill/rocks with their eyes on the relic. His broadsides are next to some terrain, aimed to give him the best view of my deployment zone so he can properly lay down some pain. The missile suits are far to the left.






He uses his infiltrators to cover his other units and protect his broadsides flank from my lord's unit.




I've got my big bolter squad in the middle, flanked by the two smaller bolter squads and the big assault squads on the outside. Both Havoc squads are on the ruins and the Chaos Lord and spawn are hiding out of LOS.I've put my meat in the middle to force him to grind them down to keep me off the relic, while I hope my fast movers and sweep up and break his flank.

First turn shooting he pops a few marines from the far right assault squad and my havocs. Of course...


I barely pass with the first unit so the second has to fail and run ELEVEN inches!

Ouch! Now with just snapshots I've lost a lot of my already weak fire support. I'm not happy, and things aren't looking good. Luckily I haven't given up first blood, and I didn't lose any of my heavies.
 Out of sight, out of mind. He moves his stealth suits onto the terrain edge to get his 2+ cover but forgets the lord's unit is right around the corner. I almost get denied the chance to teach him a lesson when he loses a suit and 2 drones to dangerous terrain!
My casualties after the first round of shooting. 3 off the left assault squad, 4 off the right, 2 off each havoc squad and 2 from one of my bolter squads.

Eager to get my vengence, the lord comes flying around the corner and Dank's morale plummets. He was already pretty upset about losing the 3 models to terrain checks, and right when he got over that he realized how close he was to the lord's fast moving unit.

The horde slowly advances. The havocs rally (Thankfully) and I prepare to take my ineffectual pot shots with my army. Lucky for me, my snapshotting havocs manage to pick up a lone broadside for first blood! I pick up a few kroot and not much else. A generally boring turn until my lord charges the stealth suits. With a 4 on his daemon weapon, you can guess how that combat went...



Having lost his stealth suits and a broadside, he's feeling the pressure, but not overly concerned. His biggest concern is the lord on his doorstep. Luckily one spawn has 2 wounds already, so he advances most of his army to get shots on them. Fortune up on the avengers and doom on the left assault squad.

He lays into me pretty hard, picking up both spawn, and most of the left assault squad. If you notice someone missing from the casualties... my lord survived with one wound left despite the majority of his firepower being dumped into him. A 3+ rerollable with T6 is tough as nails.

I tighten the noose, moving everything up. More ineffectual shooting picks up a handful of firewarriors/kroot. My missiles are scattering like it's their job, but I'm not concerned. I've got most of my marines left and my lord is about to bring his psyker to paintown. Man that was lame. I eat the overwatch with the left marines (I didn't want to test my luck with 1W left on the lord) and fail the charge. The lord picks up the slack by making it. None of his characters are engaged so none can take my challenge, I roll like shit and only pick up a few dire avengers. He runs! 


But I fail to catch him :( Now I know he's going to rally and I'm going to lose my lord. The only advantage is that I have pushed his tanky troop way off the objective so I can get my hands on it.

He rallies but forgets to cast his psychic powers. His army POURS firepower into the lord and I just barely die to the last firewarrior.




He's got me out of his deployment zone, for now, and whittled down my left assault squad to a melta, sgt, icon and a lonely butthead. Luckily I've still got a big assault squad, and my bolters are finally coming into double tape range.

I continue my advance, heedless of casualties. KILL THE MUTANT! MAIM THE XENOS! BURN THE UNCLEAN! Wait... are we getting a little chaotic? Oh well, FORWARD!



I shoot the small assault squad into the suits and the melta picks one up. More terribile shooting from my Havocs (Besides the one sniper lascannon, they've been massive failures all game.)

Moving into assault, I make both assaults (Small to broadsides and big to tank squad).


With a 2+ rerollable on the Shas'el and defend, I do no damage to the squad and my powerfist fails to even scratch the farseer in their challenge. I lose a marine but fearless keeps me fighting.

My small squad pastes both suits, sadly. Leaving me out in the open for his whole army to obliterate them. I'm fine with this, as it's pushed him away from the relic and will buy me a turn to get in there.


He fires into the 4 man with all his fire warriors, followed by a kroot charge. I make -every- armor save, then proceed to run down both Kroot squads.


With combat in the middle in an eternal stalemate (1 attack per marine vs 2+ rerollable and 14+ fearless marines to tank his shots, this isn't ending) and having lost two units of Kroot to my unkillable marines, Dank has lost all hope. I still have 40+ troop marines in the center of the board, he has no way to get troops there or anywhere near enough firepower to keep me off it.

We call the game here, as we're ready for Taco Bell! Letting my lord smash his stealth suits T1 really hurt him, and my 4 man squad of unstoppable fury really sealed the game.

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