Dark Angels vs Chaos 1500 points part 1

Greetings, folks!

Bob here with a very long overdue battle report! This past weekend I got a game of 40K in against the blood crazed horde of Neverness. It boggles the mind, but this was our first game! It was nice to get a game of 40k in. Without further adieu I present the battle!

My Army

Company Master: Artificer Armour. Mace of Redemption

Tactical Squad 1: Veteran Sargent. Plasma gun, missile launcher

Tactical Squad 2: Veteran Sargent. Plasma gun, missile launcher

Deathwing Knights

Deathwing: Sargent with power sword. Assault Cannon

Deathwing: Sargent with power sword. Plasma Cannon

Ravenwing Attack Squad: Attack Bike with multi-melta. Plasma gun.

Mission and Deployment

The table

The mission we rolled was "A Hidden Presence" from the Alter of War missions in Cypher's dataslate.What the scenario boils down to is this: quarter deployment with one objective in the center of the remaining two quarters and an objective in the center of the table with a 9 inch exclusion zone around it that prevents deployment near it. The rules are pretty simple. The primary objective for Cypher's player is to get him off of the table by getting him to within 3 inches of the enemy board edge at the end of his movement phase. If he does this his controlling player gets 3 points. If he does not do this the other player gets the same amount of points. The other objective markers are worth 2 points each and the usual secondary objectives apply. Cypher also begins the game hidden in the unit of his controlling player's choice by disguising himself as a any model in the unit with less than 3 wounds. The controlling player may reveal him at any time. With that out of the way lets take a look at deployment.

Dark Angels' deplpyment

Cypher's warband deployment

I of course opted to hold my Deathwing in reserve and have them come in on turn 2. My general deployment was a crescent with the 2 Tactical Squads at either end and the Ravenwing in the middle. My Company Commander would tag along with the Tactical Squad


Turn 1

Turn 1 turned out to be fairly tame. Mostly moving and some shooting on both of our parts. The Ravenwing snaked around the terrain on the hill to move to the objective in the corner closest to me. The mysterious objective was revealed to be the cover save generator. The Tactical squad deployed near the Ravenwing moved in the direction of the objective revealed by the bikes.

I took a pot shot at the Land Raider with the Tactical Squad deployed on the bunker. Scored a hit but rolled a 1 for armour pen. In return for the scratched paint, the Land Raider advanced and dumped a Havoc Launcher square on the head of the hapless Missile Launcher operator and killing him. The Ravenwing suffered a single casualty from incoming fire.

Turn 2

To start thing off it was time to bring in the Deathwing.

The squad with the assault cannon arrived as did the Knights

The squad with the assault cannon managed to arrive right on target on top of the objective nearest the chaos deployment area and in prime position to unload into the enemy warlord and his accompanying unit. The Knights scattered and wound up on top of a bunker (and not in base to base for the +1 toughness!). The final squad scattered and suffered a mishap, but thankfully they went back into reserve. In my movement phase I swung the Ravenwing around and advanced towards the opposing Chaos bikes. The Tactical Squad in the same area advanced toward the central objective while the other Tactical Squad exited the bunker and moved into cover of the hill directly opposite them. In the shooting phase the Deathwing unleashed all of their shots into the warlord's units and managed to kill only a single Black Legionary but I did manage to take a wound off of the warlord. 

Greetings, heretics.

On the opposite side of the board the Ravenwing squared off against the Chaos bikes. When all the shots cleared half of the Chaos bikes went up in smoke! Not bad shooting at all.I decided to go for a long shot assault and promptly rolled snake eyes for the distance! Oh well.

On Chaos turn 2 his bikers lined up for some shooting before charging into combat (after some goading). His Chaos Marine unit near his Vindicator advanced towards the central objective while said tank and his other units all pivoted towards the Deathwing. It was now that Cypher was revealed to be inside the Black Legion unit alongside his warlord. The bikes manage to kill a few Ravenwing with shooting. The bikes then charge in during the assault phase (no kills from over watch). The champion challenges my Sargent and the two promptly kill each other thanks to simultaneous Initiative in combat! After the dust had settled I passed my Hit and Run roll so the bikes broke off for another round of shooting and combat.  The Vindicator gets a good shot off at the Knights and kills their squad leader and a Knight! Between the Landraider and the newly revealed Cypher only two of my Deathwing go down to shooting! It is here that Neverness makes a rather fatal mistake. In his perfectly reasonable zeal to clear the Deathwing from his backfield he rapid fired Cypher and his unit, thus preventing him from charging! I seriously lucked out in this round. Both my terminator units were intact and I had another in reserve. My bikes were in a good position for turn 3 and my Tac squads and Company Master were practically unharmed.

My reformed bikes after combat. Photo courtesy of Neverness.

Turn 3

Deathwing Squad 2 arrives on target

My remaining Deathwing squad with the plasma cannon showed up and arrived directly on target to provide more fire support and a wonderful high threat unit to the Chaos backfield (and for dealing with Cypher of course!). In terms of movement there really wasn't much going on other than setting up for charges and better shooting. On the other side of the table the Ravenwing advanced to point blank range of the Chaos bikes while the Tac squads hugged terrain and set up to fire at the Chaos Marines on the central objective. The Knights meanwhile advanced out of the bunker to set up for a charge on the Landraider. In the shooting phase the Ravenwing brought the Chaos bikes down to a single model. The Deathwing unleashed on the Black Legion unit with the warlord and Cypher and tore the squad a new one! The big show was definitely the assault phase.

Hello, Vindicator. My multimelta wants to have a word with you! Photo courtesy of Neverness

 The Ravenwing charged the remaining Chaos bike and promptly finished the unit off with no casualties in return. With my consolidation I was in a great position to take out the Vindicator. The Knights got off the charge on the Landraider and promptly annihilated it thanks to smite mode.

Pop goes the landraider.

Now I just had an almost fully intact squad of Berzerkers to deal with..... Photo courtesy of Neverness

On Chaos turn 3 his entire army focused on dealing with the Deathwing. Cypher decided his meat shields were better off dealing with the Deathwing on their own and began to move away from the fighting and towards the cover of the trench works (not before shooting at the Knights of course). The Vindicator and Berzerkers both fired on the Knights as did the squad of Chaos Marines advancing on the central objective. After the dust settled on one Knight had gone down to enemy fire!

This can only end poorly......Photo courtesy of Neverness

The assault phase saw the Berzerkers charge the Knights. Let me just say that the amount of dice those boys can dish out is fairly obscene. Needless to say the Knights went down, but they did manage to take a few of Khorne's favorites with them. The warlord's unit charged the Deathwing squad closest to them. The warlord challenged my Sargent and promptly slew him using the murder sword and was duly rewarded with the boon of poisoned attacks. The remaining Deathwing with the assault cannon survived the fight and even managed to punch a Black Legionnaire with his powerfist.

The aftermath of the assault phase. Photo courtesy of Neverness

That is it for part 1 of the battle report! I hope you enjoyed reading about this very awesome game and will come back for part 2 next week!