DYLAN:
So the opening game of the League has been played between my Crimson Fists of Strikeforce Espiridion and Phils Heretic Alpha Legion. I decided to use my gun line army list with "marine re-roll castle" of Captain, Lt and Ancient holding the middle with the Eliminators and Hellblasters benefitting from the re-roll fun combo and banner. My Intersessors would hold the flanks with the aid of the Redemptor and Chaplain and possibly strike forward to grab objectives. The Castle in the centre would take out priority targets like vehicles/characters etc.
I placed the Interceptors in reserve to give me an option of threatening Phils deployment zone later in the game. Unlike me I decided to randomly generate the deployment and got Hammer and Anvil, which meant playing up the table rather than across. I placed two objectives in my deployment and one centrally, and deployed right on my front line, looking back maybe placing all objectives as far back as possible and camping the backfield may have been a better tactic but it wouldn't have been much fun. I lost the roll for deployment and Phil chose to be the attacker, but the Emperor hates heretics and a successful seize the initiative roll meant I would be going first, this had to be a good sign.
First off my snipers took out one of Phils characters, the Master of Possession as he would boost the deamon engines if left alive, and also securing 1 VP for First Strike. The Hellblasters fired upon 1 of the Maulerfiends and managed to take a few wounds from it though 1 died even with rerolling 1s to hit. Phil was on the move and most of his army came rushing towards me, warptime being played on the Maulerfiend who got close enough for a turn 1 charge on the Hellblasters, followed by the Chaos Lord who got to charge me LT. Much murder was had but a few Hellblasters survived, the LT was not so lucky awarding Phil 1 VP for First Strike. The attacks back only irritating the Maulerfiend, as Phil rolled an unhealthy amount of saves... not for the first time, statagem shenanigans.
At the start of turn 2 I was holding 2 objectives so scored 2 VPs. My Autobolt rifle Intersessors moved towards the Chaos Lord, and my Ancient fell back to allow me to shoot the Lord. The thunder of jetpacks announced the arrival of my Interceptors in Phils deployment zone, movement over shooting began, and I played some stratagem shenanigans of my own. Boltstorm was played on the auto bolt rifle Intersessors making their shots auto hit within 12" which got around the Chaos Lords -3 to hit modifier, the ensuing hail of shots sending the Chaos Lord and his foul mount back to the warp, and +1 VP to me for Slay the Warlord. The interceptors wiped out the cultist unit with their bolter fire, denying Phil a VP next turn, I then played Rapid Fire stratagem on one of my Intercessor units to make them Rapid Fire 2, the following 32 shots at -2AP wiping out another cultist unit and denying Phil another VP at the start of his turn, the Sorcerer refused to die from sniper fire, again, and the rest of my shooting only picked off the odd model here and there. The captain charged and killed the maulerfiend. Things were looking good. Things change it seems. Phil's turn 2 started well for me as he only held 1 objective, but the following psychic and shooting phases started to dwindle my already thin blue line, and noise weapons meant I got no benefit for being in cover which didn't help. My Inceptors made two mistakes, first I should have placed them on the far side of the table from where they landed, and second they wiped out the cultist unit and had nothing to charge (a charge would have put them right on top of the objective and in cover) then promptly got wiped out during the shooting phase, while another cultist unit retook the objective. In the centre Phil's forces daisy chained the other two objectives and then proceeded to punish my forces in the combat phase, Captain Espiridion temporarily dying but his warlord trait allowed him to stand back up at the end of the phase. The Lord Discordant charging the Auto Bolt rifle Intersessors and killing all but 1. The Chaos Hordes were well positioned but we were still hanging on.
I scored another 2 VPs at the start of my turn 3 but I needed some big wins this turn to deny Phil objectives at the start of his turn. It started well with my Intercessors wiping out another unit of cultist holding an objective, and my Repdemptor moving up and taking some wounds off the remaining maulerfiend, before charging in to do some damage, though not enough to kill him. Oh dear. Phil scored 3 VPs at the start of his turn 3 and things went down hill for me from there. His Sorcerer plinking more wounds off my Redemptor. In the movement phase a unit of Chaos Marines that had snuck of earlier reappeared on an objective and the rest of Phil's army in the centre consolidated onto the other 3. The remaining Intercessor unit suffered 50% casualties but held, the Chaplain lost a wound to shooting also. The Lord Discordant charged my Captain and Ancient, killing both. The Hellbrute charged in to help the Maulerfiend, killing the Repdemptor, which promptly exploded killing the Maulerfiend, damaging the Hellbrute, but worse for me killing the Eliminator unit nearby leaving me with 4 Intecessors holding 1 objective and Phil on the other 5.
Start of turn 4 and 1 more final VP leaving my on 7. The Intercessors made a brave stand but failed to make any real impact. The Chaplain charging the nearest cultist and killing enough that they failed their morale test. Phils turn 4 started well and only got better, with 5VPs for objectives. The Chaplain and Intercessors died to much shooting and that was that. As VPs are important in the League overall we worked out the final turns with the game continuing to turn six and Phil scoring a massive 26VPs in all. It was a great game. In review I should have gone with the classic across the table setup which would have put more of Phils army in my gunsights and I should have camped all three objectives in my deployment. The Intercessors with Auto Bolt rifles wiping out the Chaos Lord was possibly my favorite moment, but you have to laugh when your model explodes and kills your own units.
PHIL:
I was looking forward to the game vs Dylan for a few reasons: Firstly as i hadn't met Dylan yet, just seen and talked to him on the whatsApp, and it's always great to play with new players :) secondly i hadn't played 40k in a couple of years and was looking forward to dusting off my old alpha legion models and some new additions. The list i picked to play was mainly due to it having the most painted and assembled models :) It comprises of two battalions, first has a chaos lord on slaaneshi steed, a terminator sorceror, 2 units of max noisemarines, a noise marine hellbrute, back up by 4 squads of random cultists. Next battalion was a lord discordant, a master of possesion, two maulferfiends and 3 units of cultists. List is quite fast with the daemonengines and lord, aided by warptime on the sorceror, backed up midtable by the noisemarines and foot characters, while the cultists hunkerdown and hold objectives. Master of possesion to cast cursed earth to help protect the forward elements.
Dylans crimson fists excel at shooting down hordes with bolters and using devestator doctrine and imperial fist stratagems to demolish vehicles. Was going to be an interesting game, but i had first turn so could advance up, cast cursed earth, take the first punch and then counter with my foward assault units. That all went to pot when Dylan seized the initiative, sniped out my master of possession with his eliminators and started to whittle down my troops. D'oh! Going second meant, after Dylan had advanced his hellblaster/intercessor/captain/banner/lieutenant into a central castle position. This meant with warptime on a maulerfiend and good advance roll on my lord(who would charge and advance), i could get those two models in to assault. The hellblasters and lieutenant were taken out, which gutted his centre. I lost both units next turn, but from there the ignoring cover noisemarines shooting attacks, with blastmasters doing d3 damage, really started to whittle down the primaris. Dylan had terrible save rolls too. In reply, Dylan was savage with his bolters, removing whole cultists units in one salvo, meaning i couldn't score, while he went ahead by about 5 vps. However i managed to get the lord discordant, second maulerfiend, and finally hellbrute into combat and by turn4 had removed all the fists.
Star of the show was lord discordant, who just has so many attacks in combat. Dylan might have been better deep striking his heavy bolter pistol dudes on another flank, to threaten more than 1 unit of cultists but that would've been closer to the hellbrute, who with warptime could be very mobile. Dylan had no psychic defence, while i didn't fail to cast or miscast once, which meant i could out manoeuvre him. Overall very happy with list, it has a nice balance i think but Dylan pulled some great tactical moves to counter it. Look forward to playing both Dylan and the list again!
FINAL SCORE: Phil 26 - Dylan 7