Battle Report #25: Old School 40k #3, Lahkers vs Khorne Daemons

Specifically Daemons of Khorne, not Khorne Daemonkin.  This was my third and final game in the Old School League.  Opponent was Chappy, running a Khorne Daemons list.  Have I mentioned there were Daemons of Khorne Involved in this battle?

Okay, okay, I'll quit it.  I'd recently been musing I wanted to fight Daemons, and by the Silent King, I got my wish.When I saw the Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage (whew!) I started to regret my wish a little.  Oh well.  No time to worry, only time to soldier on like a good Necron.

Lahkers list, revised to be slightly more sensible
Catacomb Command Barge (Kobeh) w/Warscythe, Tachyon Arrow, Mindshackle Scarabs, Phase Shifter, Phylactery
Cryptek (Ref-Tek Jahksen) w/Staff of Light, Chronometron, Phase Shifter
10x Warriors
14x Warriors
10x Immortals w/gauss
10x Deathmarks
10x Triarch Praetorians w/Voidblade and Particle Caster
Triarch Stalker w/twin-linked Heavy Gauss Cannon
3x Tomb Blades w/Shield Vanes and TL Gauss Blaster
5x Scarab bases
2x Canoptek Spyders w/Fabricator Claw Array, Gloom Prism, TL Particle Beamer
Doom Scythe (fast skimmer according to Old School rules)

Chappy's Khorne Daemons
Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage
2x Daemon Princes
3x 10-man Bloodletter squads
2x blobs of Khorne Hounds, each with a Herald
Soul Grinder

Custom mission was "Mistakes were Made", Purge the Alien with an addition: we got victory points for retreating (on purpose) below-strength/below-starting-wounds units from the opponent's table edge.  Deployment was Dawn of War, with our zones split into thirds, each a different length out, the arrangement up to us.  Zones were 6", 12", and 18".

Chappy won the roll-off.  He allocated his 18" deployment zone to his center field, his 12" zone on his left flank, and the 6" on his right.  All the Khorne dogs went in the center, the Daemon princes and Bloodthirster of Insensible Rage went on his left flank, and on his right the Soul Grinder took cover behind the building.

My left flank was the 18" zone, the middle the 12" zone, and my right flank the 6" zone.  I put the Doom Scythe on the far right to hang out and try to draw off some of his forces.  The rest of my army I packed into the corner, deciding to lay his daemons low as they came at me, or be forcibly deconstructed trying.  I did not attempt to seize the initiative.

GAME TURN 1

Chappy had his center and right-flank forces wheel around and head towards my lines.  Then he rolled for the Warp Storm, my first taste of the Blood God's anger.  It only hit my Praetorians, thankfully, and did nothing.  The Soul Grinder dumped Battle-Cannon flavored pie on my Warriors and killed 3.  The left pack of Hounds ran further towards my Warriors, and the right pack charged and failed to reach my Spyders.

I didn't do a lot of moving, mostly scooted my Tomb Blades and Praetorians forward, and had my Spyders and Scarabs tiptoe forwards, not quite sure whether I wanted the Scarabs in combat this early or not.  Mass gauss killed about 6 of the double-wound Khornedoggies in the left pack, and the right lost about 4 from my Doom Scythe's fire.  I tried to charged Kobeh, the Scarabs, and the Spyders into the left pack of Hounds, but only Kobeh got in.  He challenged immediately, and the Herald accepted.  I hoped to snipe him out and debuff the dogs.  Kobeh dealt 2 wounds to the Herald and took none.

GAME TURN 2

Chappy got 2 of his 3 Bloodletters in from reserves.  They both deep-struck in on my extreme left flank, one hit in the middle left flank, the other scattered back and landed by the Soul Grinder.  I had the Deathmarks intercept the squad that landed nearer to me, and they finally got their act together and killed all but 3 of the Bloodletters.  The Warp Storm rolled KHORNE'S WRATH...and nothing happened.  Another bullet dodged.  Five of my Deathmarks were slain by the Soul Grinder's fire, most likely; my notes contain no reference to how they died.  The Daemons moved ever closer to my lines, the Bloodthirster of Incredulous Rage moving towards the Kobeh-Herald combat.  The other Prince charged the Spyders and killed one of them.  The right pack of Hounds charged and wiped out my Scarabs, getting First Blood for Chappy.  The mighty Bloodthirster charged into Kobeh, penned his barge 5 times, and vaporized him for Slay the Warlord.

This was disheartening, but I had nowhere to go.  I had to stand and fight (or rapid-fire, preferably).  The Tomb Blades finished off the 3 Bloodletters for 1VP, and the Deathmarks and Warriors hosed the rest of the Khorne dogs down for another VP.  The Praetorians got into a fight with the Blue Prince, and went 2-2 for wounds inflicted.

GAME TURN 3

Chappy was shoving his Daemons in my face at this point.  KHORNE'S WRATH struck again, and this time damaged the Doom Scythe and Stalker.  The Herald from the now-vaporized squad of Khorne dogs joined the other Herald and his squad.  Then we began the long list of assault moves.  The other non-blue Prince assaulted and immobilized the Doom Scythe, bringing it to 1HP.  The Bloodletters who had landed by the Soul Grinder charged and wiped the Tomb Blades; the Bloodthirster of Indefatigable Rage kicked my Ghost Ark into the next county; the remaining Dog Squad assaulted and broke my Warriors, with Ref-Tek Jahksen and a single Warrior somehow getting away.  The Blue Prince and Praetorians slapped each other, my guys coming out on the worse end.

I was done for, but determined to try and kill at least one more unit.  The Stalker and Immortals killed and wounded many Khorne dogs.  My Deathmarks fired at the Khorne dogs, got a few Precision Shots, and sniped out the wounded Herald.  I charged my Stalker into the dogs, and it managed to hold its own.  Only one Praetorian survived the attacks of the Blue Prince, and did nothing of note.

GAME TURN 4

Chappy's final squad of Bloodletters came in, he deep-struck them without incident by my Immortals.  The Soul Grinder clumped out of cover and I believe it shot at the Warriors who had formerly been in the Ark, and killed most of the squad.  The Bloodthirster of Incorrigible Rage charged into my Stalker and (surprise!) stomped it flat.

I may have played one more turn, may have killed a few Bloodletters off, but my notes say nothing on my possible Player Turn 4.  There wasn't anything I could do.

We called the game at the bottom of Turn 4.  Chappy ended with 11VP, I ended with 4VP.

Well.  I got my wish.  I fought Daemons.  Chappy pointed out that his two Daemon Princes were T5, and that I could have used my S10 Tachyon arrow to potentially remove one of his powerful dudes from the table.  That was a great idea, of course I forgot about it in the moment.

I liked the 40k Old School league.  It was fun planning out lists with the old Force Org chart.  My opponents were good sports, I got to play new armies...only thing I was really disappointed with was my own performance.  It's been a while since I got rolled this bad, multiple times in a row.  I want to get good, I want to have fun, but I'm such a scrub general.  Read up on tactics, keep playing, hope the dice favor me again...seems like that's all I can do.  That and paint the models.  Love the painting, it's half the hobby for me.

Extra Pics:

Battle Report #9: Lahkers vs. Slaanesh Daemons

HOOOLLLLLD! HOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLD!

Fight time with seductive goat daemons?
Sorry.  This was my first game against a pure Daemon army.  I was excited and anxious.  Memories of the Bikestar were still fresh in my mind, I did not want a repeat of that, even with beautifully-painted models.

I brought my usual gunline, augmented with a few Marines in a Razorback and a vanilla Dreadnought in a drop pod, my only reliable sources of anti-tank.

Aaron brought a troops-heavy CAD, the main points of which were the flying Daemon Prince, a Keeper of Secrets (warlord), and the big squad of Seekers and two Soul Grinders.

Aaron won the initiative roll-off, and set up symmetrically, save for the Fiends on the left.  He held three squads of Daemonettes in reserve.

Still skittish about bikers, cavalry, and anything with a 12" move, I set up a plain old gunline a few inches behind my depolyment line, Canoptek units up front, the Catacomb Command Barge placed where the Overlord's morale/pinning/reroll trait could do the most good.  (And be an emergency choppy unit if necessary.)

I rolled to seize initiative and got it!  Not really set up to take advantage of it, but a seize is a seize, I cannot complain.

Turn 1

Inspired by Ike's tactics, I dropped my Dreadnought down right behind the right Soul Grinder and blew it away.  That was my big success for turn 1, other than that, the Lahkers inched forwards, pushed center with the Wraiths, and acted like the gunline they were.  On the right flank, the Marines took potshots at the goat-daemonettes; the plasma-gunner burned himself but made his save.  One Immortal squad grabbed the lower objective, and the other sat on the tower and rebuked me for not providing targets to shoot.

Aaron's first turn, he moved everything up.  The Daemon Prince cast Grimoire on the riders for a ++3, the Herald spawned a vortex that would auto-spawn daemons (and did in fact spawn a few Plaguebearers at some point), and two Pyschic Shrieks failed to wound my Spyder.  His Fiends assaulted the Tomb Blades, forced a morale check, and the 18" Immortal Hubris bubble came in handy when the Blades failed their first check.  They made their reroll and stayed in.  The Seekers assaulted the Wraiths, Wraiths won combat, and the Seekers stayed in.

Turn 2

I brought my single reserve in, the Deathmarks, and tried landing them near the Keeper of Secrets.  They scattered onto the Keeper and rolled a 1 for mishap.  Apparently a goat-demoness can distract even soulless robots.

And you're an "Elites" choice?  For shame.

Deathmark fail aside, turn 2 was similar to turn 1, I continued to move up.  The Dread destroyed the vortex, the Wraiths finished off the Seekers and consolidated towards the Keeper.  I got a wound or two on the Keeper, I think through the Razorback's lascannon.  The CCB got stuck in with the Fiends and Tomb Blades.

Aaron's turn.  He had a squad of Daemonettes deep-strike high on the left flank, and moved the Soul Grinder and Keeper in on the Wraiths.  The Daemonettes at the bottom right assaulted and cracked the Razorback, plasma-guy burned himself again (made the save, too), and the Soul Grinder and Keeper got into combat with the Wraiths, killing one.

Turn 3

At this point, I started really thinking about contesting and claiming objectives, and realized this could easily end in a tie.  I moved the warrior blob into the center, ready to take the objective, or if necessary, be a tarpit.  I moved the leftmost Immortal squad towards the left objective, and the Scarabs up to join up in the fight with the Keeper.  The CCB continued to hold the line against the Fiends, and the Scarabs jumped in and did zero wounds to the Keeper.  The Wraiths killed off the Soul Grinder, and the Dreadnought killed off the couple Plaguebearers trying to block it.

Aaron focused on moving his troops towards objectives, and charged the Marine squad and the warriors on the left with his Daemonettes.  The Marines were engaged, and only by a miracle did the Daemonettes fail to make it to my warriors, the game might have been much different if they had.

Turn 4

My fourth turn, the Dreadnought realized victory was on the line and waddled towards the top objective.  The warrior blob got as close to the objective as they could without joining the combat, and the Fiends worked the CCB down to 1 wound.

Aaron's turn, he ran towards the objectives as well, and had his Daemon Prince swoop over and shoot an Immortal or two down.  The Fiends killed off the CCB at last, and consolidated towards the left objective.

Turn 5

Not much happened, besides warriors crowding around the left objective and ongoing combats.  The Plaguebearers glanced the Dread, and the Wraiths finally got the Keeper, scoring the Warlord kill.

Aaron rushed his Daemonettes to contest the top objective, and his Fiends assaulted the Immortals by the left objective, intending to get stuck in close enough to contest the objective.  The Fiends did too well, killed the Immortals, and were left, in the open, in front of 20 gauss flayers.  On the lower part of the board, his other Daemonette squad headed for my lonely Immortals in the forest, getting close enough to contest their objective.

We rolled for game end, and it went on.  Had it ended here, Aaron would have won, holding the top objective and with Line Breaker.

Turn 6

As expected, 20 rapid-fire weapons versus a couple Fiends ended with no Fiends in sight, and the left objective in my hands.  The Wraiths lunged at the Plaguebearers up top, charged them, and wiped them out.  The warriors grabbed the center objective.

Aaron landed his Daemon Prince and I believe got the Grimoire off on one of his squads, and tried to Psychic Shriek the warrior blob, with little to no effect.  The Daemonettes by the lower objective assaulted the Immortals, but didn't kill them.

We rolled for game end again, and this time it did end.  I held one objective and had First Blood and Slay the Warlord, he held one, we both had line breaker, and the remaining two objectives were contested.  End result: Lahkers 6 VP, Daemons 4 VP.

Lahker victory!

Thanks to Aaron for the game, and for being an awesome opponent.

Extra pics:

"If we're very quiet, and we don't move, maybe it won't notice us..."

"Yes, Command, objective is secure...totally secure...gimme a sec..."*punching noises*

"Half dead, squad gone, Razorback wrecked...these day trips aren't what they used to be."

Hero Immortals!

Love it when you get the backlighting on gauss bits.

Battle Report #4: Lahkers vs. Daemons-Knight-Space Marine Triple Threat

The final game of the league!  I faced off against Jesse and his unbound Daemons-Knight-Marine army.  Comparing the lineups, things didn't look good for the Lahkers.  Jesse's army looked very formidable, especially the Defiler and Obsidian Knight.  Both were well-painted, I should add.  Good paint jobs deserve attention.

Knights, Daemons, Marines–gotta field 'em all!

Mission was Cloak and Shadows (we kept our Tactical Objectives secret), deployment was Hammer and Anvil.  After some discussion we decided to roll off just once for objective placement and initiative.  Jesse won, and objectives were set up evenly spread across the field.  He set up with his Knight, Defiler, Chapter Master, Librarian (with the Shield Eternal), two units of Plaguebearers, one Herald of Nurgle, and one unit of Bloodthirsters all behind an Aegis defence line that cordoned off half of his third of the board.  And it had a quad gun too.  He held two units of Obliterators (one unit of two, and one alone) and a unit of two Nurgle Heralds in reserve.

Apologies in advance if and when I get Daemon units wrong, this was my first time fighting warp-spawn.

An actual gunline deployment for the gunline army for once.

I used the same list as the week before (Decurion with Reclamation Legion, Judicator Battalion, Canoptek Harvest).  I deployed about 6" farther back than usual, hoping to minimize first-turn casualties.  Nemesor Zandrekh and the 15-warrior blob camped in the trees on an objective.  I held my allied Scouts, Devastators with the Librarian (mastery level 2, otherwise vanilla), and my two squads of Triarch Praetorians in reserve.  I failed to steal the initiative, and the game began.

Turn 1

Not a lot happened Turn 1.  Jesse kept his melee units behind the Aegis line, and the Knight, quad gun, and Defiler killed a few warriors and wounded a Wraith.  I think he captured an objective as well.

My turn, I turbo-boosted the Tomb Blades up to the middle objective behind the tower.  The Canoptek formation scuttled forward, staying as much in cover as possible.  The rest of the army inched forward, looking to get around the flank and pick off Jesse's units one by one.  The Ghost Ark headed over to Zandy's unit to rebuild warriors.  For the first time in any game, I believe, I did not fire a single shot in my first turn.  I did switch Zandy's warlord trait to Divide to Conquer, putting a -1 nerf on Jesse's reserve rolls, and captured two objectives for 2 VP.

Turn 2

Jesse rolled for reserves, and got both Obliterator units in.  Zandy denied the Heralds, they had to wait another turn.  The two-man Obliterator unit dropped in by Zandy's blob, and the lone one landed by my Wraiths.  The Bloodthirsters shuffled away from the Tomb Blades, the lone Herald leaped the Aegis line and headed for the Blades, and the rest of Jesse's army inched forward.

"Uh, guys?  Behind us?"

The Herald on the field opened fire with an AP2 flamer, I had the Tomb Blades jink.  My dice, however, decided to get the bad luck out of the way, and two of the Blades failed their saves and RP rolls.  More warriors died to the quad gun and Defiler battle cannon.

nope nope nope nope nope nope

Knight pic, just because.

On my turn, I rolled for reserves, everything came in.  Devastators strolled onto the table by the Obliterators, the Scouts outflanked and arrived on the board edge to my left, and I deep-struck both Praetorian squads.  One landed on target behind the Defiler, the others scattered, rolled a mishap, and were placed by Jesse.  He put them way back in my deployment zone.

In my shooting phase, the Praetorians fired at the rear of the Defiler, and glanced one HP off.  The lone remaining Tomb Blade turned his bike around and floored it away from the Daemon lines.  The Ark put one warrior back into Zandy's squad.  Scouts killed off a couple of the Plaguebearers nearby, Devastators snap-fired at the Obliterators, rolled three sixes To Hit, and a few moments later there was one less Obliterator on the board.  My Wraiths assaulted the other Obliterator, he lost one wound but stood his ground and fought.  I believe both of us scored another objective this game turn.

Turn 3

Jesse's remaining unit of two Heralds of Nurgle arrived and deep-struck into the midfield.  The Knight and Plaguebearers on the other side of the field both moved up, and the Defiler, Chapter Master, and Librarian went to deal with my pesky Praetorians.  My last Tomb Blade had a very lucky escape from the 2+ poisoned shooting from the Heralds.  Zandy's blob got even more lucky with their reanimation rolls, frustrating the remaining Obliterator and his heavy flamer (he wounded 6, killed 2).  My Wraiths killed the other Obliterator in his assault phase and consolidated towards the Knight.  The Praetorians lost a few men to the Chapter Master and Librarian, and dealt one wound in return.  The Plaguebearers on the left side assaulted the Scouts, the Plaguebearer sarge-equivalent challenge the Scout Sarge, and a slapfight almost at the level of vanilla Marines versus vanilla Marines ensued.

Totally photogenic, right? Okay, maybe not, but that's a hell of a paint job there.  Love the shiny blood on the axe.

My turn, I moved the Wraiths and Scarabs towards the Knight, continuing to hand out Reanimation rolls to both units thanks to the Spyder.  (Have I mentioned yet I love the Decurion and its formations?  I do.  I do love them so.)  Zandy's squad killed the remaining Obliterator in a hail of gauss-beams, and they got three more warriors back thanks to the Ghost Ark.  The Scout-Plaguebearer slapfight continued, the Scouts slowly winning because of crappy Daemon saves.  (It should be noted Jesse's dice were misbehaving, and mine were running surprisingly hot.  Lady Luck will no doubt balance the scales in a future game.)

My Stalker knocked a hull point off the Knight, and the Wraiths subsequently assaulted the towering terror.  After throwing about 30 dice at the Knight, a single glance was inflicted, and then he hit back with Strength D attacks and a couple Stomps.  Two Wraiths remained.  They held him in combat, however, so that battle cannon wasn't going to kill anything at the moment.  I scored two more objectives, bringing the total to 4-3, my lead.

Turn 4

Jesse moved his remaining Plaguebearer squad nearer to my troops, and his Defiler took a shot at my Ghost Ark.  The Ark jinked the shot successfully, and Zandy's blob continued to weather fire with considerably better-than-average RP rolls.  The Knight finished stomping my Wraiths to death and surged forward one inch for consolidation.  The Scout-Plaguebearer slapfight continued.  Jesse scored an objective.

My turn, I moved the Devastators to a position where they could get shots on the Knight if it moved up.  The Heralds died to concentrated gauss-fire (or maybe that was last turn...), and the lone Tomb Blade turbo-boosted into Jesse's deployment zone.  The Scarabs dove into the Scout-Plaguebearer combat, finished the daemons, and freed the Scouts up to do stuff.  I scored one more objective, and at this point the timer ran out and all games were called as they were.  I scored Line Breaker, which tipped the balance 5-4, my favor.  The Lahkers were victorious!

And thus my first competitive league ended, with a win-loss ration of 1-3.  I'll take that over 0-4.  I enjoyed the league overall, it was a good challenge to tackle.  I don't know what exact time I shall return to the league, but I shall return for certain.

Zahndrekh/Kobeh getting photobombed in his moment of glory.