Thursday, September 19, 2013

TMI: The Chosen One



This last weekend I finally had a go with my Chosen list, with a couple Heldrakes to test Nabors's new Space Marines, and I liked it. I also managed to squeeze in a game of Malifaux 2nd Edition versus Shaffer's Rasputina crew.

I put this list together to both try out my Chosen idea for my Night Lords, and to add in some Heldrakes as our club lacks any kind of Heldrake test list. The games were fairly enjoyable, even with the broken trash that is a Heldrake. And, since the Heldrake is on the decline, I will be likely keeping them in the list.
The list:
Abaddon
Flying Daemon Prince with Black Mace, Wings, and mark of Tzeentch.
4 Units of Chaos Chosen with two Plasma Guns, Flamer, and a Melta Gun in Rhinos
2 Heldrakes with Bale Flamers
Unit of Havocs with 4 autocannons
In game one my Daemon Prince rolled both Warptime and Endurance. We were playing 3 objectives. I started by sending the prince across and moving my Chosen forward, taking shots where I could. On turn two the two Heldrakes came on and Abaddon deep struck into his back field. My Chosen had disembarked and so walked forward, while the Rhinos largely acted as a screen, limiting which units could shoot them. Knowing I would be crossing the field, all the objectives were on his side. My firing seriously hurt his troops, while my Heldrakes were largely untouchable. He had a unit of Centurions, which seem to be like the Riptide and Wraithknight, in that they talk a good fight, are really hard to kill, but don't really do much damage. I eventually charged and killed them with Abaddon. After his first turn wasting on the Sargent, of course. I brought serious hurt this game, tabling him on turn 4 with very little loss to myself. I think in large part because he didn't know what to target as the new book left him unsure on what to protect. I still only managed a minor win, as I only had one or two objectives. Also, my Havocs were fairly useless.



Game two was Emperor's Will. I ran the same list, and Nabors tried a new one. This game he straight up killed my Daemon Prince first turn. As the Daemon Prince is less crucial versus Space Marines, it didn't set me back trribly, but he did have First Blood, the initiative, and I was down 350 points. Not a good place to start. I sent my stuff forward on the left, and he moved everything forward. I took heavy casualties on turn two, but didn't lose any squads. On my turn two, in came one Heldrake and Abaddon. Just one Heldrake was able to turn the tide, drive bying a Storm Talon, and evaporating a squad. It didn't give me a commanding lead, but did take the pressure off. This game my Havocs continued to do nothing, cementing my feelings that they were just useless. I also ran into another problem with my list, I have no back field. When everything rushes forward, keeping your back objective can be a bit tough. As a substitute, I decided to take his. Which I didn't. This game Nabors's target selection was almost spot on. Having seen roughly how my army worked, he figured out where to hit and hit me hard. I lost my Heldrake and all but one of my Rhinos. The Rhinos hurt the most, since I was reliant on them to pull me back to my objective for the win. As it was, I never made it back. I was able to move one depleted unit into range of the objective and another onto a wrecked Rhino, in range on the other side. I also pulled out the Jerk inside and forced him to Instant Death his warlord, since he rolled all the saves at once, and didn't state which was the Melta. But in the end this is what gave me the game, as his Command Squad was also on the objective, mine was empty, he had First Blood, I had Line Breaker, that gave me Slay the Warlord, and Abaddon was wondering around in the middle with nobody to fight. Do I take pride in what I did? Who cares? I won.



After close, and all the youngin's headed off to their blankies, Shaffer and I lined up for a game of Malifaux. It was his first game of Malifaux 2nd Ed, and so in true Henchman form, I forgot to place markers for the strategy. Ah, frik. So, anyways, we chose the same schemes, Breakthrough and Make Them Pay. I sort of screwed up the first turn, not burying the Nothing Beast, trying to work some shenanigans burying other things, including his December Acolyte. It threw off my rhythm a little, assuming I actually have any rhythm with Tara yet. I made several mistakes with my handing out Fast, mostly centered on powering up his Ice Golem. A really cool thing I did( repeatedly) was power up his Golem, gets some wacks on it, forgo buryng it, since I had attacks left, then whiff the final attack. Go, go, speedy Golem, WHAM! I even had to scream in a Death Marshal to bury the Nothing Beast for healing, but then he died, the Beast returned, got whacked, and ended up with the same number of wounds. Still new at this, but seemingly NOT what I should want to do. As with my last game, I managed to put Tara right where my opponent wanted, she died, and the crew crumbled. Shaffer played a fine game, not giving me the slack that I needed. Not unless I could promptly hang myself with it. Also, the last turn, after I was already teetering on the brink, I had this in my discard pile of around half the deck. Now, that is awesome sauce.


A great game, I am actually enjoying Malifaux 2nd Ed. I hope Leveticus comes out as something decent, but as it is now, I believe I have found my master.

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