Chaos forever!!!

Or at least a while. So, I'm back in 40K. CSMs have changed my melancholy back to joy. I might have been able to sell my Tau today, but since that will never happen...
The game went well. I don't think I can find any fault with my current list. At least not yet. Thousand Sons do go down just as fast as White Dwarf says. The saves are awesome, but they still go down. Nurgles might help with extra toughness, but that ain't gonna happen, so. Marines seem to fall more frequently on this side, then the did on the other, but I think that's a point of view issue. They did take a lot to go down.
Today's game was a three way, CSMs(me), Dark Angels, and Sisters. The Sisters deployed, then me, then the Raven Wing Dark Angels didn't. It was quadrants, with Sisters in the north west, myself in the south west, and the Dark Angels not in the South East. I managed to seize the initiative, sweet.
First turn I rolled blood rage on my dread and he goes tearing forward. I move 1 thousand sons rhino eastward, the other 2 head north with a defiler between them. My other defiler, that was pointed due east at the empty DA deployment, turns north, and heads to cross a hill. My Daemon Prince follows the single rhino and heads toward the hill in the center, which is the only objective. I drop a battle cannon on a unit of flagellants and another on a large soritas(?) unit. I killed 3 flages, and a couple sisters.
The DAs do nothing.
The sisters promptly blew up my dread, officially making him do nothing all game. Still have no idea if I like this guy.(Though thanks to the TEG staffer who let me use his model) The rest was moving foward trying to pick a fight. My northbound defiler also eats it this turn.
My second defiler goes on to cross the hill take a rhino chassis something, lose its gun, get immobilized in combat with 2 penitents, who is eventually kills. Then it just sits there making noise till destroyed on 5th turn.
One rhino got popped by some flagellents, who were beat down by my shooting and lesser deamons. The deamons went on to do some serious damage more than earning their points and place in my army. At just 13 points each and 78 for the squad, I think they doubled their points.
My sorceror died to a sniper shot and me accidentally reading the ASPIRING sorceror line and crying '1 wound, what the hell?' Turns out 3 wounds and should have cause more havoc. *sigh*
My Daemon Prince gets killed on the hill from combined DA and Sister shooting.
My Term squad takes down 2 term squads(1 to shooting on deep strike, another to CC), some sisters, and finally dies to his HQ squad. I think I may switch to dual lightning claws, but I don't know where to get the points. Perhaps the dread...
My Obliterators didn't do a whole lot. 1 did death or glory and Immolater, managing to immobilize it. However, forgot to shoot the next turn, and missed the turn after. Some Thousand Sons were able to finish it off in assault in the end though.
The Thousand Sons were pretty awesome. I love the fluff, and I think the invul and especially the AP 3 bolters are fantastic. I didn't keep track, but I am pretty sure they made their points, if not in kills, in what they held up. I am definately sticking with them. Noise marines keep calling, but I don't think I will like them as much.
The game came out a draw end of turn 6. We would have had a turn 7, but the store was closed. I only had a few sons left and a rhino. He had a good chunk. The main thing for me was that the DAs laid into me pretty heavily, so that at the end of 4, when the DA player left, I was missing a chunk of my force already, where as the Sisters hadn't lost much I hadn't killed. After that it was pretty even, with me mostly holding my own. I think turn 7 would have seen me load the last remnants in the rhino and bunker it out until the end. I believe I was in range to Gift of Chaos his HQ jumper, which would have been my first spawn, and a hell of a prize. I don't think he could have gotten troops on the hill, as they were towards the west edge where they had taken one of my sons squads down. He would have contested, but still a draw.
All in all a good game. Things I would change, nothing. I would have liked to see my dread in action, but its dieing didn't hurt me that much. My first defiler making combat, and my second doing a little more destroying would have been nice as well. Also getting my sorc right would have really helped. Maybe I do need army builder.The Daemon Prince in actual combat, I wish I could have.
Things I liked: my squad of lesser daemons, a definite keeper. I don't see more being added, either to this squad, or more squads, but one is very nice. My defiler(it was my scratch built, too) was awesome in combat, I still like them. I don't miss the pred, the obliterators seem more than capable of doing the job. I do, however, think that they need to be deployed, not deep struck. The lascannon gives them plenty of range, and slow and purposeful means they can mostly keep pace with the rest of my army. The term squad was awesome, even though they aren't relentless and thus can't shoot and assault(need to check this), did some awesome damage. Being 9 strong definitely helps. I was wondering if the rhinos are a waste, but I think I will stick with them, they help keep my sons alive into rapid fire range.
I won't be changing this list much before next game.
On a side note, I found the perfect dice for my army, both in looks and the fact that they seems to roll awesome!

Chaos Space Marines

Well, I am firmly within the thrall of Tzeentch. I have a good start on my first defiler, I have offered to by another players CSM models, and am discussing what I am to do with the Orks from the Black Reach box.
I have already revised my list a bit, dropping the pred and moving to 9 man squads. The predator I think is a bit of over kill that I don't need. I have my obliterators if I am facing strong armour, I also have my defilers' battle cannon should I need more range, and a dread with a pair of claws and two defilers with quad claws if I need it up close. Also, the 4+ invul of most of my army should help against heavy weapons, with my rhinos being the most vulnerable.
As for the squads of 9, I just found an old White Dwarf(circa 2002) with a chapter approved on Thousand Sons, stating that the number 9 is sacred to Tzeentch, which I had forgotten. Thus, 9.
I should have pictures of my defiler up soon. I don't want to WIP this one, because the process is kinda ugly, and iffy the whole way.

Chaos Space Marines?

Well, in a turn from the greater good, I have decided to watch the galaxy burn. I was able to give the CSM a try, and I liked it. Mind you I only got in 2 turns before we had to break, as we spent most of the morning working on Gore Swirl. The turns are almost lightning quick, almost as fast as Tau turns are later in the game. Nobody got trounced, even though there was a Tau player. The only real damage I did was a couple piranhas and a sniper drone, but I had my Defiler and Daeman Prince on the objective, lesser daemons with in reach, a rhino close behind, with another circling around the right side, and a third destroyed(wait thats not good), but the Thousand Sons inside on the move into Tau territory. I did learn that I will pry be dropping the predator, as a single static tank in my back field seems sort of a waste when I am rushing foward with monstrous creatures who can do the same thing vehicles in person, and will be able to do more against infantry. Also, the drop will let me add another defiler.
I am currently working on getting templates for building the rhinos. I might end up scratch building all the vehicles, though originally I had planned to only use the rhinos for proxies until I had decided on a list. I might look at making a pre-heresy style force, but I do like the Black Reach space marine helms.
I guess we shall see.

Annihilate the 'crons!

So, we finally threw down the 2 'cron vs 2 Tau game. Apocalypse, no FOC, 2500 per player(5k per team). I was running late, so they rolled mission and such with out me. Annihilate! Damn! Each side had 2 assets. We took the marker field(everything marked within 24") and a Icestorm warhead(10" blast vs vehicles, all 'crons hit take a pinning test). They took some tech snag thing, single use, grabbed one of my area denial nodes. Other asset was a unit gets up on 2+, instead of 4+.
Started the game by making a destroyer squad run off the table, its becoming a theme. Took out swarm after swarm with rail rifles, killing 4 3 base swarms and 2 bases of the 5th by the end of turn 2. Almost everything else got back up. At end of turn 2 we had to barely scratched them. Supposed to finish weekend after next, but there is already talk about calling that one.
Likely next time will be objectives, with us holding a fortification on one end, going the long way. Basically a pro Tau setup, with the exception of no phase out for the 'crons. Not sure I like it, but whatever.
Biggest thing I need to do is look long and hard at that third mission. It has filled me with a undue sense of dread, and I need to face it down. I think I need to just set up my gun line and go all out for the kill. Kill a unit, move to the next. When placing on the long edge, instead of spreading across table to maximise fire lanes, and cutting off support from different elements, I should place everything in a cluster along the flank, forcing the enemy into my fire lanes. I think setting up second may not be disadvantageous. Then I can pick the weak flank and force them to move their strength to me, moving as far as possible.
For this next game, knowing my opponent and knowing my terrain setup before hand, I think I will place all my guns on the wall, plugging the hole in the center and the ends with my nodes. Likely place my HHs behind the wall, so they can move forward over the wall, landing in front, to unleash death first turn. Top of the walls will be loaded with markers, snipers, and broadside. Mind you, I will have to set up with a partner and space is limited, but it should work out, table is 5' wide. Pathfinder Devilfishes will find a place behind the nodes giving LoS for deep strike across the board. If the monoliths land in the back field, I hope to use my teammates FWs with EMPs to take them out.

Down with green!

So my Space Wolf friend and I finally got to play a game side by side, instead of against each other. And got torched. It was against the two newest players in our group. The newest played his orks, while the other played dark angels. We drew annihilate(DAMN!). Set up mostly along the back, the Space Wolves player set out a land raider crusader and a few terms(pure term army). Orks and Dark Angels deployed everywhere 18" away(accidentally bastardised dawn deploy). We held onto first turn. Opens with tons of shooting, biker nobs are just as brutal as everyone says. Usual comments about my shooting taking forever. Spend most of the game not killing Nobs, though we do eventually take them out. The angel bikers behind the fair better though, but still get taken. Kept the angel dread stunned until we could do get rid of all its range and immobilise it. Orks take a beating, I take a beating, Space Wolves get beat a little, Dark Angels come out almost unscathed. Now, that's how you use a meat shield. I'm not sure it was intentional, but they did an excellent job using the orks to tie us down, and then mop up with the space marines. Kudos to them. Sadly I think my partner and I sort of writ this one off from the start, but I don't feel either us played for the lose, it was more "Annihilate? Well damn. Geh, lets get to it then."
I need to get the killing power in my army. A side note, I recently set my list up so that I can use my broadside or a sniper squad interchangeably, this time using the squad. I take a tar getting array on the broadside, so they have always been the same points, I just list it now so I can change on the fly. I like it, little more fun I think.

Tabled turn 1

Not me actually, the guy I was playing. I felt terrible. I recently started playing with a new group, and one of their members also plays Tau. I hadn't gotten a chance to see him play, as he has been unable to make our game days. However, some of the other guys thought that I should get together with this guy and give him tips, seeming as I can almost win, and he gets trashed. So we kinda set up this thing where he and I would play a couple of other guys in a large Tau vs Necron game. Well, that's still a week away, but we(Tau players) decided to get together and do a practice 500pt game and talk strategy. My list consisted of a commander(tooled to use my new template), 1 FW squad, 1 Kroot, 1 Pathfinder, and a Railhead. I held my commander in reserve to deep strike with his flamer, airburst. I deployed my Hammer head forward, the pathfinders in a building, the firewarriors in the back on the right flank by the PF devilfish, the kroot infiltrated onto a central objective. He deployed a single, large firewarrior squad with drones and a commander(~fire knife) also with drones. I pie plated his firewarrior, killing a shield drone and 8 firewarriors, by far my best shot ever(no I know why SMs tear through me). The rolled 10 for Ld and ran. In shock I turn the turn to him. The firewarriors rolled another 10 and continue to flee. This is when I asked if he had any reserve and find out no, that's his entire force. I think I know why he has trouble bringing it on. He only had 450 pts, 250 for the commander, the other 200 for the Firewarriors. He had tooled them up with everything, plus a shield drone and a marker drone. The commander had a shield drone and marker drone as well. His plan was to shield my army with his as a sort of meat shield. I didn't like the plan before and after seeing what we would be throwing away points wise, I hated it. I pointed out what he could do if he toned down the points. More squads a definite plus, also a dropped marker light drone alone would have given him points for a broadside at least. I honestly expected him to have vehicles, I tried to plan around taking them out, they didn't exist. I wish I had scattered a little actually, just so I could have seen how he plays, but I hope it helped him with army creation a bit. Maybe different styles, I don't know.

Streak over?

So I got 3 games in last weekend *gasp*. All in all a good weekend. However my playing was less good. 2 massacres and a win.
First game was Saturday morning against orcs. I was deploying high apparently. I set my chariots straight across from his Black Orcs, crunch. He played savage orcs, which ignore my fear. My scorp misfired, so he moved him to a distant corner. Top of the 6th, just had my heiro and scorp left, and he stomped 'em both, massacre. I did screw up by not making him roll dispel dice for double 1s.
First game Sunday, Ogres and Dwarves, three way. I did a fair amount of damage here, but still got toasted here. I might have had troops @ end had I remembered liche and casket guard in the giants pouch when he died. Managed some nice flank charges with ushabti, including the giant. Held my own, but 2 forces just turned out to be to much.
Second Sunday game, Ogres only. Deployed with a pincer attack in mind, chariots on left, ushabti on right, lt horse on far right. Much better. Ushabti were blocked by some terrain, didn't support my guard so well, but they were useful later. Horse drew the manhunters off, keeping them from flanking guard. Chariots didn't do awesome, but they died for the cause, slowing one of his big units. Casket and SSC deployed on a hill far left, good plan for SSC, bad one for casket. With the SSC's range, this set it up to cover most of the board, while leaving the short range gap empty. The casket however was out of line of sight for most of the army just by being in the flank. I controlled half the board @ end, likely marginal victory, but didn't fully add points.
Of note, I used a King/prince/2lp list against the orcs, with my prince on a chariot. Since I still don't know how to use chariots, didn't go well. Also the short dispel sucked. Switched to King/3 lps for Sunday, much better. Not looking back.