Rouge Trader Tournament: July 2010

This past weekend I traveled 3 hours with a friend to compete in a Rogue Trader tournament. I stuck true to a fluffy World Eaters list and they delivered just fine.

The list I took was:

Kharn
Demon Prince w/ Wings and Mark of Khorne
4x8 Khorne Berzerkers, Power Fist, Rhino, and 3 of them hand combi-meltas.
3x Obliterators
2x Cannons of Khorne (Demoniacally Possessed Vindicators)


The first game I played against was Imperial Guard. The setup was spearhead and the mission was to capture the table quarters with a unit that was greater than 50% strength.

His list was:

Command Squad, Master Of Ordinance
50 man platoon
2x platoons w/ Las Cannons
3 or 4 Chimeras that had platoons with a las cannon
Tank with demolisher cannon
Vendetta
Medusa
A big Gun w/ str 10 shot

I really botched this game and got trounced. Instead of running up the middle and bashing into everything I went for the objectives at the outset. This left me too separated to do anything and he just took me apart piece by piece. I scored a 4 points this game and my opponent scored 18.

At one point a plasma cannon shot hit the wing of his vendetta and he tried to argue that because the wing was not part of the hull the shot missed. I called shennanigans, but it didn't matter because he foolishly didn't move it on his turn and when I assaulted it all of my attacks (Str 9 powerfist!) immobilized and at the end if his turn I smashed it to pieces. It would have been quite funny to see his plasma cannon blow up his own model, though.


Game 2 was vs a gentleman named Jack who was new to the game and didn't have much experience. The mission was capture and control and deployment was pitched battle. The little scenario was that an elites choice was given up as a traitor. Since I didn't have an elites choice I game up a Khorne Berzerker.

Jack's kist was:
2x Hqs that had drones, a plasma gun, and a missile launcher
2x broadsides
1x flamer suites (I got the other one)
2x Missile Suits
2x Hammerheads
2x devlifish with troops
1 large Kroot Squad
2 Marker light squads

This game turned out great for me but just by a hair and by the blessing of my demon prince and Kharn.

He placed the first objective and I placed mine directly across from his as close as I could.

The table had a raised edge where he place one of his HQs and 4 of the broadsided for a high ground advantage. On his opposite side he placed the devilfish and a hammerhead, another set of suits, and in the middle was his HQ and the other hammerhead behind it. He infiltrated the kroot in terrain close to his objective and the markerlights in terrain to hit my rhinos.

I place the vindicators and oblits up top to also have an advantage and to take out his heavy hitters. My rhinos with Kharn and the demon price were right around my objective.

After the first turn his marker lights delivered and only one of my rhinos survived. I pretty much had to foot slog it across. The rhino that lived only made it 24 inches. He was able to penetrate a vindicator but demonic possession saved me and one oblit bit the dust.

On my turn the vindicator wiped out one clump of suits and the oblits plasmaed the rail guns off the map. Later the vindiator fired into cover to hit his HQ and he failed all of his cover saves.

Down below Kharn and the demon prince made it across the table to smash into a devilfish and a hammerhead, dismantling both.

On his last turn he shot a devilfish up toward my objective. Kharn later left his unit, got as close as he could, and blew it up with his plasma pistol.

I jumped my demon prince into terrain and assaulted his kroot that were just barely contesting his objective. Because of the pile in this pulled him away. The game was called and I won! With bonuses I ended up with 18 points and Jack had 6.


The last game was with a friend, Stetson. He plays space marines and had the following list:

Lysander + Sternguard in a drop pod
Pedro + Tac Squad in a drop pod
Ironclad in a drop pod
Assault termies, all with Thunder Hammers in a Crusader
2x Land Speeder storms that had scouts w/ a combi melta and melta bombs.

The setup was dawn of war and the mission was to for an attacker to rescue a hostage from a defender. I won the roll off the play the defender and hold the hostage. Whoever had control of the hostage gain victory points.

I castled up but spread out too far and I didn't fully understand the scenario, but I came very close to winning and actually had a higher total of points. I needed 13 more points to pull off a win.

As for highlights: Lysander and his squad dropped in next to my demon prince and split up. The ironclad dreadnaught dropped in not far away as well. He tried to fire against my vindicator but whiffed. On my trun the demon prince flew over and dismantled the dreadnaught while Kharn disembarked and took on Lysander. Kharn delivered 4 wounds but he saved 3 and then turned Kharn into mush. However, the remaining berzerkers brought him down.

Later on the demon prince killed pedro but the tac marines took him down. The terminators got vindicated and a full squad of berzerkers cut them down to scrap.

In the end my forces were spread too far out and he was too far away from the objective. I made a box of rhinos around it and he couldn't get close.


When the games were all said and done Stetson won best sportsman thanks to mine and the friend I brought's votes after deciding a 6 way tie. He took home a Lemartes blister.

My friend took 2nd place, of which I was trailing by 1 point! He at first took home a land raider, but traded it for an apocalypse book instead, as he didn't need a land raider.

First place was the IG player I lost to and he took home a manticore.

I took 3rd place and took home a Trygon, but since my friend traded off the land raider and I have no use for a trygon I got to take the land raider instead.

Last but not least, I won best painted for having based models. I got an awesome 4x scale space marine statue.

‘Ard Boyz Style Tournament 03-20-2010

I played in an 'Ard Boyz style tournament this weekend and took 3^rd place. The lists were 2500 points and I took a full on World Eaters list.
My list:
HQ:
Kharn
Demon Prince w/MoK


Elite:
5 Chosen w/ Autocannon, Melta Gun, Flamer, IoCG

5 Chosen w/ Autocannon, Melta Gun x2, IoCG


Troop:
4x8 Khorne Berzerkers w/Skull Champ & Pfist, Rhino
2x10 Chaos Space Marines w/ Aspiring Champ &Pfist, 2x Melta, IoCG, Rhino


Heavy Support
3x Vindicator w/ Demonic Possession


Strategy:
Beat everything into submission. The Demon Prince was my anti-walker/anti-tank/Bullet Sponge.


Game 1: World Eaters vs Space Wolves

The mission was 5 objectives, one in the center and one in the center of each table quarter.
I played a goof fellow named Brad and in his list he had Logan Grimnar, two Rune Priests, 2 sets of terminators w/ assault cannons, 2 sets of long fangs, 3 set of grey hunters, and a group of scouts that outflanked. Everything but the scouts, who outflanked, were in drop pods. I barely glanced at his army list or even at his army after I deployed and moved on my first turn, then I noticed he had drop pods. All of my rear armor was exposed.
Strangely enough, he didn't get behind my vindicators and his shooting on his first turn was uneventful. His squad of grey hunters put a good hurt on my Chosen on one edge of the board.
On my turn (top of 2) the demon prince and a squad of Berzerkers got into position to assault some grey hunters. One of the terminator drop pods had scattered right in front of the vindicator wall and all but one lived after he made 3 invulnerable saves. The demon prince and berzerkers made quick work on the grey hunters squad, but a powerfist took out some berzerkers before the last one died on his turn.
On Brads turn he brought in some other stuff another long fangs and Logan Grimnar moved in to get close to the demon prince. His shooting killed the demon prince off leaving Grimnar open for the 6 berzerkers who took shelter.
Turn 3, the berzerkers moved in on Logan, shot bolt pistols at him, and the assault took him down, only removing one berserker. I positioned some vindicators, melted the lone terminator, shot at the other grey hunters.
Brad brought in another drop pod of terminators and a grey hunter squad, and again his shooting was ineffectual. Some berzerkers and a vindicator took out the grey hunters and the terminators that came from their drop pod were also vindicated. The CSMs I had shot and assaulted the last grey hunters squad and the two sets of berzerkers assaulted the other long fangs squad and rune priest wiping them out.
Time was short so brad got to finish his turn where pretty much all he had left was a long fangs squad. I think I finished the combats on his turn for all of his other troops and what not.
In the end I controlled 3 objectives and contested the rest, a massacre. Kharn and a squad of berzerkers never left their rhino. With bonuses I was at 22 points.


Game 2: World Eaters VS Slaanesh/Nurgle

Luck could not have been more in my favor. Of all the other games everyone else won a massacre and most of the bonus points putting them at 23. Because I had 22 I was at the back of the pack of the "winners". All of the losers had 0 points, except for one person who had 1 bonus point. Because of this I was to face the player with 1 bonus point. So that meant all of the others were playing seasoned veterans high on their glorious victories and I was playing an already demoralized opponent.
This mission had two moving objectives that scattered 4d6" every turn if a scoring unit was not within 3" at the start of every player turn. As luck would have it on turn 5 the objectives scattered within 6" of each other on turn 5 and I was able to spread and hold both objectives with a single troops choice.
The gentleman I played is named Ashton and he had a Terminator lord, 2 sets of terminators that were deep striking, 2 vindicators a Las/bolter predator, a nurgle demon prince with warptime, 3 squads of chaos space marines, and 1 squad of noise marines with a blastmaster, and 1 squad of plague marines. The only armor he had were the vindicators.
The first couple of turns was just moving. One of my vindicators put a hurt on some plague marine killing a couple. His vindicators did nothing as he shot at my vindicators as mine were possessed.
I don't recall all of the turn sequence and what happened in what order but here are the highlights. His plagues were wiped out by squad of berzerkers after being thinned out by a vindicator. I sacrifieced a CSM squad to be able to get my berzerkers into position and they brutally slaughtered the CSM when it was time.
One group of his terminators deep struck in and shot at a couple of things but did nothing. I moved a rhino in to be able to assault. On his turn he blew up the rhino and assaulted into the crater, going at initiative 1. The berzerkers still did a good job and tied them up until they were wiped out.
His other squad of terminators and chaos lord were a complete waste of points. They deep struck in and stunned a rhino. One vindicator swung around, fired with a direct hit, and wiped out all but one puny terminator, which was promptly melted. Oh what a world, what a world!
My vindicators blew up one of his and immobilized the other. I forgot to move the demon prince in to assault but on my next turn the demon prince was able to smash his last vindicator to bits then swooped over and did the same to his predator, and finally assisted in wiping out the blastmaster noise marine squad.
His demon prince was whittled down to one wound with the help of autocannons and Kharn's plasma pistol and was killed quite easily by a squad of berzerkers.
Of the 3 CSM squads he had two were killed by berzerkers and Kharn put all 7 of his attacks onto them wiping them out.
His last man survived while Kharn overheated and saved his plasma shot and a squad of 5 berzekers failed to cause any wounds, but then promptly pounded him into the dirt.
I completed wiped the board of Ashton's models and lost only 750 or so in victory points. I also obtained all of the bonus points to score 24 points and placing me in first place!


Game 3: World Eaters VS Orks
The game was Dawn of War, Annihilation.
I really wasn't looking forward to this game as I had never played orcs before. I played Topher who had two 30 man boyz squad with a nob leading them who had a power claw, two battle wagons and 3 or 4 trukks, 2x2 deffcoptas, and a squad of commandos. One of his HQs was a generic one and the other I don't remember. One of the boyz squads, lead by his other HQ, had feel no pain. Oh, there also two nobz squads, the ones with 2 wounds and they were all different, his other HQ was leading this squad.
I made too many errors this game. The vindicators lived only long enough to fire one shot. The berzerkers killed tons but couldn't survive the overwhelming number of powerclaws hitting back. The demon prince was smacked down with all of the ungodly amount of powerclaws, too. All I did this game was hang back and try and place my rhinos to be able to get the assault off and that didn't work out to well as I forgot/didn't pay enough attention to the battle wagons and trucks and they were able to move up, disembark, and cause some real damage. The Waagah didn't help either.


Results

I lost only to a major (or minor, I forget) victory. If either one of us had won this game with a massacre we would have gone on to win the tournament. That was not the case as I took 3^rd, Topher took 2^nd, and another fellow took first. I won $20 for my efforts, which is nothing to complain about!


Other Thoughts
I was very fortunate to be able to play the opponents in the beginning that I did. I feel that if I had more experience playing orcs I could have done better and would have used a different strategy. However, even with a great deal of more experience, a massacre and a win for the tournament would have been hard to pull off.
This was the first time I had used a Khorne Demon prince and he did pretty well for what I intended him for: acting as a bullet sponge and letting my other units get into place.
I spent a lot of time painting my Kharn model and several people gave me praise for my efforts.
I bought a drop pod with the money I won. I am going to use it for apocalypse games.

A List of Acceptable World Eaters Units from the Chaos Space Marine Codex

World Eaters have specific and strict guidelines as to what should be in the army list. Those are:

• Units should be Khorne marked or have the ability to be Khorne marked wherever possible.
• No magical spells or abilities can be used.
• All World Eaters are "Berzerkers."

Given the above guidelines it is easy to see that there are a lot of units that cannot be used from the Chaos Space Marine codex to strictly play a World Eaters army. What also comes a long with that is a deficiency in adaptability. For example, in an army where all models were "Berzerkers" then almost no melta guns would be available.

A quick note on "All World Eaters are Berzerkers". This is some fluff from long ago and some may construe it that only Khorne Berzerkers can be used. To me this is not the case, but it means that all World Eaters have had the psycho-surgery to enhance aggressiveness that the codex mentions.

The following list are units in the Chaos Space Marine codex that, in my opinion, are acceptable to use in a strict World Eaters Army.

HQ

Kharn the Betrayer

Demon Prince (Khorne Marked)

Chaos Lord (Khorne Marked)

Chaos Terminator Lord (Khorne Marked)

Summoned Greater Demon

Elite

Terminators

Chosen

Dreadnaught

Possessed

Troops

Khorne Berzerkers

Chaos Space Marines

Summoned Lesser Demons

Fast

Bikers

Raptors

Heavy

Defiler

Havocs

Land Raider

Vindicator

Predator

Using the units above can make for a pretty limited list, so in some cases some allied units could be acceptable in a non-strict world eaters army. These are:

HQ

Abaddon the Despoiler

Fabius Bile

Typhus

Troops

Plague Marines

Heavy

Obliterators

Lots of fun can be had with a World Eaters army when restricted to the above units, but thanks to the limited dimensions of the codex writers not much thought was put into lots of aspects of the units. For example, a Khorne marked Demon Prince pretty much sucks compared to the abilities of the other marked Demon Princes; the same can be said for the Chaos Lord. Oooh, cool, +1 attack! Pffft! I think being Khorne Marked should at least impart +1 WS, +1 Attack, and Furious Charge. Some options to buy might be blessing of the blood god or something a little better than just +1 attach while others get to use powers that are exceptional force multipliers (lash of submission).

That said, I think for those of use who love World Eaters and want to be competitive at the same time that it should be acceptable to use stretched fluff to incorporate some of the better and stronger aspects of the codex into a World Eaters army.

Demon Prince Marks & Psychic Powers

The Demon prince is probably the best generic HQ in the whole game thanks to the marks and Chaos's psychic powers. Plus one attack just doesn't cut it for the mark of Khorne, and unmakred prince using warptime is probably better.

Mark of Nurgle imparts +1 toughness making the prince hard to kill when receiving small arms fire. However, given that he is a large target and monsterous creatures are best killed by heavy weapons fire, if adequate cover is not constantly provided the extra toughness can be a waste.

Mark of Tzeetnch imparts a 4+ invulnerable save. This means that the demon prince is "in cover" no matter where he goes and is better able to thwart incoming heavy weapons fire.

Mark of Slaanesh imparts +1 initiative. To me this rarely comes in handy but this mark is required for the use of the lash of submission psychic power.

Lash of submission is one of the best, overused, and anticipated psychic powers int he game allowing the player to move the enemy's models anywhere within 2d6". Grouping models together and using templates on them is a devastating combo. However, thanks to its over use and other armies recently gaining outstanding psychic abilities, other armies have enhanced their psychic defenses making perils of the warp and the power being unreliable is a real possibility. Lash of submission or any other psychic power should never be relied upon to win the game.

Given those facts, and combined with the Demon Prince's size, I think a Chaos Sorcerer has some potential. A sorcerer comes with a force weapon and can be given marks, wings, terminator armor, plasma pistol, and, with a familiar, the use of two psychic powers. However, the cost could get pretty high with all of those options.

New units in the game have high toughness or exceptional special abilities (New Blood Angels & Tyranids) but are lacking eternal warrior. The use of force weapons and the Bliss Giver demon weapon are going to be seeing more use. A Chaos Sorcerer with warptime and the force weapon's abilities is going to be a devastating combo to a lot of these new units.

One consideration is to use a Sorcerer with familiar, warptime, and lash of submission. The warptime and force weapon can be used in close combat to eliminate troublesome characters and the added +1 initiative can really help in this situation. Lash of Submission is just a bonus.

Another consideration is the gift of chaos. No matter the toughness or if a character has eternal warrior they could be turned into a blob of flesh or a spawn on a good roll of the die. And with a familiar the power can be cast twice. The downside is the power must be cast at the beginning of the turn and higher toughness models can only be 'spawned' on a roll of 6.

Incorporating Psychic powers into a World Eaters Army

If a Sorcerer of non Khorne marked demon prince is used then the World Eaters army isn't really a strict World Eaters army. The conundrum of using psychic powers in a World Eaters army by stretching the fluff.

Warptime can be considered as the demon prince harnessing the rage of Khorne to his advantage. Lash of Submission can be considered as a Blood Thirster using the whip me holds in his hand. A poster on DakkaDakka suggested using a tech marine as a sorcerer and lash of submission is a old technology gravity gun modified to suck enemies closer to ensure a devastating assault.

Whatever fluff is made up there must be a differentiation between strict World Eaters, World Eaters allied with other units, and Competitive World Eaters.

Switched Blogs!

I am a World Eaters player before I am a Chaos Space Marine player, so I switched the blog over to a more World Eaters-esqe name.

The Devourer of Stars is the space hulk that Angron attacked the Armageddon world with. Snippets of this epic battle can be seen online, but the best and most details of the tale are told in the recently published Space Wolves codex. Borrow or buy one and read about it!

Tactical Development: World Eaters Armies

Having played enough of dual lash CSM lists I am going to attempt to play complete World Eaters army lists (with probably some small finagling here and there). The following posts will be unit reviews for a semi-strict World Eaters army, strategies for mission and game deployments, and tactics against opposing lists.

These posts will take a lot of time to compose but when finished will be what I hope is a comprehensive World Eaters Tactica.

Model Review: Khârn the Betrayer

Another one of my favorite characters in WH40k is Khârn the Betrayer. Khârn is a close combat monster when everything works, but can be blasted to pieces pretty easy.

Strengths

On the charge Khârn gets 7 attacks and benefits from Furious Charge, putting his initiative and strength at 6. The special ability of his close combat weapon lets him always hit on 2+ and most everything is a 2+ to wound. All of those being power weapon means nothing much stands in Khârn's way.

Khârn uses power armor so he can use a Rhino but is probably best used in a Land Raider. Another plus of the power armor is that he can sweeping advance. With a leadership of 10 and an enemy unit going to be down a number of attacks anything that fails its morale check is going to take some hits. With the Fearless ability he isn't going to be running away from the enemy like a coward.

Another minor plus, but also a risk, is Khârn's plasma pistol. I have used him to blow speeders and other light armored items out of the sky with relative ease.

A major plus of Khârn is that he is regarded as one of the best HQs for Chaos Space Marines given his high effectiveness and relatively equal cost to a Chaos Lord.

An effect of Khârn's close combat weapon is to use 2d6 for armor penetration. With the number of attack he gets stationary vehicles are toast.

Khârn is blessed by Khorne himself and psychic attacks are useless against him. In addition to that force weapons are downgraded to power weapons against him.

Weaknesses

By far the most glaring weakness of Khârn is his lack of Eternal Warrior and toughness 4. One unsaved swing of a powerfist in the first round of combat and it is lights out for this 10,000+ year old warrior.

Khârn is a team killer and the chances of him killing a friendly is 73% on the charge.

Khârn is primarily effective in close combat. If he doesn't get there and get the charge then the points and effort has been wasted.

The 2+ ability of Khârn's axe only works on models with a weapon skill so that Land Raider that moved more than 6" is still going to be hard to hit.

Tactics:

When running Khârn the biggest threat is instant death. Put him with a squad in a vehicle and make sure that vehicle gets to where it is going as best as possible. I usually use a Land Raider for the most survivability and to assault what I can when I get there.

When possible and when I know I can get an assault off I disembark the squad from one hatch of the land raider and disembark Khârn from the other. Next, the squad goes after one unit while Khârn goes after another. This ensures that the target isn't wiped out and your forces aren't left to be shot at on the enemy's turn.

Also by breaking Khârn off from the group it may be possible to target a unit that does not have a powerfist type implement. Obviously that opportunity is invaluable.

A strategy I have read about being used is to employ the use of Khârn with models that have an invulnerable save. The available units are Possessed Chaos Space Marines, Thousand Sons, and Terminators.

Terminators aren't Fearless and negate a sweeping advance and limit Khârn to the use of a Land Raider. Thousand Sons are slow and purposeful so putting an assault character with them is be foolish. Possessed CSMs are the strongest option of the 3 and can use a Rhino but suffer from their random ability tablee being mostly useless.

In my personal opinion this tactic could be viable but with proper use of tactics Khârn can be highly effective without having to buy ineffectual units.

Be smart with Khârn and he will deliver results.

My Experiences

Granted I haven't played this game as much as others but I have used Khârn to great effect almost every time I have used him.

Once when battling some Tau I used the tactic as described above to break Khârn apart from his squad and charge 4 or 5 crisis suits with one of them being a strong HQ choice. I chose to put Khârn's attacks into the squad instead of the commander and with a crappy roll 4 dice missed. 3 wounds later the unit failed it's leadership test and ran off the board. Khârn consolidated off the board in an attempt to attack a tank but the tank was destroyed by a supporting Defiler.

Another time in a somewhat large combat Khârn charged a squad of Space Marines. One of Khârn's to hit rolls was a 1 and the closest unit was a Defiler. Strength 6 + 2d6 later and a 6 on the damage chart meant one drastically dead Defiler.

Statistics

Some say that using Khârn is too much of a risk. Killing your own models is a waste of points. Who knows, that one model could have gone on to win the game.

In an effort to see just how detrimental Khârn can be I ran a simulation using MS Excel. The simulation assumes that Khârn is on the charge and gets his 7 attacks. Using the RANDBETWEEN function to randomly pick a number between 1 and 6 and duplicating this functionality across 7 columns and 1000 rows this effectively simulates what Khârn's rolls would be on 1000 charges.

Out of 1000 charges 275 of them, or approximately 28% of the time, Khârn rolled 2+ for his to hit rolls. That also means that approximately 72% of the time a friendly model is going to take a hit.

Now the question is, "How many friendly models are going to get hit 72% of the time?" A 40% chance exists that only one model will be hit, 24% chance that two models will be hit, 7% chance that three models will be hit, and a 1% chance that four models will be hit. 5 ones being thrown in one roll is a 1 in 7,776 chance. This case happened once out of the simulated 1000 throws.

Of the 1000 charge simulations no instance exists of 6 ones rolled or 7 ones rolled so this case is infinitesimal. For 6 ones the chance is 1 in 46,656 and for 7 once the chance is 1 in 279,936. If you ever roll either one of these two go buy a lottery ticket.

Conclusion

In my opinion the chances of Khârn hitting friendly models is acceptable. Hard lessons learned like the one above with the Defiler go a long way to learning what tactics to use when positioning Khârn for the assault.

When using Khârn repeat the phrase, "KILL! MAIM! BURN! BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!"