Last night I played a 1500 point game against my friend's Raven Guard. We rolled for random terrain placement, only warlord traits from the codex allowed, no first blood or line breaker and did the dawn of war deployment. We played 6 objectives worth 2 points each and fast attack score (some randomness in mission was used). The image left shows the deployment.
My list consisted of Typhus (first time running him) footslogging with 16 zombies, a 10 man zombie unit to hold an objective, 2x five man plague marine squads with meltas, a helldrake, two predator annihilators, 2x three strong nurgle spawn and a giant spawn.
The Raven Guard list had two predators with las sponsons, 3x five man tacticals, a ten man assault squad with Shrike, two stormtalons and a devestator squad with las cannons.
Turn 1 - Chaos
Turn 1 was night fight and I walked my zombies into a derelict bunker. Typhus also cast his malediction and reduced the strength of the assault marines by 1. Basically the entire army moved up the field and I took some pot shots at the derelict bunker the RG devs were hiding in. It partially collapsed and killed the 3 bullet catchers.
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| Turn 1 - Top |
Turn 1 - Raven Guard
The Raven Guard moved their assault troops up the field, destroyed a rhino and assaulted the plague marines inside. All but 1 plague marine died despite the str 3 hits coming at them.
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| Turn 1 - Bottom |
Turn 2 - Chaos
The helldrake entered the field and roasted some devestators in a ruin (leaving the heavy weapons alive). My predators wrecked the derelict bunker and a las cannon marine jumped out. My spawn charged into the melee and the giant spawn jumped into cover, afraid of the storm talons that were destined to arrive. Everyone else moved up.
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| Turn 2 top |
Turn 2 - Raven Guard
The Raven Guard storm talons arrived and wiped out my giant spawn but not before he tanked a significant amount of damage with the 5+ cover. The last plague rhino was destroyed by tactical marines hiding in a rhino and the ongoing melee with Shrike continued with all but him and the sergeant dying but taking a spawn with them.
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| Turn 2 bottom |
Turn 3 - Chaos
On turn 3 Typhus and his zombies charged into shrike. The zombie sergeant challenged Shrike and died promptly. Typhus et al. remained locked in combat as desired. The plague toads (spawn) and plague marines assault a rhino and wreck it.
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| Turn 3 top |
Turn 3 - Raven Guard
The Raven Guard turn sees both chaos predators destroyed. Shrike and Typhus enter a duel and his lightning claws may as well be child safe. Typhus swings with 9 daemon weapon attacks and Shrike saves 8! Sadly with a force weapon only 1 unsaved wound is needed and shrike explodes in a shower of gore. The chaos forces consolidate further.
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| Turn 3 bottom |
Turn 4 - Chaos
On turn 4, the lone plague marine hiding in a ruin (you can see him 3 inches south of the explosion marker near the wrecked baneplade) snap fires against a storm talon with a melta gun and pens on a d6 resulting in a locked velocity. The Raven Guard Rhino attempting to move onto an objective in the middle of the table is destroyed in close combat. The helldrake flies off the table. The chaos spawn all move into position for assaults next turn.
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| Turn 4 top |
Turn 4 - Raven Guard
On the Raven Guard turn, the stormtalon able to hover moves over to the southeast objective near the zombie bunker to contest. The 2nd storm talon moves 18" due south to kill the sole plague marine hiding on the objective. Essentially the entire Raven Guard army unleashes on the blue spawn in the northwest and kills one and maims the other
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| Turn 4 bottom |
Turn 5
On turn 5, the zombies jump out of the derelect bunker to contest the southeast objective. The helldrake flies on and vector strikes the injured storm talon to death, Typhus runs in to kill the last (in the middle of the map) and the zombie escort moves west onto an objective. The spawn squads both move to assault the remaining marines in the open.
The Raven Guard turn sees Typhus lose 3 of 4 wounds to the storm talon now that Typhus has no bodyguard. The two plague marines in the northeast running to an objective are shot down by predators and the last blue spawn in the northwest is killed by tactical marines that dismbark from their rhino to hold an objective
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| Turn 5 top |
Game End
At the end of the game the Chaos side is victorious by a score of 5 (2 objectives, warlord) to 2. We discussed after the game that the 3 combat squads in rhinos were not effective and wasted a lot of points though he knew that going in but wanted a change from running Korvidae and assault marines (which is really nasty). I suspect next game he will have Korvidae back! Also a lot of las cannons and melta guns (devs and tacticals) were taken which did not help significantly against the high toughness and lack of vehicles. Heavy bolters and scouts or assault marines probably would have made this a very different fight. The two of us change lists EVERY game and sometimes drastically so we'll see how it goes next time! Typhus was a blast to use but I think I'd prefer to not have him walk - Maybe a Spartan next time?
Three Stars:
1) Typhus - the malediction power to lower strength/attacks was a huge deal all game and he's no slouch. He killed Shrike, a rhino and a tactical squad single handed.
2) Stormtalon B - this guy killed a giant spawn, a predator, contested an objective and took 3 of 4 wounds of Typhus and would have kiled him had the game not ended.
3) Plague Marines - in general these tanked so many shots, both rending, las cannons and lightning claws. My FNP rolling was crazy. Nurgle saves.
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