2k Kabal of the Flayed Skull vs Iron Hand Successors

Had a 2k game yesterday vs a pure primaris marines list. Wanted to get in a battle rep of a post-codex game so here it is. My list was the following:

Patrol Detachment: Flayed Skull

Archon 86pts
huskblade, blaster

Court: 2x ssylths, lahamaen

10 Warriors 90pts
sybarite w/ agonizer+PGL, 2x shredders, splinter cannon

10 warriors 117pts
sybarite w/ PGL, 2x blasters, dark lance

Ravager 140pts
3x dark lances

Ravager 125pts
3x disintegrator cannons

Raider 95pts
dark lance, splinter racks

Raider 95pts
dark lance, splinter racks

venom 75pts
2x splinter cannons

Patrol Detachment: Red Grief

Succubus 50pts

10 wyches 96pts
hekatrix w/ agonizer, hydra gauntlet, shardnet&impaler, razorflails

3 reavers 74pts
blaster

3 reavers 74pts
blaster

Raider 80pts
disintegrator cannon

Patrol Detachment: Prophets of Flesh
Haemonculus 78pts
scissorhands

10 wracks 108pts
2x ossefactors, agonizer

Outrider Detachment: Flayed Skull

archon 75pts
venom blade

5 warriors 50pts
blaster, pgl

5 warriors 50 pts
blaster, pgl

5 scourges 60pts

5 scourges 60pts

5 scourges 92pts
4x haywire blasters

venom 75pts
2x splinter cannons

venom 75pts
2x splinter cannons

The primaris list was roughly the following, trait was iron hands as the army was an IH successor chapter:

Captain in gravis armor

2x librarians

lieutenant

chapter ancient

3x5 units of intercessors

2x redemtor dreads, one with the gatling cannon and other with the plasma cannon option

ironclad dreadnought, 2x fists

unit of 6 interceptors

2x5 helblasters

Pre-game I used alliance of agony to give my haemonculus soothsayer, and my succubus hyperswift reflexes.  Archon had the famed savagery trait. Soothsayer boosted me up to a comfortable 10 cp. We used The Prize mission from the open war deck, basically just the old relic mission from 7th. Did just the standard deployment zones. Here's the battlefield after deployment:

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The venom with the flag carried all my characters minus the haemonculus. The painted raider carried the 10 man warrior unit with 2 blasters, the raider behind the building had the 2 shredders, while the far raider had the wyches. Going into the battle I definetly feel like my list had a bit of a leg up, I suspected once the helblasters would be dealt with the primaris marines wouldn't have the firepower to take out my many targets, while my own anti-tank had more than enough firepower to deal with the dreadnoughts. Primaris marines got first turn.

First turn the marines mostly whiffed for shooting. Both dreadnoughts only did a couple wounds, killing two wracks and putting a few wounds on the wych's raider. Helblasters did a little better, but I popped lightning fast reflexes when he targeted my reavers, which caused 2 primaris marines to die to overcharge. Helblaters also did a few wounds on my venoms, and I lost one of my reaver units. Battlefield after the first marine turn:

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My first turn went better. Dropped in my haywire scourges and another scourge unit. Shooting killed off most of an intercessor unit, most of the helblasters and the gatling cannon dreadnought. I realized I did mess up a bit though by putting my reavers parked next to the helblasters, as the ancients banner really let them get off a fair amount of shots which killed a reaver unit. Wyches got out and assaulted an intercessor unit, killed two intercessors though I was hoping for more. I realized in hindsight I probably should have had the wyches wait another turn to assault, give time for my wracks to help the wyches control the central ruin together, but not a big deal regardless. Also didn't place my characters well, but that didn't end up being a big  issue. Table after my first turn:

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Second marine turn went better. All the venoms went down, along with one of the 5 man warriors units. All but one of the wyches went down to smites and the marine characters charging in to the assault, I was lucky null zone didn't go off as that would have killed them. Battlefield after marine turn 2:

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Goal for my second turn was to get the dreadnoughts out of the way. I figured it would be difficult given the ironclad was t9 from that marine psychic power, but you can't underestimate the concentrated power of dark lances. Haywire scourges did a couple wounds, but the blasters and dark lances really did the heavy lifting. Consistently rolled pretty high for my damage rolls, with the redemptor going down fairly easily and the ironclad going down after only a 3 dark lance hits (rolled a 6 than a 5 for my damage). Disintegrator cannon ravager wiped out the 3 man intercessor unit in the ruins, with my poisoned weapons doing the rest. Wracks charged in to tie up the captain, doing nothing and losing a guy or two. Haemonculus charged into the one remaining intercessor, than took about 3-4 rounds of combat to kill him. Picture after my turn two:

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At this point the marine player knew he probably wasn't going to win, but decided to do as much damage as he could going out. Without many units left though he couldn't do much. Interceptors finally dropped in, probably later than they should have. They brought my wych raider down to a single wound, but that was all they got to do before I killed them in the next turn. Combination of librarians and captain killed my wracks, even after failing to get off null zone again. Situation after marine turn 3:

[img][/img]

My turn 3 basically came down to how many dark lances could I position close enough to characters to kill them? The answer was plenty. Interceptors were wiped out fairly quickly with disintegrator cannons and splinter fire, while the two librarians went down to a whole bunch of blasters and dark lances. That just left the captain left as he passed a fair amount of invul saves. Charged in all my characters, but only the succubus made it in. Really should have given her the blood glaive as that d3 damage would have made a big difference, with a one damage weapon she just scored 2 wounds on the captain, while taking none back due to her +3 invul. Situation post turn 3:

[img][/img]

Not much happened in the primaris turn as he was down to 3 models. Captain and the succubus both swung at each other, the succubus taking 2 wounds while doing none back. Didn't matter too much as I knew my djinn blade archon was probably up to the task of beating up a 3w remaining primaris captain.

My turn 4 I just focused on the captain, as the other two characters were too far away to affect the game at this point. I was planning on having my archon personally deal with the captain in combat somewhat honorably in a two vs one duel, and then my archon just took out his blast pistol and turned the primaris captain into a pile of sludge. A true Drukhari way to finish off a enemy combatant indeed. Here was the battlefield at the end of the battle:

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Couple post game thoughts:

Haywire scourges did alright, I was hoping they would do more wounds. They were at least somewhat handy vs the t9 dreadnought, but didn't really do enough.

Blaster/dark lance spam is as strong as ever, just vaporizes any multi-wound models.

More disintegrator cannons against a primaris marines list would have just been dirty, they do very well against 2w models.

Unlike my first post-codex game, I didn't find slayed skull was making a huge difference, probably largely because poison wasn't doing the heavy lifting in this game.

As I mentioned earlier should have kept my wyches back. There's no rush to get into combat if one unit won't be properly supported. Also need to watch out for that chapter ancient banner, those helblasters actually did a fair amount of damage in my own turn.

I found I didn't spend as many cps as I could have quickly. Definitely need to learn our stratagems better and really think about what the best to use when.

Overall though great game, despite having the upper hand for most of the game I got some good experience with testing out our new toys.

Picture didn't upload properly?

Otherwise, cool report! I've personally heard a lot of people mention that Scourges are good for reliable wounds to help do some damage or to finish off a heavily wounded vehicle, instead of wasting a darklance on 1 or 2 wounds.

I usually try to keep my wych stuff back for 1 turn, rush in turn 2 and charge turn 3, although i can see the reason to get them in and dirty.

Fixed the pictures issue, was using the wrong imgur link.

Yeah that's a pretty good use for haywire blasters. It's a shame to waste two dark lances on trying to take out 2-3 wounds left on a vehicle, but haywire can do it fairly reliably.

I think I should have kept my wyches back, I didn't really need to tie up those 10 intercessors, but it worked out alright regardless. It did at least buy a little more time to clear out the center and keep them from the relic.

Cool batrep, i honestly hate fighting SM b.c they are so weak i feel i need to go easy on them and feel bad if i go hard, especially Primaris lol

amishprn86 wrote:

Cool batrep, i honestly hate fighting SM b.c they are so weak i feel i need to go easy on them and feel bad if i go hard, especially Primaris lol

I have sort of the same feeling, but i think it's more in the way drukhari plays. We are fast, and we shoot alot, they have to come at us or else we will come for them. With our mop up squads.

Marines can be tough as nails to get down, but primaris marines are so few in number that we can choose our battles quite often. That makes them vulnerable to drukhari play styles.

What a horrible marine list to put against a Drukhari army. I guess the player in question just bought the starter set for this ed and dreadnoughts. I think we all know that having dedicated anti-air, stalkers or stormhawks, would be so much more effective than plasma. Otherwise very enjoyable to read!

Nice batrep. Thanks for the pictures. I'm trying to learn model placement so it's always useful to see other DE players do their thing. Honestly, DE against low model count, high wounds armies is pretty dang scary this edition. In my last game against Astra Militarum my opponent fielded this kinda gimmicky armour-heavy list with a Stormlord tank filled with mortar teams surrounded by buff/repair tanks. The 26 wound Stormlord was gone halfway through my turn 2 shooting phase despite being repaired 5 wounds and him blowing stratagems to try and save it. I caused it 11 wounds with 2 dark lance shots at one point. Like I said, pretty scary.