Dark Eldar and Chaos at Conquest Toronto 2011

"So...do we have an agreement?"

The creature standing opposite the Haemonculous towered over him, casting a long shadow over the whisper-thin figure and his associates. Almost three times the size of a regular humanoid creature, the thing exuded a smell that could kill twenty. Greasy, pustule-ridden flesh the colour of a mould infection bulged outwards from a body swollen with noxious gases, and in places the skin had stretched and broken to reveal ropes of greenish intestines and rotting organs. A pair of tattered, decaying wings sprouted out from its hunched back, mucous dripping from bony edges. Nothing could be seen of the thing's face, save for a wide, cavernous maw, which had countless maggots swarming in and out of it. Silhouetted against the purple sky of this barren, lifeless world, the figure seemed all the more monstrous.

That wide mouth opened and closed again, as though testing the words it was about to say. Rukifellith watched, his sole remaining eye glancing occasionaly at the massive, rusted sword the creature carried in one slimy hand. Finally, the creature spoke, a huge, booming voice that sounded like an exhalation of corpse-gas issuing forth from its maw.

"You presume much, little man," the thing said. Maggots crawled in and out of the wet folds of its maw as it spoke. "We are the chosen of Grandfather Nurgle, the Champions of the Plague. Why do we need the help of some fragile little Eldar to kill the servants of the False Emperor?"

Rukifellith's response of choice was a grin-- an unsettling grin which exposed his rows of black, diamond-like teeth. The long series of bladed claws that replaced his right hand began to twitch and scissor eagerly, like a predator that had just smelled blood. Behind him, the Kabalites from the Revenant Shroud warily eyed the hulking figures who stood behind Pappy-- figures clad in heavy, powered armour that was now discoloured and bloated with rust, rot, and various other fungal growths. The two groups were only a single spark away from descending into a firefight.

"No one is doubting the prowess of yourself or your warriors on the battlefield, Lord Pappy," Rukifellith replied, using the Daemon's name. "But if you are confident you can fight the human forces in this sector, then far be it from me to doubt you. I am certain that the many, many Astartes warriors and Guard regiments in this sector will not trouble you...nor will those silver-armoured warriors we have seen on many a world."

The mention of the silver warriors caused the Daemon's mouth to twist uncomfortably. Rukifellith grinned a little more. He had him now.

"If we were to accept your help," the Daemon Prince rumbled, "what benefit would it be to us?"

Rukifellith had to resist the urge to chuckle. His chuckles would often devolve into fits of laughter, he noticed, that tended to make everyone around him nervous. He had no idea why-- he couldn't help it if the universe in general was so amusing at times.

"Simple, Lord Pappy," he said, his blade-hand continuing to click and scissor. Absent mindedly, he scratched at his cheek, drawing thin bloo. "We can go where your forces cannot, with a...speed...you lack. While the enemy is distracted by your warriors, we can strike well beyond their reach..."

His claw shot out suddenly, a bladed digit catching one of the bloated flies that swarmed around Pappy and impaling it neatly on its tip.

"...and weaken then and bleed them dry with clinical precision before before you tear out their heart." He flicked the fly off his finger absent-mindedly. "Our speed will complement the inexorable advance and resilience of your own legion, Lord Pappy. All we ask in return is that a portion of our enemies be left alive for us: the Kabalites who serve me require sustenance, after all, and I require live bodies for my own...projects."

For a moment, the massive, contaminated monster was silent. Silent, that was, save for the buzzing of several of the flies constantly nibbling at him. Then, abruptly, Pappy belched, spewing a gobbet of phlegm and yellow bile onto one of the Kabalites standing next to Rukifellith. There was an acidic hissing sound, and the Warrior screamed and clawed at the joints of his armour as he collapsed onto his back. Rukifellith then noticed that the gobbet of phlegm was, in fact, a giggling, filth-encrusted little daemon that sat on his chest, jabbering incomprehensibly at him.

"Oh no you don't, get back here!" Pappy rumbled. The Daemon Prince grabbed at the Nurgling, which shrieked before Pappy stuffed it into his cavernous mouth, chomping it down. Rukifellith looked with disgust at the smelly remains of the fallen Warrior. He was not resurrecting that one, no matter what the Kabal offered him.

"Alright," Pappy said as he munched on the Nurgling. "You have yourself a deal, Skinny Man."

At this point, one of the Plague Marines stepped forward. "Lord Pappy, surely you cannot trust these Eldar?" he rasped angrily. "They are trying to decieve us! They will pretend to aid us, only to stab us in the back later--"

The Plague Marine was cut short when Pappy extended a hand, closing it around his subordinate's helmet. "Speak when spoken to, pustule," the Daemon said, before releasing the Plague Marine. The diseased Astartes stumbled back, loud coughing noises sounding from under his helmet. As Rukifellith watched, the Plague Marine collapsed onto his back, black fluid bubbling up from under the folds of his helmet.

Pappy gave a rumbling noise that sounded almost like a grunt of disgust. "Look at that, I've gone and crippled one of my best men now," he said. "If you want this alliance, Skinny Man, than you had better give us an offering."

Rukifellith gave him a toothy smile. "Gladly, Lord Pappy." And with that, his thin arm suddenly shot back, several bladed digits clamping around one of the Kabalites. The Warrior gave only a quick gag before the toxin-covered digits pierced his neck, causing him to go limp as paralytic agents quickly flooded his bloodstream. With seemingly no effort at all, Rukifellith tossed the Kabalite at Pappy's feet. "Accept this one as an offering, then."

The Daemon gave a rumbling gurgle of laughter. Rukifellith noted that it was a pity the Warrior was paralyzed: otherwise, his reaction to being infected with Nurgle's Rot would have been interesting to observe...



A few months ago, I attended the Conquest Toronto 40k Doubles Tournament with a buddy of mine (MaxisLithium of Warseer). Since our last team tournament had been Sisters of Battle and Guard (you all have my apologies for never finishing that tourney report), we decided to field the bad guys this time around, with me bringing Dark Eldar and him bringing Chaos Space Marines. Since the team tournament mandates a combined force organization chart for the two team armies, we had to focus as much as possible on list synergy. This was especially important because, as per the tournament's unique rules, each round would have two scenarios and one deployment type. This meant that, while Player 1 might have to do Capture and Control, Player 2 would have Kill Points. For the following round, Player 1 could then have kill points and Player 2 could have Secure and Control. In other words, each army would have its own separate objectives to fulfill.


With that in mind, we took the following combined list:


Kabal of the Revenant Shroud (Dark Eldar)

Rukifellith the Sculptor
Haemonculus w. liquefier gun- 60 pts

The Spiteful Blades
9 Wyches w. haywire grenades, Hekatrix w. agonizer- 138 pts
-Raider- flickerfield, shock prow- 75 pts

The Bloodied Talons
9 Kabalite Warriors w. blaster- 96 pts
-Raider- splinter racks, flickerfield- 80

The Libertines
5 Kabalite Warriors w. blaster- 60 pts
-Venom- extra splinter cannon- 65 pts

The Trueblooded Ternion
3 Kabalite Trueborn w. 3 blasters- 81 pts
-Venom- extra splinter cannon- 65 pts

The Lacrymosian
Ravager w. flickerfield- 115 pts

Dread Corvus
Razorwing Jetfighter w. flickerfield, night field- 165 pts

Total: 1000



The Feted Host (Chaos Space Marines)

Big Pappy, Bloated Master of the Host
Daemon Prince- Mark of Nurgle, wings, Warptime- 175 pts

Squad Malaria
7 Plague Marines- 2 meltaguns, personal icon, Plague Champion w. power fist- 226 pts
-Rhino- 35 pts

Squad Influenza
6 Plague Marines- 2 plasma guns, personal icon, Plague Chamption w. power fist- 213 pts
Rhino- 35 pts

The Children of the Boils
7 Summoned Lesser Daemons- 91 pts

The Obsidian Ore Coven
3 Obliterators- 225 pts

Total: 1000


I was originally thinking of taking a Wych-heavy list for better rapid assault ability, but I figured that having more Warriors and more transports would be more viable, tactically (plus having more lances and splinter cannons never hurts). The Razorwing was in there for added template damage, and also because I just really like the model. Overall, between the Dark Eldar's manouverability and firepower, and the Chaos force's sheer resilience, we were confident that we would be able to effectively take on any opponent.

After a 2 1/2 hour trip by subway and bus very early in the morning, we made it there. Some friends of ours were there with an Eldar and Tau team, and I recognized a few old faces from my earlier gaming days. It didn't take us long before the tournament began.

Game 1- Space Marines and Orks


EXCERPT FROM THE JOURNAL OF RUKIFELLITH, SCULPTOR OF THE ABYSSAL HEART COVEN:

At last, the project has begun.

I cannot remember how long I have had to endure these delays, and participate in this dance of shadows and subterfuge. Time passes slowly, I find, whether I spend it in the oubliettes back on Comorragh, or in the darkest recesses of the Shadowstone. I am not free from the endless power struggle between the Kabals, and my ministrations and services to Scyrex Deledras and the Revenant Shroud can still be interpreted by many fools as politicking and favouritism. I do not care who sits on the throne, whether Scyrex or Vect-- let one tyrant usurp another, I shall outlive both of them in the end.

Still, I understand the value of secrecy, as does Lord Scyrex, especially as he stands to gain the most from my experiment. It is only now, with all possible loose ends tied, that he has forwarded me the resources necessary for my task. Kabalites and Trueborn have been pledged to my service, as has a troup of Wyches from the Spiteful Blade Cult-- more exiles, like the Revenant Shroud, who will follow me more out of desperation than loyalty.But the path before us will be a hard one, with many mon-keigh stubbornly defending what they foolishly believe to be theirs, not to mention the meddling of our former brethren of the Craftworlds.

It is for this reason that I have convinced a force of Chaos-worshipping humans to my cause as well. I now have the numbers and the henchmen that the Coven would never have granted me, and my reputation would have denied me. I now have the tools necessary for the monumental undertaking at hand. And what an undertaking! My brothers and sisters of the Coven mocked me, said it would never work, said it was nothing more than a childish fantasy. Even Vakkan, once my greatest pupil, mocks my efforts even as he enjoys his lofty position at the head of the Coven. I allow him to mock, for I have what he does not: the virtue of patience. Once I have all of the components necessary, I shall forge the Abyssal Heart, and everything will be as it should be once more.

But I get ahead of myself. I must first set about getting the necessary ingredients-- the first of which are the reproductive fungal spores of the Orks for imbued regenerative qualities, as well as hyper-advanced adaptive genetic tissue, preferably enhanced to allow for future augmentation. Thankfully, I know the location of just such ingredients. There is one world where the teeming hordes of Orks are currently doing battle with a group of human Space Marines. Like all of their kind, these humans have been bio-engineered to the point of their limited ideal of perfection, and they will have adaptive cells in their DNA which will be adequate for the initial ingredient. As a bonus, however, these so-called "Iron Hands" have an inclination towards augmentation as well, believing, for some strange reason, that the flesh is inherently weak (Fools, even a novice can see that the flesh can be moulded to any shape desired! How is that 'weak'?) While I shall not stoop so low as to try to understand the limited motivations of the humans, their inclination towards augmentation may mean that their particular strand of gene-seed is more receptive to regular augmentation. If so, then their harvested genes may be useful for the latter stages of my great work as well!

Even as I write this, my hirelings stand ready to attack from the webway, while the Fettered Host has already landed from orbit. We shall fall upon these two feuding factions like a swift blade, and cut them down before they know they are being attacked. Of course, this plan may not work if they band together to fight against us, but such is the unreasoning hatred they have for another, this seems unlikely...”


*****

Codicier Andromach of the Garrsak Clan still couldn't believe it had come to this. The war for this world had been raging at its height, with the Sons of Ferrus fighting unrelentingly against the endless Ork hordes, when even more foes had arrived at their doorstep. Just yesterday, sensors had detected the unmistakeable shapes of Traitor Marine vessels in orbit. The Iron Hands' own strike cruiser was now engaged against multiple enemy vessels in orbit, and here, on the surface, the Traitor Marines were on the march. The heretics bore the unmistakeable livery of the hated Death Guard, and what was worse, they had allies: no sooner had the Traitors landed when several great rends opened in the air, and countless shrieking, bladed craft had come pouring into the daylight. The combined forces of the Dark Eldar and Death Guard had hit the Iron Hands hard, forcing them to fall back even as the Orks massed to their rear.

For a time, it had seemed that the Space Marines were doomed. That was, until they had been approached by the Ork leader-- a beast fitted so many rusted, clanking implants that he was more machine than Ork, almost a gross parody of the blessed Iron Fathers. The greenskin, to Andromach's surprise, had come to offer them a truce against the forces of Chaos. Andromach had almost refused: to fight alongside xenos would be the ultimate affront to the honour of the Iron Hands, and worse, would be a sign of the worst kind of weakness. A true Iron Hand would refuse, stand his ground, and take as many foes to hell with him before falling.And yet, while he utterly despised the Greenskins, he reserved for the accursed Traitor Marines a special hatred, one that burned in the deepest reaches of his soul. Theirs was the craven, selfish weakness of the flesh that all Iron Hands despised: they had once served the Emperor, only to then spit in His face. Such an affront deserved punishment.

Even now, Andromach could see them milling on the horizon, advancing in vehicles turned a sickly green by rot and corruption. Alongside them hovered the sleek, bladed craft of the Dark Eldar, agile and graceful where the Death Guard vehicles were slow and lumbering. His brothers stood firm and stoic, but around them, the unruly sea of the Greenskins yelled, hollered and laughed, watching the oncoming enemies eagerly. As the Chaos and Dark Eldar forces became more and more visible, the Orks became more unruly. Andromach could feel the buildup of their gestalt psychic energy in the back of his mind-- it was an overpowering thing, and one that took all of his willpower to shut out.

His vox crackled to life. "Ey Warphead, da Chaos Boyz and da Twinkies are gettin closer," came the grunting voice of Coghead, the leader of the Orks. "I think it's time to attack!"

Andromach gritted his teeth. "We'll attack only when I say so, xeno filth, not before!"

A loud snort was heard on the other hand. "Suit yourself, Warphead. We'z gonna get our choppas dirty, whether you say so or not!" And with that, the vox died.

Andromach swallowed as he watched the enemy approach, but he still tasted nothing but ashes in his mouth. Whether they won or lost this day, he would have much to explain to the Great Clan Council if they ever returned to Medusa.

May the Emperor and the Gorgon forgive me...


******



Our first opponents (whose names, I am sad to say, I have forgotten) were playing Space Marines and Orks. Both armies were painted quite nicely, and interestingly, our opponents had one of the two Iron Hands armies present at the tournament (the other being a Dreadnought-heavy army with some hefty conversions). Their combined force was as follows:


Iron Hands

Librarian- Avenger, Gateway
10 Tactical marines- meltagun, lascannon, Sgt w. combi-melta
-Rhino
10 Tactical marines- meltagun, lascannon, Sgt w. combi-melta
-Rhino
5 Assault Terminators- thunder hammers & storm shields
Vindicator
Vindicator


Orks

Big Mek- burna, kustom force field
27 Boyz- sluggas & choppas, Nob w. power klaw & bosspole
29 Boyz- sluggas & choppas, Nob w. power klaw & bosspole
30 Boyz- sluggas & choppas, Nob w. power klaw & bosspole
13 Lootas
3 Kannons- 6 ammo runts



All in all, a formidable team, with the Orks bringing raw numbers and close combat ability while the Space Marines brought firepower, manouverability and some Assault Termies. Not a bad combination, but I felt confident that Maxis and I could deal with it.



SCENARIO AND DEPLOYMENT:





Our first scenario had a Pitched Battle deployment, with my Dark Eldar and the Orks getting Kill Points as an objective, while Chaos and the Space Marines both got Seize Ground. We won the roll off to deploy first, and immediately went for a refused flank, with my Ravager, both Venoms, the Razorwing and the Wyches going on the left flank along with Squad Influenza's empty Rhino, while the centre was held by Squad Malaria, the Bloodied Claws, and the Daemon Prince. Further to their right, the Obliterators sat near an objective, while on the rightmost corner Squad Influenza sat on another.



Our opponents, by contrast, spread the Ork mobs far across the board, though they weighted their left flank with firepower, placing down the Lootas and Big Gunz down behind an Ork mob. They also combat squadded the Librarian's Marines, with the shooty part holding the objective while the meltagun half with the Librarian stayed in their Rhino behind a Vindicator. The Marines deployed similarly on the right flank, with more combat squads, another Rhino, and another Vindie. They put the Assault Terminators in reserve, ready to deep strike in at a crucial moment.

I rolled a 6 for combat drugs (Pain Token), and the game began.




TURN 1





We got the first turn, which Maxis began by driving Squad Malaria up towards the middle of the board, with Pappy and the Warrior Raider flying behind for cover. On the left side, the empty Rhino zoomed forwards, with the Venoms keeping cover behind it and the Wych Raider, in turn, keeping cover behind the Venoms, while the Ravager skirted to the side for a clear line of fire. The Razorwing also manouvered a little, bit still kept a board's length away from the enemy.

In the shooting phase, my main priority was to kill the Lootas, as they could easily wreck any vehicle they shot at in one turn. The Razorwing unloaded three missiles onto them, and the Venoms joined in. When the smoke cleared, only one Loota was still standing...and annoyingly, he passed his leadership test. The rest of our shooting went much better, however: the Ravager gutted the leftmost Rhino, forcing the Librarian and his squad to disembark, while the Obliterators similarly trashed the rightmost Rhino. Deprived of its initial target, the Warrior Raider took a potshot at the rightmost Tacticals, but missed. (In retrospect, the Raider should have tried to pop the Rhino first so that the Oblits could then plasma the contents to death). The Wych Raider, similarly, missed the leftmost Tacticals, and that was that.

In the enemy turn, the Orks rolled forward in a solid green mass, with only the Kannons staying put. By contrast, the Marines stood perfectly still, their only movement being the leftmost Vindicator rolling up onto the wreck of the Rhino for a better shot, while the Librarian and his squad moved to hide behind the wreckage.





The shooting phase, unfortunately, opened with a bang. The Vindicator fired on the Wych Raider, and, because of its elevation, our opponents argued that the Raider did not get cover from the Rhino or Venoms. We argued on the topic for a bit before quietly conceding. The Vindicator hit dead on, I failed my flickerfield save, and the Raider was reduced to a smooking wreck. I disembarked the Wyches and Haemonculous right behind the Venoms, though this meant that the Wyches couldn`t rush up and assault enemy Combat Squads like I had been planning. The rest of the Marine shooting was fairly timid, thankfully: the leftmost lascannon missed one of the Venoms, while the rightmost one simply shook the rightmost Plague Rhino, and the rightmost Vindicator scattered harmlessly off target. Then th Orks stepped up to the plate: the lone Loota rolled three shots, but missed horribly against the Warrior Venom. I was about to breathe a sigh of relief when the Kannons targeted the Warrior Raider. Hitting all three times thanks to Ammo Runts, the Kannons easily brought the Raider down in a flaming wreckage. The Warriors, thankfully, weren`t pinned, but this meant that we were now tied on Kill Points.





KILL POINTS:

Dark Eldar- 1
Orks- 1


TURN 2



Although I`d lost a few vehicles last turn, we were still in the game. On the right flank, Squad Malaria disembarked and, along with Pappy, moved up to charge the nearest Ork mob. Behind them, the Warriors quickly moved into the cover of the ruined building. On the left side of the board, the empty Rhino again moved forward to provide cover, angling sideways and popping smoke. The Venoms edged forward tentatively, with the Wyches and Rukifellith running behind to counter-charge and Orks who got any funny ideas.





In the shooting phase, one of the Venoms targetted the last Loota and killed him several times over, while the Warriors on board managed to kill one of the leftmost Tacticals with a blaster shot. The Trueborn and Ravager both unloaded onto the Vindicator, blowing off its big gun and stunning it several times over, while the Razorwing fired its last missile on the leftmost Boyz mob, aided by the Trueborn Venom. After all was said and done, I had killed roughly a third of the Mob....cold comfort, given that I had just inadvertently moved my Venoms into charge range. D'OH! The Obliterators fired lascannons at the rightmost Vindicator, but failed to do any damage. Finally, in the centre, the Warriors rapid-fired into the central Ork mob, and, combined with the pistol shots from the Plague Marines, managed to kill 7-8 of them.



In close combat, Pappy cast Warptime, and charged into the Orks alongside the Plague Marines. The forces of Chaos hit hard, killing plenty of Boyz for no losses in return and whittling the mob down to 12-11 Boyz after No Retreat wounds. Unfortunately, there was still another mob of Orks waiting behind the first one....



In the Marine/Ork turn, our opponents rolled well for their reserves, and a squad of Assault Terminators teleported in near the Warriors and Obliterators. Uh oh. The Orks continued their advance, with the rightmost Mob heading towards the big combat and the leftmost Mob running up towards the mass of Dark Eldar vehicles.





The following shooting phase saw the rightmost Vindicator lob a shell at my Warriors, though thanks to cover, they only lost one spiky dude. The rightmost Tacticals fired their lascannon at the Obliterators, only to freem off of cover. The leftmost Tactical Squad fired their lascannon at the Warrior Venom, stunning it, while the Kannons continued to prove their worth by exploding the Trueborn Venom! (Why don't Ork players ever take more of these things?) The explosion may have actually killed a few Orks as well. The Trueborn were left unharmed, but were forced out into the open in front of a big mob of Orks. Hum, this could be bad. And finally, the Terminators ran to spread out and avoid plasma cannon death.





In close combat, both Ork mobs came charging in. In the rightmost melee, 4-5 Orks went down from both mobs, but in return, the sheer number of strength 4 attacks chopped down Pappy as well, and one Plague Marine fell to a power klaw.



In the leftmost combat, the Orks multi-charged the Trueborn and the empty Rhino, but thanks to difficult terrain, couldn't reach the Venom. It didn't matter, as the Trueborn only managed to tickle the Orks slightly before being reduced to a smear on the ground, while the Nob's power klaw de-weaponed, stunned and immobilized the poor Rhino.





KILL POINTS:
Dark Eldar- 2
Orks- 4



TURN 3

At this point, we were massively behind on Kill Points and fighting a losing battle in the centre. Rolling for his reserves, Maxis got his Summoned Daemons and brought them in via icon near the leftmost Tacticals. Unfortunately, in so doing, he wound up accidentally blocking off his planned tank shock of the same squad, and so instead the still-mobile Rhino zoomed forward to ram the Kannons, hitting them but doing no damage. Deciding to go for broke, I disembarked the small Warrior squad from their stunned Venom to rapid fire into the leftmost Orks, while the Wyches ran up to assault them. In the centre, the Obliterators moved out of cover while the Warriors edged back tentatively from the Terminators. Finally, the Razorwing and Ravager angled when I realized that I should have been shooting at Tacticals all along.



In the shooting phase, the small Warrior squad and the Haemonculous' liquefier shot into the leftmost Orks, reducing them to a handful of Boyz, though they held their ground. The Razorwing and Ravager both fired on the leftmost Tactical Squad, killing two of them with their lances. Finally, the Obliterators morphed twin-linked plasma guns, and, along with the Bloodied Claws and Squad Influenza, only managed to kill two of them.



In close combat, the Obliterators charged into the remaining Terminators. Hammers and fists flew, and while two Obliterators were killed outright, so were two of the Terminators. The last Obliterator passed its no retreat saves and fought on.



On the left, the Wyches furiously charged the Orks, slicing them down to just one Boy and a wounded Nob. The Nob punched a Wych in the face in return, and the two of them held their ground. Near the top of the board, the Daemons charged the leftmost Tactical Marines. Unfortunately, thanks to cover, the Iron Hands struck first, hitting and wounding all three times and killing three Daemons! The Daemons whiffed in return, and after even more torrid invulnerable saves, were whittled down to only one Daemon after No Retreat wounds. As Maxis so eloquently put it, "that was fail."

Finally, in the central combat, the Plague Marines were in the fight of their mangy, pestilent lives. They killed a few Orks, but after choppas and power klaws flew, they were reduced down to just one Plague Marine and the Champion. They passed all their No Retreat saves and fought on, but they were probably goners next turn unless the Ork player received some horribly bad luck.

With time winding down, we resolved that this next turn would probably be the last one. Splitting off from his Squad, the Iron Hands Librarian moved up to help fight the Daemons. The leftmost Vindicator, still mobile, moved off of the wreckage of the Rhino and attempted to ram the Ravager, though I passed my jink save. With everything else locked in combat, that was the extent of our movement.

In the shooting phase, the rightmost Vindicator lobbed another shell at the Warriors, who went to ground and only lost two, passing their leadership test in the process. The Kannons fired at point-plank range into the Rhino, along with the Tactical Squad and meltaguns, but only succeeded in immobilizing it. And finally, the rightmost Tacticals, with nothing else to shoot at, fired at Squad Influenza and freemed off cover. Yay.



In close combat, the last two Plague Marines, unsurprisingly, were squished, giving the Orks another kill point. Hoping to at least catch up a little, we moved to the Wych combat. The Hekatrix easily eviscerated the last Boy, but against the Nob, my Wyches failed to roll a single 5 or 6! Even though the Nob whiffed his return attacks, he held his ground, denying me a kill point and eliciting a "GAAAAAH, WHAT" from me.



Moving on to the epic battle between the Terminator and Obliterator, the Assault Terminator swung his hammer, landing once and wounding...only to bounce off the Obliterator's daemonic aura. Chuckling, the Obliterator struck back and punched the Terminator in the face, killing him and consolidating back into cover. Well, at least something had gone right.

Finally, the Librarian charged into the lone Daemon. Striking first, the Marine hero inflicted a few wounds...and watched them bounce off the 5+ invulnerable save. The three remaining Tacticals must have used up their mojo for this battle, as they missed all of their attacks as well. Although the last Daemon failed to kill anything in return, the little guy had single-handedly managed to draw combat, and, more importantly, contest an objective!



At this point, we had run out of time, so all we had left to do was tally points.


KILL POINTS:[b]
Dark Eldar- 2
Orks- 5

[b]OBJECTIVES:[b]
Chaos- 1
Iron Hands- 1

[b]RESULT: MINOR LOSS


Well, that really could have gone better. Part of it, I think, came to my poor choice of targets: in a Kill Points game, I should have been focusing my fire on softer targets like Combat Squads or vehicles, instead of large units of Orks that would take forever to whittle down. Plus, I also think I was a little over-eager in moving my Venoms forward, and this cost me the game as it allowed the Orks to run up and charge me (after some good shooting with those damnable Kannons)

In all honesty, our opponents played it smart. They knew the Ork mobs were big and scary, and ensured that our main focus was on them instead of the Space Marines. The end result is that we rarely, if ever, got in range to threaten them, and it was only by a small miracle that we were able to contest one of the objectives at all.

All in all, not a horrible game, and one that was played against good opponents and good armies. Although a loss isn't a very encouraging way to start a tournament, we were determined to do better next round.


*****

There was a brilliant flash of light and a stench of ozone as the last Daemon shrieked and died, dissipating into stinking air as it was struck by Andromach's glowing force sword. With the last of the creatures dealt with, Andromach took stock of the situation. The rhythm of gunfire enveloping the battlefield had slowed down, and the yelling of the Orks had become a little less frantic. The Morlock Terminators were no longer responding, and Andromach had to grimly conclude that they had probably all fallen. In the distance, though, he saw the Dark Eldar vehicles turning and retreating, disappearing into the horizon in a heartbeat. What few Death Guard had not been killed by the Orks were, too, falling back. Hundreds of choppas rose into the air as the Orks chanted guttural cries and hollers at the retreating Traitors.

They had won.

Clearing the daemonic ichor from his blade with a simple psychic cantrip, Andromach was about to order an assessment when he heard a wirring clank of servo-motors. The immense, mechanized form of Coghead was stomping towards him, followed by a mob of greenskins. The Orks were glaring at them with those beady red eyes of theirs, and quickly, Andromach's brothers formed up alongside him, bolters at the ready. Andromach felt the bile rise in his gut when he realized that Coghead was smiling

"We went an' solved your problem for you, 'umie," the Ork said, his fanged mouth splitting in a hideous grin. "We went and saved dis world for your Emperor. For now, anyway."

"For now," Andromach repeated, not letting his guard down. Even with the losses they had taken, the Orks still outnumbered his own brothers. What was worse, their Vindicator support was badly damaged.

"So," Coghead went on, "I don't s'pose yer Emperor will be grateful to us Boyz and let us have this planet, huh? As a reward for savin’ it from the Chaos Boyz?"

That was all Andromach could take. He raised his glimmering force sword in a ready stance. "Not in your life, Ork," he spat.

The Big Mek gave a throaty chuckle, and raised his burna. A knife of blue flame hissed from the tip. "I was hoping you’d say dat."

And with that, the Orks surged forward, barbaric war-cries on their lips. The Iron Hands responded with a barking volley of bolter fire, and the war resumed.

Game 2- Space Marines and Grey Knights


EXCERPT FROM THE JOURNAL OF RUKIFELLITH, SCULPTOR OF THE ABYSSAL HEART COVEN:

From a military commander's perspective, our last battle could be considered a failure. We had been forced to retreat before our opponents, and had suffered grievous losses. But retreat is a word that implies quitting a battle without having won it, when in fact I had no intention of fighting a protracted battle anyway. And our losses were nothing significant: I have more Kabalites to spare, and I have already resurrected a few of them. As for my Daemonic ally, he has already been re-summoned from the Empyrean, albeit in a rather foul mood.

Although Pappy thinks otherwise, our last battle was a success. We have retrieved all of the necessary ingredients, and now we may move on to collect more. Given the nature of the next ingredients I require, fortune seems to be smiling upon me, as Lord Pappy is showing increasing agitation over certain enemies present in the sector-- namely the silver-armoured warriors I had mentioned to him in our first meeting.

As it so happens, I have an idea on how to deal with these mon-keigh, and to gain my next batch of ingredients at the same time. I am certain that Lord Pappy will take well to this plan, as it simply requires that he do what he does best, and let the human Imperium react.

And from there, we need only let the wheels go into motion...



******



The interior of the Stormraven shuddered as the gunship hurtled through Blackgrave's lower atmosphere. Grand Master Osric Vrennus paid the rattling of the metal frames no heed as he stood in the support harness of the ship, his eyes closed as he recited the Six Hundred and Sixty-Six Secret Words with his brothers. It wouldn't be long before they entered the battle, he knew. In a matter of minutes, they would be on the ground, bringing death and retribution to the servants of Chaos with bolter and blade.

It had been only a few weeks since the Chaos Space Marines of the Feted Host had been encountered by the Iron Hands on Tormund. Since then, the Traitors had been rampaging across the Scarberia sector unopposed, bringing ruin and plague to every single Imperial world they had come across. Leading them was a foul Daemon Prince, known only as Pappy, who bore the foul blessings of the Plague-God. Already, millions had died in Pappy's genocidal campaign, whether from direct attack or biological warfare, and millions more were soon to follow unless the Fettered Host was stopped. And here, on Blackgrave, Vrennas intended to stop them.

He calmed his mind as he thought on his sacred duty. He had studied the path of the Feted Host's onslaught through the sector, and had anticipated their next target would be here on Blackgrave, a densely-populated world that would be all too perfect for them to ravage with plagues. Coordinating their efforts with the Ultramarines Second Company under Captain Sicarius, the Grey Knights had lain in wait for the Traitors' arrival. And so it was that when the ships of the Feted Host translated out of the warp in orbit of Blackgrave, they had found the loyal Astartes waiting for them below on the surface, ready to defend the Emperor's realm.

With a thought, Vrennas activated a screen on his helmet's retinal display that connected with the Stormraven's underside monitors. Below, on the brown, pockmarked surface of Blackgrave, flashes and streaks of yellow fire lit and crisscrossed as the battle raged below. He made out specks of movement and boxy outlines of vehicles, all in the polished silver of the Grey Knights and the regal blue of the Ultramarines. On the opposite side, interspresed among some ruined habs and far fewer in number, were the drab, sickly shapes of the Plague Marines. He could even make out a large form, blotched and blurry as it was, that was undoubtedly the accursed Daemon Prince. Even though they had been outnumbered, the Feted Host had landed and attacked anyway, perhaps driven by some chaotic madness. For all their boldness, the Traitors were fighting a losing battle on the surface. The moment the Stormraven descended, the trap would be sealed: Vrennas and his brothers would tear into the rear of the Chaos lines, where he would be able to confront the foul Daemon Prince himself and, Emperor willing, banish him back to the Empyrean.

The only thing that bothered Vrennas some information from the Iron Hands' original report. On Tormund, the Feted Host had been fighting alongside Eldar pirates, but throughout the rest of their brutal campaign in the sector, the Traitors had been fighting alone. Perhaps their alliance had been a short-lived one? In the end, Vrennas supposed it wouldn't matter. He had the Chaos Space Marines right where he wanted them. It was time to finish them off once and for all.

He finished the recitation, as did his brothers. "Brothers, prepare to descend," he commanded. "We are the Hammer!"

"WE ARE THE HAMMER!" the Grey Knights answered in unison.

And then, as though in response to this shout, the Stormraven shook violently.

Vrennas' Terminator armoured-frame was wrenched violently in his harness as the Stormraven shuddered, klaxons blaring above the roar of the turbulence. The Grand Master activated his vox. "Brother Telemakos, what happened?" he barked at the Stormraven's pilot.

"Something's hit us, Grand Master!" Telemakos shouted back. "We have portals opening all around us!"

"What?" In an instant, Vrennas switched back to an exterior view of the Stormraven. The sight that greeted him caused his blood to run cold.

In the air above them, a shimmering disc of pure darkness had opened up, like a gaping wound in the skin of reality, seeming to bathe the ground below in its shadow. Through it, Vrennas could see nothing but shadow. He frowned. He had fought daemonkind long enough to know that this was no daemonic portal, but something else altogether.

He was proved right when a swarm of sleek, bladed craft suddenly came pouring out of the portal like a flock of bats, shrieking like the souls of the damned. Moving with impossible speed, most of the craft swooped downwards on the Grey Knights and Ultramarines on the surface, firing down on them with beams of dark light. Some of the craft branched off and screeched after the Stormraven, and the craft shook as another dark beam sliced across its hull.

With a sinking certainty, Vrennas realized that it had not been the Feted Host who had fallen into a trap this day, but he and his brothers.





For the next game, we wound up facing a team of Ultramarines and Grey Knights. They brought the following:


Ultramarines:

Captain Sicarius
10 Tactical Marines- meltagun, missile launcher, Sgt w. power weapon
-Razorback- twin-linked heavy bolter
5 Vanguard Veterans- 4 power weapons, Sgt w. relic blade
5 Devastators- 4 missile launchers
Predator- twin-linked lascannon, sponson lascannons


Grey Knights:

Grand Master
5 Strike Knights
-Razorback- twin-linked heavy bolter
10 Purifiers- halberds
Nemesis Dreadknight- heavy psycannon, nemesis greatsword
Stormraven- twin-linked assault cannon, twin-linked multi-melta


SCENARIO AND DEPLOYMENT:




For this game, we were fighting in Spearhead Deployment. Maxis and the Ultramarine player both had Kill Points as their objective, while the Grey Knight player and I both had Capture and Control.

In setting up, I placed our home objective and the Bloodied Claws in the ruined building of our quarter. Maxis and I then put as many vehicles as we could a few inches behind the nearby rock formation, with Squad Influenza's Rhino, the Wyches' Raider (with Rukifellith on board), the Bloodied Claws' empty Raider and both Venoms all clustering behind it. Maxis then placed Squad Malaria's Rhino and Pappy more boldly in the centre, while I hid the Ravager behind the lowermost rock formation. THe Obliterators, Razorwing and (of course) the Summoned Daemons were all placed in reserve.

The Imperials, like us, adopted a fairly defensive deployment. They put their objective in a big ruined building, with the Devastators, Dreadknight, and a Combat Squad with missile launcher and Sergeant all camping around it. Their left flank was weighted with both Razorbacks (with Sicarius and another Combat Squad riding in the Ultramarine one) on the left flank, while the Stormraven (with Grand Master and Purifiers) on the right. Further at the front of their deployment, they placed their Vanguard Vets close to the big, central crystal formation.



Before the game began, the Stormraven flew along the upper side of the board thanks to its Scout move, preparing for a nice alpha strike in case our opponents stole the initiative. Using Grand Strategy, the Grey Knight player then made his Dreadknight and Purifiers both scoring units. Hoooh crap. In the meantime, I rolled a 1 for combat drugs (Roll 3d6 for fleet and choose the highest), and we got the first turn.


TURN 1



Our strategy, as basic as it was, was to hold our own objective with a few backfield units while sending most of our combined armies up to take the enemy objective (profound, I know). With this in mind, our first turn began with Squad Influenza's Rhino moving around the rocks behind it, with the empty Raider flying in front of it to take a pot shot at the incoming Stormraven. The Wych Raider and Venoms all moved behind the rocks as well to maximise cover, while Squad Malaria's Rhino boldly moved around the other side of the rock face towards the enemy building, with Pappy hiding close behind.



Meanwhile, on the left flank, the Ravager moved flat out to take cover behind another set of rocks, hoping to stay hidden from those mean Devastators. I was hoping to take some lance shots at those enemy tanks next turn, if the Ravager survived.



The shooting phase this turn consisted only of the empty Raider taking a pot-shot at the Stormraven. And missing spectacularly. Yaaay. Both Rhinos popped smoke, and that was that.

In the Imperial turn, the Stormraven moved flat-out, facing the side of the empty Raider. The Vanguards edged forward tentatively, taking cover behind the crystal formation. Further backfield, the Predator moved up to the right flank to draw line of sight to more of our stuff. Surprisingly, though, this was it for the enemy movement phase: the Razorbacks didn't move, and pretty much most of their combined army castled around their objective.

In the shooting phase, the Predator fired its lascannons at Squad Influenza's Rhino, shaking it, while the Devastators fired their missiles at Squad Malaria's Rhino and failed to get through the smoke cloud. The Tactical Squad's missile launcher fired as well, but missed. We thought we were in the clear until the Grey Knight player reminded us that the Stormraven can fire with its Machine Spirit while moving flat out. (Waaaaaaaaaaard!) The mass-reactive shells chewed up the poor empty Raider, exploding it quite thoroughly. In the distance, the Bloodied Claws could barely suppress a tear at the loss of their ride.


KP:
Imperium- 0
Chaos- 0


TURN 2





Not counting an empty Raider, we had weathered the storm of shooting quite well last turn, and it was now time to go on the offensive. The Summoned Daemons arrived and landed near the crystal formation: alongside Pappy, they ran/flew into the crystals to say hi to the very alarmed Vanguards. Next to Pappy, Squad Malaria's Rhino moved up towards the objective, while the Wyches' Raider moved flat out just behind it, hoping to do some stabbing next turn. On the right flank, both Venoms and Squad Influenza's Rhino turned to face the Stormraven, while the Ravager flew out from behind its rock cover to draw a bead on the big silver turkey as well.

In the shooting phase, we threw everything we could at the Stormraven, knowing that if we didn't bring it down we would have Purifiers all over our home objective. The Ravager fired on it, penetrating once, but our our opponents passed their cover save. I was beginning to fear that the Stormraven might survive everything we threw at it until the Trueborn fired, getting a shot through the flying brick's cover save and wrecking it. Huzzah!

As the Grandmaster and his posse came tumbling out of their busted ride, they came under fire from the Libertines, both Venoms, and Squad Influenza, losing nine Purifiers in the ensuing firestorm. As if to add insult to injury, the Rhino's combi-bolter then fired, plinking off the last Purifier and earning Chaos a kill point! Only the Grand Master was left, but he looked a lot less scary without his buddies backing him up.





With shooting done, we moved onto close combat. Pappy cast Warptime on himself, and successfully charged through cover into the Vanguards alongside the Lesser Daemons. Although they were striking first due to the terrain, the Vanguards only managed to kill one Daemon, before Pappy cleaved down three in return and the Daemons gobbled up one more. The last Vanguard tried, and failed, to run, but fortunately for us, the heroic Sergeant passed all of his No Retreat saves and fought on, preventing the enemy from shooting Pappy down next turn.



In the Imperial turn, the only movement came from the understandably miffed Grand Master, who moved towards Squad Influenza's Rhino with vengeance in mind. Aaaand that was it. No manouvers by Razorbacks, no teleportations from the Dreadknight...everything else stood perfectly still.

In the shooting phase, though, the Space Marines made up for their lack of movement with copious amounts of dakka. The Tactical Squad fired at Squad Malaria's Rhino and managed to wreck it with a single shot of their missile launcher, sending the Plague Marines tumbling out in front. The Devastators, Dreadknight, and both Razorbacks then fired into the exposed Plague Marines, and killing and impressive six of them and leaving only the Plague Champion, who defiantly gave the Sons of Guilleman the power finger.



As an encore, the Predator then fired on the Trueborn Venom, wrecking it and sending the elite Dark Eldar tumbling to the ground, forcing them to walk for the rest of the battle like a bunch of common halborn. The indignity!



In the assault phase, the Grand Master charged Squad Influenza's Rhino and, much to our surprise, wrecked it with a single, well-placed krak grenade! The Plague Marines came tumbling out the side of their wrecked transport, more than a little nervous at being in stabbing range of an angry Grand Master.





In the centre, meanwhile, the last Vanguard went kicking and screaming down Pappy's throat. Burping loudly, Pappy and his cronies consolidated further towards the Imperial lines, wondering if Tactical Marines tasted any different.

KP:
Chaos- 2
Imperium- 2


TURN 3



In our turn, the Razorwing and Obliterators arrived. I moved the Razorwing up from the side to target the Imperial firebase, while the Obliterators teleported directly in front of the Razorbacks. The rest of our combined armies went for the attack, with Pappy and the sole Plague Champion moving towards the Tactical Marines, and the Wych Raider flying up and disembarking its squad in front of the Tacticals and the Dreadknight. The Daemons also barely managed to exit cover and scuttled towards the Razorbacks as well.



Further in our backfield, Squad Influenza and the Trueborn formed a firing line in front of the Grand Master, and the Warrior Venom and Ravager both edged up to bring their guns to bear on the distant Dreadknight. Only the Bloodied Claws, as usual, didn't move, sitting on the home objective and playing the Dark Eldar equivalent of euchre.

In the shooting phase, although the Imperial side was nicely clustered around a single building, I was wary of firing the Razorwing's missiles, as our own squads were close enough to be hit by a bad scatter. With this in mind, the Razorwing fired only two missiles at the Devastators, one of which deviated onto the Tactical Marines and Pappy. Two of the Devastators were shredded, but Pappy didn't seem to notice as the monoscythe shrapnel bounced off his warty hide. The Warrior Venom unleashed splintery death on the Dreadknight, scoring one wound on the big lug, before the Ravager freemed off two more, leaving it nice and vulnerable on one wound remaining. Morphing multi-meltas, the Obliterators then fired on the Grey Knight Razorback, exploding it quite nicely and and killing an impressive three Grey Knights in the process.



Last but not least, Squad Influenza rapid-fired into the Grand Master, but only scored one wound on the big guy. The Trueborn quickly showed them how it was done, hitting all three times with their blasters and atomizing the Grand Master. Haw haw, no burial on Titan for you! The Trueborn then enjoyed their nice, new Pain Token, while the Plague Marines muttered something about "showoffs."

After fleeting up to gain line of sight to the Dreadknight, the Wyches charged, hitting both the Dreadknight and the Tactical Marines, while Pappy and the Plague Champion hit the Tactical Marines as well. In the ensuing combat, however, the Hekatrix whiffed, scoring only one wound which bounced off the Dreadknight's invulnerable save, while the rest of her squad killed only one Ultramarine. Striking back, the Dreadknight squished one Wych while the Ultramarine Sergeant skewered the Plague Champion on his power sword. Having forgotten to cast Warptime, Pappy then missed horribly and only killed one more Ultramarine, resulting in a drawn combat. Hmm, that could have gone better.



Elsewhere, the Daemons tried to charge the Ultramarine Razorback, but just fell short. It's a hard life, being a Lesser Daemon.



With the enemy practically on their doorstep, the last two Grey Knights moved up to confront the Obliterators, while Sicarius and his squad disembarked to face the Daemons. And, once again, the rest of the enemy army did absolutely nada in the way of movement.

In the shooting phase, the Predator wrecked the Wych Raider with several accurate lascannon hits, sending Rukifellith tumbling to the ground, quite annoyed.



The Devastators, Grey Knights and Razorbacks then concentrated all of their fire on the Obliterators, but Maxis' saves were on fire, and the Imperials only only managed to chip one wound off of the big nasties. Sicarius and his squad then fired pistols and a meltagun at the Daemons, but thanks to a combination of whiffage and good invulnerable saves, only one Daemon fell.



In close combat, the last two Grey Knights charged the Obliterators while Sicarius and his men charged the Daemons (for some reason, they did not do a multi-charge). The Grey Knights failed to cast Hammerhand, but they still struck down one Obliterator and wounded another before being squished in return by power fists. Sicarius, meanwhile, swung at the Daemons with his fabled Talassarian Tempest Blade...and failed to score any wounds whatsoever. His squad managed to kill one Daemon, but lost one in return for a drawn combat.



Finally, in the big central combat, the Wyches once again whiffed against the Dreadknight, which squished one of them in return. Argh. Pappy, in turn, managed to kill two more Ultramarines, leaving just the Sergeant. We had won combat by one, but both enemy units held their ground, continuing the deadlock.



KP:
Chaos- 4
Imperium- 4



TURN 4

Having dealt with the Grey Knights, the Obliterators lumbered to the right to get line of sight on the Predator. The Haemonculous, meanwhile, moved up to hide behind Pappy's hefty bulk, not wanting to be gunned down by all of the nasty Space Marines lurking about. The Ravager and Venom edged up as well, while the Plague Marines and Trueborn began a long walk towards the enemy objective. For the first time in the game, we didn't have much movement to do, as all of the enemy units were either already in weapons range or in close combat.

In the shooting phase, the Venom unloaded a splintery rain on the Devastators, killing two. The Warriors on board barely managed to find range on the last one with their blaster, and promptly freemed him to death for a Pain Token. The Ravager and Obliterators then combined their fire on the Predator, blowing off one of its lascannons, immobilizing and stunning it. Finally, the Razorwing fired its lances at the Ultramarine Razorback, but failed to do any damage.

In close combat, Sicarius demonstrated his mastery of the blade by once again failing to kill any Daemons, and his squad followed his example by missing entirely. In return, the Daemons managed to bite a wound past Sicarius' armour and Feel No Pain, wounding him and winning combat! The Ultramarines held, however, sparing their player any further embarassment.

In the other combat, the Wyches failed to wound the Dreadknight for the third time in a row, and for the third time in a row, lost one of their number in return! Pappy, however, remembered to cast Warptime this turn, squishing the Ultramarine Sergeant and piling into base contact with the Dreadknight. Unfortunately, this left the poor Haemonculous exposed to the Razorback...





Our opponents had very little to do in their turn. The Razorback fired its heavy bolters at Rukifellithand splattered him across the terrain, earning a kill point. In close combat, Sicarius and his squad finally stepped up their game, killing two Daemons for one loss andcausing another to pop due to No Retreat, though the last one remained stuck in with the Blue Boys. In the central combat, the Dreadknight and Pappy stood face-to-face, Marine in oversized suit-to-Daemon...only to be robbed of that title fight when the Hekatrix finally switched her agonizer to the "on" position and whipped off the Dreadknight's final wound. Annoyed, Pappy consolidated towards Sicarius and his squad while the Wyches consolidated onto the objective.






KP:
Chaos- 6
Imperium- 5


TURN 5

At this point, we more or less had this game in the bag. The Obliterators continued to trudge towards the Predator, while Pappy flew up next to Sicarius' squad. Everything else held its ground or angled slightly to begin the mop-up operation.

In shooting, the Obliteraters melta'd off another of the Predator's lascannons, while the Ravager and Razorwing combined their fire to stun the crap out of the Razorback. And, just because they could, Squad Influenza and the Trueborn continued to run towards the enemy lines.



In close combat, the Obliterators waded into the Predator and smashed it apart with their power fists. Pappy then cast Warptime and charged Sicarius. In the ensuing duel, Sicarius got plenty of hits in, but failed to roll any 6's to wound, and in return was gobbled down by the hungry Daemon Prince. Yaaay! The Tactical Squad, though, finally killed off the last Daemon, much to our side's sorrow.

Our opponent's turn consisted of us jumping straight to combat, which saw Pappy killing all three Tactical Marines in the blink of an eye. We rolled to see if the game would continue. It did, and to their credit, our opponents did not concede.


Chaos- 9
Imperium- 6


TURN 6

The Ravager fired on the last Razorback, and wrecked it quite nicely. And with that, the game ended with a tabling to us.


KILL POINTS:
Chaos- 10
Imperium- 6


OBJECTIVES:
Dark Eldar- 2
Grey Knights- 0


RESULT: MAJOR VICTORY!


Thoughts: This was one battle where more or less everything went to plan. We managed to fend off what few enemy units were sent against our home objective, and at the same time managed to steamroll over our opponents' home objective with our assault units. The fact that we managed to assault pretty much every defending enemy unit at once meant that our opponents' units couldn't support each other effectively, and wound up being taken out piecemeal. All in all, a fairly impressive victory for Team Evil. I was particularly impressed with Pappy, as the Daemon Prince not only survived, but killed almost half the enemy army on his own.

I think our victory was helped in no small part by the fact that our opponents were relying so much on the Stormraven as their only mobile threat. If we hadn't shot down that Stormraven, then we would have had a much harder time of stopping the Purifiers. As it was, once we wrecked the Stormraven and killed its passengers, the best our opponents could hope for was to draw on objectives. Maybe if they'd given that Dreadknight a teleporter, or held their Vanguards back a bit as a counter-assault unit, things might have gone differently.

All in all, though, Maxis and I were quite happy with this win after our hard-fought loss in Round 1. Hopefully, things would only go up from here.




Bright red klaxons flashed in Cato Sicarius' retinal display, informing him of intense damage to his armour. He didn't even need to read the sigils to know how intense that damage was. Both of his arms and legs were numb and unfeeling, and a dull throbbing ached along the length of his spine. His chest was raw with the old, biting pain of several stab wounds, and agony knifed through his lungs with every breath he took. He tasted blood at the back of his mouth, and he couldn't tell if the colours flashing before his eyes were from the shattered visor of his helmet, or dizziness.

I'm dying, came the realization at the back of his mind. He had always known he would die in battle. Every Space Marine knew it from the day they first became a Novitiate. But he had hoped it would not end like this-- shattered and crippled on a barren world, surrounded by his dead brothers as his life slowly ebbed away. Give him a glorious death, or at least a quick one. He was useless to the Emperor like this, and his death would be just as meaningless if it happened now.

Sicarius' thoughts were cut short, however, when a massive shadow came over him. He smelled the creature before he saw it-- an overpowering stench of rot and decay, a smell worse than death.

The next thing he knew, he was being lifted off the ground as a massive hand grabbed him around the chest, causing pain to burn in him as his shattered ribs were ground together. Another hand came to his head, and his plumed helm was wrenched off roughly. Unfiltered air assaulted his nostrils as his vision was freed from the retinal display, and he could now feel the sticky blood trickling down from his scalp.

The creature that could only be called an abomination, an affront to all reasons and purity. Its flesh glistened with slime and rot, and its face was nothing more than a massive, maggot-ridden maw that opened and closed tentatively, as though unsure of whether to speak or to just eat him whole. Sicarius had seen this monster slay many of his brothers, cleaving them apart with a massive blade or else tearing them limb from him with its bear hands. He had fought the creature himself, but for all his skill with a sword, and for all the sharpness of his Talassarian Tempest Blade, he couldn't even pierce the monster's rotten flesh. In reply, the beast had shattered his body and left him for dead as it had butchered the rest of his brothers.

And now it was here to finish the deed.

Gurgling, rancid laugter came from the Daemon's throat. "I always enjoy killing you Ultramarines," it said. "You've always been so arrogant...so superior...and yet you die just as easily as everyone else."

Sicarius tried to spit at the Daemons, but his strength failed him, and he only succeeded in coughing up a gobbet of blood. The very presence of the creature was filling him with an overwhelming nausea that threatened to make him pass out.

"Finish it, then," he rasped. Even speaking hurt. "Finish it, or I promise I'll hunt you down, Traitor."

"I would prefer it if you didn't grant his request, Lord Pappy," came another voice-- a thin, hushed voice that almost sent shivers down Sicarius' aching spine.

From the corner of Sicarius' vision, he saw another figure step forwards-- a thin, almost emaciated figure that moved so slightly that Sicarius could have sworn it was gliding across the ground. Its stick-like figure was clad in a filthy black smock and a ribbed cuirass of dark armour, from the waist of which numerous blades, scalpels and skulls hung from dangling chains. One thin, pale arm ended in a clacking set of bladed claws, and its skull-like face was set in a ghastly grin. One eye socket was hollow and empty, while the other was filled by a bulging, swollen orb that stared out madly.

Sicarius swallowed. This was impossible. He had seen this alien blown apart by heavy bolter rounds. It should have been dead!

The thing walked closer towards him. This close, Sicarius suddenly noticed that its breastplate was shredded, and the gory ruin of its chest beneath, with ribs poking out from ruined flesh like a cat's claws. Even as he watched, the pallid flesh knitted back together and healed at an unnatural rate, until the gory wound had all but disappeared.

"My apologies, Captain Sicarius," the Eldar said, almost in a hiss as it raised its claw towards his face, "but you have something I need."

A taloned digit sank into Sicarius' throat, and the Captain gave a wide-eyed gasp before he went limp. Frowning, Pappy turned and stared at the unmoving body of the Ultramarine, and gave a wet gurgle that sounded almost like a growl.

"What did you do to him, Skinny Man?" Pappy asked. "He had better not be dead. His fate was mine to decide."

"And it still is," Rukifellith replied, his blade-fingers clicking. "I merely extracted a portion of his blood, and in the process dosed him with a potent paralytic." He drew his claw back, and Pappy noticed the red fluid pulsing in a vial affixed to the Haemonculous' wrist. Still smiling, the twisted Eldar licked at the tip of one claw with his black tongue. "I have the ingredients I wished for from this place: the blood of a hero, and the refined essence of a dozen highly-focused psykers. The souls of our silver friends will provide me with the latter."

Pappy's maw wavered. "So long as the Ultramarine lives, I couldn't care less for your ingredients," he said. "We have sundered the Sons of Guilleman and the Emperor's Knights, and will be leaving them to rot. That is fine enough for me."

The Daemon glanced at the limp form of Sicarius still in his grasp, and his maw twitched into a smile. "This one, though..."

******

When the rest of the Ultramarines Second Company arrived on Blackgrave, they found the site of a massacre. Of the Feted Host and their allies, there was no sign, but the dead remained: all of the Grey Knights and Ultramarines lay rotting on the ground, their bodies arranged to form the symbol of Nurgle. At the centre of the symbol, tied to a steel spike, was the shattered, but alive, body of Captain Sicarius.

The Knight Champion of Macragge would spend the next month in the Apothecarion being treated for Nurgle's Rot. He would eventually heal, and resume his duties as Captain of the Second Company. But from then on, Cato Sicarius would have a burning, vengeful hatred for Pappy the Bloated and his Feted Host.

Game 3- Chaos Space Marines and Sisters of Battle

EXCERPT FROM THE JOURNAL OF RUKIFELLITH, SCULPTOR OF THE ABYSSAL HEART COVEN:

With the destruction of the Grey Knights and the razing of the world they sought to defend, our alliance with the Feted Host has been strengthened, cemented as it were in the blood of Lord Pappy’s enemies. The Daemon himself expressed his appreciation for our alliance in the aftermath of the battle, stating how much it gratified him to see the forces of the Imperium humiliated. I am confident that the Feted Host will now have no misgivings in assisting in my quest for ingredients, not matter what strange battlefield my search may take us to. And, of course, their new-found confidence in me simply makes the Chaos Space Marines that much more useful a tool...

But I am getting ahead of myself. Our next ingredients require the physical remnants of a once-pure and virtuoous soul. Conventently, one of the closest planets in the sector is a so-called “shrine world” of the Imperium, a world almost solely devoted to the worship of the humans’ corpse-god. Significantly, this shrine world reputedly holds the ashes of some fabled human hero, a “saint” whose purity and virtue were legendary. Fortune appears to smile on us, for, according to Lord Pappy, the forces of Chaos have recently conquered this world. According to Pappy, the Chaos forces already on the planet should recognize my Kabalites as allies if we accompany the Feted Host down to the surface.

I have my misgivings, of course, but all the same, I have the strangest feeling that this trip may be more prove interesting than I suspect....

******

From its outskirts, St. Martinsburg looked like a fairly typical Imperial city. The tall, gothic buildings were strewn with statues and gargoyels, and steepled churches rose above the skyline like marble speartips. There was a sombreness to the city, the old, rigid architecture giving off the impression of austerity and devotion. The city's outer perimeter was ringed by boxy bastions of a drab green-grey colour, and from a distance the city almost looked like a cluster of gravestones on a dry patch of earth. It was a place where millions worked, toiled, under the watchful eye of their God-Emperor.

At least, that could have been true a week ago. Now, however, the seeming normalcy of the city was shattered, along with several of its buildings. Statues of saints were either toppled or indescribably defiled, and the odd plume of smoke rose from deeper within the city. Most noticeable of all, however, were many of the pennants, banners and flags which now flew from the buildings-- all depicting an all-seeing, lidless eye, ringed by a yellow eight-pointed star on a field of black.

"Hargh!" Pappy exclaimed, lifting a rotten, dripping arm as he pointed towards the city. "You see, Skinny Man? It's as I said, Chaos has a clawed grip on this world!"

"I can see that plainly, Lord Pappy," Rukifellith replied, his expression unreadable as he gazed at the distant banners. "But are you certain that your...brothers...will allow us entry?"

Around them, the Chaos Space Marines and the Dark Eldar were advancing towards the city in a slow, leisurely pace, so as not to cause undue alarm to the city's new masters. Although the Plague Marines seemed perfectly comfortable with this, the Dark Eldar were visibly agitated, some even shaking a little as though trying to restrain themselves from sudden motion. To the Dark Eldar, slowness meant death: to move at anything but a lightning-swift pace was to leave oneself horribly vulnerable.

Their unease would have been understandable. So far, they had not encountered a single living soul in this city-- even for a war-torn place like this, there should have been some sign of activity or habitation. There was a wrongness to the quiet-- one that the Kabalites found all too familiar, given all the ambushes they had orchestrated in the past. Quiet, in its own way, could be a deadly weapon.

Pappy chuckled loudly, sending maggots, plegm, and decayed bits of tissue spraying everywhere. "Don't be so frightened, Skinny Man!" he chortled. "There will be no need for battles here--"

The Daemon Prince's chortling was cut short when the air was pierced by a high-pitched shriek. A second later, the lead Rhino of the Feted Host exploded in a fiery blast, sending shards of twisted, pestilent metal scything outwards. Chaos Space Marines and Dark Eldar alike were hurled backwards by the explosion, and flaming wreckage even slammed into Pappy, though the bloated Daemon Prince shrugged it off.

"WHAT?" Pappy roared, unfurling his wings. Through his unholy vision, he could see figures approaching from around the corners of buildings up ahead-- slight figures clad in glossy black armour and brilliant crimson tabards. Behind them rumbled blocky tanks inlaid with gold decoration and emblazoned with the proud symbols of the Imperium. As the figures approached, the sound of dozens of voices singing in serene unison could be heard, growing louder and resonating clearer as they approached.

"Sisters of Battle, my lord!" one of the Plague Marines spoke up, recognizing the warrior-nuns of the False Emperor.

Pappy responded by cuffing his subordinate violently in the chest. "I can see that, maggotspawn!" he shouted. "They shouldn't even be here! This city has fallen to Chaos, so what are--"

The Daemon Prince was cut short by the sound of soft, fluting laughter. Looking up, the Daemon caught a glimpse of a winged figure perched like some obscene gargoyle atop the skeletal ruins of a building. Pappy barely made out twisted black-and-gold armour and a pair of leathery red wings before the creature swooped upwards, disappearing into the smoke clouds in a heartbeat.

That's when Pappy noticed the other figures marching up alongside the Sisters, towering over them like giants from some terrible mythology. Some wore black armour with the symbol of the all-seeing eye in yellow, while some others wore armour that was corroded with fungus and rot like that of the Feted Host. Regardless of their armour, they were unmistakeably Chaos Space Marines.

A low, gurgling growl issued forth from Pappy's distended gut. "What treachery is this?"

"How deliciously ironic," a soft, lilting voice suddenly spoke in Pappy's head, detectable only to the minds of daemonkind, "that you should rave of treachery, Pappy of the Feted Host."

The Nurgle Daemon bristled at the words, recognizing the presence of a fellow Daemon. "Who are you?" he thought.

"I am Dhel'seth the Tantalizer, Seducer of Worlds and warlord of the Black Legion," the voice replied, its tone almost sounding mocking. "I bear the favour of Slaanesh and of the Despoiler of Wolds, Warmaster Abaddon himself."

"I care not for your Despoiler or his favours!" Pappy growled mentally. "Why did you attack us?"

"Attack you?" Soft, lilting laughter could be heard. "I am merely defending my newly-acquired realm from intruders! And not just any intruders, either, but traitors-- supposed servants of Chaos who have instead thrown their lot in with the Dark Eldar!"

Pappy ground his gums together, his few remaining solid teeth sloughing away into so much brown mulch as he thought over how ridiculous this accusation was. "You call me traitor?" he growled. "Your warriors are advancing alongside the wenches of the False Emperor!"

"Them?" Dhel'Seth chuckled. "Oh, they are merely beguiled servants of mine! I have placed a spell over them so that they see us fellow Loyalists! They now serve me and my word, thinking that they serve the False Emperor instead-- the irony is too delicious to put into words!"

Even as the Daemon spoke, the enemy forces in the distance began to get closer. Pappy noted, uncomfortably, the Exorcist missile tubes sprouting from some of the Sororitas tanks.

"And," Dhel'Seth continued, "once I have vanquished you traitors and your alien friends, the Despoiler will be certain to reward me further! Unless, of course, you slay those Eldar here and now and give them to me as a sacrifice. If you don’t, your essence shall be chained and sent back to the Despoiler as a table ornament. You shall live forever as a trophy of the Black Legion."

"Well, here's my reply to you, Slaaneshi ponce!" And with that, Pappy squatted on his wide haunches, turned around, and broke wind, quite loudly, in the direction of the Black Legion. At this, the rest of the Feted Host erupted into throaty, gurgling laughter.

Dhel'Seth, however, simply laughed. "Such arrogance!" the Daemon giggled. "I shall enjoy destroying you, you overgrown wart. I shall make you watch as I enthrall you warriors to fight under my command, just as I have with the Sisterhood of this world!"

"Oh shut up!" Pappy spat, breaking the telepathic connection in an instant before turning to the Dark Eldar. "Skinny Man, we--"

"I overheard, Lord Pappy," Rukifellith replied with a slight smile.

If Pappy had eyebrows, he would have raised one. "You overheard?"

"Every word," Rukifellith replied, removing a metallic, and quite pointy, object from the back of his skull. "It makes me so happy that you chose to honour our own alliance."

Pappy gave a distasteful grunt. "Don't get mushy on me, Skinny Man," he said. "Just kill everyone who isn't us so I don't start regretting this."

Even as Pappy spoke, however, a brilliant golden figure suddenly soared up over the distant line of buildings. Gazing upward, Pappy saw a feminine form, clad in baroque armour of purest gold, wielding fiery-bladed sword and borne aloft on wings of light. It only took Pappy a few seconds to realize that that was NOT Dhel'Seth.

“Oh dear,” Rukifellith noted, “I appears that the Saint may not be quite so dead after all...”


For our next game, we wound up facing a nicely-painted tag team of Sisters of Battle and Chaos Space Marines. This would have marked my first encounter with the new Sisters list, and while I expressed my apprehension at fighting my favourite army, no one present was sympathetic in any way (Maxis pointed out that he had had to fight Orks, his own favourite army, much earlier).



Our opponents’ armies were as follows:

Order of Our Martyred Lady

Saint Celestine
10 Battle Sisters- flamer, heavy flamer, VSS w. combi-flamer
-Rhino
10 Battle Sisters- flamer, heavy flamer, VSS w. combi-flamer
-Rhino
10 Dominions- 2 flamers, 2 meltaguns
-Rhino
Exorcist
Exorcist


The Black Legion

Daemon Prince- Mark of Slaanesh, wings, Lash of Submission
7 Plague Marines- 2 plasma guns
8 Khorne Berzerers- Skull Champion w. power fist
-Rhino
5 Chosen- 3 meltaguns
-Rhino
3 Obliterators


The Chaos list was a nice all-rounder, but the Sisters brought a surprise in the form of the Living Saint. Seeing as neither Maxis nor myself had ever fought the new Sisters before, neither of us was quite sure how to deal with a perpetually-respawning space nun of doom.


Scenario and Deployment:

For the Scenario, we got Capture and Control Dawn of War. My Dark Eldar and the Sisters of Battle recieved Victory Points as an objective (essentially, we got points for each full unit or transport we destroyed, with the winner being the one who got 250 points more), while both Chaos forces had to hold objectives.

As per Dawn of War deployment, we started by placing Pappy behind a large building in the centre, while Squad Influenza was placed on the bottom right corner along with our objective.





Our opponents responded by placing a squad of Plague Marines in the middle of their deployment zone behind a building, along with their home objective.



More worryingly, they placed the Living Saint directly across from Squad Influenza, ready to assault the Plague Marines on Turn 1 or 2.





For combat drugs, I rolled +1 Attack, and the game began.



TURN 1



We got the first turn, and started by bringing everything onto the board-- with the exception of the Lesser Daemons, Obliterators and Razorwing, all of which were in reserve. The Warrior Raider came on next to the Wych Raider behind the building, while further behind came Squad Influenza's empty Rhino and the Warrior Venom. Further to the right came the Ravager and Trueborn Venom behind Squad Malaria's Rhino. Pappy himself flew far forwards, holding up a big "shoot me" sign for the Sisters to (hopefully not) see.

In the shooting phase, the Trueborn tried to unload on Celestine...and failed their night fighting roll, even with Night Vision. The Ravager fired on her as well...and again, failed their Night Fighting roll. The Warriors? Nope. Even with Night Vision, it seemed that my Evil Space Elves were horribly near-sighted in the dark.

That wasn't the embarassing part, however. The embarassing part was when the Plague Marines unloaded their plasma guns on the Saint, rolled really well for Night Fighting, and freemed Her Holiness into a black patch on the ground. Ahem. My Dark Eldar were merely toying with the human. They certainly did not get beaten in a game of accuracy by a bunch of filthy Chaos-worshippers, oh no.



The Sisters player used this marker to mark the Saint's resting place each time she died.



In our opponent's turn, they brought on everything but their own reserves as well. On the left flank, an Exorcist, Battle Squad, and Khorne Berzerkers rolled up, with the Battle Sisters driving up and disembarking into rapid fire range of Pappy, and the Khorne Berzerkers...walking onto the board alongside their Rhino, for some reason. Nearer to the centre, another Battle Squad and Exorcist rolled up just to the left of the fortress, forming a nice wall of vehicles between Pappy and the Plague Marines. Last but by no means least, there was a sound of heavenly choirs, and Saint Celestine suddenly reappeared on the same spot where she had been freemed just a few moments ago, seemingly untroubled by such earthly concerns as plasma guns. The Saint flew forwards, preparing to charge the offending Plague Marines next turn.





In the shooting phase, the Battle Sisters prayed for Light of the Emperor, but even when rerolling 1's, only chipped one wound off of Pappy (both the Sisters player and I agreed that we missed Divine Guidance a lot). The Exorcists tried-- and failed-- to spot Pappy in the darkness, and aside from having all Rhinos pop smoke, that was that for the Chaos-Sororitas alliance.


TURN 2

In our turn, the Razorwing arrived. I placed it directly opposite the Berzerkers on the left hand side, even though I realized that this position would leave it vulnerable to outflanking Chosen or Dominions. I'm not quite sure why I didn't move it onto the centre behind the fortress, but I figured that I might as well strike fast and hard with the Razorwing's missiles while I could. The rest of my forces moved in to attack, with the Wych Raider zooming up and disembarking their passengers in front of the exposed Battle Sisters, while the Warrior Venom and Warrior Raider angled left to bring their weapons to bear as well.



On the right, both Chaos Rhinos moved forwards, while the Ravager edged to take some pot-shots from between the bastion and the Chaos Rhinos, and the Trueborn Venom hovered to shoot up Celestine. Note that, for some reason, I did not think to turn the Venom to bring splinter cannons to bear on the Saint. Finally, Pappy ignored the offending Battle Sisters and flew close to the enemy objective, ready to attack the Sororitas vehicles.



In the shooting phase, the Razorwing unloaded all four of its missiles into the Khorne Berzerkers, decapitating six of them (including their Champion) with their monoscythe missiles. Skulls for the Skull Throne, anyone? Following up this success, the Ravager fired on the leftmost Sisters Rhino, wrecking it and sending its passengers disembarking next to the enemy Plague Marines. The Wych Raider then fired at the leftmost Sisters Rhino and exploded it quite nicely, though none of the Sisters were hurt in the explosion. Buoyed by the fact that my darklight weapons were doing incredibly well, I then had Warrior Raider fire on the leftmost Exorcist...and miss it. Rats.

While the shooting on the left flank was almost perfect, I wish the same could be said about the right flank. The Trueborn and Plague Marines all fired at will on the Living Saint...and accomplished nothing except one Plague Marine frying himself on an overheat. Somehow, by some miracle, Celestine had walked through a storm of plasma and bolters completely unscathed, thanks in no small part to our unnatural tendency to roll 1's to wound. This, as I'm sure you'll agree, dear readers, was a very bad thing for us.



In close combat, the Wyches charged gleefully into the Battle Sisters, slicing apart an impressive five of them while suffering no losses in return. Though beaten, the Sisters passed their break test, preventing our opponents from shooting the Wyches to ribbons next turn.



Pappy, meanwhile, charged the rightmost Exorcist and proceeded to rip its missile launcher off, eat its treads like licorice, and otherwise give its crew a good stunning (which he accomplished with his smell alone).





In our opponents' turn, the Chosen arrived...directly to the left of my Razorwing, disembarking to get into meltagun range. The sad part was, I saw that one coming. The enemy Obliterators teleported in on the upper right side of the board, while the enemy Daemon Prince made his grand entrance, deep striking directly to the left of the Wych combat to give my Space Elves a good Lashing once they were done.







Smelling blood, the last two Berzerkers moved towards the Wych combat, while the Living Saint flew towards the Plague Marines. Otherwise, the unengaged squad of Battle Sisters and Plague Marines huddled around their objective, staying close together in not-quite-so-perfect harmony.



In the shooting phase, the unengaged Sisters prayed for Light of the Emperor, and, along with the Plague Marines, managed to score two wounds on Pappy. For a moment, we thought the big guy was in the clear until the functional Exorcist swivelled its turret around and blasted him into gooey bits, splattering him across much of the battlefield (and across the poor Sisters, though the Plague Marines didn't seem to mind). The Chosen, meanwhile, did what they did best and exploded my poor Razorwing, while the Obliterators fired at my Ravager, stunning it and blowing off one of its dark lances. Last but not least, the Living Saint unleashed a fiery blast from her sword at the Plague Marines, but did nothing other than tickle them slightly.



With the shooting phase out of the way, the Berzerkers charged into the Wyches, while Celestine charged the Plague Marines. Swinging first, the Wyches killed another three Sisters, though one of them wound up on the wrong end of a Berzerker's chain-axe. This time, though, the last two Sisters broke and ran, and one of the Berzerkers died to no retreat wounds, leaving one crazy Khornate disciple to face the Wyches on his own.



Elsewhere, the Living Saint descended on the Plague Marines with the force of a hurricane, slaying three of them. The Plague Marines fumbled their return attacks, and the power fist only hit once, bouncing off Celestine's shiny invulnerable save. Although the Plagues didn't take any No Retreat losses, their prospects of survival did not look good.





TURN 3



Although we were now in danger of losing our objective, we gained some hope this turn as the Lesser Daemons arrived, teleporting in off of the Squad Influenza's icon.



The Obliterators also came in off of Squad Malaria's icon, giving us some much-needed fire support. Seeing as I didn't want those Battle Sisters rallying, I zoomed the Wych Raider forwards to tank shock them, sending them running even more, though sadly they stayed on the board.



The Warrior Raider edged up to get into rapid fire range of the enemy Daemon Prince (and more importantly, to avoid those Chosen), while the Warrior Venom edged to fire on the big guy as well. Meanwhile, both Plague Marine Rhinos edged up near the enemy bastion, and the Trueborn Venom edged up to the right to deal with those pesky Obliterators.

In the shooting phase, the dice seemed to smile on us. The Obliterators morphed lascannons and freemed two wounds off of the enemy Daemon Prince, before the Bloodied Claws used their splinter racks to brilliant effect and perforated the big guy several times over, earning a nice, shiny daemonic pain token. The Trueborn were quick to echo their success, firing at the Obliterators and freeming down all three of them with their blasters, earning a Pain Token of their own! The rest of the shooting could have been better, though, with the Wych Raider trying, and failing, to damage the functional Exorcist.

In close combat, the last Berzerker fell to the Hekatrix's agonizer, earning the Wyches a pain token of their own as they consolidated closer towards cover.



The Daemons, meanwhile, came charging in to help Squad Influenza: although Celestine sliced down another of the Plague Marines, the Daemons clawed a couple of wounds off of her in return, before the Plague Champion finished her off with a power fist to the face. With the threat of Celestine gone for now, the Daemons conslidated onto the objective, keeping it safely in our hands.



Unfortunately, like all horror movie monsters, Celestine doesn't stay dead. In our opponent's turn, the Saint stood right back up again (albeit with one wound), popping up again near the Plague Champion. At the same time, the Dominions outflanked in on the right hand side, disembarking to form a nice firing line in front of the Daemons. Whoo boy.





Elsewhere, the Berzerker Rhino (which I had forgotten was still functiona) zoomed forward to tank shock my Wyches, who promptly blew their leadership test and went running for their lives. Finally, the Chosen re-embarked their Rhino and drove up onto the nearby hill, passing their terrain test and staying out of sight of my lances. Finally, the last two Sisters from the leftmost squad used Light of the Emperor to rally, denying me some crucial victory points.

In the shooting phase, the Sisters clawed some points back as the Dominions prayed for Holy Fusillade, twin-linking all of their weapons annihilating the Daemons in a volley of flamery goodness. The Exorcist, meanwhile, unloaded onto my Wych Raider, exploding it and sending Rukifellith tumbling out in a misshapen mess.





Close combat was a short and brutal affair, with Saint Celestine charging into the lone Plague Champion and slicing his head from his rotten neck. And with that, we had lost our home objective to a perpetually-resurrecting space nun. Go us!


TURN 4

At this point things were looking grim. If I had been thinking ahead, I COULD have zoomed the Warrior Venom upwards to contest the enemy objective, but for some reason, the thought never crossed my mind. Instead, I stuck to my original objective of killing as much of the enemy as possible. With this in mind, I moved Rukifellith over towards the last two Battle Sisters to see how they liked being templated for a change, while the Warrior Venom, Warrior Raider and Ravager all angled to shoot up enemy vehicles.





On the right flank, the Trueborn Venom edged back a little, while the two Rhinos moved up near the enemy objective-- unfortunately, not far enough to get into contesting range. Oh yes, and the Wyches, due to being in 6" of the Berzerker Rhino, continued to flee like a bunch of idiots. Sigh.



In the shooting phase, Rukifellith rolled AP3 for his liquefier, but thanks to the Sisters' sneaky 6+ invulnerable save, only managed to melt one of them. The Ravager, Raider, and the Warriors on board combined their fire, but only managed to stun the Exorcist, while the Warriors in the Venom missed the Berzerker Rhino entirely. Further to the right, though, the Trueborn unloaded their blasters on the Living Saint, vaporizing her and earning themselves another pain token. Their Venom unloaded its guns on the Dominions, but sadly, only managed to kill one of them. The Obliterators followed up with their plasma cannons, but annoyingly enough, all three of their shots scattered off of the Sisters, leaving them completely unharmed!

Desperate to claw back some points, I had Rukifellith charge the lone Sister Superior. Swinging first, Rukifellith managed to score two wounds on the Sister, and crucially, she failed a save, earining my Haemonculous a pain token and victory points! The victorious Haemonculous consolidated into cover, cackling a little more madly than usual.





In our opponents' turn....yes, you guessed it. The Living Saint came back to life (albeit on one wound)! Annoyed at being freemed the previous turn, Celestine flew towards the Trueborn Venom, while the Dominions moved up to get into meltagun range. At the top of the board, the Plague Marines and Battle Sisters shuffled to blast away at the enemy Rhinos, while further down, the Berzerker Rhino zoomed forward to tank shock the Wyches some more, sending them running even further, while the Chosen Rhino zoomed up through terrain, disembarking right behind the Warrior Raider. Uh oh...



In the shooting phase, Celestine unleashed her flame attack at the Trueborn Venom, but failed to damage it. The Trueborn were about to breathe a sigh of relief until the Dominions prayed for Holy Fusillade and wrecked the Venom with some meltagun hits. The Trueborn were sent piling out right into charge range of the angry Saint. Uh-oh.



Further on the left side of the board, the Chosen wrecked the Warriors' Raider, causing them to bail out as well.



The Plague Marines, similarly, unleashed plasma on Squad Malaria's Rhino, wrecking it and sending their erstwhile cousins tumbling out into the open. The Battle Sisters followed up by firing into Squad Malaria with Light of the Emperor, but the resilient Traitors shrugged off everything the Sororitas threw at them.

In close combat...



Kraeleth winced as he found himself catching fire, the roaring flames unleashed from the Saint’s blade enveloping him and his kin. He almost howled as he felt the unnatural blue-white flames bite through his mesh armour sear deeply into his skin, but by now he had already drunk deep from the souls of the slain and had feasted richly on their agony. The pain caused by the flames was something new, something fierce and angry, but he found himself invigorated by it, laughing madly even as the Saint swept towards him.

The Saint was one of the most etherally beautiful things he had ever seen. Soaring up, arms extended as though wide for a serene embrace, the Saint’s golden armour shone like a new sun, glittering in the flames that enveloped the Saint’s wing-hilted blade. Great white wings, so bright they might have been made from pure starlight, extended from the Saint’s back, and her beatific face, serene and calm, was framed by hair the colour of snow. She was quite possibly the most beautiful (non-Eldar) woman Kraeleth had ever seen...and given that he had seen her carve through almost a full squad of Plague Marines, he also knew that she was most likely going to kill him.

Normally, he wouldn’t have minded being slain by a beautiful woman, especially since his resurrection ahad already been bought and paid for by the Haemonculi. Still...if he could kill this creature, the bragging rights he would get back at the Shadowspire would be tremendous...

Time seemed to slow. As the Saint approached, swinging her blade in a great, flaming arc, he turned to his squadmate Maehrak. “Sorry about this, Maehrak,” he said, before grabbing his fellow Trueborn by the shoulder and hurling him up at the Saint.

Maehrak’s screamed obscenity was lost as he was impaled forcefully onto the Saint’s burning blade, giving a brief, stifled scream as his internal organs were liquefied. As Kraeleth had expected, Maehrak’s twitching corpse weighed down on the blade, forcing that terrible sword downwards and leaving the Saint’s upper body nicely exposed.

Kraeleth was already moving, leaping upwards and using Maehrak’s body as a foothold as he pulled his curved knife free and lunged at the Saint’s exposed upper body. For the briefest moment, he thought he saw the Saint’s eyes-- pupil-less orbs that shone with a bright inner light-- widen in surprise before his knife slid over the gorget of her armour and sank into her throat.

The next thing Kraeleth knew, there was a sound like a vacuum emptying into the void, and he was struck by a wall of pure force. His body was sent hurtling backwards, slamming back-first into the wreckage of the Venom with enough force to shatter several bones. If he hadn’t already been high on pain, he would have blacked out instantly, but as it was, the feeling of his ribs shattering just invigorated him further.

Before him, where the Saint had once floated, there was now an empty, circular patch of scorched earth. In the centre was a pile of radiant white ashes, as well as the fused, misshapen armoured shape of what once must have been Maehrak.

Ylithia, the third Trueborn, who had been an idle observer this whole time, chose that moment to speak up. “Not that I’m not impressed, but...you know Maehrak’s going to kill you once he’s resurrected,” she pointed out.

“Oh, I know,” Kraeleth replied with a grin, licking the red edge of his knife.




Celestine came charging into the Trueborn. I thought the elite Dark Eldar were done for...until Celestine whiffed her attacks, only killing one of the blackhearted scoundrels. Striking back, the Trueborn managed to score three wounds on the Saint...and critically, one of her armour saves came up a one! The Living Saint was toppled for a final time, granting the Trueborn their third pain token and some crucial victory points!



And with that, time was called. We quickly began to calculate victory points to see who had won:


Victory Points:

Dark Eldar: 938
Sisters of Battle: 619

Objectives:

Black Legion- 1
Feted Host- 0

Result: Draw!



Thoughts: Well, that was close. We almost had this game in the bag: we had all but destroyed the Chaos/Sisters alliance, and we were practically in spitting distance of the enemy objective. If only it hadn’t been for that pesky Living Saint...

For the most part, everything went right for us. Our shooting wound up being tremendously nasty against the Chaos/Sisters alliance, and we secured a big lead in victory points early on. However, our opponents played well, holding onto their objective until the very end and, perhaps more tellingly, rolling really well for the Living Saint’s resurrection. I am flabbergasted by how powerful the Saint can be: she simply will not stay dead! Seeing her (and the rest of the new Sisters) on the tabletop almost makes me want to break out my own Sororitas again...

I’m not complaining too much, however, as that was still probably our most fun game of the tournament. From start to finish, everything felt like it came down to the wire, and given how many outflanking/deepstriking/reserved units there were on both sides, the whole game felt quite dynamic. Well, that, and there was the amazing moment of my Trueborn killing the Saint in close combat. All in all, our opponents were great guys to play against (the Sisters player, in particular, was a great guy to groan about the new Codex with), and our team walked away more or less satisfied with a draw.



Sister Cassandra blinked, her eyes coming back into rheumy focus as she opened them. For a few horrible minutes, hers was a world of noise and confusion. One moment, she had been in a deep calming sleep, a feeling of deep inner peace that she found quite comforting. The next moment, the world around her was awash in the familiar roar of gunfire, the smell of smoke and flame, and the coppery taste of blood and metal in the air. Around her stood the charred walls of an Imperial bastion, and the black-armoured forms of her Sisters surrounded her. She swayed drunkenly, thinking, for a few seconds, that she was in some sort of dream, or was re-living some previous battle.

Except she quickly realized that it was no dream. Her Sisters, she noticed, were swaying dizzily as well, looking just as lost and confused as she was. She didn't have much time to think on it before her nostrils were suddenly overcome by a horrible, fetid smell of rotting meat and pustulent fluids that made her want to retch. She almost fell to her knees, but was prevented from doing so by the sight of the hulking figures nearby.

There were more than two dozen of them, standing twice and again as tall as a human being and encased in shells of ancient power armour. At least, it looked like power armour-- their suits were so rusted, pitted, and crawling with fungus that they looked almost like a bloated layer of plague-ridden flesh. For some reason, two groups of the hulking figures were firing into each other with boltguns, and the roar of bolter fire echoed loud across the...battlefield? Yes, Cassandra realized, she and her Sisters were definitely o n a battlefield. This was no dream.

She started when one of the hulking figures suddenly turned and took a few steps forward. The stench became even more repugnant. That was nothing, however, to the sickening feeling Cassandra felt when she noticed the fly-shaped symbol that draped the figure's shoulder pad, or the blasphemous, eight-pointed star sprawled across its plated chest.

"What are you doing?" the figure spoke in a wet, gurgling growl. "They're almost at the bastion! Fire your weapons, you miserable--"

The figure didn't even have time to finish before Cassandra whipped up her bolt pistol-- which she only realized just now that she had been holding-- and fired up at the Traitor Marine's face. The heretic's helmet cracked as the mass-reactive round slammed against it, and the hulking Plague Marine staggered back as the eyes beneath the plate were pulped instantly. Cassandra's Sisters, Emperor bless them, seemed to realize what was going on and fired as well, blasting apart the Plague Marine's head into chunks of rotting brains.

"Sisters! Suffer not the heretic to live!" Cassandra shouted. Around her, her Sisters erupted into hymns and prayers as they fired into the Chaos Space Marines. They had no idea what they were doing here, but Cassandra and her Sisters were not going to be found wanting when there were heretics to be purged.

*****

From the foliage near the bastion, Rukifellith once again found himself resisting the urge to chuckle.

Around him, chaos had erupted as what had once been a two-sided battle rapidly turned into a three-sided one. The charm used by the daemonic champion of She Who Thirsts had now worn off, and the Sisters of Battle, awakening from their stupor, were finding themselves standing next to their sworn enemies. Even now, the remaining warriors of the Black Legion found themselves fighting both the Feted Host and the Sisters of Battle, with bolter rounds crisscrossing back and forth and billowing flames sending warriors tumbling and writhing onto the ground. All around, anarchy reigned as seemingly everyone fired at everything that moved in a scene that was utterly perfect in its madness.

Rukifellith consented to stand and watch this spectacle play out all around him, even as shots whizzed past him.After roughly four minutes into the conflict, however, he found himself no longer amused. He had gotten what he had come here for-- there was nothing else that realspace had to interest him at the moment. Indeed, the most intriguing factor of this battle-- the semi-corporeal "Saint" entity-- was not making a reappearance, a fact for which he was both glad and a little disappointed.

"Retrieve the ashes of the Saint," he instructed his warriors over the communications channel. "We are returning to the webway."

"What of the Feted Host?" came the voice of one of the Trueborn.

Rukifellith gave a dismissive wave of his claw. "They are capable of handling themselves," he replied. "We shall undoubtedly meet up with them again once this current business is settled."

There were no further questions. As one, the Kabalites moved swiftly and silently, melting away from the battlefield. Shimmering discs of perfect darkness blinked into existence as the webway opened up, and it was through these ebon gates that the Dark Eldar fleeted and flew to make their escape.

Taking one last look at the madness unfolding around him, Rukifellith quietly clapped his claw against his pallid, still-flesh hand, before activating his personal portal and being swallowed by the shadows of the Webway.

Game 4- Imperial Guard and Eldar

The battle for the shrine world was, for all intents and purposes, a success. Not only had we succeeded in capturing and harvesting the raw, undistilled essence of a pure soul, but in the bargain I had also managed to capture some of the residual energy left behind by the enemy Daemon Prince. The fact that we managed to leave that world with minimal losses was a bonus, and with few resurrections to waste my time, I was able to make excellent progress in distilling the Saint`s essence into a liquid extract. I was now one ingredient away from obtaining everything I needed to create the Abyssal Heart.

There was, however, the small matter of the Feted Host.

Somehow, contrary to my expectations, the Feted Host had survived the chaotic three-way battle on the Shrine World. My scouts reported that they had fled to a desolate world in the same system to lick their wounds. Already, they had performed the necessary rituals to bring Lord Pappy back to realspace. I could imagine that Pappy would not be too happy to learn of how we had quit the field, and while having a daemonic entity angry at me is nothing new, I did not want anything to potentially disrupt my experimentations. I would have to assuade the Daemon Prince before he became a problem.

Besides which, the Feted Host would still have their part to play. I suspected that there were still more battles to be fought, and there was one ingredient which I still required...

*****

The dark, swirling violet flashes of the webway portal disappeared behind Rukifellith and his Warriors as their skycraft hovered slowly into realspace. The world that they entered was one much like the place where they had first met the Feted Host: dry, barren, with only a few short scrubs of grass, dotted with sandy, forgotten ruins and watched over by an uncaring grey sky. A misbegotten, overlooked world left to wither and decay by the passage of time-- the perfect place for a clandestine meeting.

And just like last time, the Feted Host greeted them with drawn weapons. Line upon line of Plague Marines stared them down facelessly, boltguns raised. At their centre sat the vast, corpulent form of Pappy, slime dripping from the massive sword he held up aggressively.

"And now you show your faces!" the Daemon bellowed angrily. "While we fight and die on that pox-forsaken shrine world, while we get killed by the Emperor's wenches and our damnable cousings, YOU-- our so-called allies-- decide to make a run for it! And only now, almost a week after the fighting has ended, do you cowardly little fleas come crawling back to us!"

Rukifellith was unfazed by the Daemon's outburst. In a single, fluid motion, he slipped over the side of his Raider and stepped down onto the ground. He smiled slightly as he took a few steps towards the Chaos host, noting how many guns were now levelled at him. Nothing that he hadn't died from before...

"How wonderful to see you back in realspace, Lord Pappy," he said. "I trust your re-summoning was not difficult?"

Pappy made no immediate reply. Instead, the Daemon stormed forwards on stumpy legs, letting out a low, gurgling growl as he advanced. Rukifellith made no effort to back away as Pappy grabbed him in a stinking, sticky hand, lifting him off his feet. The Haemonculous felt ribs snap, portions of his skin withering and rotting at the Daemon's touch. Nothing, he noted, that he couldn't fix.

The Daemon Prince raised his massive sword inches away from Rukifellith's face, slime dripping from its corroded surface. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't send you and your bootlicks to the realm of plagues, and leave you there until you weep pus, Skinny Man," the Daemon growled.

"Aside from the fact that such a torment would be unimaginative in the extreme," Rukifellith rasped as he felt his lungs fill with fluid, "you would be denying yourself an invaluable resource."

Slowly, the Haemonculous reached a clawed hand into a pouch and pulled out a vial, inside of which was a clear, light blue liquid that seemed to shine with an inner light. He waved it in front of the Daemon's face. "Do you know what this is?"

Pappy's eyeless maw of a face frowned as it regarded the vial. Rukifellith grinned as he felt the monster's grip suddenly relax.

"Ah, you do know," he said. "This is the liquefied, processed extract of a pure soul...that of of the Living Saint that slew so many of your warriors on the Shrineworld. I have taken her soul, put it into a physical, liquid form...and more importantly, made it consumeable."

In an instant, Pappy let Rukifellith drop uncermoniously to the ground. "Are you saying you can make more?" he growled.

The Haemonculous chuckled as he pushed himself to his feet. "Such a thing would be child's play, Lord Pappy," he replied. "This is the reason why we retreated to the webway when we did-- I had obtained the soul of the Saint, as well as some residual essence from your dear friend Dhel'Seth, and wanted to ensure that our spoils left the shrine-world intact." He tossed the vial into Pappy's meaty hand. "Keep it. This is but a small sample of what I've made...and what more I can make."

For a moment, the Daemon's maw opened and closed, as though contemplating its options. Finally, however, the Daemon reached an arm down and plunged it into one of the many gaping rents in its body. As Rukifellith watched, the Daemon wrenched its arm free in welter of rotting intestines and greenish pile, a wriggling, gibbering creature writhing in its hand. Nonchalantly, Pappy popped the Nurgling into its mouth and began to crunch it down loudly.

"Alright, Skilly Man," the Daemon rumbled. "You and your boys have a second chance. Remember, though, from now on you'll--"

The Daemon paused, then. Over the distance, in the grey horizon, noises could be heard. To the Plague Marines, they were unmistakeable: the rumbling growl of tank engines, punctuated by the reverberating shriek of jet engines. There were other sounds, too-- a gentler humming sound barely perceptible above the growing cacophony.

“What is that?” Pappy growled. “What’s that noise?”

Rukifellith turned to the horizon. Shapes were now appearing-- shapes that were slowly materializing countless, swarming vehicles, bearing the insigna, colours, and designs of the Imperium of Man and the Eldar Craftworlds.

A smile crept across Rukifellith’s twisted features. “That noise, Lord Pappy, is one that is very upset with us.”


Our next opponents were fielding a team of Imperial Guard and Eldar. Their armies had caught my eye early on as one of the better-painted armies of the tournament (I was especially impressed with their display base). If their painting quality was impressive, however, then so, too, were their combined army lists:


Imperial Guard[

Company Command Squad- 4 meltaguns
Platoon Command Squad- 4 flamers
-Infantry Squad- lascannon
-Chimera
-Infantry Squad- lascannon
-Chimera
5 Sanctioned Psykers
-Chimera
Vendetta
Vendetta
2 Hydras


Eldar

Farseer- runes of warding, Guide
4 Guardian Jetbikes- shuriken cannon, Warlock w. Embolden
4 Guardian Jetbikes- shuriken cannon, Warlock w. Embolden
5 Rangers
6 Fire Dragons
Vyper- shuriken cannon
Vyper- star cannon
3 War Walkers- 6 scatter lasers
Falcon- star cannon, holo-fields








Some of the amazing detail work in our opponents’ army.


Vendetta-surfing into battle, as the Emperor intended.


When I first saw their list, I immediately knew that Maxis and I would have an uphill battle. Not only was their team pouring out an amazing amount of firepower, but they easily had twice as much mobility as our team did. Maxis, when looking at their army deploy across the board, agreed that he had absolutely no idea how to deal with this list: there were simply too many guns pointed our way, and too many viable targets for us to shoot back at. We resolved to do our best anyway, though I wasn’t very confident about our chances.

Scenario and Deployment:

For this scenario, the Imperial Guard player and I both got Secure and Control, while Maxis and the Eldar player both got Kill Points. We had a Pitched Battle deployment, and we wound up with two counters on our side (middle and right flank), and one counter on the left side near our opponents’ board edge.


Our opponents set up opposite from us in a long gunline, while Maxis and I concentrated everything we could on the left flank. Our plan was to have at least one Warrior Squad in a Venom hide behind Rhinos and eventually take the centre objective, while the rest of my army turbo-boosted down the left flank, hugged cover, and tried to take the upper objective. The Obliterators, Razorwing, and (of course) the Daemons all went into reserve.






Before the game began, the Vendettas used their Scout moves to edge forwards.


NOTE: My exact memories on this battle are kind of hazy, so I’ll simply rely on the pictures to describe what happened.




Our opponents seized the initiative, much to my dread. To my surprise, however, I I got off lightly, only suffering a Stunned result on my Ravager. In reply, I zoomed everything down on the left flank, while keeping my Kabalite Venom hidden behind the Ravager.



The Feted Host weren’t so lucky, however, as Squad Malaria’s Rhino was quickly busted by lascannons. The Plague Marines quickly hid behind the bastion.



As Pappy flew forward aggressively, the Jetbikes flew up to shuriken him to death.



An overview at the end of the second turn. The Imperial Guard turned almost every gun they could at my Eldar, but after I passed a ridiculous number of cover saves, my Evil Space Elves emerged unscathed. At this point, I began to think that maybe we could win this after all.



Here, I made a mistake: I had the Venom peek out from the side of the Ravager and unload on a Jetbike squad, killing two and sending them fleeing towards the board edge.



Meanwhile, the rest of my army zoomed in for the kill. Lance fire wrecked a Chimera and stunning a Vendetta, and the Kabalite Raider floated on top of the objective.



I quickly paid for my blunder with the Venom, as it was quickly shot down far from the central objective.



On the far left flank, a Vendetta dropped down the Platoon Command Squad to seize the objective, while Chimeras surrounded them to act as a wall.




The Obliterators deep struck into battle as the Warriors ran as fast as they can for the objective. Elsewhere, the Plague Marines shuffle up.



Zooming up, my Wyches disembarked to multi-assault the Imperial Guard rear.



As they did so, the stunned Vendetta was quickly immobilized by more lance fire.



My Wyches quickly assaulted an infantry squad and two Chimeras, easily wiping out the Guardsmen, stunning one Chimera and stunning/de-weaponing another.



In reply, however, Jetbikes, Guardsmen and Psykers moved aroundto confront the Dark Eldar.



In the centre, poor Pappy was eventually gunned down by massed firepower.



The poor Wyches, meanwhile, took a strength 5, AP2 blast to the face and were zapped off the board by the Psykers.



In the Evil turn, some things were looking up as the Summoned Daemons arrived to help batter at the damaged Chimeras. Lance fire continued to zap out, doing only minor damage, although the Obliterators finish off the immobilized Vendetta.



The Daemons nibble a bit at a Chimera, but fail to do anything too substantial.



In response, a Falcon flew towards the Obliterators...



...and dropped off a squad of Fire Dragons, who quickly vaporized the poor technological abominations.



Disembarking from his Raider, Rukifellith decided to get his claws dirty, liquefying some of the Infantry Squad who were riding in the Vendetta, and then finishes them off in close combat.



Once again, the Imperial response took the form of Battle Psykers.



In the final turns of the game, a Falcon and Vendetta zoomed down to contest the upper objective. They also shoot down the Warriors’ Raider, killing a few of them in the explosion. It should be added that at this point, both the Kabalites and the Plague Marines on the central objective had been shot to death.




The final moments of Rukifellith.


At this point, we had nothing holding the central objective, had one contested, and another held by our opponents. Things were looking bleak...



...until the Razorwing finally arrived! One flurry of monoscythe missiles later, and the Platoon Command Squad holding the rightmost objective was annihilated.



Sadly, massed lance fire and charging couldn’t destroy the Eldar vehicles contesting the leftmost objective.


Result:

Objectives:
Dark Eldar- 0
Imperial Guard- 0

Kill Points:
Eldar- A lot.
Feted Host- Very few.


Minor Loss!



Thoughts: From the get-go, this was a tough battle going in, as our opponents’ combined list seemed almost perfectly designed to kill ours. We were out-shot and out-manouvered, and there was little we could do except try to hold as many objectives as we could. Unfortunately, the dice abandoned us at some key moments, and I made more than a few tactical blunders. In retrospect, I really should have kept my Venom-mounted Kabalite squad in reserve, so it could avoid the brunt of the Guard firepower and snatch the central objective in later turns.

I think we did alright, all things considered. We managed to fight well enough so that the battle wasn’t completely one-sided, but otherwise I think we were simply out-fought and out-played. Our opponents were great guys to play against, though, and they brought a friendly, laid back attitude to the game which made our getting shot to bits all the more bearable.



Tournament Final:

In the end, Maxis and I wound up somewhere just below the middle bracket in the final scores-- we had done decently in battle points, but sadly, we had suffered from a low appearance score (which, to be honest, neither of us had any high hopes for anyway).

Regardless, enjoyed ourselves immensely. We had played against a lot of good players and had had four enjoyable and challenging games. I’m quite happy with the way my Dark Eldar performed, and it is always great to participate in an event with lots of well-painted and converted armies. Hopefully, I’ll be able to attend the 2012 Conquest Tournament as well.


Tournament MVP:

The unexpected stars of my list in this game were the Trueborn. I only put them into the list for some extra lance fire, and had no expectation of them performing above-average. While they were mediocre in the first and last games, they were absolutely amazing in Games 2 and 3-- in total, they freemed a Stormraven, a Grey Knight Grand Master, a trio of Obliterators, and even killed the Living Saint twice (once in combat)! They were definitely the unexpected stars of my army, and I am glad that I took them.

On the Chaos side, I’d give it to Pappy. Like the Trueborn, the Daemon did poorly in games 1 and 4, but in the two middle games, he performed quite decently-- he crippled an Exorcist in Game 3, and was a one-Daemon wrecking crew in Game 2. Honourable nods, though, go to the Lesser Daemons, who almost saved the game for us in Game 1 and survived far longer than they should have in Game 2.

Tournament LVP:

In all honesty, I can’t think of any unit that deserves this award, as all of my units performed decently-- even Rukifellith, on his own, did surprisingly well in the last two games. I am a little disappointed that the Razorwing didn’t get to do that much, but it did almost save us in Game 4. On the Chaos side, similarly, I can’t think of anything that performed particularly badly.



It had been almost two hours since the battle had ended. The ending of the conflict had been just as abrupt as the beginning: with the remaining Kabalites and Traitor Marines broken and scattered, the tentative alliance between the Eldar and the Guardsmen had concluded. The two forces went their separate ways, each watching the other until they fell out of weapons range. The two forces knew that, tomorrow, they would be enemies again, and that this brief alliance meant nothing in the long run. Nothing, that is, except for the destruction of a mutual enemy.

In their wake, the humans and Eldar left behind a ruined, barren field. The charred, burning wrecks of vehicles-- some made from the bolted steel of the Guard, some from ornate wraithbone of the Eldar, and many others still of the rusted, mouldy hulls of Chaos and the barbed metal of the Kabalites-- lay burning and smoking for miles around, and there were bodies as far as the eye could see. The only sound was the crackling of flames and the buzzing of hungry flies. Even when defeated, the Plague God had his due.

Unnoticed amongst all the bodies lay the shredded remains of something that must have once been humanoid. It was barely recognizeable now: most of the body was strewn across the ground in charred bits and pieces.

Then, somewhere among that pile, a small, twisted set of blades suddenly began to move, scissoring and hissing as though in a piranha-like frenzy. Raising itself up on bladed digits, the metal thing began to scuttle around like some nightmarish spider, moving of its own accord.

And then the bits and pieces of the body began to move.

It happened slowly at first: small scraps of flesh seemed to liquefy and flow across the ground, moving towards one another. Like amoeba, they fused on contact, stitching together in some sort of unholy embrace.

Then, after a while, whole parts of the body began to emergy. Flesh stitched back together around bone, musculature and sinews re-emerged on separated pieces of limbs. Re-created fingers began to twitch eagerly. Teeth re-attached to jaws, and lips sealed over them again. Fragmented pieces of skull began to pop back together, and a single mad, staring eye looked in all directions in a distended socket.

The process took perhaps an hour, but when it was all finished, Rukifellith was whole once more.

Sucking in air through his black teeth, the Haemonculous smiled, pleased that his regenerative process was undamaged by his latest death. Reaching to the ground, he picked up the one, final piece of himself that had been excluded from the regenerative process: his claw-arm, which even now was scuttling around on the ground independently of him. It had been prudent of him, he had thought, to store some extra bits of soul-matter in the claw, so as to speed up his restoration. He smiled at the thought as he leaned down, picking up the claw and sliding its metal joint into the empty socket of his wrist. With a sickening clack of metal on bone, he was complete again.

Leaning down, Rukifellith grabbed the tattered, charred remnants of his robes from off the ground and and slid them on. Standing upright, Rukifellith took stock of the former battlefield. It was as he had expected it would be: desolate, ruined, littered with corpses and wrecked vehicles. The corpses, he could scavenge for parts at a later time: at the moment, there was only one remnant of this battle that interested him. Near a ruined building, a massive, squat shape lay, surrounded by a visible could of flies.

Slowly, the Haemonculous approached. Pappy was lying there, immobile and seemingly dead. Great, charred holes had been seared into its flesh, exposing yellow bones and blackened organs for the world to see. The Daemon’s great wings were ruined, tattered and broken things that would never propel him again. Great wafts of greenish essence drifted upwards from its bulk like steam, as the Daemon’s physical form slowly but surely dissolved. But Rukifellith’s main attention drifted towards the strings of small shapes that had been wound around the Daemon’s immense bulk-- tiny, glowing objects, set into the shapes of familiar runes.

The Daemon’s mouth suddenly moved of its own accord. “Yyyyooou....” it rasped.

“Are alive? Quite,” Rukifellieth replied with a grin. “As, it would seem, are you.” He gestured to the runes with his claw-hand. “Quite ingenious of my earstwhile Craftworld cousins, do you not agree? They have encased you in runes of warding, sealing you here to this world. Your physical body cannot die and return to the warp, but at the same time, you are trapped here, helpless, diminishing in power. An intriguing way to ensure you cannot harm them again.”

Pappy made no reply at first, instead giving a sound akin to an asthmatic wheeze. “Release...me...” it managed to say.

Rukifellith’s grin widened. “Oh, all in good time, Lord Pappy,” he said. “But first, I must take the final ingredient.”

At this point, the Haemonculous suspected that if Pappy had eyes, they would be fixing him in a surprised glare. “What?”

“Oh yes,” Rukifellith replied. His claw began to scissor eagerly. “Do you truly think I allied with you purely because of your warriors’ fortitude? You and your cohorts were useful, yes, but in truth, you have always carried the final ingredient that I needed, Lord Pappy: the raw essence of a Daemon Prince.”

Bubbles of some foul substance began to drip upwards from the Daemon’s maw. “You...tricked...us...”

Rukifellith gave a dismissive wave of his claw. “Your own warriors gave you ample warning against an alliance, Lord Pappy,” he said. “It is your own fault for dismissing them so eagerly. True, I gained a substantial amount of essence from your friend, Dhel’Seth, but it was not nearly enough. And so I was forced to...force our enemies’ hands. My warhost raided from both the humans of this sector and our Craftworld cousins, pushing them into a joint alliance against us after I conveniently left clues to our destination. It was, I am sad to say, the only safe way to ensure you were incapacitated, so that I might perform this extraction without interruption.” He smiled a little. “You may take assurance, at least, in the knowledge that none of this is personal.”

The Daemon was shaking now, to the degree that it could while immobilized by the burning Eldar runes. Its maw tightened into a loathsome grimace. “I will not forget this, Skinny Man,” the beast rumbled. “Whether it takes me one year or a thousand, I’ll repay you for this...I will afflict you with every blight, every pox, every affliction known to creation, until you beg me for death...”

“An interesting promise, Lord Pappy,” Rukifellith replied, “but sadly, rather unoriginal by my standards. Now please hold still.”

And with that, he plunged his claw into the Daemon’s exposed wounds. The Daemon howled, the sound vibrating through the ground as the claw stabbed deep into his putrid innards. If anyone else had been around to hear it, they would have likened the sound to the gale of the storm, or a boulder shattering in an empty valley.

Then, with a final twist, Rukifellith wrenched his arm free. Clutched in his filth-stained hand was a pulsing, stinking black heart, dripping with brackish ichor as Rukifellith held it aloft.

WIth a final wheeze, Pappy’s corporeal form gave out. Even with the Eldar runes sustaining it in place, the Daemon Prince could not take so grievous a wound and maintain his form. The creature seemed to instantly evaporate into a stinking mist, green-tinged steam rising from the ground. All that was left in his wake was a puddle that seemed to glow with a sickly, neon light. The Eldar runes clattered and plopped into the fluid, burned out and useless.

Satisfied, Rukifellith slid the Daemon’s heart into a sack at his belt. With this final, crucial ingredient, he could begin work on the Abyssal Heart, and regain his pre-eminence. He realized, of course, that Pappy would eventually regenerate completely in the Warp, and that the vengeance of a Daemon was a terrible thing to have visited upon oneself. But it had never been said that the road to progress was not lined with peril.

With a gesture of his claw, Rukifellith summoned forth a webway portal. Without looking back on this ruined, useless world, he stepped into the swirling darkness, disappearing as it closed behind him.