1000 Points DE vs Chaos, IG Allies

First time posting so expect some issues with the process and forgive me in advance.
Also I know for certain some of these ratios on distances are wrong so if units seem to move slower/faster then make sense that's probably the cause.

DE:
Kheradruakh, The Decapitator

5 Reaver Jet Bikes, Arena Champion, Heat Lance

Chronos Parasite Engine, Spirit Syphon, Spirit Vortex
Ravager,Night Shields

3 Trueborn, 2x Splinter Cannon, Venom, Splinter Cannon, Night Shields
10 Warriors, Sybarite, Splinter Cannon, Raider, Night Shields
10 Warriors, Sybarite, Splinter Cannon, Raider, Night Shields

Chaos/IG (some guessing here):

Huron Blackheart
5 man IG Platoon Command, lascannon

10 sonic marines, leader, 2 blastmasters, sonic blasters (being infiltrated)

10 Cultists, leader (Deployed with Huron)
10 Cultists, leader (in reserves)
20 Gaurd, 2x autocannons, 2x grenade launchers
5 Gaurd, autocannon, 2x grenade launchers
10 veterns, 3x plasma, attachment guy that lets them infiltrate (being infiltrated)

5 rough riders, leader, melta bombs

Mission: Crusade
Deployment: Vanguard
Chooses deployment: DE
First Turn: Chaos/IG
Night Fighting: Yes
Drugs: +1 A
Warlord traits: Huran get his and DE one is not useful
Initiative seized: No

Board:



Quick guide: greyish objects are hills, with about 2" of height, green are forests, and objects in the ceneter of the map are ruins. Objectives are represented with stars.

Setup:



Chaos/IG set up first and place the cultists, large IG blob squad, and command squad near the center of his board edge and close to his objective. Smaller IG squad is placed in the woods (turns out to be some kind of forest that attacks you if you remain in it tho) and his rough riders along the right board edge. I place the majority of my force back in the corner where they will be near my objective and far enough away that I won't have to deal with too much fire during turn 1. I know there are infiltrators coming so I place my cronos near the ruins on the left edge to help keep the infiltrators off my main force. I place one raider near the second bottom objective in the hopes I can use them plus the reavers to sweep that side and firmly place the objective in my hands. Infiltrators are then placed with the veterans getting placed near the 2nd bottom objective just out of sight, and the sonic marines being placed at the top so that they can threaten the rest of my force.

Turn 1: C/IG



The veterans jump up on the hill, riders move forward behind the hill. The smaller IG squad move out of the forest and the big blob squad shuffles a little. The cultists + Huron move towards my main force. Shooting sees the veteran squad explode the raider (6 hits, 6 penitrates, some number of explode results) and half the warrior squad dies, although the do make their pinning and leadership roles. Most of the other heavy guns are out of range due to night fight or fire at the Cronos but fail to do anything. The blastmasters fire at the remaining Raider and manage to stun it.

Turn 1: DE



The cronos moves up to the ruins, Ravager shuffles, Venom move into range of veterns and Warrior move up to contest the objective, reavers move out from behind the cover. Shooting does not go well, the Ravager manages to fail to wound with all but one hit, Cronos goes after the cultists and they are closer together and I really want to get it a pain token, manages to hit 2 out of 5 hits. Despite having 20 shots with the venom/trueborn the first 10 dice I roll only manage 1 hit meaning it only manages to take out 2 veterans. The shooting from the warrior squad however manages another 5 leaving the veterns down to 3 models (passes leadership). The reavers blade vane the rough riders and despite very poor to wound rolls manage to kill 3. The rough riders fail moral and fall back.

Turn 2: C/IG



Cultists do not come in. Rough Riders continue to fall back while the Veterans move off the hill to get in rapid fire of the reavers. The small IG squad move into the forest (its just a forest) and cultists and lord continue to move up. Huron attempts to cast some psychic ability on the Cronos (-1 T I think) but the Cronos denies the witch. Shooting sees the Cronos take multiple wounds from the sonic marines but survives thanks to feel no pain with 1 wound. The IG commander uses and order that forces rerolls of cover saves and the autocannons in the blob squad manage to take out 2 reavers. Firing from the smaller squad and veterans sees 2 more dead and the remaining bike running off the board.

Turn 2: DE



Kheradruakh comes in, evil laugh, next to the smaller IG squad (I completely forgot grenade launchers would ID him). All vehicals move up to get into firing range. Cronos moves up and warriors move into the objective. Between some focus fire shenanigans and lots of shots they manage to take out 5 sonic marines including the 2 blast masters. The Cronos wiffs on his large blast. Kheradruakh fires at the veterans, and manages to kill one and pin the remaining 2.

Turn 3: C/IG



Cultist come in from reserve. Rought riders run off the board. IG command squad moves up to get some better LOS. Cultists with Huron move up towards the Cronos. Shooting fails to do anything almost anywhere, except one of the grenade launchers manage to ID Kheradruakh. Cultists with Huron attempt to charge the Cronos but between overwatch and difficult assault they fail to make it.

Turn 3: DE



Venom and Raider move up a little. Ravager moves over towards the second objective in hopes of cutting down anything that gets to close to the warrior squad. The warrior squads camps behind the hill. Combined Fire from the Cronos, venom and raider/warriors see Huron and his cultists die.

Turn 4: C/IG



Cultists move up, Veterans move around the hill and manage to kill 2 warriors with shooting (they pass moral). Shooting from sonic marines knock the last wound off the Cronos and the raider loses 2 more hull points to various heavy weapons fire, but thankfully does not explode.

Turn 4: DE



The large warrior squad heads towards the objective and the ravager shifts again (not really sure what my thinking was at this point except "don't die"). Small squad of warrior fires at the Veterans and the splinter cannon enables then to kill both. Venom fires at the large blob squad to start shrinking it.

Turn 5: C/IG



The small IG squad and cultists move towards the second objective while the rest of the IG fire at the venom, sonic marines head towards the center of the table. The venom explodes taking 2 trueborn and 3 warriors (rolled a 6 for explosion distance) with it (everyone passes everything moral wise).

Turn 5: DE



This is where my mind breaks, and I somehow begin to believe that thier are only 2 objectives on the table and that I hold both of them (in my defense the objective on the Chaos/IG side was out of my LOS most of the game) so deciding I need to prevent the IG small squad from getting closer greater then I need to hold the objective (score was 2 objectives to 1, both having warlord, but Chaos getting first blood) I moved my small warrior squad up. I moved my remaining splinter cannon from the Trueborn onto the hill and the splinter cannon from the larger warrior squad (figuring it wasn't enough to cause moral if it died but could still cause damage). Shooting saw the ravager (missing movement arrow) kill the sonic marines. The two splinter cannons on the hill killed 3 cultists and the splinter cannon in the small warior squad killed one IG. The small warrior squad then charged, losing 1 to overwatch and killing/losing one in close combat. Combat continues. We roll for if the game end but it continues.

Turn 6: C/IG



Shooting see the ravager unable to fire next turn. Cultists charge the remaining warrior sybarite. The cultist leader must challenge and I must accept. A slap fest ensues with no wounds being dealt by either.

At this point it downs on me that I may be doomed, as I do the points in my head an realize I am behind with a good chance of the game ending this turn.

Turn 6: DE



Ravager flats out to contest the objective. Firing from both splinter cannons cause just enough wounds to force a moral test and the blob squad IG fall off the table. In assault the sybarite manages to cause one wounds and then sweeping advance both quads when they both fail moral. We role and game continues.

Turn 7: C/IG



The last squad (IG command squad) manages to glance the ravager with the lascannon.

Turn 7: DE



Sybarite moves to claim objective. Firing sees all but one gaurd die. The game ends.

Score: DE: 7 (objectives x2, warlord) C/IG: 2 (first blood, warlord)

Final thoughts:
I really need to think about the objectives I need to be making, sheer luck pulled this one around for me and if it had ended on turn 5 I would have lost. Also I need to remember that 3+ cover is good, but not invincible.

Nice report! I like the power point drawings and find them very good for my eyes! Good work!

When I read Kheradruakh, I knew fun would be involved. And now, all I can imagine is:
*Kheradruakh steps out of the shadow to ambush the Guardsman, they are all busy firing and with all the distant noise they will never hear him coming. But one Guardsman turn around and sit down, busy reloading his grenade launcher. Kheradruakh took this oppourtunity to make his entrance!

Kheradruakh - "Buh!"
Guardsman - "AAh!" *fires grenade launcher*
*Kheradruakh blows up and disappears
Guardsman Seargent - "The frak private? Don't go trigger happy with that grenade launcher now. The frak did you shoot at anyways?"

Oh and congratz on the win

Calmoret wrote:

First time posting DE:

Welcome!

Great report, and well won in the end - didn't think you were going to make it for a while there!
But....

Calmoret wrote:

Kheradruakh, The Decapitator

What is this gentleman doing in your list?! All power to you for picking him and still winning a game, but he really is the worst choice (competitively speaking) in the codex! As happened here: he arrives, he stands around for a turn, he dies. You can pretty much get a fully tooled up archon for the same points. Perhaps you just like his background stuff?
I would have picked a talos over a chronos too, but that aside I thought you prioritised targets well enough over the game.

I laughed when the lone sybarite won his challenge and ran down two whole squads..oops! A lesson in poor morale there - half his army seemed to run off in the end.

Welcome to The Dark City Calmoret!

Love the power point battle report, it looks very sleek (Added to the sticky). As for the game it looked really close, but you managed to hang on in there and win. Kudos for using Kheradruakh.

Squierboy wrote:

Calmoret wrote:

First time posting DE:

Welcome!

Great report, and well won in the end - didn't think you were going to make it for a while there!
But....

Calmoret wrote:

Kheradruakh, The Decapitator

What is this gentleman doing in your list?! All power to you for picking him and still winning a game, but he really is the worst choice (competitively speaking) in the codex! As happened here: he arrives, he stands around for a turn, he dies. You can pretty much get a fully tooled up archon for the same points. Perhaps you just like his background stuff?
I would have picked a talos over a chronos too, but that aside I thought you prioritised targets well enough over the game.

I laughed when the lone sybarite won his challenge and ran down two whole squads..oops! A lesson in poor morale there - half his army seemed to run off in the end.

I must admit I have been having some trouble with HQs recently. I play a lot of 1000'ish point games, and I find that if I put a good HQ in a large squad I suddenly have one unit (vehical/sqaud/hq) that is putting a big chunk of my army in a single pot, and then a lucky lascannon shot puts me in a ugly position. However if I put my HQ in with a small squad+vehical the vehical is mostly tasked with putting my HQ where he needs to be and he never quite makes up the vehical+small squad+hq cost. I was hoping that Kheradruakh might solve some issues by just forcing an independent play style. I think he could have done better that game if I positioned him better in that game, although I admit in a lot of other games I have played his fate would probably have been the same as it was in this one regardless of positioning.

I laughed my face off at that sybarite, amazing outcome!
It's mental that K-head can't assault on the turn he arrives. Quite possibly the rule that goes the most against any bit of fluff.
Nice turnaround, I really though they had you there!