The 1st War for Armageddon begins: 2 skirmish battle reports

War first came to Armageddon in a spate of urban unrest, riots, and uprisings. The fires of rebellion burnt bright across Armageddon Prime and Secundus. Whilst the hives were burning, in the Equatorial Jungle a series of small skirmishes occured that the Imperium never even knew about.
Deep in the jungle lies an ancient pyramid, the tip of a Necron stasis tomb. The Necrontyr of old despised the powers and creatures of the warp, and it was they who built the Cadian Pylons to stop the Eye of Terror from consuming the galaxy. On Armageddon, a small force of Bloodletters was sent to ensure the Necron pyramid would not be activated, in order to prevent them from resisting Angron's arrival. However, the first of the Necron forces were already rising, and a desperate clash ensued...

These were combat patrol games with 500pts, no: saves of 2+ or 3++, 3+ wounds, over 33 armour, fliers. Armies of 1-2 Troops, 0-1 of every other slot. Troops have ObSec. Games last 4 turns, at the end of which the guys holding the objective in the middle of the board win. Games end if a Warlord dies.

I was running a single big blob of 19 Bloodthirsters with a Banner of Blood, led by 3 Heralds with an Exalted Locus and a bunch of rewards. My ancient foe had a Lord with 5 Lychguard, 5 Immortals with Tesla Carbines, and 10 Warriors. The board was small, with a ruin in each corner and a central ruined tower.

I went first, set up centrally. My opponent put the Warriors and Immortals in his two corner ruins, up high to look down on me with disdain, and his Lord & Guard centrally.

My Khornate hoard surged forwards, towards the Immortals and away from the Warriors. Slaanesh smiled at the battle, an utterly pleasurable surge of current claiming the life of one Immortal but ignoring my troops. Then the Necrons fired, taking out a handful of my Bloodletters. Second turn began, and my hoard was getting close enough to reach the Immortals if I rolled well for the charge distance. Khorne saw the battle, anticipating the blood soon to be split, and threw a skull from his throne down from the heavens at the Necron Lord & Lychguard unit. I centered the barrage over the Lord, it didn't scatter, he died. Game over in less than 2 turns, thanks to an utterly jammy roll on the Warp Storm Table.

It felt a bit unfulfilling? So we did it again.

Again, I was going first and the deployment didn't change that much. My hoard surged forwards towards the Immortal side and away from those nasty rapid-firing Warriors. Nurgle rusted up a couple of his robots, and then he retaliated by a horribly effective shooting phase. Turn 2 I hurried forwards, seeing his Lord and Lychguard within charge range, and smashed into them.
The glorious charge was rather disappointing, even with Hatred I rolled badly. I killed 2 Lychguard, their T5 meaning that my Bloodletters found it just too hard to hurt them (yes, I forgot I had Furious Charge. Sigh.) In his turn, the Warriors joined the mass combat whilst the Immortals ignored me and trundled towards the Objective. The rest of the game consisted of that one massive combat, basically. My guys managed to kill off the Lychguard in my turn 3, and wound the Lord in his turn 3. The Bloodletters were all dead by this point, and my Heralds dropped one after another. We came into Turn 4 with my Warlord Herald my sole remaining guy, vs his Lord and 10 Warriors. His Warlord on 1 wound, me fine. I issued a challenge, and he declined. I shouldn't have done that! I took my anger out by killing a Warrior or 2, but then they attacked. 2 Wounds. Thankfully I had rolled FnP 4+ as a Greater Reward, and made it through to his Turn 4 on 1 wound. The Immortals were firmly uncontested on the Objective, so if I didn't kill his Lord then he'd won... Thankfully I did.
Khorne had triumphed, with the Lord dead the other Necrons mysteriously disappeared. Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows, which is good because securing the ruins had led to the death of my entire force...

What did I learn?

• I have Furious Charge. I should remember to use it.
• I think I prefer 1 Greater Reward and 1 Lesser Reward to 1 Exalted Reward. I tried a mixture of Rewards on my Heralds, and wasn't that impressed with the Exalted Reward.
• Having 2 troops would have let me reroll my Warlord trait. This would have been very useful, as I kept rolling the trait that gives you Hatred (when my Warlord already had the bloody Locus that does that).
• This was my first game of 7th. I learnt useful stuff about how to take off casualties and stuff, and how Look Out Sir works, which I will remember for next time. The Heralds should make sure that they have a nice buffer of Bloodletters protecting them.