My first 1000pt Khorne Daemonkin game!

So, last night I fielded 2 Bloodthirsters, 2 Soul Grinders with Phlegm, and 2 squads of Bloodletters (each with a Bloodreaper). I went up against an Eldar army: an Avatar, a Farseer, a Wraithlord, a squad of Dire Avengers, a squad of Jetbikes with a Warlock, a squad of Swooping Hawks, and a Wave Serpent.

The centre of the table was dominated by a ruined church on my right flank, with a few towers on the left. There were ruins in our deployment zones as well.

The Eldar deployed first, mostly opposite the left/centre but with the Hawks and Jetbikes on my right. I put my Soulgrinders, the Warlord Thirster, and 1 squad of Letters on the left/centre, the other Thirster off on the right. This was a mistake, I should have kept them together. But it was hard, with all the ruins in my deployment zone.

Basically I ploughed forward, shooting off Phlegm (which scattered wildly and did nothing). The pointy ears blasted away, knocking off some wounds & hull points from Thirsters and Grinders. The Thirster on the right was whittled away by the hawks and jetbikes, never reaching them before falling. The second Letters squad appeared over on the right by the Jetbikes, but was blown away by them.

On the left a Soulgrinder charged the Avatar, and got smashed out of existence in return. The Avatar then charged the other Soulgrinder. My Thirster piled into his Avatar to save the Grinder, whilst the Letters moshed into the Dire Avengers, both with the Blood Tithe giving them Rage. The Letters did well, leaving only 1 Avenger standing; and the Avatar & Thirster began knocking each other about. Because the Thirster had to challenge the Avatar, the Grinder did nothing (whoops).

Then the Avatar turned invisible, the Wraithlord charged the Letters, and the Farseer & Swooping Hawks charged the Grinder. My Thirster suddenly found it very hard to hit the Avatar, my Soul Grinder was going down, and my Letters were fighting someone that they couldn't hurt and couldn't run away from...

At this point the Blood Tithe began to be useful. I managed to get enough points to bring in a new Bloodletter pack, who promptly Mishapped and were placed by my opponent into a shooting alley. And were blown apart. Killing them and the Wraithlord finishing my other squad got me enough Tithes to bring in a new new Bloodletter pack, who again mishapped into the shooting alley.

And then my Warlord Thirster finally fell, with enough wounds on him to carry over into the Grinder. I was deaded.

Khorne was pleased! Lots of blood!

I made mistakes. I shouldn't have left a Thirster all on his own on the right flank. I should have sent the Thirster against the Wraithlord, not the Avatar as that left my Grinder useless. But hey, it's one of my first games since 5th ed, I'm still getting back into the swing of things.

In the future, I want to have more people with 3+ saves. My daemons disappeared scarily fast when he started shooting, especially with the Warlock using Sanctic powers to reduce my invulnerable save. The Slaughtercult formation giving me more Blood Tithe points would be very good as well, that's one to look into. And some small sacrificial squads, there to win Blood Tithe by dying.

Possible 1,500pts:
Slaughtercult
Bloodthirster: 250pts
Possessed: 150pts
Chaos Marines: 130pts
Chaos Marines: 130pts
Cultists: 58pts
Spawn: 38pts
Lord of Slaughter
Bloodthirster: 250pts
War Engines
Soul Grinder, Phelgm: 165pts
Soul Grinder, Phelgm: 165pts
Soul Grinder, Phelgm: 165pts

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.