So I played my second game with my mono-Khorne Daemon army last Monday night against Stephen’s Chaos Space Marines. It was also the second game in our mini-campaign, with a story made up on the fly as we played. His Chaos Lord, the Tzeentch Sorcerer, The Nameless One, wants to seize the Grimoire of True Names from the Bloodthirster Gorzu A’lal Xul (so he can both find his identity and secure it from being used against him). In game 1, Nameless failed to seize the main entrance to the catacombs where the Grimoire is being held. So in game 2, he’s trying to sneak in the back door, opposed by Gorzu’s lieutenant, the Daemon Prince Deimos. It was a 1,000 point game. The objective was to have the most Infantry units on the chaos altar in the middle of the board at game end.
I had no shooting at all! This was pretty crazy for me as I usually play Marines. No shooting except whatever ranged attacks I might roll on the Rewards tables! This made me consider two things: 1) I had to get into assault ASAP, and 2) I had to take advantage of any cover I could find going in.
Fortunately, Khorne daemons are hella fast (as are most daemon units). Without the temptation of making ranged attacks, my shooting phase consisted of simply running everything forward as far as possible.
This pic shows the board after my first turn. All of my Troops (Bloodletters) are in reserve.
My Bloodcrushers are moving up toward a squad of Havocs, doing their best to limit their exposure to enemy fire. 
On my right is my Herald on his Blood Throne. There’s a pack of Flesh Hounds tucked behind the hill too. The Havocs took a shot at Deimos but failed to wound or ground him (he was swooping).
Unused to playing the Daemons, I pretty much forgot to roll on the Warpstorm chart for the first half of the game! Anyway, I’m charging in toward the CSM line. There’s a pack of Cultists right in the middle of the opening into the vale we’re fighting in. Looks like a good target to me! The CSM squad on the hill there looks formidable, but as I’m on the reverse slope of the hill, they’ve got no shot. 
Turn 2 and the CSM pull back, having picked up the heat signatures of all that angry red paint coming up over the hill. It’s about to get real! But I goofed my movement, going Flat Out with my Blood Throne and thus prohibiting it from charging (yes, it rolls for charges since it’s a Chariot). Anyway, the Khornedogs could make the charge though they would be outside the Herald’s 6″ Locus bubble, a dumb mistake on my part. Still, I managed to get the dogs stuck in.
The Night Lords have some visitors. Look at those silly hats of theirs!
I brought the Bloodletters in, but kinda botched their arrival order. The squad with the icon that everyone was supposed to home in on didn’t arrive, forcing the second and third squads to scatter. I do like the Instruments of Chaos, which allow me to chain in units from reserve. This allows the Daemons to arrive in one huge mass and basically on target. In one go you can saturate your opponent with threats. Had I got the roll I needed I would have placed 30 Bloodletters in threat range in one go. As it was, I got 20 in (the second unit also had an Instrument) basically where I wanted them (behind the Cultists). But the ‘Letters held back because the Boss, DP Deimos, jumped into give the human dupes the thrashing they deserved.
Ah, I should taken a picture of it. Deimos charged in and the Cultist Champion was forced to challenge him (not a terrible idea since it would isolate Deimos’ attacks). Deimos laughed and accepted! Puny human! We imagined the Cultists and the Champion watching Deimos approach, and the Champion racks his shotgun, looks at his bros and says, “Here, hold my beer. Watch this!”
Deimos duly squashed the Champion with his Hammer of Wrath attack. The Cultists then blew their morale check and were swept by Deimos. The CSM and the Khorne dogs continued to battle, a fight that lasted most of the game – the Flesh Hounds are a great tarpit! My Bloodcrushers overran the Havocs and wiped them out. Things were not looking good for the Chaos Space Marines.
Then The Nameless One himself arrived from reserve with his hard men, his Chaos Terminators. He also brought in an Obliterator that took up position on a far hill and proceeded to get Deimos’ attention by putting a lascannon shot into him. My units began to converge toward the center and I Deep Struck my last unit of Bloodletters right onto the shrine to try and hold it. I knew the Terminators would be a tough nut to crack with my ‘Letters’ Hellblades only being AP3. But I figured I could swamp them and get Deimos and the Herald in there with their Axes of Khorne (AP2). But…
Man, those Tzeentch Sorcerers can be a handful! The Nameless One stood off a bit from his boys so he could zap them with Malediction buffs (forget what they were). He also sent a pack of Bloodletters running, decimating their ranks with a plague wind or somesuch. You can see Deimos up there obliterating the Obliterator too, but Nameless (the dirty git) gimped Deimos with a couple spells that didn’t hurt him much but did slow him down. However, all that warp power being flung around is dangerous to the user as well – Nameless rolled Perils of the Warp, took a wound (his last one) and was gone. His fate would remain a mystery until the game ended though.
The battle now centered on the altar. Though the CSM finally wiped out the Flesh Hounds and got clear, they were too far away to have any effect on the last stage of the game. To ensure this, I charged them with the Herald. They blew up his Chariot and whacked him too, but it was a peripheral action to what was happening in the center of the table.
It was up to the Chaos Terminators now. They charged in and hammered the Bloodletters on the altar, winning the combat and causing an Instability Check for me that wiped out the rest of the unit. As I charged in with Deimos, and my remaining Bloodletters and Crushers, I remembered the Warpstorm chart! Yay! I rolled a 3 (Gods disfavor) and wound up taking a wound on Deimos. Boo!
Deimos took on the Terminator Champion in a challenge and eviscerated him as you would expect. But once again, that isolated Deimos’ nasty AP2 attacks from the rest of the squad. Unfortunately I had no other characters in the fight I could have accepted the challenge with, and not wanting to waste Deimos all together, I squared him off with the Champion. I did my level best to force as many saves on the Chaos Terminators as I could, but with AP3 Hellblades, the Terminators made a lot of saves, losing only 1. Again, I lost combat and blew my Instability check for my Crushers and they went away!
Down to the final round, Deimos got all ragey, but the Terminators made their Invul saves (4++ due to some sort of buff they had). Lucky! The Bloodletters didn’t cause any wounds either, and though they lost combat by only 1, I got the worst possible result on the Instability check – box cars! The Bloodletters were eliminated and with them, my chance of winning the game.
Although Deimos was still alive, and could have probably squashed the Terminators, we had to call time. Even so, we’d played 5 turns and I had no Infantry left to take the altar. Stephen earned that win! We then decided that The Nameless One hadn’t died when he rolled Perils, he’d just found a way into Gorzu’s fortress through the Warp and told his boys to hold the entrance for him as long as they could.
So, a fun game and I learned a lot about my army. I didn’t use the Herald and the Blood Throne very well and I’ll need to work on that. I also need to study up on using FMCs – I’m usually on the receiving end of the damned things. The internet pooh-pooh’s mono-Khorne armies but I don’t care – they look great and are lots of fun to play. It’s kinda liberating to just charge all out and not worry about shooting and all that. Big thanks to Stephen and I’m looking forward to our next game!
You And What Army? 