Chaos vs. the Celestial Lions (With new Space Wolf Codex test)

Well, Mike and I decided to give the new Space Wolf dex another whirl this past weekend. It was his Chaos vs. my Celestial Lions (Counts as SW). I ran a different list this time around and made a few elite units of Wolfguard with my counts-as Logan. Mike ran his typical Chaos list, with a few variants thrown in (One of these variants played a major role!). Our army lists;

My Army:

HQ

Logan

Rune priest

Elite

Two Lone Wolves, both equipped with Storm Shield, Chainfist and Terminator Armor

Troops

8 Wolf Guard in rhino with 4 combi-meltas and a power fist.

9 Wolf Guard Terminators with Storm Bolter/Storm Shields (A few with dual power fists). One assault cannon.

10 Grey Hunters with Banner, melta-gun, flamer and one model with the Mark of Wulfen in Rhino

Fast Attack

2 Land Speeders with MM/Heavy Flamer

2 Land Speeders with MM/Heavy Flamer

Heavy Support

4 Las Cannon Long Fangs, 1 Heavy Bolter Long Fang

Predator with Autocannon and Heavy Bolters

Idea was to plant Logan in Long Fangs, giving them Tank Hunters or Relentless as needed, pop armor with the Land Speeders/Long Fangs and gobble whatever was inside.

Mike’s Army:

HQ

Daemon Prince of Tzeentch with Wings, Warptime and Gift of Chaos

Daemon Prince of Slaanesh with Wings and Lash

Greater Daemon

Troops

9 Zerks, one with power fist, Rhino

10 Plague Marines, melta-gun x 2, rhino

10 Plague Marines, flamer, melta-gun, power fist, rhino

6 Noise Marines, Blast Master

Heavy Support

3 Oblits

3 Oblits

We decided to play a non-standard mission this week and tried one of the 40K Fight Club’s missions; Recover and Reclaim. This mission had a primary, secondary and tertiary as follows;

Primary: Each time a model ends its move in a piece of terrain, roll a d6. On a 5-6 that is the ‘objective’ terrain for the game. Normal rules to control at end.

Secondary: Recover a captured model in the enemy deployment zone

Tertiary: Kill points for vehicles/monstrous creatures only

I won the roll off and decided to setup and go first. I normally think ‘going second is the new going first’ but given that I had the ability to move my Fangs if necessary and wanted a chance to pop pre-smoke armor…I opted for 1^st turn. I setup in a solid line across the board with the quickest elements of my army on the flanks in case I needed to redeploy and my ‘power units’ in the middle of the board.

Mike blew my theory of popping armor all to hell by opting to setup almost all of his army in reserve. The only units setup where 3 Obliterators, a Plague Marine Rhino with Champion carrying Greater Daemon and a unit of Noise Marines behind his bastion. Our setups;

Celestial Lions Turn 1:

After Mike failed to seize, I began my first turn. On my right flank, I advanced my GH Rhino along with the 4 speeders. On the left flank, my Wolf Guard Rhino advanced along with my two Lone Wolves. My shooting phase was rather disappointing, as my 4 Land Speeders only managed to kill 1 of the Obliterators while my Predator wounded another. Logan gave my Fangs relentless to gain LOS to the Nurgle Rhino but fared little better and only immobilized the lone Nurgle Rhino.

Chaos Turn 1:

Mike advanced the two Obliterators and blew one of the closest speeders up. The Plague Marines piled out of the immobilized rhino and advanced, blowing up another speeder. The immobilized Nurgle Rhino glanced another speeder, removing its ability to shoot. As a side note, Mike’s Chaos Rhinos must spend the afterlife (Or undead life) practicing shooting speeders…because their ability to rhino/bolter a speeder is uncanny. Mike played aggressive here and instead of hiding in the bastion, advanced the Noise Marines around it to unleash a flurry of shots on my Fangs. Dice didn’t favor the aggressiveness however and he failed to wound a single Fang.

Celestial Lions Turn 2:

I advanced my GH rhino, popping the hatch and killing a couple of Plague Marines. My Wolf Guard Terminators advanced on the hill, downing another from their assault cannon. Logan gave the Fangs relentless again and walked over to gain LOS to the remaining Oblits, finishing them. One of my Lone Wolves was in assault phase and grabbed the noise marines, killing 3. They passed their fearless.

Chaos Turn 2:

Mike had some good reserve rolls, gaining his Zerks, the Tzeentch Daemon Prince, his Greater Daemon and Plague Marines. This left his Oblits and Slaanesh Prince in reserve. The Tzeentch Prince moved onto the board and promptly turned my Lone Wolf, who was trying to redeem his unit and himself in battle……into a farking spawn. Well, there goes restoring honor eh? Your battle brothers die, you try to make up for it…then get turned into a pile of goo that begins beating on your other battle brothers. It's GRIMDARK! Anyways, this saved his Noise Marines (Which was big for the blastmaster guy later). The Plague Marines on foot advanced and blew up my Grey Hunter Rhino, killing a marine. At the end of movement…the bastion turned up to the main objective.

Celestial Lions Turn 3:

Well that sucked. My Lone Wolf was now a blob beating on my Wolf Guard Rhino and there was a lot of power on the board. I was hoping for bad reserve rolls….but alas no hope. In addition, Mike had all his power next to the bastion objective, not good. Logan gave the Fangs relentless again and between their shooting with the Predator, downed the Prince! This put me back in the game, even though I had lost a Lone Wolf to the damn bird. My other Lone Wolf failed his terrain test and gave the Noise Marines another round of shooting. I went ahead and assaulted the foot Plague Marines, to save myself attacks in his following turn. We tied combat thanks to Mike’s incredibad rolling.

Chaos Turn 3:

Mike’s Plague Marines on my left flank got out of their Rhino and advanced on my Wolf Guard Rhino. His other group of Oblits showed and icon’d off the Zerk Rhino, huddling the bastion. Between the Plague Marines and Oblits he managed to blow my Wolf Guard Rhino, which opened them to assault. The Blast Master Noise Marine nailed my fangs, killing two and wounding Logan (He took one for the team). The Greater Daemon assaulted my WG…and I managed to fail 4 Storm Shield saves. In return I did 3 wounds and my Wolf Guard Terms stuck. The Plague Marines and the once Lone Wolf/now Spawn assaulted my Wolf Guard/Lone Wolf. This combat actually went well for me, as my Lone Wolf killed 3 of the Plague Marines before dying in glory…and my Wolf guard killed the spawn while losing 3 of their number Mike lost yet another Plague Marine to fearless saves.

Celestial Lions Turn 4:

Logan once again gave relentless to the Fangs, which moved back on the hill and killed 2 of the 3 Oblits left and wounded the 3^rd. My speeders managed to down two of the 3 remaining Noise Marines (blast master still there!). My Wolf Guard Terms finished the Greater Daemon this turn and consolidated towards the left flank bastion. My Wolf Guard in the middle traded blows with the Plague Marines, each losing a couple. My Grey Hunters on the right flank did well this turn, with my Mark of Wulfen Hunter putting out 6 attacks and downing 3 Plague Marines! Odd to win combat with Marines against Plague Marines…

Chaos Turn 4:

Mike’s Super Rhinos ™ continued their speeder death toll and downed another of my Speeders (Immobilization so it settled on the hill). His Slaanesh Prince came on this turn and lashed my Wolf Guard back 4 inches (This would be a crucial 4 inches though!). The damn Noise Marine Blast Master managed to kill another Long Fang this turn as well. The Zerks finally got out of their rhino and proceeded to roll 1,234 dice and tore my Wolf Guard in half.

Celestial Lions Turn 5:

Well, I figured time to focus fire on the remaining troops Mike had. I doubted my Wolf Guard Terminators would last so I could at least take away the main objective from him as well. Some very poor rolling this turn though, as between two speeders, my Long Fangs and a Predator I only managed to kill 4 Zerks and a Noise Marine. In addition, my remaining Wolf Guard Terminators failed their terrain roll (By an inch!) and didn’t assault the Plague Marines. Again, that lash from the prior turn proved costly. On the bright side, my Grey Hunters finished the Plague Marines on the right flank and consolidated towards the left.

Chaos Turn 5:

Mike really tore up this turn and lashed my Wolf Guard into the Prince, the Plague Marines and remaining Zerks, killing all. Mike had removed all of my troops now, except the squad way down at the south of the table. Grabbing the bastion looked pretty grim (As did the game overall!). The remaining Oblit killed another Long Fang to add insult to injury.

Celestial Lions Turn 6:

Well, my RunePriest failed his second Perils this turn and his head exploded. So my turn began with the proverbial ‘bang’. I split Logan from the Fangs this turn and charged the remaining Zerks, killing them all. The Fangs and remaining speeders failed to inflict a single wound on the remaining Plague Marines (Which had a damn melta gun in it). Logan only had two wounds and was in the open, not good. The Grey Hunter group moved up and bolter’d the Prince, along with the Predator inflicting a single wound.

Chaos Turn 6:

The Oblit fired at Logan this turn….hit…..rolled a 1 to wound! The Plague Marines begin falling back to the bastion and pumped a melta shot into Logan, along with some bolter wounds. Some tense rolling but Logan managed to make it out with one last wound. Slaanesh went after the remaining Grey Hunters and killed a few. They tried to run but were caught, suffered another wound.

Celestial Lions and Chaos Last Turn:

I’ll combine our turns on this one, as Logan finished the Plague Marines and the Prince finished the Grey Hunter squad. Not a troop for either side left on the field. I had Logan with one wound, a Predator and 2 Long Fang las cannons. Mike had a Slaanesh Prince with two wounds, an Oblit with a wound and 2 Rhinos.

End Result:

Primary: Nobody claimed

Secondary: Nobody claimed

Tertiary: 4-2 Chaos

Chaos win!

My Thoughts (Celestial Lions):

Well, another real bloodbath. I really like the way the new marine dex plays. Can get in their face to rapid fire and not flinch so badly when counter-charged. Mark of the Wulfen definitely seems worth it after 3 games now and the squad banner gave me boost in combat as well. I’m not so keen on the Wolf Guard Terminators though, albeit I saved all my storm shield saves. Dual fists put out the hurt but I think burying them in 18 point power armor Wolf Guard units or perhaps lending them to foot Grey Hunters is the way to go. I’ll experiment with that this weekend.

They definitely don’t mech as well as Vanilla Marines. My Vulkan lists feel more powerful when played but are MUCH more boring compared to this dex. Sit in a rhino and melta marines are only fun for a few games….

I don’t know if the Long Fang + Logan combo is worth it. Yeah they put out the hurt this game but for their cost….they should! Oh well, it was a blast of a game even though I lost. Real nail biter with a lot of dice being tossed…kind of the reason we play the game….

Mike's Thoughts (Chaos):

That, was a really fun game. I really like facing off against the new Space Wolves codex. If I feel the need to field my Castellans again, I may play them as Space Wolves for the same reason I liked Chaos over Vanilla Marines; the ability to mix it up in close combat. Space Wolves can really dish out the pain.

From the beginning of this game, I felt as though I was back-pedaling. My initial plan was to load the left flank and take out the speeders as quickly as possible. First turn went well enough for me with what I had on the table. The objective popping early changed my plans and my units on the left were on their own. I reinforced the objective and towards the end I felt the momentum shift in my favor but only slightly. The primary objective did really come down to weather I could take out Logan in my shooting phase to allow my last unit of PM's to run to the objective. Alas, that wasn't to be and so my last turn I went after the tertiary objective.

About my Force:

I don't know if I like the Greater Demon over a Champion with a powerfist. I had to start a unit of Plague marines on the table to make sure I had a vessel on the table in case I got him on turn 2 which was the case. I also really missed that powerfist in that plague marine squad as that unit didn't have the punch it usually has and led to their demise. But the Greater Demon did do admirably tying up Ryan's terminators for a couple of turns, buying me some much needed time, and thinning down the squad. Jury is still out as I need to play a few more games with him before passing judgement.

Gift of Chaos. Could be over-the-top powerful but I like Bolt of Change for the ability to pop a transport then assault with my Daemon Prince, which I have actually even done with land raiders on a couple of occasions. Still, worth playing around with some more.

Overall, my list(s) really lacks shooting. With only three shooting units total, I tend to rely on close combat heavily. I don't want to add another unit of Oblits as that is kind of bland, effective, but bland. I do have a Vindicator but my success with it has been almost nill except versus Tyranids. I may have to try out a Defiler now......

Thanks for the Report and game,

Mike

As an aside, if anyone has an opinion of how better for us to present the reports (narrative style vs. story-style, pictures, etc) feel free to share in the comments. Thanks for reading.

Ryan