On the 21st of January Spicerack and I attended a 3 game warm up tournament for the biggest tournament of the year in Australia (Cancon). We took 2000 point lists and ran the first 3 missions of the tournament pack from Cancon using the official ITC rules.

Due to the current issues with Necrons in the meta I decided to field my Chaos Space Marines and try out a new approach with my list. After getting some more critical models painted up I also wanted to give my Land Raider Achilles a whirl and see how it went on a big tournament.

Chaos Space Marines 7CP 2000 points

Battalion (Alpha Legion)

Chaos Lord, Khorne, Jump Pack, Blade of the Hydra, Combi Melta, Warlord (Unholy Fortitude)

Daemon Prince, Tzeentch (Warptime), Wings, Warp Bolter, 2x Malefic Talons,

5x Marines, Boltguns, 1x Melta Gun

5x Marines, Boltguns, 1x Melta Gun

5x Marines, Boltguns, 1x Melta Gun

3x Obliterators, Slaanesh

3x Obliterators, Slaanesh

Hellforged Land Raider Achilles, Tzeentch, Soulburner Bombard, 2x Twin Multi Melta

Rhino, Nurgle, 2x Combi bolter

Rhino, Nurgle, 2x Combi bolter

Outrider Detachment (Alpha Legion)

Sorcerer, Tzeentch (Prescience, Weaver of Fates), Force Stave, Bolt Pistol

3x Bikers, Nurgle, Combi Plasma, 2x Plasma Guns, Chainswords

3x Bikers, Nurgle, Combi Plasma, 2x Plasma Guns, Chainswords

3x Bikers, Nurgle, Combi Plasma, 2x Plasma Guns, Chainswords

Strategy Behind The List:

The list is broken down into a few set pieces. Firstly the Sorcerer, Achilles and Prince form the centre of the army. The Sorcerer is able to stand on an objective and buff from 18″ away, casting Presience for +1 to hit and Weaver of Fates for +1 Invul on the Achilles (or the Prince if he sees fit). An Achilles with 3++ invul, T8 and 19W is a very tough nut to crack, adding in the melta guns for solid anti tank and the soul burner bombard for mortal wounds to finish off vehicles or hit things I can’t reach is also amazing.

Next we have the bikes and rhinos for objective grabbing. Two units of bikes usually hang around 6″ from the Prince so they get reroll 1s for the overcharged plasma shots. They can also race forward and grab objectives or screen my deployment against deep strike threats, finally they can dish out some serious hurt at rapid fire range and often cleared units off of objectives with ease. The Rhinos are great for shielding the marines from a first turn alpha strike (with the 3rd squad in the Achilles), they dish out decent firepower at rapid fire range (8 shots!) and can charge forward and into non flying enemy vehicles to stop them from shooting. All up these are solid units to have.

Finally we have the Lord and Obliterator drop. This is expensive but can dish out some serious damage once it gets going. I would try and drop behind my enemy and ideally in cover and at decent range (16-24″) so they are hard to remove. My Lord offers the reroll 1s buff for 1-2 turns before he moves off and he can also screen the Obliterators against enemy counter units. The Lord, similar to the Prince, is a beast in combat and a huge threat for my opponent.

Game 1: 23-7 Win

I came up against a Necron player who was testing out a list for Cancon. He was an absolute pleasure to play against and he had an amazing paint scheme for his army. Being the first game of the day and the first game with my new list I felt like I made a few mistakes early on but managed to steady the ship late game and run away with a solid win.

His list was relying on 40 odd warriors in a line to block my advance and drop in 3 gauss pylons behind his lines to pick me off. He also had one ghost ark and two triarch stalkers to help him hold the line. He opted to use his teleport relic on his 3rd unit of 19 warriors to drop behind my lines with a cryptek in order to put pressure on my backfield.

His big mistake was teleporting the warrior blob (originally deployed in a line to screen his army) and not moving his warlord as my Achilles was then closer to his warlord than any other unit. I was able to swiftly pick off the ghost ark turn 1 (and was a priority due to his warrior spam) and also took out a stalker very quickly. After that I sent the Prince to clean up the backfield warrior drop, kept my sorcerer on an objective but within 18″ of the Achilles for buffs and then charged my bikes forward with my chaos lord. The obliterator drop was used to pick off the Ark and then went to town on the stalkers. Overall I was happy with the result despite my miss plays.

Game 2: 36-8 Loss

Unfortunately I managed to pair up for round 2 with Spicerack who runs an Astra Militarum list. If you’ve been paying attention you’ll know that AM this edition have been given a relic and a stratagem that make nearly any list they can put together into a hard counter to any Chaos player. His use of the Relic of Lost Cadia combined with a Cadian Spearhead detachment always results in a lot of pain for me and I knew my chances to win this one were slim. I opted to deploy as far forward as I could while also screening the deep strike drops. I spread my bikes out to force his first Scion drop to land in front of my lines and hoped that his first turn wouldn’t kill the Achilles, but unfortunately he ended up with the first turn.

Revealing the relic, he unloaded every unit that had line of sight into the Achilles (a pair of Basilisks, a Scion 4x plasma drop, a Leman Russ and KC Pasks’ lascannon) and managed to burn it down to 1 wound remaining. To add insult to injury he also blew up a rhino, cleared one of the biker squads completely, and had a second down to a single model. Knowing that my chances of victory were slipping away by the moment I opted to shoot forward and attempt to kill at least a few units on my turn 1. The Achillies ate the Scion drop, however didn’t make the heal roll so was stuck on a single wound. My double Obliterator and Lord drop were able to wipe out his Executioner Tank Commander though as I put some pressure on his forward infantry squads with my bikes.

Spicerack’s Turn 2 wasn’t much better for me, as he dropped in his second Scion squad to finish off my poor Achilles. He then proceeded to drop the remaining bike squads and the Obliterators and nearly managed to wipe out my remaining marine squads. In return I charged my Prince forward and got a Chimera down to 2 wounds, the Lord wiped out 2 infantry squads with help from the Sorcerer and my final marine squad bravely held onto an objective as long as they could before being accosted by the scions and Guardsman Marbo.

Though the game was effectively over by that stage I managed to drag the game out to try and score some additional VPs, but it was more or less a formality in counting up his points every turn while I did almost nothing.

In the end I was bitterly disappointed that we were paired up, but I didn’t think I could have played the game any differently.

Game 3: 36-12 Win

I managed to draw the only other Necron player for the tournament after he came off a crushing win against Dark Eldar. I knew I was out of the running for prizes at this point so I was mostly playing for pride in this round. His army was a much stronger list than the one I had faced before, he opted for the double teleport of the Deceiver C’tan along with Nemessor and Obyron. He had a nasty blob of 10 Lychguard, lots of immortals and the usual 19 man warrior conga line for objective holding. He also had Orikan, a ghost ark, 5 Deathmarks and 6 scarabs rounding out his force.

For secondaries I opted to pick Recon (a unit in all 4 sections of the board), Kingslayer (up to 4 points for killing a character, I picked Orikan) and Old School (First blood, slay the warlord, last strike and behind enemy lines). My deployment was all about getting recon from turn 1 onwards and also protecting against his teleports. I managed to force him to waste the Lychguard on a flanking rhino and he opted to use the rest of his teleport to take up a commanding position in central ruins and protecting his characters.

Turn 1 his damage output was fairly low aside from almost killing my flanking rhino. He wasn’t able to get many shots on anything else as he was busy moving into position. On my turn 1 I charged the bikes forward along with the sorcerer and prince. My Achilles stood still to get better shots on his immortals and also avoid lots of return shots. I dropped my Obliterators and Lord right in the back corner (again for Recon) and he opted to try and intercept one of the Obliterator squads. I blew away the Deathmarks and an immortal squad with my drop and only took 1 wound on the Obliterators.

Turn 2 was where the game turned, he still couldn’t kill the rhino or the marines on my flank and by this stage I had retreated too far away from the objective, he opted not to chase after that as he wanted to hold the objective. I managed to get my lord and prince into combat with his warriors and again put pressure on his lines. His response was to charge the deceiver towards my bikes but he moved too close and my Achilles was able to blow up the C’tan. I also focused down the ghost ark to stop any more buffs for the warrior reanimations.

After that I slowly cleaned up the rest of his force by turn 5 and had maxed out points on my secondary objectives. All in all I was very happy with the game and the only mistake I could think of was not moving the Achilles earlier to try and get shots on the Ghost Ark sooner.

End Of The Day:

So after the three games I ended up coming 4th (just behind Spicerack) out of 12 players and was fairly happy with the result. I quite liked the list and the plasma bikes were definitely a great unit to have. Outside of the game against Spicerack my Achilles took a total of 3 wounds so it turned out to be quite a tough nut to crack, although admittedly Necrons are not great at taking out tanks right now. The melta guns on the marines were almost ever used and will most likely be dropped for plasma guns or dropped entirely to free up more points. The bikers were absolutely amazing and difficult for my opponents to deal with, T5 2W -1 to hit and such good movement made them amazingly resilient, they also dished out a lot of hurt at rapid fire range.

I think this will be the basis for my tournament lists going forward. I plan on trying out lists without the Achilles but I think the core elements will remain the same (Plasma bikers, Prince and Lord, Rhino marines).

I would like to thank Good Games Town Hall for hosting the event, Marty for running it and my opponents for being awesome to play against. I look forward to the next tournament in 5 weeks time and will try out some new lists.

– death1942