In our Battle Reports, we cover interesting games we’ve played, talking about the plans we made, the tactics we employed, the mistakes that rendered those plans worthless, and the memorable moments that are the reasons we play the game. In this inaugural edition of the column, Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones is covering a game from his ongoing campaign, The Astradus Campaign.

The Background

While the forces of Chaos laying siege to the Astradus System had, to this point, avoided open conflict with one another, acting as a unified front, there came a natural point where the capricious whims of competing Gods were at odds. The Sorcerer Lord Kaervek, of the Black Legion’s Sons of the Cyclops cabal, has forseen the need to capture several relics of sorcerous import. Little did he know however that the dread Nurgle forces of Danzig, Herald of Nurgle, had also been given orders to seek out those relics. His main forces disposed elsewhere, Kaervek dispatched a force of World Eaters to wipe out their pestilent foes.

The Mission

For the mission, we randomly selected one of the Chapter Approved 2019 Eternal War missions, which you may recall my colleague One_Wing talking about as part of his Chapter Approved 2019 Missions Review. The mission we pulled was Lockdown. Lockdown is interesting. It uses Progressive Scoring at the end of each player turn, plus an added point for Hold More at the end of each battle round. Players start by alternating placement of objective markers, then one player picks a marker to be labeled “1” and the other “6.” At the start of each battle round after the first, you’ll remove the objective marker corresponding to the current round, until only two objectives (1 and 6) remain. This is an interesting change-up, and something that played a major role in the game’s strategy and outcome.

The mission also uses the Slay the Warlord, Linebreaker, and First Strike secondary objectives, and has the Variable Battle Length and Acceptable Casualties rules.

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

The Armies

The World Eater forces were being led by Kharn the Betrayer, though Kaervek’s second-in-command, a powerful Chaos Lord of Khorne formerly from the World Eaters named Trosk Varren, was keeping a close eye on the operation. The army is heavy on Berzerkers as troops, and I get an extra helping from my Terminators, who I’ve windmill-slammed the Red Butchers Stratagem onto to turn them into Berzerkers as well.