3rd Place!

Chaos Undecided Lite!

It seems my long losing streak is at an end!  Of my last 5 games, I’ve won 4!


It was a great little tourney at Frontline this weekend.  It was a 4-round double elimination setup using scenarios that Will, one of the owners of Frontline and the TO for the day, rolled before each round.  1000pt lists with an 80-minute time limit.

Those that Placed

1st – Kyle One (Space Marines), won $40
2nd – Tyler (Eldar), won a box of 3 Dire Avengers
3rd – Me (Chaos Space Marines), a Handshake

There were all levels of players.  Most of them were regulars that I see each week, but a couple were new to me.  There were also no duplicate armies:

• Eldar (Tyler)
• Dark Eldar (Jeremy)
• Orks (Graham)
• Death Company (Keno)
• Space Marines (Kyle One)
• Tyranids (Kyle Two)
• Necrons (Ethan)
• Chaos Space Marines (Me)

Not one Grey Knight player!  That was truly surprising.


I’m just going to run down my games because I didn’t get to see but about 2 minutes of any of the others.

Game 1 vs Kyle Two’s Tyranids

Sieze Ground, 3 objectives, Pitched Battle, I go first

The Tervigon is about to go down!

This game started off pretty slow as we were both jockeying for position in the beginning.  Kyle is a good player and I kept a respectful distance from his Nids.  Because of this, I was fairly far back with my Oblits and had a tough time getting my Lash Sorc into position.  We were fairly even KP-wise at the end of turn 3.  Unfortunately during 4 I took a gamble and charged his Tervigon.  This gamble didn’t pay off and it killed all of my Berzerkers.

But, I had a HUGE turn 5: My loan HQ (the rest of the Zerk squad was dead) force weapon’ed his unhurt Tervigon!  My Oblits killed his HQs which left him with only 1 squad of Stealers left.

At the end of 5 I was out of position because my Berzerkers were dead (I had decided to use Aggressive Objective Placement and placed my two objectives in his deployment zone) and needed the game to go to turn 6 to be able to get my Plague Marines onto an Objective to tie.  Buuuut, the game ended on 5.

Had my Sorcerer been able to kill the Tervigon on turn 4, I could have at least tied.

Game 2 vs. Graham’s Orks

Capture and Control, Dawn of War, I go second

Graham's Ork Truk is about to be assaulted and his Orks are about to kill the remaining Oblit they assaulted.

I vaporized (Go Obliterators!) an entire squad of 30 armored Boyz at the bottom of turn 1 and I think that rattled him.  Had he deployed those Boyz farther back and not ran the lot of them forward I think this wouldn’t have happened.  Plus, the way I deployed left his Battlewagon behind a big LOS-blocking structure so it was basically useless most of the game.

The long and the short of it on this one is that he failed to keep his eye on the ball.  He left his CP objective undefended when he could have easily disembarked his last squad of troops from his Battlewagon and marched them 9” for an easy tie.  There is no way I could have gotten close enough to kill them with that Battlewagon hanging out back there.  Heck, he could have parked his Battlewagon ON THE CP and I likely could have done nothing about it.  I lucked out on this one.

I feel a little bad not flagging this for him, but as Jeremy stated during our test game last Wednesday (see last weeks Battle Report linked below) “I have no problem helping you out in a friendly game like this one, but in a tournament setting don’t count on anyone being so kind.”

Game 3 vs. Jeremy’s Dark Eldar

Pitched Battle, Annihilation, I go second

Jeremy moves his Wracks up, but doesn't quite reach assault range.  My next turn they get Lashed and Twin-linked flamer'ed off the table.

This game was a bit tougher.  I played Jeremy not 5 days before with this same list and won.  His list was slightly different but I don’t know in what ways.  This is the only game I was fairly confident I had a chance winning (at the time I didn’t know the Ork player was more of a noob than I) but I really don’t like playing kill point games because I feel Chaos has a real disadvantage.

For once my Lash Sorcerer was on fire!  Not one casting fail, not one targeting miss, and all my rolls were over 6" of forced movement.  I also deployed in a manner which left my Oblits with looooong fire lanes that reached across the entire table leaving very few places for his units to hide.  I was able to Lash his units out from behind cover and lascannon them to death from far across the board.  His choppy units had a tough time getting close to my shooty units.  I think the final score was 5 KP to 1 in my favor.

Game 4 vs. Keno’s Death Guard

Dawn of War, Annihilation, I go second

The Berzerkers and Sorcerer are about to counter-attack!

I’ve played Keno many times before and he typically tables me (and most of his other opponents).  He runs a list with no troops, he’s all about the “Table or Tie.”

Knowing that his strategy is to get into close combat ASAP I deployed as far back in the corner as possible.  This allowed me to take some shots at his Rhinos during turn 1, but I did no damage.  I was hoping to make him walk, but alas.

Once his troops disembarked he was able to take out 1 squad of my Oblits at the top of turn 2.  But at the bottom of turn 2 I was able to Lash and Plasma Cannon one of his 2 ultra-choppy squads, half of his army, into smoke.

Unfortunately, his other squad was right in my face and there was nothing I could to keep my second squad of Oblits and the Rhino carrying my Sorcerer and Zerks alive.  He multi-assaulted and wiped out both.  But, that left my Zerks in a position to counter-attack successfully.  After an assault phase or two of slap-fighting, I got lucky and was able to take them out.

At this point all he has on the board is his HQ, Astorath the Grim?  Astorath killed my final squad of Oblits easily.  I was able to mop up the two immobilized Rhino’s of Keno’s.  After that, we danced around the table for a bit but a bad Run! roll of 1 left Astorath flat-footed and I was able to take him down with my Sorcerer and remaining Zerks.

For once, I was able to table Keno.

(From Left) Keno, Ethan, Graham, and Kyle Two setting up for round 3.

Things I learned:

1. Going second is a big advantage with a Lash Sorcerer and a bunch of Oblits.  You get to choose your fire lanes and can prioritize your targets much more effectively.
2. Keep your eye on the ball!  Never forget what scenario you are playing.  Kyle beat me with a single squad of Stealers and I beat Graham because he forgot to put troops on his CP.
3. CSM is better in lower point games, I think.  My theory is that this is because it keeps the newer codices from loading up on all the cool extras that Chaos doesn't have access to.

Tyler came in Second!