First Game of 10th AAR - Chaos Space Marines VS Craftworlds
The world of Skeltharis IV burned. The weakling PDF forces, routed. Most of its citizens, butchered. Imperial strongholds, torn down to rubble. The blessed ritual to consecrate the doomed wasteland to the Sacred Four neared completion. The earth heaved as boiling magma nurtured neverborn entites into realspace, the skin of the planet and reality slowly cracking to the chants and sacrifices of the XVII. With the campaign over, Mehmet Ozdemir, Coryphanus of the Shadowflame Host, had returned to the bridge of the Arslan with the terminators of the Apostate Guard to attend to the Dark Apostle. But as the ritual neared completion, doors to the webway burst open, and an Aeldari warhost surged into battle to halt the consecration, sending alarm klaxons blaring through the strategium of the massive battleship….
Welcome to the first AAR of Warhammer 40k 10th edition! A friend of mine and I tried out the new edition over the holiday yesterday at our FLGS. Normally my buddy plays Votaan but he wanted to try space elves so I loaned him my Eldar. We put together 1k lists using the Munitorum Field Manual. We decided to just play the Open War mission to keep it simple (and to avoid any digital nonsense of trying to manage cards) since the “stuff” isnt actually available for purchase yet.
We setup a simple table, we decided to treat all the terrain with bases as “area ruins” so no LOS through it and Obscruing when fully within.
The Eldar won the roll to be the attacker and placed objectives first. We ended up with a relatively even spread of objectives all in terrain. With the forces deployed, Chaos won the roll for first turn!
The Shadowflame, ready to burn this world!
The Eldar, intervening for inscrutable reasons!
Seething with rage at the presence of blasphemous xenos so near the culmination of another world-burning, the forces of the Shadowflame Host still on the surface surged into action. Sensors detecting xenos movement in ruins ahead, the predator destructor Altar of Malevolence surged forward, bolters and cannon spewing malice. Such aggression was rewarded with Eldar cries and fonts of blood as black-armored aspect warriors came apart under torrents of fire. Brother Akraz the Brass stomped forward, bellowing praise to the Pantheon as he sighted a Xenos hovertank around the corner, but shimmering force shields dispersed the fury of his lascannon fire
The Chaos forces advanced, invoking Dark Pacts on every unit that fired. This paid off marvelously on the Predator which thanks to the Mark of Nurgle (triggering sustained hits on a 5+ instead of a 6+ when under a dark pact) scored a huge number of sustained heavy bolter hits with AP -2 (-1 from the bolter, another -1 for targeting infantry) which completely wiped out the Dark Reapers! The Helbrute moved in the open to get a pot shot on the Wave Serpent but failed to do any damage thanks to the use of some Fate Dice for the invulnerable save.
Observing the violent demise of the Dark Reapers, Autarch Ciaran the Soaring quickly determined a plan of engagement. If the warhost could secure the sites where foul neverborn tendrils grew from the battered world, reality may be preserved and the dire fate forseen by the seers forestalled. Carrying a formidable host of Wraithguard, the Wave Serpent Lightbloom floated gracefully near one of the key locations, starcannons spitting fury into a tainted Rhino transport rumbling towards the Eldar lines. In a display of perfect coordination only possible through many human lifetimes the Nightspinner Sorrow of Eoin sent a deluge of monofillament wire into the transport at the same time, ripping huge chunks out of the vehicle, the Lightbloom even rammed the Rhino in an effort to destroy it but made no impact on the rune-etched hull
The Eldar, seeing a chance to take a lead on objectives, took advantage of the Wave Serpent’s mobility to seize the objective Chaos left undefended when the Helbrute moved out from the ruins. A combination of shooting took big chunks out of the Rhino leaving it with only 4 wounds left, while Dire Avengers managed to take a wound of the clanking drednought. With objectives set to go hot during the next command phase, the Eldar would take an early lead! The wave serpent rammed the Rhino! Causing no damage, but much hilarity.
Mehmet glowered trough his tusked helmet at the Dark Mechanicum attendants as the Apostate Guard stood silent. Within moments of the first klaxon sounding he was running towards the teleportarium at full tilt, crushing several serf-slaves underfoot along the way. The Dark Apostle would not be pleased at xenos interference so close to the conclusion of a consecration. With a sudden, disorienting flash, and a moment of blissful agony in the pure violence of the immaterium, the Apostate Guard emerged on the battlefield, combi bolters blazing at the xenos before them as the Shadowflame inflicted terrible losses on the Eldar host…
With objectives live, things get interesting! The Rhino passes its Battleshock test as the Helbrute swerves to go can-open the Wave Serpent and recontest the objective. The Predator charges towards the ruins still occupied by the Dire Avengers and unleashes another devastating round of shooting, killing 6 of the aspect warriors and forcing them to take Battleshock the next round. The Chaos Terminators led by the Chaos Lord warp onto the field in the northeastern corner, killing several guardians with a hail of combi-bolter and reaper autocannon fire. The Helbrute makes his charge into the wave-serpent and destroys it, automatically causing the Wraithguard inside to become Battleshocked! Battleshock played a huge role in the game and we definitely got a sense for how important this mechanic will be in the new edition.
With losses mounting and the sudden arrival of enemy Terminators, Ciaran heroically ordered his mauled Dire Avengers to fall back out of sight of the tank bearing down on their position while he worked to set charges around the coalescing warp tendril. The wraithguard, guided by the spiritseer, directed devastating fire into the helbrute which had destroyed their transport - tearing huge chunks of warp-stained metal from the beast. They then charged - finishing the monster off at close quarters. The Nightspinner directed waves of wire towards the advancing terminators, slowing their progress and buying time for the battered guardians and Farseer to regroup
The Wraithguard are a brutal unit! With Fate Dice, and their ability to shoot in the fight phase, they are scary! The helbrute was easily destroyed by the battleshocked wraithguard as the Eldar reel a bit from the teleportation assault and the advancing Predator.
‘For Lorgar! For the Dark Gods!’ Mehmet shouted through vox-amplified speakers, as the Apostate Guard struggled through a sea of filament wire. He grunted angrily as one then another Terminator fell, sliced to pieces by wire and the witchery of a xenos frantically trying to rally the Guardians as combi-bolter fire scythed them down like wheat. The sounds of chanting and praise to the dark gods filled the vox-network as the Shadowflame counterattacked the wraiths, curses mingling in as plasma weapons malfunctioned with disastrous consequences
The Predator was licking its chops at the prospect of getting to shoot at the Autarch (having moved within 12”) but Eldar trickery allowed him to flitter away out of line of sight with the Phantasm stratagem. The Chaos Marines disembarked the damaged Rhino and engaged the wraiths, losing the plasma gun to Hazardous while managing to destroy one wraith with bolter fire. The Terminators advanced at a glacial pace towards the objective, being slowed by the Nightspinner’s ability - losing 2 inches from a 5 inch move hurts! At this point Chaos is gaining the upper hand but those Wraithguard are durable, gaining a model back every command phase thanks to the Spiritseer.
Farseer Niamh shed a single tear of mourning as the last of her bodyguard of Guardian citizen-soldiers fell beneath the relentless bolter fire of the slowly advancing behemoths. The filament storm from the Nightspinner was slowing their progress, but not enough. She quickly picked through the skeins of fate and saw the only feasible route for victory required her to keep the beasts at bay as long as possible. Spinning her singing spear around, she prepared to meet her fate….
Things are looking quite grim for the Eldar at this point as the Farseer is left alone facing three Terminators and a Chaos Lord while the Wraithguard are facing encirclement. The Autarch orders the dire avengers forward to support the wraithguard as they fail to hurt the Predator in some spectacularly poor dice rolling. They do manage to charge it and knock a few wounds off in melee however. The Autarch prepares to make a flight for the objective in the southwestern corner held only by some puny cultists.
Mehmet grinned savagely as he gunned down the witch-woman with a torrent of bolts. The xenos had slowed his advance but not stopped it, and the precious neverborn tendril bursting from the wound in the planet’s surface was now safe from the blaspheming Eldar scum. Across the battlefield the sounds of victory grew louder as Chaos Marine’s under the leadership of the sorcerer Azdrubal charged the Wraithguard, laying several low with blades.
Victory for Chaos is at hand! The Dire Avengers rally and re-secure the objective only to be cut down by a hail of bolts. The lone farseer is ignominiously gunned down by the Chaos Lord, losing the objective. The Chaos Marines charge the Wraithguard currently locked in combat with the predator and lay a few low - in hindsight the sorcerer should have used the Heroic Challenge stratagem to gain Precision in an attempt to snipe the spiritseer here as that character is the key to Wraith units being dangerous. On the Eldar turn, in completely hilarious fashion, the Wraithguard attempted a desperate breakout to try and contest the object to prevent Chaos from gaining an unstoppable lead only to lose every single model to Desperate Escape tests. A true catastrophe of bad dice rolling!
Ciaran sliced down cultist after cultist, yet it was not enough. This world was doomed. The dark fate foretold by the Seer Council would have to be averted elsewhere, for this world was lost to the Warp. Singing a funeral dirge for the fallen, he signaled the retreat and leapt into the skies, far from the tainted earth which even know began to buckle and boil with huge rents in reality….
The Chaos Marines take it! It was a good game that stayed close to the very last few turns. There is a lot to like about 10th edition and I really like the Incursion format - 1k is a very nicely sized game. The datacards were lovely and saved time for sure. We just took screenshots of the relevant pages but I imagine the upcoming app will have a similar solution. I hope you enjoyed this battle report and look forward to seeing more of the Shadowflame as I have a feeling Chaos Marines will be my “main” faction this edition.