White Scars vs Chaos Knights 05/25/2022

I was lucky enough to get in a couple of Crusade league games the other day, against the new Chaos Knights codex. I won't do a thorough move by move account of these games this time, but the pics below tell the story well enough. It was more or less a slaughter both times. The War Dog Karnivores in particular were absolutely brutal, capable of wiping a whole squad of either Terminators or Centurions in a single round of combat. It didn't help that I failed a ton of 5+ save rolls, either.

In our first game, I won the roll off to go first, and I really made the most of it, getting both of my Terminator Squads into combat and doing some serious damage with them. Unfortunately the big Knight on his side, the Abominant, had a way of reducing my damage incoming to it by 1 per attack, which meant that it lived longer than it otherwise should have, in either game. 

There's really not much more to say here, other than that Tejek Khan did get his second Titanic kill of the crusade, but that was just about the sole bright spot in either game for my force. My opponent is a good guy, though, and so both games were enjoyable. 

Unfortunately I wasn't able to really do anything with the Centurions in either game. I believe they died to attacks on the charge both times out, and the game where I went first they didn't even make it in range to shoot their meltaguns before being charged. The Vindicator did well enough in the one game where it was able to take some shots, at least.

On the bright side, we both came away with two Requisition Points, which is always good. We've both got orders of battle hungry for more supply.

White Scars vs Orks 05/13/22

This was a game for the local Crusade campaign, against a mixed list of Orks, Goffs and Snakebites. We used the Open War card deck to generate a mission at the Incursion (50PL a side) size.

Below you can see the deployment. The red D6 in the center of the board represents a relic we were after. Any model that moved into contact with it could pick it up and then carry it until they were destroyed and dropped it. The victor would be whoever had control over it at the end of the game.

My army of White Scars:

Terminator Captain

Terminator Librarian

3x 5-man combat squads of tactial marines

5-man Terminator squad

3-man Centurion assault squad

Land Speeder Tornado

The Orks (to the best of my understanding):

Beastboss on Squigosaur

Warboss

Weirdboy

2x Nob on Squighog

2x 10-model Beast Snagga Boyz 

2x Squighog Riders

10 Gretchen

Lootas 

Orks got he first turn, and the Beastboss on Squigosaur right straight across the table toward my Land Speeder. The Weirdboy attempted to cast a buff on him, with an 11 on the psychic test. My Librarian totally shut that down with an amazing Deny the Witch roll of 12, though:

After the Orks' first shooting phase. I had a Terminator take a couple of wounds:

The Orks have now made their charges

In the Fight phase, the Beastboss killed my Speeder, but my Terminators slaughtered the Squighog Boyz after interrupting the fight order via the Counter-Offensive stratagem.

In my Movement phase, I send my Terminators and the Captain up the board a little, and my Centurions move over to address the Beastboss situation. The combat squad in engagement range of the Beastboss tried to fall back, but the Orks used a stratagem to prevent it. The one on the right moved up just a little for melta range, but also stayed in cover. 

In my psychic phase, my Librarian does some decent wounds to the Beastboss, bringing him down to 3 wounds remaining

Here I've made my charges and I believe we have skipped a few phases, but in short the Centurions killed the Beastboss, but were (wrongfully) destroyed in the process. As I would discover after the game, doing some rules research, the Orks were benefitting from rules in this game where they should not have. Mistakes and misunderstandings do happen in a game as complex as 40K.

Here the Orks' backup leader, the Warboss, has killed my Captain, and the remaining Squighog riders have charged into my Librarian and a combat squad.

In my turn, my combat squads have repositioned, and my Librarian has fallen back, so...

He shouldn't actually have been able to attempt casting (see, mistakes do happen), an attempt which caused him to die from Perils of the Warp, doing mortal wounds to each of the other nearby units, as well. This was actually the second Perils of the game, offsetting the amazing Deny from before.

Here, my Terminators have fallen back from combat to pick up the relic.

Here all of my units have made their charges for the turn.

Somehow combat didn't go as planned for the Terminators, and the Warboss got the best of them. I think it had to do with over-strong Ork rules again.

Not to be deterred, a combat squad does its best to kill the Warboss.

Then also makes a run at the Weirdboy.

Unfortunately, in the final round, the Gretchen come out of nowhere to scoop up the relic for the win!

Despite the rules interpretation handicap, I felt like my White Scars did an admirable job at handling these unruly Orks. The strategy, execution, and even the dice rolls were mostly there when needed, so I am actually chalking this up as a win in my book. I have no doubt it could have been and would have been if everything had been played as written and intended.