Ambush on Teritarius Secundus

Mephiston, Lord of Death

Equipped with Dante's order to find and retrieve the Ruby of Millennia, the Red Heavens rapid strike vessel entered the Teritarius system. If the scriptures were correct, Mephiston should find the relic on Teritarius Secundus, but where? The data slate held by the Servitor only showed derelict land and ruins of civilizations long gone. As he was still pondering over the map, to his irritation Mephiston received a faint psychic signal from the planet's surface. Quickly he assembled his troops for planet fall to investigate this mysterious hint.

Welcome to my battle report where Blood Angels fought it out with Sven Emmert's Chaos Daemons (both 1'500pts). It was my first game in 40K 7th Edition after remaining abstinent to 40K for three years.

I drew Unleash Rage and Wings of Sanguinius for mephistons psychic powers plus got Quickenning on top of them since I drew them all from the same discipline.

The Blood Angels at the location of the psychic signal after planet fall. Unfortunately, they had to realize the signal came from Chaos Daemons lingering in the ruins. Were they after the relic as well?

The Scouts quickly moved and occupied the mission objective (MO) in the central ruined building.

The Baal Predator Guarding the right flank took a first hit from that daemon engine (or whatever the hell (literally) it was).

The Death Company and Lemartes jumped over the building to meet the incoming Juggernaut. The dice said that the Furioso was out of charge range.

The Herald of Khorne issued a challenge to Lemartes who was buffed with all of Mephiston's spells. What a fool!

After the Death Company was done and my turn was over, the table looked almost clean again. ^^

The beginning of Sven's turn saw dozens of deep striking daemons...

...as all his units arrived from reserves.

To make matters worse, this winged greater daemon came in on the left flank with me only hitting it on Snap Fire.

The Baal on the right flank got attacked by the daemon engine and lost its last Hull Point (HP).

The daemons ran and flew to my right flank committing pretty much all their forces there to crush Mephiston and his Tactical Squad.

Back in my turn, the Furioso charged the daemon engine and put an end to it.

Although they were between hammer and anvil, Mephiston pushed his Tactical Squad forward to the green MO on the right flank nearby to deny the daemons from having it. Bolter fire erupted and killed three daemons in the process - way too few. The Death Company moved to the MO in the center of the table...

...and to also take care of that warp gate repeatedly spawning daemons who could run unchecked and take posession of MOs.

Because of fortunate missions and clever tactics, I was able to pull a substantial lead, albeit being heavily outnumbered and probably dead on turn 4 latest.

On the Daemons' turn 3 they simply charged and a huge mess resulted. Not learning from his comrade, this Herald of Khorne challenged Mephiston to another duel. In an epic showdown, Mephiston stabbed him in his chest with the fully charged force weapon while the daemon crashed down his axe for a final decapitating blow.

On the left flank, the Tactical Squad got charged by the remaining daemons to deny possession of the MO on the very left. The Veteran Sergeant disappeared in the resulting challenge before he could swing his Powerfist.

The only true asset still in my hands were these Scouts high atop their battlefield in their ruin.

The start of my turn 3 saw me committing the full Death Company to this single daemon. It was an overkill, sure, but I don't wanna run into the risk of losing valuable victory points (VP) there. I considered splitting Lemartes off the main host, but I still didn't like the idea. In the end it was shots from three Bolt Pistols that killed this monstrosity of Khorne.

On the right flank, the Furioso charged into the daemons and started to grind his way through them. While the Furioso itself didn't take any damage and provided a solid stopper, the daemon killing cadence was way too slow.

The daemons in turn 4 decided to charge the Scouts in the ruined building, but the Scouts defensive fire killed enough daemons to make their charge fall short!

The daemon host that ran unchecked on the left took firm possession of the MO there.

By now,  Sven and I were totally equal on VP with both clocking in at nine counters.

Turn 5 saw all these monstrosities killing the hardy Scouts...

...while the Death Company killed another two daemons emerging from the warp gate bringing me valuable VP.

A dice roll of 1 announced that the game wasn't to continue beyond turn five so I narrowly won with 13 to 10 VPs.

Conclusion

I haven't had such a blast in a game for a long time. The new Maelstrom Mission heavily changed the character of 40K, the game is much more fluid now and the risk of simply having to run my assault units into a static gun line are smaller. After complaining about GW's product strategy for the last three years, I got to try and experience a new 40K that indeed is fit for friendly fluff games. Sven's list played a large role in this one, too, of course, but the constant tight margin of VPs showed that I could keep up despite being heavily outnumbered. In the end, both Sven and I won this game four having entertaining four hours on a dreary Saturday.

Fluffwise I am not as happy as the Death Company survived while everyone else died on the battle field, in other words exactly the opposite of what I was aiming for! The MVPs in this battle clearly were the hardy Scouts and the Furioso. Scouts usually are throw away units who sometimes don't even make it through turn 1 (I am looking at you, Goatboy), but this time they simply held to the bitter end. The Furioso didn't listen to the chatter in forums of how bad Dreadnoughts have become in the last two editions and simply killed one daemon after the other. The Furioso's only issue was speed as it was footslogging around the battle field. Getting that Librarian Dreadnought back from last edition with Wings of Sanguinius that allow it to charge would be sweet. However, in the end it's a good feeling that two "bad" units turned out to be the game winners for me, so I guess that serves as another hint that 7th Edition has become better for casual gaming.

When Mephiston opened his eyes again, he looked into a blurry skull filling his entire field of vision. "Where am I?" he whispered. "You are on the Red Heavens. Rest, brother," answered Lemartes muffled voice, "Astorath has been sent for."