TheChirurgeon’s Road Through 2021, Part 19: The Asgard Games RTT

Welcome back, Dear Reader, to my ongoing, weekly slog toward some level of competitive respectability in the 2021 ITC season. In my last update I played a practice game with my Thousand Sons and talked about some of the challenges inherent in jumping to a new army, especially with the requirement of painting said army before LVO given how much of a pain in the ass it is to paint Thousand Sons.

So I had a real decision to make heading into this past weekend, where I had signed up for an RTT at Asgard Games in Houston. Namely, what the hell was I going to bring as my army? Generally speaking, I had three options:

1. Play the Death Guard again. The Death Guard are my best option competitively – I know I can win games with them, they’re still above average in terms of power, and I’m comfortable playing with them. Plus they’re all painted pretty well.
2. Play the Thousand Sons. I’m one game in with my Thousand Sons and I at least have an assembled army I can field at this point. That said I’m not comfortable with them and I’m really loathe to take an unpainted army to an event. Especially when there’s a best painted prize on the line.
3. Play Chaos Space Marines. I recently updated our Start Competing articles on the various “regular” flavors of Chaos Space Marines, and with the Death to the False Emperor buff they’re definitely a bit more attractive an option than they used to be. Of course, within Chaos Space Marines I have several options to consider. Let’s come back to that.

Ultimately I wanted to get back to CSM for at least a few games so I decided to go that route. I don’t want to bring an unpainted army to an event and I’m sick enough of my Death Guard to shelve them, even if it means my chances of going 3-0 are almost nothing as a result. If you were hoping to read about me playing Thousand Sons again I’m sorry, but I’ll be back in a week or so with more practice games, I promise.

Building a Chaos Space Marines List

OK so I went with Chaos Space Marines. The question is which Chaos Space Marines? Here’s the big challenge: Whatever I took had to be painted, and I only had about 5 days to get the army ready. Let’s look at my options:

• Night Lords: I have a lot of Night Lords, but I’m short on the models I need to make them work. I have quite a few raptors and bikes but the raptors are still on 25mm bases and will need to be updated, plus I’ll need to paint another 5 warp talons and I probably want to add a winged Daemon Prince to the list, which gives me quite a hobby load for only five days. I like my Night Lords, but they may need to wait a bit.
• Black Legion: I’ve got Abaddon, I’ve got some terminators (but only 5), and I’ve got Dreadclaw Drop pods. Plus painting black with steel trim isn’t too bad. This is a strong option. The downside is that I don’t have contemptors or a lord of skulls and painting a lord of skulls in five days isn’t going to happen.
• Iron Warriors: This is where there’s the largest gulf between “what I have” and “what’s competitive.” I have only a defiler and a Heldrake on my list of Iron Warriors daemon engines, and there’s too much to do here to finish on time.
• World Eaters: Another area where I’d realistically need a lord of skulls, plus probably three vindicators to compete. Plus almost all of my WE berserkers are on 25mm bases, so that’s a lot of hobby work.
• Emperor’s Children: Unfortunately my Emperor’s Children so far consist of 6 noise marines, so they’re out as an option.

Ultimately, I decided on the Black Legion, primarily because I already had a dreadclaw painted up for them and because they’re my best-painted army by a considerable margin. I’m extremely proud of my Abaddon, in particular.

So there are a few things I knew I needed with this list. The first is some kind of long-range firepower. Chaos Space Marines just don’t have that, so I decided to go ahead and pull from my Death Guard. I’ll be including a Death Guard Detachment with this army, running a spearhead of Plagueburst Crawlers and a Malignant Plaguecaster. He can toss out a lot of mortal wounds and, if I need him to, sit on the middle of the table and do Warp Ritual or Psychic Interrogation, giving me a third secondary option that CSM really kind of need. That basically ties up all my ranged firepower, so the rest can be pure melee/alpha strike madness.

As a Warlord, I definitely want Abaddon for his suddenly-great trait and the extra 2 CP. I need some Cultists here to do activities and hold objectives, and I want a block of 10 terminators I can use to bully opponents off objectives and tank damage, which is possible with some help from a Sorcerer with Delightful Agonies. I go back and forth on a Dreadclaw full of Berserkers but with some advice from Michael Pestilens eventually settle on filling it with Obliterators and a Master of Possession. He suggested Havocs but I don’t have time to paint those so I’m going to go with a much worse option instead, but one that lets me use my Master of Possession.

So with all that more or less decided, here’s the list I ended up on:

Rob’s Chaos Space Marines List

++ Black Legion Battalion Detachment 0CP (Chaos – Chaos Space Marines) [72 PL, 12CP, 1,380pts] ++

Legion: Black Legion

• Stratagems +
  Council of Traitors [-1CP]
  Gifts of Chaos (1 Relic) [-1CP]

• HQ +

Abaddon the Despoiler [11 PL, 2CP, 220pts]: 6. First Among Traitors, Warlord (+2 CP)

Master of Possession [5 PL, 95pts]: Cursed Earth, Mutated Invigoration, No Chaos Mark, The Eye of Night

Sorcerer [5 PL, 90pts]: Arch-Sorcerer, Bolt pistol, Council of Traitors, Delightful Agonies, Force axe, Mark of Slaanesh, Prescience, Warptime

• Troops +

Chaos Cultists [3 PL, 50pts]: x10 Mark of Slaanesh, Autogun
Chaos Cultists [3 PL, 50pts]: x10 Mark of Slaanesh, Autogun
Chaos Cultists [3 PL, 50pts]: x10 Mark of Slaanesh, Autogun

• Elites +

Terminators [16 PL, 300pts]: Icon of Excess, Mark of Slaanesh
. Terminator: Combi-bolter, Lightning Claw
. Terminator: Combi-bolter, Lightning Claw
. Terminator: Combi-bolter, Lightning Claw
. Terminator: Combi-bolter, Lightning Claw
. Terminator: Combi-bolter, Lightning Claw
. Terminator: Combi-bolter, Lightning Claw
. Terminator: Combi-bolter, Lightning Claw
. Terminator Champion: Combi-bolter, Lightning Claw
. Terminator w/ Heavy Weapon: Lightning Claw, Reaper autocannon
. Terminator w/ Heavy Weapon: Lightning Claw, Reaper autocannon

• Fast Attack +

Dreadclaw Drop Pod [6 PL, 115pts]: Mark of Slaanesh

Raptors [5 PL, 95pts]: Icon of Excess, Mark of Slaanesh
. 4x Raptor: 4x Astartes chainsword, 4x Bolt pistol, 4x Frag & Krak grenades
. Raptor Champion: 2x Lightning Claw

• Heavy Support +

Obliterators [15 PL, 315pts]: Mark of Slaanesh
. 3x Obliterator: 3x Crushing fists, 3x Fleshmetal guns

++ Spearhead Detachment -3CP (Chaos – Death Guard) [32 PL, -3CP, 620pts] ++

Plague Company: The Inexorable

• HQ +

Malignant Plaguecaster [5 PL, 95pts]: 2. Gift of Contagion, 5. Curse of the Leper

• Heavy Support +

Plagueburst Crawler [9 PL, 175pts]: 2x Entropy cannon, Heavy slugger
Plagueburst Crawler [9 PL, 175pts]: 2x Entropy cannon, Heavy slugger
Plagueburst Crawler [9 PL, 175pts]: 2x Entropy cannon, Heavy slugger

+++ 2,000 Points, 9 CP +++

The general plan is that Abaddon walks with the Terminators and Sorcerer until it’s time to slingshot him across the table with Warptime. One of the CSM’s biggest problems is not being able to take multiple Warlord Traits but Black Legion at least get me a second trait on a sorcerer, which I can use to take either Arch-Sorcerer or Warp Lord and I opt for the versatility of three spells over re-rolling 1s on psychic tests. The cultists sit back and do RoD and screen the PBCs, while the Raptors deep strike in to RoD and harass enemy units. The Dreadclaw full of Obliterators drops out turn 1, the MoP gets out with them and buffs them with Mutated Invigoration and Cursed Earth, and then hopefully they delete something off the table shooting twice. The added bonus is that on turn 1 I can use Tip of the Spear with them to give them full re-rolls to hit as the unit closest to enemy units, which lets me bypass the need to pair them with a Chaos Lord. If they survive to later turns I can use Let the Galaxy Burn on them to get re-rolls of 1 to hit. They’re an expensive unit to shoot – it’ll cost me about 8 CP to double-shoot them twice at full power – but worth it if I can do enough damage on turns 1 and 2.

Let’s Paint Some Terminators

One reason I went with this army build was because I had everything but five terminators already built. Granted, none of them really had the right loadouts, but I could get away with not going full WYSIWYG on terminator weapons for this particular event so that made this a bit easier.

My process for painting Black Legion dudes is pretty straightforward, and that makes this relatively easy. I start with a primer of Abaddon Black, then I paint that with Abaddon Black again and blend that up in two steps to Corvus Black to give the black parts a bit more color variety. Next I outline the edges of the trim with Mechanicus Standard Grey and edge highlight with that gray.

The trim is either Leadbelcher washed with Nuln Oil and highlighted with Ironbreaker or Retributor Armour washed with Agrax Earthshade. I tend to do more gold trim the higher the rank of the unit, so terminators get metal trim with gold trim on the shoulders and helmets. The chosen of Abaddon get full gold trim.

For the bone parts I do Rakarth Flesh, wash with Agrax, and then highlight with Rakarth and Reaper Polished Bone. The Red parts are Mephiston Red washed with Carroburg Crimson and highlighted with Evil Sunz Scarlet. And the orange cables are Jokaero Orange washed with Fuegan Orange, then highlighted with Averland Sunset and Flash Gitz Yellow. 

The end result is an army I’m pretty happy with and one that’s good enough – particularly with my better centerpiece models – to win Best Painted at most small events. I like its chances in anything that doesn’t require display boards, basically and while I know some of the people in the local area – particularly Greg “Klobasnek” Narro – are good painters, I think this bests what I’ve seen of theirs (and Greg has to work that Saturday anyways). So if I don’t go 3-0 (and I won’t), I’ll at least take home Best Painted.

The Asgard Games RTT

Alright, let’s talk about the event. This was Asgard’s first time running a 40k event and turnout was bigger than expected – we ended up almost filling all 16 slots, with 14 players showing up and that’s with a few locals I know being unable to make it. As a result, I volunteered to take some terrain down for two tables to ensure we had good setups. This is a mixed bag – on the one hand, I’m happy to provide some support for a local store, on the other hand it means I have to be there until the entire event has concluded. Which ended up being later than I wanted, as the event didn’t start until 10am. On the whole though the event had a good group of people, though maybe only four were running what I’d consider competitive lists, myself included.

Round 1: vs. Brendan Muller’s Cadians

It’s round 1 and I’m already out of luck. The Astra Militarum are normally a cake walk for my Death Guard even with their recent boosts, but going up against them with Chaos Space Marines they’re an absolute nightmare – they can use Vengeance for Cadia every turn for full re-rolls to hit and wound on their full paylord Manticores, and the Relic of Lost Cadia will also give them an insane full re-rolls aura to pop for a turn 1 alpha strike. On top of that I’m rocking 2W terminators with a 5+ invulnerable save, which means I’m going to feel every bit of that damage. My only chance is to go first, hopefully do some damage in the alpha strike, then use the lock-in mechanic on objectives to prevent him from taking primary from me after he clears out my backfield. Oh and hope my PBCs stay up.

Brendan's List - Click to Expand

Brendan’s got a pretty Cadian army, and he’s using the new supplement rules to give him 3 absolutely nasty tank commanders, plus two full payload manticores. This wouldn’t be so big an issue for my death guard but all of this shooting is a nightmare for my Chaos Space Marines.

The Mission: Sweep & Clear

The event is going for a facsimile of the GW terrain, which is admirable, but the layouts aren’t being changed or adjusted for the mission, so some tables are playing with the dawn of war deployment version. Ours is not, but the terrain itself is a far cry from what GW has, and that works to the Astra Militarum’s advantage in some ways.

My Secondaries:

• Retrieve Octarius Data
• Direct Assault
• Assassination

Brendan’s Secondaries:

• Assassination
• To the Last (Pask and the two Tank Commanders)
• Retrieve Octarius Data

The goal here is to basically kill the tank Commanders, since each one is worth 8 points to me. The squishy characters are another bonus if I can get them but it’s gonna be an uphill climb. The tanks suddenly having a 2+ save will be a big help for them since as an army I’ve only got the entropy cannons for AP-4 and none of those will get re-rolls to hit.

I’m going first.

That’s a huge help. This honestly wouldn’t even be a game if I wasn’t, and this army kind of depends on getting first turn anyways.

This game was pretty miserable. Not because it wasn’t close – it was, but because there wasn’t much I could do in the long run. I had an OK first turn, where I was able to take out the Leman Russ Punisher after some abysmal rolls from the Obliterators made it clear taking out two targets wasn’t an option (they rolled 1 on damage all four times), but after that it just went Brendan’s way and never stopped.

My dice were OK in this game on the whole – not great, but not terrible, but Brendan was on fire. He literally rolled 11+ shots with every. single. tank. every. time. On turn 3 I finally told him he had to roll some different dice – yes, they were that good – and he proceeded to own the shit out of me by rolling 11+ shots with my dice from there on out. He didn’t drop to something resembling average until turn 5, when he finally rolled 8 shots for one of his tanks. Admittedly part of this is re-rolling shots with the order, but even with that he was well above average on his results. The effect of this is that I couldn’t keep anything on the table. I put up a decent fight, managing to wipe out his Tempestus Scions as they came in, but I couldn’t break through and get the extra wounds on Pask I needed since he was sitting on dense terrain all game and getting a +1 save bonus on top of that from his primaris psyker.

The combination of always having 11+ shots meant there wasn’t a thing I could do to keep units on the table, either hidden – the manticores could just take them out – or putting them forward on cover, where the sheer volume of shots would mean that cover saves and feel no pains just weren’t enough. Not being able to hide means I couldn’t keep units on other objectives to hold them long enough for primary scoring, since anything I put on the north objective would get blown off by Manticores before it could score. In theory I could keep a unit of Cultists up there, but they can’t survive multiple 11-shot barrages of anything so after turn 2 I didn’t score more than 5 primary again, though that also was because of some double-6 advancing Conscripts Move-Move-Moving 24″ to sit on the middle objective in a timely fashion. This might not have worked given they were left within Intervention range of Abaddon, who could have wiped them out before my turn, but then Brendon rolled 12 for Pask’s demolisher shots on the Despoiler and everything worked out in his favor. RIP.

The final score was 78-70 and I might have made it 73-70 with some better shooting but ultimately this was only close because I went first. It’s a terrible matchup for CSM and a rough way to start but I’ll recover.

Result: 70-78, Loss

One hour lunch break. I think these are excessive, to be honest. I try and eat a big breakfast before events to make lunch a non-factor, and I’d much rather finish early and go get dinner, especially if the event is running 2.5 hour rounds like this one. I’d rather have 30-45 minutes to eat, tops, and then jump into the next round.

 

Round 2: vs. Jake Stefano’s Imperial Knights

Knights aren’t an army I’m super happy to see normally but Jake’s are not a particularly nasty brand of knights and the terrain layout favors me on this mission since it means I can just shoot the knights through these walls. That’s good news for my PBCs. This is an example of where we’re playing hammer-and-anvil on GW’s dawn of war layout however, and so there are big open sightlines in the middle of the table, which are perfect for shooty knights.

Jake's list - click to expand

Knights can always be daunting, particularly since some units just don’t meaningfully interact with them. The upside here is that Jake’s not running the really good knights, so I don’t have to worry as much about Magaeras completely wrecking me or lightning lock moiraxes. That’ll help keep my PBCs on the table.

The Mission: Battle Lines

This is a good mission for Knights, where the small number of objectives gives him an easier time of holding multiples without spreading out, and the new ObSec and model count rules for knights give him a big boost in that regard.

My Secondaries:

• Bring it Down
• Retrieve Octarius Data
• Psychic Interrogation

Jake’s Secondaries:

• Stranglehold
• Grind Them Down
• Vital Ground

With three big knights (9) and three little knights (6), I can max out Bring It Down here, and that’s a better beat than Titanslayer since it’ll reward me for killing anything and not just the big knights. I don’t like trying to hold objectives while knights are on them so Stranglehold is out but with 3 knight characters Psychic Interrogation is in play as something I can score if I don’t kill the three knights too quickly, and I can do it over the ruins with my Plaguecaster, who isn’t going to use Curse of the Leper on them anyways. If I do kill them too fast well, I’ll have already won the game so who cares.

I’m Going Second.

That’s not ideal but I can hide well enough on the terrain and I do. There isn’t much for Jake to do on turn 1 and while he can score Stranglehold and set up for Vital Ground he also gets aggressive, pushing his Cerastus Lancer up to where I can get a turn 1 charge on him. Score.

So on my turn 1, I drop some mortal wounds on it and then clean it up with Abaddon, taking the Terminators along for the ride as well. Meanwhile the Obliterators drop in to the backfield and wipe out a Helverin and drop the Crusader down to 13 wounds. The Entropy Cannons do work, taking the Acheron down to single digits.

From there it snowballs. Jake’s able to pressure some of my objectives but I warptime Abaddon up on turn 2 and take out the Crusader while taking out the Acheron with the PBCs. Some armigers stick around to cause problems but I’m able to mop them up with the PBCs after my cultists fall back. I table Jake on turn 3.

Result: 88-55, Victory

Well, 1-1 isn’t too bad. I’m liable to face someone else 1-1 in my last round, and that should help. At least, that’s what I thought. Instead I got paired up into Robert Rettew, who I last faced off against at Austin in round 3 day 1. He’s 2-0.

 

Game 3: vs. Robert Rettew’s Salamanders

This isn’t a particularly winnable game for me, especially if I go second. Robert’s Salamanders are a much better army who have the ability to ignore AP-1 shooting and he’s been tooling and refining them over several events to deal with armies much better than mine. The big advantages I have are the PBCs, but if I don’t get a good alpha strike in, he’s gonna clean me out.

Robert's list - click to expand

The Mission: Scorched Earth

We’re technically playing on the correct configuration for a dawn of war deployment for GW terrain, but the terrain itself is oriented wrong and it’s strongly not in my favor – it’s almost impossible for me to hid in these ruins, and I’m certain to get shot turn 1. These needed to be rotated 90 degrees. Though at this point I’ll say that getting random, rough terrain layouts is basically part of the RTT experience.

My Secondaries:

• No Prisoners
• Retrieve Octarius Data
• Engage on All Fronts

Robert’s Secondaries

• Raise the Banners High
• Assassination
• Stranglehold

I don’t have the durability to make Stranglehold work here and Robert’s bikers are likely to make my life difficult if I try banners. My options are pretty bad against Robert, really. He can give up to 10 on No Prisoners, which seems like an OK bet, and I can probably get some Engage points with my deep strikers, so that could work. Add in RoD and I have a solid plan to score… 85 points. Yeah, this isn’t a real winnable game for me.

I’m going second.

That’s basically the game. Robert knows enough and has the models to block me out turn 1, preventing me from getting easy Engage points, and because my terminators can’t hide in their ruin, he can just kill half of them on turn 1. I put up a fight but the Obliterators can’t get much done when they drop thanks to some bad AP and damage rolls — I need AP-2 to even make a dent, and 1 damage is pretty much always going to be bad. I do good work killing Robert’s units but never quite fast enough to keep them off objectives and I don’t have the forward pieces to hold them once I’ve cleared them, especially with his ability to give two units ObSec.

The lowlight of the game comes when Robert’s second Redemptor charges Abaddon, leaves him alive on 1 wound, and then I pay 2 CP to interrupt with Abaddon, who promptly rolls a 1 for Drach’nyen and kills himself. Man fuck this game.

Robert’s never really in danger of losing this game and has maxed his primaries by round 4. I’m able to make 40 happen since I’ve killed most of his army – the PBCs put in work, even if they were mostly average, including one well-timed 12 damage volley into a Redemptor – but the trades are never in my favor.

Result: 74-95, Loss

Robert wins the event on points, in part thanks to the 4 VP he scored off Abaddon’s suicide. On the plus side, I did end up winning Best Painted, taking home some store credit, a box of blue horrors (which I needed), and a Sergeant Dillon model. It’s a fine haul and while I don’t love going 1-2 (I thought 2-1 was possible but these were some rough matchups to take on), I can live with it. I knew going in this wasn’t a good army and would need a strong first turn to be competitive, so this wasn’t far from what I expected.

 

What I Learned

The upside is that I learned a few important things this time around:

• Obliterators are pretty bad. They were disappointing in pretty much every game I played, and they cost way too much for their output, especially given the support they need. Having to roll for stats every time and getting shit 1/3 to 1/2 the time is not good. It’s definitely time to paint up some Havocs.
• Don’t bring terrain to an event if you want to leave early. I’m happy to help but in this case I didn’t realize bringing terrain to help meant staying until 7:30pm and missing the opportunity to get dinner with the missus. I’ll probably have to think twice about that one in the future, but I’m always down to help build terrain at the store if they need more.
• Playing CSM definitely felt worse than playing Death Guard. I know I said I was sick of playing Death Guard but I honestly didn’t realize how good I had it with an army that doesn’t just eat complete shit going second. I know my particular build of Chaos Space Marines isn’t the top option but man you can straight up feel when you roll up to the table and it’s not gonna be a W for you. That’s been something I felt much, much rarer with Death Guard.
• Adjustments for next time (if there is one). I don’t know if I’ll play this army again, but if I do, here are a few things I’m going to change:
  • The Plague Company will be the Poxmongers. There’s not a ton of value in the Inexorable -2 to charge stratagem if I’m just gonna screen the PBCs with cultists and people just make those charges against me anyways. May as well just be able to shoot my way out of them more effectively instead.
  • The Plaguecaster will swap out Gift of Contagion for Miasma of Pestilence. Gift didn’t matter much and it’ll be better to protect the PBCs if I have to deal with good shooting again.
  • Obliterators swapping out for Havocs. This was mostly a models issue but it’s time to paint up some Havocs.
  • Adding a Leviathan. I don’t really like the Terminators in the list and I’ll probably look at adding some contemptors and other vehicles to give something like Russell Tassin’s list a shot. Havocs might not be the play I go with either, tbh. In part that’ll be because I really don’t like traveling with the Dreadclaw.

Basically playing CSM was an interesting diversion and I’m glad I did it, but it wasn’t particularly fun to play an army that’s just worse than my last one. I was definitely feeling a bit burnt out by the time I got home that evening.

 

Next Time: Recapping the Year

That does it for this update. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed my journey so far and are interested enough to see where it goes next. I’ve got some more games lined up in the next couple of weeks, but next time I’ll likely recap my year, what I’ve accomplished, and what’s next. Until then, if you have any questions or feedback, drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.