Epic 4K: Black Legion vs Codex Astartes

My buddy Dave has moved back to town (or nearby anyway, as he has a horse that needs a country location), and he came over to catch up and have a game the other day. I used my Chaos with some freshly painted units, and he used his Marines, also with some freshly painted units!

Dave went for a force with a heavy air assault component.

Incompertus, 4000 POINTS
Codex Astartes (NetEA Tournament Pack 2014)
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ASSAULT [225]
4 Assault Units, Chaplain

ASSAULT [225]
4 Assault Units, Chaplain

LAND SPEEDER [200]
5 Landspeeder

THUNDERHAWK [200]

THUNDERHAWK [200]

THUNDERHAWK [200]

TERMINATOR [400]
4 Terminators, Chaplain

TERMINATOR [400]
4 Terminators, Captain

TACTICAL [525]
6 Tacticals, 6 Razorback, Supreme Commander

DEVASTATOR [250]
4 Devastators

DEVASTATOR [250]
4 Devastators

WARHOUND PACK [500]
2 Warhound Class Titans

WARHOUND [275]
1 Warhound Class Titan

SCOUT [150]
4 Scouts

My list was as follows:

Incompertus, 3985 POINTS 
13TH BLACK CRUSADE BLACK LEGION (2014 Armybook Edition) 
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RETINUE [380] 
8 Chaos Space Marines, (Chaos Undivided), Chaos Lord, 3 Rhino, Chaos Land Raider

RETINUE [315] 
8 Chaos Space Marines, (Chaos Undivided), Chaos Lord, 4 Rhino

RAPTOR CULT [315] 
(Chaos Undivided), Chaos Lord, 8 Raptor

HAVOC RETINUE [225] 
4 Havoc units, (Chaos Undivided), Chaos Lord, 2 Rhinos

DEFILER ASSAULT PACK [275] 
4 Defilers, (Chaos Undivided)

DEFILER ASSAULT PACK [275] 
4 Defilers, (Chaos Undivided)

DEFILER ASSAULT PACK [275] 
4 Defilers, (Chaos Undivided)

RETINUE [350] 
8 Chaos Space Marines, (Chaos Undivided), Chaos Lord, Obliterator

RETINUE [350] 
8 Chaos Space Marines, (Chaos Undivided), Chaos Lord, Obliterator

RAVAGER TITAN [650] 
(Chaos Undivided)

CHOSEN [125] 
4 Chaos Space Marine Scouts, (Chaos Undivided)

ARMOURED COMPANY [225] 
(Chaos Undivided), 3 Chaos Predator, Chaos Land Raider

ARMOURED COMPANY [225] 
(Chaos Undivided), 3 Chaos Predator, Chaos Land Raider

Turn 1

Dave set up with his Supreme Commander guarding the blitz, scouts ahead, and Warhounds behind a hill.

I spread out along my baseline, refusing my right flank more than the left.

I win Strategy Roll. An armoured company advances and shoots the Scouts, and then they are engaged and destroyed by my Retinue.

In the centre of this Retinue, one of my two Obliterators - my only anti-air cover!

Dave, being a fan of cavalry and impetuousness perhaps, swoops in with Assault marines vs my Ravager Titan. This goes poorly, and the Assault marines lose two units each, and the Thunderhawk is destroyed. The Ravager is undamaged but loses a couple of void shields.

Dave retains, and Devastators arrive by Thunderhawk, engaging my Raptors. My Raptors charge towards them on the off chance the combat goes another round. But no the Raptors lose the combat and six units for no casualties on the Devastators.

My Ravager moves and kills a couple of Devastators.

Broken Chaos Raptors, and broken Assault Marines hide either side of a hill in the centre of the table.

Warhounds move and unload all their firepower on my Retinue, breaking them and killing my Obliterator.

Warhound "Old Yella" joins them and destroys one of my tanks.

Long range shooting between various formations occurs, with Devastators losing more units, and one of my tank foramtions breaking and retiring. Here's the situation at the end of the turn.

Turn 2

Here comes the Terminators! No blast markers from teleporting.

And the Marines win the Strategy Roll and assault.

The ravager takes 3 damage from normal hits, and then has to save nine macro weapon hits(!). But I get lucky and only fail one!

The Ravager loses and retreats with 2 damage remaining, and two terminators are killed.

Warhounds engage my next Retinue in a firefight, but lose.

Staying where they are, and in turn assaulted by Defilers.

Defilers lose one of their number but damage the Warhounds who again stay!

The Retinue then engages and destroys one of the Warhounds.

My remaining Raptors march and take the right flank objective.

End of turn!

Turn 3

Marines win Strategy Roll again. Terminators attack and break another retinue for the loss of one terminator unit.

I double and shoot the Land Speeders.

And then engage the Landspeeders with Raptors, but both Raptors die to multi-melta hits before the firefight support from Defilers can occur. Not a great assault choice by me.

Chaos continues to try and mop up on the left flank.

The last red Warhound dies.

Chaos take the left flank objective. The Ravager doubles and takes a long shot with its tail gun at Assault marines guarding the right flank objective. Needing a 5+ to hit, which hits, and then the Marines fail their 4+ save. 

That's enough to give the Chaos 'Take and Hold' and 'They Shall Not Pass' Victory Conditions. Chaos win 2-0.

Conclusion

Interesting game and first time in ages I've played a Marine air assault list. I think the first Assault Marine aerial assault against the Ravager was a bit optimistic, especially with the supports it had. I think he would probably have also been better dancing away a bit more with the red Warhounds, though he was using these as a tempting block to try and focus my attention away from his blitz objective which is what happened. Otherwise a bit of bad luck in not killing the Ravager with Terminators but an interesting game resulted nonetheless! First time for Dave using his newly painted Warhounds and no doubt co-ordinated tactics with them and the air assaults will continue to improve. Anyway great to have Dave back in town!