Angry Merl's Chaos

Well. I wonder how many people remember Angry Merl and his controversial Jacket? I managed to get another game in with his Chaos a few days ago with his list slightly amended from last time.

His list was (roughly):
2 x Daemon Princes with Wings, Mark of Nurgle
2 x 3 Oblits
2 x 7 Plagues with 2 Meltas, Power Fist in Rhinos
8 Berzerkers with Fist in Rhino
8 Berzerkers with Fist in Rhino

So armed with our Rum & Cokes we got ready for war...




Mission was Seize Ground/Pitched Battle. Here's what the table looked like:

I won the roll to go first and deployed while he put everything into reserve. From Merl's L to R:
Empty Lasback, GH Lasback, GH in Rhino, Rune Priest with GH in Rhino, Long Fangs in the building, Wolfblob and the other Fangs behind the forest. I put a single GH in Rhino squad in reserve.

The BA models are the objectives: there's one in front of the building in my deployment zone, one in the ruins to the left and another in front of the building in the centre-right. I figured that ignoring the one to my left and forcing him to babysit it with at least 1 unit would give me a fighting chance at the one in the ruins while I had 2 Razors to hide a squad of Grey Hunters and grab the other one just outside my deployment zone.

So in my turns 1 and 2 I rush everything forward and roll plenty of 6's for terrain tests and fleet for the Wolfblob and I move a Rhino up 24" to hopefully bait out a Daemon Prince or two while trying to keep my Wolfblob more than 18" away from his table edge so I can get the drop on him in my next turn.

He gets a unit of Oblits, a Daemon Prince, a unit of Plagues, an empty Plague's Rhino and a unit of Zerks in a Rhino and sends them to grab the central objective. Far away from my men giving me more time to shoot him up before he gets to my lines. Happy days. He shoots some stuff but doesn't do any major damage.

In my turn 3 my reserved Rhino arrives and I rush my Lords out of the Wolf unit so they can take on some isolated-looking Oblits in combat while the Rhinos position themselves to support the assault in later turns or make for the objective in the ruins. The Long Fangs and Lasbacks manage to destroy a Rhino and leave a Plague squad on foot while the Claw Lord makes it into combat but the Hammer Lord ends up stranded when I roll low on his Assault move.


Mistake #1 - I forgot that even when the unit type is cavalry the Wolf Lord is still an Independent Character and keeps the Move Through Cover special rule.

The Claw Lord charges in and does a wound. After re-rolling to hit. The Oblits do 2 wounds back and I fail both saves. Jackass. I lose and pass my Leadership test.

Merl's 3rd turn sees the other Daemon Prince and the other Oblits arrive as well as another empty Rhino. The Plagues who've lost their transport move to support the Oblits in combat while one unit of Zerks moves to grab the central objective and the other Rhino stays near the 1st Daemon Prince moving toward the Claw Lord. He shoots 2 wounds from the Hammer Lord with the Oblits before charging them in with a DP for help but thankfully he survives - the Prince fluffs his attacks and I save from the Oblits but the Claw Lord isn't so fortunate and keels over against the other Oblit unit. Jackass.

I need to make a move for the objective while hopefully tying up Merl's combat units long enough to give me the game. I dump a squad of Grey Hunters out of their Rhino and move the Wolves up so they can both support the Lord - the Wolves are not great in combat but with the Daemon Prince on 2 wounds they might drag him down to 1 or even get jammy and kill him if I win combat. However unlikely that may be...

I immobilise the Red Rhino and destroy the other one with shooting and charge the Oblits and DP with the Hunters and Wolves respectively. Basically I bounced, despite the use of my Wolf Standard and the Lord died. That meant that the Grey Hunters and Wolves were now fucked. Just to reiterate it:

Yeah, you're pretty much fucked...

Yes, that's 2 Daemon Princes, a unit of Zerkers, an Obliterator and a unit of Plague Marines fighting 6 Grey Hunters and 10 Wolves. This is the pretty predictable outcome. To add insult to injury he also shot a Lascannon from a Razorback.

At the top of my turn 5 I figured that I could at least draw the game by taking out his Power Weapon equivalents - the Princes and Oblits that would ignore armour in combat, and tarpitting the rest of his units in combat. My Rune Priest and his unit hopped out of their Rhino. Well, they fell out a total of 4" including their disembark move (bunch of drunks) while their Rhino risked a Dangerous Terrain move to get into contesting range, as did the other one.

By God, I love Jaws of the World Wolf

You may notice in this picture that there is something missing from the last one - a Daemon Prince. Having decided that Lasbacks and Long Fangs should be able to remove an Oblit, a Prince on 1 wound and more than likely damage one on 3 wounds I figured I'd throw Jaws at something for a laugh: 'Never mind tactical application - luls. I'm doing this for luls.' The Rum may have been speaking by this stage but I went ahead with it anyway. Cue one DP rolling a 6 and Angry Merl cursing angrily.

Note: I was going to use Living Lighning to pull down a Prince but I knew that I wouldn't be able to get in range to contest as I wouldn't be able to attempt to assault the Plagues in front of me. So I used Jaws on the Plague Champ with Fist as my target then drew the line through him onto the Prince and an Oblit figuring that I had the best chance with the Champ and the Plagues would lose their Power Weapon equivalent into the bargain.

I was worried about the unit being out of assault range so they didn't shoot at the Plagues. The Long Fangs bagged 2 Zerks and the other Prince while the remaining Lasback bagged the Lone Obliterator (which I didn't realise was there until Merl reminded me and graciously allowed me to shoot). I'd taken a lot out of his army with that and the luck continued when I rolled a 6 to assault his Plagues (I had declared the use of their Wolf Standard to let me re-roll 1's just in case). They managed to kill a few and lost none in return but I was just happy the unit was parked on the objective and couldn't be shot next turn.

In his turn 5 he consolidated his Zerks on the central objective but apart from that he didn't really have a whole lot left. Now he did something that I thought was silly. He had a Rhino perched precariously near the objective and instead of moving that out of way to make room for the Zerks or hopping the Zerks in there he chose to move the unit to multi-charge my Rhino and GH. He had moved them in such a way that he now obscured the tank from his surviving Oblits and when he hit with a Multi-Melta I passed my cover save.

To compound matters when he tried to multi-charge the Hunters he found that he couldn't physically fit (heh) anyone into base contact with one of my models as his path was blocked by his own Plagues. The Zerks predictably tore the Rhino apart but the Plagues were wiped out by the Grey Hunters and Rune Priest's Power Weapons and Mark.


The game went to Turn 6 and I moved one Hunter squad to pop a Rhino with their Meltas before I realised I could pull off more Jaws shenanigans with the Zerks lined up nicely.The Lasback bagged one Oblit and a Rhino killed the other one on 1 wound. The Rune Priest bagged one model from the line of guys - the Champ with the Fist. Merl cursed even more and then called it. He knew he wouldn't be able to stand against the Priest and a unit of Hunters with their Wolf Standard activated. There was also the matter of the other Hunters and Long Fangs versus the Rhino...

The icing on the cake for Merl was that he'd forgotten to bring on a unit of Plagues in his turn 5 which might have made a difference. Probably not, as there were enough Marines to tie them up in combat and they had 2 Rhinos to get through first anyway. The cherry on top was when he was cleaning up his stuff and dropped his dice:

That pretty much summed up his day...