Horus Heresy Video Battle Report: War of Lies - White Scars vs World Eaters and Death Guard

 Background:

The Traitors have taken control of Xhorik Prime after a grinding, vicious campaign against the White Scars and the Kozar army. The remnants of the Brotherhood of the Wind are now in hiding in the Eastern Wastes and mountains to the north and east of Kozar, terrain too remote and hostile for the large, mechanized Traitor armies to ever search thoroughly. However, just as the victory parades were wrapping up, Loyalist forces from Xhorik Secundus launched their counterattack with an interplanetary invasion, beginning with Operation Downfall, a series of attacks by Xhorik Drop Troopers, in order to clear the way for the major landings to follow. (See The Xhorik Campaign for a list of the previous battle reports.) 

Although cut off from all communications with these Loyalist allies, Turan Jorma, Khan of the Brotherhood of the Wind, decided to take advantage of the disorder to launch a series of raids to assist the Loyalist attack. He led a highly mobile band of his remaining marines deep behind enemy lines to strike at critical infrastructure and planetary defense systems. After a number of successful attacks against weakly-defended installations, a Traitor force had been sent to eliminate this disruption and to reinforce the armies under attack at the landing sites. Khan Jorma found himself becoming slowly enveloped by heavier forces. He decided he needed to breakout of the trap before it could fully encircle and trap his raiding party. 

At the same time, Praetor Wolfgang decided to bring his own Death Guard Great Company to bear against the Loyalist forces attempting to land on his newly conquered planet. When his intelligence reported that his longtime foe, Khan Jorma, was raiding near the enemy landing zones, he realized this was a unique opportunity to crush the White Scars, breaking their remaining strength while pushing his men through them to the front lines.

The result was a conclusive Traitor victory. The White Scars raiding party was now fully enveloped by the Traitors. Praetor Wolfgang assigned Chaplain Zungarz of the World Eaters to close in and finish off the Loyalists while he led the main counterattack at the invasion landing sites. In the coming battle, both sides would be fighting to utterly destroy the other and to capture the key strategic objectives. The Traitors would be fighting to claim complete victory over their long time foes while the White Scars would be fighting for their very survival.

Scenario: War of Lies

Game Length: 6 turns

Primary Objectives

War of Lies: Each objective controlled at end of game: 0 - 3 VP

House rule modification: random roll for each objective would occur prior to the game and be secretly written on the bottom of each objective where it is not visible. If a scoring or denial unit moves within 3" of the objective, the controlling player may look at the value.

 

Death Toll: Each unit destroyed or falling back at end of game: 1 VP

Secondary Objectives
Slay the Warlord: 1 VP

Strategy and Army Selection:

White Scars: Phil

The army selection was easy: I simply wanted to use my entire painted White Scars collection. When I added up all the points, I was actually quite close to the nice, round number of 3000 points. In order to use everything, I had to bend the rules to take a primary and allied detachment of the same faction. I don't really see how that is advantageous compared to taking a primary detachment of White Scars and an allied detachment of my Sons of Horus, but it is technically against the rules so I got my opponent's approval. There is certainly no intent to abuse the system to create a super powerful unbeatable combination of units here. I even honored the intent of the Chogorian Brotherhood by extending the restrictions on what can start on the table to my allied detachment, even though those restrictions only apply to the Chogorian detachment. If I was trying to power game, I would have put the dreadnought in the allied detachment and allowed it to start on the table, for example. If anything, this is a significantly underpowered 3000 point list with a notable lack of heavy weapons and heavy armor. 

We elected to use the Ambush deployment for two reasons: it was fitting for the campaign storyline with the White Scars having just been defeated in their attempt to break out from behind enemy lines, and we had never used it before so it would something new. 

I felt the Ambush deployment would benefit the Chogorian Brotherhood since I would be forced to bring quite a few units in from Reserves. In this map, the long table edges belong to the Defender, giving me ample flexibility in where they enter. The strategy was pretty simple: not to let myself get caught between the two Traitor forces that would be closing in from both sides. (Never fight a war on two fronts!) I hoped to attack the weaker side first with my entire army and, after destroying them, then turn to face the remainder of the Traitor attack. 

I won the roll for deployment and chose to go second, in order to see how Pete deployed before committing my small starting army. After seeing Pete's deployment, the details of the plan came into focus. I would direct most of my forces toward the southwestern piece of the Traitor army while using the Sabres to delay and harass the large enemy force approaching from the east. My reserves would enter on the west to help defeat that side and be ready for the surge from the east. I could use the terrain to help avoid being shot up too badly in the early turns. I would try to hold my tactical squads back from the heavy fighting to enable them to capture objectives at the end of the battle. 

I was most worried about the Red Butchers in their Land Raider. In every past battle, the combination of speed, durability and killing power of that unit and their transport has been very tough for my army to deal with. They almost always carve a path of destruction through my ranks and are extremely tough to kill. I was hoping the combination of the Sicaran Omega and the Xiphon could deal with the tank and I would be relying on my Ebon Keshig to win the day against the hated Butchers. In order for the plan to work, I would need to rely on getting the right units from Reserves at the right time: the Xiphon and Ebon Keshig and Contemptor early and the Tactical Squad later, to give it a better chance to survive. But with the Scars losing their benefits to Reserve rolls in this edition, I would be relying on some lucky rolls!

I hoped to get an early jump on the Traitors by stealing the initiative, but despite the V Legion's extra die, I failed the roll and so Pete would have the first chance to attack.

Let's see how it all played out.

World Eaters: Pete

When Phil told me he had about 3,000 points of White Scars and wanted to use his whole force in our battle, I went to work on a suitable army list. I’ve got decent sized forces of Militia, Death Guard, Blood Angels and Word Eaters, but the choice of primary detachment was easy since my big project these last couple months has been painting up some bloodied World Eaters Rampagers that I got from the Citadel store in Dallas. I don’t have enough World Eaters for a 3,000 point game however, so I decided to take some reliable, hearty Death Guard as an allied detachment. 

Phil and I decided on a fun new mission for us - War of Lies, although with some minor modifications allowing us to see the points value of the objectives once we control them. I knew I would need some decently strong “Line” troops, so I could control numerous objectives and have tactical flexibility. While building my army I forgot that my DG tactical support squad and heavy support squad wouldn’t be “Line” – since I wouldn’t be utilizing my usual DG Rite of War. But I’ve used it so many times in the past, it felt like an automatic thing… woops. Either way, my World Eater Rite of War allowed my new Rampager squad to be “Line”, so that would no doubt make up for some of the loss. I chose two massive tactical squads to go along with them, that would hopefully be really tough to kill for Phil’s White Scars. Also my World Eater Recon squad should be able to infiltrate and hold one objective, too. Of course, in addition to all those troops, I’d need some firepower! I chose to bring along my Death Guard dreadnought to support the Death Guard tactical blob, with an aligned champion to fight in challenges with other characters. For the World Eaters, they got a beastly dreadnought too and their reliable predator tank. Oh, and one more thing…THE BUTCHERS!

Once it came time to roll for deployment, losing the roll and deploying first wasn’t too bad, since it usually goes along with taking the first turn. I wanted to be able to surge forward and have two offensive turns before Phil’s Scars knew what hit ‘em. They wouldn’t have all their reserves right away, and I wanted to control the game board from the very beginning. I just had to hope he wouldn’t be able to steal the initiative!

Opposing Forces:

Loyalists: Phil

Primary Detachment: White Scars Chogorian Brotherhood

• Khan Turan Jorma: jetbike, master-crafted paragon blade, cyber hawk
  
• Consul Champion Subotei: paragon blade, refractor field, bolter, combat shield, artificer armor
• [Line] Skyhunter Squadron Khujaa: 6 jetbikes,  2 x volkite culverin, sergeant with power sword and artificer armor
• [Line] Outrider Squad Tsujen: 5 Outriders with twin-linked plasma, sergeant with power glaive and artificer armor
• [Line] Tactical Squad Temgar:10 marines with bayonets, sergeant with power glaive and artificer armor
• Rhino with pintle-mounted multimelta
• Scout Squad Chono: 10 marines with recon armor, chainswords and bolt pistols, melta bombs, nuncio vox, sergeant with power fist
• Sabre Strike Tank Squadron Ikhruud with snub autocannons, heavy bolters, and sabre missiles
• Ebon Keshig: 10 terminators, 7 power glaives, 3 power fists, 1 combi-melta, 2 combi-bolters
• Xiphon Interceptor Ariunbold with Ramjet diffraction grid

Allied Detachment: White Scars

• Cataphractii Consul Stormseer: Force sword, psychic hood, cyberhawk
• [Line] Tactical Squad: 10 marines with bayonets, vexilla, sergeant with power fist and artificer armor
• Tactical Support Squad Khoer: 9 marines with plasma guns, sergeant with power sword and artificer armor
• Anvilus Dreadclaw Drop Pod
• Sicaran Omega with lascannon sponsons

Total: 2948 points


Traitors: Pete

Primary Detachment: World Eaters Crimson Path

• Consul Chaplain Zungarz: master crafted thunder hammer, refractor field, bolter, artificer armor
• [Line] Tactical Squad Skull Collectors: 17 marines with chain axes, sergeant with power fist and artificer armor and plasma pistol 
• [Line] Recon Squad Butcher's Eyes: 5 marines, Nemesis bolters
• [Line] Rampager Squad The Pit Gladiators: 7 marines with jump packs, 3 with falax blades, 4 with excoriator chain axes, sergeant with artificer armor
• Predator Severing Cut: Predator autocannon, lascannon sponsons
• Tartaros Terminator Squad The Red Mist: 5 marines, 4 x dual lightning calls, 1 with heavy flamer and chainfist
• Contemptor dreadnought Kauragar: Gravis chain fist with melta gun, Gravis lascannon
• Red Butchers: 4 x dual power axes, sergeant with dual chain fists

Allied Detachment: Death Guard

• Consul Cataphractii Champion Vulguthrot: volike charger, paragon blade
• [Line] Tactical Squad Sons of Barbarus: 20 marines with chainswords, sergeant with power fist and artificer armor. 
• Tactical Support Squad Neverending Night: 7 marines with volkite calivers and apothecary
• Heavy Support Squad Black Vultures: 7 marines with missile launchers
• Contemptor Dreadnought Corplux:  Gravis melta cannon, melta gun, Gravis power fist

Total: 3000 points

(We only realized after the game that he should not have been able to take a Rite of War without a character with "Master of the Legion.")

 Battle:

War of Lies Ambush - White Scars vs World Eaters and Death Guard (link to video)

Post Game:

White Scars: Phil

So close! That was an intense and close-fought battle from start to finish. Both sides had moments of triumph and despair, in turn. But when the smoke cleared, the kills were counted, and the objectives were revealed, both of mine were worth 1 VP each and Pete's lone objective was worth 3 VP, giving him the win by a single Victory Point.  I cannot lie and say I am not highly disappointed to lose this one. My White Scars performed as well as they ever have, and in most scenarios, they would have won by equaling my opponent's kill count and holding more objectives. Alas, fate was not with the Khan today and the foul powers of Chaos clearly interfered to rob me of a rare chance at victory with this army!

It was particularly heart-breaking because the White Scars are normally run off the table after the first few turns and this battle was a rare chance where things lined up for a potential win. And it also makes it hard to think how to continue the story when one side has lost every phase of the campaign. This makes four losses in a row for the Scars against their nemesis, the Death Guard and World Eaters and feels like a logical place in the campaign story to close the door on that sad chapter and shake things up with some changes for the Loyalists. More to come on that. 

Unit of the Day (Loyalist): Clearly the Ebon Keshig deserve this for finally standing up to those unstoppable bullies, the Red Butchers. Their clash was an epic center point for the entire battle. To be fair, in hindsight, we misplayed a number of rules during this combat to the detriment of the Butchers, but in the end, the black-clad samurai stood victorious. And they did not stop there. They failed miserably on their chance to finish the Land Raider, but they atoned for that by destroying another unit of Terminators and then fighting the Rampagers to what amounted to a stalemate with both sides decimating each other. I credit the Ebon Keshig for 2.5 VP while giving up zero for dying. Quite an impact. Just as importantly, they showed there is at least one unit of White Scars that can go toe to toe with the Traitors after holding out against the Deathshroud and Praetor for a few turns in the last battle (just pay no attention to the fact this unit costs much, much more than the ones they were fighting...) 

Unit of the Day (Traitors): This is tougher to pick because there was no obvious choice for me. I could give honorable mention to the Land Raider and the Rampagers for the damage they inflicted, but I am going to pick the Recon Squad. They surprised me with their killing power, decimating my Outriders and pinning them (only after the battle did I realize cavalry cannot be pinned) and of course they used their Infiltrate ability to sit on an objective in a fortified position to claim a game-winning 3 VP at the end. There was some controversy here because they were selected as Scouts (not Line) in the army list, but we agreed to let them be changed to Recon (Line) since Pete claimed that was his intent. 

Key Moment: In a game this close, there were many moments where the outcome stood upon the brink of a knife. Clearly my Warlord rolling snake eyes for his armor saves against the last Rampager was crucial. The Land Raider Exploding and taking down my Xiphon in the process was another huge event that gave Pete a VP and eliminated a threat from my side (which I later realized is not correct and should not have happened). But I think the truly KEY moment was the Zungarz's charge against my Tactical Support Squad in Traitor Turn 5. The Traitors moved up close to my unit. I activated my unique Movement Reaction, Chasing the Wind, to allow my unit a full move of 8 inches to get farther back from the traitors. (I also got to move the Dreadclaw over his unit and it inflicts hits as it does so, for a kind of cool combo.) Due to the terrain, the table edge and the unit's position, they ended up only about 9 inches from the Traitors. Pete announced his charge and then I used the Assault Reaction Overwatch to kill 7 Traitors with plasma fire! In the old edition, this would have killed the closest models and made the charge impossible to make. But with Pete able to remove casualties from the back, he was still 9 inches away and he rolled a 10 for his charge distance! Once in close combat, the World Eaters decimated the entire unit and my Stormseer for 2 easy VP. I also look back and wonder if I would have tried to move the Ebon Keshig into the path to partially block or disrupt the charge if that would have had an effect (Chasing the Wind lets me move all units within 12 inches of the offending unit). Had that sequence gone differently and he did not make that charge into the plasma squad, I could have continued to whittle his tactical squad (and Warlord) down with firepower.

World Eaters: Pete

Wow, one of the best games we’ve had in… years? Dramatic, fantastic, intense and fun. And long - like 7 hours, but that goes with the territory in a 3,000 point game of Horus Heresy. Only through some wildly lucky bounces of the dice did I win this game, but it sure felt like there were no losers in this one. I happened to have the 3 VP objective near my deployment zone and I was able to position an undefeatable chunk of firepower on top of it and defend it from turn 1. I had a fine overall strategy though, as I was able to see 4 out of 5 objectives by turn 2, allowing me to re-focus my force as needed. Although I think the objectives should have all had more weight – since each unit killed was also worth 1 VP, greatly reducing the value of the objectives.

One could imagine my disappointment when my DG started on the destroyed tank objective and I saw it was worth zero VPs. But I tried to use my best poker face and bluff my way into Phil deploying a sizeable chunk of his force to come to waste a great deal of effort in stealing the worthless objective form me. I’m also proud that I played much more aggressive than I usually do. A great example of this is my DG with their champion surging forward to lock the jet bikers in close combat in turn 2. That whittled them down significantly, and prevented them from circling around my tactical squad and blasting them to little Death Guard bits!

My heavy support missile launchers were positioned to guard the ruins objective in my deployment zone, but Phil sent his whole army to the task of splitting my force in two and destroying one side at a time, leaving this poor unit with very little to do. And once he saw that I didn’t send any line scoring units over to it – Phil could correctly guess it wasn’t super high VPs. I did run them forward in the later turns and they got a few shots off.

The Butchers finally met their match today, and it was almost poetic the way they got carved up by the glorious samurai Ebon Keshig emerging from the smoking edge of the deployment zone. Ten 2-wound terminators who mostly strike first vs four 2-wound terminators isn’t a close match it turns out. It was about time that the tables were turned between these two units and the Ebon Keshig were heroes of the day. But that did ruin my plans for that side of the board and got me sweating. When it came time to rush the Tartaros terminators into combat with the remaining Kehig, I knew they’d be vaporized, since they were running AP 3 lighting claws meant for tactical marines vs. terminators – but they needed to keep witling them down so my Rampagers could finish them off.

I agree with Phil that my unit of the battle was my Recon Squad, who are perhaps a little too deadly with their nemesis bolter sniper rifles. They have practically infinite range and scored quite a few head shots. We’ll see how they continue to fair in future games, now that I expect Phil to send some bikers, plasma gunners or scouts their way to eliminate them from the game board before they can do too much damage. In this game however, they went unchecked for 6 turns and were a big help for my army.

And hats off to Phil for the top notch video battle report. This is so cool that it immediately makes me want to plan our next scrap and roll some dice! This is the best this hobby can get!