Battle Report: Chaos Space Marines VS Ultramarines

I played a 1500 point game on Wednesday night, with my Nurgle marines taking on the boys in blue. My list was my usual one I've been running the past couple of games. My opponents list was roughly:

Marneus Calgar
5 Assault Terminators (3 Lightnings Claws, 2 TH/SS)
10 Tactical Marines, Veteran with power weapon, missile launcher
10 Tactical Marines, Veteran with power weapon, missile launcher
10 Tactical Marines, Veteran with power weapon, missile launcher
10 Assault Marines, Veteran with power weapon
Predator with lascannon turret
Vindicator

The mission was capture and control, with a dawn of war setup. I won the roll for deployment and opted to go second, mainly so I could grab any objectives on the last turn and see where he setup. Both of us held our terminators in reserve to deep strike and deployed the requisite number of HQ and troops on the table. Here's how things looked at deployment roughly (my units where a bit further back on the edge of my table half (I had a PM squad in a Rhino):



As you can see (hopefully...) my objective was bottom right of the picture, his top right.

Turn 1 kicked off with the marines and Marneus in the top right advancing, and the reserves coming on. His Predator took a pop at my Rhino but it made its cover save, and Marneus orbital strike killed 4 of my Nurgle marines around my objective, who lost another of their number to the Vindicator. I bought my reserves on in my turn, so at this point we looked something like this:



Morbus the Foul, daemon prince of Nurgle, jumped over the woods, cast Nurgle's Rot and then charged the tactical marines, smashing 5 of them. The marines thought better of sticking around and ran, to be charged down by Morbus. Good start for him. He consolidated back into the trees. My Defiler continued this good start by stunning the Predator with its Battlecannon.

Turn 2, and the Ultramarine Assault Squad and a tactical squad advanced towards my objective and Marneus moved to shoot at the DP (with no effect) but was too far away for a charge. The UM vindicator took out another PM around my objective. In my turn, the Vindicator rolled forwards but was out of range and my Defiler advanced. Morbus jumped onto the Predator (I was hoping to be out of charge range of Marneus Calgar) and comprehensively destroyed it in assault. My Rhino moved behind the cover of the hill.

Turn 3, there was a general advance of his remaining assault and tactical marines towards my objective, and Marneus Calgar just proved to be in charge range of Morbus. His Assault Terminators arrived in the space to the right of my objective, very near my Defiler and a Plague Marine squad. In combat, my DP turned out to be higher Initiative and WS than Marneus (God of War my ass :P), but I spectacularly rolled 4 1's for my attacks... Marneus caused two wounds in return. In my turn, the Vindicator fired on the advancing tactical marines, killing several. The Defiler and Plague Marines killed 3 assault terminator with gun fire and the Defiler squashed the remaining two in assault. This was a relief to me as they would have torn me apart. My terminators arrived and deep striked close to his objective hoping to contest it. I stupidly forgot to fire with them though...

Approximate positions at the start of 3rd Chaos turn with Chaos Terminators about to arrive

Turn 4, his Assault Marines doubled back to attack my terminators, but were out of assault range. Meanwhile my terminators shot up and charged the tactical marines in front of them. The other tactical squad was destroyed over this turn and the next by shooting from the Defiler, Rhino havoc launcher and Vindicator. Marneus killed off my Daemon Prince, but not before receiving two wounds in return. The Ultramarine Chapter Master played no further part in the battle, being too far away from the combat. I think he was mourning the Predator he was stood next to. Anthrax squad of Plague Marines, having got out of the Rhino, stunned the Vindicator with a melta shot.

Turn 5, my Vindicator and Defiler began a rush to the Ultramarine objective to contest it. Anthrax squad advanced close to the Vindicator to shoot it with the meltagun and assault if necessary. It wasn't as it exploded from a melta shot. The Assault marines charged the terminators, who were already engaged with the remains of the tactical squad.

Turn 6-7's only action was the terminator combat. They broke the tactical marines, who ran off the table. In turn, the terminator broke from combat in turn 7 but fortunately they stayed alive.


The result was a win for me, as I was holding my objective and no one was holding his. All my units performed pretty well. My daemon prince had been lacklustre in his previous two outings did well in this battle, taking out a tacitcal squad and a predator. The defiler and terminators also did well. I'm not sure I'm using my troop choices to their full advantage to get the most of their formidable abilites, they almost seem to expensive to sit babysitting an objective. Overall, I was pleased, as by concentrating my efforts on one part of his army and destroying it at minimal cost to me meant I was in a good position to deal with the rest.

Hope you've enjoyed reading this, any feedback or glaring errors always welcome.