Battle Report - DKOK Imperial Gaurd Vs Emperors Children Chaos Marines

So I managed to get a game in today and I thought it would be a good opportunity to test out the newly approved Emperor's Children and they were going up against my well refined DKOK list. Also a solid opporunity to explore the use of fortifications for the DKOK. 

Here's the lists we used (generated on Armyforge - https://traitor-legion.appspot.com/)

The Emperors Impressive Dkok

REGIMENTAL HQ [400]
Death Korps Supreme Commander, 19 Death Korps Infantry

TRENCHWORKS [75]
80cm of Trenches, 20cm of Razor Wire, 4 Bunkers

DEATH RIDER COMPANY [275]
12 Death Korps Rough Riders

DEATH RIDER COMPANY [275]
12 Death Korps Rough Riders

SUPER-HEAVY TANK SUPPORT COMPANY [500]
3 Stormsword

SUPER-HEAVY TANK PLATOON [200]
Shadowsword

SUPER-HEAVY TANK PLATOON [200]
Shadowsword

DEATHSTRIKE SILO [225]
Death Korps Deathstrike Missile Silo

HEAVY SUPPORT BATTERY [125]
3 Hydra or Heavy Anti-Aircraft Platform

HEAVY SUPPORT BATTERY [125]
3 Hydra or Heavy Anti-Aircraft Platform

THUNDERBOLT FIGHTERS [150]
2 Thunderbolts

THUNDERBOLT FIGHTERS [150]
2 Thunderbolts

WARHOUND TITAN [275] 


The Emperors (least favourite) Children (who also stand in as Black Legion and Red Corsairs if you were wondering about the dark colour scheme....)

RETINUE [350]
6 Chaos Marine units, Stalker, Replace 2 chaos marine units with 2 Noise Marine units, Chaos Warlord (Supreme Commander)

RETINUE [300]
6 Chaos Marine units, Chaos Marine, Daemon Prince

RETINUE [275]
6 Chaos Marine units, 2 Chaos Marine, Sorcerer Lord

RETINUE [255]
6 Chaos Marine units, Sorcerer Lord, 3 Rhino

CHOSEN [145]
4 Chaos Space Marine Chosen, 2 Rhino

CHOSEN [125]
4 Chaos Space Marine Chosen

EMPEROR'S CHILDREN TERMINATORS [275]
Chaos Lord, 4 Terminator

EMPEROR'S CHILDREN TERMINATORS [275]
Chaos Lord, 4 Terminator

QUESTOR TITAN [300]

SUBJUGATOR TITAN [250]

SUBJUGATOR TITAN [250]

CHAOS THUNDERHAWK [200] 

NOTE: Just as I've written this up I've realised the list is slightly illegal being 50pts over in the 'support' section... Ah well needs some tweaks! 



And here's the table with the fruits of my recent terrain making labours




Here's a deployment shot with Gaurd at the top. A little more spread out than I would have liked in hindsight. 



And a more detailed view across the table of the Chaos forces marshalling on the gaurd left and right 

 

Turn 1  
Chaos pulls of a classic alpha strike teleporting in against the Deathstrike silo and taking it out in a smooth CC, they did get a bit enthusiastic though and critted the silo losing a terminator in the explosion. Termies were then whittled down by starting with a crossfire from the Warhound and finished off with blast markers. 



On my right the fury continued with the thunderhawk strafing 3 rough riders and chaos marines aggressively advancing into the church ruins 
A shadowsword Volcano cannon snipes two shields and a DC off the questor Titan only to watch it Marshall off the damage and walk away.
On the last activation of the turn the remaining thunderbolts are told to intercept the thunderhawk and do so in spectacular fashion bringing it down with a full unit of traitors including a daemon prince inside. Woot! 



In the centre the marines in the centre woods go on overwatch and the rough riders advance to prepare to see them off. The Stormswords failed to activate so just wandered up the middle aimlessly. 
Final chaos activation sees the subjugator run a full triple to get all up on the face of the Stormswords hoping for a chaos win on the strategy roll. 



Turn 2 
Chaos wins the roll off and in comes the subjugator only to whiff completely inflicting a total of one damage... Unsurprisingly he then breaks and runs away from the grinning Stormswords. A retain with the terminators makes up for it bringing down the Warhound for no losses. Sadly for the chaos termies a shadowsword was on hand to return the favour followed up by enough shots to wipe them out with blasties. 



The Gaurd respond in the centre with the rough riders wiping out the unit of marines in the woods though are broken in return and are in turn. The rest is positioning with the subjugator getting ready for a turn 3 charge against the bunkers and the volcano cannons sniping shields where they can 
Rally phase sees roughies in the middle rally whilst the ones on the back edge fail. The broken subjugator stays broken and the rest clears blasties and regains shields. 

Turn 3 
Chaos win strategy and the chosen move up to put a blastie on the bunkers followed by a subjugator who charges in to give free reconstructive surgery. Sadly the gaurdsmen prove too numerous. And the subjugator is destroyed outright for the loss of 3 gaurdsmen. 
On my right the Stormswords and thunderbolts break the chaos marines who were advancing to take the objective whilst the chosen marines engage and break the Shadowsword who thankfully is fearless so no great loss. 



In the centre the remaining chosen are broken by thunderbolts and the questor Titan was sniped again by the shadowsword (neither of them missed a shot this game...) before being broken by the gaurdsmen as they surged forward out of their trenches to cross the half way line. 

  

Net result a very close 2-0 for the Dkok forces which was helped a heap by some amazing dice. The shadowswords hit 5/6 shots doing 3 damage every time and the thunderbolts blew a full thunderhawk out of the sky without a single crit being taken. My feeling is that the chaos marines had every tool they needed to win but just couldn't overcome some of those key issues. Teleporting was used really well and had that thunderhawk been there for backup it would have been a different sorry. The new Emperors Children is a solid marine list, I'll do a full write up soon. 

Hope you enjoyed the read!