Matt's Tactics: Cower and Camp

I had a 750pt game of Warhammer 40,000 in the Dudley store this afternoon with a young man called Sam. I played my Khorne Bezerker force against his Astra Militarum, or Imperial Guard as most of us know it. Here was my army list:

	Components	Points	Total Points	Total Army
HQ	Chaos Lord	65	110	748
	Power Weapon	15
	Aura of Dark Glory	15
	Ichor Blood	5
	Mark of Khorne	10
Troops	Khorne Bezerkers (8)	162	219
	Chainaxe (4)	12
	Gift of Mutation	10
	Melta Bombs	5
	Power Weapon	15
	Plasma Pistol	15
	Khorne Bezerkers (8)	162	219
	Chainaxe (4)	12
	Gift of Mutation	10
	Melta Bombs	5
	Power Weapon	15
	Plasma Pistol	15
Heavy Support	Chaos Defiler	195	200
	Havoc Launcher	5

Sam had a Vanquisher, two Sentinels, a unit of Rocket Launchers and two 10-man squads with a Command group. The scenario was Purge the Alien (1 victory point for each unit completely destroyed) and we rolled the diagonal deployment. The terrain was laid out quite densely for a 4x4 board, with buildings in every corner, but I was still going to have to run my Bezerkers at him before I did any damage, and running in to a gun line of Guard is a very dangerous game indeed…

Sam literally came out all guns blazing by firing the Vanquisher cannon at my Bezerkers who were taking cover behind the building. In but the first turn, he managed to wipe out five from the first squad, and – due to some rather fortunate scatter dice rolls – four from the second. That was over half my army and I hadn’t even made a move.

Hiding in the building was the best they could do? Really?

What I decided to do was move my remaining Berzerkers right in to the building where they were out of line of sight. There were now few enough of them that I managed to do this with all eight models that remained (My Chaos Lord was among them,) forcing Sam to move his models in order to wipe out my remaining troops. Curiously enough, Sam didn’t rise to the bait. I’m not sure what he thought I was going to do if he did, but not once during the remainder of the game – which would have lasted at least another four turns – did he attempt to take the fight to me.

On the third turn I bought on the Defiler. On the turn it arrived, I fired the Battle Cannon onto a unit of Guardsmen standing at the back of the board doing very little. I killed all but two of them, who promptly failed their leadership check and ran off the board, giving me two victory points – one for the squad, and a secondary one for first blood.

Sam directed his rocket launchers at my Defiler after that, immobilising it and eventually destroying it – but it was too late. With only one victory point, and no hope of getting another, the game was mine once I’d rolled for Random Game Length; I won 2-1.

Sam took the defeat well, fair play to him. And a win is a win, no matter how it comes about – but somehow I can’t help the feeling I didn’t really deserve this one. Khorne Bezerkers are supposed to be ferocious super-warriors who seek out battles and slaughter, and I won the battle by getting half of them killed and hiding the others out in a building like a bunch of frightened guinea-pigs. The shot with the Defiler was a gamble, and if it hadn’t worked I probably wouldn’t have won, but that literally was the only reason I did – by having the bigger gun and getting in the first kill.

The one positive thing I will say about it is that the Bezerkers at least did their job in being fearless. Had anybody else taken that many casualties in one turn, they would have needed a panic check – chances are they would have failed, run off the board and given the game to my opponent. So I guess it was a viable tactic, and one that probably wouldn’t have worked with any other unit. It’s just not what you envisage when you take Khorne Bezerkers to battle!