Five games from Warzone: Atlanta and how Kharn stands up to several different armies, using allies in the Alpha Legion to take armies by surprise!
Warzone: Atlanta 2017 was a great event and I had five great games with five great opponents. I played an army that featured World Eaters with Kharn and Berzerkers combined with Alpha legion (with 55 Cultists and 40 Noise Marines). Full list details for my list and all the others are available on Warzoneatlanta.com.
Game 1 vs John’s Astra Militarum
Wow! What a match-up! John Ross is a great guy, and a longtime friend from the General Staff gaming group in Atlanta. He was playing a list that had tons of infantry fighting alongside a host of tank commanders and artillery! It was a great army of beautiful Mordian models that was great to see on the table.
This mission consisted of four objectives, spread across the table, with each objective being worth more points the closer it was to the enemy deployment zone. This was a game where the sneaky Alpha Legion elements of the army really did their thing! I placed my Noise Marines and Cultists into concealment and won the roll to go first. They then appeared within range of John’s army and unleashed a torrent of sonic blasters that saw over 70 infantry models removed from the table. My Cultists helped out as well, and pulled off an assault that tied up some tanks, while the Berzerker Rhinos pushed up the center of the table. John returned fire with what he could, killing a whole unit of Noise Marines, but the damage had been done. We played the game out to turn five in order to share in some 40k goodness and fun as the Berzerkers and Kharn chewed through his tanks, but the game was won by the dramatic turn one.
Game 2 vs Steve’s Tzeentch Daemons
Game two saw me matched against Steve, a truly great player from South Carolina. We have played several times over the years and I knew this would be a great one. He had a beautiful Tzeentch daemon army built around horrors with Split, Heralds, and Super Chicken! He refused to have Malefic Lords in his list, and for that, Steve earned my eternal respect.
This game used the famous Warzone: Atlanta mission “Red Rover II” which has three relic objectives across the center of the table and you earn points for carrying them TOWARD the enemy deployment zone.
We each deployed in big blocks in the middle of the table and I won the roll to go first. I cautiously moved up my rhinos and Noise Marines behind a cultist screen and unloaded all of my shooting, taking nine wounds off of Super Chicken, and killing about 30 horrors after split. Steve returned fire with a wave of Smites, and flew up his Super Chicken to break open Berzerker rhinos. He killed 34/35 cultists, but the screen held true, and Super Chicken cracked open a Berserker rhino.
Kharn and his merry band of Berzerkers were quite enraged by this site, and leapt from their rhinos to claim the skull of the giant Tzeentch daemon! The noise marines also moved up and leveled their guns on the remaining horrors. In a shocking display of ferocity, 8, yes, just 8 Khorne Berzerkers backed up by Kharn for re-roll hits, and an exalted champion for re-roll wounds, and the veterans of the long war stratagem for +1 to wound rolls, did 18 wounds to Super Chicken and killed him! He then exploded in a grand display of Tzeentchian fire that killed many Berzerkers and also obliterated Kharn! Despite devastating loss of the Warlord, the World Eaters and Alpha Legion fought on, and with the back of the enemy broken, they pushed on to a full point victory by turn seven.
Game 3 vs Carter’s Ynnari
Game three saw me play against the one list in all of Warzone that I did not want to fight! It was a hard hitting Ynnari army full of Shadow Specters, and a flyer detachment with three Alaitoc Hemlock Wraithfighters! The mission involved holding progressive objectives across the table but that ended up not mattering. I lost the roll to go first and deployed back with my concealed Cultists and Noise Marines, but the Hemlocks came and ruined my day! After Carter’s turn one, I lost all my cultist, all three rhinos, and most of my Berzerkers. I retaliated valiantly with my noise marines, but good positioning around terrain by Carter kept my Line of Sight limited. Kharn pulled off a valiant charge to kill some Shadowspecters, but for the most part the power of Soulburst saw Carter dodge, dip, duck, dive, and dodge away from my offense and shoot me back in return. He even brought on the Yncarne and killed Kharn! From there it was all downhill, and the Hemlocks just melted the rest of my army. After a brutal three turns I had no models remaining and Carter carried the day. It was a rough one. I simply had no answer to the Hemlocks, and Soulburst was very hard for me to deal with. At least Ynnari have changed a lot via the new FAQ and I will not have to worry about the same tactics again.
Game 4 vs Adam Abramowicz Imperial Strike Force
Wow! Four games into Warzone and yet another fantastic opponent! Adam, the Best General himself! I was so excited for this game. Adam is a great buddy and I knew this game was going to be awesome. He had an Ultramarines shooty army with Devastators, Stormravens, and Rowboat, alongside a heaping helping of conscripts, some Ratlings, and St. Celestine and the Culexus Assassin! He had the tools to throw some real haymakers and I knew I needed to watch out.
I deployed Kharn and the Berzerkers centrally around terrain, and set a trap with the Noise Marines and Cultists. Adam deployed his Stormravens back as far as possible and bubbled out his conscripts and Ratlings to make it as hard as possible for me to get any shots vs his Stormravens. This was a kill point game, with duplicate units worth an extra kill point, with the secondary mission being The Relic. We both knew that if I didn’t take out the Stormravens then this could be over fast. Our pre-game was a battle unto itself! We rolled four times to see who would go first. We kept tying! And then, when I finally won the roll, Adam command pointed it to beat me, and then I command pointed it to beat him! It was wild. He then failed to seize the initiative, and tried again with a command point, but alas, he failed to seize the Initiative.
Adam deployed ALMOST perfectly against me, but made a small error that let me sneak in my Noise Marines and move them up to get shots on his Stormraven. My first turn was picture perfect. My Noise Marines and Cultists appeared in position and stepped up to shoot, and my Rhinos ran up the table toward the Rowboat gun line. When the smoke cleared from my shooting, all the conscripts, 10 devastators and a Stormraven were destroyed.
But Adam stayed in the fight! He retaliated and killed ALL of the cultists in my 35-man blob and got Celestine and the Culexus right on top of the Relic, and sent Rowboat into the Noise marines, killing about 10 after attacks and Morale.
At this point, I had to make a tough decision. I had Berzerkers right next to the relic and could easily get out and assault the Culexus and St. Celestine. But Adam still had a fresh Stormraven, and those two characters were quite tough. I decided that my best shot at winning was just to focus on the primary, so I ignored the relic and rushed my Berzerkers toward Adam’s deployment zone, as I knew they were the ONLY way I was going to kill Rowboat, and the various little characters he had hiding in the back.
The rest of the game can be summarized like this: Adam controlled the relic and ran toward my deployment zone, and my Berzerkers ran into his and killed what was left, taking heavy casualties as they went due to the Stormraven. I managed to kill Rowboat with a unit of Berzerkers, and Rowboat stood up and killed even more noise marines, putting my total number to only about 5 now. But the real highlight of the game for both of us was the red rampage that Kharn the Betrayer went on. Kharn’s rhino got destroyed, and Adam swept in with a Storm Raven, and a unit of conscripts he brought back to life with command points to gun him down, but he had to chew through Berzerkers first. Dying to the man, my Berzerkers were wiped out, but Kharn stood unharmed. He then went on a total rampage across Adam’s flank. He killed two Primaris psykers and a company commander, powering him up to an unbelievable 10 attacks at S9 on the charge, which he used to kill all 29 conscripts by himself! In the final turn of the game, Kharn pulled off a charge against Adam’s final model, his Banner Bearer, and Kharn swung 20 times, inflicting 35 wounds of damage! It was a game for the ages that we both finished cheering. Adam won the secondary, and I won the primary, but this was a game where it felt like we both won, it was just that much fun. It could have gone either way, but my incredible first turn just put Adam too far behind to catch up.
Game 5 vs David’s Alaitoc
Going into round five, I ran into yet another army with three Alaitoc flyers! Oh no! I knew this could be a tough one! David’s army was based around three units of Wraithguard with flamers, two giant blocks of Guardians, some Dark Reapers, 2 Hemlocks, and one Crimson Hunter. This was another progressive mission and I knew that setting a trap with the Alpha Legion would be critical to victory. David lined up his Wraithguard across the center of the board, and I did the same with Berzerkers. I set a trap with my Alpha Legion units, and David kept all his Guardians in the Webway. David won the roll to go first, so I deployed the noise marines back, but threw the big cultist blob onto an objective in the corner.
David’s first turn was awesome! His flyers zoomed into range, he advanced his Wraithguard, and his Guardians appeared from the Webway and blew away a whole unit of 20 Noise Marines in cover! Wow! That is the power of Guide, Jinx, and Doom on the same unit! At least they killed 13 Guardians when they died. He also blew up a rhino, and damaged the other two. At this point, I knew I was in trouble but I did what I could. My remaining Noise marines double fired and killed the other Guardian block, and my Berzerkers moved up to charge the Wraithguard and remaining Guardians, and my jump pack Chaos Lord came in from reserves to threaten the Dark Reapers in the back. The main thing I did here was also to ensure that I had units on several objectives, and got David’s units off of several others.
The whole game came down to this turn. I tried to eat the over watch from a Wraithguard unit with a fresh Rhino, but they killed it anyway! This was devastating, as it meant the continuing over watch from this unit would no doubt kill all my Berzerkers. But Kharn had a plan. When his rhino exploded, he disembarked behind LoS blocking terrain, and pulled off an 8″ charge to tie up the Wraithguard, and his Berserker buddies came crashing in afterwards. Another unit of Berzerkers pulled off a similar trick, and at the end of the turn my Berserker killed 1.5 units of Wraithguard, a Spiritseer, and Farseer, and consolidated toward objectives. My Chaos Lord with jump pack also made a 9 inch charge to hit the Dark Reapers and kill 5/6 of them in one round of combat, contesting the objective! This kept David from scoring any progressive points in his turn. It was an incredible swing that kept me in the game.
David’s planes brought the pain in return! Wiping out my Berzerkers and killing units on objectives, but Kharn survived! In my turn two, Kharn snuck into combat with more Wraithguard due to a handy rhino eating the over watch and killed the whole unit, while my Chaos Lord claimed an objective in the back. From there my glory was over however, and the planes did what do best, and took out large portions of my army. Kharn was done in by a high rolling Smite, and David’s planes and five reaming Wraightguard closed in on me.
This game went all the way to turn seven, and David ended up tabling me. However, thanks to my early push, I ended the game with more progressive points than David and won the primary mission. It was a great one where we both felt like we accomplished a lot and had a ton of fun!
Unit Analysis
I ended up going 4-1 at Warzone, placing 23th overall and 18th in battle out of 110. I was very happy with that and felt confident with my list. But let’s take a closer look at all the units. How did they do and are they worth keeping in the list?
Kharn the Betrayer: Kharn was an absolute BEAST at Warzone. Incredible, marvelous, amazing! He is an auto-include for World Eaters in my opinion and I never plan to leave home without him.
World Eater’s Exalted Champion: Just like Kharn, this unit is incredible. He takes units like Berzerkers and Kharn and takes them from good, to outstanding. AUTO INCLUDE with all World Eater’s lists!
World Eater Khorne Berzerkers: I simply cannot say enough good things about these guys. With the exception of the game vs the three Hemlock Wraithfighter Ynnari, these guys were game changing. You can totally dictate the game by pushing these guys up in rhinos and using their ability to fight twice to your advantage. The World Eaters Legion Trait is also super important here. While some of the other traits are more fancy, like Alpha Legion, +1 attacks just makes these guys hit so INSANELY hard that it only take one unit to completely change the game.
Alpha Legion Chaos Lord with Blade of the Hydra, Jump Pack and Combi-Bolter: This guy was a total pro in every game. He is just so flexible. I took the combi-bolter for the ability to fire the Daemon Shell at 24”, which I did use, but I am not sure if I need it. Regardless, this guys is staying in the list!
Alpha Legion Exalted Champion: This model did very little. Now, he is quite cheap, and did help me hold objectives, but walking around on foot made his hard to use. I think I will look at different options.
Alpha Legion Cultists: The power of these guys is unbelievable. -1 to hit on a model that is so cheap and can use a stratagem to be anywhere on the table is just too good to pass up. I want more!
Alpha Legion Noise Marines: What a unit! The ability to lay down such high volumes of anti-personnel fire is unbelievably good in 8th edition 40k. I the 20-man block is just so so soooo powerful, as it lets you take full advantage of stratagems. I am not sure I need 40, however, and will be looking at lists that work off of just one unit of 20.
Well, there you have it! Warzone: Atlanta 2017 was an incredible event full of laughs, great times with friends and five superb games of 40k. I highly recommend that you attend! I am already planning for next year and am busy painting Thousand Sons models in anticipation of their codex! If they have a codex by then, then I will 100% bring Thousand Sons to Warzone next year! But until then, I am quite happy rampaging across the battlefields of the 41st Millennium with Kharn, Berzerkers, and those sneaky Alpha Legion.
