Short and undetailed battle report! My first proper outing with my new Night Lords

Armies and Deployment
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Night Lords - Black Crusade Detachment
Chaos Warband
Chaos Lord - Power Sword, Power Axe, Jump Pack, Stormbolt Plate, Sigil, Gift
Chaos Sorceror - Terminator Armour, Mastery Level 3, Spell Familiar, Gift
5x Terminators - 3x Combi-Melta, Autocannon, Pair of Lightning Claws
7x Chaos Marines - Plasma Gun
7x Chaos Marines - Plasma Gun, Powersword
10x Raptors - Powerfist, 2x Meltaguns
5x Raptors - Powersword, 2x Meltaguns
7x Warp Talons
Helbrute - Autocannon
Spawn
Spawn

Khorne Daemonkin CAD
Daemon Prince of Khorne
Khorne Beserkers - Axe Of Khorne
Khorne Beserkers - Axe Of Khorne
Khorne Beserkers - Axe Of Khorne
8x Chaos Cultists
8x Chaos Cultitsts
Heldrake
5x Raptors - Lightning Claw
Forgefiend
Forgefiend

So in my review of Night Lords I wrote that they were a bully list, and they had to pick their battles, and that "you're not world eaters." Well, lets see if that holds up.

The other game I had with them was a big apocalypse game vs Deathwatch and Grey Knights, so we're now at 2-for-2 where "Fear" is completely useless. I might keep a running total.

The board is 6 by four, with lots of craters but not much high cover (because we had a board with some pictures of craters on, but someone else was using all the terrain, so we put some books and foam and my Death Guard Tanks on the tabletop and made the best of it.) We have objectives in opposing corners, plus two in no-mans-land.

He wins all the deployment rolls, and sets a forgefiend and cultists in each corner, the prince and raptors in the middle, and the beserkers spread out between them. I put the big squad of raptors on one side, with the helbrute and spawn on my objective, the marines in cover in the middle, and the lord and talons on the flank opposite his objective. The lord rolls D3+1 rolls for his Gift, and starts on his way towards becoming a Gifted Monster.


Game
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Everything advances, as khorne is wont to do. There's a lot of careful measuring, since he really wants to get the charge on me and I really want to get the charge on him. One forgefiend fails to scratch the Helbrute through cover, and the other shoots at the Warp Talons. What do I care, they've got a 3+... and four of them are dead. Oh. I don't advance, because i'm a Night Lord and a coward, and I think the measurement works out that I can get the charge if I want. My CSM squads shoot the prince - one plasma gun explodes, then the bolters reduce him to one wound. Nice!

His Heldrake comes in and immediately flames the big raptor squad, killing more than half of them, because they're grouped up and because I forgot about his heldrake. Man, I can't wait for my magnets to come in so I have one of those. The forgefiends shoot again - one shakes the helbrute, and the other kills the rest of the warp talons. The Daemon Prince tries to charge the solo lord, and fails due to cover. The Prince in particular is now abandoned in front of my gunline. All my reserves (the small raptor squad, and the sorceror and terminators) come in: The sorceror lands practically on the prince and raptors, and the small raptor squad goes for one of the forgefiends, but scatters out of range. All the Sorceror's Psykery goes off, giving the terminators Endurance, and killing the prince with Smite, before shooting and killing three of the raptors. The Helbrute is forced to try and charge, but it fails it's charge on the beserkers.

Next turn the Heldrake wipes out one of the CSM squads, and the beserkers try to charge the other but fail. On the other flank, the beserkers fail to charge the raptors - he's made and failed a lot of charges this game. One Forgefiend Glances the helbrute, and the other fails to damage Terminators with Endurance, unsurprisingly. The Cultists charge my units from reserve - the terminators make short work of theirs, but the raptors only kill a few, meaning they're locked in combat, boo. In my turn, the terminators can only take a single hull point off the forgefiend. Everything charges! The Helbrute charges the nearest squad of beserkers and gets blown up by an overwatching Krak Grenade. The remains of the large group of raptors charges the beserkers and - holy ****, they've got a lot of attacks. All the raptors die. The Lord kills the last of his raptors, and the remaining CSM squad charges three berserkers (the remains after shooting of one squad) and are immediately wiped out. Holy ****, that's a lot of attacks. The raptors kill all but one of the remaining cultists, meaning they're locked in combat, yay. I've failed enough 3+ saves to assume that a shooting phase from the forgefiend would wipe them out.

I've only got a single spawn left on one flank, and he's hit seven Blood Title points, swapping one of his Beserker Champions for a Daemon Prince. That squad then splits up - the prince goes for one objective, and the leaderless marines to the other. In the assault phase, my raptors finally kill the poor last cultist, and the depleted squad of beserkers that just wiped out my CSM charges the lord, and gets sliced up. In my turn, the spawn sensibly flees the daemon prince, the raptors melt one forgefiend, and the terminators charge the other. They'll still be on the objective, but my shooting is crippled now my meltas have been fired, but I can still glance it with mauls and the staff, and it doesn't get to charge me.

So an intermission for a moment. He's got a squad of beserkers on one objective and a Daemon Prince on another. I can put the spawn on a third, and I have ObSec Terminators on the fourth, but he's got a whole uninjured squad of Beserkers running around, ready to claim or deny objectives, and there's nothing I can do about it... except my Lord. I've not been detailing the dozens of Boon rolls i've been making, but he's now pretty nasty. He's got a 2+ re-rollable, he's got Eternal Warrior and Shred and Fleet and +2 Weapon Skill (and Stubborn three times, but they can't all be winners). Charging a full block of beserkers is stupid... but I could totally pull it off.

These slaves of darkness would be unaffected by his usual terror tactics: something more direct was needed. Luckily, he had always been very skilled at direct, and right now the power of chaos undivided was burning in his veins. Rogan stepped out from behind the burned-out rhino and flourished his fauchard.

"Greetings, gentlemen," he said "I'm here to show you what is possible without bonding yourself to a master."

With an unholy, shrieking roar, the champion of the beserkers charged him. "Blood for the blood god! Skulls for" - Rogan's fauchard flashed, and the champion's head was neatly sliced from his shoulders.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Rogan said. "Were you talking? Skulls for who?"

The rest of the beserkers charged him, and his fauchard flashed again.

He slices up the only guy with AP2 in a challenge, and nobody else even scrapes him.

Turn five, nothing much happens. My raptors approach the beserkers on an objective, ready to charge, and the terminators can't hurt the forgefiend. Over the two assault phases, Rogen slices up the rest of the beserkers he's fighting, and takes no wounds in return. Listen, lucky boon rolls can do so much for you, even without getting Prince'd. Seriously seriously consider if you want to skip the Black Crusade, I know Night Fighting would have done basically nothing for me in this game.

The game doesn't end. At the top of turn six we're drawing: he has two objectives, I have two, we both have linebreaker, he has First Blood and I have Slay The Warlord. I need to block or claim another objective to win, and I have one squad of raptors to do it with. If I charge the beserkers and survive, I can block them from that objective and win. Three raptors make the charge, but take eight wounds in combat. Eight armour saves... only two fails! If I can pass a leadership test on LD7 I win... I do! One raptor denies the objective, and it's a victory for the lords of night.


Conclusions
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Man, I love Boon rolls. Man, I love this Lord (its a cool model too.) The past game I was in, he and his warp talons came in from a Raptor Talon and charged a unit of purifiers, chopping up Castellan Crowe in a challenge. Warp Talons are never going to be as murderous as other things I could take, but they're pretty fun.

I've got a Heldrake waiting to be assembled, and even more raptors hanging around - including some of the old winged type, which I bought for a steal from a guy at the club. I can probably make this a good list with two heldrakes at 1850, or swap them for the second lord and extra raptors needed to take both the Warband and Raptor Talon - or just go with a CAD with tons of stuff. It's all fun.


Speaking of which. Anyone know of where I can find things to extend bases from 25mm to 30mm? The rest of my army is on 30mm bases and these old models are on 25mm. I've found some online, but I'd prefer not to order from across the pond if possible - any UK sources?