Recon in Force

 Got together with Thunder today and fought the first mission of the Octarius pack, Reconnoitre. He used his excellently painted Navy Breachers (a little out of their element on the dusty surface of Octarius) and I used my upgraded Legionaries with the Blessing of Quintara (aka Nurgle) instead of Chaos Undivided as I try to find their first win.

The board is set up symetrical with four vantage points. You get VPs for doing a Recon action (1 AP) on top of them, with more VPs for the ones farther from your own drop zone (long edge).

Marines deploy heavy to the east.

Navy Breachers spread out.

The Navy Breachers advanced on the east side, securing the high and low ground, and in the centre taking advantage of their barricades to get a Tac op point for control of the centre of the board.

The Chaos Marines advanced carefully, not wanting to fall behind early. Despite the care, the heavy gunner takes some damage from the plasma gun breacher, but the overheating weapon hurt him as much as the marine. A bad omen.

The Shrivetalon marine ran up, whipped a krak grenade accurately to kill a breacher, then ducked into cover in the centre. The heavy gunner eliminated the plasma gunner to avoid any more plasma damage. 

The Annointed unleashed the daemon but failed to claw all the way through the shield. The Balefire Acolyte moved up to support.

The the centre the Shirvetalon came under heavy fire but his armour and blessing of Nurgle kept him alive.

As we moved into the third turning point, the breachers were feeling the effects of the loses while the marines had wounds but still standing strong.

The Annointed marine dispatched the sheild bearer and charged and killed another breacher in a display of daemonic fury.

The awe weilding breacher finally dispatched the Shrivetalon but came under heavy return fire from the heavy gunner and bled out under Octarius' red sun.

The chaos champion, inactive until now, finally reached the enemy lines and charged and killed one breacher, then shot with his overheated plasma pistol to kill another. Despite the wounds from the fight and the overheating plasma, this broke the back of the breachers and the remaining few retreated from the high ground.

Conclusion

Some bad luck dice rolls on Thunder's part combined with good rolling on my side early on meant that I was able to get a lead and roll on it to the end game. An early marine down in turn 1 or two might have made all the difference. 

Good game!