Oh, I think this will be the last one of these picture dumping blog entries. Wohoo! Time to move on then. Actually there's already another 24" x 24" modular board piece underway, with accompanying twelve (yes 12) partly modular buildings/towers to go with it. Five of them got quick spray undercoats earlier today, and I'm trying to get them finished next week.
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DEATH GUARD vs. IRON WARRIORS battle report
Anyways, here's the last one of the three 40K battles we fought last November. The first two battles (here, here & here) had the ORKS vs. Iron Warriors. This time we wanted to play a bit bigger game, and since I didn't have enough Orks, I decided to try out the Death Guard while my friend stuck with the Iron Warriors.
We picked armies of power level 120, and I just wrote down the units I wanted to use in order, and stopped when that cap was reached. Never been so easy to choose an army! From the initial plans of wielding 3 units of Poxwalkers, I changed one of them to Chaos Cultists. Because reasons. And autoguns. Basically my plan was to utilise the Death Guards aura abilities to full. So Typhus, Plague Surgeon, Tallyman and Blightbringer in the middle of the Pox Walkers. Chaos Lord and Sorcerer supporting Plague Marines and Tanks. Others trying to fit somewhere. Here's the list with some notes about the auras and things to remember.
And here's my army for the battle. Painted their base rims black. LOTS of proxying things... The single yellow guys are characters, bright green frog dude the Plaguecaster. Big guy in the middle a Daemon Prince (who was the warlord), the PIG at the back Blight Hauler. Small guys with guns Cultists, and other small guys Poxwalkers. Big green blob Plaguebearers. Others might just be recognizable.
We set up the table and objective markers. Drew this for deployment. Great news, since I propably didn't have to spend the whole game just shambling forward with the Poxwalkers.
The Iron Warriors had to deploy first. Yay for me! Very surprisingly they set up as far towards the middle as possible with all the Possessed, Helbrute, Spawns and whatnot. Vindicator at the back, Havocs with a Priest in the middle tower. Cultists (one unit in the Rhino) further east. Terminators, Obliterators and a Sorcerer on a Disc of Tzeentch (working like a jump pack) were left as reserves, ready to teleport on later. Yikes!
And here are the Death Guard on the table as well, as close to the enemy as possible. Poxwalkers with all the aura ability characters in a bubble at the middle. Plague Marines, tanks, Sorcerer and the Chaos Lord on one corner. Plaguebearers waiting in the warp to get summoned in. I was already on three objective markers at this point, while the Iron Warriors had two. And yeah, we had three random hidden objectives active for both players all the time...
Oh well, Iron Warriors get the first turn. Obliterators and the Yellow Sorcerer appear on the tall tower overlooking the entire table. Terminators find just enough space to teleport behind my lines, close to the Nurgle Daemon Prince. Crap, should be more careful with the deployment...
Even the Heldrake somehow found enough space to charge the Daemon Prince (and a few of the other Nurgle characters as well)!? IW Cultists got lured to charge the Nurglings. They'll later find out whether it's a good OR bad idea to hang out near any Poxwalkers. Someone also seems to have fired at the Nurgle Rhino which is exactly the reason I bought it. The Predator with twin lascannons got very close to being destroyed, with only one wound left remaining. Damn those Iron Warrior Obliterators, Havocs and Vindicator!
I still feel KIND of bad doing this, but I just had to. The opportunity presented itself, and I couldn't resist. My Daemon Prince Warlord got a lucky chance to play the Counter Offensive stratagem, and strike first the Iron Warriors Terminators who had just charged him. Looks like six wounding hits got through, and NONE were saved by the Terminators thick armours. So they spent a couple of command points for re-rolls, and even then only one hit was saved. How about that dice rolling?! So each and every single one of the Terminators got killed. Epic!
Next turn my Plaguecaster joined in the confusing melee, and struck down the already damaged Heldrake. Of course it exploded in the middle of my army.
A tremendous ruckus was going on in the middle of the table. Plaguebearers barely manage to find space to materialize in near the Sorcerer and the Plague Marines. I don't know what that measuring is all about. Stuff, I guess? I just love the new 40k rules, and one of the great things is that you can measure anything, anytime. It is surprisingly big thing mentally, as it loosens up the games mood a lot.
Blight Hauler, Chaos Spawns, Helbrute, a few remaining Poxwalkers, Chaos Lord and Typhus have a meeting, and they discuss politics from the perspective of religion. Iron Warriors have a word or two about the need for a change, while Typhus shares his views about the healthcare system. Elsewhere the other unit of Poxwalkers have found some easy prey from the IW Cultists.
The Iron Warriors firing positions. Boosted Havocs and Obliterators on tall buildings. Scary as s***. Unit of Chaos Space Marines defending a Casino up north.
Iron Warriors Maulerfiend and Bikers with Meltaguns closing in. IW Rhino and Cultists take on objectives on the eastern flank, and their Daemon Prince and the Yellow Sorcerer decide to join in the big fight in the middle as well.
Bikers melt the Nurgle Rhino. Somebody kills three Plague Marines. Maybe it was that Vindicator?
Lots of Nurgle Cultists start to die because of something. Frag missiles from Havocs?
Maybe that IW Rhino is now holding that objective of yellow diamonds? And firing its bolters on the poor Nurgle Cultists.
Iron Warriors Daemon Prince slaughters the Plague Surgeon. Typhus returns the favours to the IW Chaos Lord. Bloat Drone fleshmowes an Obliterator.
From the corpses of dead Cultists, more Poxwalkers join in their ranks and manage to claim the yellow diamond objective again. Elsewhere the Nurgle Cultists morale breaks and the rest of their unit flee from the battle.
Maulerfiend and Bikers get charged by the Plaguebearers. Spells are cast, and dangerous shots fired by the Plague Marines.
Nurgle fellows continue killing the Iron Warriors characters.
The Iron Warriors find out that Typhus is actually the closest model to them, so have to shoot him with everything. Miraculously he's left alive with only one wound remaining.
IW Helbrute destroyed by a group effort. Bloat Drone finishes off the last Obliterator. Even the remaining Chaos Spawn and Biker get finally put out of their misery. Looks like most of the Objectives are also controlled by the Death Guard.
A victory (8 vs. 17 victory points) for the fine folks of Death Guard! Nurgle is happy! It felt like a lot closer game than the victory points might suggest. Not much I could do with the Iron Warriors big guns. But I was lucky with the early slaughtering of their Terminators, and that majority of their army got stuck in the combat with my blob of Pox Walkers and several characters in the middle straigth away. The multitude of aura abilities I had going on there meant that pretty much everything I had was boosted in many ways, and I was able to re-roll billions of dice throughout the game.
As the Grandfather Nurgle says, it's all about LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!!!
Brilliant report! Fantastically painted and converted models, a joy to read!
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