Death Guard & Nurgle Daemons vs Dark Angels (1,000 pts) – Battle Report

My fourth game of 9th edition would be against the Dark Angels.

List Theory

I’d already decided before my last game that I would take the same list again. Partially this was a time thing, both games would be in the same week. But another factor was wanting to run the same list twice so as to see how it would handle different types of armies. One game would be against the numerous Astra Militarum and the other would be against the elite Dark Angels.

Anyhow read the last battle report to see how that went and to read about the theory of the list.

The Game

Setup

Deployment

We rolled the Resupply mission from the Grand Tournament 2020 book.  This gives us a primary of controlling at least one of the five objectives with increasing points for controlling more. Three of the objectives are along the centre line of the battlefield, from the fourth round onwards this would start to be removed. We then secretly select our secondary objectives.

I select:

1. Secure landing sites – A mission specific secondary. VPs would be earned for controlling any central objectives with the points increasing as some are removed.
2. Raise the banners high – Take an action on an objective to claim it for more points.
3. Mental Interrogation – 3VP each time a Psyker performs this psychic action with 18″ of an enemy character.

The Dark Angels select:

1. Secure landing sites– The mission specific secondary.
2. Engage on all fronts – Get into three quarters or all quarters of the board.
3. Domination – Control more than half of the objectives.
4. Bring it down – Kill big things

We will deploy on the long sides of the table. My plan is to hold the objective in my deployment zone with the bolter equipped Plague Marines, deploy the Nurglings onto one of the centre line objectives, take another central one with my Plagueburst Crawlers and the final central one with my plasma equipped Plague Marines. That should do the trick. There’s a big scary Dreadnought which I’m hoping I’ll be able to nail in turn one with my Foul Blightspawn.

Battle Round 1

• 

  The Death Guard advance

• 

  The Dark Angels open fire

My forces advance and I can’t quite reach the Dreadnought with the Foul Blightspawn, so I spend 1CP for Overwhelming Generosity to boost his range out to 15″. Then it’s another 1CP for Foulgush so that I can roll extra dice for his random weapon and pick the highest. Then it’s another 1CP to re-roll the number of attacks which still came as one. And after 3CP I did about six points of damage leaving it with six. The Dark Angels have a stratagem to reduce incoming damage by one point, which on three 3 damage attacks is really annoying. So a lot more stuff had to fire at the Dreadnought and I still didn’t kill it. My plasma equipped Plague Marines had been victims of my tactical genius and didn’t have line of site to the Dreadnought. Curses. Not a good first turn.

The Dark Angels mostly hunker down aside from there being a push towards the centre with a squad of Intercessor Marines. They open fire, I’m lucky in that I only lose a Marine or two and a Nurgling. Phew.

Progressive Scores

It’s a low scoring round but I’ve positioned myself in the centre and raised my banners on two of the objectives, fingers crossed I’ll be in a good place moving forwards.

• Death Guard & Deamons
  • Primary +0 (0 pts)
  • Secure landing sites +0 (0 pts)
  • Raise the banners high +0 (0 pts)
  • Mental interrogation +0 (0 pts)
• Dark Angels
  • Primary +0 (0 pts)
  • Secure landing sites +0 (0 pts)
  • Domination +0 (0 pts)

Battle Round 2

• 

  A Primaris officer charges!

• 

  Heavy casualties all round

I juggle my forces, the objective in my deployment zone can be held by the Poxbringer leaving the bolter equipped Plague Marines free to push on into the centre. My fire is now able to remove the Dreadnought and clear the central objective. The flying speeder is also taken down. But I’m not doing enough damage to the Hellblaster equipped Marines in the ruins near the Nurglings. They’ve got a 4+ invulnerable save due to buffs and I’m just not hurting them sufficiently.

The Dark Angels don’t seem to want to leave the cover of the ruin that they’re in. They sit there and hammer away at my forces. I loose more Plague Marines and, more worryingly, my Foul Blightspawn and one of the Plagueburst Crawlers. I’m beginning to feel like I’m running out of firepower.

Progressive Scores

I’m doing well on points, but I’m taking an absolute hammering to do it.

• Death Guard & Deamons
  • Primary +10 (10 pts)
  • Secure landing sites +4 (4 pts)
  • Raise the banners high +2 (2 pts)
  • Mental interrogation +3 (3 pts)
• Dark Angels
  • Primary +5 (5 pts)
  • Secure landing sites +0 (0 pts)
  • Domination +0 (0 pts)

Battle Round 3

Due to time this will be the last round of the game. Both sides have taken heavy casualties but Nurgle controls the centre line of objectives, and the therefore the extra points that they bring.

The last Hellblaster falls and now the Marines are down to bolters. The Marines abandon on of their own objectives in an attempt to dislodge the Death Guard from the centre of the table but they fail and fall.

Progressive Scores

• Death Guard & Deamons
  • Primary +15 (25 pts)
  • Secure landing sites +4 (8 pts)
  • Raise the banners high +2 (4 pts)
  • Mental interrogation +0 (3 pts)
• Dark Angels
  • Primary +0 (5 pts)
  • Secure landing sites +0 (0 pts)
  • Domination +0 (0 pts)

Final Score

It’s a clear victory for the followers of Nurgle.

• Death Guard & Deamons – 52 points
  • Primary +0 (25 pts)
  • Secure landing sites +0 (8 pts)
  • Raise the banners high +2 (6 pts)
  • Mental interrogation +0 (3 pts)
  • Battle ready +10 (10 pts)
• Dark Angels – 18 points
  • Primary +0 (5 pts)
  • Secure landing sites +0 (0 pts)
  • Domination +0 (0 pts)
  • Bring it down +3 (3 pts)
  • Battle ready +10 (10 pts)

Post Game Thoughts

• This game really shows how the game is now about focussing on the objectives. Killing things is no longer enough, a lesson my second game of 9th really taught me. Both sides were killing each other and inflicting substantial casualties. But Nurgle was doing this while sat on the scoring objectives,
• I’m really pleased with how the Nurglings performed, they just sat on their objectives and earned me points. They attracted some fire, but there were other things that my opponent seemed to want dead more. So the Nurglings just hung on in there. I’ve ordered another box so I have enough to do two squads of five 🙂
• The Poxbringer taking an unwounded Plagueburst Crawler up to STR 8 was really useful in this game. Against the guard having S8 isn’t that big of a deal, but against Marines with their T4 it means that you’re double and wounding them on 2s. Wonderful. I took him as a cheap Nurgle HQ that could add in some psychic stuff but in this game his buffing really played out nicely.

The List

Total: 52 PL, 3CP, 1,000pts

Patrol 0CP (Death Guard) [44 PL, 5CP, 835pts]

Configuration [6CP]

• Battle Size [6CP]: 2. Incursion (51-100 Total PL / 501-1000 Points) [6CP]
• Detachment CP
• Plague Company: The Poxmongers

Stratagems [-1CP]

• Gifts of Decay (1 Relic) [-1CP]

HQ [5 PL, 80pts]

• Chaos Lord [5 PL, 80pts]: 6. Arch-Contaminator, Bolt pistol, Chainsword, Warlord, Wormspitter

Troops [18 PL, 330pts]

• Plague Marines [6 PL, 120pts]
  Plague Champion [28pts]: Plague knife, Plasma gun [10pts]
  2x Plague Marine w/ boltgun [36pts]: 2x Blight Grenades, 2x Boltgun, 2x Krak Grenades, 2x Plague knife
  Plague Marine w/ special weapon [28pts]: Plasma gun [10pts]
  Plague Marine w/ special weapon [28pts]: Plasma gun [10pts]
• Plague Marines [6 PL, 120pts]
  Plague Champion [28pts]: Plague knife, Plasma gun [10pts]
  2x Plague Marine w/ boltgun [36pts]: 2x Blight Grenades, 2x Boltgun, 2x Krak Grenades, 2x Plague knife
  Plague Marine w/ special weapon [28pts]: Plasma gun [10pts]
  Plague Marine w/ special weapon [28pts]: Plasma gun [10pts]
• Plague Marines [6 PL, 90pts]
  Plague Champion [18pts]: Boltgun, Plague knife
  4x Plague Marine w/ boltgun [72pts]: 4x Blight Grenades, 4x Boltgun, 4x Krak Grenades, 4x Plague knife

Elites [5 PL, 85pts]

• Foul Blightspawn [5 PL, 85pts]: Ironclot Furnace

Heavy Support [16 PL, 340pts] +

• Plagueburst Crawler [8 PL, 170pts]: 2x Plaguespitter [40pts], Heavy slugger
• Plagueburst Crawler [8 PL, 170pts]: 2x Plaguespitter [40pts], Heavy slugger

Patrol -2CP (Daemons) [8 PL, -2CP, 165pts]

Configuration [-2CP]

• Chaos Allegiance: Nurgle
• Detachment CP [-2CP]

HQ [4 PL, 75pts]

• Poxbringer [4 PL, 75pts]: Miasma of Pestilence

Troops [4 PL, 90pts]

• Nurglings [4 PL, 90pts]
  5x Nurgling Swarms [90pts]: 5x Diseased claws and teeth

Death Guard & Nurgle Daemons vs Astra Militarum (1,000 pts) – Battle Report

This is my third game of 9th edition 40k and will be against Jake from Cadian Shock. I’ve lost my first two games, can I improve?

Jake’s write up of the game can be read here.

List Theory

1,000 Point Death Guard & Nurgle Daemons List

Feculent Gnarlmaw

It’s been a busy few weeks, I actually took some time off and didn’t paint at all for a couple of weeks. So this project has been in the pipeline for a while now.

Initial Assembly

• 

• 

The Gnarlmaw has an internal cavity that I wanted to paint before the tree was fully assembled, it would be impossible to reach after that. So the base of the cavity and the walls of the tree were painted up before I glued the tree into place.

Death Guard vs Astra Militarum (1,000 pts) – Battle Report

My second game of 9th Edition, this is against Jake from Cadian Shock.  I was stomped in my first game, how would this go?

You can read Jake’s own report on this game here.

List Theory

Looking back on my last game I decided that I had built a trick list around the Blight Grenades.  I had little room for manoeuvre if that strategy failed, and failed it did.  So with this game I was looking to build a list that would still let me try some of the new things from War of the Spider while also being a bit more “solid”.

The list started to be built around Myphitic Blight Haulers.  I haven’t played them in a long time.  They’re reasonably cheap (compared to Plagueburst Crawlers), would give me some anti-tank firepower and if I take the Poxmongers as my Plague Company I can give them a 4++ invulnerable save and let them all withdraw from combat and shoot (the stratagem affects a whole unit).

Horticulous Slimux

Assembly and Painting

Lots of detail.

Sub assemblies.

I painted the snail and the rider separately only glueing him into position when both were complete.

The Flowers

You can see the white PVA.

More flowers.

Death Guard vs Space Wolves (1,000 pts) – Battle Report

This was my first game of 9th Edition.  I was somewhat “lost” when I started to prepare for this game.  9th is so different and yet, at the same time, so similar to 8th Edition.  With 8th I feel like I got to know it all quite well, I knew how my army worked, how it interacted with the rules, how it interacted with missions and how it interacted with some opponents.  With 9th it’s a clean slate, so I had to start somewhere, and this is it.

List Theory

I am still digesting the new rules for the Death Guard in War of the Spider and so picking a few more things from that seemed like a good idea to kick me off into 9th.

Death Guard vs Death Korps of Krieg (601 pts) – Battle Report

And so here it is, what I presume will be my last game of 8th Edition 40k.

List Theory

I decided that I wanted to end 8th Edition back where I began, so I took the army from the Dark Imperium boxset as my list.  I boosted this with a few things from the War of the Spider book to try them out:

• I selected the Wretched as my Plague Company.
• I paid one additional CP to give my Malignant Plaguecaster the Wretched’s Sevenfold Blessings, this allows him to re-roll one of the dice whenever he makes a Psychic Test.
• I made the Lord of Contagion the Warlord and gave him the Wretched’s Eater Plague trait.  If he kills things in melee combat he would regain woulds.
• I gave the Noxious Blightbringer the new Daemon’s Toll relic, this would give the Plague Marines a 5+ Invulnerable Save.
• I paid one additional CP for the the Harbringer of Nurgle stratagem to give the Lord of Contagion the ability to re-roll hit rolls of 1 that Chaos Lords get.

I planned to use most of my army as one big blob.  The Marines would be buffed by the Lord of Contation’s re-rolls and the Noxious Blightbringer’s Daemon’s Toll.  I could wrap with the Poxwalkers or use to to hold objectives.

The observant might noticed that the models aren’t quite what was in Dark Imperium.  Unfortunately the Bloat-drone came out of the case broken and so was replaced.  I also swapped out ten of the Poxwalkers for my Cadian custom ones so I could tell the two squads apart.

The Game

Death Guard vs Dark Angels (1,000 pts) – Battle Report

I finally got a game of 40k in.  Due to circumstances it was “odd” with a lot of distancing, hand sanitising and we were wearing masks.  We also kept the game small, 1,000 points, so that we didn’t overload ourselves.  But it was fun, and it was nice to play a proper goodbye to 8th Edition with 9th now being so close to release.

List Theory

It’s been four months since my last game, I’ve built a fair few new models and the Psychic Awakening books with content for Daemons (Engine War, my thoughts are here) and the Death Guard (War of the Spider) have both been released.  So I have quite a few new things that I could try.

I wanted therefore to take a list that I could try some of the new rules with and also put some new models onto the table.  I found the intersection of this with a Death Guard list built around the Poxmongers.  They have a relic, the Ironclot Furnace, that gives nearby Daemon Engines a 4+ invulnerable save and a stratagem, Bilious Bloodrush, that allows them to shoot after withdrawing from combat.

Custom Poxwalkers – Second Ten

The Plan

I went into my second batch of ten Cadian Poxwalkers wanting to improve upon what I had done with the first ten.  In particular I wanted to make them look less like “normal” Cadian Shocktroops and to use more green stuff.  I therefore set out to try to use more green stuff for tentacles and to use more improvised melee weapons.

Initial Assembly

Custom Poxwalkers – First Ten

I’ve already got, and painted, just over forty Poxwalkers.  And, as I’ve said here, I think that they’re a great unit for the Death Guard.  So I wanted to add some more to my army, but I didn’t want to just buy multiple boxes of the easy build ones or hunt out the sprue from Dark Imperium on eBay.  I also wanted a project that would stretch my hobby skills a little bit further.  So I reached a conclusion that I wanted to convert something else into some Poxwalkers.  But what should I convert?  And then the thought occurred to me, Cadians!  I’ve played Cadian Shock a fair few times and my Poxwalkers have seen a lot of action against him.  So it seems like a fun project to simulate a few of the casualties from his Cadian Infantry that had risen again as Poxwalkers.

The Plan.

I think that I had seen photos online where people had taken skulls from the GW box of skulls and mounted them onto Astra Militarum bodies.  So this would be my starting point, and it would also be the first step in me trying to make sure that my resulting unit was visually different from regular Cadian troopers.  I then had to think about what else would mark out Poxwalkers, and that would be tentacles and spiky bone growths.  So I would raid my bit box to see what I could salvage and then I would also experiment with some green stuff.

Initial Assembly.