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

List Theory

My last few games with a Terminus Est Assault Force have seen my lean quite heavily on my Deathshroud Terminators after I’d painted up my second unit of them. I decided that I needed a change, and I wanted to see how Plague Marines would work on the table.

So what I’ve taken is three five man squads of Plague Marines, each taking a Plasma Gun and a Blightlauncher. Typhus joins the list and is accompanied by three ten model squads of Poxwalkers. Keeping them to ten models means that if I use stratagems on them they can be cheaper and I can also spread them across the table covering more ground.

The final elements are my Possessed and a ground pounding Daemon Prince, at 1,000 points I couldn’t afford to give him wings. The Possessed will give me a fast moving unit and the Daemon Prince can really hurt things like tanks if he gets close to them, I’m well aware that I’m missing any real anti-tank firepower.

The Game

Setup

We rolled Reconnaissance Mission from the War Zone Nachmund book. This gives a mission specific primary objective called “Recon Sweep“. This is a special action that units can do while on an objective marker and at the end of the game you score increasing points for every marker that you performed it upon. This is quite good for me, I’ve got a lot of Plague Marine units that can perform actions, Poxwalkers can only do the Death Guard’s Spread the Sickness action. Furthermore the action is done quicker if the unit has Objective Secured or has the Fast Attack role, this really suits my list.

I deploy far forwards and put a unit of Plague Marines and the Daemon Prince into reserve using the Terminus Est’s Outbreak Assault ability.

The Guard has two tanks, these scare me, I’m well aware that I lack any real long range firepower. Will they kill me before I get close to them?

The Astra Militarum will take the first turn.

Painting a rusty barrel

This was a suggestion from my youngest daughter. I had a plastic container of sweets that looks like a barrel, she suggested that I paint it up and use it as scenery. That sounded like a great idea so I went for it. I also wanted to work on some hobby techniques at the same time, so I decided that I would brave airbrushing once again.

The barrel was cleaned up and then undercoated with a white spray can. Then out came the airbrush for a coat of Leadbelcher, which worked well, and an all over tint of Agrax Earthshade, which went a bit wrong in one place. I think that I applied too much paint and it puddled, and looked ugly.

The good…

…and the ugly.

However one of the good things with painting Nurgle related stuff is that you can always cover up mistakes with an application of filth. I always planned to rust up the barrel and I hoped that that would cover up the problem. I was unsure if I would rust some of it or all of it, so I did a bit and then decided to go all out. The Typhus Corrosion that the Ryza Rust is drybrushed on top of was applied pretty thickly, but then I’d attack it with a tissue to try and make the coating a bit more random.

Patchy rust…

…or all out rust?

And with a few layers or Nurgle’s Rot applied around the top the project was complete.

I used the barrel as an objective in game against the Adeptus Mechanicus, this was a teaching game so won’t get a proper write up, but I did take a few photos.

The Death Guard approach the objective.

The Adeptus Mechanicus advance.

Post Project Thoughts

• The metal went on pretty nicely and pretty evenly, I took it slowly and didn’t rush. I’m pleased with that.
• The shade of Agrax Earthshade mostly worked, apart from the one bit where it didn’t. I think I just sprayed too much on. So I need to watch my speed and let the paint be applied in thin layers.
• I need to do more airbrushing…

Death Guard vs Orks (1,000 points) – Battle Report

List Theory

This was another 1,000 point game and I wanted to continue to work with the Terminus Est Assault Force. I based my list on what I used for my last game. However this time I wanted to try three ten model sized units of Poxwalkers rather than the two bigger mobs that I had been using. This would reduce the cost of the Rotting Tide stratagem that could bring them back to the table after being wiped out. It also meant that as my three troop slots were filled for my batallion that I could drop the Plague Marines and instead put my Possessed onto the table.

I also juggled Typhus’ psychic powers slightly, Rotwind was dropped and Noxious Discharge brought in. Rotwind would drop AP but Noxious Discharge could hurt big groups of units all together. I worried that I lacked the ability to cause hurt, so that would be nice.

The Game

Setup

Death Guard deployment

Ork deployment

We rolled the Direct Assault mission from the War Zone Nachmund book. This has a rule that if an objective is controlled in your command phase by a unit with Objective Secured then you can keep it even if you move units off of it, this really helps smaller games, you don’t have units tied up just sitting on objectives. There is also a new Primary, Direct Assault, this gives point for taking a new objective or destroying an enemy unit that was within range of an objective.

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

List Theory

I decided to stick with the list that I used in my last game against the Orks. It seemed to play OK and I wanted to see if that was luck or just the list that it came up against. I did change Typhus’ psychic powers, I dropped Lungrot and took Accelerated Entropy. The former, which affects a unit’s ability to charge, seemed very situational where as the latter just hands out Mortal Wounds which seemed more powerful.

The Game

Setup

Death Guard deployment

We rolled the Desperate Raid mission from the Warzone Nachmund: Grand Tournament book. This gives some mission specific rules:

• You can only generate CP in your command phase if you control one of the objectives in your deployment zone.
• If objectives are held in your command phase by a unit with Objective Secured then you can continue to hold if even if that unit moves away.
• 3VP are available if you hold an objective in your enemy deployment zone.

The 3VP primary objective encourages me to go for Behind enemy lines as a secondary objective. The two should play nicely together. I decide to deep strike one unit of Deathshroud and one unit of Plague Marines to help with this. My smaller unit of Poxwalkers will hang back in my deployment zone and everything else would roll forwards to push into the enemy deployment zone.

I didn’t seem to notice that my opponent had put infantry into reserves and would bring them on as a raid, this would bite me later…

The Astra Militarum would take the first turn.

Death Guard vs Orks (1,000 points) – Battle Report

List Theory

I’ve been dithering about switching to a Terminus Est Assault Force list for a while now. I had the chance for a smaller game so here we go…

I’d just finished my second unit of Deathshrouds, so I really wanted to use them if I could. I also knew that I wanted Typhus, Poxwalkers and a Foul Blightspawn. With that decided I then had a bit of a tough time.

Wanting to take three Elite Units meant that I couldn’t take a Patrol detachment, I didn’t want to spend any of my previous Command Points on a Vanguard detachment so I would have to take a Battalion. This then meant that I needed three units of troops. The two units of Deathshroud would, due to the Diseased Minions rule, let me take two units of Poxwalkers so I needed a third troop unit. Cultists seem very limited in the 9th Edition Codex as they no longer get Objective Secured. I therefore went for a unit of Plague Marines, these could be deep struck using the Outbreak Assault rule and thus give me some flexibility. I also needed to take another HQ in my Battalion, I went for a Plague Caster as I couldn’t take another Lord alongside Typhus.

By now I was running out of points, I had to decide between have two understrength units of Poxwalkers or one at full strength and one at fourteen. The latter path seemed best, having one as large as possible would give me a nice target for Rotting Tide if I needed it in the game.

The Game

Setup

Death Guard deployment

Ork deployment

This was my first time using the new War Zone Nachmund: Grand Tournament book and we rolled the Surge of Faith mission. Given that this was the first time with this book for both my opponent and I we decided to skip the secondaries and just do the primary objectives, yes the plural is correct, there are two primary objectives now. The second primary objective in this mission was about performing actions on objectives, you would get more for ones further from your deployment zone.

Three new Deathshroud Terminators

I’ve completed another three Deathshroud for my Death Guard army. I’ve been impressed with how they’re working on the table and they’ll add some more models to the Terminus Est Assault Force army that I’d like to try playing.

I painted my first Deathshrouds just over three years ago, so this was my chance to also see how my painting has come along. I think I show signs of improvement.

New on the left…

New on the left…

New on the left…

The new Deathshrouds

Death Guard vs Death Guard (1,000 points) – Battle Report

List Theory

This was going to be my first time taking on the Death Guard with my Death Guard, a mirror match. It was was against someone who was building their first Death Guard army. So this gave a me a few drivers for my list.

• I didn’t want something that would be too “difficult”, so this to me excluded Mortarion.
• I did want to take my new Possessed.
• I did want some representative Death Guard units. So Plague Burst Crawlers and Poxwalkers were in, double Helbrutes were out.

Other than that I didn’t really think about things very much, I just wanted to see how the Death Guard were to play against.

Death Guard vs Astra Militarum (2,000 points) – Battle Report

List Theory

This is another game against Cadian Shock, his write up of this game can be found here:
https://cadianshock.com/cadians-vs-death-guard-2000-points/

This, like our last game, is a big 2,000 point game. I’m still drifting towards a Terminus Est Assault Force, so this drove a few changes as there were models that I wouldn’t be able to use. The big thing, the big model, is Mortarion. I built him over a year ago and have never used him on the table. You can’t use him in the Terminus Est Assault Force, his relationship with Typhus is complex. So I wanted to put him on the table.

That’s a big bite out of my points. To pay for this I dropped the two Contemptor Dreadnoughts and the Deamon Prince, the letter’s fast moving ability would be replaced by Typhus. I also wanted to field two units of Blightlord Terminators, I’ve not been too impressed with them recently and wanted to give them another run out. That meant some more point chopping here and there, I also had to take out the Tallyman (there’s no Contemptors for him to buff), the Chaos Spawn (no spare points, Morty should be a fast mover anyway) and the Foul Blightspawn (the Crawlers should handle the anti-tank, his anti-melee abilities shouldn’t be a big thing against the guard).

The plan for the list would be that Morty would race ahead, and I was sure that he would die in turn one. But I hoped he would buy some time for my Plagueburst Crawlers to hurt the enemy armour. My Blightlord’s would go into deep strike to grab objectives and earn the behind enemy lines secondary objective. My Deathshroud, Malignant Plaguecaster and the Lord of Contagion would stomp up to the middle of the battlefield while my Poxwalkers would grab objectives in my deployment zone and guard against any deep strike shenanigans that the Astra Militarum might bring with them.

Death Guard Possessed

I’ve completed five Possessed for my Death Guard. I was never too keen on the models, they didn’t seem to fit the Death Guard “look”. However I thought I’d see what I could do to Death Guard them up a touch.

The Possessed models are multi part models, you get a lot of flexibility as to how you assemble them. I hoped that I might be able to use some spare Death Guard Plague Marine torso fronts but they are a slightly different size and just wouldn’t work very well. So what I did do was to use some heads, shoulder pads and arms from my spare Plaue Marine parts. I also threw in a spare Plague Bearer arm too, these chaps are meant to be being possessed by Nurgle Daemons, so a Plague Bearer seemed right.

How do I think they’ve turned out? OK, but not great. I think that they now look a little bit too much like Plague Marines. In particular the guy with the bolder and the helmet, one or the other night have worked, both is too much.

I now need to get them onto the tabletop to see how they do. I’m drifting towards playing a Terminus Est Assault Force. Possessed are Bubonic Astartes so each unit of these would unlock another unit of Poxwalkers. I’m also curious to see how their relatively fast, for the Death Guard, move of 7″ might help me out. The 5+ invulnerable save is also a nice thing.

Death Guard vs Orks (1,500 points) – Battle Report

List Theory

This was my third game with the same list (the others are here and here). I didn’t know what my opponent would be bringing as I’d never gamed against them before and I knew that my next game would be a bit 2,000 point game. So I thought it would be another chance to test this list out, as it turned out it would be against Orks once more.

Once again the Orks would have a Super Heavy in their army. However instead of a Stompa this time it would be a beautifully painted Squiggoth.