Death Guard vs Space Wolves (1000 pts) – Battle Report

List Theory

This is exactly the same list that I used in my last game against the T’au, so have a look at that for some of the thoughts behind it. In that game the Death Shroud and Typhus didn’t achieve very much so I wanted to use them again. I was also curious to see how a list that dominated the T’au would perform against another opponent, so using the whole list again seemed like a good idea.

This game would be against the Space Wolves, I’ve beaten them once and they beat me once in return. So this is the best out of three.

The Game

Setup

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  Death Guard Deployment

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  Space Wolf Deployment

We rolled the Raid mission from the Grand Tournament 2021 book. This would have us deploying along the short edges of the table with our deployment zones being 24″ apart. There would be six objectives on the table and a mission specific secondary, Raid Supply Lines. This gives points for controlling the two objectives that are in your opponents deployment zone.

We had enough line of sight blocking ruins on the table that you couldn’t see from one end of the table to there other, we’d have to manoeuvre. We both took advantages of this and deployed our units hidden behind ruins and therefor out of sight of the enemy. I’m planning on really pushing hard into the enemy’s deployment zone so I put my Terminators, the Death Shroud and Typhus, into deep strike.

I take the following secondary objectives:

• Spread the sickness – Contaminate objectives, I’d be using my Poxwalkers to do this.
• Behind enemy lines – Get units into the enemy deployment zone, I thought my flying units might be able to this if the T’au hung back and acted as a gun line.
• Raid Supply Lines – If I’m going to be behind enemy lines anyway it seems prudent to combine that with earning more points for taking their objectives.

The Space Wolves would take the first turn.

Death Guard vs T’au (1000 pts) – Battle Report

I’m still not used to seeing that apostrophe in T’au… Anyway my journey into 9th continues with a 1,000 point game, a few new units and the return of secondary objectives.

List Theory

I felt that it was time to mix my list up a bit while continuing with the same Plague Company, Mortarion’s Anvil. Furthermore I also wasn’t happy with how my Daemon Prince and Bloat Drone performed in my last game. So I did the following:

• Retained the Daemon Prince and the Bloat Drone to give them another chance on the tabletop.
• Swapped the Blightlord Terminators for Deathshrouds, I’ve not used this unit for a very long time.
• Dropped all the infantry except for one unit of Poxwalkers.
• Took a Plagueburst Crawler with Entropy Cannons. For a very long time I’ve relied on Plaguespitters for this vehicle, I wanted to see how the Cannons worked with the changes in the new Codex (increased BS and less “swingy” damage). I also doubted that with all the up close melee units I had that I’d have room to also manoeuvre an up close Crawler into battle, with the Cannons it could hang back and not block anything.
• Upgraded the Lord of Contagion to Typhus, it was time to get to grips with Death Guard’s Psychic Powers.
• Took the doubled fisted Helbrute, I figured the Crawler would give me some long range shooting and I wanted the Helbrute to be as cheap as possible, I figured it would die quickly.

The plan would be to fling the Prince and Bloat Drone forwards, the Helbrute and Terminators would advance with the Helbrute hopefully acting as a distraction drawing fire. The Plagueburst Crawler would lurk at the back popping shots at what it could. Objective taking would be the job of the Poxwalkers and the Spawn.

The Game

Setup

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  Death Guard Deployment

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  T’au Deployment

Death Guard/Nurgle Objective Markers

A few months ago I made some small markers for my 40k games, for things like tracking wounds or the results of actions such as Spread the Sickness. I quite liked the results, so I’ve now got around to making some objective markers using the same techniques.

I wanted them to be the “correct” 40mm size and to also have a means of numbering them. Numbered objectives doesn’t appear to be a “thing” in 9th Edition, but it was back in 8th and maybe things will change was new mission packs are released. Therefore I wanted to be able to number each marker from 1 to 6. The numbering had to be pretty clear but also not prevent things from being able to move on top of the objective markers, so there had to be some subtlety

I settled on using skulls from my box of skulls, surely one of the most “Warhammer” products ever created, set into the pool of filth. The back of the skulls was cut away so that the skull would appear to be sitting deeper in the pool and not just sat on top of it. The discs I used were MDF discs and I used superglue to attach the skulls. The superglue appears to hold on just fine, I was thinking that I might need to prime the MDF first to stop it being absorbed into the wood. I’ve played a couple of games with these now and they’re holding up just fine.

Instructions

Death Guard vs Space Wolves (1000 pts) – Battle Report

This is a rematch against the Space Wolves that I played in my last game, this time we’ve upped the points to 1,000.

List Theory

This list was built around the core of the list that I had been playing, however the extra points let me add in some more things:

• A winged Daemon Prince, this let me get my recently magnetised model onto the table. This would give me something fast to help me to grab objectives.
• A boat-drone with the Fleshmower. This would accompany the Prince, and he would hopefully be good in melee.
• An extra unit of Poxwalkers.
• Plague Marines, five equipped with bolters. I didn’t really plan on taking these, but the restrictions on Death Guard army building meant that I had to in order to take the extra unit of Poxwalkers. I hoped that they would help grab objectives or perform actions as required.

The Helbrute was adjusted to try another new magnetised weapon, the multi-melta, and I backed that up with a Powerfist.

The plan would be to send the Prince and Drone forwards, use the Plague Marines to hold the rear and to send the Terminators and Helbrutre into the fray in the centre the table. I’d use my Poxwalkers to screen or hold things as required.

Setting up battlefields for 9th Edition

Games Workshop have talked about how they believe a table should be set up to make a fair and interesting game of 40k. And now that their tournaments are running in the US we can see them putting it into practice.

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There are a few things that I note:

• There’s a lot of LOS blocking terrain, both in terms of “obscuring” and genuine solid walls, on the table. They do not want you shooting from one side to the other.
• They’ve put their ruins on bases, lots of people do this anyway but it’s nice to see that they also see the advantages. It’s much easier to judge when a LOS runs over the ruin or a model is within it. The base defines all of that.
• The four large “Terrain 1″ pieces are indeed large, they seem to be mounted on 12” bases.
• Ruins have their walls facing “inwards”, I think they’re doing this to try and not be a d**k to players who want to run a lot of armour. That sort of thing can still make it close to the centre of the table. + They note that objectives can’t normally be placed on top of scenery, however the Chapter Approved mission packs have an unless “otherwise noted” rule that they’re invoking to allow you to do it.
• Following one of the FAQs fortifications “cannot be setup within 3“ of other terrain features“. There’s a lot of terrain on those tables, will some of the bigger fortifications fit? I also don’t know if the Death Guard’s Miasmic Malignifier “set up anywhere” rule overrides the 3″ FAQ limitation.

What do I think the effects of all of this would be:

• The days of getting effectively tabled in turn one by things like Knights deleting vital components of your entire army with long range fire seem to be over. There’s an awful lot of LOS blocking terrain to take cover behind.
• Close combat armies appear to have much better stab (see what I did there?) at the game than they used to. GW have said that “Terrain 1” pieces have solid walls so they will literally block LOS, that means that there’s a decent chance that those armies can avoid facing overwatch as they charge into combat.
• Manoeuvring is going to become even more important, both for those who want to overcome the LOS blocking and for those who want to benefit from it.

How does this affect my Death Guard? That might be interesting. We’re not a long range gun line army and we’re not a fast moving melee army either, we’re an up close shooting force. A lot of of stuff is also pretty slow moving and so manoeuvring is a challenge. Might I want to take more Rhinos? Or lean on fast moving drones?

All told I think that these are good developments for the game and I’m looking forward to getting some more game in.

Magnetised Helbrute – Painting Weapons

The weapons were assembled at the same time as the body, I then painted the body and now it was time to tackle the weapons.

I painted the weapons in pairs and attached them to bits of sprue to help me to hold them. Each pair were pretty quick to paint so I got through them at a reasonable pace.

Death Guard vs Space Wolves (536 pts) – Battle Report

This is another small game so that I can break myself back into playing 40k on the tabletop and can continue to learn 9th Edition and my new Codex.

List Theory

This list is very similar to the list for my last game against the Necrons, so most of the thoughts for that one will apply here. My opponent asked to up the limit a bit from 500 points as he was having trouble building his new army at that level. I changed my magnetised Helbrute around so that I could try out another two of the weapons. I love the look of the Power Scourge and a Heavy Bolter gave me a bit of added Dakka, and you can never have enough of that.

The extra points let me add in a Chaos Spawn. This was to help me deal with one of the issues that I had in my previous game, having enough units to hold objective. The Spawn, at 23 points, was a cheap thing that I could hide in my back field and hold an objective with while my other units went off and did the grunt work up close. I was also able to add in a couple of Poxwalkers to hopefully make that unit a bit more resilient.

Death Guard vs Necrons (500 pts) – Battle Report

This is my first game since November last year, and it’s against the same opponent playing the same army, Necrons.

List Theory

I wanted an army that was going to be pretty simple to handle and yet not play too badly. I wanted to try out Blightlord Terminators and my magnetised Helbrute was ready to hit the table with one load out, two fists. So that took up a substantial amount of my points. I dropped in a unit of Poxwalkers as some cheap models to take objectives. Then I needed a HQ, a Lord of Contagion could fit in and it’s not a unit that I’ve played much in 8th as it didn’t seem to be terribly good (he only made two appearances in this blog, here and here). So that all worked out nicely. This is an all infantry army, so it really cuts down on the number of new rules that I need to pick up.

For the Plague Company I went with Mortarion’s Anvil, this gives me the Warlord Trait that can shut down overwatch and re-rolls for enemy units close to my Warlord. Given that my Warlord, and my Helbrute, need to be in melee this seems like a good thing. I took the Plague Company Relic Warp Insect Hive that would give my Warlord his own re-rolls. I didn’t know if I could get him into much combat but when he did I wanted every hit to count. One of the big changes to the Death Guard is that the re-rolls generated by the various Lords, the Lord of the Death Guard ability, only affects Core units. So the relic gives him that ability, and better, back.

The list has a big hole when it comes to dealing with heavy armour, I have no ranged anti-tank. So my plans were to get the Helbrute and the Lord of Contagion into melee as soon as possible. The Terminators could be deep struck if need be or, using their now faster movement, put onto the table. Hopefully I could get them onto something and then rely on their toughness to make them difficult to dislodge. They’re pretty good at melee combat, but there shooting is only good against infantry, so it depends on what I face.

Magnetised Helbrute – Painting

After assembling the body I moved on to painting it. I kept the legs and chest separate, I superglued the body to a bit of sprue which I then superglued onto the bottom of a paint pot. This was solid enough to let me paint it without it coming apart but then came apart easily enough at the end with only minimal glue “damage” to the point where the chest would attach. That part is hidden pretty nicely where it fits into a “cup” in the hips so it was no trouble at all.

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  Legs almost completed

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  Chest almost completed

Magnetised Helbrute – Assembly

I’ve been meaning to build a second Helbrute for a while now. I painted my first one back in early 2018, although I did return to rust it last year. I’m also ramping myself up to actually start playing the game again, so I’ve been digesting my codex. And, as with the Daemon Prince, the weapons have all changed subtly and I’m now more aware that I don’t want to tie myself down to any edition by gluing the weapons on. So I decided that I would magnetise it so it could take any weapon. My earlier Helbrute is going to help me with this, given that its weapons are glued on I do have a few spare parts left over that I can use now.

The plan was to:

• Assemble the legs.
• Assemble the body but leave the side panels off.
• Assemble the arms but leave the shoulder pads off.
• Pack the arms and body side panels with milliput so that 5mm magnets could be mounted into them.
• Drill into the side panels and arms to mount the magnets.
• Glue the side panels onto the body and the shoulders onto the arms.