Death Guard vs Crimson Fists (1750 pts)

I took on the Marines again, this time being played as the Crimson Fists with the rules from White Dwarf magazine.  It’s worth taking a moment to explain that the Crimson Fists have a soft spot in my heart.  They’re the Chapter that were illustrated on the front cover of the original Rogue Trader book (a scene that you can see modelled at Warhammer World).  So I was going to have a lot of fun with this.

Crimson Fists at Warhammer World

List Theory

I went for an infantry heavy list.  I’ve played a similar list for the last few games and I think I know how to get it to work.  So I wanted to back away from the heavy armour and try something different.  The last time I tried that I took a pummelling from a pair of Baneblades, what are the chances of that happening again…

Anyway I wanted infantry, and to try something different.  So I brought my Myphitic Blight Haulers back onto the table.  They need something to escort, so that would be a horde of Poxwalkers.  I took a Tallyman to let them reroll in combat and a Noxious Blightbringer to let them move a bit quicker.  When units buff other units the more things they buff the more value you get, buffing forty Poxwalkers should be a good return on my points.

The Haulers are expensive and you are encouraged to take them in threes to get the +1 to hit.  They don’t have a lot of firepower, but what they had I wanted to matter, so I took a Chaos Lord to buff them with rerolls of 1s when shooting.

That’s quite a lot of points already on the table, and now I needed something quick.  So I went for a Daemon Prince with wings backed by three Foetid Bloat Drones and a lone Chaos Spawn.

Oh and add in some Plague Marines too, because I love them.

The plan would be that the horde would advance up the table using the Noxious Blightbringer to help them to move as quickly as possible.  The Prince and Drones would then be used as necessary to defend against deep strikers or to grab objectives.

Set Up

We rolled the Narrow the Search mission from Chapter Approved 2018.  This would put one objective in the centre worth one point per turn.  However the range you need to be in starts off really large at 18″ and then drops by 3″ per turn.  More importantly there was a “Null Field” for 12″ around the objective.  This would prevent any invulnerable saves within that area, and this would prove to be crucial.

I had to set my army up first and just set up in a massive blob ready to pour myself onto the objective.  All of my fast units went onto my right flank ready to zoom off and do things.

I also took the first turn, and this required some thought.  I was pretty sure that the Marines were just going to sit still and pour fire upon me.  Primaris Marines have a longer range with their Bolt Rifles, and I needed to close in on them.  So taking that first turn would get at least some of my stuff into shooting range.  If I’d have gone second the Marines would just have sat still, blown my units away, and been no closer when it did come to my turn.

The Game

Turn 1

My entire army moved forwards towards the objective.  What little fire I had was pretty ineffective, I took out a few Marines but didn’t come close to wiping out a unit and getting the First Strike bonus point.  But note that I’ve dropped my Blight Haulers right onto the objective, they’re all within 12″ of it, so they don’t get their invulnerable saves.  This would be a big mistake…

The Marines opened fire, and it was bad.  There was a lot of overcharged Plasma doing two wounds a time that was targeted at my haulers.  I think the AP was -4 and they had lost their invulnerable saves.  Two of them exploded, literally.  They inflicted many mortal wounds on the units close to them.

But at the end of the turn I did hold the objective, 1 point to me and with neither of us getting First Strike I was ahead.

Turn 2

I pushed forwards with some vague plan of getting my Pox Walkers into melee the Marines, again my shooting was pretty inconsequential and I didn’t get my fast attack units in range to do anything particularly useful.

The Marines pushed some Bikes at my Poxwalkers to tie them down and poured yet more Plasma down upon me.  I was loosing a lot of stuff and not really doing anything back, this wasn’t going well.

Deepstrikers then hit my lines from the rear killing the Tallyman and the Noxious Blightbringer, I’d lost my melee buffs.

But when it came to scoring I still had the objective, it was two points to nothing.

Turn 3

I pushed most of my fast attack units forwards keen to get at the Marines that were causing me so much trouble with their Plasma.  But this was drawing me away from my units in the centre.  One drone did turn around and with Typhus tried to take on the flying Marines.  I even consolidated into them thinking I could pin them down, but they’re flyers, and on their turn they would just withdraw.  Typhus himself was lost in the melee combat.  He’d taken some damage already and I rolled poorly for my Disgustingly Resilient rolls.

The flying Marines did exactly withdraw and moved towards the centre.  But I’d also not been paying attention to my left flank, I’d been somewhat fixated on the Plasma units in the ruins in front of me.  Marines now hit me hard form the left and they were moving towards the objective.  They decimated my Poxwalkers and took the points.  More worryingly my Daemon Prince, the Warlord, also fell to fire.

The score was now two points to two (one for the objective and one for killing the Deamon Prince).

Turn 4

I could tell that the game was up.  I tried to pull one of the forward drones back and send in my other drone that had already come back.  But there just wasn’t enough stuff.

The Marines mopped up the Poxwalkers and were securely holding the objective, I conceded the game, I was done.

Post Game Thoughts

• There was some wonderful misdirection going on here.  I fixated on the Plasma units to my front and ignored the Marines the would come in from the side.  I should have focussed on them, they were the troops that were going to hold the objective.
• I should have stayed 12″ away from the objective marker, the loss of the invulnerable saves on the Daemon Engines cost me dearly.  That allowed the Plasma to really hurt me, and I was facing a lot of Plasma.  With the invulnerable saves I should have been ignored one third of those shots.
• The Blight Haulers exploding was horrible.  But they give cover to infantry units with 7″ of them, so it encourages you to keep things close, which then hurts you when they go boom.
• I knew I was facing fast deep strikers.  If my fast attack units had focussed on the units on the ground then they could have hurt them and also been closer ready to take on the deep strikers.  I might have been able to deny the Marines the objective, and yes I would have taken a lot of fire but points win the game and that’s what you need to focus on.
• I hadn’t really thought about what Stratagems to use and when.  I frittered away my points on the occasional re-roll and ended the game with a few left.  When I play with my Plagueburst Crawlers and elite melee units I think I have a much firmer idea about what I need to do and when.  I really need to think about how I want infantry hordes to work in my Death Guard.
• The Crimson fists get a +1 to hit if the unit they are shooting them has twice as many models as they do.  That really hurt my poor Poxwalkers, Crimson Fists seem to be great at countering a horde, and I brought a horde.
  
• Some games have a rock-paper-scissors element that kicks in at a certain point.  This means that if you bring a certain list type when you face a list of another type you just know that you’re going to lose.  I used to play a lot of X-Wing and that was a problem with the first edition of that game at various points along its growth.  So was I auto-doomed against an anti-horde army, I don’t think so, and it’s important that I don’t write my loss off as being that.  I think that I should have had enough other stuff in my list that I should have been able to win if I played well enough.

To really hammer the point home about why I lost:

• I allowed myself to be distracted by the Marines to my front and didn’t really notice or think about the Marines that were swinging around onto my left flank.  It would be them that decimated my Poxwalkers and went on to grab the objective.
• I sent my fast units after those Marines to my front when they would have been better placed tackling those Marines on my left, this would have also left them in a better place to take on the deep strikers.
• I parked my shooty armour units, the Haulers, on top of a thing that negated their valuable Invulnerable save.
• I was facing an army that was very good at dealing with hordes.  This didn’t cause my loss but it did make my other mistakes that much more painful.  I needed to be on top of my game, and I wasn’t, and I lost.

The List

Battalion Detachment +5CP [65 PL, 1091pts]

HQ [14 PL, 257pts]

• Chaos Lord [5 PL, 82pts]: Balesword [6pts], Combi-bolter [2pts]
• Typhus [9 PL, 175pts]: 5. Putrescent Vitality, 6. Curse of the Leper

Troops [22 PL, 373pts]

• Plague Marines [10 PL, 133pts]
  Plague Champion [17pts]
  Codex [1pts]: Boltgun, Plaguesword [1pts]
  4x Plague Marine w/ boltgun [64pts]
  Plague Marine w/ Special Weapon [26pts]: Blight launcher [10pts]
  Plague Marine w/ Special Weapon [26pts]: Blight launcher [10pts]
• Poxwalkers [6 PL, 120pts]: 20x Poxwalker [120pts]
• Poxwalkers [6 PL, 120pts]: 20x Poxwalker [120pts]

Elites [8 PL, 110pts]

• Noxious Blightbringer [4 PL, 55pts]: Plasma pistol [5pts]
• Tallyman [4 PL, 55pts]: Plasma pistol [5pts]

Fast Attack [21 PL, 351pts]

• Myphitic Blight-haulers [21 PL, 351pts]
  Myphitic Blight-hauler [7 PL, 117pts]: Missile launcher [20pts], Multi-melta [22pts]
  Myphitic Blight-hauler [7 PL, 117pts]: Missile launcher [20pts], Multi-melta [22pts]
  Myphitic Blight-hauler [7 PL, 117pts]: Missile launcher [20pts], Multi-melta [22pts]

Outrider Detachment +1CP [35 PL, 657pts]

HQ [9 PL, 180pts]

• Daemon Prince of Nurgle [9 PL, 180pts]: 1. Miasma of Pestilence, 6. Arch-Contaminator, Malefic talon [10pts], The Suppurating Plate, Warlord, Wings [1 PL, 24pts]

Fast Attack [26 PL, 477pts]

• Chaos Spawn [2 PL, 25pts]: Chaos Spawn [2 PL, 25pts]
• Foetid Bloat-drone [8 PL, 158pts]: 2x Plaguespitters [34pts], Plague probe [25pts]
• Foetid Bloat-drone [8 PL, 158pts]: 2x Plaguespitters [34pts], Plague probe [25pts]
• Foetid Bloat-drone [8 PL, 136pts]: Fleshmower [12pts], Plague probe [25pts]