Monday 14 November 2016

Blitzkrieg - Bludhaven

Planet: Bludhaven.
Region: Sereaphon Sector.
845.M41

Death Guard vs Orks.

Mission: Blitzkrieg.
Deployment: Special.
Points: 2000.

After making planetfall the Death Guard began to fortify their landing site in preparation to take battle the greenskins. However, the Ork horde had other plans and launched a fast attack on the barely prepared chaos forces. Sorcerer Cholic ordered the few teams of bikers to intercept while the remaining ground forces advanced behind them. Battle was soon joined but the Death Guard found themselves quickly outnumbered and out gunned.

I don't get to play against Orks very often. In fact I think it has been a couple of years since I last made war against them. So when my friend Jon challenged me with his Orks I was very pleased. I asked him to pick a mission and he chose Blitzkrieg from the Battle Missions book. As I still don't have a lot of time to paint and build I knew I was going to be on the back foot here. The mission really requires fast attack options and right now I have three chaos bikes and that is it. Still I wasn't going to let that spoil my fun so that was my option.

The Blitzkrieg mission requires only fast attack options to start on the table in opposing corners. Everything else, on both sides, has to sit in reserve waiting to come in. My choice was three bikes and Jon's was a nice sized squad of warbuggy's. The game gave him the first turn and thankfully for me none of his reserves came on the table. However, I got a handful of my units including my Chaos Knight, which proceeding to blast through the buggy unit.

I pretty much decided that there was no way I could hold all three objectives so I focused on the two nearest me and dispatched squads of plague marines, chaos terminators and chaos marines to take them. The turns went quickly as both of us failed to get our units in from reserve. Battle was hard fought around my objectives, and the Knight spent it's time smashing deffkopta's and a large unit of boyz before it finally fell. When i say fell, I mean it fell over backwards and crushed my sorcerer and his chaos marine bodyguards. But it had definitely earned it's points that night before it went down.

It was about this time that my game began to fall apart. Jon's Orks smashed through what I had left trying to contest the central objective, and I completely forgot that he had a small truck under the landing platform where the first objective was sitting. So when the game came to an end turn 6 he had the victory.

Having seen the mission requirement I knew that this was not a game I could win easily. As I have repeatedly said I need the time to expand the army options that I currently have. Had I had more fast attack options I may have done a little better in this one but I don't mind. It was just nice to play against the greenskins again after so long.

The Orks surrounded the Death Guard landing site and through sheer force of numbers obliterated the first wave of chaos marines. Cholic somehow survived the cataclysmic death of the Knight through this psychic skills, but upon informing Typhus of his losses on Bludhaven, he had soon wished that it had crushed him! Typhus called for his champions and teleported to the surface of the planet.

Wednesday 9 November 2016

First Contact - Abraxes III

Planet: Abraxes.
Region: Ceres Sector.
919.M41

Death Guard vs Tyranids.

Mission: First Contact.
Deployment: Special.
Points: 1750.





After weeks of engaging in hit and run skirmishes with the genestealer cults across Abraxes the Death Guard have pulled back to their command bastion to prepare for the coming storm. As the first tendril appeared in the night sky the chaos marines spread out to better engage what was coming. At that point the genestealers burst from the sewers and ruins drawing the plague marines fire away from the descending vanguard of the Tyranid invasion.


Ever since I started my Death Guard army I had wanted to try them out against a Tyranid army. In all my years I have never managed to beat a Nids’ list and it would be nice to see how the Death Guard would fare. When my friend Joel challenged me to a 1750 point match I jumped on it. We decided to play the First Contact mission from Battle Missions as it was rather thematic.

I made a small mistake in not fully reading the rules properly and I misunderstood how the deployment worked, and gave my opponent an advantage. Basically the table is split into six equal size blocks numbered one through six, and as the defender I had to roll a D6 to see where each unit deployed, meaning that my army was spread about the table. I had read that the Tyranids rolled as well but could appear anywhere in that square when in fact they come in from the table edge or deep strike to that square if they are capable of it. So I en ended up deploying with the expectation that the vanguard of the hive fleet would pop up all round me. Big mistake.

My opponent had tried to build a fluffy list with lots of genestealers to start with (they are already on the planet after all) followed up by deepstriking winged hive tyrants, spore pods with carnifex’s and lictors.

To start with my opponent was very lucky being able to destroy my predator and take down one rhino with ease. My dice were not with me once again, especially the Helpack who spend the first the turn firing their multimelta’s into the air at nothing. They eventually started getting their backsides in gear but by then they were too far away from the enemy to play much more in the game.

I managed to retrieve some luck when one plague marine squad brought down a winged hive tyrant and blew it into red goo. That was probably my one victory all game. Otherwise both plague marine squads did little other than hold up enemy units for a few turns.

Typhus once again proved that he was not worth playing (why do I keep playing him?) as although he mowed down many genestealers, my opponent managed to get a big gribbly in combat with him and squash him. Pretty much every game my opponent managed to get him in combat with something he can’t handle and takes him down. Time to play someone else as my HQ for a while.

The last couple turns saw my helpack take down a spore pod and I managed to gun down a carnifex but it was too little too late. The genestealer units outnumbered me and managed to hold more objectives when the game ended turn 5.

Crusade Battles catchup

 It's been a few weeks since I last updated and in that time I have played a further three Crusade games. I am really enjoying playing C...