Friday 11 May 2018

Nurgle Pushes Back - Bludhaven

Planet: Bludhaven.
Region: Seraphon Sector.

Death Guard vs Orks.
750 points.
Mission: Annihilation.
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil.

After suffering severe losses and frequent defeats, the ork hordes retreated back towards their landing sites to regroup. This gave the Death Guard the opportunity to harry their flanks as they fled. Plagueburst Crawlers decimated the fleeing hordes with their mortars before the plague marines themselves marched forward to mop up the survivors. 

This game was the following round of the small escalation league run by my friend Shadbolt. The points have increased to 750 which didn't give me much to play with. I decided to stick with the original army configuration for now, add a plagueburst crawler to handle horde and tanks, and bring the plague marines up to 10 men with some close combat weapons. Even so against a horde list was not convinced especially with so few infantry on my side.

Luke's ork list looked nasty at this points level to me because I don't usually have much luck with horde style armies. I was fully expecting that two big twenty man strong boyz squads he was going to overwhelm me in assault very quickly.

First turn was mine and I decided that rather than being defensive like I wanted to be, that I should actually play more aggressive. If I wasn't going to win then I would take down as many of his little green men as I could before the end. With that in mind I marched the hellforged contemptor up the table and got the plague marines closer but largely behind cover. My shooting was not great and I think I only dropped two maybe three boys.

Luke moved everything except the lootas and his warboss forwards. In hindsight, after the game, I think he should have perhaps left the boyz squad facing the contemptor back a bit and decimate it a lot more with the lootas heavy fire. His shooting did strip a couple wounds from the contemptor but that just made me want to get it into combat even more.

Our second turn saw me drop a loota with plague mortar fire. I tried to to get the deff dread with my entropy cannons but the damage rolls kept rolling 1's and 2's. I could have used my paltry three command points but I wanted those more to keep the contemptor alive. Combat was soon forthcoming as the boyz and the contemptor starting swinging. Luke tried to maneuver both his deff dread and his warboss around behind the fight. This was good for me as the entropy cannons on the plagueburst crawler finally found their mark and turned the deff dread into so much rusting scrap.

I the contemptor smashed three boyz on average each round and was slowly healing back to full strength when Luke's warboss got to it. He knocked it down to 5 wounds meaning that I had to turn the contemptor's wrath upon him. 9 wounds later and a successful heal roll, saw the contemptor open up and eat his warboss!

Meanwhile Luke continued to ignore the plagueburst crawler and focused all the heavy weapon fire on my plague marines. Somehow I survived most of what struck the unit losing only a total of three plague marines. I got the upper hand when my lord of contagion charged his second boyz squad, losing one wound on the way. The plague marines then made in after him and despite his numbers I was mowing them down with plague weapons and mortal wounds. Lots of liquefied ork bodies drenching the mouldy earth. Luke did have a spot of luck when finally he was able to bring down the contemptor but it was too little too late.

Finally probably about six turns in the last ork fell or fled leaving the Death Guard were left holding the battlefield.

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In the week leading up to this game and perhaps up to half way through the game I still thought Luke was going to win just by the numbers game so I was surprised that I went through his army as easily as I did. I thought the lack of infantry was going to be my downfall but the contemptor is a real monster once it gets to it's destination and it did carry the game quite a bit.

I do hope that Luke wasn't disappointed by the outcome. I know as a newer player he is expecting to lose a few games but I hope he had fun and I look forward to a normal game rematch at some point.

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Lord of Contagion - tainted regeneration trait - suppurating plate.
10 man plague marine squad with icon, 2 plasmagun, plague spewer, flail of corruption and great plague cleaver.
Hellforged contemptor with kheres assault cannon, hellflamer and havoc launcher.
Plagueburst crawler with rothail volley gun and two entropy cannons.

The green tide readies for battle!

Battle is joined at the center of the battlefield.

A mighty Deff Dread!

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