Lost Again at Warhammer 40,000

Do any of my loyal readers remember when I was undefeated during 10th edition crushing the dreams of kids with their golden armour clad super soldiers that were even taller and more bullet proof than the Emperor’s finest? Astride their majestic jet bikes, capes blowing in the wind facing off against two chaos spawn and whatever else I plucked from the shelves of my miniature cabinet and threw on the table when summoned by Bill. Expected by one and all in the gaming store, to be swept aside because the Internet said Death Guard sucked? Those were the days.

Stay twelve inches away at all times.

I have of course been busy and I also injured myself, so badly in fact I could not paint and there was doubt I’d even make it to my scheduled game against Bill. So before I go any further you may be asking why are there goblins in the banner image? Several reasons, one I never took any photos of our game today I thought would make a good banner, there was doubt I would make it to the game, let alone persevere through pain to blog about it. Two it was recently Orktober, I was going to keep painting hard then I suffered a seriously painful injury. Mike, neigh Uncle Mike also talked to Bill and I informing us that not only was Mordheim coming up but Warcry may be run as a league at the Sentry Box soon. These very goblins were used in Warcry at the Sentry Box previously, some of them may have even been used to play Mordheim. The rules for Orks and Goblins were in a White Dwarf article which must be at my mom’s house somewhere.

Now that everyone is confused and I’m on beer number four, I should inform you this will not be an exhaustive turn by turn battle report, like some of the fifty or so others I’ve typed up over the years. Rather it will be some observations both on what has changed in Warhammer 40,000 since I last played and they re-balanced the game, but also will reflect the fact that I painted my ass off. And although most people would say I have little to show for it, I would counter not many people have the painted Nurglings necessary to flood a flank with them. The record will clearly show I lost the game to the snazzy codex toting Ultramarines. Some random store patrons were really impressed with my museum quality collection of nurglings though.

Ten things I learned today playing 40K

Deep Strike then Charge!

Exterminatus Level Threat

Bagonhead’s Last Stand

The Beast needs more torque!

1. I really, really, need to read all the rules. I have excuses, work and pain being chief among those. But I bought the mission card deck and I still haven’t read it. I also need to learn the stratagems to the point of memorization. I’ll never read all the enemy codices and I’ll continue to pay for that, but I just don’t have time. However I own two 10th Edition Rule Books, Bill kept borrowing my new small one, but I really should learn the basic rules.
2. I need to remove some of the restrictions I place upon myself. No I’m not switching to unpainted pieces of plastic. No I’m not using named characters. No I’m not abandoning Nurgle. But since I can’t paint faster, I need to paint smarter. I still plan to finish a few more models I don’t need for any tactical or strategic purpose in Warhammer 40,000 10th Edition. I also still plan to paint more fluffy models like Chaos Spawn, but I spent all of 9th Edition using a single sub-optimal Chaos Lord. The fact Maceo the Maligned ended up a Chaos Spawn is indicative of how effective he was on the tabletop. So new leaders or even old leaders will be fielded and I’ll slowly improve my army by adding more characters to it as the Death Guard can field a lot of character models with up to two leaders per plague marine squad, because plague marines with knifes and nurglings with strength two claws can only kill so much.
3. Today we played 1000 points and honestly I can field a lot of models at 1000 points these days. I had twenty plague marines, a dozen nurlgings, I had Blightlords, a hellbrute, I even had two Chaos Spawn! But Bill had some fancy land raider which had super flamers and took advantage of the new Overwatch rule and killed seven plague marines during my movement phase when they walked around a corner. I didn’t even charge the damn model! It is indeed 2nd Edition all over again. I honestly didn’t mind playing 1000 points but I think we’ll trend towards larger games as some people do field Chapter Masters and named characters and models that cost four hundred plus points!
4. At this point in time, I must complain that Google has gotten worse. I of course am too busy to keep up the latest and greatest thinking about Warhammer 40,000 but I try to provide useful links for my readers on occasion and honestly it seems hard tonight. I had a lot more observations I wanted to make, detailing my thoughts having been away from the game for a few months, but I am getting frustrated trying to find a link to illustrate my point above. I told Bill I think someone at GW HQ reads my blog, because things I write seem to get incorporated into rules updates eventually, but maybe someone at Google will read my blog and become less greedy. Who am I kidding? Usually I can find a link explaining what confused me, but I have standards, there are websites I don’t link to anymore for reasons. Also the reason Google sends you to YouTube videos is Google owns YouTube.
5. Seriously today, may be the day I finally abandon Google. I just want a blog post I can link to about the Landraider Redeemer’s effectiveness in 10th Edition since the rules update came out and no, I don’t want to link to Redit, YouTube or a random forum post that will be blocked in a day or two. If you have thoughts on the Landraider Redeemer or Google please leave them in the comments. I just want to support fellow indy hobby bloggers, not feed the giant corporate juggernaughts devouring the Internet. Shoutout to Goonhammer for not sucking.
6. So besides adding a better or even more Chaos Lords to my army along with more Foetid Virion and finally learning the rules, what else do I have planned? Blightlords. They died but they did protect my Chaos Lord and they can teleport. They can have a gun that shoots over 24 inches. I’m not sure if one squad of ten is better than two squads of five. But given restrictions I place upon myself they are the closest thing I have to a hammer in my painted miniature collection. They don’t take that much more time to paint than a regular plague marine and they have more wounds, a better basic gun and a better basic H2H weapon. Their objective control score may not be as good but at one point today I had infected four of the five objectives and I still lost. I definitely chose sub-optimal secondary objectives.
7. I finally counted and I have 21 bases of painted nurglings. Plus I have five and should convert a sixth nurgling infested objective. That would give me the maximum number of 27 nurgling bases that I think can be fielded by the Death Guard. I doubt I’ll buy and paint two more boxes of nurglings. When I played Kharne, Angron, and the angry red horde, the nurglings died quickly. Today most of them survived the entire game, so the optimal number of nurglings per 1000 points is yet to be determined. Nine nurglings in a single unit is awkward to maneuver but I do think just dumping them on top of or slightly in front of the centre objective is “my plan”. Then I’ll either teleport or march up another unit to actually capture the objective as they are famously objective control zero.
8. Fast Attack is no more and for too long was denied the followers of Nurgle. My commitment to the aesthetic and the inexplicableness of Chaos Spawn is admirable but there are faster better models I could be fielding. I still plan on finishing the fourth Chaos Spawn which has been primed black on my desk since before my injury but eventually I’ll add some daemon engines. Bikers or jump pack assault troopers are unlikely to return to the legions of the Death Guard and I told Bill that if the Chaos Codex comes out first I will give it a go as last edition I bought it then never even used it. Hopefully the option to field plague marines with CSM remains. Because let me tell you, having a codex is generally, if not always better, than not having a Codex.
9. Bill has apparently switched allegiances to the first company, abandoning the second company. That is what passes for variety among Ultramarines. Why this matters, is Bill and his Ultramarines are my most frequent opponent since moving to Calgary. Today when I chose my army list I thought to myself, “this doesn’t have much anti-armour.” I just fielded my latest greatest painted models or most of them because we were playing for fun. Then Bill brings a land raider, a particularly brutal dreadnought and what Bill referred to as a transport. That adds up to three vehicles, plus terminators, Sternguard and Bladeguard so despite going with the -1 armour infection, I struggled to put it mildly. Melta guns have always been my favourite special weapon, but I plan to keep painting more plague flamers because I’ve bought the models. My need for more better guns continues. This army will never be an alpha strike army, but Bill likely will never play an army again which deploys one gun that can shoot over twenty four inches. I really want to field the Predator Annhilator and may even have one “new in box” from several editions ago. I need to paint harder or at least faster.
10. It has already taken too long to type this all out but I feel I should have ten top learnings. Even if Google did sap my mojo and I have decided to not publish this tonight because I like to proofread and carefully edit my text if you can believe that. So besides learning all my rules, bringing more better models I’ve already painted, planning for bigger games against tougher opponents, trying to make time to keep up with the meta so I don’t have to rely on Google, painting and fielding more Blightlords, tempering my nurgling obsession, adding more maneuverable elements to my army, getting my own codex, fielding more guns with high strength and longer range, what else does my army, the Diseased Sons of Nurgle need? Probably practice. Back when very few people had played very few games I was more competitive. Now that the fine print of stratagem cards are being adjusted and actual thick ass codices are being released I’m going to have to commit a little more time to actually playing the game instead of just painting and earning badges.

Today is #MiniatureMonday and I was going to write more, I did type up a revised 1000 point army list. Basically I swapped hellbrutes, dropped five plague marines and added ten chaos cultists which can infect objectives now though they too need more guns. The other addition will be an Icon Bearer. I had one per squad painted before so I have seven painted already. This unit is only costs 45 points but I can’t decide to put him in the five model squad or to make a twelve man squad. One thing I discussed with Bill was putting a Chaos Space Marine Lord in the Burning Sores. That may happen eventually, after I paint the Lord of Virulence, there are so many options I’ve never tried. I also have an unpainted Daemon Prince that I specialty ordered…

If you have thoughts on everything wrong with my playing, my army, my blog, and Google you can leave a comment below. Who knows I may heavily edit the text tomorrow, but I also need time to edit the photos because if I could post better photos on the Internet surely I’d be rich and famous by now.

Behold, my badges!

So it took a while, but apparently I earned two more badges on the Internet. If I read the rules better and tried to game the system more, perhaps I could have done even better. I didn’t think this was even an online painting competition, but it turns out there were prizes that I could have won. Online painting competitions are a lot more common than they were twenty years ago.

Besides being rushed for time and trying various untried techniques and paint combinations, I also would have benefited from taking better individual pictures of my models. I pay for webhosting and Flickr and I actually tend to upload smaller images than kids these days, because I’m old and remember when the Internet was slow. So next time I volunteer to paint something for the good of the Internet I’ll try to take better pictures as I think I may have painted more hours than the average participant but earned less points.

Plague Surgeon

WordPress updated since I last posted and if you guessed it works worse, you’d be correct. Every time I tried to use the menu on the left to add a subheading, it would crash. Now experts say subheadings help your search engine optimization so I tried and tried until I used a different button to add this subheading.

So my Plague Surgeon is going to be called Dr. Stealgood, because of course he’s going to make your gene-seed all mine. I actually think I could have done a better job painting him. I wasn’t happy with the grey or even the apron. I wanted to avoid the usual burgundy everyone else does. I did go with white or offwhite armour using a technique I’ve already described.

Nurgling Infested Objective

So the reason I wanted to add a Plague Surgeon to my 9th Edition Warhammer 40,000 campaign army was he had his own agenda. Recovering the gene-seed of fallen foes as represented by a special objective you were supposed to convert, paint and give to your foe to place on the table. So of course I made mine an Avenging Son, because clearly they need something to avenge and apparently they don’t like the Death Guard for some reason that was never clearly explained to me.

Of course I scoured the Internet for bits, of course I had to use Swaggy P or whatever they call this Nurgling which meant buying another entire model to get one bit. Then for the Ultramarine I was pretty sure I had an Ultramarine bit or two. Obviously they are all old and thus not Primaris. Apparently the Imperium isn’t against all mutations, hypocrites.

Bill was supposed to give me the exact transfer to apply and I bought the specific blue to use as the basecoat, but then I used whatever blues and other paints I had lying around for the rest of the model. I put a lot of skulls on the base and a lot chain which I spent a lot of time rusting. So yeah this was a time consuming paint job but it could have been worse. Maybe the Nurgling shouldn’t have been dark green, but I didn’t have a lot of time to second guess myself.

The Future

Since painting these guys, I’ve already painted more Nurglings and I have more models on my painting table but we’ve gotten busy at work again. I think some people are about fed up with us always being busy and being expected to stay late. I expect there will be more changes in the New Year.

We or at least me have not been playing much Warhammer 40,000 or anything. But I did complete my painting vow and earn my badges. I don’t know if that will impress Vince Venturella. I did buy some of the paint he recommended so I don’t know if I’ll use much of it on the models currently on my table but I can see some Poxwalkers in my future not to mention, Blightlords, Plague Marines, and probably more Chaos Cultists. I seem to be big on footslogging this edition, because I have lots of painted models so might as well push them around on the table.

The problem is of course is the cheap models die easily and they can’t kill big tough stuff, I’m still hopeful the Blightlord Terminators can, so that is the unit I will optimize next. I also will likely get new HQ on the table, maybe not in 2023 but in 2024. Not sure when I’ll paint a tank or a daemon engine but eventually.

I don’t keep up with the rumours, but I think Necrons may get the next codex, but if regular Chaos Space Marines get their codex before the Death Guard, I’ll probably go back to being Nurgle Renegades or I could just run my non-Nurgle guys the Nefarious Fire. In the mean time, I hope to keep painting with my new lower standards, but basically it is the weekend or nothing, as during the week I work late and don’t have a lot of spare time or energy, hence updating this blog later than usual, but I got my badges.

If you have thoughts on the optimal Death Guard army, online painting competitions or people’s obsession with badges and vanity metrics you can leave a comment below. If you hurry over to the Bolter and Chainsword you may even be able to vote in an online painting competition and see all the models better than mine.

40K Narrative Campaign Year 2 Game 2

Another year of slogging through the mud, orks everywhere, but what should appear across the battlefield than the Astra Militarum. Do they have a new book? Is it even out yet? Do they still die from massed bolter fire? We’ll just have to find out.

Somehow we got to the Sentry Box extra early, this gave us time to get coffee or tea, set up the terrain, then rotate the entire battlefield as this mission was to be played with the battlefield arrayed differently than last week. The mission was “Critical Targets” and once again I got to my choice and this time I chose to be the defender. I had to nominate five critical targets including all my characters, then one of those targets would secretly be nominated as the primary target and another the secondary target.

So I arranged my models so Daniel could see them and then secretly wrote down who would be primary and secondary target:

1. Bagonhead the Unbearable
2. McFly the Malevolent
3. Boris the Defiler
4. Killious Bilious the Silliest
5. Billalexdevin

Once again I took Subterfuge as my primary agenda, this time I didn’t bring the rhino instead deciding that with the battlefield being less wide I’d just hoof it. Of course I took Turn their Hope to Rot because you always need more Virulence Points.

As this was Daniel’s first game with the new book, he’d barely gotten everything glued together in time. I had no idea the book was even out and didn’t know any of the rules, but it turns out the Astra Militarum could have used some more cover and my veteran troops that had been campaigning for over a year had picked up some experience so Daniel got 9 extra command points!

The Forces of the Diseased Sons

This week we had more points and I brought my two big blocks of ten purple plague marines. I of course brought McFly and my one long range gun platform, then to round it out two Chaos Spawn. I deployed as seen below, as I knew the Astra Militarum would be able to shoot indirectly somehow. The plan was of course to cross the open ground as that is what passes for subterfuge in Games Workshops eyes.

Daniel had a lot of guardsmen from different regiments which apparently means something, he had a command squad, a very valuable and well hidden commander and lots of artillery, but with Bill’s preference for small battlefields they are less valuable, I predict more armour will be incoming.

Death Guard Turn One

So not only did I get to be the defender I got to go first and would you look at that there had to be over forty models arrayed before me, time for another Blight Bombardment! I wasn’t able to do anything in the psychic phase, but I opened fire on the big blocks of troops, in hindsight maybe I should have targeted other units or split my fire but I generally shoot at what is in front of me.

Boris killed several Astra Militarum soldiers, then Syphilis did 14 wounding hits. I actually advanced some models too, as I had to cross the killing ground as fast as possible.

Astra Militarum Turn One

I don’t recall the Astra Militarum moving much but they had Heavy Lascannons which fired at Boris, hitting three times, but I saved one so I ended up taking seven wounds. The indirect fire went into the Chaos Spawn and even behind a wall the Astra Militarum got +1 to hit.

The new Imperial Guard roll a lot of dice, I had to lend Daniel more. Three plague marines failed all their Grizzled rolls and everything that shot at the Scarlet Fevers hit, so I played Insane Bravery as they were my human shield for McFly and I don’t think I remembered which of my critical targets I made primary and secondary, but it was all written down.

Death Guard Turn Two

There were a lot less models on the table now and the Blight Bombardment hadn’t even landed, perhaps I shouldn’t have shot at the squads I planned to bombard, but I wanted to thin the herd so I could target the artillery behind. In the end the Blight Bombardment only did two wounds, my best ever was against Daniel’s Sisters of Battle, this is his third campaign army at least.

I think I killed one artillery piece but then in the pictures later they are all back, so I think the Astra Militarum have a way to resurrect dead models, just like the Alpha Legion can bring back Chaos Cultists.

The Chaos Spawn managed to kill a guardsmen unit then consolidated into the next squad, this really is a technique you need to master in 9th Edition. My next note isn’t clear but I think the commander failed to do something.

Astra Militarum Turn Two

“Grizzled!” is what I wrote to start this turn, so I take it I made some die rolls and remembered some rules. I also stabbed a gun to death and even got to use the Chaos Spawn’s Fearsome Aura, it was not looking good for the Astra Militarum.

Death Guard Turn Three

All I wrote down this turn was “one gun left!”

Astra Militarum Turn Three

And so the maiden battle of the Astra Militarum ended with me accomplishing both my agendas according to Daniel. McFly was still alive and had several turns to walk across the battlefield. There was no enemy models left so obviously I turned Daniel’s Hope into Rot.

Post Battle Book Keeping

One of his squads, Farstein took an injury, but they may have just retired from the campaign. Bagonhead the Unbearable survived, this caused Syphilis to become legendary. And after like an hour of book keeping, the end result was -1 armour penetration to his plasma gun.

As McFly completed his agenda too, he earned a Corruption Point and gained an ability called “Murmurs of Disorder”. Take that Beastsnagga Boyz! Of course I had to spend one requisition point too but I had several, I ended up spending another one adding Acidic Malady to McFly’s Staff of Corruption as he needs to hit harder in hand to hand surrounded by all the campaign’s killers.

Who knew I was a Warhammer 40,000 genius, the Las Vegas Open just completed and they all better look out as the Diseased Sons may show up someday. I don’t know if they’ll be Death Guard but that is how they’ll likely start 10th Edition with the pace I’m painting. I have a lot of ideas on how to do better with the current rules, but ultimately the Irony Warriors of Nurgle will happen.

During all the book keeping I recruited another suboptimal, long missing from the battlefield squad, three Beasts of Nurgle that I spent months painting. I’m not sure how zero more guns will help me but I’m leading the campaign in tentacles. If you have thoughts on the superiority of tentacles over guns, artillery, air support, and armour you can leave a comment below.

40K Narrative Campaign Year 2 Game 1

I actually haven’t played Warhammer 40,000 for several weeks so the campaign has gone on without me, but I did play at least two games for which I have not typed up battle reports. So I will briefly try to summarize what has happened to the Diseased Sons as the Siege of Vanithros’s Bastion continues, no matter how hard it is to spell. For those asking I hear some Arks of Omen are inbound and we’ll probably have to restart the campaign for 10th Edition which also may be released in 2023.

This was to be the battle to find out who the dice hate more and if you’ve been loyally reading for a whole year you wouldn’t bet on Kris. Apparently this battle has already been discussed on a podcast, which just goes to show podcasting is easier because to blog you have to write and spell, anyone can just turn on their camera and blather.

Before the Battle

The mission was to be “Turn out the lights” and even though it would not play to my strengths I chose my army to try and be the attacker because that is the only way to earn Corruption Points or one of the primary ways because I also took “Subterfuge” as my agenda that seems to be the other way I can earn Corruption Points. I also took “Turn their Rot to Hope” as that is the easiest way that I can earn Virulence Points.

I’m not sure what Kris’s agendas were, all the orks are on Krumping Sprees so I’ll go with that and kill everything quickly to get on with the serious drinking. The orks were officially the underdogs or underorks so they got six extra command points!

Death Guard Turn One

That is right I managed to become the attacker, the plan was to race my one psycher and lone character forward in a rhino all by himself as that is the only way to accomplish the mission and the subterfuge agenda. I’m not sure what is subtle about declaring your agenda then driving into the oncoming ork horde. I don’t make the rules, but that was the mission. In order to clear the path a little I ordered the Blight Bombardment.

I underestimated how fast the squighog boys are, I should have blight bombarded the slower boyz. I also should have deployed differently. The warlord is very strong and there is a stratagem that makes it easier for them to kill vehicles and I brought three because I needed the speed for the mission. I also famously had my Chaos Lord turn into a Chaos Spawn and have yet to replace him so I had little chance at defeating the Ork warlord in close combat.

Unusually I advanced some of my units, the mission was odd, I had to get first to one set of objectives, perform an action then get to another set of objectives, so yeah the subtlety was really subtle. I actually managed to kill two orks because you can shoot assault weapons while advancing. Boris the Defiler killed six more and the rhino managed to kill 4 grots. It turns out that the boyz were Insanely Brave, but some grotz ran, leaving one lone grot on the table.

Ork Turn One

Charge, I mean Waaagh! That is the strategy, first turn declare the Waaagh and charge whatever you can with the three characters and two units of Squighog Boyz. Like I said I underestimated their speed. Kris also had a lot of command points so he could play a lot of stratagems on his first turn. The mission played right into his plan as I was forced to rush forward to try and perform actions, before he could destroy the objectives.

A lot of ork units also advanced, they have some way of charging after this. The orks don’t shoot well, they need sixes to hit, but mainly Kris wants to play Monster Hunter on every vehicle and Krump them, my Defiler tried hard, I used Overwatch which actually did two wounds on the Squighog boys.

The big boss squigs can headbutt and do mortal wounds, the Beast Rabban took some as Kris elected to fight that battle first. I played Counter Offensive as Boris is not helpless in hand-to-hand combat, I decided to go after the Warlord as that is the only way I could turn his hope into rot, which was probably a mistake as he made all his saves. I could have crushed some squighog boys instead, that Warlord is giving Lord Gogo a run for his money as hardest thing to kill in the campaign.

It looks like the warlord didn’t make it into combat and maybe he didn’t but then Kris re-rolled, I believe he can re-roll all charges on the turn of the Waaagh or something and moved some boys around and the warlord was ruled in, because why not? Kris is big on following up into the next unit, so next time we play I’ll probably deploy deeper and not rush into his clutches, if the mission allows that.

The Beastsnaggas killed a couple of cultists. Boris started taking wounds, his plated growths started to pay off now that armour of contempt is no more. Our campaign has been going on so long it predates whatever balanced slate that was added in. The orks have low AP, but there were so many of them and Kris spent 6 command points to kill Boris, but I have new respect for the plated growths battle honour.

My Hellbrute did better, he did 4 wounding hits and 20 wounds killing the big boss who charged him, so Boris did have a small chance, but apparently the dice hate me not Kris.

Death Guard Turn Two

The Blight Bombardment ended up doing two mortal wounds to the orks and two mortal wounds to my rhino! The rhino also managed to kill the lone grot. The Scarlet Fevers managed to kill 11 boyz and 1 squigboy. I don’t always split my fire optimally. Does anyone?

They also charged and I used the Trench Fighters stratagem resulting in six dead boyz and zero dead squighogs. In return I lost five models. I actually failed morale and lost two more. The orks made all their morale checks, it was about at this time I realized I forgot Grizzled, so we did some more rolling and I think I got a guy back.

Ork Turn Two

My handwriting as always is terrible and this game was many weeks ago, but apparently the orks threw rokket spears at my Hellbrute. They also played Monster Hunters again this time on the Hellbrute who was trying to perform the key action I need to perform as per the mission.

Once again a mortal wound was done via squig headbutt. The Beast Rabban went down this round of melee, but I played Putrid Detonation which did a couple of mortal wounds.

The orks also went after my rhino, it first took 2 damage then 14 more. McFly ended up surrounded and had to fight the warboss. They consolidated in to him, I was assured this was all legal.

Big Ripper Red Tooth was overjoyed to face off against McFly, I don’t remember the specifics but I rolled a lot of die rolls below four. But there were just too many orks and of course the dice hate me, but before dying it was decided I would hold aloft the Orb of Decay which we’d also decided after much debating must be a Relic of Decay and it did four more mortal wounds, but no actual orks actually died.

I passed moral for a change, so I had one plague marine left alive. Kris vowed to kill everything because the old ways is best and Krumpin’ ain’t easy.

Death Guard Turn Three

With Rabban and McFly dead the mission was over, no amount of subterfuge was going to survive that charge. I was encouraged to overcharge my plasma pistol since I had one and a command point, I used the re-roll not to die.

As it was my turn the Squighog fought first. Killious Bilious the Silliest remained alive to force another turn.

Orks Turn Three

The warboss was late for his postgame drinking so he sauntered over. Killious died.

Post Game

McFly managed to pick up a battle scar but rather than weaken him I took the loss of two XP. To put it mildly this game didn’t go well and trying to play against type because of the mission and agenda was a disaster but some days you get the bear somedays the bear gets you. Will the Diseased Sons ever win a game of Warhammer 40,000 again or will everyone in the campaign eventually switch to playing Orks? Tune in next time or leave a comment, the choice is yours.

40K Narrative Campaign Week 22

It seems like just last night I was typing up a battle report, but since we played another game of Warhammer 40,000 and I do the best job when I write at least a first draft immediately after the game, I’m spending New Year’s Eve blogging. Fear not #Fitfam although I’m also drinking I have plans to be healthier and fitter in 2023.

Of course I plan to paint more next year, doesn’t everybody? I did pretty good at my 2022 hobby goals but I never painted any orks. Both Bill and Kris are painting orks now it seems. They even played each other today, I don’t want to spoil it, but the orks won that game. Aiden ditched us to play some other Chris at Warhammer 40,000 so it fell to me to take on Devin again with his ever more powerful Chaos Lord, apparently it is good not turning into a Chaos Spawn.

Pre Game

When I learned I was playing Devin I could have changed my army list. It was far from optimal but several units are resting while I paint additions to them or in the case of the Plague Surgeon the entire model, so this left McFly, Rabban, Gangrene, and the Cancer Cell to take on a very powerful Chaos Lord. How powerful, powerful enough to have a page of special rules and ten campaign points by himself!

This made me the underdog, even with the newly heroic McFly, no one is afraid of him or my latest five plague marines or my paltry ten cultists. Actually the unit that seems to actually put fear in the enemy when he gets into close combat is the Hellbrute, hammer time can do a lot of damage.

The mission this week was Dangerous Ground. Before our game I announced I was spending one requisition point to follow the path of Corrupting the Weak and after my lack of success at Culling the Horde last week I took “Sow the Infection, Harvest the Plague” as my agenda. A lot of agendas and other parts of the game work better in slightly larger games but once again we were a combat patrol of 25, actually 24 power. In the future I apparently must take as my agenda one of: Break their Spirit, Subterfuge, or Poison their Minds in order to earn Corruption points. I never did anything with my Inflection points, but you can enhance a pyscher with requisition points and corruption points according to some campaign book.

I of course lost the roll to go first and in order to keep the game moving I chose to just stay on my side having set up the terrain pretty symmetrically. This wasn’t my lucky day, but I did do a better job of following and remember the rules so it was basically a moral victory as we had to hurry at the end because it was New Year’s Eve.

Battle Round One

You can see above how the army was deployed. I put Gangrene in the rhino and since I had extra command points I thought of starting them in reserves but I just am not that strategic. I need to give more thought to my army and tactics in the new year. Usually I just show up and wing it. Devin as an Alpha Legion player often does all sorts of redeployment shenanigans so you need to set up conservatively. This time all he did in his command phase was move one unit forward. In fact his whole turn consisted of moving and most everyone advanced.

Death Guard Turn One

Since I had seven command points, eight actually at the start of my turn I decided to order a Blight Bombardment. I think this game is a little small for a 3CP stratagem and I always wanted a Lord of Virulence but have yet to paint him. I think my strategy was not terrible the plan was to cover one objective with my token, so I chose the objective that Devin had advanced the furthest towards but in hindsight he and I think I should have put the bombardment on the right flank instead.

My rhino with it’s enhanced havoc launcher and damaged combi-bolter managed to kill at least two cultists. The cultists actually failed leadership too so I think three more actually died or ran away. No victory points can be scored in this mission during the first turn.

Battle Round Two

To start turn two, the cultists tried to come back from the dead. I had killed at least two but several died after they failed morale. Thanks to Tide of Traitors and apparently a tiny table four cultists returned to battle at the front of the squad, which actually effectively moved it further up the board.

The smaller squad in the picture is actually Traitor Guard and they have a sniper rifle among other tricks, it kept missing or failing to wound though. Devin also has several melta guns including a combi-melta on his rhino. His actual cultist squad has two of every special weapon those flamers combined with “Let the Galaxy Burn” and some good rolls and re-rolls meant my rhino took some damage but it didn’t die. If I knew every gun in the army was going to shoot the rhino I would have popped smoke. I think next time I put a squad in the rhino I just pop smoke after roaring forward.

The Chaos Lord charged the rhino, but still it lived. The Chaos Lord has so many special rules, he is tough to kill but he is no Lord Gogo.

Death Guard Turn Two

So if you haven’t guessed the Blight Bombardment did nothing, hence my theory it would be better in a larger game when the battlefield has more troops on it. It did redirect the Alpha Legion forces, but as they rely heavily on one model, I should have sent it his way, but he can teleport or something. I probably shouldn’t have played it at all, there are better options in the stratagem deck.

I advanced my Hellbrute as the mission was to just stand beside four objectives nine inches from the centre of the board, perhaps holding off on the bombardment for another turn might have worked better but usually you have the most command points on the first turn, so the cost seems less costly. This game I forgot zero psychic phases, I actually used my crib sheet. It doesn’t have all the answers but it helped me remember to use both offensive and defensive psychic powers. I actually failed a pyschic test with snake eyes, but I rerolled. Plague Wind thus killed three cultists and I killed two more with Smite.

Gangrene got out of the rhino which I left in melee with the Chaos Lord. This made it hard to shoot him but he also was stuck hammering my empty personal carrier. He destroyed it and I made it explode but he has a rule or a relic that lets him shrug off even mortal wounds. That had been my plan to kill him and would be my plan again next time, but he was both lucky and Devin used a lot of command points on that one model. A different mission and you might be able to ignore him and win.

Having played over twenty games in this campaign, I prefer the ten man Plague Marine squads, but in the small games five model squads is more practical. Having extra models enhances their survivability. Of course I still need to paint a lot more special weapons, Gangrene is pretty sparse with just a single melta gun, but they were happy to not fight the Chaos Lord and instead shot and then charged the cultists. Their flakk armour actually made some saves but I finished them off and consolidated into melee with the Alpha Legion / Fallen rhino as seen below.

This turn we did do the scoring, I didn’t earn that many points towards my agenda tally as cultists do not have Contagion of Nurgle but I did take the early lead 15-5 on the big board.

Battle Round Three

In this turn the Alpha Legion did a lot of shooting killing one cultist and one plague marine. The Chaos Lord charged the cultists and I played Overwatch, I even rolled a six for the number of flamer attacks but ultimately I accomplished nothing. I strongly prefer the plague spewer or for models that can get one the heavy flamer. That may actually deter some charges or make someone pay. As it is strength four just doesn’t cut it, but that is the best cultists can do. Today I learned I can field Gellerpox Infected and they can have a heavy flamer.

His squad of Legionaries also got out and charged, hence the extra shooting with an additional squad on the board. They have both a power fist and a heavy chain axe, that did some work. I decided to fight back with my cultists, this turned out to be a mistake, not only did they not do anything as the Alpha Legion Chaos Lord has very good saves, but the rhino was still in melee with my two remaining plague marines and killed both them after I failed all my armour saves. This was Devin’s highlight of the match.

I decided as I still had a lot of command points to play Insane Bravery on the cultists which I just realized was illegal as they have a battle scar which prevents it. Oh well so much for getting all the rules correct for an entire game.

Death Guard Turn Three

It was around this point that Bill announced he had to leave soon and he was my ride. So that affected my strategy and we basically rushed so Devin could get his kills as I did not think I would win after this turn because although I remembered it my Smite psychic attack was denied and that was my plan to kill the Chaos Lord. I also had the Orb of Decay and some stratagems but now command points were in shorter supply after I illegally played Insane Bravery. I failed to cast Plague Wind at all and this is when I started thinking today was not going to be my day.

Rabban, even though armed sub-optimally in my opinion, killed a cultist. I declared two charges as remember Bill said we had to speed things up, I was considering advancing or just avoiding melee with his Chaos Lord, but McFly charged in to try and save the illegally insanely brave cultists. The Beast Rabban also charged.

Although my Malignant Plaguecaster got to fight first, he failed to do anything as Devin has many ways to protect his Chaos Lord from relic armour, to invulnerable saves, to shrugging wounds, to command re-rolls. He also has the Mark of Slaneesh so he smote McFly who really should stick to casting psychic powers. Next game he will and Devin is encouraging me to requisition a Relic of Decay for him as the ruling seems to be the Orb of Decay is not a Relic of Decay. What say you Internet?

The Cancer Cell of course did not hurt the Chaos Lord either but my Hellbrute pasted two cultists.

Battle Round Four

We really hustled through the last two turns. Devin even thought he had another whole turn as he failed to table me, but I pointed out I was taking notes and had a turn marker on the table. But the score at this point would have been 35-25 so not terrible but with my Malignant Plaguecaster now gone the game was basically over and I sacrificed him mainly because it sped up the game but in theory he could have done 12 wounds to the Chaos Lord.

My cultists obviously died and my Hellbrute started taking wounds but he has eight. The melta guns started missing and Legionaires charged which resulted in Rabban killing three of them.

Battle Round Five

The Chaos Lord charged but failed to kill the Hellbrute. This was the end of the game as far as Devin was concerned but I pointed out he got to fight again in my half of the turn. The Hellbrute gave the Chaos Lord a scare getting two wounding hits through but then a command point was used, but D6 wounds from the hammer is no joke. Having the ability to shrug off wounds definitely helps.

Post Battle

Not that anyone cared to ask, but I think I ended up with six in my poison tally earning me nothing. The final score was 50-30 so a respectable performance by the underdog. Without any corruption points I couldn’t use the new fancy requisitions, but as Devin seems to imply I could requisition the Relic of Decay that is Plaguecaster or Sorcerer only. Also after doing all the post match book keeping I picked up no new battle scars, made Rabban MVP and after some deliberation enhanced his engines as speed is also in short supply in my Death Guard army, though I was tempted to enhance a weapon.

I will probably write another blog post in the future detailing my plans for the new year as I already partially summarized my painting accomplishments in the previous post. If you have thoughts on this battle report or hobby goals to share for 2023 you can leave them below.