Broken Comm Lines - D'Then

Planet: D'Then.
Region: Perdus Rift.
990.M41

Death Guard vs Tau Empire.
2000 points.
Mission: Contact Lost.

Returning to oversee the war against the alien Tau on D'Then, Typhus orders his troops to push forwards. Tau communication station 12 falls to the advance without time to alert command. When no word comes within 24 hours, the Tau dispatch a scouting force to determine the fate of their silent comms station. What they find is a powerful Death Guard force waiting for them.

Adam and I came together again to wage war for the world of D'Then. This was just a random pick up game and we decided to roll for it and we got the Contact Lost mission. We split the six objectives quite evenly down the table for fairness and I got to chose went first. Adam had chosen to field an Infiltration Cadre (I think it's called) which meant that if I wiped anything out he got all his reserves come in straight away on his next turn. So with that in mind I decided to let him have the first turn, which I don't think he was too happy about. Hehehe.

Annoyingly he started on of the objectives that he drew the card for so he was going to be on the leading foot anyway. He simply moved up his small ground troops forwards baiting me to kill them. On my first turn I got one of the objectives that I started with and one right in his deployment zone. Typical Typhus ordering his men to do the impossible. With that in mind I charged Typhus' land raider down the table to try and get there as quickly as possible. The chaos knight moved down the middle of the board firing away but unfortunately for Adam leaving one man alive in the target squad. However, he pretty much got all his reserves come in turn 2 anyway which took the gloves off for me.

His scatter dice was on fire though. He deep striked two battle suit squads and a riptide into my deployment zone and each unit rolled spot on target with the scatter dice. Resolving shooting he popped a rhino and started gunning down the plague marines within. Three were soon left. At the end of his second turn he scored that same objective he started with a second time. Already he was three VP up and I had but one!

My turn two saw my raptors arrive from deep strike and they landed spot on in his lines behind a unit of pathfinders. Flamers and bolt pistol fire killed all but three of them as I recall. The Knight assault another unit and stomped them into bloody spots on the floor.

Third turn saw a massive combat in my deployment zone. Two battle suit squads and the riptide killed two plague marines and assaulted the remaining one. That one plague marine survived three whole game rounds of close combat before finally succumbing to his wounds. Man of the match! But he did his job and kept his guarded objective out of the hands of the alien enemy.

Unfortunately because we were playing lengthwise down the table, Typhus' land raider was not making much head way although it shrugged off every fire that was thrown at it. Normally I find Tau pop it straight away but this game it survived intact which was a wonder. It's only claim to fame this game was glancing the hammerhead to death over three turns. The knight then  then charged into the ruins and began cutting down the main body of troops. The raptors assaulted the remaining pathfinders and tore them into chunks of bloody flesh. I was doing a good job of killing his troops but throughout the game he had the luck with the objective cards and it was obvious he was going to win from it.

Turns four and five went really quickly as we didn't have much left. Game ended turn 5 with Adam stealing victory 7vp to my 4. Good game but luck of the draw was definitely in Adam's hands. Man of the match was my lone plague marine and the wooden spoon goes to Adam's barracuda which failed to cause any wounds or damage all game.

My list:

*Typhus.
* Four termiantors with mark of Nurgle, lightning claws and land raider.
* Two units of 10 plague marines. Champion with plasma pistol and power weapon. Two meltaguns. Each unit with rhino with extra combi-bolter.
* One unit of 10 raptors. Mark of Nurgle. Champion with twin lightning claws. Two flamers.
* Chaos Knight with daemon of Nurgle, thermal cannon, chainsword and heavy stubber.

Wave Assault - Abraxes

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

Death Guard vs Tyranids.

Mission: Wave Assault.
Deployment: Special.
Points: 1750.

Weeks of fighting have led to a brief stalemate. Even the supernatural toughness of the Death Guard has failed to prevent them slowly being pushed back and the Hive Mind has been working overtime to combat the multitude of diseases released by Nurgle's chosen. Now the Tyranids have begun to close in around the Death Guard.

Typhus ordered his men to hold the line no matter the cost. Bludhaven would rot under Nurgle's gaze rather than be devoured by the Hive Mind. Surrounded by a swarm of alien horrors, the Death Guard prepared to give their lives dearly.

This was a continuation of Joel and I's game from a couple weeks ago. We chose the next Tyranid mission from the Battle Missions book and prepared for that. I decided to be a little non-thematic this time and build a list around the Black Crusade detachment for no reason other than I wanted to give it a second go. It is much better against Imperial opponents but this was just going to be a fun game.

Joel's list was a little tougher than before. He had to split his into three waves which would randomly come from a random table edge that had been used before. Wave 1 was his thematic remnant from the last game (carnifex and two small units of genestealers). Wave 2 was two flying hive tyrants and a large unit of gargoyles. The third wave was hordes and hordes of gaunts, supported by two zoanthropes, a tervigon, and a toxicrene.

I set up a unit plague marines holding the central objective, two CSM units in rhinos holding two others, a unit of raptors held back to engage where needed, a helbrute to the left defending the final objective, and finally Typhus and lightning claw terminators in a land raider to speed to where they were needed.

The first three rounds went really quickly as Joel's tyranids came in in wave order. I managed to take out a few but he had hidden most of his wisely in cover. Once everything was in it surged forth. The helbrute was dropped quickly by the hive tyrants and so I gave up on that objective to focus on the other three. The raptors did nothing really. Despite being close to a huge units of gaunts they failed to get into combat and when they did on the following turn, they were shredded by sheer number of dice. Disappointing as I had taken the time to build those models just for this mission. Typhus and his terminators likewise did nothing. The land raider was dropped by the zoanthropes and the only possible target for them was the toxicrene which proceeded to kill all of them rather too quickly for my tastes.

The chaos marines were also soon cut down by either gaunts or the two hive tyrants. Only the plague marines actually put up much of a fight. But come turn 5 even they dropped and Joel won by wiping me out across the table.

It was a good game and I know that I had chosen the wrong detachment but sometimes you need to try things out. Joel was extremely certain that i would win simply because of the mark of Nurgle on everything but I was certain he would win simply by numbers of dice. My army is just too expensive to compensate but next time I'll give some more thought to what I need to bring them down.

Black Crusade detachment.
*Typhus.
* One unit of four terminators with pairs of lightning claws. Land raider as dedicated transport.
* Two units of chaos space marines. Mark of Nurgle. Champion with plasma pistol and power weapon. Flamer and heavy bolter. Both with Rhinos with extra combi-bolters.
* One unit of raptors. Mark of Nurgle. Champion with twin lightning claws. Two flamers.
* Helbrute with multi-melta.
* One plague marine unit. Champion with plasma pistol and power weapon. Two melta guns.

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.

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.

The Emperor's Will - Cadia

Mission: The Emperor's Will.
Deployment: Hammer & Anvil.
Points: 2000pts.
Warzone: Cadia.

The Death Guard advance has ground to a halt. The chaos marines face the hated Imperial Fists across a wides watch of no man's land. For several days they have exchanged fire with no real shift in the lines. Typhus orders his forces to board transports and charge into the space marine lines.

It has been a few weeks since I last got a game of 40K so when Gary D challenged me with his Imperial Fists I jumped at the chance. Mission was The Emperor’s Will at 2000 points. I still wanted to try the list I played at the Midas Crusade tournament and I hoped that it might do better in a less competitive game.

We both placed our objective on opposite sides of the same edge with units guarding them. I had some CSM guarding mine and he had some strange Horus Heresy cannons (they have some 40k experimental rules) on his. Knowing that he was keeping two units of terminators and lysander in reserve, I kept my hel cult back to help guard my base.

Night fight turn 1 meant that little fire actually hit. Only my Knight managed to inflict any wounds. It would do really well through the game never scattering the thermal blaster the entire game. Once it hit turn 2 his fire power dropped my land raider and both rhinos. The terminators came down mid table to engage Typhus and his terminators. This meant that the hel cult did nothing the entire game.

As usual Typhus died horribly in close combat with Lysander just pummelling into red goo with his silly thunder hammer. He always seems to end up in the wrong combats. Maybe he’ll have better luck next time.

Grave cannons tore the hull points out of my Knight and all game it only regenerated one! It did managed to crush an enemy dreadnought and two of the centurians before it suffered catastrophic damage and detonated, taking out half my plague marines on that side of the table.

The game ended turn 5 with Gary winning 5VP to my 3VP. Close game but he had far better luck with his dice rolls then I did.  I really needed to have my raptors built as I think if I could have deep struck them at the back of the table I might have been able to take his objective forcing him to either pull back or push on towards my objective.

Falling Back - Lelithar

Planet: Lelithar.

Cadian Sector.

999.M41

Dark Angels vs Death Guard.

2000 points.

Mission: Deadlock.

The Lelithar conflict has after many weeks fallen to a stalemate with neither the larger Death Guard army nor the Dark Angel strike teams making head way against one another. Typhus has decided to pull his back forces to the territory that they have captured. While this consolidates his forces into one target location, the Dark Angels do not have the numbers to launch an effective strike and the lord of the Death Guard plans to use his numbers to eradicate the space marine threat.

This was my effective third tournament game against my nephew's Dark Angels. Typical that I would end up playing him yet again. Having played against this list recently I knew exactly what to expect and I spent the set up trying to work out how to deal with all that grav weaponry. This game was played lengthwise down the table but I knew with his drop pod force I wouldn't make much headway and that is exactly what happened. Benjo got the first turn and his grav weaponry tore dropped a handful of chaos marines first turn and stripped some hul points from my Chaos Knight.

My plague marines were in rhino's but each attempt to get close to objectives resulted with me losing hull points and slowly he whittled away my forces. Worst of all was my turn two in which he wrecked my land raider forcing Typhus and his terminators to jump out. All I could do on my turn was hope that enough of them could assault the squad and remove those grav weapons, but once again overwatching on full ballistic skill meant he killed all four terminators and Typhus before I even did anything. By the end of turn two I had basically given up and was just playing to make things more difficult for my opponent.

The only real victory I had this game came from my Chaos Knight. I was able to keep it alive and continually focus fire into his Librarian Conclave squad and Azrael. Turn after turn I stripped away Azrael's protection but I couldn't get through the invulnerable saves by the time the game ended on turn 6. But I did more damage to them in this game than I had previously.

On turn 6 the game ended and once again victory was achieved by the Dark Angels due to grav weapons.  I've said it before but they are nasty. Unfortunately this game because of the terrain layout and my nephew's well placed drop pod assault, I didn't have the cover saves to prevent it. Going to need some more practice against him I think.

Typhus plan has worked but at great cost. His men have successfully fallen back but the Dark Angels launched a series of successful strikes into the chaos forces they retreated from the front lines. Now the Death Guard have consolidated their position Typhus needs to fathom a means of breaking out and achieving a victory if the Lelithar campaign is to be successful.

First Offensive - Abraxes III

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

Death Guard vs Astra Militarum / Genestealer Cult.
2000pts.
Mission: Spoils of War.


Abraxes III had largely fallen to the Death Guard invasion. Those who did not die from the virus bombing soon turned from the Emperor's faith to praising Nurgle. But not all. A sizeable portion of the PDF seemed resistant and fought all the harder to defeat the invaders. It was only where monstrous hybrids and foul genestealers emerged from the sewers that Typhus realised that another force had already set their eyes upon the Abraxes system.

This was a tournament match against my friend Ashleigh. I knew he would be playing Astra Militarum and so I expected my poor Death Guard to get pummelled by either mass small arms fire or mass tank shots. What I did not expect was massed guardsmen (no tanks) with genestealer cult allies. I was looking forward to this even more now.

Game set up saw us playing length ways down the table. His guardsmen positioned deep in his own deployment zone but his hybrids infiltrated half way up the table and his broodlord sat in outflank. Almost immediately the broodlord and genestealers came in and proceeded to decimate one chaos marine squad before being blown apart by two squads of cultists.

The hybrids proved to be the most annoying with two mining lasers which despite missing for the first two turns soon were stripping hull points from my Chaos Knight and wrecking a Rhino I needed to get my plague marines to their destination. It soon became a game of attrition as his fire power knocked out a few models at a time and pushed me back. With the Knight's help I soon cleared the center of the table and Typhus with his terminator squad managed to slaughter through any enemy units in the central ruins.

Even so this game did not go well for me. As seems to be my luck lately I just could not get the tactical objective cards that I needed and Ashleigh's army managed to contain me centrally so I couldn't reach the ones that I did have. His cards, as expected, were all perfect for him. By the time our three hour limit came round he was so far ahead on VP's that I had no chance of catching up.

The Death Guard had made planet fall but found the world far from weak. Alien forces now opposed them and Typhus knew what must be coming. The Death Guard prepared to move street by street burning out any trace of the xenos filth while preparing for what was to come. Even now his sorcerers began to complain about voices in their minds and a terrible shadow moving through the Warp.

Guerrilla Warfare - Lelithar

Planet: Lelithar.
Cadian Sector.
999.M41

Dark Angels vs Death Guard.
2000 points.
Mission: Cloak and Shadows.

The war for Lelithar was not going well. Every attempt to push forward was being met by stiff resistance from the Dark Angels marines. It was becoming clear that despite superior numbers the Death Guard could not strike their targets en mass without suffering serious defeat. Typhus instead divides his legion into multiple smaller war bands and dispatches them to numerous potential targets with the idea that the space marines cannot protect each and every target. The war may be fought piecemeal but slowly the Death Guard would achieve victory.


I haven't played my nephew for a while so I challenged him to a 2000 point 40k game. I knew he would accept and dust off his Dark Angels. I decided to play for fun and try out the new Black Crusade detachment from Traitor's Hate to see if it would work ok for an event I was playing in a weeks time. Knowing that I had to have a Chaos Knight for that event I took one for this game as practice but it's cost meant that I would be forced to forego any vehicles in my list. I can tell you right now that it hurt me big time.

Deployment was the old classic across from one another and the mission rolled was Cloak & Shadows, which I had played recently against Raven Guard. Objectives were well spread around and my deployment let me start with two of them. My nephew started with three in hand.

His list was something I haven't played against before. He normally takes the big land speeder with the shadow/cover effect but this time he didn't and instead played a Librarian Conclave block with Azrael which was frankly scary. Otherwise he did his usual of spamming grav weapons in both tactical squads and a devastator squad. Those things are the bane of my games sometimes.

He got first turn and I chose not to try and steal. He inserted two drop pods, one with a devestator squad with grav cannons and the other with the conclave. His grav weapons knocked down the Knight before it got chance to do anything. Impressive but I felt that I had wasted vital points. Must learn not to get attached to super heavy walkers.

From there the game just got worse for me. He scored all three of his starting objectives and on my turn I scored none but did kill a handful of his marines. My next turn saw me draw an objective that he held so I raced my bike squad up the side, smashing through the tactical squad holding it only to find that his razorback a few inches away had the Objective Secured special rule  and I had nothing now to take it out.

Ultimately he was able to outflank my forces and cut me down in a withering hail of fire from three directions. Terminators and Plague Marines alike just cut down by small arms fire and grav weapons. Even Typhus dropped due to those. He may need to be benched in future games at this rate!

Turn five and it was almost half past midnight so I called it there. He had a very nice army and there was nothing I could do to pull it back. The objectives I drew were just dire and now where near me. The Chaos Warband formation is nice but too restrictive for how I play but the whole Black Crusade detachment was sort of nice. Because of the special rules I ended up with a biker aspiring champion with T7, 2+ armour save, fleet and feel no pain. He was a bit of a monster but he took a lascannon to the chest and died turn 4.

My real problem other than his grav weapons was the lack of speed. I needed rhinos and a land raider to get my units safely around the table. Just means that for the weekend event I'll not be playing the new formations or detachment like I wanted.

Good game but I hope not to play against that many grav weapons again for a while.

Cloak and Shadows - Perdus Rift

Planet: Tyros.
Region: Perdus Rift.
990.M41

Death Guard vs Raven Guard.
2000 points.

Cloak and Shadows.

Confident by their success against the Death Guard, the Raven Guard continue to hound the chaos marines into the countryside of Tyros. Typhus calls upon his psychic connection to the Warp seeking a way to secure a victory over the space marines. What he learns leads him and his forces to stage an ambush. Shryke sees through the false scouting and locates Typhus and his main force. Using the element of surprise they drop from the skies and reverse the ambush.

Played a revenge match against against Richard's Raven Guard last night. Know what he took last time I made a less competitive change to my list to help handle the lightning claw assault marine. I ditched most of what I had before in order to take a 15 man and a 20 man plague marines squad hoping it would be harder for him to cut through them. His list was different again. No lightning claws, just regular bolt pistol and chainsword assault marines. He also took two stormtalon fighters which proved once again that flyers are my bane. CSM really do need a better flyer than the Heldrake.

Six objectives were placed and we rolled for deployment which gave us the short ends of the table. He set up first with a scout squad on the table in a ruin and little else. Everything I had was deployed and just to be on the safe side I kept my Chaos Knight on the back edge to prevent him drop podding down behind it.

First turn his drop pods came down and all they did was kill four plague marines and nothing else. Even the melta weapons failed to touch the Knight. It looked well for me and I was hopeful that his poor dice rolls would help me in the long run. Come my turn the objectives I drew were rather terrible with only one that I could take. On his turn he had secured two with random victory points netting him 5 VP. My turn I achieved none. Thankfully though the squads he dropped in my deployment zone died to mass bolter fire and the actions of the Chaos Knight.

The second turn saw my dice go as bad his my opponent's/ We had a helbrute vs deadnought battle. My helbrute fired point blank with a multi-melta and missed. In combat it knocked one hull point off and his dreadnought hit me for five hull points and boom! When his planes came on they wrecked all kinds of trouble. Immediately my Knight lost 4 hull points and my predator turned into a burning wreck.

The objective cards then gave me objective 5 and two objective 4. Number 5 I had but 4 was contested until my Knight took out the drop pod stopping me. The following turn I got objective 4 again. Richard however kept pulling all the high point cards though and it was clear that without divine intervention I was losing this just on VP.

Typhus once again fell to his dreadnought. That seems to be a recurring element in our games. I got my revenge though when my Chaos Knight charged the Dreadnought crushed beneath the teeth of it's chainsword. Unfortunately my Knight exploded not long afterwards.

My plan to hold him back with large numbers of plague marines failed. Even just equipped with basic close combat weapons and just two thunder hammers, he smashed through both squads with ease although I did manage to drop a good number of them before my last plague marine fell.

Turn six and he tabled me. We didn't even bother looking at the victory points for comparison, he had easily doubled if not tripled whatever I had. It was a good game though and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I am going to have to really consider what I can do about his hard hitting list for future games.

Surprise Attack - Perdus Rift

Planet: Tyros.
Region: Perdus Rift.
990.M41

The war against the Tau is going well. The planet D'Then is slowly falling to the forces of Nurgle. Typhus has returned to his base of operations on the planet of Tyros in the neighbouring system to oversee the war effort throughout the Perdus Rift.
Unknown to him the Death Guard presence has been detected by a Raven Guard battle barge headed towards their own war against the alien empire. Shrike decides that this may be the chance to strike against Typhus. For several days Raven Guard scouts monitor Typhus' base reporting back to the battle barge hiding behind Tyros' moon. When the time was right, Shrike lead an attack against the Death Guard.

Last night played a game against my friend Richard and his new Raven Guard army. We played a mission from the Battle Missions book called Surprise Attack. It represents a Space Marine surprise attack on an enemy headquarters so somewhat thematic.

My list was pretty much what I had played lately but as Richard wanted a 2000 point game I added in a Hel Cult (plague bearers proxying for some missing cultists), a few extra plague marines and two vengeance weapon platforms.

I was quite worried by what he could bring and I was not disappointed as nearly everything came with lightning claws. This was an army built to bring down my poor plague marines. He played 5 man squads though to break up his deployment and give me more problems to deal with.

Deployment for this mission is awkward as I can set up anywhere more than 12′’ from the table edge but the units must be 6′’ from each other. How a horde army might do this I have no idea as I struggled and we had to agree to shrink that where necessary. Richard’s forces can deploy in the 12′’ table edge and come in from any side.

To start with I was doing awesome. I was racking up victory points but turn three was the beginning of the end. Although his dice rolls were fairly pants all game he had slowly whittled hull points off of my Chaos Knight and when his Storm Raven came in it took the walker down with an impressive explosion. I had nothing that could touch the flyer and that was a huge problem. My only multimelta, on the helbrute, never got close enough to do anything.

His lighting claws were just horrible. No armour saves and FNP did me no good. I’m now dreading that my local space marine players will start outfitting with lightning claws when facing me. Typhus himself fell to a dreadnought after it ripped through his terminator bodyguards. Although thought dead, his body isn't recovered after the battle. Typhus will survive to fight again.

Come turn 5 and the game ended. Counting up the VP’s Richard’s space marines beat me by one point. 10vp to 9vp. Good close game.

Contact Lost - D'Then

Planet: D'Then.
Region: Perdus Rift.
990.M41

Death Guard vs Tau Empire.
1500 points.
Contact Lost.

Slowly, step by step, the Death Guard have advanced across D'Then. Outposts have fallen and thousands of Tau citizens now lie dead from numerous plagues. When contact is lost with mining station XII  on the Tau side of the front lines a scout force was dispatched to investigate.

What they found was Typhus the Traveller and his personal retinue of plague marines. While cultists and other marines looted the mining station's reserves, Typhus engaged the Tau expeditionary force.

This was my second game against my friend Adam and his Tau army. He had recently bought some new models, including a Barracuda, from one of our occasional fellow players who is selling his army and wanted to give it a go. We had planned on playing one of the Tau scenarios from the Battle Missions book but due to work getting in the way we decided to rearrange that and just play a friendly game from the rule book.

The six objectives were set up three to a side so we started mirrored. Unfortunately for Adam my first two objectives cards were two that I started with. Turn four saw me claim the third. His objective cards were not helpful to him at all.

Adam's list was led by Darkstrider and contained two units of fire warriors, one of pathfinders, one of stealth suits, two ghostkeel's, a hammerhead and a barracuda. Not bad for a nice friendly game but I felt he lacked some hard hitting units. I never managed to destroy either ghostkeel. One was kept locked in combat with plague marines, the other lost combat and ran away after facing Typhus with terminators. Even the barracuda, which I was concerned about, didn't really cause any problems ultimately. It didn't help his cause that my armour saves and FNP rolls were perfect throughout the game.

I had started the game with the intent of, or rather the hope of, getting the objectives that I started with. Lucky for me that was the case. I think Adam had the same hope but it was not to be. He was forced to come forward from his side which gave me a better chance of gunning him down. His hammerhead did nothing and my predator which I was using to to bring it down failed to hit all game. Eventually my Knight took out Darkstrider and his squad with a well placed thermal cannon blast but otherwise was almost useless. Likewise his barracuda which managed to take a HP from the Knight but did nothin else all game.

We eventually collided mid table between Typhus and his terminators, and some stealth suits and a ghostkeel. Typhus didn't do too well as Manreaper snatched a wound of him in the first round. The terminators slowly fell but they did bring down the stealth suits and knocked a wound from the ghostkeel which fell back. On my left flank Adam's second ghostkeel assaulted one squad of plague marines hoping to take them down and steal an objective. My plague marines slowly fell but held it back denying him some VP.

Towards the end of the game Adam had a chance to draw but his bad luck continued and when the game ended turn five by mutual agreement I was 5 victory points to 2.

My list was:

Typhus.
5 Chaos Terminators (reaper autocannon and lightning claws).
10 Plague Marines (plasma pistol/power weapon champion, 2x meltaguns, icon of despair)
10 Plague Marines (plasma pistol/power weapon champion, 2x meltaguns, icon of despair)
2x Rhinos.
Chaos Predator with lascannon and heavy bolters.
Chaos Knight Errant (daemonic possession).

Mobile Defence - Cadia

Planet: Cadia.
Region: Cadian Sector.
999.M41

Death Guard vs Craftworld Alaitoc
2000pts.
Mission: Mobile Defence.

Having been driven from the main battle by massed artillery fire, the Death Guard had been forced to find alternative routes back to Abaddon's lines. Typhus cast his eyes across the ruined cityscape before him. This part of Cadia's second city had been destroyed weeks earlier and now a small force of alien Eldar held the main route through. His suit's lenses detected the presence of two vengeance weapon platforms between them and the aliens. The batteries in inactive but the Traveller knew that if his marines got close enough then the signature of their power armour might reactivate them. He directed his marines to hold the nearest ruin and hold it as a make shift command post. Two squads of Plague Marines and his own Terminator bodyguards were directed to capture vital locations on the path to the main thoroughfare. True to his wishes as his forces got close to the Eldar lines both weapon platforms opened up targetting the alien filth before them and opening a path forward.


Thursday night last week was a game against my friend Chris B and his Eldar forces. I played a battle missions scenario called Mobile Defence. Chris wanted to play 2000 points which gave me a few more options. Between work and other commitments I still haven’t had time to build or paint much more.

The mission called for my opponent to set up everything that wasn’t a skimmer basically in his half of the table and then I deployed. Everything else of his comes in on reserve starting turn 1.

I took two vengeance weapon platforms hoping that they might do me good against his frail Eldar. His forces got the first turn and took out one platform. My heavy options did a fair job of taking things down but against Eldar they were popped pretty much every turn.

As it was an objective holding mission (3 on the table) my plague marines and CSM squad were basically tied into holding objectives. I used a terminator squad to capture the one in my opponent’s side of the table. Even with my usual FNP rolls Chris’s Eldar just whittled my plague marines down. Even Typhus only mnaged to destroy one squad of guardians by himself before succumbing to mass fire from three wave serpents! I am getting fed up of playing him as he just doesn’t seem worth it any more.

The game ended turn 6 with my terminators holding one objective and my opponent claiming the other two. Another fun game but Eldar are a force that I just don’t know how my Plague Marines are going to handle in future.

The Relic - Lelithar

Planet: Lelithar.
Cadian Sector.
999.M41

Adeptas Sororitas / Dark Angels vs Death Guard.
2000 points.
Mission: The Relic.

During the war for Lelithar, Typhus ordered a raid upon the shrine of Saint Lelithar. He directed the troops under his command to storm the cathedral and take the dead saint's treasured remains. The theft and destruction of the body would cause a severe fall in moral for the defenders. Leading the attack himself, Typhus charged into the ranks of gathered Adepta Sororitas. Only once battle was joined was the trap sprung. Dark Angels marines dropped from the sky and crashed through the ruins on bikes. Determined not to lose, Typhus ordered his men to seize the relics and fall back.

For some time now I have wanted to challenge my nephew's Sisters of Battle army. He doesn't like playing them as they are in desperate need of an update, something we both agree on. However, after some friendly persuasion he agreed to field them in the Relic mission. When he turned up with Dark Angels allies I was a little surprised as I had expected him to field his own Imperial Knight.

Instead he had turned up with a whole shedload of grav weapons which were quite frankly, the bane of my existence this game. Grav cannons and even the basic guns ripped my Chaos Knight to pieces over three rounds! I didn't even get to do anything with it other than incinerate a handful of bikes. My defiler (which I played purely because I had just bought it off a friend and wanted to play it) died turn 1 to a lascannon and a couple missile launchers. There was nothing I could do it seems.

Even my Plague Marines were screwed. They made plenty of FNP saves but every time I got to base contact with the relic, my nephew would gun down enough of them that I could never move away from the relic. By turn 3 I had resolved myself that this was going to be a loss for me. So I had Typhus charge and challenge Saint Celestine. Let's go out in a blaze of glory! Except for two rounds neither of them managed to hit each other and when I did get her down to her last wound she slew Typhus (Who was quickly snatched off into the Warp by the Dark Powers) and I conceded.

A good game but frustrating. I have not been on the receiving end of grav weapons before and definitely not that many!

Big Guns - Cadia

Planet: Cadia.
Region: Cadian Sector.
999.M41

Death Guard vs Death Korps of Krieg
1500pts.
Mission: Big Guns Never Tire.

On the front lines of Cadia the forces of Chaos are being pummeled by a barrage of ordnance from the Astra Militarum. Abaddon directed the Death Guard to remove that threat. Supported by a allied Nurgle Knight, the forces of pestilence marched through the shattered battlefield to engage those forces, freeing up the no man's land for Abaddon's advance..


I had been looking forward to this match for a while. I had seen Mick's Death Korp army once before and it looked lethal but I wanted the challenge so I said let's bring it on this mission. In the end he didn't overdo the expected Basilisk line that I thought he might bring. Instead it was a nicely balanced list. I'm not 100% on the Forge World models so I can't name what the units were off the top of my head.

We deployed across table from one another. He had a nice line of basilisks, some smaller artillery pieces and a great big artillery tank. With this arrayed against me I tried to ensure that my plague marines and predator tank were safely in cover, and I deployed my chaos knight to the side closer to his basilisks as they were my biggest threat I thought.

The high points of the game for me was his big artillery tank which decimated his own horse cavalry and took out one of his centaur's including the unit within. The other was my completely ignored knight smashing into the artillery and then the basilisks.

As usual I made more than my fair share of FNP rolls which helped me when I realised that the barrage of incoming fire was going to be far worse than I expected. It did seem that there was no way for me to keep my units alive let alone have them move forward into battle. In the end I just had to hold what I could and hope for the best.

Once more the game ended at just the right time for me to achieve victory. One more turn and I think Mike may have just stolen victory from me. Another win scored for the Death Guard. Will it remain? I hope so.

The Scouring - Miridian

Planet: Miridian.
Region: Cadian Sector.
999.M41

Death Guard vs Dark Eldar.
1500 points.
Mission: The Scouring.

Through the ruins of Miridian's cities the Death Guard and Dark Eldar fight a series of running battles. The favoured of Nurgle called upon the mightiest in their arsenal to destroy the raiders..

This was a revenge match against Gary D's army from the last battle report. He didn't even change his list. But I played a list which I expected to be fun but easily defeated. How wrong I was!




My list was:

Sorcerer of Nurgle, level 1.
Two 20 man Plague Marine squads, with two meltaguns and a icon of despair. Both champions had plasma pistols and power swords. One squad a Rhino.
Predator with TL lascannons and heavy bolter sponsons.
Chaos Knight with thermal blaster and chainsword.

Deployment was short table ends and I set up with the idea of moving forward and taking the two nearest objectives, and then using the Knight to advance to the most important one. Gary purposefully moved his army to the opposite edge to where the Knight was and en mass moved all his fast skimmers up and began to smash through my plague marines from one side of my table across to the other. I managed to take down a few and the Knight just moved up, capturing the highest scoring objective and blasting the Dark Eldar. My opponent managed to knock a couple hull points on it but the big machine healed them with It Will Not Die.

When the game ended, I still managed to secure victory by just 1 victory point and it was because all because of the Knight. Hopefully the beginning of a nice winning streak.

Into Darkness - Miridian

Planet: Miridian.
Region: Cadian Sector.
999.M41

Death Guard vs Dark Eldar.
1500 points.
Mission: Purge the Alien.

The Death Guard had successfully captured the world of Miridian from the Imperium. Typhus began to turn the planet into his own place of power from which to launch attacks upon Cadia.
A few weeks after the Death Guard won the planet, they cam under attack from a raiding force of Dark Eldar eager for slaves and to sow confusion.




This was a replacement match for the last game. I played Gary D's Dark Eldar in the Purge the Alien mission. I wanted to play against a Xenos army as it was thematic to the mission. Gary D is, like myself, a very casual gamer and this approach made for a very fun game. At the time of writing this I cannot remember a lot of the game but I do remember I got to field my two heavy 20 vengeance defence cannon turrets. Unfortunately I do remember that he avoided them staying on his side of the table and using long range dark lance fire to slowly strip my army down. He didn't even need to do anything to achieve victory. It was still a very good game but I think I put too much faith in the defence turrets when I thought they would do a lot better. I don't even think the game went to full term before I lost.

The Purging - Lelithar

Planet: Lelithar.
Cadian Sector.
999.M41

Dark Angels vs Death Guard.
1500 points.
Mission: Purge the Alien.

The Death Guard have found the Dark Angel threat on Lelithar hard to defeat. Unable to defeat a fast moving and mobile force the plague marines are forced to lure the space marines into tight battlefields where their mobility will not be as useful. If the Dark Angels can suffer just one defeat on Lelithar it may give the Death Guard the push they need.



This game was played about three months back and was planned against my friend Joel. I had asked to play against his Tyranid army as my Death Guard had not been tested against them (and still haven't). Unfortunately on that day I had had some bad news and turned up not in such a good mood, and I found Joel had not brought his Tyranid army but a new Dark Angels army his girlfriend had bought him for his birthday. Unfortunately I was a bit of a dick and not very nice for which I am sorry.

His list was a nice one with some fast moving bikes, land speeders and heavy support tanks. With the limited force available to me it was difficult to actually do anything to counteract it. I did have some bikes but they didn't last long. My plague marines were not able to get across the table either. Joel's force was heavily armed with plasma weaponry and I force once I didn't get a lot of FNP rolls.

Joel was by far the better opponent in this game but I also feel that I was not in the right frame of mind to play a game of 40K. I still think he would have won but I might have done better.

Pursuit across the Badlands - Caseopeia

Planet: Caseopeia.
Region: Cadian Sector.
999.M41

Death Guard vs Eldar Corsairs.
1500pts.
Mission: ???.

Having been forced out of the mining colonies and into the rugged sun blasted badlands, the Death Guard found themselves hounded by the Eldar pirates. It fell to the sorcerer Cholic, who had thus far earned Typhus' disfavour, to keep the Eldar occupied while the remaining plague marines made for safety.
Cholic's attempts to halt the Xenos pursuit was short lived. The plague marines suffered terrible losses and the sorcerer barely escaped with his life.

This was a revenge match against Richard and his Eldar Corsair army. Neither of us changed our lists and we simply played a kill point mission if I remember it correctly. If he did make any chances it was probably to add an extra Vyper to the roster as I remember him zooming about here there and everywhere making it very difficult to deal with his army.

As with the previous game against the Corsairs, it was their maneuverability and their long range firepower that proved to be my downfall. They took down my Predator first and then just kept hammering fire into my plague marines. The amount of firepower that it takes to destroy a plague marine squad is impressive but he seemed able to do it very well.

Much like the previous game it was very one sided. I had no doubts that he was going to tear my army apart but sometimes even though I enjoy the games I wish I had a better chance of dealing with certain armies. Eldar, Dark Eldar and Corsairs are the bane of my Death Guard. It is something that I hope to be able to deal with as my collection grows but for now it is quite frustrating.

Civil War - Cadia

Planet: Cadia.
Region: Cadian Sector.
999.M41

Death Guard vs Death Guard.
1500pts.
Mission: ?


During the war for Cadia a rival champion of Nurgle decided that this was the perfect opportunity to claim power for himself. He led his personal war band against Typhus himself! If he could defeat the Traveler then Nurgle would have to raise him in return but Nurgle is not so easily manipulated.

So this was an interested game against Ashleigh who brought a fellow Death Guard army to face mine. His was was somewhat different as he also included a large force of plague zombies and some raptors.

I forget the mission but I think it was a simple kill point mission. We deployed across table from one another but most of the fighting took place to one side of the table where his plague zombies seemed almost unkillable. I had such trouble dropping them when they shouldn't have been a problem. Oddly, however, the Raptors were not a problem. I was able to slaughter the lot in close combat. Another game where my feel no pain rolls were just awesome.

My sorcerer began his useless streak with this game. Although he can summon Plague Bearers he has started rolling perils of the warp almost every time I try a psychic power. He halved his wounds just by summoning the daemons. He soon died in close combat when an opposing champion challenged him to single combat. I had no chance but he was going to die anyway.

Ashleigh is a good opponent but I really thought I'd do better than I did in this game. I can't pin down why exactly I failed but my Death Guard failed to live up to their potential here.

Corsair Raid - Caseopeia

Planet: Caseopeia.
Region: Cadian Sector.
999.M41

Death Guard vs Eldar Corsairs.
1500pts.
Mission: Purge the Alien.

Moving ever closer to Cadia itself, Typhus leads his war band against the Imperial mining and munitions world of Caseopeia. Rather than follow his usual plans of seeding the atmosphere with flesh eating bacteria, Typhus simply deployed his ground troops and assaulted the mining colonies.

One such colony received unexpected aid in the form of an Eldar corsair raiding party. Whether these were allies of Maugan Ra and the Craftworld Altansar was unknown but would explain their presence. The Raiders fought to to drive the Death Guard back into the barren wastes of the planet rather than for conquest or glory.

So this was a game played against my friend Richard who had decided to pick up a Corsair army from one of the Forge World books and he wanted a friendly opponent for his match with the army. He had to proxy a few models for this one but that's fine. I hadn't seen this army played for a few years so I was not really aware of what could be arrayed against me and I don't quite remember what units he had just that they were mostly skimmers with long range fire and some cool warp gate toys.

My list was fairly basic as I recall being my usual but substituting a sorcerer for Typhus so I could try and get some plague bearers summoned, not that they did me much good. I just did not have the units to handle this battle. Long range fire has always been my weakness with what I currently have to field. Also, any time I did get close they simply flew away and blasted me.

It was still a very good game, although one sided. I had a good fun playing against it mainly because it was something we don't see at out club very often. Richard always provides a good game as well.

Apologies I don't have much to say about this one but it was a few months ago and I don't remember much of it now. However, we had a rematch a few weeks later which I have to write up.

War in the East - D'Then

Planet: D'Then.

Region: Perdus Rift.

990.M41

Death Guard vs Tau Empire.

1500 points.

Mission: Crusade.

In the years before Typhus sided with Abaddon in his 13th Black Crusade, the Traveller engaged in a war with the Tau forces on the edge of known space. The colony world of D'Then was the primary target. From here the chaos space marines could launch raids into surrounding systems carving out a small empire away from the Eye of Terror.

The war began with biological warfare followed by heavy ground combat as the Death Guard slowly pushed into the Tau colonies. This engagement came about as the Death Guard scoured the dead for salvageable equipment and munitions. The Tau launched an attack to catch Typhus unawares and end the war before it really started.

This is the first game of an attempt to play all the missions currently in 40K. The first game was against my friend Adam who normally plays Farsight Enclave but this evening chose to play a regular Tau army but other than two fire warrior squads decided to go all battle suits and crisis suits. I think he expected to easily blast me apart with mass firepower but I pretty much made all my feel no pain rolls which kept me alive through the game. 

It was a objective mission, three in play, and I was sat on two of them almost from the start of the game meaning that I didn't have to move and he had to come forward. The high point of the game was Typhus charging into a Ghostkeel, dodging all the attacks (it missed with all of them) and then hitting back with 8 successful attacks! Typhus made his contribution that day! 

I won I think more because Adam forgot that it was an objective mission and he was going for the kill. Perhaps things would have gone different had be focusing on removing me from the objectives rather than just killing units.

I only made one small mistake in that game and that was not noticing that Typhus cannot summon daemons (must be Lore of Nurgle only!)

My list was something like:

Typhus.

10 man chaos space marine squad with mark of nurgle.

10 man plague marine squad with two meltaguns.

10 man plague marine squad with two meltaguns.

5 man chaos terminator squad.

Chaos Predator with twin-linked lacannon and two heavy bolter sponsons.

Helbrute with multimelta.

Update

Apologies for the lack of entries over the last few months. I started a new job in October which had awkward shifts so not much time for gaming unfortunately. But that has changed now and I've had a few games to add.

I've also added some new bits to my army, including a chaos predator and two defence turrets with autocannons. Still have a nice few boxes to open, build and paint though.