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.