Update

With the recent Fall of Cadia sourcebook tweaking the story of the 13th Black Crusade a little bit I shall be having to alter some of the future battle reports a little and adding extra war zones to compensate. But what we have in the new book series should make for some interesting additions.

I plan to try and go a bit more in depth for the reports in future where I can. Most are written a few days after the game so some details are lost or rather hazy. Plus, as much as I would like to write a turn by turn report, I doubt I'd have the time when playing nor would I want to slow down the game for my opponents but I shall see what I can do. I'll try to include army lists from both sides where I can.

Hope you are still enjoying reading the blog though, and here's to the fall of Cadia and an end to the weakling minions of the false Emperor!

Tactical Escalation - Cadia

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

Death Guard vs Skitarii
2000 points:
Mission: Tactical Escalation.


The mission was simple. The despoiler had dispatched Virulex to capture and occupy a cluster of pylons close to the front lines. Had not the master of the Death Guard pledged his services to the Black Legion, the mighty daemon prince would have smote Abaddon's head from his shoulders for such an insulting task.

Things changed however, when the task force arrived to find a detachment of Mechanicus operatives led by Belasarius Caul himself studying the pylons. What a gift it would be to gift his master with the still screeching head of the false god's servant. Raising his mighty blade to the skies, Virulex ordered a charge into the rapidly deploying Skitarii lines.


We’ve now got a Skitarii player at the club and as the Ad mech armies are one of a couple I have yet to play against I challenged him to a game. 2000 points and we rolled Tactical Escalation.

I had seen that he played Belisarius Caul and two Knights (one an Atropos class) so I was unsure what to take against him. Had a week to prepare and I just could not decide on a suitable list. I knew I wanted my Chaos Knight so that forced me into a Combined Arms detachment. Decided to play a daemon prince for the first time as well to hopefully help mow down his troops.

We rolled that annoying corner formation and my opponent managed to seize the initiative. It didn’t do him much good and neither of us had a great first half of the game. In the first three turns neither of us had objective cards we could easily score and the only casualties were two of my rhinos and a wound on one of his robots. No reserves came in on either side. It was three turns of moving forward.

My chaos knight finally got into combat and began to slowly smash his way through things. He lasted two turns before exploding most impressively, and when the dust cleared there was a tech-priest type figure (I forget the name), three walkers and Caul with one wound remaining left standing in the crater! I’d have liked for it to hang around but it’s death made the points up.

On my left flank the daemon prince was dropped by two rounds of sniper fire from his rangers. I really remember daemon princes being tougher than that but I guess that is small arms fire for you. His reserves came in turn 4 outflanking into my chaos marines. Battle was joined and although He smashed his troops the remaining marines died to being trodden on by his walkers.

Both Heldrakes came in turn 4. One did nothing before being blown out of the sky. The other took out half of his troop unit before the following turn once more dropping to anti-air fire. This was the first game in a long time where a player I have faced has brought anti-air. I have been playing the heldrakes a lot lately so I should have expected it.

Come turn 6 and Chris was 12 victory points to my none. The cards all came up in his favour and I just could not achieve any of mine as he whittled my forces away before they could manage anything. Even the mark of Nurgle could not save me this time!

But I did go into this game deciding that it was a learning experience. I have a better idea how to handle the Skitarii in future but I’ll need to get some more models to achieve that victory. Good game.


My list:

Daemon Prince.
Mark of Nurgle. Power armour. Pusbringer (relic).

1 unit of 10 Chaos Cultists.
Mark of Nurgle.

2 units of 10 Chaos Space marines.
Mark of Nurgle. Two meltaguns.
Champion: Plasma pistol and power weapon. Melta bombs.
Rhino transport with extra combi-bolter.

Helbrute.
Multi-melta and power fist.

Heldrake Terror Pack (2 drakes).

Chaos Knight.
Daemon knight of Nurgle. Thermal blaster. Foe-ripper chainsword.

Warlord Virulex leads ahead of an insane helbrute to the western flank in a vain attempt to engage the Skitarii ground troops. Neither made it into combat due to incoming fire.

The Dominus Pestilens engages in deadly hand to hand combat with the Skitarii war machines.

A scene of carnage as the Skitarii successfully hold off against the forces of Nurgle.

Supply Raid - Tanis IV

Planet: Tanis IV.
Region: Loki Sector.
990.M41

Death Guard vs Crimson Fists
1750 points:
Mission: The Relic.

Utilising the devastation of the Crimson Fists' home world, a Death Guard raiding force exit the warp above the war torn world of Tanis IV. Deploying to the surface the Death Guard eradicate any surviving Ork presence and then make for the loyalists' stockpiles seeking to restock their own munitions. After breaching the fortress walls, the chosen of Nurgle advance hungrily searching for any supplies. An hour after the fortress walls fell, a small force of Crimson Fists marines arrive to investigate and a battle is joined.

One of our original players, a young chap known the length of club simply as “Muffin” (don’t ask…) challenged my Death Guard to a 1750 point match last night. I could not turn down such a challenge so I accepted. Last time I played against him he was using a solid Dark Angels list but he has changed his choice of army, and now plays Crimson Fists. With that in mind I expected to face Cantor, tactical squads in rhinos, maybe some terminators and a devastator squad. The usual space marine list. What I actually found was a mechanised list made from two formations. So straight away I thought this was going to be an interesting challenge. In return he was not expecting an army of T5 and a Heldrake terror pack, Mission was rolled and we were fighting The Relic.

Muffin was lucky and seized the initiative. Thankfully, a mixture of night fight and everything in cover his shooting was largely ineffective. I think one rhino lost a hull point but that was it. I simply moved up to get a better shot at the Relic. Turn 2 saw his shooting wreck one rhino forcing my chaos marines to march forward under cover of a surviving section of woodland. My turn 2 was better with a Heldrake swooping in and taking out half of his devastator squad. So much for bolstering that cover with the chapter tactics. My land raider tried to bring down his vindicators but the lascannons failed to breach the armour.

Turn 3 started to swing the game in my favour. On Muffin’s turn he leapt his captain and command squad out of their rhino ready to assault my chaos marine unit just within reach of the relic. He fired a vindicator at my land raider and the shot deviated so that it covered his command squad and wiped out all bar the standard bearer! That one space marine wasn’t there much longer and I grabbed the Relic.

My raptors proved useless as they deviated their deep strike into terrain and one marine died. All but two then died due to demolisher cannon blasts. They did get into combat eventually, felling a single marine, and causing them to fall back into the path of a heldrake’s baleflamer!

My second heldrake came on and blasted a pair of land speeders that wound up in my deployment zone, looking to halt my retreat with the Relic. Not overly effective but one multi-melta was torn free.

The terminators were out of place and when the land raider was immobilised they were forced to try and get away from the big guns but concentrated fire dropped them quickly.

The turns sped up quickly after that and on turn 6 I was left with just my sorcerer holding the relic and holding his own against the loyalist marines in combat. Luckily the game ended on turn 6 otherwise Muffin may have been able to seize the Relic and get away with it. I won 3 points to 2.

A very good game, but tough. I didn’t have a lot to deal with his tanks so I concentrated on just getting to the Relic and holding on to it. Hopefully Muffin enjoyed the game and we’ll see him at the club again some time soon.

Pre-Emptive Strike - Caseopeia

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

Death Guard vs Eldar Corsairs.
1500pts.
Mission: Pre-Emptive Strike.

The Void Dreamers of the corsairs have foreseen a time when, if not stopped, Typhus could devestate this world with his foul plagues. To this end they orchestrate an attack upon his headquarters out in the badlands. A dawn strike to catch him unawares and disrupt his plans of destruction and chaos.


My friend Danny has recently started buying into an Eldar Corsair army so I challenged him to a game to try out my Traitor Legion rules again. Danny choose to play the Pre-Emptive Strike mission and 2000 points.

My forces had to sit quite bunched up to start with as the mission assumes I’m being surprised by the Eldar attack while his were spread out nicely along his deployment line. He was confident but had some concerns about the Heldrake terror pack as he had nothing to bring down fliers.

Danny had the first turn and moved everything up. His shooting was mostly ineffective but a well placed D shot from his Warp Hunter took out a Rhino and left one squad of chaos marines to slog across the battle field. My first turn saw me split up my forces so his D weapon couldn’t hit too many at once. I had limited shooting and what I did fire failed to do anything.

The game soon sped up Danny’s corsairs swooped in to cut down many chaos marines with shuriken fire. Even so having everything in my army T5 made things difficult for him. My turn two and one Heldrake and the Raptor squad came in from reserve. The Heldrake was out of range but the Raptors dropped two flamers and took out some jetbikes and their bolt pistols struck wounds off his Void Dreamer.

Over the third turn, I lost most of one squad of chaos marines (those who had lost their rhino turn 1) and the second squad lost their rhino to concentrated fire from the Hornet’s and War Walkers. He assaulted my Raptors with both his prince and Void Dreamer. The Void Dreamer lost all but one wound in the over watch. A challenge was called and the Raptor champion dropped dead before getting to swing. The rest of the Raptors tore down the Void Dreamer and the rest turned their attention to the Prince.

The second Heldrake came in and both let rip with their baleflamers, which decimated the two jetbike squads. The Raptors continued to pummel the Prince but neither side could really hurt one another. The chaos marines on my right side assaulted the last jetbike in one squad and they would be held up till the end of the game.

Turn four; Typhus and his sorcerer meet their end at the centre of a D cannon strike. Typhus pulled away into the Warp at the last moment. With no other legitimate targets, Danny pulls his forces back and the assaults continue. My Heldrakes enter hover mode and flamer two units of snipers. One unit falls back in terror.

The last turn saw Danny do nothing. I finally got to use the meteroric descent rule for a Heldrake and it swooped into one unit of snipers, snapping them up in it’s talons.

The game ended turn 5. The mission had been in my opponent;s court and it ended close on 16 to my 12. Good game and I certainly enjoyed it more and learned the new legion rules better in this match.

Rise of the Wulfen - Cadia

Mission: Black Crusade.
Deployment: Special.
Points: 2000 points.
Death Guard vs Space Wolves.

Cadia will fall! After some severe set backs the traitor advance across the battlefields of Cadia has begun anew. On the fields outside of Cadia's second city the Death Guard had successfully secured a number of vital objectives. As they looked to the skies, a torrent of drop pods ploughed into their lines. Ragnar Blackmane entered the war with a contingent of Wulfen at his command. Typhus barked orders to his battle brothers to pull back and prepare to engage!

Yesterday I got my first 40K game of the new year against my nephew. I was trying out a 2000 point list with the new Death Guard rules from Traitor Legions and he was proxying a random mix of models to see if he wanted to get into playing Space Wolves (using the new Wulfen rules) - hence the random mix of models on the table.

My list was the Verculium (or however it is is spelt), with a Chaos Warband, Lord of the Legion (a sorcerer) and a two flyer Heldrake Terror Pack. 1996 points in total. I lost track of what strange formations and detachment he was using. Only that it was based around Ragnar and had a turn one all drop pod assault and some Wulfen formations. Mission rolled was Black Crusade from the Altar of War book.

Straight away I may have made a small mistake. Knowing that he was playing the drop pod assault I decided to bunch everything together with the idea that I would everything to hand to repel borders. Benjo thought it a bad idea but I tried it out. Initially luck was with me as half of his drop pods deviated away giving me a chance. First turn was over very quickly with no casualties except for my chaos land raider which decided to immobilise itself on a wall but it proved a suitable wall to block line of sight.

Turn two and all my reserves came in at once. The raptors dropped down behind him where his two deviated drop pods had fallen. Flamers and bolt pistols cut down several and gace him pause. The heldrake terror pack swooped in together and spat baleflame into some small units but storm shields ensured that he suffered no casualties. I did managed to cut down some small squads and by the end of turn 3 I had chalked up 3 victory points but from here on everything started to go down hill.

Turn 4 his units hit my lines and hard. Even with toughness 5 and feel no pain on everything my chaos marines dropped liked flies. He close combat he was a monster. Even my helbrute was not immune. As it charged in to assault Lukas the Trickster’s squad, a lucky plasma shot ripped the power claw from it and condemning to a slow and drawn out assault for the rest of the game.

The Black Crusade rules mean that any infantry unit destroyed walks on from reserve on the next turn. This just meant that he pummelled squad after squad down when they walked back on. I could have had them arrive away from the mosh but they wouldn’t have done anything in the game. It was a case of damned if I did and damned if I didn’t.

The Heldrakes were a bit of a waste. They took down three squads but one lost it’s baleflamer to a flakk missile and their turning arcs meant they were rarely in a position to do much more. They were probably the only units that didn’t really earn their keep this game.

By the time the game ended Benjo was on 11 victory points to my 4. It was a disappointing game but I put the blame more on the mission special rules which just kept giving him victory points. Maybe if I had spread my units during deployment things may have been different. But for the first game with the new Legion rules I can’t grumble.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year fellow enthusiasts. Here's too 2017 being good for gaming.

I've now got myself a copy of the new Traitor Legions book and it looks like my Death Guard are going to get a much needed boost. Looking forward as well to the new war for Cadia story line.

Now I just want 2017 to bring me a Mortarion daemon primarch and I'll be happy.