March of the Damned: The Artefact

Friday 7 April 2017

The Artefact - Delphi Majoris

Planet: Delphi Majoris.
Region: Ghoul Stars
Date: 999.M41

Death Guard vs Reborn Warhost.
2000 points.
Mission: The Artefact.

Scans of the planet's surface along with subtle hints from the warp picked out something of value among the ruins of an ancient alien civilisation. Typhus eager to recover this artefact deployed with a small war band to capture it. Once the ancient relic was picked out among the ruins, he hoped to escape with it. As they marched across the ruins, the sound of jetbike engines brought them to a halt. A combined Eldar force under Yvraine had already arrived and were headed for the artefact themselves.

This game was set up with my friend Mike so that I could get a game against the new Reborn of Ynnead. We didn't pick a mission until the day so I put forward another from my list from the Altar of War book. It's basically a variation of the Relic mission but requires getting it off the table not just holding it and it could be a random one of three potential objectives set along the centre line of the table. As it happens it was the centre objective.

I set my transports and main force up centrally on my side of the table hoping to be able to head towards whichever objective turned out to be the real artefact. A unit of raptors on either side gave me some fast moving units to tie up the enemy if necessary and a helbrute to deal with any vehicles or enemy infantry. My opponent set his three jetbike (eldar and harlequins) squads up in a line at the rear of his table edge. At the forefront he had a large unit of farseers, Yvraine, the Visarch and an archon at the front.

My Death Guard had the first turn and I simply moved everything up towards the objective. The raptor units went forward on their jump packs to get closer to the enemy. The land raider managed to take out one harlequin jetbike but that was all I could manage. On Mike's first turn his jetbikes sped closer and took out a rhino and a handful of chaos marines. Mike's shooting and psychic screams were good enough that he was able to bring in the Yncarne first turn.

I was then able to lock the Yncarne in combat for a couple rounds with the survivours of a chaos marine sqaud and the helbrute. While Typhus led his terminators into the central ruins I had my second chaos marine squad run in and grab the relic from the dust. The raptors lept into the bike squads on both flanks. I lost a few to overwatching fire but enough survived to lock them in combat for the rest of the game. Neither side seemed able to lay that final killing blow.

Once into the middle of the ruins my chaos marines didn't stand a chance. Mike's psychic phase was just incredible. He was able to raise his invulnerable saves and grant Yvraine's unit invisibility. Once in combat neither my chaos marines nor terminators were able to hit let alone wound any of the unit. The archon took Typhus' challenge but twice Typhus suffered a wound from his rebellious daemon weapon. Eventually he fell and Nurgle snatched him from the battlefield.

Come turn four and my whole centre line was gone and the artefact was in the hands of Yvraine. All I had left was the surviving raptors but they remained locked in combat so I conceded.

So I was quite surprised by the reborn. From watching youtube battle reports I was expecting the soul burst mechanic to be a lot more irritating but in this game it didn't seem to do much at all. In the end it was the psychic phase that gave Mike the game. I just couldn't cope with what he was able to put out, mainly psychic scream and invisibility.

Yvraine held up the ancient device. Turning it over in her hands she studied the ancient alien language. How this object would lead her to the lost crone sword was unknown but it was a start. What she sought was here on this world hidden among the bones of a long dead civilisation. Casting an eye to the horizon she saw signs of approaching vehicles and the sound of marching feet. The foul warriors of Nurgle were coming and in greater numbers. They would have to fight if they were to recover the weapon before the enemy found it.