Region: Ceres Sector.
Death Guard / Nurgle Daemons vs Tyranids.
2000pts / PL 100.
Mission: The Relic - Fire and Fury.
Deployment: Front-Line Assault.
Operation Contagion was a major engagement in the war for Abraxes. The Death Guard started a full offensive to take the war to the alien menace. In addition to the ground war, the plague fleets began a void war to bring down the bio ships overhead.
Played a match against my friend Joel tonight at the club. Other than the mission, battle zone and that we were trying out power levels I knew nothing of what he was bringing to the table. Could of been one of three armies, and he arrived with a mighty Tyranid army. A little disappointed as I was hoping he would bring Dark Angels but they can turn up next time.
I have been wanting to try power levels over standard points for a while now and Joel was happy to oblige where I think everyone else at the club is far more interested in regular points. I found the match just as balanced and fair as a regular game. Not to mention list building was so much easier than building a points based list under 8th.
My list was very infantry heavy as I was playing to the concept of capturing and holding the relic first and foremost. I included the Nurgle Daemons simply because I never got much opportunity to include them under the last edition and it was nicely thematic. Joel's list was more than capable of doing that by sheer numbers but he also had some big monstrous creatures to cause some troubles.
Rolling the Front-Line Assault deployment meant that we were both going to be slamming into the relic from the get go. I deployed first but decided to go second. My idea being that if the game went to rolling to end the game I could save a command point to re-roll it in my favour at the time. Joel's gaunts surged forward spitting death into my poxwalkers, who lost one model. His shooting was infamously good where as my turn 1 was fairly pants.
It all heated up from turn 2 as we both slammed into combat in the center of the table. I knew I was going to have trouble shifting the gaunts and I was right. Between failed armour saves and poor disgustingly resilient rolls, he was pulling my marines down. He was very much focused on taking down my great unclean one for some reason even though it was highly unlikely to get into combat with anything worthwhile. It lasted two rounds of shooting before it was slain and drawn back into the warp.
Turn 3 and I lost most of my army. The plague marines and plague bearers were slain, and the daemon prince was taken down rather brutally. My only moments of the game came here though. Typhus charging into a carnifex, and bringing it down with a manreaper to the face, and my defiler weathering everything the hive tyrant failed to do before ripping the alien war lord into a thousand tiny pieces!
At the end of turn 3 I called it and handed victory to Joel. There was no way I could win this now. A very good game and it has given me a few things to think about. Especially how to handle a horde army in the future.
Other things that grabbed me... Power Levels didn't make a lot of difference. The army lists still seemed very balanced and perhaps we both added options we might not have done or could have done easily under a points a system. Most importantly it was far easier to build a list without having to flick through the index and try to add everything up.
I was disappointed by the battle zone rules. I really expected that the blazing starship wreckage would have played a larger role in the battle. As it was it only really did anything twice during the whole game and one of those was because I paid the command points to have six dice on the table rather than three. I really wanted to see more carnage but as Joel said after the game, you only have to put the dice on the table edges away from everything to ignore them.
Lastly, on the bike ride home I tried to figure if I could have done anything different. My daemon prince of chaos was a bit of a waste and I think I could have used him better. I had intended to run him up the right flank to draw fire and assault the big things but even advancing it took too long. Infantry was definitely the way forward but I couldn't bring enough firepower or assault power to retake the relic.
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++ Battalion Detachment +3CP (Chaos - Death Guard) [66 PL, 1276pts] ++
+ HQ +
Chaos Lord with Jump Pack: Plasma pistol, Power fist
Typhus: Miasma of Pestilence, Plague Wind
+ Troops +
Plague Marines: Icon of Despair
. Plague Champion: Plaguesword, Plasma pistol, Power sword
. Plague Marine w/ Special Weapon: Meltagun
. Plague Marine w/ Special Weapon: Meltagun
. 7x Plague Marines
Plague Marines: Icon of Despair
. Plague Champion: Plaguesword, Plasma pistol, Power sword
. Plague Marine w/ Special Weapon: Meltagun
. Plague Marine w/ Special Weapon: Meltagun
. 7x Plague Marines
+ Elites +
Helbrute: Multi-melta
+ Heavy Support +
Defiler: Combi-flamer, Defiler scourge, Reaper autocannon
++ Patrol Detachment (Chaos - Daemons) [33 PL, 646pts] ++
+ HQ +
Daemon Prince of Chaos: Hellforged sword, Mark of Nurgle: Stream of Corruption
Great Unclean One: Fleshy Abundance, Stream of Corruption
+ Troops +
Plaguebearers: Daemonic Icon, 9x Plaguebearer, Plagueridden
Plaguebearers: Daemonic Icon, 9x Plaguebearer, Plagueridden
++ Total: [99 PL, 1922pts] ++
The savage aliens advance.
Battle is joined as we fought over the relic.
Deployment.
Alien horrors.
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