The Imperium Advances - Cerberus

Planet: Cerberus.
Region: Cerberus Sector.

Death Guard vs Salamanders.
1500 points.
Mission: Retrieval Mission.
Deployment: Search and Destroy.

During a heavy thunderstorm elements of the Salamanders chapter sought to bring down one of the Death Guard fortresses on Cerberus Secundus. Despite being lightly defended the servants of the plague god successfully held off two assaults by the loyalist space marines. The third attempt finally brought low the outer gates allowing the loyalists access to the interior where brutal fighting broke out between the two surviving sets of warriors.

Alex is one of our club's newer players and this was our first match together. Not sure how his play style was I went with a fairly simple and basic list. Couldn't quite fit what I wanted really and in hindsight I could have swapped something out to give me a better chance at survival.

Mission was predetermined as Retrieval Mission but we rolled the deployment which probably was the cause of how badly my game went. We had set up the four objectives but one quarter did not get one. Alex picked the opposing corner leaving my Death Guard with nothing to hold initially and forcing me to split my forces as I had to enter his fields of fire to grab something.

I failed to get Seize the Initiative and his first volley of fire from the predator tank and his repulsor destroyed by predator and helbrute before either had a chance to do anything. Thankfully neither exploded but with those gone I now longer had any long range anti-tank firepower and made things a lot harder. My first turn was just advancing everything towards their nearest objectives. Alex seemed to take a dislike to my plaguecaster and his snipers put everything towards him.

By the time I got one plague marine squad with Typhus into ruins where one objective lay Alex was moving forward and decimating my poxwalkers. I had taken them as bullet shields but even so they fell without doing anything useful. Likewise on my right flank he was blasting the cultists away and dropping a few wounds on my plague marines advancing there.

Although my disgustingly resilient rolls were still as good as they have been in previous games Alex was having a great time with his dice. Coupled with some seriously harsh rerolls and abilities from the new space marine codex I soon realised that I had no chance of taking back this game. Best I could do was just try to hold what I could and hope.

Typhus proved himself an awesome combatant in melee, slicing through primaris marines and lieutenant like they were paper. Unfortunately once he became my last remaining model he seen fell to the firepower of the repulsor. We didn't even check victory points. I was tabled turn 5.

A good game but one that I found very difficult to handle. It was a mix of not having a decent deployment zone coupled with re-rolls and bonuses for the Salamanders. There was very few shots that didn't hit. The loss of my only anti-tank options straight off the bat hurt badly.

There are still a few things that I am forgetting. I still keep forgetting Death to the False Emperor, although I don't think it would have made much difference but it is bugging me that I forget about it. Still a lot that I need to sink in.

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My list was:

++ Battalion Detachment +
6CP

* Typhus : Blight Grenades, Manreaper, Miasma of Pestilence, Plague Wind, Smite, The Destroyer Hive
* Malignant Plaguecaster : Blight Grenades, Bolt pistol, Corrupted staff, Krak grenade, Miasma of Pestilence, Plague Wind, Smite
* Chaos Cultists
. 8x Chaos Cultist w/ autopistol and brutal assault weapon.
. Chaos Cultist w/ Heavy stubber.
. Cultist Champion : Shotgun
* Plague Marines : Icon of Despair.
. Plague Champion : Blight Grenades, Bolt pistol, Krak Grenades, Plaguesword, Plasma pistol.
. 2 Plague Marine w/ : Blight Grenades, Krak grenade, Meltagun
. 7x Plague Marines.
* Plague Marines : Icon of Despair.
. Plague Champion : Blight Grenades, Bolt pistol, Krak Grenades, Plaguesword, Plasma pistol.
. 2 Plague Marine w/ : Blight Grenades, Krak grenade, Plasmagun.
. 7x Plague Marines.
* 20x Poxwalker.
* Helbrute : Multi-melta, Helbrute fist, Heavy flamer.
* Foetid Bloat-drone: Plague probe, 2x Plaguespitter.
*Chaos Predator : Combi-flamer, Twin lascannon, two heavy bolters

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Salamanders dominate the battlefield with their tanks.

Devastators cover the area with powerful plasma weapons.

Plague Marines push cultists ahead of them to soak incoming fire.

Death Guard forced to start in the open.