The Blood-Dimmed Tide - Susperia

Planet: Susperia.
Region: Eye of Terror.

Death Guard vs Daemons of Chaos : Khorne.
2000 points.
Mission: Scorched Earth.
Deployment: Spearhead Assault.

The Death Guard have suffered some severe casualties in the battles on Susperia. Mortarion reluctantly orders his forces back into their claimed territory. Khorne seethes with anger at this cowardice and summons forth a mighty host of his daemons to assault the main Death Guard base of operations. With no hope of escape Mortarion leads his sons to battle for their own survival.

This is my first battle against the new Chaos Daemons codex. In general I have never done well when fighting against pure daemon armies so I was unsure how this would go under 8th edition. I didn't hold out much hope though. Jon and I decided on the Scorched Earth mission from my list and on the night we rolled Spearhead Assault for our deployment.

It's been a couple weeks so my memory may be a little foggy but from what I recall most of Jon's army started in the Warp via heavy cost of command points giving me very little idea of where I needed to place my forces. In the end I tried to set some units as being as forward as I could get them and everything else held back to try and prevent the deepstrike behind my lines.

The game went a good way but the turns were fairly quick. I tried to advance down the table to grab objectives but most where not close to my troops. The daemons however were able to start with a couple in close proximity. My psychic powers were fairly pointless too as Jon had a couple nice units of flesh hounds whose collars did a good job of denying my powers.

The daemons started dropping down almost straight away and began locking my plague marines in combat, whittling them away far too easily. I was forced to draw out units, such as the hellforged contemptor, into the fray just to start readdressing the tide of combat. It was to make little difference however as the bloodletters on a couple occasions rolled double 1 on their battleshock and regenerated nearly the entire unit.

As the game progressed I tried to thrown Mortarion and his deathshroud bodyguard into the fray towards the middle of the table. Jon surrounded them and even dropped a hefty unit of bloodcrushers nearby which charged into the assault. The terminators didn't last very long but Mortarion refused to fall despite the damage dealt to him. He proved himself a monster and slaughtered nearly everything thrown at him.

Jon used the mission's special rule once to destroy one of the objectives in my deployment zone but by that point I had already suffered heavy casualties and I knew that the game was never going to be mine. I forget what turn the game ended but Jon had amassed a fair few victory points and I think I had 1 maybe 2.

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After thoughts...

I was surprised and torn by this game. Daemons are still has tough as I remember from previous editions but I had expected to do a lot more damage to Jon's army that I did. Not counting Mortarion, I think I did more damage with area effect mortal wounds than I did with shooting or close combat. A good game though as always though.

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++ Battalion Detachment +3CP (Chaos - Death Guard) ++

+ HQ +

Daemon Prince of Nurgle: 1. Miasma of Pestilence, Hellforged sword, The Suppurating Plate

Lord of Contagion: Manreaper

+ Troops +

Plague Marines: Icon of Despair
. . Plague Champion: Plaguesword, Plasma pistol, Power fist
. . 4x Plague Marine w/ boltgun
. . Plague Marine w/ Special Weapon: Blight launcher
. . Plague Marine w/ Special Weapon: Plague Spewer

Plague Marines: Icon of Despair
. . Plague Champion: Plaguesword, Plasma pistol, Power fist
. . 4x Plague Marine w/ boltgun
. . Plague Marine w/ melee weapons: Great plague cleaver
. . Plague Marine w/ Special Weapon: Plasma gun
. . Plague Marine w/ Special Weapon: Plasma gun

Poxwalkers: 20x Poxwalker

+ Elites +

Hellforged Contemptor Dreadnought
. . Left Arm: Combi-bolter, Hellforged deathclaw
. . Right Arm: Kheres assault cannon

Deathshroud Terminators
. . Deathshroud Champion: Manreaper, Plaguespurt gauntlets
. . 2x Deathshroud Terminator: 2x Manreaper, 2x Plaguespurt gauntlets

+ Fast Attack +

Chaos Spawn: Chaos Spawn, Chaos Spawn

Foetid Bloat-drone: 2x Plaguespitters, Plague probe

+ Heavy Support +

Plagueburst Crawler: 2x Entropy cannon, Rothail volley gun

++ Super-Heavy Auxiliary Detachment (Chaos - Death Guard) ++

+ Lord of War +

Mortarion: 4. Blades of Putrefaction, 5. Putrescent Vitality, 6. Curse of the Leper, Warlord

++ Total: [109 PL, 1974pts] ++