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] ++

Outpost Raid - Cerberus

Planet: Cerberus.
Region: Cerberus Sector.

Death Guard vs Grey Knights.
2000 points.
Mission: Only War.
Deployment: Search and Destroy.

While the majority of the Imperial forces engage the Death Guard across the surface of Cerberus, a small task force deploys to the northern polar region and begin to construct a communications station to better assist the invasion. It did not take the traitor legion long to detect it's presence. A force of plague marines and Nurgle daemons led by Typhus himself soon captured the base, slaughtering the serfs and taking several Mechanicus personnel prisoner to interrogate. When a final call of help is recieved followed by silence on the comm relay, Guilliman dispatches a force of Grey Knights to investigate and retake the outpost. When it was revealed what horrors stood before them, the Grey Knights were blessed with the arrival of Kaldor Draigo. Cutting his way back into the real universe, he came to lead his brothers against the hated foe.


My first ever game of 8th edition Warhammer 40K. My friend Mike wanted to try out his Grey Knights, and as another army I rarely get to face these days I agreed. We agreed to do a nice casual game to try out the units we have. To keep it simple we played the basic Only War mission.

Neither of us really started with anything on the table as I had three units, including Typhus, in reserve and two units of plague marines in rhinos. Mike had a huge chunk of his army in reserve waiting to teleport in.

One of the things with this edition is that until you start playing you don't realise how in your face the game has become. Mike had turn one and before I had done anything he had teleported in behind my lines and gunned down one rhino with about 80 dice of rapid fire stormbolter fire! He was also across the centre point of the table and holding one objective. My turn one saw the daemons advance slowly and the renegade knight blasting a chunk out of his stormraven and then assaulting the squad atop the landing platform at the centre of the table. Titanic feet is awesome! 12 attack dice. The knight crushed six of the squad to bloody pulp!

As the game advanced Mike was straight into combat. I had expected the Great Unclean One to do a lot better but all my dice wanted to do was roll 1's on everything and over two rounds he cut the greater daemon into little bits. I tried to back it up with the plaguebearers but even with the daemonic icon they didn't last long.

Combat is very brutal now. My Knight found itself crushed by the remains of the squad it had trodden on, a dreadnought and a dreadknight tore it down in I think one round of combat. No mini-nuke explosion though sadly. I think if it had gone nuclear it would have helped me a lot more by taking out the tougher units.

My terminators and Typhus teleported in, but the terminators didn't do much good. They soon died to massed firepower. Two got through to kill a couple grey knights but then died. Typhus and Draigo decided to go man to man and I have to say that was one of the best bits of the game. Both characters hammered away at one another. He halved Typhus' wounds and I left Draigo on one wound. The following round I tried to smite the grey knight leader but it failed and then I remembered that Typhus has a start of turn area effect that caused a mortal wound killing Draigo out right! Sadly Typhus was then defeated by combined fire from the stormraven.

By the end of turn four I had little left. One squad of plague marines had been reduced to two models and another was wiped out by concentrated fire. We were running out of time at the venue anyway so I called time. Mike had 8 victory points and I had 2/

8th is definitely a very different animal and one that will take time to adapt to but I thoroughly enjoyed our game. I have to remember the new rules. The amount of times I forgot about "Death to the False Emperor" was painful and might have helped save the day. However it was a great game am looking forward to my next one.

With the enemy dead and banished the clean up process began. Draigo had been dispatched back to the Warp by Typhus but the Traveller's body was never found in the icy wasteland. The comms station was back in Imperial hands although the Mechanicus survivours were never heard from again following their "debriefing" with the Ordos Malleus.

..

A stormraven prowls the skies.

Daemons of Nurgle and a renegade knight advance.

A strike force of Grey Knights prepares to attack.

An unexpected force teleports in behind my lines.

"Incoming!"

The ruins of the comms station host a mighty battle.

Crushing the foolish minions of the false emperor!

Eternal Night - Susperia

Planet: Susperia.
Region: Eye of Terror.
Time has no meaning in the Warp.

Death Guard vs Chaos Daemons.
2000 points.
Mission: Eternal Night.

The Ruinous Powers are fickle and always struggling to outdo one another in their rivalry. They have snatched up their greatest champions from throughout the galaxy and brought them to the daemon world of Susperia - a world trapped in the heart of the Eye of Terror, where reality meets unreality. There to do battle in glory of their dark masters!

A couple nights ago my friend Richard and I went up to Nottingham for the night to have a game at Warhammer World (and meet one of the chaps from the Tabletop Tactics youtube channel). He brought his slaaneshi daemons to face the might of Nurgle's finest.

Our choice of mission was Eternal Night from Altar of War/Battle missions. It has a strange deployment basically to represent a defending force being surprised by a daemonic foe materialising out of thin air. The table is split into four triangles with their points meeting at the middle of the table and each unit is randomised as to where it starts. The daemon player then does likewise. I soon found myself surrounded by a horde of pink.

First turn of the game was horrendous and bloody. I lost a Great Unclean One, a unit of plaguebearers, my warlord and a rhino not to mention a fair few marines. I was lucky and managed to bring his Chaos Knight down with two meltaguns and a multi-melta. Those slaaneshi things are nasty!

After that the turns went rather quickly and with much brutal combat. I had severely underestimated how good a pure Slaanesh daemon army would be. I had always looked at them as the weakest of the four armies and I had my eyes opened. The mission is fairly much geared towards the daemons which helped them. Had they needed to race across the table at me things would have been very different.

As I say we spend the rest of the game in bloody assault. Daemonettes tore both my helbrutes and the defiler down with ease which amazed me. I thought they would be untouchable by such puny things. The mounts of Slaanesh proved very hard to deal with and Richard just kept summoning them turn after turn. I just was not able to deal with them. I think I only managed to bring down one unit of them and that was it.

The last turn of the game, turn 5, ended with his army largely intact due to summoning and sitting on a pile of victory points while I had gave up counting. All I had left from my army was the Chaos Knight of Nurgle which certainly was the model of the match for me. Next time I face those little pink terrors, I'll have a bit more respect for them.

My list was a standard Combined Arms Detachment with a daemons allied detachment:

Chaos Sorcerer, level 3 wielding the Pusbringer relic.
Two units of chaos marines with two melta guns, in rhinos.
Two Helbrutes with multi-melta and power fist.
A defiler with autocannon and scourges.
A heldrake with baleflamer.
Chaos Knight of Nurgle.
A great unclean one.
A unit of plaguebearers.

Warhammer World!

Daemonettes about to be crispy critters.

Final stand of the Death Guard at table centre.

Deployment.

Slaanesh daemon prince.

Slaanesh and Nurgle daemons battle for dominance.

Daemon Knight of Slaanesh.