Contact Lost - D'Then

Planet: D'Then.
Region: Perdus Rift.
990.M41

Death Guard vs Tau Empire.
1500 points.
Contact Lost.

Slowly, step by step, the Death Guard have advanced across D'Then. Outposts have fallen and thousands of Tau citizens now lie dead from numerous plagues. When contact is lost with mining station XII  on the Tau side of the front lines a scout force was dispatched to investigate.

What they found was Typhus the Traveller and his personal retinue of plague marines. While cultists and other marines looted the mining station's reserves, Typhus engaged the Tau expeditionary force.

This was my second game against my friend Adam and his Tau army. He had recently bought some new models, including a Barracuda, from one of our occasional fellow players who is selling his army and wanted to give it a go. We had planned on playing one of the Tau scenarios from the Battle Missions book but due to work getting in the way we decided to rearrange that and just play a friendly game from the rule book.

The six objectives were set up three to a side so we started mirrored. Unfortunately for Adam my first two objectives cards were two that I started with. Turn four saw me claim the third. His objective cards were not helpful to him at all.

Adam's list was led by Darkstrider and contained two units of fire warriors, one of pathfinders, one of stealth suits, two ghostkeel's, a hammerhead and a barracuda. Not bad for a nice friendly game but I felt he lacked some hard hitting units. I never managed to destroy either ghostkeel. One was kept locked in combat with plague marines, the other lost combat and ran away after facing Typhus with terminators. Even the barracuda, which I was concerned about, didn't really cause any problems ultimately. It didn't help his cause that my armour saves and FNP rolls were perfect throughout the game.

I had started the game with the intent of, or rather the hope of, getting the objectives that I started with. Lucky for me that was the case. I think Adam had the same hope but it was not to be. He was forced to come forward from his side which gave me a better chance of gunning him down. His hammerhead did nothing and my predator which I was using to to bring it down failed to hit all game. Eventually my Knight took out Darkstrider and his squad with a well placed thermal cannon blast but otherwise was almost useless. Likewise his barracuda which managed to take a HP from the Knight but did nothin else all game.

We eventually collided mid table between Typhus and his terminators, and some stealth suits and a ghostkeel. Typhus didn't do too well as Manreaper snatched a wound of him in the first round. The terminators slowly fell but they did bring down the stealth suits and knocked a wound from the ghostkeel which fell back. On my left flank Adam's second ghostkeel assaulted one squad of plague marines hoping to take them down and steal an objective. My plague marines slowly fell but held it back denying him some VP.

Towards the end of the game Adam had a chance to draw but his bad luck continued and when the game ended turn five by mutual agreement I was 5 victory points to 2.

My list was:

Typhus.
5 Chaos Terminators (reaper autocannon and lightning claws).
10 Plague Marines (plasma pistol/power weapon champion, 2x meltaguns, icon of despair)
10 Plague Marines (plasma pistol/power weapon champion, 2x meltaguns, icon of despair)
2x Rhinos.
Chaos Predator with lascannon and heavy bolters.
Chaos Knight Errant (daemonic possession).

The Relic - Lelithar

Planet: Lelithar.
Cadian Sector.
999.M41

Adeptas Sororitas / Dark Angels vs Death Guard.
2000 points.
Mission: The Relic.

During the war for Lelithar, Typhus ordered a raid upon the shrine of Saint Lelithar. He directed the troops under his command to storm the cathedral and take the dead saint's treasured remains. The theft and destruction of the body would cause a severe fall in moral for the defenders. Leading the attack himself, Typhus charged into the ranks of gathered Adepta Sororitas. Only once battle was joined was the trap sprung. Dark Angels marines dropped from the sky and crashed through the ruins on bikes. Determined not to lose, Typhus ordered his men to seize the relics and fall back.

For some time now I have wanted to challenge my nephew's Sisters of Battle army. He doesn't like playing them as they are in desperate need of an update, something we both agree on. However, after some friendly persuasion he agreed to field them in the Relic mission. When he turned up with Dark Angels allies I was a little surprised as I had expected him to field his own Imperial Knight.

Instead he had turned up with a whole shedload of grav weapons which were quite frankly, the bane of my existence this game. Grav cannons and even the basic guns ripped my Chaos Knight to pieces over three rounds! I didn't even get to do anything with it other than incinerate a handful of bikes. My defiler (which I played purely because I had just bought it off a friend and wanted to play it) died turn 1 to a lascannon and a couple missile launchers. There was nothing I could do it seems.

Even my Plague Marines were screwed. They made plenty of FNP saves but every time I got to base contact with the relic, my nephew would gun down enough of them that I could never move away from the relic. By turn 3 I had resolved myself that this was going to be a loss for me. So I had Typhus charge and challenge Saint Celestine. Let's go out in a blaze of glory! Except for two rounds neither of them managed to hit each other and when I did get her down to her last wound she slew Typhus (Who was quickly snatched off into the Warp by the Dark Powers) and I conceded.

A good game but frustrating. I have not been on the receiving end of grav weapons before and definitely not that many!

The Purging - Lelithar

Planet: Lelithar.
Cadian Sector.
999.M41

Dark Angels vs Death Guard.
1500 points.
Mission: Purge the Alien.

The Death Guard have found the Dark Angel threat on Lelithar hard to defeat. Unable to defeat a fast moving and mobile force the plague marines are forced to lure the space marines into tight battlefields where their mobility will not be as useful. If the Dark Angels can suffer just one defeat on Lelithar it may give the Death Guard the push they need.



This game was played about three months back and was planned against my friend Joel. I had asked to play against his Tyranid army as my Death Guard had not been tested against them (and still haven't). Unfortunately on that day I had had some bad news and turned up not in such a good mood, and I found Joel had not brought his Tyranid army but a new Dark Angels army his girlfriend had bought him for his birthday. Unfortunately I was a bit of a dick and not very nice for which I am sorry.

His list was a nice one with some fast moving bikes, land speeders and heavy support tanks. With the limited force available to me it was difficult to actually do anything to counteract it. I did have some bikes but they didn't last long. My plague marines were not able to get across the table either. Joel's force was heavily armed with plasma weaponry and I force once I didn't get a lot of FNP rolls.

Joel was by far the better opponent in this game but I also feel that I was not in the right frame of mind to play a game of 40K. I still think he would have won but I might have done better.

War in the East - D'Then

Planet: D'Then.

Region: Perdus Rift.

990.M41

Death Guard vs Tau Empire.

1500 points.

Mission: Crusade.

In the years before Typhus sided with Abaddon in his 13th Black Crusade, the Traveller engaged in a war with the Tau forces on the edge of known space. The colony world of D'Then was the primary target. From here the chaos space marines could launch raids into surrounding systems carving out a small empire away from the Eye of Terror.

The war began with biological warfare followed by heavy ground combat as the Death Guard slowly pushed into the Tau colonies. This engagement came about as the Death Guard scoured the dead for salvageable equipment and munitions. The Tau launched an attack to catch Typhus unawares and end the war before it really started.

This is the first game of an attempt to play all the missions currently in 40K. The first game was against my friend Adam who normally plays Farsight Enclave but this evening chose to play a regular Tau army but other than two fire warrior squads decided to go all battle suits and crisis suits. I think he expected to easily blast me apart with mass firepower but I pretty much made all my feel no pain rolls which kept me alive through the game. 

It was a objective mission, three in play, and I was sat on two of them almost from the start of the game meaning that I didn't have to move and he had to come forward. The high point of the game was Typhus charging into a Ghostkeel, dodging all the attacks (it missed with all of them) and then hitting back with 8 successful attacks! Typhus made his contribution that day! 

I won I think more because Adam forgot that it was an objective mission and he was going for the kill. Perhaps things would have gone different had be focusing on removing me from the objectives rather than just killing units.

I only made one small mistake in that game and that was not noticing that Typhus cannot summon daemons (must be Lore of Nurgle only!)

My list was something like:

Typhus.

10 man chaos space marine squad with mark of nurgle.

10 man plague marine squad with two meltaguns.

10 man plague marine squad with two meltaguns.

5 man chaos terminator squad.

Chaos Predator with twin-linked lacannon and two heavy bolter sponsons.

Helbrute with multimelta.

Hunt for the Voice - Lelithar

Planet: Lelithar.
Cadian Sector.
999.M41

Dark Angels vs Death Guard.
1000 points.
Mission: Purge the Alien.

The Dark Angels sought the shadowy Heretic calling himself the "Voice of the Emperor," who was operating on the world of Lelithar. The so-called "Voice of the Emperor," Cypher, the infamous Fallen Angel.
The Dark Angels launched a number of strikes against this figure, but on each occasion found that the pressures of constant attacks upon their hallowed ground in the Caliban System forced them to redeploy their forces. Each time the Dark Angels manage to close on the suspected location of the Voice, he somehow proved able to slip through their clutches, leaving behind taunting, heretical graffiti.

A couple weeks ago I challenged my nephew to a game of 40K as an opportunity try out my Death Guard once again. I went in expecting to lose because I still need to learn how to play them but I was pleased at ho well they did handle themselves despite the high points cost.

My nephew made a small screw up as he was unsure how the Forge Organisation Chart worked with formations but it didn't matter for this as I was happy to play. He has three armies - Blood Angels, Dark Angels and Adeptas Sororitas. He is such a big Blood Angel fan that I expected to be facing off against a plethora of assault marines and furiouso dreadnoughts. Instead he turned up with a Dark Angel force mounted on bikes or part of a Ravenwing detachment full of land speeders. I was going to have a hell of a time.

I don't quite remember everything he had but it includes Sammael on his jetbike, a bike command squad, a squad of bikes, and the formation that gave him three land speeders and a darkshroud land speeder.

My list was:

Sorcerer - level 3.
Mark of Nurgle. Veteran of the long war.
Powers: Force, Nurgle's rot, summoning, plague wind and the one that makes weapons "get hot".

10 man CSM squad.
Mark of Nurgle. Veterans of the long war. Champion had power fist.

10 man plague marine squad.
Veterans of the long war.
Champion had power weapon and plasma pistol. Icon of despair and two meltaguns.
Rhino with two combi-bolters.

5 man terminator squad.
Mark of Nurgle. Veterans of the long war.
Combi-bolters and one reaper autocannon. Champion had lighting claw. The rest had one power fist and the others power weapons.

Aegis defence line with quad autocannons.

I deployed mine with the sorcerer and his CSM buddies holding the autocannon. The plague marines sat off to the side in a rhino looking to get around to objectives as needed. I also talked myself into holding the terminators in reserve which proved to be a poor choice as you'll see.

Battle was then commenced. He threw everything at my CSM squad on turn one. Bolters and plasma weapons both, and I either made every armour save or passed the cover save for the defence line. One dice in particular rolled nothing lower than a 4 for half the game! It has since been promoted.

Second turn he decided to move across the table and sweep in behind me rather than risk driving over the terrain. When he realised that he had wrecked my Rhino in the gap he needed he was not a happy bunny. On my second turn no terminators arrived. Poured everything into the land speeders and did nothing. The quad cannon did smash through one bike squad though which really helped my bacon.

Turn three and still no terminators! I ended up having to summon plaguebearers to stall his advance with the bikes. They did not last long which I found very disappointing. I really wanted them to last a bit longer but a free unit (although it cost my sorcerer a wound thanks to a issue with the warp). As the game went along my nephew did manage to kill my CSM squad but not before my sorcerer conjoured a second squad of plaguebearers to halt the bike advance and blowing his own head off with another mishap.

Eventually my terminators arrived turn four way past the point where I really needed them. They came down and took out a couple of bikes but the rest blasted them down to two terminators who then proved ineffectual other than to hold an objective.

My plague marines did fantastic though. They never did put a dent on the land speeders but they survived so much fire power and took down Sammael that I didn't care. At end of turn 5 it was getting late and my nephew was on 12 vp to my 5 so we called it there.

At the end of the day my army is going to be expensive as I want the mark of Nurgle on everything and I'd rather field plague marines than the regular chaos marines. I'd have liked some more models on the table but even so I was very pleased as to how the game played out.

Skirmish on Lelithar

Planet: Lelithar.
Cadian Sector.
999.M41

Dark Angels vs Death Guard.
1000 points.
Mission: Purge the Alien.





Early in the crusade the planet Lelithar came under Chaos attack. The Death Guard arrived and seeded the atmosphere with the virulent zombie plague. While the Planetary Defence Forces mobilized to fight the growing number of the dead, the Death Guard deployed to the surface many kilometers from the main hive city. Colonies were reduced to cities of the dead and the crops in the fields rotted to mulch. An astropathic call for help was sent. The Dark Angels chapter of space marines answered the call and began to deploy a company to the surface.

Out in the midst of the rotting fields of grain, a scout force of Dark Angels ran into their equivalent and battle was joined. The Death Guard were few in number and soon outmaneuvered by the space marines in their Rhino transports.  The chaos marines suffered heavy casualties from plasma weapons but the Dark Angels suffered as badly from their own weapons. Even so, the chaos marine scouting force was swiftly eradicated. From here the space marines prepared to take the battle to the enemy.

Chaos Sorcerer.
Mark of Nurgle. Veteran of the long war.

10 man plague marine squad.
Veterans of the long war.
Champion: power weapon and plasma pistol.
2x Meltaguns. Icon of despair.

5 man chaos terminator squad.
Mark of Nurgle. Veterans of the long war.
Champion: Lightning claw.
1x Reaper autocannon. 1x powerfist. 3x power weapon.

Helbrute.
Multimelta and power claw.

Game Notes:
This was my first game playing Death Guard. I didn't expect to win and went in with a positive mentality to just try out what I had build and painted at the time. I hadn't expected my opponent to bring a force deployed inside Rhino transports. I had trouble taking them down just because of range and crap dice rolls. He immobilized my Helbrute just outside of melta efficiency range and I failed to do anything with it all game. His plasma weapons hurt him and one plasma cannon deviated back onto his Rhino which went bang. If I remember right I called it at the end of turn 4 because there was no way I was pulling the game back.