Battle of Bannerheim - Abraxes

Planet: Abraxes.
Region: Ceres Sector.

Death Guard vs Tyranids.
500 points
Mission: Annihilation.
Deployment: Hammer & Anvil.

Following the decisive Tyranid victories over the last few weeks, the Death Guard forces have been pushed back even further. The Tyranids hungry for biomass did not pursue but paused in their advance to devour what they could from the fields of rotten flesh. This allowed the Death Guard to regroup and launch a counter attack.

My friend mister Shadbolt decided a while ago to run a small four person escalation league and tonight was the start. The idea was to play everyone once at 500 points over the evening but it didn't quite work out that way so we tweaked it a little. I played Shadbolt and his Tyranids for the first round. I was very much outnumbered and not entirely sure how I was going to manage this.

Shadbolt got the first turn and sped his gaunts and genestealers up the table. My word, genestealers are fast these days. I hoped that my plague marines could handle those and send my hellforged contemptor towards the mass of gaunts surging up my left flank. Turn two and combat was swiftly joined. The genestealers took care of my plague marines  although the lord of contagion slew several. He in turn was killed by the broodlord, who then died to the spray of goo from the suppurating plate. A good case of mutually assured destruction.

The left flank was a bloodbath but one were the contemptor made himself man of the match. At best I think the gaunt's managed to take one or two wounds off of it but every turn it managed to eat enough to recover any lost wounds. Over three turns it killed off the gaunts, three tyranid warriors and two surviving genestealers. It was the last unit left standing. Victory went to the Death Guard!

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A really good game here. I truly thought at the start that I was not going to get anywhere with this match. I was outnumbered and I've never done well against Tyranids especially in larger games.

I had taken the hellforged contemptor because I knew one of the other players in the league was going to be playing Orks and I wanted something that could hopefully mow down plenty of boyz and still hold it's own in close combat. It did leave me with very few models but I hoped it would do me well and I was pleased with the outcome.

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Patrol detachment.

Lord of Contagion - tainted regeneration trait - suppurating plate.
7 man plague marine squad with icon, plasmagun and plague spewer.
Hellforged contemptor with kheres assault cannon, hellflamer and havoc launcher.

---

The Hellforged Contemptor rips through the alien menace.

A genestealer horde led by the broodlord descends upon the plague marines.

Operation Contagion - Abraxes

Planet: Abraxes.
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.

---

++ 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

10x Poxwalker

+ 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.

Battle of Lucerne Abbey - Abraxes

Planet: Abraxes.
Region: Ceres Sector.

Death Guard vs Tyranids.
1500pts.
Mission: Only War.
Deployment: Front-Line Assault.

One of the original targets of the Death Guard when they attacked Abraxes was the legendary Lucerne Abbey shrine which housed several relics of the old Imperium from the early days of the Great Crusade. Even with the Tyranid menace Typhus sought to corrupt these relics of the false Emperor. During the search of the ruins, the Death Guard failed to notice the arrival of the xenos vanguard until it was too late.

First 8th edition against Tyranids and for my friend Shadbolt. As Only War is a good training mission it seemed an excellent choice for the game. We rolled for the objectives and each one was worth a victory point at the end of each turn to whoever held them. First turn was mine. I've not enjoyed a game against Tyranids for a while due to how good they were previously so I was not sure how to handle them this time around. My list was fairly basic but I hoped it would do the job.

Due to deployment I was holding two objectives straight away. One with a plague marine squad and one with havocs. I didn't have much shooting but my big weapons did open fire upon Shadbolt's monstrous tyrannofex which seemed to be the biggest threat. Knocked a couple wounds off but it didn't hurt it's abilities too much.

In return Shadbolt surged everything forwards. Again, not a lot of shooting, but we did have the first perils of the warp that I have seen under 8th. One of his zoanthropes exploded which was impressive. But his turn pretty much consisted of getting everything as far forward as he could.

Turn two and combat was joined along the middle of the table. Plaguebringers and poxwalkers fought hard against gaunts, and my daemon prince of chaos started slugging it out with his hive tyrant. This turn of the game was rather poor for me as my dice were not playing ball most of the time. The one time Nurgle was in my favour saw six sixes rolled on a wounding roll. My forces were holding their own but the horde was slowly overrunning them. The plaguebearers didn't have much luck. They lost half their number to the gaunts.

Turn three and Shadbolt's genestealers were in the midst of my poxwalkers, ripping them apart. Typhus strode in and hacked the broodlord down with one mighty sweep of manreaper. Had the game gone much further he would have taken down those remaining genestealers I had no doubt. The second squad of poxwalkers was slowly whittling away but I was pleased to get one new poxwalker added to the unit. That made my evening. Elsewhere, despite being beaten down to 1 remaining wound, my daemon prince of chaos sliced the head from the hive tyrant and held it up for the gods to see!

At this time I had dealt enough damage to the tyrannofex that it was no longer a threat. With everything else in combat my havocs were forced to blast away at gaunts and the defiler strode into another unit of gaunts but was surprisingly unable to wound any of them.

By this time Shadbolt's tyranids were taking control of the objectives I had just by sheer weight of models. I couldn't remove enough of them to retain control of the objectives. Unfortunately by this point we had tio wrap up the game as we were nearing kick out time. Shadbolt had seized a victory 7pts to my 6.

A good game and hopefully a good training exercise for mister Shadbolt. Tyranids are still a good horde army but they seem much more balanced now than they used to be. I think I can enjoy facing them again now.

Back aboard the Terminus Est Typhus raged. The desecration of the ancient relics would not be by his hand. Instead they would trodden into the mud by alien feet. Time to turn his attention back to the war and maybe one day he could return to finish the job.

Battalion Detachment.
6 command points

Typhus
Daemon Prince of Chaos

10 Plague marines
Plasma Pistol and power weapon.
Icon of Despair and two meltaguns

10 Plague marines
Plasma Pistol and power weapon.
Icon of Despair and two meltaguns

10 Poxwalkers
10 Poxwalkers

Defiler
Battle cannon, reaper autocannon, scourge, defiler claws and combi flamer

5 Havocs
powerfist and bolt pistol
Autocannon, missile launcher, lascannon and hvy bolter
chainswords

10 plaguebearers

Plague marines supported by a defiler march into battle.

A monstrous tyrannofex.

The initial battle lines.

Savage hand to hand fighting in the blast craters.

Here come the genestealers!

Wave Assault - Abraxes

Planet: Abraxes.
Region: Ceres Sector.
919.M41

Death Guard vs Tyranids.

Mission: Wave Assault.
Deployment: Special.
Points: 1750.

Weeks of fighting have led to a brief stalemate. Even the supernatural toughness of the Death Guard has failed to prevent them slowly being pushed back and the Hive Mind has been working overtime to combat the multitude of diseases released by Nurgle's chosen. Now the Tyranids have begun to close in around the Death Guard.

Typhus ordered his men to hold the line no matter the cost. Bludhaven would rot under Nurgle's gaze rather than be devoured by the Hive Mind. Surrounded by a swarm of alien horrors, the Death Guard prepared to give their lives dearly.

This was a continuation of Joel and I's game from a couple weeks ago. We chose the next Tyranid mission from the Battle Missions book and prepared for that. I decided to be a little non-thematic this time and build a list around the Black Crusade detachment for no reason other than I wanted to give it a second go. It is much better against Imperial opponents but this was just going to be a fun game.

Joel's list was a little tougher than before. He had to split his into three waves which would randomly come from a random table edge that had been used before. Wave 1 was his thematic remnant from the last game (carnifex and two small units of genestealers). Wave 2 was two flying hive tyrants and a large unit of gargoyles. The third wave was hordes and hordes of gaunts, supported by two zoanthropes, a tervigon, and a toxicrene.

I set up a unit plague marines holding the central objective, two CSM units in rhinos holding two others, a unit of raptors held back to engage where needed, a helbrute to the left defending the final objective, and finally Typhus and lightning claw terminators in a land raider to speed to where they were needed.

The first three rounds went really quickly as Joel's tyranids came in in wave order. I managed to take out a few but he had hidden most of his wisely in cover. Once everything was in it surged forth. The helbrute was dropped quickly by the hive tyrants and so I gave up on that objective to focus on the other three. The raptors did nothing really. Despite being close to a huge units of gaunts they failed to get into combat and when they did on the following turn, they were shredded by sheer number of dice. Disappointing as I had taken the time to build those models just for this mission. Typhus and his terminators likewise did nothing. The land raider was dropped by the zoanthropes and the only possible target for them was the toxicrene which proceeded to kill all of them rather too quickly for my tastes.

The chaos marines were also soon cut down by either gaunts or the two hive tyrants. Only the plague marines actually put up much of a fight. But come turn 5 even they dropped and Joel won by wiping me out across the table.

It was a good game and I know that I had chosen the wrong detachment but sometimes you need to try things out. Joel was extremely certain that i would win simply because of the mark of Nurgle on everything but I was certain he would win simply by numbers of dice. My army is just too expensive to compensate but next time I'll give some more thought to what I need to bring them down.

Black Crusade detachment.
*Typhus.
* One unit of four terminators with pairs of lightning claws. Land raider as dedicated transport.
* Two units of chaos space marines. Mark of Nurgle. Champion with plasma pistol and power weapon. Flamer and heavy bolter. Both with Rhinos with extra combi-bolters.
* One unit of raptors. Mark of Nurgle. Champion with twin lightning claws. Two flamers.
* Helbrute with multi-melta.
* One plague marine unit. Champion with plasma pistol and power weapon. Two melta guns.

First Contact - Abraxes III

Planet: Abraxes.
Region: Ceres Sector.
919.M41

Death Guard vs Tyranids.

Mission: First Contact.
Deployment: Special.
Points: 1750.





After weeks of engaging in hit and run skirmishes with the genestealer cults across Abraxes the Death Guard have pulled back to their command bastion to prepare for the coming storm. As the first tendril appeared in the night sky the chaos marines spread out to better engage what was coming. At that point the genestealers burst from the sewers and ruins drawing the plague marines fire away from the descending vanguard of the Tyranid invasion.


Ever since I started my Death Guard army I had wanted to try them out against a Tyranid army. In all my years I have never managed to beat a Nids’ list and it would be nice to see how the Death Guard would fare. When my friend Joel challenged me to a 1750 point match I jumped on it. We decided to play the First Contact mission from Battle Missions as it was rather thematic.

I made a small mistake in not fully reading the rules properly and I misunderstood how the deployment worked, and gave my opponent an advantage. Basically the table is split into six equal size blocks numbered one through six, and as the defender I had to roll a D6 to see where each unit deployed, meaning that my army was spread about the table. I had read that the Tyranids rolled as well but could appear anywhere in that square when in fact they come in from the table edge or deep strike to that square if they are capable of it. So I en ended up deploying with the expectation that the vanguard of the hive fleet would pop up all round me. Big mistake.

My opponent had tried to build a fluffy list with lots of genestealers to start with (they are already on the planet after all) followed up by deepstriking winged hive tyrants, spore pods with carnifex’s and lictors.

To start with my opponent was very lucky being able to destroy my predator and take down one rhino with ease. My dice were not with me once again, especially the Helpack who spend the first the turn firing their multimelta’s into the air at nothing. They eventually started getting their backsides in gear but by then they were too far away from the enemy to play much more in the game.

I managed to retrieve some luck when one plague marine squad brought down a winged hive tyrant and blew it into red goo. That was probably my one victory all game. Otherwise both plague marine squads did little other than hold up enemy units for a few turns.

Typhus once again proved that he was not worth playing (why do I keep playing him?) as although he mowed down many genestealers, my opponent managed to get a big gribbly in combat with him and squash him. Pretty much every game my opponent managed to get him in combat with something he can’t handle and takes him down. Time to play someone else as my HQ for a while.

The last couple turns saw my helpack take down a spore pod and I managed to gun down a carnifex but it was too little too late. The genestealer units outnumbered me and managed to hold more objectives when the game ended turn 5.