Another Death Guard batrep, this was also testing out the Border War mission being used in the club's upcoming EXETERminatus tournament in May.
Due to time constraints we played a 2k game. The main difference to the previous batrep is that the midline objectives were further apart, objectives were held before rallying and only one garrison was allowed per player.
Table & Deployment
Note that these photos were taken at the end of the game not the beginning!
Army Lists
DG Border War Nurgle's Rot, 1990 POINTS
Death Guard (NetEA V0.4.3)
PLAGUE MARINE RETINUE [365]
7 Plague Marines, 4 Death Guard Rhino, Nurgle Sorcerer Lord, Nurgle's Rot
PLAGUE MARINE RETINUE [500]
Death Guard Daemon Prince, 4 Plague Marines, 3 Havocs, Desecrator, Death Guard Assault Dreadnought
BLIGHT DRONE SWARM* [250]
5 Blight Drones
CONTAGION TOWERS* [325]
4 Contagion Towers
PLAGUE TOWERS* [350]
Plague Tower
PLAGUE REAPERS [200]
I garrisoned the footslogging DG Retinue in the green forest in the middle, with the Plague Tower on the near objective, the Contagion Engines 15cm back from the objective, the Plaguereaper on the road on my right flank, the Blight Drones behind the green forest and the Rhino-mountd Retinue on top of the hill on my left flank. Knowing about the Thunderhawk, I went for a relatively compact deployment.
Incompertus, 2150 POINTS
White Scars (NetEA Tournament Pack 2016)
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PREDATOR [325]
4 Annihilator, Hunter
TACTICAL [275]
6 Tacticals
WHIRLWINDS [300]
4 Whirlwinds
BIKE [425]
8 Bike Unit, Chaplain
TACTICAL [450]
6 Tacticals, Supreme Commander, 3 Razorback
THUNDERHAWK [200]
ASSAULT [175]
4 Assault Units
Paul's list was done quickly on the spot (and without access to http://traitor-legion.appspot.com/ as the WIFI was down) and was slightly over-points, or I misremembered something.
Paul deployed the Predators on my far left flank, the Rhino Tacticals and Whirlwinds near his objective and the Bikes and Razorback Tacticals on my right flank.
Turn One
Start of turn: no teleporters in either army list.
Strategy: As the force with fewer activations (six to the seven White Scars formations), I got to choose who went first in turn one, and activated first.
Turn 1 Act. 1, Death Guard: Contagion Engines
Action: Sustain against Whirlwinds
Result: Two kills for a total of 3 BMs.
Turn 1 Act. 2, White Scars: Predators
Action: Advance against DG Rhino-mounted Retinue, positioning on the right midline objective.
Result: five hits resulted i a mere two dead Rhinos and no dead Plague Marines.
Turn 1 Act. 3, White Scars: Whirlwinds
Action: Sustain against Plague Tower
Result: With only one Barrage Point, all they managed was to inflict a Blast Marker for shooting at it.
Turn 1 Act. 4, Death Guard: Plague Tower
Action: Sustain against Predators
Result: one kill, four BMs due to lots of Barrage Points and some Disrupt hits.
Turn 1 Act. 5, White Scars: Razorback Tacticals
Action: Double against Plaguereaper, moving up onto the left midline objective.
Result: One BM
Turn 1 Act. 6, Death Guard: Plaguereaper
Action: Advance against Razorbacks
Result: some vehicles killed, and a lucky 'barrage-snipe' of his Supreme Commander!
Turn 1 Act. 7, White Scars: Tactical Rhinos
Action: Advance against DG Rhino Retinue still on the hill on my left.
Result: one BM
Turn 1 Act. 8, Death Guard: Blight Drones
Action: Double against Whirlwinds, positioning on far side objective.
Result: one hit and broken!
Turn 1 Act. 9, White Scars: Bikes
Action: Engage against Blight Drones
Result: having forgotten to check where the Bikes could reach, the Bikes assaulted the Blight Drones and even with two Bikes killed the Drones were beaten.
Turn 1 Act. 10, Death Guard: Rhino Retinue
Action: Marshal: Move
Result: Move forwards, remove all BMs
Turn 1 Act. 11, White Scars: Thunderhawk and assault
Action: Engage against Rhino Retinue
Result: the Garrisoning Retinue on overwatch manage to kill an assault marine, putting the Marines on -2 for combat res, and then manage to bounce off the Death Guard anyway. Entire formation including Thunderhawk wiped. In hindsight this was one of the critical mistakes on the Marine side.
Turn One Endphase
Although my Death Guard were well set up for subsequent turns, Paul held three objectives to my one, for a total of 5:1 in points. The lone Whirlwind fails to rally, all other broken formations rally.
Turn Two
I won the Strategy Roll.
Turn 2 Act. 1, Death Guard: Plague Tower
Action: Double against Tactical Rhinos
Result: kills a Rhino, three BMs. Tacticals prepped for assult + supporting fire.
Turn 2 Act. 2, Death Guard: Rhino Retinue
Action: retain and Engage against tactical Rhinos
Result: Tacticals broken for a single loss. Nurgle's Rot was forgotten and the supporting fire from the Plague Tower did nothing.
Turn 2 Act. 3, White Scars: Predators
Action: Sustain against Plague Tower
Result: six hits resulted in two failed Reinforced Armour and Invulnerable saves!
Turn 2 Act. 4, White Scars: Bikes
Action: Engage against Blight Drones over on the far right flank where the broken Blight Drones had run.
Result: one biker gets distracted and dies to tree-trunks! Marines win. Blight Drones reposition to middle of Paul's side to try and prevent the Bikes getting to the objective.
Turn 2 Act. 5, Death Guard: Contagion Enginess
Action: Sustain against Razorback Tacticals
Result: one kill, five BMs
Turn 2 Act. 6, Death Guard: Plaguereaper
Action: Advance against Razorback tactical
Result: broken, Plagurereaper in 15cm of right midline objective
Turn 2 Act. 7, Death Guard: Garrison Retinue
Action: Double against lone Whirlwind
Result: Desecrator died to tree-trunks, no damage to Whirlwind but formation positioned to hold far side objective.
Turn Two Endphase
Paul held the left midline objective and I held all three of the others, for 7:2 this turn.
Turn Three
Paul won the Strategy Roll.
Turn 3 Act. 1, White Scars: Predators
Action: Sustain against Plague Tower
Result: cascading criticals take the remaining four DC off the Plague Tower and destroy it!
Turn 3 Act. 2, Death Guard: Plaguereaper
Action: Overwatch
Result: still sitting and guarding the left midline objective.
Turn 3 Act. 3, White Scars: Bikes
Action: Engage against Blight Drones
Result: one kill each side, Marines win, Blight Drones reposition to protect the footslogging Retinue.
Turn 3 Act. 4, Death Guard: Garrison Retinue
Action: Advance against Predators
Result: move up to the far side objective and put a BM on the Predators
Turn 3 Act. 5, Death Guard: Rhino retinue
Action: Engage against Predators
Result: no kills on either side but PMs win due to BMs and outnumbering, two hackdown kills.
Turn Three Endphase
I held all four objectives for 10:0 this turn. Razorback Tacticals fail to rally, leaving him without enough activations or troops to reliably take any objectives, so we called the game there.
Result
Ian 18, Paul 7
Mostly down to the disastrous Thunderhawk assault, we were discussing what could have been done differently and think that he should have either just shot the Plague Marines on the hill in the open, or come further round and assaulted the Contagion Engines. He would have had the same Blast Marker issues as Overwatch fire from the garrison would have reached, but the Contagions are much squishier than the Plague Marines!
