Crusade Battle Report - Death Guard vs Necrons

Hello!

The Death Guard warband 'The Desiccated' march once more on the planet of Silex, this time venturing out into the southern deserts of the world's main land mass, looking to take access to the quarries and their associated manufactorums. Under the unforgiving sun, the warriors of Mortarion search for sites of aerial supply drops, but the Necrons of the Ay-Tez dynasty have risen from the sands to oppose them once again...

Game three for the Desiccated Crusade, this time against Sharpy and his Necrons (and I'm borrowing a few of his photos again!) This was his first Crusade game so we kept it relatively simple, with a rulebook mission Supplies From Above - essentially a 6 objective mission scored like in matched play, but with the twist that the objectives all moved in the randomly determined direction of the wind each battle round. Also, since we were playing in a desert, we used the twist card for Blinding Sun from the open war deck - this meant it would be -1 to hit for shooting attacks that were aiming towards the board edge where the sun was currently in the sky. As it happened, the Necrons were coming out of the sun so it hurt me a bit more - though it wasn't effecting melee so not an insurmountable issue.

After gaining a lot of experience in the previous battle against Orks, I was now deploying 60 power level, so had to leave a few things at home. I took all my troop units - Poxwalkers, Cultists, two Plague Marine squads, led by Lord of Virulence Najax the Generous and Malignant Plaguecaster Gilus the Withered. They were backed up by the Plague Surgeon, Noxious Blightbringer, Foetid Bloat-drone and two Blooded units, the Terminators 'Crotalus' Hammer' and the Plagueburst Crawler 'The Oasis of Filth'. My agendas were Reaper, Survivor (on Najax) and Turn Their Hope to Rot - points for killing the strongest enemy unit, in this case the Wraiths.

The Necrons were fielding a mixed force with a strong Canoptek element. Overlord Kothetek and Technomancer Mekeros led two units of Warriors and one of Immortals, some Skorpekh Destroyers, a couple of Lokhust Heavy Destroyers, a Tomb Spyder, nine Scarab swarms and six Wraiths. The dynasty were using Rad-wreathed for a -1 toughness in melee effect (seems familiar!) and an ability to increase the speed of Canoptek units.

The Necron agendas were Reaper, Assassinate and Territorial Imperative - getting experience for doing actions on objectives and taking out enemy units holding them.

Deployment, just after the objectives moved for the first time, favourably for the Necrons so that the three on their side of the board were comfortably under their control, while the three on my side had moved further away from me. No scoring on the first turn though so there would be another shift before we were awarded points. Terminators were off the board but everything else was lined up. The Necrons got to go first...

Turn one, the Necrons advanced up into striking distance of two now fairly central objectives, while securing the three in their own half. Those Canoptek units were pretty nippy, and would definitely be all up in the Death Guard turn two.

Similarly the Death Guard rolled up to close the gap and get a finger to some objectives, shooting was fairly ineffective, but Plague Marines on the right flank did get up into range to punch some Scarabs.

At the end of the turn all the objectives scattered to the right, not significantly changing who controlled them.

Necrons picked up a bunch of points for the objectives, then moved in to surround the Death Guard centre. The melee units came wheeling in, the Wraiths cut down the Blightbringer and a couple of marines, ending up locking the Plagueburst Crawler into combat. The Skorpekh Destroyers whiffed a bit though, only killing five Poxwalkers and leaving them to control the objective on my turn.

Elsewhere the Spyder went into combat with the Plague Marines but got punched out by the interrupting power fist.

With the central push tied up and surrounded, Lord Najax would have to get involved himself. On the flanks the Bloat-drone abandoned the objective in favour of assisting vs the Wraiths, while the other Plague Marines continued to battle the Scarabs.

With the melee units moved on ahead, it was time to spring the Death Guard trap! The Blightlord Terminators emerged from the waste tanks of bio-sludge (or the teleporter if you're being boring), lining up a charge on the now exposed Warriors, while gunning down a Skorpekh or two.

Turn two melee proved pretty decisive - the Warriors were obliterated by the Blightlords, buffed by a bunch of stratagems to make sure. The Wraiths were dropped to a single model, and I think the scarabs were finally removed.

A big swing in terms of units being killed, but after the wind blowing the objectives around again, the Necrons once again held more of them. Remaining forces castled up in the corners, getting some good shooting in to blast three of the five Terminators to bits!

Turn three for the Death Guard was spent chasing after objectives and cutting down the remnants of the Necron forward elements. The Bloat-drone made a bit of a meal out of killing the last Wraith, while the Destroyers were cut down with relative ease.

Turn four and five were spent with the Death Guard trying to take out the last Necrons, while the 'crons were trying to hold on to their objective lead. When the dust settled only three or four Warriors still stood before phasing out, but they had secured the objectives, and those vital supplies were teleported back to the tomb world. Necrons win!

Though the Desiccated were defeated, they did pick up a lot of experience again. Both the Daemon Engines got advances (the drone now ignores AP -1 and -2, the PBC can 'mark' a unit with acidic residue in addition to it's creepy spider legs), as did the Plague Marines that battled the Scarabs (overwatch on 5s), and Najax himself (improved ap in melee) - coming a little closer to his goal of Daemonhood.

The Necron forced picked up a couple of changes - the Wraiths upgraded to improve their advances and charges, which is a bit scary, while the Skorpekhs recieved a battlescar that actually helped them - rerolling hits in exchange for the inability to charge anything but the closest target. Kothetek also picked up an epithet for his victory - 'Eternal Lord of Heavens'. Suitable, since all his soldiers got killed!

Anyway, great game, Crusade is always fun, especially when both players are fielding a nice balanced list. It's great to be able to play the missions but then have something else to go for (xp) when it goes wrong! Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed, and stay safe.

Crusade Battle Report - Death Guard vs Orks

Hello!

Back with another Death Guard game, this time as part of my warband's Crusade! The Desiccated, led by Lord of Virulence Najax the Generous have made planetfall on the embattled world of Silex, at the Cathedral-City of Eramis. They have been busily setting up a shrine to Nurgle, hidden from Imperial forces by warp-tech obscuration engines, when who should show up, but those Deathskulls they defeated on the volcanic world. Time for the Death Guard to defend their shrine and the generators!

So as with the first game of the campaign, the Orks were piloted by Tony from the Narrative Wargamer Podcast (and he also took a good chunk of the pics I'm using here) - looking for revenge! We decided to play using the War-Torn Shrine World Theatre of War from Psychic Awakening: Pariah, and played the Weaken the Defences mission from one of the Crusade mission packs - Amidst the Ashes? Essentially points = to power level killed, plus the defender gets to go first and has light cover on their entire deployment zone - so long as the attacker doesn't turn off any of the generators at the three central objectives. The attacker also gets points as the game goes on for each generator that remains switched off. We were playing at 75 power level - or about 1500 points.

Najax the Generous lead a mixed force of Death Guard from the Mortarion's Anvil Plague Company. Two Blightlord Terminator squads and two units of Plague Marines made up the bulk of the infantry, with a unit each of Cultists and Poxwalkers to support. A host of characters were assisting; a Malignant Plaguecaster, Noxious Blightbringer, Plague Surgeon and Foul Blightspawn. Vehicle support came from a couple of daemon engines; a Foetid Bloat-Drone and a Plague Burst Crawler. Only Najax had so far been upgraded, with a warlord trait and relic (Arch-Contaminator and Fulgaris' Helm) and as a blessing from Nurgle, Clawed Feet for extra movement.

My agendas were Honour the Patron (every unit that kills 7+ models gets xp), Cull the Hordes (xp for killing 6+ models in a single phase) and Machine Vendetta (xp for vehicle kills by a vehicle, the amount rewarded depending on the wounds of the target). So pretty much just kill stuff, since that was what I was going to be doing anyway.

The Deathskulls were led by Warboss Zaggdreg Ironhide in his newly painted Mega Armour. He brought along a Weirdboy and a Big Mek, and three mobs of 20 Boyz, all of which were veterans of previous battles. They were supported by Meganobz in a Gunwagon armed with Da Boomer, a Wazbom Blastajet and the Megatrakk Scrapjet that was still showing the scars from when it got blasted to bits by my AdMech.

Their agendas were Machine Vendetta, Master of the Warp (xp to a psyker for doing psychic powers) and Krumpin Spree (xp for the Warboss killing characters and big stuff).

Deployment: Pretty simple stuff for me, a big blob of Terminators and characters in the middle, packed up by the Plague Burst Crawler, with Plague Marines on the flanks to contest objectives. The Orks hid most of their units behind buildings but had some Boyz ready to run up the centre. Aside from the Meganobz and Warboss in the Gunwagon, everything was on the board. As per the scenario rules, I went first.

A very Death Guard slow progression up the board. Nothing was in range to charge and I didn't have many things that could shoot - the PBC fired at the Gunwagon for minimal damage and the front unit of Terminators killed a few Boyz.

Orks turn one, and a bit of cagey movement from the Boyz, getting into positions for a turn two charge while being far enough away to make any of my charges difficult. The vehicles all lined up some shots though - the Bloat-drone took a chunk of damage but the Blightlords absorbed a load of punishment for no effect.

In turn two, the Terminators moved up once again, with Cultists advancing onto the central objective to try and be a bit of a screen. I also launched a Blight Bombardment into the Ork lines to at least get them to think about their movement. Shooting from all the bolters and the stratagem-extended range of Najax' Plague Spewers cut down a bunch of the Orks opposite them, with morale doing the rest of the work to reduce the unit down to four models. The Plagueburst Crawler had an excellent turn, blasting wounds off the plane with the Entropy Cannons and destroying the rickety old Scrapjet with it's Mortar - due to it's battlescar it takes mortal wounds every time it's hit by a high strength weapon, and the mortar hit four times.

The heavily damaged Drone decided it was hungry, and plowed into some Boyz using the Daemonic Gluttony stratagem to regain three wounds after killing eight of them! They then responded with a Tankbusta Bomb and a load of choppas to reduce it right back down to one wound!

The Ork forces lines up for a potential killing blow, while largely avoiding the blast from the incoming bombardment. Zaggdreg called a WAAAGH!!! and led his Meganobz out of their wagon into the Death Guard lines, while the remaining full strength Boyz squad pincered around to try and engage a bunch of my characters. The plane and the wagon moved to get more shots, which unsurprisingly blasted my Bloat-drone back to the warp (though not before it exploded) and once again bounced off the Blightlords - they were in an obstinate mood apparently. Elsewhere a remnant Boyz unit did turn off one of the generators.

Then the Meganobz, Warboss and Boyz charged in. Zaggdreg swung in, powered up with the Fists of Gork, and managed to do... two wounds to a Blightlord. They promptly interrupted, powered up with stratagems, and battered the Meganobz!

When the dust settled, the Meganobz were dead, the Termiantors were still alive, but the Boyz had killed the cultists and gummed up all my characters. It was though not at all the desired result for the Orks.

In my turn three it was mostly a case of reclaiming my lines. One squad of Blightlords charged out to go switch a generator back on, destroying the Boyz guarding it in the process. In the middle there wasn't much movement, but the Foul Blightspawn dropped his death's head grenade at his feet to kill four boyz. The PBC continued with it's good work, blasting the Blastajet out of the sky. Then in melee the combination of my characters killed off pretty much all the boyz remaining. With that the Orks were blunted and it was just a case of scrapping out for a bit of glory.

Zaggdreg consistently failed to cut through the Terminators over the last couple of turns, eventually falling himself to shooting, along with his surviving characters. In the last turn the PBC killed the Gunwagon (which had rammed into the Blightlords, doing more damage than the Warboss), which then exploded to finally take out the last of the Terminator squad and salvage a bit of pride for the Deathskulls.

With the Orks vanquished, it was another victory for The Desiccated!

Fun game, if a little one sided - it seems our Death Guard vs Orks games go that way, two convincing Crusade victories to me, but a pretty strong showing for the Orks last time we played in a matched play game. We think it's probably down to the amount of damage the Orks can put out - in the Crusade list it's a lot of two damage stuff for the most part, which is not ideal for the DG.

In any case, I came away with a whole load of XP across the board, both Terminator units went up a level and gained a shooting related buff (one of them is getting +1 to hit and the other ignores cover at half range) but the star of the show was the Plagueburst Crawler 'The Oasis of Filth' - it's now got 6 unit kills over two games and shot up almost to the second rank! As a reward I rolled on the Death Guard Daemon Engine table and it has now sprouted Spider Limbs, allowing it to move through terrain and models, which is hilarious. I also spent my Virulence Point from the last game to reroll part of my personal plague - I now have Haemorrhaging, Pox-ridden Sores. This means if the warlord gets close enough he can infect enemy units to make them half their advance and charge rolls. 

Hopefully you all enjoyed this write up - I know it's not everyone's cup of tea but I'm really enjoying Crusade at the moment, so hopefully I can play a bit more soon! Thanks for reading, and stay safe out there!

Crusade Battle Report - Death Guard vs Orks

Hello!

It's been a while since I played a Crusade game, in fact the last one in person was back in September against Narrative Wargamer Tony and his Orks. Well, this time I was back with my 'dry' Death Guard warband, The Desiccated, led by Lord of Virulence Najax the Generous.

We played the Strike for Supplies mission from the often overlooked Plague Purge mission pack (which we covered in the Podcast back in May), which involves making 'loot' actions on the objectives to score points, which infantry can do in one turn, and everyone else can do over the course of two. It also includes some new stratagems, importantly for this mission, to complete actions while shooting, and to start them while in melee.

We also used a fun battlefield twist - the Geothermal Eruption. Effectively there was a wave of molten lava coming on from the flank, encroaching up every turn, destroying everything in it's path. Fun!

As a starting Crusade force, The Desiccated came to the battle without a bunch of upgrades, merely 65 power level of Mortaion's Anvil, and a warlord trait and relic. For agendas, we took Turn Their Hope to Rot (destroy the opponent's unit with the highest power rating - in this case the Gunwagon), Priority Targets and Survivor on one of the Terminator units (Gopherax' Anvil). I also rolled up my unique Crusade plague, which for now would be carried by Najax - Haemorrhaging Pitted Sores - effectively at the end of the movement phase any enemy in 3 inches of him would be infected on a 4+ and lose one attack from each of their ranged weapons.

HQ: Lord of Virulence (Arch-contaminator, Fulgaris' Helm), Malignant Plaguecaster (Miasma of Pestilence, Putrescent Vitality)

Troops: 3x5 Plague Marines (Assorted loadouts)

Elites: 2x5 Blightlord Terminators (Blight launcher and Flail), Noxious Blightbringer, Foul Blightspawn

Heavy Support: Plagueburst Crawler 

Tony's Deathskulls had a bit more experience, with battle honours for some of the boyz and extra damage on the nose drill of the Scrapjet - though it came at a cost, with the Scrapjet having suffered serious damage in our previous game, and would now be suffering additional mortal wounds against strength 8+ weapons. His agendas were Reaper, Assassins and to Secure the Centre. I don't remember all the details, but here's roughly what he had:

HQ: Big Mek in Mega Armour (kombi-skorcha, Da Kleverest Boss), Weird boy (Warphead), Big Mek with Kustom Force Field

Troops: 17 Boyz, 2x 10 Boyz - All with slugga/choppa, and big choppa Nobs

Elites: 3 Meganobz

Fast Attack: Megatrakk Scrapjet, Boomdakka Snazwagon

Heavy Support: Gunwagon (Kustom job: Zagzap)

Dedicated Transports: 2x Trukk

Armies deployed. The markers at the near side represent the lava flow, each battle round they would lap up the board d6 inches each, and anything behind the line of them would be removed! I put one of the Blightlord units (Crotalus' Hammer) in the teleportarium, while for the Deathskulls the Meganobz were on the tellyporta. Otherwise they were all mounted up, ready to roll onto objectives.. I looked to control the centre and my left flank, leaving the right to the lava. We rolled, and I got first turn.

The Desiccated moved up the board, looting a couple of objectives and putting some firepower down to damage several of the Ork vehicles, but not destroy any. The Terminators advanced up the centre to swing either way depending on the threat.

The Deathskulls movement was much more rapid, with the Trukks starting to claim some loot, while the buggies zoomed up to engage my lines. The Gunwagon was more cautious, having taken damage from the Plagueburst Crawler, but was repaired by a Mek and Zzapped one of the Blightlords with it's kustom gun. (It hits automatically with 2d6 strength, and on a roll of a 9+ deals 3 mortal wounds instead of normal damage - and the Gunwagon can fire it twice.)

The buggies both charged into Plague Marines in combat next to objectives to make it difficult for me to score points. The Scrapjet tore through the Marines with it's D3+1 damage nose drill, but left the champion alive to cause it serious problems with his power fist. The Snazzwagon and it's opponents were less dramatic, with no serious damage caused.

With buggies on my objectives I gave up on looting this turn, resolving to clear the lines and stop one of those Trukks from completing it's action. To that end the Plague Marines on the far left marched up to engage the Trukk, while their Blightbringer companion headed to the damaged Scrapjet. The Blightlords provided a big of a wall for my characters, with their shooting intended to take out the Snazzwagon. I also decided to employ a Blight Bombardment - represented by the old Scatter die, which would deal mortal wounds to all the orks in a 6 inch radius, unless they avoided it by moving backwards - towards the lava! Finally in movement I dropped in the last Blightlords, finding a very handy central point in a ruin that let them claim some loot as well!

Shooting removed the Trukk and the Snazzwagon, thanks to assorted plague weapons, and that left the Blightbringer to run in and bong the Scrapjet with his two damage bell! BONG! The Gunwagon still stood however, thanks to the force field deflecting shots from the Plagueburst Crawler.

Ork turn two, more movement and deployment of boyz to try and clear the newly arrived Terminators, along with the boss! Some damage was done with shooting, before...

WAAAGH! Charges across the line. The Gunwagon went into the survivor Terminators, now down to two models, while the Boyz and boss went into the fresh unit. The Trukk piled into Plague Marines to once again disrupt objectives, while elsewhere the Weirdboy charged in to the Plague Marines on the far left. The Boss swung first, taking down one of the Blightlords, but they interrupted, attacking the boyz with a bunch of stratagems played on them, taking out 10 before they could swing! The remainder failed to do much damage. The Death Guard are disgusting and resilient!  

My turn three, and the Blight Bombardment went off, spreading wounds over the remaining vehicles and big mek. Shooting once again failed to down the Gunwagon, though I did manage to take out the last Trukk and leave the boyz vulnerable to some plague weapons. The Lord opted to charge into the Gunwagon, and took 3 mortal wounds in overwatch for his troubles, and still failed to kill it! The Blightlords in the centre had better luck, removing the rest of the Boyz, while Plague Marines nearly removed the remnants of the other Boyz mobs.

The Deathskulls were starting to run out of assets, but they did have the Meganobz to tellyport in, and a unit of Boyz suddenly showed up from behind the Death Guard lines (Unstoppable Green Tide). Tony was a bit behind on points, but it is Crusade so there's always XP to play for, and I had a few characters to kill. Sadly for him, the Meganobz and the Boyz both failed their charges! Very unfortunate, but there was still combat...

In shooting the Gunwagon had taken another two wounds off the Lord of Virulence. With one wound left he struck out with his Plague Claw to finish the tank off - and it exploded! Now, Gunwagons explode on a 4+, and do d6 mortal wounds in a d6 inch radius...

Lord of Virulence dead, Plague Marines dead, Foul Blightspawn and Malignant Plaguecaster both down to one wound, 'survivor' Terminators down to one would left! Big boom!

In my turn four, I turned the screws a bit, my remaining units largely looking for loot of finishing off some units. The PBC did some work to reduce the Boyz to a single model in shooting, for the lone Terminator to finish off, while the other Blightlords krumped the boss. There wasn't much for the Orks to do in their turn with only the slow Meganobz remaining, so they shot the one wound Noxious Blightbringer to death for some Assassins XP, and killed some Plague Marines in melee.

Going into the last turn, it seemed I was too lazy with placement of the Foul Blightspawn, as the lava advanced by 6 inches and engulphed him in molten rock. Whoops.

Elsewhere however the forces of Nurgle were controlling the battlefield. I brought all guns to bare on the Meganobz, finishing them off with the Crawler. A solid 35 - 10 victory for The Desiccated, in a game full of explosions and environmental hazards!

As always, Crusade is a fun experience regardless of result, as you can still fight for XP and to avoid taking out of action tests. One of my Plague Marine units was so badly beaten up they missed out on their XP this game, while all of Tony's Orks survived 'unscathed'. He also picked up enough XP on the Meganobz to level them up, gaining Fleet of Foot (which would have had them pass their charge move on turn three!). For me both units of Terminators picked up a lot of XP, and it was spread out through the force, but the Warlord managed to level up by turning their hope to rot, or in this case, a giant fireball. He has taken his first steps to daemonhood (or spawndom), recieving a Chaos Boon of Clawed Feet for +3 movement - should be useful for getting up into range to spread my plague!

Hope you enjoyed the read - with any luck there will be more Crusade action at some point. Thanks for getting this far, and stay safe!