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!

Narrative Wargamer Podcast - Unbalanced Games and AdMech on Crusade

Hello!

Another Narrative Wargamer Podcast! This time I got to take a deep dive into the new Adeptus Mechanicus codex to look at the Crusade section - which is as full of crazy stuff as the rest of the codex is, so that was quite a long chat! I'm really excited to get the Helios Exploratory Crusade back up and running and go searching for some Archeotech Treasures!

We also chatted about 'unbalanced games' - narrative ones where one side might outnumber and out-point the other, which I think is a concept that most narrative players will have dabbled with, while many tournament types would be horrified by. It put me in the mind of the Morgan's Reach campaign finale with SorcererDave, where a line of guardsmen had to defend against waves of Tyranids, with the balancing factor being that they just had to hold out and survive.

Anyway, hope you like the podcast. I think this one in particular was a good showing of what the Narrative Wargamer Podcast is about - filling the niche that most of the big 40K channels ignore, that is Crusade and other narrative play content. I hope we are doing a decent job of showing that actually, that stuff is also cool and interesting. So please, give it a listen if you've got some painting to do or some time to kill, and stay safe out there!

Death Guard - Hobbypocalypse Month Five

Hello!

More Death Guard! Once again, going comfortably over the 250 point mark for the month, but still an 'easy' month with a mere six models (I've been a bit distracted with a load of AdMech stuff!). I added to the characters I painted in month two and three with a couple of extra HQ choices and four of the elite Foetid Virion characters. I have decided to largely focus on heavy infantry and elite options for this army (I've got hordes covered) so these all feel like handy additions to have.

As before, I used the method of spraying brown, slapping on some bone, washing heavily in Agrax, then sponge on the metal. Since they are all characters they all got a bit of extra love with some special glowing bits or extra details, as well as another go over them with the metal for a final trim highlight.

The very cool, but not in the Death Guard codex Master of Possessions model has become a Malignant Plaguecaster, with a minor conversion on the staff and addition of a chunky Nurgling on the base. Also fun with green flaming skulls.

The Biologus Putrifier - weirdly I had three of this model in my collection, so I've already used most of these parts on Plague Marines, but this time I got to put the whole thing together.

The Foul Blightspawn, and a cheeky Nurgling. I'm led to believe he's basically an auto include in any Death Guard list, so I suspect I'll be seeing a lot of him. 

The Tallyman. Didn't really like the head so I swapped it out for a regular chaos marine one. I also 'cheated' by using a fine drawing pen on the tallys.

The Plague Surgeon. I think he's my favourite of the Virion models, which is a bit of a shame since he's also considered pretty much the worst of them. I'll probably try and run him anyway.

Kit bashed Lord of Virulence - made from the Lord Felthius mini but with arms and head swapped. His power fist come from one of the Greater Possessed, while his gun is from one of Felthius' Terminators, and the addition of an Obliterator 'flamer' slung underneath. Pleased with how he came out, he's a hefty lad and the huge gun and relatively small fist sells the look I think.

Month 5 ticked off, stamp acquired! I've already got plans for month 6 (adding some more armour), and I think realistically I'll keep going at it a bit longer to at least get through the grey/green pile. I can't wait to hit the big 2k points, play some games and take some photos of the whole lot. Speaking of photos, I got out the full command staff for the light box - both Lords, all the other characters and some of their champions at the back.

Hope you like them, and thanks for reading. Stay safe!

Battle Report - Adeptus Mechanicus (and Knight) vs Custodes

Hello!

Another in person, real life, 2000 point game of 40k! This time matched play against James P (jp_wh40k on Instagram), who has beaten me with his Guard in the previous three games, but this time was taking Adeptus Custodes. I took the spicy new Adeptus Mechanicus, along with the Lady Helena, piloting the Valiant 'The Defiant Flame' - primarily to make up the points to 2k, but also to reduced the amount of new rules I'd have to remember. In fact I opted to go pretty admin light, with very few additional buffs and effects that go off in the command phase. I'm sure it's far more competitive to take advantage of all these new rules, but this book is definitely one that I needed to ease myself into gently!

Anyway, we played the 'new' Overrun mission from the GT2021 pack. That's long board edge deployment, six objectives, 3 in each player's territory, scoring points for holding two, holding more than two, and holding more than your opponent. 

My list featured a Ryza battalion and a Taranis superheavy auxilliary. I spent a CP on the obligatory Ion Bulwark warlord trait for the Valiant, and an extra CP to give both the Techpriest Dominus and Cybernetica Datasmith a melee weapon relic, for a bit of a laugh. For my secondary objectives I picked Engage on All Fronts and Raise the Banners High since I had a lot of fairly quick, fairly expendable units, and without a super great option for the third, the new and improved No Prisoners, which replaces Thin Their Ranks, and now gives one to the tally for each wound on non-vehicle/monster/character units killed.

HQ: Tech-Priest Dominus (Eradication ray, macrostubber, Anzion's Pseudogenetor, Masterwork Bionics), Technoarcheologist

Troops: 3 Kataphron Breachers (Arc rifles/claws), 20 Skitarii Rangers (2 Arc rifles, 2 arquebus, omnispex, data-tether, power sword), 20 Skitarii Vanguard (2 Arc rifles, 2 plasma, omnispex, data-tether, taser goad, arc pistol)

Elites: Cybernetica Datasmith (Uncreator Gauntlet), 6 Sicarian Ruststalkers (razor/claw)

Fast Attack: 5 Pteraxii Sterylizors, 3 Serberys Raiders

Heavy Support: 4 Kastelan Robots (each with heavy phosphor blaster, kastelan phosphor blaster, fist)

Lord of War: Knight Valiant (four missiles, one siegebreaker cannon, Ion Bulwark)

JP took a battalion of the Dread Host, and also spent some CP initially buffing his Captain, and then in deployment to teleport the dreadnoughts. His secondaries were also Engage on All Fronts, as well as Grind Them Down and the mission specific Overrun, which gave points for holding my objectives in his command phase, which was a pretty clear signal of intent. The list was roughly this:

HQ: Trajann Valoris, Shield Captain on bike (assorted upgrades to get 3+ invulnerable, 9 wounds and a 5+ feel no pain)

Troops: 2x3 Custodians (all sword/shield), 5 Sagittarum

Elites: Contemptor-Galatus Dreadnought, Contemptor-Achillus Dreadnought

Fast Attack: 5 Venatari, 5 Vertus Praetors (hurricane bolters)

Deployment was pretty cagey from the Custodes, while the AdMech spread out across the line, Valiant in the middle to go whichever way as needed. Dreadnoughts and Venatari off the board, while my Pteraxii were also flapping around somewhere above (I know they don't really flap - let me have this). The die was rolled, and Custodes went first. A cheeky pregame 3 inch backwards move from the Rangers put them out of charge range of the jetbikes on turn one, while the Raiders ran up into the central ruins. I had previously been mocking the 3 inch Ranger move as useless - apparently not!

Turn one for the 'stodes, and they opted for pretty much a null turn, waiting me out and keeping the bikes behind the big rock. They got onto two objectives and took some token shots down at the (now very scary) Vanguard.

Ad Mech turn two was similarly uneventful. I moved up the robots on the left flank, Knight central and other units plonked on objectives, raising banners as they went. The Raider hoofed it up into JP's half for a couple of Engage points, and the Datasmith started to change the disks on the Kastelans to the ones marked 'super punchy death'. Some token shooting did not a lot, and the Valiant nuked a Custodian with a Shieldbreaker missile.

Turn two, 5 Primary for the Custodes. Venatari dropped in behind my lines, while some other units moved up. The Vertus Praetors continued to play it safe by zooming over to hide near the central objective. Shooting cleared most of the Vanguard, though hilariously didn't hurt the Raiders.

They were however not long for this world, as the Custodian Guard and Shield Captain combined to make them go away, though they did make a bit of a meal out of it.

The Venatari made their charge into the dregs of the Vanguard and wiped them with ease, claiming an objective in my territory and removing a banner. This also put JP on two units killed for Grind Them Down.

In my turn two I scored 5 Primary, plus a couple for Banners, then lined up to kill a couple of units of Custodians. In my mind the now very punchy robots and Ruststalkers coming in from Circuitous Assassins would charge in and kill the Guardians, taking that objective, while the Valiant and newly arrived Pteraxii would kill most of the Venatari with shooting, then finish off one or two in melee. Let's see how that worked out?

The robots managed to kill the Custodians to a man in shooting - a good result but now I had nothing to charge on the objective! But the other flank was surely doing better right?

Errrm. Not even one killed with shooting (the entire payload of the Valiant went into them ,as well as the Phosphor torches from the Pteraxii), and then I didn't even manage to kill one in melee! To add insult (and more injury) to injury, the Venatari turned around and smashed the flappy boys out of the sky! This ensured Grind Them Down and some points for Overrun on turn 3.

Apparently annoyed at the continued incompetence of the Sterylizors, I goofed a bit and forgot to take any photos of JP's turn three. Which is a shame because some significant stuff happened! He picked up a big 15 for Primary, and deployed the dreadnoughts to press the advantage. The spear one dropped in to charge the robots, while the shield one came up behind my Breachers to double team them with the Shield Captain.

In shooting the jetbikes killed off the Ruststalkers and the Venatari blasted ten wounds off the Valiant, before the Dreads both charged in (using a reroll charges for teleporting units strat) along with the Captain. The Breachers died horribly, and the spear dread smashed two of the robots to bits. However return fighting from the remaining two was pretty nasty, hitting on 2s and wounding on 2s thanks to the Conqueror Protocols and Ryza's new trait, destroying the war machine. Even more surprising however, Lady Helena powered up, getting her steed to hit with 11 out of 12 titanic feet attacks! The Venatari were suddenly reduced to just one model!

Into my turn three and only holding one objective, I picked no primary points and only a measly one for banners. It was looking pretty ropey, until that last fight phase gave me a bit of breathing space. I moved the robots up to engage the bikers, reasoning if I charge them they'll only be wounding me on 5s without rerolls. The Rangers and my characters looked at that unkillable Shield Captain (perhaps optimistically), while the Valiant left combat in order to split fire all over the place, then charge back in and finish off the lone Venatari, who was being a right pain!

The Robots did their job well, killing a bike in shooting and two more in melee. They did take a hilarious 60 shots in overwatch, losing a few wounds.

Valiant shooting was once again slightly underwhelming. Killed a Custodian with the flamer, missed with the missile into the Venatari, and the Dreadniought passed it's invulnerable against the Thundercoil Harpoon (though it was reduced to 4 wounds by the meltas). Helena did managed to kill off the Venatari in melee, though it did cost me a CP reroll and a thunderstomp to do it!

Rangers shooting four times each with Galvanic Volley fire did a number on the Captain, but between them and shooting and melee from the Dominus and Datasmith, the Captain stuck around on four wounds remaining. He smashed down the Datasmith in response. In the end I was engaging on all of the fronts, but I hadn't pushed the Custodes off enough objectives.

Turn four, another 15 Primary for the golden boys, but there wasn't much killing to be had. Jetbikes zoomed away from combat to ensure some more engage points while giving me threats to deal with. Trajann and his Sagittarum friends safely held onto their objective and shot into the Kastelans, destroying the damaged one. Finally the Contemptor charged my warlord...

A mighty dual, resulting in a single wound taken each! That left the objective contested, so going into my turn four I was suddenly picking up 15 primary points! Back in the game, time for a big turn...

So the plan was to do enough damage to stop JP scoring any more Primary, then run onto the objectives at the end for another 15 myself, and see how the secondaries fall - at this stage they were very close between us! The last Kastelan went in to try and clear off the bikes, while the Rangers poured more double shot firepower into the Captain, to little effect, leaving it to the Technoarchaeologist to charge in! The robot did kill one biker, but left one holding the objective, thanks to Custodes obsec. The Archaeologist obviously failed to kill the unkillable Shield Captain, but he did somehow survive the return attacks to force him to stay locked up.

The big play however was the Valiant taking on the right flank on her own, finishing off the Dreadnought, murdering some Custodians in melee, and flaming three of the Sagittarum! For some reason, the 'regular' Custodians are only leadership 8, so JP promptly rolled a six, and the last one ran away, (or probably just slowly cooked to death inside his armour), leaving that objective unheld!

This meant the Custodes were only holding one objective, and didn't get any Primary points! In their turn five they spread out and disengaged to get some Engage on All Fronts points, leaving me to go stand on objectives at the end of turn five, and finally shoot down that Shield Captain!

At the end of the game, the Ad Mech controlled the field, but would it be enough? We both totalled 35 Primary points. JP picked up 19 Secondary, but with 6 for the new No Prisoners, I snuck ahead with 24! Including the painting score, it ended 69-64 to me! (Nice!)

What an awesome game, and so close! Great performance from the Valiant and the Kastelan Robots, with decent support from the Rangers and the Dominus. For the 'stodes, the men of the match had to be the Venatari, causing me a huge problem and earning JP a lot of points. 

I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of the new Ad Mech book, but I am now more excited to delve in further and start playing with some more of the crazy overlapping buffs on offer, as well as maybe getting some Crusade in and looking for some Archeotech Treasures!

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the read, sorry for the missing turn three pics, and stay safe out there!