Blip and I were involved in a small 'middlehammer' convention this weekend, and after a Minigeddon tournament on Saturday, we had a large game on Sunday. We restricted it to 7k points and 18 activations to make it more manageable for time.

Here's the group shot of the Death Guard, although to keep inside our restrictions I left out three of the Titans and all the Daemons. Note that the Daemons were going to be fielded as formations instead of being summoned, to keep the game flowing more smoothly.



My list, with some tweaks to reduce the activation count:

Incompertus, 7000 POINTS
Death Guard (NetEA V0.7.0 Taccoms Thread)
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PLAGUE MARINE RETINUE [440]
Daemon Prince, 7 Plague Marines, 3 (Beasts) Chaos Spawn

PLAGUE MARINE RETINUE [375]
Plaguecaster Lord, Lord of Contagion (Supreme Commander), 4 Plague Marines, 3 Havocs

PLAGUE MARINE RETINUE [365]
Plaguecaster Lord, 4 Plague Marines, 3 Havocs, 4 Death Guard Rhino

PLAGUE TOWERS* [700]
2 Plague Tower

DEATH GUARD CHOSEN [415]
4 Plague Marine Chosen, 3 (Beasts) Chaos Spawn, 3 (Walkers) Death Guard Dreadnought (Chem Launchers)

CONTAGION TOWERS* [550]
7 Contagion Towers

PLAGUE ZOMBIE INFESTATION* [175]
3+2D6 Plague Zombies

ARMOURED ASSAULT COMPANY [515]
6 Death Guard Vindicators, 3 (Walkers) Plague Hulk, Nurgling Infestation (1+1D3 Nurgling Swarms)

BLIGHTLORD TERMINATORS [415]
4 Blightlord Terminators, Plaguecaster Lord, Teleportarium, Nurgling Infestation (1+1D3 Nurgling Swarms)

BLIGHT DRONE SWARM* [200]
4 Blight Drones

WALKER HORDE [275]
4 Defiler

WALKER HORDE [275]
4 Defiler

PLAGUE REAPERS [375]
2 Plague Reaper

FESTER TITAN x 2 [550]

PLAGUELORD TITAN [850]

PLAGUE SHIP* [200]

ARMOURED COMPANY [325]
2 Death Guard Predator, 3 Death Guard Land Raider


Aaaaaand I just noticed that it was 17 activations instead of 18, the Plaguehounds didn't need to be paired!

Here's the table, set up the night before. We chose terrain areas for the objectives, with formations needing to be in or touching the terrain area instead of being within 15cm of it.







We took turns to deploy garrisons, but then did the rest of the deployment simultaneously, as alternating deployment would have taken too long. Deployment Zones were 30cm instead of 15cm, initially to speed things up but it also turned out to be handy for the purposes of being able to deploy everything...

Here you can see the Death Guard deployed, and about half of the IG.

_________________
The Wargaming Trader
NetEA Death Guard Army Champion

Given the difference in Strategy Ratings and the vulnerability to some of my formations to Deathstrikes, I spotted a gap next to Blip's big missiles and teleported in a formation of Zombies and also the Blightlords. The zombies needed some encouragement from the Supreme Commander to assault, but supporting fire from the Blightlords killed a Deathstrike and the other Deathstrike failed to rally across both turns!

The Blightlords then retained and charged into the Warhounds, with much the same end effect - a dead Warhound and a broken Warhound who never rallied!






Blip retaliated by killing 3 of 7 Contagion Engines with one of his Artillery Companies, and doing some severe damage to the Plague Towers with a doubling Shadowsword Company.





The Towers then advanced into Overwatch fire from those darn Gunships, which suppressed one of the Towers, before barraging the Leviathan and troops. Then the Plaguehound pair wandered up to the Mechanised Company up on my left flank (next to the Blightlord Terminators) and said 'BLEURGH!'.

_________________
The Wargaming Trader
NetEA Death Guard Army Champion

Very cool. An activation cap definitely speeds up the larger games, it's great seeing the stuff you don't usually field in the 3ks.

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Dave

Blog

NetEA Tournament Pack Website

Squats 2019-10-17

Yes to all of that. We were also borrowing from Megageddon and forcing initiative to be retained, even if the first activation failed, which speeded things up even further.

_________________
The Wargaming Trader
NetEA Death Guard Army Champion

Blip then had to move some Sentinels to allow the Warlord to move up, who then took five Void Shields off my Plaguelord Warlord. The Plaguelord then marshalled and regained all the lost Void Shields, and put a BM on the Shadowswords, followed by the Vindicators moving up in the middle.



Some more of Chris’s artillery chipped away at my mounted Plague Marine Retinue, killing the Lord’s Rhino and pissing him off, followed by some other artillery failing to activate.

On the right flank my Plague Marine Chosen were decimated them broken by a doubling Leman Russ Company followed by Rough Riders charging in. Then my Plagueship arrived and unleashed a barrage and some Zombies, and my Armoured Company moved up to his Leman Russes.




Back on the left flank, the Mechanised Company engaged my Terminators, and bounced! This was largely due to Ignore Cover on the Blightlords' FF, and the mass of BMs the Plaguehounds had inflicted earlier.




On the right flank, a risky manoeuvre worked! The mounted Retinue doubled up onto the big hill next to the Leman Russ Company, then my Plague Hulks/Defilers charged in. With massed support, they broke the Leman Russes and an intermingled company of Shadowswords, clearing the whole hill!



In the end phase, the broken Shadowswords, Leman Russes and Rough Riders all failed to rally, leading to that flank collapsing.

_________________
The Wargaming Trader
NetEA Death Guard Army Champion

Turn Two

Turn two involved the Vindicators (with Plague Hulks and Nurglings) doubling up around the Warlord and stripping off a couple of shields, followed by the garrisoned Death Guard Retinue including Chaos Spawn and a Daemon Prince failing to assault...



The Shadowswords then did what they do best, and turned most of the 2 Plague Towers into twisted scrap, leaving the second Tower on 1 wound. My Warlord Titan sustain fired into the Shadowswords, managing to miss with all three 2+ Macro Weapon shots, but got lots of Disrupt hits.






Chris’s Warlord sustained into the Vindicators but didn’t quite manage to break them. Assorted other minor actions happened and we called time after turn two.
Thanks to Chris’s right flank collapsing and staying collapsed, turn three would have been messy for the Imperial forces.




All in all it was a lot of fun, and due to us knowing the forces well we were managing each turn in about 1.5 hours, including chatting, which was pretty good.

The End (of the Imperium)

_________________
The Wargaming Trader
NetEA Death Guard Army Champion

P.S. Other last-minute bits involved the DG Retinue around the Plaguelord doubling up and plinking the Shadowswords to break them, after all the Disrupt hits from the Warlord, the other IG skimmers barraging the Daemon Prince's formation for almost no effect, the Plaguereapers doubling up to put some BMs on the skimmers, and the remnants of the Chosen running back from the hill to hold an objective.

Also, the Imperial Navy apparently sent some very green air crew, as they kept deciding that the battlefield looked scary, and flew the other way...

_________________
The Wargaming Trader
NetEA Death Guard Army Champion