Another battle between the forces of Good and Evil, where the good Death Guard must face the evil Imperial Guard in a battle over a downed spaceship.

The rules used are the handbook 2008 for the Imperial Guard and a modified version of Hena’s modified version 2 of the Death Guard list.

The list used can be found here;
Death Guard Tilioch Mod

And the changes made from Hena’s variant are marked in blue. Mostly it’s the addition of an armoured company in the support section, and allowing the terminators to take a support formation.

But onto the battle!

Our forces were the following;

Death Guard
Retinue (BTS)       510
-4 Plague Marines
-6 Rhinos
-Supreme Commander

Retinue             340
-4 Rhinos

Terminators         500
-5 Terminators

Armoured Company    450
-3 Predators
-4 Land Raiders

Armoured Company    200
-4 Predators


Imperial Guard
Infantry company    275
-1 Sniper

Mechanized Company  400

Tank Company (BTS)  650

Artillery Battery   250
-3 Manticores

Rough Rider Platoon 150

Warhound Titan      275

In the deployment we both massed our forces near the middle of the table. My Death Guard spread their lines to avoid being to bombed too badly from the manticores that was being the center of a very tight deployment from the Imperial side, with the Russes in front, flanked by a Warhound and a mechanized company and screened by a Rough Rider formation, all to prevent me from teleporting my lovely little terminators to ruin his day.
The only thing that was not huddled together was the infantry company, which held position in the forest right by all the orders, and waiting in over watch to kill anything that comes near.
   

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Cry havoc, and let slip the Dice of War!

Turn 1
Terminators laugh at the silly attempt to prevent them from killing everything in their way, and promptly teleported right in front of the Russes, really hoping that father Nurgle would grant them initiative in the first turn.  

Init DG

And their prayers were answered.
The assaulted the Leman Russ Battle Tank Company, the infantry company opens up with all their guns, and kills one terminator on his way toll smash some tanks. In the resulting melee frenzy, 6 Russes bites the dust from hits and combat result, and not a single terminator need to go sit on the sidelines. The broken tanks retreat out of sight from mostly everything. The terminators consolidates into some broken ground right in front of the Warhound, preparing for some hurt to come their way.

Seeing an opening the predator formation doubles forward to try to take some artillery down, sadly the only hit was saved and the manticores continues to prime their missiles.



The mechanized company do not like people shooting on their artillery support, and promptly advances to take care of business, a bucket of dice later, 4 hits are scored on the poor predators, but it was not their time to meet Nurgle, and only one of them is destroyed.



Next the Warhound retains and activates all weapons and unleash a hellish storm of firepower over the terminators, and 2 of the units melts in their armour as the plasma shots find their mark. The remaining formation breaks, but as stupidly fearless that they are, decides that staying put is a good tactic at the moment.



Retinue 1 marches and place themselves right behind the terminators for a daring assault next turn on the Warhound.

Next the Rough Riders decides to make short work of the remaining terminators, forgetting that they still have a commander left, in the engagement the terminator lord decides that is would be a good idea to bring in some reinforcement, and intermingles Retinue 1 that stands only a few centimetres away.
This did not help the Rough Riders one bit, and for the exchange of one unit of Plague Marines, every single Rough Rider is killed in action.

The Land Raider formation activates and marches right down the side of the table, to get in place for a more devastating attack next turn.

As the last formation left in the imperial side, the manticores tries to blow some Nurgle marines away, but this was not to be, and with a failed activation test they retreat away from the green tide.

Retinue 2 now marches and place themselves in position to strike at the warhound or the mechanized company next turn.

In the end phase all formation rallies, except the Russes that continues their retreat.

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Cry havoc, and let slip the Dice of War!

Turn 2
Init DG

In a death or glory attempt the terminators and Retinue 1 engages the warhound. In a flurry of macro weapon attacks and a great roll on the fire fight attacks, all shields goes down, and the warhound as well collapses to the ground, on top of one poor plague marine.



In a attempt to bring as much glory as the terminators and retinue 1, retinue 2 engages the mechanized company. In the resulting fight all guardsmen seems to have forgotten how to fire a lasgun, and the very few hits that are scored just bounces of the rotten marine armour. In return the death guard makes short work of half of the company, the rest hurries into the remaining transports and drives like crazy away from the horrors in green.



Next the manticores decide to show those green bounders what tactical nukes can do to someone on the receiving end and fires on retinue 1, blowing 2 rhinos and 3 death guard units to bits.

To say thank you for a good fight the predator formation advances and fires on the infantry company in the forest, but only the lonely sniper gets to sit on the side lines.

The land raiders advance as well to fire on the infantry. But only a few of the vehicles make it into range, and no guardsmen die.

The infantry tries to do something meaningful but fail to activate and decides to regroup instead.

The end phase sees all formation but the Russes (again) regroup

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Cry havoc, and let slip the Dice of War!

Turn 3
It’s looking grim for the imperial forces when the turn begins. And again the chaotic forces grasped the initiative

To continue a great day of killing, retinue 1 assaults the infantry in the forest. Only a few units make contact, and among those that are taken into close combat is one berserking commissar. To his attacks the death guard looses 3 of their units, but to no wail, as the return attacks destroys everything left in the company, and not a single unit escapes. Retinue 1 then consolidates on the Imperial objective right next to the forest.



Retinue 2 continues the glorious assaults and engages the manticores, which to no great surprise goes down to no nurgle losses.

On the other end of the table the mechanized company hits the accelerators and marches to deny “They shall not passâ€Â

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Cry havoc, and let slip the Dice of War!

Thanks for the report, Tilioch. Nasty bit of business.

Next the Rough Riders decides to make short work of the remaining terminators, forgetting that they still have a commander left, in the engagement the terminator lord decides that is would be a good idea to bring in some reinforcement, and intermingles Retinue 1 that stands only a few centimetres away.

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

OMG look at those rhinos, they are great!! one eye and one tongue, where are the ears and nose???  

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Epic Armageddon in Spanish: http://www.box.net/shared/aii6v2xqu3

Out of curiosity, why was his warhound 275 instead of 250?

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-Vaaish

I think that's from the NetEA tournament modifications.



This battle report makes me want some more Rhinos to mechanize my Death Guard. Those tanks looked great over in "Painting & Miniatures," but they look even better on a game table.

That is correct that we use that handbook, we are only 2 players here, and it's a nice book with everything in one place and rules we like.

And thanks for the comments on the miniatures, getting a bitt attached to this bunch now =)

But some of the green stuff work could have been better (such as the lips) but as this is the first thing I realy put any green stuff to (apart from filling up some holes and cracks) I'm atleast getting a bit better, and soon I'll make the big leap and convert a few warhounds I have here, Nurgle need some new anb bigger toys =)


Edit: I wonder if Mechanised retinue could work as partial AV formation. Eg. 4 marines + 2 Rhinos + 1 AV or 3 AVs? That does mess up with Dreadclaws though.

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Cry havoc, and let slip the Dice of War!

Oh, and I've actually been thinking of a way to do a "Mr Potatohead" Rhino or Land Raider, just haven't been able to figure out how to do it right

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Cry havoc, and let slip the Dice of War!

Wow

You really trounced your opponent...

I am sure your opponent will really study his army lists before facing these guys again...those termies are his greatest concern from the start I would think.

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Frogbear is responsible for...
Previous World Eaters
Previous Emperor's Children
Previous Death Guard
Previous Imperial Fists
Previous Chaos Squats

This the second IG V DG game that Tilloch has posted.  The first was a fairly similar crushing victory by the DG.

A Stormtrooper company with Valkyries on Overwatch might be a good starting point.  Use Scout to create a "castle" with the troopers, and the Valkyries rocket pods might just drop enough BMs to break the Terminators before they can assault.

Could someone direct me to a copy of the 2008 Epic Update?

I too have been using the Handbook as the "correct" current version of the rules.

Those are advice my opponent already have plans to implement =)
Hit problem is that whenever he makes an engagement his dice hate him for it, he has an epic talent of rolling like crap when it really matters.

And for some reason my terminators is the hardest unit I've EVER used, first time they saw combat they took over 40 hits, and only failed 2 saves. My Land Raiders or Leman Russ tanks never do so well...

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Cry havoc, and let slip the Dice of War!