So, my first proper 3k game with the new Death Guard list.

Death Guard 0.3.1: viewtopic.php?f=82&t=30859

My list:

Incompertus, 3000 POINTS
Death Guard (NetEA V0.3.1)
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DEATH GUARD RETINUE [575]
4 Plague Marines, 3 Havocs, Nurgle Sorcerer, 2 Death Guard Assault Dreadnought, 3 Chaos Spawn, Desecrator

DEATH GUARD RETINUE [450]
4 Plague Marines, 3 Havocs, Lord of Pestilence (Supreme Commander), Contagion Tower

WALKER HORDE [350]
3 Death Guard Desecrator, Death Guard Plague Hulk, 3 Chaos Spawn

ARMOURED ASSAULT COMPANY [325]
6 Death Guard Vindicators, Plague Hulk

PLAGUE TOWER [325]
Plague Tower

PLAGUE TOWER [325]
Plague Tower

PLAGUE SHIP [200]

BLIGHT DRONE SWARM [250]
5 Blight Drones

PLAGUE REAPERS [200]
Plaguereaper


I forgot to get a copy of Paul's list but it was something like this:

Incompertus, 3000 POINTS
Burning Death Speed Freeks (NetEA Tournament Pack 2013)
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SPEED FREAKS WARBAND (BIG) [445]
6 Boyz, 6 Trukks, Nobz, 8 Warbike, 2 Flakwagon, Nobz with Warbike

BLITZ BRIGADE (BIG) [420]
6 Gunwagon, 2 Flakwagon, 2 Mekboy Speedsta, 2 Nobz

WARBIKE OUTRIDERS (BIG) [250]
10 Scout Warbikes

KULT OF SPEED (BIG) [350]
16 Warbuggy

BLITZ BRIGADE (BIG) [490]
6 Gunwagon, 4 Flakwagon, 2 Mekboy Speedsta, 2 Nobz

SPEED FREAKS WARBAND (BIG) [545]
6 Boyz, 6 Trukks, 2 Nobz, 8 Skorcha, 2 Mekboy Speedsta, 2 Flakwagon

FIGHTA SKWADRON [150]
3 Fighta Bomba

FIGHTA SKWADRON [150]
3 Fighta Bomba

KULT OF SPEED [200]
8 Warbuggy


I was tempted to go for table quarters deployment but decided against it - although the two Plague Towers massively outranged the Orks for shooting, the entire Ork army would massively outmanoeuvre my slow non-Marching untransported formations.

The black areas with Imperial buildings on counted as Buildings and the brown areas with Ork buildings on counted as Ruins. The bases of the rocky columns counted as Ruins/Rubble but only the columns themselves blocked LoF. The fortifications were Buildings but you had to be on top to see/bee seen, but nobody ever went in there.

The Spaceship was coming in in the first turn. I garrisoned the Walkers off the objective in front of the outcrops, the BTS Retinue on my far right flank (via chained Chaos Spawn) and the Warlord's Retinue off my Blitz on my right flank. The third objective in my half was on the far left flank, between the cityscape and the fortification.

Paul's Blitz objective was on my right flank, behind one of the Ork shanty towns. I went for an all-or-nothing placement of the other two objectives in his half, placing them in or near the shanty town in a triangle, thinking that the bigger Plague Tower could hold/contest all three at once by ploughing into the middle of the shanty town.

Paul garrisoned his Outriders across my right flank, between the shanty towns.






TURN ONE

I win initiative, after two tied rolls...

DG - the Plagueship goes first while the Ork DZ is still full of Orks. I went for fairly central coordinates, but given the number of Orks it didn't really matter!



A bunch of Disrupt hits left the small formation of Warbuggies near to breaking, and 4BM on the Gunwagons behind. Miraculously, the nine Plague Zombies didn't take any BMs when landing. The white dice showed the coordinates for the barrage, with the Zombies placed as close as possible while respecting enemy ZoC:




DG (retain) - given my track record with Zombies usually getting broken and then spending the rest of the game brokem I went for a retain and successfully Engaged the remaining Warbuggies. The Zombies lost as expected, but managed to break the Buggies. Four Zombies survived and repositioned to block the Ork advance between the woodland and city.




Freaks - the first set of Bommas came on, hoping to clear the Zombies out of the wy, but only got one kill - and due to Fearless only killed that one stand:




DG - I sustained with the Warlord's Retinue with 1BP from the Contagion, putting 4BMs on to one of the big formations of Warbikers and Trukks:




Freaks - the massed Skorchas Double up in front of my BTS Retinue, taking Overwatch fire from two Desecrators from the central Walker formation. They then shoot the Retinue for two kills, taking out a Plague Marine unit and an Assault Dread:




Freaks (retain) - as expected, the Outriders then retain and Engage the Retinue but it goes horribly wrong for the Orks! Between six attacks from the two Chaos Spawn that got in range and a lot of saves by the Retinue, the combat ends with the Orks losing and three remaining Outriders (of ten) running:




DG - at this point it's time to bring out the Big Guns. The right flank Plague Tower Doubles up next to the Skorcha formation and unloads, inflicting some BMs but not many kills:




DG (retain) - the BTS Retinue then retain and Engage the Skorcha formation. This was risky but too tempting as it was Paul's BTS and I could get into base contact with a lot of the Skorchas. When the smoked cleared, the BTS Retinue had broken from casualties but with the help of the Plague Tower's supporting fire had minced the Ork formation and won combat. The Orks retreat back behind their shanty town while my BTS hides in the middle of my shanty town.

_________________
The Wargaming Trader
NetEA Death Guard Army Champion

Freaks - a formation of Gunwagons Doubles up round the back of the Zombies and shoot the Walkers, killing a Desecrator and the Plague Hulk. This means that all my AA is either suppressed, or in the broken BTS:




DG - This. Means. War.

The central Plague Tower Sustains, but doesn't do much damage beyond BMs.




Freaks - the other Bomma formation goes after my broken BTS to little effect:




DG - the Blight Drones Advance and fire on the Gunwagons for no hits:




Freaks - another Gunwagon formation Doubles and fires into the right Plague Tower for no damage:




DG - the Plague Reaper (normally used as a Blitz guard but the Warlord's Retinue were doing that today) Doubles, and fires into the Gunwagons for no damage:




Freaks - one of the big formations behind the shanty town fails to activate, so regroups and removes all BMs from the Plagueship's barrage.




DG - the Vindicators Double, causing one casualty on that darn central Gunwagon formation:

_________________
The Wargaming Trader
NetEA Death Guard Army Champion

Freaks - the Warbuggy Kult of Speed Double and shoot into the Vindicators for no hits.




TURN ONE END PHASE

My BTS rallies, the Ork one doesn't.


TURN TWO

Orks win initiative!

Freaks - the Gunwagons in front of the right Plague Tower successfully Sustain, pouring fire into it. Unfortunately for them, the one shot that gets through the armour is stopped by the Invulnerable Save. The Plague Tower goes back onto 1BM:




Freaks (retain) - the Warbuggies decide that being in front of a Vindicator formation, Plague Reaper and a nearby Plague Tower just isn't going to be Fun, and retain to Double round the back of the city and shoot my Warlord's Retinue, killing a Plague Marine unit:




DG - the central Plague Tower takes exception to this, and Advances to cause two casualties.




DG (retain) - the Plague Reaper Advances and shoots the Gunwagons for no damage, but breaks them anyway, they retreat round on the far left flank behind the city.

_________________
The Wargaming Trader
NetEA Death Guard Army Champion

Freaks - the loadsawarbikes formation that failed to activate in turn one Doubles and fires into the Blight Drones:



But only kill one:




DG & Freaks - I lost track for a few activations, but the net effect was that the remnants of my BTS tried to wipe out the last three broken Outriders but got no kills, so there was a single casualty for one BM - a single failed save would have killed the lot! Two flights of Bommas then broke the BTS again:




DG & Freaks - while this was going on, my Blight Drones and Walkers Marshall, removing all BMs:




DG - by now, the Orks were out of activations, so it was time to set up the big bust up in the middle. The Vindicators Advance and manage to inflict nine kills by hitting the Trukks! Thinking ahead a couple of activations, the Vindicators themselves cower behind their CC friend, the Plague Hulk:




DG - finally, the Plague Tower gets distracted from the triangle of objectives ahead of it and goes for the kill, Engaging the Warbike formation:




Countercharge moves let the Warbikes bring in the Plague Reaper but oddly enough they decide not to go into base contact with the Plague Hulk next to it...




The end result of the assault is a massacre for the Death Guard. Although the Orks managed to munch the Plague Reaper (three hits, three failed 4+ saves, three failed Reinforced 4+ saves, all three DC lost), supporting fire from the Blight Drones and Vindicators left me two-up even with the Orks outnumbering the Plague Tower more than 2:1, and I then won the roll-off by two, for four hackdown kills. The remaining nine units in the Ork formation run for the hills.




TURN TWO END PHASE

Ork formations failed to rally, apart from the BTS sitting back next to the Blitz.


TURN THREE

We basically called it there as we were out of time and there were only three unbroken Ork formations - the much reduced BTS on his Blitz, the Gunwagons just this side of the shanty town and the Warbuggies on my Blitz, sitting in front of a Plague Tower facing the right way to Sustain and with the Warlord's Retinue in range to Engage.

However on analysis it wasn't quite as one-sided as it looked so we decided to see who would win Initiative and see what happened - I won, the right flank Plague Tower left the remnants of the big central bash to Advance through the woodland and break the Ork BTS due to getting 6BP and a bunch of Disrupt hits.

At that point we did call the game as a Death Guard victory.

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The Wargaming Trader
NetEA Death Guard Army Champion

Thanks for the report. Looks like the Freaks over committed themselves and got Towered to death.

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www.epic-uk.co.uk - home of the UK Epic tournament scene
NetEA NetERC Xenos Lists Chair
NetEA Ork + Feral Ork + Speed Freak Champion

To some extent, but the Skorcha/Outrider attack really should have gone to the Orks, which would have shifted the early game a lot. And something like ten failed Rally rolls out of eleven, some of which had the Mob Rule helping.

EDIT - although the Freaks player is getting back in the game, while I'm very good at punishing bad decisions and making good use of things going my way...

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The Wargaming Trader
NetEA Death Guard Army Champion

That report was amazing to read! Fantastic effort on the visuals!

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Necron AC (click to see current Necron list threads)
Toronto Wargaming Group

Yes, i agree. Great report!

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https://epic40ksweden.wordpress.com/

"You have a right to be offended" - Steve Hughes
"Your feelings are hurting my thoughts" - Aron Flam

Thanks and thanks!

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The Wargaming Trader
NetEA Death Guard Army Champion

The batrep is now up on my blog as well, with much larger images: http://wargamingtrader.com/epic-batrep- ... eed-freaks

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The Wargaming Trader
NetEA Death Guard Army Champion

did you find the 20cm move made a difference on the plague towers? I played a game against them last week and they certainly felt very potent

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Just some guy

My hobby/painting threads

Army Forge List Co-ordinator

Yes, it made a noticeable difference.

Turn 1 - the right flank Plague Tower's Double would have gained it LoF to the Orks with 15cm speed, but 20cm speed meant that it could get close enough to give supporting fire when the Retinue Engaged.

Turn 2 - the same Plague Tower's Engage didn't need the extra speed, but it helped get more Ork units in Firefight range and therefore be valid targets for the supporting fire from surrounding units.

Turn 3 (the only activation) - 20cm speed let it Advance through the woodland to get LoF to the Ork BTS formation, with 15cm speed it would probably have needed to Double to see round the back of the shanty town.

The other one didn't move much.

Apart from anything else, 20cm speed lets a Plague Tower Double and then fire the barrage into the enemy DZ on turn one, something that was impossible before. Further playtesting may see Plague Towers bumped up to 350pt each when in their own formation.

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The Wargaming Trader
NetEA Death Guard Army Champion

mhmm.. i think 350 would be overpriced for the plague tower. limiting a list low on activations even further.
imo there should be at least a small chance of reaching deathstrikes before they pulverize the tower (when battling imperial guard), so i support the 20cm move.

The speed is definitely staying at 20cm, both to keep them more useful and to match the other lists.

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The Wargaming Trader
NetEA Death Guard Army Champion

Mike is definitely not set on them being 20cm for certain in the LATD redux list..... I found them overwhelmingly powerful last time he and I played (which he will batrep one day.....) I'm starting to think that making them faster is a boost they just don't need.... they're already fearless and pack some pretty good shooting, even as transports, you can give your formations a 5cm dismount boost to their engage range with them at 15cm

I think upping the points is a possible balancing mechanism, but then you end up amplifying the polarising effect of them being next to useless against certain builds, and being game winners against others

plus they're fixed at 15cm in the older LatD list

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Just some guy

My hobby/painting threads

Army Forge List Co-ordinator