Battle Report - Death Guard vs Astra Militarum

Hello!

First report of the year, back to visiting JP (who I've borrowed some pics from) for some Garagehammer with 2000 points of my Death Guard warband taking on the Cadian Guardsmen and their Baneblade! We decided to play with the Open War cards for this one - I think it's become my default for 'normal' 40k games, that aren't either tournament style or narrative scenarios. 

My collection of 'dry' Death Guard, known as The Desiccated, brought a Mortarion's Anvil battalion, led by a Lord of Contagion with both the plague company warlord trait and relic. He was accompanied by a Malignant Plaguecaster, a Foul Blightspawn, a couple of units of Plague Marines, a couple of possessed squads, some Poxwalkers and a spawn, and a big brick of ten Blightlord Terminators. Assorted armoured support came from a Blight-Hauler, Bloat-drone, Plagueburst Crawler, a Rhino and a new edition, a Helbrute.

The Cadians brought with them a bunch of infantry squads, including two units of mortar teams and two riding in Chimeras, a couple of Bullgryn units in Valkyries, a Basilisk and the aforementioned Baneblade. They were led by a gaggle of officers, including a Primaris Psyker and a Tank Commander with the relic battlecannon.

Here's the mission. Six objectives scored in the command phase, the arrowhead vs corners deployment, and for a laugh we drew two twists - plus one attack and -1 leadership and combat attrition. Probably to my benefit with all those squishy, scared guardsmen.

Deployment - Guard in the corners, Chaos up the middle, with some support units hiding on the flanks. The big unit of Terminators and the Lord of Contagion waiting in the warp to drop in later. The Baneblade deployed on the left flank, but the PBC and Rhino, loaded up with Possessed, were both behind an obscuring building so would be safe for a bit at least.

We rolled off, and the Cadians got first turn. JP had a bit of a think about it, but chose to go first (still a choice in open play) since he did have a lot of big guns and I didn't.

Guard turn one, the Valkyries zoomed up, Chimeras and Guardsmen moved onto objectives, and the Baneblade rounded the corner to get a firing lane. Valkyries opened up with rocket pods to clear the Poxwalkers after the mortar squads had taken a chunk out of them, the Bassie and the Tank Commander took aim at a Plague Marine squad, but managed to leave the champion alive. The Baneblade spoke last, splitting between the Blight-Hauler and the Helbrute. The Hauler ate the big cannon, blasting it apart, and the rest stripped the 'brute down to three wounds. Could have gone better, could have gone worse.

Death Guard turn, and we were in a target rich environment. Sadly not much gun! The Plagueburst Crawler did a good job degrading the Basilisk with a mortar shot, but most of the other shooting missed the Valkyries - though the Plaguecaster had damaged one with mortal wounds and the Blightspawn took some wounds off the other with his gross hosepipe. Then the charge phase, Possessed and their Rhino went into a Chimera, thankfully not killing it and disgorging an infantry squad onto an objective. 

The damaged Helbrute and the lone Plague Marine Champion charged a central guard squad on an objective, killing enough that with morale only the sergeant survived, denying that point as well.

Finally the Bloat-drone floated into a Valkyrie with it's Flesh mower. Thanks to the Rage twist it had 15 attacks to tear the flyer out of the sky - causing it to explode and drop the Foul Blightspawn to a single wound!

Onto Guard turn two, they picked up two points for objectives in the large ruin and on the right flank, then opened fire! Mortars stripped a wound of the Plague Marine champion, but he survived firepower from the remaining Valkyrie (which dropped it's Bullgryns on a central objective) with a CP reroll, forcing the Tank Commander to split fire and pepper him with heavy bolters. Sadly that didn't save the Helbrute who got battle cannoned. 

The Baneblade had a bit of a whiff in shooting, killing one Possessed marine and failing to kill the drone with it's big cannon. It performed better in melee however, grinding the Possessed beneath it's tracks and securing an objective with it's armoured bulk.

Bullgryns from the exploded Valkyrie decided to charge the Drone and the Blightspawn, which went pretty badly for them. Two of them melted from overwatch, the last one failed to kill the one wound character, and then promptly failed morale and ran away - or possibly he was just too stupid to get out of the puddle of toxic goo where his friends had melted.

Death Guard turn two - I picked up a point for one objective, though I'd been pushed off the others and the Militarum's aggressive movement meant the Terminators had to drop in fairly far back. I had originally intended to ignore the Baneblade and try to kill everything else, but it had pushed forward and was on an objective, so it was the only realistic target for much of my force. Shooting and psychic took some wounds off it, but it would mostly have to be done in melee. Elsewhere the single remaining sergeant that survived the Helbrute assault died to combi bolters, and the Fleshmower mowed through the rest of the Bullgryns.

The second Possessed squad charged one end, while Plague Marines went in the other, and the Lord of Contagion made his deep strike charge to pile into the side of the metal beast. Thanks to the Warp Insect Hive he managed to make all his hits and wounds to finish it off...

Big boom! A few marines died here and there, and the Lord took five mortal wounds, leaving him on one left! The Chimera also ended up on one wound, importantly not quite enough to let it's obsec cargo fall out onto the objective.

Losing assets fast, the Militarum picked up another two for the same couple of objectives at the start of turn three. Firepower cleared most of my remaining Plague Marines and the Tank Commander finished off the Bloat-drone. Some cheeky Guardsmen got out of the Chimeras to run up and control two objectives and deny me points again.

Just the one point once more for the Death Guard. Time to push the guard off once and for all! I got lucky with the PBC's shooting this turn and the Entropy cannons rolled maximum for 12 damage on the Tank Commander, destroying it and leaving an objective unattended. Then, disaster! The Terminator blob failed a charge into Guardsmen on an objective, and the Lord of Contagion failed the charge into the big ruin!

The Foul Blightspawn and Chaos Spawn did a good job on the Guardsmen in the shadow of the hovering Valkyrie, but they were unable to push them off. This mean in turn four the Cadians picked up a further three points, giving them a commanding lead. A Chimera made a long advance to go onto the objective previously held by the Tank Commander, and the artillery shooting finished off my Possessed (after they had killed the one wound Chimera and suffered a casualty from it's explosion!)

Going into Death Guard turn four I was on two objectives, so the score was 7-4. We did a bit of working out, at this stage it would be possible for me to secure a draw if everything went perfectly...

Sadly, it did not go perfectly! The PBC couldn't repeat it's feat and clear the Chimera off it's objective, and the Terminators once again failed their charge, this time into the ruin to take the objective there. The Lord of Contagion continued in good form however, getting in and killing or scaring away all the Guard in there, though on his own unable to outnumber the Basilisk. He did survive it's firepower at point blank in turn five however, so that was something!

Cadians picked up another couple of objectives to finish on 9 points, to 6 points for the Death Guard with all the objectives counted. A hard fought win for the Astra Militarum, after losing their prized Baneblade. The Terminators were untouched but were unable to get where they needed to for victory.

A great fun and great looking game as always - a good way to start the year! We were initially a bit worried that all the guns on the Guard would make it a bit of a non-event, but the DG are disgusting, and resilient, and they hung in there well. In hindsight, I probably should have deployed the Terminators right up centre in the first place instead of the Poxwalkers - maybe they could have gone into reserve so as not to present such a good target for the mortars. Regardless, I'm still having fun with the Death Guard, so we should see them again before too long.

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it, and stay safe out there.

Battle Report - Orks vs Black Templars

Hello!

Last weekend I had a cheeky visit to Warhammer World as part of a meet up with the Old Wolves discord group. I brought my Orks, and some Death Guard for Cris, who gave me money for them and came all the way from the USA for the meet up! She also brought a 1250 point force of Black Templars, so we had a classic Armageddon battle, on one of the awesome Warhammer World themed boards.

My 1250 points was a bit of a take on my Green Tide style Snakebite lists. I had Warboss Redtoof (Brutal but Kunnin' and Super Cybork Body), Weirdboy Durrork, three units of 15 Boyz, 15 Beast Snagga Boyz, 15 Kommandos, 3 Deffkoptas, 3 Meganobz and 11 Grots.

Cris took a couple of Crusade squads, some Assault Intercessors, Bladeguard Veterans in an Impulsor, a couple of Redemptor dreads, a Techmarine and all lead by a beefy Primaris Chaplain on bike. As you can see, they were watched over by a purple squig!

In fact, both armies were accompanied by crocheted squigs made by my wife. So far the mascot has been doing pretty well for me and my Orks!

We used the Open War cards to generate a scenario, and here it is. A very aggressive deployment, three objectives, one of which will be worth two points, and a spooky twist to make morale more punishing.

Deployment - a classic for the Orks, lining up on the edge of the zone, while the Marines held back a little behind the defensive line. Kommandos held up in a ruin next to an objective and the Koptas stayed in the sky.

Orks got turn one, and we rolled for the priority objective - it was the single one on the right flank, by the Kommandos. My turn was pretty much just advancing forward and covering all the objectives. Come at me!

Templars turn one, and the Crusaders made their move, charging into my forward unit of Boyz. The rest moved up and poured some fire down - the Redemptors made a mess out of most of the Kommandos, leaving only a couple left after morale. The Crusaders and Boyz exchanged some blows, both losing some but sticking around with a few models.

Orks picked up a bunch of points, and were ready to WAAAGH!

WAAAGH! Called on turn two, lots of units advancing up for some charges. Grots stayed back to hold an objective, while the remaining Kommandos abandoned theirs, leaving it in the hands of Beast Snagga boyz and Deffkoptas. A unit of boyz decided to ignore the third objective in favour of charging Assault Intercessors.

Shooting was basically just Deffkoptas and was underwhelming. Time to get stuck in! Both the characters did good work to clear up Crusaders, the Boyz cut down the Intercessors and the remaining Kommandos chipped a few wounds off a Redemptor before being pounded into the ground like a tent peg.

Going into Templars turn two, the Orks held most of the objectives and had pushed forward, but were ripe for a counter attack.

Here come the Templars! Bladeguard disembarked and lined up a charge on the purple boyz. The Redemptors marched forward and hosed down the Beast Snaggas with plasma, melting them into burning green goo. The Chaplain gunned his engine and swept round the flank to claim an objective and spray the Gretchin with bolter fire. The Bladeguard set themselves a pretty low bar by making a very low charge roll and only killing a few Orks, leaving most of the mob out of melee and free to charge in next turn.

After turn two the Templars got a score on the board, but were trailing 6-1.

Right, time to get rid of one of those Redemptors. Between Rokkits, smite and Hitting 'em 'Harder Meganobz we did bring it down. 

Elsewhere, the blue mob aided by the Wierdboy knocked out the Impulsor (Durrork was having a pretty good game) and the purple mob charged the Bladeguard, accompanied by the remaining pink Nob, who somehow survived all the return attacks.

Time for some real aggressive moves from the Templars. The Redemptor marched forward, cutting down two of the Koptas with plasma, before charging in to take the last one off the priority objective! The Chaplain decided those grots had to be purged, and left his objective to try and claim theirs. He reduced them down to a few models, but even with the twist, grot rules and below half strength combing to mean the grots were running from attrition on 1-4, they stuck around! Another point for the Orks but two for the Templars. 

So that other Redemptor had to be moved off the objective! In addition the blue mob was going to join in against the Bladeguard to make sure they couldn't go onto the objectives. The Chaplain would just have to be left alone to do what he wanted. The purple boyz eventually died but the Bladeguard were having a bit of a nightmare and were unable to clear their way through the mob, and really struggled to finish off that one pink Nob!

Over the course of turn four the dread cleared it's way through the Meganobz and the Weirdboy, finally turning to smash down Warboss Redtoof. With the Chaplain controlling one objective and the other ignored, it all came down to who controlled the priority. With Redtoof fallen, I played 'Orks is Never Beaten' to strike at the damaged Redemptor...

Thanks to it's 5+ invulnerable due to it's vow, the Redemptor survived on one wound, after passing one last key save off the Brutal but Kunnin 'reroll' attacks. And with that it collected the priority objective points at the end of the game leaving it tied at 7 all!

Amazing, brutal game! Both sides ground down to one or two units and a stalemate on the objectives. Of course it's always fun to have a big melee mash up, so this was always going to be a bloody one! Regardless of result, I'm always a fan of a game being close enough that it's decided by a final dice roll.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed, because there will be a fair amount more Ork battles coming soon! Thanks for reading, stay safe!

Video Battle Report with SorcererDave - Orks vs Orks!

Hello!

Well it's been a while, but I've been back to visit SorcererDave to film another battle report! This time it was Orks vs Orks, Snakebites vs Freebootas, Nipper vs Stompa, Redtoof vs Zog!

It was fun to get back into it again, and with the Orks who have largely managed to avoid Dave's channel, aside from the classic Stompa battle. Obviously with it being a Dave report it's got a nice narrative focus rather than being anything close to competitive - and speaking of which, we are still planning to eventually finish off the Reuvengrad campaign, assuming the world doesn't conspire against us again. I'm dead keen for that, having been listening to the Eisenhorn novels of Audible!

Anyway, if you didn't click the link earlier, here's the report:

Hope you enjoy it, and stay safe!

Double Battle Report - Orks vs Adepta Sororitas

Hello!

I've been back to Warhammer World for another pair of games, this time against Andrew (aamcking on Instagram) and this time using the second iteration of the green tide Ork list. In a similar format to last time, we played two 2000 point games, starting with a matched play GT2021 battle, followed by a game with the Open War cards.

As before, my list was largely built around lots of Boyz supported by characters and a few small 5 man units of specialists. I did break with the theme slightly by including a unit of 5 Deffkoptas, but I figured they would be able to drop in where required to provide a bit of firepower and work as a distraction. As before it's a Snakebite battalion, and I spent 4 CP off the bat on warlord traits and relics:

HQ: Warboss (powerklaw, kombi skorcha, attack squig, Brutal but Kunnin, Da Killa Klaw), Weirdboy (Warpath, Da Jump, Super Cybork Body), Big Mek with KFF (Brog's Buzzbomb)

Troops: 4x 20 Boyz (powerklaw), 2x 15 Boyz (powerklaw, shootas)

Elites: Nob with WAAAGH Banner (Ard as Nails), Painboy (Surly as a Squiggoth), 5 Kommandos (powerklaw), 5 Tankbustas (bomb squig)

Fast Attack: 5 Deffkoptas (Boom Boyz), 5 Stormboyz (powerklaw)

Heavy Support: 4 Lootas/1 Spanner

 

Andrew's force was another melee focused Imperial army for me to face, though with a fair bit more shooty support. He took a single battalion as well, running Ebon Chalice and with an extra trait and relic. He told me in advance that his list is all about getting the charge off, being able to get miracle dice sixes when needed. He did tell me what all this stuff does but I have largely forgotten it. There were also some combi flamers mixed in somewhere.

HQ: Celestine and Geminae Superia, Morvenn Vahl (warlord)

Troops: 3x 5 Battle Sisters

Elites: 2x 5 Celestian Sacresants (spear, maces), 10 Celestian Sacresants (spear, halberds), Dogmata (Enduring Faith, Holy Piety, Terrible Knowledge, The Sigil Ecclesiastus), 9 Sisters Repentia, 8 Sisters Repentia

Fast Attack: 2x 5 Dominions (4 storm bolters)

Heavy Support: 2x 5 Retributors (2 multimeltas, 2 heavy flamers, 2 cherubs)

Transports: 2x Rhino (hunter killer)

Other: Repentia Superior (Litanies of Faith), Culexus Assassin

And deployment (with my squig mascot watching on). We were playing Battle Lines (two objectives on the centre line, one in each deployment zone), I picked the secondaries Green Tide (points for having units of 11+ models in multiple quarters of the board), No Prisoners and ROD. Andrew took Engage, Vital Ground (mission specific, points for holding central or opponent's objectives) and To the Last (Celestine, Vahl and the large unit of Sacresants I think).

We both pretty much placed our units according to our own plans rather than paying much attention to where the opponent was. The Sisters were spread out to zone out deep strike and with the rhinos central full of units to head down either flank. Celestine and the Assassin were off the board to strike in, while the large unit of halberd sisters were waiting in strategic reserve.

I had the Stormboyz and Deffkoptas off the board, filled my deployment zone with boyz and then plonked the characters in the middle. The intent being to send most of them down the strongest flank. Also worth noting that we were playing all of the terrain as effectively ruins with obscuring for this game.

We rolled off and the sisters went first.

Turn one featured manoeuvring for both sides. The sisters marched up, keeping much of their forces back and flexible, while killing a few Kommandos and boyz with shooting. The Orks advanced pretty much across the board, didn't really do any shooting, and the last couple of Kommandos failed their suicide charge into the Repentia. Onto turn two!

Sisters turn two, and they set up some charges, Repentia on the right flank and Sacresants out of reserve on the left. Most of the other units pushed up on the left behind them, and a Rhino advanced forward and out of the way in case it exploded. After shooting removed a fair few boyz from various units, both the melee threats made it in to my shoota boyz in the front ranks. However the ones on the right overwatched to kill a few Repentia, then after the Celestians had murdered most of a unit, the right boyz interupted to kill even more Repentia before they could strike. Though both charges were successful and I lost a load of boyz, this turn was not great for the Sisters.

Ork turn two, and it was WAAAGH time! Once again I had a lot of advancing units into position. I got the Stormboyz to drop into my back corner for a second ROD action and to deny deep strikes behind my main push. The remaining shootas that got harassed by halberds fell back, then got Jumped back to hold my objective. The Deffkoptas arrived, killing off a bunch of Retributors withe their rokkits and combining with the Tankbustas to clear away the Rhino. So far so good.

Then a decisive charge phase. Charging units managed to get bodies onto both the middle objectives and the far one, after a big 11 inch from the shoota boyz who dispatched the Repentia. Warboss Redtoof got in to the Halberd sisters and finished them off, while elswhere a bunch of battle sisters, the Repentia Superior and a load more Sacresants with maces were removed. All in all a very solid turn.

Into turn three and the Sisters picked up a big fat 0 for Primary. They would need to hit back really hard to get back in the game. Vahl moved up on the left flank, as did the remaining Retributors and Sacresants, to try and clear me off that objective. The right flank was abandoned, though the remaining Rhino got a charge off onto some Boyz to hold them back. The Shoota boyz on the Sisters home objective for lit up by bolter sisters and Dominions, then finished off by the other Repentia. Finally Celestine dropped into my back corner to remove the Lootas and harass my objective. It all more or less went right for them, but I still had a good chunk of Boyz about.

Ork turn three, and we surrounded to go for the kill. Deffkoptas shooting was a bit of a whiff second time round, killing a single Retributor rather than a whole squad and half a Rhino, but I can't really compain because they then charged in with 9 attacks each thanks to the WAAAGH and finished off the Celestians. Redtoof made a brave charge into Vahl, taking her down with his klaw! Boyz swamped Celestine and took her down as well (though she got better). To add insult to injury the Rhino in melee got taken out and the Boyz piled into some Dominions to stop them shooting, and the tiny remnants of another Boyz mob piled into the last Retributors for the same effect.

Without many options left and way behind on objectives, Andrew called it there at the start of turn four. There would be no way back for the sisters, even if they could kill all the Boyz in their lines they would not be able to catch up. A win for the Green Tide! WAAAGH!!!

A bit one sided, but a good learning experience for both of us. I think Andrew probably split his force up too much, I was able to handle it one unit at a time, while he was frequently trying to kill off units of mine so that he could get shots at characters or trying to kill some without ruining a charge. This was also a game where the Snakebite trait came in a lot, almost all his melee units were going at strength 6 or 7, and his strength 6 heavy flamers effectively did not get their bonus. It was also good to see T5 doing a thing again, stopping a lot of meltas on 2s and bolters on 4s compared with before.

Anyway, onto open war. Andrew is mainly a matched play guy and he hadn't used the cards before, so was eager to see what it was like. We kept the same lists and drew these cards:

Long, wide arrow head deployment, a single objective that would move about the board, and some awful weather to stop advancing and long charges. Should be interesting...

Deployment, once again observed by squig. I had some special units hidden, and the Koptas off the board, but the rest was arranged for a central push. With the inability to declare a 9 inch charge, all off Andrew's forces were on the board. We also decided the Sector Mechanicus terrain would be dense rather than obscuring for this one, which I think is the 'official' stance.

Squig-eye view!

Sisters won the roll off, and opted to go first.

The first couple of turns featured some walking up towards the middle from both sides, and some shooting. My Kommandos got a cheeky charge into some mace Celestians and killed a few before Celestine wiped them out. I suffered significant casualties from combined chip fire and the powered up heavy flamers on the Retributors, effectively halting my advance. In return I did kill off a few more of the specialist sisters with the Lootas fire and some shoota chip damage.

In Ork turn two the Deffkoptas dropped in to do some killing, though the decidedly did not, rokkits bouncing off storm shields, while the Stormboyz jumped up to deal with some Dominions, and got absolutely rinsed on overwatch.

With the objective yo-yoing about in the middle, the two sides were unable to claim it on turn three, however the Sisters finally got their hands dirty, with Celestine leading a flank charge, eliminating the Lootas, while some battle sisters pushed up into the middle to kill off a stubborn lone Nob and provide a screen for the objective.

Those brave, brave sisters. Anyway, they died.

In Ork turn three we eliminated a bunch of sisters, finally getting out choppas bloody, and the Deffkopta rokkits powered up to blast Celestine off her feet, and she stayed down!

A big charge in the middle tagged the Rhinos and put a blob of Boyz in front of my characters, then at the start of turn four the objective went back towards my lines.

However Morvenn Vahl and the Repentia were pretty keen not to let me have it, after the flamers burnt many boyz to a crisp, they finished them off and got a whole load of bodies onto the objective to deny me scoring it in turn four as well.

Characters and Deffkoptas crowded in to the melee, causing all sorts of damage and removing the Repentia. Into turn 5 the objective moved back my way again, hiding under the Deffkoptas. It would all come down to if Vahl and friends could remove them and stand on the objective at the end of the game for two points.

It turned out the Sisters shooting was too good, and the Koptas were removed, leaving no targets to charge on the objective! Vahl instead got into my remaining character (big mek) and infantry near the objective, killing the obsec unit and not giving the Mek a straight run for the objective with a fall back. That meant no one claimed it, and a nil-nil draw!

Very fun game, and Andrew loved it! I think the Open War cards have a new convert. Ultimately no advancing was hugely punishing for a movement 5 melee army, and I think I was very lucky to get out of that with a draw, my boyz suffered horrendous casualties and by the end it was pretty much just the Big Mek left! Not sure what lessons can be learned from that, other than getting shot up for two turns with no real response is bad. 

Anyway, it was a fun day out, and a great couple of games. I'm glad the Green Tide seems to be working, and that the squig was well received by the staff and other gamers! Hope you enjoyed, stay safe.