Prot's War in the Warp

Hello everyone. First off to those of you that have followed some of my playtesting either here, or on the BnC, thank you. To those that have not followed let me summarize: I entered an ITC GT, with no delusion of winning, but wanting to be competitive with the preface that I was going to take models I liked, and felt I painted well. So that in itself created a bit of a challenge since as we know the models we like are often not the models we can be competitive with.

This could be a gigantic post, so I’ll try to be brief and just highlight the days, and the games and not bore you to tears with minute by minute blows!

Details, Details, Details:

• The Tournament was an ITC GT, 1750 points (ouch, gotta get used to this?).
• 5 Games over 2 days.
• All regular ITC rules were put into effect. (at the very last second they put the “bottom level of ruins blocks line of sight” rule into effect.) Sadly there were very, very, very few ruins. But great tables nonetheless.
• My List:

A very basic rundown:

• Daemon Prince (Not Index as this was getting complicated so NO WARP TIME or I was told I’d lose “Death Guard” Legion traits). That being what it was I took Miasma almost every game.
• Plague Caster. Farting at will
• 5 Plague marines in a Rhino
• 10 Poxwalkers (more like disgruntled postal employees the way they play now)
• 10 Cultists
• 2 Plagueburst Crawlers
• Elites: Foul Blightspawn (toilet cannon), Biologus Putrifier(poo flinger),
• 2 Poxbringers
• 3 x 3 Nurglings (I love these little turd burglars.)
• Mortarion aka the “Mothra”

So let’s get right into it. First off my army on its display looked something like this…

My first game would be a somewhat unfortunate match up because it would be against “Alpha Legion” which was pretty much Nurgle/Death Guard. A part of me was hoping to face Imperium Armies but there are usually not that many Space Marine armies at these competitive events.

The “Alpha Legion” was a very strong theme you see a fair amount from Chaos right now: The Nurgle Tree supporting multiple squads of Nurgle (Daemon) Oblits, Lord/Sorc, some gribblies, Epidimius (for tally count), and a detachment of Bloat Drones and Plague Burst Crawlers.

Let me get this rolling with a point form overview of the game.

Scenario 1: Seize Ground vs Alpha/Nurgle/Death Guard/Space Tree?

• I would not get fist turn (This would be a theme!) I did not quite understand the power of the ‘tree’. I brought weapons of the future, space marines, tanks, a Primarch, but apparently deep striking a tree from outer space is the way to go!
• I deploy fairly aggressively. The game is slow as both of us are very resilient.

• The game didn’t go as far as we would have liked. I was doing fine and we were both very slow to kill or die, but the issue would be time here. Mortarion actually did okay. and I lost track of a few key things here… The first being that the
• The opening turn I’m down 3-2 in Primary Scoring and I pay a price for the tree, and my own stupidity!

• The turning point of this game is two-fold: Firstly my opponent destroys a Rhino, I completely and utterly forget that it had the bulk of my characters, Sorc, Putrifier, Toilet cannon dude, and 5 Plaguemarines! My opponent was gracious for letting me put them out, but then I instantly felt guilty about this and said I won’t move them, or shoot them, or have any action with this turn. Now in hindsight that was more stupid than just leaving them off the table, because he plinked them all off for a terrific kill count!
• Secondly and this is a two fold issue: I forget that magic tree deepstriking in, allowed my opponent’s Obliterators to simply walk out of close combat with Mortarion and shoot him to bits. The second fold here is, in ‘each’ fight phase, I forgot to use his Aura. At least 2 if not 3 of which were spent within range of the Obliterators and other units. So Mortarion died in T2 and I kind of expected this.
• Game 1 I lose with only 7 points. It was pretty bad. I’m not feeling bad about the loss, but I felt quite rushed and just was up too late painting! I realized how much I forgot and a Rhino full of special dudes really not being in the game is an automatic loss no matter how I look at it. I had to laugh at my own incompetence in that one!

Scenario 2: Cut to the Heart vs. World Eaters

• This is the scenario with 3 Objectives. Very interesting because my match as my opponent is World Eaters and is superior in CC overall than me.  This scenario against 2 shorter ranged armies means it’s in our interest to really go head to head. The map is “Dawn of War” adding to the close combat element of the game.

• The World Eaters go first. Admittedly I did not entirely know what the flyer or all the dreadnoughts did, but he did advance one very close to the middle of the table.
• I wasn’t sure how to handle this. Mortarion died in the early stages of so many of my test games that I really wanted to get him in the action and NOT forget about all of his abilities like my previous rounds.
• 

  Without any transports, the World Eaters are set up quite aggressively.

   

• His big Dread races up the middle and this was in effort (I believe) to pop off some assault melta type things and fire some shots to get Mortarion injured. I ended up avoiding most of the major damage in the opening turn. Off camera to the left is a flyer that was actually deceptively good at picking characters, and doing decent damage. I had to be aware of it, but it was also something if he got too close with I could handle with a flying unit.
• Mortarion moves up very little, as I use the Plagueburst Crawlers to ‘block’ for him as he takes down the big Forgeworld Unit (beautiful piece though.)
• The game goes back and forth a bit and a HUGE thing for me is healing a Plagueburst Crawler with a Poxbringer in Turn 2 as the World Eaters would take it down to 1(!) wound preventing clean shots at characters, or more importantly, a clean assault from a full World Eaeters squad.
• The World Eaters would be forced to assault the Plagueburst Crawler first, but got too close to Mortarion. He would do a Heroic Intevention and kill the entire squad. This would be the big turning point in a game of inching towards each other…

• At this point I do some good flaming on the flyer, and some squads. The Psychic phase is surprisingly shut down so well by the World Eaters I get almost nothing off! (There’s a relic collar, and a stratagem he is using that shuts down on a 4+)
• The game ends with a larger victory on my end but scoring is not optimal for me as I forget a few key things.
• After the game my opponent did not think he could do anything against Mortarion but truthfully I was terrified of the Berzkerker units. I reminded him that hitting Mort with Vets of the Long War, and a 10 man unit probably would have dropped him. People forget that small arms fire (even an IG flashlight) is useful. At it was he had Mortarion down to 4 wounds at the end of the game.
• Final score was about 20-7 for the Death Guard. (And I didn’t forget an entire Rhino’s contents off the board!)

This sets me up for a tougher game at the end of day 1. I was just happy to see Mortarion get past Turn 2! So I was okay going forward no matter what. (He rarely made T3 in any test game).

Game 3:  Nexus Control  vs. Aeldari

• So right back into a tough match up for me. Speed, and punishing firepower. Not only that but we roll off and get Hammer and Anvil Deployment. My least favorite map with a slow as heck army with 9″ shooting capability!
• The Aeldari player really knew his army, and I can see most people know Death Guard pretty well. He knew what to do and was a very gracious opponent. His army had shooty Dark Eldar units, and Alaitoc (-1 to hit) speed, and flyers with Warlocks on bikes casting against Mortarion.

• I actually go first. Have no idea what to do. His army is largely quite fast with 3 of the shooty Dark Eldar Ravagers ( a very common theme in 8th), a Falcon with 8 or so Dark Reapers, a Guardian bomb in deepstrike, and an Eldar Flyer with those auto D-3 hitting Mortal Wound flamers! Seriously… ouch.
• I move up, it’s all I can do and it’s best to start thinking about my Primary scoring here because I could easily get cut down with any fatal moves here. I do get Miasma off on Mortarion (man is that hard in an event like this.) We largely shut each other down a lot in the Psychic phase.
  

  We pass each other… like strangers in the night.

• About halfway through the second turn things are going sideways for me. The Serpent shield is so annoying… the output of the large Dark Reaper squad is truly brutal. I get lucky on a lot of saves, but it’s not enough. Mortarion is still being pelted on by 3 Dark Eldar Ravagers way off on his end of the table.
• Honestly the table felt 75 feet long in this one, as he is doing overhead flybys with his Mortal Wound flamer Flyer (above). Basically he cleverly positioned the flyer to ‘snipe’ out my characters wherever possible.
• This whole situation had me in big trouble. I had to keep the army tight, to prevent his future character sniping, Mortarion was just about dead again, yet I had to press forward even with Guardians dropping in way in my zone smoking my Poxwalkers off an objective. Literally the only thing I had going for me was my Nurglings. They owned objectives, while spanking Rangers slowly getting me kills…. slow kills though really.

• Mortarion (as usual) dies an untimely death. Sometimes he absorbs a lot, sometimes not so much. I’m left in a VERY tight game here scoring wise, but I am fading hard and he’s hardly lost anything.
• In desperation I put it all out there, including my warlord Daemon Prince.  This is a huge risk because I decide to completely ignore everything going bad on my deployment zone to make this work. This is going to be difficult to summarize but it is key so bear with me:
• 1: I advanced my Rhino’s 2 times, then get out, and make a desperate move and Biologus gets in range of one Ravager. Toilet tank dude can, and does get into range of toilet flame of something else.  2: I killed most of the Reapers, they retreat, and the overwatch is still going to be brutal. 3: I flame a Ravager down with a Plagueburst crawler, getting me Big Game Hunter. 4: The Biologus poo flinger lets the 5 man squad throw Blight Grenades with Vets of the Long War super combo; I blow up another Ravager, getting me another Big Game Hunter. My Plagueburst Crawler tries to perform a multi assault to take overwatch, AND most importantly tie up his Warlord HQ with that crazy 2+ super invulnerable save bubble. 5: My Daemon prince follows in hitting both the Warlord dude, and a boat. 6: The Plaguemarines hit the other side of the boat. 7: My Nurglings assault the boat as well.
• Okay so there’s the setup. What happens next is crazy. I start the assault with…. drum roll… my Plagueburst Crawler (there’s method to my madness here on a super long shot). My Crawler hits 1 time thanks to the Daemon Prince wounds, and the super 2+ invuln save HQ fails his save. My opponent uses a Command Point re-roll to re-roll the 1. He fails again. He is quite livid at this,  and mildly put…. pretty pissed. I agree it’s ridiculous bad luck. He was very apologetic, but I understood the frustation. So with the bubble gone, the Daemon Prince cuts him down, and the boat goes up in the process, as do some other things on the board.
• He gets bottom of the turn, and cannot flip the score enough in his favour. We end an incredibly tight game with the Death Guard winning by about 10 points mostly made of Battle Points I collect in the last turn (Secondaries of Old School and Big Game maxed out.)

+NOTE+ I realize that the re-roll for the 2+ invuln save on the Dark Eldar character was illegal. ( I remember my friend telling me this and confirmed it after the game.)

This would put me at 3 wins and a loss and set up some strong competition for day 2. I wasn’t feeling too good about it, because as you know with each win you climb into a new stratosphere of getting your butt handed to you. 🙂

 

Please see Post 2 for the conclusion of this tournament. Thank you for reading!