Another dusty day at Nahn Nadol. The sprawling ruins of the old industrial city went on for miles. Sergeant Slacker doubted this place had ever been pretty, but it was a dusty gloomy shithole now for sure. The possibility that the servants of the Lord of Decay were spreading more misery among the pockets of humans scraping a living on this windswept wasteland made it even worse.
"Sir" remarked Scout Recruit Basil "We've got movement."
"Sir?!?" Slacker stirred from his slouch in the corner where he had almost been comfortable. "I've got dirt on my neck, recruit. I work for a living. That's Sergeant to you. I would have thought all you maggots had figured that out by now. But I guess you're the slow one." He hefted his sniper rifle "Where is this movement, Bastle?"
"Uh, Basil, s...sarge. To the left of that old castle structure, back about 4 blocks"
Honestly, he didn't care. Another meatshield the way recruits had been dropping in this campaign. Slacker swept the old street with his scope. The dust was thick... or maybe it wasn't. It was not moving with the wind. Flys. Clouds of them. And behind them, shambling forms of giant marines.
"Slack 3 to Kite. Positive ID, Fly force 1 Able. Advise. Over." He grumbled into his comms, watching a black fly land on the ruined window sill.
"Affirmative. Stay put, we're on our way. Over and out".
"Well.......shit" Slacker racked a round in the chamber and steadied his weapon. "OK, boys. We're staying put. Find the leaders and shoot straight. Help is on the way."
Yup! Finally got to play! Since it was a learning battle, we picked out 1250 points or so and just decided to kill each other. We did use the command points and strategems though.
For my Raptors I fielded 2 squads of 5 sniper scouts with a missile launcher, one landspeeder storm, a squad of 5 marines in a Razorback (twin laz), 5 Hellblasters,3 Inceptors, Shrike and a 10 man assault squad and 2 dreadnaughts- Brother Gatling the Indestructable and Venerable Brother Stalwart the...uh...Stalwart.
My Death guard opponent had 2 squads of Plague Marines, a Lord of Contagion, A Plaguecaster, 2 Bloat Drones A deamon Prince, 10 poxwalkers and a Crawler.
I held my speeder (with one scout squad) and the assault team in reserve. And the battle begun
Over on the right, the Razorback team set the pace for both of us- for the entire game. The dice loved to hit, but not to wound. It continued the whole time. We both suspected Tzeentch. Though I have to say his rolls for "Disgusting resilience" were pretty amazing sometimes, often in a fairly frustratingly comical manner . The running joke became there were nurglings in the ruins leaping in front of bullets, especially around the Plaguecaster.
Firing opened with Brother Gatling on the poxwalkers. With only 1 or 2 casualties. The razorback on the Bloat Drones, with hits but no wounds and Stalwart, plus the scout missiles on the Crawler, to no effect. It was at that moment I decided the Crawler would be something I would ignore unless it started killing people.
5 Marines about to die a horrible death
The Grenade launchers on the Drones wounded the Razorback, but my opponent had the same luck shooting as I did. Though I must admit, the Raven Guard rule (-1 to hit at over 12 ") is just awesome. He figured he needed to close that distance quick after it saved my army from a ton of fire.
He dominated the psychic phase all game and I have to say, Smite and Plague Wind can be NASTY.
We exchanged fire back and forth as his army inched forward. The fastest movement was on the right where the Daemon Prince showed why he's abbreviated DP to the razorback squad. He tore through the squad in the most gruesome of ways. Somehow, the Razorback held out for 3 turns.
Somehow, that vehicle held out for 3 turns before it was destroyed
Once they finished the Razorback, this trio moved toward the center. A LOT of shooting had been going on there. I decided after seeing how nasty things were getting to just drop the other sniper scouts off in the same ruin with the first squad to concentrate fire on the center. The building was flanked by the two dreadnaughts, who were holding up well, besides Venerable Brother Stalwart taking a withering amount of fire from pretty much the rest of his army. Due to lousy rolls and the like the Plagueburst Crawler didn't inflict too much damage, besides chipping away at Brother Stalwart, who tried for a couple turns to damage it in kind, Tried, key word. Those things are tough.
Brother Gatling is determined to kill those frikkin Poxwalkers!!
The Plague Marines with the Plaguecaster were the subject of interest for my Hellblasters, Inceptors and the snipers, plus eventually the Landspeeder Storm, which I have to say gave a decent performance eventually being taken out by Smite from the Plaguecaster. Death Guard/Nurgle/Chaos being my main army it was great to see just how much punishment they can absorb.
Nurglings fly out of the dust to protect the Plaguecaster as he endures all sorts of fire for 4 turns.
There were a couple, almost comical, fixations during the battle. Brother Gatling was intent on killing the Poxwalkers. The scouts (8 sniper rifles....8) fixated on the plaguecaster. They hit nearly every shot, but couldn't wound worth a damn or were vexed by disgusting resilience. They did whittle him down to 1 wound and he was eventually killed by the assault squad Sergent's powerfist. My opponent was fixated on Brother Stalwart and the Hellblasters. Only 1 Hellblaster died and it took the combined might of the Plaguecaster, his 7 marines and the Crawler to eventually kill Brother Stalwart (one of his wounds being saved by a 5+ roll from a strategem) Another wierd one, Bolters. Bolters were causing damage where weapons like Plasmaguns and Assault Cannons couldn't. You can math-hammer the hell out of this game, but if the dice have other plans.......
The LS Storm finishes off the last Poxwalker so Gatling can fire on the Plague Marines ...with little effect.
The last poxwalker was killed by the Speeder before it was taken out and the Deamon Prince rushed to engage Brother Gatling in close combat. Through a fluke of dice rolls, Gatling somehow managed to deliver just enough wounds to kill the Deamon Prince. The Bloat Drones would finish off Gatling and the Lord of Contagion would sweep in to start slaughtering the scouts.
End Game in the center doesn't go the way the Daemon Prince had hoped
The battle ended with a couple scouts left on the top floor, 3 assault marines and Shrike (who was fairly useless in this game) 1 Inceptor and 4 Hellblasters left for me. He had 2 wounded Bloat Drones, the Plagueburst Crawler, The Lord of Contagion and 5 Plague Marines. From a casualty stand point it was a loss for me. From a learning standpoint it was a serious win.
"Time for a tactical withdrawl, boys! Sergeant Slacker growled, leaping through a cloud of flies out the window of the the ruined building they had called home. A couple recruits tried to follow, otheres yelled some ridiculous pledge to the Emperor and died horribly at the feet of the pox-ridden behemoth that had been hacking its way up the stairs. Streaks of plasma energy slipped by them and he tried to coax his remaining recruits toward the EXFIL. One made it. Better than Forlin's team, who tried to be all heroic in front of a plague infested terminator. The point being, he was still alive... and one of his recuits was.
Storm Talons screamed in overhead laying down withering fire, though with few casualties. It was enough of a distraction to get to the waiting Storm Ravens. Contact had been made. The Death Guard WAS here as suspected and Slacker gave the appropriate hand gesture as they left.
My Comments & Conclusions:
I have to say, from what I experienced, I really love the dynamic of 8th edition. I think the strategems and tactical objectives (which we talked about, but didn't use) are a great addition to the game. Having to use the codex for reference though, I have to say I'm not fond of the layout of these new books and I see why the cards are so darned handy. Hmmmmm I wonder if they did that to make more $$$? I think the game was simplified in all the right areas and its pacing is dead on. Bravo, GW.
The Raptors (Raven Guard) chapter rules are great! Wow, what a pain in the ass for your opponent. I could see it as a great way to lay possible traps for someone wanting to close that distance. As for my army, I needed more deadly firepower (and more helpful dice) to win this particular fight. I was pleased with the way the LS Storm/scout combo worked, though I could have used it better. Well, that and my guys need to stop buying missiles from Ork Freebootas. I hit nearly every missile shot, only wounded on one all game. The snipers were excellent at hitting, but between my rolling and Disgusting Resilience had a hell of a time killing one character. I DO like the way the rifles work now though
Death Guard are Friggin' TOUGH!! I've been a Nurgle player ever since my college roommate announced he'd play Tzeentch. This incarnation of a pure Nurgle army is just tough as nails and I love it. Wow. Tough as hell to play against. The amount of fire they can absorb (even when the dice cooperate) is pretty amazing. I do, however, wish the regular Chaos Marines had Marks of Chaos that meant something. I think that was a huge failing for the standard Chaos army.... once again. I know folks love to convert and all, but they could really make the regular Chaos armies sell as well as marines if they made the rules on an even footing. It almost seems like ever since the infamous Chaos Codex 3.5 (and all of its abuse by players) GW has made the Chaos Space Marines the "almost as good, but not quite" Marines. Still.....I really can't wait to get my army overhauled and in the field.... hopefully, I'll have more games soon.
Next post we'll get into some building and sculpting.
Cheers, y'all!
