Conclave Game 3

After that win I manage to haul myself back up the tables and I ended up playing Chris' Nurgle Chaos army in a Seize Ground/Spearhead mission. I noticed him putting down lots of Obliterator-sized models and I was wondering if I'd be pummelled before I could get my teeth into his army. My mind was even worse as he won the roll to go first...


His list was:

Daemon Prince with Wings, Mark of Nurgle, Warptime

3 x 7 Plague Marines with 2 Meltas and Asp Champ with Combi-Melta/Fist in Rhinos

3 Terminators with Combi-Meltas
3 Terminators with Combi-Plasma

2 Oblits
2 Oblits
3 Oblits

So the Termies were to drop down to take out tanks while the Oblits pummel anything that's been corraled by the Plagues and their Rhinos. So I had to cut down the army's mobility and that means killing the Rhinos.

The big piece in the middle was impassable (more on that later) and we had 3 objectives using Plaguebearer models. The first was near my Wolfblob, the second in front of his Rhino and DP and the last was (from my POV) in the top left-hand corner. I knew I'd have to grab one and contest the others to win it.

His deployment was:
Plague Rhino, Oblits, Plague Rhino, 3 Oblits, DP, Plague Rhino, 2 Oblits.

My deployment wasn't the best but I knew if I stayed back more than 36" the Plasma Cannons wouldn't be decimating my Long Fangs and I'd be forcing him to shoot my tanks or Wolfblob. I set up from left to right:

Grey Hunters in Lasback, Lasback in front, 2 Long Fang squads in woods, Grey Hunter + RP Rhino on base edge, Wolfblob in front, Grey Hunter Rhino on edge of wood.

I chose to leave one GH Rhino squad in Reserve to make a last-minute dash for the objective closest to my own edge.

I deployed the Wolfblob in a big crescent shape to attraction attention and give cover saves to the Long Fangs.

I was surprised when I stole the initiative and rushed the blob forward on my right. I pounded his Rhinos on my left and both were destoryed leaving some surprised Oblits exposed to Lascannon fire but they made their cover saves and when they returned fire they destroyed both Lasbacks. 3+ cover saves (from hiding the front of the 2nd one) my ass. The Rhino in the bottom right of the photo managed to immobilise itself. What an hero.

His Rhino and DP moved to my right to tempt out the Wolfblob. It worked. Having destroyed the tank with Long Fangs the HammerLord and majority of the Wolves jumped the DP while the Claw Lord dived into the Plagues. Here's the before picture...

And here's the after picture from 2 turns later.

The Hammer Lord and Daemon Prince destroyed each other (the DP falling to combat res) while the Claw Lord simply tore through the Plagues just in time for me to get the drop on another unit of Plagues babysitting another objective.

His turn 3 saw two Termicide squads arrive but both deviated away from my Wolves giving me another turn or two to engage them far away from my objective. Which suited me down to the ground. I'm surprised he didn't try to drop them closer and risk a bad drop especially with a plasma squad able to decimate any of my exposed Marines, even with cover saves.

My response to that was to throw a squad of Grey Hunters into combat and have another shoot up the same squad beforehand while the rest of my Long Fangs would pound them for a turn before moving away and not getting assaulted giving away Victory Points. That's pretty much what happened over 2 turns as the Hunters and Rune Priest that subsequently charged finished off the last of the Melta squad (top half of pic) while the Plasma squad (bottom left) were eventually whittled away by another GH squad.

These Grey Hunters mysteriously arrived by having a Rhino come in from reserve and get blown away by Oblits. So the squad hunkered down in the trees while the Wolves made a nuisance of themselves and cockblocked the Oblits and Plagues before being gunned down. The Wolf Lord raced off to the left to attack a squad of Plagues sitting on an objective.

In this picture you will notice there are no Wolf Lords or Wolves. This is because the Wolf Lord killed 5 of the Plagues in combat leaving the Asp Champ and another to take loads of saves which they failed leaving the Lord exposed. 10 twin-linked Plasma pasted him, but they do that I suppose. I had hoped to have one or two Plagues alive to fight another round of combat but I wasn't expecting to hit with all 5 and wound with all 5 on 4+ rerolls to be honest. Still, I'm not complaining much as I'd now got rid of 2 of his 3 Troops.

For some reason I had it in my head that Oblits were Initiative 2. That explains the Rune Priest on his own at the top of this photo. He cast Jaws through 2 of them and Chris rolled a 3 killing one. Then he checked the Codex and they were I 4 so he put him back down and I thought that was an easy 100 point giveaway. The only thing is the Grey Hunters unit in the Rhino objective-sitting was still alive at this point so he ended up ignoring the Priest. The Rhino moved to capture an objective. With the attendant Grey Hunter squad of course.

Here's what the table looked like at the start of my Turn 5. I thought it would be a good idea to move the Grey Hunters on my right to contest the objective by moving into the terrain and possibly running then going to ground next to it. This assumed that they'd pass their cover saves granted by the terrain in the middle. Which I had forgotten was impassable...End result? Plasma rape. And an easy 160-odd points to give away.

Still, the Plagues in his half went to grab their objective and rolled a 1 and a 2 for terrain. I like the old Reebok ads with the giant belly chasing a guy through a city called 'Belly's gonna get ya' and watching the Plagues huff and puff toward the objective reminded me of them. I began to sing the song in my head when Chris rolled a 1 to run. The game ended and we measured to see how far from the objective the Plagues were. 4" away.

I ended up winning 16-4 and that catapulted me up to 8th in the end (the highest position for someone that lost a game) so I was quite happy with how it turned out, especially as I was kicking myself about how I lost it to the Necron player in game 1. 23 ETC points was my result and I'm happy with that especially as I've only be messing about with this list for a couple of weeks.

I reckoned that the real test for me would be at Brocon the following week.