A dark day for the imperium

"Say hello to my little friend"

We ran another cracking 40k game at the weekend pitching my Blood Angels against my dads Death Guard in a 1750pt Malstrom of War game. The random deployment card saw our troops able to deploy anywhere in your half of the table but 12" away from a enemy unit. We placed six objectives around the table top each one numbered and we were required to have three tactical objectives cards each of our own turns along with slay the warlord, first kill and line breaker objectives. 

I took the the first turn and set about trying to claim the first kill by shooting everything possible at a Death Guard (DG) marine unit in the ruined buildings, slaying all but one DG marine who in my dads turn ran away to hide behind the building so he couldn't be targeted, (to much heckling from myself) denying me a objective point for first kill

My dad wasted no time in teleporting in his Terminator squad who landed on the walkway and immediately made the Hellblaster Squad their sole purpose of destroying. I hit this unit with some heavy fire during the course of the game but I could not get a hit on them, even when I bettered their armouror or invunreble save the terminators passed their disgustingly resilient save much to my frustration           

An objective I was tasked to control for two consecutive turns came under attack from a unit of plague bearers, although I bettered the daemons in combat phase I couldn't destroy them all so I couldn't claim the objective as with a Death Guard unit they are always classed as out numbering their opponents (despite the number of models left) to determine who controls (within 3") the objective. This  rule was to prove my undoing on a number of occasions during the course of the game.

Typhus and the Deathshroud Guard teleport into the action, both units needing to roll 9 on 2d6 rolled a 11 on the dice to charge upon the doomed Incessor squad who were easily dispatched.

Typhus and his bodyguard consolidated towards the Blood Angels Tactical squad denying them the chance to shoot at the DG terminators just as I was  readying myself to unleash the rapid fire weapons and heavy plasma cannon.

A unit of pox walkers make a chance charge across to support the plague bearers locked in combat with the tactical squad, however they failed their charge roll and where left to the mercy of the Ball predator twin assault cannon which accounted for every last one of them!

With the Baal predator tank switching its attentions elsewhere the (coward) traitor Plague Maine plucks up the courage to rejoin the fight from his hiding hole even daring to shot its blight launcher...this DG marine will be a marked man? In games from now on!

I finally manage to destroy the last plague bearer but they have defined me from claiming any objective point for holding the objective for a number of turns. With the Tactical squad suffering heavy casualties it's not long until the rest of the unit is shot down by a combination of terminator combi bolsters and some physic spells. A error in judgement by committing my Warlord into the combat now saw him positioned so that he was now the closest model to the enemy so inevitably he was the Focus of much of the DG shooting with the Defiler in particular causing my warlord to lose half his wounds (this proved vital towards the end of the game as  a Deamon prince was able to quite easily claim the remaining 3 wounds in combat claims a victory point for slay the warlord)

I teleported in my Chaplain and terminator assault squad in an attempt to deny my dad some objective points, although I failed the first charge dice I spent a command point on re rolling a dice which resulted in the charge been sucessful. With the presence of the chaplain the thunder hammers of the Assault squad make short work of a DG marine squad 

A bombardment of shoots from the chaos Defiler saw the rhino reduced to only two remaining wounds and the Deatshroud Guards took full advantage destroying the transport vehicle, the disembarking tactical squad only lost one of their numbers by some good fortune.

With the game slipping away from my blood Angels I made one last desperate charge with my assault terminators who could not quite inflict enough damage on the plague bearers with the Chaplain been slain in the previous round of combat denying me the vital to hit re rolls, to destroy them alowing my dad to claim yet another one of his objectives.

With a distinct lack of marines left on the table top left to claim any of objectives I made a desperate run to secure an objective with my librarian but his terminator armour proved to clumsy and he fell short and was quickly surrounded by the DG Terminators and daemon prince  who fresh from killing my Blood Angels warlord was keen to add another character to his kill tally.

When it's your lucky day you can't do much wrong and so it proved when my dad generated  these two cards on turn 5. It just so happened that Typus was within a couple of inches of objective three at that exact moment with not a single blood Angel in sight to stop him. I don't think it will be possible for my dad to score a easier 5! Objective points again as long as we play, this phase of play saw any slight chance of a blood Angels victory slip away.

And so the game ended at the end of turn 5 as I failed the dice roll to continue to turn 6 although this was a blessing as the tiny remains of my army would surely have fallen had the game continued. In tne end the score was 15-5 in victory points to my dads Death Guard. The game certainly was not as one sided as the score suggests and seen the number of slain Death Guard models would hold testament to that, and it was a very evenly balanced game victory point wise until the last 2 turns where the game slipped away from me. The Death Guard proved to be a very tough army, in particular in this game where my dad had a lot of sucess with his disgustingly resilient save on a number of occasions. This day belonged to the forces of Chaos but be warned those Gods of Chaos are fickle....,next time....

The end of the game at turn 5.

Maelstrom of war 40k game

At the weekend we had another try at 40k this time using one of the the malstrom of war scenarios so we could have a try at using the tactical objective cards and upped the points of our armies to 2000. This was maybe a little ambitious as we had only just reached turn five when our time ran out,(still forgetting a lot of rules in the codex of the armies) however at this stage of the game my blood Angels had amassed a decent lead in objective points and my dads chaos marines would probably have struggled to over take this amount. In this particular game the cards drawn favoured myself as the objectives happened to be in my deployment zone. The high light for my blood Angels was the destruction of the Defiler who became the centre of attention when I drew a card gaining victory points for destroying a model of 10 wounds or more as pretty much my entire army targeted the said model, in particular the devastor squad lascannon proved very effective causing 12 of the defillers wounds. Again it was a fun game and definetly the game play has improved massively since we last played warhammer 40k a number of years ago. 

Plague bearers take shelter around the Defiler 

A tactical squad in support of the the devastor squad who whomwas making their debut on the table

The Chaos rhino advances down the road transporting a squad of chaos marines as the DG plague marines defend the ruins

The chaos Lord cares into the dreadnought with both sides inflicting casualties in the combat Roun.

The Thunder hammer and shield terminators teleport onto the board and challenge for the objective by charging the unit of place bearers

The building Beamer worth D3 victory points at the start of turn 3 the Sangullian guard swooped down from the skies to protect the devastor and scout squad holding the objective from any deep striking chaos troops

The blood Angel terminators were charged by the death shroud guard who's massive scythed weapons eventually over come the terminators invulnerable save  

The dreadnought locked in combat with the chaos Lord  was swamped by the chaos marines who disembarked from the rhino and a couple of demonettes  who had survived a salvo of Bolter shots the previous turn. The result saw the dreadnought dragged down but not before it exploded killing the demonettes and  chaos Lord

The Deamon Prince readies its self to charge against the space marine tactical squad 

Chaos raptors drop from the skies ready to assault the Baal predator tank

The Sanguinary guard score victory points for holding the chapel which was quite apt I felt

The devastor squad and scouts hammer the final killing shots into the chaos Defiler destroying the chaotic machine scoring yet more victory points for the blood Angels 

Bloodletters are summound and they reenforce the DG marines in the ruins

The battlefield at the start of turn 5 where we had to call it a day due to time. 

This weekend should see my dad fielding a death guard (DG) force in full so I'm  currently having a read of the DG codex to prepare myself for the game, some scary stuff indeed coming my way 😱

In one word..Whipped!

As the title suggests I suffered a heavy loss in our latest Pickets charge game, taking command of rebels I was given a complete 'whipping" as my grand plan unraveled before my eyes. Tasked with taking the high ground right across the centre of the board (5 hills all been objectives) I decided to focus on the my right flank where I placed two brigades hoping to take the hill and be able to turn on the Union left flank while the centre engaged the Union forces and over on my left flank I just wanted to hold with the brigade and allow my dad to control the objectives on that side. Although my centre attack  started off bright as I cleared the hill of union troops with some solid shooting and charging that was about as good as it got. My flank attack just didn't get going due to been unable to get my orders through and my brigades spent much of the time hesitant. My dad reenforced the Union centre and a couple of truly devasting shooting turns and some bad morale throws left my central brigades spent and sent into a speedy retreat (basically they routed))

I was a little unlucky when rolling for the quality of our regiments at the beginning of the game with the result been much of it rated green troops. Although my dad had  a large presence of green troops too in the Union army he had a number of elite and Olag troops which with their extra shooting dice proved  a telling factor. My dad also managed to upgrade his general by rolling aD6 before the game started, rolling a 6 he gained a extra staff officer, I was unsuccessful with my roll.

The game was over when the centre collapsed although I did continue for another move but this just confirmed my thoughts. It was a tough defeat to take as not much went right for me with the dice rolling and my ideas of turning flank weren't executed particularly well TBH as I had little room to manoeuvre the way I deployed and when the right hand flank brigades weren't hesitant I could do little with them. My central brigades became out numbered 3-2 and this told after my initial sucessful attacks against the hills as my dads fresh reserve troops were to much for my weakened Rebs to withstand. 

Even so I still really enjoyed using the rules again, they really are excellent for wargaming ACW though once your army starts to faulter it is very hard to regain control of it, (as I found to my expense) especially if your order dice show 1's and 2's at an alarming rate. I also like in these rules how the different qualities of troops are represented, their is a really good balance on how the benefits for been elite troops don't make them to powerful as other rule sets have done but still puts them at an advantage against green troops who are also reflected very well in their capabilities, again this is another reason of how Pickets charge helps captures the feeling of this period very well.

I will leave you with some final pictures of the my grand evacuation of rebel troops from of battlefield 🤔

I will