40k Escalation Tournament - Session 4

Part 1 here

Part 2 here

Part 3 here

Part 5 here

Our escalation continues and now we're up to 1500pts for our forces.  Being underwhelmed by the Myphitic Blighthauler, I decided to drop it for this upgrade to free up some more points for an across the board character increase.

And so I added three additional characters, and increased the size of the poxwalker horde.

First up, Typhus.  Obviously he'll buff the poxwalkers but mainly I want him as an additional psyker as I've been impressed by the effects and damage output of my psykers so far.  With him I maxed out my poxwalker unit to 20 models.

I don't like the Typhus model so I've used the Felthius model instead.

Second I added a Biologist Purifier to run with the Plague Marines to buff their grenades.

And thirdly, I added a Foul Blightspawn to add in another plague spewer, this one with the chance to deal some serious damage to enemy armour.

I was really impressed with the performance of this unit, which dealt some serious damage to a Tau transport and to a Militarum Hellhound.  Definitely worth the points.

OK, so onto the games for the day.

Game 1 - The Tau
I've never played s Tau before but I know they're a serious gunline army.  The mission had our Warlonds begin in a parley situation and they are protected from attack from the first turn.  The fight begins with the parley breaking down, and the fight starting.  Both side have access to orbital bombardments through the game, but this would prove inconsequential for both of us.

The Tau obviously set up to pour fire into my Death Guard as we pushed forwards hard across the battlefield.  We were looking for kills and to get into the opposing deployment zone for Victory Points so I went all out to do both!

Although I took some losses, the Tau were pretty much shattered, and by the end of the game, only the Riptide and rear line battlesuit were left as I flooded into their deployment for a comprehensive win.

My saves and Disgustingly Resilient wound negation really made it feel like I was throwing forwards an unstoppable tide, and the Tau were sprayed off the board with my psychic power and various plague spewer weapons.

Typhus didn't impress me too much (except for his psychic power), but he did buff the poxwalkers really well, and despite the Tau focussing pretty much their whole sooting on the poxwalkers for two full turns, the plague zombies had their losses restored through the Tau losses (with the help of a stratagem).

The armies deployed, poised to spring forth...

...and the warlords parlayed.  In truth, neither had much to offer the other and tensions would quickly boil over into a brutal fight.  The Tau commander fled to the shelter of a nearby transport as Krysler gurgled and giggled a pestilent battlecry that called forth his daemon-engine host.

The poxwalkers are enhanced with psychic power, as the first Tau transport is destroyed.

The desperate Tau resort to melee!

It does not go well for The Greater Good however, and although the poxwalkers all fall, the Tau are decimated by the blessed Nurgle Plagues...

Game 2 - Astra Militarum (Pask's force)

This battle was a relic retrieval mission and I was facing Matt's terrifying Astra Militarum force.  Its heavy in tanks, with a good supporting infantry, and a brick of heavy infantry Ogryns.

Deployment was rough for me, out in the open against the wall of Imperial fire.  I lost initialtive and Matt took the first turn and with a devastating "alpha strike" he pretty much secured the game in the first shooting turn.  Although nothing of mine was taken off the board, all my heavy hitters (foetid bloat drones and plagueburst crawlers) were busted down to only a few wounds remaining each.

"With me Tallyband!  There is flesh to plant our diseases in.  *giggle*

The deployment...whoever goes first is probably going to win...its not me...oh dear.

The Hellhound and Bullgryns strain at the bit to get into range of the hated Nurgle Tallyband...

So my infantry and characters were left to try to secure what relics we could get.  the game played out over the next three turns and the Militarum numbers told, with them being able to recover relics while shredding my efforts to do so.  

I never really recovered from the alpha strike, but did manage to kick some damage back and we had an interesting "character fight" towards the end as Matt's troops tried to stop my daemon prince rescuing the game. 

By turn 2 the mid-field is cleared out with all the Nurgle armour decimated, and the bullgryns massacred (much to Commander Pask's (and Matt's) Surprise!  The bulgryns were mostly killed by psychic mortal wounds and were finished off by the daemon prince himself.  While this carnage went on, the Militarum had men spare to carry off relics - my Tallyband didn't...

The characters begin to square up...

Sadly, the Imperium's indirect fire stopped my Plague marines getting a relic away, and with Matt already having secured two relics there was no way for me to win or even force the draw so we called it a win for him and set about the post-day analysis.

The plague marines managed to snatch a relic and sprint away to get it off the board, but they are caught by Wyvern missile fire and killed.  It did take two of the heavy missiles to do it though;  Disgustingly Resilient indeed!

Taking matters into his own "hands" (tentacles and talons mostly), Krysler the daeom prince rakes about for a relic, but with his plague marines killed by the Wyvern fire it was game over...

Another excellent session of 40k!

Here are the images from the other battles.

Asrta Militarum face off against the Traitor guard,

Loyalist Hellhound burns out the heretics!

Drukhari bombers about to make short work of the Sisters of Battle allied knight

Told you...

Shadowsword also made short work of the Sister's knight.

Oh and footnote, a rare realword casualty; I dropped and then trod on a poxwalker.  Damn.  It lived up to its "disgustingly resilient" ability though and with a few dabs of glue its back to normal!