Suppuration and Sorcery: Thousand Sons vs Death Guard

Hold onto your hats, this one's been brewing for years...

Thousand Sons vs Death Guard!

Though we've played many times on Skype, I, Stylus, and Pootle have only fought in person once before (some troublesome world event has been getting in the way of a rematch ever since then). First it was Storm Ciara, then some Nurgly pandemic that appears to have dragged on for far too long. 

We've both wanted to play our most competitive game, with our most competitive armies, so more than two years of delay has just served to hone our respective armies to a fine edge.

Thousand Sons - The Court of Miracles

For competitive play, this is a list I've been working on for a few games now. It's built around a solid core of Scarab Occult Terminators, who both screen, and are buffed by, a pair of Exalted Sorcerers (one of which may as well be Ahriman, for the better statline and free psychic rerolls). A pair of shooty Helbrutes serve a similar purpose, and give my medium-range army some long-range options.

The other half of the army is mobility. Six squads of Rubric Marines (armed as seen - it's not crucial, since their firepower is usually a bonus) who can ride around in Rhinos, hang back on objectives, leap forward with Umbraelific Crystal, Risen Rubricae or strategic reserve.

This list is built around scoring Secondary Objectives (for Primaries, I'm am happy to hold only two per turn) and it has options. Retrieve Octarius Data and/or Engage On All Fronts for the mobile elements. To The Last if I'm optimistic about keeping my Terminators (and the characters they screen) alive. Wrath of Magnus if I'm facing an army with a psyker but no real chance of out-smiting me. And there's always the option of the mission's secondary, since all my infantry units are Objective Secured and hard to shift.

Despite the propensity of mortal wounds output, I didn't want to tailor this army against the Death Guard (Egleighen’s Orrery would have been a natural choice). I'm interested in how this list would function in a 'tournament', so want to face all-comers with the same army.

It's strange that my 8th edition Thousand Sons armies were a jamboree, whereas this one is a mere four datasheets and a handful of characters. At least there's less to remember.

Battalion Detachment - Cult of Time

• Ahriman (HQ)
  Black Staff of Ahriman, Inferno Bolt Pistol, Disc of Tzeentch
  Psychic powers: Doombolt, Presage, Temporal Surge
• Arac Rapathwin - Exalted Sorcerer (HQ) (Warlord)
  Force stave, Inferno bolt pistol, Frag & Krak Grenades, Disc of Tzeentch
  Psychic powers: Time Flux, Twist of Fate, Presage
  Command: Dilettante - Hourglass of Manat
  Warlord: Immaterial Echo
  Relic: Athenaean Scrolls
• Phyroc Optera - Infernal Master HQ
  Force Stave, Inferno bolt pistol, Frag & Krak Grenades
  Psychic powers: Time Flux, Weaver of Fates
  Relic: Umbralefic Crystal
  Infernal Pacts: Malefic Maelstrom, Glimpse of Eternity
• 5 x Rubric Marines (Troop)
  Force Stave, Inferno bolt pistol, 3 x Inferno Boltgun, 1 x Soulreaper Cannon
  Psychic powers: Time Flux, Weaver of Fates
• 5 x Rubric Marines (Troop)
  Force Stave, Inferno bolt pistol, 3 x Inferno Boltgun, 1 x Soulreaper Cannon
  Psychic powers: Time Flux, Glamour of Tzeentch
• 5 x Rubric Marines (Troop)
  Force Stave, Inferno bolt pistol, 4 x Inferno Boltgun
  Psychic powers: Time Flux, Cacodaemonic Curse
• 5 x Rubric Marines (Troop)
  Force Stave, Inferno bolt pistol, 4 x Inferno Boltgun
  Psychic powers: Time Flux, Cacodaemonic Curse
• 5 x Rubric Marines (Troop)
  Force Stave, Inferno bolt pistol, 4 x Warpflamer
  Psychic powers: Time Flux, Pyric Flux
• 5 x Rubric Marines (Troop)
  Force Stave, Inferno bolt pistol, 4 x Warpflamer
  Psychic powers: Time Flux, Pyric Flux
• 10 x Scarab Occult Terminators (Elite)
  Force Stave, 8 x Inferno Combi-Bolter, 9 x Prosperine Khopesh, 2 x Soulreaper Cannon, 2 x Hellfyre Missile Rack,
  Psychic powers: Time Flux, Empyric Guidance
  Legion: Rites of Coalescence
• Helbrute (Elite)
  Multi-melta, Missile Launcher
• Helbrute (Elite)
  Twin Lascannon, Missile Launcher
• Rhino (Transport)
  Combi-bolter, combi-bolter
• Rhino (Transport)
  Combi-bolter, combi-bolter

Points: 1998 | Level: 102 | Battle-forged + Battalion - Sorcerous Arcana: 11 CPs

Death Guard - The Second Law

This is my first time playing Death Guard with the new codex (it's no longer all that new really!), but like Stylus, I've been thinking about this for a while. I know that the Thousand Sons secondaries are pretty good and the Death Guard ones not as useful, so I've decided to take a bit of a risk and build a killy list to engage and occupy the primary objectives. My feeling is that the new T-Sons are a lot more suited to beating Death Guard than before their 9th ed codices came out (lots of mortal wounds to get round the new Disgustingly Resilient, AP-2 bolters across the board to chew through my 3+ saves, All Is Dust rule to make my bolters practically useless). This means that all things being equal (which they never are of course), the Death Guard will need to actively work to get a win. In order to do this I absolutely have to win on primaries, which means that I cannot afford to let Stylus sit on more than one primary objective for the first few turns.

Last time these two armies faced each other I was able to use a screen of Furies and Poxwalkers to screen out smites; with daemonic allies out in 9th, I decided to lean into the Poxwalker angle (who at least still have a 6+ FNP). The core of my army is therefore three units of 19 Poxwalkers (it would have been 20 but...points), and I'm going with the Harbingers Plague Company in order to access the Wrathful Dead stratagem to reroll their hits in combat which, coupled with the Mutant Strain strat to cause mortal wounds on a 6, means I can expect to be causing around eleven mortal wounds in combat - Stylus will have to deal with this shambling horde.

Two units of seven Plague Marines and a (newly converted) unit of Deathshroud are needed to allow me to field three units of PWs. One of the Marine squads will ride in a Rhino along with Kelvin (Foul Blightspawn), sporting the standard upgrades of Viscous Death (+1 S to the Plague Sprayer and reroll the number of auto-hits) and the Revolting Stenchvats relic (doubling up the fight last effect) and my Warlord Maxwell (Biologus Putrifier) who buffs Blight Grenades and, as normal, has the Arch-Contaminator trait to allow rerolls to wound in combat and short-ranged shooting.

Other characters are Carnot (Tallyman), Boltzmann (Malignant Plaguecaster) and Maxwell's Daemon (a wingless Daemon Prince). I spend a couple of CPs on the latter to make him Revoltingly Resilient (the old 5+++) and give him the potentially amazing Plague Skull of Glothila relic (which has the potential to kick out a lot of mortal wounds).

I add a unit of five Spawn to act as more Smite screen, along with a solitary Spawn and a unit of Cultists to block deep strike and sit on backfield objectives. 

Last, but not least, is a trio of daemon engines: two Plagueburst Crawlers and a Fleshmower-equipped Bloatdrone. 

I'm aware that the list isn't all that mobile; I'm planning to crawl into the midfield and sit on more objectives than Stylus for as long as possible. The killiness of my list means that I should be able to deal with anything that gets within combat range to contest the objectives (though I know that large blob of Scarab Terminators will be an official nightmare to deal with). Knowing Stylus well, he'll fully appreciate that the best way to deal with this is to keep me at arms' length but he'll have to play it carefully otherwise I'll stop him accruing primary points. All I have to do is survive long enough to rack up far more primary points than he can overcome with his secondaries. Not being killed is meant to be a Death Guard speciality, so this should be easy, right?

Battalion Detachment - The Harbingers

• Maxwell's Daemon - Death Guard Daemon Prince (HQ)
  Hellforged sword, Malefic talons
  Plaguechosen: Revoltingly Resilient
  Psychic powers: Curse of the Leper
  Relic: Plague Skull of Glothila
• Boltzmann - Malignant Plaguecaster (HQ)
  Corrupted staff, Blight grenades, Krak grenades
  Psychic powers: Miasma of Pestilence, Putrescent Vitality
• 7 x Plague Marines (Troops)
  Power fist, 3 x Boltguns, 2 x Plague Knives, Bubotic Axe, Flail of Corruption, Blight Launcher
• 7 x Plague Marines (Troops)
  Daemonic plague blade, 4 x Boltguns, 2 x Plague Knives, Flail of Corruption, Blight Launcher
  Command: Champion of Disease
• 19 x Poxwalkers (Troops)
  Improvised weapon
• 19 x Poxwalkers (Troops)
  Improvised weapon
• 19 x Poxwalkers (Troops)
  Improvised weapon
• 10 x Death Guard Cultists (Troops)
  Autogun
• Maxwell - Biologus Putrifier (Elite)(Warlord)
  Hyper blight grenades, Injector pistol, Krak grenades, Plague knife
  Warlord: Arch-Contaminator
• Kelvin - Foul Blightspawn (Elite)
  Plague sprayer, Blight grenades, Krak grenades, Unholy death's head grenade
  Command: Viscous Death
  Relic: Revolting Stench-vats
• Carnot - Tallyman  (Elite)
  Blight grenades, Krak grenades, Plasma pistol
  
• 3 x Deathshroud Terminators (Elite)
  Manreaper, Plaguespurt gauntlets
  Command: Reaper of Glorious Entropy
• 5 x Chaos Spawn (Fast)
  Hideous mutations
• 1 x Chaos Spawn (Fast)
  Hideous mutations
• Foetid Bloat-drone (Fast)
  Fleshmower, Plague probe
• Plagueburst Crawler (Heavy)
  2 x Entropy cannon, Heavy slugger, Plagueburst Mortar
• Plagueburst Crawler (Heavy)
  2 x Entropy cannon, Heavy slugger, Plagueburst Mortar
• Rhino (Transport)
  Combi-bolter

Points: 2,000 | 109PL | Battle-forged + Battalion - Gifts of Decay - Plaguechosen - Champion of Disease (2): 8 CPs

Mission and Deployment

We're playing the Priority Target from the Grand Tournament 2021 pack. Five objectives (one central, and four other ones that we dice off to move) and we start in opposite short ends.

Thousand Sons Secondaries

• Priority Targets - the mission secondary: 3VP for holding an objective of your choosing at the end of your turn
• Wrath of Magnus - 3VP per turn if more enemies than friends are killed in the psychic phase
• Retrieve Octarius Data - up to 12VP if I complete an action in all four quadrants

Death Guard Secondaries

• Priority Targets - the mission secondary: 3VP for holding an objective of your choosing at the end of your turn
• To The Last - 5VP if each of the Plagueburst Crawlers and the largest squad of Plague Marines survive the battle
• Stranglehold - 3VP for holding three objectives at the end of the turn.

On my right I have a naturally refused flank (Kraken would be so pleased), where I stick one unit of Poxwalkers, the Cultists and the solitary Spawn. Their job is to sit tight, screen and hold onto the objective here, which is my Priority Target, so will give me plenty of VPs for keeping it.

The centre is another unit of Poxwalkers, the Daemon Prince, Tallyman, Plaguecaster, Deathshroud and Plague Marines. Their job is fun: they have to walk into the T-Sons guns and contest the central objective. They're backed up by the two Plagueburst Crawlers; I don't even try to start these two in cover (I'm not thinking straight here - they could easily have started behind buildings and moved) but I'm so confident that they're practically indestructible that I think Stylus won't even bother shooting at them.

On my left I'm going to make a fairly strong push for Stylus's righthand objective. Taking this will mean that he should be limited to only 5VPs for primaries for a while (I cannot let him sit on two objectives and accrue 10VPs a turn). This will be achieved by the last unit of Poxwalkers, the Rhino fully of Marines, the Bloatdrone and the five Spawn.

For Thousand Sons, I set up with the expectation that I wouldn't get the first turn (those Plagueburst Crawlers worry me), so most of the army was screened, hidden, or off the board. The plan is to hold off engaging with the Death Guard for as long as possible - I'd much rather deal with them at a distance.

The Scarab Occult Terminators went into the craters, with Ahriman and the Exalted Sorcerer behind them. The two Helbrutes were further behind them (the lascannon one all the way behind a reactor). further back still, the Infernal Master and one squad of Rubrics camped in the ruins around my Priority Objective.

Both Rhinos went into the far corner of my diagonal deployment, each carrying two squads of Rubrics (one bolter, one flamer apeice). A final squad of Rubrics went into the strategic reserve and that was all I had!

We rolled for first turn, and I won (although since I was hoping to go second, I didn't celebrate that wildly).

Thousand Sons - Turn 1

Going first is already causing me problems. First off all, my chances of Smiting anything are slim, so I'm already losing 3VP from Wrath of Magnus. But what's really preying on my mind is only having one objective secured. I'm expecting the Death Guard to swarm the field, and giving up primary points this early doesn't sit well. 

So I make the slightly reckless decision of racing forward with the Rhinos - I'm not sure what I was looking to achieve here, since they weren't going to out-score anything with Objective Secured. I think I was planning to use them as move-blockers but - as you can see - the second Rhino fluffed its advance roll and left the first Rhino horribly exposed.

On a happier note, my central shenanigans were going much better. With their weapons already boosted by the Infernal Master's Malefic Maelstrom, the Scarab Occult Terminators also received the benefit of Presage to guarantee their hits, and Empyric Guidance and Temporal Surge to get them into effective range (also Weaver of Fates to protect them from return fire).

After a few ranging shots with the Helbrutes' missiles and Lascannons, I directed everything at the Plagueburst Crawler, adding Wrath of the Wronged for extra overkill. To everyone's surprise, the daemon engine was destroyed with bolter shots to spare! Engine kill!

What!? What just happened?! More than anything, it was the fact that there were so many shots to spare that scared me! 

The only other point of note was that I had disembarked a squad from the lead Rhino (they're no fools) and hidden them in the ruins to Retrieve Octarius Data for me.

Objectives: Priority Targets (3), Retrieve Octarius Data-1 (0)

Thousand Sons 3 : 0 Death Guard

Death Guard  - Turn 1

One of the advantages of going second is that I should be able to gain movement by charging that Rhino. The Spawn and Poxwalkers move forwards accordingly, backed by the Rhino and FBD, who will be ready to help next turn.

My right flank starts to spread out a bit, anticipating potential arrivals from reserves (or a crystal-based teleport). I'm hoping that I can entirely screen this table quarter, preventing Stylus from scoring a full complement of Retrieve Octarius Data.

In the centre, everyone advances forwards as far and fast as they can (which is slightly limited by the pipes). The remaining PBC takes aim at the Lascannon Helbrute, but only manages to land one hit with its Entropy Cannon. That's not going to be enough!

The Spawn and Poxwalkers get a good enough charge to be able to wrap the transport entirely - hopefully I'll crack the tank and not all the occupants will be able to get out.

Unfortunately, the Spawn whiff their attacks (generating can-opener tentacles which are useless against the Rhino's 5++); I still decide to save a CP by only spending one CP on the Poxwalkers for Mutant Strain, as destroying the Rhino in Stylus's combat phase wouldn't be all bad, and therefore am not surprised when my dice let me down and the Rhino is still alive (that's the trouble with mortal wounds on 6s - it's very swingy). 

I end the turn in a reasonable position. I wasn't expecting to cause much damage this turn, it's all about setting myself up to do so next turn. But first I have to weather another storm of fire...

Objectives: Priority Targets (3), Stranglehold (3)

Thousand Sons 3 : 6 Death Guard

Thousand Sons - Turn 2

After a very spendthrift first round, I was already running dangerously low on Command Points (while Pootle was stacking his up, thanks to the Tallyman), and I definitely needed to keep at least 1CP for Emergency Disembarkation, since I guessed the Rhino wasn't holding up for another round.

Nonetheless, I had to immediately use the Malignant Pact stratagem to reverse the failure of my Malefic Maelstrom pact on the Scarab Occult Terminators (at the cost of a wound to the nearby Rubrics - they'll never miss it). The Terminators then received all their usual buffs courtesy of Ahriman and the Exalted Sorcerer.

This time, however, there were Smites to spare - especially after I disembarked both Rubric squads from the unengaged Rhino, to lend their psychic might (and screen off this advance from coming into the side of my Terminator castle).

All the Smites (and various other mortal wound powers) hit the Spawn, and the smite-screen did its job - only three Chaos Spawn were killed (although that was enough to bag me Wrath of Magnus - marked below for simplicity - though we couldn't be sure I'd scored it until the end of the Death Guard turn).

That carved out just enough of a hole for the Rubric squad to conduct an Emergency Disembarkation when the Rhino was inevitably destroyed in the Combat Phase.

Meanwhile, my Helbrutes had moved to get sights on the Death Guard Rhino, but their combined efforts still left it on a couple of wounds. Step forward Scarab Occult Terminators, who destroyed the Rhino with their Hellfyre missiles, and then gunned down the second Plagueburst Crawler with their small-arms fire (these guys are effective!)

Pootle thought long and hard about which direction to disembark his Plague Marines, but the point proved moot when he rolled four 1s and lost over half his squad (which was also the last of his three 'To The Last' units!).

No charges for me, but a very productive turn. I was still desperately behind on Primary Points, and not in shape to get much better, but the unit behind the Priority Objective had started to Retrieve Octarius Data

Objectives: Primary (5), Priority Targets (3), Retrieve Octarius Data-2 (4), Wrath of Magnus (3)

Thousand Sons 18 : 6 Death Guard

Death Guard  - Turn 2

I start with the full complement of 15VPs for primaries. As I'd feared, Stylus has hung back in the centre, so I pile everyone forwards to occupy the centre - I've now lost my ability to hold my own left-hand objective so I think that I have to go all-in for the centre as I need to keep Stylus on only one objective.

On my right, I carefully position the Poxwalkers and Spawn so that there's nowhere for Stylus to bring reserves on and immediately RoD (he has to be more than 6" away from another table quarter). 

On my left, the Foul Blightspawn hoses the Rubrics with filth, killing most of them and the surviving pair of Spawn charge into the remnants (I want these two in front to absorb the inevitable Smites next turn), killing them with relative ease.

The FBD, Biologus, Poxwalkers and surviving Plague Marines huddle behind the building, ready for a counterstrike next turn.

Objectives: Primary (15), Priority Targets (3), Stranglehold (3)

Thousand Sons 18 : 27 Death Guard

Thousand Sons - Turn 3

Pay attention to this turn - it's about to get all Thousand Sons-y...

If this was a straightforward battle, I'd be feeling very happy right now. But I have a dreadful premonition that I could massacre the Death Guard and end up losing out on the points. At the start of every Command Phase, Pootle and I were poring over the scoresheet, trying to work out how the final scores might play out and what needed to happen. There was a lot of thinking in this game. 

We calculated that even now, if Stylus didn't do something drastic he'd lose - he absolutely needed to score all his secondaries and get me off the objective on his right flank.

I couldn't let up on my secondary objectives, which were going well for me. Pootle had screened the table quarter with his Priority Objective too well for me to just drop in and Retrieve Octarius Data, so I’d have to footslog in there. However, with both Plagueburst Crawlers gone, along with the more mobile elements, I had a bit more liberty to scatter troops around the battlefield.

So after putting Malefic Maelstrom pact on the Scarab Occult Terminators, my Infernal Master used the Umbraelific Crystal to send the nearby Rubric Marines over to the far edge of the table (they were too close to the edge to Retrieve Octarius Data, but could walk there next turn). 

This left my Infernal Master to hold the Priority Objective by himself, but placed out of sight and with no more indirect fire coming at me, I felt comfortable doing so.

The sixth and final unit of Rubrics that I had placed in strategic reserve appeared in the third quarter of the table, where they could immediately Retrieve Octarius Data (and race onto another objective next turn).

The Scarab Occult Terminators (buffed as always) manoeuvred for more shots at arms-length down the centre of the field, while the other squads of Rubrics lined up the Poxwalkers. One warpflamer squad advanced as close to the objective as possible, and with Ahriman close behind, used Temporal Surge to get within range of it. 

There was still a full unit of Poxwalker contesting it, but with every mortal wound and boltgun round at my disposal, they were effectively mopped up. I even had shots to spare from the warpflamer squad (boosted by Pyric Flux) to hose down the three remaining Plague Marines, removing the final To The Last unit from Pootle.

The only other action of note on this flank was the Rhino making a sacrificial charge to stop the Foetid Bloat-drone from heroically intervening into my objective-holding Rubrics with the Dark Cravings stratagem (and very sporting of Pootle to warn me that he could do that).

In combat, the FBD unfortunately didn't manage to kill the Rhino (it took 8 wounds off), which meant that it would be tied up next turn and wouldn't be able to engage with Stylus's troops. Potentially very important. However, one important thing that I did was heroically intervene with the Biologus Putrifier into the Rhino. He managed to scratch one wound off with his Plague Knife, leaving it on a solitary wound. This will be important next turn...

Over in the centre, the massacre of the zombies continued, with the Scarab Occult Terminators wiping out the entire mob of Poxwalkers - crucially taking them off the central objective. The Helbrutes then followed up by killing two of the three Deathshroud Terminators.

To add insult to injury, my infiltrating Rubrics started off my Smiting away the Chaos Spawn, then shooting up six of the Chaos Cultists. The remaining four lost heart and all of them ran away (Pootle rolled four 2s - he was having some horrendous luck).

Another turn of big damage output for me - and, as a bonus, the Death Guard now only hold one objective. If my Rubric squad can cling onto their stolen objective, I'll leap ahead in the points.

Objectives: Primary (5), Priority Targets (3), Retrieve Octarius Data-3 (4), Wrath of Magnus (3)

Thousand Sons 33 : 27 Death Guard

Death Guard  - Turn 3

My master plan to win on primaries did rather involve me holding more than one at this point! Those Thousand Sons are turning out to kick out a lot more damage than I'd expected and I've already lost an awful lot of assets. I need a good turn here to turn things around! 

In my command phase, I played the Release the Toxins strat on the Foul Blightspawn, which meant any enemy unit within 7" took a mortal wound on a 2-5 (and D3 on a 6). Crucially, this killed the Rhino (freeing up the FBD to do something useful later) and (not represented on the map above) also took 3 mortal wounds off Ahriman I think.

In the centre, I was at a bit of a loss. Perhaps I should have retreated everyone, but my blood was up and I decided I'd try to charge my DP into the Terminators. Unfortunately I couldn't get close enough to use my lovely relic (oh, what I'd give to be able to access Warptime or equivalent!), and he then failed his charge (even with a reroll) so was left swinging in the gale (more serious than swinging in the wind). 

On my right I decide to swap the Poxwalkers who are currently holding my home objective with the Plague Marines who are in the midfield: the Poxwalkers are now the only unit who can hurt the Terminators (by using the double stratagems) and the Plague Marines are better suited to deal with the Rubrics encroaching on my back lines.

I need to cause as much damage as possible on my left, but, lacking any Troops of my own, absolutely the most important thing is to kill all the Rubrics currently holding the objective to stop Stylus scoring it next turn. I leap the FBD over the top of the Rubrics so that I have a choice of charging them if the Blightspawn fails to hose them down (I'd prefer to charge it into Ahriman and cut him down).

The Blightspawn rolls three hits on the Rubrics. There are five of them, so I decide to reroll this as I really need to kill all five in order to be able to use the FBD elsewhere. Unfortunately I roll a two this time and Stylus saves one of them so there's only one down so far. Then the Bloatdrone tears in (accompanied by both the Biologus and Blightspawn just in case)...

...and saddle up for what happens next, because this turned into a mini-epic!

The Rubrics holding the objective were commanded by 'Little Brap' Apis, a newcomer to The Court of Miracles (and, out of universe, an old lead aspiring sorcerer).

And let's remind ourselves of the stakes here: if I hold this objective, I score 10 VPs on the Primaries and deny the Death Guard 3VPs for Stranglehold. If Pootle takes it from me, I'm back down to 5VPs.

The Fleshmower does its awful work - that D2 blade is a Rubric killer and I'm going to be relying on invulnerable saves. There are four Rubrics left and the Bloat-drone inflicts six wounds.

I only make two of the invulnerable saves and it looks like the squad is facing destruction. But I have one Command Point left - dare I try and get a 5+ to save Little Brap?

I roll a 6! Little Brap lives! The objective is mine! I've never seen Pootle look so crestfallen.

The Biologus Putrifier and Foul Blightspawn punch away, but they're not really tooled for combat and Little Brap survives on a single wound.

Now all I need to do is absolutely nothing of consequence and the points swing heavily in my favour. Swatting the Bloat-drone ineffectively would suffice.

But Little Brap's not about that life. He sees the Biologus Putrifier - the enemy warlord - in front of him and he's going for it.

And he actually does it - he kills the Biologus Putrifier with one blow of his force stave!

Then disaster! Pootle remembers the Eruption of Filth stratagem to cause a mortal wound upon a character's death. The Biologus Putrifier explodes and takes Little Brap with him!

Not like this. Not like this!

And so ends the saga of Little Brap. He burned too brightly and too briefly. More importantly, it allows Pootle to pull ahead on the points and leave me with a single objective once again.

So I achieved what I needed to over here, but crikey, it was hard work!

Objectives: Primary (5), Priority Targets (3), Stranglehold (3)

Thousand Sons 33 : 38 Death Guard

Thousand Sons - Turn 4

For my third turn in a row, I only score 5VPs for the Primary Objectives, but everything else is falling my way, so I can put the hurt onto the Death Guard.

The Umbraelific Crystal Rubric Squad walk into a clear space and Retrieve Octarius Data, bringing me maximum points. The strategic reserve Rubric Squad advance onto the objective in their table quarter.

A barrage of mortal wounds and infernal bolter-fire takes out the Daemon Prince, Bloat-drone and final Deathshroud Terminator.

The Scarab Occult Terminators then let rip upon the final mob of Poxwalkers and, for the first time, fall short. A handful of zombies are left alive (thanks to the dice finally turning in Pootle's favour and a huge amount of Unending Horde saves being made).

Ahriman and the nearby squad of Rubrics then charge into the Biologus Putrifier, giving him a good kicking but leaving him alive (albeit robbed of his objective).

And with that turn, what remains of the Death Guard are looking hemmed in and deprived of scoring options.

Objectives: Primary (5), Priority Targets (3), Retrieve Octarius Data-4 (4), Wrath of Magnus (3)

Thousand Sons 48 : 38 Death Guard

Death Guard  - Turn 4

Unfortunately it's now clear that the wheels have fallen off, but I can try a couple of things to salvage some pride at least. Top of the list is killing Ahriman: because he is in combat with the Foul Blightspawn I realise with some glee that I can play the Diseased Effluents strat to cause D3 mortal wounds on him, which reduces Ahriman to his last wound. This causes 1 mortal wound on my warlord, which is his last one and so kills him, but I can then play Eruption of Filth again to cause one more mortal wound on death, so I at least take Ahriman with me. 

This felt uncomfortably like a "gotcha" play, but I hadn't thought of it until it was my turn and I was looking through stratagem cards, otherwise I would have warned Stylus not to charge in with Ahriman. And it was completely incidental to the result of the game at this point!

I thought it was inspired play. And the 'filth bomb' tactic of a Death Guard character is very narrative. Imagine putting it on a less important one, like the Blightbringer, and racing him into trouble.

The Plaguecaster and Marines head back to my home objective and I try a speculative Smite (denied) and shots onto the Rubrics on my left-hand objective (to no avail). The Tallyman decides to go and count rocks on the far side of the central building from the Scarabs.

Objectives: Primary (5), Priority Targets (3)

Thousand Sons 48 : 46 Death Guard

Thousand Sons - Turn 5

With the battlefield secure in my possession, my final turn is spent mopping up the final Poxwalkers, Plague Marines and Malignant Plaguecaster with mortal wounds and inferno bolt rounds.

My main concern was to ensure I kill enough models to score Wrath of Magnus (I'm running out of fodder), but once the Malignant Plaguecaster is also gunned down, there's no coming back.

All that remains is to tot up my points (I finally maximise Primaries!) and wonder where Ahriman has gotten to?

Objectives: Primary (15), Priority Targets (3), Wrath of Magnus (3)

Thousand Sons 69 : 46 Death Guard

Death Guard - Turn 5

With only my Tallyman on the field (he's a natural survivor) I have to concede!

Objectives: none
Painted - each player: (10)

Thousand Sons 79 : 56 Death Guard

Result: Victory to Thousand Sons!

Locker Room

That was a game worth waiting for. It was an absolute blast to try out a full-tilt competitive game against Pootle - there was some very deep strategising happening between turns, and some totally classic surprise moments (it is, after all, a game of dice).

Absolutely, it was so much fun to spend the day chatting through various potential plays (and remember critical strats at crucial moments!). I really enjoyed the whole game.

I think I had the advantage of more recent experience with my list and the relative luxury of being able to sit back and respond to the Death Guard. But that was at the cost of surrendering board control, which had me very concerned from the outset and resulted in my early mistake of putting my Rhino in trouble. 

It became obvious to me that despite being a confident armchair theorist, I need more experience of actual game play as I kept forgetting stratagems I could use (fortunately Kasfunatu was with us and reminded me of a few key ones - thank you!). But that's to take nothing away from Stylus who, as always, was a very generous opponent - we talked very openly about our tactics and how we should get the best out of our armies.

The Rhino charge was my biggest error of the game. Although in hindsight, I'm very glad I did so, since it turned what should have been a secondary flank into a very entertaining bloodbath. Everything else worked pretty much as planned - the Scarab Occult Terminators proved an absolute nightmare to live with (even if the Daemon Prince had made it in, I don't think it would have changed much), my sorcerers were invaluable buffing units, and having six squads of Rubrics to play with gave me endless redundancy.

Yes, I can't fault the way Stylus played the Terminators - exactly as I'd hoped he wouldn't, which is always the best way! One interesting thing I noticed when putting the maps together for the write-up: the T-Sons turns generated an awful lot of the little stars we use to denote wounds, but in my turns I was hardly putting any on. This was despite apparently picking a "killy" list - I wonder what would have happened if I'd really leaned into the resilience side of things and spent more points on bodies than weapons.

Credit to Pootle: he played a tenacious and well thought-out game that pushed me for victory points all the way until the turning point when the Death Guard just ran out of steam. I think the choice of secondaries may have hurt his chances, and I imagine he'll be placing his Plagueburst Crawlers well out of range next time. Another issue was the lack of mobility, or being able to produce mid-game surprises - having the Deathshroud Terminators in deep strike, for instance, would have made me much more defensive around my Priority Objective.

Thank you. Yes, given that I knew how much damage the Scarabs could cause on the Poxwalkers, I shouldn't have assumed my PBCs were safe. If I'd kept them out of LoS it might have been a different game, though you'd then have been targeting my troops in the midfield sooner: I remain convinced that my best path to victory was to deny you primary points. Similarly it would have been much more sensible to have had the Deathshroud as a threat and forced you to keep something to screen them out and/or deal with them. 

We talked afterwards that I hadn't designed my list around secondary objectives and perhaps there were other options I could have gone for. It was slightly disappointing that I didn't get into combat with most of my more killy elements, but my list was built around the threat of combat as much as combat itself. 

All in all, terrific fun. Hope I don't have to wait as long for the next one!

Absolutely, thank you so much for hosting the game, I had a blast!