Welcome back, Dear Reader, to my ongoing chronicle of misadventures through competitive Warhammer 40,000. It’s been a while since my last update! Last time around I had wrapped up my time at Tacoma, winning the Lieutenant’s Bracket for a 6-2 finish after a mediocre 2-2 start. Since then I spent the majority of my time working on the GHO Narrative but with that now over it’s time to get back to competitive play.

My next competitive stop this year is Warzone Houston, a 6-round major that’s pretty close to my house. That makes it a no brainer on my list of big events to attend, since it doesn’t cause me to lose the same amount of Husband Points (HP) I’d lose from traveling to an out-of-state event. Plus I sleep a lot better when I get to go back to my own bed every night.

Going Back to Death Guard

I’m back on Death Guard, baby! Following the release of the September balance Dataslate I decided – very much prematurely – that Thousand Sons weren’t viable after their nerfs, and that the Death Guard now had some very interesting play. And while I was wrong about Thousand Sons, I’ve been very much enjoying playing Death Guard again, so I’m bringing them to the event.

Over the last month or so I’ve been getting in practice games with my Death Guard where I could and refining the list, while also becoming more familiar with the army and how they play now. I played six games over the last month or so, refining my list and testing different strategies each time, and while the games themselves aren’t worth going into a ton of detail on, it’s worth talking briefly about each and the impact it had on my game/lists.

Game 1: vs. Andrew’s Space Marines

My initial pass at the Death Guard list post-dataslate ran a pair of Helbrutes, taking advantage of their ability to tag enemy units from a distance to improve the AP on my shooting. Generally speaking the added AP boost was a huge benefit against marine targets, where suddenly anemic weapons were very deadly thanks to their ability to put marines on a 5+ save. I also tried running a Land Raider full of Plague Marines at this point for the extra durability, but ultimately I didn’t feel like I had enough bodies and the Land Raider was a bit bulky. The game went well enough, but I wanted more bodies. Plus, I wanted more CP to work with, and that meant adding a Tallyman.

Game 2: vs. Erik’s Dark Angels

After finding Eldar a bit distasteful in 10th edition, Erik has been casting around for a new list, and recently landed on Dark Angels before settling on Tyranids. His list is a very Erik list, designed to be as uninteractive as possible until he chooses to do so – the list runs a Callidus, Phobos Librarian Infiltrator squad, plus a big block of Deathwing Knights in a Land Raider Redeemer. That block is a big issue – the Land Raider is very hard for me to crack and once those terminators hit me in melee, that’s pretty much game over. The big advantage I have is one that I didn’t realize for the game: The Contagion ability worsens your save by 1, it doesn’t add to your AP. This means that a Terminator in cover is still on a 3+ save, and against AP0 guns will only get a 3+. Additionally we weren’t playing with Mortarion’s rule for ignoring AP modifiers or that might have changed things as well as Eric would have been unable to use Armour of Contempt to further protect the unit and the Deathwing Knights’ Damage -1 ability would have been no good. Using those I think this is a much more winnable game.

This time around I’d swapped out the Land Raider for more ground support – five Plague Marines and a Tallyman, though the bigger issue is Erik’s terminators, who can sweep through my board if I’m not careful. On the whole this list looks solid but I’ll make a few more adjustments over the next several games. My big concern this game is that the Terminators were real tough, but Warzone Houston’s rulings can make that largely moot. I need to do a better job protecting Mortarion early, especially when Aggressors rocking Oaths of Moment can just pull him off the table in a single shooting phase.

Game 3: vs. Dan’s Chaos Space Marines

Next up I did a test game against Dan “Swiftblade” Richardson’s Chaos Space Marines. This was a particular matchup of interest to me as prior to the dataslate Chaos Marines could just outshoot and outfight Death Guard and turn it into an unwinnable matchup. Now those tables had turned a bit. Dan’s list was packing two units of Chosen, a unit of possessed, and a pair of Forgefiends.

I underestimated the Possessed and the Forgefiends in this matchup but was still able to pull out a win after Dan overstretched with his Chosen and I was able to take them out. I’m still getting the hang of using the Lord of Virulence, and this game made me start to question using Helbrutes at all – while they’re fun for the first turn, I often found I was only in shooting range with the Entropy Cannons of their targets in the first battle round and after round 1 I’d just be in range of targets with most of my units anyways.

Game 4: vs. Eric’s Adeptus Mechanicus

I had to fly up to New York for business for a week, and while I was there I got in a game against my buddy Eric Chirlin, who’d had the competitive bug bite him after playing at the NoVA Trios event. Eric was running an Atropos with a list using two units of Kataphrons, a unit of Kastelans, a big unit of Electoo-Priests, a Skorpius, a Dunecrawler, three units of Skitarii, plus Cawl and some Pteraxii.

For this matchup I mixed things up a bit, taking stuff that could more easily fit into a small case. In this game I took a trio of War Dog Brigands (models Eric lent to me) and more Plague Marines plus a 10-model blob of Blightlords with Typhus. Because the Skitarii have a 4+/5++ save I tried out playing with the -1 WS/BS contagion. My idea was to use the Dreadnoughts to tag units at a distance and give them -1 BS to prevent them from being able to hit me as hard in shooting. It didn’t work nearly as well as I’d hoped.

This was an interesting game. Brigands are good but not as helpful as I’d have liked, and they were only marginally helpful in taking down the Atropos Knight. The Breachers were the real issue, as I underestimated how nasty their ability to just shoot back in full was. Typhus with Blightlords and -1 WS was incredibly nasty, as watching your opponent only hit back on 6s is pretty funny, but on the whole I think I’d have been better off going with the extra AP since the vehicles, breachers, knight, and Kastelans all had a 3+ save or better.

Game 5: vs. Max’s Genestealer Cults

I popped over to my local GW store to get a game in against my friend Max and the GSC list he’s planning to run for Warzone Houston. This game was a slaughter – turns out PBCs are just really, really good against GSC forces and the reduced number of units for the army makes it much harder for them to adequately spread out, while holding the Nurglings in Deep Strike meant I could easily threaten his blip tokens unless he put them close to one of his units. I tested the -1 WS/BS again in this matchup and I think it was the right call as most of the units I was shooting didn’t have saves worth worrying over and the modifiers would be much more helpful when the Aberrants came crashing in.

Speaking of which, Max got off a solid turn 1 charge with this Aberrants (he went first) but I screened him out of reaching my PBCs with marines and a Fleshmower and he was never able to take out Mortarion thanks to hitting on worse numbers. I’d wipe most of his supporting units pretty early on and use the other bloat-drone and the deep strikers to chase his blips off the table. After this game I decided to pull the Helbrute – he just wasn’t doing as much as I wanted and he wasn’t as good in melee as I needed. I really wanted to get Typhus in the list as his ability to dump out Mortal Wounds is very good so I made the swap there, adding Typhus and three deathshroud, and swapping the 5 Plague Marines for a unit of Poxwalkers. The Tallyman being solo can be an issue but he can hide most of the time and do actions the rest, while the poxwalkers are better at screening and in a pinch can be combined with Typhus against more horde armies if I need a nastier tarpit.

Game 6: vs. Andrew’s Space Marines

One last game the weekend before the event and this time it’s against Andrew’s revised list, running 5 Dreadnoughts – 3 Redemptors and 2 Brutalis. That’s a ton of beef, and would be very hard to tear through… if not for Warzone’s ruling that Mortarion’s aura caused him to ignore damage reduction abilities. As a result, the PBCs can just shell the dreadnoughts with mortars, hitting for 2 damage each time. The biggest challenge in this game were the Aggressors, who early on and even at half strength absolutely melted my 10-man plague marine unit off the table. My dice were abysmal the first two rounds of this game but then things turned around when I blew up the first of Andrew’s dreanoughts – he rolled an explosion for it and did 3 wounds to everything nearby, then the other dreadnought exploded right after, also doing massive damage.

The list worked well this game though I’m still figuring out when and how to deep strike the Deathshroud. The Lord of Virulence usually does want to start on the table and I think deep striking both is a mistake, but it’s good to have the option. Mortarion stayed alive most of the game and caused problems, while the PBCs were constantly pulling wounds off Andrew’s units, save the one Infiltrators unit which had Lone Operative thanks to the Librarian.

The List

After six games and a bunch of tweaks, here’s what I ended up with:

Rob's Warzone Houston List - click to expand

The general idea is to keep the PBCs near enough to Mortarion to keep benefitting from his aura to improve their consistency while rumbling up the board. The Rhino and the Bloat Drones give the list some speed, while the Nurglings and Terminators can teleport in as needed – typically I may start the LoV and his Deathshroud on the table but then Deep Strike Typhus and his and use Rapid Ingress to ensure they can actually charge something. The 10 Plague Marines are more fragile than I’d like but can put out some surprising damage, both in Overwatch – where 5 Torrent Ignores Cover Anti-Infantry guns can make quick work of units – and in melee, where their power fists and ability to fight first can make them a nightmare to charge.

Hobby Progress

The only hitch in this plan was that I had only painted three Deathshroud Terminators, meaning I’d need to paint one more trio before the event. That’s not really an issue – my Death Guard scheme paints up very quickly, even on bigger models like these, and it’s only three models. As I write this, I have two left to paint, and they’re about half done. One of the reasons I keep coming back to Death Guard and Thousand Sons are that I have the entire range more or less painted for each, making it very easy to switch to new lists and try things out, whereas my Chaos Space Marine armies are mired in painted unit choices from three editions ago and need more work to update.

Final Thoughts

Warzone Houston is this weekend and in addition to meeting up with the local Houston crew – the Astros Militarum – I’m hosting Thomas “Goatboy” Reidy this weekend as he makes the trip out. Thomas is a fun guy and a great player and it’s always a blast to have him around. He’s bringing World Eaters and there’s like a 90% chance I’ll end up playing him at the event at some point.

As for the event itself, I’m interested to see how this list fares. The Death Guard seem much, much better but still have some issues and I’m almost certain I don’t have the best list I could be taking with them. I’ll struggle against Eldar I’m sure and against multiple big knights I may be in trouble but ultimately this list is pretty fun to play and took very little hobby effort to make happen so I’m happy to take it before I have to decided whether to go back to Thousand Sons. My goal this weekend is 4-2 but if I can finish 5-1 I’ll be ecstatic.

See you on the other side.

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