TheChirurgeon’s Road Through 2024, Part 9: Crusades and GT Testing

Welcome back, Dear Reader, to my ongoing log of personal, hobby, and competitive progress for Warhammer 40,000. Last time around I talked about my trip to England and my time at the Oxford GT. That was, on the whole, a rousing success, ending in a 4-1 result and a trip to Legoland.

This week I’m going with a mixed approach: I’m wrapping up some loose ends with Crusade games I I played right before leaving which are worth remarking on. Then I’ll cover the first of my GT prep games testing new list concepts for the upcoming GW US Open event in Arlington, TX. That said, I’ll be light on coverage of food, so while the narrative and comp sickos will have lots to read, the travelogue/food cohort among you will have to hold for another couple of weeks until I’m back on the road.

Crusadin’ in Parasbine

Let’s start by talking about Kaervek and his Marauders. Again, playing Crusade gives me a great space to play a different army. I don’t like playing CSM competitively as much as I do Death Guard right now and my painted force isn’t anywhere near where it would need to be to play them competitively so at the moment this is the best place for them.

The Parasbine campaign is also an escalation league – we started at 1,000 point games early on, then moved to 1,500 and, recently, 2,000 point games. I’m trying to get in at least one game per cycle, and so I set up a game with Eddie for my first 1,500-point game. Eddie’s an Astra Militarum player in Battle Group Zhukov who I met during the big eight-player game at Asgard about a month ago. His army includes a pair of incredibly nasty Basilisks, one of which has upgraded damage, so it’s firing 3-damage shells. We play a game at my place with the mission Oppressive Dread from Pariah Nexus.

Now that we’re in 1,500-point territory, Kaervek is making a personal appearance on the battlefields of Parasbine, accompanied by his loyal retinue of elite chosen in Terminator Armour. They typically travel in Kaervek’s Chariot, a Land Raider of some repute. Kaervek and his retinue have the mark of Chaos Undivided, so I add a new Land Raider to the order of battle for them to ride around in.

Game 1: vs. Eddie’s Astra Militarum

One of the things I love about Narrative games is the ability to go more nuts with table layouts and terrain, so I set this one up like a city downtown.

I needed to fill out my roster quick so I added a trio of Helbrutes just to eat up some points. I’d end up liking them a lot more than I expected to, as their ability to let me double up on lethal hits and sustained is really nifty. My big concern this game was the pair of Basilisks, and so I put my Berzerkers in a Rhino, the Terminators in a Land Raider, and the rest of my Infantry into Strategic Reserves.

Eddie’s initial barrage wasn’t as bad as I expected, in part because I could use Dark Obscuration to protect my Forgefiend. He dropped a hurting on my Helbrute and blew up my Rhino while I was working my way across the table but ultimately I was able to outflank him with the Land Raider and handle the Basilisks before they could do too much damage. And while Gaunt’s Ghosts are nasty, they melt pretty quick when being hit by five warpflamers.

Things more or less go to plan here – the Berzerkers mostly get wiped out but the Forgefiend is easy to protect and the Land Raider slips by unmolested while outflanking Noise marines, Plague Marines, and Rubrics keep Eddie’s units occupied around the sides of the table. The Land Raider and Noise Marines are able to handle both Basilisks while the Forgefiend handles the Taurox and one of the Tank Commanders. Eddie can put out some damage, but his army can’t really skirmish at midtable for objectives, and that’s his downfall here.

It’s a fun game and I manage to pull ahead on points in the final two turns as the Terminators hold on to that objective in the cathedral. Eddie was a blast to play and after the game his other basilisk leveled up, getting a weapon enhancement for +1 damage and Precision. Good lord.

Game 2: vs. Andrew’s Chaos Space Marines

There are two competing Chaos forces on Parasbine – the Shattered Cabal and the Seekers of The Profane. Among the Seekers are Andrew’s Traitor Sons of Ash, the Chaos Space Marines army he started. He comes over the next day after Eddie and we slam hams in my first 2,000-point game of the campaign when we host a small party at the house. I go with another city layout, but mix things up a bit. We also change up the mission this time around, playing Outflank from Pariah Nexus.

OK so two things to note about this game: First, Andrew is playing with a Greater Brass Scorpion, which is a pretty big handicap. Second, Bryce was hanging out for this game and insisted on helping me with his newly-painted Space Marines. So I opted to play down a couple hundred points and include a unit of assault intercessors with an attached terminator captain. Then Bryce promptly put them on the third floor of the ruin, telling me “they’d come down and help when I needed it,” basically putting me down 200 points. Given the Brass Scorpion is about 200 points overcosted, I’d say that puts Andrew and I on even footing.

Andrew went first in this game, and got to show me firsthand just how bad the Brass Scorpion is by not shooting anything. I then spent the next two turns attempting to kill it with the Land Raider and Helbrute, and here’s where +1 to hit on the Helbrute (from the Warpsmith) and double pact effects really come in handy – between the Helbrute and the Land Raider I’m able to get most of the wounds off the thing, though I roll a couple of bad 1s for damage that necessitate getting in there with my Terminators to do the final wounds.

In the middle of the table the Berzerkers really show off how inept they are without pacts by taking four whole rounds to kill a unit of Legionaries, and around the south side of the table Andrew drops his brick of ten Terminators to stop my advance, but the Forgefiend is more than capable of dealing with them. Again, double pacts is a lot of fun on a Forgefiend here. This is a game where despite going first Andrew’s never really on the offensive – he presses to midtable and then gets stopped dead, while I’m able to press through his forces, especially after the Scorpion dies.

I pick up some good XP after the game is over and upgrade a few more units. This was before the points update, so since that game the drop in point costs for Berzerkers and Helbrutes has really worked in my favor, giving me an extra 50 or so points to work with. After adding in my latest updates, the force is looking pretty good. My Helbrute which put the final killing blows on the Scorpion leveled up and was marked for greatness, so I give him a weapon upgrade and his Twin Lascannon gets +1 AP and +1 BS. Kaervek himself gives his unit Stealth now, while his Terminators have GRENADES, which is kind of neat. I haven’t had the best upgrades luck, but they’re getting there and I like figuring out ways to use the dumb skills I get.

It’s been a bit since my last Crusade game, but my plan is to try and get one more in before Dallas. At this point we’re running into that period of “late-campaign fatigue” that’s pretty common after games get to the 2,000 point level and take longer, and we’re working through how to manage some of that, possibly by consolidating teams.

Dallas GT Prep: vs. Greg’s Imperial Knights

Playing against Daemons and triple Castigators at Oxford really showed me the gaps in my current Death Guard list. Specifically that I’ve got a problem dealing with larger targets, vehicles and creatures. While the recent drop in costs for the Helbrute are interesting, they aren’t really what I’m looking for. The big thing I think my list can drop – aside from the tallyman – are the Deathshrouds and Lord of Virulence. While they’re very good against heavy infantry, they often arrive too late to do much and unlike Typhus’ crew, lack the ability to hit harder targets at range. I think dropping down to one deep striking unit is fine. Meanwhile, I can improve my mobility and output against vehicles by swapping them out for a pair of Myphitic Blight-Haulers. The other change I made is breaking the second unit of 10 Plague Marines into 2×5. This gives me more versatility and better coverage as I can drop one unit out of a rhino and then move forward with the other.

Here’s what the new list looks like:

My test list - click to expand

The Mission: Crucible of Battle – Chilling Rain – Priority Targets

Greg’s (no relation to our sitemaster or Klobasnek) a regular at the local Warhammer store, and he’s up for running a test game against me with his Imperial Knights. That’s pretty much perfect for me as a test case here – I want to see how the list fares against bigger targets, after all. We’re both on Tactical (is that a mistake?), and I win the first-turn roll-off. I keep both units of Nurglings in deep strike reserves. I opt for -1 saves as my contagion.

Greg’s army has a Cerastus Lancer, a Preceptor, a Crusader, and four Armigers – two Helverins and two Warglaives. My biggest priority is trying to take down the Lancer, who moves faster than I thought with a 14″ move on turn 1. I draw Tempting Target and Capture Enemy Outpost, which are both dead draws I’ll huck for the extra CP. I press foward and get off a couple of shots with mortars and one MBH, but it doesn’t amount to much. I position what I think is a good distance away from the Lancer, but then realize I’m too close. Greg’s dice come through however as he fails the charge roll turn 1, giving me a chance to pop off a ton of shooting. That said, he also pulled Area Denial and Extend Battle Lines, giving him an 8-0 advantage turn 1.

Time to go all out. I draw Bring it Down and Assassination – truly a cursed pair. I put all three PBCs on the Lancer along with one MBH (the other died to Greg’s shooting the prior turn), as well as Mortarion, then I prep for a charge. I mostly whiff my shooting and then charge in with Mortarion and with everything in there I come up short – Greg’s Lancer lives with a single wound, the strikes back and drops Mortarion to 2. Those 8-damage shots hurt! I keep my secondaries.

My break happens on the next turn – Greg can’t afford to let me swing first so he falls back with the Lancer. I Overwatch with the PBC, dropping everything I have into it. And I manage to land a single wound with the mortar, which goes through for two damage, of which Greg only shrugs off 1. The Lancer goes down and I snag 11 for secondaries.

From here the game breaks open. Greg Draws Deploy Homers and Overwhelming Force, but I have nothing on objectives he can crack. He’ll kill Mortarion, but has nothing on the middle of the table and blanks secondaries, discarding Homers for CP. That’s a brutal turn of events, and from there it falls apart. I drop in Typhus and co and use them to kill one of Greg’s Armigers, while at the bottom of the table I’m able to combine the MBH and PBC with some grenades to eventually kill the Preceptor and I start collecting a lead on primary.

Greg puts up a solid fight but just doesn’t have the resources on rounds 4 or 5 to mount a comeback, and dropping primary points in rounds 3-4 really hurts him. Greg’s a fun guy to play against and he teaches me a couple of things I wasn’t aware of during the game and it’s a good test for how I’d deal with a knights army. I’m honestly not sure if -1 saves was the play here – I *think* it was, but I question whether -1 to WS/BS might have been more useful with the number of invulnerable saves I was up against when it came to my heavier shooting attacks.

Lessons Learned

• 2×5 Plague Marines felt pretty good. I liked having each one supported by a character, and it just felt better to be able to split them among targets.
• Jury’s Still Out on the Blight-Haulers. I like their speed and durability but they didn’t do as much as I’d have hoped this game, mostly because I only got a single decent damage roll out of three rounds of shooting. Still, I liked having them and they did more than the LoV + Deathshroud would have done.
• Mortarion is not great into knights. I already knew that but I got pretty lucky with his melee into the Lancer. Granted, it balanced some bad luck with my shooting but it’s not something I can rely on in future games as a tactic. It paid off as a hail mary here, though.

What’s next? Not sure. I want to try some other configurations, and I’d like to try a second Putrifier, but that’d mean potentially have to drop an MBH for something like a Bloat-drone. That’s not the end of the world, but bloat-drones have pretty much always disappointed me so I’m not sure I want to go that route. I’d also consider a Helbrute + upgrading to a Putrifier, which would leave me with 65 points to work with, enough for a unit of Poxwalkers and an Enhancement. Alternatively, a Helbrute + Spawn is also an option, though again I’m not sure that’s better than two MBHs. There’s a lot I’ll need to test.

Next Time: More Testing

That’s it for this week but check back next Thursday (for reals this time) for my next update, featuring the results of test games I’ll play this weekend. I plan to try a few more things before doing the Asgard RTT the following weekend as prep for the Dallas US Open event in two weeks. At this point I’m pretty happy with the base, so it’s just a question of how I want to allocate those final 245 points.

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