I played another game...

...and this time it was Warhammer 40K :) Paid a visit to a local club in a different town to the one I'd tried last week and it was much more up my street. I got a pick up game of 40K (more on that in a minute), there was a Fantasy games running, and 4 guys were playing Dark Heresy. They've even got an Inquisitor tournament coming up so it's looking good. Just got to get more wife permission to go more often, as it's not easy on her if I'm out whilst she's trying to put two little children to bed.

Anyway, the game. I was playing my Nurgle Chaos Space Marines, and as it turned out, so was my opponent. He was pretty new to the game, and I'm pretty rusty so it was a good training game for the both of us. I made a lot of mistakes, and learnt alot.

My list was:
HQ: Morbus the Foul, Daemon Prince of Nurgle, Wings, Mark of Nurgle, Nurgle's Rot
Elites: 5 Chaos Terminators, Mark of Nurgle, Reaper Autocannon, 3 combi-weapons (1 flamer, 2 melta), Lightning Claw, Chain Fist, Power Fist
Troops: Anthrax Squad: 7 Plague Marines, Plague Champion with Power Fist and melta bombs, one Personal Icon, one Flamer, one Meltagun, Rhino with daemonic possession and havoc launcher
Botulism Squad: 7 Plague Marines, Plague Champion with Power Fist, Plasma Pistol and melta bombs, one Personal Icon, one meltagun, one Plasma gun
Canker Squad: 7 Plague Marines, Plague Champion with Power Fist and melta bombs, one Personal Icon, one meltagun, one Plasma gun
Heavy Support: Defiler
Vindicator, daemonic possession

Total 1498, 8 kill points.

My opponents list was (roughly)

Daemon Prince, MoN, wings, Warptime
5 terminators, 2 with lightning claws, 1 heavy flamer
3 PM squads of 7, including a Champion with power fist and 2 plasma guns. Two of the squads were in Rhinos
Land Raider, daemonic possession
Vindicatior, daemonic possession

The mission was seize ground with 3 objectives, with the table quarters deployment.

There was one objective in my quarter, one in his and one roughly in the middle, which was just about in my quarter. I set up first, and sat a PM squad on each of my objectives, supported by the Vindicator. My PM squad in a Rhino, Daemon Prince, and Defiler setup to head towards his objective (my first mistake), and my terminators were in reserve. He set up a PM squad on the objective in his quarter with the Rhino mounted squads supporting them. In the centre, his terminators were in the Land Raider, next to the Vindicator and DP.

The battle was to and fro stuff, and it ran to 7 turns (luckily for me as it turned out). Over on my left, where my DP and Defiler were heading for his objective I ballsed up royally. My Defiler got mashed by his DP on turn two before it did anything, and my Daemon Prince destroyed a Rhino before losing three wounds to shooting and being finished of by PMs in CC. Both a total waste. That flank was saved by the PM squad with some vicious shooting and close combat to take out two of his PM squads with some help from the deep striking terminators. The objective ended up contested when my lone surviving terminator charged the squad holding it and made two invulnerable saves to stay in the combat. Had the game ended on turn 5, he'd have held this objective and won.

In the centre, my Plague Marines in cover were charged by his terminators and it looked like my boys were going to beat them back. However, the enemy Daemon Prince flew over after destroying the Defiler, and mashed the rest of them, and then blew up my Vindicator. That objective ended up with two of his surviving terminators on it, which he'd forgotten couldn't hold an objective as they weren't troops.

The final objective in my quarter was held for most of the game my my last Plague Marine squad. In the final turns of the game the Land Raider and Daemon Prince advanced on that objective to contest it.

So the final result was a draw with no one claiming an objective, but that was more blind luck on my part than tactical cunning.

Lessons Learnt
Daemon Prince: Mine was wasted, his rampaged. My poor target selection meant he destroyed a Rhino (worth 35 points, woo) and then got shot. I should have ignored the Rhino and advanced on the Plague Marines holding the objective if that was going to be my plan. Warptime proved much more useful than Nurgle's Rot in this battle, as NR is more suited to light armoured hordes.
Defiler: Did totally nothing. Lost it's battle cannon on turn 1, then got destroyed by the DP on turn two. It's clear that the Defiler is such a big model, it was difficult to get it into spaces between models.
Terminators: My terminator squad is way, way too expensive. The one with the autocannon is about 90 points on his own. I'm going to think again with these.
The mission: Not thinking, I tried to take all three objectives. What I should have done was defend the two I held at the beginning of the battle, as holding two would have won it for me.
Daemonic Possession: This is badass, and Land Raider with this is tough to stop.


Overall, a really enjoyable game that ended in a draw. I learnt alot from on the practicalities of the game, and my post-game reflection helped to crystallized how I should have played things.