Guard Blob Vs Black Mace

Weekly batrep today, this game was from Friday, where I played against a Chaos Space Marine player, who we shall call G for now, at 1,800pts.

Before getting into lists and other details important to the game, there is a bit of backstory to this game. It was being played at Steel City Wargaming, the club that I attend in Sheffield, UK. In the last 40k tournament that they ran there, I played G on table 2 in the 2^nd round, playing with my Space Wolves which had just returned from their first proper outing at July's Throne of Skulls. Due to a hefty lack of terrain on this board, and a few dumbass mistakes on my part, G won the game, and this has been a gloating point for him ever since. He then went on to lose on table 1 whilst I was knocked to table 4 where I got a big win meaning that we finished 4^th and 5^th respectively. Therefore, this was a chance to even the score, properly.

I was taking a variation on my GT Finale list, 2 Rune Priests, with one dropping to Power Armour, 2 Lone Wolves, Wolf Guard, 3 packs of Grey Hunters, Drop Pod, 2 Rhinos, Long Fangs, Primaris Psyker, Guard Blob, Manticore.

He was running a DP with Black Mace (uh oh), Sorcerer, some Thousand Sons in Rhino, Nurgle Marines in Rhino, Lascannon Havoc Squad, Predator with lots of shots, Defiler, combat Marines with Rhino, a Heldrake and a Cultist blob.

We were playing the Relic, and there was a bit more terrain on the board this time around. I chose deployment, and took the side with the 2 Bastions in it. But he got the first turn.

The relic itself was on a Skyshield Landing Pad in the middle of the board, which we treated as area terrain. He got the Warlord trait which allowed him to infiltrate 3 INFANTRY units, and deployed the Havocs, Nurgle and assault Marines thusly when he had the chance, with everything else pushing right to the edge of his deployment zone. He made a bit of a mistake here, he put his Rhino and Pred next to each other on the right, and the Daemon Prince and the other Rhino next to each other on the left (the deployment was Hammer and Anvil). This meant that when I fired my Manticore, I'd be hitting 2 units if I hit.

I deployed equally aggressively, this pushed his infiltrators back and prevented him from getting a first turn jump on the relic. The Long Fangs went in the Bastions with Wolf Guard to tank the Heldrake and Defiler hits. The Manticore sat behind the most forward one so that I could fit a Rhino full of Grey Hunters behind the other, with the Guard blob pushing to the very edge of the deployment zone and spreading as much as they could, not just because of the large blasts, but because if the Black Mace got into combat I wanted to lose as few as possible.

Overall however, I wasn't particularly worried about the Black Mace, even with a flying Daemon Prince it was impossible for him to get into combat with me turn 1, meaning that I would get at least 1 turn of shooting at it, which I was confident would be enough to bring it down.

I also got Forewarning as one of my psychic powers on my Warlord, which was excellent.

My opponent deployed his Havocs behind a ruin on the left, getting an alley of fire to my Manticore (who was getting a cover save). The assault CSM went on the Skyshield ready to take the Relic, and the Nurgle Marines on the left with the Thousand Sons. I then seized the initiative, a good start.

I cast up Forewarning on the blob, as well as Prescience on them and the Manticore. The blob moved rightwards towards the Nurgle Marines, being the only target in range and line of sight that I could hope to hurt, the resultant shooting killing only 2. The Long Fangs went after the Daemon Prince, but due to a flurry of 5+ saves on my opponents part only reduced him down to a single wound, denying me First Blood and Slay the Warlord in one go. The Manticore was thus called in, launching a single shot into the Daemon Prince, also attempting to hit the Rhino. It scattered, but still hit the Rhino so I declined the re-roll, penetrated and blew up the Rhino, giving me First Blood. At this point I was feeling confident.

This confidence became comfortable in my opponent's first turn. His Lascannon team fired at my Manticore, and although 2 penetrating hits managed to get through after the Cover Saves, it survived with its gun intact. Secondly, I had pushed my Lone Wolves up as far as I could to make it harder for G to get the Relic off the landing platform lategame, as he was probably going to pick up the Relic, although it was directly in the line of sight of both of my Long Fang packs.

However, because I'd done this, and because my opponent correctly didn't feel that his Daemon Prince couldn't take an entire turn of shooting again, he decided to charge into my leftmost Lone Wolf, I might have been tempted to hide it and go for the Linebreaker point lategame to counteract first blood due to it being flying, but I understand how he didn't want 2-hundred odd points hiding behind a wall, although it would have made for some nice counter assault potential protecting his Havocs.

This was the main reason behind the game becoming comfortable from my perspective, the Daemon Prince made the charge, rolled a 1 for its Daemon Weapon attacks, hit itself in the face, and died, gifting me Slay the Warlord and a 5” consolidation move towards his Havocs setting me up for a guaranteed. turn 2 charge on them.

Additionally in his turn, he just about managed to pick up the relic, due to the infiltration and the height of the Landing Pad obscuring my blob's vision. He also moved up, shot a few Guardsmen and a Long Fang pack leader.

In the next few turns, my Long Fangs shot up his squad with the relic, forcing him to drop it on his way off the Landing Pad, the Grey Hunters which were in the Rhino behind the bastion zoomed forward throughout the game to pick it up turn 4, only to take a lot of shots from a lot of things including Heldrakes, Defilers, etc. The Heldrake also wrecked their Rhino before they got out before it took 3 Krak Missiles to the face turn 5 and died.

The Guard Blob, whose work was done dispatching the Nurgle Marines, Predator and Thousand Sons on the right (which had been left for some Grey Hunters and a Lone Wolf to mop up), used Gate of Infinity to jump onto the relic, they then lost a lot of guys to Defiler fire before (just for giggles) Gating behind the Havocs to finish them off.

The game ended turn 7, with G only having a Defiler with 1 Hull Point left, had he not made the It Will Not Die rolls on 3 out of the 4 attempts it would have been a tabling. No mercy from last time, where he also tried to go for the table, and was a Long Fang pack away from it. To be fair though I didn't have too much left either. I had 2 Long Fang packs, a Rhino, a Drop Pod, a squad of Grey Hunters, a Lone Wolf, a Primaris Psyker, a severely damaged Manticore and a couple of Guardsmen left.

The game ended 6-1, with the 6 being for the Relic, and all 3 secondaries, as the Guard blob survived for linebreaker, so it didn't matter that the Lone Wolf didn't quite get there, and his 1 being for Slay the Warlord, who rolled 2 consecutive ones failing his Look Out Sir and Armour Save from a Defiler shot. Smashing.