Played my friend and his marines again. He was complaining about a loss of enthusiasm for 40k so I wanted to see what he was fielding these days. I hadn't faced him in awhile so I figured by playing him I'd get a better handle on where he is at in the hobby. With the great 8th edition rule set and the unbelievable selection of cool models and armies available now, my love of 40k is at an all time high right now. His apathy is therefore somewhat puzzling. What I saw during the game was that he hadn't really capitalized on all that 40k has to offer this edition.
Due to a time crunch, we played a bog standard objectives game with Slay the Warlord, First Blood, and Linebreaker. It kind of mirrored my friend's malaise, as it was a traditional scenario that seems a bit tired compared to the fantastic new scenarios in Chapter Approved 2017 & 2018. Even a simple twist such as the points for objectives are counted every turn, is more interesting than a 5th turn tally. It forces players to be aggressive and play more dynamically in every turn of the game.
My friend also declined to try the ITC rule of having all first floors LOS blocking. I enjoy this new rule because it splits firing lanes and puts more pressure on players to deploy well. It also makes close combat more interesting because you can sneak into position with your cc units, biding your time for that ideal strike. It also increases the value of weapons that don't require LOS. Without it, I found the game missing some flavour.
Death Guard/Daemons List
L'armée Death Guard/Daemon
Battalion 1 (DG)
DP - talons
Lord - Combibolter
Pox x20
Pox x12
PMs x5 - Blight Launchers & Plague Sword
Bloat Drones x2 - Spitters
PBC - Spitters & Heavy Slugger
Defiler - Reaper, Scourge, & Combiflamer
Battalion 2 (Daemons)
Spoilpox Scrivener
Poxbringer
30 Plaguebearers - Instrument of Chaos & Icon
2x3 Nurglings
Vanguard (DG)
Lord- Fist & Combiflamer
Tallyman
Foul Blightspawn
Helbrute - lascannon, missile launcher
We deployed lengthwise, and he won the roll off after we put down all the objectives. I finished deploying last so my friend went first. I was facing a big gunline and I wondered what I was going to do against all this armour. There were razorbacks everywhere supported by devastators.
His marines were rerolling everything as per usual with marines. I decided I would just roll as fast as possible right into the gunline and I split my army into two waves. I assumed by turn 3 I would be able to shut it down. That was a lot of turns of weathering a lot of lascannons though so I wasn't too sure what state my army would be in by that point.
First Blood went to my friend as he nailed the defiler right off the bat. That hurt because I needed the anti-armour. I paid him back by eliminating some scouts that were parked a little too close to my PBC. Other than that, nothing much happened first turn.
Though most of my army moved towards the enemy in two large waves, there were a few units that didn't get assigned to my first and second wave. These were Bucky, my Nurglings, some poxwalkers and an extra Lord.
Bucky poked his nose out and tried the fire frenzy strat on the closest razorback. He totally whiffed his rolls and did something like 1 wound on it from the missile launcher. Then he got unceremoniously KOed by lascannon fire the following turn. It really is pathetic how non resilient Helbrutes are in comparison to real daemon engines with an invulnerable and disgustingly resilient save. I've only used him 3 times in 8th though so I'll keep trying to make him earn his keep. I'm having too much fun fielding Bucky again after the travesty he was in 6th and 7th edition.
My opponent also tried to kill my Nurglings with lascannon fire. This worked on two models but those holding the dead central objective brushed off the attacks with their invulnerable saves. After that they were unmolested as my friend grew tired of harassing them.
I had a squad of poxwalkers that parked themselves on the objective in my deployment zone. They did nothing for the game and were wholly ignored, scoring me one objective at the end of the game.
The other straggler was my Lord with Combi-bolter. He was deployed to support Archibald, my defiler, and then had to trek over to the 2nd wave in order to be useful. Most of the game he was just taking a stroll across the battlefield doing nothing much of anything.
My first wave had my usual triumvirate, my DP warlord hiding behind 2 bloat drones.
This was supported by my PBC.
They made short work of the devastator squad in the ruins and my Daemon Prince took on the captain granting them rerolls. It was a quick cc fight in which the captain did himself in with his own ricocheting blows bouncing back on him from the suppurating plate.
A bunch of 5 man squads hopped out of the razorbacks to try to repel the invasion but my spitters did them in with little fuss. Those that survived met an untimely end on the DP's claws.
Turn 2, my plaguebearers dropped in and turn 3, they marched forward, effectively shutting down the gunline as planned.
My 2nd bloat drone got aced during their advance, and I decided to blow it on purpose. It did about equal damage to my opponent as it did to me so not the most effective use of a stratagem.
The plaguebearers did their best to destroy the razorbacks but their plagueswords are really rubbish against armour. It wasn't until my DP, who was juiced up with putrescent vitality, stepped in that the razorbacks finally started to go down. The PBC's mortar helped a bit too.
End of turn 5, my first wave had cleaned out the left side of the board.
Overall, I was surprised at the performance of my Daemon Prince since in the past I haven't had much luck fighting armour. In this game, he was quite effective.
My second wave was less effective. It consisted of my plague marines, poxwalkers, Foul Blightspawn, Tallyman and my powerfist Lord.
The first prerogative of this blob was to secure the objective near the middle of the right hand side of the table. Their 2nd prerogative was to try to kill as much as possible in the tower and try to take the objective way up on top. I knew this was unlikely but kept it as a possibility in the back of my mind.
They took the center objective pretty quickly, installing a beachhead for further attacks into the tower.
The plague marines were tough as nails, now effectively getting a 2+ save with the cover bonus. They weathered round after round of lascannon fire, getting whittled down but holding on to the critical 2 blight launchers for most of the game. They managed to put several wounds on one of the razorbacks.
My friend marched some sternguard out to greet the blob around turn 3, and they blew away the vast majority of my large poxwalker squad. This made me try something desperate. I ran my poxwalkers forward and popped the walking dead strat. Then I put my Foul Blightspawn and Chaos Lord forward so they could use their flamer/auto-hit weapons to make 5 zombies from the imperial dogs. They ended up locked in a close combat with the Sternguards until the final turn when they were finally wiped out.
Unfortunately, my gambit to sprout zombies left both my characters hanging in the breeze.
My friend capitalised on my exposure with a sneaky manoeuvre. To avoid the character targeting rules, he rolled his razorback right in front of my powerfist Lord and made him eat a faceful of lascannon. He tried the same manoeuvre on my Combi-bolter lord as well, but he miraculously made all his invulnerable saves. Then, true to form, my Foul Blightspawn lived up to his nefarious reputation and one-shot the razorback with a few spurts from his awesome spewer. I think I rolled 6 hits at Strength 8.
At this point, his last razorback had 4 wounds left.
My friend then popped out five robed guys who tried to assassinate the Lord again. Again he made his invulnerable saves. My PBC and Bloat Drone had migrated over to this side of the battlefield by turn five and helped to clean out the robed five. The mortar did some work as well finishing off the razorback with the help of the last blight launchers.
After a bloody battle, I held the center objective but failed to shift the dudes hiding in the tower.
Overall, I held 3 objectives, and I had linebreaker and Slay the Warlord. My friend had 1 objective and First Blood, so it was a Death Guard victory.
So for what it's worth, here are my two cents on why my friend is feeling blasé about 40k. As I said at the beginning, his list does not capitalize strongly on some of the most interesting aspects of the current incarnation of the game, these being list diversity, close combat, deep striking and screening/board control. Not exploiting these elements in your games is like going to a buffet and eating unbuttered toast.
List Diversity
The first thing I noticed was the monotone nature of his army. 8th is really about building up synergies between codexes, be it for competitive or fluffy purposes. Whatever your plastic crack dream is, it can be realized now in spades. You want Gaunt's Ghosts backed up by a hulking Titan with inquisition support? You've got it. You want an army that deep strikes, outflanks, flys, farts and does cart wheels? You've got it. It's a beautiful time simply in terms of selection and possible shenanigans.
I started in 5th, and back then, playing Death Guard felt like being a poor and starving child, staring through shop windows at all the wonderful toys and treats other wealthier kids were getting. My options sucked, the limited units available to me sucked at moving, shooting and combat (in other words every aspect of the game), and everything was stupidly overpriced. Playing against Blood Angels and Space Wolves felt like 1st grade again when that nasty fat kid used to sit on my head in the mud and there was nothing I could do about it.
Things got steadily better throughout 6th and 7th as synergy with the demons codex become much more powerful. With shenanigans, I had outflanking plague marines (Hi there Nurgle Huron), Heldrakes providing much needed long range firepower, and Great Unclean Ones sitting as immovably on objectives as that aforementioned fat kid.
Fast forward to 8th and it's night and day though. I've got a brand new Death Guard codex that rolls in like a ton of bricks on my opponents. It's glorious! The options I have to build a competitive but still Fluffy list with Chaos soup is staggering. I can now mix it up between pure DG, Nurgle Daemon, Chaos, Renegades, Renegade Titan, and Forgeworld units. It's never been a better time to play Death Guard. Considered at first to be a slow army, even pure Death Guard can race up the board with Bloat Drones, drop in the toughest terminators in the game, smash face with the nastiest incarnation of the winged Nurgle Daemon Prince ever, and rapidly spread zombie bodies everywhere with a little careful planning.
The current scope of choice shows in my list building as I can never settle on one build. There is just too many cool toys and options to choose from. So it's a bit of a head scratcher to see such a monotone army in this edition. In my friend's list, there were not even any Primaris, not to mention all the fun Imperial Soup units you can take with Space Marines now like Assassins and Knights.
Close Combat
The second thing I noticed was the total lack of cc units in his list. It leaves only one real option against my army, which is castle and hope to shoot down the approaching horde.
Shooting well from a distance is OK, but I've always preferred close combat prefaced by assault weapons. 8th edition has so many improvements for assault. Rotating assault activations forces each player to consider carefully the order in which each unit should attack. Not requiring LOS to declare an assault means terrain is much more important to avoid overwatch. Instead of looking like a lemon with your package in the wind after a failed charge, declaring multicharges can ensure you make it to the fight. Not including dedicated assault units means you are missing a key element that makes 8th edition amazing.
Even a weak assault unit like assault marines equipped with flamers could have roasted my poxwalkers holding my deployment zone objective. As it stood, I got a free objective with no effort.
Deepstriking
Deepstrikers are amazing this edition. Whereas before they were a gambler's unit, now they drop in reliably, and properly equipped can instantly make a mess of your opponent's battle plan. Not including a single deep striker means you are missing out on an opportunity to throw a curve ball your opponent's way as late as turn 3.
Deepstriking terminators could have destroyed those Nurglings holding the central objective, or shot my Demon Prince in the back.
Screening/board control
Hordes rule in 8th for many reasons. They can restrict movement, forcing deepstrikers to land in undesirable parts of the battlefield. They can screw up a flyer's flight path, forcing them to crash. They can also block dedicated assault units from getting to those juicier targets.
If my friend had some chaff units, they could have blocked out my daemon prince and plague bearers. Then the lascannons would have had a few more turns to kill my daemon engines and prince. Instead his gunline was shutdown turn 3.
The Solution?
My first step would be to iron out my Fluff. Half the fun of 40k is imagining the story behind your army.
Then I would pour over the Codices that make the most sense in terms of my Fluff targets. From this I'd come up with a list that has all these aspects covered.
After that it's building and painting. My army has become much more fun to play since I've adopted a much brighter paint scheme, so I'd recommend the same for anybody. Details are easier to see and the photos are much more vibrant. I've seen several yellow marine armies and even without fantastic detailing, they look great because they are so eye catching. Finishing a model is an amazing feeling too. Nothing feels better than deploying a brand new, freshly painted model on the table. Multiply that tenfold if you manage to paint and base the entire army. I have enough painted models now to field a fully painted army. It's really wild.
I hope my friend finds his way back to the fold. Passion can be rekindled with a bit of effort & a shift in one's mindset, and of course maybe a few more models to feed that plastic crack addiction.
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