h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Mainly because my old sparring partner Asmodai asked for it...

Largely out of a desire to avoid playing the formidable Alaitoc force of our store's Lethal Welshman, I ended up playing Qui-Gon John's Space Wolves (he and I are old adversaries). QGJ took a six-man squad in a razorback, a nine-man squad plus chaplain in a rhino, some wolf scouts (hagh spit!), two speeders of various kinds and a venerable dreadnought with a rather phallic looking plasma cannon.

I had brought along the dear old Death Guard: two seven-man Plague Marine squads, two seven-strong Plaguebearer squads, seven nurgling bases, my converted daemon-dreadnought, and a sorcerer. We ended up playing a Meat Grinder mission with me defending (thank Nurgle). Basically QGJ had a limited amount of time but potentially unlimited troops with which to wipe me out. Always a tough mission for the attacker.

And so it proved, as early on long-range plasma gun fire and the daemon-dread's lascannon knocked out one speeder and the rhino, along with the razorback's big gun. Early combats went very much my way, thanks to the sorcerer's nastily effective Wind of Chaos power (renamed Death Vomit for the occasion). The six-man squad was recycled before I could even assault it and the daemon-dread got stuck into the chaplain and his squad just in time to avoid being ambushed by the scouts (who attacked the plaguebearers instead and got mobbed by virtually my entire army for their trouble).

However it didn't go all my own way as the phallic loyalist dread snuck up on me and handily dismantled the daemon-dread, raising the possibility of it killing the rest of the army singlehanded. I threw some plaguebearers at the chaplain and after losing the remains of a plaguemarine squad to the dread hit it with some Nurglings, simply to slow it down.

By this time QGJ's recycled troops had slogged it over the table again (fortunately transports don't recycle) just in time to get whacked by the other plaguebearers and my sorcerer. Death Vomit killed seven out of nine Blood Claws on a single casting and off they went again.

The nurglings did a brilliant job of holding up the dread, even with my crappy instability rolls, and after the chaplain succumbed to Nurgle's Rot in the shooting phase (who needs weapons?) I was very confident I could hide the two remaining daemons out of shooting range long enough to guarantee a technical win. Happily this low tactic was not required as the game ended after eight turns with the sorcerer and his supporting squad still wholly intact. The sorcerer was definitely man of the match, puking or clobbering well over a dozen Space Wolves to death single-handed. What a guy.

I really should see about finishing off that converted Nurgle predator. Or those Plaguemarine Terminators. One of these days...

*watches thread go straight over head*

Yeh the unbreakable rule is a blessing, its fantasy counterpart has won me a few games. The thing is though, why do people always take chaplains? There alrite, but a librarian with a force weapon just seems a lot better. I had a squad of 5 veterans with terminator honors (with boltguns, 1 melta gun, 1 heavy bolter) and a librarian with a force weapon, all mounted in a rhino. It was mainly used in small games to run through gauntlets of tanks and the like to get at enemy commanders. All the librarian has to do is wound and pass a test, then *poof* dead as a do do on speed.

BTW you can put my swords of chaos thing onto the gw page when you want. I need to spend another 600pts on fantasy chaos stuff at the moment

Unbreakability is the bonus in cult armies - that's the thing with Death Guard, you know they're not going anywhere at T5 and (mostly) unbreakable!

I usually took a chaplain myself when playing marines - mainly because for 70 points you get a character with WS, BS and I of 5, 4 (3 on stat line, +1 for two hand weapons) attacks basic, power weapon and 4+ invulnerable save - and that's before buying any extra wargear! I've seen many armies built around a 'monster' chaplain (any or all of termie honours, bike, jump pack, plasma pistol, master-crafted crozier, arty armor, etc, to create a genuine killing machine).

Never really took a force weapon as it always seemed to me that you had to be lucky to use it - either your opponent would see it coming and just throw grunts in the way, or whatever you were hunting was so big and nasty you had to be lucky to get a wounding attack in on it. (Having said that, I've lost more than one carnifex to a force sword in the past...) The 'new' assault rules make force weapons much more appealing in the right circumstances.

I think the new assault rules were what made me quit. The original 40k was ace. You could shoot the engines off landspeeders, blow the tracks off a leman russ, and have several different psychic powers. But sadly those days are gone, especially with the new box containing nids and marines that are supposedly snap together (like the uruk hai or the old marines)

Im so glad i changed to warhammer fantasy.