Raven guard battle report and army pics

Hi guys,

Dan and I got together for a game over the weekend and went all out on a 3300 point battle allowing me to field my entire army against his Nurgle army. If memory serves the army was something like this:

Typhus

Nurgle Sorceror

3x 30 zombies

2x 5 plague marines in rhino with meltas

2x 5 plague marines in rhino with plasma

2x blight drones

3x vindicators

3x Obliterators

3x Mutilators

Heldrake

All 4 assassins

Pics of Dan's amazingly creative army can be found HERE and HERE.

My army was divided as follows:

I managed to get everything painted up to tabletop standard prior to the game which was a great landmark, with only rebasing onto 32mm remaining. 

 

Battle report

For the battle report I took a top-down photo every turn and will use brief summaries to try to explain what's going on. 

Setup: Our usual board arranged to represent an industrial area with barricades and wrecked rhinos. We drew maelstrom mission 4, which allowed each of us to score off the opponents objective cards. 

Deployment: Prize if you can spot the floating marbles being used as objective markers. (the glowing penguin has no significance, was just there for fun) Raven guard (bottom) deployed about half their forces with a devastator, tactical and sniper scout squad in the southwest building and the artillery in the southeast. Nurgle deployed in mainly in the northeast quadrant. The two shadowstrike scout squads infiltrated in the northeast ruin, denying the assassins ability to infiltrate. Raven Guard first turn.

Raven Guard 1: Dreadnought drop pods in and roasts a dozen zombies, while down the centre the assault and tactical squads advance. Thunderfires wipe out the middle unit of zombies, Devastators nearly destroy a vindicator. The Shadowstrike vanguard arrive and destroy the eastern vindicator. 3:0

Nurgle 1: The remaining vindicators kill some assault marines, Plasma gunners damage the dreadnought before Typhus charges it and is summarily instant killed. The zombies charge the Vanguard. 4:1

Raven Guard 2: All reserves arrive with Shrikes squad and the scout-escorted tactical squad approaching from the West, Land speeder storm from the East and Storm Eagle in the centre. The storm Eagle destroys a vindicator, while the Chapter Masters assault squad finished the other in melee. I accidentally overlook the Thunderfire cannons. Doh. Combined fire from the Southwest ruin destroys one rhino, while the scouts in the northeast and the Land speeders open up another, allowing the dreadnought to charge the occupants. 6:1

Nurgle 2: Most of the reserves arrive, save for the 2 plague drones. The callidus arrives near the thunderfires, all other assassins in the northwest corner. The obliterators arrive in the East, Shooting down the Storm killing 3 occupants, with the mutilators materialising nearby. The heldrake flies on and roasts Shrikes squad. Zombies butcher scouts in the West with the surviving Sergeant retreating. The Vanguard and Dreadnoughts win their respective combats. 6:2

Raven Guard 3: Unable to attack the Heldrake the Storm Eagle flies off. The Chapter Masters squad engages a squad of plague marines and Sorceror, after the devastators destroy their rhino. Combined fire from the rapiers and tactical squad kills one of the Mutilators. The techmarines and Southeast tactical squad fails to injure the callidus. The Dreadnought and Vanguard slay the Eversor in combat, while the Speeder and Northwest scouts kill the Vindicare. 8:2

Nurgle 3: One of the Blight Drones arrives and destroys the tactical squad near the centre of the board in one volley. The Heldrake roasts some of the rapier crew before the Mutilator charges them and forces them off the board. The Callidus doesn't fare so well, dying to the Techmarines overwatch fire of doom. The Obliterators kill the dreadnought with lascannon fire and the Culexus dies having engaged the Vanguard in melee. On the other side of the battlefield, the last of the zombies charge Shrikes squad, while the Chapter Masters combat continues, joined by more plague marines. The last rhino positions itself out of line of sight of the devastators. 8:3

Raven Guard 4: The Storm Eagle returns and almost kills the Heldrake, destroying its baleflamer. The land speeder grabs an objective . The techmarines kill the Mutilator with plasma fire, while the Vanguard heroically engage the Obliterators. Shrikes squad gains support from the other outflanking marines and kills the last of the zombies, while the Chapter Masters combat continues. 9:3

Nurgle 4: The second Blight Drone arrives, chipping away at the Marines in the West with its twin. The last rhino claims an objective, while the Chapter Master and Chaplain finally win the combat. The Heldrake fails to vector strike the land speeder. The obliterators remain in combat with Vanguard. 9:4

Raven Guard 5: Volume of fire from the Southwest ruin brings down one of the blight drones, while the Storm Eagle finishes the Heldrake. The remaining scouts in the Southeast join the attack on the Obliterators and aiding the remaining Vanguard to victory. The Thunderfires pummel the remaining rhino forcing the passengers to disembark. 12:4

Nurgle 5: The remaining Plague Marines meltagun the Chaplain, while the Chapter Master weathers the fire from the last Blight Drone. 12:4

Raven Guard 6: The Storm Eagle finishes the blight drone while the Thunderfires, land speeder and the remainder of Shrikes wing kill the last of the Plague Marines. 16:4, GAME OVER

After-action thoughts

I felt bad at it being such as crushing defeat for Dan and I feel that by pursuing a fluffy, mono-God Chaos list he does leave himself at a bit of a disadvantage. Things of note I took away from the game, however, were as follows:

• Thunderfires are even more awesome now with the improvements to Techmarines. Devastating Vs most targets and also very hard to take down in melee due to the Techmarines servo-harness weapons for overwatch.
• Heldrakes still scare the shit out of me
• Mixed feelings about swiftstrike and murder – I feel they should have done more than they did.
• Love the sniper scout / devastator spotter combo – very effective at taking out vehicles.
• Storm-Eagle is one of my favourite models and the ROC pattern is badass Vs tanks.
• New Dreadnoughts are so much more effective with the extra 2 attacks.
• The Scout / Vanguard combo worked very well both in terms of denying the deployment of the Assassins and also in allowing me to alpha strike a vindicator. The Vanguard in general did well this game, killing a vindicator, half a squad of zombies, the culexus and also helping kill the Eversor and Obliterators.
• The pre-game re-rolls really helped to take control of the game early on.

That's all folks, hope you enjoyed the batrep. I like the top-down view and will try to do the same format with any interesting batreps in future. Cheers.