Anyway, his Death Guard list looked something like this:
Lord of Contagion (or was it Virulence?) with an aura that makes my dudes count as not charging
Typhus
Malignant Plaguecaster
Tallyman
2 squads of 5 Plague Marines
10 Blightlord Terminators
2 squads of 3 Deathshroud Terminators
19 Poxwalkers
20 Poxwalkers (I guess it has something to do with points?)
2 squads of 10 Cultists
2 Plagueburst Crawlers
I think that was it, I can't remember. I could be mistaken. Anyway, I decided to replace the Adeptus Mechanicus or Skitarii portion of my Imperial Knight list with Black Templars. My Skitarii were kind of fragile, so I wanted something more durable, and Black Templars had their new codex drop, so I really wanted to play my Black Templars whose models I had lying around for over a year but didn't do anything with. I mean, I started them with the Indomitus box, got all those Terminators (so that they can double as Templar Brethren for Horus Heresy), but I never played them because...well, yeah. Anyway, the new codex supplement gave me an excuse to try them out and they were really fun to play with. So my new list looked something like this:
Imperial Knights super-heavy detachment (Mechanicus, Blessed Arms, Glorified History)
Dominus Knight Castellan with Cold Eradication and Cawl's Wrath
2 Armigers Moirax with graviton pulsars
Black Templars Vanguard Detachment
Marshal in Terminator Armor with relic blade and storm shield, Frontline Commander (yeah, he's a Captain, but Black Templars use Marshal, heh...so I'm sticking to Marshal)
5 Assault Terminators with storm shields and thunder hammers
5 Terminators with storm bolters, power fists, power sword and heavy flamer, and teleport homer
4 Bladeguard Veterans, neo-volkite pistol
Bladeguard Ancient
2 Contemptor Dreadnoughts with multi-melta and fist
Take note, I am not using the Relic Contemptor Dreadnoughts from the Imperial Armor Compendium. I'm using the standard "normal" Contemptor Dreadnoughts from the base Space Marines codex itself. Yes, that means I'm "stuck" with the multi-melta and fist loadout, but seriously, that's what I want. I don't care about the dual volkite culverins Relic Contemptor Dreadnoughts that everyone else is fielding. My Black Templars want to charge and get into combat, so I want the Contemptor Fists! Heh.
Anyway, this was...Retrieval Mission. Yup, so hold one objective, hold two objectives and hold more. There were 6 objectives spread across the map, so it might seem a little hard for a Knight army to get points. Furthermore, my army is a very elite army. I literally had 21 models. Almost the same number of models as my opponent had in one Poxwalker squad, heh. Well, this was going to be a grind, or so I thought. We rolled off, my opponent picked the deployment zone and deployed first. I didn't have many models, especially since I put my Marshal and Assault Terminators in deep strike. I actually wanted to put the normal Terminators (well, they are Tartaros but I play them as normal, like how my Assault Terminators are Cataphractii) in deep strike too, but I needed them on the table to grab objectives. Damn. Fortunately, when we rolled off again, I got first. Oh, nice. I didn't expect that - that was a nice little bonus.
I had my Bladeguard Veterans, Bladeguard Ancient and Terminators run out to grab three objectives and place banners on them, since that was the secondary I took. Then my Knights fired - thanks to the graviton pulsars and a multimelta from my Contemptor Dreadnought, I took out one squad of Plague Marines. The other Armiger Moirax ad Contemptor Dreadnought killed about 4 Blightlord Terminators. My Knight Castellan killed a bunch of Poxwalkers with his siegebreaker cannons, but his volcano lance only did 6 wounds (7, reduced by 1) to a Plagueburst Crawler. Can't remember where the plasma decimator went, probably to the Blightlord Terminators and contributed to killing a couple of the 4. Phew.
The Death Guard moved up, mostly advancing, to grab objectives and put banners. The Plagueburst Crawlers killed maybe one Bladeguard Veteran and did a lot of damage to my Armiger Moirax Knights. One went down to 7 wounds and the other had 2 left (I think). Ouch. Unfortunately, most of his army remained out of range, so they couldn't shoot or charge.
My Contemptor Dreadnoughts continued moving upward and one of them killed a Deathshroud Terminator with his multimelta while the other probably killed one Blightlord Terminator. The Armiger Moriax Knights helped out and maybe killed another two or so Blightlord Terminators (reducing them to three) while the other wiped out the remaining two Deathshroud Terminators. The Terminators didn't do much with their stormbolters, maybe killing a couple of Poxwalkers? The Assault Terminators and Marshal teleported behind the wounded Plagueburst Crawler...only to fail their charge despite rerolls. The Knight Catesllan fired on the other one and did another 6 wounds (7 reduced by 1). I think he also fired on the Blightlord Terminators with his plasma and contributed to the 3 or so killed, I can't remember. Then my Contemptor Dreadnoughts charged into the Poxwalkers and maybe killed 2 or so each. Not a very good roll because I rolled lots of 1s. Ouch. One Contemptor Dreadnought took a wound in return.
My opponent moved the Cultists to block the Assault Terminators and screen the wounded Plagueburst Crawler. Failing that charge was huge. Meanwhile the Poxwalkers wrapped around the Contemptor Dreadnought and the Cultists advanced. The Death Guard psykers failed all of their casts for some reason, which made me feel sorry for my opponent, but it didn't stop there. The Plagueburst Crawlers fired and did almost nothing to my two Armiger Moirax Knights. They missed most of their shots or failed to wound, and when they did wound, I rolled a couple of 6s for the ion shield saves to shrug them off. Holy Terra...
Sorry, Rob. I don't know what to say.
The remaining three Blightlord Terminators charged my Contemptor Dreadnought and did nothing. I think I killed one in combat, I can't remember. On the other side, my Contemptor Dreadnought continued killing a few more Poxwalkers and slowly ground them down, but they failed to do anything to him.
The third turn continued to swing my way. I moved my Bladeguard Veterans up so that they could charge the Poxwalkers, while my Knight Castellan wiped out the Cultists and finally destroyed one Plagueburst Crawler with his volcano lance while bringing the other down to just two wounds with the plasma decimator. The Armiger Moirax Knight killed the surviving Plagueburst Crawler with his graviton pulsars, but the other couldn't fire on anything because he popped the Stratagem on his Plague Marines. Oh, well. On the bright side, my Contemptor Dreadnought killed a single Blightlord Terminator with his multimelta while the other fried 2 Poxwalkers. The Assault Terminators massacred the poor Cultists who were screening the now destroyed Plagueburst Crawler while the Bladeguard Veterans moved up to support the Contemptor Dreadnoughts and helped to kill one Blightlord Terminator with their power swords. The Contemptor Dreadnought then killed the last remaining Blightlord Terminator...which meant my opponent could no longer score To The Last. The Tartaros Terminators charged and helped the Contemptor Dreadnought wipe out all of the Poxwalkers to claim the objective for my side.
Now this was where things got really, really strange.
My opponent had his Poxwalkers fall back and move to snatch the objective from my Armiger Moirax and Bladeguard Ancient, who failed his charge. His Deathshroud Terminators moved up and then charged my Contemptor Dreadnought and my Bladeguard Veterans, but before that, they tried to shoot them with their plagueflamers. The Strength 3 flamers killed one of them because I rolled 3 1s despite having a 2+ save with storm shields. I was like, "oh, okay, they are dead." Then the big plague flamers and other stuff came in and I literally rolled a bunch of 4++ invulnerable saves. The Bladeguard Veterans literally tanked everything - from the big plague flamer and the deathshroud scythes. They just stood there and survived everything. I think I failed a save from one of the scythes, but other than that, yeah. The 2 remaining dudes made almost all but 1 of their 4++ invulnerable saves against the heavy weapon and the scythes and survived.
Needless to say, they and the Contemptor Dreadnought proceeded to beat the hell out of the poor Deathshroud Terminators. Maybe I killed 1 or 2, but I can't remember. On the bright side (for my opponent), Typhus made his charge into my Bladeguard Ancient, killed him, and then consolidated into my Armiger Moirax. Oh, well. After all those saves I made, I can't complain. That was really absurd. Those Bladeguard Veterans are going down as heroes in their Crusade Force.
Sorry, I can't stop laughing at how incredible that was. They really defied all odds (too bad they had no vows, but that would have been so fitting) to survive that amount of attacks.
Anyway, I had my Armiger Moirax fall back, and my Knight Castellan unloaded everything into Typhus, including his Shieldbreaker missiles that did 4 (5 reduced by 1) damage. Good thing Glorified History allowed me to reroll misses, because I rolled a 2. Yikes. But I rerolled and got a 5, and then Typhus got blown up. Even though the Shieldbreaker missile didn't kill him, the volcano lance certainly finished him off. The Contemptor Dreadnought's multimelta killed a Deathshroud Terminator (I think), and maybe the Bladeguard Sergeant's neo-volkite pistol wounded a Terminator, but I think that's about it. Oh, right, I used a Stratagem to make my Contemptor Dreadnought Objective Secured (he has the Core keyword), so I stole the objective from right under the Deathshroud Terminators and Characters' noses. Black Templars ftw! As for the Tartaros Terminators, they planted a banner on the objective they seized from the Poxwalkers, and my Cataphractii Terminator assault squad advanced toward the Plague Marines, moving 10". Woo. I think that's about it, other than my losing a Bladeguard Veteran to scythes (finally), but the Sergeant and the Contemptor Dreadnought finally wiped out the Deathshroud Terminators. The other Armiger Moirax got lucky and wiped out the Poxwalkers with his graviton pulsars, allowing the other Armiger Moirax who fell back from Typhus to claim the objective.
At this point, my opponent almost had nothing left, save his Malignant Plaguecaster, Tallyman, Lord of Virulence/Contagion and 5 Plague Marines who were within charge range of my Assault Cataphractii Terminators. He did smite my Sergeant and killed him with mortal wounds, the Warded 5+++ Feel No Pain against mortal wounds not working (I rolled 2 1s and a 2). Can't complain, he literally tanked the plague flamers and scythes with his 4++ invulnerable saves earlier, so that death was long overdue. Still a hero in my book, that entire Bladeguard squad. But yeah, he couldn't get any objectives other than the one with his Plague Marines and his Characters...so he pretty much conceded. Most likely I would shoot one of his Characters off the board with my Knights, and my Assault Terminators would charge the Plague Marines and kill them with thunder hammers. So...I pretty much maxed out No Prisoners with 12 (he had a total of 127 wounds in his army). Also, other than the first turn, I had Engage on All Fronts for 4 turns, so that was 12 points for that secondary too. I maxed out banners, having 3 in my half of the table and grabbing a 4th in the 4th turn.
In the end, the score was 94-44, victory to the Knights in black! I can't believe it either, I got really lucky with my rolls and my opponent's rolls were...awful, to put it bluntly. He managed to kill like 5 models (all the Bladeguard Veterans and the Ancient). But my Knights survived, the Contemptor Dreadnoughts survived, and so did the Terminators...whoa. That's actually incredible. How did that happen? I think it was the rolls - normally he should have killed my Armiger Moirax Knights with his Plagueburst Crawlers, so I wasn't sure what happened there. Then again, I wasn't able to kill his Plagueburst Crawlers in the first 2 turns with the volcano lance, so there is that...
Anyway, a great final game for Ironhammer! I will keep an eye out and sign up for the next one. Looking forward to trying out Knights and Black Templars. We'll see how it goes!
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