Battle Report: Merkan 76th vs. Death Guard 1500pts Implacable Advance

I should be typing up my final paper for the summer, but I'll take a break to churn out a quick batrep.

Tuesday I managed to get a game in with Chris and his Death Guard.  A third party picked a mission for us out of the Battle Missions book (Implacable Advance) and we got ready to go.  The table is divided into three parts, and you deploy from the short edges.  One objective in the middle of each 1/3 of the table, and once you hold an objective it remains yours unless the other guy takes it.  Everyone is also Stubborn, which doesn't matter for the Fearless Plague Marines, and there's no Outflanking though that doesn't matter for our armies which are both pretty straightforward.

I have a bunch of guys with guns and three Russes (two standard, one Eradicator).  Chris brings three squads of plague marines, a dread, a land raider, and a lord and sorcerer.  DG are in the role of "Necrons" for the scenario so they get to go first.

Merkan deployment

Nurgle deployment.

With no real fast elements in this army, my basic plan is to hope I can do enough damage early enough to allow me to stroll some mangled survivors up to the middle objective to take the game.  But taking down a bunch of plague marines and a land raider won't be easy...

Plague Marines - forward!

Chris' plague marines were my first opponent of 5th edition. It felt good to face them again.

That dread's got a funny look in his eye...

The Chaos dread lets loose on the nearby plague marines, but fails to kill any.  Imperial commanders debate on whether or not to shoot at it.

LR moves up and pops smoke while PMs move on middle objective.

"Fire when you see the whites of their pustules!"

Daemons are summoned nearby, while the Land Raider spews forth plague marines, the lord and sorcerer.

"Freeze, all of you!  This laspistol has a hair trigger!"

Denied LOS to the land raider, lascannon and krak missile fire manage to take down the dreadnought instead.

Fire (mostly from the nearby Russ) manages to take out most of the Plague Marine squad on my right.


Most.

The Death Guard casually wipe out the squad in front of them, but in return suffer serious losses, including the Lord who catches a battlecannon round.

Daemons are weakened, but not eliminated.

These guys caught a bad case of Wobbly Model Syndrome.

Whoo-hoo!  Something to shoot that's only T4!











The Chaos Sorcerer turns Plasma Gunner Spc. Jones into a foul Spawn of Chaos. 

"Dang it!  He still owed me ten credits!"

The Land Raider wipes out a missile launcher squad on the mesa.








Now close enough in several areas, the depleted forces of Nurgle launch themselves forward into assault!

CHARGE!

CHARGE!

BLARGLFTHGHRGGG!

CHARGE!

The squad on the lander is wiped out and the spawn chases his former squad away (they'll regroup later) but Stubborn and bad rolls help keep the other combats going.

A battlecannon shot at the spawn hears the prayers to the Emperor and scatters just enough to clip the Chaos Sorcerer (as well as a guardsman and the spawn).  Fail to wound on the spawn and the guardsman, but the sorcerer bites it.

Timely inaccuracy can be the Guard's best friend.

This led to an interesting situation.  Now that the platoon command squad wasn't in combat anymore, could they shoot?  Or was the fact that they were locked at the start of shooting enough to keep them from doing so?  We ended up deciding that they couldn't, but I wonder if there's an official, or at least generally accepted answer either way.

Platoon command charges in on the right, hoping for a lucky power weapon hit.

Lesser Daemon tries for a lucky hit on the Eradicator while plague marines take out the heavy bolter squad and spawn tackles the platoon HQ. 

Lots of whiffing keep this fight going for a while.

Dispatching the spawn and making a note to dock the former and late Spc. Jones' pay, the platoon commander consolidates to protect the objective.

Plague marine on the right chases off one squad, but is still locked in combat.












Backing up and picking up a different squad, the Land Raider moves over towards the Imperial right.  The squad later disembarks and vapes a guard squad.

"Hey!  You can't park that there!"

In turn, they are almost wiped out by Imperial fire.

Almost.








I manage to purge the traitors on the left and start moving towards the middle objective.  The champion on the right finally wipes out his opponents, but too late to do anything else.  Game ends turn five with a 1-1 tie. 

The Merkans hold the line, but just barely.