Quick Batrep: Thousand Sons Vs. Death Guard (some pics)

[Prot]

Sorry I don't have a ton of time to write out a full report, but I thought this was one of my more interesting games in the past weeks so I thought it was worth mentioning.

I also apologize for small pictures but you should get the idea.

So I'm running Magnus right now, a few tiny squads of Rubrics, my staple of 10 Scarab Occult, a Helbrute, 10 Tzaangors, some Enlightened and a Shaman. Ahriman is in there, and the two cults I use are Time (termies) and Duplicity (Rubrics/Helbrute).

The Deathguard we've been finding are perhaps better off without Mortarion in lots of match ups. So there is no Mort here, but lots of Poxwalkers, dual Plagueburst and dual Foetid mower drones (ouch). Some bigger squads of Plaguemarines, and Deathshroud and Blightlords.

We roll off for Scorched Earth. Thankfully I go first which is huge since I can buff/protect Magnus.

The turn is strong, I use Warptime to go deep in his zone with Magnus and I do kill a drone, but not much else. Magnus is forced to tank a lot.

Magnus from the DG side of the table... he is trying to take down a Drone, and a Foulblightspawn with that brutal flamer.

Magnus saves most flamer hits and managed to kill the character, but that's it.

The Death guard start to see their Right flank (My left flank) falling so they collapse a bit to their left side. This helps me and I'm a bit surprised.

Meanwhile my Right Flank is getting squeezed tight by Bloat Drones and a lot of bodies coming my way.

He has Spread sickness, Engage on all fronts, While We Stand (2 Plagueburst crawlers, and Blightlords). I have Engage, Scramblers, and Thin Their Ranks (he has a very large model count with Poxwalkers).

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

His turn he hits back just as hard. I lose a Helbrute, and a few Termies, and half the Tzaangors, and some Rubrics. Considering his Plagueburst crawlers targeted Magnus (and rolled horridly I might add) that's a lot of Death!

Because the DG have shifted to my Right Flank, I try to save it a bit longer. I used Duplicity (Sorcerous Facade) to save a squad of Rubrics, teleport them to my opponent's left flank homebase Objective (Scramblers) and I use my Daemon Prince with his "relic" sword.... I have to pause here to say I wanted this sort of test for my Daemon Prince because I stopped using them all together. But I thought I would put one back in, and give him the ability to buff himself (Tzeentch Psychic power.. can't remember the name of the random buff power) and the relic sword denies any Invuln save.

It turned out to be as lack luster as I thought. The Daemon prince did make it into CC using his wings, and Ahriman Warp Timed him over.... his charge was successful through the bushes here and then the good ol' D3 damage sword, -1 for Deathguard damage mitigation was horrible. The DP ended up dying soon after.

I kept double shooting the Scarab Occult and bringing one back a turn. This was so incredibly difficult to kill anything. I was putting Prescience on them, and the odd time I could afford the CP I used Vets to try and wound his Plaguemarines.

In most turns I would shoot 36-40 Stormbolter shots, 2x, and kill about 4 Plaguemarines! (the Missile racks would VERY slowly chew away at Foetid bloat drones.)

Here my 10 Scarab Occult Termies are slowly pulling back from the center table towards my left flank which Magnus is still climbing up. He had to stop on an objective to keep scoring Primaries. I did a good job of that with limited movement and units this game.

Eventually I realized our game was -super- close in points. I had to take some calculated risk here.... Magnus was nearly healed to full at 14 wounds.....

So here's the result of my big idea: (above) I figure that I will lose this game as close as it is, because I will not be able to have a chance if I don't kill some of his "While We Stand We Fight" units. Namely I've avoided his Plague Crawlers all game since I can't dent them. And his Blightlords have been huddled around his HQ.

This is when I fling Magnus into the fray, and he kills a Plagueburst Crawler which reduces the DG score by 5 points. However, as shown above, the Contagion Lord and Blightlords end up counter charging in his turn!

I take a bunch of mortal wounds from the Lord's skull grenade or something like that, then his relic Scythe is 3 Damage and does mortal wounds on 6's! (That's better than Magnus' weapon, and nearly the same as Guilliman's sword)

The Blightlords then hit and although Magnus has Glamour Of Tzeentch and Weaver running, he is down to 2 wounds at the end of the DG turn! That means I am stuck in CC and I had to look this up... Magnus is not Titanic, so I cannot withdraw from CC and still do psychics or charge in somewhere.

When I struck back I could hardly kill 2 Blightlords with that 4+ invuln! This doesn't look good. My options are limited... I try to psychic the Blightlords to death to reduce his While We Stand... by another 5 points. No go. Even while trying to heal Magnus, I only get him to 5 wounds, and then I lose one because of a mortal wound from a perils! Ouch. Then my Smite sucks, and I kill one more BlightLord....

I can't kill them. Ahriman tries, and he perils as well doing a super smite at the Blightlords, but only rolls a 2. So I got the Blightlords down to a single model, but cannot kill the last one, preserving his 10 points on While We Stand.

Elsewhere I know the DG have had a lot of trouble scoring Engage points this game, so I see a remnant 4 man Plaguemarine squad running for my quarter which they will surely reach in Turn 5 which will give him 2 more much needed points for Engage on all fronts. So naturally I shoot 36 stormbolter shots from the scarab occult termies and I can only kill 3 marines! Wow.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Deathguard turn 5, and this is a quick turn... my opponent kills Magnus easily. I lose another Terminator. I have a single HQ left from the Duplicity Cult and he is hiding behind a building since he suffered another perils in T4 (I perils'd 3 times in my turn 5).

Now that Mort is dead in theory his Plagueburst crawler can shoot Ahriman standing by himself on an objective (to prevent him from scoring "Hold More". He kills Ahriman, but we realize he already capped the maximum points for the Primary.

The end score is 84 to 82 for the Thousand Sons.

What a crazy game. It turns out if I had not sacrificed Magnus like that, I would have lost by 3 points! At the end of the game I had a Sorc on 1 wound (hiding) and 6 Terminators left on the table. He had 1 Blightlord, 1 Deathshroud, about 10 Plaguemarines, and 20+ Poxwalkers, his Contagion Lord, a Psyker, the Plague Surgeon, a Bloat Drone, and a Plagueburst Crawler.

The Rubrics were useless. The Helbrute was an easy target, but I still like taking 1. The Termies were all the real firepower I had, and everything else just got points and died. It was an extremely tight game.

[Mordas]

Nice report, it is good to see you could get such a close game against the Deathguard!

 

Due to lockdown I haven't had a chance to have a game since October but look forward to bringing the sons out!

[Archaeinox]

Thanks for the batrep. 

 

Lately I have found that anything with the +1 Wound characteristic is extremely undercosted. Have you found this to be true? I feel like its going to spike up after they get some sales (terminators.. plague marines.. bikes..)

 

I'm pretty terrified of plague marine and blightlord spam death guard players.

Edited March 26, 2021 by Archaeinox

[Xenith]

Nice report and congratulations on the win, TS vs DG seems on paper an unbalanced match up so it's good to see we still have some tricks in the bag. 

 

I havent made up my mind yet as to 40 Inferno combi shots killing 2 PM's on average is bad, because it's weak, or good, as PM's are finally really tough. That said, 40 shots in only also going to kill ~4 primaris.

 

I'd happily keep the shooting mediocre if they boost the psychic. TS should get a flat +1 MW caused per witchfire spell. 

[Prot]

Thanks for the batrep. 

 

Lately I have found that anything with the +1 Wound characteristic is extremely undercosted. Have you found this to be true? I feel like its going to spike up after they get some sales (terminators.. plague marines.. bikes..)

 

I'm pretty terrified of plague marine and blightlord spam death guard players.

 

- Actually I don't find the +1 wound units to be undercosted. I have been pretty fortunate to be playing hundreds of games since 9th came out. I have a few tight knit groups that have made getting diversity in the games fairly easy and we're careful.

 

What I see as a trend is the extra wounds will equate to the ramp up in damage in 9th. As every codex gets released, it either jumps a lot in survivability, or it jumps immensely with damage. 

 

We need those extra wounds badly, and "all is dust" is nearly useless now. Even the humble Heavy Bolter negates it. I think they'll change All is Dust before it's totally useless. 

 

- Deathguard are an amazing army. I used to play them competitively through 7th and part of 8th. Really I'm just jealous because they have a TON of what I want for Thousand Sons. So many tricks, amazing characters, great wargear, 'Cults' that work nicely, and most importantly a lot of good builds. 

 

 

 

Nice report and congratulations on the win, TS vs DG seems on paper an unbalanced match up so it's good to see we still have some tricks in the bag. 

 

 

 

I'd happily keep the shooting mediocre if they boost the psychic. TS should get a flat +1 MW caused per witchfire spell. 

 

 

- Thanks. The win felt.... I don't want to say hollow, but I have a few armies that operate like my Thousand Sons; they get absolutely clobbered but you can still win if you're incredibly lucky. 

 

- Some of the psychic changes still bug me and I'd like to see some better variants for Thousand Sons mainly:

  - As mentioned in the battle report, Magnus was 'stuck' in close combat in the final turn. At the time it felt awkward to me he couldn't retreat and function.

  - Not having that flexibility in power selection had me overlapping a lot so that the "risky" powers didn't feel as useless. What I mean by this is we still play all comers lists, and aside from spending resources, you can't tweak anything. For example, I had Doombolt which is useless against DG (just use a damage power that's easier to cast insead).

 

I'm still much better off to play someone with a psyker. The only reason I think I even had a shot at this game was that he couldn't take Witch Hunter secondary. I still think that's a way too potent secondary and the ITC stats would seem to agree.

 

 

I havent made up my mind yet as to 40 Inferno combi shots killing 2 PM's on average is bad, because it's weak, or good, as PM's are finally really tough. That said, 40 shots in only also going to kill ~4 primaris.

 

 

- Well considering how everyone else has been treated in 9th, I think the Psyker has to be a bit better (IE normal smite?) And the Rubrics I've been reluctantly trying to use more often, but right now the only thing they really excel at is hiding in a ruin on an objective. 

 

- The Bolters being "Warp Fire" should probably mean a random spike in damage. (Tzeentch is fickle) A "to wound" of 5+ is a 2 damage and -3 AP bolt round. (Still useless against DG but it has flavour and encourages Prescience and a larger squad).

 

All is Dust has to be better to make Rubrics the staple unit they should be. Plague marines are actually fantastic. I've seen a few people now have started to figure out you don't need to take a gamble with Magnus, and by flooding the table with multi purpose Plague Marines you get a fantastic, flexible, resilient force of ObSec that can be incredibly hard to get rid of.

 

I think DG is one of the better 9th edition codexes. I expect we won't get near the treatment they did (as has been the case since the DG became the chaos poster children) but I do want Rubrics/Scarabs to be as desirable to us as Plague marines/Blightlords are to the DG players.

[WarriorFish]

What a close game, but these are always the best ones. I think the win was well deserved taking risks is part of any victory in such contested games - of course victory needs no explanation when it works ;) The 1W/2W difference is significant for games between Marine armies the sooner this is corrected the better. Feels like it may be a long wait though :confused:

[Prot]

Thanks. It felt like a tight game from turn 1. I am still convinced if the DG were a bit more aggressive against Magnus, I would have surely lost. I think he underestimated his 4++ save (I never took Null Zone), and his offensive ability in CC with the Blightlords and his Contagion Lord (which inevitably took Magnus down almost from full wounds) were always a big threat to me. 

[WarriorFish]

Indeed, it's not just about having the right tools as this is only part of the solution. You need to get them in the right places. Or rather know the right places first to direct them, all the while your opponent tries to foil you That's what makes the game interesting though things are never as simple as they seem (and as ever all the less so when dice are involved!).

 

4++ saves are pretty significant I think as this is when it gets to something more reliable. A 5++ on Termies for example is merely a bonus but a 50% chance? That is something that you can work with. Alas those pesky dice get in the way again so it can easily go either way. Another day your opponent would have got a bit more traction with wounds or felt more of a need to keep trying and it could be a difference game for it.

 

The important thing is you won so you can look back on the maybes and what-ifs without any lamentation on what could have been I am learning more from reading TSons games than playing them but this will all help a lot when I do get to game