Quick tournament report

[Plague _Lord]

So as I said I went to a few tournaments post balance dataslate and would like to do a small roundup of one of them. Some of my findings are... interesting.

 

So I went to a 20man tournament with the following list:

Army: Deathguard
Plague Company: The Inexorable
Starting CP:3
Stratagems: Gift of Decayx2

Secondary Objectives Information
No Prisoners: 94
To the Last Units: Blightlord Terminators x2, MBH
Titan Hunter: N/A
Bring it Down: 4
Assasination: 9
Abhor the Witch: 0
No Force Org:
Tallyman:70pts
+Tollkeeper

Plague Surgeon: 75pts
+Warlord - ferric blight, plaguebringer

Vanguard Detachment:
HQ:
Death Guard Chaos Lord: 90pts
+plasma pistol, power sword

Troops:


10xCultists:50pts
+autoguns
10xCultists:50pts
+autoguns

Elites:
10xBlightLord Terminators: 440pts
+2xReaper Autocannon
+2xFlail of Corruption
+10xBubotic Axe

10xBlightLord Terminators: 440pts
+2xReaper Autocannon
+2xFlail of Corruption
+10xBubotic Axe
+Plague Champion - plague skull of glothilla

Contemptor Dreadnaught: 195pts
+2xTwin Volkite Culverin
+Hellforged Cyclone Missile Launcher

3xDeathshroud Terminators: 165pts
+Plague champion - Reaper of Glorious Entropy, 2xplaguespurt gauntlet

Foul Blightspawn:100pts
+Revolting stench-vats, Viscous Death

Biologus Putrifier: 65pts
+Plaguechosen - arch-contaminator

Fast Attack:
2xMyphetic Blight Hauler: 260pts

 

Total of 23 Terminators and only 3 CP to start. My game plan was take stranglehold and TTL every game and just try to bully the midfield with my terminators.

 

Game 1 vs Necrons

Enemy forces: CCB, Technomancer, chronomancer, 2 big groups of lokhust destroyers, a few units of immortals, nightbringer, big skorpekh destroyer unit, destroyer char.

My opponent was late so we had to play a fast game, but luckily it went in my favor. Even though I lost 7 Terminators from the Necrons' turn 1 shooting it wasn't from a single unit so I could still push hard into the midfield objectives. The Volkite Contemptor is amazing at taking out destroyers and his skorpekh just bounced off of my MBH. I only got scared once when the nightbringer went into a depleted blightlord unit but the plageskull of glothilla did work and I easily took him out in my turn. Overall my opponent didn't have units to actually contest the midfield objectives and I got a 20:0 win - this meant I was going to play on the top table next round...

 

Game 2 vs Harlequins

Enemy forces: troupe master with 3++, solitaire, troupe master with hits=autowounds sword, 4x5 troupes in boats, 7 voidweavers.

My opponent was one of the better players in the competitve circuit around here - he oft plays on the top tables and goes abroad to the main tournaments. To make matters worse I had to go second. Somehow I managed to survive his shooting with some clutch invuls and good positioning so that he couldn't focus on either the MBH or the Contemptor with his voidweavers. My shooting in return was pretty devastating - I took out 2 voidweavers and a troupe boat in my 1st turn. From then on he took out my contemptor and MBH while also losing most of his voidweavers. All in all I was sitting most of the game on 3 objectives scoring stranglehold and he just couldn't kill my terminators. Deathshroud were crucial in taking my opponents backfield objective and killed his killy troupe master with overwatch. I missplayed by taking banners on a 5 obejctive map - If I had taken something like investigate signal I would have probaby scored more. Overall the game ended on a score of 73-70 for Deathguard! So a win but a 10:10 score in big points.

 

Game 3 vs GSC

Enemy forces: 2 goliaths, 6 (i think) of the buggies with lasers, 2x5 bikers with the demo charges, a slew of infantry, a LOT of charachters.

I fought GSC once during the old codex and they didn't seem strong so I was going in blind. Got totally destroyed in this one. GSC can just stack so many buffs vs single targets that my defensive stats seemed just nonexistant. I lost 8 terminators in the 1st turn, which meant I just couldn't contents the centre objective. On top of that I had extremely bad rolls in the shooting phase and couldn't roll enough on advance rolls (even with rerolls) to get on obejctives in time. To top things off I went second... Basicly after the 1st turn it was obvious I had 0 chance of winning this. Overall we had some time constraint which was lucky for me and I only lost 12:8 on big points so something like 64-50 score for GSC. If we could have played the whole 5 turns I would have lost by a larger margin.

 

Overall I finished in 3rd place behind the GSC list that beat me and a SOB list. Behind me were harlequins and nids.

 

Key Observations:

Plague Surgeon - I was very critical of this guy in the past but oh my was this guy AMAZING during this tournament. The Terminators get targetted heavily and I was rolling a lot of sixes. AOC makes the 10 man blightlord much tougher and I think it makes the surgeon worth it. Only used the healing twice during my games but I am definately amazed.

 

MBH - toughish but overall let me down. I don't think their shooting killed anything during the tournament. Their upside is speed and a decent statline but I don't know if I will take them in pure Deathguard. I think I would rather have a 2nd contemptor.

 

Blightlord - amazingly tough but I ended up doing actions and just standing on objectives with them most of the time.

 

Grenade man - nice buff to have but I start to see that opponent only engage the blightlords if it's on their terms so I'm not sure if I'm keeping this guy in the list.

 

Cultists - trash that I need to do actions but honestly if anything is targeting them then they are dead. Lack of obsec hurt a lot in the harlequin game. Might go back to poxwalkers and the contaminations secondary - I think it's easy to get 6-9 points from it while banners aren't a given. Another Idea is to leave the points for summoning to have 2x5 furies for a simiar cost and try to go for RND...

 

Psyker - I think I need a psycher in my list just for the occasional warp ritual or psychic interrogation vs armies like Tau, necrcons and some psychic defense against others.

 

Overall I think 20 terminators can work but I have to find a suitable 3rd unit for TTL that isn't MBH since they just don't work for me.

 

PL