Shambling towards the Gates

The campaign continues. 

Game two was designed by Bill.  We had talked about it previously and he decided to stick to the basic plan and center the mission around the Death Guard assaulting a Space Wolves' position.  The idea was that they were at the gates of a laboratory at which the Imperial side was trying to isolate a cure for the zombie virus.

Game setup - Secret lab in the frozen tundra

My Wolves were set up in a defensive position, with two bastions dominating the approach, containers blocking the flanks, and defensive lines giving cover.  Meanwhile, the Death Guard had a Pitched Battle deployment, but were mostly centered up since their objective was right up the gut. 

My force consisted of two Grey Hunter squads, some Long Fangs, five Wolf Guard, five Skyclaws, a Battle Leader with Saga of the Warrior Born, and a Wolf Priest.  The Death Guard had a Lord on a bike with a Daemon Weapon, a Defiler, a Dreadnought, and three squads of Death Guard... oh, and the still apparently impossible to kill Zombies.

The Death Guard took the first turn and rushed forward.  The Dreadnought and Defiler threw some shots downfield, but they mostly scattered and I lost a couple Grey Hunters.  Meanwhile, I threw the Skyclaws forward into the zombies.  The Long Fangs tried to bring down the Defiler, but the most I could manage was a one on the damage chart which was promptly ignored by the daemon engine.  This would be a harbinger of things to come as I rolled terribly throughout the encounter. 

Creating a traffic jam via melta and bodies

The Biker Lord counter-charged the Skyclaws and promptly wiped them out, so the wave of zombies was free to shamble onwards.  Meanwhile, the Death Guard Rhinos pulled up in range of the bastions and started putting rounds into the Hunters and Long Fangs.  I was definitely behind, but I had two lines still manning the defenses.  As the game wore on, the narrowness of my end began to tell and alley began to get congested.  I immobilized a rhino, blocking off half of the approach.  Meanwhile, a reconstituted Skyclaw squad assaulted the other zombie mob to completely close the entrance.  Unfortunately, the Chaos Dreadnought chose this moment to fire frenzy and nuked both his own zombies and my marines.  Ironically, those two shots killed more zombies than I could throughout the whole game. 

So close he can almost taste it

This opened up a lane for an assault by the Lord and the Death Guard.  My Battle Leader murdered a bunch of Death Guard, but he and a bunch of Grey Hunters died, leaving two to fall back.  They regrouped and doubled out the Lord, then a Wolf Guard missile immobilized the Defiler within snapping distance of the walls.  It looked like I had a chance to preserve the victory at this point, but the zombies dragged down the last Wolf Guard in terminator armor and I died a little on the inside (they caused one wound and of course I failed the save).

It was definitely a fun scenario and I think it fit the theme well.  I think poor rolling spoiled it a little, but it was still very close, which I think reflects the nature of defending a narrow access point.  If I could change anything, I'd probably add some points to both sides, give the Wolves a flanking force, and play on a 4'x4' board.  There really isn't a need for a wide board since the vast majority of the action took place in the very center strip.  I also didn't feel like I had a lot of tactical options beyond target priority.  I just sat back and tried to hold the line.  I think a flanking force would add some complexity. Oh, and zombies need to lose their armor save at the very least.  Yes, I'm bitter.

As for the next mission, I was hoping to do a convoy if I had had a better showing defending the gate, but as is, I don't think that would make sense.  I think it's still possible, but I'm more interested to play out what happens inside the lab first.  I'm thinking about a Killzone mission using a few Death Guard, and pitting them against a bunch of Lone Wolves.  That sounds like a good time.  We'll see what happens. 

The Epidemic Begins

I'd feel better with something on the board

My standard Tuesday game turned narrative.  I asked my buddy to bring 1250 points of his Death Guard, plus about 30 of the Guardsmen from his Imperial Guard army.  I brought 1000 points of Space Wolves (in power armor, of all things) plus 24 zombies.  I didn't tell him what we were doing, but I'm pretty sure he had a good idea about what was going down. 

The scenario involved him assaulting my guardsmen's positions with his zombies.  In true Imperial fashion, my Space Wolves were more than ready to sacrifice all of the guardsmen, if it meant wiping out the zombies.  The Death Guard deployed like it was a Pitched Battle, while the Guardsmen were strung out in defensive emplacements between 12 and 18 inches from their board edge.  The Wolves would walk on in turn one. 

Here they come!

The zombies were well screened, so the only target for the guardsmen's flashlights was the Daemon Prince.  They managed to put a wound on him against all odds, but that didn't do much to slow the advance.  Turn two saw the first of the zombies getting stuck in, while the Daemon Prince bypassed the initial line to charge the Grey Hunters and Battle Leader.  The zombies pulled down most of their targets and were well on their way to picking up a kill point.  The Prince didn't fare so well.  One hit out of five left a lot of swings coming back.  The Battle Leader did two wounds and the Power Fist stepped in to finish the job.  Meanwhile, my Lone wolves charged in.  You would think a raging werewolf in power armor would bring down a bunch of zombies, but apparently all my opponents good rolls were in his 5+ armor saves and 4+ feel no pains, because he couldn't kill a single one over several turns of combat.

They're in the building!

On the other end of the battlefield two of his Plague Marine squads tied down my Blood Claws and Wolf Priest while the zombies went to work.  They munched through two squads of guardsmen before charging into the marines.  In the bastion in the middle, another squad bit the dust as the zombies ran amok.  My counter-charge hit pretty hard.  The Battle Leader killed a whole squad by himself, while the Grey Hunters killed the zombies that the Lone Wolf proved incapable of handling.  As the dust cleared, one of my guardsmen squads had made it off the board alive.  The Blood Claws killed the reduced Plague Marines, while the Wolf Priest killed the last zombie (a secondary objective).  For the most part, we were both successful in achieving our aims. 

So what's next?  Well, we've discussed it and we plan on proceeding by taking alternating turns to tell the next part of the story.  We'll see exactly what he comes up with, but he mentioned possibly assaulting the laboratory of the Wolf Priest who took samples of the zombie virus.

Cleaning up

If you're interested in running the scenario yourself, the zombies had guardsmen stats with two close combat weapons, Feel No Pain, a 12" assault, and Slow and Purposeful when outside of 18 inches from an enemy unit.  The Death Guard's main objective was to acquire as many kill points of guardsmen by zombies as possible, while their secondary objectives were to protect the zombies and collect a kill point of a Space Wolf unit by a unit of zombies.  The Space Wolves main objective was to kill all the zombies, while their secondary objectives were to get guardsmen off the board and have the Wolf Priest take a sample of a zombie.  The Death Guard have 4 packs of six zombies, while the Space Wolves have 6 groups of five guardsmen.  The guardsmen weren't allowed to begin falling back until turn 4. 


Some optional rules we talked about included having the dead guardsmen added to the zombie squads, or possibly giving a few of the guardsmen some heavy weapons such as autocannons.  If you do give it a go, let me know what you think.