Raiding Plague World Sklierbrook

Last Sunday was time for another raid as Archon Aeskhromys and her Black Heart forces opened the Webway gate and arrived on Plague World Sklierbrook. The last visit was some years ago and it was time to gather some working slaves and play things among the rotting warp-cursed mon-keigh. A small warband of Plague Marines stood in their way ... or as Aeskhromys put it, heightened the funny part.

The Dark Eldar raiding force consisted of:
2x Archon
1x Drazhar
3x 10 Warriors with 2 Blasters and 1 Splinter Cannon
1x 10 Warriors with 1 Blasters and 1 Splinter Cannon
4x Raider with Dark Lances
1x Razorwing Jetfighter with Dark Lances
3x Ravagers with Disintegrators

The Death Guard warband consisted of:
Daemon Prince
Malignant Plaguecaster
Noxious Blightcaster
7 Blightlord Terminators with Combi Plasmas
2x 10 Plague Marines
1x 15 Poxwalkers
5x Chaos Spawns
2x Bloat Drones with Plague Spitters

We played Eternal War Crusade from CA2019, with mission objectives distributed evenly across the board.



Turn 1 ... the Black Heart skimmers entered the battlefield and swiftly deployed to secure some objectives. The Ravagers ran up their engines and flew up to the right flank to get their sights on the lonely Plague Marines out in the open field. Two Raiders unloaded their cargo onto two separate objectives and sped into the middle of the board to block incoming enemy charges. The Razorwing left the deployment zone and boosted behind enemy lines, turned around and opened fire on one of the Bloat Drones, leaving it with 5 wounds remaining. The twin Splinter Rifles killed 2 Poxwalkers. The rest of the force opened fire and wounded the other Bloat Drone, killed 2 Spawns and 5 Plague Marines.



Turn 1 Death Guard ... the Daemon Prince and the two wounded drones jumped (drifted?) forward towards the two Raiders, shooting their flamer attacks below the Raiders into the Warriors which ducked in the crater to minimize losses. The five lucky survivors were then charged by the Daemon Prince (as he had wings he simply ignored the Raiders - I had totally forgotten about that!) and succumbed to his attacks. So much for my plan to hold the objective in the middle of the battlefield ...
The Raiders were attacked by the Drones, the Spawns and one squad of the Plague Marines, wrecking one and leaving the other with 2 wounds. One of the Drones could pile into the second Warriors squad after the combat with the Raider.



Turn 2 Dark Eldar ... the burning Raider left combat and flew to a save spot above the Plague Marines which had mauled it so badly. It fired its Lance into them (to no avail) and disappeared behind the ruined building, sitting right on a Objective. The Warriors fell back from combat with the drone to secure the Objective behind them. They were accompanied by an Archon and Drazhar with a Raider full of Warriors behind them. The other Raider flew into the enemies deployment zone to unleash the firepower of its Warrior squad into the Plague Marines. The Ravagers and the Archon with the Writ repositioned towards another Objective, killing the remainers of the already damaged Plague Marines squad, a Bloat Drone and a Chaos Spawn.
The Razorwing turned down its speed and let fly on the lonely Plaguecaster, killing him instantly between the Dark Lance shots and Missiles fire.



Turn 2 Death Guard ... the Bloat Drone flew towards the Warriors on the Objective, spitting its plague soup into them, killing 5. The Daemon Prince landed in front of the 5 Warriors, looking around for juicier targets, but decided to go after the Warriors, killing them outright. A squad of Terminators materialised in front of the Ravagers, the plasma cores of their combi weapons burning hot ... but due to some unlucky (and lucky) rolls, only 8 wounds were stripped from a Ravager, leaving him with 4.
The Plague Marines shot at the undamaged Raider next to the damaged one on the Objective and charged both of them afterwards, bringing down the damaged one and leaving the other at half its wounds.



Turn 3 Dark Eldar ... the Warriors left the Raider and jumped into cover before it fell back. They all shot into the Marines, obliterating them. Drazhar stepped forward to meet the Daemon Prince, wounding him once before being shredded to pieces. The Raider full of Warriors redeployed to go after the remaining Chaos Spawn and the Bloat Drone, killing them all with the help of a Ravager from the other side of the battlefield. The other two Ravagers held fully into the Terminators, killing 2 and wounding 1.



Turn 3 Death Guard ... the Daemon Prince charged into the Ravagers and the Archon in their midst but the Shadow Field made sure no attack would harm her. The Terminators finished off the wounded Ravager and charged into another one bringing it down to 6 wounds.

We called it a game as the the Death Guard would not make up their losses in any way. Dark Eldar clearly controlled the field.

I had made some serious mistakes:
- not thinking about flying units ignoring my covering Raiders
- no target priority, I wounded several units in the first phase without killing one.
- opening a spot for the Terminators to warp in (I could have moved a Raider over there instead of putting it onto a Objective)
Well, at least those are the ones I remember to have done Nevertheless it was a really nice game and I was glad to meet my buddy to roll some dice and shove some miniatures over the battlefield in those dark days we have ...