After many defeats maybe this time I can best the Death Guard my using all the Leman Russ! I will be using 7 in this game, the most I have ever used and they are all painted!

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1,750 point Astra Militarum List

You can read more about this list here.

But it was essentially;

• 7 Leman Russ
• 2 Tech-Priests
• A Psyker
• 3 Company Commanders
• 80 or so Cadian and Catachan Infantry

1,750 point Death Guard List

• Some none psyker character that buffed as Warlord
• Chaos Lord
• Typhus
• 3 Deathshrouds
• Land Raider
• 2x Rhinos
• A Squad of 7 Melee Plague Marines
• A Squad of 7 Plasma Plague Marines
• A Flying Demon Prince
• A Lawn Mower Bloat Drone
• 2x Foul Blightspawn
• 10x Cultists

This was a very melee heavy army! You can read Mark’s write up here.

Death Guard List

The Mission

We played Four Pillars from Chapter Approved 2018. This has four objectives if you control more of them than the enemy at the end of the Battle Round you gain 1VP. If you control all four you gain 3VP.

You also gain 1VP if you destroyed more enemy units than your enemy in the Battle Round.

First Strike, Linebreaker and Slay the Warlord are also active.

Deployment

The Death Guard deployed first. Everything was pushed forward as much as possible apart from one squad of Plague Marines with the Chaos Lord who camped an objective. The Cultists did the same on the other side of the battlefield and deployed on an objective inside the Death Guard’s deployment zone.

Death Guard Deployment

I tried to be very specific with my placement of units to ensure all my Leman Russ and Autocannon Squads were within 12″ of my Cadian Company Commander for the Lost Relic of Cadian effect. I also tried to ensure my screen was effective with at least one unit screening the front and others in reserve. I have an article on its way about screening, in the meantime, you can hear me talking about it on my YouTube Channel.

The below image illustrates this fairly well, this is my deployment. The red is my first screen that can either be killed or move up. Once its either dead or moved up then the blue units can move up to fill the gaps. The Death Guard had no Deep Striking units so my rear was relatively safe.

Screening Overview – All The Leman Russ

Turn 1

The Death Guard kicked things off after I failed to seize the initiative. They all moved up and as far as they could and the Drone advanced. Their shooting was not great – mainly because there was not a lot of it. But also because the Land Raider with its 4 Lascannons did just 2 wounds to a Tank Commander. The Plasma Plague Marines that were not in the Rhino were out of range so did not fire. I lost about 4 or 5 Cadians in this shooting phase and 2 wounds on a Leman Russ.

I did not move much to ensure I did not get the -1 to hit for my Heavy Weapons in my army. The Lost Relic of Cadia was activated… I let the plasma and Battle Cannons fly with all the Leman Russ…

Once the smoke had cleared the Death Guard forces were shredded beyond recognition. In a single shooting phase I had removed from the table;

• A Land Raider
• Both Rhinos
• All three Deathshroud Terminators
• The Bloat Drone
• A Squad of Melee Plague Marines

This was a massive blow the enemy forces as their close combat abilities were now in tatters. The Plasma Plague Marines remained in the back and on their objective along with the Cultists. The front line was in real trouble though. There were still threats though in the form of the two Foul Blightspawn, Demon Prince and Typhus.

I did charge the enemy with 2 squads of Cadians to try and pin them in a bit. This went badly and they all died!

We fought on, I got First Strike and a VP for killing more units than the enemy. The Death Guard got First Strike.

Turn 2

The Death Guard came forward after a little bit of shooting. Typhus and the Demon Prince made it into combat, but not after the Demon Prince took some damage from Overcharged Plasma using Defensive Gunners. Typhus wiped out a squad of Catchans and the Prince did some wounds to my Plasma Tank Commander.

The other characters with their random number of shots and random Strength failed to do much damage. This was really unlucky, they do 3 Damage each, at one point I need two 6+ saves to stop two of those shots. I rolled a double 6 and no damage occurred.

The Tech-Priests were working overtime and healing 2 or 3 wounds each. This, along with Jury Rigging, kept my Leman Russ on the top tier for shooting. The Tank Commander withdrew and the Prince was blasted back to the Warp. The same happened to the Foul Blightspawn. But this was tougher to do than the first turn because the Lost Relic of Cadia was now gone.

We both held two objectives still but I killed more units than the Death Guard – netting me on more VP.

Turn 3

This was a quick turn and it became obvious that the Death Guard could not claw this back. The Cultists and Plasma Plague Marines on the objectives were still in place but my infantry were now running up the field to contest them and my Leman Russ battle line was now able to focus on these two remaining units to dislodge them.

I used two Multi-Meltas on the enemy Warlord and again killed more enemy.

A big thank you to Mark for playing up until this point and fighting on – after such a devastating first turn.

Guard line at the end of the game – All The Leman Russ

All The Leman Russ – Summary

This was an absolutely brutal match up. Mark had gone melee while I had gone all out guns to try and beat the Death Guard for once. It worked, but it did not feel like an even match up. I had swung towards the most powerful tanks I could muster while Mark had gone for a very specific build which was hard to execute against such a formidable gun line.

It was a fun game and I think we both learned a lot about our own forces and the enemy forces. The Death Guard seem to struggle against Toughness 8. The Lascannons shot once, did very little and then died. had the Death Guard got into melee it would have been very different indeed, but against massed Battle Cannons and Plasma, it seemed almost impossible.

I now really know why so many people have said to me…

No Leman Russ?

They are really effective when taken in number with Tank Commanders and something like the Lost relic of Cadia. Perhaps it was too much? I am sure things will be a lot tougher for me when I next go up against the Death Guard…