GT2008 list

This was my entry in the 2008 Grand Tournament (Australia). I was pleased (and a little shocked) to finished in the top ten overall. The points value was 1500 and 6 battles were fought over a long weekend. Additional tournament points were available for army construction, sportsmanship and painting above the usual points obtained from battles. My entry was a mechanized Death Guard list, in slight preference to daemons which, to be fair, had only just become available at the time.

Considerations.

All army lists were judged by GW staffers on a scale of 0 to 5. To get a high score here, it was necessary to offer "concessions". So don't be too surprised by the chaos spawn or the lack of wings on the Daemon Prince. It is intentionally a sub-optimal list. I heard during the tournament that any army fielding a land raider was severely punished on this scale.

Army List.

HQ: Daemon prince of Nurgle with Doombolt.

Elites: Chaos Dreadnought with plasma cannon and close combat weapon.

Troops: 2 indentical units worth of: 1 plague champion with power fist alongside 6 other plague marines kitted out with 1 melta gun, 1 flamer and an icon. These squads were each mounted in a rhino affixed with a havoc launcher.

The third plague marine squad featured a plague champion with combi-plasma & melta bombs alongside 6 other plague marines kitted out with 2 plasma guns and an icon.

Finally for troops, there were 2 squads of 6 lesser daemons (plaguebearer models).

Fast Attack: 1 chaos spawn.

Heavy Support: 2 vindicators each with daemonic possession.

Evaluation and thoughts.

Positives: (1) The need for big artillery and weapons with a blast template is a must in pure Death Guard armies -- they're never going to pump out as many shots as Orks are capable of. (2) The chaos spawn was lots of fun to play with! (3) The army faired middling-to-well against most other armies. (4) I got 4 nominations for best painted army (out of the 6 opponents I played against).

Negatives: (1) Orks completely destroyed this list! (2) Tyranids featured heavily amongst the entries. (3) The daemon prince seriously needed wings. (4) The close combat weapon on the dreadnought would have been better off as a missile launcher.

Postings on individual components and tactics of this army list have been and will be made seperately. As a cohesive whole, the army was highly functional and didn't really lack in any department significantly; despite struggling against some other armies. Images of the army will be posted at a later date once all the miniatures involved gather back together in the same place once more.