40K - The Joy of Narrative (or Return of Plague Lord Colthrax)

 On the weekend I was asked to play in a six person 40k narrative game down at the Warlords. The forces of Chaos (with a slightly confused Ultramarine) were allied against the might of three Necron armies.

The scenario for the game can be found here

Here you can see the invading forces collecting on the outskirts of the town - Word Bearers, Death Guard and the Ultramarines.

Lined up against them are the three Necron armies - 6000 points of Binary Goodness!!

Early in the battle, the C'Tan is sent forward to engage the Chaos forces. Here we have the Shard of the Void Dragon laying into the Word Bearers who are bringing it down "3 wounds per Phase".

Up drive Dirty Mike and the Boys in the Death Guard Prius. Mike jumps out and lobs the Plague Skull of Glothila at the Shard Dragon and that's the end of that particular Star God.

Back in olden times - 3rd/4th Edition - you used to build your tournament army to theme. Now for some that theme was "winning" but to maximise tournament points you generally had to have a force that encapsulated 40k lore.

My current Death Guard army is my fourth iteration. One was used in 3rd and then GW released new DG models so I built a new one for 4th. I have a 30k DGL and my current army was built painted in 2021.

Through all those armies I have one recurring character, the Plague Lord Colthrax. In my Heresy army he is a Legion Praetor while over time I have build models for him from Plague Marine through Terminator Lord to fully fledged Daemon Prince.

In the current army I run him as a Lord of Contagion. That's 120 points backed up with a Warlord Trait and a Relic. Battlescribe describes him as thus:

Lord of Contagion - Rotten Constitution(Trait), Warp Insect Hive (Relic), Plaguereaper (Weapon Option)

So +1T, treats AP1 and 2 as AP0 and rerolls hits and wounds all on a weapon that is S8 AP3 and 3 Damage......juicy.

In this game he went on a bit of a ramage.....killing three Necron Lords and taking 6 of the last seven wounds off a Monolith.

Here PLC lines up his first Lord (think it was Sunburst) before he went on and survived the attacks of a large Skorpekh Destroyer unit. This left him on a single wound.

Demonstrating the bravery and resolve you'd expect from a Death Guard Lord, he goes on to kill Necron Lord Sparkle before fatally damaging the Monolith. In this battle he makes four out of four 4++ saves - cos he's well-hard!!!

Finally, he sees off Necron Lord Moonbeam before sitting himself on the sole remaining objective when the battle ends.

And so the legend grows!! And that is the beauty of narrative play.

The aftermath of the battle is that there is a Wolf Lord, Haarkon Ironwolf, sitting in Christchurch having flashbacks to the five years that he was plaything (read chewtoy) for PLC and his Chaos brother, Noiselord Challis Drant. Those wounds will not have even begun to heal!