I hadn't planned to go to back to back monthly GT's, but when there was a latish dropout and a spare ticket I decided to sign up. Given I didn't have basically any time to try and think of something crazy/new/wacky I just ran the exact same list as I had run at the July event.
My list:
++ Vanguard Detachment -3CP (Chaos - Death Guard) [41 PL, 835pts, -3CP] ++
Detachment Command Cost [-3CP]
Plague Company: The Harbingers
+ HQ +
Malignant Plaguecaster [5 PL, 95pts]: 1. Miasma of Pestilence, 5. Curse of the Leper
+ Troops +
Poxwalkers [5 PL, 90pts]
. 18x Poxwalker: 18x Improvised weapon
Poxwalkers [5 PL, 100pts]
. 20x Poxwalker: 20x Improvised weapon
Poxwalkers [5 PL, 100pts]
. 20x Poxwalker: 20x Improvised weapon
+ Elites +
Deathshroud Terminators [7 PL, 150pts]
. Deathshroud Champion: Plaguespurt gauntlet
. 2x Deathshroud Terminator: 2x Manreaper, 2x Plaguespurt gauntlet
Deathshroud Terminators [7 PL, 150pts]
. Deathshroud Champion: Plaguespurt gauntlet
. 2x Deathshroud Terminator: 2x Manreaper, 2x Plaguespurt gauntlet
Deathshroud Terminators [7 PL, 150pts]
. Deathshroud Champion: Plaguespurt gauntlet
. 2x Deathshroud Terminator: 2x Manreaper, 2x Plaguespurt gauntlet
++ Super-Heavy Auxiliary Detachment -1CP (Chaos - Chaos Space Marines) [23 PL, 465pts, -1CP] ++
+ Configuration +
Detachment Command Cost [-1CP]
Legion: Iron Warriors
+ Lord of War +
Khorne Lord of Skulls [23 PL, 465pts]: Hades gatling cannon, Ichor cannon
++ Patrol Detachment 0CP (Chaos - Chaos Space Marines) [36 PL, 700pts, 12CP] ++
Legion: Iron Warriors
+ HQ +
Lord Discordant on Helstalker [10 PL, 195pts]: Autocannon, No Chaos Mark
. Helstalker: Techno-virus injector. Insidium Relic.
Master of Possession [5 PL, 95pts]: Cursed Earth, Infernal Power, Mark of Tzeentch, Warlord trait Deamonsmith
+ Troops +
Chaos Cultists [3 PL, 50pts]: No Chaos Mark
. 9x Chaos Cultist w/ Autogun: 9x Autogun
. Cultist Champion: Autogun
+ Elites +
Decimator [9 PL, 180pts]: No Chaos Mark, 2x Soulburner petard
Decimator [9 PL, 180pts]: No Chaos Mark, 2x Soulburner petard
The list was based around a solid base of the Death guard to screen/take objectives, and buffed IW Daemon Engines to do the damage at range. If the Master of Possessions got his spells off and the Lord Discordant was close by the Decimators ended up with a monstrous profile - 4d3 shots with +1 to hit, re-rolling 1'st to hit and wound, doing a mortal wound on a wound roll of 2+ and exploding 6's to hit - frequently turning all shots into damage (and occasionally more!) The same buffs worked on the Lord of Skulls as well, although his desire to choose larger targets often meant that spending CP on daemonforge for full re-rolls on hit/wound meant he could operate easier independently.
Those with a spectacularly sharp eye for detail and excellent memory of my old list, may notice that the Infernal Master now has the Tzeentch Keyword for access to an additional strat (extra cast) but otherwise it was identical. This was mostly due to time constraints, but having fiddled around with elements of the list individually(trying out Word Bearers instead of Iron Warriors for more reliable casting) I hadn't managed to convince myself anything was better, at least without a huge changing of parts. When the other lists went live someone at my club asked me which I was most worried about - and whilst there were plenty of scary lists (especially a few Drukari) I actually felt the Nids were the worst match up overall given Hive Guard seemed to make it an especially strong match up for them.
Game one:
Game 1 - Retrieval Mission
My Secondaries:
Stranglehold
Grind Them Down
Banners
Opponents:
Engage
ROD
No Prisoners
Pregame thoughts: So was very worried coming into this, apart from the fact that these were entirely different codex's they were very similar lists - a few medium threats, one big threat and a bunch of infantry to screen/score objectives. The Hive Guard were a real point of difference, and I was worried I was going to have to either tank their ferocious output for longer than I wanted, or overcommit via a swapped in Warptime to take them out. Otherwise secondary choices were trying to pick as many that allowed me to hang back without having to rush in towards any Stealers/Nasty monsters as possible with the aim of trying to bully the middle.
I deployed close to the line, with Decimators touching dense cover - reasoning it was their only defence against the Hive Guard, and with a thin line of Poxwalkers in front of them to stop the Genestealers charging them. Given the threat range of the Stealers it didn't seem possible to screen against their melee threat, at least doing so in a way that kept the Decimators in the game.
Sadly I lost the roll of to go first, thus ruining my streak at the venue and the Nids started lining up shots on the Lord of Skulls. Popping both IW defence strats for -1ap (which was very useful against all the AP2 coming its way) and 6+ feel no pain allowed it to tank the damage exceptionally well and left the rest of my army unscathed. Going into my turn after spending another CP to heal it flat 3 plus its natural one up to 16.
Initially I had planned on just killing whatever came out to sit on the objectives that were sitting fractionally outside the range of the building - forcing both of us to sit troops on it but the Lord of Skulls managed to get a cheeky angle onto the Hive Guard and shot them all of the table with the help of a Deamonforge.
Having lost such a key unit, and with my army's damage output undimmed after turn one the Nids had to change tack to a more aggressive plan. Out popped the large Guant unit on my left flank and the Genestealers boosted by the Swarmlord turbo boosted up the table, shattering one unit, crippling another and touching both Decimators to limit my shooting. However the Nids shooting was largely ineffective as they switched from the Lord of Skulls to my Death Guard without a great deal of destruction caused.
With the Nids pretty much fully committed my army was able to counter attack hard. The Deathshroud moved and managed to destroy the Devourer-guants and after being softened up by magic and the Decimators shooting the Lord of Skulls killed the rest in combat without trouble - sadly I'd had to shoot a 3 man ripper squad to ensure stranglehold for the turn rather the the Exocrine that was taunting me
I thought I'd managed to screen my backlines to stop the last Lictor deep striking into secure ROD in my lines but a well spotted rooftop made completing it a formality as the Hive Tyrant committed to my right flank taking out all bar one of the Poxwalkers to barely leave me holding the objective however when it rolled around to my turn I was well ahead with Nids running out of units to play the mission.
The Decimators took take of the Hive Tyrant leaving the Deathshroud to take out the Lictor leaving my backlines free, the Lord of Skulls shot of the Hormaguant unit on my right flank to put me well ahead on primary and end Nids hopes on the mission
The Swarmlord went in on a last ditch charge against the Lord of Skulls - putting it down to 2 wounds and surviving the counter attack but it was ultimately futile as I was able to finish it off as well as the Exocrine next turn. Final score was 93-60 to Chaos!
Postgame thoughts - Ultimately a comfortable win for Chaos - but not one I would fancy fighting a second time. The Lord of Skulls tanking T1 like a boss and getting the Hive Guard essentially ruined Nids plans to deal with him next turn, with Nids either needing to kill it over 2 or ignore it (like I had to do with the Barbed Hierodule.) Get the feeling if we played again the result would be different, although the Death Guard really showed their worth in a very unshowy way as they managed to outclass the waves of Nids infantry that came their way. As always they were better at counter attacking than launching an assault of their own.
Game 2 - Mission - Overrun
My Secondaries:
Stranglehold
Bring it down
Banners
Opponents Secondaries:
Sacred Ground
To the Last
Engage on All Front
Pregame thoughts: Didn't know what to make of this, haven't not had much experience of the new Sisters book, but a relative lack of Repentia/Retributors was at least a welcome sight. The big Sisters blobs didn't feel scary against me - the access to the Transhuman-esqe strat on a big blob would certainly stop the Lord of Skulls but the Decimators were in the list exactly for this type of defence. Given I had to deal with the Warsuits I picked Bring it Down even if it capped at 8 - when it was revealed they were a To the last target as well they became priority 1 to deal with.
As for deployment almost everything went on the line - the Decimators had a 1 inch larger threat range than the Warsuits so were able to deploy out of their range, but in position to shoot if I went first. Sadly I lost the roll off and Sisters took the fight to me.
Sisters turn one involved mostly moving up, doing some actions and unloading a bucketload of rerolling Meltas into the Lord of Skulls before he could get his invul up taking a decent chunk of him. I didn't really want to get too close to Valh in response so I moved up rather cautiously in response - mostly happy to screen out as much as I could. I managed to shoot down 4 of the Warsuits to get a few VP's at the start and sat back relatively happy with turn one.
Sisters kept pushing up - having taken out a lot of melta shots I felt the Lord of Skulls had a decent shot of living through the turn and having a pretty free reign from there-on out but despite a promising start against Valh and the Melta the blessed bolts of from the left sisters squad tore through him like paper just when I started to think he was going to survive the turn. Worse yet he exploded taking 2 Deathshroud, a good chunk of the Discordant, a bunch of Poxwalkers and Cultists (causing more to flee) but at least managed to take out a healthy amount of the lurking Sacresants who had disembarked close to me as well as damaging one of the advancing Warsuits.
Going into turn two I didn't have enough power on the right to advance and push through the Sisters squad guarding the objective so I resolved to pull back a tad and let them hit the Deathshroud/Poxwalkers for the rest of the game. My remaining Deathshroud in the middle charged the Sacresants and Decimators unloaded on the Sisters squad - they had a below average tournament in terms of number of shots but when one of them rolled hot on both shots and exploding 6's for more shots and killed 15 Sisters through Transhuman they showed off the phenomenal firepower they can bring. The Discordant took out the last Warsuits to put me slightly ahead on the secondaries.
I had mostly screened out my deployment zone but the Sisters were able to use there outflanking Repentia/DS Seraphim to push into my lines again. Vahl moved up to charge the Lord Discordant - it briefly clung to life on a single wound to get a decent amount of damage back on her before dieing to Vahls second activation who tagged the Poxwalkers. The Repentia miracle dice charged the Deathshroud who interrupted and managed to kill them all - although the Repentia fight on death slightly wiffed leaving 2 (just) clinging. The Deathshroud in the middle won his fight with the Sacresent and things were looking up
The Poxwalker fell back onto the Sisters left objective to start pressuring the primary and nabbing stranglehold as the Decimators moved up against Vahl and managed just about finish her off - if Vahl had rolled very hot on the FNP saves she could have rolled the flank from her position so it was a huge relief when she fell. With the left flank secure and a lone Deathshroud moving up to pressure in the middle I moved as far back as I could on the right to make it harder for the last big Sisters to charge me/take the flank.
The big Sisters squad moved up and managed a long bomb miracle dice charge to stop me getting 15 on primary, but were struggling to hold enough objectives on their own and low on threats at this stage and weren't able to meaningfully damage the Deathshroud now.
With the Decimators now unchecked I could focus on finishing off anything that might hold a objective - the Deathshroud in the middle kept pushing all the way to the Sisters home objective whilst the Decimators managed to take out the exposed sisters characters on the right flank as Poxwalkers swarmed the Dogmata on the left.
Sister last turn was rather mild - they had enough bodies to contest my right flank home objective but that was it and all I had to do was sit on the objectives in the last turn to confirm what had ended up as a 87-44 win
Postgame thoughts - The Lord of Skulls death and subsequent explosion had rather threatened to take the game, but the focus he had taken allowed the Decimators to run unchecked and they were more than suited to taking out the Sisters. The Sisters were lacking one more nasty threat (or Vahl rolling hot on FNP) in turns 2/3 to really take advantage and swing the game, as it was they couldn't take out either the Decimators or Deathshroud at this point.
Game 3 - Vital Intelligence
My Secondaries:
Mission
Stranglehold
Warp Ritual
Opponents Secondaries:
Mission
To the Last (2 Telemons and Venatari)
Bring it Down
Pregame thoughts - Supremely confident about this one going in, the Decimators were on a hot streak and should be excellent against Custodes. The Poxwalkers could do a number on a squad in combat as well with their mortal wounds. Going in felt I out shot them, could deliver a few hammer blows in combat where needed and had enough bodies to swarm the board.
I deployed the Decimators far back enough to hide from the Telemons, even if they ended up having to hide a long way back to accomplish this. I reasoned that I didn't mind giving up a turn or possibly even two of shooting to ensure that they would get to shoot at some point. Two Deathshroud squads ended up facing up against most of the Custodes army bar one Telemon/Venatari which went in deep strike squad as did one of my Deathshroud. Otherwise again the Poxwalkers lined up ready to advance into the middle/left flank.
For the first time in the event I won the roll to go first and advanced up the table - the Poxwalker squads on the left managed some good advance rolls to start taking objectives and the Lord of Skulls managed to secure another after neither Deathshroud was able to advance far enough. The Plaguecaster started casting his Ritual and I unleashed a daemonforged Lord of Skulls into one of the Telemons doing a grand total of 0 damage.
Hang on. This isn't how it was meant to go. So there were two strats popped (stopping Re-rolls and -1 strength) which played a large part, but even so I was expecting to start softening them up - looking back I had overvalued the damage I would do having been impressed how the Lord of Skulls had been smashing things up elsewhere. The Decimators, having been too far back milled around doing little, waiting another turn for the Custodes to reveal themselves. The Lord Discordant pinned off a solitary wound on the other Telemenon so I at least managed some damage in the turn.
The Custodes undaunted by my early firepower moved up around Trejan and unloaded into the Lord of Skulls as they chipped away at it and some of the Deathshroud who endured a charge from the Bike Captain without much damage either way.
After turn one I was already a long way ahead on primary - the Decimators were still unable to move into range and one ended up moving back to screen out the Custodes reserves teleporting behind my lines and another Deathshroud squad teleported behind the Custodes home objective to pressure it. The two Deathshroud squads on my right charged into the Bike Captain (who had been able to fall back after charging) and promptly executed him. After a lot of indecision I charged the Lord of Skulls into the Telemon but did much less damage than I hoped for and took a nasty punch back leaving it in a tough place, at least its shooting had managed to pick up a Sagittarum squad to leave the Custodes with even fewer assets to play with.
Going into Custodes 2 the reinforcements came in in there own deployment zone and they unloaded there firepower into the Lord of Skulls, whilst it managed to survive the shooting Trejan charged it and finished it off without any difficulty in combat as one Telemon smashed up a Deathshroud squad on my right flank.
Turn 3 was interesting, I was miles ahead on objectives and managed to complete my ritual as I was scoring every point available at this stage. A poxwalker squad moved up to tie up a Telemon and the Deathshroud charged into a Sagitarrumsquad to keep the pressure up. On the south side the Decimators were finally in range to unleash a devastating volly into the Telemenons and managed to finally bracket the one that was charged by the Lord of Skulls early in a less than stellar display.
The Custodes moved up and started dealing out real damage to both Poxwalkers squads that had moved up to fight them, leaving me with a solitary Poxwalker left by the time they were done. The Deathshroud managed to overpower the Sagittarum but the balance of power was only going one way - however the Custodes were still on 0 primary and struggling on Secondaries.
Turns were going by rather quickly now. Having realised my push had failed I started moving the last Poxwalker squad away from the Custodes to deny them any further moves via charge as the Deathshroud up top charged the Venatri. Down South the Decimators managed to finally pick up a Telemenon and combined with the Lord Discordant charge killed two Custodian guards as I tried to delay the Custodes. However the Deathshroud largely whiffed against the Venatari who took two of the Deathshroud out in response.
Custodes turn four managed to pick up their first primary points and continued to advance through the remnants of my forces. The Lord Discordant became Trejan's second victim of the occasion (second of note at least, some Poxwalkers were also victims but don't really count) and a Telemon punched a Decimator to death.
My last turn was largely a wash with one Poxwalker Squad, the two casters, a cultist squad (who had been bravely hiding at the back and doing the mission secondary action all game to great effect) and a Decimator left I tried and failed to kill the advancing Telemon. Given its ability to Heroically intervene I charged it with the Master of Possession so at least force it to engage the last Decimeator on its turn. Needless to say the MoP died immediately.
Custodes final turn was easy enough, they maxed the primary, and killed the last Decimator without issue. However despite having about 2/3rd of the army left against a few rags the scoreline was horrendously against them - 97-49.
Postgame thoughts - So it's hard to know if I played this well or not. Certainly charging the Lord of Skulls in was a mistake - I got impatient and hoped that if he could kill a Telemon it would end the game as a contest there and then. The Decimators going too far back was probably overly cautious and I probably drip fed my army to its death over various turns. Then again, the pressure was enough that Custodes never came close to matching on the score, and I maxed all available points. I think the overall strategy worked well (combined with a favourable match up) but plenty of the individual decisions could have gone better.
So at the end of day one I was 3-0 and sitting in second in the standings with only two other players who had managed 3-0 over the day, Iron Hands and Necrons.
Game 4 - Scorched Earth
My Secondaries -
Banners
Stranglehold
Grind them Down
Opponents Secondaries
Oath
Banners
Engage on All Fronts.
Pregame thoughts - I was a bit worried about this, but was hoping that if I could tank the initial wave then I could potentially hit back hard enough to secure the 2 middle objectives and put the pressure on. Wasn't much I could do about the various Dreadnaughts, especially with a super souped up Contemptor protected by Bodyguards making it untargetable so I was going to have to tank them and focus on killing any infantry that went upfield. Otherwise the plan was to use Lord of Skulls the left flank and try and hold the right as long as I could.
For deployment I hid my Decimators in separate corners behind obscuring - I wanted the coverage across both flanks with their shots and felt if they both deployed on one flank they would be easy enough to hide from. Otherwise Poxwalkers took the line again and the Deathshroud spread out to plant some banners then move up on each flank. I lost the first, although given how well the Golden Iron Hands had hidden there wasn't a great deal I could have done about it anyway
Iron Hands movement mostly involved deciding where to put the drop pod with the two devastator squads inside - which was just able to deploy on my right flank and get shots on my Decimator. Otherwise the Dreads moved up so they could shoot my Deathguard and the various Vanguard units charged up into the centre
The Devastators unloaded into the Decimator - but it just clung to life on 2 wounds thanks to popping the FNP strat on it, in what felt like a big moment. Elsewhere I got my first taste of how nasty the Iron Hands character volkite contemptor was as it casually obliterated a Poxwalker squad and as something of an afterthought managed 9 wounds on the Lord of Skulls with its 2 krak missiles. By the time the Gatling Redemptor had finished shooting I had lost another Poxwalker unit.
In response I healed up the wounded Decimator on the right and popped Daemonforge, but away from short of its buffing characters its output + a smite from the Plaguecaster only managed 5 wounds on the Vanguard squad in the middle. On the left flank the Lord of Skulls and remaining Decimator killed 4 from a vanguard squad and the infiltrator squad. However I hadn't managed to dislodge Iron hands from either objective.
With full primary points Iron Hands kept the pressure on, the two Vanguard squads on the left charging into my Poxwalkers ensuring their destruction. The Deathshroud holding the right flank took a heavy volley from the Devastators and Gatling Contemtor but clung to life - although the Rites of War assisted Vanguard stole the objective from them regardless. The Plasma Redemptor and Contemptor then teamed up on the Lord of Skulls, reducing it to scrap metal.
Going into my turn only scoring another 5 and with secondaries looking sparse it already felt over but resolved to go out swinging. The Deathshroud moved up to make the left centre flank and retake my home right objective - at least for a turn. With a Redemptor still blocking the way to the Iron Hands home objective the Decimator started to soften it up - and with some help from the Lord Discordant managed to bracket it. I managed to kill the Vanguard Veterans on each objective with the Deathshroud squads.
The Iron Hands kept pushing on the right flank, finishing up the last Deathshroud and Plaguecaster without any real difficulty. It looked for a while like the Contemptor was going to wiff against the Lord Discordant when its Krak missiles failed to do any damage, but it ended up getting blown up by Volkite regardless.
Running out of stuff the Deathshroud kept up the good fight on the left flank. The Decimator finished off the Redemptor and the two remaining Deathshroud each charged the Company Veterans sitting on the Iron hands home objective on the left, killing them and giving them free reign to sit on the objective for the rest of the game. Sadly the other Deathshroud squad wiped hard against a Land Speeder storm leaving it on one wound - it was rather academic at this stage but was still frustrating!
The last turns went very quick - the Iron Hands destroyed the Deathshroud that failed to kill the Speeder and I Warptimed the Decimator over to charge the Speeder to retake the objective. With two units hiding I managed to claw back 20 points on the primary in the last two turns to add some respectability to the scoreline, final score 47-96 loss at the end.
Postgame thoughts - Ouch. Regular Volkite Contemptors are bad enough but the Iron Hands version with all buffs (typically +1 to hit, +1 Ap from Doctrine, Exploding 6's to hit, Exploding 6's to wound) whilst being untargetable was a nightmare to deal with and I simply didn't have a answer to it. It was hard to know what I could have done differently after the match - the Lord of Skulls always rather dictates that I have to play aggressively for the mid board and the rate that I lost units ensured I couldn't do that - the speed in which I lost the right flank was particularly noticeable, although the Deathshroud rescued the left flank to keep things semi-respectable at the end.
Game 5 - Battle Lines
My secondaries -
Stranglehold
Warp Ritual
Grind them Down
Opponents Secondaries -
Engage on all Fronts
ROD
Oath
Pregame thoughts - Hang on - this list looks familiar! We'll say it was 'inspired' by the previous Iron Hands list so at least I was more aware of it going into the back to back game. What I could do about it was harder - the mission dictated a midboard clash, so I went from Stranglehold again hoping to turn the match into a grind around the centre, if I couldn't manage this again then it didn't feel like I would win regardless. Still after the last game I was rather worried that a similar result was in the offering.
The deployment map was more helpful this time around, I could hide both Decimators on the right without any chance of being shot by the Devastators in the drop pod. I almost forgot it could deep strike in my deployment zone turn one and had to lead a Deathshroud squad hanging awkwardly back to screen out.Iron Hands hid back again, using the far side building to place their bodyguard.
I lost the first turn roll off again and Iron Hands flew up some units to take the objectives and Centre whilst lining up shots against the Lord of Skulls. The drop pod came down rather defensively away from my lines and I wasn't under too much board pressure as a result. The Iron Hands started unloading into my Lord of Skulls who tanked it all exceptionally well - helped by the drop pod somehow accidently obscuring the entire frame of the Lord of Skulls from the Contemptor who had to change targets and settle for completely annihilating a Poxwalker squad instead.
Still going into my turn I healed the Lord of Skulls, crept the Decimators forward so they could shoot the Veterans on the objective and pushed forward with the Death guard as far as possible. Iron Hands used their strat to deny my 4+ invul spell on the Lord of Skulls, but it did leave them dangerously low on CP for the rest of the game at least and meant they couldn't stop the Plaguecaster going about casting his ritual. Otherwise The Decimators cleared the objective and the Lord of Skulls killed one and a half of the Devastator squads to somehow ease the shooting coming back at it. On the left, the Deathshroud managed to kill the Speeder (hurrah!) and took the objective.
Iron Hands onlys scored 5 primary, and started pushing up on the south side of the board with some Veterans and kept their distance from the Lord of Skulls, again shooting everything into it but it remained strong - staying at about a third of its health after the shooting cleared. The Vanguard Veterans on the South charged the Deathshroud, killing one but losing two to the attack back. Going into my turn 2 I was able to claim the full 15 for primary and take an early lead.
I did very little movement up turn two, pushing everything which wasn't a Decimator up to the halfway line including deep striking the last Deathshroud unit midfield to try and take out the eliminators scoring Oath points. The Lord of Skulls shot off the Assault marines in the back which had been scoring ROD points to leave Iron Hands without a way to score the two ROD's in my deployment zone. Two Deathshroud units managed to cleave the Veterans on the objective off to secure the flank to leave Iron Hands only on the one objective again going into their turn 3.
Iron Hands stayed back and lined up another volley of shots into the Lord of Skulls - it looked like he was going to survive another turn as he heroically absorbed shot after shot (helped but some poor rolls from Iron Hands throughout the first couple of turns against it and a couple of good re-rolled saves against the high damage weapons) but literally the last shot Iron Hands could throw at it from a desperate Eliminator cleared it up, still without any way to score engage or ROD and behind on primary I was bossing the scoring, scoring a second 15 points in a row.
From here it was a case of trying to consolidate my early gains. I threw up my Lord Discordant via Warptime to tag the otherwise unkillable contemptor and advanced back with the two Decimators - the aim being having score 30 already and unlikely to lose the cultists I was already guaranteed 40 points on primary and could hopefully advance them out again later to sit on a objective/shoot anything that got too close to deny more points. The Plaguecaster completed his ritual and the Poxwalkers kept relatively still around the centre - one squad did charge the Eliminators along with the Deathshroud as back up, but the Eliminators fell to the Deathshroud without needing their involvement. The Lord Discordant charged the Contemptor solely to tag it and consolidated into the drop pod to ensure he couldn't be shot by the Redemptors, and blocked them off from moving upfield. Whilst I wasn't killing much, I was keeping Iron Hands off the objectives now and killing enough to keep my Grind them down ticking over.
Iron Hands came up in one last real push - the second Eliminator squad as well as the Infiltrator squad softened up the Poxwalkers but couldn't clear them of the objective, ensuring I would get full primary points. Otherwise the Contemptor unloaded at point blank into the Discordant, softening it up before it was finished off by the redemptors charge.
The remaining Deathshroud ganged up on the Infiltrators and softened up the Eliminators - although I elected not to charge them after the Decimators blew up the drop pod to ensure I would get grind them down this turn and make Eliminators a easy kill next turn for it.
On the final turn Iron hands pushed up with the now unimpeded Dreadnaughts, dealing out a nasty toll to the Poxwalkers and crippling a Decimator however it was largely academic at this point. Only the two man veterans were able to charge the Poxwalkers and failed to clear them, ensuring I didn't even have to move to score the last stranglehold (and would have secured me another 15 points if primary hadn't already been maxed out.)
From here the Decimators could pick up the two Veterans and Deathshroud could finish off the Eliminators to ensure Grind was achieved again and secure a huge win for Chaos. Final score 94-52.
Postgame thoughts - Very happy to reverse the scoreline on this match up - the mission really helped as anything moving to the centre would end up exposed and the Death Guard side of the list really comes into its own in mid-board fights, especially when all the guns that are effective against them end up shooting the Lord of Skulls. Speaking of which the Lord of Skulls had a much improved - he got nowhere close to killing its points back, but the threat of a charge kept Iron Hands way at the back and he managed to kill a lot of their potential objective holders/secondary options, not to mention tanking a truly horrific amount of firepower over the first three turns. Not dissimilar to the Custodes game I didn't have much left remaining by the end of the game compared to my opponent (and would have really needed to high roll with the Decimators in a theoretical extra turn to stop their advance) but I had been able to hold the middle objectives throughout to ensure that the win was secured long before the final turns rolled around.
As the final results rolled in I had managed to take 2nd place - top of the 4-1 bucket with the only loss to eventual winner Nassim who went unbeaten throughout. Having ended up with 8 VP higher than 3rd and 12 more than 4th I was delighted that even in the game I lost I had managed to crawl back some points at the end - without some of them I wouldn’t have finished 2nd and might not have made the podium.
So after two tournaments with the same list I had ended up with 11 played, 8 won, 3 lost. Given 2 of the two losses were to pre-nerf Ad Mech, and the lowest ranking person I lost to across both events finished 4th I was delighted with how the list ran especially given its a bit of a off-meta list (I don't think anyone else at the second event had a model in their list that I also ran.) It's hard to make changes to the list without changing large parts of it given how tight the points are and the restrictions on Poxwalkers, and the list feels very 'solved' in its current iteration. Not perfect by any stretch but it asks a strong amount of varying questions for opponents to deal with and has answers to very tough infantry with the Decimators and excellent almost anything that doesn't have -1 damage in the Lord of Skulls backed by a heavy threat of mortal wounds from the Poxwalkers (who didn't get to show of their tricks, but performed excellent screening, tarpits and objective holders throughout) and counter offensive from the Deathshroud. Vehicles with -1 damage that can sit outside of the Decimators range are a real weak spot for the list - I faced 11 of these in the last 3 rounds of the second event and only just managed to kill one, having to mostly accept that I was going to have to tank these round after round. The Lord of Skulls in melee and Poxwalkers mortal wounds can both answer these if they get close, but if kited there isn't much that can be done about these.
The Decimators are probably the most interesting position to drop to the list - they had quite a few turns with minimal impact but there threat and occasional high roll (against Sisters in particular) was invaluable and compared to Volkite Contemptors (there most similar replacement) give the list a way to get around -1 damage at range which it would otherwise lack. However given their price and relative fragility they really took work to hide/screen and the Contemptors would have resulted in options that would have been easier to operate without such a resource/screening and wouldn't have required spells in order to operate at full efficiency. If you aren't willing to go all in on Iron Warriors/Deamonsmith/Lord Discordant + Master of possession for Decimators I don't think they have enough upside over Contemptors and the support required for them makes them a costly, but situationally very powerful addition to the list. It's a shame that the Lord Discordant feels so mediocre in combat these days - which seems nuts given what a terror he was in 8th but given how much in the meta either has -1 damage or can ignore his AP2 attacks means he never felt like a particularly powerful combat option and throwing him into combat was normally a sign that I was feeling very stretched for resources. The Lord of Skulls was unquestionably the star of the list, and its presence always forced questions from the opponent that nothing else in the list could answer.
One minor thing of note was it was nice winning games going second - has a rather odd disparity of going first in the first tournament 6/6 times and going second in the second tournament 4/5 times. Was slightly worried that the list might just be a go-first bully but given how it performed just as well going second was certainly encouraging.
If the Iron Warriors hogged most of the 'headline' acts, the Deathshroud proved a typically sturdy foundation. The Poxwalkers might have not killed a single model throughout the event, but the potential for a huge blob of mortal wounds kept people on their toes, and it was hard to take them out efficiently for a lot of lists (especially when firepower got directed into Lord of Skulls.) The Deathshrouds value was entirely on planting banners on early turns and counter attacking anything that charged the Poxwalkers, something they did brilliantly throughout. The list certainly performed best when playing to the Death Guard model - going up to the mid board, taking a punch then dealing out a lasting blow. When it met a force it couldn't tank early it lacked both the speed and raw ranged damage output to claw back. Still the duality of its mid board threats meant even when this happened they still put up a fight (in 2 of the 3 losses across both threats the Deathshroud managed to make it to the opponents objective and charge the objective holders.)
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