TheChirurgeon's Road Through 2025, Part 50: LVO Teams Practice

Welcome back, Dear Reader, to my ongoing hobby and competitive progress series for 2025. Previously on Road Through 2025, I was throwing down at the Asgard November RTT and cursing the randomness of the Soulforged Warpack. This time I'm wandering back to Death Guard as I prepare for the LVO Team Tournament in January.

December Plans

My current plan for December is to hit up the Asgard RTT. There's a GT happening that same weekend in the city (Rise), but it's an hour drive and I'm not really up for a full weekend slog down and back two days in a row at the moment. Though who knows, that could change soon. Right now that's the plan, followed by the LVO Team Tournament in January.

The team I'm running right now is made of four of the coolest players in the Texas competitive scene. I'll do a proper intro in a couple of weeks but for now we're testing different lists and figuring out what we want to run. We're pretty sure there's a Gladius mix in the works - you more or less need the Victrix list right now - and I think we'll want Astra Militarum and World Eaters on top of that. Me? I'm going back to Death Guard.

The Return to Death Guard

I am very ready to go back to Death Guard after a couple of months of Chaos Space Marines. I don't hate playing CSM; I like the army quite a bit. But I will be very glad to not be playing an army that needs to take a Leadership test every time it shoots or fights. The Death Guard army rules just feel better, and I will be happy to not be relying on a Vindicator again.

Fuck that tank.

Anyways there are two questions here. The first is, "Mortarion's Hammer or Virulent Vectorium?" And as much as I love playing Hammer - and it's a good fit for a bunch of GW terrain layouts - I think Vectorium has more all-around play. I may re-evaluate this in light of the December dataslate, but right now that's how I'm leaning. After that the question is "Mortarion or two Rhinos full of Plague Marines?" and right now I'm leaning Mortarion on that front. I just like playing the big dumb idiot and he's a real problem for some lists. Plus he's plenty versatile and gives the faction a reactive move - something they just don't get otherwise.

List-wise, I'm looking at basically running the current Morty Vectorium list making the rounds. I played against something similar to this list at Worlds and it had a lot of juice, though I think it definitely has some weaknesses that I'll need to be aware of.

My Vectorium Death Guard List - Click to Expand

Death Guard Strike Force (2000 points) Virulent Vectorium

CHARACTERS

Daemon Prince of Nurgle (215 points) • 1x Hellforged weapons 1x Infernal cannon • Enhancement: Revolting Regeneration

Lord of Contagion (130 points) • 1x Manreaper • Enhancement: Daemon Weapon of Nurgle

Lord of Virulence (100 points) • 1x Power fist 1x Twin plague spewer

Mortarion (380 points) • Warlord • 1x Lantern 1x Rotwind 1x Silence

OTHER DATASHEETS

Deathshroud Terminators (160 points) • 1x Deathshroud Champion • 1x Icon of Despair (Aura) 1x Manreaper 2x Plaguespurt gauntlet • 2x Deathshroud Terminator • 2x Manreaper 2x Plaguespurt gauntlet

Deathshroud Terminators (160 points) • 1x Deathshroud Champion • 1x Icon of Despair (Aura) 1x Manreaper 2x Plaguespurt gauntlet • 2x Deathshroud Terminator • 2x Manreaper 2x Plaguespurt gauntlet

Foetid Bloat-Drone (100 points) • 1x Fleshmower 1x Plague probe

Foetid Bloat-Drone with Heavy Blight Launcher (120 points) • 1x Heavy blight launcher 1x Plague probe

Foetid Bloat-Drone with Heavy Blight Launcher (120 points) • 1x Heavy blight launcher 1x Plague probe

Foetid Bloat-Drone with Heavy Blight Launcher (120 points) • 1x Heavy blight launcher 1x Plague probe

Myphitic Blight-haulers (100 points) • 1x Bile spurt 1x Gnashing maw 1x Missile launcher 1x Multi-melta

Myphitic Blight-haulers (100 points) • 1x Bile spurt 1x Gnashing maw 1x Missile launcher 1x Multi-melta

Poxwalkers (65 points) • 10x Poxwalker • 10x Improvised weapon

Poxwalkers (65 points) • 10x Poxwalker • 10x Improvised weapon

Poxwalkers (65 points) • 10x Poxwalker • 10x Improvised weapon

Exported with App Version: v1.43.1 (103), Data Version: v708

The big difference between this list and the one I played against is that it trades out one Lord of Contagion for a Lord of Virulence and instead of Typhus and two units of Chaos Spawn it's running two Blight-haulers and a Fleshmower. This gives it more anti-vehicle/monster play and while the Spawn are interesting they tend to be a little too fragile against shooting, while the Haulers have a bit more synergy with the Detachment and rules like Leechspore Eruption.

The big weakness you have to worry about is your action economy. The Poxwalkers are both your key screening units and infiltrator pushback against armies like Adeptus Mechanicus but also you need 1-2 to be able to use them to do actions later. Fortunately the Blight-Haulers can do that in a pinch and the Fleshmower works for that purpose as well. The key is making sure you don't overextend going "full send" when doing so will leave you unable to score key secondaries. You have to look at units like the Fleshmower as an action doer who can sticky objectives first and a melee threat second. It's kind of disappointing in melee anyways - I don't know why, but I only ever roll five hits whenever I fight with that thing. What killed Dan in our game at worlds is that I rocked forward and killed his Poxwalkers on turn 1, forcing him to commit his Spawn, and then he couldn't score anything later. He also held Mortarion in reserves, which I think is mostly a mistake against my CSM list but will make more sense into armies with better ranged damage.

The rest of the list is surprisingly mobile and I like splitting the Deathshroud between a Lord of Contagion and a Lord of Virulence, where the LoV can buff the Drones and also give his unit the ability to re-roll wound rolls to buff their chances of taking out tougher infantry targets.

The Practice Game vs. Garrett's Space Wolves

We did a team practice day last Sunday. This is mostly just a couple of games happening concurrently. Ideally we'd have done two rounds but on Sundays I usually want people out of the house in time for dinner so we just did one and either way both were good. David needed a rep into Victrix Ultramarines and I just wanted any reps with Vectorium.

For this game Garrett was running a Stormlance list he'd been testing. The list is more or less this:

Grimnar
Bjorn
Arjac
Combi Lt
Scouts
10x Wolf Guard Terminators w/shield + hammer
5x Wolf Guard Terminators w/shield + hammer
10x Wulfen w/Thunder Hammers
10x Wulfen w/Thunder Hammers
6x Thunderwolf Cavalry
5x Intercessors
6x Headtakers (no shields)

There's a lot of beef in this list but almost no shooting. That's a great sign for me, because it means Mortarion can just kind of wander all over the table however he likes. He's not bad into Terminators either - his two damage sweep can put a real hurt on them and I just need to keep 2 CP up for Disgustingly Resilient so he can survive their attacks. Normally I take Rattlejoint Ague (-1 to saves) into Terminators but Garrett has a lot of 4+ invulnerable saves so I opt for Skullsquirm Blight (-1 to hit) instead to blunt his attacks.

The Mission: Scorched Earth + Tipping Point, Layout 1

I'm going first, which isn't normally ideal but I think I want that into Garrett's list as he has no ranged threats and this gets my Deathshroud onto the table sooner. I move up and stage in the open with Morty and the Daemon Prince and set up with the Blight Haulers.

Garrett comes screaming out with 20 Wulfen and six Thunderwolves. He also drops in his unit of ten terminators behind his forward L, out of line of sight. I put my Blight Haulers too far forward on this first turn and Garrett's able to consolidate into them after fighting the Poxwalkers, teaching me a rough lesson I need to learn here. They can't really kill the Blight Haulers with -1 to hit thankfully, but it's not where I want to be with them. On my turn I'm able to throw enough into Bjorn to kill him and I bring down the Deathshrouds, using the LoV to mark Bjorn and charge the remaining Wulfen (they end up bouncing and two survive), and putting another unit near the middle of the table.

This turns into a big brawl in the middle of the table pretty quickly. We both bounce off each other's terminators for a turn, then Mortarion comes in and starts cleaning up Wolf Guard. The Bloat Drones end up living all game but don't get quite as much done as I'd have expected, though they kill enough Thunderwolves and Wulfen to earn their keep.

The big advantage here is keeping objectives sticky - I held up 10 points all game and kept Garrett off primary scoring once late, helping me stay ahead. Even on the final turn I'm able to deplete enough of his army to keep him from being able to actually burn an objective.

This is just a bad matchup for Garrett, and not having shooting means that Mortarion can roam around the board freely and dominate the center. I mostly keep him off the objective to avoid the Lieutenant's ability but he easily picks up his cost in Terminators over the course of the game.

Result: Win, 13-7

It's not a massive win but I'll take it. The dice were wonky on both sides early - neither group of terminators felt motivated to damage the other but that dam broke when Mortarion got involved.

On the other table David and KC are playing their match and David is getting beat soundly by Victrix Guard.

It's a good learning experience, even if none of us believe Victrix will survive the dataslate in this form/cost. Gladius are still very good, film at 11.

I got a good rep in with Vectorium. It's good to be back on Death Guard and while I can use a few more reps with Mortarion I'm comfortable enough that I think I could win with this list if I had to play it tomorrow. It's good to be back.

Hobby Progress

I got suckered into painting more Night Lords. Specifically I've been thinking about how much I wished I'd had Noise Marines in my WCW list instead of Raptors, so I'm working on some Night Lords Noise Marines.

These guys are also super useful if I want to run Renegade Raiders and even have play in Creations of Bile. I'm not 100% sold yet on running the second Predator but at the very least I'll be able to run something more like Innes Wilson's Creations of Bile list from the WCW if I wanted to. The conversion is easy - it's just a shoulder pad and a helmet swap right now but I'll accent them a bit when I get to the final paint job on them. If I have to run two units I'll likely just run an EC unit as the second and call it a day.

Final Thoughts

That's it for this week. I've got a busy weekend planned so I don't anticipate I'll have too many games to play before next week but you never know. I still need to figure out what list I'm taking to the December Asgard RTT at this point, so stay tuned for that. Probably Death Guard, though.

See you next Thursday.

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