In October 2018, I had the pleasure of playing Dom’s beautiful Death Guard army in a small 350 ‘Decurion’ game. This system adapts Horus Heresy/30k rules for small scale skirmishes between a few squads of warriors. It was created mainly by Tom from the Eye of Horus Podcast’s Mournival, an inner circle of trusted members of the global Heresy community.

My little force was composed of the following:

+Mysterious Blackshield operative (Knight Errant) - master crafted power fist, paragon bolter

+Oblivion Knight Mistress - execution blade

+5 Sisters of Silence Prosecutors - bolters

+Myrmidon Destructor Lord - photon thruster

+8 Adsecularis Tech Thralls - carapace armour

+1 Thallax - lightning gun

Dom’s grim Death Guard warband was a savage blend of Breachers and Seekers, with a few missile launchers and heavy flamers thrown in for versatile firepower. I have also played Dom in a 1250 Zone Mortalis game, one of my favourite games of all time. Be sure to follow his inspiring work on Instagram!

The core of my army are my three characters. The first is an enigmatic veteran Astartes in battered armour, who counts as a Knight Errant. His ability to Deep Strike without scatter due to his Falsehood cloak will hopefully allow me to seize objectives mid-game.

Second I have an Oblivion Knight Mistress. With her wickedly sharp execution blade and two wound profile, I am relying on her to leap in and decapitate key enemy Astartes while her sisters cover her with bolter fire.

Last is the hulking Myrmidon Lord, Lykandros. He’ll be leading a pack of Thralls, and hopefully reaping a devastating toll with precision fire from his photon thruster cannon. His power fist and Toughness 5 makes him quite potent in combat too.

In this mission, my objective was to escort an expeditionary navigator carrying vital intelligence to the Arvus Lighter shuttle in the centre of the board for urgent evacuation. Dom had to stop me.

I held my Blackshield and Sisters in reserve, deploying my forces in the bottom right corner. Dom’s four small packs of Astartes took up a position in the opposite corner. Already, I felt outnumbered and badly outgunned!

The Arvus Lighter was painted by Michael, another pillar of the Sydney Heresy Community, and was guarded by some of his Solar Auxilia. The soldiers are scared and edgy, so will shoot anyone from any faction if they come into line of sight. There are also two Tarantula sentry guns with armed with twin-linked heavy bolters. They might not be particularly scary in the context of a “normal” large scale 30k game, but in these small scale conflicts, a few S5 AP4 shots can make a big impact.

In the opening moments of the battle, the Navigator is escorted by Myrmidon Lord Lykandros and his handful of Thralls. They advance cautiously, not wanting to attract fire from the Death Guard or the third-party Solar Auxilia.

The lone Thallax moves up on the right. His jet pack thrusters allow for cheeky movement shenanigans that may come in handy for popping around corners.

One pack of Death Guard charges out aggressively, covered by a missile launcher nearby.

Another team of Astartes, led by a sycthe-wielding Centurion, pincers in from the other side of the hangar. They unleash a brief rattle of bolter fire, and mercilessly cut down the three nearest Auxilia.

Only two three-man squads remain to protect the Arvus Lighter, along with the sentry guns.

Using his lobotomised Thralls as mobile cover, Lykandros marches up and lances some photon thruster beams over at the nearest Death Guard, but they are protected by the cover from the wall.

The unit of XIVth Legionaries closest to the shuttle pour bolt rounds and searing flames into the Tarantula Sentry gun before it can respond.

The gun bursts apart, taken out of action. The Solar Auxilia Lasriflemen look on in fear, and return fire, managing to slay the Breacher marine!

Though the battle has only just begun, the Death Guard look well on the way to securing the whole hangar area.

If they can surround the Arvus Lighter, they can cut off the Navigator’s escape, and the mission is as good as over.

The Centurion barks an order, and his men ready themselves for close combat, holstering bolters and drawing blades.

They charge into combat with one of the remaining units of Solar Auxilia Guards, ignoring their desperate snap fire. In the space of a few heartbeats, the lasriflemen are bashed to the deck with shields and stomped to death.

Just when it looks like the Death Guard have achieved complete control, help arrives in the form of the Sisters of Silence, who have outflanked from the left. They rapid-fire their boltguns into the nearest pack of Traitor Astartes, killing the closest man in a flurry of overlapping mass-reactive detonations.

The Death Guard pivot and fight off the unexpected threat with bolter fire of their own, killing two of the Sisters.

There is no cover in this savage close-quarters firefight- the only defense is to kill. The Sisters reload their weapons and continue shooting, blasting apart two more Death Guard. But they fail to take out the Astartes with the heavy flamer…

Over near the Arvus Lighter, Lykandros decides to fully commit to the battle while some of the Death Guard are distracted by the Sisters of Silence. He orders his Thralls forwards. He spares a moment to blurt a warning to the Navigator:

++STAY BACK, UNAUGMENTED ONE++

After closing to within spitting distance, the Mechanicum forces shoot a bright cascade of energy beams into the Death Guard. Lykandros slays both of the Breachers, his lethal photon thruster cutting through their heavy shields like paper. Now exposed, a third marine is killed by the clumsy laslock shots of the Thralls.

Only the Centurion and a heavy flame trooper remains. As the Mechanicum infantry begins to charge into combat, the heavy flamer washes incandescent promethium over them, barbecuing three Thralls.

Despite the losses, Lykandros makes it into combat alongside his Thralls. It is a desperate struggle, with both depleted units fighting with furious determination. The Astartes burdened by his heavy flamer makes little impact against the horde of Thralls. But the Centurion hooks in with his sycthe, cutting three of them in half at the waist.

Myrmidon Lord Lykandros then steps in and kills the flame trooper with a crushing blow of his power fist. Blood and machine oil splatters the deck, and the combat continues.

Nearby, the Thallax wisely stays out of sight of the Tarantula, so it instead fires on the next nearest unengaged unit it can see- the three man Death Guard team with one missile launcher.

The automated turret spits out a steady stream of heavy shells, which plow into ceramite battle plate with devastating effect. To everyone’s surprise, it hits three times, wounds three times, and kills three Astartes!

The Sisters take advantage of this setback for the Death Guard. Two of the Prosecutors with bolters turn on their guns on the last remaining Astartes with a missile launcher. Another Prosecutor teams up with the Oblivion Knight Mistress to take on the heavy flamer. As the Sisters charge into combat, the flamer roars and engulfs one of them, cooking her to death inside her ornate armour. To the last moment, she remains true to her vow of silence.

Ignoring the horrific fate of her comrade, the Oblivion Knight leaps forwards, rotating her execution blade in a blinding figure-eight motion. Before the Death Guard can shift his stance or draw a knife, the Sister slices his helmed head clean off his shoulders!

A veteran tactical marine and a Legion Seeker run to assist their leader against Myrmidon Lord Lykandros and the two remaining Thralls.

They crash into the ongoing combat, hoping to turn the tide. The Centurion’s wicked scythe claims the life of another Thrall, while the Myrmidon Lord reduces the Legion Veteran to red paste with another ruthless swing of his power fist.

While the Centurion tries to deal with the final frustratingly resilient Thrall, Lykandros looms up from his side, and punches him so hard his limp form is flung through the air to slam into the hangar wall.

With a blur of distorted air, the Blackshield operative reveals himself and takes command of the situation. His first priority is to remove all threats to allow the Navigator access to the Arvus Lighter. To this end, he orders the Thallax to spring into action and destroy the automated gun.

The Thallax jets up to point-blank range and zaps it with his lightning gun, but fails to destroy it. In return, the Taratula rotates to face the Mechanicum construct, and blows it to pieces with a burst of heavy bolter rounds! The Blackshield shakes his head and sighs.

Back at the shuttle, the Seeker guts the last Thrall with a slash of his combat blade, but is in turn pulped by Lykandros.

Finally free from the grinding melee, and flecked with gore, Lykandros recalibrates his optics and assesses the situation.

The hulking Myrmidon notices the still-active Tarantula and incinerates it with some casual photon thruster shots, making up for the failure of the Thallax. In the background, the Blackshield calls the Navigator over, signalling that it is safe to make a run for the Arvus Lighter.

“Come with me if you want to live.”

The last Death Guard warrior on his feet is the heavy support marine with a missile launcher. He shrugs off the bolter fire from the two nearby Prosecutors, and in one last act of spite, fires a single close range krak missile at the Oblivion Knight. She turns at the noise, and is utterly vapourised by the anti-armour warhead. Only her execution blade remains, clanging to the deck surrounded by burning scraps of cloth.

The mysterious Blackshield operative, Lykandros, and the Expeditionary Navigator board the shuttle and escape. The last Traitor tries to shoot it out of the sky with a missile, but misses- Loyalist victory!

That was a thrilling game with a great opponent. After quickly seizing ground and controlling the board, Dom had some terrible luck, losing more than a few marines to the neutral NPC defenders and their automated guns.

The Decurion rules were balanced and fun, creating tense engagements in which every dice roll was important. I encourage you to try it. It’s great for having small games while your army is slowly growing, or running as special recon scenarios prior to a bigger battle.

As always, remember to check out the Eye of Horus Podcast if you’re not already a listener, and have a look at the Mournival Events page for gaming opporunities and inspiration.