Losing my 40K Virginity

Ok, so I have been aware of the Games Workshop universe from my mid teens and scary as it is I am old enough to remember Heroquest and the Lost and the Damned books when they were first released. Round about the age of eighteen I got rid of my little lead people and got terribly serious and starting reading pretentious literature and listening to the Smiths and the Cure. It was only about two and a half years ago that Games Workshop started to become noticed by me again. I was living in Sydney at the time (still am) and the biggest similarity between the times then and the times when I was a precocious teen was that I had a lot of spare time in the evenings and was living in an area with nothing to do to spend my time in the evenings (this time swap Kingsgrove in Sydney for the rural outskirts of Saltash, Cornwall).
  One thing led to another and I acquired a Night Goblin starter set with paints and brush. Some months later I had three of them painted and after a long story which I probably will recount another time, I now have a 500 point Nurgle chaos space marine army. Today was the first day they went into battle and the first time I have played 40K. My opponent brought Tau (who I will call JH as I have no permission to use his real name) and this scared me as I heard they are very shooty. Yet somehow I won!

  Here was my list:

Nurgle Chaos Space Marines (The Devotees of Effluence)

"Only in Father Nurgle do we trust. Through his generosity may his beneficent contagions bless the universe."

HQ Brother Halastis the All-Seeing Eye of Infection, Sorcerer
Power Armour, Bolt Pistol, Force Weapon, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades
Plasma Pistol, Mark of Nurgle
Troops
The Hand of Corruption, Chaos Space Marine Squad
Brother Alcrax the Decayed, Aspiring Champion - Power Armour, Boltgun, Plasma Pistol, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades,
Mark of Nurgle, Power Fist
Marines (3) - Power Armour, CCW, Bolt Pistol, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades, Mark of Nurgle
Marine (1) -	Power Armour, CCW, Plasma Pistol, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades, Mark of Nurgle
The Death Head Cult, Cultist Squad
Supplicant Helgarnan the Base, Aspiring Champion - Improvised Armour, Autopistol, CCW, Shotgun
Cultists (8)  - Improvised Armour, Autogun, CCW
Cultist (1) - Improvised Armour, Heavy Stubber, CCW
Fast Attack
Bikers (2) - Power Armour, Bolt Pistol, CCW, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades, Chaos Bike
Biker Champion (1) - Power Armour, Bolt Pistol, CCW, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades, Chaos Bike
Heavy Support
Havocs (2) - Power Armour, Missile Launcher (Frag and Krak Missiles), Bolt Pistol, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades, Frag Grenades
Havocs (2) - Power Armour, Autocannon, Bolt Pistol, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades, Frag Grenades
Aspiring Champion - Power Armour, Bolt gun, Bolt Pistol, CCW, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades   Definitely, the men of the match were the The Hand of Corruption. Despite having a couple of their members wiped out by Tau fire they (with the Sorcerer as part of the unit) managed to destroy a battle suit and then with the assistance of the bikers demolished another unit with the Sorcerer killing my opponent's warlord with Instant death from his force staff. He then as a chaos boon received the ability to perpetrate instant death without the expenditure of warp points. This was after they were routed by having their number count down with fire just after the death of the Battlesuit.   The 'booby prize' goes to the bikers who failed their charge rolls and took an awful long time to get to the warlord's unit giving that they were on bikers and move 12". Next time as an observer suggested, I may replace them with a bolter armed unit of chaos space marines.   The havocs did an OK job of picking off a few Tau while covering the objective in my deployment zone and probably scaring off the opposing Kroot trying to get to the objective in my deployment zone.   The cultists sat on this objective on my side of the board were almost completely demolished and ran away, then rallying with only three of their number left by the end of the game. However given their stat line they performed the job I intended for them. This was to split the Tau fire (the rest of my troops were deployed up the other flank).   In the end I held one objective which sat in the pile of bodies of where his warlord and his troops were piled. While the cultists did not hold the objective in my deployment zone neither did his troops. The objective in the centre of the board remained unclaimed. On top of that I slew his warlord and was the first to destroy an entire unit making it a score of 3-0.   The other lesson I learnt was do not take Nurgle's rot as your Primaris Power when the table is less than 48" wide and only one unit have the Mark of Nurgle! That is unless you want to poison your own side too...   Only half of my force is painted at this point, but I will aim to post up pictures of the painted ones at a future point.