Sunday 23 April 2017

#85: Age of Sigmar Battle Report - Khorne Bloodbound Vs. Stormcast Eternals & Tournament Wrap Up

Game Four was here. It was getting toward the end of the day, but energy levels were still high! Which was lucky, because my final game of the day was against a friendly rival of mine; Stormcast Eternals, straight out of their new, shiny battle tome. This was my first exposure to the new and improved Stormcast, and while I had done a little bit of browsing of the new book, I was a little unsure of the finer points, especially the new units. But I was about to find out.

This is also my last pre-Blades of Khorne Battle Report. All bat reps from here on in will use the new Battletome.

My opponent's list was as follows; A Lord-Aquillor with (forgive me if I get this wrong) Stalwart Defender(?), six Knight-Palladors, five Judicators, five Vanguard-Hunters, a Knight-Azyros and three Vanguard-Raptors with Longstrike Crossbows. The Scenario was Border War.
Deployment was predictable. I deployed in much the same manner as Game Three, using my Reavers as a rearguard screen to combat the inevitable arrival of the Hunters, keen to take my objective. The Axe Turtle formed up in all it's red-plated glory.
On the other side of the board, The Aquillor and his Palladors prepared to launch an assault on my left side, while the Raptors and Judicators formed a firebase upon their objective. You'll notice that my first Bloodsecrator is deployed centrally, but quite far back. This was 31" away from the Raptors, as they would make short work of a high-priority target! My second Bloodsecrator was on my far right flank, using intervening terrain to block line of sight to the same lethal snipers. If there was any hope of Khorne's minions winning the day, these two chaps needed to stay alive! The Hunters were held in reserve, while the Knight-Azyros was up in the clouds, ready to bring holy vengeance down upon the forces of chaos.
I pushed forward with the Turtle, planted my Totem in the backfield, and sent my Bloodsecrator sprinting into the shadows of the ruins, remaining obscured from the celestial snipers on the hill. The reavers made a cheeky run move to stretch out as far as they could, leaving nowhere behind my lines for the Hunters to march on that was 7" away from enemy models while still fitting the whole unit; a five man unit on 40mm bases has a surprisingly large footprint. 
My opponent opened the turn strongly, with the Azyros arriving very promptly to the battle on one of the centreline objectives, getting the Stormcast on the scoreboard and getting ready to rip open his blinding lantern. 
His next big decision was to turn my Aspiring Deathbringer into a very well ventilated corpse, by showering him in crossbow bolts. My general was dead already, and it wasn't even the end of turn one… Well, then. All other activity involved moving the Palladors forward, but recklessly so. They were, however in range of the other central objective; something i could not afford to ignore if I wanted to make it out of this with a win.
My turn two was quite blunt in its approach to problem solving. The Blood Warriors on the right slammed into the Azyros, not only injuring him with a flurry of axe blows, but also claiming the objective, as to hold it, all you need is more models within 6" than your opponent. This played perfectly into my hands on the left flank, as I sneakily moved at least seven of my Blood Warriors into range of the objective formerly held by six Palladors. The rest of the unit of Blood Warriors was tucked neatly behind Deadly Terrain, while my Skullreapers walked up the other side of the terrain to protect their flank, and make a charge highly undesirable for my opponent. The Bloodsecrator lurking behind the ruins also planted his banner, increasing my potential threat in combat!
The Palladors were still in range of the Stalwart Defender, however, making them an incredibly tenacious unit to deal with. But I had faith in the martial superiority of Khorne. These warriors of the Man-God were no match!
In response to my rather aggressive negotiations, my opponent's Azyros unleashed the holy power of his lantern, reducing a Blood Warrior and a Wrathmonger to cinders. Fortunately for me, the D6 mortal wounds on my nearby Bloodsecrator only resulted in two wounds. A five or a six would have outright killed him! Elsewhere, my Skullgrinder met a similar fate to my Deathbringer, catching every available crossbow bolt with his face before slumping to his knees in defeat. It was in this turn that my opponent came to accept that his Hunters were not going to find their way on the back of the board, so resigned themselves to marching on the left hand side of the board to support the Palladors. They were unfortunately outside of the objective, leaving it firmly in my control. The Palladors charged in to do as much damage as they could, while avoiding the damned terrain. Despite their best efforts, they were left in the unfortunate position of fighting Skullreapers, Bloodwarriors, as well as inadvertently drawing the Wrathmongers into the fray with disastrous results. While I took a few casualties, the Stormcast lost three of their sleek cavalry. 
Now, I didn't manage to catch images of every step of the final turn, but once the Hunters had arrived on the board (far from where my opponent would have liked), my Reavers were free to string out between my rear objective and the right-hand objective, supporting the Blood Warriors and further protecting both of my Bloodsecrators in the process. There was some debate as to whether a single unit can hold multiple objectives, but the scenario makes no mention of units, only models, so the Reavers were well within their abilities to contribute to holding both. The Aquillor and the remaining Palladors got out of dodge thanks to the Knight's ability to master the Azyrite Hurricane, which once more gave me numerical superiority, even with the Hunters adding their five models to the tally. The Knight-Azyros, despite his most valiant efforts, was finally butchered by the frenzied Blood Warriors. I considered pushing for the objective on the hill, and attempting to slaughter the ranged support there, but decided against it, as i was under the impression that Raptors make a full round of shooting when receiving a charge. It turns out, they can inflict mortal wounds on a 6, but it was far less intimidating than i originally thought. Regardless, my biggest weakness as a player is over-extending, so I chose to consolidate, and maintain my leadership board ascendancy. 
My opponent made his last big play, by bringing the Palladors and Aquillor onto the board from my left flanking an attempt to contest the objective. To this end, all available firepower was directed at the Blood Warriors occupying the objective, thinning their numbers to three. With the possibility of holding the objective now very achievable, my opponent charged his newly arrived cavalry headlong into the Reavers; if he could just kill enough of them, he would claim the objective!
Much to his surprise and dismay, i took the fifteen wounds inflicted by the charge from the far end of the daisy chain, which still left me with plenty of models on the right hand objective to keep it firmly in control of the Bloodbound. The Bloodsecrator at the rear was still close enough to score points off my back field objective, while the wounded Bloodsecrator near the ruins made the decision to pile in and give the Knight-Aquillor a bit of a touch up with his mace. And with that final flurry of blows, the game ended; the scoreboard firmly in my favour! 

What a way to end the day! This was probably my most satisfying win of the day, as it was a true contest of tactics and strategy. I think what won this game for me was using the Reavers to daisy chain across my backfield, forcing my opponent to bring the Hunters on in a less-than-optimal position, and too late in the game to have a lasting impact on the outcome. Credit where credit is due, however; Stormcast shooting is horrific! Two characters in two turns just deleted off the table! The Palladors also proved incredibly tough to budge. 

All in all, I think my opponent was faced with an uphill battle from the start. In an objective game where numbers dominate objectives, I just had too many bodies in comparison to the ultra-elite Stormcast army! I was very happy with how I played in this game. Unlike many other games I've played, I was able to focus solely on the mission at hand and even showed a shred of restraint (Khorne would be disgusted!). I gave this opponent my nod for Best Sport, as this game had the perfect balance of hilarious banter and a serious strategic battle of wits (and luck). 

This turned out to be a fantastic day. I was pretty skeptical that we could fit four games into six hours, but I managed to finish all four of my games within the time limit. All of my opponents were great, and the armies in attendance were varied and diverse. 

I was really satisfied with how my list played out, and it proved to be very strong, and a challenge for a lot of people to handle! I was able to compete really effectively in most of the scenarios, while I think there were lists throughout the tournament that would have been very difficult match ups! 

In the end, I claimed Second Place. This was a huge honour, as a large part of the tournament was made up of your Sportsmanship score and getting nods for Best Sport. So, to those who voted my way, thank you very much. It's always humbling to win prizes like that, especially in a pool of such great players!

As always, thanks for reading!
Gabe

#84: Age of Sigmar Battle Report - "To Trap a Rat" Khorne Bloodbound Vs. Skaven

After a slim win, and a narrow loss, I was ready to throw down and try and get my second win. My goal for the day was to win two out of my four games, and I had two more chances to pull out a victory! Fingers crossed…

My third opponent for the day was a Skaven player, and the scenario was Three Places of Power. Now, the event wasn't super competitive, and there was the option to change your list between games. While most people just wrote the one list and played it the whole day, my Game Three opponent had two. The list she used consisted of Thanquol on Boneripper, a Hell Pit Abomination, three Stormfiends (grinderfists, electroshock gauntlets and poisoned wind mortars) and two units of ten clan rats. The list she left in her case was a lot more character heavy from what I could tell, and also contained two Warp Lightning Cannons. I think, considering the scenario, she made an error in list choice, purely for the fact that in a scenario so dependant on Heroes, her list only contained one.

The table we were playing on was dominated by two big terrain pieces in the middle of the board, naturally funnelling armies into a choke point, where things were sure to get bloody.

Perfect!

My Skullgrinder deployed on the far left flank to push for the objective tucked in behind the tower, while my Aspiring Deathbringer was front and centre, lining up the middle one. The objective on the right was in a tricky spot, and my only other Heroes were the slightly stationary Bloodsecrators. Knowing that my opponent only had one Hero, I knew that if I could swamp two of the objectives, victory would be mine.

My opponent deployed centrally, and a little bit back off the deployment line. Stormfiends were held in reserve to tunnel up behind my lines. This wasn't as big of a threat as i think it could have been. There were no Warpfire Throwers in the unit, and even with their combat potential, they were going to have to chew through a lot of bodies!
I was given turn one, and I wasted no time in dropping banners, bubble wrapping them with Reavers, and sprinting up the board with every other model in my army. Run rolls were pretty underwhelming, but the Skullgrinder was wasting no time and raced straight onto the left objective, starting that points tally nice and early!
My opponent pushed forward, not too aggressively, but forward. I won the next priority, and continued my rush! The Aspiring Deathbringer reached the central objective, surrounded by his enraged bodyguard. One of the Bloodsecrators lifted his banner, and moved up to support the main line, while the other remained with his banner firmly planted, keeping morale high and anger levels dangerously unstable. 
My opponent shuffled forward, but didn't charge. Boneripper's Warpfire Throwers unleashed with the fury of a lavender-scented candle, and killed a single Blood Warrior. I was surprised that they weren't aimed at one of my heroes, which could have easily been roasted, putting a stop to one of my avenues of scenario points. But we were getting toward the midway point of the game, and I had lost a single model. The opponent's army was mere inches away, and all of my buffed were in place. 
In the ensuing tsunami of bloodshed and slaughter, the Clanrats were the real victims. Completely outclassed by the furious champions of chaos' martial prowess, they were butchered without remorse or discretion. Blood Warriors were swinging with five attacks each, and made a mess of the rats shielding Boneripper. This did, however, open an avenue for the towering monstrosity to pile in and splat a few unfortunates. 
On the other side of the swirling meat grinder that had formed in the chokepoint, Wrathmongers were right where they needed to be; charging into the biggest, scariest combat monster they could swing their blood-caked flails at. After bludgeoning it into more of a mangled mess than an Abomination already is,  it launched a counter attack (despite my advice to my opponent about the mechanic and what it could mean) which did some damage, but also triggered the Abomination into a moment of self-loathing and rage.

And it killed itself. 

And it stayed down.
All of a sudden, my opponent had a single model left on the board, and despite it being Boneripper (the biggest rat ogre ever bred!), it was about to face the full force of my army in all of its melee glory! Meanwhile, my points tally was climbing higher and higher, while my opponent was struggling to get on the scoreboard. 
The Stormfiends finally showed up, but thanks to the Bloodreaver's daisy-chaining across the back of my battle line, they were forced to pop up far from the action. The only thing they could do was fire a Poisoned Wind Mortar at the Reavers, but the shots missed. 
With the Stormfiends having finally revealed their hand, my Reavers moved to screen the core of my army from the mutated cyborg-rats, but it was to no end. Boneripper was hacked to pieces in a spray of arterial blood and Warpfire fuel, leaving my opponent with no possible way to score scenario points. My opponent conceded at this point, and I got my second victory of the day. 

Now, it should be said that my opponent was not only a great sport throughout the game, but also had some of the worst luck I have ever seen. two consecutive turns of rolling three or less on 2D6 for Thanquol's Warpfire Projectors, the Abomination staying dead, waiting until the tail of turn four for the Stormfiends to show up… Things were not going her way! 

That said, I do think she made a fatal mistake in list selection. If she had taken her other list with the cannons, all of a sudden, my heroes, my scenario winners, are in serious peril! In this scenario, my list was far better suited to playing the objectives, which is one thing I'm finding Bloodbound are brilliant at. Sure, they're aggressive and like to hit things with axes; and sure, they die in droves to shooting armies (as you'll inevitably see in Game Four (spoilers?), but they have enough bodies, cheap heroes and tenacity in the form of wounds and saves, that they can effectively play any of the scenarios and still have a chance of winning. 

Going into Game Four, I was content with the day. I had gotten my two wins, and was interested to see if I could make it three. For skulls and for glory!

Thanks for reading,
Gabe

Sunday 16 April 2017

#83: Age of Sigmar Battle Report: "One Man Army" Khorne Bloodbound VS Everchosen

After a satisfying round one win, my next game was against the one matchup I didn't want…

Archaon himself.

My opponent's list consisted of Archaon, two Khorne Lords on Juggernaughts, a Slannesh Lord on Daemonic mount, and two units of ten Clanrats (ironically painted by myself; what an enabler!). This list does one thing. Archaon allows all heroes to use their command abilities, and all three of his accompanying friends buff him with bonuses to hit, double pile ins, and so on and so forth, turning an already terrifying slaughter machine into an absolute unstoppable meat grinder.

And just to top it off, because he has the keyword Khorne, my Bloodsecrator banners would gift him with extra attacks to his many weapon profiles; most significantly the Slayer of Kings, his brutal sword. Yep… this was going to be a rough ride. My only hope of victory was to focus entirely on the objective and come to grips with the fact that my entire army was acceptable losses. Everything was expendable for the sake of the mission.

I deployed in the same formation as usual, making sure that both of my Bloodsecrators were safe in the woods. My Bloodreavers were on my left flank, while I deployed my Skullreaper unit on my right hand side, with a relatively protected avenue to travel up the board, hopping from terrain piece to terrain piece. 
And this is what I was staring down! Archaon and Friends were here and they meant business. We were playing Gift from the Heavens, so this game was either going to go well, and I'd have a chance at winning, or I was going to get bulldozed. But shying away from a fight is not the Khorne Way…
Turn one was a bit of a non-event. Neither of us wanted to commit to a fight before the meteors came down and we had our bearings. I dropped both totems, activated the Deathbringer's command ability for the +1 attack 6" bubble, and then I rushed as fast as I could up the board with my Skullreapers. There were several reasons for this action. Firstly, they were on an opposite flank to Archaon, and I was confident that they could take on any individual element in the rest of his army without too much risk. Secondly, I knew that if I wanted any hope of winning this game, I would need to deny my opponent at least one turn of scoring from his own meteor, allowing me to pass him on the scoreboard and hopefully maintain a lead long enough to run down the clock! 

My opponent did much the same thing, shuffling forward a little with Archaon and casting Mystic Shield upon himself. The standoff was tense!
Turn two began and meteors began to fall! Mine landed on my left flank, and my opponent's landed on his left flank. Perfect! This allowed me to shuffle my entire force (barring the stationary Bloodsecrators with a small bodyguard of Blood Warriors) onto my left flank and wrap the objective with as many bodies as possible!

Now, I'm gonna stop here for a moment and make a bit of a public apology, as I actually placed my objective incorrectly. It was meant to be in the centre of the tile, and for some reason (this was no Tzeentch trickery, I swear) it is 5-6" too close to my board edge. I'm aware that this poses an advantage to me, but fortunately it had no influence on the end result (spoilers, right?). Sorry, Jamie!

Fortunately for me, this turn really set things up for success. Archaon was too far away to land behind my Reavers, and I knew that he had a healthy terror surrounding my Wrathmongers, which were (lets be real) my only chance at killing the big guy! The Skullreapers put in a huge run and got within range of my opponent's meteor behind the small building. This wasn't so much about me claiming the objective, but stopping my opponent from scoring, launching me into the lead!
This put my opponent under immense pressure! All of a sudden, despite the elite nature and raw power of his list, I was in a sturdy position. A unit of defiant champions of Khorne rallied around their banner, holding their cursed blades aloft in anticipation of bloodshed, were standing squarely in the way of my opponent scoring! The whole army shifted sides of the board to deal with this threat, which was fantastic! A 140 point unit, although doomed, was buying me valuable time and drawing Archaon away from my main force! The game would only go for five turns, and every moment was vital!
My opponent won priority, and things went pretty much exactly how you think they would. Archaon and both Juggernauts slammed into the Skullreapers, but it only took a few attacks from the Everchosen to obliterate the entire unit before they could lift a finger. As a silver lining, one Skullreaper lashed out as he was slain and clipped Archaon for two mortal wounds! That'll show him! This put my opponent back on the scoreboard, as one of his units of Clanrats gladly took up residence far from the danger of battle.
Knowing that I was about to have a very unwanted guest in my own deployment zone, I spread out my army, giving Archaon nowhere to land and forcing him to charge in and slaughter his way through (which sounds a lot more challenging that Archaon actually finds it to be) to my meteor. As you'll see in later games, Bloodreavers played a crucial role in all of my matches. I always thought they were a little bit trash, but having bodies and numbers on the table is hugely important, and I don't regret my selection at all. This game was no different. When it came to protecting an objective, their footprint is huge! Sure, they die by the dozens (as you'll soon see), but they are essential to this army!
So, yeah… this happened. With blinding speed, some clever pile ins and one of the scariest weapon profiles in the game, Archaon just ploughed into my army…

And killed. Everything.

He hit the reavers with a monumental charge and just deleted them! That was end of turn four. He was outside of range to deny me points. If I won priority for the final turn, I would score again, which (thanks to the cheeky points denial at the start of the game by my Skullreapers) would have maintained my lead and won me the game! But it was not to be! Archaon won priority, and moved onto the objective, denying me a huge chunk of points and essentially winning the game. There was no way i could shift such a monumental monster off an objective in a single turn, but I was gonna give it a go! Wrathmongers went in, and failed to do any significant damage, while Archaon declined making his attacks, saving him from a brutal self inflicted head wound. Doubling down on denying me points, one of the Jugger-Lords moved in as well. So my Deathbringer, Skullgrinder and a Bloodsecrator charged in! Because I (foolishly) activated the Wrathmongers first, the Jugger-Lord administered bloody murder upon my band of merry men! While he managed to kill both my general and one of my banner men, the Skullgrinder once again proved what an absolute monster of a character he is by pulverising the full-health Jugger Lord in a single round of combat!! This guy is only 80 points and is already one of my favourite heroes! Why have i never used him before?!
That closed out the game with a narrow win to Archaon. Honestly, the fact that I was one priority roll away from winning, was incredibly satisfying. I know it was a loss at the end of the day, but I played the mission, and nearly came out on top against a foe I realistically had no way of killing. I made a few minor errors of judgement, but all in all, I thoroughly enjoyed my game! My opponent was a gentleman and the banter around this game and its many cinematic moments was hilarious.

Games 3 & 4 of Throne of Ages will be posted very soon, so keep an eye out for them!

As always, thanks for reading,
Gabe

Thursday 6 April 2017

#82: Age of Sigmar Battle Report - "Pest Control" Khorne Bloodbound VS. Spiderfang Grots

Well, it was tournament time! And my first match up was against a beautifully painted Spiderfang Grots army! From left to right, he had fifteen Spider Riders, his Big Boss riding Giant Spider, ten Spider Riders, an Arachnarok Spider with a Shaman on board and another unit of fifteen Spider Riders. 

I had faced Spiderfangs before, and I knew the key to defeating them was to kill the Heroes ASAP to bypass the ridiculous mortal wound output! On the right hand side of the ruins, I deployed in the "Axe Turtle"; Wrathmongers flanked by Blood Warriors, and supported by the Deathbringer and Skullgrinder. The crowd of Bloodreavers took up residence in front of the two Bloodsecrators who were on objective-guarding duty (to my embarrassment, I had to resort to using a 40mm base after leaving my only objective markers at home). Being painfully aware of the huge unit of arachnids on my left flank, my Skullreapers would have to operate independently today to stop my objective being claimed! 
By moving around in its formation, the "Axe Turtle" forms a formidable fortress of death and carnage. When both Bloodsecrators plant their standards and the Deathbringer pops his Command Ability, the Blood Warriors (thanks to the rage enduring aura from the Wrathmongers) are up to six attacks each. The sheer volume of attacks dished out by the mass of red-armoured berserkers is horrific, even if they die. 


I'm not sure how much experience my opponent had fighting Bloodbound, but I had every intention of putting up a tough fight.

Having far more deployment drops than my opponent, he chose to hand me first turn, in an attempt to get a double turn and to draw me into charge range. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing for me, as it allowed me to drop both of my Bloodsecrator Totems, pop the Deathbringer's +1 attack bubble, and bubble wrap my objective with Blood Reavers to avoid the turn three major loss offered by the Take and Hold Scenario. The right-hand unit of Blood Warriors made sure to get the whole unit into the woods, making a charge against them rather undesirable for the spiders. 


The Destruction Move made for a big push, and I was bracing for some serious damage. The Arachnarok cast Mystic Shield on the right hand Spiders, while the command ability from the Big Boss went on the left hand unit. This proved to not work very well, as you're about to see.


Thanks to Cunning Deceiver, I suffered minimal damage from the pesky Gobbo bows, but I did lose a Skullreaper; acceptable losses in my mind.
 In a stroke of sheer luck, only one unit made a successful charge, and it was the smallest unit of Spiders, which had no buffs on it, into the front of my Axe Turtle, successfully dragging both units of Blood Warriors, the Wrathmongers, Skullreaper and Deathbringer into combat with predictable results. Two Wrathmongers got killed after ingesting far too much spider venom, but the retribution was swift and bloody. 

Once again, I allowed the inner Khornate Champion to make decisions for me, and I over-reached. Filled with confidence in the ability of my army, I launched an all out assault, breaking formation and slamming into the Spiders. The Skullreapers failed a 5" charge, which should have been enough of a precursor of what was to come, but caution was with the wind at this point. The Wrathmongers made it into the Arachnarok, which was fantastic, but I made the blunder of splitting my Blood Warriors, sending one unit into the Big Boss to try and stem the tide of mortal wounds, while the other unit on the right made the regrettable decision to charge the buffed, full strength Spiders in their face.

This ended with disaster, as the Blood Warriors were obliterated in a wave of venom, and caused a grand total of two wounds on the way down. It was only when they were destroyed that I realised how exposed my two heroes had become. After a fantastic start, this was going downhill fast!
 The Warriors on the left faired significantly better, putting six wounds on the Big Boss, and only losing one of their own, while the Wrathmongers did what they did. They manages to sink a few hits into the towering spider before it crushed them under its bulk, and while it did make a full round of attacks against itself, only a handful of wounds were caused. The Arachnarok was damaged but still a considerable threat!
 With my right flank in total disarray, all I could do was hope that by some sheer chance, my Heroes would survive...
 And Khorne was defiant to the last! While the Arachnarok made the wise choice to activate first and kill the truly terrifying damage-dealer that is a buffed Skullgrinder, the Aspiring Deathbringer bluntly refused to die, staggering to his feet with a single wound remaining after an onslaught of attacks!
On my left flank, the melee was short and bloody! Another Skullreaper went down to the poison-tipped arrows of the Forest Goblins. The Big Boss was hacked into bloody pulp at the hands of the Blood Warriors, but in return, the spiders unleashed vengeance upon them. Killing all but the champion proved their undoing, however, as the doomed Warriors swung their axes one last time, forcing a horrific battleshock check, and leaving a single Spider alive.
The closing moments of the game were concise and violent. The Skullreapers finally reached combat, charging through the Arachnarok, eviscerating it with their Daemonblades, before overrunning into the remaining spiders who had finally taken the last wound off my General.
My unit champion made a dash for the enemy objective, if only to deny their ability to claim it, but was cut down by a rather furious Spider Rider. Even with his Blood Glaive and No Respite, I failed to kill him in return.

And it was then that the battle reached its close.

I ended up winning this game on Victory Points, but it was certainly a lesson in the capability of my army. The Axe Turtle formation proved hugely effective, and I would definitely make use of it again. My opponent openly admitted that he had made mistakes in turn one as to which unit he buffed, but there were charges that failed to the surprise of both of us, so I certainly don't think he had made any significant blunder.

I don't know if he had much experience playing against Bloodbound either, because he was genuinely shocked when my Blood Warriors piled in with six attacks per model! Khorne can dish out some hurt. I definitely made mistakes when I broke formation. The Wrathmongers into the Arachnarok made sense and was the right thing to do, but I essentially threw away my Blood Warriors on the right, and in doing so, exposed both of my heroes. I would have been much better to hold back and shield them.

Skullreapers and Bloodsecrators were definitely the men of the match for me! After a slow start, the Skullreapers just dissected everything they touched! And Bloodsecrators were immensely powerful; having my entire army immune to Battleshock and having +2 attacks to every weapon is such a force multiplier that I'd be hard pressed to ever leave home without two in the future (although time, and a new Battletome, will tell…). And while I made some mistakes with the Blood Warriors, they continually prove to be some of the most reliable and value-for-points Battleline units in the Chaos arsenal, which is considerable!

I think I made the right move wrapping the Bloodsecrators on my objective, denying my opponent the chance for the turn three win. And this would not be the first game that Reavers won for me!

This was a fantastic game against a fantastic opponent. He had an absolutely beautiful Spider army (the photos really don't do it justice…), and he was a great sportsman! The game was tense and exciting, and i would gladly play him again.

As always, thanks for reading,
Gabe