The scenario was Duality in Death, which is a new take on Three Places of Power. My opponent was fielding a Castelant and a Lord-Aquilor, so I definitely had the numerical advantage when it came to units that could claim the objectives. Not only that, but the Castelant is slow as a wet week, and the Aquilor doesn't have the tenacity to be able to withstand an all out assault without support.
But while I had the advantage in regards to scenario-playing units, my opponent had three very intimidating units that I didn't really have an answer for. The first is the obligatory unit of ten Liberators (buffed by the Castelant's lantern and Stanch Defender of course), which would be a challenge to break down without some serious luck. The second was the ever-reliable and ever-lethal pair of Fulminators. And the third, assisted by the Aquilor for some uncatchable and inescapable movement shenanigans, was a unit of nine (yes, nine) Longstrike Raptors.
You know all those characters that I was talking about in my army? This unit would very likely become their doom.
My deployment followed normal suit with the Furnace and Corruptor lining up an objective each, backed up by a Priest in case they met a messy end. I sat my catapults a fair way back, in an attempt to lure the Raptors close. If they wanted to kill the catapults, they would have to move within reach of the bulk of my army. There was also a cheeky unit of Vanguard Hunters lurking off-board, so I was again, mindful of my backfield.
Knowing that my heroes were on borrowed time, I took first turn, pushing forward on my right flank. Thanks to the multitude of nearby monks, the Furnace got a bit of a push and launched into within range of the objective, starting that vital scoreboard ticking over. It was accompanied by the massive regiment of monks, who took up centre stage. In the shadows of the ruins, the back up Priest lurked, waiting for his moment of glorious burden. The left flank was a little more restrained, for fear of the crossbowmen opposite.
My first turn was altogether pretty uneventful other than movement. The Furnace had Mystic Shield cast upon it, while the big unit of monks in the centre received Rabid Fever and the Command Ability, in case the Dracoths made a long-bomb charge. The Catapults were either out of range or completely ineffective.
The retaliation was unforgiving. The Aquilor and the Raptors leapt to the left flank, while the rest of the army pushed forward. The impenetrable shield wall advanced to support their general, but despite his movement abilities, he fell just short of being able to claim the left objective. The Dracoths failed their charge (thank you Bale Chimes!), but the Longstrikes put work in and outright deleted the Furnace in a single volley. Well, alrighty then...
In response, I continued my forward march, pushing most elements forward. My Corruptor moved onto the left objective, protected by Vexler's Shroud and Verminous Valour. After the ungraceful death of my furnace, the Priest moved onto the right-hand objective, seeing his opportunity to reap glory and climb the clergy ladder.
With the relentless grind forward by the Clan, pressure was beginning to be applied to Sigmar's finest. The Raptors leapt to the back board edge and made the risky decision to split their fire. To my surprise, he chose not to shoot the Corruptor because of his ranged damage mitigation, and instead focused on the two priests. The Priest in the shadow of the Corruptor was indiscriminately skewered, while the Priest on the right staggered to his feet with a single wound left. To add to my suffering, the Judicators managed to punch holes in the left hand Plagueclaw, splintering it into a pile of twisted timber, bent metal and a rather unsavoury soup-like substance.
The Vanguard-Hunters also made their triumphant arrival emptied a few crossbow bolts into the nearby monks. At this point, I was quietly pleased with how this flank was going. I'd well and truly taken the lead on the scoreboard, and for some reason, my opponent didn't commit to combat. While the monks posed a significant threat, I could barely scratch the Liberators, and the same goes for the Corruptor. His complete lack of rend, and Lay Low the Tyrant would have swung the conflict in my opponent's favour. Even the Fulminators would have made short work of him! Not that I was complaining...
Having been given a moment to take a breath, I didn't waste the opportunity. The severely wounded Priest healed thanks to his proximity to the objective, while the nearby Monks encircled him to protect the bread-winner from any surprises. The unit accompanying the Corruptor daisy chained in front of him to create a speed-bump, giving me at least one round of combat between my general and the hammers of the God-King. The final play of the turn was a bit of a gamble. The central unit pushed hard up the centre in a hyper-aggressive move that was either going to be a glorious assault or end up with that unit stranded in the middle of nowhere and get mopped up.
But the dice were with me. I charged 11", which not only allowed me to tag the Fulminators, but also pile in to the Raptors with the majority of the unit. This worked out perfectly, as if I finished within an inch of the Raptors, they could fire into the vulnerable ranks of my Monks. However, because I made a successful charge against the Fulminators and finished with models within 3" of the Raptors as part of the initial charge, they could then Pile In unscathed!
I snuck through a total of four wounds upon the Fulminators (in no small part thanks to exploding rats), but managed to wipe out the Raptors completely after Battleshock claimed the two surviving Stormcast. Excellent! Even though it required me to throw away a large unit of monks, it ultimately led to the complete destruction of probably the only unit capable of affecting the late-game scoreboard.
Realising all too late that the battle was slipping through his fingers, despite inflicting horrific casualties, my opponent finally committed to combat, charging in his Lord Aquilor and Liberators into the Monks, while the Hunters and Judicators trimmed two wounds off the Verminlord.
Elsewhere on the battlefield, disaster struck once more for my opponent, as he failed a five-inch charge that would have spelt inevitable doom for the Monks and Priest.
In true verminous fashion, I unleashed my surviving Plagueclaw (who had done sweet nothing all game) and the Priest's Pestilent Breath upon the Dracothian knights, and pushed through such horrific levels of damage, there could be no withstanding it.
In the fading light of the last turn, my General stood tall against the odds! He survived shooting from the Hunters and Judicators, and the melee assault from the Liberators and Aquilor while only dropping four wounds… He turned out to be far tougher than I gave him credit for!
In the end, I landed a major victory with a convincing scoreline. I think my opponent underestimated his army's power. I have no doubt that if he'd been more aggressive, he would have pushed me off one or both objectives and been in competition for the win. I think he was unnecessarily cautious around my left flank. The Dracoths were incredibly unfortunate to have failed a short charge, because they would have easily cleaned that objective.
At the end of the day, I was able to capitalise on my opponent's errors and push the advantage to a convincing scenario win!
Once again, I spent the whole game haemorrhaging victory points, and my opponent went on to win the prize for most victory points killed. I'm fast learning that Clan Pestilens, much more so than Bloodbound, have to be prepared to throw away any and every unit in their army for the greater good of winning the scenario. This is a liberating play style, as everything is an acceptable loss, and no sacrifice is too great for the win!
This finished my first outing with Pestilens and I was stoked to walk away with a 2-1 record. The army is quite nuanced, and requires a lot of thoughtful planning, but it's a challenging army that I'm really enjoying. I wouldn't have changed much about the list that I took, and am currently working on what to spend four hundred points on to bring me up to 2000 points. I think the army would really benefit from another big unit of Monks, and maybe even another Furnace, but there are also some pretty tasty Allied options available to me. Time will tell.
Thanks for reading,
Gabe
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