#160: RCGT Game 4 Battle Report - Maggotkin of Nurgle Vs. Stormcast Eternals - Three Places of Arcane Power

After finishing the first day of the tournament on three major wins and a healthy pool of kill points, I knew I was going to have a tough run on day two up in the nosebleed section! And just as Lady Luck had favoured me in round one, taking on a Gautfyre in Total Commitment, so she had turned her back on me in round four, as I took on a Sacrosanct Chamber in Three Places of Arcane Power.

My opponent was fielding...

Stormcast Eternals from the mortal realm of Ghur:

Lord-Arcanum on Gryph-Charger (General, Staunch Defender, Gryph-Feather Charm, Wind Runner)
Lord Castellant
Lord Relictor
Knight Vexillor (Pennant of the Stormbringer)
Knight Incantor (Mindlock Staff)
Knight Incantor
10 Sequitors (Battleline)
10 Sequitors (Battleline)
5 Sequitors (Battleline)
5 Sequitors (Battleline)
10 Evocators
10 Evocators
Cleansing Phalanx (Warscroll Battalion)
Soulsnare Shackles (Endless Spell)

Straight away, I knew that I was in for a rough ride. One of the main weaknesses of my list was an almost complete lack of rend. And if there's one thing Stormcast do incredibly well, it's really good re-rollable armour saves! And with a huge amount of area terrain on the table, it was going to be a grind. Uh-Oh...

Deployment was a tricky one, as I had to decide early on how I wanted to play this. I knew that I didn't have enough in my army to contest all three, so decided to leave the right hand objective to the Stormcast, and instead focus all my attention on the left and centre objectives. 

Unfortunately for me, my opponent Adam outdropped me, and had a very decisive first turn. Between the Scions of the Storm, the Vexillor and some magnificent run rolls, he'd managed to get all three objectives locked down with multiple units, screening his wizards with Sequitors. All of his buffs went off pretty reliably, and thanks to Cleansing Phalanx, the Sequitors were re-rolling just about everything. It was at this point, very early on in the game, that I accepted that I'd lost. Having looked over the list the night before, and how all the rules interacted with each other, I knew I wasn't going to be killing a lot, and it was going to come down to who got onto objectives first and could hold out.

I knew that as soon as Adam got ahead on the scoreboard, I wasn't going to catch him, but I was determined to still give him a hard-fought game! The last thing I wanted to do was pack it in and deny him a full-length game purely because I was going to lose. So, in true Nurgley fashion, my army ground forward and started throwing punches. Both of us were playing for kill points from that point forward, as they were the secondary tie breakers at this event! 

 I launched an all-out assault on the left objective, with the Lord of Afflictions and Pusgoyles careening across the battlefield to try and kill the Arcanum and Incantor claiming the objective. The Jabberslythe slammed into the other end of the Sequitor unit, leaving many unable to fight. The ones that could fight didn't particularly want to either, as Jabberslythes have a habit of going 'POP!'. Being wholly within cover and Staunch Defender meant that nothing was dying in a hurry, but in return, the Pusgoyles proved their toughness by taking an immense amount of punishment for very little reward! Festus lurked nearby in hopes of stripping their armour saves off, but in the face of such arcane mastery, it was very difficult to get any of my spells off.

The centre was a much tougher situation to get to grips with. The Sequitors had zoned out the front of the terrain, making it all but impossible to even get within range of the objective with my GUO. He slammed into the front rank, being confident in his ability to shrug off most damage. This proved to be less reliable than I originally had planned, as the Greatmaces made their presence known and pummelled him for ten wounds! My second Jabberslythe went into his Evocators, and my eyes lit up! Their damage output is insane, and they were about to do a great deal of damage to themselves. The weapons inflicted six wounds, which bounced a couple of mortal wounds back. Then Adam wound up for the big zap, before I informed him that (at the time), you could suffer mortals from excess wounds inflicted on the Jabber. Luckily for him, the Celestial Lightning Arc is an ability, and not an attack profile, meaning he didn't have to use it if he didn't want to. In a very wise move, he chose to refrain from using it, and avoided any backlash from the damage.

From this point onward, it turned into an absolute bloodbath. The central Jabberslythe was cut down by the less valuable Sequitors, while the Evocators on the right flank left their objective in the capable hands of an Incantor, leaving them free to carve their way through the Blight Kings.

The brawl on the left was a real battle of attrition, where I just didn't seem to be able to bring down any of the heroes. On the last turn of the game (only turn three, mind you, as was a common theme with the clock being what it was), I was hoping for a priority win,which would have given me the opportunity to retreat with the wouned LoA and the one surviving Pusgoyle, conserving well over 600 kill points, but it wasn't to be. Before they could fly away, they were cut down by mace and spell.

This game ended in a crushing defeat on my part, but was still a really enjoyable game. My opponent was great to play against, and I felt like we had a very clean, concise game, both being very deliberate to declare intent and so on. I didn't really use my Plaguebearers at all in this game, which was a bit wasteful, but then there really wasn't a lot they would have done considering the scenario.

With three major wins, a major loss and two games played up on Table One, I was pretty happy with my performance so far. But the weekend wasn't over yet, and I dropped down to Table 3 to face off against yet another formidable opponent!

Thanks for reading,
Gabe