#164: CanCon Game 2 Battle Report - Beasts of Chaos Vs. Legions of Nagash

Coming off a squeaky win in Round One of CanCon, I knew that I was going to be in the thick of it with all the other winners. I was hoping to come up against another player who had scraped a win, and get a favourable matchup. This was not to be.

When I arrived at my table, I was both overjoyed and filled with dread. I was facing Michael "Rockhampton" Thompson. Fantastic! He's a top bloke, and I'd been to several events where we had never ended up facing. The dread part came from his army list...

Allegiance: Grand Host of Nagash
Mortal Realm: Not Specified

Leaders
Nagash Supreme Lord Of The Undead (800) - General
Necromancer (110)
Guardian of Souls with Mortality Glass (140) - Artefact: Balefire Lantern

Units
5 x Dire Wolves (60)
5 x Dire Wolves (60)
5 x Dire Wolves (60)
30 x Grimghast Reapers (360)
20 x Grimghast Reapers (280)

Endless Spells
Quicksilver Swords (20)
Umbral Spellportal (60)

Total: 1950 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 1
Allies: 0 / 400

 Now, I'd played a lot of practice games against mass Reapers, and it was a hard slog. I knew that I was gonna be in for a brutal fight, and that the odds were against me, but the scenario was A Better Part of Valour. That was my glimmer of hope. I had an army that could potentially rush across the board and burn objectives from under Michael's nose. And when that idea crossed my mind, i locked into that battle plan!

Basing my game plan around the questionable strategy called "Fools Rush In", I launched my entire army across the table in an attempt to get the jump on Michael before Nagahs could debuff my army into the dirt. Now, I think I made a critical error in taking first turn, as I could have easily wasted Michael's first turn and still gotten the same results. I would have been outside of most of Nagash's spells, and wouldn't have been risking a double turn coming back at me. But hindsight is a beautiful thing. My Spawn both made mammoth runs (16" and 17" on 3d6), and I charged on in, dropping CP left, right and centre. 

Where I think I went wrong was in taking on both units at once. I really should have launched both Bestigor into one unit of Reapers, flooded the objective, and burnt it. As it was, I managed to kill a fair few Reapers out of both units, but not enough to cap either objective. 

My one saving grace was on my left flank. I managed to launch up the board with my Enlightened, and blend a few dogs to burn Michael's objective on my left. I was careful to approach the dogs from the far end, as the Guardian of Souls with Mortality Glass is a hero I've had experience facing. His charge debuff is crippling, so I made sure to stay outside of 9" of him in my charge phase. 

At this point, I'd fully realised the series of mistakes that I'd made, as Michael claimed a double turn, and put down a monumental chunk of my army. Both units of Bestigor had melted, Spawn were popping everywhere, and the inevitable march on my objectives began.

The highlight of the game came when Nagash popped a Spellportal up next to my Shaggoth and turned him to ash! To add insult to injury, he rolled a 1 when trying to turn into a Spawn. Oh, dear...

The rest of the game was largely one-sided, as I'd lost all of my heavy hitters and was now faced with a wall of Reapers clearing the table of Beasts. Michael ended up claiming a crushing Major Victory with 1900 Kill Points. 

So, where did it all go wrong? 

I think it's easy to hide behind the "bad matchup" and not take responsibility for mistakes, because I've got to be blunt... I made a few. I think there was definitely an avenue down which I could have gone that could end in victory. Sending the Bestigor in at all in the early game was a bit of a waste, as they didn't achieve anything other than dying. I made the right call sending the Discs in on the left flank and burning the objective from under the dogs, but I should have sent only them in, and kept my hammers back for later in the game, when I could summon in more bodies. This would have left a powerful unit in the Discs on a tactically unimportant flank, not worth committing huge resources to killing as they didn't have an objective, but impossible to ignore. Their speed and killing power makes them a huge threat. I went about this scenario wrong and it showed.

Now, despite all my hindsight and newfound tactical acumen in the light of my mistakes, I don't want to take anything away from my opponent. He flat out beat me fair and square, took full advantage of my mistakes, and played the scenario to perfection. To put it in perspective, Michael went on to podium the event, so at no point was his skill or strength on the table in question. 

It was a hilarious game from start to finish, and I'd play Michael again in a heartbeat.

This left me on one major win and one major loss going into Round Three, where I faced one of the gentlemen from Measured Gaming! Catch you then for another Battle Report.

Thanks for reading, 

Gabe