After a major win and major loss, I ended up facing an army that I'd really been hoping to face...
Gloomspite Gitz!
I hadn't played against them before, but it was an army that I was fascinated with, and I was keen to see what they could bring to the table. Here's what I was facing.
There was an absolute metric ton of bodies on the table, which was going to be a challenge, and the Rockgut Troggoths had some really high-quality damage output, but one huge factor was going to give me an edge. The scenario was Duality of Death, which is a scenario that my army can excel at and one that this Gitz army would struggle with. Having only a handful of squishy little Shamans running around the board, I was confident that Magma Cannons and such would be able to remove them pretty efficiently. But Gitz being Gitz, I was also expecting a few nasty surprises.
My opponent deployed his many, many Goblins in the centre, around his Loonshrine, with Rockguts and Shamans on the flanks toward the objective. I dropped the K'Daai pretty central, so that they could react to whatever threat was greatest, then the Tauruk and Skullcracker were each given a unit of Hounds, a Magma Cannon and Riflemen to support. The idea was that the Warhounds would take oncoming charges (as the Rockgut Troggs were very serious threats), which would hopefully buy me an extra turn on the objectives. The guns were deployed to push up into range of both objectives in order to kill any hero that was game enough to stand out in the open to claim it.
I didn't get any photos of turn one, sadly, but here is a shot of the top of turn two, which I gladly took.
Being once again outdropped, my opponent gave me first turn. This wasn't a horrible thing, considering the scenario. I wasted no time in rushing dogs up as a screen, and moving the Tauruk and Skullcracker into position on the objectives. The Skullcracker made use of his special rules to tow the left-hand Magma Cannon 10" forward, and the Daemonsmith made a healthy run roll to stay within 3". With the bonus movement, and extra range, the Magma Cannon drew first blood, by immolating a Madcap Shaman lurking with the Rockgut Troggs in the forest. This removed Hand of Gork (or was it Mork for Gitz?) from the game, and allowed me to relax my backline zoning.
My K'Daai rolled forward to pose a threat in turn two, but not be on the receiving end of anything too nasty.
My opponent was left with few options but to move up. The Magic Mushroom was thrown into my K'Daai and riflemen, but thankfully didn't decimate too much.
I won the turn roll going into two, and unleashed the Fire Daemons horde of Grots!
With Daemonic Power cast convincingly, I knew that this initial charge would have to be a doozy if I was going to chew through the horde of Goblins. The massive unit of ten Fanatics was dumped out of the big unit, as I was kind of expecting. I'd moved my K'Daai to just outside of 3" of both Grot units, which meant that when the Fanatics were deployed, they had to do so between the Grot units, rather than in front of them in order to stay 3" away. And so I pulled off an ever-so-cheeky charge that showcased just how useful a 3" range is on melee weapons.
My first K'Daai charged into the far right corner Spear-armed unit of Gobbos on the right, coming into range of the Netters and suffering the associated -1 to hit. The rest of the unit was strung out across the front of the unit just outside of 3". The unit had made a successful charge, but because I was not in combat with the Fanatics, they missed out on their start-of-the-combat-phase pile in and attack, preventing a huge amount of damage from hitting the squishy fire daemons. Then it was my turn to attack. I moved all of the K'Daai to just outside of 2" of the whole front line, meaning that only the K'Daai that made the initial charge suffered the effects of Netters. The Fireborn then unleashed all 60 attacks into both units of Grots and the now-exposed Fanatics, decimating all three units with impunity. The surviving Gloomspite models piled in (bringing the nets into range) and struck back, killing one daemon, and wounding another, but the damage had been done.
Having suffered a mighty blow to his centre line, my opponent turned his attention to the objectives. The big unit of Rockguts lobbed a boulder at my Taur'ruk, putting three mortals on him after he had all but shrugged off the arrow fire of their Grot comrades. Then, showing that they weren't here to mess around, they strolled into the Warhounds, and melted them without even blinking. It had bought me a turn as intended, but if I got double turned going into three, even the defensive mechanics of the Taur'ruk could not withstand that kind of high-quality impact!
On the other flank, the same thing occurred. The Rockguts slammed into my screen of Warhounds and pummelled them into the dirt. I was a little more confident in the survival of an unscathed Skullcracker against only three Rockguts, but they were still going to hurt if I lost the roll going into turn 3...
Lady Luck smiled upon me, and I won priority. And honestly, my movement phase was pretty uneventful. My shooting elements were all in range of their desired targets, and my combat elements were either already in combat, or close enough to ensure a 3" charge. In turn two, I'd already scrambled most units away from the Mushroom, so I wasn't about to to waste a casting attempt getting rid of it to have it burst onto the table in a better spot.
My biggest concern was the 6-man unit of Troggs, but with some decent rolling and some good Dawi Zharr engineering, the Magma Cannon and thirty riflemen nearby unloaded a volley that killed three outright! Planning my combats carefully, I charged the Taur'ruk into the twenty archers, while staying within 3" of the objective. I was confident that the Grots would be lacking in combat damage output to pose any threat, but I didn't account for completely bombing out my hit rolls with that juicy Damage 3 axe. Instead of murdering his way through the unit, he managed to kill maybe five.
The left flank was not fairing too well for the Gloomspite host either. Knowing that the best defence is a good offense, the Skullcracker fired up its reactor, and dismembered the Troggoths threatening his objective. The K'Daai had now lost three of their number, and the negative modifier to hit had slowed their assault, but round after round of attrition had taken a truly bloody toll upon the Grots. Battleshock had begun to take its toll, and the swirling melee was beginning to lean heavily in my favour. The Fireborn had managed to tag enough units that almost every model, every turn, was unleashing attacks. With the mediocre saves on Grots, the lack of Rend was more than compensated by the D3 damage on each swing.
Death waits for no-one, however, and when my opponent took his turn, he had one thing in mind. Killing that Taur-ruk.
Far further forward than the rest of my units, and entirely unsupported by boots on the ground, I knew that this was likely the end. Surrounded, and badly wounded, the Taur-ruk was looking at that -2 Rend Damage 3 profile of the Rockguts, and sweating a little bit. The Loonboss had also charged in, with his eyes on claiming the objective for himself. I gritted my teeth and waited for the inevitable.
Against all odds, maths and reason, the Taur'ruk survived! Not only did he survive, but he managed to take some heads while he was there. In a truly ridiculous series of dice rolls, the Troggs went first, missed with a fair few attacks, and then I rolled the hottest dice of my life to save all but four. With only four wounds left, Blackshard Armour kept me alive, and I responded by sinking his Darkforged Axe waaaay inside the Loonboss's skull.
Once again, I won priority and took the turn, knowing that I'd already burnt through all of my luck for this game (and probably a few games as well!). There was no way I could survive that same round of attacks again, and so once again, my Cannon and Fireglaives unleashed a volley of Pyrelock ammunition (and a lava beam) into the Troggoths, incinerating the last of them in a thunder of missile fire. The Taur-ruk was then only left to deal with half a dozen archers, who he dispatched with ease.
With both objectives secured, and the Gloomspite line completely shattered, my lead on the scoreboard had secured me a major victory. This event used scenario point differential rather than kill points to determine minor and major losses, but because I'd gotten on both objectives turn one, and held my opponent off all game, it was a convincing result. There was just one order of business remaining. My secondary objective.
And like an absolute moron, I'd picked 'Kill All Battleline Units'.
"But, Gabe," I hear you say. "You killed all the battleline."
And my dear reader, you would be correct. The Taur-ruk had (eventually) hacked his way through twenty archers, while the K'Daai had rampaged through 100 Grots, 10 Loonsmasha Fanatics, and Madcap Shaman and 6 Sneaky Snufflers.
But...
I realised at the end of fourth, after all Gloomspite units had been slain, that my opponent could bring back units of Grots through the tunnel under the Loonshrine. The TO ruled that there had to be no Battleline at the end of the game in order for me to claim it, so I made the very difficult decision to give my opponent the turn going into five. I didn't have enough units closeby to zone out the Loonshrine, but I did have a unit of K'Daai that would hopefully be able to kill any unit that appeared from the hole. If he went bottom of five, I wouldn't have had an opportunity, had a unit returned, to kill it at all.
As luck would have it, the unit of sixty returned at half strength, plonking thirty models down on the table in a last ditch act of defiance. I had one turn to achieve a single task.
With all of my guns out of range, and other combat units too far away to assist, it fell to my K'Daai to get the job done, and they put in quite a performance. After their attacks, twenty eight black-robed corpses lay at their feet. Another was immolated by the Kiss of Fire, leaving a single Grot to take a battleshock test. Excellent; no heroes nearby, he's -20-something to his roll. The secondary was mine!
Well, as it turns out, the Loonshrine has a Battleshock immunity aura, and that one scared, solitary little Grot was my undoing. A single point of damage was the difference, and the Grot stood strong in defiance to the last.
What a game. The K'Daai single-handedly slaughtered and butchered their way through over 140 models on their own (well, with some moral and arcane support from the Sorcerer Lord)! They'd absorbed an immense amount of pressure that would have otherwise been focused on objectives, and they definitely earned their points in this game. The screens and shooting was enough to protect my objectives against the enemy, and the fact that my Taur-ruk survived that combat at all was... let's be honest... downright lucky.
When it came down to it, I think this was going to be a tough scenario for my opponent no matter what. With three of his four heroes only having four wounds, getting onto and holding those objectives was always going to be a challenge. I was kicking myself over my choice of secondaries, but that was my own fault for not properly thinking it through.
This game really showcased why I think that the 12-man unit of K'Daai should be in every single Chaos Dwarf army out there. It's an absolute powerhouse!
This major win put me on 2-1 on Day 1 of the BrisVegas Open. My goal was 3-2, so I had two more opportunities to make that happen. I was sitting behind the main pack, and hadn't maxed out secondaries, so who I faced on Sunday morning, out of a pool of almost a hundred players was anybody's guess.
Thanks for reading,
Gabe
