#65: Age of Sigmar Battle Report - Harbingers of Decay Vs. Beastclaw Raiders "Frosty Reception"

So, my first game went well, and I'd managed to jag a sneaky win! The combos were definitely there in my list. All I had to do was keep my wits about me and outsmart my next opponent... 

Beast.

Claw.

Raiders. 

Of all the armies I could have faced, I was throwing down against Beastclaw. "What's so bad about that?", I hear you say. Well, two reasons. 

1: My army gets significantly stronger once I get Epidemus' tally up, and Beastclaw have an incredibly low model count. There's literally not enough models to hit half the bonuses, and the models that are there to be killed are all multi-wound and tough-as-nails.

2: The Scenario was Three Places of Power, where only Heroes can hold or reclaim objectives. And my opponents characters were riding gigantic stone mammoths with the attitude of an enraged grizzly. I knew that if he got onto an objective, it was going to next to impossible to shift him off. 

But I'm usually a pretty positive guy, and so I chose to look on the bright side. I had something my opponent did not. Numbers. If I could bog down important models, perhaps I could buy myself enough time to kill the weaker elements before bringing the full power of Grandfather Nurgle down upon my foes.

My deployment followed the trends of game one, forming my three "pods" in front of each Place of Power in the centre of the board. I only had three heroes, so they were gonna have to put in the work and survive long enough to actually get some points on the board. 

I was confident that the Beasts could drag down some of the bigger models on the board, or at the very least, tie them up for several rounds of combat. 

I won first turn, and usually I would hand turn one to my opponent for the possibility to get back to back turns early in the game, but I needed to get to those objectives. If a Stonehorn reached that objective before I did, I was not gonna shift him off in a hurry. Speed was key, and if there's one weakness that my army struggles with, it's speed. The Drones and Soul Grinder made a successful push, with Epidemus just falling short of holding the Place of Power...

... While my central pod flopped miserably. To be fair, I needed pretty high run rolls to begin with. Odds were against me, but I'm always optimistic. 

The Beast flank found itself in the same predicament. And this is where things began to spiral...

Four Mournfang cavalry launched at the Soul Grinder, which I wasn't devastated about. He's pretty tough, and I had a couple of units to counter charge with next turn. 

A Stonehorn slammed into my GUO, causing three mortal wounds from the charge alone. Things could get ugly...

The Beast flank was starting to look pretty shaky. Yhetees blasted forward and tied up some Beasts (which I could handle), while the Thundertusk fired an ice beam at my Herald (which I couldn't handle). If it wasn't for my pseudo-Feel No Pain, I would have lost him and forfeited all possibility of gaining points from that Place. 

It was in this combat phase that I realised what I was up against. The Mournfang ripped eight wounds off my Soul Grinder...

...while in the centre, Yhetees joined the Stonehorn in administering a sound flogging, wiping thirty Plaguebearers out in a single round. Mystic Shield, Feel No Pain, nothing could protect them. It was bloody and savage. So much for the numbers advantage.

My battered Great Unclean One stood alone, my centre completely collapsed...

The clobbering continued on the left flank, with the Drones joining the party. The Mournfang were beginning to falter, but I was still concerned for my now-crippled Soul Grinder. 

Beasts proved how tough they are by mauling the Yhetees to death, only conceding two wounds in exchange. 

Just as I thought I had a flank protected and controlled, a Hunter and his pack of flea-ridden cats showed up, intent on removing Epidemus from the Place he currently held!

My opponent wasted no time in dispatching my GUO with frightening ease, before redirecting his units toward the beast to cleanse the area of the Nurgle incursion. 

The swirling combat on the right was all about one thing; protecting my Herals. And boy, oh boy, was I rolling dice like my life depended on it! I could not fail a save with him, infuriating my opponent, who had chosen not to commit another ice beam to finishing the job. This had a snowball effect, as his lingering presence allowed an increased damage output by the Beasts! 

As if the Hunting Pack's arrival wasn't inconvenient enough, the Stonehorn decided to continue its rampage across the board, slamming into the hulking Grinder.

And just like that, I lost a flank. The Hunter on foot took up residence upon the Place of Power, and the Stonehorn turned its attention to the surviving Drones.

On the other side of the board, my opponent finally got the job done, slaying my Herald before moving his Thundertusk-mounted hero to the central objective. 

This signalled the last glimmer of hope fading for a victory. My opponent was racking up points at an alarming rate, surpassing my current score, and with no Heroes of my own to earn any more points, the win was his. We played out the game, but it consisted of my surviving units getting systematically bulldozed off the board. 

All in all, it was a hilarious game, despite the outcome. I had completely underestimated Beastclaw. They are fast and they hit like a ton of bricks! I was straight up outplayed in this game. My opponent was calculated in his actions and didn't bite off more than he could chew. If I could play the game again, I probably would have been less aggressive turn one, denying him those convenient charges, while also probably consolidating my force around two objectives instead of trying to claim all three. I feel my army was spread a little thin, but then I also wasn't expecting thirty Plaguebearers to crumple in a single charge from four models...

Four.

It should be said that my opponent was a great sportsman, and won my vote for best army with his fantastic looking force!

Lessons learned. Onward to game three. I was in the middle of the pack with a win and a loss, but as I said with these tournaments, winning is not everything. There were still plenty of prizes up for grabs. 

Thanks for reading,

Gabe

#64: Age of Sigmar Battle Report - Harbingers of Decay vs Charge of the Heavy Brigade

Game One. I was busy remembering what units triggered what combos and the multiple layers of abilities and buffs for my army, but they say that experience is the best form of learning.

They also say a good plan never survives contact with the enemy, so...

My first opponent was a mate whose army has been growing rapidly, and with a strong theme in mind. Cavalry. With the exception of a handful of objective holding Blood Warriors, every single model in his army had mounted up!

And the army was huge!

And what an intimidating deployment they displayed. My own deployment was conservative, as I didn't want to hand over any first turn charges to my very mobile opponent. As you can see, the Drones and Plaguebearers on the right were careful to insulate Epidemus. The Great Unclean One and Soul Grinder stood watch over each flank of my big unit of Plagueys...

...while my Herald guided the two units of Beasts into battle. My last unit of Plagueys encircled the Realmgate to avoid any unpleasant visitors from the other side of the board. My opponent did the same with a small unit of Blood Warriors, effectively nullifying the gates altogether. 

This match was all about objectives (represented here by the blue and white poker chips). I was confident in holding my left hand objective, as I could quite comfortably move the Realmgate-guarding Plagueys to protect it if something made it through my lines. My right-hand objective has several units guarding it, so the real plan was to let my opponent shatter himself against my impregnable wall of virulent soldiers. Once I had broken the back of his army, I could freely advance upon the objectives. But, well...

I had the pick of who took first turn, and it was an easy choice to give it to my opponent. In objective games, it's very useful having the last turn of the game, and nothing was to be gained by going first at the start, as he was well and truly too far away for me to make any impacting moves. On each flank, he pushed forward with Crushers and Marauder Cav; not aggressively, but certainly leading the army. His centre remained immobile. 

I knew that the Marauder Cav had to die. They can be slippery units, capable of rushing around my scary units or breaking out of combats to claim objectives. This simply would not do. 

In my turn, my Beasts (thanks to the ability to move, run and charge) were confident of crushing the Marauders with ease, and after rolling triple sixes for run moves on the beasts and herald, I was confident I could unleash a brutal assault...

...but luck is a fickle mistress. Only one unit made it in with an 11" charge (the other two rolling horrifically), and I decided to loop around and deny the Crushers their devastating charge in the following turn. Luckily, I also managed to drag the Marauders into combat as well, but how long would they stay there? I poured all available attacks into the fast cavalry, because not only were they high on the "to-kill" list, but without the Herald's Locus, grinding down the crushers would be challenging to say the least. 

My other flank was pretty cautious. Some small reshuffling and advancing, but the only real action was my Soul Grinder unleashing his ranged arsenal upon the Knights opposite, clipping a single wound off of them... Disappointing. 

Lady Luck smiled upon me in Turn Two, gifting me with back-to-back turns, allowing me to push the advantage on both flanks and catch my opponent on the back foot by denying him valuable charge bonuses; bonuses crucial for a cavalry army to operate at full potential. The Soul Grinder, capable of a whopping 12" move at full wounds, broke rank and launched across the table to engage the powerful Crushers, while the Drones advanced upon the forest to tie down the Marauders. Epidemus lurked nearby to hand out bonuses while keeping safely tucked away behind the bloated flies, who unfortunately failed their charge.

A second set of phases allowed be to achieve what I couldn't last turn, with the Beasts getting into a fully blown, swirling melee, with the much-needed support of the Herald. In the centre, I pushed right up with both my General and the twenty Plaguebearers on the hopes of drawing a charge from the centre. I was confident that both units could cop a charge without too much detriment. 

The Soul Grinder really took the fight to the enemy! His shooting managed to blast off another wound, but despite tanking the attacks against him, he was woefully bad in combat... Woefully bad. This was not good.

On the bright side, my left flank was holding up splendidly, butchering the Marauder Cav before they even got the chance to make a run for my objective!

When I wrote the list, the Soul Grinder was taken to fill the role of "Big Scary Diversion Guy", and boy, was he cashing in cheques! Aware that he was still sitting on sixteen wounds, and of his potential damage output (garbage rolls notwithstanding), my opponent threw literally every unit available into him, drawing well over half his army in to the one location, freeing up the entire left flank of the board! As you can imagine...

...he died in probably the most cinematic of ways, with the full force of a multi-unit cavalry charge!

In what was very reactionary turn from my opponent, he also scrambled to counter the threat posed by the Beasts, committing another unit of Marauder Horsemen and his furious Khorne Lord on Juggernaut. This was one fellow I was genuinely concerned about, because his Axe could easily butcher whole Beasts at a time! Yikes. 

Priority was back in my hands, and I wasted no time in causing as much havoc as I could. The twenty-strong Plaguebearers launched at the unit of Knights that were originally holding the centre, while the Drones, buffed by nearby Epi, charged into the nearby Marauder Horsemen. This actually tied my opponent down in a tricky situation, as these two combats blocked much of his army from engaging in combat, where they needed to be! 

On the other side of the board, I was beginning to have concerns that my faith in the tenacity of Beasts was perhaps not as justified as I thought.

I had to charge my Herald into the Khorne Lord to stem the carnage by slaying him with a Balesword, but things weren't looking good! The Lord had killed two beasts and severely wounded the third, and the left unit was not fairing well in the grind of combat. Not only that, but he had managed to commit another unit of Crushers to cleanse the flank of Nurgle's filth. I simply didn't have the manpower to counter that! I couldn't afford to let the flank collapse, and if I wanted a win, his objective on the left was much more accessible, seeing as the other had almost his whole army sitting on it. 

Things were turning sour on the other flank as well. The Marauders broke away from the Drones to slam into Epidemus and the Plaguebearers guarding the objective. Epi had spent the game racking up quite the tally, and the bonuses he was liberally dishing out to his comrades was causing my opponent real concern! To make things worse, this opened up the avenue for a unit of Crushers and the Chaos General to launch at my Drones, killing two of them with relative ease! 

The Great Unclean One, who had until this time, played little part in the game beside a spell here and there, decided it was his time to shine! He galloped out of the forest, spewing vomit and swinging his mighty Plague Flail, decimating all before him!

And while my Beasts perished, there was no stopping the GUO from bulldozing the Crushers with impunity, opening up the objective for the spoiling. 

The unsung heroes of this game, my large unit of Plagueys, continued to cause no end of trauma! They had held the Knights at bay for round after round of combat, thanks to their buffs from both Epidemus and the Cohort! I was thoroughly impressed with how tough they had proven to be!

Now, this photo, I honestly am completely stumped by. This drone would... Not... Die! It simply refused. I rolled ridiculously. And by some freak chance, and the proximity to a Plaguebearer Hero, I managed to dispatch the Crushers! What?!?! This prompted a frustrated charge from my opponent in a last ditch effort to bring down the fly. 

Despite the fly dying in the final round of combat, and the Blood Warriors joining the fray to help out the Knights, my line held and I stood firm upon my objective. Epidemus surprisingly dispatched the Marauders with some great rolls and a terrible Battleshock test. My other flank was secured by the Herald and GUO. With that the game came to a conclusion, granting me a hard fought win!

Wow, what a game! Despite an early flop with the Beast charges, luck was definitely on my side! I got priority when I needed it, I rolled saves that had to be seen to be believed, and while my opponent made no significant errors, his dice betrayed him on multiple occasions! 

While the MVP unit went to my twenty-strong Plaguebearers for refusing to die and locking down the centre of the board, I was left wanting from my Soul Grinder. He was always going to die being that aggressive and receiving four charges in one round of combat, but his shooting and combat against the crushers was pretty dismal. But I understand that units won't perform every game, and at the end of the day he did what was needed of him. 

I think I could have been more aggressive with the GUO, as this points heavy model only really made an impact in the closing moments of the game. But he was a good deterrent from advancing cavalry. 

All in all, it was a hilarious, nail biting game, and I was lucky to walk away with a win. Credit to my opponent for being a proper gent!

Thanks for reading...

Gabe

#63: Preparing to spread Nurgle's Love!

Two Thousand Points.

It sounds like a decent chunk of points. Seems like a reasonable sized force. Until you realise just how much you get for 2000 points. It's a lot! 

The 2k tournament I was attending required everything to be painted. Easier said than don; even my expansive Beastmen army didn't reach in any form of cohesive strategic purpose! My Bloodbound was only painted to about 1200 points, so I raided the spare room for painted armies. I ended up dragging out my Harbingers of Decay, and seeing what I could do with them. 

First port of call was a warscroll battalion; specifically the Cohort of Nurgle. This pretty much built half of my army for me. I took the obligatory Great Unclean One as my general, who took the Chaos Artefact that gifted him yet another wound to add to his considerable survivability. 

 

He was supported by a Herald of Nurgle, carrying my second artefact (thanks to the battalion) which gifted him an additional attack to his Balesword. 

Three units of Plaguebearers filled my compulsary Battleline slots, as well as nearly fitting into the Cohort. Two units of ten would act as objective holders/screening units, while a big unit of twenty would provide me with a solid core around which to assemble my host. 

Lastly, I had the choice between a unit of Beasts, Drones or Nurglings. I had plans for Beasts elsewhere, and Nurglings didn't really have a place in the list, so three Drones joined the party. 

The Cohort offers two special rules. Firstly, all models in the Cohort have an aura of Rot, Glorious Rot, which can dish out mortal wounds to close by enemies. Secondly, and far more importantly, I may re-roll all 1s for saves. Given that every model in the Cohort already has Disgustingly Resilient (or an equivalent special rule), it made this solid core incredibly tough to damage! Just the way Nurgle likes it...

With the remainder of my points, I had plenty on the shopping list. Epidemus is almost a must-include in mono-Nurgle armies, as were two units of four tough-as-nails Beasts!

Lastly, I dropped in a Soul Grinder, using my Forge World Greater Unclean one as the perfect proxy. 

With my pool of points well and truly exhausted, I was quick to form strategies. This army lent itself toward character support, so I naturally formed the army into 3 "pods", self contained elements that compliment each other with combos. 

The first was my GUO and twenty plague bearers. His magic support could really help them, and gave me a solid anchor for my centre. 

The second consisted of the Herald and both units of Beasts. The Herald's proximity opens up the opportunity to hand out double damage, making them a terrifying spearhead capable of immense damage output. 

The last contained Epidemus, the Drones (who, like the beasts, get damage bonuses for being near a Plaguebearer Hero) the Soul Grinder and 10 Plaguebearers. These Plaguebearers filled the role of protecting Epi, while the Soul Grinder was my bullet magnet to draw important or powerful elements in the opposing force away from important battlefield locations. 

This left one unit of Plaguebearers free to fill whatever role needs filling, perhaps sitting on an objective, clogging up a movement lane, etc...

I didn't know if this army would work, but I was gonna put up the roughest, toughest fight I could. 

Thanks for reading,

Gabe

#62: Titans Day 2 and Wrap-up

I have a confession to make. On day two of Titans, I was not in great shape. And in the blur of the tournament, completely neglected to take any pictures of my last two games, but here's a lightning fast recap of two very one-sided games!

Game four was against a Dark Eldar army. It basically consisted of my units deep striking and getting blasted to death by a ton of Splinter shots and Disintegrators. There was literally not much more to the game than that... Again, my opponent was a good sort about it, and we had a great time, but it was a very one-sided game.

Game Five, was the polar opposite of game four. I fought a Tau Gunline, and I did terrible things to them! I think I lost a total of two models, and butchered the entire army to a man. The two highlights consisted of clipping the Tau Commander with a Psilencer on turn one, killing him instantly, and my Dreadknight charging into an Optimised Stealth Cadre and killing everything in sight in a single round of combat! The Tau brought no low-AP weaponry, and I rolled armour saves like never before!! 

After the five games were concluded and the dust had settled, my team finished in 7th Place out of 12 teams. 

So, how did I enjoy Titans? It was fun. It was my first competitive 40k tournament in quite some time, and I think I went into it low balling the power level. Seeing some of the armies that attended the event, I realised that my list was definitely left wanting. Not only that, but I played far too conservatively in games 2, 3 and 4. I definitely still have a lot to learn, and my army lists definitely need to be tightened up. 

I'm enjoying this new foray into 40k. I think I've had enough of a break from the game that it is refreshing and exciting to dive back in with both feet! 

This is a shorter blog post than I would usually write, and I apologise. With a distinct lack of photos of the battles, and a foggy memory, I've had to wrap up my Titans report quickly and as neatly as possible in order to tackle the next batch of Battle Reports that are bursting to be published! I hope you enjoyed the Titans reports. Next up, I have three hilarious and tensely fought 2000 point Age of Sigmar games from the recent tournament at Warhammer Capalaba. 

Until then, as always, thanks for reading.

Gabe

#61: Battle Report - Titans of War Game 3 Grey Knights vs Tyranids "Once More Into the Meatshields!"

After what was (let's be real for a moment) a pretty deflating loss to Sisters, I was keen to claw back some dignity in my third game against a good mate of mine, and his horde of Tyranids. 

I managed to seize the initiative, and wasted no time in peeling back the layers of the onion. The angry, carnivorous onion of death. 

The first thing that jumped out at me was bodies. There were a LOT of bodies on the table. With only three monstrous creatures (a Mawloc and two flying combat tyrants, so save those sweet Comp points), it was not a Tyranid list I was familiar with tackling. There were plenty of cover saves to be had thanks to a pair of Malanthropes lurking in the ruins. Luckily, I had a few Flamers handy, and was pretty keen to see what I could achieve. 

My first big play was to slingshot a Dreadknight up the flank, and pop force on my Psilencer in the hopes of catching the Mawloc off guard and sucking his soul out of his face before he burrowed underground and caused major dramas. The pieces were in place, the powers were cast but Lady Luck denied me a hilarious kill, allowing the serpentine miner to carve up the earth beneath him, disappearing from the battlefield. 

Despite the aggressive move, I wasn't overly concerned about my Dreadknight. There were no AP2 guns lurking about, and I was honestly confident that I could win combat against any big unit of little bugs. It might take me four turns to do it, but I'll get there...

Elsewhere on the battlefield, I was carful to spread out to avoid a cheeky Alpha Strike from the Mawloc! I tagged a few wounds here and there with storm bolters, but couldn't wait to unleash my Flamers upon the tightly packed bodies clogging up the board!

The Tyrants launched into the air, providing crucial Synapse for the horde...

...but my opponent wasn't counting on the dice betraying him too. The mass of Hormagaunts launched an assault against my Dreadknight, but didn't count on rolling an 11" charge. This left him in the unfortunate position of being in a combat he was highly unlikely to win, while also being out of Synapse because of his larger-than-average charge move. The result was pretty predictable. I won combat easily, splatting three of the critters, and ran the rest down because of their trashy, unsupported leadership. Combining that with an ill-fated charge by his Gargoyles, suddenly that flank looked considerably weaker. 

Elsewhere, my Interceptors began dropping flamer templates left right and centre, causing some damage, but not enough. 

And then things stopped going my way. Lictors burst from the shadows. A Mycetic Spore decended from the heavens in a fog of toxic fumes. My Dreadknight fell to the countercharge from my opponent. 

In a stroke of luck, the Mawloc reappeared, but scattered wildly, missing my Interceptors parked on a crucial objective. Having played their part, they cast Force and charged out to slay the beast in a last act of defiance. The guy carrying the Daemon hammer died to Dangerous Terrain. The remaining three marines got mashed. And with that final insult, the game ended. 

This was probably my most frustrating game of the day. My opponent made some unfortunate mistakes early on that I simply failed to capitalise on. Again, my Terminator unit failed to have any significant impact in the game, and for no good reason. I could have made a significant impact if I'd been more aggressive. But I didn't. Fortunately, it was against a friend, and both of us were able to acknowledge the giving and taking of Lady Luck on both sides, for she is a cruel mistress. 

So, I ended Day 1 with a slim loss and two significant ones. 

Games 4 & 5 as well as my tournament overview are incoming! Keep your eyes out.

Thanks for reading, as always.

Gabe