#70: Age of Sigmar Battle Report 1000 points - Khorne Bloodbound Vs Duardin

With my wife braving the shops during the Boxing Day sales, it took little to no convincing at all to catch up with an old friend and throw some dice. My lead up to Christmas had been a hectic one, so this would be my first game of Sigmar in quite some time, but I was looking forward to stretching my legs! 

With my Death army is still in the early stages of construction, I grabbed a case and loaded up my ever-faithful Bloodbound to unleash their poorly-managed anger issues upon my foes. 

I really struggle to look past the Mighty Lord of Khorne for my general. He's just that good, and extraordinarily versatile. The rest of my force was basically everything I currently have painted, minus a few characters. Ten Blood Warriors and twenty Bloodreavers filled my battle line slots, while a Warshrine of Khorne backed up my Crushers and Wrathmongers in their roles of carnage and murder machines. 

Across the table, I was staring down a bearded challenge! A Dwarf Lord (on invisible shieldbearers while a cool conversion gets completed) was joined by a Runesmith and an Unforged. Ten Warriors, 10 Longbeards, 20 Quarrelers and 10 Irondrakes (yikes) filled out his force!

Then we rolled scenarios and got Three Places of Power. Great. My choice to bring a single hero was coming back to haunt me, as I was outnumbered on the character front. My only hope of winning the game was to push my Lord onto an objective, while using the rest of my army to protect the others! At least, that was the idea...

As it was a friendly game, we decided to just use terrain pieces instead of markers for the three central Places of Power. I deployed solidly across my entire battlefront, while my opponent castled in the right hand corner. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing in my mind. If I could launch past the middle line and slam into his lines, perhaps I could contain his army and tie up his heroes to prevent them settling in on an objective. "Perhaps" being the key word here. 

With some healthy run moves, I made good progress up the board, confident in my combat prowess if the Duardin made a long charge. 

My Wrathmongers made their way toward the main action, and my Lord flopped his run roll. No points this turn.

My opponent was a little more mobile than I originally thought. The Unforged long-bombed a charge into my pack of Bloodreavers...

...and butchered thirteen of them in cold blood! This... This was not a great start. To make things worse, I was taking some serious heat from the Dwarven firepower. 

The Irondrakes unleashed a flaming salvo into my Crushers, stripping four wounds off, while the Quarrellers unleashed absolute hell upon the Blood Warriors, five falling with crossbow bolts lodged in their necks. 

My infantry continued their slow advance forward, while the Skullcrushers knew that if I had any hope of winning this game, I had to shut down the shooting phase! After benefiting from the command ability on the Lord, and being blessed by the Shrine, they launched a devastating charge!

My Lord finally moved onto a Place of Power to start cranking up that tally!

The slaughter was bloody and quick. The Irondrakes fell under the thunderous hooves of the Juggernauts, but the nearby warriors and Runesmith were dragged into the fight. 

And they were not messing around! Things on my right flank were going poorly, to put it gently. 

I'd reached a pivotal point of the game. I was in a difficult position if I wanted to win. It was gonna need some solid forethought. I needed to keep my Lord alive, and I needed to stop the Unforged (currently racking up a pretty tally) from being alive anymore. The warriors pitched into the half-naked berserker and, thanks to another blessing from the Shrine, beheaded the dwarf where he stood.

The Wrathmongers finally made combat, and while my choice to kill the Unforged gave first swing to his Lord, it wasn't all bad. His runic hammer crushed the majority of the unit, but their aura of rage could not be resisted. The ancient dwarf King ended up slamming himself in the face as hard as he could (as well as his Shieldbearers putting a few boots in), leaving him staggering, but still standing on a single wound. 

My opponent knew that the key to victory was the death of my only points-scorer. A veritable hail of crossbow bolts slammed into him but I saved fifteen of the nineteen wounds, but it didn't end there. The warriors who survived the combat with the Crushers (and Wrathmongers) charged up the steps of the ruins, and in the most cinematic moment of the game, the sweeping Khornate axe slaughtered all but one who met his demise to the jaws of the Flesh Hounds. 

 The Blood Warriors were crushed beneath the onslaught of the wounded Lord, Runesmith and Longbeards, starting the tally once more! 

I was confident that I could scrape a win! I was ahead on the tally, and all I needed to do was win priority, and launch an assault with my full-wound Warshrine! His Lord was on a single wound, and the Runesmith was right behind him. If I could orchestrate this just right, I could kill the lord and perhaps even halt the tally by wiping out the Runesmith. That would leave me high and safe on the scoreboard, even if the Khorne Lord met his demise at the hands of the crossbow men next turn.

Alas, it was not to be. I lost priority, and the Dwarf Lord charged up the steps of the ruins, smiting down the Chaos champion in herioc fashion. The Longbeards joined the charge by pitching into the Shrine, but the deformed monsters holding it aloft weren't happy and smeared the veterans into the ground before someone could yell "Skulls for the Skull Throne!".

With my opponent passing me on the scoreboard and my only hero meeting a dastardly demise, the game was securely in the hands of the Duardin! Well played by my opponent. 

I had great fun in this game, and I think my biggest downfall came in listbuilding and deployment. A second character would have meant a much more aggressive final score. 

All in all, a great game and a good learning experience. 

Thanks for reading,

Gabe

#69: Chaos Undivided...

With the Thousand Sons bursting into the 40k universe with a sorcerous bang, and the Chaos Legions supplement on the brink of unleashing the next Black Crusade, I'm backing up last time's Death focussed post with a post discussing the second part of next year's big hobby drive!

My favoured legion, the Word Bearers!

It's happening. Choas are getting the love in 40k! It's not to say that I think they will be top dogs or meta kings, but if the leaks are anything to go by, Chaos will go back to being a FUN army to play again, as well as becoming very themed and characterful. More so than those loyalist dogs, anyway! 

In the past, Chaos has really only come in five flavours. Nurgle (for people who love a good chesty cough and sneezing on commuters aboard public transport), Tzeentch (for people who love walking slowly and Dynamo), Khorne (for people who struggle to hold it together in the slow line at the super market), Slannesh (the less said about Slannesh, the better... This is, after all, an all ages blog.), and good Ol' Chaos Undivided.

And that's where I landed when I first ventured over to the dark side. I wanted my cake and I wanted to eat it too. Not only did I want unrestricted access to all marks and units within a single force, but also wanted a unique army, something you don't see all the time. Death Guard armies were a dime a dozen, Khorne Daemonkin did a lot for World Eater population, one of my close mates was a die-hard Thousand Son player, and Slannesh simply had next to no model range; not to mention the Noise Marine Upgrade packs were horribly dated and made a squad over $100 to make. 

And you didn't really see the other five legions represented at all...

Until now! By the looks of things, the five "undivided" legions have received the full treatment, with relics galore, warlord traits and Legion Tactics that fit snugly into the playstyle and flavour of the army seamlessly! No longer are we the unwitting victims of the power creep! Chaos is ascendant once more!

Let's take a closer look at Word Bearers. Their whole "schtick" revolves around three things! Possessed, Dark Aposltes and the Malefic Psychic discipline. Possessed have long been considered, how you say... Not worth it. Not that their rules are trash, or even their points value too high (though some would argue). The problem was that they were oft overshadowed by Terminators and the likes as "Best in Slot" for elites. But not for Word Bearers!! These bad boys are Troops now, and are no longer in competition with other powerful units! Thanks to some new formations, they have become seriously scary and I have a great idea based around them that we'll discuss shortly! Oh, the shenanigans and trickery!

Dark Apostles have often been neglected in the past, being pretty locked into wargear and being 40 points more than a Lord with a quarter of the options. To be fair though, he comes stock with a 4++ and a Power Maul, as well as having Zealot and a handy Leadership 10 bubble. He's pretty much a must have for Word Bearers. I mean, it'd be in-Word-Bearer-like NOT to, right? But it looks like there is a lot built around Zealot and having a Dark Apostle seems like the right thing to do considering the legion...

Lastly, the Malefic discipline suits the legion perfectly. This is pretty much what the Word Bearers are all about, and the rules naturally steer them in that direction. I can harness on a 3+ when casting Malefic powers, which is super handy because it's already a pretty tough Discipline to manage Warp Charges with the high value of a lot of the abilities. 

One combo I'm really keen to try is to take a big (and I mean BIG) unit of Possessed as troops with the mark of Tzeentch (bumping their Invulnerable save to a 4+). Then I'll jam a Cyclopean Cabal in there, rolling almost exclusively on both Malefic and Sanctic tables! Sanctic, I hear you say? Well, look at it like this (I can thank my chaotic mate, Blake for this treachery!) The Sanctic powers are amazing and for the most part only warp charge one. This means that one Sorcerer can calmly one-dice powers (two-dice if I'm feeling ballsy), and while they may be easy to stop, people have to decide if they want to use valuable dice preventing these instead of some of the more invasive Malefic powers! While things like Hammerhand and summoning will be nice, the two powers I'm really chasing are Sanctuary (+1 to unit's invulnerable save) and Cursed Earth (+1 to Daemons invulnerable saves within 12"). Possessed have the Daemon rule. Suddenly, there's the potential for my big unit of Possessed to be running around with a 2++ Invul, potentially summoning and Gating as I go. It's not without risk and there's a lot of moving parts, but it fits the theme and is at least a start to mastering the Masters of Chaos!

Edit: It would seem Chaos Sorcerers cannot roll on Sanctic, which makes sense and completely sinks my idea...

Now, before I get too carried away writing lists and buying reinforcements, I'm going to wait until the book drops and in the meantime, I'm brainstorming cool combos and upgrading the paint job on my existing force! 

It's been surprisingly quick and painless to add a few highlights and up the quality of (let's be honest, here...) a pretty average original paint job. 

Although widely considered to be perhaps on the expensive side, I've always loved the Chaos Space Marines army for exactly that. Chaos Marines. None of this clean-cut, purity-seal adorned, Aquillas-out-for-the-Emperor business. It's good to be bad, and although it's on the older side, the CSM sprues are still jam packed with cool bits, icons and shoulder pads. With limited special weapon options, it's hard to look past the trusty Meltagun for hard-hitting efficiency and affordability. I'm loving doing a red army (again), and the silver trim really unifies the scheme! I also love the idea of using the DV Chosen as my squad leaders, as they just have that extra level of detail and really stand out as unique champions in their own right (just the way it should be).

It wouldn't be a Word Bearers army without Cultists. These ten are geared for close combat and will be joined shortly by just a ton of their friends!

Lastly, these three slobbering powerhouses made the cut for some versatile, long-range displays of aggression. Obliterators, though pricey, have the edge over Havocs in most (not all) situations due to their increased survivability and array of weapons at their disposal. Sure, they have to cycle through guns, but there's plenty of great options to choose from! 

So here's the plan moving forward. I'm going to finish updating the paint job on the rest of my "painted" models (roughly about 1000 points worth). 

Once that's done, I'm going to pick a Formation from the Legions book, build it and paint it. To satisfy my inner collector and completionist! Certain formations will take precedent, of course. Lost & the Damned as well as Favoured of Chaos lend themselves naturally to WB, being Cultist- and Possessed-focused, respectively. A Chaos Warband is also on the high-priority list. Much to my surprise (and a testament to how many models I own), I found a complete Cult of Destruction in a box of Chaos stuff; a Warpsmith, six Obliterators (three pictured above) and six Mutilators (don't ask, I can't really explain it...). 

Long story short, things are about to get Chaotic in the Halls of the Rune Axe! Are you jumping on the Chaos train?

Would love to hear your plans,

Thanks for reading.

Gabe