The Rune Axe : 2018

Sunday, 9 December 2018

#161: RCGT - Game 5 Battle Report and Event Wrap-Up - Maggotkin of Nurgle Vs. Grand Host of Nagash - Better Part of Valour

Upon reaching my final game with a 3-1 track record, I was stoked to be facing Tim as my last opponent. His army, however, was going to give me a real tough time. Here's what I was facing.

Grand Host of Nagash

Nagash (General)

Arkhan the Black

Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon (Ethereal Amulet)

10 Dire Wolves (Battleline)

5 Dire Wolves (Battleline)

10 Hexwraiths

Geminids of Uhl-Gysh

Soulsnare Shackles

Mortalis Terminexus

Vault of Souls

Lots of dogs, and wizards that were far superior to mine in every way... Alright.

The scenario was Better Part of Valour, so I knew that I was in with a change, even against the arcane might of Nagash and Arkhan. This game would be won or lost very early on. I was confident in holding my objectives pretty securely, but the test would be if I had enough punch to flood any of his objectives and burn them.

I stacked my right side with bodies, to make sure that I at least held them for most of the game. The Pusgoyles were atop the hill, in range of both the Bell and the Lord of Afflictions, giving them the speed they need to hit just about anywhere on the board. And on my left objective, Festus was protected by the Blight Kings and the second Jabberslythe. That was definitely my weak side, but I had every intention of burning it early, and consolidating onto my centre and right objectives.

With most of his spells out of range, Tim chose to give me the first turn, which I gladly accepted.

They say the best defence is a good offence. So, I pushede with almost my entire army. The Great Unclean One sat back out of range of Hand of Dust, and the Lord of Blights on the hill summoned five Plaguebearers on the right objective, but just about everything else pushed up. The Pusgoyles barrelled across the field to punch Nagash right in his big skully face, which in hindsight was a mistake. I feel like they would have been better used to attack the right flank, butcher the dogs and burn that objective. But there was an opening in his lines, and I took it. With any luck, I could slice a few wounds off him! Besides, I didn't need to KILL the dogs. Just outnumber them. And I was confident the Plaguebearers were up for the task. They would have possibly done it too, but I bombed the charge roll against the dogs, meaning that I couldn't even attempt a sneaky pile in onto it.

The Pusgoyles put a dent in Nagash, putting a handful of wounds through, but not enough to have any meaningful impact.

On the left, I made a critical error. I pushed the Jabberslythe all the way up the board, rather than keeping him in the back pocket to threaten and deter the Zombie Dragon, as well as be another body to contest. Instead, he was left standing in the middle of nowhere, being no real danger to anyone. This left my objective dangerously exposed.

As if to prove my point, my left flank completely collapsed in Tim's first turn. The Jabberslythe died a horrible death, Hexwraiths were summoned from the grave, and the Zombie Lord rolled hot and killed three Blight Kings, claiming the objective in the process. Festus knew what was about to happen.

In the centre, the sheer magical might of Nagash could not be denied. He debuffed the Pusgoyles into the ground, and had hoped to cause major problems by Hand of Dusting one of the middle models, breaking coherency. Luckily for me, I picked the correct hand, much to his frustration. Arkhan then decided to join in the fight, while all the dogs moved to shield against the Plaguebearers. The Pusgoyles, while not killing anything, flat out refused to take damage, shrugging off enough wounds to wipe out the unit, leaving two alive when there realistically should have been none. Tim had made a critical error, however, as only Nagash was in range of the centre objective after the movement phase. If I won priority going into turn two, I could retreat from combat, fly over the heads of the Death lords, and burn it! A fool proof plan...

...Unless, of course, I got double turned. Nagash continued a terrifying trend of double casting almost all of his spells, but once again, I saved my Lord of Afflictions from Hand of Dust through sheer luck of the guess. This didn't change much, however. The Pusgoyles finally fell to Nagash's blade and Arkhan's staff. Festus was slaughtered, and the Zombie Dragon and Hexwraiths began their sweep behind my lines. And between the dogs and endless spells, my Plaguebearers were left with nowhere to go, and barely the ability to fight thanks to spells and Geminids.

With victory all but assured, Tim began to tighten the net. Dogs ran to within range of the GUO's objective and burnt it from underneath him, and he was left to ponder his fate, as Nagash advanced upon him to deliver the coup-de-grace. From this point onward, Tim was in it to rack up a huge kill point tally. I didn't think the Death army had too much killing power without Morghasts of Grimghasts, but boy, did Tim prove me wrong. I suffered horrific casualties, and bled huge chunks kill points to the end.

What started out as a high-stakes gambling match from my side really did not end well. In hindsight, I made some critical errors, but it was an exceptionally fun game to end the weekend on. The bloodbath meant that we actually had a pretty relaxed game that didn't feel rushed, and we got a chance to wander around afterward and catch the tail end of everyone else's game.

Finishing the weekend on 3 Major Wins and 2 Major Losses, my Sports, Painting and Kill Points put me at 13th overall out of 42 players, which I was thrilled with. My goal was to go at least 3-2, and I'd managed to hit that goal on day one.

I think the biggest challenge at the event was, of course, the schedule. The rounds were only two and a half hours long, which, when you're playing 2500 points, just isn't enough. Fortunately, I wasn't affected as much as some people were. The games that I won were decisively strong victories, and the games that I lost, I got mauled in the first two turns. This is something that is being addressed next year, under the new TO's, however, and I will be attending the event again, for sure.

Despite the time challenges, I had a great event, and thoroughly enjoyed all of my games, no matter how nail-biting some of them were. All five of my opponents had put a ton of effort into their armies, and it made for a great weekend of fun and dice-rolling. I got to drink good drink, eat good food, and meet a bunch of people who I've only ever known as a name on Facebook, so it was great to meet everyone.

Thanks for reading,

Gabe

Sunday, 25 November 2018

#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

Sunday, 18 November 2018

#159: RCGT Game Three - Maggotkin of Nurgle Vs. Kharadron Overlords 2500pts

Coming off the back of two big wins in my first round, I somehow found myself in unfamiliar territory.

Table One.

And I found myself facing down against my second Duardin horde of the day in the form of Ben's Kharadron Overlords!

Barak-Urbaz
Arkanaut Admiral (General, Doughty Champion, Ignax's Scales)
Aether-Khemist (Aethershock Earburster)
Aether-Khemist
Aetheric Navigator
10 Arkanaut Company (Battleline, Light Skyhooks)
10 Arkanaut Company (Battleline, Light Skyhooks)
10 Arkanaut Company (Battleline, Aethermatic Volley Guns)
10 Arkanaut Company (Battleline, Skypikes)
10 Grundstok Thunderers
9 Endrinriggers
40 Dwarf Warriors (Allies)
Arkanaut Frigate (The Last Word)
Arkanaut Frigate (Prudency Chutes)
Iron Sky Squadron (Warscroll Battalion)

The scenario was Shifting Objectives, which was totally alright by me! Playing down the length of the table, meant that my Plaguebearers could screen and tie up anything my opponent could throw at me, and that I didn't have anything in my backfield to sit on. I could push up my whole army and apply an immense amount of pressure. The matchup was also heavily in my favour, as Nurgle is not traditionally known for being vulnerable to shooting. With my Lord of Blights stocked up with command points, I was confident in making things difficult to kill for the pesky Duardin!

With that said, I've also played a grand total of one game against KO, and that was against a Zilfin Clown Car list, so I wasn't 100% sure of what everything was capable of. I knew Endrinriggers needed to die ASAP, and that I very outnumbered. For the third game in the day, it was going to take all my focus to make sure I didn't do anything silly. Nothing... silly...

With the scenarios being all about numbers on objectives, I was determined to give myself the best possible chance at success. My opponent chose to give me first turn, which I took gladly! Thanks to the Bell and a healthy run roll, I managed to push up onto all three objectives with my two Plaguebearer units and my Blight Kings on the right. My GUO waddled up behind the main line, conscious of the damage output the Arkanauts were capable of.

The Lord of Blights (who, with his whopping 21" range, was lurking deep in my deployment zone) dropped a Cloud of Flies on both Plaguebearer units, meaning that they would be -2 to hit in combat and -4 to hit in shooting. I was hyper aggressive with the Jabberslythes, so as to draw fire away from my important stuff, an the LoA & Friends sat just behind my frontline to react to threats. The frigate on my right was packed with Thunderers, Endrinriggers and heroes, and I knew that I needed a counterpunch ready for when all the Duardin spilled out, guns blazing.

I think my opponent made a mistake giving me first turn, as it allowed me to lay claim to all three objectives and get all my buffs up, but he wasn't about to lie down without a bloody fight!

In his second turn turn, he pushed forward with everything! Both ships disgorged their cargo. The Endrinriggers launched out of their ship, and butchered the Blight Kings in a truly horrifying display of combat prowess, where on the left flank, the Skypike Company piled out and fired their pistols harmlessly into the Plaguebearers. While the GUO took some damage from Skypikes, my army was othewise pretty unscathed. The Jabberslythes did their job, drawing a truly terrifying amount of fire and exploding with impunity so that my buff pieces and combat threats could live! Ben claimed the right objective with the Riggers, bringing the turn one score to 5-1 in my favour; a great start to things.

On the left, my opponent charged his frigate onto the objective, and didn't charge in with his Dwarf Warriors in the middle. The Frigate, having such a large base and no real combat threat, meant that the Duardin physically didn't have the space to outnumber me on that objective. The Warriors would not have killed many of the buffed up plaguebearers, but they would have outnumbered them significantly thanks to their smaller bases. As it were, I still held both.

A cheeky double turn from T2 to T3, not only allowed the Pusgoyles an opportunity to down a Frigate, killing some of the Thunderer's on board, but also gave them positioning to launch over the ruins and slay all the Riggers, which were my biggest combat threat! In my haste and state of exhaustion, I completely forgot to physically move the models when I piled in, leaving only two models in range of the objective. In a sheer stroke of luck, the Thunderers and Arkanauts threatening the right objective were just outside of 6", meaning that my mistake didn't cost me dearly, as the right objective had become the important one! Phew!

Making sure that he wouldn't miss out on points, my opponent strolled forward with both the Company with Aethermatic Volley Guns and the Thunderers. With a little help from the Witherstave on the LoA lurking in the ruins, their barrage of firepower inflicted a single wound. It was no fault of my opponent; both of us were in a bit of disbelief as Lady Luck well and truly deserted him! In some consolation, he was able to move up with his Company to outnumber me and claim the objective.

At the end of Turn 3, the score was 14-4 in my favour. The schedule, which had been responsible for many players failing to get past turn three across the weekend, reared its head most prominently in this game, as we didn't get a chance at turn four or five, but with a 10 point lead, I managed to land a third major win for the day.

I think this was a bit of a mixed bag for my opponent. On one hand, he drew against probably the most defensive, anti-shooting army at the event, which crippled his ability to touch the big blocks of infantry sitting on the objectives. This was probably the one army he didn't fancy fighting. On the other hand, I was on the edge of my seat the entire game, knowing full well that, at any point, he could charge in with his infantry, flood the objectives with his superior numbers, and be safe in the knowledge that Plaguebearers couldn't fight their way out of a soggy paper bag.

The Blightkings melted to the Endrinrigger assault, but my Pusgoyles were left relatively unscathed and unchecked to rampage their way across the board. Once again, Nurgle did what they do best, and that's getting onto objectives and refusing to die.

This left me on three major wins from three games, and cemented my spot at the high end of the scoreboard going into Day Two. But I knew my toughest games were ahead of me...

I'll be posting all about Day Two of the event soon, so keep an eye out!

Thanks for reading,
Gabe