#165: CanCon Game 3 Battle Report - Beasts of Chaos Vs. Maggotkin of Nurgle

So, going into Game Three, I was sitting on a major win and a major loss. The world was still my oyster, and depending on how my third game went, I could still set myself up for a good final placing.

At the same time, taking a loss had changed my approach to games, as I knew I wasn't playing for sheep stations. This let me relax a bit and really enjoy my next four games.

Now, I must apologise to my opponent, because I was well and truly spent going into my third game. Between the heat and hours of concentration, I was beginning to fade. Knowing this, I was hoping for a pretty straight forward game, win or lose.

And, well... This is what I came up against.

Allegiance: Nurgle
Mortal Realm: Ghyran

Leaders
Lord of Afflictions (220) - General - Trait: Avalanche of Rotten Flesh - Artefact: Rustfang
The Glottkin (420)
Harbinger of Decay (160)
Festus the Leechlord (140)

Units
40 x Chaos Marauders (200) - Axes & Shields - Tribal Banner - Damned Icon - Mark of Nurgle
40 x Chaos Marauders (200) - Axes & Shields - Tribal Banner - Damned Icon - Mark of Nurgle
20 x Chaos Marauders (120) - Axes & Shields - Tribal Banner - Damned Icon - Mark of Nurgle
6 x Plague Drones (400)

Endless Spells
Geminids of Uhl-Gysh (40)

Total: 1900 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 2
Allies: 0 / 400

I had serious concerns as soon as I saw the list. My opponent, Dalton, could match me on bodies, and while he didn't have the raw killing power that I did, he certainly had the staying power and endurance to turn the game into a war of attrition. And a war of attrition is something Beasts of Chaos want no part of.

My mind was somewhat put at ease, however, when my opponent cracked about six dad jokes in the first five minutes of our game. So, I knew that it was going to be a fun game, no matter what. This was good because high-model-count attrition armies can easily lean toward a somewhat uninteractive experience. But my opponent made it pretty clear from the start that he was there for a good time, and that's exactly what we had.

The Scenario was Border War, which I was indifferent about. On one hand, Dalton could flood the middle of the board with incredibly durable units, and they would be very difficult to shift. On the other hand, he would have to come to me in order to compete on the scenario. I knew I had a task before me, but knowing that his army became a lot more durable after having a hero phase, I took first turn, threw caution to the wind and launched into action.

I was seriously second guessing myself on whether to move up and screen onto the objectives, or to launch across the board and try to rack up the kill count on Marauders early on to give myself a numbers advantage. Thanks to a gung-ho attitude, and judgement clouded by exhaustion, I charged.

The Bestigor went in and started swinging. Unfortunately for me, Glottkin's aura dropped their To Hit roll, and I didn't do nearly enough damage. I'd managed to hack my way through a fair chunk of them, but I knew the counter punch was going to hurt. On the bright side, I took both middle objectives and started posting some healthy numbers.

In response to the initial onslaught, Dalton pulled out all the stops to deliver some devastating blows. Thanks to a hole I had cut in the Marauders, the six Plague Drones had enough space to charge into the back of my Bestigor. And while they didn't have much in the way of Rend, they did have an avalanche of attacks, and the magical support of Festus, who made sure that armour corroded almost as fast as it was pierced. After battleshock, a single Bestigor stood boldy (boldly? Is that what we're calling it?) against the stinking masses. 

On the other side of the table, my Shaggoth was hacking his way through the other unit of forty Marauders, while my second unit of Bestigor attacked the other end. But no matter how hard I tried, he seemed to outnumber me on every objective. Scoring all four objectives for two back to back turns really put the nails in the coffin for me. 

In a last hurrah, my Doombull charged in and hacked the Lord of Afflictions to pieces, but by then it was too late. Dalton had outplayed and outmanoeuvred me. He pulled casualties out of the perfect places and piled in with precision, earning him a well-deserved major win. 

I think Dalton probably had this game from the start. Had I been a bit more cagey, I probably could have stayed in the game a little longer, but I just couldn't get through the bodies. The Harbinger of Decay was vital to keeping his horde alive, and it was a small mercy that the Glottkin failed every attempt of Fleshy Abundance. As it was, I felt like a lot of my units died cheaply, going down without killing much in return. That said, I played Nurgle for quite some time and that's exactly how they win games. 

Get onto the objectives.

Don't die. 

Dalton was a legend to play, and I couldn't fault his sportsmanship or gameplay.

This left me on one major win and two major losses, which wasn't where I wanted to be. My goal was to at least break even with wins and losses, and that was not looking good at this point. I was going to have to pull out something special on the Sunday to salvage some glory! 

Check in soon to find out ;)

Thanks for reading, 

Gabe

#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

#163: CanCon Game 1 Battle Report - Beasts of Chaos VS. Blades of Khorne

Well, the day had finally arrived. CanCon was upon us, and I was ready to begin my meteoric rise through the ranks. Hopefully...

But probably not...

To throw a complete curveball at me round one, the random draw pitched my Beasts of Chaos against none other than Vorgaroth the Scarred and his mighty dragon, Skalok, the Skull Host of Khorne.

The big...

Khorne...

Dragon.

I'd had some experience facing those big hammer pieces like Skarbrand and such, but Vorgaroth is truly in a league of his own! 1200 points of unbridled aggression and unresolved issues regarding self-control and moderation. The scenario was Three Places of Power, and after quickly assessing my options, I came up with only two.

#1: Throw my entire army at the Dragon and try to kill it.

#2: Ignore the Dragon as much as I could, steamroll as many of his little units as I could, and try and live long enough to get ahead on objectives.

And since I enjoy pretending my problems don't exist as much as the next person, I went with option two. I had a huge number of cheap disposable units, and given how immense the base of this model was, I was confident in zoning him into a position where he couldn't really spread his wings (pun fully intended) and go for what he wanted.

My opponent, Michael, was running this list.

Allegiance: Khorne
Mortal Realm: Ulgu

Leaders
Vorgaroth the Scarred & Skalok the Skull Host of Khorne (1200)
Lord of Khorne on Juggernaut (140) - General - Trait: Violent Urgency - Artefact: Talisman of the Watcher
Slaughterpriest (100)
Slaughterpriest with Hackblade and Wrathhammer (100)
Bloodstoker (80)

Units
10 x Bloodreavers (70) - Reaver Blades
10 x Bloodreavers (70) - Reaver Blades
10 x Bloodreavers (70) - Reaver Blades
1 x Chaos Warshrine (160)

1990

As you can see, he'd built the army with one goal, and one goal only. Buff up the Dragon and send it into a planet's worth of people to rack up that kill count.

Knowing that my whole army was on borrowed time, and having the decision of first turn, I chose to go first, and get points on the board as quickly as I could. I knew if the dragon got onto an objective, there would be no getting him off. The Tzaangor Shaman took up residence on the right objective, the Doombull on the left, and the Shaggoth took up residence on the central objective. Unfortunateley for me, I didn't quite get the run rolls I was hoping for with the Bestigor, and couldn't get a screen around him, but it was going to have to do! 

Having capped all three objectives, all I could do was hope for the best. But the sheer power of the dragon quickly became apparent. Between Blood Boils from the Priests and the White-Hot Balefire from the Dragon, my Shaggoth (along with the Aetherquartz Broach) dissolved into oblivion, but I did manage to pop a Spawn out of him, and tag the Dragon in combat, preventing him from charging where he wanted. Despite this cheeky move, he still managed to pile in around the newly created Spawn and kill all 30 Bestigor in one round of combat!

While the damage to my army in the initial clash had been catastrophic, I was not out of the fight yet!

In a stroke of pure luck, I won priority going into turn two, and I knew I had to make the most of it! 

I was coming into a play style that I absolutely love playing. I was facing an impossible task, with the tiniest glimpse of hope, and I had to shift into a gear I like to call "All Losses Are Acceptable Losses".

With the central objective vacant, my Bray Shaman left the relative safety of the Herdstone to make a massive run onto the objective. His accompanying Ungor, originally destined for the charcoal barbeque lit under the Herdstone, gladly embraced the new career trajectory of being a meat shield between their frail overlord and an angry dragon the size of a small building! 

My 20-Strong Bestigors decided that the best defence was a good offence, and careened into the two units of Reavers on my left side. Bestigor did what they were designed to do and butchered everyone in sight. It fed my opponent Blood Tithes, but possible victory comes at a price. On the other side of the table, my Enlightened flew into Michael's back lines, pulverising the other 10 Reavers, leaving him with nothing but a Warshrine and Heroes. 

From this point on, my sole focus was to screen and block. With the Dragon's base being as large as it was, all I was trying to do was give it nowhere to jump, and to force it into charging and fighting things like Spawn and Ungor, rather than my hammer units, or (more importantly) my Heroes on the objectives. 

 For the next two turns, this is exactly what I did. Over time, the Bestigor fell, as did the Tzaangor Shaman and Great Bray-Shaman, but not before they had established a lead on the scoreboard. The Enlightened had been largely uncontested, but when they turned their attention to the Warshrine, they in turn attracted the ire of some raging lunatics. Once again, Blood Boils and Balefire took their toll and wiped out the Tzeentchian birdpersons.

At this point in the game, I had one chance at a win. Because of the mayhem that had unfolded on the right side of the board, my Doombull had largely avoided any conflict and stood on full wounds, racking up a hefty score. With Khorne now holding two objectives, my only hope was to keep the Bull alive for the entire game, which would give me a final score that could not be surpassed by my opponent. With that in mind, I placed Spawn and Ungor in such a way that the Khorne Dragon would not have the movement to get over the top of my line, and wouldn't have the range on his Balefire to hit the Doombull.

Seeing an opportunity to put the Beasts down for good, he enacted a tactically savvy play...

Popping his Blood Tithe to move his Lord on Juggernaut in the Hero Phase, he managed to weave between my screens, before using his normal move to get to within a reasonable charge distance of my Doombull. He was buffed up to the nines by the Stoker and the Priests, and while they took the fight to the three remaining Ungor, the Lord of Khorne was after a mightier skull for his trophy rack! 

I was optimistic about the impending combat, as there was a good chance the Lord wouldn't cut through 8 wounds in a phase, (and the Mutating Gnarlblade would have a fair crack at killing him back) but stranger things have happened, and it was quite possible. Alas, we would never find out, as he failed the charge, finding himself out of combat and off the objective. 

In my final turn, I retreated with the two Ungor that had somehow survived combat with the Khorne Heroes, (in no small part thanks to the now-immense aura emitted by the Herdstone that allowed me to ignore Battleshock) and launched an assault on the Jugger-Lord with some newly summoned Bestigor. In retaliation, the dying moments of the game led to the deaths of all of my models bar the Doombull, who stood battered but triumphant on three measly wounds. 

A Major Victory, but paid for with blood. 

I was stoked to be starting my CanCon campaign out with a big win. I didn't get much in the way of kill points, claiming only three units of Reavers and a Jugger Lord, but I knew going in that I wasn't going to have a huge tally, as such a huge portion of Michael's army was tied up in one model. 

In the end, I think my movement phase and the favour of Lady Luck won the game for me. I was able to restrict the Dragon's movement down to one half of the board, and strongly encourage it to fight insignificant units while I racked up a healthy lead on the scoreboard. It was a very close game, however, and at any time, it could have turned on its head and become a catastrophic loss. 

But regardless of the outcome, it was great to finally play against the Khorne Dragon, and we had countless people stop past the table just to bask in the sheer magnitude of the model!  

My opponent, Michael, was an absolute gentleman, and we both laughed off the Game One nerves to have a really tactical game! 

In Game Two, I face another Michael and his Grand Host of Nagash, so keep an eye out for that on the Facebook Page! 

Until then, thanks for reading.

Gabe