#168: Cancon Game 6 Battle Report - Beasts of Chaos Vs Legion of Blood

After suffering three losses to only two wins, my goal going into the last game was to simply break even. If I could land a win in the last round, it would finish my weekend off on a high, and I was all about that. I arrived at my table to discover that my opponent was Evie, a familiar face around the Brisbane scene, though we had never actually played.

I knew she was an avid Death player, and I asked the dreaded question.

"How many Grimghast Reapers do you have?".

"None."

Well, alright then...

Eschewing the trends of most of the other death players at CanCon, Evie had built a Legion of Blood army based around Bravery bombing and debuffing, using her array of characters.

Allegiance: Legion of Blood
Mortal Realm: Aqshy

Leaders
Neferata Mortarch Of Blood (400) - General
Vampire Lord On Zombie Dragon (440) - Deathlance & Shield & Chalice - Artefact : Ignax's Scales Coven Throne (260)
Kurdoss Valentian, the Craven King (220) - Allies
Tomb Banshee (80) - Allies

Units
40 x Skeleton Warriors (280) - Ancient Blades
5 x Dire Wolves (60)
5 x Dire Wolves (60)

Endless Spells
Chronomantic Cogs (60)
Soulsnare Shackles (20)
Quicksilver Swords (20)

Total: 1900 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 2
Allies: 300 / 400

The scenario was Focal Points, which is hands down my favourite of the latest set, being a very dynamic and tactical challenge that most armies can compete in to some degree.

Despite how much the first turn rush had betrayed me (or was it my own foolishness...), i chose to take first turn, in order to get bodies on objectives as early as possible. The first order of business was moving up the Spawn and Ungor Raiders, as that would dictate where my main push was. While the Ungor casually strolled onto the central objective thanks to their pre-game move, the Spawn had clearly taken one too many energy drinks, as both of the blasted across the table at breakneck speed! 

Finding myself in a position to use the Gavespawn command ability to its fullest extent, I commited my army in its entirety, with devastating results for my opponent. Facing the full might of fifty Bestigor and the Enlightened, the Skeleton shield wall crumbled and the Dogs were slaughtered. Leaving her with a dozen or so skeletons, and barely any surviving dogs, I'd guaranteed myself a huge numbers advantage. I capped all five objectives in turn one, giving me a grand head start! 

The big unit of 30 Bestigor was the target of most of Evie's incoming damage. Keen to save her Skeletons from imminent death (again?), the Bestigor suffered some pretty horrific Bravery penalties before getting screamed at, and losing a decent number. Despite their casualties and the replenishment of the Skeleton unit, the Bestigor still held a numerical advantage on the objective, and denied my opponent the objective. The Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon slammed into the other unit of Bestigor, causing some real carnage, and taking a negligible amount of damage in return. However, despite her best efforts, Evie wasn't able to claim back any objectives! 

Having dealt with the bulk of Evie's army, with the Enlightened cleaning up the last of the dogs on the right flank, I was in a commanding position on the table, but was also now suffering some pretty serious debuffs. Neferata had made sure that my embattled Bestigor on the left objective had their hit roll dropped through the floor, but even then, they managed to put out some pretty serious damage. With some tough as nails characters left on the board (including a Coven Throne that spent the rest of the game Beguiling my Enlightened), I changed gears into the avoidance game, retreating out of combat wherever I could, and spreading out my units to make sure that objectives were safe. Above, despite the Ungors meeting a predictably bloody end at the hands of the Zombie Dragon, my Spawn and Shaggoth were both in range of the objective, meaning that Evie would have to kill both in order to claim it. Not an impossible task, but it was highly unlikely to only take a single turn, which would buy me some valuable scoring time. 

I was also pretty confident that, even if she did manage to kill my heroes, there was a good chance that I'd generate a spawn from their death, buying me an entire extra turn of objective denial.

At the end of turn two, I'd managed to forge a 16-1 lead, managing to cap all five objectives for two turns in a row. 

Having crippled the Enlightened with Beguile, the Coven Throne got some help from Neferata to butcher the enraptured birds, taking back the home objective. The Tzaangor Shaman also met a terrible end, and then rolled a 1 to generate a Spawn. It wasn't to be!

The Zombie Dragon had remained pretty much unchecked on his rampage across the table, and with the scoreboard running away from Neferata, Evie turned her attention to killing as much as she could. And kill, she did. The Zombie Dragon ignored the Shaggoth, and instead launched headlong into the Bray-Shaman and Ungor sitting on my deep objective, slaying all in her path and healing on the way. The Bray Shaman did what he was meant to and generated a Spawn, denying the Vampire Lord the objective once more, while the Spawn on the left of the photo above moved around to get within range of the objective in the following turn, stacking two bodies on it.

At this point, my opponent conceded, due to some factors outside the event. While I had suffered horrific losses, and hadn't managed to dent any of the big pieces, I had rampaged away on the scoreboard, creating a lead that could not be caught. Evie was great to play, and I'd happily play her again. 

So, there it was. The event was wrapped up, and after a disaster of a Saturday, I'd redeemed myself to a degree on the Sunday, finishing the event with three Major Wins and three Major Losses. I was stoked to have played six people that I'd never faced before, and over the course of the event, I got to meet a ton of really cool people from all over the country. It was great to meet (and play) people from different states and different gaming clubs (got to meet all the lads from Measured Gaming, as well as the legend that is Doom and Darkness). It was a great event for the community, and I feel like, certainly from my experience, that it was a really unifying event for the national community. 

Overall, I finished 88th out of 196 players, which I was alright with. Going into it, I had pretty high hopes of cracking the top fifty, but it's easy to forget that almost every top-tier player in the country was there too, crushing skulls and taking names. I did walk away with one of only Coolest Army Nominations for my Beasts of Chaos, which I equal parts thrilled with and stunned by. Anyone who was following my Road to CanCon knows what a scramble it was to finish that army, but I think that a striking colour scheme partnered with conversions throughout helped it to stand out from the crowd. 

Once again, thanks to all six of my opponents. You were all a delight to play. 

This was my first CanCon, and I'll definitely be going back next year! 

Until next time,

Gabe