#184: War in the West Game 1 - Legion of Azgorh vs. Fyreslayers

Going into War of the West, I wanted to mix up my list a little bit from what I took to BrisVegas Open. I felt like I had a really good foundation, but I wanted to lean into a couple of elements in the army. The Fireglaives and K'Daai were always going to make the cut, but I chose to leave both Magma Cannons, the Daemonsmith and the Sorcerer Lord at home.

In their stead, I picked up two more Bull Centaur Taur'ruks and a Contorted Epitome. I did have to split the 40 Fireglaives into four units of ten to make sure that the allied unit ratio evened out, and this meant that I kept the army at a whopping twelve drops. I kept the Skullcracker, partly because of the sheer damage potential, and partly because it makes for a great centrepiece for the army. 

But certainly, the focus of the army was the trio of Bull Centaur Taur'ruks. One is a challenge to deal with. Three can be a nightmare. 

I also included the Epitome, as not only is it just a fantastic utility piece, but it can keep up with the K'Daai and lets me at least interact with the Activation Wars. 

As a little side note, I included the Prismatic Pallisade, which turned out to be a bit of a waste of points. I would have been better just saving the points and getting a triumph.

I'd had a grudge thrown at me by good mate Pattie, who was taking his Fyreslayers out for their maiden voyage. I don't know what it is, maybe my relentless heckling of all less cool Duardin, but Dispossessed/KO/Fyreslayer players seem to have it out for me...

Here's what I was facing.

Allegiance:  Fyreslayers
Lodge: Lofnir
Realm: Chamon

Leaders:

Auric Runefather on Magmadroth (Ingeous Battle-Throne, Ashhorn Ancient)
Auric Runesmiter on Magmadroth (Coal-Hearted Ancient)
Auric Runesmiter on Magmadroth (Coal-Hearted Ancient)
Auric Runeson on Magmadroth (Coal-Hearted Ancient)
Auric Runeson on Magmadroth (Coal-Hearted Ancient)
Auric Runemaster (General, Explosive Charge)

Battleline:
5 Auric Hearthguard
5 Auric Hearthguard
10 Auric Hearthguard

Magmic Invocations:
Molten Infernoth
Runic Fyrewall

Total: 1970

The one thing that stood out about this list (other than the five fire lizards of death) is that it had a total of 26 models. In an objective/numbers scenario like Blood and Glory, I had a sizeable advantage. But I knew how powerful those Magmadroths can be, and Coal-Hearted let four of them ignore a point of rend on incoming attacks.

I did, however, go into this game pretty confident. The absence of the near-obligatory unit of thirty Hearthguard Berserkers was a pleasant surprise, and in a scenario like Blood and Glory, there was the possibility of just outkilling and conserving kill points to sneak the minor.

Oh sweet, naive Past Gabe...

Deployment was where I set myself up for a bad time. While Pat left his objective on my right hand side pretty much vacant, he'd stacked all twenty Auric Hearthguard on the left side of the board, while his fire-dragon-death-squad deployed centrally, a little bit back off the line. My deployment was pretty standard, and it was part of my undoing. There was no need to have such a wide frontage, or to deploy so far forward. I needed to conserve kill points and isolate elements of Pat's army so as not to take it all on at once.

But the best laid plans are often forgotten in Round 1 of an event. Apparently. And in my first outing against the new Fyreslayer heat (pun fully intended), I really didn't put much thought into my game.

Being less than twelve drops, Pat easily won the choice of who took first turn, and knowing that there was little I could really do with it, he gave it to me. I shuffled a little with the dogs, and nudged here and there with a couple of units, but nothing too exciting. The Epitome threw Pallisade up to block shooting from Pat's Auric rifles, which again, was a mistake. I really should have thrown it up the board to disrupt, or at least stagger the charges from the fire lizards.

In response, Pat popped his movement Rune to speed everything up, whipped out both Magmic Invocations, and thundered across the board! And before you point it out, no. There wasn't a good reason that I had a Magmadroth-sized hole in my screen.

The assault was punishing. Pat began the carnage by popping both Ur-Gold nuggets on his Runesmiters, combined with what felt like an unstoppable wave of buffs. Before I knew it, all five Magmadroths were sitting on a 2+ save, re-rolling 1's with all but the Runefather ignoring a point of Rend. Then he dropped the hammer. The Father had taken up centre position and charged through the gap into my Riflemen. Instead of attacking them, however, he directed all of his attacks into the Warhounds that had been shielding my K'Daai.

Having made a successful charge, but having no enemies in their face, the now-unengaged Runesmiter and Runeson piled into the K'Daai, completely ignoring the wave of Rend-less attacks in return and inflicting a hefty toll in return.

As luck would have it, Pat won priority going into turn two, and since about my whole army was locked up in combat with buffed up Magmadroths, he once again handed the turn to me. This meant that he had a whole extra turn of sitting on nigh-impenetrable armour saves and augments. Having been battered last turn, with entire units just wiped out, I had to try and use the elements remaining to stage some kind of counter-offensive. The Taur'ruk Squad charged in, supported by the Epitome. But it was to no avail. The K'Daai were melting under the onslaught, and the usually terrifying attack profile of the Taur'ruks was rendered useless in the face of such tenacity.

The Epitome forced every Magmadroth in range to strike last, but I wasn't able to capitalise on it. I was able to sqeak through a couple of attacks here and there, but all it was achieving was a handful of wounds on different models. I was struggling to bring any force to bear on one model to burst it down and kill it.

With Pat now taking his second turn, he continued the relentless slaughter. All three Taur'ruks and all twelve K'Daai fell. The Skullcracker succumbed to the volley of lava bullets from the Auric Hearthguard, and I quickly found myself with a handful of Riflemen and a rather exposed Epitome left on the table. 

Pat won priority for a third time to land the double, and mopped up the rest of my army. The Magmadroths split up, no longer needing the support of each other. The two Runesons charged the Epitome, goading each other on to more horrific acts of violence, while the other heroes careened around the board to either stand on an objective or maul some poor Dawi Zharr to death. By the end of turn three, I had zero models on the board, zero kill points and Pat had capped all four objectives to claim the Major Win. 

Wow. 

I'm not going to lie, I was pretty shell-shocked in this game. Not because I was losing (I've lost my fair share of games!), but because no one has ever done that level of uncontested damage to my Chaos Dwarves before. I think I did twenty wounds in total to the Magmadroths, and didn't kill one.I nearly got the Father, but ran out of things to hit him with! 

I think I played like a potato, and just gave away too many advantages (like deployment and leaving a massive hole in my screen), but in hindsight, I don't know how much it would have made a difference. Perhaps I could have singled out some targets and burst-damaged them down with my army. Perhaps it would have only been delaying the slaughter by a turn. 

Either way, I was very impressed with Pat's army, and it was interesting to see a less orthodox build be successful! Because, in a surprise to no one, before being defeated by the powers of alcohol poisoning, Pat utterly crushed two more players after me. 

With no secondaries or kill points (at all... shame!), I plummeted to the bottom table to try and fight my way back! With my goal of 3-2 still being very realistic, I reset and got ready for my next game, against my old flame, Beasts of Chaos! 

Thanks for reading,

Gabe