Deployable

Right. That's done.


























I've left 2 standard bearers just holding poles for the moment; they'll be finished off when I paint some more rank and file to replace them.

Last weekend was mad fun. A 2000pt battle with 1200 of O&G on one side, 1200 of Beastmen on the other, and 800 each of Nurgle and Khorne to help each of them out, respectively.
Rolling dawn attack resulted in some epically bad deployment, with everything being deployed to either the centre or each side's left. We rolled a civil war (Garden of Nurgle, and General dies, you lose. We made this the non Daemon generals since they had the bigger armies.)

Highlights of the game:

• Bad chariot placement (too close) got it charged by Nurglings, tying it up and eventually killing it
• Herald of Nurgle and his unit charged a Ghorgon and got Miasma of Pestilence off, obliterating him without taking a wound
• A Bloodcrusher failed a march test 7.5" from the Mangler squigs. Next turn he got in and nobly sacrificed himself to save the Gors, taking like 11 wounds.
• HoN unit overran the Ghorgon into Flesh Hounds near a Shrine of Sigmar. Wards re-rolled but regen didn't. With Miasma still up, they didn't stand a chance. Overran again into Minotaurs. Miasma got up again and made them break from combat, getting caught.
• Bloodletters ran into some conga River trolls, killing them.
• NG bus and Gor bus got into combat in the middle of the board. Nets were used to great effect and they whittled each other down.
• HoN unit got into the back of the Gors and Miasma again worked to great effect. A devestating round of combat left them with just a couple of ranks left. Double ones miraculously kept the game going.
• Bloodletters charged the side of the NG. Savage Beast of Horros went off from the Greater Bray Shaman. Goblins netted themselves. Black Orc Boss declared a challenge to try to save himself from Bloodletter Killing Blows. Herald of Khorne graciously accepted.
• Horros and Firestorm Blade had the HoK at S10 with 6 attacks. Got 6 hits. 1 Killing Blow. Despite all that the Nurgle forces did (and the Beasts side being down to Bloodletters and Beast characters), it was a victory for the Beasts and Khorne.
• After that combat, the Plaguebearers stayed Steadfast by a single model. Had he died, they would have mostly exploded.

I made it sound like a very Daemon-centric game there. Thanks to the bulk of the O&G army being in one corner and some poor luck for the Beastmen with Miasma (it really shouldn't have gotten through that many times), it kind of was. Particularly with Daemons taking the rear and flank of the main units of each army at the end.

Frankly, I'm just surprised how I remained impartial through the entire game.

"Man, fuck Daemons."
   -Jolly 

No ordinary rabbit

My bad, I wrote this on Wednesday and forgot to post. In addition to the below: the semi-official ruling is that characteristic test templates force 2 tests on mounted characters, each at their own values. Maybe my methods of dealing with dragons don't need to be as convoluted as the one I used last weekend.

The Game (damn, I just lost the game)

I played a very mean list last weekend, and I feel a bit dirty because of it. It won’t be used again in a friendly game anytime soon.

The game was against High Elves including a Prince on a Star Dragon, 2 Lvl 2 mages (Light and Beasts), 50 Spears, 2 units of 16 Swordmasters, 20 Archers, some Dragon Princes with the BSB and a couple of Eagles.

I, on the other hand, had the stock 39 Bloodletters, 4 units of 4 Flamers (2 with champions), 3 single Fiends, 5 Furies, 21 Daemonettes, 10 Horrors, 2 Tzeralds (Shadow and Life), a Kherald, a Slerald and the Masque. Oh yeah, and Cyrus as a L4 with a couple of gifts that he never got to use.

His mages got Wildform, Kadon, Shem’s and Banishment, while Cyrus got Stream of Corruption, Pit of Slime, Shrivelling Pox and Plague Wind.

Turn 1

He got first turn and moved his dragon to hide from Cyrus and everything else. The Spears, DPs (ok, an army having one unit called Dragon Princes and also being able to take a Prince on a Dragon. That’s unhelpful for battle report writing.) and Swordmasters moved forward, while the second Sword unit garrisoned a farm and the Archers stayed put behind a fence. The Eagles, of course, got in my way.

Magic went terribly for him, rolling a miscast with 4D6 on Banishment. This killed one and a half Flamers (I rolled 3 saves from 6 wounds, then rerolled all of them; nice.), while the resulting Dimensional Cascade killed all but one Swordmaster in the unit and took away the Light Mage. Shooting wounded a Flamer from another unit.

My Daemonettes charged an Eagle with the Siren Standard, preventing the flee. One Flamer unit garrisoned a building while the Bloodletters got into the other one. Everyone else generally moved up, with the Furies redirecting the DPs.

Magic was pretty shocking. I rolled double ones and failed to get the Pox onto his Prince. Still alive though, so I can’t complain. Shooting was nearly as bad, with a wound on an Eagle and a couple of Archers and Spears dead. Combat saw the Eagle annihilated.

Turn 2

Poor judgement by me had the Flamers charged by the Spears, with a potential overrun into the Masque. With little other choice, DPs charged the Furies. The Prince flew out of the charge arc of Cyrus while maintaining a view to him and the Daemonettes. Swords left their building and the lone Sword got out of my Fiend’s charge arc.

After seeing what happened to the Light Mage, the Beasts Mage decided that failing to cast Kadon was a suitable alternative to miscasting, and promptly did so. A couple of shots did next to nothing and the DPs shredded the Furies. Crucially, the Spears only got one model in contact with the Flamers and despite fighting in 4 ranks, only killed one.

Despite movement being what you could refer to as the reliable phase, I failed 5 Leadership tests for marching or reforming. Daemonettes turned their back to the Swordmasters (with a Fiend redirecting) and moved toward the Prince. Bloodletters abandoned their building and everyone else moved toward their targets with the exception of the Horrors and Tzeralds, who reformed and got away from the Prince.

Magic went almost exactly according to plan, getting Mindrazor on the Daemonettes with the unfortunate side-effect of a Cascade killing the caster, while the Masque danced at the Prince. Shooting took out the second Eagle and a few Archers. Combat killed the Flamers, with the Spears reforming.

Turn 3

Part 2 of Operation Kill the Damn Dragon came into effect when the Slerald used her Siren Song on the Prince. He charged while the DPs went after some Flamers, with the effect of the DPs partially blocking the Prince’s charge, contacting 3 models instead of 4.

Magic saw Wildform miscast on the Dragon and a successful Kadon. Shooting was minimal once again. Mindrazor worked to great effect, taking 6 wounds off the Dragon. If Wildform weren’t on and the Prince could maximise it would have been quite dead, but as is the 7 extra attacks plus Thunderstomp won him the combat.

Bloodletters moved an inch away from the Spears. The uncovered unit of Flamers moved behind the Archers.

Cyrus hit the Spears with Plague Wind, somehow only getting 16 of the 50 despite T3. They fled, leaving 5 Nurgling bases in their wake. Archers were shot down to 4 left, but passed their test (a fail would have been awesome, taking their Monster Mage with them off the board). The Dragon finally died to a couple of sixes from me and 3s from him. I won combat there, but he held on Ld 5.

Turn 4

Swords finally got the charge on the Daemonettes’ rear after clearing the Fiend, sealing their fate. DPs moved to charge the Horrors next round, while the Mage-dragon flew away from the archers. Spears reformed.

In magic I dispelled Kadon, which let him Wildform the Swords. Combat saw my Daemonettes die to a combo of combat res and stabbing.

Flamers left their house and the Tzerald got away from the Horrors. Nurglings got out of the way of the Bloodletters, who moved nice and close to the Spears again.

Magic didn’t achieve much, although I hit the DPs with Awakening of the Wood. This did nothing. Shooting finished off the Archers and whittled down the Swords a bit.

Turn 5

DPs charged the Horrors and wiped them out, choosing to reform rather than overrun. Prince joined the Swords. Mage re-Kadonned.

Bloodletters charged the Spears and the Flamers moved over to the Swords. Cyrus charge-blocked the DPs away from the Tzerald.

Magic was very effective, getting Stream of corruption onto the DPs and taking out 4, Followed by Pox on the BSB, finishing him off. This unfortunately removed enough models to open the Tzerald up for charging again. The combo of the Masque’s dance and Flamers made the Swords and Prince flee dangerously close to the edge of the board.

Spears directed most of their attacks at the Kherald, not getting rerolls and therefore only getting 2 wounds in, which I saved with the armour alone. The horde and Kherald did enough wounds to break Steadfast, making the Spears flee off the table. I then reformed to face 3 Swordmasters and the Prince.

Turn 6

Despite a difference of opinion on the 25% rule, the tiny unit reformed an inch from the table edge. Princes charged the Tzerald. I dispelled Kadon again, then used the spellbreaker to prevent Wildform on the tiny Swordmaster unit. Again, he transformed. DPs slaughtered the Tzerald and overran into the flank of the Bloodletters.

For my final turn, the Flamers moved to shoot at the (now a Hydra) Mage and the last Swordmaster of the Cascaded unit, who had been buzzing around the table all game. Cyrus moved right next to the Prince and his buddies.

Magic had further dancing at the Prince, followed by a Stream of Corruption. They fled off the table. Flamers killed off the last Swordmaster and did a second wound on the Hydra-Mage who would have died to a dispel if we weren’t at the end of turn 6. Three DPs did next to nothing against the Bloodletters, and a Killing Blow knocked them down to 3.

There we go. An epic game and I rolled a 4 on resolution, so his army is destroyed (until the end of the season. Which is almost now. We still have to resolve injuries and the victory and defeat tables, which we will get to next time. The end of season event will be coming up shortly, which should be mad fun.

So 4 units of Flamers, Siren Song, Masque, Siren Standard and Despair Banner. In the interest of fairness, I won’t be using that particular combination again. Except when I really really feel like I need to. The sight of elves failing leadership tests is particularly entertaining though.

Sorry about the lack of pictures, I’ll post one up of my Bloodletters when they’re done. Here's the right now though:

"Run Away!!"

     -King Arthur in Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Bawk bawk bawk.

So. Campaign. Nothing to report since my Empire opponent has a very different schedule of free time to me. It looks like we won't be getting our game in before the cutoff, so it'll be skipped; a bit of a shame since I was really looking forward to seeing if my crazy shenanigans would have actually worked.
I've decided to take the stance that he's stalling so that he won't have to play me. Bawk bawk bawk **does an incredibly annoying impression of a chicken**

Painting news: Larry is painted and based (finally).

A few hours were spent this weekend just on his base, which has impact craters around his hooves and flaming cracks opening in the ground.

Last weekend I had a quick 1200pt game against Beastmen. No pics were taken but I'll give a quick recap.

I took 40 Bletters, 6 Flamers, a Fiend, 10 Horrors and a Light Tzerald. And the Masque to add a bit of variety. I was facing a bunch of Gors, 3 Minotaurs (the game was basically to try them out), a Ghorgon, a chariot, and a couple of heroes (L4 with beasts).

I got 1st turn and did the usual, getting closer to charge range. Flamers picked off a Mino. Not a lot in magic.
He failed a swift reform in the Gors, which basically cancelled his movement. Minos moved unnervingly close to the Flamers. A poor roll for magic basically ended his turn.

I inched closer to be just out of likely charge range of the Gors. Flamers moved to the sweet spot between stand and shoot and long range against the Minos, which they ended up destroying anyway. Fiend went off to be alone for a while. Again, very little effective magic. Masque danced at the Ghorgon to reduce his leadership.
Ghorgon failed his frenzy and charged the Bletters. Gors and chariot moved to unfailable charge range. Wildform hit the Ghorgon, who won combat and Frenzy stacked. I passed instability.

Fiend moved to redirect against the Gors, while the Flamers moved to shoot at them. Masque danced at the Gors. Throwing 6 dice at Timewarp without a miscast lured out the Scroll. Flamers shot at the Gors, who panicked and fled, causing further panic and fleeing in the chariot. Chariot fled off the board. Bletters won combat this time, cancelling the Frenzy.
Rally failed and the Gors left the board. Ghorgon won combat and re-frenzied.

Fiend charged the flank of the Ghorgon, I got Timewarp off and the Masque danced at the Ghorgon. He was down to a single wound, so he ate a Bletter and healed by d3 (1, unfortunately for him). He broke and the Fiend caught him.


Next week we should hopefully be continuing to the next turn in the campaign. My Bletters will most likely be represented by something else because of this:

Now officially out of black spray. You may notice that they're looking a bit smaller than usual. That's because I chopped back their swords to make them easier to rank together. So goddamn sick of that.

Now they've got daggers of various shapes and sizes. I will call them... Bloodletter openers. I intend to paint them with an airbrush at least in part, which means painting outside, therefore during the day, therefore on the weekends. Hopefully shouldn't take too long.


That's all for this week, probably paint some more Nurglings before the weekend.


"Bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk,
Bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk,
Bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk."
 -A haiku about the Empire.

Battle of the Organ Gun

Right, update. The game between me and Digh Elves happened last weekend in the snowy lands near two Settlements of Destruction. I had 2600pts and he had 2650 from our mines, and I did a couple of things with my list that I haven't before.

For starters, I took 2 Tzeralds (Life and Death), although only one of them did anything beyond intimidation. Also took a Kherald on a Juggernaut and 2 units of 6 Flamers for the first time.

My opponent took Hordemasters and Phoenix Guard for combat and Seaguard to shoot. A Heavens Archmage  took care of magic for him, while a Repeater Bolt Thrower (hm, RBT) shot at Larry a bit. This was the opponent who destroyed my organ gun first round with archers last time we played, so I was out for revenge.

My army:

 His army (Goddamn eagles!):

 I did a shocking job of taking photos, so bear with me. First round I did the usual marching up, making sure to get everyone out of range of the Haunted Mansion before the shooting phase.
With 7 dice and being out of range for Dwellers, I boosted Caress of Laniph at his mage, throwing 6 dice and casting without a miscast. It was then that the Banner of the World Dragon was revealed in the Hordemasters and nothing happened. Sigh. In later discussions we decided that he should've tried to dispel it anyway, since I had 1 die left and would have kept directing magic that way if I thought I could. I got a few shots in at the Hordemasters and killed about 3, and there was much rejoicing.

Right away he moved the Horde into the building, creating a unit impervious to magic and shooting, and that could beat me easily in combat. Sonuvabitch. Everything else stayed eerily still. A gust of wind shot out of the windows of the house, pushing my BLs 3 inches away. Harmonic Convergence went on his RBT. The RBT fired at Larry, who was over 0.05 thanks to a long island iced tea and took a wound. Seaguard managed to knock over 5 BLs with shooting.

In turn 2 I moved everyone menacingly closer, although they tangled together a bit. Forgot to move up one of my Flamer units :( Got Dwellers off on the Seaguard and he failed to dispel, but I only killed 11 of the 50 that were there. Larry regained his wound. Shooting with my Flamers knocked out 11 more, which felt pretty good.

 I told you I did a terrible job with the photos. He charged a Fiend in the flank with an Eagle (2 actually, but one failed), and the Horde moved out of their house. Eagles moved to block charges and generally be annoying dicks. I blocked Iceshard Blizzard on my Flamers, and Harmonic Convergence hit the Hordemasters. Further shooting chipped away at my BLs, and combat between the Eagle and Fiend ended in a draw.

Charges were declared all over the place, with a Fiend and Larry charging the RBT and the Hounds charging an Eagle. BLs shuffled left to get through the gap, while my Life Tzerald moved right to prevent the Hordemasters from overrunning into him. The Death Tzerald failed his marching test, but still flew a good 10" to safety. Dwellers hit the Seaguard again, killing the general and a fair chunk of the unit. I miscast regrowth on the BLs, with a net result of turning 3 Horrors into Bloodletters.
Shooting at the remainder killed a few more, while the other unit shot at the Hordemasters.
Forgetting to reform my Fiend to face the Eagle made him lose combat by 2, but not taking any additional wounds. Then he failed his reform test. Not so great. Hounds decimated the Eagle and overran into the Seaguard. Larry's Dark Insanity gave him 13 attacks on the RBT, which avenged the Organ Gun nicely. He turned to face the Seaguard, while the Fiend overran into the last eagle. Mid turn:

 Swordmasters charged the empty Horrors. Magic was spent unnecessarily buffing them and they decimated the unit in combat. Hounds won theirs by 4, but the Seaguard hung around and reformed anyway. Fiend v Eagle just kept on going.

 We called it there, with me winning. Next turn would have seen Larry charging the Seaguard and the Life Tzerald getting the hell out of there to try Dwellers on the Phoenix Guard. Both Flamer units would have torn into the Hordemasters (likely chipping them down to less than 15) to weaken them against the Bloodletters.

As a reward for winning, my Bloodletters were named a regiment of renown (the Red Envelope) and gained Devestating Charge. In post-game we put down our armies on the newly enlarged map and effectively restarted the campain from turn 2. For next round I'm facing Empire with Cyrus, which terrifies me. On the plus side, I have 2900pts and get to see his list before I write mine, so this is my one and only chance of beating him.

For the purpose of the campaign, we're considering a 4+ look out sir against spells like Dwellers. I suggested the 4+ as opposed to 2+, but I'm even a bit iffy about that now. Those spells aren't cheap to cast, and a large part of why I use them is for taking out command. They were written that way because that's how the designers intended it, and if it wasn't then it would've been changed in an errata by now.
Taking the extreme case, if a character passes a look out sir and someone else takes the hit, then there's a chance (however small) that more models than there are in the unit could die, with the character surviving.

Anyway, topic for discussion later.

For avenging the Organ Gun, Larry has earned the right to be painted. Still a work in progress, but here's what I've done so far.
Prime:

 Skin base:

 Wings cleaned up and hair painted:

 Wings base:

 Wings wash:

I'm giving him white armour to go with the theme, and when I base him it's going to be like he just landed with craters around his feet. That's the plan at least.

"There is no greater concern than knowing where the the lid for your scalpel is, but not knowing the location of the scalpel itself."

We're in the Badlands. Also, there's blood.

Campaign kicked off on the weekend with a long session of making the rules clearer to everyone and agreeing on others that aren't fully explained. We set up the currently half-sized mighty empires map (I bought a new set on Monday and it arrived today, so we'll fill it out and do another land grab this weekend.

We have an Empire, Dwarfs, Vampire Counts, two High Elves (which I will refer to from now on as Digh Elves and Ligh Elves to simultaneously reduce and increase confusion), and my Daemons.

In the random events at the start of the first turn, Empire lost a mine to the Vampires and a Fortress to bad luck, while Dwarfs lost a precious mine. Movement sent everyone off to war and challenges were declared between Ligh Elves and Dwarfs (who were between the Ligh Elves and my territory, that guy holds a grudge well), Empire and Vampires (to reclaim the mine), and me and the Digh Elves. We had no reason to fight, what with both of us invading the Vampires territory, but the others paired up first.

Rolling for mines led to +D6x50 points for me, Digh Elves, and Vampires, and a D6x10 point magic item for a Vampire Hero of Legend (he also got a relic).
Due to time constraints most of our games are going on this weekend, but Empire and Vampires got a battle in, with the Ghoul King on a Terrorgheist falling to cannon fire. Things didn't improve from there when the backup wizard lost his magic levels to a miscast. I didn't hang around until the end of it, but we declared the result with some interesting consequences.

For winning, Empire got a free D6x10 magic item (he rolled a 1, unfortunate.) and a relic.
For losing, one Vampire unit is now subject to stupidity for the next battle, and the army was pushed back towards the Capital.
Sonuvabitch  Ghoul King rolled a 6 on the character injury table, resulting in +1S.

I played a quick 1000pts against the Dwarfs to pass the time, and he went very artillery heavy. I took lots of units and Light.
First turn nearly killed the Scribes and knocked out a few BLs.
My turn killed off a few of the single infantry unit with magic, but also caused a Cascade that could have wiped out my Tzerald and lost me the game (it was Blood and Glory with only one standard). The epic explosion that occured took a wound off him anyway and killed just a single Horror.

Further shooting chipped back a few more BLs and again, nearly killed a Fiend. The Organ Gun messed up the Scribes, who acheived nothing but distracting artillery.
I got Timewarp off on one unit of BLs after Pha's was dispelled. Both Fiends charged but only one got in, taking out 2 crew before losing his single remaining wound.

Now within charging range, the dwarfs took their chance and charged the non-Birona BLs. We forgot Fear and I lost combat but passed my instability. All cannons fired at the Birona Letters, taking them down to the command models.

Birona Letters charged the weakened Grudge Thrower and the Fiend ran at the Organ Gun. I did the Timewarp again, this time on the BLs in combat with the infantry. Fiend won combat and the crew failed their test, but due to me never fighting artillery before they stayed there. Unless that's something special with Dwarfs. I dunno. Grudge Thrower was finished off and I overran into the cannon. After killing 7 to 2 wounds on the rank and file, they fled and were caught. Only after I got home did I realise that I forgot the ASF rerolls, not that it mattered.

We called it there and watched a bit more of the other game. I'd say that I won partly due to poor rolls by his characters, but mostly because I brought more units than he could shoot before I got to him.

Yeah yeah, no pictures this time. I'm assembling a Chimera and Manticore right now, so maybe next update.

Current campaign relic tally:
VC: 1
Em: 1
DiE: 0
LiE: 0
Dw: 0
DoC: 0

No quote either. I'm gonna go play Diablo.

Battle report: Earth minute

Very quick roundup of the game this weekend, which coincided with a very half-hearted Earth Hour:
Everyone wrote up 2 separate armies; 1000pts as the main and 500pts in reinforcements. The reinforcements had to make it across a 4' board before the game in order to join the main army. My re-list had my Khorne Herald, 6 Flesh Hounds, 5 Furies and 2 single Fiends.
Every unit was affected by a Wind spell on a 4+ at the start of each turn, so they all got pushed around a bit (the Furies got over in 2 turns and got lucky enough to not be hit, otherwise they would have taken the Heavens Lore attribute hits). Everyone got different rule sets, but also got all of their guys across.

We rolled off and I was facing High Elves again. I had another 2 single Fiends in my main army (exploiting the separate armies rule a bit), along with 15 BLs and Daemonettes, 4 Screamers, a Slaanesh Herald, a Tzeentch Herald and 3 Flamers.
Elves had 20 Archers, 3 Eagles, a Mage, a BSB, Dragon Princes and Phoenix Guard.
Post deployment and mid-pizza we looked like this:

 

 Elves took first turn and moved the Eagles and Princes up. Magic and shooting focused down a Fiend and gave an Eagle Pha's Protection.

My reinforcements moved on and everyone moved forward. The FLOCK OF DOOM!! hit the Phoenix Guard (I need a shorter name for them... Phard). My Herald miscast and wounded both himself and a Flamer. :(

Phard shuffled backwards and the Dragon Princes... Pragons charged my Fiend. Eagles got in the way of my core and the rest of the turn was devoted to killing Fiends: shooting and Pragons did the job.

Core charged their respective Eagles and the Hounds moved to get in the way of the Pragons. My Screamers got the first kill by flying over the last Eagle. Hounds were wildformed in magic and the Eagles were cooked and/or overrun. Mid-my turn: 

 Pragons charged Hounds. Shem's hit my Tzerald, who warded it like a boss, and there was an epic fail of Pha's Protection:

 A bit of shooting took out 2 BLs and combat damaged both the Hounds and Pragons, ending in a Hound exploding in combat res.

Daemonettes, Fiend and BLs moved up to charge next turn, one Screamer got over the Phard. Tzerald Flocked the Archers and Flamers shot them up a bit more. Another Hound died bravely in combat.

Mage left the Phard and Archers reformed to shoot the BLs:

 Pha's protection got off and the last Hound took a wound, taking a Pragon with it. Awesome. Last photo:

Everyone charged the Phard (should have had one core move round the side). Screamers flew over the Mage - to no effect - and the Archers, killing a couple. After a Flock of Doom killed the Mage I got greedy with magic and dimensional cascaded while buffing my core. Tzerald exploded. Flamers killed a few more Archers and the last Hound died in combat.

Slerald died, along with a few of each core. Phard held their gound well and won combat, popping a few people.

Over the next few turns all my guys slowly fell apart while the Archers were finished off, and there was a surprising lack of ward saves on my side. Pragons joined in and the BSB killed my Kherald in a challenge. Elves won with the Pragons, BSB and Phard still alive, while I had Screamers and Flamers.

Still a great game and since they struck me down, I will become more powerful than the Elves could possibly imagine :)

Can't wait 'til next time.

"Oh, is that in the rules? I thought I was just letting you cheat."

        -Me

The game so epic I don't remember most of it

 Biiig game this weekend. It took 14 hours to do including setting up, so yeah, big game. I didn't take any notes, so this will probably just devolve into a "highlights" battle report. And also mainly from my end of the board.
2500 points each 2v2: Daemons and Vampires vs. Warriors and High Elves, we played on an 8x4 board to fit everyone on.

For environment we rolled a tornado which freaked out at the start of every player turn because we re-rolled for size on a direct hit as well as a misfire; I think we should just go with the direction of the tiny arrow on the direct hit.

Terrain was the most unusual I've ever seen, with no forests in 8 rolls. We got an Earthblood Mere, Mist-wreathed Swamp, Mystery river, Sphinx, Brewhouse, Elven Waystone, Grail Chapel and a Tower of Blood.

 In deployment I learned that you shouldn't just let your ally take the whole centre, otherwise your guys will all be crammed together on one side and tripping over each other. As you can see I went with a very Nurgle build, using Plaguebearers, Nurglings, a Great Unclean One, Epidemius and a Beast. They were joined by Boobs the Fiend, some Flamers, Furies, some Horrors and a Tzeentch Herald with Lore of Shadows.

Vampires had some fun models, with a Mortis Engine, a Wight King (I think) on a Terrorgheist, Banshee, Hexwraiths, Skeletons, Zombies, Ghouls, Chorrors, Bat Swarms, Grave Guard and a Necromancer (again, I think).
High Elves got 3 Eagles, a few sets of Swordmasters, Phoenix Guard, a big pack of Spearelves, Archers, Mage, Archmage and some BSB guy.
Warriors got a mounted Wizard, Hellcannon, a Chariot, some GODDAMN Knights, and 2 packs of Warriors.

For magic I rolled from Nurgle: Miasma, Pit of Slime and Plague Wind :)
Vampires got some Invocations and one other spell I don't remember.
High Elves got the entire Lore of Light except for Net of Amyntok.
Warriors got.. well it doesn't matter what he rolled, he got the magic of everyone he could see. New LoS rules make that a bit insane.

The tornado moved in front of the Phoenix Guard and they walked right into it like a boss, losing a couple. They got first turn and did the usual shuffling forward.Magic phase was very uneventful with nothing getting through, and the Hellcannon did nothing.
Tornado moved off the Phoenix Guard and killed a couple more. Our turn had our own shuffling, putting the Chorrors in the Tower. Furies charged an Eagle and the Mortis Engine double-sixed, taking a wound. Magic had plenty getting through, but also 2 miscasts, killing 16 Grave Guard in exchange for an Invocation, and I lost a Horror to get the Withering on the Spearelves. Shooting killed a couple of Spears and wounded the Chariot, while combat was a draw between the Furies and Eagle.

Tornado did nothing at the start of turn 2, but the Chariot charged the Flamers, Knights charged Furies and Swordmasters charged Boobs. Magic once again did very little, I think they hurt some Zombies and the Hellcannon did nothing again. All of my forces were annihilated in combat and the Knights reformed to face my Nurglings.
Tornado looked intimidating again but did nothing. Beast charged spears (a very bad move) and Nurglings charged Knights (also bad). Zombies charged the Phoenix Guard over the river of Light and got ASF. Chorrors left the tower.  Magic did nothing much, but the shooting from the Undead took out a few Warriors and the Flamers damaged some Swordmasters. Beast and Nurglings died horribly, but the Zombies fared very well against the Phoenix Guard, who lost and only just managed not to flee, which would've been a domino effect that wiped out the Elves. If we'd remembered that the tower gave the Zombies hatred and frenzy the Phoenix Guard would've lost by more and fled. Big mistake forgetting that.

 Tornado moves menacingly toward the Hellcannon.
Knights charge Plaguebearers as the Eagle flies behind. People move up to prepare charges and the Warriors Sorcerer explodes during magic. Hellcannon takes out a few Skeletons while the Archers shoot with a little effectiveness at the Terrorgheist. I missed my chance to do Miasma on my Nurgle BSB, and he died in a challenge with the Knight Champion. Phoenix Guard won this time, shrinking the Zombies slightly. We called it a day there and came back the following morning.

Our turn had the tornado move into empty space as the Terrorgheist charged the Archers, who fled in terror and were overrun. Ghouls and Mortis Engine charged a pack of Warriors and my guys sat around waiting for me to actually carry out the only one of my plans that I followed through on.
And so in the magic phase I 6-diced Plague Wind on the Spearelves, who never had the Withering removed for some reason. Each hero took a wound and the vast majority of the T1 Elves turned into 10 Nurgling bases in a flash. The miscast made the Necromancer take a wound, and that was all.

In shooting, the Undead screamed at the Warriors while the Flamers shot at the rest of the Spears, leaving us to consider whether it is still considered a unit of Spearelves when it is made up of only 3 characters. After another round of combat the Zombies were reduced to a single rank while the Mortis Engine exploded to surprisingly little effect. Chorrors cut through the remaining Warriors in one unit.
Despite now poisoning on a 4+, the Plaguebearers were torn down a bit more.



The tornado moved into the edge of the board and pretty much stayed there until the end of the game.
Warriors left their house, while the Hellcannon frenzied at the sight of the Hexwraiths, charging a couple of inches. Giant charged Chorrors. The shock of losing all of the Spears led to the Elf characters scattering as the Eagle moved to get in the way of the Nurgling swarm.The Archmage made a Pha Bubble. In combat the Zombies were torn down to a single rank and the Plaguebearers were left with only the champion and Laverne, while a Chorror sidestepped the Giant's club and bopped him on the head, causing him to fall over and cause a wound on a Chorror.

GUO charged the Phoenix Guard and Nurglings charged the last Eagle. Chorrors lined themselves up with the Warriors. Not much magic went down but I picked on the Dragon Princes a bit. Flamers shot at the Archmage, but did nothing. The last of the Plaguebearers died and the Knights turned to face the GUO, who took 5 wounds from the combat res thanks to the Zombies dying (it was this turn that we remembered frenzy and hatred). On the upside, the Eagle died and the Nurglings reformed to face the Knights.

5 Archmage joined the Swordmasters and the Knights charged the GUO. Elf mage toasted my Flamers, leaving only the champion alive. 3 Ghouls were left after combat and the Warriors tried to reform to face the Chorrors, leading to arguments over whether you could reform to put someone on your flank, among other things.

Chorrors charged the Warriors. Archmage Swordmasters fled from the Nurgings, who redirected into the other SM unit. Hexwraiths flew over the Hellcannon to little effect. In magic my Horrors pulled off their first Flickering Fire ever, killing the Elf BSB. I forgot to move the Flamer, so he just sat around. Nurglings did some damage to the Swordmasters, and the Ghouls were finished off. Warriors reformed to face the Chorrors. GUO also died and the Knights reformed to face the Nurglings.

Hellcannon charged Terrorgheist and Knights charged Nurglings. SMs rallied. Not much magic again and no shooting; the Hellcannon died in combat.Nurglings were reduced but took some SMs with them, Chorrors died out after rolling terribly:

Hm, there are only 11 dice in that photo. Anyway, Terrorgheist didn't reform after winning, so he couldn't charge the last Warriors. Flamer moved up to attack the Archmage, but he fled after the SMs were cut down by more Horror Fire and left the board. Nurglings were finished off and the Warriors survived shooting.

After adding everything up, we lost by 214 points (initially we thought it was just 164, but the 10-block of Nurglings was worth a whopping 50 points). I made huge mistakes during deployment and across the game, so what did we learn?

Spread out your army. Don't get anywhere near Chaos Knights.
Withering and Plague Wind work very well together.
New LoS rules make 3rd Eye of Tzeentch very good.
Horrors take a miscast very well.
Grave Guard do not.
Use Miasma before it's too late.
Mortis Engines are large and scary, even when they're not complete and falling over all the time.

Not as bad as I thought. Might be a few less posts over the next weeks; with 50 hour working weeks I have to choose between posting and painting each night, and I really want to make some progress. Hopefully have something up on the weekend.

"That's ridiculous."
         -Pretty much everyone at some point in the game

Daemons are OP Part 2

Following my debatably undeserved victory against the Elves, I was so happy that lasers were coming out of my eyes.

Cheery's Vampires had slain their own High Elves, so we played off to determine the winner of the tournament.






                                    VS.

 Determined to win and maintain his winning streak, he was so focused that he had also gained laser-eye status.



 He was using 3 Vargheists, 2 Bat Swarms, 60 Zombies, 20 Ghouls, 6 Crypt Horrors, a mounted Necromancer (Master?) by the name of Snide, and a BSB Wight King.




In terrain we rolled 3 forests, a misty swamp, a banestone and a perfectly harmless farmhouse. Cheery deployed on the farmhouse side, allowing his Zombie horde to emerge from the freshly tilled soil.
After deployment we looked like this:

Everyone on my side was stuck down with yellow, but that didn't stop that flamer from falling over (and my Bloodletter standard bearer gave me grief for the entire day). My Furies were in the opposite corner of the board.

I got first turn again, so everyone did their standard shuffling; the Furies moved next to the banestone on their way to the battle. Magic left me with Throne of Vines on my Tzeentch Herald and both Shield of Thorns and Flesh to Stone on my BLs. A miscast got through the Throne and killed just one Horror. Flamers destroyed the brains of 5 Zombies.

Vampire turn 1 led to the Vargheists moving to protect the flank from the Daemonettes and Boobs the Fiend. Snide joined the Zombies and the Ghouls and CHorrors stayed put behind the swamp. Throne and Stone were dispelled during magic, and I was lucky to knock back Winds of Undeath.

My second turn had the Flamers moving to closer range, and Boobs and the Daemonettes moved within charge range of the Vargheists. Everyone else moved up as much as they could.

Magic went VERY well, with Throne being recast and a long range Dwellers being cast on the horde. 32 of the 55 remaining Zombies failed their strength test and were pulled into the ground, as well as both of his characters. Crumbling began to erode the rest of his forces.
 One unit of Flamers shot at the Zombies a bit more, killing a few. The others shot at the CHorrors through the swamp, and we decided that it counted as hard cover since it would work that way in reality. No damage done there.

On his turn 2, crumbling continued and the Vargheists frenzied toward Boobs. CHorrors charged one unit of Flamers while Zombies did the others. Standing and shooting took out some more Zombies. Bats moved to face the Daemonettes. With Snide gone, magic was skipped and dispelling was forgotten. Close combat between the Vargheists and Fiend ended with a wound on the fiend, instability cost it another. Zombies were finished off by the Flamers and combat res, while the CHorrors squished the flamers.

My turn 3 had the Daemonettes joining combat and both the BLs and Furies turning to face the CHorrors. Flamers moved up to shoot at the CHorrors and to set up a rear charge on the ghouls (assuming they charged the BLs next turn).

Throne was dispelled then recast, Flesh to Stone failed, and Flickering Fire from the Horrors was dispelled. Shooting at the CHorrors had little effect, and combat ended in a draw.

Crumbling continued in his turn 3, and the Ghouls and CHorrors charged the BLs, while the remaining bat swarm charged the Daemonettes. Throne was dispelled again. Damage was done to the BLs, but not before they did their own damage to both units. Despite losing combat by 3, only one BL destabilised. In the other combat the Vargheists and Bat Swarm were cleaned up by combat res.

Turn 4 for me had the Furies charging the CHorror's rear, with the Flamers doing the same to the Ghouls. Daemonettes and Boobs moved to get into position to charge in case something went horribly wrong.
Throne was recast again and Thorns were put on the Bloodletters. This did significant damage to both attacking units, and at the end of combat (prior to combat res) it looked like this:

Combat res left him with a single ghoul left. We called  it there and Cheery's winning streak ended. There's not a lot he could have done better and some very significant damage was done to my main unit despite him crumbling from turn 2. The luck involved in my wins (and this one in particular) was insane, with huge help from knowing the entire Lore of Life. Yeah. Master of Sorcery again next time.

With me winning the tournament I'm now able to set the rules for next time, so things are going to be... bigger.

"Winter is coming."
                     -George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones 

Daemons are OP Part 1

Ok, it's battle report time!
Mini tournament this weekend, 1200pts for 2 Battleline battles. Winner picks the situation and points for next time. As an added bonus, an extra 200 victory points would go to anyone who wrote a background for their army - we all did it though, so it cancelled out.

One of the other players and I combined our stories to make the basis for a campaign involving my Daemons trying to take control of 5 High Elf temples. More on that as it develops.

I brought a bunch of core, mostly Bloodletters with Horrors to protect my Tzeentch Herald and Daemonettes just to make up my 3 core choices. There was also a small group of Furies, a Fiend, and 2 groups of 3 Flamers each with a champion. My HoT brought Master of Sorcery (Life) and HoK brought a battle standard and wore the Armour of Khorne.

If we rolled for random enemies it was before I arrived, but either way I was faced against my High Elf adversary for the first battle. We did the standard rolling for terrain (getting a mystery river, 2 forests and a magic circle, among other ordinary things). Following deployment, where I made it clear that I didn't know what I was doing by placing my Bloodletters first, the scene looked a little like below:

Once again I was relieved to see no archers, but he did his usual 3 groups of swordmasters, 2 eagles and some spearmen (or is it spearelves, we never quite decided on that). Following his experience with flamers last time around, he brought some Dragon Princes to counter. A mage sat in with the Spearelves, using Light.

I got to go first, so in a typical first move display my army shuffled up a bit and didn't do much. My HoT cast Throne of Vines on himself successfully, and my Flamers killed 4 spearmen. Woo.

On HE turn 1, they mostly just shuffled backwards. Eagles moved to block me and one discovered that a forest was Fungal. The swordmasters up the top free reformed and moved toward my Slaaneshi Daemons, while the Dragon Princes failed the test and just regular reformed.
Dispelling my Throne was forgotten and all the other magic failed horribly.

Bloodletters then charged an eagle and the Fiend and Daemonettes charged  some swordmasters. Everyone else moved up, with the Flamers getting into position to fire, hoping to cause a panic to avoid getting charged. My Throne was dispelled and magic generally went badly for me, with nothing happening. The  eagle died and my Bloodletters overran slightly into the forest. Flamers killed some swordmasters who didn't flee. Slaanesh combat went terribly and we forgot to roll for fear, 1 Daemonette was left standing and the Fiend died.
In HE 2, the remaining eagle flanked the Bloodletters (passing the Stupidity test of the woods) and the Dragon Princes moved toward the main part of the battle, while the Swordmasters above the Spearelves failed to charge the other BL flank. The swordmasters near the river reformed and moved across it, discovering it to be a Raging Torrent. The Initiative boost didn't give them the reflexes to avoid 2 of them being swept away.
Shem's Burning Gaze proved too hot for the upper unit of Flamers, who lost the 2 non-champ models. Not much else happened in magic.
BLs shooed the pesky Eagle away, which fled a good 10". The remaining Daemonette slaughtered the entire unit of Swordmasters - this is a lie, she was torn into tiny little hermaphroditic pieces and they reformed to face the horrors.

I got a little lazy with the photos here, but here's what happened up to the next photo, which was taken part-way through the next HE movement phase:
My Furies flew over the Swordmasters, leaving them bewildered and alone. Flamers moved out of the way of the BLs and out of the sight of the Elves. BLs then moved up to pressure the Spearmen into a charge, but also leaving their flank open to the larger Swordmaster unit. Horrors shuffled sideways and wheeled a bit, determined not to find out what the other forest was.
In magic not a lot of note happened, but shooting led to the Flamers valiantly doing very little to the flanky Swordmasters.

Given the lack of real options, the Spears and Swords charged the Bloodletters. Not learning their lesson from last time, the lonely Swordmasters across the river crossed again and lost 2 more. The remaining Elf was lonely, but able to rent out the spare room on his movement tray to his brother-in-law, who had recently fallen on hard times... anyway, the Dragon Princes moved up, leaving the board looking like this:

The Eagle rallied and the Swordmasters way up top moved threateningly toward the Horrors. Birona's Timewarp was cast on the flanking Swordmasters, who subsequently failed their fear test and quivered with alarming speed. Bloodletters lost combat, losing one model to instability.

Furies then charged the rear of the Spearelves and the Horrors turned to face their Swordmaster antagonisers. Throne of Vines was recast, followed by Shield of Thorns on the Bloodletters. 

Recollection is a bit fuzzy here, but it went something like this: Thorns messed up the rest of the attacking Elves and the Flamers shot at (to little effect) the DPs. Single Swordmaster and DPs charge and get killed, either through combat or Thorns. BLs reform to face the Horror combat, which has begun and is going surprisingly well, despite Swordmasters in the front and an Eagle in the back. A lot of luck in ward saves keep them going, as well as a miscast which did more damage to the Swordmasters than the Herald's unit.
With a lucky charge the BLs flank the Eagle, although it makes little difference as Thorns is cast on the Horror unit and shreds both attacking units before anyone can land a blow.

It's a massacre, and the temple (and a Cadbury fruit and nut bar) is now secured for the forces of Destruction. Around this point, we consider that having access to the entire Lore of Life for 25 points may be a bit unbalanced.
Too late to change that for now though, since I'm using the same list for the next game: Vampire Counts.

 "Your Herald looks like a hamburger."
                  -Louis

War were declared

Without further ado, the promised post on my first weekend of assembly and battle is here.
I'd been asked to put together a 1600pt list by the weekend for a 2v2 battle, despite not having any assembled models. Vampire counts collectors have no patience, but seem to love numbers easily divisible by 4 for the 25% list limits.

We got a production line going working on bloodletters and horrors: clipping, filing, gluing and basing them (torsos and legs was the goal of the day, heads are for the weak). Managed to get 40 BLs and 20 Horrors out in a couple of hours.

Here's the list I brought for those interested:

40x BLs (FC)
2x10 Horrors
4x Flamers
5x Flamers
4x Screamers
5x Furies
Herald of K with armour of K (General)
Herald of T with BSB of sundering, Flames and Wings

Originally I had 3x3 flamers, I thought it was 3 of a kind for rares, not 2 (although the team point total was 3200, so we were arguably a grand army).

I took the Sundering banner (aka F*!@ up Lore of Light banner) because the game was VC and DoC vs Empire and HE, and this particular HE player always goes LoL. And honestly, who wouldn't against both Daemon and Undead enemies?

The battle had a bit of a twist: each side had an extra wizard (Order had a Truthsayer, Destruction had a Dark Emissary) who was worth double points. On top of that, we had objective markers worth 200pts to the holders at the end of the battle. Instead of being a 'closest army' objective, these could be picked up by finishing movement on them and were only lost when the carrier was killed or fled. Finally, we had 3D6 power dice, with the highest and lowest going to dispel dice.

I didn't take notes during the battle, so this'll be a very sketchy report.
 

Here we have the battlelines just after deployment: my army wasn't exactly small and VC went for his usual "ridiculous number of small units" strategy, which has worked well for him in the past. If it ain't broke...
Empire went for 2 cannon and 2 mortars. Having no artillery access myself, they are strange, different and terrifying to me. Also a couple of units of pistoleers, one of knights, some halberdiers (I think) and another core unit.

HE had 3x7 Swordmasters, some phoenix guard, 2 eagles and some archers. Last time he had a horde of archers, so I was relieved to see only 10 this time.
Some specifics on VC: 3 vargheists, 4 fellbats, a black coach, hexwraiths, grave guard, a banshee, skeletons and zombies and 2 small yet annoying packs of direwolves.

  Direwolves vanguard out and almost take the objectives right away.

 End of turn one and there's been a bit of shuffling. Destruction took first turn and were keen to avoid the river, which led to us tripping over each other more than a little as we funneled into the centre. A lucky roll of the power dice and channeling gave us 18 to play with, an even luckier roll of those charged up the black coach to lvl 6. Ridiculous.
I rolled only 18" magic, so I was out of range of everyone, but the head Vamp grew his skeletons and zombies, then miscast while raising another unit and  made a net loss on zombies.
No combat on ours, but the direwolves moved forward an inch and took the objectives. My flamers also killed 4 swordmasters.

Order moved up, charging the furies with an eagle. Furies did nothing and lost combat, destabilising and going back to their Chaotic home. The eagle overran and discovered that the forest was in fact a blood forest.
An unluckier series of rolls occurred for Order when a pistoleer's horse dipped his hoof into the river, which turned out to be one of Light. The river went on to cast Net of Amyntok and wiped out all but 1 of the unit. A few spells were slung and one of the Archmage's Light spells backfired thanks to my BSB. He was fine, but his protection broke.

End of turn 2 here, and things weren't looking too rosy for Destruction. Elven spears demolished the direwolves as they tried to make off with the objective. The other direwolves turned but couldn't move out of the way for my BLs to charge next turn, turns out they're not fast cav.
An annoying eagle placement made my right Horrors fail a Ld test and not march, leaving their magic just out of range of a cannon. Knights charged screamers and tore them to shreds.
5 Flamers fizzled out to phoenix guard after a failed attempt to make spears take a 25% test, but the BLs stood up to mortar fire with a lot of luck in ward saves.
Order learned to play it safe with Light magic, so they had the LoBeasts Truthsayer turn himself into a Goddamn dragon.
I tried not to smile too much when I saw their eagle placement next to the river there, you'll see why below.

We called it a day then and came back to it in the morning, though VC and I planned our next move after the others left. I didn't take any more photos until the end unfortunately, but the rest I remember pretty well.

Us: Direwolves charge the eagle, river casts light of battle to no effect, eagle flees and gets caught.
Grave guard and skeletons both charge spears and archmage.
The way is now clear for BLs to charge the phoenix guard.
Coach and bats go for the knights while the remaining flamers move away from everyone's forward arcs.
The last vargheist charges a mortar.

The knights lose combat, flee and get caught by both the Coach and the bats (bats chase off the board). Similar deal for the phoenix guard and the elven spears, who now lose their archmage too. BLs overrun into the Truthdragon and his unit.

Them: Not much movement going on due to combat, but the halberdiers and pistoleers charge the skeletons.
 We were planning on dispelling the dragon at the end of their magic, but they rolled poorly and didn't give us enough dispel dice. BLs sh!+ themselves, but survive quite well, doing enough damage to the unit to only lose combat by a little. (BTW, try resolving the "make way" rule when the character is as large as the rest of the unit. Arguments.)

 

Grave guard join the Truthdragon battle and the zombies charge the pistoleers. We dispel the dragon, leaving not enough power for most other magic, but making things less intimidating.

Vargheist finishes off the mortar and the graveguard overrun the Truthsayer's unit while the BLs reform to face the archers and some swordmasters.

The Flamers finish off the swordmasters they halved at the start, while the hexwraiths charge the other mortar.

In an unfortunate bit of scheduling, we did the bigger combat first. This ended with the vampire dying and the hexwraiths crumbling before they did any damage to the mortar.

We called it a game after Order attempted and failed a few charges, although the archers did kill the last Vargheist.

It ended with a victory for the forces of Destruction, HEs were almost wiped out and we killed the Truthsayer while holding both objectives. The pistol, halberd, zombie and skeleton battle could have gone either way, but the coach, 4 flamers, grave guard, and the horrors were all still going strong. Well, they were alive; they didn't get a bit of magic through all game.

Overall an epic game and we've got a tournament scheduled in a couple of weeks. My guys will need heads by then. I should have something more up before then; my army just keeps growing :)