2500 Tk V. Doc

[Bad Mojo]

Had a game against a fellow club member in anticipation of a tournament in 3 weeks.

Due to composition penalties, I brought the following:
HLP, Neh, Opal Amulet, Scroll (Smiting, Desert Wind, Dessication, Protection) - Hierophant
HLP, Light, Horse, 4+Ward (Banishment, Pha's, Speed of Light, Shem's) - General
BSB, Horse, Armor of Fortune (5+Ward), MR1
30 Archers
12 Archers
8 Heavy Horsemen with Command
32 Skeletons with Spears, Full Command (Hierophant here)
5 Horse Archers
4 chariots, Flaming Banner
2 units of 3 Stalkers
4 Necropolis Knights with Banner/Champ
Hierotitan
Casket of Souls

Opponent had
GUO, Balesword, Lvl3
Khorne Herald on Juggernaut and lots of bloodletters
Nurgle Herald (lvl1) BSB and 25 plaguebearers
Lvl 2 Tzeentch Herald (Shadow) with Scroll
2 units of 5 Furies
3 Nurglings
6 Flamers of Tzeentch
1 Beast of Slaanesh

My strategy was to hold back as far as possible and blast the GUO, the Herald of Tzeentch, and the Flamers with Banishment and Shem's. Didn't quite work out that way.

I castled in the corner left to right with Knights, 30 archers (behind him were the 12 archers and casket) (Archers are in Wild Wood), Titan (behind him were the spearmen), Horsemen, and Chariots. Directly across was the Flamers, Furies, GUO, a building, plaguebearers, then Bloodletters. Nurglings are on flank of chariots.

Turn 1 - GUO and Flamers moved forward, so does everyone else. Furies move in front of archers. GUO cast irresistably Plague Wind and turned my unit of 30 archers into 15 (took 20 wounds but MR1 from BSB saves 5). In front of them were now 5 Nurglings. GUO loses 3 levels. Flamers put 2 wounds on knights.

Bottom 1 - Knights charge Furies. Chariots reform to face nurglings. Total PD is 5 (2/2+1). 1 die Shem's from Titan kills 1 Flamer. Speed of Light on Knights dispelled. Pha's goes off. Shooting kills 1 Nurgling base. I crush the Furies and reform to face the GUO and Flamers.

Turn 2 - Flamers and GUO charge Knights. Nurglings charge archers in forest. Nurglings charges chariots. Everything else moves forward with Tzeentch herald behind building. Tzeentch Herald casts with IF Miasma and turns my knights into WS2. GUO gets challenged by Knight Champ and he rolls 4 hits due to my WS2 for 1billion wounds, capped at 8. I kill another flamer with knights and crumble. GUO overruns 6. Flamers overrun 4. Nurglings in woods murder skeletal archers down to 4 guys. Chariots kill 1 base of Nurglings.

Bottom 2 - Titan flanks Flamers. My Skeletal Spearmen gird themselves for the onslaught. One unit of Stalkers shows up and appears behind GUO. Magic - 5 PD again (1/1+3). Speed of Light on Spearmen is Scrolled. Casket rolls a 4 on 2 dice. Pha's goes off on Spearmen.

First use of Stalkers! I promptly roll 6,6,3 (i.e., 2 Misfires!). Rubbish! (sidenote, previous game, my 4 Necro Knights misfired and died. I lost that game by less than 200 points). I promptly put 5 wounds on myself. GUO takes 1 wound but gets ward saved.

Combat - Nurglings eat archers. Chariots eat other Nurglings. Titan dances over Flamers and turns around to face GUO and incoming Plaguebearers.

Turn 3 - 4 Nurglings run into 12 man Archers. GUO runs into Spearmen but is also in wildwood. Plaguebearers need a 10 and roll 1, 2, failing to run into spearmen. Bloodletters roll 6, 1, 1 and fail to hit chariots. Pit of Shades on Titan gets scrolled. Nurglings kill 6 archers on charge, taking 1 wound, causing unit to crumble and overrun into casket. GUO gets challenged by chump and I lose 2 from combat res (1 less from BSB).

Bottom 3 - Chariots charge bloodletters. Stalkers charge GUO rear. Titan charges Plaguebearers in flank but rolls snake eyes.

Second stalker shows up and promptly rolls a Misfire. Fortunately, it was a 3 so they go back into the ground. Gee thanks?

Magic gets 10 dice (first decent magic phase). Two dice from Titan for Shem's on Tzeentch Herald. I get 11 hits, 8 of which goes to Plaguebearers with LOS. The 3 hits wound and kills the herald. I cast Protection on Spearmen, which gets my chump back. Pha's is dispelled. Speed of Light goes off on Spearmen. Dessication goes off on Bloodletters.

Impact hits on chariots is 14. I promptly roll seven 1s. I win combat nonetheless but I've only killed 5 guys and only have 4 wounds left. Chump dies a horrible death to the GUO but I win combat by 4 (ranks, charge, rear). Instability puts 3 wounds on him. Casket explodes to Nurglings. GUO takes another 3 wounds. Nurglings turn to face Plaguebearers.

Turn 4 - Plaguebearers try to charge skeletons but fail. Nurglings come into flank. Wildwood strikes the GUO. GUO saves the wound. BSB casts Miasma on 4 dice and IFs again, taking a wound in the process. Combat - Chariots die. GUO strikes Hierophant and misses due to WS10. Nurglings put two wounds on unit. Spears put a wound on GUO (12 attacks at WS10). Thunderstomp results in additional 2 dead. GUO is ok. Nurglings down to 3 bases.

Bottom 4 - Horsemen know their duty. They move up in front of Plaguebearers and Bloodletters. Titan watches from the side (not wanting to try and fight Miasma BSB). Wildwood causes a wound on GUO. Magic is 2 (Snake Eyes again). No casket. Speed of Light goes off on Spearmen. GUO takes 2 wounds to the face and goes down. Spearmen reform to face nurglings.

Top 5 - Bloodletters charge horsemen in flank. Plaguebearers turn to face. Fiend of Slaanesh does a long charge into rear of spearmen. Miasma goes off IF again. Now BSB is lvl 0. Horsemen blow up. Overrun is 7 inches, threatening rear of skeletons. Speed of Light guys put 3 wounds on Nurglings and 1 on Fiend. Fiend dies. Nurglings down to 1 base.

Bottom 5 - Stalkers decide to show up. They are placed in front of the Bloodletter unit. I get 4 PD. Spirit Leech on 2 dice on Nurgle Herald. Goes off and I roll 6 to 4. Dead herald after regen. Speed of Light goes off on Spearmen. Stalkers gaze for 24 hits and 3 wounds on Bloodletters. Spearmen kill nurglings and turn to face.

Top 6 - Game is over and Herald of Khorne charges out into spearmen to gack Hierophant. He attacks with Hatred and gets 1 wound but no KB against Hierophant. Juggernaut whiffs and guy dies to instability after rolling a 10.

Game over. I still have all 3 characters, spearmen, Titan, 3 Stalkers and 2 Horse Archers. He still has his Bloodletters and Plaguebearers.

Thoughts - this was a casual game. Otherwise I lost on turn 1 the second he had 5 Nurglings and Plague Wind. Those Nurglings ate through both archers and the Casket. The GUO died due to very unfortunate circumstances.

Random grades -
Hierophant - didn't die. His 6+ regen is decent with Spears. Spells cast - Protection and Dessication. B.
Lvl 4 Light - Grade A goodness. Speed of Light and Pha's Protection reduced hits against the GUO.
BSB - Didn't die, gave me MR1 and reduced losses by 1 here and there. He was also ready to jump out and take a hit for the team. B+.
Skeletal Archers - C-. When you are down to 15 guys from 30... ugh.
Chariots - C. Awesome on the charge (sort of) but dies immediately thereafter.
Horsemen - B. Did what it was supposed to do. Deliver the Lvl 4 until it sacrifices itself.
Horse Archers - B-. It fought furies for 3 rounds of combat but didn't die. I suppose that counts for something.
Casket of Souls. A+. Power level 5 blows when you roll a 4. Made my magic phase less terrible. Gets A+ because it put 3 wounds on the GUO when it exploded.
Stalkers - Ugh. C+. First unit rolls 2 Misfires but did get a rear charge that resulted in 3 wounds to the GUO. Second unit misfired which actually helped since the bloodletters and plaguebearers were blocked. That's the silver lining.
Hierotitan - A. Still like the guy. Shem's killed 1 Flamer and the Tzeentch Herald. Spirit Leech killed the BSB. He killed the Flamers on Turn 2 with a flank. On turns 4 through 6, the d3 was instrumental in boosting Light spells.
Wild Wood - B. Thanks for whacking the GUO for a wound.

Overall thoughts. Spearmen with Lore of Light isn't that shabby. 12 attacks hitting on 3s and wounding on 6s is still a wound a turn. Plague Wind wins games. Winds of Magic were terrible. Without the Hierotitan and Casket, the magic phase would've killed me outright.

[forgottenlor]

A good battle report. I think Warhammer is often a game of extreme turns as this battle shows. At least it sounds like it was interesting from the beginning to the end.