So, I am back, and with another battle under my belt!

So today someone required an opponent at my local, and despite preferring 2000 points, I only have 1000 so they happily scaled down. We played the first battleplan from the stormcasts book, which he was using. It is essentially the stormcasts needing to hold a realmgate which they teleport in around, and I had to deploy first outside a 15 inch bubble from the gate. Whilst in the bubble, the stormcast take no battleshock tests, and the gate counted as inspiring terrain. There was a special rule for totems, though the only on the board was my warchanter and he never ended up near enough to take advantage of it. I would score a major victory if I could wipe him out of the bubble, or if by the fourth turn I had a third more models in the ring. He won by tabling me, or having more models in the circle by turn 4. I was playing a relatively standard ironjawz list , megaboss, warchanter, 10 brutes, 5 brutes, 10 ardboyz, ironfist. He had a lord-celestant on dracoth, a lord-celestant, a lord-relictor, 2 gryph hounds, 10 liberators, 5 judicators with bows and 5 with crossbows.

He managed to roll successfully to teleport everything in turn 1, which he gets automatically due to the battleplan though he cannot move. He places the liberators north of the gate, bowmen on the east, the characters south, and crossbowmen to the west. North-east of the gate was my ardboyz, then moving around the bubble south was the warchanter, megaboss, and 10 brute mob. Opposite, on the west, was the 5 man group.

Turn one he doesn't move much, though takes shots with the ranged units at the brutes facing them. The crossbows manage to kill one orruk, and the archers I think managed only two wounds. In fairness, he rolled horribly. The dracoth's breath similarly did little, I think he missed. I managed to win turn 2 and subsequently piled in, pulling off a waaagh on all but the 5 brute mob, and giving the ten man unit the frenzy from the chanter. The ardboyz charged the liberators, my plan being to tie up his big melee unit whilst the brutes went to work on his army. The ten man brutes piled into the bowmen, and the five man unit into the crossbows. The warchanter lagged behind, and the megaboss fluffed his charge. In combat, the bowmen were hacked down the two (bit of a poor show really!), and the crossbows went down to just the Prime. I think the ardboyz managed to kill a liberator or two, at the cost of a boy. Battleshock went off now problem. He proceeded to take the next turn, Charging the 5 man brutes with the dracoth, and moving the other lord-celestant and gryph hounds into the ten man unit, who suffered horribly from his hammer shooting ability, which I think took down two, and at least another 1 died to the archers in shooting. The dracoth also dealt some damage to the ardboyz and brutes, but I cannot remember the results. In combat, the brutes wiped out the archers, the megaboss piled in to the liberators, and subsequently carved up three of them, the ardboyz took down another one. The dracoth killed two brutes on the west side of the gate.

He won the next turn again, and tried to grind down my units. The ardboyz lost another 3 wounds, and in combat I was really starting to miss my hero abilities. (I may be wrong, but if it isn't my turn, I cannot activate an ability even if it triggers in the combat phase?) The lord-celestant on foot shot the brutes down to 4 men, and then hacked apart another two. The gryph hounds did little. The lord-celestent on dracoth lost 6 wounds to my brutes, but was healed the next turn back to five. The megaboss removed all but two of the liberators from existence, and the warchanter failed to wound.

Once again, in a show of terrible rolling, I lost the priority. Fortunately, he was mostly locked in combat, shooting from the lord-celestant killed another brute, and the dracoth did a wound to the ardboyz (causing a minus 1 to hit, though this was negated by Bellowing Tyrant). The liberators at this point had managed to get the ardboyz down to two (who only survived battleshock due to their banner), but were finished off. The dracoth fluffed most attacks, not managing to kill the final brute. The other lord-celestant also struggled with the brute big boss, who managed to kill him due to a savage boss klaw roll (he managed 5 damage, with the subsequent bashing), though he finished the final gore choppa, and despite being healed by the lord-relictor. The gryph hounds did not much.

Some time turn 4.

Finally winning a turn, I moved my brute big boss, megaboss, ardboyz, and warchanter around the realmgate towards the dracoth lord. He was charged by them all sans warchanter, and was finished off in quick fashion by the megaboss. The next turn, despite having a major victory, we played on, ending with my megaboss carving up the lord-relictor, and the remaining brute bosses dining on gryph-flesh.

Major Victory for da Boyz! Dat'll teach dem stinkin' metal humies to fiddle wif our shiny door!All in all it was a fun game, and despite it being my second game and his first, we had a good game. He suffered some terrible dice rolls early on, and I really did some good damage. Colour me impressed with the brutes, the synergy in hero abilities made them monstrous. I think strategy wise he took too many ranged units, which left him weak to my melee heavy force considering the battleplan. Also, I did have to proxy my megaboss with a Borgut Facebeater model, since I don't yet own the plastic megaboss, and my FW big boss who I may consider using as a megaboss is unassembled. I think this led to him not realising quite how threatening it was, and he did little to deal with it. I also did very well out of battleshock, losing a single ardboy to it.

Lessons learnt for me, are that I definitely need a megaboss model  Also I will consider remodelling an ardboy to have a second banner in the unit to take advantage of both rules. Stormcast really seemed to suffer from my rend, so I was glad they weren't quite as tough as I had made up in my head!

Also did manage some modelling time pre-match. Having had a great trade with @Mohojoe, I had ten brutes to play with, and as only one had a gorechoppa, I converted another. I don't want any repeat weapons or poses in the unit, so I took one of the repeated boyz and gave him a more relaxed, one-handed pose with a gorechoppa, check it out!

I am afraid to say despite a good showing the boyz in blue are going to meet the dreaded dettol soon, and will end up gloriously red and green! I have to say I am greatly looking forward to painting them, I have just over a week to finish the warchanter, who is coming along swimmingly.

Hope you all enjoy the read and happy to hear your thoughts