NicoLab

Friday night

The venue (which is amazing and has cool staff) was surprisingly quiet on the Friday. I needed to get some practice games in on the new Battleplans, so arrived early. Luckily I got to play Owyn's awesome Soulblight list and then Paul Whitehead's #SodHordeMeta 4 Stonehorns.  Both games were pretty close - I've got to say that Death without the 5++ is a completely new Ball Game - they really miss it. Kairos trolled the charge of the VLoZD. Owyn did a standout retreat run onto an objective with his ultrafast Vargheists which was impressive but didn't quite win him the game. The Bloodletters were a complete waste of space....

The standout moment in the second game was when I cast the Ogroid's own spell into a Stonehorn on an objective, did 3 mortal wounds and summoned on 2 Blue Horrors. Due to the wording of the spell, these jokers are free to move and promptly retreated out of combat and scored the objective! I won both games and got some preparation vs James Hayday who would be using Soulblight in my first game on the Saturday. 

I wish I had had time to play in the Skirmish Event too as it looked fun. I've certainly enjoyed our Hinterlands Campaign, where my Fyreslayers got wrecked #NotAnyMore. 

Afterwards a tipsy @Leonardas rampaged around Cardiff dragging Alex and me along like Fanatic Ball and Chains. Good times! All ready for the main event!

 Kairos tanks 3 Stonehorns like a boss! It's astonishing how little damage they inflict without Battlebrew!

Edited September 13, 2017 by Nico

Saturday - Game 1 vs James Hayday (Soulblight)

I had met James and his friend John Greene the day before, where I had observed and given them advice on their game as they tried out Sylvaneth and Soulblight and the new Battleplans. They were new to the tournament scene and cool guys. The first Battleplan was the new Blood & Glory - Total Conquest with the fiddly curvy zig zag deployment.

I had to split up Kairos and the Manticore and to take on the objectives. I started out by summoning the Daemon Prince, who took out the Vampire Lord on Foot with Bolt of Tzeentch. I elected not to charge with him for some reason and set up Kairos and the Treacherous Bond Toads. The Ogroid sat back in reserve. 

At some stage I used Kairos's Oracle ability to block a charge from the VLoZD. The Blood Knights proved underwhelming (they are still badly overcosted compared to say Skyfires!).

The Gaunt Summoner proved his worth his using Infernal Flames on the Skeletons guarding the objective, which whittled them down despite the Infernal Banner 6++. I eventually ground down the forces on both flanks and won the Major.

I remain unconvinced by Soulblight and Death in general - other than the ever potent multiple Flappies of @Thanatos Ares

James was a great opponent and took the defeat well - the dice weren't terribly friendly to him. On reflection I think I spent too little time chatting - especially at the start of the game - I finished a lot of games with half an hour or more to spare - this might have contributed to my lack of best sports votes. 

 

 

Edited September 13, 2017 by Nico

Saturday - Game 2 vs Jack McQuiggin (Seraphon)

It was Duality of Death. I was nervous at seeing Seraphon as an opponent. They have some anti-Daemon tricks and my only previous game against them had been a Kroak inferno at my first London's Calling two years ago - a brutal defeat.

Jack was a cool dude and had painted goggly eyes onto his Dread Saurian which earns some serious hobby kudos! He was also using the Firelance Battalion of Saurus Cavalry, which are slow junk!

He didn't have a Slann - instead fitting in the Dread Saurian, the Snake Bastiladon and some Kroxigor and the Shadowstrike Starhost. While I didn't raise the point in this game (partly as it was only a unit of 3 models). The Blot Toads rule is NOT available as the Rippers aren't on the table in your first hero phase (which is the only time that this ability can be used) - they only arrive in the movement phase - too late:

This is good as this is one of the most outrageous alpha strikes in the game (if the Toads rule is in force) and virtually all other alpha strikes have gotten weaker. 

Battleround 1

I took first turn after bunkering to shield from the Ripperbomb.

I summoned on the Herald, who got 3 spells off (as far as I can tell his cast of 9 allows one more spell to be cast rule can be chained, which allows you to dump your Destiny Dice for a strong burst of damage - Pink Fire, Tzeentch's Firestorm, then Arcane Bolt) and the Daemon Prince - between them they nuked the Dread Saurian!

 

Bye bye big guy!

The Daemon Prince used DD to charge in (after Kairos had given his sword an extra attack.  Kairos bonded himself to some friendly Toads.

The Daemon Prince power derped and didn't even kill one Kroxigor to my disgust. He then lost 5 wounds despite having a 3+ rerolling 1s and 2s.

My Ogroid grabbed the right objective and awaited the inevitable Ripperfest.

James flooded the other side of the board with his teleporting Knights. My Chariots dug into cover and breaced themselves. Indeed they liked the cover so much they had both failed Mystical tests....

The Rippers came down and a load of shooting took out some Acolytes. The Snakes flooded out of the Bastiladon and did like 4 wounds to my Ogroid - painful! However, with a charge roll of (1, 5). Kairos ensured that the Rippers failed their charge with Oracle.

However, I lost the initiative.

Battleround 2

The Rippers went into the Marauders and shredded them and took two wounds off the toads. Jack kept scoring on the left. More snakes came out. However, the Ogroid cheesed it - handing on with one wound left. The Daemon Prince went down.

In my turn, the big move was Kairos nd the Toads going left and the Manticore going right. The Manticore got a 6 for his run roll which meant that the Ogroid could depart and then the Manticore move onto the objective to take it over. The Ogroid levelled a charge at the Rippers and proceeded to double 1 it! I still killed them with other units.

The Big Boys Split Up

One of the Chariots kept on grinding.

Battleround 3

Jack won the initiative again and fortified his position on the left objective with the Saurus Knights. Despite its ridiculously strong save, Jack's Bastiladon did some crazy damage to the Manticore (mortal wounds being its only weakness) and killed the Ogroid. The Camo Skinks kept shooting away.

In my turn Kairos got serious and zapped his general dead. He then made the charge into the Saurus Cavalry and seized the objective, supported by the Curseling.

On the other Flank, the Manticore Lord failed to dent the Bastiladon and kept losing wounds.

Battleround 4

I lost the initiative again. Jack actually killed the Manticore Lord - but not with the Bastiladon, so he was unable to grab the objective immediately. From memory, the Blue Scrubs ran in to rescue a point. Kairos racked up points. That was pretty much game at this point. Major to me.

It was an interesting game and Jack took the loss of the Dread Saurian very well! My dice were dismal from the moment it died, which was fair enough.

 

Awesome looking army, looks like you had a lot of fun and congrats on the win! 

Newer Tzeentch player here and although I have some idea what the Blue Scribes are capable of could you possibly go over some of the sexy things they can do?

They give you reroll casts, which is a huge deal - you can try the spell naturally then use Destiny Dice if you fail. They also learn spells.

Edited September 13, 2017 by Nico

It is a nice looking Army! Do you have closer pics of the bases? They're pretty nice looking indeed!

On ‎14‎.‎09‎.‎2017 at 0:11 AM, Nico said:

They give you reroll casts, which is a huge deal - you can try the spell naturally then use Destiny Dice if you fail. They also learn spells.

Maybe I dont get the context, but you cant use fate dice to change a roll afterwards.

 

 

*edit* im stupid, dont mind me.....

Edited September 15, 2017 by Mune

This is a fairly close shot on the bases. I'm touching up the Pink Horrors which were the first unit I did. Can take another one if you need. The Water is Vallejo Ivory, then Badger Ghost Tint Plasma Fluid, then Vallejo Water over that. I used Vince Venturella's method.

Saturday – Game 3 – Murdermost! Dan Ford (Khorne Murderhost)

The Battleplan was Battle For the Pass – which wasn't ideal as Dan could threaten the objectives with 120 Bloodletters across 4 units together with another 3 units of 10. If I had been on Duality of Death this would have been easy – sniping off his heroes – the Murderhost is far from an autowin.

 

On the plus side, it did give me space to retreat back into. Dan had literally no ranged threat, which meant that anything I stuck on the Balewind would beunkillable. Given that this would be the Gaunt Summoner – I had the tools to win this game, even if Dan would be starting off with an early lead.

 

Dan was an absolute gentleman as always and exceptionally proficient in playing the game and particularly this army. He was very cognizant of the possible threats – e.g. me summoning a unit behind his horde to threaten his 4 pointer objective. I've learned more from Dan than any other AoS player – he taught me Tomb Kings and the fire a single cannonball into your opponent each turn strategy which I've put into my own arsenal (e.g. the Clanrat Bomb list that came 6^th at Heat 3). We were 1 win each prior to this game.

 

http://www.tga.community/blogs/entry/1008-nico-takes-on-heat-3/

 

We'd chatted about his list before and I knew he had done well with it all year. He had everything ready – colour coded movement trays for his 150 odd Bloodletters– dice to mark out his 2 D6 rolls. I've got to say it's a real shame that Cunning Deceiver is better than the Khorne Allegiance pack – they should have nuked that ability rather than Lord of War. It didn't matter against me as my army is light on shooting.

 

I knew I wanted to go first so that I would get some damage in before the Bloodsecrator came down and made the 30s immune to Battleshock. We were both 3 drop armies. I won the roll off so took turn one after Dan did his free move from Murderhost. He rolled pretty well. I moved some of his models for him throughout; and I had a script for my hero phase, so we zoomed through this game and ended with 40+ minutes to spare!

 

My Destiny Dice were dire for this game – one 6 and four 3s.

 

Deployment

I deployed Marauders as chaff on both sides. The Gaunt Summoner was up front as was Kairos. I had a second defensive line of the Chariots and Acolytes. Dan had the Red Tide. The Bloodsecrator was diagonally opposite Kairos and co.

Battleround 1

Fortunately I had a building on my side of the table with which I could split Dan's forces in two and funnel his forces on the right into a trap (tanking them with Kairos and then hitting back with the Ogroid). I did this by using the Balewind as a wall adjacent to the building.

The Scrubs did their bubble thing. However, the humble Flesh Hounds were in unbinding range of Kairos and the Gaunt Summoner. They also had a rerollable unbind. I wasn't in range/line of sight of the Herald sadly. With only one 6 in the tank – I managed a decent cast for the Balewind Vortex and Dan failed that unbind. I also buffed up the Ogroid's horns. I pondered using the 6 for the Infernal Flames cast, but ended up rolling it – I rolled a 6+2 for the exact casting value – but this was almost the worst outcome as it gave Dan the best chance to unbind it. He duly rolled a double 6. I thought about using Kairos to change one dice to a 1, but elected not to do so – because he would still have a reroll of both dice and could just get a 9+ (I was hoping to use the Kairos dice to block a charge as had worked well vs the Seraphon). With hindsight this was a costly mistake – I should have spanked the 6 on the DD to give me a minimum cast roll of 9 and then used Oracle if Dan beat it. It would have killed 15 Bloodletters and Battleshock would take a further D6+4 – basically crippling a quarter of the army's strength.

Kairos tried to cast Wind of Chaos and rolled badly – for some reason I elected to zap the puppies, even though getting a unit below 20 models would significantly weaken it.

After that I made a swift retreat with Kairos and established a new defensive line (in preparation for the double turn). The Gaunt Summoner sat on his perch fuming. The Maras ran forward and scored the points for the objectives without pulling in the Bloodletters. I scored 5 points.

Dan spent his first turn chomping through the maras and scored 5 points straight back.

 

Score 5 – 5

 

I won the initiative.

 

Battleround 2

This time I cast Infernal Flames – but rolled quite poorly – it did take one unit below 20 at least – Battleshock immunity hurt. Kairos and co. set up the Plague Toads (I think I had to burn the 6 DD for this) and Kairos bonded himself to them. I also summoned Pink Horrors who formed a line in front of my army. On the far left I lobbed in a chariot to try to take down some Bloodletters, but didn't do much. The Chariot may have actually survived happily. The other chariot formed a makeshift wall in front of the Puppies on the left side of the building.

 

Score 6 - 5

 

Dan swept forward on the left flank and deleted my makeshift wall of Chariots. Dan held back on the right – content to hog the objective. Dan scored another 5 points.

 

Score 6 - 10

 

This time Dan won the initiative.

 

Battleround 3

Dan made a big roll for the movement of the leftBloodletter unit and surged around my Acolyte Wall. His puppies went into the Pink Horrors and got plenty of bodies onto my home objective. He killed the Ogroidand most of the Acolytes, which was a hammer blow as I had been relying on him to cripple a unit of Bloodletters as a counterpunch on the left (while Kairos would clean up on the right). On the plus side the Blue Scrubs had learned Infusion Arcanum off him already. The Manticore Sorc started killing the big unit of Bloodletters.

 

Dan scored a whopping 9 points.

 

Score 6 - 19 

 

The Gaunt Summoner cast Infernal Flames again and killed another 14 odd Bloodletters. Kairos came out to bat with both Infusion Arcanum and Treacherous Bond on him. The Manticore Sorc cast Wind of Chaos and started taking out the Bloodletters. I activated theManticore Sorc first (as Kairos was sufficiently tanky) and he crippled the big unit of Bloodletters that had broken my lines. However, one model within range of the Bloodsecrator meant they would not pop.

 

The Bloodletters did one wound to Kairos and a handful to the Toads. Kairos spanked some 3s from my DD pool and killed about 11 Bloodletters – I think Dan was pretty shocked.

 

However, it was too little too late. I only scored a single point in return.

 

Score 7 - 19   

 

I think Dan won the initiative again.

 

Battleround 4

Dan pulled back some of his Bloodletters onto the objectives – all 4 units were heavily depleted now. Dan went into Kairos with the second unit of Bloodletters, but did very little. Kairos killed another 10 or so.

 

Dan scored a further 5 points. It was all over.

 

Score 7 – 24

 

In response, the Mantisorc chased up the Bloodletters. Kairos wiped out one unit of Bloodletters and dented the last one. I may have finally clawed back the right objective. I was gunning for kill points now.

 

Score 10 – 24

 

Battleround 5

Dan won the initiative and retreated away – not very Khorne like – that Herald had survived the whole game. In response, Kairos tried for a long bomb charge but didn't make it.

 

Major Defeat

 

It was a great game – not quite the classic of our Tomb King-off at this very venue earlier in the year (which I won).

 

I felt a bit down as I knew I'd made mistakes in this game. As well as not near-guaranteeing Infernal Flames early doors, I should also have thrown in Kairos bonded to the Toads sooner, rather than waiting for the GauntSummoner to deplete the units. 

 

Other than that the strategy of successive chaff walls while chipping away was the right one. Perhaps I should have summoned the Pinks in sooner and used them (with Blues) to lock down the left flank for Battleround 1, and had the Marauders behind them as a second line.

 

Dan was very helpful in discussing my options throughout the game and I think we both let each other do some ability we'd forgotten. I gave him my sports vote – partly in reflection of the efforts in preparing the army and getting so familiar with it that we finished the game early. My constant jumping from army to army (I briefly held the Changeling Icon on Bad Dice) probably costs me places at events.

 

If I had won the initiative again for Battleround 3, then I still might have pulled the game back if the GauntSummoner melted the left Bloodletters and stopped Dan from scoring those big 4 points in the centre.

 

On the plus side – the army certainly has the tools to deal with hordes and I'd be confident playing anyMurderhost wielded by a lesser player. There's no shame in losing to a player as strong as Dan and a very strong list – Dan would ultimately go on to take out the event.

 

Edited September 15, 2017 by Nico

Saturday night

I was trusted with finding a restaurant – Giovanni's Italian was excellent – with great portion sized to boot! We were accompanied by Mediocre Joe who was pretending to be on a stag do….

 

Game 4 – Matt Lyons – Cthulhu Nurgle

Matt was an awesome dude and it was great to put a face to the voice from past Black Sun episodes and his new Pro-Painted podcast (I'm half way through Episode 2 while painting for the GT Finals). His army looked sweet – fantastic conversions and painting.

 

To smooth things along Chris had told us the Battleplan and the opponent the night before – accordingly I'd spent far too much time mentally rehearsing the game. The Battleplan was Scorched Earth which I liked in principle and is particularly suited to alow drop Tzeentch army. Matt's army was full of Blightkings using the Blight Guard? Battalion (-1 to hit debuff), whose slowness would not help on a 6 objective map.

 

Deployment

As predicted – Matt was forced to cover his objectives with units of 5 Blightkings as well as a 30 Block of Plaguebearers on my right. The Glottkin was his general.

I deployed fairly centrally with the Gaunt Summoner in the middle. There was a natural funnel between the scenery in front of my centre.

Battleround 1

My first hero phase was Tzeentch firing on all cylinders – although I have a feeling that the Scrubs failed their cast roll for the bubble. In any event, I first Balewinded the Gaunt Summoner, who nuked about 8 Plaguebearerswith Infernal Flames. He also 'nudged the Beetle'shunting the Curseling forward 5 or so inches towards The Glottkin. The Curseling proceeded to Glean Magic (24" range) The Glottkin's own spell (it's not clear whether his roll to learn the spell is a casting roll or not – he has to match the casting value on 2 dice – purposively it probably is). I then cast this spell on the Acolytes to give them 2 wounds each, which was fun. Meanwhile I summoned on 10 Pinks 9" away from the left objective and the 10 Blightkings there, along with a Herald of Tzeentch. They proceeded to zap the middle unit ofBlightkings (as the leftmost unit were out of position once the objective was burned).

I used Destiny Dice to make the 9" charge and lobbed in the Pinks. They died as expected in the Combat Phase and then spawned a bunch of Blues on the objective, who necessarily outnumbered Matt's Blightkings. I burned the objective and rolled 2 points.

 

Score 5-0 

 

Matt responded by casting Mystic Shield with a good cast roll (interestingly if the Curseling unbinds and casts it, then you can have two Mystic Shields in effect as the Rule of One only applies in your turn). The Glottkin fired off their bubble buff and wandered forward. Rather foolishly I'd left the Curseling where The Glottkin could charge him  as well as the Herald. In the event, The Glottkin killed the Curseling, but didn't kill the Herald. 

At some stage I mentioned to Matt that The Glottkin'scharge impact hits rule occurs when The Glottkin charges rather than the other way around ("they" is the 3 Brothers Glott plural). It could be clearer. Also his -1 to hit rule could be better!  

 

Score 5-2

 

Battleround 2

Matt won the initiative and The Glottkin proceeded to eat the Acolytes even with 2 wounds thanks to their junk bravery. His Blightkings failed a Mystical test on the right.

In my turn, I Treacherous Bonded Kairos to some Marauders on the right and then lobbed Wind of Chaos at The Glottkin. The Ogroid took Infusion Arcanum and an extra attack from Arcane Transformation. I went into The Glottkin with the Ogroid and Kairos and eventually deleted him. My Chariot on the right attacked theBlightkings but didn't achieve much – minus 1 to hit being brutal.

 

Battleround 3

Matt won the initiative and the wave of Blightkingslanded. In the middle they deleted the Ogroid and Kairos slowly ground them down. The ones on the left weren't able to get more bodies onto the objective.

On the right, Matt lobbed his Lord on Daemonic Mount into my Chaos Spawn, but derped his attacks.

That was pretty much game over. In the middle Kairos cleaned up and started advancing on the Rot Sorceror. I ultimately burned that objective, while Matt burnt my right one. The Gaunt Summoner kept melting Plaguebearers and eventually Kairos would have taken that objective too. Matt kindly conceded.

It was an enjoyable game and Matt was great to chat to. It did make me fear for the viability of Nurgle lists – they haven't fared terribly well under the GHB (with @thomas Lyons as the striking exception. Their speed is a huge problem.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 16, 2017 by Nico

Here's a close up of the newly painted Mounted Sorceror Lord on Horse to illustrate the basing.

 

On a slightly bigger scale, here's the Chicken Bucket!

This is a great write up Nico. I'm also very impressed with the army. Its looking extremely Tzeentchian with all the colours! Do you have some photos of Kairos on the clock? 

I've been considering a Fatesworn Warband army for Sheffield next year, although I suspect that it won't be quite up to the standard of yours - I'm hoping to have Archaon lead it as he hasn't had a run out for a while. 

Thanks Steve!

The best is still to come - taking on Joe's 21 Skyfires.

Yes - here are some photos from another post on the blog:

 

 

Right - here we go:

Sunday – Game 5 – Joe and the Skyfires (DoT-off)

Skyfires were one of the units I was hoping to avoid. Joe had 21 and the Battleplan was Starstrike. The repointing is insufficient – they are still better than Kurnoth Hunters (they do more effective pew pew than bows and as much melee damage as Scythes), Dracoth Knights and Plague Drones. I think the biggest fix would be reducing the maximum unit size to 6. Wiping out 36 wounds is incredibly difficult – especially as they will be getting a 1 on that Battleshock roll.

One brightspot was that I would be able to pick who would be going first.

 

Deployment

I won the roll and got the side with the Damned Terrain on it (so preventing the autowin for Joe). I deployed in a fairly tight multi-layered bunker slightly to the right. Joe deployed his Skyfires close together in a cluster behind a thin line of chaff. I'm pretty sure that he expected I would give him turn one – as on reflection his deployment actually handed me the chance to win the game on a platter. In particular Joe's Shaman wasn't tucked away in the corner, so I would be able to summon units within 9" of it.

 

Battleround 1

I needed Joe to commit his forces, bounce off my Treacherous Bonded Kairos and the IllusionistMantisorc and chaff and then for me to focus fire one unit of Skyfires with my whole army. This meant that I needed to take turn one. Had I not done so, he could likely have taken Kairos off turn one.

I realised that the same ploy I had used against Matt could also work here. By lobbing in Pink Horrors, I would end up with 10 Blue Horrors at the end of my turn. Joe wouldn't be able to zap them off in his hero phase and so they would hold up some or all of his units.

I had a solid set of DD this turn and Joe's were dreadful, which gave me some hope.

I reasoned that with the Pinks' pew pew and Magic, if I managed to make the charge into the 9 Skyfires on the right with 20 Summoned Bloodletters, I could kill enough of them to put Battleshock in jeopardy. If Joe used a 1 for Battleshock, then the Hornblower would force him to reroll this, or Kairos could change it to a 6. I reasoned that the -1 rend of the Bloodletters would chop through their 5+ save nicely.

The spells all went off. Sadly Bolt of Tzeentch only claimed 3 wounds or so. Kairos bonded himself to a chariot. The Pinks shooting contributed another 2 wounds. I used DD to make the Pinks' charge. Sadly the Bloodletters failed their charge and so Kairos had to rig the roll. 

In combat, I activated the Bloodletters first – they were extremely underwhelming. When all was said and done only 2 Skyfires died and another lost 3 wounds – absolutely dismal. Two Skyfires in the other unit killed about 7 Pinks by themselves. To compound my misery –without the rerolls, the Skyfires killed 18 Bloodletters after Joe rolled a 3 on a D3 for their attacks. The unit was dead. On a brighter note at the end of the Combat Phase I was able to slot all of the Blues into place behind Joe's line (wholly within 6" of the Pinks) – tagging all 3 units of Skyfires and the Shaman. Joe wouldn't be able to zap them off before the Movement Phase and so his whole effective army would be stuck for a turn. I used a 1 for the Pinks' Battleshock and got the unit back up to 6 models. I was livid about the Bloodletters derping so badly. However, on reflection, this was just a terrible plan – they just don't do the damage I was counting on in my imagination (probably 7 mortal wounds and another 4 regular ones).

 

 

On reflection, all I had to do was not summon the Bloodletters. Instead either cast Bolt of Tzeentch with the Pinks at the Shaman and use Kairos to turn this to a 6 to one-shot him or summon on a Herald as well and use Pink Fire, Bolt of Tzeentch and then Arcane Bolt if needed to finish the job. This was all possible as Joe's Shaman wasn't more than 9" behind his front line and Joe's DD weren't good enough to block my spells. With Kairos Treacherous bonded to 3 Toads and theMantisorc immune to mortal wound pew pew from the Skyfires – I think this would have been game over.

Joe's turn was uneventful – he failed his spells, although the Changeling revealed himself and proceeded to zap off my Gaunt Summoner (he rolled a great cast roll). I didn't really see the point of this – I suppose his spell was ok against 9 models.

I won the initiative and gave Joe the initiative – he seemed surprised by this. The point was that after wasting my summoning points – I had literally nothing in threat range against the Skyfires. Had he won, he should have given me the turn.

 

Battleround 2

Joe zoomed forwards and was able to cast Mystic Shield unopposed. This is where the 27" unbind trait would have been huge. He shot the Curseling dead. He zapped off the Marauders and charged into the Acolytes with one unit of 9 (the one with Mystic Shield) – he just made the 7" charge, but at least he didn't connect with theOgroid. He shot the Bonded Chariot.

 

 

I was dented but still in the game. I revved up everything and poured everything into the big unit of 9 Skyfires. I may have failed Bubble at this point, which was frustrating. Kairos either failed Wind of Chaos or did very poorly with it – somehow there were still 9 Skyfiresalive when I charged in. I bonded Kairos to 10 Marauders who stayed back. Everything else lined up charges into the Skyfires. I made all the charges (in some cases narrowly) and had them surrounded. The impact hits from the Ogroid were poor. The melee from the Ogroid was really poor (despite Infusion Arcanum). Joe rolled fairly poorly for the number of disk attacks, which gave me some hope. The Ogroid got to attack again and I believe he may have rolled a double one for his 3 damage attacks. The derping theme continued. 3Skyfires died in the end – seriously dismal.

I won the must-win initiative roll and took the double turn.

 

Battleround 3

I continued the zapping and the chopping. The Skyfiresslowly died but it wasn't enough – Joe did some damage back. In the end I think there were still 3 alive – obscene.

Joe blasted the Marauders and then started chopping wounds off Kairos. I had a final chance to wipe the unit, but blew it.

Joe won the initiative and I conceded soon afterwards. I don't think I've ever thrown away a game as badly as this one. I am still kicking myself over this one.

Joe was lovely throughout (his dice were also lovely to him, which didn't help). We're 1 win each now (1:1).

Aftermath

This knocked me down to 3 Major Wins and 2 Major Losses. I came 32^nd from memory – not bad – but I should have beaten Joe and snuck into the top 10. I still detest Skyfires as the worst designed unit in the game  and they are still a significant imbalance in the game (because they are amongst the best melee damage per point in the game on a unit that can make turn one charges and which is deceptively resilient). As predicted, Tzeentch have eaten a load of unjustified nerfs (in addition to the justified ones) because Skyfires are so hated. They've even nerfed the Eternal Conflagration – the never used Battalion with like 6 Exalted Flamers – garbage; and nerfed the Windthief into the ground so it's unusable – it should be a move in your hero phase – it's limited to Arcanite Heroes so it doesn't even enable an alpha strike charge of any substance.

All in all, a fantastic weekend at a great venue - really enjoyable. The entire SLL crew had a great time and our leader Rob Bradley would have been 3rd had he prevailed over Mark Wildman.

@Chris Tomlin very kindly gave me some painting tips after the event, which was cool.

 

Edited September 21, 2017 by Nico

Great reports @Nico!

Thanks for taking the time to write them up with the photos as well. Really pleased you had a good time and congrats on a top performance.

Chris

Really nice build.... just wondering why you didn't take Glimpse the Future? @Nico

I think I simply didn't have room. It's not a spell I particularly rate either. It would be a great spell if it was Lore of Change, so that that third unit of Pink Horrors could cast it while looking derpy in your line.

6 hours ago, Nico said:

I think I simply didn't have room. It's not a spell I particularly rate either. It would be a great spell if it was Lore of Change, so that that third unit of Pink Horrors could cast it while looking derpy in your line.

so it's not that you feel that it's a useless spell..... I get that you seem to have been choosing as many damage/buffing spells so as to have them available for Kairos, and ultimately, the scribes. I just feel that that spell, firestorm and treacherous bond are the three spells to ALWAYS take. That's just my opinion, of course.

Edited September 27, 2017 by Tasman

I do not rate Glimpse. I suppose it helps with Shield of Fate, but underwhelmed.

Firestorm (Inferno) seems palpably worse than Bolt of Tzeentch.