2500pt S2D vs. KO Batrep

[Saturmorn Carvilli]

I played two 2500 point games this weekend.  I play Slaves to Darkness (Ravagers) and my Opponent had Kharadron Overlords (Barak-Thryng).  The first game and this batrep was the Battleplan Focal Point.

My Army:

Leaders: Chaos Lord on Karkadrak, Chaos Lord on foot, Chaos Sorcerer x2

Battleline: 15 Chaos Warriors with Shield and Handweapon x3, 10 Chaos Knights with Ensorcelled Weapons, 10 Chaos Knights with Curse Lances, 3 Varanguard with Ensorcelled Weapons

All Chaos Undivided

On Deck if summoned: Iron Golems, Untamed Beasts, Furies, Chaos Spawn and Daemon Prince

 

My Opponent:

First time seeing Kharadron Overlords so I don't completely know if this is correct or complete:

Leaders: Aether-Khemist, Arkanaut Admiral, Auric Runemaster, Grimwarth Berserker

Battleline:  5 Grunstock Thunderers x2, 3 Skywardens x2, 3 Endrinriggers, 15 Vulkite Berserkers

Ships: Arkanaut Frigate, Grundstock Gunhauler x2

Behemoth: Magmadroth (I don't know what the rider was)

 

The Battlefield:

I have photos from both sides of the short table edges.  The green dice are the objectives.  I went for a pretty classic deployment lining my warriors up for the two near objectives as well as the middle one.  I put my knights on the flanks and put my Varangaurd on my right side after seeing my opponent was placing a lot of units across no man's land there.

 

Round 1:

I believe I won the roll but allowed my opponent to go first.  I don't know if that was necessarily a good idea given all the shooting he had, but the idea was he would have to move up allowing my a better chance to charge, give me something to react to and the possibility of a double turn.

My opponent ran his Fyreslayer units as well as moving some of balloon dwarves in to better shooting positions.  For the Shooting Phase he largely focus fired into my center Warriors only removing 4-5 of them.  My opponent was unhappy saying that was way less than average.  In the Charge Phase his Magmadroth hit my left warriors group along with my Chaos Lord on foot.  I believe the monster killed a couple of Warriors and knocked a wound or two off the Lord.  In return I had it down to 7 wounds or so.

For my turn, I cast Daemonic Power on my Varangaurd and Whispers of Chaos on the Magmadroth.  I ran my Ensorcelled Weapon Knights and Chaos Lord of Karkadrak but readied my Varanguard and lance Knights.  My not in combat Warriors formed squares on the near objectives leaving a little room for the Sorcerer Lords to stand inside the square.  For the Charge Phase only my Varaguard reached their target (the Vulkite Berserkers).  In the Combat Phase, I had my Warriors fighting the Magmadroth crictially wound the beast after being Spurred by the Gods.  The Monster was defeated be the Chaos Lord who was snubbed my the gods for his effort.  The Varaguard also attacked twice into the Berserkers making early use of Relentless Killers.  It didn't completely kill off the Berserkers but crippled them enough they were no threat to much of anything.

 

Round 2:

I got the double turn.  Nothing happened in the Hero Phase for me.  In Movement Phase I position my Lance Knights to get a better charge on the Skywardens and my Karkadrak lord on the Thunderers.  My other knights continued to run as nothing KO was deployed over in the ruins, but I did capture the far objective over there.  My rolled a 12 on my charge with my lance Knights which allowed them to practically encircle the Skywardens.  Finally my Karkadrak Lord was stuck in with the Thunderers.  In the Combat Phase my Varanguard finished off the remainder the Berserkers including one of the heroes.  My lance knights kill both units of Skywardens. 

At the start of the Kharadron Overlords turn, he conceded as I had all 5 objectives and had basically eliminated half his army with very little losses on my side.  I both don't like playing blowout games or games where my opponent is allow not enjoying the game (and my opponent was extremely frustrated).  So we called it there.

 

After Actions:

On my end I was pretty happy with my performance.  I was expecting an extremely tough battle so I came out with firing both barrels.  The biggest mistake I made was my Sorcerers should have been flipped.  I had the Mask of Darkness wizard away from the better teleport options and it was only luck I managed to get use of Whispers of Chaos when my opponent charged is Magmadoth way out of position.

For my opponent, I informed him that the weak point of my army is my Leaders/Heroes.  Take them out and I loose a lot of power.  He was running well more than enough long range Shooting to remove 1-2 of the lesser heroes a round with good rolls even with Lookout, Sir! He also didn't seem to have much of a deployment plan except kind group everything to together which then he moved his Fyreslayer stuff of position and in places I could manage get almost all my big groups into attack. 

 

Our second game was Relocation Orb (sorry no pictures).  That game went all five rounds and he did win.  I didn't have as good of a deployment plan.  So I had my units tripping over each other and didn't have my heroes it the right spots.  I also have a couple of times my Save rolls went really cold which cost me my Karkadrak Lord (which shouldn't have been trying to face tank all the shooting anyways) and my Varanguard.  Late game I had my Sorcerers, Warriors and Warcry Cultists.  None of which were fast enough to really reclaim the Orb after it moved.  I believe my Iron Golems never spent a single round not moving.  So while I still had both more wounds and combat ability, I just didn't have the speed to deploy to catch the orb like Kharadron Overlords did.  Combined with having to weather a couple really brutal double turn Shooting, I was surprised I had as many bodies as I did on the battlefield.

Edited January 21, 2020 by Saturmorn Carvilli