AoS Night 17 August 2016 - Order vs Nurgle

[Nico]

We had two games at South London Legion this week. Ben's Flesh Eater Courts monster mash (4 flappies) took on Rob's mixed Khorne.

Armies

I had the pleasure of taking on Maxime, a new player at the Legion, who had a really well-converted and painted Nurgle force:

• The Glottkin
• GUO (General)
• Verminlord Deceiver
• 30 Plaguebearers
• 10 Plaguebearers
• 10 Plaguebearers
• Sayl and Nightmaw
• Warp Lightning Cannon

After a decent showing at Rain of Stars with my mostly Grots Destruction list, it was time for me to wheel out a brand new army - a candidate for The Warlords:

1 x Glade Lord on Forest Dragon (1)	340
1 x Celestial Hurricanum with White Battlemage (1)	320
1 x Knight Vexillor (1)	200
2 x Paladin Retributors (10)	440
1 x Waywatchers (3)	80
1 x Waywatchers (3)	80
1 x Waywatchers (3)	80
1 x Har Ganeth Executioners (10)	200
2 x Bloodwrack Medusa (2)	240
	1980

 

Deployment

We played the GH battleplan with 4 objectives diagonally positioned (Border War).

Scenery rules were pretty irrelevant for once.

I made a mistake deploying, while I put my Vexillor down out of range of the Warp Lightning Cannon, I forgot he had a Verminlord Deceiver. As a result I ended up walling him in with Retributors and panicked into using the teleport too early.

I put down the bulk of my force on my central objective with Waywatchers on each side to grab the side objectives. I simply didn't have enough bodies to wall off the Hurricanum from the inevitable Verminlord attack.

Max deployed a ball of Nurgle in the middle - shielding his valuable stuff with masses of Plaguebearers.

Interestingly he made the Verminlord his General rather than The Glottkin (we both have Glottkins and they are overcosted, nevertheless fun to play). He gave the GUO the Talisman that gives it a 5+ ward against wounds (not mortal wounds oddly) caused by Order.

 

Battleround 1 

Max made me go first. I decided that I'd had enough of bouncing off ward saves and wasn't going to risk Max getting a double turn and stomping me twice with The Glottkin, so I "played for the objectives" by teleporting the 10 Retributors over to stomp on 10 Plaguebearers, while leaving one dude to cling onto the right objective.

The rest of my army moved up and took aim at the Warp Lightning Cannon - chipping a few wounds off. The Celestial Hurricanum was just out of range -  a big error.

I derped with the Paladins, putting one of the Mace dudes in the wrong place (despite them being colour coded).

Max rolled ward saves like a boss, so I only killed 9 Plaguebearers. We all know what happened next - battleshock test - rolled a 1 and 5 Plaguebearers popped back up. The derp is real.

Score: 5-0

In Max's turn, he failed the cast for +1 wounds to the 30 block of Plaguebearers (this may have saved me the game). He also failed mystic shield, but cast Sayl's spell on the big block. The Verminlord popped up behind the Celestial Hurricanum as expected. 

The mildly depleted Plaguebearers chuckled mirthfully and retreated onto the objective away from the Retributors.

The 30 block swarmed my middle around the forest.

The Glottkin and GUO advanced on the Retributors.

The Warp Lightning Cannon killed 5 Executioners (just what I didn't want to happen) - another one ultimately fled.

The 30 Block did minimal damage to my forces but sat there, grabbing the objective.

The Verminlord failed his charge of 6 against the Celestial Hurricanum.

Max held his, mine and the right objectives.

Score 5:7 

 

Battleround 2

Winning the initiative saved my bacon here. 

The Hurricanum buffed the armour of the Forest Dragon. The Forest Dragon used its command ability on itself.

The Executioners moved forward to take on the 10 Plaguebearers threatening the left objective.

The Forest Dragon readied itself to charge both the Verminlord and the 30 block.

The Paladins advanced on The Glottkin.

My shooting decimated the 30 block and took the remaining wounds off the Warp Lightning Cannon.

The Paladins made their charge into The Glottkin and smashed face - making up for the earlier embarrassment - nothing but gore and guts remained.

Max chose to attack with the Plaguebearers and killed another two Executioners. In response, they killed 2 Plaguebearers.

The Forest Dragon rolled well and took out the Verminlord Deceiver. However, the remnants of the 30 Block still outnumbered me on my home objective.

Ominously for me the score remained unchanged:

Score 5:7 

Max's turn. Max zapped off the Executioners with Arcane Bolt. The Great Unclean one moved up to engage the Paladins. 

The 30 block retreated while still keeping sufficient models on my home objective. The 10 Plaguebearers on my left went for my Waywatchers on the objective.

The GUO killed a few Paladins with shooting and melee attacks and took a few wounds in return.

The 10 Plaguebearers took out the 3 Waywatchers.

Max held all the objectives and surged ahead:

Score 5-16

 

Battleround 3

Max then won a double turn. This time, the GUO retreated from the Paladins. The 30 block remnants stayed put.

Max again held all the objectives.

Score 5-25

In my turn, I was desperately behind so really needed to capture all the objectives swiftly.

The Hurricanum fired off a comet, which bounced off the GUO's double ward save, rather than hitting the Plaguebearers. Ominous.

The Forest Dragon opted to take out the remainder of the 30 block.  The Paladins advanced towards the GUO, Sayl and Nightmaw, getting enough models in range of Max's objective to score. The Hurricanum blasted away at the Plaguebearers on the left objective.

On the right my forces advanced on the small force of Plaguebearers and failed their charges. The Paladins followed suit, slipping in the mess left behind by The Glottkin.

The Forest Dragon wiped out the 30 block. Max rolled another 1 for Battleshock on the unit of Plaguebearers on the left objective - they came back to full strength - looking really ominous.

I picked up Max's objective (with the Paladins) and my own.

Score 10-25 

 

Battleround 4

If I lost this initiative roll, it was game over even if I tabled Max. Fortunately I won it.

The Forest Dragon went for the left Plaguebearers along with the Hurricanum.

My remaining forces went for the right one, aside from 3 Waywatchers left on the home objective. This was stupid in retrospect I should have left the Hurricanum on it because of Sayl's spell.

I wiped out all of the Plaguebearers meaning I scored 9 points - slowly pulling it back, but time was short.

Score 19-25

 

In Max's turn he tried to cast Sayl's spell on the GUO, but failed. Had he done so and got the Charge into the Waywatchers, he would have won by grabbing another 4 points to take an unassailable lead. Instead the GUO ran forward towards the objective.

Score 19-25

 

Battleround 5

However, there was one final chance for the forces of Nurgle. If Max won the initiative he could try to cast the spell again and rocked the GUO over.

The dice were rolled, but no luck for Nurgle's crippled forces today - I won the initiative and Max conceded the slenderest of Major Victories. The forces of Order breathed a sight of relief.

Final Score 28-25

 

A really fun game for us both, which shows how even Max's crippled forces could nearly win the game. I think we both played to the objectives. We got successive double turns, which swung the game, in mine I crushed his army, while in Max's he wracked up a load of points.

The potential of Sayl's spell to turn the game indicated how crucial movement can be. The core of my list felt too vulnerable to shooting (or impact hits), so I'm likely to scale back the Vexillor antics and strengthen the core instead. 200 for the Vexillor and 440 for the Retributors makes it a real commitment.