Club AoS Night - 26 October 2016 - Battle Report

[Nico]

So it seems that I'm playing John tomorrow with his Khorne Bloodbound. I think he's taking a big unit of puppies. There's still space if anyone else wants to come down tomorrow.

[Thanatos Ares]

I'll be there with my Bonesplittaz and I've 2 games against Beastclaw & Moonclan. So they'll both be extremely brutal games!!


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[Nico]

So we had a good variety of games and armies facing off against each other.

• A different Sylvaneth army (new Ben) faced up against @Tom Loyn with his new Prosecutor Fest Harbinger Chamber I think it's called.
• Destruction filth off between less new Ben's Bonesplitterz and Alex's Beastclaw, Moonclan, Arachnorok, Kunning Rukk filth. This one was really close 25-24 to Alex in the end.
•  Max's Beastclaw took on Rob's Khorne.

The Green Tide

Armies and Battleplan

For my part, I took on John's Bloodbound - with his infamous Puppy squad of Khorgoraths. It was pretty much a vast flood of Khorne models:

• 2 Mighty Lords of Khorne
• 2 Bloodsecrators
• 2 Mr Whippies
• 2 x 20 Bloodreavers
• 2 x 10 Blood Warriors
• 3 Juggies
• 3 Khorgis
• 10 Chaos Warriors

I brought a revised version of the Death Pew Pew list in an attempt to road test a bad idea to oblivion.

Mannderp  460
Ghoul King on Terrorgheist 400
1 x Liche Priest (1)    120
1 x Necrotect (1)    100

1 x Ghouls (10)    100
1 x Ghouls (10)    100
1 x Ghouls (10)    100
4 x Ushabti (12)    480
1 x Screaming Skull Catapult (1)    120
    
Total    1980
 

The Battleplan was Gift from the Heavens which really suited my list, as my Flappies could react quickly and only a single model needed to contest an objective.

Deployment

I formed a bunker with an ablative ring of Ghouls on the outside, then a bone wall of 12 Ushabti, then Mannderp and the GKoTG as my counterpunchers behind them. The Catapult and Necrotect (who gives the Ushabti reroll 1s to save) were in the bunker too.

Ghouls are a bad choice for me in this list as Skeletons are way better as pure chaff (they have a slightly better save and bring D6 models back per turn). I need to buy some or even some Zombros.

John faced opposite me with symmetrical deployment of the Bloodsecrators and Mighty Lords.

Battleround 1

Conscious of something that Russ Veal had said, I decided to take the first turn on the basis that I could  maximise the damage I did that way, since the Bloodsecrators wouldn't be planted, so no battleshock immunity. This would get value out of the Catapult -2 bravery just for attacking not hitting 2 different units.

I decided not to try to snipe the Bloodsecrators themselves, but to delete as many models from the Bloodreavers and also take a big bite out of the right unit of Blood Warriors.

Mannfred got up on the Balewind and blasted most of John's army with 1 mortal wound each. I lobbed another mortal wound at the right Bloodsecrator with Arcane Bolt. Crucially I got mystic shield off on the Ushabti, so they were 2+ saves rerolling ones against damage 1 attacks. This meant that I would focus on killing the units with rend, which was basically the Puppies and the heroes, while tanking the Blood Warriors, who would only really do damage with the Gore Glaives.

The bunker edged forwards. The GKoTG sat on the corner of the bunker hoping to project the Cursed Book aura defensively. The Catapult split its fire and nailed 4 Blood Reavers (I love the fact that it's damage 4 rather than D6). The Ushabti did better than last time but still way below average. All told, I took out 5 Blood Warriors and a solid 17 Blood Reavers with Battleshock included.

Then it was John's turn.

John double stacked the Whippies on the 13 remaining Blood Reavers and also Lord of War. He planted both Bloodsecrators. Despite the fact that I had barely edged forward, the Bloodreavers easily made it in on the charge.

Even so depleted, the Bloodreavers (with Meatripper axes) still did plenty of damage to the Ghoul wall. Killing 12 of them.

John won the initiative.

Battleround 2

The comet came down on John's right, so his 20 Bloodreavers at the back ran towards it.

The red horde advanced. All the charges hit home. John then activated his general and started chopping down Ushabti.

Painfully, his Bloodsecrators were both in range of several of the units.

I activated the Ushabti in return and chipped away damage across the board. John responded with the Juggies. I then went with the Ghouls who killed a Blood Warrior. Mannfred's command ability was helping my whole army here which was nice. The GKoTG finally got to go and consumed the Juggies.

All in all, 5 Ushabti went down. To add major insult to injury, I failed a Battleshock test on a 6 which took out another one. 4 Ghouls clung on somehow.

Score 2-0

My objective came down left. In response, Mannderp got down from his perch. I proceeded to fail or have unbound 3 spells out of 4, which was abysmal. The 4 Ghouls retreated and ran onto the objective, so I would score the 2 points. I fired the Catapult at the right Mighty Lord and at the right Bloodsecrator. Naturally it did zero damage, but it also synergised with the Terrotheist's breath attack. However, I rolled average and only chipped away 4 wounds, leaving him on one left.

The Ushabti took out the right Bloodsecrator.

Mannfred also derped, only barely killing a single Khorgi. The vastly superior damage output and toughness of a Stonelord (which would nearly global the unit of 24 wounds on average) makes Mannderp look like a joke. 

John cleverly activated his Blood Warriors on the right first, to stop my GKoTG from piling into the Mighty Lord with the 3 inch range attack. 

 

 

The Ghoul King chomped down the Blood Warriors and took a wound back from their pile in trickery.

By the end of the turn, both Mighty Lords were on 1 wound remaining and the Ushabti had been whittled down to 4 models (in the absence of mystic shield).

Thankfully I won the initiative for a double turn back.

Score 2-2

Battleround 3

Mannderp lined up Wind of Death, which would have killed both the Mighty Lords of Khorne simultaneously. However, he derped again. The Ushabti did zero damage with shooting and nothing in melee. The Terrorgheist was no longer pinned and flapped off towards the Bloodstoker to get a tasty snack on the way to the Bloodreavers and the objective. The Terrorgheist used its breath attack to finish off the right Mighty Lord of Khorne. The catapult failed to scratch the remaining Bloodsecrator.

Mannfred took out another Khorgi. Then the forces of Khorne chopped down two more Ushabti.

John piled in with the last Khorgi towards the Catapult and did 3 wounds.

The Terrorgheist swallowed the Bloodstoker.

I scored 3.

Score 5-2

In response John managed to whip his Mighty Lord and gave him Lord of War as well. The other Bloodstoker YOLOed into the Terrorgheist.

The Mighty Lord crushed the final two Ushabti. Mannfred found himself out of pile in range - cursed puppies. 

The Khorgi finished off the Catapult, before the Skeleton Crew attacked the Khorgi and managed to do 2 wounds to it. My own Mr Whippy managed to chip another wound off, leaving it on 2 remaining.

This turn was the point when John should have retreated and run the Khorgi onto my objective to stop me scoring.

The GKoTG fluffed all of its attacks, until the jaws did 12 damage to the Bloodstoker.

In high drama the Necrotect flailed at the exposed back of the Khorgi, but couldn't take off its last wound.

John scored 3 to level it.

Score 5-5

I won the initiative.

Battleround 4

Mannderp finally cast Wind of Death - annihilating John's General and the Khorgi and a Blood Warrior to boot.

Mannfred flipped around the building and attacked the long tail of the Blood Warriors to minimise the amount that their pile in on death could affect him.

Mannfred nailed all bar one Blood Warrior and suddenly the middle of the board was almost empty. Khorne cares not from where the blood flows.

The GKoTG buffed itself with a Ward save and flapped towards the Bloodreavers. The breath attack and melee killed about 11 of them. More importantly I was able to contest this objective and stop John scoring. Had he won the initiative he would have got an easy 4 points instead.

The Crew and Mr Whippy ran towards my objective.

Score 9-5

In response, John ran his Chaos Warriors towards the Terrorgheist and moved his Bloodsecrator across. He chopped off about 2 wounds.

The Terrorgheist wiped out the Blood Reavers.

The last Blood Warrior moved away from Mannderp - he didn't need to retreat - and charged Mr Whippy. He failed to kill him.

John didn't score due to the Terrogheist.

Score 9-5  

John won the initiative.

Battleround 5

The Blood Warrior continued to chip away at the Mr Whippy, but was never going to wipe out my dregs on the objective.

The Warriors chopped away at the Terrorgheist taking it down to 5 wounds taken.

Again John couldn't score. 

Score 9-5  

In response, Mannderp found that he had piled into Mystical Terrain range and derped - rolling a 1.

Nothing happened on the left. The Terrorgheist rolled above average and chomped down the Warriors, winning that objective.

Final Score 14-5

The scoreline is certainly flattering. If John had won the iniative turn 4 it would have been 9-9 and a minor victory to me on kill points I believe. That said my list was well suited to his, even without reliable mystic shield the 3+ save rerolling ones and 6+ ward Ushabti were a nightmare for his low rend high volume attacks to cut through. 

Again, I found myself hating the unreliablility of a low volume of pew pew attacks. I found myself looking at Skeleton Archers on the train home, before recovering my senses. I think the list is ok, but somewhat rock paper scissors. The synergy is pretty weak. Righteous Smiting in particular is awful now that it only explodes once. Mannderp was predictably disappointing. Wind of Death plus Balewind is decent for some first turn damage off the bat, coupled with catapults to spread the Battleshock love, but hardly earth shattering. I started praying for a caster with +X to cast to just get mystic shield off. I would have definitely lost the game without it during John's double turn at the start. Do I take Arkhan...?

The fact that the Terrorgheist's attacks hit on 4s is Soul Destroying.

 

 

 

[Thanatos Ares]

Another awesome batrep Nico! Looked like a really close game. Despite the final score as you said being slightly flattering


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