Thomas Lyons

We also don't know if their points were adjusted either. I could see a 6+ being appropriate if their points went up.

Good call. I hadn't ever used it on him so I'm glad to know that it doesn't work now before I try it ;-) Looks like Be'Lakor will be stuck on Mystic Shield, Arcane Bolt, and Summoning duty :-)

Correct. You must field a unit in a multiple of 7, hence the Chaos Warriors dropping in a block of 28 (i.e. 7x4). Only the Chaos Warriors in this list kick back Mortal wounds.

Looks bone-ish.

I wonder what the point updates to Pitched Battle Profiles will look like... :-)

Thanks! Here are the FAQ's of significance to this tactic (literally all on pages 1 and 2, immediately following one another): So, looking at that zoning image, you can see the "T" formation the Warriors advance in with their Sayl-fly/charge. Once engaged and you start taking causalities, you can remove those casualties from anywhere in the line (according to the FAQ), even if removing those casualties would break coherency (as per the FAQ question #1 above). So, once I know that I am where I want to be with engaged units, I start pulling casualties from the gaps on the front lines between units and along the tail since I won't be able to move or pile-in if in doing could not reestablish coherency (as per the FAQ question #2 above). The key is always to leave 1 model within 7" of the Harbinger so he is always within range of the bubble (as per the FAQ question #3 above). Similarly, you just need that one guy in the back field to receive the buffs from the Sorcerer Lord (Daemonic Power or Oracular Visions and Inspiring Presence) and Sayl (Fly or Mystic Shield). Leaving one guy near your starting line will keep all of your buffers far out of range of just about anything but long siege (48"), which almost no one is running. You can fill your midfield with threat (with Belakor/Blightkings) or zone areas (with Marauders/Blightkings) so that high mobility ranged units either can't get close enough to pressure your buffers or they could be potentially killed with counter charges.

I just got back from Adepticon and what a weekend it was! While I went to ACON not expecting to play in the GT, I ended up being cajoled into playing in the GT and did surprisingly well. I surprisingly found myself sitting on Table 2 in Game 5 and ended finishing 10th overall after losing in that final game to the individual who finished 1st. I’ve had a lot of people ask questions about my list, so I figured I would do a blog about it and then follow that up with a couple battle reports from my games. I’ve long been tinkering with Nurgle Mortal lists looking for that magic formula. For competitive play, there is an entire suite of capabilities you want to have access to (high mobility, durability, chaff, etc) and Nurgle has to work really hard for some of those (i.e. Mobility). I finally settled on a list that had most of these capabilities, but since I didn’t plan on playing in the GT at ACON, I didn’t finish painting up the models for my optimal version of this list. So, I slightly modified my ideal list with what you see below: 140 Harbinger (Cunning Deciver Trait, Chaos Talisman) 120 Mounted Chaos Sorcerer (Crown of Conquest) 540 28 Chaos Warriors 60 10 Marauders 60 10 Marauders 60 10 Marauders 180 5 Blightkings 180 5 Blightkings 140 Plaguetouched Warband 240 Belakor 160 Sayl 120 Reinforcement Points (Options Below) 10 Plaguebearers (100) 10 Chaos Furies (120) This list looks ridiculously mundane at first glance. Even when it drops on the table, most will look at it and go, “…ok?” Dan Heelan very confusingly looked over at me at the start of Round 5 from Table 1 this weekend and asked how I got there with this list. I take this as a compliment and proof of how very deceptive this list is on paper to how it performs in the game. Strategy The list is a 3 drop inverted alpha strike list that involves flying the 28 Chaos Warriors up, stretching them out 1" apart (with a tail leading back to your line), and charging the enemy's units on the line on turn 1 (with only needing a 5 on the charge from the +1 charge on the chaos warriors against anything on the line). The rest of the list does a variety of supporting functions. Most of the heroes stay in the backfield spread out to zone the back edge from setups. While I rarely ended up doing a full zoning spread, the following image gives you an idea of what that might have looked like after turn 1 (with still another unit of Blightkings omitted from this deployment): Regarding Individual Unit Functions: Be'lakor serves as the safety for anything that flies over the front line, dealing with anything that needs rend (6 attacks, 3+/3+/-2/2 dmg), tanking any huge beasties I don't want on that front line (4+, ignores rend, can be mystic shielded with reroll 1's from Oracular visions), and can summon into their backfield when he is near the front line to steal objectives. His spell is counterintuitive to the list but luckily he has other spells to cast. The Marauders are largely present for taking objectives and zoning out areas of the board to prevent people coming on from table edges or being able to be summoned. The Blightkings provide the extra punch against soft units where bodies were needed to be cleared off objectives in the enemy territory. I hadn't planned on taking 2 units originally but it ended up being the exact number I needed in many of my matchups. Synergy The synergy is rather straight forward once you get started. Chaos Warriors get buffed up with Daemonic Power from the Sorc (reroll 1s to hit, wounds, and saves) and battleshock immunity from the Crown of Conquest, Mystic Shield from Be'lekor, a 5++ ward from the Harbinger (who is ideally safe in your back line). This ultra buffed anvil unit then gets thrown forward with Sayl to establish the front line and grind down anything it touches. The real magic of this combo comes from two things. First, the Warriors are -2 to hit in melee that entire first combat turn (-1 from plague touched, -1 from cunning deceiver). Even the best units will struggle to put significant wounds on a 3+ (reroll 1s), 5++, 5++ (against mortal wounds only) unit when they have a -2 to hit that unit. Secondly, and more importantly, when you deploy in multiples of 7 with this battalion, every time the enemy rolls a 6+ to wound that unit in the Combat phase, the attacking enemy unit takes a mortal wound back. Now, since this is triggering on their wound roll of 6+, I can still negate the actual damage with all the Warrior's defenses while still kicking back mortal wounds as the enemy grinds on the Chaos Warriors. This is doubly (or even triply) effective against Tomb Kings, Pestilens, and Destruction Battle Brew/Wild Fury who are bringing their own bonuses to wound, since it causes the mortal wounds to trigger more frequently (as my 4th opponent so painfully discovered with his double Stonehorns). Once you have the front line locked, if they don't have movement shenanigans, you can pull models from anywhere in the line and break coherency (as long as you aren't going to pile in at all). There were points where I had a single chaos warrior back in back field (to receive buffs), with the next closest Chaos warrior in his unit 24 inches away grinding on the remains of their front line. If I ever needed to reform, I could cast Sayl fly on the back warrior and retreat the unit with an 18" fly move back into coherency. Matchups The matchups I was most concerned about were coming against a Kunnin Rukk or the Beastclaw Thundertusk/Stonehorn mix, each for different reasons. The Kunnin Rukk could potentially overwhelm the warriors with hundreds and hundreds of attacks, while threatening or killing any of my support units with bad positioning. The Beastclaw mix on the other hand could potentially just shatter the front line with overwhelming power and pick off support units with Snowballs. I didn’t have a chance to play either of these lists coming into ACON, especially since I was still finalizing this Friday night at 11:30 PM. Despite proverbially building this plane in the air, it performed remarkably well. My matchups were Kunnin Rukk, Bloodbound, Phoenix Temple, Beastclaw mixed-Destruction, and the winning Tzeentch 18 Skyfire/Loc/Kairos list (on a table where almost all the terrain gave +1 to hit). I didn't see any SCE or Sylvaneth in my matches, although I would have changed tactics accordingly and bubble-wrapped/zoned with the Warriors as well. Nico helped me think about some of these matchups before hand, which helped tremendously in piloting my list. To that I am greatly appreciative. Final Thoughts on the List Immediately after I finished the final game on Table 2 with Kaleb (who won the event), Kaleb interrupted my congratulations and informed me that my list was the hardest list he's played all weekend (I believe including the other AOS events he was in) and not just harder, but at least twice as hard as anything else he had faced. All of his other opponents he had tabled with an hour or more to spare. In our game, I led the points (he was in fact shut out) until the bottom of our very last turn. The structure of the scenario definitely raises some design questions but that is a post for another time. The reality is that this list differs quite a bit from most of the other popular lists in the game currently. Instead of having easily recognized power centers (most lists have 2-3), the power base of the list is diffuse. This lack of obvious power bases (besides the front line) can often confuse opponents as to what is the best unit to attack and force them to play their list in a way that they’ve never had to, which will often also cause people to make mistakes. In fact, many opponents will have no idea what they are looking at when you drop it until you fly the Chaos Warriors forward in their flying "T" formation and even then most will think they can just slam against the warriors and break the line. This confusion on target priority and tactics is one of the strongest assets of this list; I'm not sure how well it will fair if it becomes a well-known quantity down the road. I'm doing a video about this list later this week with MC1Gamer based on the one trial "game" we played. Here's a glimpse of that game during my turn at the top of 1: In the posts that follow, I’ll go over each of my five matchups and a brief battle report of each game.

Normally 9 PM EST but we'll clearly have to hold that time loosely depending on how long he stays. I'll post a link when I know we're going live.

My cohost for Warhammer Weekly will be at the Adepticon event this evening and we'll do our weekly show immediately after he gets out of the event. I doubt they'll allow cameras but I've told him to take copious notes.

We've been talking about the sky stunties since November or December on Warhammer Weekly. We've known for awhile that we were looking at a late March, early April release.

I've given this feedback already for GHB2. Many of the "X is battleline with Y allegiance" should instead be "X is battleline when a Y hero is your general". This makes many of these units infinitely more usable since battleline status could be keyed towards generals rather than entire forces.

Sure, this is a good point. There have been some rumors of some 40k Nurgle later this year. It might make sense for a new GUO with the 40k release (and maybe some beasts of Nurgle as well), and the Children of Nurgle combined AOS tome as a one week followup. This seems like a very real possibility.

I suspect that we'll see a Nurgle combined tome later this year which rolls Clan Pestilens into a three-part Children of Nurgle force: Mortals, Daemons, and Clan Pestilens. The plague priests will likely get Nurgle Prayers. This fits right in line with their current design trajectory and remakes one of those prior tomes. I would not expect any beastmen with this tome, or any other models in general.

This is my photo. Its from the Ironjawz painting guide. You're welcome.

Tyler did a wonderful job on the whole thing! My role was primarily reading the rules, correcting overwhelmingly broken stuff (like the spell that previously granted a trigger of mortal wounds on a 6+ to wounds; like Skeleton Hordes needed this ), and do all of the pointing. So if anything is underpowered or overpowered compared to the points, you can blame me. Some of the stuff are right on the edge, meaning that they're a very good value for their points, but I don't think anything is an auto include for its points. Otherstuff likely won't see the table most of the time simply because you would have to build around them (Khemric Titan). It was definitely a fun project and I'm glad Tyler invited me to be part of it

This week we are bringing you the latest hot news including all the drops from GAMA, but we are also bringing you the first ever preview of Tyler Mengel's upcoming Unofficial Tomb Kings battletome!

"April"

I'm really trying to spin up the hype machine but apparently the squats stole it from me and installed it in one of their airships :-/ The chains swords and guns, and the jet packs, and environmentally sealed suits, and flying (likely drop) ships...kinda struggling with this. For anyone that watches the show, I was begging for an airship this time last year...for my dwarves; not for short stormcasts that stepped out of a Squat codex. I wanted airships. This is something different. ( I don't want to be negative ) I do like the detail on the airships though. Quite stunning models.

The lore from the community page suggests they are completely separate from all of their Duardin kin with no connection. So likely no shared battalions, units, etc.

Does anyone see these all metal, no skin, no beard duardin and think...

What is that image from?

This isn't true. Devoted of Sigmar have not had a release either. They seemed like a likely expansion until the new Stormcast release dropped. We are ultimately waiting on their expansion (which I think the new Stormcast book was a missed opportunity with them).

It is rare to have a score so disproportionately reflect the thrashing one receieves from their opponent and yet this was one of those games. After my big win against Walter, I was pushed up to the top tables where I squared off against Domus’ beautiful Ironjawz, whose images have been making the rounds these past weeks on social media. The objective for the Skaven Hunger Games table was fairly straightforward. The main table objective was a sinking Belltower that needed to be garrisoned in order have auxiliary (read “imaginary”) troops raid the food stores. The problem was that the bell tower sank each round and caused ever-increasing unpreventable wounds to those inside. The other problematic element on this table were the copious toxic pools, which were an amplified version of dangerous terrain: any model who moved in or ended their move on the pool rolled a dice and on a one was instantly removed as a casualty. The fact that the Belltower was in one of these pools and could only be garrisoned if you were up against the door at the start of the movement phase only compounded the deadliness and complexity of fulfilling the table objective. It also didn’t help that all three of the Grail Objectives that you had to control with 5+ models within 6” were also within these toxic pools of death. Fun times. I knew I was in trouble when I sat down across from Domus. I was staring down an exceedingly fast, hard-hitting army that I didn’t have obvious solutions for key pieces. He was running a 15 block of brutes (whos big boss was his general), a Megaboss on Mawcrusha, a Megaboss on foot, a Warchanter, a Weirdnob Shaman, 10 Ardboyz, and two packs of 3 Goregruntas, with all the non-hero units unsurprisingly in the Ironfist battalion. After a long bit of deliberation, I decided to drop my normal deployment: 140 Harbinger of Decay 240 Be’lakor, Chaos Daemon Prince
 160 Sayl the Faithless
 120 Chaos Sorcerer Lord on Chaos Steed (Nurgle)
 180 5 Putrid Blightkings
 180 5 Putrid Blightkings
 120 20 Chaos Marauders (Nurgle) w/Full Command and Icon – Axe/Shield 60 10 Chaos Marauders (Nurgle) w/Full Command and Icon – Axe/Shield 100 10 Plaguebearers of Nurgle 300 Hellcannon
 180 Plagueclaw Catapult 200 Reinforcement Points I knew he would be in my siege’s face turn one but I needed the rend and mortal wounds to punch through that overwhelming 4+ I was staring down. I wasn’t sure how I was going to deal with the Mawcrusha or the 15 block of Brutes but I chose the best chokepoints on the battlefield on my side (given that Domus got to pick his side). It became obvious very quickly what his tactics would be. He set up his Ardboyz supported by the Megaboss on foot right on the line to double hero phase move up to the tower so he could garrison it at the top of Turn 1 (which he would take because he finished dropping before I did). The set up the Pigs on the front line to charge ahead and potentially split off onto flanks, and the Brute block to charge in behind them, right up the middle. He rightly knew there was little in my army that was going to stop 15 Brutes backed by a Warchanter. On his far flank he set up his Mawcrusha, likely hoping to pick off my 10 marauders I had set up to run after his Grail objective, and his Weirdnob Shaman, who had a direct line to the Warlock House, a terrain piece that would double the range of all his spells and let him rain death down on my back lines and my vulnerable Hellcannon crew. Given the multitude of the threats, I knew that if those Aardboyz made it into the Belltower, I would likely automatically lose the main objective because I wouldn’t be able to shift them out quick enough. Given this, I chose them for Belakor’s Dark Master ability and hoped it would gum them up on Turn 1 and give me a chance to contest that point. Turn 1 played out mostly how I expected. He moved on the tower but the Belakor’d Ardboyz couldn’t make it all the way to the door and thus stopped at the toxic pool edge. On the other flank, his Mawcrusha moved up to threaten my flank and guard his Weirdnob shaman who was moving on the Warlock tower (but didn’t make it in Turn 1). In the middle, everything else rushed up quick and hard. The Gorerguntas made a charge so he pulled them way out and around, hitting my Blightkings on my left flank and killing a couple. Because of this, he had a longer charge on his Brutes into my Marauder front line, which he failed. If Domus made any mistake this game, it was not sending the Goregruntas directly into my 20 Marauders at the top of Turn 1 and battleshocking them off the table. Bottom of turn 1 rolled around and I knew two things: 1) this game was going to be ugly, and 2) if I was going to not be tabled, I was going to have to make some desperate gambits. After my standard round of buffing, I moved my 10 Plaguebearers towards the Bell Tower, while sending a Sayl’d unit of Blightkings out to his Weirdnob Shaman. I aimed to accomplish two things with this move: 1) kill the Shaman who could rain death down upon my back lines with double range spells and 2) bait the Mawcrusha far away from the primary combat. I didn’t have a solution for him so he needed to not be in the fight. The Blightkings made it into the shaman, surrounded him, and proceeded to kill him with tons of exploding attacks. Yay, a morale victory. Belakor assisted the closer Blightkings with the engaged Goregruntas. My artillery rained down on the Ardboyz, killed a few, and the rest of my units prepared for the ugly fight that was about to happen. The bloodshed the came with turn 2 was expected yet still somehow surprising. He got into the marauders and cut them down to a handful of models, despite being in a chokepoint. His lone Goregrunta died to Belakor and remaining Blightking while the other group of Goregruntas looped around and pinned my 10 Marauders in the other chokepoint on my opposite flank. Domus rolled really poorly on the Ardboyz so he wasn’t going to be able to hero phase move them up to the door, so he decided to keep them out of the swamp for another turn. His mawcrusha took the bait and unsurprisingly charged in and destroyed those Blightkings on the far side of the table. By the end of his turn 2, my lines had almost all but collapsed. I was pressed on basically every side, and realized something drastic had to happen. Looking at the remains of my force, I knew that I had a resource that Domus definitely didn’t have: cheap bodies. Those toxic pools were ultimately a lot more dangerous to him than they were to myself so I decided to capitalize on this. I realized I needed to get Sayl across towards the Belltower since Domus had been delayed and hadn’t garrisoned it yet. The plaguebearers at the Bell Tower piled in on that Grail Objective, thus outnumbering Domus’ remaining forces there and taking control of the objective. Sayl also flew out to that now open left flank to be able to support it next turn. I knew my marauders on the opposite side wouldn’t be able to break for his Grail Objective, especially with a Mawcrusha between them and it, so those remaining marauders retreated into the toxic pool on that flank around the Grail token. My remaining primary marauder line retreated and reformed since I wanted to fight as few combats with that Brute line as possible on them. But that Brute line still needed to be stopped. It was at this point that I heard my cohost’s voice in my head (I promise this doesn’t happen often): “If you want to win big, you have to risk big; sometimes you have to roll the hard 6.” Hardly believing what I was doing, I mystic shielded and reroll 1’s buffed Belakor up and charged him into the deadly swamp on the Brute’s flank, pinning them from the side in combat with Belakor. In prior games, I’ve sung the praises of Belakor, but those performances are nothing compared to seeing the First Daemon Prince with a 2+ reollable save that is immune to Rend lock down a unit of 15 Brutes, all the while being forced to make a roll at the end of each movement phase and risk instantly dying on a 1. Did I mention that I had already blown my tournament reroll die when I decided on this plan of action? "Go big or go home," right? So Belakor heroically tanked those Brutes, and held them pinned there for the rest of the game, slowly whittling them down and taking zero damage. Domus’ Mawcrusha even came charging in on Belakor’s back in the final round but, other than a couple mortal wounds that Belakor regen’d from my own fleeing Marauders, Belakor held firm. At the Belltower, in my next Hero phase, I dropped 20 plaguebearers down near the door from a 3-diced summon from Sayl (although I would still have to spend a round getting up to the door). Anticipating what I was doing, Domus tried to rush the door and garrison it with both his lone Aardboy and Megaboss, but both rolled 1’s and were instantly killed, all the while 25+ plaguebearers looked on from the midst of the filth completely unaffected by their surroundings. And so the game ended, with me locking down the scenario objective (7), the grail objective (6), and having the most remaining units on the table (3). Never have I gotten my proverbial teeth kicked in so hard and yet still walked away with the major victory. It was almost a crime how the score so minimally represented the actual game that was played on the table. Despite the unfairness of the score on Domus’ behalf, I would experience the flip side of this encounter in my next game against Sean Troy, one of the best players in the Midwest and the other opponent we three-way tied with at Holy Havok. I’ll cover this game next.

I was fortunate to draw Walter for my Game 2 on Bugman’s Grudge because I was harboring a bit of a grudge against Walter myself. During Holy Havok this last fall, Vince and I three way tied for Best Overall with Walter’s team and Sean Troy’s team (who I got to play in Game 4; more on this later). Walter was playing his Ogre’s again, who had handly blown up (well, severely crippled) an unbuffed, 30 strong Chaos Warrior block at the top of turn 1 during our last showdown at Holy Havok. I was happy to take another shot at his army. Walter brought 3 blocks of Ogres, a block of Ironguts and a block of Leadbelchers (all in packs of 6), backed by a Butcher, another hero (maybe a second Butcher), and a pair of Ironjawz heroes (Megaboss and Weirdnob Shaman). Unfortunately for Walter, the main scenario was a model feeder scenario where you threw your model’s into Bugman’s and started drinking. Every turn, there was a chance your models would pass out and be removed from play. Units from both players could garrison Bugman’s but they couldn’t attack each other (they were too busy drinking together). Any enemies near enough to the tavern on the outside could be attacked on the other hand. The Grail Objective involved sending your troops into the mountains off the starting zone and searching for the Grail token. The first to find it (5+) would lock it into place atop at their Mountain Entrance and have to hold it in order to accumulate points each turn. Knowing I had the model count on him, I went with the following list: 140 Harbinger of Decay 240 Be’lakor, Chaos Daemon Prince
 160 Sayl the Faithless
 120 Chaos Sorcerer Lord on Chaos Steed (Nurgle)
 180 10 Warriors of Chaos (Nurgle) w/Full Command – Handweapon/Shield 180 5 Putrid Blightkings
 180 5 Putrid Blightkings
 120 20 Chaos Marauders (Nurgle) w/Full Command and Icon – Axe/Shield 60 10 Chaos Marauders (Nurgle) w/Full Command and Icon – Axe/Shield 100 10 Plaguebearers of Nurgle 300 Hellcannon
 200 Reinforcement Points I arrayed my forced defensively around the mountain entrance, and planned on sending the small unit of 10 Chaos Marauders into the mountain looking for the objective. I knew getting into the tavern was going to be hard because you had to start your movement phase up within 6” of the door and I didn’t have off-turn movement. I also deployed my Hellcannon on top of the mountain because 1) he was cool with it, 2) it was a legal place to drop, and 3) it looked cinematically awesome. I double-checked with him to make sure he was cool with it and he encouraged me to do so (knowing full-well he would have the range with the Balewind to shoot my crew off with Arcane Bolt). Given what both of us dropped, I was grabbing to grab first turn as he handed off turn one to me, which I gladly obliged. Rather than waiting to the very end as I had last game, at the top of turn one, I had Sayl 3-dice a summon Plaguebearers and dropped 20 of them on the door (which would allow me to enter during the movement phase of turn 1). I got lucky and, after entering the Mountain, immediately found the Grail Token on a 5+, which meant that it locked in my starting zone. The Hellcannon immediately started putting wounds on the Weirdnob shaman, the Plaguebearers went in for a drink (3 passed out immeadiately, woohoo!), and the rest of my line did what they do best, set up a bunker around the Grail Objective. On his turn, he charged forward He moved his Ironguts up to the side (my right) of the building and his Leadbelcher to the opposite side. The Ogres went straight for the tavern. His extra destruction move really helped him close this distance. I had Belakor’d the Weirdnob (knowing the threat the Hellcannon was facing) and it ended up paying off. He successfully summoned the Balewind on the Weirdnob but Belakor’s Dark Master shut the rest of his casting down in Turn 1. I was fortunate to make those Plaguebearers immune to Battleshock because Walter’s rebuttal was swift, nearly clearing the tavern of the 20 Plaguebearers at the bottom of turn 1. On my turn, my Hellcannon shot down his Weirdnob, and I continued to shift my lines around, preparing for the inevitable bloodbath when he made it to me. I moved a unit of Blightkings along each tavern flank to meet his two elite units head on, as other units moved up to the door to try get into the tavern. Even though they had been buffed with Lord of War (+1 to hit, thus exploding hits on 5+), I don’t think either of us was expecting much from the 5 Blightkings against his 6 Ironguts when they rolled up. Well, that was until Unpredictable Destruction dropped on them, adding another +1 to hit, making their attacks explode on a 4+). Twenty six confirmed wounds later and his Irongut unit has been cut in half by the lowly Blightkings. This turn of events was symptomatic of the game as a whole. Just as the dice fell my way with the Grail Token and the Blightkings, so too would it continue as the turns progressed. My models continued to pile into the tavern each turn as the two units of five Blightkings went toe to toe with his Leadbelchers and Ironguts. Even when the Blightkings on the Ironguts were cut down, Belakor moved up on that flank and made short work of the remaining Irongut, as well as the Ironjawz Megaboss that charged in. Did I mention how good Belakor is? The reality is that Walter’s Ogres never actually made it to my side of the tavern. Those in the tavern took heavy hits from the Hellcannon and my adjacent attacking units whittled down the wounds round by round. When the grind was all said and done, I walked away with a 20 – 0 win, including my secret objective to kill his highest pointed hero or monster. Despite the big win, it was really the table combined with bad rolling that was to blame for his loss. He played fantastically given the circumstances. I look forward to (and dread a little bit) our next game where things will be a little bit more evenly matched.

At the prompting of my Warhammer Weekly cohost, I was grudged for my first game by one of our viewers. I picked the Endless Desert table because of my love of Tomb Kings, although this was a bad move given Justin’s force. Justin brought a regenerating ghoul-heavy Ghoul Patrol Flesheater force to a board whose primary objective was shoving the most bodies into an endless pit. It also had a split deployment and a random placement for the secondary objective, which was a difficult setup for my bubble-wrapped artillery heavy Nurgle infantry force. Good times. Despite the uphill battle, I gambled with my placement bunkering into a back corner of the board and planned on sending out Sayl’d infantry blocks into the swirling endless pit of sand while Be’lakor and a token force screened one of his Crypt Horror blocks and three heroes on the far end of the table. My deployment was: 140 Harbinger of Decay - Harbinger Gulgath the Pustulant
 240 Be’lakor, Chaos Daemon Prince
 160 Sayl the Faithless
 120 Chaos Sorcerer Lord on Chaos Steed (Nurgle)
 180 5 Putrid Blightkings
 180 5 Putrid Blightkings 120 20 Chaos Marauders (Nurgle) w/Full Command and Icon – Axe/Shield 60 10 Chaos Marauders (Nurgle) w/Full Command and Icon – Axe/Shield 100 10 Plaguebearers of Nurgle 300 Hellcannon
 180 Plagueclaw 200 Reinforcement Pool (20 Plaguebearers and 10 Chaos Furies as possibilities) Justin smartly took first turn, with an opening 9” charge, crashed a 30 strong unit of ghouls into my front line of unbuffed and quite surprised marauders. After suffering some significant casualties I responded by Sayl-ing (face it, it’s a verb now) that block of marauders, which I retreated out of combat and shoved them into the swirling sands at the center, quite surprisingly (to Justin) leaving my artillery sparsely defended. When a unit touched the sands, a die was rolled for each model. On a 6, they were removed and scored a point, on 1 they were killed. Remaining models were set up 9” away from the enemy on a portion of the table based on another roll. I noticed that rolls of 2 and 5 allowed you to be set up in the panel with the storm, so you could literally reset up again the sandstorm and start the process all over again. To the surprise of both Justin and myself, I rolled three 2 and/or 5s in a row, so I kept throwing this unit (which I had made battleshock immune) into the sands. What popped out the other side was me scoring 4 points (from the 12ish marauders I threw in there) and one guy remaining standing. I charged my 10 Plaguebearers into the gap with the remaining Ghouls and they held firm. On the other flank of my artillery, my 5 blightkings charged in and blew up a small unit of 10 ghouls while Belakor and his Blightkings moved to intercept the Crypt Horror plus hero pack on the other side of the table. Be’lakor was able to sit on terrain for this combat, which helped in significantly in the rounds to come. The Hellcannon put some wounds on the enemy Varghulf Courtier general. I was able to kill Justin’s general in turn 2 with the Hellcannon, and despite an initial weak showing, Be’lakor was able to lock down the enemy unit on the far end for two more turns of combat, including killing his Crypt Haunter Courtier in single combat (while being swarmed by Crypt Ghouls). I had Be’lakor’d (also now a verb) his second block of 30 ghouls with Dark Master so that stopped their ability to move towards the swirling sands in turn two. My plaguebearers plus the nearby Blightkings easily cleared out the 30-ghoul unit near my artillery. I caught another break when the secondary grail objective dropped in an adjacent portion of the board to my bunker, right on top of his other six Crypt Horror unit. This provided him incentive to hold his unit on that objective so that the Grail Objective didn’t move to another quadrant. While the rest of his troops were locked down or trying to get into the sands, I was able to move my remaining infantry forces up towards the objective threatening it about 9” out (while scoring was only 6” out). Justin had to make a hard decision at this point. If he stayed on the point, I would simply move up on the objective in the last turn and claim it with more models. If he went first, he wouldn’t even have the chance of killing any of my troops. If he charged, he would have to leave the objective bubble itself and risk not scoring it as well. He made the bold decision to charge forward, try to kill my somewhat sparse force (5 Blightkings, Harbinger of Decay, Mounted Sorcerer Lord, and the one remaining marauder from the prior 20 block). This was of course a trap. By luring his horrors out, he moved off the point enough so that I was able to have Sayl (who was sitting on Arcane terrain 10” back from this front line) triple-diced a Summon Plaguebearers, dropping 20 Plaguebearers, which conga-lined behind his line and onto the objective. The remains of his 30 block of Ghouls did drop into that quadrant after entering the sands a second time but it was too little too late to shift the 20 plaguebearers off the point. It was a hard fought game with him unsurprisingly grabbing the primary objective (7 points) and with myself accomplishing the secondary grail objective (6 points), my secret objective (Killing more heroes than he did, 4 points), and ending the game with more units still deployed than he did (3 points). Game 2 was against Walter Duncan (who Vince and I three-way tied him and his teammate for best overall at Holy Havok) and his ogres in a drinking contest on Bugman's table.