Quake City Rumble – Round 1 – Chris Watson – Warriors of Chaos

Mission: Staking Your Claim

Deployment: Meeting Engagement

Special Rules: Person traveling farthest places first terrain and it must be a hill in the center (giving the local the real advantage of first real choice – LOL).  Traveller gets +1 to go first

Bonus Points: 2 for having more models on the center of the hill.  1 for destroying largest enemy unit, by model count.  1 for keeping highest point core unit alive and not fleeing.

The List:

Daemon Price, General, Mark of Nurgle, Daemonic Flight, Level 2 Wizard, Lore of Nurgle, Dawnstone, Nurgle’s Rot, Scaled Skin, Flaming Breath, Soul Feeder

Sorcerer, Mark of Tzeentch, Lore of Tzeentch, Level 2, Disc of Tzeentch, Talisman of Endurance, Chaos Familiar

Exalted Hero, Mark of Tzeentch, BSB, Shield, Tormentor Sword, Talisman of Preservation, Third Eye of Tzeentch
Exalted Hero, Mark of Tzeentch, Warrior Bane, Shield, Armor of Fortune

35 Chaos Warriors, full command, Shields

6 Dragon Ogres, great weapons

8 Chaos Ogres, mark of Nurgle, musician, champion, great weapons

I saw this list and my heart skipped a beat.  Could I be so lucky as to face a block army in the first round?  Then I looked at the mission and was less happy.  Stringing out warriors and I was blocked in that corner and never getting out.  3+ armor and a 6+ ward save (and a good thing I didn’t need to fight them with a 5+ parry).  How would I kill that?  And then on the last turn, reforming on center, placing that entire unit right on the center hill.  Ouch.  Lucky for me my opponent hadn’t seen my style of list and the tactic didn’t occur to him.  I did give him my URL, so maybe I just screwed myself out a win for next time.  Note:  this block the center tactic on meeting engagement was what I did to Justin when I played his Wood Elf version with my Tower skaven… the game that inspired me to make this army.

As I said in that previous post, there was likely no chance to take the hill in this mission.  My largest unit is only 10 models with a character, and I doubted I would be so strong as to be able to put my entire army in one position and then not die or have to flee them all off.  So knowing this my goal was to just go for the last point, keeping my unit alive… very doable.  Of course this would also mean that my opponent was getting the +3 easy, and maybe even the +4 if got his chosen shade unit.

But I still needed to get points off this army, and I knew that the magic would take its toll and that the breath weapon would mean 1 dead unit (or an easily cleaned up with magic later on unit).  I needed to kill the Prince and the Disc, and fast.  Their points will probably make up for the amount of damage they would be able to do before they died, so I needed a unit as well.  With chaos armor the Ogres were a touch nut, and with 4 wounds and heavy armor the dragon ogres didn’t look much better.  I knew not to waste my time on the warriors.  I decided on the Ogres, with 6 less wounds – I figured the math was fairly close given the armor saves.

Chris is a Texas player.  He let me know he hadn’t played much since the last Alamo (November 2012) and that he wasn’t that familiar with his new book.  It showed some, such as not knowing how the marks had changed and no knowing the ads for his lore (+T/W for nurgle and extra dice for tzeentch).  This rules knowledge only hurt him a little though, I think he missed a few extra power dice.  His list was defiantly not optimal, with the 3+ rerolling ward on foot and not the disc, but then if he had done the things needed to optimize he wouldn’t have been anywhere near my 6 comp.  Once he got a good look at my army he wasn’t happy, and let the judge know every time he walked by.  He was great to me though, and made it clear he didn’t begrudge my army selection, just being paired against the paper to his rock on the first round.

For spells he took Curse of the Leper and Rancid Visitation on his prince, with his sorcerer taking Firestorm, Treason and Infernal Gateway.  Three nasty spells for me as Ivan (the judge) ruled that Treason activated mount leadership even though it doesn’t specifically make mention of mounts and the general rule book says never use mounts.  I would have hoped that it would have to specify overriding a rule, otherwise the lowest within the rule could be an effective ruling.  It would make a Skaven unit leadership 0 if there was a bell involved.  Nasty when paired with death magic.

I took Spirit Leech, Caress, Soul Blight, Doom and Darkness, and Purple Sun on death and Searing Doom and Golden Hounds on my metal wizard.

For the meeting engagement, Chris took first turn and deployed his entire army – no 1s. I only rolled a single 1, on a unit of harpies. Chris deploys his warriors center as expected with both walking characters. He then flanks them with the dragon ogres on the left and the nurgle ogres on the right. The flyers go behind. I spread out my cavalry, two on the left/center and three on the right. I want to be able to focus on those ogres, but not to the point where he will be able to encircle my army in a corner. By splitting I do lose some effectiveness in the short term, but confuse his options and allow myself to wrap around –good in the long term. I was hoping the two left units could get around and start peppering the flyers. I put the characters in the back center, away from his flyers and with plenty of room to run as needed. I then put both shades in the back to bring the assassin to the characters quickly. I vanguard towards the right back board edge, and keep my bonus unit in my backfield on left (center?).

I was not able to roll the 6 to go first.

 

The first thing Chris does is take those two flyers and move them into position to whack the shades.  He also advances slightly in the center.  On a mighty 12/6 magic phase (not a good way for me to start the tournament), he starts with rancid visitation on his objective shades.  I dispel it.  He then casts gateway on the other unit of shades and bowls the mighty double 6s.  4 hits, phew… but then he rolls a 12 for strength, allowing him to add another 6 hits, all of which are strength 10.  He only rolls 1 1, and I pick up the unit without even being able to reveal the assassin.  He loses 2 dice and the caster ward saves his wound and doesn’t go into the warp on his cascade (he forgets at this point that he should add two dice to his pool for the 6s that caused the miscast).  I dispel the final spell which has only 1 die rolled versus my 3 (I rolled really high, so I think even had he gotten the two dice I would have likely dispelled anyways).  The daemon prince then burps over the other unit, killing 6 and panicking the shades.

On my turn 1 the unit rallies and the assassin pops out.  The unit is now standing smack dab in between the daemon prince and the caster.  I face the daemon prince (a mistake it turns out as it seems he wasn’t facing my unit, despite having just breathed on them…very strange).  I move around on both sides.  The harpies just sort of sit there.  This is my first game with them and I haven’t quite figured out what to do with them.  I don’t bring on the second unit.  I get a 9/6 magic phase, throw 2 for Power of Darkness and get 4 for my trouble (11/6).  I attempt to spirit leech the lesser hero but he makes his wardsaves.  I caress the same guy but roll snakes.  I then fail to cast soulblight – yay for magic.  My metal wizard then bowls 2 dice for power of darkness and gets to back (still 11/6).  I golden hounds the same character, he makes all his look out sirs and I kill 3 warriors.  In shooting a put a wound on the dragon ogres and 8 on the ogres.

On Chris’ turn 2 he has no charges, but does dance with me a little.  Later he would inform me of the facing of the prince (which I think was a mistake on his part) and that he didn’t feel that his caster could take the assassin in the rear (also I think a mistake with that 4+ ward save).  At the time I make note of this lack of charge and hypnotize that he just thinks he can clear me off with magic.  He rolls a 7/4 magic phase (and realizes when checking his spells that he forgot those dice from the last turn).  I throw all my dice to dispel rancid on the shades and scroll gateway at the same target.

My turn 2 and I pass all my march tests.  I bring on the unit of harpies on the left side.  I roll a 10/7 magich phase.  I roll 2 at PoD for +4 (12/7).  I spirit leach and do 3 wounds to an ogre.  He dispels soul blight on the ogres.  I do 1 wound to ogres with caress, which takes off a model.  He then dispels Hounds on the daemon prince.  In shooting I do 1 wound to the prince with the dark riders (take that 2+ rerollable with 5+ ward).  I also put 9 more wounds on the ogres, leaving 1 model.  I put 2 wounds on the dragon ogres and kill the flyer with the assassin (awesome!).

His turn 3 and he dances with me some more, trying to block me off from getting around and setting up a kill zone with his prince.  He also moves the Ogre back to the fence to try to keep it alive.  This does mean that he has allowed his right flank to collapse though, opening up a big hole and all the access to the prince I could crave.  He gets 6/4 magic phase.  I allow the ogre to go up +2T as I have plenty of shooting a magic to focus on him.  I then dispel rancid on the shades.

My turn 3 and no charges.  I only get a 4/3 magic phase.  I 2 dice PoD for +3 (5/3).  He dispels Spirit Leech on the ogre.  My metal wizard breaks even on her PoD (5/3) and I do 1 wound to the ogre with searing doom.  I put 2 wounds on the prince with the assassin, and the shades follow up and sneak the last wound through the three save rolls.  I put another 2 wounds on the dragon ogre and knock the ogre off the table.  Also, due to the dragon ogres having turned around, I put a unit of harpies in front of them to feed them so they can’t even attempt the long charge into the rear of my cluster of dark riders going after the prince.

On Chris’ turn 4 he charges and kicks off the harpies.

On my turn 4 I encircle what is left of his army and plan to push the warriors off the hill to which they have become entrenched.  I roll a 6/3 magic phase.  I 2 dice PoD for 3 back (7/3).  I put Doom on the warriors, and get nothing for a spirit leech.  I fail to cast Soul Blight.  During shooting my breath weapon puts 1 wound on the BSB after failing his look out sir and kills 5 measly warriors.

Chris’ turn 5 and all he does is dispel the doom.  He does start to move his warriors, but I advice him that the hill is worth bonus points and he decides to forsake chasing his attackers.

My turn 5 and knowing it’s the last turn I sneak 1 harpy barely onto the hill.  I roll a 9/5 magic phase, double 6 searing doom, putting a wound on the metal wizard and losing 5 dice.  I end my own phase another double 6 is the only way I could cast a spell and I don’t’ want it that bad.  I shoot the warriors but don’t even cause a panic test.

I finish up with a strong win, but only +1 points, with him getting a hard loss but with +3 points.  Not reflective of the match in terms of points, but good enough.

Chris was a fun opponent.  While he complained to the judge for the match up, I never felt that he was actually upset with me for the list.  He seemed to know that it was a valid list.  I did here later that he played the triple terrorgeist list that scored a massive 1 composition score.  That one he was complaining about it even being allowed at the event at all.  I guess on turn 1, the three together screamed 23 of the 24 wounds of the ogres and by turn 3 had cleaned up the warriors as well.  I wish him luck and hope to play him again one day… preferably not when he is just getting back into things, but when he is at his peak as I imagine he is a good player who was just out of practice facing a rough match up.  Lastly, Chris did end up winning Best Painted and the best large model paint award.  His army was beautiful.