Adepticon Singles – Round 3 – Brian Moyer – Warriors of Chaos

Brian is a nice guy.  We haven’t played before but we first met at WaaaghPACA where he and I both temped as LD2 for the weekend.  He has been on the USA European Team Championships and we talked about it then and at Adepticon as I had previously been in discussion about joining the 2013 team (I won’t be).  Brian is also a former 1^st place RankingsHQ fantasy player before the dissolution.

Besides the team event the day before I hadn’t really seen the new Chaos warrior book, and with the exception of the spell list I don’t feel it effected the game.  I was vaguely familiar with how the Daemon Prince and Chimeras worked and everything else I assumed was the same – and they are for the most part.

The Mission:

Deployment – Blood & Glory
Special rules – One core fortitude unit gains vanguard, and allow the characters inside to vanguard.
Victory – Blood & Glory
Bonus Battle – 2 points for destroying the vanguarding unit, 1 point for each fortitude you kill.

This mission didn’t have a big deal for us.  All of the units we could nominate already vanguarded, Brian said his characters either couldn’t join a unit (monster) or already vanguarded (steed of slannash) and I didn’t want to put my characters into a unit to get the vanguard and risk them getting forced to panic turn 1 from a lucky hell cannon shot killing dark riders.

Daemon Prince, general, Magic Level 3, Lore of Death, Mark of Nurgle, Chaos Armor, Daemonic Flight, Warrior Bane, Charmed Shield, Dragonbane Gem, Scaled Skin, Flaming Breath, Soul Feeder

Sorcerer, level 2, lore of slannash, mark of slannash, steed of slannash, enchanted shield, chaos familiar

Exalted Hero, bsb, steed of slannash, dragonhelm, dawnstone, ironcurse icon

8 Marauder Horsemen, musician, standard bearer, mark of slannash, flail, and javelin

8 Marauder Horsemen, musician, standard bearer, mark of slannash, flail, and javelin

8 Marauder Horsemen, musician, standard bearer, mark of slannash, flail, and javelin

5 Warhounds, poisoned attacks, vanguard

5 Warhounds, vanguard

Chimera, flaming breath, regenerating flesh

Chimera, flaming breath, regenerating flesh

6 Hellstriders of slannash, musician, standard bearer

Hellcannon

 

At first glance I didn’t think this list would give me problems.  Low model count, low toughness and the lack of need in killing the monsters for points due to Blood and Glory.  I figured I just needed to do 30 wounds to T3/5+ Armor to win as I got to ignore both the general and the BSB.  I wish he had champions as that would have knocked of 4 wounds.  We also had the same amount of fortitude, and with his 3 units of 8 he had 3 more wounds on his units (but worse shooting).

For Spells the daemon prince got Doom and Darkness, Spirit Leech and Soulblight.  His Level 2 with familiar took Hysterical Frenzy, Cacophonic Choir and Phantasmagoria.  I rolled up Searing Doom and Blades of Albian on my level 2 and my general took Spirit Leech, Caress, Soulblight, Doom and Darkness and Purple Sun (for if I really needed to kill the Chimeras and because it’s better than Aspect).

For deployment Brian fairly clustered in the right flank, or at least as much as he could with terrain and area restriction.  He put a unit of Dogs and Horseman on the left, and the rest on the right, horseman, hellstriders, horseman with the price and chimeras behind.  The hellcannon when in the right-ish corner and both the characters on horse went into the hellstriders.  The Slannash number is 6 and these were 8 (even the hellstriders after characters).  This hurt me in my fluffy bone.

For my deployment I went will my standard deployment, hydras center and the dark riders spread out.  I put a unit of shades hard on the right and another back center.  We then traded off with the vanguarding, though he didn’t move much on the right (just shifting the dogs).

We rolled off and I finally got the first turn.

I advance strongly, but being sure to stay out of charge range of the chimeras.  I do move the shades on the right into range of the daemon prince charge.  I was willing to see what the assassin could do with a stand shoot and an always strikes first.  I open up with a strong 10/7 magic phase.  I put enchanted blades on the shades and a Doom and Darkness on a unit of horseman.  At this point, due to closed lists, I didn’t know if they were slannash.  I knew they didn’t have either of the slannash looking characters and that the Prince was nurgle (based on appearance) so it wasn’t mono g-d.  I didn’t look at their banners or I would have known.  Anyways, I put doom on them looking for a panic.  I then drop the left unit to 1 model. And the right unit to 2 and blow away the center unit.  I also shoot the dogs on the right, which panic and flee.  So drop the horseman from 24 models to 3 models.  That leaves me 9 models from win.

On Brain’s turn 1 the dogs on the right run off the table.  His units back off except for the 3 monsters which move up to drop their flames, chimeras on the shades and the prince on a dark rider unit.  He tries to hid his remaining horseman.  His 8/5 magic phase sees me scrolling a spirit leech on my general.  He fails to cast soulblight and ends his phase.  He kills 3 dark riders in the center with the flame and they pass their test.  On the left he kills 6 shades, they then panic and move through the terrain, taking enough dangerous terrain tests to drop the unit to needing snakes to rally.  On the right he also kills 6 shades but I hold.  The hell cannon hits my general, who passes his save.

On my turn 2 the left hydra fails to charge the chimera.  I move into shooting position.  In a 6/5 magic phase Brian fails to dispel PoD but I don’t gain any extra dice.  I then cast searing doom and knock 2 wounds onto the right chimera.  He dispels soulblight.  I then 1 die PoD on level 4, and then cast Spirit leech, but on a unit out of my arch (oops!).  I kill off the left rider unit and 2 hell striders.  5 models to go.

On Brian’s turn 2 and he goes for a hail mary.  He hides the last banner only horseman behind the hellcannon on the right.  His hellstrider unit with characters moves up hard into the center of the board and my army.  He charges a unit of shades with the hellcannon, and I flee also panicing a unit of dark riders.  On a 4/3 magic phase he rolls all his dice at the bubbled Cacophonic Choir.  I fail to dispel and my jaw drops.  So far I have lost 3 models of 24 needed to break (assuming he kills my units).  The one spell kills off the fleeing assassin and shades, 3 dark rider unit, does 1 wound to my BSB, kills my general and does a wound to my center hydra.  So already he has gotten 3 of the 4 fortitude needed.  I look at the table and see that his Prince and chimera had moved around my army.  Not moves that would normally have bothered me as I would have just moved out of the line of sight.  But the Cacophonic Choir removing my ability to move, also removed my ability to not have my characters die on Brian’s turn 2.  I saw that I had basically been level 6’d spell, in that I was about to lose the game just because of the casting of 1 spell.  Suffice it to say, I was not happy.

On my turn 3 and I saw one chance to win.  I needed to pick up the solo horseman and kill 4 hellstriders.  The Hydra needed a 2 on his random movement to charge the hellstriders.  Unfortunatly it would be into the flank and the unit had the BSB on flank.  That was fine, it was a tougher target, but if I could kill him it would be the same as killing the unit.  Or if I could get the hellstriders to break I could get 2 points.  Or if I could kill the riders with the breath weapon and pick up the horseman.  I wasn’t out of the game yet.  I roll a 9/6 magic phase, and not wanting to risk it, roll it all on a large searing doom at that last horseman.  The spell goes without miscast and I kill him (thankfully he didn’t roll a miscast – I would have preferred one as the caster wasn’t worth any points).  The other hydra flames 3 dogs in order to take some terrain pieces.  The hydra combat goes, I put only 1 wound on the BSB and the breath weapon (after taking a wound is only strength 3) only kills 1 hellsteed.  He passes his test as I killed one less than I needed to cancel steadfast.  I am short either 1 wound on the bsb or 3 hellsteeds.

On his turn 3 I pop my egg in the hopes that my BSB may survive the charge from the Prince (in the rear) as I knew he would do his combat first and the BSB wouldn’t kill the Prince.  He picks of a Dark rider unit which is forced to flee from a terror test to the left chimera and roll poorly for their flee.  He rolls a 6/5 magic phase and rolls them all at the Cacophonic Choir which then kills the BSB.  We roll the combat anyways, and the BSB dies to the prince.  They hydra then whiffs sealing that even I couldn’t have won this turn.  A rough loss that was so close to being mine.  I strongly dislike things that remove your opponent’s ability to make choices – even bad choices (like charging chaff 1 inch away).

But if was to lose this weekend, losing to Brian was a good one to lose.  Brian would go on to win it all, making the loss even ‘better.’  I also got all 5 of the bonus battle points and 1 objective point, making my 5 point loss into an 11 point loss – and with 10 points base for a draw, I figured that was pretty good.