This past weekend I played in a 2000pt AoS event at the Sword and Brush miniature convention. I brought my Clan Skyre, Skaven, running the same list I brought to Capital City Bloodbath.
Missions were a combination of Rulebook and General’s Handbook missions.
Game 1, vs Stormcast Eternals.
Fellow’s name is Thomas, nice guy. I don’t remember the specifics of his list. I know he had a battalion in his army.
Lord-Arcanum on Tauralon
Knight-Incantor
Knight-Vexillor
Knight-Heraldor
Evocators x5
Evocators x10
Sequitors x10
Sequitors x5
Sequitors x5
Everblaze Comet
He placed the 10 man Evocator unit in Azyr.
Mission was Scorched Earth, which is, admittedly, a tough mission for me.
I gave him the first turn.
This game I lost in deployment and in the first turn.
I wasn’t aware of how quickly he could move his units, with the buffs his units gave each other. Stormcasts have a million heros, so it’s hard to keep track of what each of them do. Needless to say, he was able to charge across the table with a heavily boosted unit of Sequitors, evaporate my one unit of Stormfiends and then burned one of my objectives for 3vp’s.
So, he was now going to gain 3vps a turn, and I could only gain 2, and he was ahead by 3. Great.
Turn 2, he was able to burn another one of my objectives for 3vps, which pretty much sealed the game.
In the end, he had 18vps, to my 9. But, in kill points it wasn’t as far off. He killed off my whole army but a unit of Acolytes (so he gained around 1800pts in units killed), but I took out between 1300-1500pts of his army. If only my army fought as hard as they did in the first few turns, as opposed to the latter.
Best parts of the game for me, was a unit of Giant Rats, sneaking up and burning one of his objectives, and my (crippled), army killing off his 10 man unit of Evocators in one turn. Booya!
So, game 1 was a loss.
Game 2 was against a friend of mine, Mathias.
He was running Grand Alliance Chaos, but all of the units will be in the future ‘Beasts of Chaos’ book.
Beastlord
X2 Bray Shamans
Tzzangor Shaman
X3 skyfires
X3 units of Gors
X1 Ungor Raiders
X1 unit of 20 Beasigors
X10 Chaos Hounds
Cygor
Manticore
Jabberslythe
We were playing 3 Places of Power, which is a mission I enjoy (as well as the two variations on it), as my Verminlord, and Arch Warlock are rather tough.
As usual in missions like this, I planned to ignore one objective, and focus on two others. My army hates spreading out. I focused on the middle and far right.
I chose to take the first turn, as taking the objectives first in this mission is very important.
Br1
Verminlord summoned two units of giant rats as a screen, and then I ran him, and my shooty Stormfiends onto the right objective. Arch Warlock and cannons and such focused on moving towards the middle, and my melee-fiends threatened the far left.
He charged into my Gaint Rats wall with two units of gors, who totally wiffed (I think they killed two rats). Skyfires focused fire onto my Acolytes. My spellcasters denyed most of the spells he tried to cast.
Skyre 1 Beasts 0
BR2
He stole the initiative.
Beastigors and Beastlord sat on the middle objective, one of the Brayshamens hopped onto the far left. Chaos Hounds joined the combat against the rats. Jabberslythe charged the Melee-fiends, and the Cygor threw a big rock at my Verminlord, doing 6 wounds. Ouch.
Beastigors killed off one unit of Giant rats, but my other giant rats.
Chaos Hounds didn’t kill any rats, Stormfiends, Rats, and Verminlord finished off the Chaos Hounds and Gors, through a combination of attacks and battleshock. Turns out, Giant Rats are better fighters than Chaos Hounds ha ha.
Jabberslythe was killed by my melee-fiends easily, but it’s toxic blood did 18 mortal wounds back into my unit, killing them.
In my turn, the stormfiends and my Arc-warlock charged into the bestigors and Beastlord, my arch warlock took down the Brayshamen, while the stormfiends clubbed a bunch of beastigors to death. This was after my cannons shot-dead one of his Bray-Shamans, and took a bunch of wounds off his Cygor. In the end, I stole the middle objective, and held the right.
Skyre 3 beasts 2
BR3
I took the initiative this turn. I finished off the Beastigors, Cygor and killed 2/3 Skyfires.
In his turn, the Manticore flew into one of my cannons and wall of giant-rats, along with the ungor raiders, and a unit of gors. He was able to kill the cannon, and all but two of the rats. His shaman and skyfire tried to work on finishing off my verminlord but didn’t succeed.
Skyre 9 Beasts 7
BR4/5
At this point, it was effectively just mopping up. Spells and shooting killed the manticore, and my remaining stormfiend unit fought back against the gors and ungors, without much trouble.
End score
Skyre 21 Beasts 11
In this mission, if you can get a hero onto an objective T1, and they never leave it, you’re in a very good place to succeed, as the VP’s can quickly snowball. Getting my Arch Warlock onto the middle turn 2, meant that I was going to do very well in this mission, and he’d never be able to catch up.
A win!
Game 3, against a beautiful Legions of Nagash army, commanded by Zack.
Grand Host of Nagash
Manfred
Wight King
X3 Necromancers
X4 Morgasts
X30 Graveguard
X3 units of Direwolves
This mission is total commitment. Another mission I am not a huge fan of, as it makes me spread out my army. One objective in each corner.
He deployed Manfred, and unit of Direwolves and the unit of Morgasts on my left, and everything else on the right, deployed behind the wall of Gaveguard. He placed his gravesites on each of the objectives.
I deployed my arch warlock, melee fiends, a cannon, warlock and a unit of acolytes on the left, and I had everything else on the right.
His plan obviously was to send Manfred and the morgasts to obliterate my left flank, and then pincer my right between the hard hitting monsters and the grave guard. amphetamine parrot.
BR1
I gave him the first turn (so he can run into ways of my guns). He kept his right flank held back, and rushed forwards both Manfred and the Morgasts. Direwolves clustered on objectives.
I desperately needed to kill either the Morgasts, or Manfred this turn, to have even a hope of winning this mission. I vigordusted the melee-fiends. One cannon fired into Manfred (twice), Arch Warlock cast his magic into Manfred and the melee-fiends and Archwarlock charged Manfred. When the dust settled, Manfred was dead.
On the right flank, the verminlord started summoning a protective wall of giant rats.
Skyre 2 Legions of Nagash 2
BR2
I won the initiative this turn. Much to both mine, and my opponents astonishment, my left flank killed the Morgats before they could even swing their weapons. On the right, I focused on sniping his characters. I moved my wall of models forwards, to create a bigger buffer between my, and his units.
Knowing he needs to take my right objective to have a chance at winning this game, Zack advances his forces. Graveguard charge into my rat-screen and stormfiends, killing one fiend, and all the rats.
Skyre 4, Legions of Nagash 4
BR3
He took the initiative this turn. Graveguard healed all their wounds, due to heros nearby and gravesites. Graveguard (with plenty of buffs), obliterated my remaining stormfiends on the right. He was also able to steal my home objective due to his Graveguard.
The Arch Warlock and Stormfiends charged (and killed) the direwolves guarding his left flank objective, my other units on the left/middle started rushing to the right. Shooting and spells saw one of the Necromancers killed, Soulsnare Shackles killed his wight king (which made his graveguard go from 4 attacks each, to 2). Verminlord happily kept chewing through graveguard with his Doomglave, stealing my objective back.
Skyre 9 Legions of Nagash 9
BR4
At this point, he was down to pretty much just the graveguard, and I was able to bring my cannons and firepower to bear. I killed off the last of his Necromancers, so he couldn’t rebuild his graveguard as quickly as before.
Game ended Turn 5, Skyre 18 to Legions of Nagash 12
Game 4, against Ironjaws!
He was running an Ironfist as part of the Bloodtooth battalion. Benefits of this, is everything but the mawcrusher can move D6” each battleround, and the whole army gets +2 to charges.
Warboss on Mawcrusher
Warboss
Warchanter
Allied Grot Shaman
X5 brute squads.
Chromatic Cogs
We were playing Scorched earth.
Br1
I took the first turn. Due to the speed of his army, I needed to create my screen of rats, and get some shots in before he charged me. I had stormfiends and acolytes on my flank objectives, and everything else surrounding my middle.
I shot to death his foot-warboss T1, and killed a brute. Not an ideal first turn of shooting. I also brought up my screen. Which, didn;’t matter, as he got +2 to all his charges, and he rolled crazy hot, basically charging my whole middle on the first turn. He killed both cannons and the motar immediately, before I could fight back. Verminlord rolled hot though, and killed three brutes on his own.
BR2
I shot and cast magic to do as much damage in the middle as I could. Arch Warlock and a warlock joined in the melee too, and they all did a good bit of damage. I burned my objective on the left flank for 2vps before it could be stolen.
His Warboss on Mawcrusher arrived and charge my acolytes and Stormfiends on my left flank. Although, his dice were cold and he didn’t really do much. Thankfully. In the middle the fighting continued hard. I had only the Warlock, Arch Warlock and Veminlord left.
On the right, his brutes charged into my shooty-fiends and acolytes, but rolled a bit cold as well.
Skyre 2 Ironjaws 0
Br3
This was probably the last turn my middle section would hold out. Verminlord threw his scry orb into a unit of Ironjaws, killing two. Magic and some shooting did some other damage. At the end of the combat, only a few ironjaws were left, but the Verminlord was down to 5 wounds, and the Arch Warlock and Warlock were down to 2 and 1 respectfully. My stormfiends on the right flank killed off the brutes they were fighting (grinderfists rolling well for once!) and I burned that objective for 4 vps.
In his turn, he finished off my middle, and the Warboss on mawcrusher finished off my stormfiends he was fighting. Also, my opponent forgot completely how this mission worked, and just charged me, which meant he was not gaining points to burn his objectives, so he quickly ran his grot shaman onto one.
Skyre 6 Ironjaws 0
Br 4
He stole the initiative, but it didn’t really do much, as I was too far away to get to, especially with the soulsnare shackles slowing him down.
In my turn, the stormfiends ran onto his far back right objective.
Skyre 6 Ironjaws 0
Br5
My opponent burned my middle objective, as well as his middle and far left for a total of 7vps
My stormfiends burned his back right objective for 2vps.
Skyre 8 Ironjaws 7
Also, he killed 1430pts of my army, and I only killed 560pts of his ha ha. I almost conceded the game when he got the double turn, as the game seemed hopeless. But, I kept playing and tried to make a game of it. Turned out, I saw how my opponent neglected the mission to (rather successfully), murder my army, and by playing for the mission I was able to squeak out a narrow win.
This game really refreshed in my mind how important it is to keep playing, no matter how bleak things look. Sometimes you can still pull through. Just gotta play for the mission.
In the end, I placed third best overall! Behind Maggotkin of nurgle (lead by three great unclean ones), and a Kharadron Overlords army in second place.
I felt pretty good about even placing in the top three at all. All the games I’ve played and practice are really starting to pay off! Helps when you don’t change your list, so you get used to what your units can do.
Here are some of the armies I saw at the event.