So this this is my first report using Battle Chronicler and by Khorne it is an ordeal to use! I find myself appreciating Wyddr’s reports even more so, now taking into account the time he puts in them! Somewhere along the way I totally messed up the whole battlefield and just gave up after putting down turn 3 in the program. I’ve taken some notes though so next time it should be easier.
This was a game of Sigmar between me and a mate of mine. It turned out that he had less than 1900 pts. in total and furthermore, in the excitement of the battle, we even forgot about choosing battle tactics, but whatever – it was good fun anyway. The main reason I decided to put this report down was to show how much terrain in Sigmar can affect the game (atleast MY game). When I’m the defender I like to arrange big open spaces so my cohorts can keep in formation as the Blades of Khorne’s power comes from begin close to their heroes (almost all their abilities require them to be fully within which is alot harder than being within!) and move in an ordered manner so they can receive their buffs. In the case when I’m the attacker I choose to be on the emptier part of the table so I can march ahead in formation and take position as soon as possible. Not this time, though...
The armies were as follows:
Blades of Khorne
Bloodmaster (Vulpaemon) - is the general and has the warlord trait that revives d3 bloodletters in each bloodletter unit in my hero phase + an additional dispel (Carved Nullstone or whatever)
Bloodsecrator – banner that gives re-roll to charges
Bloddthister of Insanate Rage – negates ward saves around him
Skarbrand
4 units of 10 bloodletters
2 units of 5 wrathmongers
Skull Altar
Wrathaxe
Sylvaneth
Warsong Revenant
Spiteswarm hive - gives +3" to move and charge
6 Kurnoth Hunters
3 units of 5 tree-revenants
Spirit of Durthu
Tree Lord Ancient
Sylvaneth Wyldwoods
I even whipped myself into writing a short pre-battle story:
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Vulpaemon’s warhost has been marching through the frozen woods without rest following a distant call to war - one he was following since the clash he was summoned to fight in ended. His daemons have slaughtered the paltry remains of the mortals, that have summoned him, days ago and now only the daemon possessed wrathmongers and the bearer of the icon that gave him hold upon this realm remained marching along them. The daemon cohort was furios and on the brink of falling upon each other and Vulpaemon felt their anger himself - no blood, no fighting, no enemy only this maddening warsong that thrummed in the air and promised a worthy fight nearby. But where was the battle that this cursed song has been promising? Trees upon hill after hill – frozen tundra as far as the eye could see. Could it be a trick summoned to draw him away from by a cowardly yet cunning mage?
Suddenly, an opening presented itself - it was as if the trees themselves parted. There across the clearing was the origin of the song – a spindly tree – man now looking at them with mockery and disdain. The song stopped as the tree-thing lowered the flute from his mouth and an altogether another song began playing. The trees became alive with swarms of tree spirits that fell upon his cohort tearing to pieces daemon and mortal alike. Green light flashed to the left and Vulpaemon turned just in time to witness the mayhem wrought by the war scythes of the Kurnothi hunters. He jerked to the righ - there were marching the towering collosi that were the Tree Lords of Alarielle. It was a trap ofcourse, a weaklings maneuver, but one that caught him in its net nevertheless.
His troops were being slaughtered by half-seen shadows that disappeared as soon as they have struck. There was just not enough space for his soldiers to fight effectively– the sylvaneth had led them to a slaughter house made of tree trunks and frozen ground. Retreat was unfathomable to a warrior of the Blood God, but as it was fighting was equally impossible. Vulpaemon could do nothing, but raise his sword to the cold sky and roar in frustration, in defience, in rage... Such are the prayers to Khorne – not a useless tirade of words neither crawling like a worm before a deity's idol as mortals did. No, the daemon priest of the Blood God scream out the injustice of being denied an honest fight and sometimes their cruel god takes their insult upong himself and answers.
The ground behind the daemon warhost split open, ice jutting upwards as an Altar of Khorne erupted with unbridled force. Something begun moving out of the crimson mist that crowned its pedestal, but before Vulpaemon could discern the shape a hurricane wind blew over them and shook the forest. The skies ripped open and a general of the Lord’s armies fell amidst his ranks. Not as a leader of men would join his warriors did the Bloothirster arrive. Khorne’s chosen have no pity for those too weak to fight beside them - a score of bloodletters were crushed under his titanic weight and several other fell to the swing of a great axe. It was an authority clear to each daemon present - follow or die and return to the Brass Citadel in shame.
And behind them... Skarbrand, Throne of Skulls! It was Skarbrand walking down the altar steps. The Blood God himself has made a proclamation – either they would reach the enemy and fight in His name or Skarbrand would reach the Bloodmaster and his cohort. Such is the aid that the Blood God gives - prove worthy of it and rise to a greater destiny or fail to do so and be purged from his sight as all weaklings should.
Vulpaemon would not fail.
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Mission was “The Icefields” or something – basically the ground beneath was a frozen lake, on which the sylvaneth chose to spring their trap on top of. Every time a unit runs or charges it would take mortal wounds – period. So there wasn’t going to be a lot of runnning today and my lines woul advance a bit slower – all good, with my ward save and contempt of sorcery I would be able to witstand 2 rounds of shooting and some spell flinging. Also there were 6 objectives on the field that gave points each turn, but who cares
We roll the dice, the sylvaneth player wins and chooses to be the defender. He then places several woods in the center and makes it so that both sides are rougly symmetrical thus negating any advantage I’d gain from choosing a side. We roll for mysterious terrain and all four pieces in the middle do mortal wounds and I’d have to go near them at some point or another – still all is good as some mortal wounds here and there shouldn’t weak my phalanxes too much. I could still revive d3 per unit per turn.
Deployment
My opponent drops all his army as a single unit using the rule of his battalion (thus securing first turn in the first battle round) and chooses the three central woods to be his awakened forests (he can teleport units from and near them if there is no enemy unit within 9"). Basically he barricades himself as far away as possible from me and I know what he’s up to. He’ll cast a spell that does a lot of mortal wounds to each unit in a certain distance and then teleport Durthu to try and kill something in combat (which he can certainly do) and then teleport him away. At the same time I’m expecting some tree revenants in my rear as they can teleport as well, but I’ve set my sight firmly on the revenant across the table and on the two tree lords which was a big mistake. It wasn’t the Tree Lords that brought the most hurt – it was the Kurnoth Hunters which have such a long reach, heal themselves every phase and generally do a lot of damage.
I don’t have a lot of options when deploying my army. I’d have to go around and between the woods to reach the center and hopefully I’d be able to clear the distance in two turns. I had to protect Skarbrand (because he just isn’t that good when engaged early) and the bloodthirster from an early charge and arrange my bloodletters as to be in range to both the wrathmongers, the Bloodmaster and the Bloodsecrator and to be as close to the woods as possible as to deny any forestwalking tricks.
Deployment 1Deployment 2Deployment 3Deployment 4Round 1
Sylvaneth
In his fist turn my opponent summons the spiteswarm hive behind his hill and tries to give Durthu +3 to charge… and fails. I can do nothing as I’m not in range to dispell it and have no blood points to react. What happens next is what set the pace of the entire game – he set an Awakened Wyldwood just between the two forests in my part of the table effectively leaving me with two 3” gaps through which to turtle my soldiers and grab mortal wounds from on top of it. Fantastic… Next comes his main performance – casting Summon spites with the Warsong Revenant, choosing to cast it through the wood he just summoned. Three bloodletter squads, Skarbrand , the wrathmongers and the Bloothirster would be affected, but that was OK,. In fact it was good for me because if I could trigger my Contempt for sorcery on atleast two units and thus generate 2 bloodpoints, this spell would never see the light of day (atleast in this game) again (BoK can auto-unbind for 2 BP). There is a workaround to that as primal dice in this season give the ability to make a spell unbindable , but at the risk of getting a lot of mortal wounds so my opponnent refrained from doing so right until the end…
So he kills several ‘letters with mortal wounds, chips some of the armor on Skarbrand and the Bloodthirster – nothing major, nut I also manage to generate just a single Bloord Point from my Contempt ability which means that if something does not die in my turn my horde would be dangerously diminished by the spell again as well as taking mortal wounds from terrain and running.
Next he teleports Durthu despite not having +3 to charge hoping to get an easy kill (bloodletter squad) and then teleport him back thus leaving him out of reach. He failed he charge and could not teleport back - he got greedy and overreached and I would take my vengeance on him!!! Also, as expected, he teleported a squad of revenants in my rear both as distraction and because , I think, his battle tactic was to have a unit in my deployment zone.
Sylvaneth Turn 1DurthuBlades of Khorne
I summon the wrathaxe behind my lines to chase off the pesky tree-revenants (they’ll teleport right away, but that’s the point) and brace myself for the tedious ordeal of squeezing the entire center of my army through 3 small openings… I order the bloodletters on my right flank on the double (and take some mortal wounds from falling through the ice) so I can free up space for Skarbrand. The other 2 bloodletters I move forward getting them into position along with the bloodthirster for a mass charge on Durthu. I also activated the once per battle ability of the bloodsecrator giving an extra attack to each of my units - I would take Durthu now or never. The bloodletters make it in , but the bloodthirster fails the relatively easy charge even with the re-roll. Durthu does a lot of damage, but in the end is dragged down to the avalanche of 5+ mortal wounds attacks of the blood letters. I gain my second BP and now can breathe a little easier!
Durthu is gone - onward my pretties!Round 2 - we roll for initiative and the Sylvaneth player wins, choosing to go first again (no one would have a double turn in this battle so the turn order stays the same)
Sylvaneth
My opponent is a man of unshakable resolve appraises the situation and continues on with his plan. First, he summons away the tree revenants in my rear to his side, then he summons another wood next to the bloodthirster further blocking the path of the bloddletter unit in my rear. He then manages to roll the needed 2 as to give the +3 “ to charge from the Hive and boosts his kurnothi hunters. He tries to cast his Summon spiteswarm spell , but now I have the blood points and just flat out unbind it. He teleports the Kurnothi next to the newly summoned wood, charges my bloodthirster and takes him out in one swing. Ouch! Atleast that gives me a blood point...
Blades of Khorne
I move my wrathaxe out of the table so I can summon it next turn and cast killer instinct on Skarbrand giving him extra movement. I also use a point to drive my bloodletters and wrathmonger forward by d6. Suddenly I’m in charge range to everything even though bloodletter numbers have dramatically fallen down. I manage to charge with Skarbrand (I always forget that he charges on 3d6 now, duh..) and 2 bloodletter squads. All is good except instead of targeting the really scary unit (the kurnothi) I chose to targer the Tree Lord just because he was .. big… Even with the tree revenants in fron of him I could reach him with Skarbrand (2” range on his axes) and take him out in one swing. I also manage to take out the tree revenant unit in the middle thus generating another 2 BP. Things were looking good! But not for long...
BT is gone, but the Skarbrand train has no brakesRound 3 – Sylvaneth goes first again
Sylvaneth
The sylvaneth player casts a regeneration spell on the Kurnothi and tries to pull of his Summon Spiteswarm spell again, but promptly met my Black Mama “Uh-Uuuh” finger waving and an automatic unbind by spending 2 blood points
The Kurnothi walk forward and take another big target (Skarbrand) in one swing showing me again which unit I should watch for… And that was it….
Blades of Khorne
I’m still trying to get the wrath mongers desperately into battle – just 1 more turn… Meanwhile I charge with my remaining bloodletters killing a squad f tree revenants while finishing off the revenants across the table engaged with my other bloodletters. Two of my units get promptly deleted by the Kurnothi but that brings me to a total of 5 BP which brings me into summoning territory!
Skarbrand is gone and these guys will be soon 
Here I managed to screw turn 4 and 5 in Battle Chronicler so I'll recap turn 4 and 5 and upload some pictures of the table and call it a day!
During Round 4 the Kurnothi are teleported AGAIN and almost manage to take down the wrathmongers, but are held in place for a summon of my own - a squad of Bloodletters who join the fray and charge the Kurnothi while the latter are being pounded into the ground by the again summoned Wrathaxe. Round 5 sees as wrapping up combats and ... taking a bit of rest
Round 4And wrapping upMy opponent insists that Khorne won the day, but it is really hard to call it a victory. I fought against an army that had roughly 150 points less then me, was denied proper maneuvering all the while being picked off 1 unit a time by the Kurnothi. I'm not sure at all who won the day
