Turn 1The Nighthaunt have the first turn. Since we're playing Open Play, there are no battle tactics to worry about. The Guardian of Souls uses Spirit Lure to replace some Reapers that were casualties from a previous battle, and that was it. All of his army moved closer to the center of the board, but nobody got in charge range. He currently holds the SW and SE objectives; I hold the center.
Top of Turn 1
Reapers in the East!Revenants in the West!In the bottom of turn 1, I develop my central strategy for the game, which I call the Schlieffen Plan, after the ill-fated German strategy of the same name in WW1 - I will SMASH one flank quickly and then turn everything back against the other flank.
I decide the west flank - the one with the Knight of Shrouds - needs to die first. My general uses the Blood Taunt to pull the hapless ghost 9" closer to my lines and then I throw Tendrils of Atrophy on him. Then I charge him with the Cockatrice, the 20 Gors, and 10 Gors I summon with the Brayblast Trumpet. I hit him with ~36 attacks and watch him pass basically all his saves or wards so that, in the end, I do a grand total of 2 wounds. He recovers one of those after killing 6 of the summoned Gors and then explodes thanks to Spiteful Spirit, doing another 1 mortal wound to literally all the units over there. Ouch. Most of the summoned Gors return thanks to Bestial Might, but my pride is still bruised.
Meanwhile, I run the ungors SW to claim the objective while the Tzaangor Shaman and his Enlightened smack into the chainrasps and Revenants. I kill the chainrasps in short order, and, thanks to the Spirit Hosts piling in, I kill the rest of
them, too, thanks to the potent attacks of the Enlightened. I don't do very much to the revenants, killing 1-2, and they in turn take out 2 Enlightened.
Bottom of Turn 1
I prepare my attackThis guy will NOT go downTzaangors vs RevenantsMy general looks on from a safe distanceTurn 2In the second turn, the Nighthaunt keep the initiative and go first. While all the ghosts in the east keep closing in my direction, the Revenants retreat and charge at the Enlightened, killing all but the champion, losing only 1 of their own to counterattacks. The Knight of Shrouds, meanwhile, retreats from the grand melee and then charges my defenseless general. I have him redeploy closer to the cockatrice, but the damn thing misses for the second time in a row and then my Great Bray Shaman is carved right up. The Knight of Shrouds now has a wound characteristic of 7, coupled with Spiteful Spirit, which makes him uncommonly deadly (6" moral wound bubble is INSANE).
Top of Turn 2
Edging Closer...Not pictured: my general's bloody corpseThe Enlightened just barely hold on.The gors hacked and stomped and flailed at the looming spirit, but to no avail. Kraggoth felt his blood chill and the crimson specter passed right through the wall of muscle and bone and steel that was his army and confront him.
"Now..." the thing whispered, "you will taste death."
Kraggoth snorted, spreading his arms and awaiting the inevitable. "Neither of us are quite so lucky as that. Do your worst."At the bottom of turn 2, I've got the Knight of Shrouds locked (insofar as any Nighthaunt unit is "locked") in combat with my summoned gors. It is becoming time to shift my attention eastwards.
I need to lock down the west first, though. The Tzaangor Shaman lays down the Twisting Curse on the Revenants, killing 5, and then hits them with an Arcane Bolt, killing another 1. Betting his attacks can handle the last one, I fall back with the Enlightened with the intention of rallying them next turn, and I throw a bunch of ungor spears at the last ghost. The spears don't work, but the Tzaangor Shaman's attacks do, knocking out the last of my opponent's units over there.
Meanwhile, the Cockatrice, gor herd, and the ambushing Bestigors smack into the meat of the other Nighthaunt flank. I wipe out the chainrasps thanks in large part to 2" range hacking blades for the gors. Then my bestigors focus on the reapers. After 21 all-out attacks, I manage to kill...2. Just 2. Jeez.
Also, the summoned gors keep hacking at the Knight of Shrouds, only to
almost get wiped out, but they regenerate back to about 6 bodies or so thanks to Bestial Might. They predictably do NO damage to the Knight, who is now sitting on 8 out of 8 wounds after a Heroic Recovery rolls earlier in the turn.
Bottom of Turn 2
Here we come!Bestigors on the ridge!Tzaangor vs Undead Swordsman!I'm only making him MORE powerful