Venerable Mage Priest Phunki P'art' Ii lolled in his palanquin. His dreams of late had been plagued by the reappearance of an ancient enemy, a greater daemon of Slaanesh Snippy Fourarms McHeels. This androgynous abomination has been a thorn in the side of the Lizardmen of Lustria for eons. His visions hinted at a large force of Daemons travelling through a narrow valley in the Spine of Sotek. He would muster a force immediately and by the will of the Old Ones there would be ichor spilled tonight!
The Honourable Mustering of Itza
Slaan Mage Priest Phunki P'art'Ii: Harmonic Convergence, Becalming Cogitation, Focus of Mystery, Earthing Rod, Egg Of The Quango.
Saurus Skar Veteran Gok Jan: Army Standard Bearer, Halberd, Light Armour, Talisman of Preservation.
Saurus Oldblood Syde Viscous: Shield, Halberd, Armour of Destiny, Dragonbane Gem.
Skink Priest Teensiweensi: level 2 mage (beasts), Cube of Darkness.
Skink Chief Chukk Knorreis: javelins, light armour, shield, other Tricksters Shard, Dragonhelm, riding Dobb'ein (Stegadon) with unstoppable charge and sharpened horns.
40 Saurus with full command
35 Temple Guard with full command
three units of 10 skink skirmishers and one unit of 11
2 Salamander Hunting Packs
Ancient Stegadon (One Horned Helgar): Engine Of The Gods, Sharpened Horns.
The Writhing Orgy of Slaanesh
Keeper Of Secrets Snippy Fourarms McHeels, Nasty Daemonic sword and the ability to summon daemonettes/fiends when he magics people to death.
Herald of Slaanesh Walk Of Shame, the ability to make whomever she/he/it wants to fight them in a challenge.
36 or more Daemonettes full command.
Slightly smaller unit of Daemonettes, full command.
6 Fiends of Slaanesh,
3 Fiends of Slaanesh.
Two units 5 Seekers of Slaanesh, full command.
Two units of 5 Flesh Hounds of Corn.
Blood Throne of Corn.
Soulgrinder A.K.A Badlovemachine.
A word on tactics.
This year I have had the pleasure (?) of playing Daemons of Chaos about five times this year. One thing that wrecks my head about them is their poxy 5+ save on everything! With this in mind the first magic item I want in my force is generally The Other Trickster's Shard, this makes all opponents in base contact with the bearer reroll successful ward saves. Therefore the second most important thing for my army is the best Other Trickster's Shard delivery item, this game I went for a Stegadon with impact hits, skinks and thunderstomps. Last game out I also got my Mage Priest smegged by Juggers of Khorne due to unfortunate placing, so I thought a nice durable unit of Temple Guard to protect him. After that my core troops would be made up of naked skink units (expendable) and a big block of saurus to hand out daemon death. Other bits I thought would be pleasant was a skink shaman, salamanders & an ancient Stegadon.
We then rolled for a scenario, Battle for the Pass. I had never played this scenario before, but I actually thought a narrow table edge might make it easier to stop his fast troops outmaneuvering the painfully slow Saurus.
The scenery was a strange mix. A river (boiling flood), grail chapel & wizards tower (southeast ) Earthblood Mere (dead centre), scree slope & Nekharian quicksand (I suppose we'll just have to call it Lustrian instead) to the north.
We then rolled for a scenario, Battle for the Pass. I had never played this scenario before, but I actually thought a narrow table edge might make it easier to stop his fast troops outmaneuvering the painfully slow Saurus.
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| Terrain |
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| deployment after Slaaneshi vangard moves |
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| Daemon Army |
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| Lizardmen defending the huge pile of biscuits. |
We rolled off for first turn and even with +1 for finishing his deployment first I got the drop on the nasty perverted things! The Seekers both vangarded ( the unit on the left stopped short of the boiling flood) and both units of Flesh Hounds lay in wait for some hot ambush action.
The Daemons turn started with some charges, both Seekers units and the small unit of fiends all charged my poor defenseless skinks! The Seekers on the left made the charge easily, as did the fiends, but to my joy the seekers on the right failed their charge which left them standing gusset deep in boiling hot water! It was one of those Slaaneshi I-wonder-if-scalding-my-gonads-is-fun type moments. Magic caused two wounds on some skinks and to my delight a Fiend of Slaanesh was added to the big unit!. Shooting was pretty uneventful too I think. Close combat saw the two units of skinks break and run. One was caught and killed the other, not so much. The Daemons in the water lost two to the extreme paddling and the turn ended.
The Daemons started charging like Billy-O. A unit of Flesh Hounds sauntered into the rear of my army. I lost my remaining skink units to fiends, fiends & the Soulgrinder. The seekers on the left swing round and stop an inch from my Temple Guard, presumably to make lascivious humping gestures at them, little do they know Saurus Temple Guard have libidos of granite! The fiends in the centre overran in to the Saurus. So far this game I think the winds of magic were, 5,5,3 and now 2. Truly this place must be made of Obsidian! It was this turn that the cannon hit the Ancient Stegadon, taking 4 wounds off it! My Saurus unit smashed the granny out of the Fiends that charged them and overran up to the Earthblood Mere.
This turn saw a lot more daemonic charges, the Keeper of Secrets and the Fiends charged the Saurus and the Flesh Hounds and Seekers charged the rather outmaneuvered Temple Guard. Magic was once again uneventful. Shooting saw the Skull Canon kill a Salamander making it flee like a girl! The Soulgrinder hurled an unidentified ball of daemonic secretions to land a direct hit on the Skink Priest only to fail to wound it! Combat saw some rather good things happen with the predatory fighter rule, both the Saurus combat and the sneaky, underhanded ambushy attack went well. The Stegadon lost the combat but due to the proximity of the Slaan general didn't run (being stubborn helped too). I remembered to use the Egg of The Quango and it smote the Flesh Hounds before flying away to do whatever a Quango does in these unusual times.
The Daemons charged the Saurus unit, Flesh Hounds charged into the Temple Guard and that was all the movement. Badlove Machine tried to grab my Bsb but failed. The Flesh Hounds failed to break my Temple Guard, the Stegadon managed to get the Daemonette unit down to about four models and the SoulGrinder/Daemonette combat was a stalemate thanks once again to steadfast. It was once again very late so we called the game, it was a rather savage beating for the Daemons. As the last game we had with these forces I got tabled in turn four, I have to say revenge is sweet!
The last of the daemons disappeared into the ether and Phunki P'art'Ii allowed himself a whimsical smirk and bade his assistant to procure some Uxbi grubs to chew. Phunki gave a mental command to his minions informing them that they were heading back home. Just as the army left the valley he thought he could hear the trilling warbling song of the Quango.
The game was as enjoyable a game as I have ever had with the usual mix of good luck and bad, hilarious occurrences and silly mistakes. One thing I have to comment on is Phil's luck towards the latter part of the game, at the start he was making lots of ward saves but in the last turn the following pictures I find indicative of the game, the first is the Herald of Slaanesh needing 3+s to hit and when he completely cocked that up, my last thunderstomp of the game rolled 5 wounds, so needed to make 5 ward saves to keep me from getting another bagful of VPs!
Thanks for reading!
Turn One
I advanced all the skink skirmishers up, in particular the one sitting in the hot soup that passed for a river high up in the Lustrian mountains. One of the peculiarities of this particular was the almost total lack of impact magic had in this game. I think my opening magic roll was 5 dice, roll for channeling (4 dice thanks to Harmonic Convergence) = 5 dice. This was a pattern repeated all game. The only spell I cast was Tempest on the leftmost Seeker unit which scattered onto the skinks killing three of them and rendering their shooting attacks negligible. My shooting did manage to kill a couple of the Seekers
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| Lizardman Turn 1 |
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| Daemons Turn 1 |
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| Run from the nasty things! |
Turn Two
The Lizardman army lumbered forward ready to splat the disgusting interfererers with goats. The fleeing skinks continued to flee, the other units of skinks moved forward to throw poisonous javelin death at anyone foolish enough to stand against them! Magic was once again neglible. To prove just how dangerous skinks are the centre unit took two wounds off the Keeper of Secrets. The Salamanders torched 5 or 6 Daemonettes. The Daemons in the water died by broiling I think.
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| Lizardman Turn 2 |
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| Daemons Turn 2 |
Turn Three
This turn saw the Stegadons tag team the Daemonettes. The big Saurus unit moved up a bit as did the Temple Guard , and mainly because of the relatively short range of the High Magic spells I moved the skink priest up to cast nasty stuff through him without actually endangered his bloaty toadlike self.
** TERRIBLE MAGIC PHASE REPORT**
There is a neat little spell in the High Magic deck called Apotheosis it can heal a model of up to d3 wounds, it's cheap to cast and can really turn a game if used in timely fashion. The Engine Of The Gods is even cheaper to cast (bound spell) and causes D6 ST4 hits on every enemy unit within 4d6".If I had cast these spells I'm sure a certain lumbering reptile would have made it back to the grassy plains of Lustria to graze happily in it's dotage. However I didn't. Not sure what I did cast but I'm fairly certain it didn't do much.
**END OF TERRIBLE MAGIC PHASE REPORT**
The Stegadon combat went so-so as the one with the skink chief mashed the living crap out of them (7 impact hits, 5 thunderstomps etc) whereas the single wound Stegadon was far less enthused with the whole thing. Long story short One Horned Helgar bit the dust, she only needed to make a 4+ AS or a 6+ Ward. The Stegadon combat was won by me but now the skink cheif had also been killed so any remaining daemonettes ward saves didn't have to be rerolled.
** TERRIBLE MAGIC PHASE REPORT**
There is a neat little spell in the High Magic deck called Apotheosis it can heal a model of up to d3 wounds, it's cheap to cast and can really turn a game if used in timely fashion. The Engine Of The Gods is even cheaper to cast (bound spell) and causes D6 ST4 hits on every enemy unit within 4d6".If I had cast these spells I'm sure a certain lumbering reptile would have made it back to the grassy plains of Lustria to graze happily in it's dotage. However I didn't. Not sure what I did cast but I'm fairly certain it didn't do much.
**END OF TERRIBLE MAGIC PHASE REPORT**
The Stegadon combat went so-so as the one with the skink chief mashed the living crap out of them (7 impact hits, 5 thunderstomps etc) whereas the single wound Stegadon was far less enthused with the whole thing. Long story short One Horned Helgar bit the dust, she only needed to make a 4+ AS or a 6+ Ward. The Stegadon combat was won by me but now the skink cheif had also been killed so any remaining daemonettes ward saves didn't have to be rerolled.
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| Lizardman Turn 3 |
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| Daemon turn 3 |
Turn Four
In turn four my cowardly salamanders rallied the Slaan Mage priest cast Hand of Glory putting the saurus weapon skill up by +2. This really helped with the combat against the fiends as did predatory fighter as well. star of the combat was of course steadfast though. The Temple Guard's Old blood barged his way to the back of the unit and smashed the remains of the Flesh Hounds. The Stegadon/Daemonette battle continued with no clear winner either. The other unit of Flesh Hounds appeared at the back of my Temple Guard (guess where they were going next turn?). The Skull Cannon misfired leaving my skink priest safe for another turn (he really was impervious to artillery)! The whole turn was wall to wall carnage!
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| Turn 4 |
Turn Five
There was only one charge for me to declare - the Salamanders on the Seekers. I scooted the skink priest round the back of the Daemonettes so the Skull Cannon couldn't shoot him. Hand of Glory was once again cast then something weird happened in the Saurus/Keeper of Secrets/Fiends combat, the KoS managed to epically fail hitting my Saurus as did the Fiends, whereas my Reptiles decimated the fiend unit (still couldn't wound Snippy Fourarms McHeels though). When combat res was totally up the gribblies lost by -9! Two pinkish puffs of smoke later and the Saurus reform facing the remaining bad guys. The Seeker unit is destroyed as well so things were looking pretty good for the Forces of Order!
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| Lizardman Turn 5 |
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| Daemons Turn 5 |
The last of the daemons disappeared into the ether and Phunki P'art'Ii allowed himself a whimsical smirk and bade his assistant to procure some Uxbi grubs to chew. Phunki gave a mental command to his minions informing them that they were heading back home. Just as the army left the valley he thought he could hear the trilling warbling song of the Quango.
The game was as enjoyable a game as I have ever had with the usual mix of good luck and bad, hilarious occurrences and silly mistakes. One thing I have to comment on is Phil's luck towards the latter part of the game, at the start he was making lots of ward saves but in the last turn the following pictures I find indicative of the game, the first is the Herald of Slaanesh needing 3+s to hit and when he completely cocked that up, my last thunderstomp of the game rolled 5 wounds, so needed to make 5 ward saves to keep me from getting another bagful of VPs!
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| 3's to hit |
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| 5+ Ward saves |
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