Once again my friend and I pitted my Nurgle Daemons against his Wood Elves. We both had a co-commander this game. Without further ado lets get into it!

Daemons of Chaos [1996 pts]

Great Unclean One [445 pts]

• Hand weapon
• Plagueflail
• Level 4 Wizard
• General
• Daemonology

Daemonic Herald of Nurgle [190 pts]

• Plaguesword
• Daemonic Locus (Battle Standard Bearer)
• Palanquin of Nurgle
• Trappings Of Nurgle

++ Core Units [604 pts] ++

21 Plaguebearers of Nurgle [326 pts]

• Plagueswords
• Plagueridden (champion)
• Standard bearer [Standard Of Seeping Decay]
• Musician

20 Plaguebearers of Nurgle [278 pts]

• Plagueswords
• Plagueridden (champion)
• Standard bearer
• Musician

++ Special Units [338 pts] ++

3 Nurglings [135 pts]

3 Plague Drones of Nurgle [203 pts]

• Plagueswords
• Death’s heads
• Hand weapons (filth-encrusted claws)
• Plagueridden (champion)
• Standard bearer

++ Rare Units [419 pts] ++

2 Beasts of Nurgle [124 pts]

• Hand weapons
• Writhing tentacles

Soul Grinder [295 pts]

• Hand weapon
• Iron claw
• Harvester cannon
• Warp gaze
• Heavy armour (Daemonic flesh)
• Daemon of Nurgle

Wood Elves – Note: My friend provided the list in PDF from Army Builder, so I entered it into Old World Army Builder. The list shows 2,000 points in Army Builder but only 1983 in Old World Army Builder. Army Builder shows the Scouts as having Vanguard, that option doesn’t appear in Old World Army Builder. That might be the difference in points but I’m not sure.

++ Characters [788 pts] ++

Glade Lord [533 pts]

(Hand weapon, Light armour, Shield, Arcane Bodkins, General, Forest Dragon, Ogre Blade, Railarian’s Mantle, An Annoyance Of Netlings)

Spellweaver [255 pts]

(Hand weapon, Level 4 Wizard, On foot, Oaken Stave, Talisman of Protection, Battle Magic)

++ Core Units [501 pts] ++

8 Deepwood Scouts [132 pts]

(Hand weapon, Asrai Longbows, Hagbane Tips, Lord’s Bowmen, Musician)

6 Deepwood Scouts [102 pts]

(Hand weapon, Asrai Longbows, Arcane Bodkins, Lord’s Bowmen, Musician)

9 Glade Guard [129 pts]

(Hand weapon, Asrai Longbows, Trueflight Arrows, Fire & Flee, Lord’s Bowmen, Musician)

6 Glade Riders [138 pts]

(Hand weapon, Cavalry spears, Asrai Longbows, Hagbane Tips, Reserve Move, Glade Knight, Musician)

++ Special Units [419 pts] ++

12 Wardancers [216 pts]

(Hand weapon, 6x Additional hand weapon, 5x Throwing spear, Bladesinger, Standard bearer, Musician)

7 Wild Riders [203 pts]

(Hand weapon, Hunting spear, Light armour, Shields, Musician)

++ Rare Units [275 pts] ++

Great Eagle [60 pts]

Treeman [215 pts]

The initial layout. Those Wood Elf archers have learned their lesson and set up well away from those scary Nurglings!

The Wood Elves got the first turn and moved some units around and fired some bow shots causing a wound on the Plague Flies.

The forces of Nurgle moved up slightly to prepare for later turns. The Great Unclean One cast The Summoning on the Wild Riders but only managed to kill three of them. What can four puny elves do anyway? It’ll be fine, I’m sure.

In the Wood Elf turn the Wild Riders charge one of the blocks of Plague Bearers against the advise of the Wood Elf co-commander. After all, 4 elves should be quickly crushed by a ranked block of fat boy infantry, right? Right? My buddy forgot to use the Soul Grinders Reserve Move after shooting the previous turn so it was promptly charged by the lord on dragon. This combat will not be good for the forces of Chaos! The Wood Elf archers shot at the unengaged Plague Bearers killing two of them. The Wild Riders killed a rank of Plague Bearers for no loses to themselves, but the Plague Bearers stuck around. The Soul Grinder combat went as expected and the Lord quickly destroyed the creature sending it back to the warp! Despite being wounded multiple times the lord didn’t fail any saves and took no wounds.

In the Daemon turn the Plague Flies moved up to harass the Glade Riders, the Beasts of Nurgle slithered to rescue the Plague Bearers, and the great Unclean One realized he was out of arc and/or range to charge anything. The Wild Riders killed off three Plague Bearers for no loss to themselves. This is not going to be the Plague Bearers day….

In the Wood Elf turn the archers moved to shoot the Nurgling menace and the Lord charged the beleaguered Plague Bearers. (I’m not sure how the Beasts and the Dragon ended up in combat on the same turn when they weren’t the previous. It was all above board I assure you!) The archers continued to soften up the Plague Flies in the shooting phase and the Wood Elf mage failed to hurt the Great Unclean One. In combat the lord killed the champion, the Plague Bearers provided more resilient and didn’t lose any of their number to the Wild Riders, but all the Nurgle daemons only killed one Wild Rider in return. The surviving Nurgle Daemons fell back and took wounds from their Daemonic Instability test. The Wild Riders reengaged the Plague Bearers while the Lord changed his facing to look for more lucrative targets.

The Plague Bearers with the Battle Standard Bearer turned to try and get out of the line of sight of the Lord with the assistance of the Steed of Shadows, the surviving Beast charged the rear of the Wild Riders, and the Great Unclean One charged the only thing he could get to, the Great Eagle. The Great Unclean One earned his points by killing the Great Eagle (sure, totally) and the Daemons FINALLY killed off the surviving Wild Riders.

The Lord and the Wardancers charged the remaining Plague Bearer Unit while the Treeman charged the Beast of Nurgle. The Glade Riders rode to the rear of the Wardancers to try and keep the Great Unclean One from a rear charge. The Plague Bearer champion stepped up and was slaughtered by the Lord but the rest of the unit finally found their saves and stood tall against the Wardancers. The Plague Bearers lost the combat but rolled well on their Instability test and stuck around.

The two surviving Plague Bearers beat a hasty retreat to hide behind the hill in an attempt to save victory points later on. The Great Unclean One charged the Glade Riders, which fled and he followed up into the rear of the Wardancers, the Plague Flies charged the Treeman, and the Nurglings finally got into grips with the archers on the hill. The Nurglings and the Archers fight was inconclusive with the Archers pushed forced to fall back. The Treeman killed one of the Plague Flies but the combat was in favor of the Nurgle Daemons and everyone stuck in place. The Great Unclean One got stuck in a combat with a Wardancer and with the Daemon luck of the game couldn’t even get max overkill on the champion! This caused the unit to be dropped to only two models left. The combat ended up being a tie which with one more save or kill the Daemons would have won with a musician! The Lord on Dragon realized he didn’t want to fight the Great Unclean One so he turned around to fight the Plague Flies next turn.

In this, the final round, the Nurglings chased the archers off the board, the final Plague Bearer was finished off by the Wardancers, and the Dragon joined the Treeman in the fight. The Lord was too late to save the Treeman which was felled by the Beast of Nurgle.

In the Daemons final turn the Great Unclean One tried to finish off the Wardancers but only managed to kill three of the five. Ooof. This was not the Daemons day!

While the game was closer than it looked the Wood Elves won by at least 400 points. Losing the Soul Grinder early hurt. If we remembered the Reserve roll he would have been out of the result my buddy rolled on the dice to charge and it would have slowed down the Dragons eating frenzy. Either that or he could have decided the range wasn’t worth the charge and just moved him somewhere else. That extra turn and the dead Soul Grinder hurt. I also wasted the Plague Flies chasing the Glade Guard for the first few turns of the game. That point differential certainly worked in the favor the Wood Elves, I can’t believe I let myself get led around by the nose like that! Finally, the Wood Elves managed to find their 6’s and we couldn’t save to save our lives. Literally in most cases. Still, my buddy played a good game and got a well deserved win. We will be back!

-Wachtmeister