The same night I purchased the Old World Matched Play Guide I had a game scheduled with my regular opponent and his High Elves. Since I had just purchased the books we decided to try out secondary objectives and leave it at that until I had a chance to read through the book a little more. We randomly rolled which number of secondary objectives to use and came up with four. We both had limited units that could capture the secondary objectives so we weren’t sure if they would make a difference in the game but thought they were worth a try. We also used the new FAQ’s for the first time. With that lets take a look at the board. As you can see both armies spread out across the table with the majority of the Elven fast units on their right flank.
The Daemons got first turn and immediately started their advance on the Elven lines. The Daemon Prince launched a fireball at the Silver Helms killing one.
The Plague Drones were a little to confident and advanced too far up the board allowing themselves to get charged by the Lord on his Griffon, while the rest of the Elves adjusted their lines. Between combat resolution and his attacks the Lord killed a Plague Drone, pushed them back and followed up.
The Nurgle Daemons continued to advance forward, with one unit of Plaguebearers staying back to continue claiming a secondary objective. In hindsight I don’t think using a 250 point unit to claim a 30 point objective was a good trade…. Meanwhile the Griffon Lord managed to slaughter the remaining Plague Drones.
The Lord took a quick view of the field and realized he should probably get out of the charge arc of the Great Unclean One and the Daemon Prince and flew away to jump the rear of the Plaguebearers. The archers took careful aim and put a wound on the Great Unclean One. Oh the ignobility! The Sisters of Thorn took aim at the poor Beasts of Nurgle and put two wounds on them!
In the Daemon turn the Plaguebearers launched a charge on the Spearmen while the Beasts attempted to charge the Swordmasters. Both the Plaguebearers and the Beasts were short and failed to make contact with their new friends! The Daemon Prince flew over the woods to better position himself but only managed to get the Pillar of Fire off.
The elves saw an opportunity to charge before the got charged and sent the Spearmen in against the Plaguebearers, the Lord on his Griffon in against the Fury, and the Battle Standard on his Chariot in against the laggard Plaguebearers. The Swordmasters knew what those Beasts of Nurgle could survive and do in return so they just stood firm against the slavering monsters. The Dragon Princes moved slowly through the forest in an attempt to set up a later charge and in the shooting phase the Sisters of the Thorn finished off one of the Beasts! In close combat the Griffon tore the Furies apart and was able to follow up into the rear of the Plaguebearers. Due to some heroic saves the Plaguebearer unit was able to take a minimum of casualties but was unable to fall back as it was pinned between two units. The chariot failed to do much damage and due to static combat resolution the two units ties and were locked in combat!
Looking for someone he could beat up the Daemon Prince charged the archers on the hill and managed to kill a whopping two. Someone needs to hit the gym…. The Nurglings charged the Griffon in an attempt to get a flank bonus but took more wounds then they added in combat resolution. Again due to the Battle Standard Bearer and his icon the Nurgle Daemons lost combat but were able to stay in the fight. The Beasts thought better of charging the Swordmasters, and just decided to stare at their new playthings. With only two left I thought they were better off stopping a future flank charge on the Plaguebearers but again that probably wasn’t the best of ideas.
The Dragon Princes started the turn launching a flank charge from the woods to help out their noble with his fight against the Plaguebearers and the Swordmasters decided to end the staring contest against the Beasts of Nurgle. The Beasts of Nurgle caused three wounds in exchange for only one against them for a tied combat. This was the highwater mark for the forces of Nurgle in combat this turn as the other combats saw only five or six Plaguebearers survive after wounds and resolution! Things were looking really bad for the Daemons, could Papa Nurgle come to their rescue?
In the last Daemon turn of the game the Great Unclean One was finally able to get facing the right direction and charged the flank of the Spearelves. Meanwhile the Daemon Prince who finished off the Archers the previous turn cast Fireball and killed the Reaver Knights as they lurked on the back edge. In combat the Great Unclean One threw his substantial weight around and killed a bunch of Spear Elves with the help of the Nurglings that charged into combat. Even with the mass casualties static resolution and wounds won the day and the forces of Nurgle were pushed back. The Plague Bearer Unit collapsed, but the Great Unclean One and the Herald survived the fight, and ultimatly the game. In the other combat the remaining Plaguebearer unit was utterly destroyed. The Swordmasters killed another Beast of Nurgle for only one loss and pushed the remaining monster back.
As the store was getting ready to close and the game was fairly one sided we didn’t add up the points. The Secondary Objectives were pretty evenly split as we both had a unit controling one objective almost all game, although I ended up getting off my objective a little earlier so the elves probably picked up an extra 60-90 Victory Points. I did have about 1,000 points left in my three characters but as I hardly earned any victory points off the elves it easily fell into the Resounding Victory category for the High Elves!
After playing the new FAQ for the first time there are a few key takeaways. Magic is much harder to cast now, but it is also harder to dispel if something does get cast. Level 4 mages feel like they are no longer all powerful must include options, and level 3’s, 2’s and 1’s should see a resurgence. Infantry is much tougher and with the new objectives way more important to control of the game. Will it be enough? We will see. As a Nurgle player the new Poison rules were frustrating. I guess some armies really needed this nerf, but even against Elves needing a 2+ to wound I failed more times than I’d like to admit! Overall I’m happy with the updated rules and look forward to playing them again!
-Wachtmeister
The Wachtmeister's Patrol 