The Beastmen Brayherds battle the Daemons of Nurgle for control of a foul hell pit! You know the routine, let’s get right to the lists!
Nurgle Daemons
- 331 – Daemon Prince, Heavy Armour, Fly (9), Daemon of Nurgle, Wizard Level 3, Battle Magic
- 355 – Great Unclean One, Plagueflail, General, Wizard Level 1, Battle Magic
- 235 – Herald of Nurgle, Daemonic Locus, Totem Of Eternal War, Palanquin Of Nurgle, Trappings Of Nurgle
- 60 – 5 Chaos Furies
- 135 – 3 Nurglings
- 213 – 15 Plaguebearers Of Nurgle, Plagueridden, Standard Bearer, Musician
- 200 – 14 Plaguebearers Of Nurgle, Plagueridden, Standard Bearer, Musician
- 124 – 2 Beasts Of Nurgle
- 124 – 2 Beasts Of Nurgle
- 210 – 3 Plague Drones Of Nurgle, Rot Fly, Plagueridden, Standard Bearer, Musician
Beastmen Brayherds
- 340 – Doombull w/ Axes of Khorgor, Gnarled Hide, Pelt of Midnight, Full Plate Armor
- 210 – Great Bray-Shaman w/Heavy Chaos Armor, Hagtree Fetish
- 100 – Bray-Shaman 2/ Blood of the Shadowgrave
- 112 – Wargor Battle Standard Bearer w/ Heavy Chaos Armor
- 97 – 10 Gor Herd w/full command
- 85 – Tuskgor Chariot
- 171 – 22 Gor Herd w/full command
- 55 – 5 Harpies
- 55 – 5 Harpies
- 263 – 5 Minotaurs w/full command, hand weapon and shield
- 263 – 5 Minotaurs w/full command, hand weapon and shield
- 245 Ghorgon
We decided to use a standard deployment but set up a Special Terrain piece in the center of the board using the Matched Play Guide rules. During the game the unit with the biggest unit strength that was within 6″ of the piece would gain a random special rule in the start of turn phase, and the player who controlled it at the end of the game would get 250 bonus victory points. With that it was time to get to it!
Deployment
With less units and better rolling the Nurgle Daemons opted to go first, advancing on their enemies. The Daemon Prince cast pillar of fire in an attempt to cut down on the Beastmen’s movement options.
In the Beastmen movement phase the beast shuffled around, with some units advancing and others trying to create a little distance from the foul daemons. One unit of Harpies advanced to try and prevent the Beasts of Nurgle from charging forward. The shooting phase became a lot more exciting as the Beastmen proved what would become the theme of the game, outright domination in the magic phase! The first cast was a succesfujl Vile Tide cast on the unit of Plaguebearers with the Herald BSB on Palanquin. The spell was successfully cast and on 5d6 20 hits were rolled! They would need 6’s to wound so the Plaguebearers weren’t that worried, until the Beastman player rolled 7 wounds, re-rolled due to the Hagtree Fetish and added two more wounds to the pile. It’s ok because I managed to save only three of them and with a quick magic missile the unit was down to 6 models!
The other Bray-Shaman also had Vile Tide and while he didn’t roll quite as well he still managed to kill three Plaguebearers!
The Nurgle Daemons knew they needed to get into combat and away from the Vile Tide so they advanced further. The Beasts of Nurgle on the left flank charged the Harpies while the Plague Drones charged the Brey Shaman who fled. The Plague Drones failed to redirect their charge into the Minotaurs and failed their charge.
The Harpies were surprised by the marauding Beasts of Nurgle and were quickly rundown, leading the Beasts to be in easy charge range of the Minotaurs next turn!
The table after the Nurgle charges. (Note: the Pillar of Fire template was just on the table, it wasn’t in play.)
Speaking of the Pilar of Fire the Daemon Prince cast the template right in front of the Doombull to stop him from charging.
But of course in the Beastman turn the template scattered directly away from the bovine headed monster giving him a clear line of sight and charge arc so he promptly declared a charge on the Plaguebearers that had been crushed by the Vile Tide!
On the other flank the Minotarus charged the Plaguebearers and the Tuskgor Chariot charged the Plague Drones…
with both units making it into combat!
On the other flank the Minotaurs couldn’t fail their charge against the Beasts of Nurgle but the Doombbull couldn’t quite make the charge and the Ghorgon decided he didn’t want to run the risk of charging the Great Unclean One. Meanwhile the fleeing Bray-Shaman rallied ready to cast more nasty magic!
The Nurglings didn’t prove to be more resistant to the Vile Tide than their larger cousins and took five wounds!
While the Beasts were able to put two wounds on the Minotaurs their friendly exuberance was no match for their opponents frenzy and they were hacked to pieces! Starting the combat with five out of five Minotaur Impact hits wounding certainly helped decide their fate!
The Minotaurs fueled by their bloodlust over ran striking the Pillar of Fire and immolating one of their wounded in the process!
Much like their brethren on the right flank, the Minotaurs on the Beastman left flank easily destroyed the reduced unit of Plaguebearers but a short overrun failed to bring them into contact with the Beasts of Nurgle in front of them. The Chariot killed a fly but with static combat resolution the flies held on with combat resulting in a tie.
Meanwhile the Harpies flew in to intercept the Great Unclean One to try and prevent him from charging at the Doombull.
For a brief moment in time Nurgle was in the ascendant and the Pillar of Fire moved through the Doombull causing it a wound, but more importantly ended up going through the Harpies killing three causing them to panic and flee, with one dying as they flew over the Nurgle lines! The Ghorgon saved his wounds, which would come back and haunt the Daemons at a later turn!
Feeling it better to charge than be charge the forces of Papa Nurgle launched charges where they could, with the Great Unclean One chargin the Doombull, and the Beasts of Nurgle charging the Minotaurs in the front hoping to get some help from a flank charge by the Nurglings. The Nurglings are squishy but with a little luck the flank charge and weight of attacks would at least balance out the wounds they would take in return….
The Plaguebearers and the BSB reformed and backed up in an attempt to stay out of the charge range of the Minotaurs while the Daemon Prince flew into position to charge something next turn.
In melee the Plague Drones defeated the Tuskgor chariot in combat and ran (flew?) it down setting themselves up to go after one of the mages along with the Furies on the hill.
The Minotaurs were easily able to push back the Nurgle Daemons who dared to attack them killing one stand of Nurglings and then promptly followed back up into the Beasts of Nurgle which just fell back. It didn’t go all the Minotaurs way as the champion suffered a wound, and the unit took two! The Ghorgon also charged the Nurglings killing another stand.
In combat the Doombull put a wound on the Great Unclean One after surviving his opponents attacks, saving one wound with his armor, and another two with his ward! The Flail of Nurgle did multiply up to 3 wounds but the creature stood to fight saving the Gors from being over ran into!
Vile Tide continued to do its job killing off one of the Plague Drones, dropping the unit down to just one!
The Minotaurs continued their rampage and killed the two Beasts of Nurgle they were fighting!
But the Beastmen didn’t get things all their way as the Great Unclean One was able to finish off his foe and overrun into the waiting Gors, but not until he took three wounds himself!
As you can see their were decidedly less Nurgle Daemons on the board at the start of their turn, but if things started working out my way I figured I could still turn things around!
The remaining fliers (more like flYers am I right?) charged the Bray-Shaman on the flank who opted to stand and fight figuring it was either that or flee off the board.
The Herald BSB decided discretion was the better part of valor and left his bodyguards to face down the Minotaurs without him.
In melee the fliers killed the Bray-Shaman and then flew off the board to prevent themselves from being charged by the Gors.
Meanwhile the Nurglings lived up to their reputation as the number one nuisance in my army and survived another turn of fighting off the Ghorgon!
In the Beastmen turn the Minotaurs were finally in range of the remaining Plaguebearers and charged headlong into them while the Harpy continued her slow flight off the board.
The Gors reformed to face the Daemonic lords.
Once again Vile Tide came into effect putting four wounds on the Herald, while the Ghorgon continued to squish Nurglings.
In what should be a surprise to no one the Minotaurs made quick work of the six Plaguebearers and killed them before the followers of Nurgle could strike back.
In Nurgles turn the Daemon Prince and Great Unclean one charged the big block of Gors….
handily winning combat and forcing them to Fall Back in Good Order. The Gors lost thirteen of their fellows between the combined attacks and stomps of the characters and fleeing through the Fury screen in the back. The Great Bray-Shaman maintained his cool but the Battle Standard Bearer not liking being surrounded by Daemons turned and fled, his banner not reassuring him at all!
In the combat the Ghorgon finally finished off the Nurglings which had slowly been biting at his ankles dropping him to only one wound.
The Gors charged the Furies in an attempt to kill that annoying unit. They failed to do so and just pushed them back two inches. The Ghorgon turned to face the bulk of the Daemons while the Minotaurs moved up to take the Special Terrain Feature in the middle of the board and the Great Bray Chaman risked his luck to approach the Herald BSB in an attempt to finish him off with yet another Vile Tide.
While the forces of Nurgle were down they were not quite out. In an attempt to finish off the Ghorgon the remaining Plague Drone charged in hoping to strike one last wound before the Ghorgon could turn and swing. The Herald declared a charge on Great Bray-Shaman which opted to flee. The Herald then redirected into the Battle Standard Bearer which also opted to flee and the Furies and the Daemon Prince charged into the remaining Gors.
The Daemon Prince and the Furies charged the Gors hoping third time would be the charm and they could finish the unit off. This charge opened the Great Bray-Shaman to a charge from the Great Unclean One. The Great Bray-Shaman only manged to run three inches so with a roll of four or higher the Great Unclean One would have one more feast, but of course it was not meant to be and he only rolled a three causing him to miss the charge by less than half an inch due to the wheel! Arghhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!
The Plague Drone failed to wound the Ghorgon. While he was a tough nut to crack I had hoped at least one of the Drones five attacks would come up a six for the poison but it was not to be. The Ghorgon easily swatted the fly out of the air turning what could have been positive victory points to the forces of Nurgle to Beastman victory points!
The Gors managed to survive the attention of the Daemon Prince and the Furies and stayed locked in combat, those Earthen Ramparts are worth their weight in gold! At least the Battle Standard Bearer decided he had enough and fled off the field!
In the final turn of the game the Great-Bray Shaman rallied (darn it, one last chance at those points!)
and the Gors killed the Furies but were in turn butchered and chased down by the Daemon Prince. With that the game was over and there was nothing left to do but add up the victory points!
At the shop we added up the points quickly and came up with a Beastman victory with a differential of around 600 points. As I was writing this I figured I might as well do the math with the numbers in front of me and came up with a much different story. As it turns out the Beastmen earned a total of 1,466 points, including banners and control of the Special Terrain Feature which was worth 250 points, while the Nurgle Daemons earned 1,387.5 points! This led to a differential of 78.5 points, a clear draw! This was certainly a bloody game! I definitely made a mistake starting as early as my second deployed unit! I had plenty of room to set up the bulk of my troops on the left side of the Special Terrain Feature, instead I split the two sides and ended up to far for the two wings to support each other. The BSB, which could have been a life saver on a few occasions, was almost always just out of range of the units that needed its help. I probably shouldn’t have sent the Nurglings into the flank of the Minotaurs as that one Mino at the end gained four attacks as the swarm was in base to base, getting in a charge on the Ghorgon would have allowed me a few more attacks on the monster.
My opponent rolled really well on Vile Tide, only rolling below average, and only just slightly at that, once, the rest of the time he was rolling high hits and high wounds, even before the Hagtree Fetish! The failure of the Great Unclean One to run down the fleeing Great Bray-Shaman and the failure of the Plague Drones to kill the Ghorgon, while statistically less likely to succeed ended up hurting my feeling more than it did the overall results. Had both been successful the points differential would have become 359 points in my favor leading to a Minor Victory. The point here isn’t to bemoan my luck, although this game I certainly had my fair share of it, but as a reminder to continue playing it out. In the 5th turn things started getting really hairy and I thought I was done for but I realized giving up wasn’t what Papa Nurgle wanted for me so I rallied my personal morale and tried to make something happen! I could have done a few things differently as I said, even something as simple as not charging the Minotaurs with the Nurglings might have helped, or having the BSB abandon the Plaguebearers earlier might have made a difference. It’s all about learning and pushing on!
As for my opponent his dice were hot but I still think he played a very good game. He also allowed himself to be split by the Special Terrain Feature which may have saved me but he did a good job of fleeing when he could and making smart moves to make my charges more difficult. He did have a chance early on to charge the Great Unclean One with the Ghorgon. While we will never know if that was a smart call or not the chance to Killing Blow a Greater Daemon would have been almost impossible for me to pass up!
All in all this was a great game and I look forward to a future rematch!
-Wachtmeister
The Wachtmeister's Patrol 