Once again I pit my Nurgle Daemons against my friends High Elves. After a few games without the Lord on Dragon he decided it was time to bring it out once again! As always I used my standard list! We random rolled up a scenario and got Encirclement. In this scenario each army sets up with a 12″ no mans land on the left portion of their battle line. We opted to use a Special Terrain Feature and a random toss of the dice gave us four secondary objectives.
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
High Elves
- 210 – Archmage, Warden of Saphery, Wizard Level 3, Illusion, Sword of Hoeth, Seed of Rebirth, Ring of Fury
- 287 – Noble, Lance, Full Plate Armour, Shield, Pure of Heart, Battle Standard Bearer, Griffon, Seed of Rebirth, Talisman Of Protection
- 481 – Prince, Great Weapon, Light Armour, Shield, Pure of Heart, General, Star Dragon, Armour of Caledor, Seed of Rebirth
- 100 – 10 Elven Archers
- 250 – 25 Elven Spearmen, Shieldwall, Sentinel, Standard Bearer, Musician
- 187 – 6 Silver Helms, Shield, High Helm, Ring of Fury, Standard Bearer, Musician
- 253 – 15 Swordmasters of Hoeth, Bladelord, Ring of Fury, Standard Bearer, Musician
- 228 – 15 White Lions of Chrace, Valour of Ages, Guardian, Standard Bearer, Musician
The High Elves in all their splendor arrayed for war!
Even the lighting on the Nurgle side of the board was dark and dingy!
The High Elves got the first turn and the elves began their advance!
The forces of Nurgle trundle forward
and with the help of some magic get an extra boost forward.
The High Elves continue their advance and flanking move with the White Lions.
Shooting knocks out three Plague Bearers, this certainly won’t help them survive that Lords attacks!
The Plague Bearers push on past the Dragons charge arc in the hope of getting into combat with the Sword Masters as the Great Unclean One marches up to help them out. The Daemon Prince managed to get Arcane Urgancy off on the Plague Flies but they promptly failed their Leadership test to march. I planned on flying them past the Griffon and the Dragon but they didn’t have the move for that. Rather than pulling them back as I should have I left them in place. This decision would end up having dire consequence for my army!
In the High Elf turn both the archers and the White Lions charged the Beasts of Nurgle.
Meanwhile the Dragon charged the Plague Flies, the Griffon charged the Beasts of Nurgle, and the Silver Helms charged the Nurglings.
Unfortunately for the Beasts the Archers made the charge despite running through the woods which would add a flank charge. Maybe it’ll add some easy combat resolution for kills for the over grown dogs.
All of the chargers hit home, now it was just a matter or rolling the dice!
Meanwhile the Spearmen marched forward to heroically put themselves in between the Great Unclean One and the Sword Masters unit.
The Beasts only managed to strike down three archers and were utterly hacked to pieces by the White Lions!
The Swordmasters put a hurting on the Plague Bearers band caused them to give ground.
The charging Silver Helms lost one of their knights to a Nurgling and only managed to cause a wound in return. The Nurglings still lost combat but were unable to give ground due to the Beasts of Nurgle blocking their way. The Griffon put some wounds on the Beasts of Nurgle but they were unable to Give Ground due to the Nurglings. This central area was becoming a mess!
To no ones surprise the Dragon ripped through the Plague Flies killing two, with the final surviving the Instability test due to the Leadership of the Great Unclean One.
The forces of Nurgle were looking awfully depleted by this point!
In an attempt to gain some momentum Plague Bearers charged the Sword Masters. Unable to get in that fight the Great Unclean One had no choice but to get bogged down swinging at Spearmen so in he charged!
The fast flying elements of the Daemon army flew to positions of advantage for next turn.
Having no choice but to accept the Champions challenge the Great Unclean One lost the combat and was forced to give ground.
The Griffon managed to kill one of the Beasts of Nurgle and opted to hold with a successful leadership test.
The High Elves had managed to force the Nurgle Daemons into a tight and ever dwindling salient.
In what would be the only good luck for the Nurgle Daemons all game the High Elf mage miscast a spell killing four Sword Masters and himself after already taking a few wounds from combat over the last turn!
That unit of Sword Masters was suddenly looking a lot less intimidating!
The White Lions charged the Plague Bearers who had reformed to try and hold the flank. Maybe they’d get lucky and the White Lions would fail their charge.
Meanwhile the remaining Sword Masters charged the remaining Plague Bearers the Dragon charged the remaining Beast of Nurgle and the Griffon launched a long range charge against the rear of the Plague bearers who were about to fight the White Lions.
Of course the way the game was going both units made contact with the Plague bearers!
The other charges were gimmies so they all made it in, including the Silver Helms who were looking to avenge their poor showing last turn!
The Sword Masters and the Plague Bearers continued to slowly attrite each other.
The Silver Helms did a much better job this turn and with the assistance of a poor Instability roll knocked the Nurglings down to one very wounded base!
The remaining Beast of Nurgle was no match for the fury of the Dragon and went down in a flurry of blows!
The Dragon overran in an effort to get closer to the action and the Silver Helms reformed to charge the Plague Bearers who were fighting the Sword Masters if they were still alive next turn.
The combined assault tore through the Plague Bearers but somehow they managed to survive until the following turn!
Desperate to earn some victory points the Great Unclean One and the Furies charged the Spearmen while the Daemon Prince attempted to rescue the Plague Bearer Unit.
Before we rolled to see what happened in those combats the White Lions and the Griffon finished off the Plague Bearers.
Without a champion to save them the Spearmen were mauled by the Great Unclean One but they managed to only give ground.
The Daemon Prince and the Plague Bearers were able to finish off the Sword Masters in combat after running the survivors down.
In the High Elf turn the Silver Helms charged the Plague Bearers in order to finish off what the Sword Masters didn’t. The White Lions charged the Great Unclean One and the Dragon charged the Furies.
Tired after their battle with the Nurglings the Silver Helms only managed to kill one Plague Bearer. Having lost a Knight themself the Silver Helms were forced to fall back in good order! This unit was proving tough to kill!
The Great Unclean One was sandwiched between two enemies and while he was able to kill some elves the two units were able to win combat and keep the monster pinned down.
In the Nurgle turn the Plague Bearers reformed to face the Silver Helms and the turn passed to the High Elves.
The Griffon charged the Daemon Prince but the foul beast was able to put a wound on the feathered monster and survived the return attacks.
In their final turn the Plague Bearers charged the White Lions in an attempt to help the Great Unclean One.
The Plague Bearer Unit was wiped out by the White Lions but with their sacrifice the White Lions were whittled down enough for the forces of Nurgle to earn a few Victory Points. Unfortunately the Great Unclean One continued to have a bad time with his swings, but regular and stomp and failed to kill enough of the Spearmen to get any Victory Points.
With that the game was over except for the math.
The Glory of the Elves as my buddy put it earned 540 VP’s from the Secondary Objectives while the “Nurgle Bull$hit” earned 300 VP’s. Taking into account the 200 points for the Special Terrain feature and all the casualties the game ended with the High Elves having 1,756 VP’s and the Nurgle Daemons only getting 624 points, 210 of those coming from when the Mage blew himself up!
Not getting Fireball or Pillar of Fire hurt the Daemons in this game, but so did my poor strategy and my buddies ruthless exploration of said poor strategy. This game was not my finest moment, I’ll have to dust myself off and try again!
-Wachtmeister
The Wachtmeister's Patrol 