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AoS Blood and Glory overview Part 1 (3 games)

Discussion in 'Battle Reports' started by darren watson, Nov 7, 2017.

  1. darren watson
    Kroxigor

    darren watson Well-Known Member

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    I attended the Blood and Glory AOS Championships last weekend with an experimental Seraphon list with an Allied Celestant-Prime. Having only just managed to finish painting the Prime and touching up the bases (didn't want a repeat of losing 10 points at the Facehammer GT) meant the army was untested. I really had faith in the concept though, so was perfectly happy with a trial by fire and what better place to test things out then a prestigious 6 round tournament with over 100 people and some of the countries best players in attendance!

    I ran the following:

    Allegiance: Seraphon
    Lord Kroak (450)
    - General
    Saurus Astrolith Bearer (160)
    - Artefact: Incandescent Rectrices
    Skink Starpriest (80)
    - Artefact: Light of Dracothion
    Celestant-Prime (340)
    - Allies
    10 x Skinks (60)
    - Boltspitters & Star Bucklers
    10 x Skinks (60)
    - Boltspitters & Star Bucklers
    10 x Skinks (60)
    - Boltspitters & Star Bucklers
    6 x Ripperdactyl Riders (280)
    Shadowstrike Starhost (170)
    Balewind Vortex (100)

    Reinforcement Points (240)

    Total: 2000 / 2000
    Allies: 340 / 400

    Plan was pretty simple, let Kroak do what he does, finish characters off with the Prime and then drop in Rippers, summoned Rippers and Razordons to clean up.

    I opted to summon a unit of Ripper rather than deploy a second unit as this decreases your drops to 5 (essential against the Fyreslayer match up, you have to go first) and to hide the combat potential of the 6 in the clouds. The hope is your opponent thinks the damage out put of the 6 in the clouds is greatly diminished because there is no toad being deployed, he himself deploys poorly and the you catch him out when a toad deploys thanks to the summoned unit in the first turn. FU toad nerf ;). You can also summon them pre Kroak's teleport. Teleport behind them and vortex push them so their charge goes from 9" to 4".

    On paper this army looks incredibly weak, turns out it's pretty good!

    Game 1: Khorne Scorched Earth.

    2 things happens before the game starts. Firstly, Byron the recent GW champion is meant to be playing me game 1 with his mixed order. He is late and I have to be moved to a different table. I would have loved to have a crack at his list. What a test that would have been! Sadly it didn't happen. Secondly I then walk up to my new opponents table and see a Bloodthirster! OH NO! Murderhost in Scorched Earth the true nightmare!
    Turns out my opponent Jason isn't running that and I relax a great deal. I have a chance in that situation as the Murderhost doesn't have the auto unbind item and Shadowstrike skinks pre move on each flank so the most you lose is 1 in the centre. A decent Kroak show should help get you back in the game, especially with the Rippers and Prime off table.

    Jason Ran:

    Thirster
    3 slaughter priest
    Bloodsecrator
    10 blood reavers x 2
    20 bloodwarriors
    5 warthmongers
    10 skullreapers
    Gore Pilgrims

    He deployed with a unit of reavers and skullreapers on his left, next to them all characters over than the thirster in terrain (he told me his bloodsecrator was difficult to kill now as he had a 2 up save ignoring rend one, again, another opponent that didn't quite get what Kroak would do). in the centre were the 20 Blood warriors, thirster and 5 wrathmongers and on his objective on the left were a unit of reavers.

    I deployed with skinks all near my objectives and Kroak and Astrolith on my right.

    I gave Jason the first turn and he bimbled forwards. When I saw he hadn't even bubbled the reavers around the objectives, it really settled in he wasn't a tournament regular.

    I won in the first turn really. Kroak summoned rippers in front of the 10 reavers, teleported behind them and vortex pushed the 3 rippers into range. Went nuts despite having to reroll successful rolls thanks the the Bloodsecrator (36" range thanks to the formation) and killed the Bloodsecrator, 1 priests and hurts the remaining charterers. Toad from summoned Rippers is placed by Bloodwarriors. Movement Prime is dropped with other 6 Rippers to engage the Bloodwarriors and skinks bubble my objectives. Shooting, the Prime kills the remaining Priests. Thanks to the Prime, Rippers and the Bloodsecrator death, the 20 Bloodwarriors and the Reavers on my right all die, plus my Prime to the dying Bloodwarriors. I burn 2 objectives and it's all but over, after we win priority. Play on and the Khorne are tabled. 2000-340

    Nothing I would have done differently here, the perfect start

    Worth mentioning is how you deal out Kroak's damage. Because of the Khorne allegiance ability, you have to be very careful about the amount the units you kill. If 2 units die outright, then Khorne get an auto unbind. When using Kroaks spells, use any mystic shield, starlight or other non aggressive spells first, then comet and arcane bolt to reduce the important characters down and then use Kroaks AOE spell. That way you get to kill them all at the same time.


    Game 2: Fatesworn:

    Absolutely gutted, I have to play my friend I came up with Ric Myhill and his cool Fatesworn list in the Comet fall scenario.

    He ran:

    Gaunt Summoner with familairs
    Gaunt Summoner on disk
    9 Chaos Cav with Lances
    9 Kairic Acolytes x 3
    5 Marauder Cav x 2
    2 Chaos Warriors

    Fatesworn

    680 summoning points

    I love this list, so different to the normal Tzeentch spaff. It all gets rend 1 on the chaff and knights thanks to the Fateswon. The 27 acolytes and 10 marauder cav can shoot. They do a surprising amount of damage as these hits also have rend. Plus the knights and Acolytes get an extra 6 up save from the Fatesworn as well. The Gaunt summoner extends his spell range by 9" meaning his anti horde spell has a range of 45", often catches people out. He also summons an Exhalted Tzeentch Lord of Change. Read what this does, it's cool AF. Unfortunately for Ric I know all his tricks and the match up is terrible for him...

    He deploys with 27 Acolytes in the centre with his 2 Gaunts, 10 M cav on his right and 9 heavy cav on his left, with the 2 chaos warriors deployed on each side about 12" on from the flanks. I deploy Kroak in my left hand corner with the Astrolith, with 2 units Shadowstrike Skinks as far up as poss in lines from my left. the second unit it is in the middle behind the unit in front of them 9" on. I plan on Shadowstrike moving my 2 units pregame so there is no way his big big chicken can be deployed and be in range of Kroak, thanks to the skinks pushing him back 9" as Gaunt summoner can summon him up to 27 " thank to one of the things Ric has on him (think it's a command ability, not sure). I deploy my Skink starpriest front and centre, if I can roll high enough on his pregame move I can use Light of Dracothion and stop him casting the Big Chicken I know is coming.


    Ric elects to go first after my skinks move far enough up to protect Kroak and my Starpriest fails to get within 18" of his Gaunt (worth a try). Being 2 drops and knowing he has 1 turn before he dies (he's watched me use Kroak for a year now) tries the most ridiculous play I have ever seen! He casts the Gaunt summoners spell on my 10 skinks on my left hoping to roll 10 4 pluses so he can summoner the big chicken within range of Kroak. He manages 7! Reading this, you most likely think this was terrible, but I really respected this play. Ric is a great player and just like a great poker player understands his outs. If he had killed 8 I reckon the chicken may have been able to get to Kroak and then it's a whole different game. He then summons the chicken who casts his big spell and kills 8 skinks in my centre and mystic shields himself. his movement saw him surrounding his chicken with his light cav to protect from the potential ripper charge and bimbling his heavy cav and chaos warriors.

    With Rics opening gambit flopping my first turn results in Kroak teleporting to arcane terrain and killing both his Gaunt's and 8 wounds off the big chicken. Rippers take off the remaining heavy cav and Prime takes another 3 wounds off the big chicken with his shooting attack. Game is effectively over despite Ric winning the priority.

    Gutting to do this to a mate. Just goes to show the power of the list as he, unlike my other opponents knew exactly whats coming.


    Game 3 Khorne on WarhammerTV Battle for the Pass

    If you have a subscription you can watch this game here https://go.twitch.tv/warhammer (though if you watch it, ignore the commentators, they seem to not really understand what is going on lol)

    I was playing a tournament regular Sam Davies and this time a Khorne player with a way of stopping my Vortex with the Brazen Rune (i think that's what it is, gives them a free unbind from anywhere).

    Sam ran:

    Demonprince
    Blood Secrator
    2 Slaughter Priests
    Bloodstoker
    Gaunt Summoner-Allied
    30 bloodletters x 2
    10 blood warriors x 2
    10 reavers
    Gore Pilgrims
    100 summoning pool-vortex

    Sam deployed all his characters (except the prince) and 30 letters inside a bubble of 10 reavers and the 20 blood warriors as there was a large piece of scenery in the middle of his deployment around 24" on. Prince was on his left hand side with the second letters on his right.

    I deployed Astrolith deep on my base line. Kroak 6" back from my max deployment on my right facing the Prince by arcane scenery (impossible for his Prince to charge 1st turn even with a vortex push, his Stoker was outside 12" so no extra movement either on the Prince). The 30 Skinks went down on each flank and centrally far enough back they couldn't be charged first turn with Starpriest between the unit of Skinks on my right.

    I gave Sam the first turn (confusing the commentators as it gave Sam some early scores and they thought Kroak was exposed. This was always the plan though). I was really happy to see how Sam had deployed. Rather than spreading out and going for an all out assault, he'd turtled up perfectly for me, this was exactly what I hoped the Prime and Rippers being off the board would achieve. It meant I could safely give him the first turn. Draw his Prince in to Kroaks big spell range (he wasn't getting on his vortex because of the auto unbind) and it was clear he intended to catch the other flank with 1 unit of letters on his right. Kroak dispels his Gaunt's attempt at getting on a vortex and Sam moves his Prince and letters to each objective on the flanks. The 30 letters on his right objective have plus 1 save from the Priests prayer.

    Perfect, game is going exactly how I thought it would. His reluctance to run at me screaming means I can put his own objective under pressure if we get a double turn.

    My first turn I draw out the auto unbind with Kroak casting vortex (his Bloodsecrator no longer has a 2 up save against spells, lovely). Do enough damage to his Bloodstoker so the Prime can guarantee his death with his shooting (he can choose to change a dice to whatever he likes per player turn, so 3 mortal wounds wherever you like). Starpriest does some damage to Prince and -1 to hit on him and the Prince is down to 4 wounds total. Rippers are summoned with a potential charge on the Prince and toad is placed near the 20 Bloodwarriors ( I'm hitting his left flank hard with my Rippers later, as it gives me 4 points). Movement sees Skinks move into shooting range of the Letters and Prince, with the Prime coming down so he's within 24" of all the characters other than the Prince and within charge range of the Prince to prevent him charging Kroak if I don't get the double turn.
    Shooting sees the Stoker die to the Primes shot (don't want that 30 letter unit being super speedy and threatening my objective) with Prince taking another wound and a Letter dying to some Skinks.
    Prime charges the Prince, with the Rippers failing to join him. Prime fails, but takes no damage in return. He's done what he set out to do, prevent the Prince charging Kroak.

    Priority and our plan pays off as we get the double turn. In a nut shell, Kroak goes off, all Sams characters die to him and the Primes shooting. The 9 rippers (6 drop from the sky now) and Prime kill most of the 20 Bloodwarriors and are score goes from 1 to 8. Sams army is now going to be unbuffed throughout the game and it was pretty much secure. He had a counter charge with his second unit of Letters, but despite rolling a 12 for it's charge on the 4 remaining Rippers failed to kill them. Eventually we table him.

    Pleased with this, some real thought had to go into how I killed his units to help Kroak go off. Watching the game back the commentators thought i'd made mistakes not going first and not hitting the 30 letters on the right objective. Going first, there was no real impact to be gained as Kroak was never getting on the vortex because of the item. Hitting the 30 Letters on the objective wouldn't have killed them in one go (4 up save Bloodsecrator planted) and the toad would have been away from the big 4 point objective. The Letters would have also hit back and a second wave of Letters would have finished them if I'd lost the priority roll, meaning my own objective would have been easier to get to later. Plus, going 1st would of left me open to a Khornate double turn.. No thanks!


    Day one over and I am knackered! I'd taken part on the Shadespire event the day before after learinng the game at the hotel at 3am in the morning.. Didn't get much sleep saturday night either as my mind was ablaze with how to deal with the Fyreslayer lists that were doing well and the KO both this lists toughest match ups.

    We are top of the charts and my dream of a Seraphon podium this year is very much alive!

    I'm at work writing this so will get part 2 done soon (promise I know my last attempt at a tourney report took ages and never ended eek..)
     
    Last edited: Nov 8, 2017
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  2. Xasto
    Terradon

    Xasto Well-Known Member

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    Love it! Keep em coming! You've really bumped up my interrest in the Allied Celestant-Prime!
     
  3. Crowsfoot
    Slann

    Crowsfoot Guardian of Paints Staff Member

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    Keep it coming Darren ;)
     
  4. JimbobbyG
    Skink

    JimbobbyG New Member

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    Super battle report Darren, much learned...look forward to the next instalment...so you can only drop the toad with the summoned rippers in your FIRST hero phase?
     
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  5. darren watson
    Kroxigor

    darren watson Well-Known Member

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    Cheers pal, glad it's useful! Yes sadly that's the case
     
  6. Aginor
    Slann

    Aginor Fifth Spawning Staff Member

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    Nice report, eager to read more! :)
     
  7. Mormblwka
    Saurus

    Mormblwka Member

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    I am terribly sorry for such a silly question, but how did you teleport with Kroak?
    Thanks in advance!


    Update - Sorry for bothering, already in the rules. I thought that lords of space and time were command trait, yet the double teleport is. Still thanks)
     
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2018
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