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20 Point Patrol



Tzeentch Demons

1x Tzeentch Demon Prince - 5pts
10x Pink Horrors - 3pts
10x Pink Horrors - 3pts
1x Soul Grinder - 9 pts


Nurgle Demons

1x Festus the Leechlord - 3pts
1x Beast of Nurgle - 2pts
20x Plaguebearers - 6pts
1x Soul Grinder - 9 pts




We decided to take a shot at the new update of Azyr comp this weekend. Rather than post my Warriors vs Skaven report, I figured this one takes into account the new and more recent system. It was over quickly, so no pictures.


Deployment: This map had a few forests, a church in the middle of the board, and a few bits of rocky terrain. I deployed most of my army west of the church (in relation to the board) and only put my Prince and Soulgrinder to the east. He deployed his army majority to the eastern side as well.

Top of Round 1 - Tzeentch.

Hero Phase: Each squad of Pink Horrors summons a Herald of Tzeentch. Since the Pink Horrors cost 3 points, we figure they can have 2 units each in play. The Tzeentch DP casts Shield. (Note: This summon is legal now under the new rules. Since the Heralds are "Horror Heroes" and my horrors are in arcane woods, I'm +2 to cast for now.)

Turn: Pink Horrors fall back a little into the "Arcane" forest. The Heralds take a position a little in front of them. Demon prince scurries about. The Soulgrinder runs to 20" away from the enemy plaguebearers and shoots. Yea, cloud of flies is -2 right now, but a shot is better than nothing. He misses.

Bottom of Round 1 - Nurgle

Hero Phase: Festus casts Shield and uses Inspiring Presence on the Plaguebearers.

Turn: Beast of nurgle moves south towards my horrors and heralds in the west. Divided by the church, the soulgrinder moves up and runs, festus moves into his own arcane woods. Plaguebearers hug the same forest, in case I get to shoot them.

Top of Round 2 - Nurgle

Hero Phase: Festus casts Shield and uses Inspiring Presence on the Plaguebearers.

Turn: Soulgrinder of Nurgle shoots my Soulgrinder of Tzeentch after closing in to 3 inches. It does 2 wounds. Plaguebearers are cut off a bit by the bulk of the Soulgrinder. The beast of nurgle runs forward, but fails a long 9 inch charge. (Remember my units are edge-hugging in a forest.)

Combat: Soulgrinder of Nurgle does 10 wounds in close combat, putting my Soulgrinder at 12/16 wounds. Soulgrinder of Tzeentch hits with his Claw ability and does 13 wounds back.

Bottom of Round 2 - Tzeentch

Hero Phase: Both Heralds and one unit of horrors Arcane bolt the Beast of Nurgle off the board. The second horror unit shields the Tzeentch Demon Prince, who in turn fails to Mystic Bolt the enemy Soulgrinder.

Turn: Both Heralds and a pink Horror unit run north. The other horrors stay within Arcane Forest range and fan out, hiding partially behind the church in the middle, with a model sticking out for targeting spells. Soulgrinder whiffs all his shots. Demon prince doesn't charge the soulgrinder melee, thinking that the Tzeentch Soulgrinder can seal off the last 3 wounds on the enemy.

Combat: Tzeentch soulgrinder whiffs all attacks. Enemy souldgrinder does 3 wounds, leaving my Soulgrinder with 1 remaining, and his with 3.

Top of Round 3 - Nurgle.

Hero Phase: Festus summons back his beast of nurgle and uses it to threaten my heralds again.

Turn: BoN camps 3 inches out from my heralds. His plaguebearers move up to threaten a charge. His Soulgrinder does 2 wounds to my demon prince with shooting.

Combat: Plaguebearers fail their charge. Nurgle Soulgrinder kills Tzeentch Soulgrinder.

Bottom of 3 - Tzeentch

Hero Phase: Activate 3 dice Arcane Tome of Herald 1. Casts Blue Fire, does 6 mortal wounds to the Beast of Nurgle. Gets another spell and casts shield. Pink Horrors and Demon Prince Arcane Bolt the Nurgle Soulgrinder off the field.

Turn: Wrap the two heralds north around the church, along with the pink horrors behind them. Bring the other pink horrors and Demon Prince about 12 inches from the plaguebearers. Shooting kills 2.

Top of 4 - Tzeentch

Hero Phase: Festus 1st herald arcane bolts festus. Second herald uses his Arcane Tome and casts Blue fire to kill 3 plaguebearers. Pink Horrors kill 2 more with Arcane Bolt. Demon Prince kills 2 more with Arcane Bolt. 11 remain.

Turn: Shooting kills 2 Plaguebearers, leaving 9. Demon Prince charges Festus and takes his last wound.

Bottom of 4 - Nurgle

He fights the demon prince and does 3 wounds, then loses two plaguebearers.

Top of 5 - Tzeentch.

Arcane Bolts all around, Nurgle dies.


Thoughts: Holy crap, Tzeentch summoning is strong. We decided this may have been a bad matchup, since I had a lot of arcane bolts and he had a low model count with high wounds. He asked me to play the same list vs his skaven, with some things made to counter me. I said sure, but pointed out I held back a bit because I had the upper hand. He asked me to go all out. Final score was 22 - 9

Looks like it ended up playing about right given the models on each side. The Nurgle player had an uphill battle from the lists alone, double-herald summon turn 1 was the game right there. It illustrates the need to gauge the competitiveness of your opponent's list and roughly match it, even in Azyr. Sidenote, did you use the horror shooting at all?

A bit. In turn 3 and 4, but I was already feeling bad. We played a second game, where we tried to build a list to counter mine.

He brought skaven with 2 plagueclaws, 5 jezzails, 30 clanrats, 20 stormvermin, and a grey seer. The thought was with more bodies, Arcane Bolt was weaker. So instead, I summoned mostly flamers and screamers and more pink horrors for more shooting and summoning.

It was even more brutal. Even though he took out my demon prince and soulgrinder turn 2, (jezzails are really too good for their points in Azyr), I went all out at his request.

I managed to bring an extra 37 points to the table via summons.

This is why I really like my comps "Summoning Pool". Basically, half your army points is your summon pool. So in a 100 wound game, your summoning is limited to 50 wounds of models selected pre-game. This makes it something like a magic the gathering side board.

In my comp you also cannot use summoned models at all on the turn they arrive, for anything. They count for full victory points, you cannot summon anything with the Hero keyword, and summoned models cannot summon or merge into other units.

PPC has a 100 pt upgrade for relevant wizards that lets them summon 100/130/160/200 points of summonable models on a 7/8/9/10 (you choose which option each cast), and summon spells can be dispelled from anywhere on the table (instead of 18"). But if you don't pay for the spell you don't have summoning.

But Tzeentch in general is very powerful, even without summoning the nurgle vs tzeentch match would have been stacked in the latter's favor because of massed mystic shield and arcane bolt. For that matter, isn't a Lord of Change the same price as a daemon prince? It would make this even more one-sided. And this doesn't even touch the Daemon Cohort of Tzeentch batallion.

End of the day, having a balance system doesn't mean anything will be balanced. It sounds like you will deliberately hold back in the future, and that's probably the best way to go (I do this even in PPC).

Great game report, thanks.

Looking at the forces I don't think the soulgrinder was a valuable purchase for the Nurgle forces. What they needed was some staying power and probably some more magic when facing Tzeentch. for the same price you could get 10 Blightkings (3x3@ 2pts +1pt for the spare model) and a Rotbringer Sorcerer for another 2 points.

The blightkings would bring 31 wounds to the board, some great damage output in combat and run the potential for self healing and healing nearby NURGLE units. The Rotbringer sorc also brings self healing abilities plus the stream of corruption spell which although shortranged slaps out 3 mortal wounds each time it is cast which is awesome.

Or could have gone with blighttrolls 6 of the beasts adding 30 wounds to the table, 6 ranged vomit attacks, good melee attacks with rend and self healing , leaving 1 point spare.

I'd fancy taking on the tzeentch force with one of these kinds of loadouts.

Looks forward to seeing more.
G

I think the Soulgrinder is priced about 3 points too high. He has a lot of low accuracy attacks and a lot of wounds, but that's about it.