Absylonia looked around her scanning her surroundings, this was as good a place as any other to confront the Lich Lord, she decided.
For days now she had heard of a Lich Lord stalking the countryside, but unlike other Cryxian incursions, he wasn't hitting the human villages, this could only mean one thing, he was looking for something and Absylonia couldn't allow this base of operations to be found by Toruks lackeys, so she had grabbed what was available and had head out to stop the undead!
Slowly in the distance she started to distinguish the shambling forms of mecanithrals heading to her, she looked around herself again, the small band of stryders that had accompanied her was positioned perfectly just in the zombies path, they would deal with that threat at least.
The rest of the undead horde would be her responsibility. With a gentle mental push, she ordered her dragonspawn to be ready, it was time for the prodigal son to pay his father a visit!
Welcome to my first ever game with hordes.
I have a fairly large Cygnar collection and have played them extensively but this was going to be my first foray into the exciting world of Hordes, and my first Mk II game as well AND against a caster I never faced before... This should be interesting...
So, here is what I brought:
Absylonia
- Carnivean
- Angelius
- Raek
- Shredder
- Shredder
6x Striders
- Strider
UA
Forsaken
That's allot of beasts! and allot less models than I'm used to fielding in Cygnar and in Mk I!
I'm running 1 point short because the Shepherd is OOS according to the Maelstrom and the second Shredder was supposed to be a Deathstalker that I couldn't get in time for the same reason so cut me some slack regarding my list choice!
I was going to be up against:
Venethrax
- Deathripper
- Deathripper
- Defiler
- Seether
Skarlock
6x Bane Thrals
10x Mecanithrals
- Brute Thrall
Necrotech
- Scrap Thrall
3x Scrap Thralls
2x Bloat Thralls
UAU! That's the good old fashioned undead horde that I knew and loved! Before the game begins I'm feeling a little nervous about handling that much infantry but since my list is built with just caster assassination in mind, it doesn't matter how many they are if my opponent gives me an opening to his caster.
We roll for first turn and Venethrax chooses to deploy and go first:
Cryx right side (my left).
Cryx left side (my right).
I choose to deploy all my warbeasts and warlock directly facing him and leave the striders on the right side to deal with his left flank and provide a distraction and annoyance with their reform, hopefully drawing more models to their side.
Striders on my right deployed with
AD.
My center / left flank, looking awfully bare of models!
1st Turn - Cryx
Nothing much happens in his first turn, he runs the scrap thralls forward and everything else just walks, no spells cast for any reason (I'm not familiar with Venethrax so I can't say if this is a good or a bad thing).
There is a single scrap thrall flanking me on my left that I hadn't noticed until now, if I had, I would have deployed a shredder farther to my left side to deal with it!
1st Turn - Legion
Really blurry picture here, sorry about that!
I advance up to the ruins riling the Angelius and the Raek twice along the way. The Shredders cast tenacity on themselves and the Carny casts Spiny Growth on himself as well. The Forsaken advances as well and sucks the fury from the Raek.
Absylonia advances behind the Angelius and casts Forced Evolution and Tenacity on the Angelius and Playing God on the Raek. Since all the Cryx models are undead Carnivore is useless...
On my right side the Striders stand sill and
CRA both Scrap Thralls that are in front of them. This was my first mistake, I should have advanced them so that the Mecanithralls would also be in their range. They then use the reform move to move back.
2nd Turn - Cryx
His rightmost Scrap runs to withing 2 inches on my Raek.
Again he just advances with his center, the bloat thrall shoots at my Carny, the template deviates right on top of it but his unharmed.
Venethrax casts hellfire through the Deathripper at my Carny, boosts and takes out one column. He then runs the scrap to the space between the ruins.
On his left he runs the Mecanithralls into the wood ignoring my striders and doing the complete opposite of what I wanted him to do (typical)!
2nd Turn - Legion
I upkeep all the spells and realise my second mistake here! I forced my beats too much! I can only take 5 fury off of them and I have 6 fury scattered between all the beasts.
I decide to leave 1 fury on one of the shredders who promptly frenzies and attacks the other one, taking out one of the columns of damage.
I kind of forgot to take a few pictures here so I'll just have to describe it:
On my right flank, the stryders move towards my center and take out the Brute thrall, 1 of the Mecanithralls and the Scrap that was blocking my center.
On my left flank, the injured shredder goes Rabid and advances into combat (I didn't have a charge line), with the other scrap that was threatening my Raek. I miss the first strike but force another one and finally get rid of the damn thing, loosing all but 1 damage from my Spirit columns.
The Forsaken then advances and grabs the fury from the Shredder.
Next comes one of the most fun things that I've ever seen in
WM or any other table top game!
The Raek advances towards the Bloat Thrall, jumps into contact with him and 2 handed throws him into one Bane thrall, killing the bane thrall and doing some damage to the bloat.
The Angel then flies over the ruins and shoots at the bloat thrall, killing him! In the resulting explosion the Bane thrall leader dies, the Defiler looses his cortex and the Skarlock only avoids the same fate due to some very low rolling!
On the middle, the Carny Assaults the Seether and puts 5 damage on him, I boost the hit against Venethrax and manage to put 3 damage on him as well.
Absylonia activates, casts Tenacity on the Angel, Mutates some wings and flies over the wall behind the Angel. She then casts Tenacity on the Raek as well and finally casts Blight Field, managing to catch the Seether and the Defiler in the template (the green dice on the picture above shows the center of the template.)
3rd Turn - Cryx
Again, sorry about the missing pictures, but I kind of forgot about them in the heat of the moment...
The seether his inside the Blight Field so he can't be allocated focus and his Soul Drive doesn't work as well. Unfortunately, he can charge for free! Damn, I didn't knew that, and I remember that I forgot to cast spiny growth on the Carny as well! Maybe I'll get lucky!
On Cryx's right the remaining Bane Thralls charge the Raek but they predictably all miss against the
DEF 16 dragonspawn!
The Seether charges the Carny and hits with all his attacks, taking away his spirit and most of his mind. Venethrax then decides to join the party, he casts Dragon Slayer on himself and charges into Carny finishing him off with 2 extra strikes and turning the Cary fury into Focus for himself... Oh well, there goes my plan of the Carny surviving and healing him to full on my turn!
He runs the Mecanithralls through the wood and moves the Defiler forward firing his sludge cannon at the Angelius and Absylonia but missing them both.
The Skarlock also move forward and casts Hellfire at the Angel but the spell misses and scatters harmlessly.
His 2 remaining bonejacks move forward, along with the remaining Bloat Thrall.
3rd Turn - Legion
I get back 3 fury from my remaining beasts and upkeep all my spells again. With my heavy hitter gone I need to do something fast or I'm going to loose this one, luckily, as you can see from the picture above, my opponent left me an opening that I can, hopefully, take advantage of.
My Striders move to the left and I aim a 5 man
CRA (all that where in range), at Venethrax that does no damage to his 22
ARM! Well, that's part 1 of my plan down the drain!
I force a charge from the Angel on Venethrax and fly him over the Seether and into melee. Another Fury point allows me a boost on the to hit that gives me the bare minimum "8" needed to hit and the damage roll comes up at 13 putting the final 15
DMG points and winning me the game!
After watching Venethrax easily take out a Carnivean where a Seether had failed, Absylonia started to get worried. Her hit and run tactics had worked so far, inflicting some casualties on the horde without having suffered any in return. But Toruks army was still far too strong and she had just lost a sizeable portion of her own small force.
Luckily, in his haste to close with the Dragonspawn, Venethrax had exposed himself too much, a swift strike could end this once and for all!
She commanded the Angelius to attack the Lich Lord and the great beast soared into the sky at the same time that her Striders let loose with a voley that bounced ineffectually from Venetraxs armour and force field.
Her mind now fully focused on the Angelius, she directed it so that the tip of his tail would find the exact spot on the undeads armour, that minuscule point where the armour hadn't been repaired as expertly as usual!
She knew that the blow would be fatal even before the beast began to pull back its tail to strike. Moving forward with the full momentum of its charge, first the force field, and then the armour itself gave way, so that the razor sharp tip appeared between the Lich Lords shoulder bone, impaling him and returning his damned soul back to Toruks domain!
In the same second the helljack and lesser bonejacks became inert and the other undead began to retreat, their will completely shattered with the demise of the warcaster. The base was safe and the daughter of Everblight could continue her work in piece, at least for now...
Post Game Analysis
For starters, let me start by apologising for the quality of the pictures, I forgot my camera so had to take them with my cell phone...
This was my first Warmahordes game in a looong time so I made a lot of mistakes, I've identified most of them I think. My opponent also made his fair share of mistakes the biggest one being him not having blocked my charge lane into Venethrax, I blame it on being his first game against Legion and him not knowing what our capabilities are...
My list was constrained from the models that I have available like I said, but its pretty close to its finished form, I really liked how most of the pieces performed, especially the Raek and the Angel. The Carny and the Striders didn't do as well as I'd hopped but like I said in the report their poor performance was due to my own mistakes (forgeting to put Spiny Growth on the Carny when using him as bait and exagerating on the number of
CRAs on the Striders).
Well, I hope you've enjoyed this report, let me know if you spot any mistakes that I might have missed.
