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Bit of a report on my time at Throne of Skulls this weekend just gone:

This weekend I took 'Lead Rot' out to a tournament (Throne of Skulls). I wanted to see how an oldschool army fared in the newschool rules. These were my fourth-to-ninth games of AoS, and my first with the new edition. Lead Rot is an OLDHAMMER Nurgle army. The only modern models in it (because they have no metal analog) are three 'Gnarlmaws' - tree things that help Nurgle along. Think of them as possessed trees acting as gates / focal points of disease and you get the idea. Everything else has a direct comparison in RoC / WFB3.

Anyway, I placed 35th of 50-odd, and got a 'best army' nomination so not a terrible first outing by any stretch. Thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed it. There were actually quite a few older players there, which was nice. I think another oldschool-inspired army may well be in order for next year. Everyone I met was nice, it was superbly organised. Can't fault it. Worth every penny.


The army itself consists of:

A Harbinger of Decay. I used the metal version of the official model (2002 I think), but a Palanquin will double up as another later when I get it painted. This guy was my general and took a gift of Nurgle to give him better rend (armour penetration) on melee attacks. Also has a command ability to thow up an aura that gives all Nurgle Mortal units close by a 5-6 chance to ignore rather than allocate each incoming wound (not hits).

A Great Unclean One. I 3d-printed a bell and sword/large dagger type weapon and gave him a staff to represent a magic item he carries (which I do consistently forget to use!). GUO's have equipment choices nowadays - the bell in particular is super useful as it adds 2" movement to things that start their move close by. This can turn the ordinarily slow, ponderous and super-durable Nurgle army into a scampering epidemic of fun times (for the Nurgle player). I also built up a 'portable hill' base as the new model is... enormous... and on a 130mm base. This kept the competitve folks happy and actually doesn't look bad.

A Sorceror on foot. Nothing special to say, this guy was here to dispel enemy spells and occasionally do some support work with buff spells. Nurgle has a cycle of 7 stages it goes through each battle round that do different things (all good, but quite situational) and one of the spells every Nurgle magic user gets can reset this to what you want of the 6 possible starting stages.

3 Beasts of Nurgle, taken as individual models. Beasts in AoS really do feel like scampering puppies, and I wanted to put them as distractions about the place. They're durable, scary-looking and relatively cheap points wise.

9 Bases of Nurglings, taken in 3's. Again these feel 'right'. They're teeny-tiny weak little pus-bags, but they throw a LOT of (crappy) attacks out, and unless you kill off a whole base full (4 wounds) it recovers all of its wounds at the end of a turn. If they do any damage at all, a bonus wound gets applied to the target. They also have the ability to be deployed in hiding anywhere on the table in cover, away from the enemy. Again, great distractions. I had another 6 bases of Nurglings ready for summoning (but ended up summoning a replacement Beast instead in one game).

30 Plaguebearers, in a block. Anvil unit. Parked on an objective and used to hold it. Very hard to kill. A command from the GUO can add 1 to their attacks as well, so he was kept in range to do that if they got in a fight. They did, it worked very well. :-)

20 Chaos Marauders, in a block, shields and axes. Weak hammer. Within range of the General's ability, and with a buff spell from the sorceror they're worth twice their points if they get the charge in. Very weak morale though, so attrition is bad for them. Again, buffed they can be quite scary so are a good unit to feint or bait with.

10 Putrid Blightkings. 'Hammer' unit. Stupid name for 'Champions of Nurgle'. Tough, slow, and steeped in disease. 6+'s to hit count as D6 hits, which means in a mass, they're capable of inflicting horrific damage (especially coupled with a bonus to-wound). No rend, though.

What I learned:
Blocks and mobs are indeed back. The new rules for battleshock at the end of each turn cause you to lose models that are out of coherency (1" on the flat, 6" height) from the rest of the unit. This means doing things that cause this to happen are probably unwise. A long line, attacked in two sides (effectively flanked) is going to fight inefficiently as the models in the middle can't pile in to assist either side. You need to pile in from rear ranks or files. If you split a unit to kill something, you need to be aware that the split portion are suiciding. There's no reforming. Be careful where you allocate wounds (wounds are allocated to one model at a time until it is dead) - if that model ends up being the 'link' that stops a unit being split, you've got problems. Staying formed up as much as possible and removing casualties / allocating wounds at the other side of the unit to where you're interested is the order of the day. The only thing I'd make a line of are archers / gunners, and I'd have those stood behind a screen of melee blocks (Roman tactics).

Some things are Not Meant To Be Fought. I spent far too long trying to kill a 560 point monster which was doing more damage from a 'thorns' type shield (ie I hurt myself hitting it) than it was inflicting, though it was eating the occasional Blightking. I should have run off to go slaughter something else and magic'd the crap out of it. I had damage spells that I just wasn't chucking. Duh.

Things work Much as it Used To. You still want to wheel with blocks, especially if there's fast moving stuff about. If you're familiar with what something's supposed to be, it's still the same thing - GUOs are big fat lumps of hard to kill spell-chucking fun. Beasts go scampering (can run AND charge) jumping up and down on things (actually they've got a 50% chance of sliming on a retreat move, after which they can attempt to charge right back in - it's funny). Plaguebearers plod along counting. Nurglings are just as irritating and as hard to shift as a bout of Delhi belly.

Objective play on random scenarios is a lot of fun. The different 'battleplans' AoS has had (since last year) are actually pretty good. Some require fast moving, some require guarding and probing for weaknesses. Each game had a different set of challenges, but all felt like they could have gone either way. That big monster I was fighting couldn't really claim an objective any better than one Marauder, so having them run in at the end to nab it, rather than mid-game where they got eaten, might have been sensible.

Lots of fun. Gonna do it again with Empire / Freeguild I think. I have an urge to do something that isn't covered in zits.

Nice write up.

Your thoughts on movement and so on give me some hope. I am thinking about giving this game a try, if I can get over the stupid names on absolutely everything, and the annoying background story.

I just had my first proper game of AoS using the new Nighthaunt army. I had heard from others that movement and positioning was vital in this new era and they were not kidding. Melee weapon range and the previously mentioned coherency penalty means how you position your unit after a charge (and before it) crucial. I found that larger units I still formed up in loose ranks to get the best position. Characters are NOT the big beat sticks they were in WHFB, and are more for buffing your units than anything else.

 Da Boss wrote:
Nice write up.

Your thoughts on movement and so on give me some hope. I am thinking about giving this game a try, if I can get over the stupid names on absolutely everything, and the annoying background story.

I really, really like it. The requirement to judge positions for a chain of pile-in moves reminds me of when the artillery / scatter dice came in for cannons. You need to eyeball that range and when defending you set traps within traps - put a bait (hello, Marauders) unit up front and your real hitter just behind so when the opponent piles in, if they're daft enough to wrap round you hurt them.

The whole thing has a pretty fluid feel to it. Only got past round 2 in one game (2 player turns per round), but that seemed sort of par. Lots happens in a short space of time - much more than in WFB where there was usually a turn or so of strategic repositioning - here it's more strategic deployment / counter deployment, and things are usually fighting by the second player's turn in the first round. The bell / gnarlmaw / unnatural vitality combo is FUNNY AS FETH. Blightkings and Beasts, IN YOUR FACE, in the first combat phase. Oh, the hilarity. And the best thing is, with a spell you can reset the cycle to that and DO IT AGAIN! Typically though, once in a fight as Nurgle you go for the to-wound bonus.