AHPC11: The Shrine: Morgwaeth's Blade-Coven

 As we descend ever further down the Chambers of Challenge, we stumbled upon a shrine, dedicated to the God of Murder, Kaela-Mensha-Khaine.

 

 

In all the blood and gore, his priestesses, known as the Daughters of Khaine, where seen bathing to preserve their unearthly beauty...

For this entry, I painted up the Morgwaeth's Blade-Coven from the Warhammer Underworlds range.  I wanted these ladies as my band to go to tournaments, but as it stands with Covid, they will actually be cycling out their generic cards before events pick up again hopefully late 2021.

But heck, it are gorgeous sculpts, and I must say that over the past year or so, it seems GW is pulling out all their stops on fantasy again, as the models imho look way better then their 40k counterpart.

And that goes especially for their small skirmish games, like Underworlds.  While some bands don`t appeal to me (anything Nurgle or Skaven for example), there doesn`t seem to be one ugly sculpt even amongst them.

Desecration: Zarbag's Gitz vs Fomoroid Crusher solo batrep

 Zarbag and his mates are back for another go against the Fomoroid Crusher (which again looks suprisingly Mordor Trollish, I really should order him soon before Brexit comes into play) in the second of the three solo scenarios from A Crushing Terror.

And this time, at first glance, it looks like they are in for a rough day again!

In order to Inspire for the goblins (bar the Fanatic and the Squigs), one needs to get three Glory Points, but they can`t score those in these sologames, OR an objective needs to be destroyed by the Crusher.  But with three objectives on the board, and the game ending once those are gone, that means two regular gobbos only can Inspire...

Setting up the table, I`m forced to already sacrifice two goblins, and went for the archers.  This is because in the second scenario, the first action (actually his activation actions third from the four) he will take is Breaker, which causes an instant three damage to one model in contact.  In the first turn I`ll go with a random roll, but after that it will be the model with the highest damage causing potential that will be on the receiving end.

The Crusher himself inspires once he can destroy an objective, so I`ll be throwing gitz against him piecemeal in order to keep him locked in place, and hopefully do some points of damage left and right before both his hit points and defence statistic increases.

 

The cards are drawn (with Pit Trap being useless, so that one will be turned in at the end of round 1) and under a loud bellowing, the game is underway.

Round 1

With a mighty smash, Stikkit is immediatly reduced to a pulp by the Crusher, causing 3 damage on the little goblin.  In the ensuing Power phase, Little Waagh is played, as are the Madcap Mushrooms.

 

 

Snirk then activates, but not Inspired, as he has a 3 damage attack.  He charges in and with the Little Waagh in play he manages to cause a critical hit and bypass the Crusher's rule of 2 damage maximum per attack action, causing 3 wounds on the big beast.

The Fomoroid then activates again and uses Breaker on poor Snirk, but in a reaction the Fungal Blessing caused another wound.  This means the poor guy actually knocked off 4 of the 10 wounds from the beast!

 

Drizgit now activates and charges in, and also manages to hit for 2 wounds.  The Fomoroid seems to be in a hard place as his Breaker action only takes down one git at a time, and they keep to lock him in place.  That said, he breaks Drizgit in very small pieces, but this Inspires the two squigs and now there are two bouncing balls of teeth eyeing him, and with Cleave to boot!

The first of them, Gobbaluk, immediatly goes for his ankles and takes a good chomp out of them before he gets flattened himsef, but the monster might actually go down in the first round of the game as it only has two wounds left!

 

It might come down to the other squig, Bonekrakka, who ferociously bounces in, but will he be able to finish the Crusher as the dice are rolled and...

... YES, they succeed as the Crusher goes down, it's final two wounds bitten away together with his face!

 

A suprisingly easy victory for the Gitz, even though every action of the Fomoroid smashed one into a pulp without any chance for the plucky warriors.  But in this scenario, where the Crusher doesn`t has his whirlwind like action, keeping him locked in place to prevent him from reaching the objectives does work wonders.

That is, if your dice co-operate, because if you fail to wound him with your higher damage output warriors before they are smashed, things might turn very, very different!

But a short, yet brutal game and good fun all in all, and this concludes my triumvirate of Underworlds posts this week, with a painted warband, an unboxing and now this battle report.

Until the next game!

Steelheart's Champions

 One of the very first Underworlds warbands released, as they where in the Starter set for Shadespire, Steelheart's Champions brings you three mighty Stormcast Eternals to explore the ancient ruins.

 

And now, only about three years after release, I finally painted them up...

 

Containing of the mighty Severin Steelheart himself, the shield carrying Angharad Brightshield (back then, the first female Stormcast released ever) and the huge hammer wielding Obryn the Bold, this is a very defensive and immovable warband.

 

 

It also shows in their Inspired condition that they are all about the blocking game, ideal to put themselves on objectives and rake in the points by guarding them like the immovable fortresses they are.  With their high hit points, they do a good amount as damage as well so it really isn't easy to shift them once they are in position.

 

I went on and painted them in a beige colourscheme, with a turquoise clothing for contrast.  This definitly looks better then the, no offense, boring gold of the Stormcasts, a colourscheme as widespread as Ultramarines.  Nothing wrong with that, but with an "army" of three models I just wanted something radically different.

 

 

I also went for white stonework on the bases, painted around a purple washed light grey to give it some arcane feeling to the rubble, and due to it being a cold colour compared to the warmer one of their armour, still stands out nicely and not becoming a white / bone blob.

 

 

Great models for sure, and one of these weeks I think I'm going to throw them against the Crusher in the soloplay rules for Underworlds, I'lll see about that.

 

But anyways, that now means I completed the third of the eight warbands Noshi and me share, so slowly it will all get done.

 

 

Slowly...

2.11.0.0

Warhammer Underworlds SOLO Batrep: Zarbag's Gitz vs Formoroid Crusher

It's been a while since I managed to get a game in, even in solo modus, but the past weekend I gave the solo rules for Underworlds a go. 

These rules can be downloaded of the Warhammer Community website for free, and they give you a chance to test your might against an AI driven monster.

As the title suggests, in the ruleset it is a Formoroid Crusher from the WarCry line, but as I don`t have that model, I proxied it with another big smashy beast: a Mordor Troll from the Lord of the Rings line.

These scenarios take place on a single board, and you have to select a battleplan for the beast.  As recommended by the rules, for the first outing I took the "Rampage" battleplan, giving the beast the keywords Priorities "Destroyer", "Enraged", "Breaker" and "Advance".  This is generally the way the monster behaves during the battle.

To oppose it, I brought along my Night Goblins, and as the game doesn`t use objectives, I could already imagine the hard times the little critters would have.  Especcially as the big one can't be driven back, severly limiting the usefulness of my Fanatic... and as your objective deck doesn`t take part in the game, the "score points by capturing objectives" for the swarm style warband is null and void... as is getting them Inspired, as that requires them to grab 3 or more Glory Points, and the only killable thing on the table looks very, very mean.  Luckily in this scenario, one fighter inspires if another got his head smashed in...

The pre-battle phase and set-up

I chose the map "Abandoned Lair"... for no other reason then it was the first I got in my hands, and blindly placed the objective tokens as per the rules for the scenario.  Baby Thorin looked on and approved.

The Battleplan required me to remove all my upgrades from my deck, handing out one to each fighter, and the rest was removed from the game.  This made the starting band look like this:

Deploying forces and drawing my opening hand, I guess my best bet is Zarbag trying to shoot down wounds with his magic, as well as the archers nibbling away at it...

As such I took the risk of putting my best fighters around the beast, in the hope of doing some wounds early on before they got stomped in the ground.

Round 1

The Fomoroid begins his devastating spree by smashing Drizgit in the ground with his Breaker action, inspiring both the Squigs in return, as well as Zarbag for a fallen ally and Snirk just because he can, and has the Whirling attack upgrade.

Gobbaluk, who also has a +1 damage upgrade, bites the big monster for 3, but due to the Formoroid special rule this is reduced to only 2 damage.  Snirk is the next one to suffer the Breaker, inspiring Prog, and soon after Gobbaluk suffers the same fate, inspiring Redkap.

In the Power Step, Curse of the Bad Moon is failed to be cast, but a Little Waagh is declared on Bonekrakka for another 2 damage on the monster, before he is pounded flat as well, but inspiring Dibbz.

Redkap and Dibbz laet lose their arrows to no effect, while Stikkit is pushed in with Sneaky Step to occupy the big beast one more round.

Observant readers will notice that even though I had the choice of which model would get the victim of the Breaker attack, I didn`t take away the weakest first.  This is due to the fact that if it where a game versus a real player, I would go for the sure kill on the strongest models first as well.  That way, I felt this would be a better representation of a game of "whack-a-gobbo".

The goblins where now 4 members down, but the big beast had suffered 4 wounds so far!  Not enough, as he would surely be inspiring come next Round, and gain an additional 2.

Round 2

Round 2 begins with poor Stikkit being flattened with the Breaker action.  I realised afterwards I might better haven`t done this, and let him suffer the possible attack of the Enrage, but that would also cause the Objective that was moved on to being tossed, so who can tell what would have been the better option.

A salvo from Redkap and Dibbs (long live Volley Caller) did a wound on the big beast, but the beast Enrages onto an objective as he charges Prog.  The poor goblin wouldn`t live to tell the tale, and adding insult to injury the hurled objective caused two wound on Zarbag himself.

Even though Inspired now, the Fungal Blessing for taking out Prog at least caused an additional wound.
Zarbag casts Jealous Hex on the Formoroid, virtually taking him down to 5 wounds to go, in the subsequent Power phase.

Poor Zarbag is next on the rampage of the monster, chanceless against this brutal power in his already wounded state.

The archers let go, causing another wound, before Dibbz became charged by the Enraged Formoroid... and miraculously dodged it!
Their combined volley caused another wound on the beast, but it looked grim.

With Dibbz in Breaker range, and the Formoroid still on 3 wounds, this would mean Redkap somehow needed to lure the beast to an edge, dodge any charges, be pushed back for another wound instead, AND still shoot and hit... well, theoretically there was still a chance.

Round 3

As predicted, Dibbz was swiftly dispatched by the Breaker, but Redkap actually puts another arrow in the huge monster.  But alas, there it ended, as the Formoroid charged the plucky archer, instantly flattening him without even needing to throw an Objective after him.

Never the less, the little guys, whose heavy hitters (sort off) would even be instasmashed due to Breaker and the fact they needed to deploy around the beast, managed to bring it down to 2 wounds, not a bad showing.  It actually could have gone down, had it not blocked some of the arrows poured into him, so the tactic at least proved viable...

These solo game rules are good fun, though utterly brutal.  I will probably try out the remaining two battleplans in the future as well, going for different warbands or so... and see what high defense or high damage bands can do against the beast!

The Real Deal! Warhammer Shadespire battle report

And we have arrived at the point where the game becomes for real.  

After playing a couple of games to really get to know the core rules, me and Noshi played this game `full option`, meaning with the decks self-build instead of preconstructed.

I switched out almost all the "hold objective x" cards for the Khorne slaughtering cards, as I commanded the Reavers again, while Noshi took Steelheart.

I once again deployed deep, with axe wielding bloke being my spearhead of attack.  I had learned from the previous game that he hits hard with his big chop attack, so Brightshield would be his main target again.

Under the gaze of Garrek, the Reavers surged forward while Noshi instead opted to stock up on cards.

Come turn two, I attacked the big hammer Eternal, but only managed to get him inspired.

The same story on the other side of the line, as Noshi blocked my attacks.

The eternals retaliated, and two of my warriors went down as a result.

With the final turn now in play, Garrek arrived and tried to take down Brightshield, but failed...

At this point, Noshi was in the lead, but I had enough points in hand for the final turn, winning with 3 points as a result.

While my objectives where well stacked, I failed to actually take down even one of the Eternals, who once they are inspired and on guard actually block with EVERY result on the defence dice when supporting each other... so I really would need numbers with cards like Frenzy to even try and crack their armour...

But this is a fun little game, and we are getting Nightvault as well soonish, while I have my eye on the Goblin band and it,s hilarious looking fanatic figure...

For Khorne! Warhammer Shadespire battle report

After giving the game a few go's with the Eternals, me and Noshi switched sides for our second game at the club last friday.

So now I took command of the rabble of Garrek's Reavers, and Noshi took the armoured troops of Sigmar.

I deployed rather deep to close the gap as soon as possible, while Noshi gathered in a corner of her board, denying a lot of the playing field in turn 1.

My first warrior charged Brightshield... and that didn`t went that well at all.

However, a second charge and some good rolls took the mighty warrior down.  Having played the band before, he was the one I feared most, as he can get some seriously nasty upgrades and a dirty Inspired reaction skill.

The bands gather close to each other, and duke it out, as warrior after warrior falls in melee.

Hunting her last warrior, my reaver gets beaten to a pulp by the mighty warhammer... and this leads to a very odd situation.

Both our final models have charged, and can do nothing anymore with 3 activations left each.  On the scorebord it is now 3 - 3 in points, so we had to draw cards with our final activation in the hope of switching out objectives for one that scores.

I won this not so exciting to see, but tensionous draw battle, as I obtained two scoring cards of 2 points each, bringing it to 7 - 3 in the end... though Noshi could claim moral victory.

Next game, we will be playing it "full", including the deckbuilding part of the game instead of the preconstructed ones we used these three past games, so stay tuned.