Unfortunately, despite my wife's assurances to the contrary, the camera did die at the start of my second round. I do however have photos in here of at least my second and third round opponents from my general photo taking festival at the beginning of the event.
On with the show. My first opponent was named Brandy, a very nice lady who happens to be good friends of a buddy of mine. This was the first time that I had the pleasure of meeting her and I didn't actually realize that it was my buddy's friend until much later.
Thankfully I wasn't an asshole. Lol.
Brandy was playing an Epidemius themed Chaos Daemons list. It was nicely themed, but I don't think that Epidemius lists are terribly competitive in general. I think she did slaughter some poor guard player later in the day though. You can see her full list here.
Anyways. Brandy obviously put a lot of love into this army, and her theme was clearly her priority. She had no selections that did not carry a Mark of Nurgle, and the entire army was BEAUTIFULLY painted. She had created a sort of cribbage board into which she put little pegs with Nurglings on them to represent Epidemius' tally. It was very cool.
The mission was pretty straightforward. One objective in the exact center of the table. Controlling that objective was the win condition. You needed to select a single model in your army and write down who that was. Bonus points basically revolved around killing your opponent's secret model and not having yours die. Deployment was pitched battle.
I had first turn, though I can't remember if I won it or if Brandy gave it to me. No real difference.
Here's my Turn 1 deployment. You can see I left her a few narrow "pockets" at the back edge. I also ensured that my heavy hitters were close to the middle objective (seen in this photo as the building in the top/middle of the shot.
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Ok, so Brandy got her preferred wave, which consisted of Epidemius, a unit of 18 Plaguebearers, and 2 Daemon Princes. Here she is placing Epidemius and his Plaguebearer companions.
She had to place some of them outside the ruin. All of these guys were taking Dangerous Terrain checks, and would have even if they had not gone into cover because I had Tempest's Wrath up (and kept it up for the entire game). Njal for the motherfuckin win.
took this picture to show where she had TRIED to deepstrike her Daemon Prince. Note to Deep Strike armies without Inertial Guidance: Don't fall for this. Those pockets look tempting, but IT'S A TRAP! Lol. Well Brandy scattered and suffered a mishap and I believe this one was destroyed.
Random picture is random.
Here's Brandy playing in Vegas again, putting another prince in another pocket. This one was really dangerous as she was so close to the board edge. Again, don't do this guys.
I can't really tell but I think that's showing a hit. In any case she did not mishap on this one.
And here she comes again, going for the same pocket! She said that at some point after she lost the first Prince she started to get desperate and took some silly chances. That's an easy trap to fall for, as I will show in my Round 3 Batrep. In any case, this one didn't end well, as she mishapped AGAIN...
...and I decided to send her over to the other side of the board into some terrain. She even failed her Dangerous Terrain roll and invul save for me. Almost like I planned it that way...
So on my second turn I was in combat with her center unit which had Epidemius. His tally DID scare me - I can't afford to have all those Nurgle jerkoffs suddenly start swinging power weapons at my Wolf Guard. No sirree. So I jumped him immediately with a Lone Wolf and 2 Cavalry, and even popped Logan's +1 attack (as they were all in range). I wasn't able to get the second Lone Wolf in... because he decided to roll snake-eyes on his terrain roll. Way to fail, you.
And since I couldn't have a Daemon Prince running around in my lines I shot him a bunch with Krak missiles and then charged him with my third Lone Wolf. I do love Lone Wolves...
Wide shot of the battle thus far.
Poor Brandy. On her turn she mishapped AGAIN with her Beasts of Nurgle. I decided these guys should go play in the far corner. Slow and Purposeful FTL.
And here you can see the Prince and the Beasts hanging out. Not really contributing.
Yep, that's our battle all right. Pretty awesome. This board actually had very decent terrain.
Ok, so here comes some more Plaguebearers. These guys came in just to my left of the center objective, in the upper left quadrant if you will. You can just BARELY make out my third Thunderhoof Cav making a beeline for the central combat around Epidemius. I can't recall why these guys seem to be in two separate groups, to be perfectly honest.
Ok we're on my turn 3 and Logan has made it into combat with Epidemius and Friends. Here's Epidemius before the "at initiative" beatdown. I'm pretty sure I used Logan's Frostblade because I was confident I could finish him off before he swung back.
I was right.
And here comes some chainfist swings. Don't worry Brandy, you have invul saves.
Or not. Sorry. :(
Objective: Secure.
Oh but wait, there's a Daemon Prince and some Beasts coming. We'll have to take care of them.
And... The Great Unclean One came in. He breath of Chaos'd a few Wolf Guard I think.
Then got shot up a whole lot by my whole army and then charged.
And then he was "the model formerly known as the Great Unclean One."
"Hey, Ulrik, do you think we can take these guys?"
"Sure thing Sven. You just follow me."
They get closer.
Finishing off the last of the Plaguebearers.
My scoring units are heading for the objective. I picture Njal saying 'this house is clean.'
Lone Wolves! Attack! What perfect targets for them. They have no power weapons, not great invuls, and they are T5. Bring on the rerolls. Oh, by this point I have shot the last Daemon Prince to death before he reached me (the one I had thrown onto a hill across the table on a mishap).
Taking the objective.
Wide view.
Grinding through Beasts of Nurgle. What Lone Wolves do best.
This was just bad. I can't remember why, but she mishapped... AGAIN, with her last squad of Plaguebearers (her final unit in reserve). I threw them into the corner again... but I have to say at this point I felt bad about it. I think this was the bottom of four. I beat on her Beasts a bit more, and she moved towards the objective with her Plaguebearers after this.
Bottom of five. Does the game end?
It does.
They made some progress. Not enough.
Still beating on Beasts. Almost had them.
So there you have it. My first round. She was a fantastically pleasant opponent. And apparently I'm not the only one who thought so. She got five out of five votes for "Favorite Opponent" and ended up taking home a shitload of stuff.
I got nothing.
So who's laughing in the end? Lol.
