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8th Ed. 2000 points LM versus the Maleficient Four

Discussion in 'Battle Reports' started by Scalenex, May 22, 2016.

  1. Scalenex
    Slann

    Scalenex Keeper of the Indexes Staff Member

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    Eron12 and I were always somewhat intrigued with the 6th Edition BRB scenario called Seven Knights. One player plays a normal army, the other plays all heroes and lords. 6th edition had special scenario rules for extra large magic item allotments but we forgot about that one when we relaunched the scenario in 8th edition using all Heroes/Lords but with the normal individual character limits.

    Eron has been working on a converted, scratch built and/or kitbashed Daemon Prince for all four Chaos gods. They are all unpainted and most have work left to be done (Billy is currently without a head) modeling wise but they are all field-able now, so we opted to try Seven Knights with the four Daemon Princes. Instead of the Magnificent Seven we have the Maleficent Four.

    So Daemon Princes are at or near the top of most players’ list of “Most Overpowered Units in Warhammer 8th Edition.” It’s not an unfair fight in this case. It’s rare one gets to plan his/her army around countering a specific build (though the Tzeentch DP really threw me for a loop).


    Army of Scalenex

    Slann Mage Priest, BSB, Standard of Discipline, Channeling Staff, Focus of Mystery, Becalming Cognition, Harmonic Convergence, Lore Mastery of High Magic

    Saurus Scar Veteran, Armor of Destiny, Great Weapon, Cold One
    Skink Chief, Blowpipe, Light armor, shield, Terradon, Pigeon Plucker Pendant, Potion of Foolhardiness, Warrior Bane
    Skink Priest, L1 Lore of Beasts, Dispel Scroll, ended up with Amber Spear

    24 Skink/3 Kroxigor Cohort with Full Command and Poisoned Attacks
    24 Skink/3 Kroxigor Cohort with Full Command and Poisoned Attacks

    27 Temple Guard, Full Command

    The Maleficent Four

    Every Daemon Prince was maxed or practically maxed out for their points limit on magic items and Chaos mutations. Even after kitchen sinking his four lords with gear, house ruling that one Daemon Prince could be a BSB, and making all three of the wizards level 4, Eron12 was still roughly 50 points shy of 2000. He could have bought a cheapie Chaos character sidekick but that would require Eron12 to thin the magic items a bit to make room and it would break the thematic awesomeness that is four Daemon Princes fighting by themselves.

    Rather than bring up every mutation and magical item, I thought I’d stick with the ones that had a material impact on the game.

    Nurgle was represented by the Bilious Lord of Yersinsia, (Billy to his friends). He was defensively loaded and served as general. He had a Chaos Familiar for an extra spell and better channel. He took the Lore of Nurgle. His spells were Curse of the leper, Rancid Visitations, Fleshy Abundance, Blades of Putrefaction, and Stream of Corruption.

    Khorne was represented by the Daemon Prince Kobb. Kobb had a +1 attack and had an Enchanted Shield. None of the other upgrades really mattered.

    Tzeentch was represented by a Daemon Prince whose blasphemous name cannot be reproduced by our frail mortal tongues or keyboards. I do not remember what the Nameless One’s assorted upgrades did. They were overshadowed by his sneaky Tzeentch magic. I had forgotten that I had loaned Eron Nagash and that he has a Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings army book (since 8th edition went out of print he’s been hunting army books that are being resold cheaply). The Nameless One took the Lore of Undeath and got Ryze, Khizaar, Razkhar, and Kandorak. It is no secret on this forum that I really like the Lore of Undeath and think about it often. I figured the potential of the Lore would be weak against four Daemon Princes but it never occurred to me that Eron12 would take it. Playing a team of characters against and army, dictates who fight who and when is key. Undeath is a spectacular lore if you are on the Magnificent side of a Magnificent Seven scenario and I didn’t see it coming.

    Slaanesh was represented by Lexi who had Acquiesce, Hysterical Frenzy, Slicing Shards, and Cacophonic Choir. She had a magical shield that gave her a 1+ armor save against shooting. Important because Lexi played cat and mouse with my Skirmisher Skinks for much of the game (though eventually she handed them off to the Nameless One).

    Terrain

    We decided to use the Chaos Wastes terrain generator we worked. The terrain tended to frame the table leaving the center of the table mostly open. Since our units rarely left the center of the table, the terrain didn’t matter. Two mysterious forests, a tower of Blood, a Marsh, a River of Blood, a Temple of Skulls, a Mist Wreathed Swamp, a Wyrding Well, and a Sorcerous Portal. The Temple of Skulls/aka the scary hill helped give my Skinks a nice vantage point to shoot from once or twice, but we never touched the other terrain The Sorcerous Portal had no minimum range so it couldn’t be avoided. Most of the time it hit me and most of the time it was beneficial.

    My lower right had the Temple of Skulls. Moving up we had an ordinary building on the center, then a mysterious forest on my upper right and another building. The River of Blood separated the buidlings on the edge from the rest of the table. Opposite me was the Tower of Blood in the center of Eron’s Deployment zone. The left side of the table from my view had the Mist wreathed swamp with the Sorcerous Portal above it. Then the other forest above that.

    Deployment

    We house ruled that Eron12 could deploy his DPs one at a time to make deployment more interesting.

    I used my Skink Skirmishers in the lower right as a dummy drop (and to keep them away from the Sorerous Portal). Then moving left I put my two Skrox in then the TG. Scar Veteran joined the Temple Guard, Slann joined the Temple Guard, and the Terradon Chief positioned near the Skirmishers. I figured my Temple Guard would really like the Sorererous Portal’s buff spells and would only be mildly inconvenienced by the baleful spells so I deliberately positioned them to soak up the Portal’s spells. I placed my Beast Prince in my right-most Skroxigor block. I mildly regretted this. I figured my Skink Skirmishers would be too many points in a fragile target if I put my Priest there. I figured if I put my left most Skroxigor block was so close to the Slann I wouldn’t gain much from having a vassal there. Problem is my right most Skroxigor block was the most exposed. While the Skroxigor took a long time to die, I couldn’t toss out any Amber Spears or serve as any Arcane Vassal with the unit tied in combat so early.

    Eron 12 was concerned about the portal and deployed his four Daemon Princes far away from it making a loose cluster on the right side of the table by my view. Billy, then Kobb, then Nameless, then Lexi. They were pretty much opposite my main blocks. No one played hard to get. Chaos won initiative for first turn.

    WoC 1

    All the Daemon Princes advanced angling towards my right. Left to right order changes to Kobb, Billy, Nameless, and Lexi. Lexi had the least horizontal distant to cover so she was well ahead of the others. That was fine because she pointed right at my Skink Skirmishers.

    10 PD against 6 DD. The Sorcerous Portal gave my Temple Guard Wyssan’s Wildform. I dispelled an attempt to create a Cairn Wraith with dice. Then I failed to prevent the summoning of a Spirit Host. Nameless put it front of one of my Skroxigor blocks. Billy cast Rancid Visitations on my Terradon Chief. This could easily kill him, so I scrolled it. Then Lexi shot him down with Slicing Shards. I think bringing the Terradon Chief was a mistake, I was just too enamored with the thought of using the Pigeon Plucker Amulet.

    No shooting.

    No close combat.


    LM 1


    I hoped to have my Terradon Chief remove the Spirit Host since he had my only magic weapon. Now I could only kill ethereals with static CR. I had both Skroxigor charge the Spirit Host to annihilate it with Static CR. TG march forward to close the distance between them and the Skroxigor. My Skirmishers failed their march test. They had plenty of movement to get out of Lexi’s front arc but they couldn’t position themselves to have all ten shoot her now. (I didn’t realize that Lexi is nigh invincible to regular shooting yet)

    10 PD vs 6 DD. I got Wyssans cast on the Temple Guard again, so my Temple Guard far away from close combat now are Strength and Toughness 6. I figured three flying targets in a row is the best I’ll ever see for a chance to use Tempest, but I flubbed my casting. No more Slann spell. Since my Skink Priest is technically engaged in close combat, he can’t Amber Spear.

    I fired some ineffectual shots at Lexi and learned about her anti-shooty armor

    Spirit Host inflicts no wounds on me and then crumbles away in the face of 6 points of CR. Only took me half of my army to counter this spell…


    Chaos 2


    Lexi, Billy, and Kobb fly into my right-most Skroxigor. Nameless positions itself for some Undeath casting.

    11 PD versus 7 DD. The first Wyssan’s Wildform wears off (still got the one from last phase) and the Portal decides to cast Speed of Light on Temple Guard. Nurgle Rot is an upgrade that inflicts automatic Strength 1 hits on enemies in base to base contact without armor saves. That can actually hurt Skinks. Billy diseases a Skink to death this way. Nameless casts Khizzar on my Skroxigor and whiffs the damage roll, but he still got a token for a successful spell. Now armed with two raise the dead Tokens, Nameless can summon two Spirit Hosts. I was ready to dispel this, but he rolled IF. Miscast did no damage as nothing was in base contact with Nameless, though it drained the Chaos team’s magic pool which was just as well since I had most of my dispel dice left.

    No shooting phase.

    Kobb’s Firebreath kills five Skinks and fails to wound any Kroxigor. Kob inflicts five wounds on the Kroxigor with his mighty blade. Billy scores a lot of hits, but fails to damage any Kroxigor. Were the Daemons played appropriately, Kobb would have challenged Billy’s right to lead at this point, and the two would fight to the death. Lexi was so upset about not seeing a fight to the death, she decided to miss with every attack. I figured that Kobb was the most frontloaded offensively so I maximized attacks on him (and Billy is basically unkillable in close combat). I didn’t inflict any unsaved wounds. Eron12 forgot that Skroxigor were no longer immune to Thundertomps, I forgot that Daemon Princes had Thunderstomps

    LM 2

    Not too long ago, I showed Eron12 just how long a pair of Spirit Hosts can hold a powerful block up. Now the tables were turned. There was nothing I could to keep my right most Skroxigor from getting bogged down and this would create a wall of Skroxigor to make it even harder for my TG to engage their flying enemy. I should be upset about this, but I am simply too proud how well Eron took to my lessons. Thank you Games Workshop. Your book Nagash has enriched my gaming greatly. It’s almost enough to make me forgive you for Age of Sigmar, almost. I’m still mad, but I’m not going to send them any horse heads (the shipping costs for horse heads between the US and UK is crazy bad).

    Skrox charged the Spirit Hosts (either that or let the Hosts charge me), TG swift reform to face Nameless and back up slightly (I just moved them a smidgeon to justify the swift reform). Skinks Skirmishers climb the hill for a vantage point to shoot at Nameless.

    10PD versus 5DD, Wyssans Wildform from before goes away, and I now get a redundant casting of Speed of Light. Nurgle rot kills a Cohort Skink and wounds my Beast Priest, I cast Apothesis to bring my badly wounded Kroxigor to full health. I cast augmented Soul Quench on Nameless only to have it scrolled. I followed up with Arcane Forging but Eron12 had plenty of DD left to shut me down (the secondary effect of the dispel scroll). I swapped Apothesis out to pick up a Light spell and rolled Banishment, exactly the spell I was hoping to get.

    Skirmisher shooting at Nameless does no unsaved damage.

    Spirit Hosts kill two Skinks, then they lose two wounds from Crumble, they still have two bases on the table, so they get to keep their full attacks next round.

    Kobb and Billy make short work of my two remaining Kroxigor, Lexi kills a Skink, barely. My Skinks managed to wound Lexi despite putting most of their attacks into Kobb who remained unscathed. In hindsight I should have concentrated on Lexi given that Kobb was worth the least points of the Maleficent Four. We remembered the thunderstomps this time, but Eron12 rolled fairly poorly only killing two or three.

    Chaos 3

    Nameless could have charged the rear of my Skroxigor fighting the Spirit Hosts but that would open it up to a retaliatory charge by Temple Guard, so Nameless flew over to menace my Skink Skirmishers (who were now well out of the Slann’s leadership bubble). The other DPs were engaged.

    5PD versus 3DD, The Sorcerous Portal gave my TG Speed of Light yet again. Nurgle rot kills a Cohort Skink. Eron threw all 5 dice at Khizzar to kill five of my Skink Skirmishers. Khizzar provides bonus Raise the Dead tokens so Eron12 now had 4 (though Nameless never cast another spell the rest of the game). My Skinks passed their panic test despite their vulnerability.

    My Skink Brave issued a challenge. Lexi killed him with two overkill, saving me from facing 1d6 thunderstomps. Kobb and Billy only killed one Skink each, but they made up for it with good Thunderstomps. I was left with five Cohort Skinks and my wounded priest. I didn’t score any unsaved wounds but my Skink Priest at least managed to hit Billy. That’s a moral victory if there ever was one.

    Spirit Hosts kill one Skink. Then lose three wounds to crumble reducing them to a single swarm base.


    LM 3


    If I rolled a 12, My Temple Guard could have charged Nameless but I wasn’t feeling lucky. They marched forward. The surviving Skinks circled out of Nameless’ front arc.

    10 PD versus 6 DD. The Portal decided to cast Plague of Rust on my TG docking their armor save for the rest of their game. Nurgle Rot kills another Skink. I intended to blast Nameless with every spell I could. Eron dispels my attempt at Banishment. Augmented Soul Quench inflicts one unsaved wound. I still had some dice left so I cast Hand of Glory on the Skroxigor fighting the Spirit Host. I figured Hand of Glory would not help me much against DPs so I swapped it for a Light spell and took Speed of Light.

    Skirmisher shooting at Nameless does no unsaved damage.

    Spirit Host kills a Skink before crumble takes the Host out of play. I reformed to face the Three Daemon Princes who were proceeding to wipe out the dregs of my other Skroxigor block. Just for funsies, My Skink Priest issued a challenge and ended up being overkilled by Lexi.


    Chaos 4


    Everyone but Lexi charges my remaining Skroxigor. Lexi positions herself in the empty space between the exposed flanks of my Temple Guard and Skroxigor. Stand and Shoot does nothing per usual.

    5PD versus 3DD. Portal gives Wyssans to my TG. Nurgle rot fails to kill a Skink. Eron threw all five dice to cast Choir of Cacophony on my Temple Guard but I dispelled it with three dice. Becalming Cognition is the best discipline ever.

    Billy and Kobb inflict 9 wounds on Kroxigor killing them exactly then proceed to thunder stomp a mere two Skinks. Nameless slices up my unit champion with its blade. I maximized attacks onto Kobb since Billy’s build, as mentioned makes him invincible. I got a lot of poisoned hits and actually managed to inflict an unsaved wound on Kobb.


    LM 4


    I swift reform TG towards Lexi, sideways shuffle for a good line on the others. If the Skroxigor can hold the line for two more turns. My Temple Guard can hit the Kobb and/or Lexi’s flank.

    11 PD vs 7. This time my Skroxigor were the closest unit to the Portal. The Portal fireballs one Skink to death. Arcane Unforging inflicts a wound removes Lexi’s super magic shield theoretically opening her up to Skink shooting, but I rolled quite well with an Augmented Soul Quench and killed Lexi (and my Skinks are almost all certainly dead by this point)

    No shooting phase.

    Between regular attacks and thunderstomps, the remnants of my second Skroxigor block are slain. I did sneak an unsaved wound on Nameless. Everyone but Billy is one wound down at this point. Kobb reforms faces Skink Skirmishers. Nameless turns to show my Slann its nameless hind quarters and nameless parts. Billy doesn’t bother reforming. Now the DPs aren’t obligated to stand still while my Temple Guard charge them.


    Chaos 5


    Kobb charges my Skink Skirmishers. Billy and Nameless move near the flanks of the TG. Now Billy is the closest one to the Sorcerous Portal.

    3 PD versus 4 DD, The Portal shoots Fireball that splashes harmlessly on Billy’s back. In addition to a great armor save he has the Firebane Gem. He probably found the Fireball soothing. Between Becalming Cognition and having more dice, I easily stop Billy from casting Stream of Corruption.

    No shooting phase.

    My Patrol Leader challenges Kobb who barely manages to kill him with normal attacks, thus preventing Kobb from making any thunderstomps. Slann’s in range, so the Skinks are ready to stand their ground die in the service of the Old Ones.

    LM 5

    I repositioned my TG for advantageous facing against the Daemon Princes, but you know they are just going to fly away again.

    8 PD against 6 DD. The Sorcerous Portal decided Billy could use Speed of Light (it really loves bestowing that spell). I cast Earthblood and Speed of Light on my Temple Guard. Then got IF Timewarp and rolled a Calamitous Detonation which I nudged with Soul of Stone into a regular Detonation. Not too terrible since the TG were now packing ward saves, only lost four.

    No shooting phase.

    Kobb butchers the Skink Skirmishers and reforms.


    Chaos 6


    All 3 DPs were pointed at my TG. They could have hit the front and rear, but my Temple Guard were only down four soldiers, and they now had three combat buffs and a Scar Veteran boosting them. If the DP Brigade charged, I’d be almost certain to kill at least one of them, so the DPs flew out of the front arc and positioned themselves to surround me again, but this time with no one in my front arc.

    11 PD versus 9DD, Portal cast Soulblight on TG. I let Curse of the Leper go through (after Soulblight this put my TG to Toughness 1 making me helpless to hypothetical Nurgle spell). I gambled on letting Curse of the Leper through figuring I’d be better off stopping the damaging follow up spells altogether. My gamble paid off. He six diced 6 diced Rancid visitations but I beat him with 6 dispel dice. Then I dispelled Stream of Corruption.

    LM 6

    Nameless and Kobb were one wound down, but Nameless was a L4 wizard and worth a lot more points (and was the BSB for what little that mattered)

    8PD against 6DD. The Portal killed 3 TG with a Fireball (I knew there was a downside to letting that anti-Toughness spell through!). I intended to hit Nameless with several spells but I rolled IF on Banishment. Banishment failed to kill Nameless. Then a miscast vortex failed to kill my Slann.

    Of the 16 DP wounds, I took 8 of them. 4 off Lexi, 2 off Nameless, 1 from Kobb and 1 from Billy. I don’t remember when I got crazy lucky and actually wounded Billy, but it happened once.

    I lost 460 versus 1172. I’m pleased with how I did, all things considered. I expected to be tabled.

    Afterthoughts

    In this scenario, I think I should have dropped the Terradon Chief and Skirmishers. They didn’t do much. You can’t really run interference when the enemy flies and is tough as nails. Well Eron and I are glad we did this, but don’t see any reason to play a four Daemon Prince game again.

    At some point, I’d like to try this special scenario again, this time on the Magnificent side of this scenario. Not sure if I want to go Empire or Lizardmen but I’m pretty sure I’d rather have a fairly large group of heroes than a fairly small group of Lords. I’m leaning towards Empire, because I’d love to try a Pegasus riding wizard with Undeath. Anyway, that’s on the eventual to-do list. Probably going to do a few more traditional scenarios before we play Magnificent Seven again.

    If I got Magnificent Seven with Lizardmen not sure if I’d want a Slann or not. Might go with Tehenhaun and some Beast Skink Priests. Lore of Beasts is good for character heavy armies and my pell casters can fight adequately at least in theory. Then take a bunch dino riding chiefs and cowboys. If I go vanilla Slann, I’d want him to be ethereal but that doesn’t seem very magnificent or heroic. Maybe Mazdamundi would be best…nah, I like the idea of a horde of Scar Veterans and Chiefs. I certainly have the model collection to handle it.

    @eron12, even though they aren't Lizardmen I'm guessing the L-O forumites love to see your WIP photos for your four Daemon Prince. I especially like Nameless' alterations now but I suspect Billy will be the crown of your collection once he's finished and painted. At least Billy has the best story starting as a humble lump of tin foil.
     
    Last edited: May 23, 2016
    spawning of Bob and Warden like this.
  2. pendrake
    Skink Priest

    pendrake Well-Known Member

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    If you had another 500 LM points could you have managed a draw ??
     
  3. Scalenex
    Slann

    Scalenex Keeper of the Indexes Staff Member

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    Knowing what I know now, I think I could pull off a minor victory if I built a 2500 point army to take on 1950 points of DPs.

    Based on my assumptions when I designed my list, I do not think 500 extra points would have helped me much. I would have padded my Skink Skirmishers to 13 so they could take a hit with less odds of panicking and my Skirmishers were not worth anything. I would have added more TG and my TG never got into close combat, so that would have been wasted points. I would have either added a cowboy or swap my cowboy for a Scarnosaur or Ancient Steggy. That might have helped a bit.

    If I could take a mulligan on this fight I would have kept the Slann build the same but concentrate on swapping for Death spells, not Light. I would have dropped the Skirmisher and Terradon Chief for sure, maybe drop my scroll caddy. I'd use the points freed up to swap my cowboy for a Scarnosaur.

    If I went to 2500 points knowing what I know now, I'd probably throw in a throw in another block of Skroxigor and throw in some cowboys to back my Scarnosaur.

    While I think that would be a competitive counter, I don't think that would be thematically appropriate given that it would be fairly character heavy. Magnificent Seven scenarios are generally about few standing against many. I'd prefer my army look as close to "many" as possible.
     
    Last edited: Nov 9, 2018
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  4. Warden
    Slann

    Warden Tenth Spawning

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    This sounds epic!! I for one would love to see pictures! I need to reread so I can fully comprehend the awesomeness of this battle.

    I always wanted to play the "Folly of Prince Rodrik" scenario from the Lustrian campaign book, a historical re-fight of Bretonnians (just lords and heroes) escaping a temple city loaded with Lizardmen magic items, and hatred infused temple city defenders (the Lizardmen). Similar in scope of what you did here with the Magnificent Seven scenario. I especially like that the brave Lizardmen faced off against four Daemon Princes of Chaos! Thanks for posting!
     

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