Scenario 3 - the battle for the pass. This scenario is played longways on the board with 3 objective markers and 2 large pieces of impassable terrain. The two large terrain pieces are setup in th middle of the board, making the ‘pass’ for which we would be fighting. One objective sits between these two pieces in the direct centre of the board. The other objectives sit either side of the terrain pieces along the halfway line of the battlefield. At the end of turn 5 the player who holds the most objectives, out of the three is the winner. The twist is that at the start of every HERO phase, all units within D6” of each large terrain piece suffers D3 mortal wounds, making the objectives tricky to get to.
I was playing against stormcast in this game. I have never beaten a stormcast force in Age of sigmar so I was pretty nervous. I was also concerned about his Celestant Prime, they have caused me nothing but grief in previous meetings. Along with the Prime, his army consisted of 5 protectors, 2 units of 10 judicators, 2 units of 10 liberators, 2 units of 3 Prosecutors, 2 battlemages, Lord Celestant, Lord Castellant, Lord Relictor and 2 gryph hounds.
I was thankful to see no retributors - those things are the bane of my existence! I deployed each bastiladon on a flank, the idea being that they would make their way to each of the outer objectives and sit on them. The rippers joined Basil’s little brother on the left flank and Dave joined Basil on the right. The saurus guard took up position in the centre of the battlefield and the characters deployed in a wood, behind the front line. The idea with the saurus was to hold back and then race to the central objective on the last turn. The rippers and dread saurian would be tasked with running down the extreme flanks, before heading back towards the centre once they reach the stormcast battleline. I can rely on them to distract my opponent with their destruction.
I opted to take the first turn - I wanted to buff my dread saurian and rippers then move them forwards and try to tempt the prosecutors into an early charge so I could start picking off his army piecemeal. So each unit received a mystic shield and the rippers also got +1 to wound. They moved forwards, supported by the Basil bros. The chameleon skinks popped up in a hut behind the stormcast lines. They fired a salvo at the protectors, I didn’t need them ripping my monsters apart, one protector was killed. With no combats that was turn over.
Stormcast turn 1 and the battle line shuffled forwards. Each flank had one unit of prosecutors, judicators and liberators, with the protectors on the same flank as my rippers and the characters in the centre. The prosecutors did exactly what I had hoped for and flew forwards towards my rippers and dread saurian. The judicators caused a wound on the rippers but failed to make a dent on the dread saurians armour. In combat the prosecutors against the rippers went first, killing one reptile and wounding another. Dave then struck out against the other unit and killed all 3 in one go, the rippers then struck back, killing the 3 prosecutors they were facing. The look of shock on my opponent's face was quite amusing.
Start of round two and the Stormcast got the initiative, the liberators on each flank moved forwards towards the outer objectives supported on my left flank by the protectors. the judicator shooting finished off the wounded ripperdactyl and put 2 wounds on the dread saurian. In combat the liberators charged Basil on my right flank (staying well clear of Dave) and Basil’s little brother on my left flank. The protectors charged into the ripperdactyls who this time managed to get the support of the blot toad. Basil dropped one of the liberators facing him for the loss of two wounds. Basil’s little brother also dropped a liberator but took no wounds back. One more ripperdactyl died and 3 of the prosecutors were also killed in the swirling melee of teeth, talons and blades. I like to think the blot toad sat calmly in the middle of all of this, happily eating flies, blissfully unaware of the carnage surrounding him.
My turn two and the impassable terrain started to make its mark on the battle a wound was dealt to each liberator unit and another to Basil. One of the gryph hounds bought it and the Lord Castellant also took 2 wounds. My main decision at this point was: do I sit the dread saurian on the objective or do I launch him into the liberators around Basil? Another option would be to simply throw Dave at the judicators on the hill a bit further down the board. I decided in the end to put the dread saurian as close to the judicators as possible whilst still being within 3” of the objective in case the charge roll failed.
There was little else to do in my turn as most other units were already tied up in combat. But the Basil bros fired their solar engines at the liberators surrounding them killing another couple. In the combat phase the dread saurian failed to make his charge, the rippers finished off the protectors without difficulty and Basil’s little bother took the liberator unit down to a single model. On the right flank, Basil managed to finish off his liberator unit but took another wound in the process.
Turn 3 and its high time for prime time! Down came the beast himself and surprisingly he was placed next to Basil on my right flank. I was expecting him to come down right next to my squishy pool of characters in their little wood, but I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth! I now Basil can take a kicking and remain standing. The judicators on the right flank launched another salvo on the dread saurian, inflicting another 2 wounds and their sister unit on the left flank took a wound off the ripperdactyls.
The main combat was the prime against Basil, the prime went first and took basil down to 3 wounds, in return Basil to 2 wounds off the prime. Bastiladon aren’t nown for their combat prowess and it was starting to look like this would be another handbag fest.
The seraphon turn three started with a couple of arcane bolt at the prime, causing another 3 wounds to the jumped up hippy. Basil shot at him as well causing another 2 wounds and the dread saurian abandoned the objective in favour of eating sme judicators. The ripper were falling short on number but they were now free to continue working their way towards the stormcast heros cowering in the centre of their battle line. The chameleon skinks shot at the Lord relictor, taking him out of the game with some extremely well placed shots.
In combat, Dave charged into the judicators who simply evaporated before his mighty wrath. The rippers charged into the other unit of judicators, also defeating them thanks to a very active blot toad who had just made his way to within 2” of the archers. Most importantly however, Basil inflicted the final wound to club the Prime into the middle of next week. The fight had however, cost the bastiladon his option of capturing the right hand objective. With the Dread saurian off eating stormcast I would need to run one of my Heros all the way across the board, in two turns, to claim this objective. Easier said than done - the battle mage was the prime target as he was close enough but even with his 6” move he would need to make an extra 7” of running in the two movement phases left to get within the magical 3”.
Turn 4 started well enough with the seraphon gaining the initiative, the battle mage wasted no time in rolling a full 6” for his run move to hike him across the board, Basil’s little brother wasted no time in blasting the final liberator away in a beam of solar light. He was already standing next to the left objective so I could count that as mine, the 2 surviving ripperdactyls made their way towards the lord celestant, the dread saurian approached the battle mages and the saurus guard formed up ready to make a last minute dash to the central objective next turn. Finally the chameleon skinks left their little hut and made a b-line for the stormcast table edge. There was a secondary objective in the scenario to get one of your units off the opponent’s short table edge and I had checked with the TO’s before hand that units which start off the table can still qualify for this objective.
There was little to do in the shooting phase, Basil’s little brother burnt the final gryph hound to ashes and the Basil tried his luck against the Lord Castellant, who had made a death or glory charge through the central pass towards the objective - 4 wounds were dealt by the solar engine. Incredibly Dave rolled a double 1 for his charge roll, sparring the battlemages for this turn. The lord celestant felt the impact of 2 swooping ripperdactyls, they were only 2 in number, but they took 5 wounds off the hero, by way of a response he clubbed one of the reptiles to death with his hammer.
At the start of the Stormcast turn 4 my opponent said to me: “You know, I’m not sure that there was any way I was going to be able to kill your army!” He had 4 models left on the board - but before he had got to his hero phase, the impassible terrain had taken the life of his lord castellant - make that 3 models. The rest of the turn was short, the two mages piled mystic shields on each other for want of better targets and the Lord celestant downed the final ripperdactyl with his hammers.
Round 5 was pretty straightforward - march the Saurus Guard onto the central objective, run the battle mage anothe 8” to confirm caputre of the right objective. Basil’s little brother was stood on the left objective. He also shot the lord celestant and burnt a hole straight through his armoured form, banishing his spirit from the mortal realm in the process. The dread saurian charged the two battle mages and wasted no time in proving that a mystic shield is no match for massive teeth!
Final result of this game was a major victory for the Seraphon.
Final result of the tournament was a second place finish for me and my lizards! My highest result in a tournament to date and very pleased with how my army performed. The winner of the the tournament won his second scenario and was the only person in the tournament to win that game! If you guys want i’ll post up the scenarios and the comp pack for the tournament so you can play them yourselves if you want to?
Hope you guys enjoyed reading these! I certainly enjoyed writing them, however brief they may be
. Seems fair enough I supposed, I guess I would argue that you should equalise points in monsters and heroes. Say a basti is 4 points and 10 skinks are 1 point, 40 skinks against one basti would be a blood bath! Some of these points systems don't account for stuff like this and I think this would make for more balanced games.
