Had a casual game with some friends last night - 1500 points per person (give or take ~20). Battleplan was the one with objectives that shift depending on a dice roll. Realm was Shyish. As one of us was trialing Beasts of Chaos and so wasn't super familiar with their rules yet, no one brought a particularly competitive arrangement (except maybe Stormcast guy). Team 1: Seraphon: Slann Starmaster (General, Great Rememberer, Incandescent Rectrices) Saurus Scar-Veteran on Carnosaur Astrolith Bearer 40 x Saurus Warriors 40 x Saurus Warriors 10 x Skinks Chronomantic Cogs Stormcast: Lord Arcanum on Tauralon (General) Lord Ordinator Knight Azyros 5 x Sequitors 5 x Sequitors 5 x Sequitors 5 x Evocators Celestar Ballista Celestar Ballista Celestar Ballista Everblaze Comet Team 2: (As best as I can remember it) Khorne Mighty Lord of Khorne (General) Bloodsecrator Bloodstoker Slaughterpriest Slaughterpriest 10 x Reavers 10 x Reavers 10 x Blood Warriors 10 x Blood Warriors 5 x Wrathmongers Soulgrinder 1 x Khorgorath 1 x Khorgorath Beasts of Chaos: Doombull (General) Tzaangor Shaman Great-Bray Shaman 10 x Gors 10 x Gors 10 x Gors 10 x Bestigors 3 x Bullgors 6 x Tzaangor Skyfires 1 x Chimera Turn 1: Order Seraphon and Stormcast deploy first, so we choose first turn. Warriors are on the front line with skinks surrounding the Starmaster. Carno and Astrolith sit between them. Stormcast are spread out behind them, with the Ballistae, Ordinator and Evocators held in reserve. Hero phase sees the Slann summon the cogs - barely passes with a 7, but out of range of any unbinding attempts. He proceeds to speed up time, hoping to boost the chances of a successful alpha strike. Both units of Warriors are successfully space-timed across the field. The units armed with spears appears nine inches from a couple of units of Gors. Carno is still just in range of this unit, and so drops his command ability on them. The units armed with clubs faces down a horde of Reavers, two Khorgoraths, a Bloodsecrator and a Soulgrinder. My intent was to hold them there while the Stormcast move up and secure the objective behind them (worth three points this turn). Slann dumps the rest of his spells into summoning points, and three points from the Astrolith nets me a total of 10. Meanwhile, the Lord Arcanum drops a meteor right into the thick of the Chaos backline. This thing is disgusting - even for a hundred points. Almost everything on the enemy's left flank takes a smattering of mortal wounds. Movement phase sees everything barring the Slann (who holds his position by the cogs, protected by a wall of skinks) head up the board. Three ballistas and a Lord Ordinator descend from the heavens to land on the central objective atop a small hill/cliff. Warriors and Sequitors hold the other two objectives. Astrolith does his best to keep up, but is just bearly unable to grant rerolls to the warriors. Fortunately, the Slann's constellation is giving me rerolls of 1 to hit. Shooting is disappointing, even with three ballistae. Only a couple of wounds are dealt to the Khorgoraths. Both Saurus units make the charge. Not fearing the Gors, I chose to attack with the unit of clubs... ...and proceed to deal some thoroughly unremarkable damage. In hindsight, Warriors probably need more buffs to be killy at all, but was out range of the Carnosaur. Even so, the Soulgrinder takes 9 wounds, a couple of Reavers are killed, and both Khorgoraths are left with one wound left. Retaliation sees one of these Khorgoraths fight back and delete 6 Saurus, healing itself. The other warriors fare better, cutting through both units of Gors like butter. Unfortunately, as Chaos wraps up their attacks, the unit with clubs loses 24 more models and the rest scarper. Either way, Order closes their first turn with 5 points. Turn 1: Chaos Both of the Beast wizards attempt to get some damage off on the Saurus horde bearing down on them, but both attempts are foiled by the Slann from the other side of the table. The Slaughterpriests pray for Blood Boil and deal six mortal wounds to a Ballista. In the movement phase, everything pushes forward. Without the warriors obstructing them like I had planned, the Khorgoraths, Mighty Lord and Soulgrinder position themselves for an easy charge into the Stormcast artillery and Sequitors holding two of the objectives. Most concerning, however, is the unit of Bullgors and Bestigors led by a Doombull that appears in ambush nine inches from the Slann and his skink friends. In the shooting phase, the Chimera breathes a gout of fire that destroys the Knight Azyros in one shot. The Khorgoraths lash out at the wounded ballista and manage to kill it. Meanwhile the Skyfires pepper the Carnosaur with shots and deal three damage. The Soulgrinder whiffs. Everything that attempts a charge makes it into combat. The Slann and his skinks are surrounded entirely by barnyard animals and the Stormcast are assaulted by a mess of Khorne. A unit of Gors considers charging the remaining full-strength Saurus horde, but instead spreads out to form a blockade between them and the shamans behind them. A Khorgorath fights first, severely damaging another ballista. The skinks are unable to 'Wary Fighters' away from the beasts surrounding them, so the Sequitors fights back and almost kill the Soulgrinder. Then the Bullgors pile in. I expect the worst, but my skinks are too wily! Only one attack gets through, killing three skinks. The Lord Ordinator engages the Mighty Lord and fights well, reducing him to two wounds. The Soulgrinder is chosen to fight, and again whiffs everything. The Khorne player appears to be choking back tears. Another unit of Sequitors splits its attacks between a Khorgorath and the Soulgrinder. Both are slain. The Bestigors kill the rest of the skinks, leaving the Slann alone, but fortunately out of range of the Doombull. Fighting back, he somehow manages to smite four goats with holy lightning. Meanwhile, the Mighty Lord - enraged at his Soulgrinder's ineptitude - lashes out at the Ordinator and insta-gibs him with his axe's special rule. Battleshock sees some Bestigors flee from the Slanns wrath. Chaos holds only one objective - but it is the primary one. 5 - 3 to order. Turn 2: Order Order wins initiative and takes the first turn. The Slann slows down the cogs and grants himself an extra spell, which along with his other three is poured into his summoning pool. Along with the Astrolith, this brings my ritual point total to 25. His task complete, he vanishes in a puff of smoke and reappears safely beside the Carnosaur and Astrolith, leaving his Bullgor oppressors baffled. The Lord Arcanum, in a shocking act of malice, decides to use both his spells to unbind and then recast the Everblaze Comet. The Mighty Lord attempts to thwart his efforts, but fails. It makes landfall beside the Bloodsecrator, killing him, a Wrathmonger and three Gors: with a good charge roll from my Saurus, I can now reach the Shamans on the the other side. In the movement phase, the Stormcast are mostly still locked in combat, but the Lord Arcanum calls down the Evocators who were still held in reserve and prepares to charge alongside them into the Chimera and Reavers holding an objective. One unit of Sequitors moves over to assist in defending the Slann, and the Warriors position themselves for an optimal charge into the Shamans and Skyfires. This means they no longer hold the objective they were close to, so using 24 summoning points, I drop a Bastiladon onto it. The Scar-Vet spurs his mount and heads towards the Bullgors. Shooting phase sees both remaining ballistae, now unassisted by the slain Ordinator, miss all of their shots into the remaining Khorgorath. Meanwhile, the Bastiladon's solar engine roars to life and fires into the Bullgors assisted by Astrolith rerolls. 8 damage means two of them die. In the charge phase, the Warriors manage to slink through the gap in the Gor line and get at the Tzaangor and Great-Bray shamans behind them, and barely manage to tie up the Skyfires with a single model. The Carnosaur reaches the Doombull and remaining Bullgor and Bestigors. Lord Arcanum takes the fight to the Chimera and reavers, but his Evocators, even with an attempted reroll, trip over their own feet and fail the charge. The Scar-Vet attacks first. Buffed by his own command ability, he empties all of his attacks into the Doombull. A couple of sixes (exploding into extra attacks), Astrolith rerolls and high damage rolls results in the Doombull being reduced to a bloody pulp. The Chimera goes next, and surprises me with some pretty high damage output. The Lord Arcanum takes 8 damage, leaving him with only two wounds left. Fighting with the Saurus Warriors results in a bloodbath. 2 inch range on the spears means I can get more attacks onto the shamans than anticipated, and both of them are killed - with enough warriors left over to kill the remaining Gors. The Mighty Lord manages to kill another Ballista, but he and the remaining Khorgorath are brought down by Sequitors. The Reavers make an ineffectual attempt to finish the Lord Arcanum, and when he fights back he chips a few wounds off the Chimera. The remaining Doombull and Bestigors pile in to the Scar-Vet, but he dodges the bull and takes only minor damage from the gors. The Bullgor passes battleshock, but unleashing a clutch Bloodroar sees him running with his tail between his legs. At this point, the turns have taken longer than expected (mostly due to my hordes), so its getting late. The Khorne player lost his Bloodsecrator (a keystone character for Khorne), the Beasts player's army is in tatters, and there is an angry horde of lizards about to parade through their flanks. The score is 9-3 in Order's favour, and there was zero chance of being able to grab the primary objective from the Bastiladon in the following turn. A comeback was possible with a double turn, but regardless, the demoralized Chaos players offered us a rare turn 2 victory! The main take-aways from this battle are that the Stormcast meteor comes across as being on the borderline of broken - I wasn't sure if unbinding and then recasting it was a legal strategy or not, but either way it was an underhanded play on behalf of the Stormcast. I've also been convinced that spears are without question the superior loadout on Warriors. Even doing my best to 'honeycomb' the Warriors with clubs, I found that the number of attacks I was getting was lackluster. Only against a single, large target do clubs seem like the better option, and circumstances where I can charge such a model unimpeded don't seem to arise often. Was also nice to see the Carnosaur be a bit of a hero for once. It may be the first and only game that I have played alongside Stormcast and been the one doing most of the grunt-work... not counting that comet.
Nice battle report. And I know what you mean about the comet I'm a casual play for the most part but my stormcast mate is a min maxer and he was talking about getting the comet and it leaves me scared as I have only ever seen it be good