8th Ed. 2800 points LM vs. O&G, the most fun I ever had losing

[Scalenex]

We both are OCD about hitting exactly the points total. My draft ended up 2801 so I ended up dropping the Standard of Discipline and picking up another Temple Guard body.


Both of us ended up playing similar but not identical lists to what we played two weeks ago. I’m continuing my original plan of working my way through all eight BRB magic lores (though I might skip Metal).

Spoiler: My army list

Slann Mage Priest, Channeling Staff, BSB, Soul of Stone, Becalming Cognition, Harmonic Convergence 420 points


Skink Priest L1 Beasts, Sivjer's Hex Scroll, 115 points

Skink Priest L1 Heavens, Feedback Scroll, 115 points


28 Saurus Warriors with spears and full command 338 points

20 Cohort Skinks with javelins and shields with full command 130 points

10 Skink Skirmishers with javelins and shields and patrol leader 80 points

10 Skink Skirmishers with javelins and shields and patrol leader 80 points

10 Skink Skirmishers with short bows and patrol leader 80 points


28 Temple Guard with full command 422 points

6 Kroxigor with Ancient 320 points

Spoiler: My opponent's army list

Orc Warboss, Talisman of Preservation, Basha's Axe of Stunty Smashing, Enchanted Shield,

L4 Night Goblin Shaman, Little Waagh, Dispel Scroll

L2 Night Goblin Shaman, Little Waagh, Power Scroll, Giant Wolf

L1 Savage Orc Shaman, Lucky Shrunken Head, Lore of Beasts

Orc Big Boss, boar mount, spear, war boar, firebane gem

Orc Big Boss, BSB, Armor of Destiny, great weapon

59 Night Goblins with HWS, full command, 3 fanatics

33 Savage Orc Big'Uns, additional hand weapons, full command, Big Stabbas

9 goblin wolf riders, full command

3 Spear Chukkas
10 Night Goblin Squig Hoppers
Orc Boar Chariot
Orc Boar Chariot

2 Goblin Doom Divers
9ish River Trolls
4 Snotling Pump Wagons

Magic Spells

MySlann ended up with Fireball, Cascading Firecloak, Flaming Sword of Ruin, and Piercing bolts of Burning

My Skink priests ended up with Curse of Anaheir and Iceshard Blizzard


The level 4 Night Goblin shaman had Vindictive Glare, Sneaky Stabbing, Night Shroud and Gork’ll Fix it.

The level 2 Night Goblins shaman had Curse of da Bad Moon and Itchy Nuisance

The Savage Orc Shaman ended up with Transformation of Kadon

Board Setup

We ended up rolling 10 terrain pieces. We rolled four forest but since my friend currently has three forest we rerolled the last one.


Three mysterious forests: One autumn (venom thicket), one winter (abyssal wood), one mushroom (venom thicket)

Mysterious river (necrotic ooze)

2 ordinary hills

2 ordinary buildings

1 wizard tower

1 encampment of destruction: 1 building, 3 fences, 1 Tower of blood (the moon altar.

You should check out the close up pictures of the Night Goblin themed Encampment of Destruction on Eron’s terrain blog here

Here’s the picture of the table, from the perspective of this picture, I deployed on the left side and my opponent took the right.




Top of the table you have the two hills with a building in between them above the river. Moving downward you have the other building and the winter themed forest. Then you have the wizard’s tower in the rough center of the table flanked by the autumn and mushroom forests. Then taking up most of the bottom center of the table is the Encampment of Destruction

Deployment

Here is our set up after deployment



Top to bottom from my side was 10 javelin skirmishers, 6 Kroxigor, 10 javelin skirmishers (in the river), a Salamander team, EOTG Steggy, Temple Guard (and Slann of course), the other EOTG Steggy, the other Salamander team, the 20 Cohort Skinks directly behind the wizard’s tower with the Beast Skink priest in tow, the Saurus Warriors, then the archer Skirmishers with the Heavens Skink priest in tow.


Top to bottom on my opponents side, my opponent crammed both doom divers and a two of his bolt throwers on the little hill and put his two orc boar chariots and a Snotling pump wagon in front of them. As well as 9 wolf riders and his level 2 goblin shaman attached. Just south of the river he had his big unit of river trolls (with an orc big boss on a boar to help them with their Stupidity tests) and ten squig hoppers in front of them. His main unit of just below the trolls incorporating many Savage Orc Big Uns, his level 1 orc shaman, his Warboss, and BSB. Then he had a large Night Goblin tarpit (hand weapons and shields) with roughly 50 rank and file gobbos and his level 4 goblin shaman. Then he had an empty section of the board giving the mushroom forest a wide berth. Then he had two Snotling pump wagons, a bolt thrower, and another Snotling pump wagon.


I won the roll off and made my opponent go first


O&G Turn 1

He had no animosity problems and passed his Stupidity test for the troll unit.

All five of his random movement units went forward a good amount. His three infantry units advanced in a line. \/



Magic phase was 6 PD versus 5 DD. He successfully cast Vindicative Glare on one of my Salamander teams inflicting one wound. He cast Itchy Nusiance on my Kroxigor with four dice plus a bonus mushroom die for being a Night Goblin. I gambled on deploying my Feedback Scroll instead of trying to dispel it and inflicted one wound on the L2 goblin shaman


During the shooting phase a doom diver targeted an Ancient Stegadon and also clipped the wounded Salamander but only ended up killing two handlers. It inflicted three wounds on the Steggy. The second Doom Diver hit the Stegadon again for one wound and clipped the Temple Guard pasting three. One Spear Chukka misfired and lost its shot next turn, the other two bolt throwers simply missed.

There was no close combat.

Shooting and magic didn’t really change the makeup of the board much. This is what it looked like at the end of his first turn and the start of my first turn.

 

[Scalenex]

LM Turn 1

Since my Kroxigors were docked to movement and if I rolled a 12 I could charge a Snotling Pump Wagon, I ordered a charged figuring a failed charge would move them farther than a two inch march move. They moved five inches. KACHING!

My northern most skirmishers advanced to within 11 inches of the nearest boar chariot. The other javelin skirmishers occupied the nearby house near the winter forest. I didn’t want to expose the northern most Salamander to a charge from the pump wagon or chariots so it inched forward rather feebly. In hindsight, it’s not the end of the world if a pump wagon gets the charge on a Salamander pack.


My Cohort Skinks marched to within one inch of the wizard tower, making my Beast Skink priest a lore master which would become important later. The Temple Guard marched forward as far as they could with the two Ancient Stegadons moving forward without marching. My Saurus warriors opted to go just below their maximum march distanced so they could take a defensive position via the nearest fence. The archer Skirmishers took another fence.


My second Salamander team was boxed in by my own units and the many buildings so I couldn’t really line up an ideal shot. I marched them down the table behind my main lines intended to eventually circle around my Saurus Warrior block.




Magic phase was 9 PD versus 8 DD. I cast a maximum power fireball and burned 9 out of ten of the squig hoppers. The rest of my casting was shut down.


In the shooting phase, my javelin skirmishers to the north took two wounds off the nearest boar chariot. Then the skirmishers in a small building wiped out the last squig hopper. The skink crew of a Steggy took two wounds off the nearest Snotling pump wagon. One Salamander fell short from its target and the other one ate two handlers (leaving one)


(You’ll notice the squig hoppers are gone. If you look REALLY closely, you can see the little skulls by the injured units Eron made to act as wound markers.)

Orc and Goblin Turn 2

Animosity forces the wolf riders to charge the Kroxigor, they succeed. Animosity forces the Night Goblins to charge the Temple Guard, they fail by a wide margin. The trolls pass their stupidity test.

During the compulsory movement phase, an interesting thing happens. My opponent miscalculated and his southern most Snotling pump wagon is wedged between a mushroom hut and the edge of the table. It cannot move backwards and does not have room to pivot. It will remain the rest of the game in that spot. Snotlings right? Not the best navigators.




Anyway, one snotling pump wagon random charges my Salamander pack in the river and the other random charges my Saurus block.

One boar chariot charges my javelin skirmishers and takes a wound from stand and shoot. The other one opts to make a supporting charge to back up thew wolf riders against my Kro

The savage orcs and river trolls did not advance much, I guess my opponent wanted to keep them lined up with the Night Goblin block.


After moving, the board looked like this:



With a Powerstone, my opponent cast Curse of da Bad Moon’s augmented version with irresistible force and bowled a large template over nearly my entire army forcing everyone to pass an initiative test or take a wound. The template hit almost all my units because it moves in a straight line and doesn’t stop until it can clear an inch from the nearest unit and most of my units were within a large template of each other.


I ended up losing 17 Saurus Warriors, 13 Temple Guard, 2 wounds off the Kroxigor block, 3 Skink skirmishers (separate units) and 6 Cohort Skinks. My salamanders and Stegadons were fine. It also took a wound off a snotling pump wagon.


The miscast rolled was Calamitous Detonation. I already wounded the shaman with the feedback scroll so the shaman was taken out, which was small comfort. It also took out three wolf riders.


Close combat was better for me.

The Saurus Warriors easily flattened the Snotling Pump Wagon.

My Kroxigor inflicted three wounds the boar chariot and killed four wolf riders breaking both units while only taking only four wounds in return. They ran the wolf riders down but the boar chariot got away.


The other boar chariot fighting my skink skirmishers whiffed it’s impact hits and only killed one or two skinks. This boar chariot had already been softened up by javelins a lot so I only needed to inflict one wound on chariot to kill it which my skirmishers were able to do.


The orc shooting phase was pretty underwhelming this turn.


After the devastation from the magic phase and close combat phase, the board looked like this.

 

[Scalenex]

LM Turn 2

My Temple Guard were drastically depleted, but if I figured if I held them back, they would just get whittled down further with artillery, so they charged the Night Goblins.



Last game there was only one fanatic and it didn’t do much. This game he had three fanatics and they were devastating. Two fanatics barreled through the unit and the Temple Guard hit a third. This ended up killing ten Temple Guard meaning pretty much just the command crew made it to the Night Goblins.

My Kroxigor and an Ancient Steggy charge the river trolls.

My Cohort Skinks occupied the wizard’s tower outright and the rest of my units marched forward.

The board looked like this (I think I accidentally knocked the stuck pump wagon unstuck, but ignore that)



Magic phase was 7 PD versus 5 DD.

My make or break spell was Flaming Sword of Ruin on the Ancient Stegadon which was dispelled. I cast Cascading Fire Cloak on my Slann and his unit and burned four Night Goblins. At the end of the magic phase, the Curse of the Bad Moon vortex in my back corner deviated and flew off the table edge altogether.


The archer skirmishers attack the spear chukka nearest to them and take it to the brink of the death. The building occupying javelin skirmishers and take it to the brink of death. The roving javelin skirmishers inflict a wound on the fleeing boar chariot and take it to the brink of death. My cohort skinks in the tower had nothing better to do than shoot one of two surviving Night Goblin fanatics. My Salamanders did nothing of note.

My Kroxigor unit champion issued a challenge. I thought, “I have a decent chance of beating the orc boar riders, then the trolls will be failing Stupidity tests left and right and I’d get some bonus points for an underdog challenge. Unfortunately, the orc hero rolled well and inflicted three unsaved wounds before my Kroxigor could even strike. The trolls dished out far more damage than the Kroxigors and Ancient Stegadon did, the units broke and ran nine inches away each while the trolls half-heartedly pursued them three inches.

 

[Scalenex]

OG Turn 3

My opponent had no problems with Animosity or failed Stupidity checks this round.


The Trolls charged the fleeing Stegadon and redirect into the fleeing Kroxigor or they charged the fleeing Kroxigor and redirected into the fleeing Stegadon. Either way, both my fleeing units were driven farther and then a randomly moving Snotling pump wagon ran the Kroxigor down.

The Savage Orcs flank charged my Temple Guard/Slann unit’s flank.

The last Night Goblin fanatic flailed about harmlessly in my back field.



10 PD versus 7 DD. The Night Goblin shaman autofailed his first spell from a mushroom mishap, 5 times out of 6 he gets a free dice, 1 time out of 6 he gets a shut down magic phase.

With the Night Goblin shaman nerfed this turn, the only spell he had left was Transformation of Kadon to let his Savage Orc Shaman turn into a Black Hydra, I then used Sivejir’s Hex Scroll to turn him into a toad. A hydra-sized monster toad. He also dispelled my Remains in Play Cascading Firecloak on the Slann and Temple Guard.


Shooting phase was very deadly. A doom diver killed one of my Salamander. A doom diver and spear chukka combined managed to finish off my fleeing EOTG Steggy. I had a unit of Skinks near the trapped Snotling Pump Wagon and it tried to throw an exploding spore at them and failed to do damage.


Close combat saw the last of the Temple Guard being cut down. My Temple Guard unit champion issued a challenge at ended up fighting the orc general getting obliterated with lots of overkill. The Slann was unhurt but lost combat by a wide margin and broke. The orcs ran him down and overran into the Saurus Warriors, so did the Black Hydra/Toad


The end of the round is pictured below. Note the new hydra on the board.




LM Turn 3

Most of my units were dead, in a building, or engaged in close combat. I did move my skink archers right up to the bolt thrower in their corner.




5 PD versus 3DD. With no Slann, my main spell caster is the Beast Skink Priest. Given that he is in a wizard tower, he was a lore master of Beasts. With all seven of the spells at my disposal but few power dice to play with, I opted to cast Wyssan’s Wildform on the engaged Saurus Warriors in a desperate Hail Mary play to keep them alive, or at least make sure they do some damage on the way out.

My Skink archers killed the bolt thrower in the lower corner. My Javelin Skinks in the opposite corner took one wound off a Doom Diver crew. My Javelin Skirmishers in the smaller building finished off the wounded Pump Wagon in the river. My Cohort Skink in the wizard tower plinked a couple Night Goblins lacking any better targets.

Even with their buff spell, my Saurus Warriors were no match for the Savage Orcs. I tried to take out the Black Hydra/Toad. It had WS 1, Strength 1, Toughness 1, etc but it still had potent saving throws so I couldn’t kill it though I came close. The BSB fought my Saurus Warrior unit champion and got an overkill or two. Fun fact, the Black Hydra/Toad is a monster with Strength 1, so he had a Strength 1 Thunderstomp (it did not kill any Sauri, but it was fun that we rolled it. The surviving Saurus Warriors were broken and rand down out despite my best efforts and the Savage Orcs overran into the wizard’s tower. The Hydra/toad was taken out of combat.

 

[Scalenex]

With the Slann dead, the Skinks cannot expect to return to be allowed to return to their Temple City. I like to think they went full Jemhadar.

OG Turn 4

No animosity or Stupidity problems.

The trolls Trolls and boar rider charge the Skink skirmishers in the house, clearing the distance easily but the boar rider clipped the forest and took a wound from failing a dangerous terrain test.


The last Night goblin fanatic hit a building and died.


The Night Goblins were pointing in the wrong direction so they performed a swift reform.


This is what the board looked like






Magic phase saw 5 PD versus 4 DD. The hydra/Savage Orc shaman failed his roll to stop being a toad. He cast Vindictive Glare on my Javelin Skirmishers (the ones that killed two boar chariots and wounded a Doom Diver) and killed all but the unit champion. He got snake eyes to avoid panicking.

Sadly he didn’t survive the shooting phase, but it took two bolt throwers to kill him. Super badass.

Not too surprisingly, the river trolls won their building assault against the Skink Skirmishers there. What was surprising is that one Skink survived and he definitely was not interested in fleeing.

The savage orcs assaulted the wizard tower. They killed every last cohort Skink (the unit champion tried a ballsy but ineffectual challenge), but the Skink priest lived and boke which in a building assault meant he was pushed out of the building while the savage orc unit occupied it. Because the savage orc unit was so huge, we took the unit off the table and put one representative orc on the tower.

Here is what the board as a whole looked like.

 

[Scalenex]

LM Turn 4


Didn’t have a lot left to move. I moved my Skink archers towards the center to try to kill the hydra/toad. That was about it for movement In the picture you can see my hand and beverage. My Beast Skink priest kept near the tower and angled towards the hydra/toad



I didn’t have a lot of power dice, I cast Flock of Doom on the hydra/toad. It was still alive (it had four extra wounds from the spell), but as soon as the spell ended and the four extra wounds went away, the shaman would die.

Lacking any better targets, the archer skinks tried to shoot the hydra/toad but they couldn’t get past the saving throws. My remaining building skinks took some ineffectual pot shots.

OG Turn 5


The Night Goblins failed their animosity test and stood there squabbling.


The River trolls charged the last Skink skirmisher on the board in his building but the boar riding orc hero with them failed his dangerous terrain test again and died charging through the forest. Still counts as my kill.


He moved the hydra toad. We forgot that he had a movement rating of 1. He moved six inches to angle a shot at the archer skinks but even as a toad he still had a breath weapon.


My opponent explained that if his Savage Orcs exited the toward. My Skink priest could swing around them and re-enter the tower. Then the orcs would be facing the wrong direction to charge the building again. So instead, only the orc general left the building. He even gave my Skink priest an open charge on his flank. “Come and get me little lizard!”

Magic phase was a bust for the O&D. The Night Goblin shaman was in a unit with a failed animosity test and couldn’t cast a spell. The Savage Orc shaman failed his roll to un-toad himself. I had five dispel dice so I threw them all at the Savage Orc shaman’s Transformation of Kadon and dispelled the spell causing the shaman to die from accumulated wounds.


In shooting phase, the hydra/toad used his breath weapon to kill most of my archer skinks and panic the unit champion and Heavens priest.



Even if he didn’t give himself a six inch move, he would have still been able to hit a few of them. A Doom Diver killed the unit remnants. He had artillery to spare but didn’t want to shoot at the Beast Skink priest since that would interfere with the orc general’s scheme.


Not too surprisingly, the River trolls easily killed the last Skink and captured the building.


Here is the relatively Skink free board

 

[Scalenex]

LM Turn 5

I took the bait and charged the general with my Skink priest.

Magic Phase saw 7 PD versus 5 DD. I threw all six dice at augmented Transformation of Kadon and managed to cast the spell without Irresistible Force. I could make him a Mountain Chimera or Great Fire Dragon. Because we had an awesome off brand Chimera model nearby, that is what I went with.

With no shooting phase, we went straight to close combat.

Close combat saw the Mountain Chimera easily destroy the orc general before he could even make a single attack. Since Mountain Chimeras have frenzied I was forced to overrun. He ended up near the Night Goblin block but without line of sight to charge them.


(note, I think we forgot to pull the hydra from the board though I might have dispelled it to death on Turn 6 rather than 5, my notes and recollection are fuzzy).

OG Turn 6

The Night Goblins failed their animosity test and rolled the result where they got in a fight throwing random things at the nearest animosity eligible unit so the Night Goblins and the Savage Orcs in the tower did not move and killed three each off the other unit.

The now leaderless trolls failed their stupidity test and blundered out of the building they took last turn.

All of his spell casters were dead or in a squabbling unit so there was no magic phase though he tried and failed to dispel my Transformation of Kadon.

Shooting phase saw whatever he had try to shoot my Mountain Chimera but they either missed or misfired.

There was no close combat to speak of.


LM 6

I did not have a charge arc, but I did have a flying Chimera. I angled my Chimera towards the back of the Night Goblins and breath weaponed them, killing 21 and panicking the unit.



This is what the board looked like at the end of Turn 6. The only thing I have left is my Mountain Chimera.





Yeah I lost, but I lost with dignity.


My opponent killed 2690 points worth of units, everything I had but one Skink priest. He got 175 bonus points from standards and 100 for killing my general.


I killed the L2 Goblin Shaman, the troll babysitting orc hero, the general, the Savage Orc Shaman, three Snotling Pump Wagons, 1 Spear Chukka, two Boar Chariots, 10 Squig Hoppers, 10 Goblin Wolf Riders, and half the Night Goblins. I got 100 bonus points for killing the enemy general.



Post Game Reflection


In the past I have not been very effective with using dispel scrolls. Sometimes, the skink priest caddying the scroll died before I could use it. Often, I would use it on round 2 or 3 and really wish I still had it on round 4 or 5 when I’m slammed with a more game critical spell. I haven’t been very effective with Cubes of Darkness either. So for this game, I didn’t bother with a Dispel scroll or Cube of Darkness and I experimented with the Feedback Scroll and Sivejir’s Hex Scroll and they were very effective.

This has got me thinking that I should be adventurous with Arcane Item selections in general. I don’t have to give my Slann the Channeling Staff plus the Harmonic Convergence Discipline, every time.


The experimental Skink archers did well. As anticipated, they made a decent counter against the randomly moving Snotling Pump Wagons which are a bane to javelin Skinks. That said, my MVP unit was 10 javelin Skirmishers which killed two chariots and nearly killed a Doom Diver before being destroyed by a spell. I don’t want to toss javelin skirmishers out entirely.

The last two games, my opponent has used Snotling Pump Wagons a lot and dabbled with Squig Hoppers. In previous games he used a lot of Mangler Squigs. I am half surprised he hasn’t tried all three of these units in the same list to really spam random movement units. I am likely to want to try to add more Skink archers. I want to see how versatile they can be.


Usually I take two or three units of 13 Skink Skirmishers. My rationale is that in order to force a panic test from shooting or magic, a unit has to lose five Skinks in one go. At 10 Skink Skirmishers, three casualties will force a panic test. This time I took 10-man units and it did not bite me in the tail.

Rather than taking 3 x 13 Skink Skirmishers, I went 3 x 10 this game. At some point soon I plan to try 4 x 10 with half javelin skinks and half archer skinks

I also three fully painted Skink command crews and I usually only use one. I may try a unit of Cohort Skink archers (in addition to my normal 20 javelin cohort skinks) and either plant them on a hill or in a building though I doubt I want to try double cohort units and quadruple skink skirmishers in the same list unless we up the points.


This game and the last game. My Temple Guard got devastated by Curse of da Bad Moon. I clearly need to take precautions against Curse of da Bad Moon, but what I did next didn’t help. In both cases I charged my depleted Slann bunkers into the Night Goblins with poor results.

I need to remind myself that Slann are not required to stay with Temple Guard. If a unit of Temple Guard is brought low by anything, not just Curse of da Bad Moon, the Slann doesn’t have to go down with the ship. In this last game, I could have had the Slann exit the Temple Guard unit and enter the Wizards Tower. Presumably the Skink priest would then exit and my lore master Slann could use the centrally located tower to rain fiery death upon all he surveyed.


@eron12 pointed out that I probably didn't do myself any favors putting all three buildings towards the center of the battlefield. I do like to put a 20-man Skink cohort in a centralized building and throw javelins at things and this is frequently useful, but the same buildings that can shelter my skinks also impede the movement of my Saurus blocks.

I need to revisit my previous assumptions on placing terrain.

I also need to take Night Goblin Fanatics more seriously.

I have a lot of fun things to ponder before our next game. Probably in mid January.

 

[airjamy]

Really cool writeup, sounds like a great game! About the Curse of the Bad Moon, idk, i think the reroll a dispell attempt Discipline is very good and makes it so you can still have the channeling combo (which of course also helps with dispells). Magic be magic though, so you can totally get devastated by a strong Curse. I do think one of your Skink Priests could have a dispell scroll instead of the hex scroll for example.