Storms of Magic

The Vampire Counts rolled out again in a 4000pt storms of magic game vs. Robert's Daemons of Chaos. My army was gigantic - I almost ran out of figures! 290 zombies, 25 grave guard, 6 crypt horrors, a Mortis Engine, batswarms, 6 mages and 4 terrorgheists! So many fun things to play with!! On a 6x4 table with 4 fulcrums, there wasn't much space to squeeze it all in...

By contrast, Robert went elite - his army seemed ominously tiny... 3 punchy looking hordes of daemonettes, plaguebearers and bloodletters, led by their respective heralds, a skullcrusher (Well he said it was that. He hadn't built it yet, so we just put the base down. Could have been the hamburglar for all I knew), 2 giant spawn, a couple of low level mages and then this guy...

Fuck.

a Great Unclean One!!! Jeebus I'd need a nuke to kill it! 10 wounds at t6, with heavy armour and a 4+ regen. Cheeeeeese! ;-P Ah well, the general plan was to pin him with zombie tarpits and scream him to pieces with the terrorgheists and the mortis engine. Hadn't counted on this big critter showing though...

4 terrorgheists. Most certainly better than one!

The plan worked extremely well at first. The skullcrusher only got off one shot and both the great spawn got wiped. My Strigoi Ghoul King and his grave guard had a jaggy encoutner with a venom thicket before grinding down his daemonettes to nothing. My trump card was a level 2 necromancer with the black book of ibn-naggazzar. With his blood sacrifice - once I'd pushed one of his mages off a fulcrum with a cantrip - allowed me to cast the 'dominance' spell for shadow with 15 power dice. There was nothing he could do.... With his army's stats reduced to 1, I screamed him to pieces with the terrorgheist. Couldn't make it tell on the Unclean One though. I got that spell off twice. Immense!

Sadly Robert's cunning plan was just as nasty. He brought the wildwood staff and turned the venom thicket into 3 big treants who proceeded to scuttle over the board and rip my centre up with their 30 attacks a round. My kingdom for a match and a flask of oil...

Necromancer Lord: tag teamed by a weeping willow and an angry alder.

In the final turn it came down to both of us with only dribs and drabs left alive. A unit of 5 surviving zombies pulled down a bloodletter herald on a juggernaut with a 1+ save (heh heh). After barraging it with vampires, spells and terrorgheists, the great unclean one was down to one wound. It sat on one fulcrum, my last remaining vampire sat on the other. It was going to be a draw and he'd win on VPs. Otherwise I only had 3 units of zombies left, to his big beastie and 20 plaguebearers (and that bloody walking forest). I tried to roast his general for that last wound with 'Shem's burning Gaze'. I failed, miscast due to his magic items, and on the fulcrum miscast roll turned both sides remaining mages into frogs. End result a draw by fulcrums, resorting to a countback on Victory Points: I scored 2900 to his 3300. A well deserved win for Robert: massive slaughter all round and a great game! If only I'd pinged the Great Unclean One for that last wound.... aiiieeeee!!

On a more serious note, I heard today that one of the lads from the club is seriously ill. All the best to him and his family, and heres to hoping we see him again soon.