Now, I was speculating last time out about what I could be facing from my opponent, Feri, in our game. He did bring the Flesh Eater Courts but an unconvential twist to some of the armies doing the rounds on the tournament scene currently.
I was lucky enough to have two games with him on two separate occasions, both of which I'll cover now!
The first game took place on a cold Saturday morning which took the form of a Death vs. Destruction battle.
I thought that I could give Feri a game against the Spiderfang!
My list was the same as always:
Feri's took a very different approach to what I'd consider a conventional list. He took:
Two Good
*Feri's rolls for Death saves were incredible, throughout the whole game. I think it's fair to say that they really are a saviour for the army. Having a 5+ save on top of everything else is just absolutely amazing. By far the best ability out of the 4!
*Unit of 20 spiders poured 20 mortal wounds onto a Terrorgeist... 17 were saved!
Two Bad
*9 Crypt Horrors in a unit really hampered my progress and being able to regain wounds is a huge blow for the Spiders after piling on mortal wounds. It didn't help that I was caught off guard when he made a 10" charge out of nowhere into a unit of spiders which were more or less unprotected on the flank. This forced me back slightly, which enabled him to come in and hit hard.
*Terrorgeists screeching down on units of spiders, removing models contributed to a flank collapsing while he took advantage with a unit of flayers to mop up the rest.
Final Result: Death Major Victory!
Lessons Learnt
Death is an incredibly strong faction with such amazing abilities. In summation, it wasn't really much of a game for Feri, as the core of my army was ripped apart by turn 3 and I just couldn't keep up with the models being lost. The ability to just regrown models seems absolutely crazy! Next time I play them, I need to look at completely destroying units. Instead of setting up across the table, I need to look at focusing power into one unit/area to clear out and move across.
I think for the vast majority of the time, staying away from the Terrorgeists and bigger gribblies would be more useful while I get rid of battleline/larger units. This, of course, is easier said than done but as a general rule would make it easier to sort other parts of the board and drag them out of position.
An army that kicks out and can save mortal wounds is just so deadly. I can't really give you any further points to my two good/two bad because it was just a poor game from my perspective and very poorly played.
As I said, it wasn't much of a battle for Feri really who mopped up and held both the objectives.
Game two was a much closer run affair and this time I changed armies and went down the route of the Warrior Brotherhood (and groans appear from all side of the internet).
I ended up with:
*Lord on Dracoth
*Lord Celestant
*10 Retributors
*5 (Big Axe guys...)
*10 Liberators
*5 Liberators
*10 Judicators
*5 Judicators (Crossbows)
*3 Prosecutors
I wanted to give Feri a better game than just running riot over my spiders, so I went for a list which is a little more resiliant!
Feri took a different approach. Originally he was going to use the 'ghoul patrol' batallion but decided against it. Instead he went for a different approach and ended up with:
*The Terrorgeist on the far right is actually a Zombie Dragon - it's just a cunning disguise!
So, another massive challenge, particularly with the scenario of:
Border War!
Like I said previously, I needed to hone in on a specific area of the board. With the Terrorgeist and Zombie Dragon on the far side of the board and achievable objectives for the taking, it was my thought that I should drop and kill the unit of 6 Horrors before working acorss the board to get rid of the rest. The only factor that was going to be against me is time!
I had learnt from the defeat to Keith that I had to drop tactically but around the objectives in order to score points at the correct moment.
Two Good
*Stormcast dropped and nullified Feri's left flank in the first turn.
*Feri did a decent job of making sure that his objective was held firm and I wasn't able to drop within 9" of it!
*Yet again, Death saves just went mental! I swear those dice are loaded!!!
*Unit of liberators scores 4 points on Feri's objective as his units move too far up the board!
Two Bad
*Prosecutors... hmm... Prosecutors... Need a unit of 6 - at least! Perhaps 9!
*Lord on Dracoth dies at the first hurdle... a painful death in one shot to the Horrors!
*Liberators and Prosecutors cannot hold my objective and finally it succumbs to 6 Flayers.
Final Result: Order: 18 / Death: 23 - Death Major Victory.
Lessons Learnt
Knight Azyeros' would have been excellent in this scenario, as I could have scored 4 points from the start from claiming the objective, forcing Feri to come back onto himself which would have left me iscolating units out with the hammers and axes. As it happens, I don't have any of them... until eBay sung it's beautiful tune and now I've ended up with two. What will be a difficult choice is what to drop - I think the Lord on Dracoth can go but I need to play with the list construction and see how I can get maximum potential out of the alpha strike.
Overall
So two hard games which both ended in defeat. The second game was a lot closer and resulted in both of us having to think very hard about our choices in the game which could result in victory. The first game left a bitter taste in my mouth as it was a huge culture shock to come up against a list with so many tricks with seemingly limited downside. Having a lord who has 3 saves in succession in order to ignore wounds is just crazy and I know that wounds can slip through the net but in the games that we played it was very uncommon for that to happen. I was very impressed with the Stormcast, and like I said previously - had a Knight Azyeros been there then maybe the outcome would have been slightly different.
I really enjoyed both games though as it gave me a different army to face and a new tactical challenge to try and overcome. When I have tweaked my Stormcast list, I will be playing again for sure hopefully with a more pleasing outcome for the forces of Order!
Anyway, that's it from me for today!
Thanks for reading,
I'll see you soon!
@geekphotoguy
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