The Bitter Chill of Winter (Age of Sigmar)

My final battle from last week was against Nige (@NigelSBartlett) who was preparing for Heat 1 of the GT at Warhammer World with his Beastclaw Ogres.

As I have been doing in recent weeks, I asked Nige what he wanted to play and he correctly selected the Spiderfang! 

Scenario: Gifts from the Heavens

My list was the same last the previous weeks’ outing with them – something which is fairly straightforward: Boss, Giant Spiders, Small Spiders = A ton of black spiders!

Nige on the other hand took:

Now, I want to take a second to pause and showcase to you his models. If you can remember back to previous posts when I’ve talked about painting, he’s one of the ones I just want to punch in the face due to his ability with the (air)brush!

Right, are we suitably nerded out over painting? Good. Then we shall begin.

This is the first time that I’ve played this scenario and I must admit at the beginning I haven’t fully understood the scenario! The way I read it in the 30 seconds of skim-reading was that meteors crash down each turn but that wasn’t quite correct! As it happened, it didn’t make much difference but it did mean I have to shift my game plan midway through the second turn!

Two Good:

*The threat of wounds being dealt out on the charge by the ogres were nullified with the spiders jumping to the charge on the Stonehorn and the Mournfangs.

*One round of combat against the stonehorn pumps out 15 wounds (14 of which are mortal).

*Spider units dealt with units of mournfang by dealing mortal wounds.

*With re-rollable saves because of enchanted cover, the lord needed a double 6 to survive. After rolling a double 1, I then rerolled and came up with a double 6! Unbelievable Jeff!

*Spiders broke forward to go within 6" of Nige's meteor to deny him VPs for the final turn.

Two Bad:

*High rolls for Bravery made it easy for spiders to be killed off easily. 

*Weak armour value was easily nullified. 

*Not all models in the Spider Rider units could not attack, therefore their full potential could not be utilised. 

*Big Boss on Spider was left too exposed at the back and was promptly set upon by the Stonehorn and savagely eaten!

Lessons Learnt:

*Experiment with the possibility of splitting them into smaller units in order to gain more advantage from their poisoned attacks. 

*Take the Stonehorn down early!

I think overall Nige was quite surprised at the punch of the list. In return I didn't realise the power of the Mournfang when I don't have the buffs from the Lord and Araknarok on them. They crumbled fairly quickly - especially because of their rend ability on their weapons. Something to be expected but nevertheless, I paid for it in battleshock tests!

I feel I would have struggled more in this if the units of Mournfang were clumped together in 4s. As it was, I had an easier time iscolating and wounding the units which only needed 10 wounds to take down and even with a unit of 10 spiders, the damage which can be kicked out is enough to smash through units of 2 with some ease. 

It was a priority to break the lines and stop his Hunter and the cats from scoring. Eventually, I managed to do that but it was a very costly game in terms of models lost. 

Nige didn't have a great deal of things left at the end but, in truth - neither did I and that was due to the high volume to damage and wounds that Nige kicked out. 

In the end, a major victory for the Spiders but it could have been very different had the position of the 'gift' been near the Stonehorn or the centre of the board. 

This games was over in around 2 hours and we had enough time to play another game! Hurrah! 

This time, it was a different scenario but the same lists! After all, it was tournament practice for Nige and any practice is good practice. 

Now that he fully knows what the Spiders can do, I was expecting a much, much tougher game! 

So, we had: Scenario: Take and Hold

A very family scenario for me after playing it the day before and indeed a week before that and I would employ much the same tactic as I did with all of those games - Get a large unit which is just with 6" of the objective and denies the opponent being within 6". Simples! 

Nige began and set up like so:

And I set up: 

 Here we have a large unit of 20 spiders which will be buffed to high heaven with the Boss' and Araknarok's abilities in order to protect the objectives.

I needed to make sure that my line started as a whole and the aim in this game was to take Nige wide and collapse into the middle with what I've got. Almost a pincer movement, if you will.

Two Good:
*Spiders played a consistent line which drew the ogres forward.
*Using models, I was able to dictate where play went and draw the Mournfang into a battle in the middle of the field. This ensured that I could benefit from all available buffs.
*After the Stonehorn had breached my first line (see below... it's brutal!), I could then set upon it with 2 units of 20 if I so wished... so I wished...upon a star... and a spider god!
*10 spiders ran up the far edge (right hand side) of the board in order to grab the objective as Nige had not brought on his Hunter and cats yet...yet...

*After wrapping with the spiders and taking out the Stonehorn, the spiders went to the Thundertusk and caused enough mortal wounds to remove it from the table.
*10 spiders managed to hold off the assault of 6 cats - admittedly 2 at a time before engaging the Hunter to deny control of the objective.

Two Bad:
*Stonehorns hurt... they hurt so bad that 18 spiders were removed from his attacks... Even with Mystic Shield on them!

*Mystic Shields and Arcane Bolts could not be cast for love nor money after the first turn!

Outcome: Minor Victory to the Spiderfang!

Lessons Learnt:
*Unlike the first game, I allowed the charge to come on to me and I paid a heavy price for that in the form of losing a lot of models again. I should have taken the advantage of having the numbers and then worried about claiming the objectives in the later turns of the game.
*I think that I controlled the board well with the spiders and managed, for the most part, to dictate where options were made available for Nige to take advantage of. The problem here was, Nige did his job too well and was free to pick apart the rest of my army bar two units of spiders, boss and the Araknarok. This forced me to pile all of my eggs into one basket but fortunately for me, it came off in this game.

Although I got through the game with a minor victory, I felt that Nige had control of the game through his combat prowess. It was priority to remove the Stonehorn and Thundertusk before they did an awful amount of damage... well... that was semi-successful but the devestation of the Stonehorn caused a great deal of disarray in the backfield as I scrambled to deal with it before it got on top.

I really enjoyed these games against Nige and it was excellent to play him at something other than 40k. The army he is using is beautiful and he does play it well - it packs a lot of punch! I'm not sure he was fully expecting the power that came from the fangs!




In other news, there were a few other battles taking place while Nige and I locked horns - James' Nighthaunt force took on Nick's (@slaaneshfiend) Tomb Kings!

I mean, explanations aren't quite needed here... Tomb Kings are busted!!!



The final game of the evening was Gareth (@gcp129) pitted his Stormcast off against Si's (@irons1de1) Destruction force (Ogres and Orks).

Well, that's it from me for this week's games but I do have at least one lined up for this coming Thursday!

Thanks for reading.
I'll see you soon!

@geekphotoguy