Preface
This was to be the second battle of my new daemonic army. Because of the rules change, daemons and mortals of chaos have become two army types and so my chaos worshippers have been separated. Which means more paint work to do?
In their debut battle (a bloody draw against my own Empire army commanded by Hans (who seemingly threats his goblins that bad that they hide out in the deepest cupboard they can find), had learned my a lot about the in- and abilities of a pure nurgle daemon army. The lack of fast moving units would and magic defense could be even more felt against High Elves.
The first problem could not be solved (just a little by using my ?flying nurgling? Furies). For magic defense I decided to invest in a battle standard bearer with the ?Banner of Sundering??? Rather expensive in a 1500 points battle, but I know that Arjen usually takes armies with a magic punch. On top of this I went for three heralds and upgraded them all to level one magicians. (Not just tactics; my painting tempo forced me to spend points in my characters? not enough nurglings available?)
This was the composition of the Nurgle army: two units of ten Plaguebearers, with full command; two units of three Nurgling bases,; one unit of seven Furies/Flying Nurglings; one unit of two Beasts of Nurgle and the characters; three Heralds of Nurgle, all of them level one casters and one of them carrying the battle standard.
The High Elves were more or less composed in Arjens normal style: Two units of twenty spearmen, an unit of ten archers, two units of five Silver Helms, a mage on foot, one on a steed and a hero/general on a steed. And then the stuff that really worried me, two RBT?s and a unit
g
HHHHH g sssss sssss
HrbtH rbt msssss sssss m ppppp sssss ppppp
HHHH aaaaaaaaaa mhhhhh hhhhh sssss mmmmm sssss
ppppp ppppp
TTTT WWWWW
HHH DTTT WWWWW
HHH TTTT WWWWW
HHHHH
f f f f bb ppphh ppphh
f f f nn bbbpp bbbbb
pbpb pb
H: Hill, T: Tower with D:door, W: Wood
g; general on steed, rbt: RBT, mm: mage on steed, m: maage, sh: silver helms, sp: spearmen, sm: swordmasters
f: furies, bn: beast of nurgle, pb: plaguebearers, hp: herald on palanquin, h: herald of nurgle
Not really on a correct scale but it gives an impression of the starting positions of the armies. The High Elves put their infantry on one flank, cavalry and shooters on the other. My units of plaguebearers with the heralds in them were facing the infantry. The beasts of nurgle and furies were lone hunters on my left flank.
My Nurglings ?infiltrated? into no mans land, one unit hiding out in the woods, the other one inside the tower.
Magic
All of my mages got the XSXDSSDF spell (#1); having only level 1 casters and shabby dice rolls makes Nurgle magic choices a bit limited. The high elves mage on foot got arrow attraction and HEVAY SPELL, the one on the steed took fire magic and got two types of magic missiles. I decided to use the BANNER OF SOMETHING on the fire lore. Fire and regenerating don?t mix that well and I was very afraid to see my army being decimated before reaching the elves.
Turn 1
My demons got to start so it was a ?all forward? turn. Every unit except for the nurglings moved forward. The plaguebearers headed a little more to the right side, the beasts of nurgle turned a little to the right. They were supposed to hold up Arjens cavalry for a while (and perhaps even beat a unit). The furies flew forward and landed just in front of the little hill, outside charge range of the silver helms but close enough to be able to attack the bolt thrower on the hill next turn. Magic was uneventfull, shooting even more?.
Arjen moved his cavalry forward at maximum speed, one unit to the left of the mountains, the other to the right side. His infantry moved forward as well. The spearmen lined up to pass the tower on the left site to support the silverhelms, the swordsmen moved to the right of the tower to face my plaguebearers, the second unit of spear men secured went in support with the swordsmen.
His general positioned himself behind the two RBT?s(!). Arjen was (and is) very worried about the amazing powers of my Furies, so he offered his most powerful character to stop them?
In the magic phase the value of the BANNER OF SOMETHING was proven. I managed to dispel all Fire lore spell and the RING OF SOME ONE. However my unit of Beast of Nurgle was cursed with Arrow Attraction. And that was what happened next: the beasts got transferred into nail cushions. One was killed right away, the other got one wound. So much for my plans to hold up the silver helms with the beasts.
Turn 2
To cope with the threat of the silver helms I marched the plaguebearer unit with the general further to the left, facing the high elven cavalry, but outside their charge. The single beast of nurgle marched to the right, in support of this plague bearer unit. The nurglings in the tower did not move, apparently having too much fun inside.
On the right flank my nurglings marched as far as possible forward, reaching a position on the right flank of the spearmen. The second unit of plague bearers, with the two heralds inside, moved a little further ahead, stopping in front of the swordmasters (in charge range) and spearmen.
And off course, my furies charged the RBT on the hill?
In big contrast to the previous magic phase, a spell came through. With a total power dice roll I managed to cast WHAT SPELL. The impact was horrendous: More than half of the spearmen on the right were killed, or should I say, blessed by Nurgle.
In the close combat phase neither the crew of the RBT or the Furies managed to hurt each other, the crew broke of fear and were caught by the Furies, who ran in the Elven general in the process.
In the Elven turn the silver helms spurred even further forward, ending their movement with a slight turn facing the plague bearers and the beast of nurgle. The spearmen marched further, reaching with their front the left flank of the tower.
On the right flank Arjen turned the remains of his spearmen to face the Nurglings and decided not to charge the plague bearers with the swordsmen (or did they fail the fear test when they tried to to do so? Can?t remember exactly).
Magic and shooting was pretty uneventfull, besides sending back a few plague bearers to the Courts of Chaos. In close combat the Elven general and the Furies fought off a draw (they would continue to do that for the remainder of the battle).
Turn 3
At the start of the turn, the battle was split in three: On the left flank my unit of plague bearers with general was facing two units of Silver Helms. I had support of a single beast of Nurgle and the unit of Nurglings hiding in the tower. The elves had one unit of spear men coming to their aid, but this unit would have to pass the nurglings. The elven archers could give some fire support, but were to far away to join the battle themselves. I felt our changes were pretty even; the silver helms would probably charge my plague bearers, but did would be a charge in the front and my unit would probably hold. The spearmen would not be able to reach the battle in time, so I would be able to fight them off one after the other.
On the right side things were looking rather well. My nurglings were in position to charge the thinned out spearmen, even threatening the flank of the Swordmasters . I was going to make a gamble (brilliant tactical maneuver) here: Not charging the sword masters (who I also really fear), by marching to the left, using the tower to get out the charge range of the Swordmasters. This would make this unit very vulnerable for an attack in the rear by the swordmasters, but hopefully I would be able to out march them.
The other gamble I took was marching the other unit of plague bearers on the left flank right in front of the silver helms, forcing them to charge (or at least make it almost impossible to maneuver around me). The beast of nurgle moved a little to the north (what turned out to be a little too much) in such a way that the silver helms would not be able to charge it, and that the beast itself would be able to support the plaguebearers in the next turn.
The unit of nurglings on the right flank had charged the spearmen and chewed them up in close combat! The noble high elves just managed to kill one nurgling and were auto-broken by fear for the little critters. To make victory complete Nurgle?s little ones ran the spearmen down and attacked the swordsmen in the flank. (Gna, gna, gna?)
In the Elven turn the Silver Helm declared a charge on the unit of plague bearers. Luckily for me, only one unit made his fear test so only five cavalrists and a mage charged. However Arjen also declared a charge with his second unit of spearmen on the Beast of Nurgle and they turned out to be in range?
This resulted in i) a killed beast but even worse ii) a unit a spearmen making overrunning in the right flank of the plaguebearer unit fighting the silver helms (Since magic and shooting were uneventful, I will skip these phases here). In the combat that followed and the resulting daemonic stability test, nearly all of the plaguebearers were killed, leaving the general and three of his daemonic minions standing. But they were still standing!
On the right flank things worked out a lot better. The nurglings went on, beating the sword masters and sending them o a route, catching them on the run and killing off the Elven elite! This brought them face to face with the second repeating bolt thrower.
Turn 4
This was the last turn we actually played due to lack of time. On the left flank, my second unit of plague bearers charged the unit Spearmen who were flanking my general in their flank. My second unit of nurglings tried to charge them in the back, but was out of range (so this unit of nurglings spent the entire battle inside the tower, only to come out to do nothing?). My other unit of nurglings however were giving a great example on ?nurgling behaviour? by charging the repeater bolt thrower.
The following battles were very one sided (joy ;-) The spearmen were beaten by the plague beares and the Heralds, broken and caught on the flee. In their pursuit the Plague Bearers ended just in front of the unit of Silver Helms that had failed their fear test in the previous round.
The battle between my general and his? court? (a palanquin of nurglings and three surviving plague beares) versus the unit of Silver Helms with the Wizard continued. The elves had lost their momentum and fighting at their normal elven strength, the resilence of Nurgle daemons proved too much. My daemons won the fight, but the Elves passed their break test.
In their turn the Elves made their last charge: The second unit of Silver Helms charged into the unit Plague Bearers containing the Heralds, only to be beaten off and sent running of the field.
Conclusion
For the first time I can remember a ?tactical maneuver? went well!
