Warhammer Underworlds: Morgwarth's versus Hrothgorn's

 Having recently finished Hrothgorn's Mantrappers, it seemed they needed to try and stand in the way of Morgwaeth's Blade-Coven and their quest to escape the Beastgrave! 

Ever deeper into the Direchasm Morgwaeth and her followers plunged. After some time they noted they were being tracked. By the smell they know it to be an Ogor and it's little gnoblar friends. 

Hrothgorn Mantrapper was legendary amongst the Ogor Mawtribes. His stealth and ability to track any quarry was unrivalled. His stealth wasn't so great that the keen senses of the murderous wych-aleves weren't constantly aware of his snuffling and shuffling as he pursued them in his quest for fresh meat. 

At a narrow tunnel Morwaeth laid her own trap... 

THE TRAP IS SPRUNG! Hrothgorn and his followers ambushed by the Daughters of Khaine! 

Amanda won the first roll-off and had me pick a board first. I selected the "Living Rock" board from the Beastgrave box - mostly so I could try out the new Terrain Bits I finished last week. (I thought they worked rather well - especially the Reaper Bones stalagmites! I wish I had a few more of those!!).

Amanda picked the "Hive of Sacrifice" due to it's lack of lethal or blocking hexes and set it up short edge to short edge, as she does... 

She started things off by shooting Bushwakka with Kyrae dealing one damage. As Bushwakka only HAD two, I decided to fling him into action before he was dead and set up a sneaky trap on Objective #1 - kind of the only cool thing he can do... Those traps deal TWO DAMAGE to anyone moving onto them!

I played a power card that allowed Hrothgorn to remove the Objective Marker next to him - there is NOTHING in their decks that give them any points for holding objectives... but there are cards that allow them to flip or remove them! As I know Amanda's deck for Morgwaeth's Blade-Coven is ALL ABOUT holding objectives AND I was holding an Objective Card that gave me one victory token for removing or flipping one... it seemed like the thing to do! +1 VP for me! Yay! Things were looking up! 

Kyrssa jumped onto the furthest Objective Marker and stayed there for the game. As she does. 

I moved Quiv up, so he would be in position to help Hrothgorn shoot stuff and Kyrae finished off Bushwakka with another arrow... 

Oh... and then Amanda played DISTRACTION on Quiv, pushing him onto the objective marker with the trap... which then killed him... 

Yeah... 

No more traps. open Objective Maker. No Quiv (that allows Hrothgorn to re-roll a die when using his ranged "Trap Launcher" attack - which he DESPERATELY NEEDS as it is a two dice flurry attack... two dice with 2-in-six chance of success) 

Well... Hrothgorn moved up and shot anyway... which missed... because Amanda was having another game where she could only roll crits in defence. Morgwaeth moved up to an objective marker and stabbed Hrothgorn - dealing him FOUR damage (as she had something giving her +1 Damage)... for my final activation I moved up Thrafnir... because... what else was I going to do...!? 

Amanda scored some objectives and was already leading, like. five or six to my one. 

On Round Two, Amanda went first and finished off Hrothgorn... and that was pretty much the game. Half of both power and objective decks for Hrothgorn's Mantrappers is only relevant if Hrothgorn is still in the game... 

Amanda deciding how to utterly slaughter the last few of Hrothgorn's Followers WHILE gaining ALL THE POINTS from holding objectives... 

Thrafnir did try chewing on Morgwaeth... but.. that whole unable to not roll defence crits meant not a scratch on her. 

Luggit and Thwak moved up... because... what else was I going to do...? 

I spent a LOT of actions in Round Two and Three discarding and drawing new Objective Cards HOPING to find SOMETHING that could be scored... that DIDN'T require Hrothgorn... or killing the entire enemy warband (kind of requires Hrothgorn)...

Kyrssa and Lehtyr doing their hold the furthest objective and score points with Tome of Glories.

In the Final Round, Lethyr rushed forward to hold Objective #5, which brought her close enough that Luggit and Thwak could get to her... and so they charged.... actually HIT her, dealing one damage, and drover her back, off the objective and into the Lethal Hex which dealt her a SECOND damage and took her out! 

(it was only AFTER doing this that I drew "Surprising Competence" - Scored immediately when a friendly Gnoblar's Attack action takes an enemy fighter out of action - for one victory point).

Thrafnir just got the fuck out of the way, so I could score ONE Objective card... Always Moving (Scored in an end phase if there is at least one surviving friendly fighter and there are no friendly fighters in your territory!)

Amanda counting up all her victory points... 

She ended up with TWENTY (to my five...)

Yeah... 

Hrothgorn's Mantrappers seems like it COULD be a fun warband to play... but you really have to protect Hrothgorn somehow! which is hard, because the warband only inspires if he gets into hand-to-hand and kills an adjacent enemy (so he can't JUST stand back and shoot at stuff - which, despite the trap-launching-giant-crossbow being the most obvious thing about the miniature, it's the weaker of his two attacks - way less likely to his, and deals less damage!?). Without Hrothgorn, the warband is entirely useless... 

I made some mistakes in the initial placement of objective markers... 

Totally forgot that MY guys could be pushed into the trap!? 

Ugh... 

The next warband I'm working on is Mollog's Mob - ANOTHER warband that is really focused around ONE of it's members - Mollog - a Dankhold Troggoth with SEVEN WOUNDS (the highest in the game!) but still, Morgwaeth was dealing FOUR damage part way through Round One, so... 

After that, I'll be working on one of the warbands from Harrowdeep (probably the Stormcast, as they seem quickest and easiest to complete!) and we'll be switching to that setting for the rest of the year!