Spearhead: Dogs and Bones in the Realm of Death

On Wednesday afternoon I got in a couple of games of Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Spearhead with my friend Orion! 

The first game I played my brand new Blades of Khorne - Fangs of the Blood God army. Orion brought her regular Soulblight Gravelords - Bloodcrave Hunt. She has a NEW Soulblight Gravelords army - the Deathrattle Tomb Host - but they're not painted yet! 

I won the roll off and decided to be the attacker. As Defender, Orion chose to play on the Dolorum side of the game board from the Sand & Bone Gaming Pack, chose side and the deployment map and all that... and then the Horde of Khorne Dogs starts swarming across the batlefield - so fast were they that I didn't get to take a pictures of their initial dispositions!?

On the first turn of Round One, Karanak, the Hound of Vengeance, sent forth do hunt down that which gained the ire of the God of Blood himself, had found it's quarry... 

Other Flesh Hounds circled round to block her escape.

Karanak moved in and shredded the Vampire... 

So... that's it.. Quarry hunted down and destroyed! Mission Accomplished! WE can all go.. 

wait... what...? 

We have to play three and a half MORE rounds?! 

Uggggggghhhh... finnnnne... 

So, elsewhere... 

The Claws of Karanak and the other pack of Flesh Hounds had charged the Deathrattle Skeletons sitting on the objective on the other flank... because I guess that's a thing they could do... Not much blood to spill... but dogs like bones, I guess! 

Unfortunately they were a little to exhuberant in their charge and got a little too close to the Blood Knights who were lurking just to the rear... 

On MY turn, before they even got to swing one of their big chopping blades, the Blood Knights utterly wiped out my Claws of Karanak. 

Then on their turn, they finished off the unit of Flesh Hounds! 

At the beginning of the Second Round Karanak and the surviving unit of Flesh Hounds, smelling fresh blood... of their compatriots being slaughtered, charged across the battlefield to attack the Blood Knights! 

(Also... if Blood Knights are allowed to charge... they are SAVAGE... so better to charge them and hope for the best... get them stuck in...) 

Despite not charging the battle was savage and bloody... 

and then they weren't there anymore!? They were just suddenly across the battlefield stealing some other objective...? (stupid battle tactics cards...) 

A fresh unit of the Claws of Karanak arrived to take back an objective... 

Only to get charged by the Blood Knights again... 

ONE of them survived the initial attacks... and then the Horses went and the last one died... again... 

Karanak and the last remaining Flesh Hound decided to chew on some bones... 

Flesh Hounds attacks... needing a 4+ to hit... in case you were wondering how the fancy new Khorne dice were working out for me... same as always... 

And then it was Round Three and the Vargheists showed up and finished off the last Flesh Hound and sent Karanak back to the Brass Palace in the Realm of the Blood God... 

End of Round Three... 

Tabled. 

Round Four I did get to bring on reinforcements... 

And they charged down and shredded a unit of Deathrattle Skeletons... well... all but ONE... which prevented me from scoring another point. 

The Soulbights "won" the game, I guess... even though Karanak slayed the quarry, which, narratively, is all the Daemonic manifestation of Khorne's wrathful vengeance cares about, really... so... 

Orion ended the game with 20 victory points and I had 15. Which, is pretty much as good as I could have expected. 

The Fangs of the Blood God are not the strongest of Spearhead armies... they have a lot of attacks... if they get to use them... but they aren't particularly accurate or hard hitting and they have next to NO read (reducing armour saves) except for Karanak... They have crap saves and not a lot of health. they do have a 6+ ward save... but that doesn't do much. 

They DO all have the reinforcements keyword (with the exception of Karanak)... but only one unit of reinforcements can be brought on per round... and there are only four rounds... But if your units start being wiped out on Round One... you can bring one back every turn for the rest of the game...? Yay...? 

Looking back at these pictures here... I'm wondering if I may have forgotten to bring back one of my units of Flesh Hounds...? Ah, well. Maybe I just forgot to take a picture of it...? Got rode down by the Blood Knights so fast I didn't get a chance...? I don't know. 

It's always fun playing with Orion, so... 

This one went quick enough and we had some time so we played a SECOND game... but I'll write that up in a second game report!