Spearhead: Khorne versus Slaanesh in the Realm of Death

For the second game I played against Orion on Wednesday, she decided to borrow my Hedonites of Slaanesh Blades of the Lurid Dream force and I stuck with the Blades of Khorne Fangs of the Blood God force. 

(You can find the report of the first game here: Spearhead: Dogs and Bones in the Realm of Death)

For this game we played on the Ossia side of the Sand & Bone board. 

Once again, I was the attacker, here to hunt down a Shardspeaker of Slaanesh that had irked the Blood God himself with their debauched and lurid ways and strange piercings in uncomfortable areas... 

At least... y'know...  NARRATIVELY speaking... 

The game is still played for victory points based on holding objectives... and playing cards to score extra points for holding SPECIFIC objectives each turn... 

There is a Quarry mechanic, where at the beginning of each round, if there isn't Quarry that's been picked and still alive... I can select a new one.. It has to be a HERO, but the vast majority of Spearhead warbands only have ONE Hero. And the basic benefit is, under certain conditions, Karanak may get to move d6" towards said Quarry (unless certain Enhancements are taken in which case one ONE TURN in the game I could get a bonus charge die, if it takes me into contact with the Quarry, OR if Karanak is in combat with an enemy, at the end of a turn, I just deal them d3 mortal wounds... 

There is not benefit to killing the Quarry - like, no Victory Point bonus - unless you happen to be playing with the Fire and Jade game set and happen to have the ONE CARD that gives you ONE victory point if you happen to kill the enemy general that turn... 

I digress... 

As with the previous game I charged forth and split my force.

Half went right to attack units on that flank. The Claws of Karanak actually got to fight this game. They, with some help from the pack of Flesh Hounds, slaughtered a unit of Blissbard Archers! 

And the other half went left to hunt down and kill the QUARRY!

This time, Orion put the General in the back corner of the playing board to be as far as possible from Karanak on that first turn... 

But there is NO ESCAPING THE HOUND OF VENGEANCE!!!

The Shardspeaker of Slaanesh was slaughtered... 

So... Mission accomplished, we can all go...

wait... what?

AGAIN!?

Ugggggghhhh, fine... 

Flesh Hounds battled with the Slaangor that had been trying to protect the Shardspeaker of Slaanesh. 

And just like that, the tricksy Shardspeaker of Slaanesh using the most base foul magiks, combined with pungent smoke and strategically placed mirrors, REAPPEARED on their first turn... safely away from the chomping jaws of the Hound of Vengeance or any Flesh Hounds!? 

A replacement unit of Blissbarb Archers also showed up as reinforcements and shot at, then charged one pack of Flesh Hounds. 

The Slickblade Seekers joined in the battle and utterly annihilated he Claws of Karanak... 

AND most of a pack of Flesh Hounds... 

The cackling Shardspeaker taunted the Khornate daemons; "Ha-ha-ha-haaaa! You thought you saw the last of me? Well..."

But then another band of the Claws of Karanak came chargine back onto the battlefield as replacements and cut the Shardspeaker down! 

(and the Slickblade Seekers counter charged and rode down the Claws of Karanak...)

Battlefield looking a little empty by the end of round two... 

Because neither of the packs of Flesh Hounds had been completely wiped out, I couldn't even bring a unit of reinforcements on for my third turn... This one poor Flesh Hound had to just try and hold that objective all on it's own! 

It did it's best... It ate three of the Blissbarb archers that charged in and tried to shift it off the objective. 

Karanak and the other Flesh Hound did very non-khorne-like things hanging out be particular objectives and terrain pieces and battlefield edges, just to score some points... 

Only to get run down by the Slickblade Seekers on the Hedonites third turn... 

There was a balance update for the original Spearhead armies back in June and the Slaangor now have the reinforcements keyword... so a unit of those charged back onto the field and sent Karanak back to Khorne in the Palace of Brass, to ready for hunting down a new quarry... 

End of Round Three. 

Tabled again... All objectives controlled by the Hedonites. 

On my last turn, I was able to bring back a solitary pack of Flesh Hounds AND Karanak (the Flesh Hounds came back as reinforcements and a card brought Karanak back...) I could have just stood them still and scored three or four points from cards and holding objectives and stuff... but I'd had enough of not doing violence as Khorne would have them do it... so I charged units and attacked. 

the Pack of Flesh Hounds ate the last Blissbarb archer in a unit and seized an objective... Karanak just got killed again... 

Another unit of Blissbarb archers arrived and attacked the Flesh Hounds and were joined by the Slaangor

The last chomps of the last remaining Flesh Hounds... they hit on 4+... two hounds with four attacks each, I should hit four times... nope. The six there was a crit mortal... the five either failed to wound or was saved... Teh Hedonites had so many depravity points by this point, they all had a Ward 5+ save that knocked off that final wound... 

Not only are Slaangor able to return as reinforcements - which is a pretty huge deal - they also vastly lowered the number of depravity points the Hedonites need to gain new army abilities. It used to be 12+/24+/36+ and now it is 12+/18+/24+ which also makes a BIG difference. 

I do hope this means they change how depravity points works for the regular Age of Sigmar Hedonites of Slaanesh, because as it stands, it is entirely useless... 

In the end Orion scored 23 victory points to my... 13... 

Yikes!

Still, it was super exciting to see the Hedonites score a win! I'm excited enough that I might even give them a try again!!