What We Do in the Realm of Shadows - Episode Five

This past Sunday we finally got in another game of What We Do in the Realm of Shadows - our Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Soulbound Role-Playing Game (making use of Champions of Death!! 

In our last episode, the group FINALLY made it back to their homeland of Neferatia in Shyish, the Realm of Death... only to find themselves in the middle of a battle between the Children of the Bell (Maggotkin of Nurgle forces) and a complete Stormhost of the Anivls of the Heldenhammer! Having fought their way free, we found them at the beginning of this episode fleeing into the nearby hills! 

Just when they thought they were out of harms way and stopped to take a breath, they heard the most horrific noise - a cross between the screaching call of a massive dragon and the terrified wails of a thousand dead souls! Neferata, herself, then swooped to the ground on her Dread Abyssal, blocking the path of the fleeing vampires and their companions...

Before speaking, however, Neferata maneuvered herself upwind of the group,covered, as they were, with the blood and gore and projected vomit and mucus and viscera (and Nurgle knows what else) from the scores of Daemons and Rottbringers they'd slain... 

She welcomed them all home but expressed disappointment at the lack of an ARMY they'd promised to raise and return with, centuries ago.... Perhaps when she ejected the Khorne-worshipping squatters on their lands she might have to give their keeps to... another... Perhaps their old rivals at court, Lady Simone the Deceitful and Count Blandula! 

After basking in their dismay, Neferata gave the group a new mission. She explained that the Stormcast Eternals engaged in the battle behind them would soon defeat the servants of Nurgle and plans were already set in motion to turn them against the Horde of Khorne across the mountains to the East... but then MUST NOT GET DISTRACTED. There were MORE Nurgle forces to the Southwest and The vampires and their servants were to ensure that the Stormcast DO NOT find out about them and turn that way instead!!

So off they went, skirting around the battle and made their way in the general direction they supposed the other Nurgle forces lay. 

Along their travels, they encountered a Duardin necromancer they recruited to their task with the promise of MANY FRESH CORPSES to ply his trade upon! 

Later they noticed they were being followed by three Fellbats. After about a day or so, the Fellbats swooped down to confront them and it turned out to be Lady Simone the Deceitful and Count Blandula, who'd come to taunt them and ensure them that they would FAIL and that they, Lady Simone the Deceitful and Count Blandula, would soon have castles of their own! 

After another day's march, the group encountered a pair of patrolling Pusgoyle Blightlords and decided to kill them... 

Pusgoyle Blightlords engaging the player characters over land grown foul by the taint of Nurgle! 

The Pusgoyle Blightlords were terrifying opponents, but were eventually overcome... 

And that's where we ended things... 

Age of Sigmar - Defending the Soulpod Grove

This week Amanda and I got in another game of Age of Sigmar... except we tried out the REGULAR rules (i.e. NOT Spearhead). I've been wanting to move to playing Path to Glory/Narrative battles for some time. I don't LOVE Spearhead. I don't mind it... there are some elements that I like, others... not-so-much... It is basically a shorter version of the Matched Play rules, which I am just not fond of (the drawing cards and constantly changing objectives drive me CrAzY!? and... I GET IT for Spearhead, when they're trying to make it replayable when there are fixed forces and (More-or-less) fixed map-boards and scenarios... you need SOMETHING to change up!? 

(Also, I wasn't sure how the Sylvaneth Spearhead was EVER going to beat the Maggotkin of Nurgle one... which would mean Amanda would tire of playing against them... but I'm really enjoying playing Nurgle right now - not because they're winning, I just really like the fluff behind the faction and I'm enjoying painting the models... so I hoped switching to the regular rules and being able to change up the forces and scnearios and scenery might bring some balance back to the game!)

I left out a number of rules (Commands, Heroic Traits, Artifacts of Power, Formation rules, etc) and modified others - the Army Composition rules (because we just used the Spearhead forces, as they both end up being exactly 610 points... but the Sylvaneth can actually form regiments that fit the Army Composition rules, but the Maggotkin cannot) - we will gradually add in more each game... I just didn't want to overwhelm either of us! 

Though I kind of hope we can retroactively call this the beginning of a Path to Glory campaign, we didn't use the Aspiring Rank bonus from the Ascension Path to Glory battlepack in this first game... 

SCENARIO

I used the Go For The Throat Battle Plan from Daenbringers Book I: Harbingers - one of the campaign books from Third Edition (but it still works).

The invading Maggotkin have discovered the location of the Sylvaneth's sacred Soulpod Grove and sent a small force ahead the seize the grove and the Soulpods within! 

There are three Objectives in the Sylvaneth territory. At the beginning of the game the Sylvaneth player determines WHICH of the objective locations the Soulpods are secreted in. 

At the end of the game whoever controls the location with the Soulpods wins. If they control the location and it is uncontested by enemy, they score a MAJOR victory! 

Because we were playing on a considerable smaller board, I shortened the game from four rounds to three.

So there's a psychological element to the scenario... Amanda, the Sylvaneth player, ideally wants to try to lure me into believing the soulpods were in a location other than where they actually were, so I would commit more resources trying to take the wrong location! 

FORCES

SYLVANETH

Branchwych General's Regiment

• Hero - Branchwych (1) 110 - Any Infantry
• Unit - Tree-Revenants (5) 90 - Infantry

Treelord's Regiment

• Hero -  Treelord (1) 210 - Any Sylvaneth
• Unit - Kurnoth Hunters with Kurnoth Greatbows (3) - 200 Kurnothi, Infantry

Faction Terrain: Awakened Wyldwood (3) 

Army Total: 610

MAGGOTKIN OF NURGLE

Nurgle Daemon General's Regiment

• Hero - Spoilpox Scrivener, Herald of Nurgle (1)  80 - Any Daemon
• Unit - Plaguebearers (10) 140 -  Daemon, Infantry

Auxiliary Unit - Putrid Blightkings (5) 190 - Rotbringers, Infantry

Auxiliary Unit - Pusgoyle Blightlords (2) 210 - Rotbringers, Cavalry

Army Total: 620

All set up and ready to go! 

Battlelines formed... 

The Sylvaneth took the first turn and mostly just moved up to the leading edge of the objective areas... and the Kurnoth Hunters with Great Bows took some shots at the Pusgoyle Blightlords! 

They scored a great number of hits... but I made a crazy number of SAVES! In the end, only two damage went through... but it was a start! 

The Branchwych had tried to summon/grow some more Awakened Wyldwoods... and failed!

Then the maggotkin surged forward! the Pusgoyle 

The Putrid Blightkings failed to charge the Tree-REvenants... (I KNEW I should have just run them and made sure I was close enough I'd be able to charge the NEXT turn... Doh!) 

The Plaguebearers surged forward and charged the Treelord... 

I made the mistake of NOT running with the Spoilpox Scrivener, so he fell behind and the Plaguebearers were no longer wholly within 12" and would not be able to be buffed on Round Two! (learned a LOT this game!! The HARD way....) 

The Plaguebearers, with their Crit (mortal) attacks, can deal some SERIOUS damage when their attacks are doubled by the Spoilpox Scrivener's abilities... had I been able to buff them again in the second round... I MIGHT have taken out the Tree Lord and this would have been and ENTIRELY different game!!

Pusgoyle Blightlord taking some hits! 

Unfortunately, Amanda kept the Branchwych a little too close behind the Kurnot Hunters and so one of the Pussgoyle Blightlords was able to direct their attacks at the Branchwych and took her out! 

This WRECKED Amanda's plan of being able to set up a series of Awakened Wyldwoods and being able to have her troops walk the spirit paths between them all 

On the second round, the Tree-Revenant's gave up their position on one of the Objective areas and charged in to help the Kurnoth Hunters who were fighting the Pusgoyle Blightlords!

Treelord whittling down the Plaguebearers... 

One of the Pusgoyle Blightlords fell... but they sold themselves dearly, taking a pair of the Kurnoth Hunters with them. 

AGAIN the Putrid Blightkings FAILED to charge...

AGAIN... should have just ran with them to make sure they were in position to be able to advance and charge in the final round... 

Spoilpox Scrivener finally in range to sneeze on the Treelord... and hit five times, dealing three damage!? 

The one remaining Pusgoyle Blightlord, holding his own! 

So many poor Plaguebearers getting smashed into pulpy goo... 

Pusgoyle Blightlord finally took out the last Kurnoth Hunter and was then able to turn his attention to the annoying Tree-Revenants... 

Smashy-Choppy-Squishy! 

The Treelord finished off the Plaguebearer... so I moved in the Spoilpox Scrivener... If it got LUCKY and did some similar hits with the sneezy-snot attack... and then followed up by charging in and hitting twice with his melee attack... AND THEN I was ablel to deal a couple Mortal Wounds with the end of turn disease-spreading thing... I COULD have concievably taken down the Tree Lord... but that was a LOT of IFs for me to get lucky on... 

In the final turn of the final round... the Putrid Blightkings FINALLY made it to one of the Objective Areas... but there was no one there contesting it... so it was unlikely to be the one with Soulpods (Amanda couldn't be THAT wiley and daring as to leave them in a totally unguarded location, could she!?)

Relative positions at the end of Round Three. 

There were no Soulpods at the location that the Putrid Blightkings held, uncontested...

Only ONE Sylvaneth Tree-Revenant remained on the middle - and Amanda was clever enough to keep the standard bearer and NOT the champion... as the standard increased the control score of the unit and the rivals were tied at two... and since the Sylvaneth had held the location since the beginning of the game, the Pusgoyle Blightlord could not seize the location as they did not have a HIGHER control score there!!

It did not matter, really, as the Soulpods had been hidden at the location where the Treelord was chilling... with NO opponents, scoring Amanda's Sylvaneth a MAJOR victory... 

I liked this game SO MUCH more than Spearhead. Amanda did appreciate not having the cards and drawing and never knowing what you might have to do on the next turn and quickly trying to plan in a panic how you might score them... She wasn't AS keen on the all-or-nothing kind of victory conditions of this scenario... I guess I should have pointed out that they aren't ALL like this (whoever holds one particular location at the end wins!) there are lots of other scenarios where you still gain point THROUGHOUT the game... but HOW you score them isn't CHANGING every turn - you know what you need to do, generally, from the get-go and can plan accordingly!  

I think if we go ahead with a Path to Glory campaign, I might just make 1000 point rosters of stuff for both sides... but then, for the games, we can pick whichever point level to play at and select units from said roster... If wanting to keep the games smaller like this for a bit! 

I need to come up with some names for my Maggotkin Heroes and Characters and units! 

I named the Branchwych and Treelord at some point... but Amanda might want to change those...? 

In other Maggotkin news... 

STILL chugging away at the Great Unclean One... SO CLOSE!!!

A number of the nurglings will be added to the Great Unclean One's base. One of it's attacks is "Swarm of Nurglings", so... kind of need to put them on there or I'll feel silly using that attack!

(I KNOW it's ridiculous... but I TOTALLY want to do TWO MORE of these!? I'd do Rotugus - the named Great Unclean One character - with yellowy skin... and then a second regular Great Unclean One with the other head and army options with purple skin... or maybe brown...?)