Boyou Battles Round 2 BR

My next game up was against a great sport and very good player Bryan Townsend. He was borrowing a mutual friends Nurgle Daemonic Legion army.

here is a pic that survived the corruption:


It is my guess that the Great Unclean one in this picture corrupted the rest of my pics.

His army list consisted of:
Great Unclean One: Cloud of flies (-1 to hit) & Stream of Corruption (str 3 breath weapon)
Daemonic Herald of Nurgle(BSB) Spell Breaker

16 Plague Bearers w/Full command (GUO went in here)
19 Plague Bearers w/full command (BSB in here)

3 Nurgling swarms
4 Nurgling swarms
3 Plague Riders
3 Plague Riders

Everything has Cloud of Flies, so I'm -1 to hit everything in the army. This is an almost worst case matchup scenario for me. I can't hit anything, and even if I do, it will always have the 5+ ward save. And he is totally unbreakable. Great.

He deployed with 2 blocks dead center, nurglings in front of each block, plague riders on the outside of each big block.

I spread out and was lucky in my spell rolling getting beast cowers for both spell casters. It would affect 4 of his 6 units if I could get them off.

He won the roll and chose to let me go first. The scenario was Fire Ants. If a small 3" template of ants touches your unit you take 2d6 str 2 hits with no armor saves. Roll randomly each players turn on where it moves. On turn 4 a 2nd one came up.

Turn 1a: I moved out forming a half circle while keeping my herds back. I really didn't want them getting involved in anything. I get beast cower on the nurglings in front of his GUO, so they can't move next turn.

Turn 1b: With his Nurglings stuck, the GUO can't really move either. He moves up his other block and other units some.

Turn 2 was a lot of the same.

Turn 3a: I charge my spawn into his nurglings to tie them up. Figured this would keep his big blocks bogged down for a while. Continue to encircle him. Continue to get hammered by the fire ants who are coming straight for my units while avoiding his completely.
He uses his scroll to stop all my spells.

Turn 3b: His Plague Riders on the left flank charge forward and hit my spawn killing it, but choosing not to overrun. On right flank he slides the plague riders over so he can charge my spawn the next turn.

Turn 4a: I move up, encircle more. On right flank, 4 Rat Ogres going a long way around some trees. On left flank move 3 Rat Ogres in front of Plague Riders.

Turn 4b: Plague Riders charge 3 Rat Ogres on left flank. Plague Riders charge spawn on right flank. Wipe out spawn. Rat Ogres flee, failed charge.

Turn 5a: 2 chariots into flank of Plague Riders. I do about 7 wounds and he saves 3 of them. Makes his Instability check.
4 Rat Ogres into flank of Plague Riders on the right flank. Get 3 in, 9 attacks, 0 hits.

Turn 5b: nurglings charge into chariot. I take couple hits, wound plague rider. Couldn't wound the damn swarms. Chariots auto break, both get away.
On right flank, he does 2 wounds to me. With 9 attacks again. I get 0 wounds.
Nurglings charge into 4 Rat Ogres who were flanking around the rear. Get wiped out.

Turn 6a: Both chariots fail to rally. gone.
Beast herd fails unruly and charges nurglings. 3 Rat Ogres into the front of the plague riders on the right flank. 4 Rat Ogres into the rear. (I now have 10 Rat Ogres fighting the 3.)

With 21 attacks to start, I get 6 wounds. Needing 5+ to hit, and 3+ to wound.
He saves 5 of the 6. Ugghhhh!! He had 1 wound on him from something else.
I also failed to cast beast cower on them on 3d6 needing a 7+. He had no dispel dice left either. He kills off 2 Rat Ogres. I end up doing 1 more wound, with all the bonuses I think I won by 1. But this unit should have been dead right here.

Beast herd does some wounds to the swarms, they pass their test.

Turn 6b: His 2 guys got to attack on the right flank and killed off the Rat Ogre in the front and 1 on the flank (3 wounds total). I do around 6 wounds and again he saves just enough. He has his last guy there with 1 wound left. Ugghhh!!

The 4 nurglings I took down to below half. They make their test. End of the game.

When we added it up I had:
3 Nurglings = 120 points
1/2 of 4 Nurglings = 80 points
1/2 of 3 Plague riders = 120 points
1 table quarter = 100 points

For a total of 420 vp.
If he suffers 1 more wound in those incredible ward save rolls he was making, I get all of 1 PR unit and 1/2 of the other for +240 points.

He had:
Both chariots = 170
Both spawn = 150
3 Rat Ogres = 138
1/2 of chaos hound unit = 15

For a total of 473 points. So even with the PR units I didn't have the win. I think when we were adding it up, we left off the Rat Ogres for 138. I thought I was up. But he was up by 50. Luckily it did not make a difference in the outcome.

A hard fought game where just a couple saves here or there would have made a huge difference. But his rolling was incredible. And not just only on the ward saves. He hit Ratspawns unit with the ants and did 11 hits. Needing 6's to wound he got 5!! Those kind of things kept me from trying to really engage.

Final Result: Draw: Beasts: 14, Nurgle Daemons: 13

Until next time...