March of the Nurgle Beasts...

[seabo_76]

The final dying embers of the great fire reflected eerily in Dreadlord Grakkor red rimmed eyes as he studied the two Bray Shamans sitting acrosss from him. Both Skarzz and Boroks had also been 'gifted' by Nurgle. Their bodies shifting and bulging uncomfortably and occassionally emitting ghastly odours. Such was a small price to pay for the awesome powers that had gripped their bodies.
"The human lord comes closer to every day Dreadlord," ventured Skarzz. "The bones of fate are clouded over herds future."
Boroks nodded in support. "Father Nurgles favor...means nothing if we die..."
Grakkor grunted and stretched his massive bovine frame. "We leave Mountain Forests. Find more herds we will."
Skarzz leaned forward. "Yes Dreadlord. We go to new forest. I cast bones of fate?"
At the Doombulls nod he threw the bones into the ash. They emitted a pale green glow and runes danced above them for a few moments.
"Go to the knight lands. Many herds there. Also....the herald.." He looked up astonished. "Morghur walks again!"
"Then we go" Grakkor grunted. "To knight lands and Morghur." His horribly scarred face twisted into a leering grin. "Lots of horseflesh..."

This seems to be a good start to my new thread as I have finally finished my Doombull conversion(putting him together at least...not painted unfortuneately).
Was thinking of sticking the beasties on the shelf until the new army book came out and finishing my Night Goblin army off (yeah all for the underdogs ). But I just love my Goatboys too much lol.
Doombulls rock, they are durable and hit like a truck. Unfortuneately they seem to be to stupid to comprehend that magic armor and ward saves are GOOD things but...ahh well what can ya do. No Ambush either but half the time I either forget them or they blow the leadership test and wind up 6" behind a cannon or big Terror causing thing. With 5 Wounds (Mark of Nurgle ), Heavy Armour, and the Slaughterer's Blade, Grakkor is about as survivable as he can get. Barring having to face the uber lord on his pet of doom he should survive most encounters. If he does end up in combat with it there's always a unit champion I decided for Nurgle on all my characters/elite units as the plaguefather is my second most favorite god...after Khorne of course....everyone loves Khorne!! My momma always told me that Khorne was good for me
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..
...
Anyways, yeah so I decided on Nurgle-+1 Wound and Fear for all my characters, 5+Scaly Skin Save for Minos and Fear for the 'Pestigors'. Not so into the whole ugly bloated thing but we can work on that part lol. Also almost have all my converted Bestigors done. Hopefully will get some pics of them soon.
The original goal was to see them fight their way across the Old World, bumping into whatever armies I could face, and smacking Malorian's little frog princess upside the head before finally finding Morghur, Master of Skulls, and joining up for a nice big 3k battle against....someone. Never got that far into the planning. They might eventually get to battle beside the true 'Child of Chaos' but I decided this is not really going to be story driven...too hard to predict when and who I can fight, so they will just plug away towards the goal of eventually getting all painted
Stay tuned....

[seabo_76]

Grakkor sniffed the air. There was a strange smell floating on the breeze, earthy, rocky....dwarfish.
"Not good," he rumbled to his kin beasts. "Rock folk. We are not strong enough."
"You lead, we will follow," Skarzz replied reassuringly. "Whats happen will be left to fate and Father Nurgles will."
The trees broke into a large open field. Arrayed in a classic defensive posture on a hill at the edge of the clearing was a Dwarven host.
"Many fire weapons," Grakkor shook his head. "More then my fingers. Fate may be helped."
Resolutely his herd moved forwards to meet the destiny that awaited them....

So got my first battle in. Against dwarfs.....with a LOT of warmachines....ooooh boy this was going to hurt.

Armies
Grakkor's Herd of Nurgle
(All Characters with Mark of Nurgle)
Doombull Grakkor
HA, Slaughterer's Blade
276

Bray-Shaman Skarzz
Lvl2, Staff of Darkoth, Power Stone
200

Bray-Shaman Boroks
lvl2, Bray-staff, Dispel Scroll, Power Stone
206

Render Rakkathi
BSB, Trollhide Armour
170

The Herd

4 Plaguebulls
LA, GW, Standard
241 (Grakkor, Rakkathi here)

3 Plaguebulls
LA, GW, Standard
192

15 Pestigors
FC w/Vitriolic Totem
285 (Skarzz here)

6 Gors/11 Ungors
FC, 2HW
121 (Boroks here)

2 Tuskgor Chariots
Undivided
170

2x5 Hounds
60

Plaguespawn
75

1.996pts


Dwarfs (Dang evil Rock folk)
Lord

BSB

Runesmith

Runesmith

24 Warriors
HA, Sh, FC (Runesmith here)

20 Longbeards
HA, GW, Rune of Slowness(?) (BSB here)

16 Hammerers
(Lord here)

Cannon

2 Organ Guns

2 Bolt Throwers

Grudgethrower(?Stonethrower thingy)

#'s of units may be slightly off and had no real idea what magic stuff he had.

My initial thoughts were holy jeebus I am going to get spanked followed quickly by sure....the 1 time that Ambush might actually be helpful and I can't take it.

Table
The terrain was set up with a hill on opposite ends of the board at opposite corners, 2 mid sized forests slightly towards center but near edges, and a tower with some hedges just off center. Rather sparse terrain but I was the one that set it up for the night so I cant beat myself now can I? Hmmm....Fight Club comes to mind....heheheheh no not good lol.

Deployment
The Dwarfs, predictably, hunkered down on the hill with all 3 units at the base and Organ guns between them. I deployed my Plaguespawn directly across on the table edge. The 3 Plaguebulls about 4" away from him and the Pestigors set up behind them. The Beast Herd settled in the trees and the Plaguebulls with Doombull and BSB parked on the opposite side with 1 Hound unit screening and another beside them. The 2 Chariots were on the outside edge hopefully to get a couple nice flanks in.

My spells were Poxes and Afflictions for Skarzz and Buboes and Boils for Boroks. Ugh...Buboes against T4 based army.....*bleep*
Bat rep to follow.......

This post has been edited by seabo_76 on Nov 5 2009, 06:05 PM

[seabo_76]

Turn 1

The harsh rumbling voices of the Rock folk could be heard as Grakkor urged his kin out into the clearing. Puffs of smoke clouded the hill as several cannonballs sailed through the air but fell woefully short. An ungor yelped as a huge chunk of stone narrowly missed flattening him. One Plaguebull grunted as a massive bolt skewered his side but doggedly kept pace with his brothers.
Boroks and Skarzz both prayed to Father Nurgle for plagues to smite those before them but the irritating innate resistance of the Rock folk made the prayers go unanswered.
Grakkor's only hope was to close the distance as quickly as possible and get into combat with them. Then the Rock folk would feel pain...much pain.

Not much happened here. The Dwarfs went first but their guesses were horribly underranged with only the stonethrower managing to partial an ungor and then missing. A bolt thrower did cause 2 wounds in the 3 Plaguebull unit but that was it. He also had a nice little rune that sucked up one of my power dice so with only 5...yeah good luck getting a spell off...

Turn 2

The Herd's began to grunt and howl excitedly as the range closed. Soon, so soon and they could rend flesh! The scent was intoxicating!
Grakkor almost sumbled as he contemplated the faces of those before him that would soon meet their doom. Why did they smile? And what were those large metal tubed things they were working on?
Then the screaming began....

Way better shooting....ouch....
2 out of the 3 Plaguebulls were lost to a bolt thrower and a cannonball which also did a wound to the spawn who, after an initial stunning 9" now only managed 3....
One Organ gun completely wiped a unit of Hounds out...ahh well big surprise
This is where I made a slight mistake that turned into a huge tactical blunder...more on that next turn..
And once again I didn't manage to cast anything.

Turn 3

There was so much smoke! His herd was dying! All around the brays of anticipation had turned to terror. The Warhounds in front of him, confused and driven to near hysteria by the loud booms, smoke and fire, raced in front of him, cutting off his route to the hill. One second he was cursing at them and bellowing for them to move, the next, in a horrific rolling of thunder, they were transformed into flying fur and red mist.
"Dreadlord!" screamed Boroks as he pushed his way past paniced Ungors. 'We must run! It is too powerful!"

OMG I hate warmachines....Last of the smaller Plaguebull wiped out, another wound taken on the spawn and the Hounds obliterated by an Organ Gun.
Now in my last movement phase I had done a rather stupid thing...in anticipation of charging I went and moved my hounds up and wheeled them so they could hopefully either flank as support for my Beast Herd, who would be in charge range next turn, or possibly clip an Organ gun. However I failed to take into account the hedge and lenght of my large Mino unit with Doombull.... They were blocked by the hounds and the hedge....*bleep*
Hounds get blown to kingdom come and it's panic tests for the Herd and Doombulls unit.
No biggie right? I have Ld9...just roll for Herd first ......roll boxcars....then it comes to Grakkors turn...2 new dice ....roll 11.....
Both units turn around and run 9" and 5"......
I am so toast.

Turn 4

"We stop!" Grakkor bellowed. "We Stop now! Attack them! We can take them!" Gradually his fleeing Herd kin stopped and once more shook themselves out into a battleline. Boroks, either too deafened from the blasts or too far away to hear, continued running back to the safety of the trees with the Gors and Ungors.
Skarzz had a moment of trepidation...he could possibly charge into the Rock folk with his Pestigor bodyguard and begin the slaughter but where were the others? And what had become of his leader and fellow shaman? The spawn faithfully lurching beside them vanished in a splatter of gore. As he mulled over what he had just seen the herd stumbled forwards and the Dwarfs eagerly began to shift their ranks.....
Skarzz realized his horrible mistake..."Plaguefather! Aid me!" HE brayed as he pulled out the secret stone from his satchel and willed the power of his staff to quicken the Pestigor's hooves...Yes! He could feel the power! And then....the great bellowing laughter as a heavily runed fist punched into the sjy from the warrior as if trying to catch a fly....

So...Spawn bites it with a cannonball. One chariot gets turned into kindling by a cannonball and a lot of misses...It would have been really scary if he was actually rolling well on his weapons lol. Doombull manages to rally but the Beast Herd(with Boroks in tow) leg it off the table. Looking at the distance between my Pestigors and the Warriors I figured it was probably 11-12" and so elected just to move...why? I have no idea...probably just freaked from the carnage of his poor rolling warmachines. A measure showed I actually could have charged! Ahh crud....time to pull out the Staff, a Power Stone and hope for Irresistable! No such luck.....scrolled....oooooh boy i am so dead.

Turn 5

Grakkor could only watch as Skarzz and his herd stumbled and floundered right in front of the hill. With a great "Huzzah!", short old looking Rock folk with ornate armour and massive axes slammed into their flank. It was too much for the confused herd and they broke...running for safety. His last chariot splintered and fell apart, the Tuskgors squealing in pain as it was hit by a storm of small metal balls...
"Now we leave," Grakkor told his herd kin. "Back to the trees. The Rock folk will not pursue. It is not their way."
Longbeards flank charge the Pestigors, kill 3, win combat and the Pestigors leg it off the table. Last chariot is blown away by the Organ gun. Only Grakkor, Rakkathi, and the 4 Plaguebulls are alive.

Result:
Massacre for the Dwarfs.

Post Game Rundown
Gah! I did not kill a single enemy model! And even though Malorian did have some severely spectacularly dismal rolls with his warmachines he only managed to misfire once on the stonethrower and it just couldn't shoot.....big whoop.
I could not believe I screwed my Doombull charge up by sticking the Hounds in front of him!.....no idea what to say there.
Shoulda, coulda charged with the Pestigors but 16 vs. 24 warriors w/3+ save? Not thinking I would have killed enough to force a panic and even if I could have it was too little, too late.
On the bright side....technically most of my units ran off the table so technically they survived....right?
Grakkor will return but he is going to have a very serious sitdown with his 2 Shaman subordinates......

[seabo_76]

Very Interesting Note:
Originally posted this on Warseer forums and my opponent, also a Warseerite, posted his version of the battle. Rather interesting to not the slightly different points of view......and one humdinger of a surprise at the end lol. Here is his version of the battle.

I was going to make this a seperate post but I'll just add it here: (you'll find the alternate ending very interesting...)


Massacre at Dwarfy-Hill


The dwarfs and beastmen stared at each other from across the field… both knew that soon, very soon, one side would be victorious and one side would be dead…

The doombull sounded the advance, the dwarf lord ordered that the war machines be fired, and the battle began…


This was a 2K battle I had against one of our fellow Warseerites. I didn’t have a 2K list one my so I quickly reduced my 2250 list by dropping some shooty units and some small runes and adding rune of slowness to my longbeards.

The board was 6X4 but since I castled on a small hill in a corner all that mattered was my hill and a woods he had that was opposite of it.

*Note I flipped everything to keep it to my usual left to right*

He deployed from left to right: *board edge*, spawn, 3 nurgle great weapon minotaurs w/ 15 nurgle bestigors behind w/ nurgle shaman, large herd w/ nurgle shaman in the woods, wolves, 4 nurgle great weapon minotaurs w/ nurgle doom bull and BSB, chariots, wolves, chariot.

I deployed from left to right: (in front of the hill) *board edge*, warriors w/ runesmith, organ gun, longbeards w/ BSB, organ gun, hammerers. The on the hill I had 2 bolt throwers, a cannon, and the grudge thrower.

I won first turn.


Pre-game thoughts:

With his line so spread out and the main minotaur unit way off on the flank I knew I had some time to deal with the first threats which were the smaller minotaur unit and bestigors. The herd I could force into combat with the master rune of challenge and then I’d blast the chariots and fight off the doombull later.


Turn 1 Dwarfs:

Even though I’m usually good at guessing I make stupidly short guesses and the cannon hits a minotaur only thanks to some lucky bouncing and takes off a wound. The bolt throwers finish him off and they pass their panic test.

Turn 1 BoC:

Line moves up with the closer hounds looking to take out my right organ gun. Magic is shut down.

Turn 2 Dwarfs:

Hammerers edge up to make charging the organ gun almost impossible. Cannon fails to wound the spawn the grudge thrower scatters. One organ gun wipes out the hounds that were about to charge it, the other kills a minotaur, and the bolt throwers fail to finish the job. Panics are passed.

Turn 2 BoC:

Line moves up with the last hound unit being infront of the minotaurs. Magic is shut down.

Turn 3 Dwarfs:

Cannon takes a couple of wounds off the spawn and the grudge thrower scatters. The bolt throwers fail to kill the last minotaur so an organ gun has to finish the job, and the other organ gun wipes out the hounds units. Then a nasty thing happened… although a chariot passed the panic check, the doombulls minotaurs and the large herd both fail their Ld 9 checks and flee away.

I offer to pretend that the doombull unit passed to make it more of a game but my opponent wants to play it fair.

Turn 3 BoC:

Doombull rallies but the herd doesn’t, although luckily for him they only run 2 inches and just manage to stay on the board. Spawn only moves up 3 inches so the bestigors run past them to be just in front of my warriors, and the chariots move up. He uses a power stone and his staff thing to try and cast the wolf hunts to move the bestigors into combat but I just use the rune of spell breaking.

Turn 4 Dwarfs:

Longbeards pass their fear test to charge the flank of the bestigors, and the hammerers move up. The grudge thrower misfires and can’t shoot this turn or next but between the cannon and the organ guns both chariots are destroyed. Then in combat the longbeards kill 5 beasts, the shaman kills 2 back, and they break and flee off the board.

At this point he gives up.

Victory to the Beasts of Chaos!

Wait… what did you just say?!?!?


Neither of us realized it at the time but as I began making up the report I realized that in dropping those shooty units (quarrelers and thunderers) to get down to 2000 I now only had 2 core (warriors and longbeards), so my list was illegal and thus my opponent won by default.

Holy Bleep!!!! I hadnt even noticed his only 2 core! Totally unintentional on his part as he had just played a 3k battle vs. WoC and had downsized the army to face me. Also interesting to note his 4 turns as opposed to my 5 turns....I think his is right lol My poor guys didnt put up much of a fight.
Next week we are planning a 4 person battle 2 Welves vs. BoC and WoC....Beastlord Grakkor will return!!!!

[Beastman_Bob]

Congrats on the win, albeit from default, but a nice report all the same, another herd or 2 would have helped with screening, puppies just die too quickly vs dwarfs.

Looking forward to your future reports...

[sexy beast]

Congrates on the win.
Though the way you lost sounds a lot like the way I lost to dwarfs this past wednesday. I hate that organ gun if it doesn't blow up, I still have to find out what's the best way of killing it off.

[Tauren]

Ambush, pray. Also hitting it with minotaurs works.

[daftgor]

There aren't many options. you can try block its line of sight to important units with hounds, though this will be hard on the first turn. While doing this you can try to get lucky and attempt a wild call on the organ gun, though there is no guarantee a unit of hounds won't bounce off the dwarfs.

Fortunatly just keeping the gun tied up for a couple of rounds will save you lots of damage.

Remember the organ cannon is only range 24 so your flanking troops may be able to stay out of its range for a couple of turns.

Having the second turn will also eliminate the first round of shooting from the organ cannon.

[seabo_76]

Yeah horrible way to win but I'll take it
As for the nex weeks game vs. 2x2,000pt Welf armies I'm wondering if I should take Morghur....
Only thing is that I'm paired up with a WoC guy and no exactly sure how he'd take to the sheer chaos (yes a toal pun lol) of having a few million spawn wandering around. On the plus side it would allow me to run a Khorngor unit and tooled up Wargor in skirmish formation . Most probably no chariots though. Very bad things vs an army that can move forests at will lol.
Of course Grakkor wouldn't be able to fight then a bummer considering this whole thread is supposed to be about his travels....
What do ya think would be better to go with?

[Grimfeed]

I'd consider bringing in some hardcore magic power. Wood Elf magic (at least in my experience) is less formidable in the immediate term, and if you invoke the power of many dice you can own the magic phase and demolish them like the dainty little flowers they are (well, you can try - there are some thorns in there).

I assume from the title of the thread and the report that a Tzeentch Beast Lord isn't going to happen, so the strongest sorcery you can bring would be a Great Bray Shaman. Add a couple more shamans and you're away. AND you get more dispell dice, which is important to counter...

...Tree-singing, which as you say can be a nuisance, but at D3 inch move allowance per successfully cast spell your army isn't going to be running around like a frightened cat trying to escape a shadow. My Wood Elf nemesis uses Tree-Singing a lot and it doesn't tend to prevent my chariots from doing their jobs of breaking a dryad unit in one turn (yay impact hits) or shaving wounds off treemen (*shakes fist at all treemen everywhere*).

Re. Morghur, if you did go with him, how many spawn models will you have available? You may be ruled not allowed to use proxies, as per the rules.

From a narrative perspective, if you need to bring in a different general for one game, I'd just say that Grakkor is handing this battle to the most tactically advantaged deputy while off doing something else or watching from the treeline, swinging in a hammock made of elf skin and slurping on a pus-martini.

This post has been edited by Grimfeed on Nov 7 2009, 08:52 AM

[daftgor]

You could always do that part of the story focusing on what Morghur is doing that is attracting Grakkor? This will be cool as a huge part of the woodelves fluff is their quest to destroy Morghur. Maybe Grakkor is racing to the forests to lend his support? Or maybe he wants to destroy the chaos knights that seek to earn Morghur's blessing so Grakkor himself can harness Morghur's powers for Nurgle.

Gameplay wise your ally will have to think very carefully about his unit placement to ensure Morghur doesn't bite him in the ass!

[seabo_76]

@Daftgor
The second thread focusing on Morghur sounds like a cool idea. Have already beaten the WoC player i'm paired up with the first time I fought him Grakkor would indeed be one angry bull if he knew they were trying to curry favor....

@Grimfeed
I have 6 spawn total...2 from the box, Scylla, and 3 hideously mutated blobs of....stuff They were orginally plastic trolls but got 'recruited' by the chop shop and the unholy union of troll, Gor and spawn bits began!
Actually look pretty cool lol. Should be enough for 2,000 right?
I know that when I played Morghur in a tourney at 3k pts the max i ever ended up with was 10 wandering the table against an O&G army.....then there was the 2nd gen Slaan micasting and rolling boxcars on turn 1...wow talk about a peed off lizardman player

As for Tzeentch. The last time I played Tzeentch it was catastrophic!!! For me....
At least 1 miscast/turn and just general overall dismal dice rolls
There is always the good old Khone fallback...still my favorite God and gives me a bucketload of DD.
Decisions, decisions....well still have 5 days lol.

This post has been edited by seabo_76 on Nov 7 2009, 07:43 PM

[Grimfeed]

Yep - I'd say that's enough spawn to give any opponent a headache, especially when they burst into existence inside his own units...

[seabo_76]

Grakkor howled as he tossed the ragged carcass of Boroks against the rocks. The ever present houds, always happy for a handout, quickly began fighting over the choice parts.
With a satisfied grunt, Grakkor surveyed the crowd of gors and minotaurs before him. All were in positions of submission, refusing to meet his gaze....
As it should be.
"You all listen to Grakkor!" he bellowed. "Grakkor leads! You follow or die!"
Skarzz, finally managing to tear his gaze away from his former shamanic companion, coughed quietly.
"There is danger here Dreadlord. The trees are awake here," He gestured vaguely towards the deeper reaches of the forest. "We are watched"
"I smell them," rumbled Grakkor in reply. 'The treedancers, maybe shiny ones too. And other smell....rotting smell...chaos smell?"
Skarzz shrugged. "Fate and Father Nurgle decide Dreadlord as it always be. I will find another gifted Gor to replace Boroks."
Grakkor grunted, still staring into the vast darkness of the trees before him. "If Father Nurgle wills," he agreed.

Setting up the scene for tomorrows battle
Was originally going to be 2 Welves vs. Beasts and WoC at 2,000/army but a Welf backed out so now the last i heard is that it will be Welf/Helf vs. us.....
ughhh.....
May also just end up a 1v1 of something or other...
Was toying with the idea of taking Morghur but decided against it. Grakkor will be back for another romp...with a new brayshaman.....