Broadside Bash Report - Nurgle HoC

[Qrab]

Last weekend was the inaugural Broadside Bash, put on by the Pacific Marauders game club out of San Diego . The BSB was part of a larger game convention held in the Radisson Hotel near LAX, but since the tournament was housed on the penthouse floor there was minimal interaction between the tourney goers and the rest of the attendees. The room had a panoramic view of the LAX taxiways, which was a nice change from the typical convention hall style room that most tournaments are held in. The only issues with the location were the elevators and the temperature controls. The elevators were sporadic and prone to phantom stops at random floors. (Fortunately my room was only two floors down, so walking was much easier). The temperature in the room varied drastically; from shivering cold to unpleasantly warm. There was one other complaint I heard mentioned: the bar didn’t open early or stay open late enough for some, but since I don’t drink this didn’t affect me.
 
The list I brought to the BSB was a cross between an experiment and a compromise. I had in mind to take a Nurglized knock off of Andy P’s Chaos Mortals, but there was no way I could get all the models painted. So I tried to meta-game a bit and brought an army to counter all the killy characters with magic weapons I’ve been running into lately. Seems like every tournament I go to there's some Tyrant looking for something to tenderize, or a Tomb King out to destroy eternity.
 
Lord w/ Nurgle, GW, Chalice of Chaos, Chaos Runeshield
BSB w/ Nurgle, Steed, Book of Secrets
Shaman w/ Lvl 2 and 2x Scroll
 
20 Plaguebearers (Lord here)
10 Furies
5 Nurglings
10 Chosen w/ Nurgle, Shields, Halberds, Command, Warbanner (BSB here usually)
6 Warhounds (forgot the 6th model on day 1)
3 Minotaurs w/ Nurgle, GW, LA
5/5 Herd w/ Foe-render, Musician
3 Dragon Ogres w/ GW, LA
 
During Xmas holiday I managed to get a few games in with this army and I did reasonably well; though the Lord/Plaguebearer unit popped twice. I’ll be so happy when that rule finally goes away. I could’ve gotten a pick up game in the night before the tournament, but I decided getting a good night’s rest was a better idea.
 
The BSB used army comp to determine the first round match ups (I got 5 out of 6). This resulted in my being paired up against the only other soft army in the event (6 out of 6). The problem for me was that this army was commanded by somebody I’ve never beaten in a game of WFB. As nice a guy as Greg is, this wasn't the first game match up I was looking for.
 
  
Game 1
vs Greg Kagetora Swensrud (Southlands)
Scenario: Raise the Flag (banners give +2 CR, but give up 200VP if captured)
 
Greg’s army had:
Skink Hero on Stegadon w/ Helm
Flying Skink Hero
Running Skink Hero w/KB weapon
2x Skink Priests
3x12 Skinks (some w/ pipes, some w/javs
1x12 Chameleon Skinks
2x3 Krox
1x4 Krox
1x3 Salamanders.
 
Table one was a winter themed table, which made it weird to see a jungle army. The terrain placement rules for the tournament were non-typical: after a roll off, players took it in turns to deploy terrain on their half of the table. This allowed some armies to tailor the table to their strengths. Since my army had no strengths, I just tried to make things interesting. Fortunately all of my opponents did the same.
 
I deployed most of my stuff in my right table quarter; Greg matched me, but put the Chameleon Skinks in a wood in my left table quarter. I don’t remember who went first, but the action picked up early. I flew my Furies over to flush the Chameleons out of the wood, Greg responded by retreating them and bringing a unit of jav Skinks over to help. A unit of Krox charged through a pond to engage my Minos, but didn’t break them. Same thing happened to the big unit of Krox that charged the Chosen . The other 3 Krox danced with my Dragon Ogres and Nurglings.
 
Turn 3 is when things looked like they were going to go my way until they didn’t. The Plaguebearers charged into the Mino/Krox fight and the (unharmed) Furies charged into the Skinks that had come to save the Chameleons. The Chosen were on Greg’s side of the table and caused both the Salamanders, the Running Skink and the Stega-Skink to flee. And the Dragon Ogres first scared off the Skink screen, then beat back the Krox they had been dancing with. The Furies managed only 4 wounds against 12 Skinks. Greg promptly made three 6+ saves, then dished out 3 or 4 wounds in return. The Furies then popped. The Plaguebearers helped the Minos break the Krox they were fighting, then failed to restrain pursuit and got stuck in the frozen pond (as did the Mino).



Some Turn 3 action, just before things go tits up
 
Greg rallied everything and then began to dismantle my now-disrupted army. The victorious Jav skinks Cam Skinks poisoned the surviving Mino , then went on to bring the Plaguebearers below half strength (I lost 8 in one round of shooting). The Stega-Skink charged the Chosen and did 7 impact hits, and the Skink challenged my BSB and racked up another 7 wounds to force Insane Courage.
 
Greg did miscast twice in one round, but neither result turned into anything beneficial for me. He finished the game by dropping a Comet that took below half strength my only two units that were contesting table quarters.
 
In the end I killed 923 points of his army, while Greg killed 1313 of mine. But with table quarters and bonus VPs for banners he got an extra 700 points. For tournament points I lost one point because there were no banners for me to capture and Greg picked up 2 extra points because he had my standards and didn’t lose any of his standards. I can see what they were going for with this scenario, but there was really no downside to bringing an army without banners. In fact, Greg started the tournament with +1 points and I started at -1 points because of it. So this scenario needs some work.
 
Game 2
vs Jan DogofWar Pfederkamper (Ogre Kingdoms)
Scenario: Magic Flux (Roll PD/DD every magic phase, drop all 1s)
 
Jan’s army had:
Tyrant w/ Tenderizer & Wyrdstone
3 Butchers w/ toys
1x3 Bulls
3x3 Iron Guts w/ Bellower
1x4 Iron Guts w/ Standard & Bellower
2x2 Lead Belchers
2x3 Yetis
 
I was originally scheduled to play a Skaven army, but there was a glitch in the match ups that resulted in me getting paired up with Jan. Jan dropped out of the San Diego WFB scene about the time I got back into it, so we never got a chance to play. Jan’s got a nice short summary of our game that I'll copy:

I crush my right flank and the Tyrant finally starts feeling it and crushes his way through the middle. Rich’s Dragon Ogres smash through my left flank. Die rolls are still poor for me this game, but getting better. Unfortunately my gameplay isn’t getting any better at all and I make several poor movement decisions that Rich is able to capitalize on and get the victory.

Early in the game I tried to get my Lord into combat with his Tyrant, but his Tyrant went after the Chosen . I’d seen that possibility and moved my BSB out of the unit.


The Chosen have fled the Tyrant's charge, the BSB surveys the field

In the Tyrant vs Chosen fight, my Champion was not in the fight so there was no Tenderizing. I actually won the first two rounds of combat due to static CR, but the Tyrant eventually ground the unit down. I lost the Nurglings to a stupid pop test early on, and eventually lost both my spell casters.  But Jan lost all of his casters, so magic never really played a large role in the game. Jan rolled a misfire he first time each of his Leadbelchers shot; both of them killed a Belcher and the first time the unit paniced. I don’t think any wounds were inflicted on my models.
 
I killed 1610 points of Jan’s army and picked up 500 bonus VP from quarters & the scenario. Jan killed 1368 of my army and picked up 300 bonus VP. I got the win and both of us picked up a bonus tournament point for all the dead magic users. From my notes it looks like my BSB died, but for the life of me I can't figure out how. I thought he ended up with the Dragon Ogres?

I was glad to get a chance to play Jan. I could tell there was some rust in his game, but it didn’t detract from a nice mellow game. Jan got one of my favorite opponent votes.
 
Game #3
vs Bob ghoulking sometimes zombiepirate Felix ( Bubonic Court )
Scenario: Grudge Match (each player chooses a champion, that model gets hatred, bonus VP for champions fighting)

His army had:
Nurglitch
2x Festoring Chantors, w/ Warp Token, Warpscroll
30 Pusbags
2x 20 Rotten Rodents w/musician
24 Plague Monks w/standard, musician, champion
24 Plague Monks w/standard, musician, champion, War Banner
2x RatSpawn
3x 6 Plague Censer Bearers
5 Plague Censer Bearers
 
Aside from Touradj’s Daemonic Legion army, this was an army I just didn’t want to face. I had played against this army (minus Nurglitch) once before and beat it, but that was with an army that was more Mortal than Daemon. Plus I think Bob told me I could take armor saves against Plague. The thing that sucks about the rules for these armies as they are now is that Nurgle loves Skaven much more than he loves his own Daemonic manifestations.

I nominated my Lord as the army champion and Bob responded by nominating Nurglitch. Bob has also written up our game, so let's see what he had to say about it:

I put down a forest, and Rich deployed the bulk of his army away from the forest to my extreme left. I put down some difficult terrain across from him, close to my table edge, creating a little box in the left corner and some hills between our armies to mess up line of sight. Rich deployed his Dragon Ogres on his extreme left flank, and I deployed a Rat Spawn and Pusbags opposite them. His Minos were on the extreme right flank with Nurglings. I couldn't deploy opposite Rich because of the mess of difficult terrain, so our armies were at an angle to each other, with mine swinging leftish to face his.

Turn 1 was our armies mostly maneuvering, I cast no spells.

Turn 2 was when my Plagues started to go off, I killed 8 Plague Bearers and a bunch of Beastmen. His Minos fled a combined charge, and his Nurglings started to move in on my flanks. I was very concerned about the Nurglings, and wasn't sure my PCBs could take them, but had to expose my flank to him anyway. His Beastmen moved forward to pull Nurglitch's unit forward with frenzy, and I had to cram my Rotten Rodents into the faces of his Demon unit and Chosen unit. The Dragon Ogres charged my Pusbags, who fled so far that they escaped (they were supposed to get run down and trap his DOs in the little box in the corner.

I was forced to throw my Rat Spawn in the face of the Dragon Ogres to force them to charge, which they did, and that finally put them in the corner. Nurglitch charged his general's unit, and my PCBs charged his Furies (I had the option of Dragon Ogres in the flank or Furies and then on to Chosen. I picked Furies, because I didn't want to allow the DOs to pursue over the difficult terrain and maybe get back into the fight. The battle between our Grudge Champions went poorly for Nurglitch, who took a wound and gave none back. However, I won the combat, and his unit died, leaving only the General facing Nurglitch.

I had a unit of PCBs charge the Nurglings, I then Death Frenzied them, just to make sure they did as much damage as possible, and on the second round of combat the Nurglings ended up popping.

The Chaos Lord caused another two wounds on Nurglitch (thank goodness for the combined stat line) and then popped.

In the end, Rich still had a couple Chosen left, his Minos and Dragon Ogres. I had all my big pricey units as well. But the extra points from the Grudge Match in the center (I believe it was 400) gave me the win in what was a very close game really. I hadn't killed enough to get a win except for that scenario bonus points.

I’ll just make a few comments: PLAGUE DAEMONS SHOULD NOT BE AFFECTED BY A SPELL CALLED "PLAGUE" - period. Looking at the final score, the game didn’t go that badly for me. I probably could’ve pulled a win in this game, I let my Dragon Ogres get taken out of the game and I could never successfully bait Bob’s Frenzied units.
 
I killed 993 points of Bob’s army and picked up 200 VP for table quarters. Bob killed 1265 of my army and got 400 VP for killing my champion with his champion. In the only game so far where my Lord got into a fight with a magic weapon wielding character, he couldn’t get the job done and gave up big VP for it. Both Bob and I picked up a bonus tournament point for the epic showdown between our champions.

So by the end of Day 1 I had a less than stellar 1-2-0 record, but I had hopes that I could turn it around and win out on day 2.
 

[Qrab]

Second day, after an OK night's sleep. The hotel has these things called "sleep number" beds. Some kind of adjustable mattress thing with claims of giving people the best rest they've ever had. I found them to be exceptionally uncomfortable.

Game #4
vs Tad Tadite Kugler (Bretonnians)
Scenario: Guerilla Warfare (d3 enemy units pushed back to table edge & can’t march turn 1)
 
This would be my third game against Tad, and my second against his Bretonnians. The first time I had a draw firmly in hand and gave the game (and tournament) away when I foolishly thought a unit of Chosen could charge Grail Knights in the flank and win.
 
Tad’s army included:
 
Lord w/ Birthsword, WS10 Shield, and challenge virtue
BSB w/ no outnumber virtue & something else
Paladin w/ +1 CR virtue
Mounted Damsel w/ 2 scrolls
Foot Damsel w/ scroll and ward save item
20 Reliquae
20 M@A w/ command
10 Skirmishing Archers w/ standard
10 Archers w/ standard
5 Yeomen w/ horn
5 Errants w/ horn & champ
9 KotR w/ command
7 KotR w/ command & warbanner (BSB and Paladin here) (aka CR6 Bus)
7 Grails w/ command & valorous standard (general and mtd damsel here)
 
For pushing back enemy units, I rolled a 1, so pushed back his Grail Knights. Tad rolled a 2, so he pushed back my Plaguebearers and Nurglings.
 
This was both the best and worst game of the weekend for me. The game started out amazing for me. I can’t say that I out deployed Tad, but in the first two turns I definitely outmaneuvered him. Up until turn 4 I was beating Tad so bad that I could hear his future children whimpering.
 
The Furies, which had pretty much sucked all of Saturday, decided to bring their A game when I moved them into a sweet-spot in Tad’s backfield between the Errants and 9 KotR and right in the face of the non-skirmishing Archers. Meanwhile the Minos were sent out to pull out the 9 KotR so that the Dragon Ogres could beat them up. The Archers charged the Furies, lost combat and ran off the table while the Furies restrained pursuit. In the same turn the small KotR failed their Fear test to charge the Minos. This allowed a Fury/Mino combo charge that drove the KotR off the table; the Minos ran off the board, but the Furies didn’t. The Errants then charged the Furies, lost combat, and got run down.
 
I finally got the Warhounds to work and jammed the Grails and the other KotR the way you’re supposed to. They continued to do their job after losing 3 models when I turned them into line formation so that they still blocked both units’ charge lanes.
 
The Dragon Ogres got into the action and joined the Furies in charging the M@As with the ward save. By this time the Furies had lost a model, so they were the same US as the Dragon Ogres. Tad was on the fence about fleeing, but if they fled from the Furies then both units would go into the Reliquae. If they fled from the Dragon Ogres, then both units would be behind his lines.
 
Tad was giving me all kinds of “take pity on me” looks and was having a hard time deciding what to do, so I offered to help him out by rolling to see which unit he’d flee from before making his decision. The die fell in favor of the Furies which meant that a flee reaction could panic the Reliquae or see them hit by both of my units. So the M@As held (and failed both Fear tests).
 
It was at this point that I lost the game. I was far enough ahead on VPs that I could’ve backed my two block units behind the hill they were on and Tad wouldn’t get to them in time. But I’ve never played a VP denial army, so I didn’t see the opportunity when it presented itself. Consequently I played right into Tad’s hands. What's worse, is that somebody was on hand to capture the moment:


I have just finished moving the Plaguebearers forward, thus sealing my fate.
 
I moved the Plaguebearers up into the face of the Reliquae and the CR6 Bus thinking that they’d hold against the CR6 Bus while the Reliquae would be pinned by the DOs and Furies. The Chosen stayed put on the hill with the assumption that 5 CR would protect them from the Grails. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
 
The DOs and Furies easily beat the M@A, but in the roll to determine flee direction the result was not good for me and both units went toward Tad’s table edge (DOs failed their test to restrain).
 
The Grails charged the Chosen while both the CR6 Bus and the Reliquae passed their Fear test to charge the Plaguebearers. On the charge the Chosen were taken down to 1 model and the BSB (9 wounds). Meanwhile my Lord couldn’t even kill the BSB that accepted his challenge. So in the last two turns I lost the Chosen , the Plaguebearers, the BSB, the Lord, the Minotaurs, and the Dragon Ogres.
 
You might ask how I managed to lose those last two units. My answer is through stupidity. As I was busy losing my big point sink units, the Minos and DOs got into position to attack the Reliquae with both units on the same flank set up for an overrun into the flank of the CR6 bus. When it came time to roll the dice, however, one Mino failed to put a wound on the Damsel he was touching, and the rest of my models failed to bring the Reliquae below US 18. So instead of two Insane Courage tests, the Reliquae was able to take their normal Stubborn test (they did need the re-roll). The Grails then joined the combat and that was it.
 
At some point I was in a similar position as Tad was where I had to make a difficult decision hinging on a 50/50. Tad showed his true knavish nature by not extending to me the same courtesy I gave him by rolling the die beforehand. It’s no wonder that Tad has sworn off playing Bretonnians and is quickly amassing a Vampire Counts army. His corruption is now complete.
 
I killed 610 points and got 100 VP for a table quarter. Tad killed 1652 and got 400 extra VP for my general, both standards, and a table quarter. My Furies lived, as did the Nurglings, the Herd, and the Shaman. I should’ve given the KotR standard to the Furies. Maybe that’s where I went wrong. Tad got 2 bonus tournament points, but I didn’t lose any. This game was filled with so many "if only" moments that it haunted my next game. Tad may have is precious Vampire Counts, but Daemons are next in line and revenge will be oh, so tasty.
 
Game 5
vs Gwen Sato-Herrick (Slaanesh Mortals)
Scenario: Carnage & Mayhem (bonus points for quarters, units in enemy DZ, and for killing units)
 
Game 5 and I finally play somebody who isn’t from San Diego. Gwen’s army was nearly as soft as mine. She had:
 
Exalted w/ MoS, Steed, Sword of Battle
Sorcerer w/ MoS
Shaman w/ MoS, Level 2, Goretooth
 
12 Daemonettes
4 Minotaurs w/ GW
Giant w/ Mutant Monstrosity
15/5 Herd w/ command
2 Chariots (no marks)
1 Spawn w/ MoS
18 Warriors w/ MoS (Sorcerer here)
5 Chosen Knights w/ MoS (Exalted here)
5 Warhounds
 
When I found out who I’d be playing my wife (who had been holed up in our hotel room all weekend) told me that she hoped that I lost. Nice. I don’t know if it was her psyching me out, the disaster that was my previous game, or just general fatigue from it being the last game, but I made a lot of mistakes this game.
 
I won the roll to go first, and let Gwen have it so that I could react. Mistakes began on my first turn on my left flank when I though my Dragon Ogres could reach the Minos that Gwen moved full distance. We must’ve both deployed off our lines, because the DOs were short, which meant they were doomed. I tried to support them with my Minos, but they fled when the Giant charged (should've held & hit on 6s). The Chosen added insult to injury by failing to kill the Spawn on the charge meaning they didn’t overrun past the Giant, meaning they were going to have to fight the Giant. By turn 3 my left flank was in tatters. Gwen’s Minos had chased off both my Minos and DOs, and the Giant had engaged my Chosen & BSB. I dithered about moving the BSB into the fight, but was really afraid of the “Pick Up” result. Maybe if I’d moved him sooner they would’ve killed the Giant, but as it was I whittled him down to 1 wound before two consecutive “Yell and Ball” attacks forced me to take break tests on a 6. I made the first one, but failed the second one and completely forgot about my BSB re-roll.

I'm sure I was pulling Tad faces at this point. Fortunately things were looking better for me in the middle and right side of the table. Gwen's Shaman magic missiled a rank off the Plaguebearers. Then the Herd charged the unit. I won and chased the unit down, allowing the Plaguebearers to split Gwen’s army.
 
One of Gwen's Chariots and her Warhounds charged my Furies, but lost badly. The Chariot fled into my Plaguebearers, killing a few more, and the hounds were killed.

The Daemonettes charged the Nurglings and got sent back to the warp.
 
My Herd got a flank charge on the other Chariot, failed to cause any wounds, but broke it anyway, causing it to flee into difficult terrain where it took enough hits to break up. Though now that I think of it, we forgot to roll for the 6+ save.
 
By this point Gwen’s Warriors and Knights were vulnerable and the Plaguebearers got to flank charge the Warriors, beat them, then chased them down. The Knights fought them once & ran away, then got charged in the flank on the last turn but held.
 
On the last turn I tried to move my Shaman into magic missile range of Gwen’s Giant in the vain hope of taking that last wound and denying her the 2 standards. Of course I rolled my first miscast of the tournament and wounded the Shaman.
 
In the end I killed 1744, got 700 bonus points for kills, 400 bonus points for quarters, and 100 bonus points for having the Furies in Gwen’s DZ for a total of 2944. Gwen killed 1264, got 600 bonus points for kills, 200 points for quarters, and 200 points for having the Minos and Giant in my DZ for a total of 2264. For tournament points we each gained and lost a point for a net gain of zero.
 
My final record was 2-3-0, though I could’ve come out with a winning record if I had played smarter in game 4. The silver lining in this is that I ended up with twice as many wins as Tad since he went 1-1-3. This is something that Bob and I made sure to point during the exchange of war stories while waiting for the final results.

When it came time for awards, my name was the first one announced for the WFB side. My Nurgle Mortals secured another Best Painted award, which consisted of a GIANT, a HE Dragon, a full set of Foundation Paints, and a selection of Reaper Master Series paints. I also had two entries in the main convention painting contest (Fantasy Unit and Fantasy Single) and managed to win both those categories, and tied myself for Best of Show. While this sounds impressive, there weren’t a lot of entries in the contest so it's kind of like being the King of Nothing.

My scores were:

Overall: 170 (7th - CHOSEN NUMBER!!)
Sports: 48 (9th)
Army: 34 (6th)
Paint: 32 (1st)
General: 56 (29th)

All said and done I had an enjoyable time. The atmosphere was great, the games were fun, and it seemed like everybody was cool. I'll definitely be going again next year. With both Daemons getting a new book, and Mortals slated to get a new book, I'm hoping to compete for the top spot next time.

[Caledor The Dragonmaster]

To have the Tad corruption actually documented is just priceless!!! We can use it to warn others!!! Did u ever see the picture I took of him ?? MY GOD MAN...MY GOD

Great report sir!!!