Purple Sated Fury - Conclave Game 2

Fresh off my big win in round 1 I got some lunch to gear up for what could be a tough round 2. As it turns out I was paired up against Vivion Grisewood and his Beastmen. This was my first time meeting Viv but my club mates had told me about the success of his Beastmen army at previous events. Though I was delighted too see that he did not bring the Herdstone this year, his list still looked pretty mean.

Doombull
Heavy Armour, Shield, Gnarled Hide, Ramhorn Helm, Dawnstone, The Brass Cleaver

Great Bray Shaman
Level 4 Death, Dispel Scroll


Gorebull
Battle Standard Bearer, Shield, Armour of Destiny

Gorebull
*


8x Minotaurs
Full Command, Blackened Plate, Great Weapons

4x Razorgors


30x Gors
Full Command, Shields

30x Gors
Full Command, Extra Hand Weapons

5x Ungor Raiders
5x Ungor Raiders
5x Ungor Raiders
5x Ungor Raiders
5x Ungor Raiders

* his other Gorebull had gear but I can't remember what it was.

So his list was not big on subtlety; either the Minobus killed you with ease or you won. In his previous game his Doombull was up to 12 attacks from Bloodgreed, so feeding the unit Hounds wasn't going to help, and I had relatively little that could stand toe-to-toe with it. Purple Sun was my only real chance.

For spells I got what I wanted and rolled Purple Sun, along with Spirit Leech, Soul Blight, and Fate of Bjuna. The Shadow Sorcerer once again took Miasma. Viv's Shaman got Spirit Leech, Caress of Laniph, Soul Blight, and Purple Sun. The game was Dawn Attack and I got to deploy first. I went heavy left flank using some buildings to defend around, that is with everything I could; the Daemon Prince and Chimera rolled right flank out in the open, so I planned to fly them out west in the first turn. Viv deployed quite defensively, obviously not over-confident in the Minos' ability to sweep my army. He decided to ambush a unit of Gors as well. Deployment can be seen on the map below. Viv tried to steal the initiative but failed.

Turn 1

As planned I swept the Daemon Prince and Chimera back out to the left flank to join the rest of the army which slowly advanced. Much like the previous game I got a bad starting magic phase and just went for Purple Sun only to have it scrolled.

Viv's Gors came on, however he had expected me to a lot more aggressive and so bringing them on in my backfield would just see them get jumped. He opted to bring them on in his own deployment zone as the Gors were unlikely to have a huge impact on the game. The rest of his army advanced much like my own; cautiously.

In the magic phase I got rather lucky, as due to the rules for how to place magic vortices not actually being printed with the spell Viv thought you could place the starting point anywhere and so left off a Purple Sun that was unlikely to get my DP and Chimera (his intended targets) but would hit his own Gors, and so he just left it go back off the table. Shooting killed two Hounds in separate units.

Turn 2

Based on Viv's moves I decided to send the fliers back out east to try and threaten his heavier flank while everything else cautiously moved to anticipate the Mino-Bus. Magic opened up the game for me thankfully as I managed to draw out Viv's dispel dice with Spirit Leech on his Shaman and Soul Blight on his Minos, and so I managed to throw Purple Sun right through their flank, killing 5 of them with 3 Ungors as change along the way. A Fireball one my last dice also managed to wipe a unit of Ungors.

Reasoning that I could now easily get the points from the bus given 4 more turns and that he would have no other way of getting points from me Viv started advancing hoping to pick off one unit at a time, while also swinging into the DP's flank with the Razorgors. Some Ungors moved to try and block my Trolls and the depleted unit moved into the building for safety. Everything else stayed to the right flank and advanced slowly.

In magic I managed to stop Soul Blight and then scrolled Purple Sun for good measure. Shooting killed some more Hounds and we moved onto combat. The Razorgors S6 gambit was a good one, and they did 2 wounds to the DP, however he did 3 back to kill one, holding them up.

Turn 3

With the Minos in range I decided to make a break for the win. Fortunately with the way skirmishers react when charged that left enough room for the Trolls to get through, and so using Hounds to bunch up the Ungors the Trolls charged past into the bus. For good measure I risked a longish charge into the flank with a Chariot and it paid off. I also flanked the Razorgor with the Chimera. The Juggs and escort started moving around the forest and the Warriors moved out of the building to get in the fight.

I had no magic phase the ilk of the previous turn, however a Fireball did clear the rest of the Ungors from the building. In combat the DP and Chimera won their fight and the Chimera ran down the last Razorgor. The Hounds and Ungor fought to a standstill, and then the main event occurred. Impact hits killed two Minotaurs outright, leaving the Champion and the characters. Throgg was forced to challenge and the Champion accepted. The Minotaur characters hit hard, killing 3 Trolls between them, but Throgg won the challenge and managed to win the combat. The Minos broke and were run down. At this point Viv conceded as he had no means left of dealing meaningful damage to my army.

Conclusion

Another decisive win for Chaos. I knew once Purple Sun did its thing that I had cracked the game wide open and that killing the bus was now a possibility. The Trolls were also going to be the unit that tried as regeneration can help them out of quite the bind and did so in this case. The all-or-nothing nature of Viv's list did make him very susceptible to Purple Sun however, and I think he might have done better if he played a bit more aggressively, though he was obviously expecting me to do the same.

Once again SCALE difference left me with a 19-1 win, which left me standing on table 1 to face a club mate's Vampire Counts for round 3. The scenario could decide it all. Stay tuned.