Handful of Points Escalation League: Session Three

We’re back for month three of our escalation league, and this time we’re at 1000 points. More points mean longer games though, and we weren’t particularly fast to begin with, so I only got one game in this time but hopefully we can speed up for the 1250 point games and get more in. If you want to read how our previous months went, you can find them here.

No new rules or battleplans this week, though my opponent didn’t account for the Galletian Champions rules (as you will soon see) so let’s get straight to the goodness. My list for this month only got one unit bigger, but oh boy what a unit.

If chosen of Nurgle are an immovable object, then chosen of Khorne are an unstoppable force. Being marked for Khorne gives them +1 attack on the charge, the Banner of Rage gives them a flat +1 to wound; the extra attack is nice, but the bonus to wound is amazing. Bonuses and maluses to wound are incredibly hard to come by in Age of Sigmar because they’re so powerful, so just having that on a unit that’s already pretty killy with little to no strings attached is pretty frightening. Let me tell you, they did not disappoint.

Escalation League Game of the Day: Slaves to Darkness vs Hedonites of Slaanesh

We didn’t get to play last time, so Ben and I made up for it this time with a mighty clash of Chaos warbands. And he even brought a Keeper of Secrets!

Our battle plan was Only the Worthy, which I played with Matt last month. You will notice that Ben has not brought any Galletian Champions to make use of the plan’s mechanics, which means Ben’s game plan is to kill my Chaos Lord asap. On a separate note I was very excited to see a Keeper on the field in person; I think the model is incredible and I wanted to see it live up to the commanding presence it projects.

I finished deploying first but let Ben take the first turn, I know how fast Slaanesh can be and I wanted to give his charges a chance to fail (they didn’t). Across the board, the Hedonites slammed into my lines; the Herald charged the Chosen of Khorne, a unit of Seekers charged the Chosen of Nurgle, and the Keeper charged the Theridons. Best laid plans of mice and men.

Ben kicked off with his Keeper, tearing into the weak armour of the Theridons with a flurry of attacks and lifting two of the three. But that’s where the casualties on my side ended. I chose my Khorne Chosen first in the hopes that they could kill the herald before they lost men and it paid off; in one round of punching the herald and their chariot just disappeared, I can only assume the Prince applauded from the sidelines.

In the centre, the Seekers tried to make a dent in the Nurgle Chosen and managed to get a wound in, but -1 to wound is really hard to get past. The clap back from the Chosen got all bar one of them, mostly because I forgot about their ability to fight twice once a game. The sole remaining Theridon managed to chunk the Keeper for 9 damage before bravely running away and denying Ben any depravity for the unit.

On my turn the chosen polished off the remaining Seeker and moved up the field in preparation for Round 2, which I won the roll-off for. The Khorne chosen and Prince waded into the Seekers and Syll’Esske in the mid field, while the Nurgle chosen finished off the Keeper. At the end of my second turn the score was 9-5 to me and Ben had nothing left on the field. We called it there.

Escalation League Best in Show Competition

We decided to do a fun little painting competition this month, calling in an impartial judge to look at our work and decide on the best. Without further ado, here were the entrants:

And after a tense 30 minutes, our winner was…

Ben’s Syll’Esske! Congratulations to Ben, he may have lost the battle but he won the war.

Next month we’re taking a short break from the escalation league to give people a chance to catch up or do some passion projects, but don’t worry I’ll be back with something to entertain during the break. Til’ next time.